Upgrade - 298: Copy Copy Copy, Paste Paste Paste Paste

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Apple Stores are reopening in many parts of the world, but should you go? (Not unless you must.) Also, Taiwan Semiconductor plans to build a factory in the U.S., TV shows are being produced remotely during the lockdown, and Apple News+ turns to audio in an attempt to improve its service.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 298 today's show is brought to you by pingdom linode and express vpn my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley how are you fine and dandy my Fine and dandy. I have a hashtag Snell talk question for you. Comes from Stuart. Stuart would like to know, Jason, do you like it when people point out typos in your articles or your posts? Some like it, so they can correct

them, but others seem to not enjoy that feedback. Where do you fall on this? Well, I hate making mistakes, but it's inevitable, especially when you're working more or less alone um and generally that's my workflow is i just write the story and post it and for macworld i write the story and then my editor macworld looks it over and posts it um and so i hate it when mistakes get through, but they do.

It never fails. Sometimes I will send a story, a big story I'm working on, to like five or six people in advance, and then the moment it posts, people will say, oh, this is a typo, and I'll be like, I showed it to five people and nobody mentioned the typo. It can be very frustrating, but I like corrections. I like them in the right context. I want them to be fixed.

I want mistakes to be fixed. That said, it is emotionally difficult when you work very hard on something. And among the first pieces of feedback you get on it is not about the substance of the material, but that you made a mistake, a minor mistake somewhere, like a word was misspelled or was these days it's right. It's the wrong word. It's not that a word was misspelled because i do actually run a spell check i'm a good speller but spell checks can find mistyped words but they don't find words that were either mistyped as another word or corrected to another word in the early days of me writing on the ipad there was a lot of autocorrect happening it was

really bad that was actually an impediment to me me trusting the iPad as a writing tool for a while. And these days I have all of those things turned off on the hardware keyboard. Once they separated the hardware keyboard setting from the regular keyboard setting and I could go into hardware keyboard and turn off all the autocorrection, I felt much better about writing on the iPad because you'd have a word turned into a different word that was the wrong word after you had typed it, and it wouldn't show up in a spell check because it was a word. It was just not the right word.

Sometimes a spelling error is better than an autocorrection. Absolutely. I mean, for now, I have that turned off, and that's why. It's because if I just mistyped it, I want to see that I misspelled it. I't want to turn into some best guess word that is probably the wrong word or at least there's a chance it's the wrong word so anyway it is emotionally difficult you put a lot of effort into writing something and you want people to read it and appreciate what it's about and it's not just like please give me praise praise. It's also, please read the thing that

I worked on. And when somebody says, oh, it's this word and not this word, which is frustrating because of course I know it's that word and not that word. Every now and then I'll make a big mistake. It's like, whoa, what was I thinking there? And I have to fix it. But mostly it's just that word got mistyped as a different word and it went through. And it's just sad when it's like, oh, I worked so hard. This is the response I get is just like, you misspelled a word. Also, sometimes I do get corrections from people that include lots of opinions. Those mostly come via email. There's a lot of, well, I would have phrased it this way. And that's a lot less helpful because I do want to fix mistakes, but I'm not particularly

interested in arguing over my choices that I make as a writer. Those are, I'm a lot less interested in. So I kind of tune the people out who decide that what they really want to do is debate my choices with me. You want to know if something's wrong, not if somebody would have done it differently. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, believe it or not, the things that we write in public are not accidents. Like I make lots of conscious choices. And so if somebody wants to debate with me, a lot of times with tech stuff, it's excess specificity. Gruber and I talked about this the last time I was on a talk show. A lot of times it's somebody who has a very technical knowledge of something. And I will simplify something because it's not worth getting into. And somebody will go, well,

actually, it's technically this. And my response, which I don't usually actually send back to them is, yes, I'm aware that that's technically what it is, but it's beside the point of the article. And this is vague on purpose because i don't want to get into it but you get a lot of those too and i you know i i just it's fine i just kind of tune that out what i always plugged when i was at idg and we never it never got prioritized it never got implemented was a um report a typo basically report a an error in this story link because we had comments on stories at idg right and so people would would put typo corrections at the bottom of the story in the in a comment thread and i hated that and what i really wanted was a link to basically a collection box

and then somebody would get those flags and fix the mistakes you know somebody on staff whoever it, whether it was the writer or the editor or a copy editor or whatever, almost like a bug tracker for errors. And I'm not sure that makes sense for six colors because it really is just me and Dan and people can contact us on Twitter and email and whatever to get that. And you also don't cross to us and we don't have comments. So it's not quite the same, although, you know, it still shows up in my Twitter mentions. And then, like, somebody mentioned six colors, and I have a search for at bleed six colors. And then, like, for the next week, when I look at that saved search, there's a typo correction on that page. And it's, like, so frustrating because I already fixed it, but it stays there, and I have to see it every time. It's very frustrating.

So I thought about that because that would be it would be really nice it would be really nice if somebody could even like select text and then choose a thing that was like report this as a mistake um but i i don't know what that would be i don't know how i would implement that i thought about even just having a form on a page that's like report report an error here but i don't actually think it would drive um that much traffic i think people are just pretty comfortable in whatever you know place they can find you of just shooting you a note saying that this word is wrong and this is a good question i mean it is nobody wants to make mistakes and you know it never fails that as many times as you read over

a story before you push it live the moment that that you push it live, you will see, you personally will see mistakes in it. You know, six colors posts are frequently edited like eight times in the first two minutes that they're live because I will suddenly see all these things I didn't see before. And that's just an effect of writing on the internet

that as soon as it's live, you see, and I have the preview template and all that doesn't matter. As soon as you see it live, it changes the way you view it. But then there's always, you know, there's always going to be something it's, it's a, that's just the nature of it. And I used to work in a system where I had multiple copy edit reads of everything that I wrote. And that was great because the typos didn't get through and we don't really live in that world anymore. I spot typos in the New York times now.

Like it, yeah, we just don't live in that world anymore. Alas. So I have, I have actually considered hiring, um, somebody I used to work with as a, uh, as a kind of on-call copy editor to send the more important stuff that I am writing about to give it a pass before I post it. And maybe that will happen at some point, but errors are still going to get through. And I appreciate people pointing them out, even though sometimes it's really annoying too. It's more like annoying to yourself, right? You're just annoyed at yourself that you did it.

But I have that if I ever have errors in shows, it's like, I'm annoyed that I didn you did it but like i have that if i ever have errors in shows it's like i'm annoyed that i didn't catch it you know that that's always very frustrating to me luckily oh gosh why am i saying this i i haven't had an error in a show for a long time well we we do say things here that people will will correct us on and sometimes we're wrong talking about oh yeah yeah but sometimes sometimes sometimes we'll be wrong oh i'm wrong a lot of times we're not wrong like that doesn't yeah not that doesn't bother me but like i don't lose sleep over that one i what really i hate is is editing errors sure and and and i'm pretty good at those now i know what you mean where i i had one of those a few months ago where somebody's file it was literally like the last thing i did before i exported i misclicked on something and slid it and so somebody's file was completely off for

half the podcast i was like oh no i hate those that's like the worst and you can't like rescind a podcast you're you're dealing with those errors for a long time because everybody's podcast player grabs it immediately and it sits there and then a week later they play it and go oh did you know that this is wrong it's like yes i fixed it in the first 10 minutes just deleted download it again it's fine but you can't like for their perspective they they're reporting a mistake because i can't I can't tell overcast download this file again. I wish I could, but I, I can't do that. So yeah. Yeah. Um, it's, uh, nobody likes making mistakes and, and you want to be right. And, uh, one of the things I've learned as a writer is, um, doing a podcast is just a different thing because speaking extemporaneously on technical subjects is hard. And we will often, the ones that get us where people write in are always a tangent that

we take. It's an offhand remark. That we haven't prepared for. And so we're searching our own fallible memories for what we think it was. And it'll always be like, when was that product released? 2012? And somebody will be like, well, actually, it was 2011. And we'll be like, okay, we didn't even look it up. We just were trying to guess it from memory. But that happens, and that's the different standard that a podcast has, I think, than something written where you can look it up before you press the post button. Thank you so much to Stuart for that wonderful Snell Talk question.

