Upgrade - 310: The Opposite of Shiny

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

Jason reviews the new iMac (with nano-texture display) and the public beta release of macOS Big Sur. Myke thinks Apple's making a big mistake in keeping game streaming services off of its platforms. And in Upstream, the transformation of the film industry continues at a rapid pace.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 310 and today's show is brought to you by text expander from smile kiwi co and hover my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell hi jason snell hi mike hurley how are you i am you? I am very well. I am very well. Summer of fun rolling on. Summer of fun! I have a hashtag Snell talk question from MJ, and MJ wants to know, do you use your AirPods for phone calls, Jason?

If you do, do you use the left, the right, the AirPods, or both at the same time? I not only use my AirPods for phone calls, I only do phone calls on AirPods. I don't want to have my phone against my face. I don't like it. I don't want a speakerphone. So if somebody's calling me,

if I'm like, oh, Apple's calling to give you a briefing in a minute, I will put in, well, it happens. It's my job. I put my AirPods in and I'll actually even like play music or something. So I know that they're connected to my iPhone and then I'll wait for the call because I want to get that call and if I'm placing an outgoing call same thing so yes both also not left or right both I do both I do both

when I use it but I do also uh I do speakerphone sometimes like if I'm just in my office in my studio or whatever I just put it on speakerphone especially if I'm just in my office in my studio or whatever, I just put it on speakerphone. Especially if I'm like calling and I have to use the number pad thing, you know, like press 1 to like, I just like speakerphone for those. But I do use AirPods too. That's a good question. Thank you MJ

for sending in your hashtag SnellTalk question. It's very easy to do this if you'd like to send in a question to help us start an episode of Upgrade. You send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk or use the question mark Snell Talk command in the RelayFM members Discord. They get included on a sheet and it may be put in to a future

episode. Snell Talk began as a way to stop us from talking about the weather every week because people don't want to hear us talk about the weather but I need to talk about the weather right now, Jason Snell. Okay, sure. I mean, if it's you wanting to talk about the weather, but I need to talk about the weather right now, Jason Snell. Okay, sure. I mean, if it's you wanting to talk about the weather,

I guess it's okay. Fine. It is 92 degrees Fahrenheit right now in London. Very similar temperature inside of my office where I am right now at home. So I do have a fan in the background. I've put it on a very minimal setting, and I'm going to try and take it all out with sound removal, but I just wanted to apologize to Upgrading so they can hear it.

But otherwise, I would melt by the end of the episode. So I would be no use to anybody because I would just be a puddle under my desk. I find stories of London being very hot now. It's now very nostalgic to me because, of course, when we were all in london for your wedding yes it was similarly miserably hot the whole week we were there it was absolutely scorching on my wedding day painfully hot so now it's like oh riding on the top of a double-decker

bus packed with people and it was murderously hot oh good times good times i will always have great love for my friends who dressed up in suits on an absolutely boiling day james thompson who's in the chat room was in a wool kilt with the whole garb he looked incredible but was uh was a very i'm sure sweaty person i was very pleased that with the the reception venue had incredible air conditioning. Everything up to that point did not. The chapel wasn't too hot because it was a big stone building, but all of the movements in between, very sweaty day. I was in a three-piece suit that day. It was a hot day.

That's true. Dan Morin got married in Massachusetts in the summer, and it was similarly hot. We Americans know about hot summer weddings but uh you're you're not supposed to it's not supposed to be like that in london but it was so anyway good times you're having wedding weather is what i'm saying wedding weather mike i know look at me literally any person right now who is going to twitter or to email to tell me that's not hot we get 100 like you're wherever you Like wherever you're writing to me from,

I guarantee that everything around you is built for that heat, right? Like we do not have air conditioning here, for example. Nobody has it because that's not what our homes were built for. We don't have it here either. And people will say, oh, it's not so bad. And it's like, yeah, we don't have air conditioning. I have like a window fan. That's the best. That's my air conditioning. So it's, by the way It's like, yeah, we don't have air conditioning. I have a window fan.

That's my air conditioning. By the way, just for the record, 60 degrees and foggy here. I would love that. We should be much better midweek. We just got a hot few days here. All right, so that's enough weather talk. Let's do some upstream headlines. I've got a bunch of stuff because we didn't do any last week because of the iMac,

which we're going to be talking about again in a little bit but i have some apple tv plus related news for you so there is a trailer for ted lasso which has come out which is uh that's coming out on august 14th if you remember this is the jason sudeikis um comedy show of a nfl coach who is hired by a British football team to become the manager of that team. And what makes this interesting... By the way, the trailer looks good. I'm actually excited for this. I love Jason Sudeikis, and this looks very funny,

and it holds up to the promise of the initial character of Ted Lasso, character um which of of ted lasso which was created by i believe nbc to promote nbc getting the premier league football yes i think that's right in an ad and apple bought the rights to this character from a tv ad to create a show out of which by the way i think is pretty inspired because it's a great character it's almost like if somebody i don't know bought rights to the old spice guy or something right like it sure looks like they made this like they made it in england and everybody else in it seems to be an english actor and then there's jason sudeikis i know so many places where they're filming this i'm looking i'm like i know where that is i know where that is so yeah they look like they've treated it well uh and it looks really funny and uh i'm i'm actually really

excited about this i think this could be a sleeper hit for for apple tv the trailer was great it pushed all my buttons too because it's it's like it's a funny premise uh because i like uh i like football uh american and british english football i i like. I like, and I know the cliches. I like England and, you know, having watched a lot of British TV and stuff like that. So that's all, all of these contrasts between the two cultures are very funny. I think that there's potential there.

And also it seems to be a, you know, scrappy underdog learns life lessons along the way, kind of sports movie style story too. And I'm kind of a sucker for that too. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, this looks really good. There is a new show on Apple TV Plus debuted on July 30th. The Oprah Conversation is an interview series, which is probably a pretty thick, great thing

that they could be doing right now because these can be conducted when you're apart, which is what they're doing. The first few episodes, I think there's one out and there's a couple more coming out. The first few episodes are focusing on racial issues. So the first is with Ibram X. Gendi, who did – this episode was called How to Be an Anti-Racist. this episode was called how to be an anti-racist and then there is a two-part conversation with emmanuel echo along similar lines um looking at a lot of racial injustice issues and stuff like that and how to address them um so that's it's a timely thing and oprah is a great voice right if you're going to talk about issues like this so it makes a lot of sense that they would push this button uh right. If you remember,

Apple and Oprah have an overall deal. Yeah, this is the great Apple-Oprah relationship in another tentacle, another example of that connection that they've got. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. This is clearly what would have just been a podcast, but now they can make it into a TV show because this is how TV looks right now.

It's like two people in their own homes and cameras with them uh apple have signed a new thriller starring elizabeth moss of the handmaid's tale madman it's called shining girls based on the novel by lauren bukes about a time traveling killer that's right he kills the shining girls that's who the shining girls are the the the targets of the time traveling killer and this is a i haven't read this i have it on my kindle it's apparently a very good book and uh i was surprised to see that uh it's uh here it is it's uh going to apple tv plus uh it's a new detective drama starring robertey Jr. on the way. It's produced by the production company Team Downey, which is owned by Robert and Susan Downey. It's Downey by Downey starring Downey. Yeah.

There you go. Produced by Downey and Downey. I just think that it's wild like this. The names that keep getting added to Apple's slate. Right. Iron Man now is here. So another big one sure why not everybody everybody wants that the question is and this is the classic question is is this a is this a project that is good or is this one of those quibby kind of projects that's sort of like yeah we have we'll take i'll take their money right kind of thing but um but still it's you know big movie stars doing doing uh streaming

tv that's where we live now jason can you remind me in the upgradians what the pac-12 is a pac-12 is a college conference on the west coast uh that features features many different college sports organizations and colleges, including USC and UCLA and Washington and Oregon. The Oregon Ducks, my daughter is an Oregon Duck. And of course, the most important of all, the University of California Golden Bears, as we all know. So go Bears. By the way, the winner of the US Open in golf this weekend was a Cal guy go bears roll on you bears i'm gonna do it mike you can't stop me you could edit it out though i don't even know what it means it's a roll on your bears it's a it's a thing it's college anyway um we talked

here about the possibility of apple sniffing around a bunch of different live live sports kind of options and sports deals for the future and there was a report that said that although Apple is still interested in getting sports rights, they are likely to not bid on Pac-12 rights. And their perception here, and this may also be a broader issue, is that, or maybe they're just letting them down easy. I don't know. They're saying that a college deal like this is unlikely to have international appeal, that in Australia, they're not going to be really excited about seeing, you know, the university of Washington play USC in football. Um,

but, uh, I still think that there's a lot of money to be made in, uh, live sports for streamers, but it may be that Apple, it depends on what Apple wants strategically. Like Apple,

if it's thinking international, then Apple is going to be bidding on some very different things than if it's thinking about getting something that's going to have a lot of viewership in the U.S. Because world sport is different than sports in the U.S. in terms of priority. There's some overlap. There's international appeal for some sports, but college football especially is not really one of them. So we'll see what happens. But anyway, this report is that Apple did talk to the Pac-12 about sports rights, but is kind of moving on and is unlikely to bid. But the bigger issue here to watch for upstream purposes is really, what are the deals being made by streamers? As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, CBS bought the, uh, the champions league. See,

and they put it on CBS all access, uh, which is an interesting decision. Um, another, another interesting note is the FA cup was last weekend. Not this just past, but the weekend before that,

which is a championship of a tournament of English soccer. We're back to English soccer again, uh, won by Arsenal, by the way. Um, boy, I'm just plugging all my teams now, aren't I? Won by Arsenal beating the hated, evil Chelsea. All right, we'll do that.

Anyway, that aired. ESPN had the rights to that in the US. And they put it on ESPN+. They were showing like billiards or something cornhole i don't know what it was they were showing nothing on one on espn2 at that moment but they chose to keep the fa cup final off of their linear cable channel and put it on their for pay streaming service right shows you where the money is doesn't it interesting data point right where they're like well we could put this on espn2 yes we could do that or we could

force everybody to buy espn plus in order to see it and this is again we're gonna this is just the beginning of fans especially of various sporting events getting irate because they have to buy a streaming service in order to see their thing but it's gonna happen just like fans got irate because they have to buy a streaming service in order to see their thing. But it's going to happen. Just like fans got irate when they moved things off of broadcast in the US to cable, and everybody got really angry about that. I'm like, I have to pay to see this. I can't just get this with my antenna. Well, this is the next frontier

of that, which is you're going to have to pay a streaming service subscription in order to get access to this stuff. It's inevitable. I think that there is a potential upper part to this Pac-12 thing, or just Apple Sport in general. Maybe they've just realized that 2020

is just a bad time to be getting sports rights. It's maybe a little uncertain. Well, it depends on your feeling about it. I would imagine that everybody involved in sports imagines that sports will bounce back. And that anybody who can get a deal buying it for a slight discount is probably getting a deal because it will bounce back. And I think it will, right? I think that there's no doubt that sports is going to bounce back. But there will be a rough patch here it's also possible that a

lot of the owners here looking at their uh lack of fans in the stands lack of ticket sales are going to want another revenue stream right and they're going to want to sell some rights right now so they can get some cash in their pocket right but i guess for a company like apple it's about the right deal at the right time right like you know you can they might want sports but not pac-12 you know like like we said for sure i think that that that's a good example of that and the pac-12 stuff wasn't going to come up for another like two or three years and i think that's another factor here is that a lot of these sports rights go out for years and years and then there's a big moment where the bids happen. And so this is going to be

slow moving as with so many of the rights things we talk about on upstream, it's going to be slow moving, but there will be mark my words, like there will be that moment. And we'll all know it when we see it, when something comes up for bid that has always been on traditional TV. And one of the bidders is a streaming service and even if they don't get it, if it's a serious possibility that they're going to get it, that's going to be that moment where people are like, oh, what?

I thought the NFL was always going to be on my local CBS TV station and now it's on Amazon? How do I... Right? And that's going to happen. It's something like that will happen. Mark Duplass, who played chip on the morning show has told deadline that season two is actually being rewritten to reflect the pandemic so the funny thing if you'd call it funny the interesting

thing uh that is to be thought about this is they rewrote the first season to include uh the me too movement as one of the main like really arguably the main plot point of the show and now they're doing it again uh to reflect the plant for the pandemic which is it an interesting thing to do i was wondering jason if this may allow them to resume shooting some way for them to find ways to do this remotely if that's the route they want to go down duplass also confirmed the deadline they had only shot two episodes of the show before being closed down i had the same thought which is i wonder if there's something to be done here about the you know we've seen different tv productions try to grapple with a pandemic and have people recording from home and reporting from home and all of that and then you get a

skeleton crew back in a studio but you've got like i could see them trying to emulate that and sort of tell that story the problem i've got with it, is anybody going to want to see that in a year? I don't know. Right? Like, oh, hey, hey, everybody, we just got out. Remember the pandemic? It's like, yeah, I do remember. There's that thing. I think we talked about it here.

Somebody was pointing out that there is very little art about the flu pandemic 100 years ago. There's like very little in the way of like novels or any art influenced by it. And there is a thought that everybody lived through it and no one wanted to relive it. And so nobody talked about it and nobody made art about it. And it just kind of, because nobody wanted to hear that.

Like we all, we all get it. There was a pandemic. We get it. And I wonder about something like this too, that if you really lean into your pandemic season and the pandemic is maybe waning when it comes out, everybody's like, I don't want to, why would I want to relive that? So there's, there's some risk there too. But then again, if they're really trying to shoot their season and they don't know how they're going to be able to do it. You know, it's also possible that they'll do it for like a couple episodes and then kind of break out of it.

But I don't know. I, I, it's a tough position to be in, to be wanting to produce your show and having shut down mid season and feeling like it's timely and feeling like you want to be current, but I don't know. Disney is releasing Mulan on Disney+,

but with a catch. It's coming out on September 4th, but it will be a $30 purchase for Disney Plus subscribers on top of your subscription. It will act like a purchase, so it stays in your account. It's not like you're not paying $30 to rent it, is my understanding. It seems a little unclear right now if they're going to also be selling mulan

all right like will you be able to pay 35 and buy it on itunes for example i don't see how you will it doesn't seem because it's not originally right because it's tied to disney plus you have to be paying them already for the right to pay them more yeah so i agree with you but just in the reports that i read it they're basically saying we've asked and haven't got confirmation so but why would they specify the disney plus what if they sold it for 40 outside right but but nevertheless right but i agree with you i'm sure it's going to be disney plus only but like for example they're still putting it in theaters in places where disney plus isn't available so it kind of seems like like Disney is flying by the seat of their pants with this one, which makes sense.

I think that this is not good for Mulan, honestly. I think that $30 is a lot. I will push back on that a little bit. Because if you're a family going to see a family disney movie in a movie theater you pay more than 30 no i understand so like the idea of putting them itunes and stuff like that 30 i think 30 is a lot when you're already paying six dollars a month i've seen some people say that maybe this is the this is actually a new way that disney uh justifies keeping their disney plus monthly subscription artificially low okay is by having

it be an artificially low gateway into a buying environment where they then charge you a lot of money for a bunch of extras interesting thought yeah so like would i pay it yeah probably am i gonna get it i reckon i am um i i think it's just like i did have an initial sticker shock on this one yeah because i saw oh great disney plus oh what thirty dollars right like that surprised me and and you and adina could go see it in the movie theater and you wouldn't pay thirty dollars probably no but i i took the last time we went to see a movie i can't even remember what movie it was. But I remember all four of us went to see it. And it cost a lot of money. I was like, oh, my God. And I thought, I need to remember this moment.

Although, obviously, not the movie. It's probably a Marvel movie or a Star Wars movie. Remember this moment because when they try to get you to pay for this at home, this is what they're going to ask you to pay. It's something like this, because this is what a family of four going to the movies pays, which is $35, $40. Depending on where you live, it's going to vary, but it's in the ballpark. I think what's interesting is it's not a rental, so as long as you stay on Disney+, you have access to watch it, so you can watch it again and again and again which is good a lot of these 30 have been rentals um so the idea so i actually i'm coming around to

this a little bit more like that if you know like the fact that you paid at 30 and it's like quote unquote a purchase for as long as you're a disney plus subscriber that's pretty good too i think um we have matt right in with a question which matt said do you think apple will get their cut for disney plus from mulan when it's on their platforms well you can you can rent and buy movies on amazon now um on apple tv and uh is apple getting a cut of that maybe they are behind the scenes but they're not using in-app purchase. Oh, interesting. I think Apple, coming from those documents that we were talking about last time, that would be if, with Amazon,

if somebody has come to it and they were already a customer, they'd go through Amazon. If they started with Apple, it goes to Apple? Yeah, so it may be something like that, but I think that this fits into that scenario where, at least on Apple TV, you should be able to buy Mulan in the Disney Plus app,

and, you know, maybe Apple gets a cut, maybe Apple doesn't get a cut. Who cares? Apple. We'll talk about this later on, but I think at the moment, Apple care about this stuff quite a lot, in fact. So you can sign up.

There is in-app purchases and at least on the website i can see it i don't know how obfuscated they are and some apps do that but you can sign up for disney plus um in app so i guess it might be a similar thing yeah no that that may be the the scenario there i would like to know by the way when if any of our listeners uh did sign up through the app store uh i i signed up on the web because i got the the discount deal right if you signed up in the app store and you get mulan i would love to know uh if you went through the iap process so we'll find out september 4th but i i want to mention i know that we bumper crop of upstream stuff here, but I want to mention one other big story that we didn't even have on our list. But I want to throw it in with this Mulan thing because I think they're all related, which is a federal judge is ending the consent decree against Paramount for movie theaters.