If you would like to submit a question for the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk, and it may be included for a future episode. Jason, I have a couple of items of follow-up that I would like to bring to the table today. The first is I want to just talk about the RelayFM members Discord again. This is something we spoke about last week. This is a new perk for RelayFM members. We have a closed and private to RelayFM members only Discord server now.

It's rocking and rolling over there. It's been a wonderful week and a bit getting this all set up and we're doing more and more to it. And the reason we're talking about it again is we have two interesting pieces of functionality added to the Discord server. One is you can now listen to live streamed shows

and chat with the show bot all within Discord. So we're actually, as me and Jason are speaking right now, we're doing our first live streamed episode. So currently, like you can listen in the RelayFM app, you can listen on the website and you can talk in IRC. That's been around forever. It's still sticking around. But we now also have the live stream of all shows that are live streamed

pumped into the Discord. So the audio is there and we have a live chat going on there all at the same time. It's amazing. This means that you can easily listen in the Discord app Audio is there and we have a live chat going on there all at the same time. It's amazing. This means that you can easily listen in the Discord app on basically any platform. It's been possible to listen on the web, but it's not as easy. This is way easier on iOS.

It's way easier on Android, for example, without needing a bunch of applications. So if you're a Real AFM member and you listen to live shows, in my opinion, this is now the best way to do that. If you do enjoy listening to live shows, this is a great reason to become a RelayFM member. If you do want to be a RelayFM member and support Upgrade, then you can just tap on the first link in your show notes and it will go straight to the page to give us some money and you get a ton of wonderful benefits,

one of them now being the RelayFM members Discord, which also has a really, I'm really pleased that we were able to get this hypermonym of our mods, a great team of people building these bots for us. We do ask upgrade at the end of every show, right? And we've always collected these questions over Twitter with the hashtag ask upgrade. Now also, if any message in any channel in the relay fm members discord if you add question mark ask upgrade it will be added to the same sheet as the twitter questions so now we will be pulling questions from twitter and the relay fm members discord so you see the question mark ask upgrade and you can ask us a question which is wonderful that means that if you don't want

to be on twitter or you quit twitter or something and you do want to ask us a question and been frustrated that you're not able to do that you can now if you're a real afm member you can just do it in discord and we'll get it that way there's a couple other things questions can be longer and something that i thought was fine is like if there's a conversation happening and they're like i don't know about this well you can just ask the question again put question mark ask upgrade and then we might answer it on the show so it's super cool uh next week we're doing the mic at the movies uh yeah we got some great feedback about the star trek uh whale movie uh because it was a fun and weird movie to do

so we're going to talk about a movie that we've both seen um although i've actually funnily enough seen this movie more than jason yes and we picked this movie because it is in my opinion the lowest stakes movie i've ever seen in all of the best ways ferris bueller's day off from 1986 uh it's available i think it's on netflix um I know at least it is in the UK so I will be watching it on Netflix over the next couple of days but yeah on the next episode we're going to be doing a Mike at the Movies

and I guess Jason at the Movies as well about Ferris Bueller's Day Off which is just like the best movie it is on Netflix in the US as well wonderful Netflix subscribers just go watch Ferris Bueller, 1986. Get a nice shot of happy silliness from the 80s. And we'll talk about it next week.

I've seen it one time. Oh, I love this movie. So spoilers, I love this movie. I've seen it one time. That time was within the last five years. So I never saw it in the 80s or the 90s or the 2000s. But it's good. so we'll talk about it apple has acquired the vr company next vr so we spoke about this when it was rumored

but now it is official apple have confirmed it next buys other companies from time to time as they always say yep yeah it's like oh we do it all the time it's like okay sure you do but you don't always tell us though, do you? NextVR, with a company that broadcasts sport and live events in virtual reality. NextVR has now shut down. I was thinking, I wonder if like, I mean, this is obviously the best time for them to be bought. Because there's nothing for them to broadcast right now. Which I thought was interesting.

Like, I believe that this deal was occurring for a while. And for them, this is like perfect time because I can't imagine how they... I mean, I don't know what their business is like, but I cannot imagine how they would have gotten through the next 18 months unless they had very favorable contracts, right? Because there are no sporting events for them to shoot but anyway that may have changed i don't we don't know conflict the future but anyway the company has now shut down they i looked into this they hold a ton of patents like this was something that we were talking about before like oh maybe apple also wants their intellectual

property as well as their technology and i just did some cursory googling and jason they have so many patents about vr like it's wild how many they have so i believe at this point that this was a like a one-two punch type deal like they have they now own a bunch of patents for vr which i'm sure could be extended to ar and anything you wear on your face to project images and now they also have a team of patents for VR, which I'm sure could be extended to AR and anything you wear on your face to project images. And now they also have a team of people that know how to build software that ties into hardware. Because NextVR didn't have their own hardware of any kind.

They would tie into Oculus, HTC, Vive, that kind of stuff. So this is obviously an area of interest for Apple, either AR or VR, right? Because I think there's a lot of crossover in the technologies here. And it's just depending on what element you're working on. I don't think that this means

that Apple necessarily wants to broadcast VR live events. This could be something for TV Plus, but for me personally, that feels like the least likely outcome of why they did this right which was to to buy the company that does this thing because they want to do this thing i think they wanted to buy this company because they were doing interesting things it could be wrong but that it doesn't really i just i just don't believe that apple was looking to broadcast nba

and wwe in vr i don't think that's the reason to motivate this right it's like aha we finally got this final piece of the puzzle right but if if as we've discussed on upstream before that apple is doing uh at least considering live sports that's a possibility and we know that amazon is also experimenting with this netflix doesn't seem interested in live events, and that's fine. It's not really part of their brand. But Apple is. And Apple's working on this AR VR thing. Having this tech so that, one, they could potentially use it if they do live sports

in the future. And two, don't forget that they also have their Apple TV channels and the Apple TV as a concept itself. And so if they're hedging against AR and VR video viewing being a thing in the future, having the ability to do a good job with sports so that they can have a traditional feed that's just on your TV, but they can also have an AR feed or a VR feed, that's bonus. But yeah, I think it's not probably the primary use. I want to mention, and I mentioned this on Twitter the other day too.

It's funny where my two worlds intersect. A writer named Sarah Pinsker wrote a novel that was nominated for the Nebula Award this year for best science fiction and fantasy novel called A Song for a New Day. And it is a little, it's a good book, but it's a little too, but it's a little too real because it's about the after effects of a global pandemic, changing how people work in

public spaces. Yeah. Bad timing for Sarah Pinsker to have this book come out right before this. But one of the main characters in it is a musician and another main character works for this company that's kind of like a giant uh you know live performance vr company and basically they find musicians and they all perform in vr because there aren't live performances in the real world anymore because there are no crowds because of the pandemic and and the article i mean the novel is sort of about arguing about the greatness of live music and why you you know people will go back to live music because it's such a great experience and it can't be replicated and uh there was a post about that from uh i think dave growl from foo fighters last week posted about that so um the big company in there which is called like stage hollow live or something

like that um when this acquisition happened i was talking to dan moran about this and we're both like it's stage hollow live isn't it i mean it's it's it's funny to see all of these uh things happening in the real world kind of echoed in some recent uh sci-fi that we read last night we will you know we're going through disney movies right now because Disney Plus is amazing. And we were like, oh, I want to watch Tangled, which is one of my favorite Disney animation movies. It's hilarious.