And this sounds very dry. But the point here is, in the U.S., for a long time, it has been illegal for movie studios to create this vertical integration where they also run movie theaters. And this has been happening since the late 1940s. There was a Supreme Court decision in 1948, U.S. versus Paramount Pictures. 1948, U.S. versus Paramount Pictures. And a federal judge in New York granted a motion by the U.S. Department of Justice to terminate that. And what this means is that between the pandemic and the consent decree going away, the theater business is never going to be the same. And I saw some speculation about this, and we don't know how this is going to go. But I saw somebody make a really smart point, which is imagine a chain of Disney theaters where they show Disney releases. It's a Disney-fied experience.

You pay more, but it's more magical because it's Disney. And Disney, like, it is just, it's full on. It's like going into Disneyland or on a Disney cruise or something like that, except it's your local Disney showcase theater in major markets. What does the removal of the consent decree allow? It means that movie studios can own movie theaters and so that means that in theory disney doesn't have to supply their movies to theaters that they don't want to give them exactly and theater chains would probably say well we're not going to take your movies anywhere if you open your movie theaters i would imagine that

what will happen is that disney will say fine we are opening our own movie theaters and all these major markets and if you'd like it in the minor markets there's an audience there and somebody's going to take it and if it's you then fine but if not then you know then they'll they'll instead they'll rent it on disney plus right like i don't know who knows how this is all going to play out, but a lot of the decades long, um, control systems in the U S at least have been removed while streaming now has become more prominent because of the pandemic. And then let's just throw in also technology is way better. Like the sound and picture on my TV set in my house is also of a,

of a quality now where I wouldn't mind just watching all new releases on it. I don't feel like I even need to go to a movie theater. It's not true for everybody, but it's true for some portion of the audience. So like you throw all this together, things are going to get weird. That's what I'm saying. Things are going to get really weird.

Once, once there are movie theaters and back in the u.s and like over the next decade how does this all work out but i don't think we're going to be going back to what we had before i think those days are over one last piece on this while we're talking about it amc just did that deal with universal and they're offering it to other studios too where a movie can come out on streaming for rental 17 days after the theatrical release. I know this might upset people,

but the movie theaters are crumbling now. They're crumbling. And that actually fits with what movie theaters are for now, right? Because movie theaters now are for big blockbusters. And they want you to see it in the theater. And if you think about Disney,

Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Disney is the biggest movie studio out there. You you to see it in the theater and and if you think about disney you know disney marvel star wars disney is is the biggest movie studio out there you want to see them in the theater you want to yeah could they schedule their releases so that there's that every disney theater near you it's like it's a handful of screens but they're big screens and it's always some movie that's come out in the last two weeks or three weeks that everybody wants to see and then as soon as that's done two three weeks after that it's on disney plus as a as a rental or something like that imagine as well like if disney owned the theater then every theater screen and sound system would be perfectly tuned for that movie you know that would be a great because it's their pretty nice it's their product right right i mean it's got there are a lot of knock-on effects and it's it's a complicated

thing but yeah this is this is the kind of strange world that we're living in now. Yeah. The idea that the theatrical window, the exclusive theatrical window is less than three weeks is a pretty big thing. Right. But that's where we're headed. And honestly, you know, that's sort of also where we were going because people go mostly go to see movies now because they want to see something big and popular that is just in theaters and they want to do it right when it comes out and then they move on to the next thing for years and it's closed now but because the pandemic and i think it's never going to reopen we have this one screen movie theater near our house and what i what fascinated me about it was the choices they made about what movies they got in there. And I thought it was really emblematic of the fact that you could have a single screen for a movie theater and almost always have a blockbuster. You could almost always do it because there's always another big movie that people want

to see. And if it's not that big, it's there for a week and then it's gone. And then there's another one in there. And that's sort of like, that's the future of all movie theaters because all the smaller movies are going off onto streaming and people aren't going to see them in theaters and we can talk about how tragic that is and all those things but it's just sort of a reality of where we are right now this episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at hover which is one of relay fm's longest running sponsors they've been with us since the very beginning, which is very nearly six years now, actually.

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That is hover.com slash upgrade. Make a name for yourself with Hover. Thanks to Hover for their support of this show and RelayFM. Summer of fun time. Summer of fun. What's fun this week? The fact that we get to talk about the iMac again. So, Jason, you have reviewed the 2020 iMac.

I only really want to know myself one thing, which is the nanotexture. Because you got one of the nanotexture iMacs. That is the thing I am most interested about. How does that look? How does that work? And then we can talk a little bit more in detail. But that's the thing I care the most about myself.

I think it's the most interesting thing about the product. So for $500, you can get your iMac where the glass is etched in the same way that the Pro Display XDR has an option for a $1,000 etched nanotexture display. And it's these micro etchings. And what they're doing is they're reducing glare. So for $500, you can get that

on a 5k iMac now. And it's really, really, really good. And I I'm starting to feel like, so writing this review, I was thinking like, who buys this with the era coming to an end? This may be the last, at least major update of an Intel Mac ever. Who buys this? And yes, I think one group I know, I know multiple people who have bought one because they feel like they keep an iMac for five or six years and they're going to get this one. And it's going to be a big upgrade over the one they got five or six years ago. And then they can wait and their first Apple Silicon Mac, you know, all the bugs will have been shaken out. Everybody will know they don't need to be on the cutting edge. I think that is a strong point that at this point,

you know, you could get this and you're going to, you're not on the cutting edge and most of our listeners aren't going to feel that way, but like it's going to be tried and true and very good at what it does. And it's got a bunch of extra features that we can talk about. But the other audience for this is people who want a real anti-glare iMac and they're going to be able to get it on this thing for $500 over the iMac cost and when you look at the pro display XDR which costs a fortune like this is a better option you get the very good unchanged but very good wide color gamut Apple 5k iMac display and now for $500 extra you get the nanotexture which comes

with a little cloth that you're supposed to use to clean it and you can buy extras at the Apple store for $10 if you want more little little cloths but it looks great it is it actually does a thing with my brain that I look at it especially at the bezels

I'll look over there and i'll be like that that can't like it it seems wrong because it's this black glass on the bezels and there should be a reflection there and there's nothing there and it just seems like it's wrong and it looks really good it doesn't feel all textury like so many anti-glare like uh screen skins and screen covers do where you end up with this thing that looks slightly foggy um you know i've had displays like that before that were anti-glare displays and they they just they're not the blacks aren't crisp or anything like that it's not like. Everything looks really good and the glare is incredibly diffuse. I tried to take a picture of it. It's very hard to take a picture of it and

make it clear because I took a picture with my iPhone camera and my iPhone camera automatically adjusted the brightness up. And so in my picture, you could very clearly see the lamp in the background that was shining on it. But when I looked at the display, I could not see even a glow, a barest hint of a glow. So I had to like step down the exposure on my camera to get something that approximated what my eye was seeing. It's very good is what I'm saying. And if you're somebody who has glare issues in your office environment, I think people are going to buy that for that feature. And it's really, really nice. You mentioned when you started talking about this,

it was like the idea of somebody buying this machine because they've had it for five years. I actually think that's a really interesting point where if that's what you want to do, it might be best to buy this machine instead of the next one. Yeah. Because you could be coming in at a time

which might be a little tumultuous for a while. We don't know yet. We don't know. What the Apple Silicon transition is going to be like. We don't know how many apps we're going to lose, right? Or how many apps are going to run poorly, right? This is stuff that we feel confident about. We don't know if there are quirks, you know,

where there's like, oh, it turns out this thing, Apple didn't really get it right, and we've wait around and there's some bugs and then it's going to take six months or or it turns out this feature just didn't work right or i mean there always are things like that that can happen especially with an initial version of a product like i think back to those initial intel intel max and although that transition was pretty seamless also the the first round of like core solo and core duo imax were were not very good and the core two duos that followed them were good and that was sort of the upward so so you look at first generation like yeah they're okay but then there were way better macs to come so that's the other argument there is not only like is it buggy but also like first tentative steps versus buying a mac that is apple in stride having figured out every issue regarding apple silicon

max like there are there are counter arguments and if you're somebody who doesn't care about the cutting edge features but what if the next iMac has apple pencil support and all this stuff like but if you're like no i just want another iMac to be in my face while i'm writing for the next five years like a couple of my friends like yeah this is this is gonna do you way better than that iMac you bought five or six years ago when the when the first maybe 5k iMac came out this is a huge update for that it's faster it's faster than my poor little eight core Mac Pro iMac Pro right like my eight core iMac Pro which was discontinued last week because why even

sell that? And it's way faster than that at everything, at least the high-end configuration is. So, you know, I don't know. Like, there are lots of arguments to be made and I know that most of the people listening to this podcast are not these people

because people who listen to this podcast presumably are really into what's on the cutting edge, but I know that there are some people who, even who listen to this podcast are not these people because people who listen to this podcast presumably are really into what's on the cutting edge. But I know that there are some people who even who listen to this podcast who are interested in the cutting edge stuff. But when it comes to their buying decisions or their computer use decisions, they're a little more conservative. And they're like, you know what? Maybe I'll get this really good iMac that's built on all of this technology Apple's been testing for the last five years. And I'll keep that while you all have fun storming the castle with this Apple Silicon stuff. I'm just going to do my job for the next four years or five years or whatever.