But you didn't realize, oh, it's about being locked away, can't leave. It's like, oh, man, I wasn't expecting this. Tangled. It's a quarantine movie. Yep. So it comes from everywhere. Logic Pro, is it X or 10? 10.

10. Logic Pro 10 gets a significant update. You may remember, we spoke about this a few weeks ago, that there was imagery on an Apple education page of what looked like live loops in Logic, live loops from GarageBand and iOS. GarageBand iOS, yeah. That got added.

It's one of the big features that got added to a new update to Logic Pro X. There's a lot of new cool tools in here for musicians. And that's the focus of the release, of course, because Logic is a music app. But the Logic team do publish vast release notes, which is wonderful. And they detail a ton of performance improvements for all logic users so like i use logic jason uses logic and there are some fixes in there that will make stuff easier for us as podcast producers which is great yeah i mean most of the features are music features because

it's a music app i had a back and forth with somebody on twitter about this and it's like uh their their thesis was wow this is a really you know kind of a black eye for podcasting that apple doesn't really care about it and all the logic features are music but logic's a music app it's a music production app it's always been podcasters use a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the features i don't expect them to cater to me at all i expect to live in a little you know little space between two rocks like a little crack i crawl in there and use logic logic and just hope that they don't squash me because I'm not supposed to be there. And that's true for podcasters.

It's not a spoken word thing. It's not... In fact, the bug that they fixed, one of my big complaints, involves large projects with lots and lots and lots of individual items. And when I'm editing a four-hour D&D session and I use the silence removal feature to pull silence out, you end up with thousands of little tiny

blobs of audio across four hours of a Logic project. And the fact is, that is so far out of what you would get in your usual music project in Logic. And I suspect that I am one of the first people, one of the very few people to discover a huge slowdown when you do that. Like you click on an, you select a bunch of items, like thousands of items, and you want to move them a little bit as a part of your podcast edit. And it's really slow, even on a very fast Mac, it's incredibly slow. And I mentioned this to somebody on the, on the pro apps team, the pro workflows team, actually. And I don't know if that had any effect or not, but I sent a sample project in, this was like a year ago, but that bug got fixed. It's, it's, and it's in the release notes. It's

like, it's much better. And I like that because that's not a feature that people who are making songs in Logic are going to have to deal with. Now, maybe there are some other extenuating circumstances, but I kind of feel like that was a good example of them saying, oh yeah, it shouldn't do that. Why are they, why are people doing it this way? Oh, it's podcasters. All right. Okay.

We'll fix that. And they did. So I'm happy to continue using logic i don't use it as much as i i used to because i am editing so much more on ferrite on the ipad now but um i do use logic many times a week and i'm glad that this update has some nice things in it for us but it's not a tool for us and most of the nice things that are in this update are for for the musicians that it should be for. All right, let's take our first break and thank our friends over at Linode for their support of this show. Whether you're working on a personal project or managing an enterprise's infrastructure, Linode has the pricing, support, and scale that you need to take your project to the next level.

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All right, Jason, let's do some upstream headlines. In upstream, we take a cursory look at some of the interesting news that is occurring in the streaming media landscape, something that I think we're both probably very excited about. Out of the blue,ilton is coming to disney plus this was a movie that was originally slated for a theatrical release in october 2021 and it's now coming on july 3rd on disney plus yeah i saw a couple of news stories that said they brought it forward from october and it's like no it was going to be released in october 2021 in theaters and they've decided one of the

things that's happening here is a lot of movies are getting pushed back because nobody really knows when those when theaters are going to be up and running at full strength and this is something that they already have in hand because it's not a it's not like a dramatization like a movie it's not a movie version of hamilton it is a filmed version of the original broadway cast they took a couple of days and shot it so it's you know it's shot like a movie and their close-ups and stuff like that but it's it's on stage at the theater and on broadway with the original cast and they've had in the vault there have been little clips that have come out here and there 60 minutes to the story about hamilton that had some clips in the

a few things have leaked out it It looks great, right? It is the definitive document. Hamilton was so successful that they were able to spend the money up front, take a couple of days, and shoot the original Broadway cast and document them. I wish every great musical and every great Broadway show of all time got this treatment because it is a way to document this thing that is otherwise completely ephemeral. And it'll be higher quality than that version that somebody shot from their smartphone from the balcony that went around the internet, right?

But it's in the can. It's done. And it was just waiting for a good time that Disney thought it would be like a good time for it to come out. And also they didn't want to clash with all the productions that were there, were that were running in various cities but no productions are running and the schedule is getting backed up and i think it's i think it's great as somebody who likes hamilton but also i think it's a fascinating thing where disney for this one was like you know we've got it in hand it's not going to clash with the theaters because there aren't any let's just put it on disney plus and they're doing it july 3rd it's not going to clash with the theaters because there aren't any. Let's just put it on Disney+. And they're doing it July 3rd. It's the 4th of July Independence Day in America for Hamilton.

Super appropriate time to do it. So I'm very excited we'll all get to see this thing that we've all known existed for, right, for a few years now. We've known that this thing existed. And it's like, are they ever going to show it? And they finally announced that it was going to come to theaters theaters but it was going to be a year and a half until we saw it and uh guess what it's going to be uh less than two months now mike less i am so excited for this i'm going to watch it like a billion times i just can't wait like i've really i can't wait for it like i'm so i'm so excited like i have I have, I obviously, massive fan of Hamilton. I think I've seen it three times now in London.

And I've listened to the album like a million times. And I've always wanted to see, actually see the original cast. Like, what I know the most. Which is the recording. Yeah. And, yeah, so I'm so excited to see this. Like, it really, I'm so so pleased i'm so pleased they're doing this it makes so much sense like why you know it was always a thing of like why was it

always going to come out in october 2021 anyway it was like such a far away time for what seemed like a movie that was already done in you know when disney originally announced it they kind of seemed to hint that they were going to be adding more to it than the original stage recording. But I'm not sure if that's the case or maybe they changed plans and they're just like, no, let's just release what we have. Maybe they can't do it. I don't know. I was wondering if they were going to take a cut song and have the original cast sing it and put it over the end credits or something like that. And who knows?

Maybe they will. Or maybe they didn't get time to do it and they're just gonna go with what they've got um a little tangent from this is that um i've been watching the disney plus documentary series about the mandalorian yeah which there are three episodes i think out now and it's fun it's it's kind of like a dvd extra basically but it's fun. It's Jon Favreau sitting around a table like he does. He'd had a whole TV show where he did that with the actors and directors and producers of The Mandalorian. And it's really a fascinating, that was a fascinating production. And it's fun to see them talk about it.

But I was struck by the fact that Disney Plus is a good example of a service that didn't have a big pipeline of originals to begin with. And you have nothing being shot right now. So Hamilton moving forward and going on Disney Plus is a great example of getting more value in that service where they can. The Mandalorian season two was shot. And in fact, there have been a lot of things that have leaked out about people who've been cast in it so um this brings me to my tangent which is post-production in in virus land um that a lot of the shows see if a show can't be shot there was one show um the blacklist that just finished its season on nbc and they had they shut down during

the filming of their final episode of the season. Oh my God. I saw the computer, the computer animated the scenes they didn't shot. Dr. Who fans will recognize this as what happened with Shada, the Douglas Adams written story where they did many years later, animate the scenes that weren't shot so they could release it.

It's very strange, but the blacklist did it because I guess they just want to do it.'s very it's very very very strange but a lot of stuff okay so like this isn't necessarily a bad idea but they did it on an incredibly low budget because apparently the show would run out of money and it shows it's bad it's super weird and stylized and uh you know but i i get what they were trying um i i kept watching it thinking you should probably when that when the uh when you're able to shoot again you should probably shoot all these scenes and replace them and never have this be seen again right like you shouldn't don't leave leave this out there as a historic document just erase all memory of it

dvd or streaming like just replace it like replace it it. But this is, I did a link on Six Colors about this. There's a lot of this. So Mandalorian, I believe, is still going to come out this year because they shot all of season two. So they had to do post-production. And we've seen a lot of shots of people doing work from their houses.

ILM is doing special effects where everybody's in their houses uh there was a shot of one of the editors on star trek discovery season three which has also completed all of its photography and they were doing um you know there was a great shot a while ago of the like an old trash can mac pro and some monitors next you know in somebody's house with like the staircase and some pictures on the walls and they just, they're a video editor and they're doing it from home now. And the story I linked to on Six Colors last week was from Jeff Russo, who is the composer of Star Trek Discovery. And initially when this all started, he was like, well, I'm not going to be able to do the score until we come back but uh he's realized that that

that's going to be a while until he can get a whole orchestra together to play so they are doing the music for that and i think he did it for umbrella academy this way too which is they are recording individual people they're sending them gear and telling them how to set it up individual players are recording their parts and then they're using their you know using logic or another digital audio workstation to assemble all the individual parts together to make it sound like they're playing as an ensemble uh but it's entirely individual recordings from people's houses playing along with the music which is how they do all these other group group performances including the Hamilton

one that was on John Krasinski's Some Good News show a few weeks ago. That's how you do it, is everybody's recording to a sync track, and then you put it all together, and you've got something that sounds really good, even though they weren't together, and none of them heard the whole thing when they were recording it. But I'm fascinated that essentially, you're doing an ensemble or a small orchestra doing a soundtrack to a TV show, and that's all happening remotely too. So we're going to see some really interesting stuff in the next few months of things as we finish the stuff that's in the can before the virus hit and start seeing the stuff that was shot before the virus hit, but post-production

had to happen after the fact. And it's kind kind of fascinating but it is cool that we have the technology to do all this stuff apple have signed a first look tv deal with ridley scott's production company scott free scott free produced a bunch of movies but their tv stuff includes the good wife and the man in the high castle as like some of their most successful programs. So this is just a TV only deal, but Apple's going to get first look at any projects coming from Scott Free. So continuing to sign on big creators, which is interesting for them.

We'll see if the content exists. Mythic Quest. So this is the video game company TV show that I still haven't seen, but want to see. It's high on my list of things i've seen one episode and it was funny and i need to see more so they're going to be airing a special episode on may 22nd i think it is they're doing like a quarantine episode so it's like how a game company would be dealing with stay-at-home orders and working over Zoom.

So it's all shot on iPhone. I think it was one of those things that are like, hey, we could just do this. So they're doing it. It was a bonus. We're on Apple TV+. We can get iPhones. Yeah.

But I think it's one of those things where it's like, this makes sense within the context of the show, which for many shows it won't, no matter how much they try. But this makes sense within the context of the show. It could could be and i'm sure will be funny in its own way and is also a pr piece for apple because look at how good this looks shot on iphones so you know i think it's a clever idea it's like a one-off uh but that's something that's going to be coming out on may 22nd i want to talk about uh apple released released a letter yesterday, a kind of a how they're reopening their stores.

Oh, yeah. So I want to give the rundown of what Apple's going to be doing. This came from Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's people head. They currently have 100 Apple stores opened around the world, and that's changing a lot now. They're opening more.

They're opening more in the US this week. They're opening in Italy this week as well, I believe. In the stores that are opening and in stores that will open, these are the measures that Apple are going to take. They're going to be limiting occupancy to enable social distancing. So they'll be keeping people outside.

Queues, right? It's going to look like iPhone day every day. They're going to be renewing their focus on one-on-one service at the Genius Bar. Now, here's a question. I feel like I haven't heard the phrase Genius Bar in a while. Am I wrong? Yeah.

Yeah, it has not been an emphasized brand name, but yeah. Genius Bar is back, baby. So that's the thing. They're going to be requiring face coverings for anybody going into an Apple store. If you don't have one, Apple will be giving you one. Temperature checks will be required before entry of any stores, and they

may also ask you health questions. They're going to have posters and stuff for symptoms. They may ask you symptoms. And they're going to be doing cleaning, wiping down of devices and surfaces throughout the day. So, they're going to be

doing curbside pick-up and drop-off for... This is a thing that Apple haven't done before, but it're going to be doing curbside pickup and drop-off. This is a thing that Apple haven't done before, but it's going to be an option so you can order online and they'll bring it out to the curb or they'll come and take something from you if you're bringing it in for repair.

Yeah, this is going to be... This is very different and a lot of people are going to be very uncomfortable with it. I think at Apple and outside of Apple, it's super strange, right, to imagine going to a retail store and they're saying, put this over your face and we're going to take your temperature. Yeah. Like, it's weird. And this is going to redefine what the Apple store does.

But I think a part of that, too, is that we live in a world where a lot of stuff is going to be redefined at least temporarily. And so, you know, I had this experience last week. I talked about it where my wife's phone, you know, the battery swelled and we needed to replace it.

And in the old days I would have just taken it to the Apple store on Monday and replaced it. And instead I had to wait two days for the box to come and then put it in the box and then mail it back to them and then they'll get it and then they'll mail one back to us and that's how it's going to work and they've always offered that but like the convenience of Apple retail stores is you could just drive one exit up the freeway and do this so that stuff coming back kind of makes sense to me if you're if you need to buy something to go there and and I mean you can get it online and they're going to push people there, but you could

always do in-store pickup, not just kind of wander in. And I think there'll be more of that, right? A lot of retail stores, when they come back, are coming back in a sort of curbside service. I'm going to place my order and then I'm going to go and say, I have an order ready to be picked up and they'll bring it out and that's it, right? Like you're not going to linger in the store. My understanding is that the capacity of these stores is way down to like including the employees they're really reducing how many employees are going to be in so the service is going to be slower it's not just that

you're going to have to wait in line because there are fewer people in the store but service will also be slower potentially here um but you know this is this is where we are um oh they want they're gonna my understanding is they're not going to do like in-store device setup like they used to do. They like to like take it out of the box and do all that. Because it's too much time, right, with a person? Takes too much time. Yeah.

And of course, you're trying to minimize the amount of time anybody's spending inside an enclosed space anyway. So yeah, I would imagine that unless you demand to have help setting up your iPhone, that they're just going to give you the phone in a little bag and say goodbye. And it'll be like that for a while. But if you've got a broken piece of equipment and you haven't been able to take it to an Apple store to get it fixed or something like that, at least that kind of stuff is hopefully going to come back.