So I think that is a strong argument, but there will be this other element of it, which is like somebody who really, really, really, really wants that nanotexture display. And I won't blame them because I think it's really good. And if you want an anti-glare display on an Apple device, I think you're not going to get a much better deal than the $500 nanotexture option on the iMac. Would you be concerned about taking care of it properly? I don't think I am. so i i i talked to apple about this actually um i'm not sure what i'm supposed to admit to seeing but i talked to our i talked to our friends

who we've talked to on this show before about the imac uh i just know i'm not gonna name any names but uh my understanding i asked about the nanotexture display and i asked about the care of it so they have this they have this cloth you're supposed to use the cloth you can get more cloths you can get them online or you can get them at your apple store they really want you to use this cloth and not other another method um it sounds like you could you can also use maybe water just plain water if you need to uh with this cloth it doesn't sound like this is the kind of thing where if you use some windex on it it's going to melt it's not going to have an iMac anymore my understanding though is that if you use chemicals on the screen their concern is that what it's going to do is it's going to wear down the glass and you're going to lose the magic of the

etching uh that is going into the nanotexture. So I walked away thinking, it doesn't feel like it's fragile. You just need to be aware that if you want this thing to hold up and be this magical non-glare display, you need to follow the care instructions, which is not, I think it's not unreasonable. I have a larger point, which you may have thought of Mike, which is, okay, Apple's really into this nanotexture thing. That's great. What does this mean about our conjecture that maybe Apple will do Apple pencil or touchscreen or both

max in the future? Because I'm not clear on how resilient nanotexture is to somebody sticking their you know their oily fingers all over it all the time that i'm i'm not entirely clear on and i wonder is this a last hurrah where they're like well let's get nanotexture into the imac now because we're not going to be able to do it on those touchscreen imacs that would have been a bold and wrong choice to make, I think. If new iMac models cannot have this, that would have been very weird to put it on there, in my opinion. We'll see. Or is it that the geniuses at Apple are like, ah, we got it, we got it. We got a touchscreen nanotexture in the lab. It'll be fine. I don't know know i think we have one of two options here i mean one i i do believe that at some point in the future there will be a combination where you can have nanotexture

and touch on the same panel i don't know how they'll do it but i believe they will do it at some point right like i understand that people will say that like this doesn't work i would expect that they will find a way to do it because people are clever and they find ways to do it. Like nanotexture even existing is something that we thought wouldn't have been able to exist a few years ago. Right. Like what they've been able to do here with glass etching. So I'm sure there will be a way to do it at some point in the future. We just don't know what that is yet.

The other thing I would expect is if they do want to offer nanotexture and they do want to offer touchscreens, you have to choose. Could be. Could be. There could be a division on what Macs get touchscreens and what Macs get nanotexture. Or it could be a choice. Like, I could totally see them saying, you know, our new 30-inch iMac with Apple Silicon is here. see them saying, you know, our new 30-inch iMac with Apple Silicon is here. And you can, you know, by default, it comes with touchscreen and Apple Pencil support. But do they say, or nanotexture traditional? I don't know. Or do they, it depends on what their approach, assuming they do touch at

all, it depends on what their approach to touch is is it laptop only um i hope not because i would really like that 24 inch imac to be something that could be you know pivoted and turned into something kind of like a surface studio or like a g4 imac where you should i would love to grab the screen do that i don't know i don't i don't know if they will see it yeah and so that's a possibility too so i think it's's all there. I do think you're right though, that if there's any way physically for Apple to bring etched glass that reduces glare into every single product they make, they will. the iPhone, which means they may have to figure out how to solve the problem of how do you do this, but also have oily fingers on the screen. And if there's any possible way for them to do it, they'll do it, right? Because that's a way for them to push their glass on their devices forward and make a better experience for everybody, at least as an option. So it's worth watching. And you would need to be an expert at

nanotexture glass etching and how oils deposit on a screen and all of that. And we're not that. So I look forward to hearing what the experts say or seeing what they do about that. But in the meantime, this thing is real. It's really nice. And I would buy one. If I had a glare problem, I would buy one unreservedly because it looks really good. I've got it positioned opposite my existing iMac, which means it is facing toward the window in my office. And I've been editing video. I've actually been editing my 20 Max for 2020 videos on it this past week because it's way faster than my iMac. And until I send it back, then my iMac Pro, until I send it back,

I kind of want to use that power and it lets me use the nanotexture display. And the glare is just not an issue. It's just not. It's amazing. So I'm a real nanotexture believer. I think it is the banner product or feature of this. It is also the only feature of the iMac that hasn't been seen on another Mac before it was on the pro display XDR, but like everything else in the iMac is I had somebody on Twitter who was trying to tell me like, Oh, you know, this is a, it was something positive about the iMac having, you know, having picked up all this stuff. And my, my, my thought was, I don't want to give it too much credit. This is a little bit like that

argument about, do you give Apple credit for finally doing something it should have done five years before? It's a little like that because it's like, do we credit the iMac for adding the T2 processor that was in the 2007 iMac pro or 2017 iMac pro? Like, do we give it credit for that or 20 2017 2016 i can look let me look i'm gonna just look 2017 december 2017 all right do we give it credit for being the t2 mac when we already had one almost three years ago in an imac like i don't and the t2 great. And the T2 adds a bunch of stuff, but it's not new to the Mac. The new three, three microphone system that with, you know,

quote unquote studio quality audio is the MacBook pro 16 system. It's not new. It's new to the iMac, but it's not new. Like what's nice about this computer is that it integrates finally to the iMac, the 27 inch model, not the 21.5 inch model that was completely untouched. It integrates this new stuff. That's great. And that's why I think people who are looking for a

new iMac and don't want to be on the cutting edge of all this Apple Silicon business can get this thing. And they're going to get arguably the state of the art, the final state of the art Intel iMac before the switch, right? Like the final state of the art Intel iMac before the Switch, right? Like the final state of the art Intel Mac with all of this tech that Apple's been working on the last few years packed into it. But in terms of like newness to the Mac,

other than the nanotexture thing, there's kind of nothing here, right? Like this is all stuff that we've seen somewhere else and they're just kind of rolling it into the iMac. It's great that they're doing it. I wish they had done it a couple of years ago, but it's great that they finally did it here at the end so that the 27-inch iMac has that T2 and all of that.

By the way, as a note, because people have been asking me about it, running my benchmark tests. So I'm running these tests that really stress out the CPU and the GPU. And I'll tell you, the one thing that they – apparently they tweaked it a little bit because the power draw on the new chips is, is different than on the old chips. But like basically the cooling system in the iMac is the cooling system in the iMac, not the cooling system in the iMac pro. my benchmark tests and my little iMac pro just silently with very like a stream of warm air silently blowing out the back of it just kept on chugging away and the moment I pressed the button all the fans on the iMac cranked up audibly and stayed up for the entire time that it was working on it so if you're if you're if you're sound sensitive and not a lot of people are that sound sensitive but I know like talking to Stephen Hackett about, you know, he went, now he has a Mac Pro, but he went from an iMac to an iMac Pro. And one of the reasons was he records podcasts and a loud blowing fan is not great for that.

So it's still that loud blowing fan. So it's fast, but it's also noisy. loud blowing fan so it's fast but it's also noisy i will say like so i'm recording from my home office today but i've been recording a lot from my studio recently and i'm using my mac mini there oh boy do those fans go uh-huh and i hear it like randomly a lot and i'm reminded that's what computers used to be like and are like. But I am blessed with this professional Macintosh in front of me here that doesn't, you know, the only time I ever hear the fans on my iMac Pro is when I absolutely expect to. Right. Like when I'm doing something like Forecast, which is Marco's tool for encoding MP3s.

Aggressively multithreaded. It is, what it is doing at that time is basically the maximum it can possibly do. That's what the app is meant to do for encoding MP3s really quickly. So I hear it for a couple of seconds then, but other than that, I never hear the fans on my iMac Pro.