But this is an interim state, right? It's not the Apple store we know. It's like a different kind of apple retail because i mean i assume something that going to de-emphasize which seems like people shouldn't be doing this anyway but apple should also limit it's like you shouldn't be going in there to browse yeah like browsing in retail stores needs to stop for now right like that just seems logical to me because why like why you know like go to the apple store if you have something to do you have to do your computer is broken and you gotta work

go to the apple store get it fixed but like if you want to buy a product just buy it online right like i don't and if you need it today you can probably buy it for in-store pickup yeah today and then you go there it for in-store pickup today. And then you go there and wait in the line and they hand it to you when you leave. But yeah, flipping through watch bands and stuff is probably not the best use. That said, if you are seriously considering buying a new laptop and you can't decide between the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Retina MacBook Air and you want to see them, I think you're going to be able to go into the store with a mask on and look at them and touch them. But I see that as different to browsing. It's true. It's more tactical, right? Yes. And everything you touch with your filthy, filthy fingers will be immediately sanitized by an Apple employee, but you'll get the opportunity

to do that. But yeah, it's a different world. world yeah it's like if you do need to buy a laptop or you need to buy a phone right you have to and you don't know what you want well that apple store is there to help you go in and take a look at it but you shouldn't just be popping to the apple store like you maybe would have before to take a look at the new apple watch band colors like don't you don't do that just don't just don't buy the band or buy it online and return it if you don't like it like don't you don't do that just don't just don't buy the band or buy it online and return it if you don't like it like don't go to the store because like going to an apple store is gonna suck right like you have to go and stand in a line and you'll be there for a long time then someone's gonna take your temperature which is just freaking weird right like it's just weird

to have to do that like i'm so pleased they are doing one of those little laser scanner thingies where it'll be like but it's just like a very strange thing to to submit yourself to right like having your temperature taken i want to make it very clear i'm very pleased they're doing it they should be doing it stores should do this stuff right to protect their employees but it's a very peculiar thing to go and do. So don't just do it for fun, right? Like, very specific reasons that you should be going to these places, anywhere now, really. No browsing, just don't go browse. I feel so bad for the Apple Store employees. Like, I just, I feel so bad for them, you employees. I feel so bad for them.

It just seems like not a great situation to have to be in. Especially when they're working for a company where everybody else has been told to stay at home. But if you're in retail, you've now got to go back to public. And there's just something that's uncomfortable about that right and it's a shame so i don't know if it makes any difference but i'll just say it like if you're listening to the show just don't go to the apple store like unless you have to unless you really think about that like

really do you have to do you have to in the sense like, you might jeopardize your own health, have to? This is the larger story about like reopening businesses after everything just completely shut down, which is the watchword here still needs to be minimize your chances of exposure, right? That's the fundamental is just the more times you go outside the house, the more times you get close to other people, the more times, especially you are in enclosed spaces with other people around, the more chance you have of potentially spreading or getting this disease. So even though things are open now, follow those rules, right? Like, do I need to do this? And like, just like, we've been doing that for shopping, right? We used to go, Lauren always talks about how she would go like, you go to Trader Joe's, you go to Whole Foods, you go to Safeway, you go to Costco, you get different things at different places and all that.

You get to pick the best of all the things you want. And now it's like, we go to Safeway once a week. And maybe if we're out of something in particular during the week, we will do a quick thing to Whole Foods. But it's one of us and it's in and out. And that's just about minimizing your chances of exposure. And that goes for the Apple store, too. If you need to go, go. Once it's open, great.

But so much stuff can be done without going to the physical store or if you do need to go get something, like I said, same day or next day you can do an online order and they'll bring it out to you, I think so that's the way to do it Alright, let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at ExpressVPN a software that I and many others use all the time to protect online data because hacking can be and is more sophisticated now than it ever has been. Many of us are working from home right now.

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slash upgrade. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Taiwan Semiconductor are opening a fabrication factory based in Arizona. Taiwan Semiconductor will begin

construction on this new chip factory in 2021, with the first chips likely to be shipping in 2024. TSMC are the manufacturer of Apple's A-series processors. This is very interesting. This is very interesting. If you're a member of Stratechery, Ben Thompson's site, I highly recommend a piece that he wrote last week about Taiwan and tech's geopolitical realities. Ben Thompson lives in Taiwan. So he has a very good perspective on this.

And TSMC, the chip makers, they're basically the leader in chip manufacturing now, having surpassed Intel. But the difference is that they are a chip maker for hire and Intel insists on making their own stuff. And this is fascinating because Intel has made chips in America for a long time. But Ben Thompson's point is this is a real strategic opportunity to not only broaden the places that make these chips by having them also make them in the US and not just in Taiwan. It potentially has a huge issue for the international balance of power,

which is kind of fascinating because Taiwan is the most disputed place on the planet in terms of China and the U.S., two superpowers. And if you think about vulnerabilities, having all of your chips made in Taiwan is potentially one. Also, talking about manufacturing more things in the U.S., you know, Intel has had the opportunity to do chip making for hire for a long time and always resisted. And TSMC building a plant in Arizona. It's just really interesting whether Apple uses it or not, although it wouldn't surprise me if Apple is interested in this as part of their diversification of their supply chain. Maybe they can use that space that the glass manufacturer that went out of business was going to use

in Arizona. I think that this makes a lot of sense politically for Apple. It allows them as they move even further again like one of the reasons i included this in the show today is because it comes back to arm again right if apple are going to move to designing their own processors for all of their products tsmc will be working with them more and more, right? Because then potentially TSMC will be making all of the chips that go into Apple's Macs. Yeah, it's all that Intel business moves over to TSMC.

So this will allow them to say, again, right? More and more of our products are being made in America or parts of them are being made in America. Plus there are just like logistical benefits. Right? Flying people to Arizona. Or just setting up a shop in Arizona. Rather than flying people to Taiwan.

Right? Like that has got to be a massive benefit. Logistically for Apple as well. Ultimately the chips need to go from Arizona. Maybe. To somewhere else. Or this is like another piece of allowing for more products to be assembled in America, right? Which is, again, for many reasons, something Apple might want to do.

There is a diversification angle to this, right? Just in general, right? And I would imagine companies all over the world now no matter where your stuff is made are thinking about can we diversify right like this is our points of failure right because you could imagine right as coronavirus hit you could have put more work into the arizona factory for three months until the taiwan factories or the china factories are back online and you can move the production back there as the arizona factory shuts down right like that would have been a great benefit to have these multiple plants available to you so this is like another i mean

this is the reason that tsmc doing this i'm sure they've gotten a ton of great breaks right and and you don't you don't build a factory you don't commit to building a factory unless you've got yeah tax breaks and probably customers who will pay you to build the factory to you know with with their contracts so it's entirely possible and i don't know the the facts that this is you know arizona is giving them a break and apple is saying they're in and other clients are saying they're in and they're like, well, yeah, okay, let's do it. Let's build this. Because building a new chip factory is not cheap, but there are, you know, microprocessors have been made in the U.S. for a long time. This isn't one of those things where it's like, well, this is weird.

This is a whole new class of thing that's being made in the u.s this is a thing that's been made you know intel especially but ibm and others uh and uh yeah it it's like again i'm struck by ben thompson's read on this which is this is this is kind of tsmc eating out eating intel's lunch a little bit where intel had the opportunity to to take on this kind of work and build these factories or use their existing factories. And TSMC has excelled in saying, we'll build whatever you want. And now they're going to be building it on Intel's home turf. And that's really interesting. It was a report from Digiday from a bunch of sources inside of the media industry that Apple has been contacting existing Apple News Plus publishers to get permission to produce professional audio versions of their

stories. In this agreement, Apple would handle all of the production and the cost for the recordings, compensating publishers the same way that they do now. So 50% of the subscription fee to Apple News+, based on the amount of time spent with a publisher, right? So if people are reading your stuff, you get, I would assume, Apple collect up all of the time and all of the links consumed over the course of a month, work out who had the most people, and then splits their cut up amongst it

it's very complicated um and causes lots of frustration for people that that are in the apple news plus program but that's the way that they're doing it um this idea of of professionally read versions of news stories is something that exists in the news industry already some publishers do it directly uh there are some companies i do not remember the name off the top of my head but there is a company in the uk which is like a coalition of various newspaper companies they created a company together that does this for them right because like i think the guardians involved and i know the financial times has this as well. So you have a company that's got a whole bunch of readers and then they distribute the stuff out and they turn it around and they sit there and they just read articles all day long.

And then those get published out. And that's how you get a professionally read version of those stories because you have to turn it around fast. But I wonder how this will look. around fast. But I wonder how this will look. I saw several people mentioned this is great for accessibility, right? Because you're going to have better audio access to this content. I do wonder if this is going to end up being almost like a podcast, where if you're an Apple News Plus subscriber, you have the ability to basically say, you know, play my top stories and have it just play a bunch of stories. It's not going to be the same quite as a podcast, but it's kind of like that of just give me an audio feed of whatever the news is and whatever top stories algorithmically

have audio attached. It'll just play those until you tell it to stop. You can do it through the HomePod. You can do it, obviously, on your other devices. It's an interesting idea. And also as well, for people like me who do not enjoy reading, especially really long articles, this would be a great way for me to consume that content. So you just mentioned Ben Thompson. I have long wanted to subscribe to Stratechery

because people always talk about how good the content is, but I just wouldn't read a newsletter every day. A few months ago ben created the strategy daily update podcast and i'd listen every single day because it is like a 10 or 15 minute or him reading the email is great for me because that fits my consumption habits and preferences so this is a thing where like i wouldn't only now be interested in apple news plus if they offered this it seems like if the price stayed the same good deal for consumers it's like an additional benefit of the service provided that the content that you want to consume is there right because one they've got to it's you know the stuff that you want to consume is there, right? Because one, they've got to, you know,

the stuff that you want to know has got to be in Apple News Plus. And then two, that company, that outlet, would have had to agree for Apple to do this for their stories. And I guess three, the particular stories you're interested in have to be recorded, right? Because there is like a person hour in this, right? Like it's a time to produce. Because they're not doing this with like a person hour in this right like it's a time to produce because they're not doing this with like a siri voice is the understanding like it's actually people reading professional readers yeah in my opinion this should have been part of the apple

news plus subscription from the beginning like it would have made it more compelling um it's just like a package but adding it later will still be interesting uh from the beginning like it would have made it more compelling um it's just like a package but adding it later will still be interesting uh from the digiday article as you can imagine this is being met with some skepticism from publishers which is why did you day know about it anyway because people in the media industry are complaining apple news plus is still continuing to not work out financially for for publishers that are on board with it because there aren't enough subscribers, because there isn't enough of a hook for people to sign up, and Apple's taking 50% of a $5 a month subscription. But a lot of publishers are worried that audio stories, because they take longer to consume, will continue to further skew who gets the payouts. So it's like a chicken and egg problem here.

If you don't sign up to this, you may actually serve to lose more money, right? Because someone may read your article for a couple of minutes and then listen to your competitors for 10. And even though the articles may be the same length, a lot of people read faster than they can, you know, than something can be read to them. So it's going to further skew where these payouts are coming from. I wonder what's going to happen here,

but I will say as a consumer, this is an interesting proposition for me. What do you think? I'm fascinated by it. It's not my thing. It's your thing so i i like to hear your perspective about it so i appreciate that i'm not going to ever choose listening if i was in a car commute or something again i might listen to something like this but for me ben's newsletter is always preferred and i don't listen to his podcast unless it's an interview.

Because I'd rather listen to an interview than read an interview transcript. But I'd rather read a written piece rather than hear the writer read it out loud. But the idea here is to provide other avenues for it. And that's why I think it's super smart. Is not everybody wants... I think about this all the time. As somebody who's a writer, also a podcaster, right? But I'm also a writer. And I think about this all the time as somebody who's a writer, also a podcaster, right? But I'm also a writer. And I think about those pieces.

And sometimes I feel like I know there's a lot of overlap, but my stories have an audience, which is readers and my podcasts have an audience, which is listeners. And there is a portion of each audience that is not on the other side. Like there are people who listen to this podcast who don't want to read my articles because they don't want to read. And there are people who read my articles who don't listen to podcasts. So it's a smart way to get more people reading your stuff

or in consuming, I guess, consuming your content in some way. Mm-hmm. So I will ask you as a producer of content right would you be open to this and i guess point two somebody who already produces audio how would you feel about someone else reading your stuff so first thing is six colors i i have thought about it you know i'm not sure whether there's great value in reading six colors pieces for members but i thought about it it's a lot of extra work i would just say like as a six colors subscriber i would love i'm just telling you right now so you can file this all

right feature request wherever you want but yeah not of your articles but of the newsletter yeah well that's what i was thinking is essentially the member members only articles could that be a a monthly or even weekly article by article kind of thing i i definitely have thought about it and will continue to think about it it is um people in the discord are pointing out like uh news on a regular basis it reminds them of we did subnet on relay yeah it's a daily news podcast and uh my memory of that is and steven hackett's memory even more so is it's a lot of work and it's every day kind of work and that's that's the thing whenever you commit to doing something like that you're not just committing

to doing it once you're committing to doing it the same every single time and that is a big commitment so it's not one that you take lightly. You have to really seriously consider it. But that type of content, like, you know, from the reverse, it's much easier to, I don't want to use this word, but I have no other way to say it, monetize content like this with direct payment than it is of advertising. It's very hard to put advertising on a three time a week 10 minute exactly oh yeah that

doesn't it doesn't make sense it's definitely something that fits better as a as a premium kind of thing yeah i i have a little more hesitation about having somebody else or read my pieces for me then again it's always that thing where it's like if if apple's gonna back up a truck full of money to my house and say, here, we want to have all your stories and we're going to have some random person read them, I would say yes. I think the interesting thing about this report is that the publishers are already a little bit skeptical. And these are additional rights. And they're already kind of skeptical. So is there a renegotiation here, which is, okay, we're going to give you this, but we want you to reduce your cut or something like that.

Because it's all part of a negotiation. But if it's worth it to them. Also, you got to think about Apple News. One of the appeals of Apple News is it's another revenue generating opportunity for a lot of publishers without them having to do a lot in terms of building their own technology they're using apples and this would be more of the same right they don't have to hire readers and build a subscription audio feed or anything they just say okay apple do it and you know then again the the flip side of that is if they all have their own subscribers yeah and they look at this and they think well wait a second why shouldn't we do this and give it

to our subscribers or the publications that do already do it because there are some exactly and it's kind of like oh you know like you can imagine for them it's like you're now encroaching on another one of our unique points for why people should give us money directly. In many ways, this is just more of the same about Apple News, which is it's Apple wanting to build this thing, publishers being skeptical. This is another way that Apple can make Apple News Plus a better service. Yeah. But it hits all the same questions that this whole thing hits in terms of why, as a publisher, you would be a part of this service when you sell your own. You know, and it's always interesting to us.

It's like this is Apple and audio production. Now, like, hmm. Right. Like, we have been wondering about this for a while. You know, like apple seem to be making uh hires in the podcast space right wouldn't wouldn't surprise me i mean i said it would be podcast like it wouldn't surprise me if part of the strategy here is actually to build a news podcast for apple news plus subscribers that includes the contents of stories on apple news

plus but it is not just a a dry, now I will read a story, but something that's a little more produced. That would be a product that would be, we talked about like premium podcasts from Apple. Well, what if it was a premium audio program, not a podcast, that was just for Apple News+, subscribers? Could be, that could be something they could do too. That's different, but it could be part of this could, that could be something they could do too. That's different, but they,

it could be part of this, you know, kind of larger approach to them, but it comes back to the, the content owners and whether they're getting, you know, Apple doesn't have a service if the content owners don't play ball. So Apple has to make it worth their while in the long run.