But on my Mac Mini, I could just be like safari and all of a sudden it's like screaming at me like what are you doing what's wrong with you you know i go to activity monitor and everything seems fine but something's kicking off the fans because that's just what happens and so yeah that's that's going to be a thing here too right with that 27 inch iMac is it's going to be a thing here too, right, with that 27-inch iMac. It's going to be really good, but it will kick up the fans and make noise more if that's the thing that bothers you because either A, your work requires silence, or B, you just don't like it, then fine. That's going to be a problem for you, which is the difference with the Mac Pro. But I would wonder anyway if like in our

apple silicon future it might not be so much of a problem anyway because i mean we have really powerful arm chips with no fans now yeah you know maybe that runs better so i would say you know you've mentioned you mentioned it in your article about last hurrah this really does feel like a last hurrah because of the fact that they integrated so many technologies that are in the mac line into this mac right like you know they all the t2 stuff right like the web stuff they upgraded the webcam it's essentially the iMac pro webcam right it's a 1080 webcam and the digital signal processing is being done on the t2 so they can do you know more dynamic alteration of the of the brightness and the digital signal processing is being done on the t2 so they can do you know more

dynamic alteration of the of the brightness and the contrast and they do some face detection to try to figure out who is supposed to be uh at the you know the best lighting and then focus on that and and light for that like that's in there like great like finally the iMac pro or the iMac uh webcam is better but like again it's nothing new but it is the i want to i the iMac webcam is better. But like, again, nothing new, but it is the, I want to not praise it for being last to the party, but I do want to praise it as a product for having everything

that Apple has been working for over the last few years to make the Mac better while still having an Intel processor in it. Any final thoughts on this? Or do you feel like you've kind of wrapped up the iMac? I think so. I mean, again, like I said at the beginning,

you know who you are if you're thinking of buying one. And like I can say, it's good. It is, while it's not super exciting, it is the final form of the Intel i iMac and it will serve you well if you need an iMac right now and you're not worried about what comes next because you just want a good iMac it's gonna it's gonna serve you well the fact that it goes all the way up to a 10 core i9 that it blows my iMac pro out of the water like it's got power to spare so um and the only other thing i would say is don't buy the 21 and a half inch imac in any form they changed the base configuration to have ssds

but otherwise it's unchanged and i'll remind you last year when they updated it they didn't give it the eighth the ninth generation intel processors they gave it the eighth generation intel processors so it's already kind of a step behind and now it's another step behind. And if we look into the tea leaves a little bit and we think about that Ming-Chi Kuo report about what's coming for the Apple Silicon Macs late this year or early next year, it sounds like a 24-inch iMac is in the works, which feels very much to me like Apple is not bothering to do any updates to the 21.5-inch iMac is in the works, which feels very much to me like Apple is not bothering to do any updates to the 21.5-inch iMac because the small iMac is going to be where they start the remake of the iMac. And so I know it's the cheap iMac. Don't get it. That's one where I can just say,

stop. Do not get the small iMac. But if you want a 27 inch iMac and you're not worried about that cutting edge and you're happy to avoid the cutting edge, you will get all of the tech that Apple has sort of perfected over the last three or four years rolled into this iMac at last. And it's fast and it's Intel. You can bootcamp it. You can do all those things that you won't be able to do on apple silicon and uh and nano texture it's uh i i want to say it's shiny but it's not it's the opposite of shiny new and dull but in a good way the best kind of dull uh with this also came uh the mac os big sir public beta i think it was the same day that both the reviews of your uh of the imac and the the public beta. I think it was the same day that both the reviews of the iMac

and the public beta came out, right? And you had an article kind of wrapping up a lot of your thoughts on Big Sur. Why do you think it's taken this long for the Big Sur public beta to come out? I don't know. I think my...

I don't know. I don't know. I can speculate and say that maybe they just weren't happy with the qualities of the betas that they had or, and they wanted to get it to be stable. Like I know they were tweaking like APFS so that they could get it so that if you installed it on a drive with another, you know, it wouldn't get inserted in Catalina and say, I don't know what this is, right? Like stuff like that, which they fixed. And like there've been tweaks to it. I think maybe there's a, uh, a standard there, um, of what is supposed to go out to the public that they failed. They felt they hadn't reached yet. So, um, that's my best guess is that they just, they really didn't think it was good enough. And the nice thing about Big Sur is it's not tied to a release like iOS is, which is so tied to the iPhone. And as we've seen in the past, Apple seems to have no problem releasing amazing new features for iPhone and iPad and saying, and the Mac will get these features too with the new Mac OS whenever it shows up and then letting it just kind

of show up whenever it needs to so if if ios and ipad os are coming in september would it be surprising if big sur came in october or november uh i don't think so the only reason the only reason to press press forward with big sur for apple is if Apple Silicon Macs are tied to it. But even then, do they have to? Do they have to? Yeah, I assume they are. Do they have to release Big Sur and Apple Silicon Macs in October? They don't.

They could do it in November or December or whatever. And maybe that is one of the reasons Apple is hedging about, you know, it's like by the end of the year for Apple Silicon is it's tied to Big Sur. I don't know. I don't know why Big Sur is late, but Apple can afford for it to be late. We spent a lot of time on this show breaking down certain parts of Big Sur, like the icons and the sounds. Big Sur, like the icons and the sounds. Do you have, having spent more time with it, do you have big thoughts about things that you like,

things that you don't like? Where are you kind of sitting with Big Sur right now? I like it more than most podcast hosts you may have heard about. It's early yet I'm inclined to say that I that I it makes me enthusiastic about the future of the Mac I likened it in my review to like good cop bad cop like Catalina was the bad cop Catalina

was like no no compatibility with old apps no get out no lots of No, get out. No. Lots of security warnings. Get your security in line, people. And Big Sur is like, hey, everybody, new OS, shiny and bright, new icons. And it's still all the things that Catalina is incompatible with, it's incompatible with. But that's in the rear view by a year. And I've talked to people who are like, oh, you know, go to big sir but i didn't like catalina it's like well big sir

has all the issues in a way that catalina had in that it's going to make all your old stuff incompatible if it's a 32-bit app that hasn't been updated to 64-bit but you know by putting and i'm i'm not really a believer that Apple structured it this way so people would just hate Catalina and then bless Apple Silicon and Big Sur but that is sort of the net effect. You know we feel differently about stuff like this where I do believe that Apple

make decisions in advance in that way. I think Apple wanted the transition to go smoothly and that's why they did it with Catalina and not because they wanted people to, it's, it's,

you could see it either way, right? Do a transition to go smoothly also means not going into a transition with a whole bunch of broken apps. So breaking them a year before helps the transition go smoothly and also helps people not hate on your new Apple Silicon Macs because they're the thing that broke the software because instead it's big bad Catalina that broke it last year.

And, you know, I think, yes, to a certain extent, those are both probably true. So fair enough. Fair enough. But, you know, the look of it, like it takes some getting used to. It's got some things it needs to tweak. But taking up more space... Once I looked at Big Sur, I started to think about how so many design decisions on macOS are based on a real lack of screen space.

Like wanting to be super dense. And that you look at Big Sur and it's like, it's just, there's white space everywhere. There's padding everywhere. And yes, a lot of us think that that means touch is coming, but I think also it is Apple saying, yeah, big screens are good. We like big screens. We're not going to make teeny tiny screen max anymore ever again. You know, maybe they'll have a 12 inch screen someday but otherwise like no like that the 13 inch might be the base like let's take some space to air this whole thing out they are willing to do that i kind of like the the high contrast windows i again are there some specific

issues there yes but um i think all of our gray shaded stuff in current mac os is going to feel uh real old like brushed metal kind of old really fast because not only is it a kind of a design trend kind of thing but it's just i think it's nice i think it looks good i think there are lots of things they need to fix um i don't we we went over the icons and how i think that they're not trying with some of those icons but the fact is every icon on the mac is going to be around rect and all the apps that don't support the round rect icon are going to feel old so they're going to have to update all of those too and uh so yeah i mean it's it's radical and they're going to walk some of it back and there are things about it that i don't like i think

the translucency in the menu bar is a mistake and it makes it very hard to read and it's bad. But overall, I'm actually kind of encouraged about Big Sur. And again, I'm probably one of the people who is also reacting to it versus Catalina and saying, you know, Catalina brought the bad news and Big Sur is sort of like trying to be about the future and what the Mac is going to be going forward. And I'm much more receptive to that message

than the message that Catalina brought, which is I'm going to enforce a lot of security and incompatibility issues because we need to change the platform. That was not fun. I like one thing that you said, which is I'm open to the possibility that Apple just thinks that our displays are big enough now

that they can afford to look a little less cramped and this is in reference to you know lots of people have been saying that a lot of the spacing in big sur might be for touch but it's actually a thing where maybe they just decided that the ui needed to be more spread apart no i think it very, once you look at Big Sur and then you go back to Catalina you look at it and you realize, wow like, there are a lot of places where it's as if this was designed by somebody who's just desperate

to shave off pixels. Like, let's get this element as close to the edge of the window or the screen as possible. And, you know, when you're in an environment with, as somebody who had an 11 inch, I still do, it's right here, 11 inch MacBook Air. That's true. But Apple's sort of saying, nah, not so much anymore. We think big, big screens are where it's at. We're going to give

everything a little bit of room and it's nicer. It's nicer. I know that it's waste, quote unquote, wasted space and all. But once you see it, you realize that some of this stuff is like in normal design circumstances, you'd look at it and say, why is that so close to the edge? Like, can we pad that a little bit? Like it shouldn't be that close.