Like I think the biggest impediment to the long-term success of Apple news plus isn't really the quality of the services built by Apple. It's whether they have the content sources or not. Because I think looking at it now, I feel like it's more likely that everybody walks away than that they pick up more people and they add more services to the bundle. I think I still am dubious about whether this is a good long-term play for any publisher so this is it's it'll it'll it'll be fascinating to see how this how this works and if they negotiate better terms but uh but all the same things come into play which is like great it's great that apple's doing this shouldn't you be doing this yourself and and selling it directly

i wonder if we're gonna see departures. I wonder if there are contracts in place for term periods that people had to be on Apple News Plus for. Bigger publishers agree to do it for a year, 18 months, something like that. If that's the case, we start seeing companies leave the platform. Everyone's

so unhappy about it, right? Surely you're going to start to see people leaving it at some point if they don't think that it's worth it for them it's going to be interesting to see how that one plays out i think yeah but apple news plus is still unfortunately the ugly duckling of the streaming services like apple's like subscription services their their services area it really isn't the one that's that's making waves people don't necessarily on the whole seem very happy with it on either side um but i'm i'm

actually pleased to see that they're appear to be doing something right like they're not just taking it and just like like taking it lying down basically like they are trying to make it a better service for everyone involved whether people like it or not i guess yes yeah well put we're going to make this better whether you like it or not all right this episode is also brought to you by pingdom do you have a website does your website have things like shopping carts registration forms contact us pages as well as all the other wonderful content that you're trying to host or sell or promote? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need Pingdom. Nobody wants their critical website transactions to fail.

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and if disaster strikes, you'll be the first to know. It's super easy to get started. Go to pingdom.com slash RelayFM right now for a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. And then when you sign up, use the code UPGRADE at checkout to get a huge 30% off your first invoice. Thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds for their support of this show and RelayFM. Hashtag AskUpgradeTime. First question comes from a Discord user who used the question mark AskUpgrade tag in Discord. It's Leighton Asks. If you are using ScreenTime, how much of a difference are you seeing between your devices or how much difference are you seeing on your devices now that you are mostly stuck inside?

So I actually think it's kind of funny right now when I get the screen time notification, kind of like on a Sunday night or Monday morning, whenever it comes through, because it is varying wildly for me right now, Jason. Some weeks I'm up like 50%, some weeks down 50%. And I don't really know why I am varying the levels that I am, but I'm seeing these huge differences right now. Do you use screen time at all? I have completely given up on screen time because I find the information it gives me completely useless.

Also, you know, I use my devices. I feel like the premise of screen time is basically, you should meter how much you use a device, because it's a part of your lifestyle that should be less optional and reduced, and all those things. It's like, this is my job. It's my job. Using my iPad, I use my iPad an awful lot. Some of that is for fun, and a lot of this is my job. It's my job. I, you know, my using my iPad, I use my iPad an awful

lot. Some of that is for fun. And a lot of it is for work. And the phone, I use it a lot less than that. But so for me, screen time essentially is useless. So I, I have noticed some of those push notifications coming in during the quarantine and laughed at how it's like, oh, you used it for less time. And I think, really, did I? How is that possible? And I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me. So I've given up completely. Yeah, every now and then I'll pop in there and take a look at it.

But like right now, the data isn't really useful to me because these are unexpected situations that I'm finding myself in. Like I can't compare my device usage to two months ago because it is different and it's different in different weird ways. So, but I do find it funny to get that notification

at the moment to see these huge swings. Like I was flicking through the weeks today and like I have 50% up on last week and then the week before was 40 down on the week before that like it's just these wild swings at the moment uh neva asks what clipboard managers do you guys use if you use one i am a launch bar person i use launch bar and it has a clipboard manager in it so that i can very quickly just hit a keyboard shortcut and it actually launch bar appears

with a list of the last, I don't know, 10, 15 clipboards. And so that's how I use it. And it's great. By the way, I feel like we say this every so often. It doesn't matter which one you use, try out a clipboard manager. Because first off, if you've ever been somebody who copied something to put it somewhere else and then something happened along the way and you copied

something else, and then you're like, oh, I lost the thing I was copying. Clipboard manager, it's got a history. That's how I use it. And it's great. I don't have like, it's literally just a history list. And that's all I ever use it for. And I can scroll through and find the thing. It also is great when you're in that moment where you've got to copy five different separate things from one place and paste it somewhere else. And you're usually going copy, switch, paste, switch, copy, switch, paste. And now you can just go copy, copy, copy, copy,

switch, paste, paste, paste, paste, because you've got all of those copies in your history. So it's great. The one I use is LaunchBar. I use Alfred. LaunchBar and Alfred are ostensibly the same thing done in different ways. They are very similar, yeah.

You know, they are pretty much just like, they start as launcher applications, like basically more powerful, different spotlight replacements. And they do different things. And they have different UIs and they have some parts that are different. I use Alfred and i believe that clipboard management is a part of their power pack which is like an upgrade that you can use um and i use my uh i use my clipboard manager a lot

on my mac like especially for the stuff that i'm doing when i'm posting shows because like for example jason writes a title and a description and a short description that we tweet and he sends them to me in slack before i publish so i just go to slack i copy all three things and then i have them in my clipboard manager to paste them into all of the different fields that i need to paste them in when i'm publishing the shows right because i'll put like i'll put it in forecast which is uh marco armand's tool that we use to uh put our chapters in and stuff well i also put the title and description in there then i'll put the title and description in there. Then I'll put the title

and description into the CMS. And then I'll put the short description into the tweet. Like they go all over the place. So I love having that access. Like this is one of those things where for a lot of people, if they added this to iPadOS,

they wouldn't care, but I would love it. Oh my gosh, I would love a clipboard manager built into iPadOS. It's definitely on my wishlist for whatever the next, like it will always definitely on my wish list for whatever the next like it will always be on my wish list for ipad until they give it to us i imagine the way it will be implemented is there will be an api to give apps access to the clipboard um in the

background or something and they'll basically have to ask and it'll be like this app wants to see everything that's on your clipboard or whatever and you know danger watch out scary but it's like yes please yes please i would like this app to know everything that's on your clipboard or whatever. And, you know, danger, watch out, scary. But it's like, yes, please. Yes, please. I would like this app to know everything that's on my clipboard because I want to be able to wind it back. It would be even better if Apple just implemented this itself, right?

It could do it more securely that way. But it's such a productivity boost to have multiple clipboards. And when I'm on iOS, it absolutely happens on my iPad all the time where I copy something. And it's like the old days, I copy something and then I copy something else and I move and I go, Oh, I lost my clipboard. Didn't I? I don't like it. I know there are apps that you can use to put parts of your clipboard. Like you switch to that app and drop it. It's like a shelf for clipboard stuff, but that's not what i'm talking about like i that that's a fun hack

but i'm not really interested in constantly switching to my clipboard helper app in order to have this happen i just want to have it happen like it does on my mac yeah i just want it there and like and if it is a case of like i'm not going to be able to bring up a ui and paste it in it doesn't matter if i can just have it as an app is just collecting it and just slide over that app and just like copy, copy, copy, paste, paste, paste, that would be amazing, right? Like I would love that.

That just seems like one of those things where depending on where Apple wants to go with iPadOS, and I think that they are pushing iPadOS into these power user things. I believe that's where they're going with it. Like the hardware is suggesting that because the hardware is getting more specific, right? Like here is another keyboard.