It shouldn't be crammed in there like that. It's crammed in there because a lot of Mac design is desperately trying to stick as many things in as small a space as possible in order to fit it on the screen. You mentioned a bunch of improvements to Catalyst as well. How is that feeling in big servers? They've introduced new applications. They've added new APIs. You seem pretty positive about Catalyst going forward. Well, I've talked to some developers seem pretty positive about catalyst going forward well i've talked to

some developers who say that catalyst going forward uh has a lot of things that catalyst last year didn't have so that they're really encouraged to be able to use catalyst and because apple has brought so many different apps over including messages and maps to catalyst apple is motivated in making catalyst better and so last year we were like, well, Mac Catalyst, we were really excited about it, but this is it. And this year it feels like this is really it. And Apple is really using it to build apps. And also we now sort of see Apple's grand plan here to unify these platforms. And we're going to enter a situation where your iPad app will run on the Mac on Apple Silicon

unmodified, but if you do a little extra work, it'll be much better on the Mac. And I'm encouraged that a lot of app developers will take that extra step, especially now that Catalyst is giving them more tools to do it. A lot of my positivity about it is that Messages is a bad app onina. Like it's bad. I don't know if this has happened to you. Have you had this where you click on a tab in the messages view when you start to type a message and for some reason it flips to a different message and now you're typing a text message to the wrong person? That happens to me all the time. It's infuriating. It's really bad, right? And that has been happening to me for years and it just keeps happening. It's sorturiating. It's really bad, right? And that has been happening to me for years, and it just keeps happening. It's sort of random. I don't know why. And so now every time I send a message in Messages, I have to double check. I copy out to the message text just in case, and then I look and see, is this going to the right person? And then I'll send it.

then I'll send it. And the new version of messages that's written with Catalyst, it's coming from iOS and it's in Catalyst on Big Sur, feels like messages. Plus it has every feature that the Mac never got from messages. You can open, pop open conversations in other windows and stuff. And like, yeah, if you look very, very closely, you can detect that it's probably a Catalyst app, which it is, but it feels like a mac app and i think that that's i'm really encouraged by that plus the fact that they like change the date pickers and stuff so it's the the super saddest things about like uh the spinning wheel for the date picker that they left there for a couple of years like those are gone now and that's good you mentioned something about safari that was a surprise to me,

because I know that Apple were talking about the extensions, like people could bring over their extensions and that would be great. But I just assumed that Apple was doing something to make those work in the backend, but it seems like developers would actually need to submit them for Xcode and stuff, which wasn't what I expected. Yeah, so one of the things that I did is, in the review I expressed some skepticism about this thing that I actually am excited about, which is the fact that they're using the extension API that was there, that's there in Firefox and Chrome

to do browser extensions. But of course it's Apple. And so it ends up being this question of like, what app extension or browser extension developers are going to want to be in Safari because it's not just a case where I can go to a website where there's a Chrome extension and download it and run it in Safari. It's not that way. They changed some of the security things. So you have to, basically as a developer, you have to bring it, you have to have a Mac. First off, you have to bring it into Xcode. You have to make sure that you're following Apple's security stuff or it won't work. So you may actually have to bring it into Xcode you have to make sure that you're following Apple's security stuff or it won't work

so you may actually have to change your app to be more secure or support privacy better and then you have to submit it to the app store and then it shows up in the Safari extensions section of the app store so you can do it and that's great and if you're the developer of a of a major browser extension that you built

for chrome and you want access to safari you can you can get it now but what if you don't have a mac well you're going to need to get one you're going to need to investigate all the ways that safari clamps down on security and privacy that maybe you didn't need to worry about on chrome and then you're going to need to submit it to the app store and learn that maybe you didn't need to worry about on Chrome. And then you're going to need to submit it to the app store and learn that process and then get it in the app store. And then it'll be on Safari. So I think it's a real question about whether people will do that. So while it's potentially a big win for Safari users, because that web extension technology is coming to Safari, the workflow for it still is going to require a lot

of developers and i think it's worth asking the question will they care enough to support safari they've made it easier not easy yeah and my answer would probably be the moment that it runs on the ipad and the iphone they'll care about it yeah okay good point good point which may happen right like especially with the ipad i don't expect it i guess maybe the ipad at least i would who should install the public beta jason of big sir should anybody i don't know i'm gonna i'm gonna go back to what i said about the imac which is you know who you are like i would wait it's early in the cycle even though it's august it's early in the cycle i don't know what you, it's early in the cycle. I don't know what you're going to get out of it.

I mean, you could install it on an external drive or something and see, but like, I would wait. I would wait until they've got it locked down. It's, you know, using a beta, I have to do it, but you don't have to do it. So if you're not a developer or somebody who really needs to be in Big Sur, I would wait it out because that's what public beta processes are all about is people finding bugs. And if you want to be a bug hunter and live with the frustration of it, then go ahead. But like, as your software, some of your software is going to break all the audio software that we use

breaks in Big Sur right now and has not been updated yet. Although Rogamiva stuff just doesn't work yet. So I don't know. Right now, I'm just sort of skeptical about this. You run a beta because you're curious and that's great or because you want to help or because you have to. But be well aware that although Big Sur seems to work pretty well for me and I didn't really have any problems, you are subjecting yourself to beta software in your operating system, and it's not great. And just in general, because there will be bugs and weirdness. And so, you know, I think Big Sur is for the people who install Big Sur this fall, and the public beta, you know who you are. Otherwise, I would wait. For me, like I install the iOS public the iOS developer

betas and playing around with them stuff like that and I would do that even if I wasn't reporting on them and talking about them because I would be excited the same way that I am excited but I would not install the beta of macOS on it on like my main computer

like I put iOS on my iPhone because I just feel like for me I feel like on my main computer, like I put iOS on my iPhone, because I just feel like, for me, I feel like there is more potential disruption and damage that could be done to my Mac computing life than could be done with my iOS computing life, even though I am a primarily iOS person. I just feel like it could be way worse for me to use a beta on my Mac than on my iOS device.

If something went wrong, the things that could go wrong on my Mac feel worse to me. But that's just my own kind of like internal barometer for beta software, especially for assistant software. And it's your feeling about like, yeah, where are you willing to get benefit of beta stuff? And where are you not willing to get the negative part of beta stuff those both happen this episode is brought to you by our friends over at kiwi co a science and art subscription box for kids of all ages hey parents you might feel like your kids summer vacation started early if you've been home together for a while now actual summer vacation is happening for parents, you might feel like your kids' summer vacation started early if you've been at home together for a while. Now actual summer vacation is happening for many people. You might

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reports about apple and game streaming services over the last week especially especially with Microsoft. They confirmed that their xCloud service would not be coming to iOS. xCloud is a game streaming service, so there's games being played from the cloud. It's not like a great game subscription service like Apple Arcade, where you pay one fee and you get access to a bunch of games. like Apple Arcade, where you pay one fee and you get access to a bunch of games.

With xCloud, it is part of Xbox's Game Pass service, where it's basically, it works in a couple of different ways, which makes this confusing. But the xCloud part of Game Pass is you can stream games to devices that are not Xboxes. So you play from the cloud. It's more like Google Stadia, if you're familiar with that, right? Right. So Apple have made some statements, Microsoft have made some statements. Apple are basically saying that a service like this can't exist on iOS because they cannot review each title individually. This is a statement that they gave to, I believe, Insider, and they also gave a similar statement in March to Bloomberg.

I believe this is in reference to Stadia and other things. So they're basically saying that they want to be able to review every game, and a service like xCloud means that they can't review every game. That's Apple's line, right? Because there are games and et cetera. It's one app. They want things to be there, and they also want all kind of games to

show up in search and in charts standalone they don't like the idea of one application with like 100 games in it or whatever and apple doesn't get to see all of them listed out for their customers microsoft are unhappy they have said apple stands alone as the only general purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming game subscription services like xbox game pass now there's a lot of uh people making lots of arguments about this online about different you know saying are apple right or apple wrong is microsoft right is microsoft wrong i want to give my take on all of this jason if that's okay and then i'm sure you will have your own as well.

I think that this is all a load of BS from Apple. I think that this is madness from them. This idea of the individual review of content doesn't hold up to any logical test in my mind. Like people, like, look, this is an often made thing now, like an often made argument about this, about they don't review uh all of the content on netflix but like i think that that makes a lot of sense right like i don't understand why because it's a game apple needs to one review every title and then two they need to show up in charts

doesn't make sense to me why this is the case for game streaming services and frankly nonsense the games that xbox sell the games that are part of game pass are reviewed much more stringently than apple right so a quote from microsoft and this is true all games available in xbox game pass catalog are rated by content for content by independent industry ratings bodies such as the esrb and regional equivalents, right? So console games go through this external review to age rate them, right? This doesn't happen on the App Store. Apple decided.

And also, there are way less games allowed and available in the Xbox Store, let alone Game Pass. Game Pass is like a heavily curated system. It's kind of more like apple arcade in that regard in that there is a store and then there's also game pass most xbox game pass games are games made by microsoft and their own studios i think it can be very well argued that the quality barrier for a game on xbox is vastly higher than what apple sets for the App Store. Because you get a ton of crap in the App Store,

just like bad games. There aren't quote-unquote bad games, like games that don't work in Game Pass, because that's just not how that works. That's just not how that system is. It is a very different system. You can get games with bugs, of course. You can get games that crash, of course.

But the idea of this like oh apple's review system is like way but it's just not true like in my opinion and i think i genuinely think this is true that the the level that the quality barrier for what can be approved into the game pass is higher than apple but let's just call this what it is. Apple wants a cut, right? Like, I cannot see this any other way. Apple is saying one thing, but I think it's pretty clear that Apple doesn't want to allow another category of services into the App Store that can be these reader apps, because that's what Microsoft will submit to them, right? They will create an application where you just sign in. They don't want to give Apple a cut, right? So they will create one of these applications that would have to be classed as reader apps in the App Store, right? So Apple

won't be able to get their cut of it. I think that recent history makes me feel very confident about this idea that the issue is that Apple wants to take their 30 or their 15 and microsoft don't want to give it to them if they're if that is wrong to assume that fine but i think that the law that this year has shown that apple super care about this so i i feel pretty justified in saying that's what's really going on here because if apple really want to review all the games, Microsoft can let them. Sure. They can say, here you go. It is all 100 games.

We've created a demo account for you. Go ahead and review them. So then that's why they also say, oh, we also want them to show up individually. But why would Apple care about this? Like, in what way is that a good experience to the customer? That every Xbox Game Pass game would show up individually on the App Store. Who

cares about that? That's not how the model for this service works. You pay a flat fee and get everything. So the better customer experience is like, I am an Xbox Game Pass subscriber. I just want the Xbox Game Pass app or the xCloud app. This is another example, in my opinion, of Apple trying to tell Microsoft how to run their business. And I think Apple likes to do this these days, right? And you could say, oh, this is Microsoft telling Apple how to run their business. I don't think that's the case because the iOS app store and iOS devices very clearly are made and set out to run applications like this one, right? Like this is a multimedia experience made by a

third party. In my opinion, there is absolutely no difference to a streaming TV service to a streaming game service. And my main issue with all of this is that if Apple continues this line, iOS users are missing out on something that Android users can get. Apple is making a worse experience for the App Store and users of the iOS platform if they continue to make these wild rules that they make people sign up for. Because cloud gaming, it's becoming a real thing. The xCloud service is awesome, right? It works. Stadia works. Stadia is less awesome because of the game

catalog and the pricing, but the pricing and game catalog for xCloud, I am telling you, if you are not aware, this is going to be a thing that you will miss out on big time at being an iOS customer because you would be able to play high quality top tier games. We're talking Halo. You would be able to play Halo on your iPad if Apple allow this, but they won't. And at the moment, Android will be getting this. Samsung just did a deal with Microsoft to include three months of this service for free

if you buy one of the new Samsung phones. Like, I really am disappointed that this continues to occur. I think that it is just a bad look for Apple now and they need to find ways to work better with companies like we have seen that they can work

if it's in their interest. They'll do the deal that Amazon wants to do if they also get the right, like they get that, but they're putting up a wall of Microsoft. They're putting up a wall of Google. And ultimately, no matter what Apple thinks, their customers lose.

And I think that's wrong. That is my statement on this, Jason. Would you like to say how you feel? Thank you for your statement. Thank you. Thank you, the chairman, for yielding the rest of his time um yeah i think look i i see where apple is coming from here you know microsoft wants to create a new gaming product that uses apple's hardware as a console right like they want they

want to say hey we can now sell all of our console stuff without actually having to sell you a console, right? Like they want, they want to say, Hey, we can now sell all of our console stuff without actually having to sell you a console. And we get the money. And I can see the argument that if you're building your business on Apple's hardware, that they should be able to benefit from it in some ways. Cause I can see that Apple looks at this and says, it makes your iPhone or your iPad a dumb console. Like it's, it's a whole dumb pipe argument again and i get why apple would be like oh no that that doesn't use the unique apple secret sauce you're just piping in content from some other device platform using our amazing software and hardware as a dumb display um and that apple wouldn't like that like culturally so i get all of that but i have to come back to the argument that we we've talked about before about other issues recently, which is does Apple recognize that it accrues

value from having apps and services on its platforms? Or does it really believe that an iPhone that was completely empty and devoid of anything except Apple apps would still have the same appeal? Now, you know, that's an extreme example. And of course they wouldn't agree with that. They love the app store and they love talking about the app store. But I think this is one of the things that's missing when you get in an issue like, like, Hey,

where they said base camp has been able to run a whole business for free on our platform. And the strong implication there is that they were ripping off Apple in some way by doing that and not viewing the other part of it, which is, yeah, millions of business users rely on Basecamp and they can use your product. And if they couldn't, then they would use somebody else's product, right? Like Apple has this real tension between

believing that Apple's the reason everybody's there and wanting to promote the app store and all these great apps that make you want to be there. Because I think in its heart of hearts, Apple really wants to believe that no individual app is important. That in the end, the greatness of Apple will win out over any individual app or service. That like push comes to shove and this app that you want to use isn't on Apple's platforms.

What are you going to do? Get the app's competitor that is or switch to another platform. And Apple in its heart of hearts believes you'll stay because Apple's so great. And sometimes you will, but you also might devalue your platform if a major thing isn't there, right? Like that, that is the back and forth here. Obviously Apple can do what it wants, But it does feel like so many of these clashes are rooted in this philosophy where they simultaneously believe that iOS is a place where third parties can bring apps to enhance the platform. And they have this fear that they're being taken advantage of, or that somebody is making a big profit building a business that

doesn't have any direct benefit to them. And there's a tension between these two things. I think it's the core of all of these kinds of stories. And where you see it at its worst is that Apple builds a whole bunch of tools to protect customers, to make sure that the app store and that the platform is safe and secure in a bunch of different ways. Although again, sidebar, there are also lots of scammy, crummy things on the app store that they don't protect consumers from, but they do have some of these rules that are, you know, they built the system. The theory is they built the system to protect users and make a better experience. And then they use those tools to collect rent or keep competitors off their platform.

I think in the end, you know, it is a philosophical argument. And you and I are on the same side, which is to say Apple's platforms are better when interesting things like streaming gaming services are on it than they are when they're not on it. And Apple Arcade is its own thing and is not related to this. Like this is an improvement for the platform. Find a way to work it out and let it be there. Because philosophically, we think Apple should err on the side of letting its platform be open. Because in the end, Apple sells more iPhones. Apple sells more iPads. because Microsoft has created this. Even if they don't benefit at all financially from it,

I would also argue, come on, of course they could make a deal and benefit financially from it. Of course they could. Of course they could. And I think it's entirely possible that this is just a lag issue. And at some point, somebody at Apple, an executive somewhere, is going to say, oh, there's money to be made here. We should just make a deal and we should make this happen. And they're going to take the rules that exist. And they're going to, instead of saying, well, we have to enforce our rules, they'll actually change the rules. But I can see the other side of it, is that Apple says no, we don't want

this is not our vision for our platform to have Microsoft roll in with something that they're taking all the money from and using our platform as a dumb terminal, a dumb display box and it doesn't accrue a lot of value to our platform and if somebody's really into it

on the iPad, it doesn't provide any reason why they should stay on the ipad and not just buy an android box next time an android device of some kind so it doesn't really help us and so if you're not really helping us why should we help you like i get it can i make a point on that sure i get i don't agree with that but i can see somebody at apple saying that and that that is like i get that as a philosophy, even if I don't agree with it. I think it's mistaken, but I don't think it's provably wrong as much as it is. That's not how I view their platforms. Because I believe that there are people that will say this, but I think it's a fundamental issue in that thinking, which is if you believe that's the case,

in that thinking, which is if you believe that's the case, you allow for it to be proven. Because if you do not allow for these types of services to be on your platform because it makes you just like an Android device, all it's doing is pushing people towards that if that's what they want from their tablet, right? It pushes people to get a surface go next time because they get whatever they get from there and they also get to play game pass games from x cloud right like if and and i think that it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what apple's platforms are. Like, fundamental misunderstanding. Because the iPhone and the iPad, for many people, are their main computers.