It's $300 and it has a trackpad and a cantilevered hinge, right? Like, do you need this? Most people know, but professionals, you want it, right? Like, you know, there's like things like that that they're doing, which makes me hopeful. And this is one of the, like, again, adding the trackpad support, right? Like, you know, there's like things like that that they're doing, which makes me hopeful. And this is one of the, like, again, adding the trackpad support, right? Like all the work that they did makes me hopeful for these weird things and interesting things.

But, and so I hope that this is the kind of stuff that would get added. Kate in the Discord has said this is interesting. I'm genuinely intrigued that both of you both me and jason say copy three times and paste four times i don't know why i did it i probably internalized what you said and then just said the same thing well also sometimes you know you you're always pasting more than you're copying otherwise why did you cop why would you ever copy yeah three things and paste two things right like why did you copy that third thing what's going to happen to the third thing so you always have to have it more so you have to and then you paste more than you copy that third thing? What's going to happen to the third thing? So you always have to have it more. So you have to, and then you paste more than you copy.

That's just, it's just common sense. Johan asks, do you listen to podcasts on your iPad? Rarely. I used to much more before AirPods Pro. Because I used to use my iPad when when around the house because i would typically have my ipad with me more than my iphone like if i'm doing things or whatever my iphone tends to

stay i like leave it around right but now the airpods i enjoy using them so much that if i'm listening to anything around the house like even if no one's in, I will use the AirPods because they give me additional benefits of transparency and noise cancelling depending on the thing that I'm doing, that it's much nicer than listening on a speaker. I sometimes use my iPhone speaker, but it's only when I cannot use my AirPods for some reason. Like maybe in the shower.

I'm a podcast shower person. Yeah, sure. I can't use AirPods there. No. And so, yeah. How would you clean your ears if you have AirPods in them? Exactly, imagine. I don't think AirPods are rated for that, right?

No, they're not. It's like sweat. Ask anybody who's put them through the washing machine. Yeah. But I actually have a Bluetooth speaker that I use in the shower. right no they're not it's just ask anybody who's put them through the washing machine yeah but um i i actually have a um a bluetooth speaker that i use in the shower um i have airpods that i do a lot um i will sometimes just listen on the iphone speaker if i'm making a sandwich or something i don't need to pop my headphones in for that my ipad though it's very rare i have overcast on it

and i have it set to stream only. And it's usually that I want to listen to a particular thing or somebody sends me a link. It's very rare. And if I didn't have it on there, I wouldn't miss it. Are you a podcast download person? Oh, yes. Yes, I download everything. I don't stream.

I don't stream. I download. I stream. I stream. Just because I subscribe to so many podcasts that if I downloaded everything, my phone would fill up. Because I subscribe to way more shows than I listen to

and leave huge back catalogs for me to go and listen to if I want to, but I don't download them. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Fascinating. Corey asks, I know Jason talked about this in the past, but do you still read comics on the

12.9 inch iPad pro I'm in the market for a new iPad. I'm wondering if the bigger tablet is too unwieldy for holding and reading, or if it's the right choice to go with. Corey, I do still read comics on the 12.9. I still use the 12.9. You know, an 11-inch iPad, the comics are all going to be a little smaller. And if you have good eyesight, it won't matter, but all the words are going to be smaller. All the pictures are going to be smaller. It's just not quite the full size effect that I feel like the 12.9 gives me. Ultimately, though, it really depends on how worried you are about the unwieldiness of it. I don't mind having a big 12.9 inch iPad for reading and working and everything else and holding. It's fine. I'm used to it. Uh, but it's not for everybody. Uh, and I would say whether the

comics look good on the screen is gonna, need to weigh that based on uh how much comic reading you do because it will be better on the 12.9 but if you don't do a lot of it and you do lots of other things on your ipad and you're really worried about the weight then it's probably not reason enough to get the 12.9 but i love the 12.9 and rowan asks do you think apple would rather keep this is a hypothetical and i just thought this is an interesting question do you think apple would rather keep a product secret or ship it on time they had to just if people apple if apple's the the company right just imagine it was one thing and their way that they work do you think that they would rather keep a product secret or ship it on time?

I think secret, personally. What do you think? I don't understand what this means. Just in general, right? If Apple had the choice, company, Apple, people, Apple had the choice. So they're either going to ship it late, but it's a perfect secret,

or people know about it in advance and it ships on time. Um, I, I think ship it on what I think. Keep it secret. Keep it secret is the answer here. This is, this is like one of those things where it's like,

I, I go to the town and there's somebody who only tells a lie and there's somebody who only tells the truth. And what question do you ask them? Yeah, it's a riddle. I think there's a trick question that Rowan's going to ask because here's the thing. Can you have a trick ask upgrade?

I don't think so. It is. This is it. He's tricked us, but I've outwitted him. Oh, okay. Aha! The first thing is never get involved in a land war in Asia. But the second answer is never go against a Sicilian

when death is on the line sorry that's the wrong movie um if you keep it secret and then you ship it nobody knows it wasn't on time right but there are effects to apple right as a company you would imagine and something shipping late like right i i think i think apple would always i think apple always wants it to be a secret me always always always and i do think and i know sometimes you're like well what if it leaks out it's like well then it's not a secret right but if it's a secret and then it just ships you don't need like the iphone was the iphone late when the original iphone ship they probably wanted to ship that sooner but they shipped it when they were ready and it was a secret before that it's like well then it's on time it can't be late if nobody knows it exists until it

ships right it can't be i don't i hate that i hate that so much it can't be it can't be late it can because they have a timeline right internally but the world doesn't know that as far as the world's concerned oh my god a new apple product just emerged from cupertino and we never heard of it before my mind is blown and somebody working in the back office is like oh boy we thought we were going to ship this two years ago but here it is and i i get that internally that that causes trouble the truth is we live in the other world right where apple generally is really really good at shipping things on their schedule and everybody knows about it in advance.

I think Apple would probably prefer it the other way, but, you know, this is a funny mental exercise. I also don't think the two are related at all, right? Like Apple's ability to ship things on a schedule is not really related to Apple's ability to keep them a secret, but I think deep in Apple's bones, they want to keep everything a secret but i think deep in apple's bones they want to keep everything a secret

i think so too i think the secrecy part is so important to them for so many reasons that would always be the preferred thing right like and you know i i wonder if if the the shipping on time thing like thinking about stuff like air power and how that may have changed things right like that was such a strange little thing that happens true it's true well that's the that's the other part of it right is they announced air power and couldn't ship it like i think apple has really learned its lesson there in terms of the air tags are the example right that i think is the counter which is um that's a product that we've been hearing that they've been ready to ship for a long time and it's never been announced and that's the exact opposite of what happened

with air power so that you know is air tags late it's not a secret but it's also never been never been announced and therefore when it ships is it gonna are we gonna say that it's shipped late i don't know i feel like i feel like it's late we're fast approaching like the time where there's gonna be a new phone right like that's coming up and like the u1 chip has never been used on the phone that it came out on because like mike that was just for directional airdrop ah that did you see me roll my eyes there across the podcast yeah okay

everyone's favorite feature that works as intended I've never worked out what they're supposed to do well it's supposed to like point at the person like when you're pointing your phone at the person who you're airdropping it pops that person up and says like yeah that one that one is're no, it's, it's pointless. It's silly.

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always thank you for listening if you want to find jason's work online you can go to six colors.com and the incomparable.com where jason hosts many wonderful shows about pop culture related topics and also here at relay fm go to relay.fm.shows. Jason and myself are on many podcasts here. If you just listen to Upgrade or maybe one other, I'm sure that there'll be something there for you. Jason is at jsnell on social media platforms. What's your favorite social media platform, Jason?

Do I have to choose? How can I choose from all of my children? and I am I'm Mike I am YKE and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye Jason Snow goodbye Mike Hurley