And they just do whatever computers do. Right? Like, Apple love their web browser, right? The web browser is a dumb terminal to whatever's on the web. They have no control over that, and they shouldn't. And I believe that they should allow

for applications like this one. Yeah, sure, it might not be your vision for what iOS can do, but games are important to a lot of people and if this is one of the future points of gaming and it is because they're all doing it right sony's gonna have it microsoft has it google has it and there are many more companies doing a similar thing you will be leaving your uses out in the cold and to assume that for some reason your tablet is so special that it shouldn't have like you know what you should say apple you should say our screens are the best screens to play these games on exactly you work with microsoft to make this hdr or whatever like our device is the best device on there to play

games to play our games to play their games to play netflix to play our shows right you you compete you compete on the fact that you think that your hardware and your larger experience is better right which comes back to what i was saying about is this all about the greatness of your platform or is it about the apps or is it both and the answer is about the services it all goes together but you're right and and this is the thing is this clash is like i said it's rooted in the in the in these two views that apple holds as culturally relevant inside of apple simultaneously and one of them is we love our developers we love the app store the app store enhances ios it makes it what it is and the other one is give us our money you owe us you know any business that's built on apple's greatness. I want money. What I find fascinating about this story in particular is Apple seems to be hiding behind

App Store policies saying, well, philosophically, this kind of app shouldn't be on our platform. And as you described, I think very well at the beginning of this segment, come on, it's not about that. In the end, I think it really is about the money if it's not about the money i'm baffled because they should allow these kinds of apps on there and they should find a way to make it worth their while like microsoft i am sure microsoft i well i should say i'm not sure maybe microsoft is being a jerk here and saying no no no apple we're not giving you any of our money but surely there is an agreement to be reached

where Apple allows them to sign up on iOS and they take a piece of that, like the other deals that they've got. They get the Amazon deal. Surely there's a way for Apple to wet its beak a little bit on this, right? But also let Microsoft run its business in a way that makes sense for Microsoft

because it does accrue value to the platform to have these kinds of things on there. And if they're not there, it makes it a little bit less for somebody who's looking for a cheap iPad for their kid. And their kid's like, no, you can't get an iPad. Because I can't do x cloud on the iPad like that, that you don't want that you don't want that. You're not going to kill your business to get this service but i don't think this service is going to kill your business so yeah in the end this i i think it's going to take some executive at apple to break through when you have a culture an internal culture disparity like this you have to have somebody in a position of power to say who wins and right now if right now there may be somebody in a position of power to say who wins. And right now, there may be somebody in a position of power saying who wins, or it may be that it has not elevated to the point where somebody who's got both of those things in mind and can arbitrate between them.

It may be that it's the people who hold the lever are the people who think one thing, and know, who think the other thing don't hold that lever. But if it might escalate to Tim Cook or whoever, who says, no, no, no, no, we got to do this differently. And that's what we don't know right now is I'm unclear how far this has escalated and whether Apple has really thought this through. We don't know if there are some details in the negotiations that we don't understand. It would be really sad if this has gone all the way to the top and they've just decided that game streaming services are never going to be a thing on Apple's platforms, period. Because although I understand why they might make a decision like that, I'm disappointed because I think that they should be more open and less defensive and that they're still going to get value out of it. Plus, yeah, they seem like cool and new.

And as somebody who uses Apple's devices, I would like to try cool and new things and not be barred from them because Apple doesn't think I should have them. I feel like I'm doing this a lot recently, but I will again recommend that people listen to or sign up for Dithering, which is John Gruber and Ben Thompson's podcast.

And I'll actually put a link in the show notes they made like a preview thing uh on itunes like a preview feed i'll put that in the show notes as well if you want to get an idea for it um i'll just mention it here because they've been having really interesting discussions like i fundamentally disagree of absolutely every point that john gruber is making on this on on dithering uh but it is really interesting to hear it i mean i understand what he's saying i get his points that he's making i won't go through them all here but i disagree with them but i mention it here because it's really uh fun i think to listen to john and ben arguing the way that they argue on the show. I just think that it's like real and a really interesting thing to listen to. So I just wanted to mention it here.

And they're talking about high level, high level sort of strategic issues and business issues. And what's a great thing about them as a pairing is that if I had to categorize them, I'd say Gruber is an apple focused guy but he's also a product guy in a way and ben is a not he's got a lot of apple focus but it's not just apple and he is a business strategy guy and that's a really good combination yeah they they fit so well together it's why i love this show so much

and i want to recommend it again here even though uh i really disagree with everything john was saying yeah i know i listen to i listen to dithering while i'm running and it's amazing for 15 minutes while i'm running i am hearing those guys uh sometimes agree and sometimes argue and sometimes joke and uh yeah yeah among your uh your paid podcast it's it's i listen to every episode the day it comes out i really love it it's good all right this episode is also brought to you by text expander from our friends smile text expander removes the repetition out of work so you can focus on what matters most you can say goodbye to repetitive text entry, spelling and message errors,

and trying to remember the right thing to say. Because when you use TextExpander, you can say the right thing every time in just a few keystrokes. It's better than copy and paste, it's better than scripts, better than templates, because TextExpander snippets allow you to maximize your time by getting rid of repetitive things that you type while customizing, while still allowing you to customize and personalize your messages. I love that for TextExpander. You know, you can have blocks and blocks of text that you say all customizing, we're still allowing you to customize and personalize your messages. I love that for text expander, you know, you can have blocks and blocks of text that you say all the time. But you need to pick the right words to show to the right person or type a few things in, or maybe you need something to be appended with the correct date, like which is today, you can do all of that stuff really easily in text expander. And one of the things I also love about it is we use text expander for teams here at RelayFM. So we can share things, we remain consistent when we're talking to people. And it

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Our thanks to TechExpander from Smile for their support of this show and RelayFM. Hashtag ask upgrade time. Jimmy asks, is there a preferred order of article, podcast, and video for 20 max for 2020? This is a fun and flattering question.

And what I would say is I could see how you might think so or that you, I also had some people ask like, are ones disposable or do they overlap and one of the maybe dumber things that i did in this project is all three of them are totally different and the amount of content recycled between them is extremely low like it's all about the same subject every week but um you know i wrote the essays and did the research

for that and some of the essay content is reflected in the script for the podcast, but most of the podcast is other people talking about it, not me. And the video is me with Stephen Hackett having a conversation about the choice. And sometimes he will dispute my reasoning, which is fun, actually. So he's sort of like interrogating me about my choice. And we talk about each old Mac that we're talking about. So they're all very different. And I don't think that there's any particular order. So consume the ones you like. They're all different. They all have different things to say about the same subject. And if you want to do them in order of time, I would say it is article and then podcast and then video because that's the order in which they were sort of recorded or created.

But there's no actual sequence. There's no machete order. There's just whatever makes you feel good. But they're all different. It's not one of those things where the podcast is the audio of the video and the video is me reading the essay. They're not like that at all that's good to know though that they're all different like that's because that means you can consume all of them if you want to yeah and i tried to make them all like the podcast is i got a bunch of people to talk

about these things in a way that is good on a podcast in the video i wanted to show the things and i thought well i can't just show them that's kind of boring and i was like well steven actually the thought process was Stephen has most of these. So why don't Stephen and I, since he cares about old Macs too, we'll have a little conversation and also we'll have like his video and photos of the ones that he's got and we'll

post it on 512pixels. And so that is itself a totally different thing. So they're all different. On a similar line, we'll say no spoilers but zach wants to know jason what's your favorite performer you mean like uh you're english so i have to be clear here performa how would you how can i do it performa performa is how i say it right say it again do you mean performa or performer can you say say the computer name and I'll try and replicate you?

Performa. Performa. Is that better? Okay. No, but it's fine. I get what you mean. I said it exactly like that. Macintosh Performa.

Zach, none of them. I don't like them. I don't like the Performa. I don't like anything about them. I don't like anything about them. I don't like that you could buy them at Sears. I know that, sorry to everyone who had a Performa growing up. There was a lot of them, wow. I don't like, yeah, well, there weren't a lot of them.

There were a lot of different numbers of the same one because they bundled different software or sold them at a different store. That was from the dark, dark days of Apple. Who was running Apple during the performer time? I think that was Scully who actually started that. And then it went over into the Spindler era. But yeah, my answer is none.

None. Jack asks, I've heard you both mention a few times that you listen to podcasts in the shower. I've tried, but I find it hard to understand what people are saying over the sound of running water. We'll talk louder, Jack,

Jack, what's your setup? Game pass for Xbox, Jack. What is your setup? Do you have a speaker inside the shower? Yeah, I actually got mine recommended to me by Marco Arment.

So it's a Marco approved technique. It's a speaker from SoundBot. That's the company. You can just search for it in Amazon. They make a Bluetooth or several different kinds of Bluetooth speakers with suction cups on them. And you stick them in the shower. I only bring mine into the shower for the shower and then I take it back out. I don't leave it hanging there because I'm

deathly afraid it will lose suction and smash on the floor of the shower. But not that it has, but that it could do that. So I actually take it in and out, but I suction it to the glass of my shower. You may have tile, something else, that's fine. And the clever thing about it is the speaker is on the underside. So the speaker blasts downward onto your hard shower surface, and then that flies back in your face. And I put it at kind of ear level, and it's very clear. It's bad for music. I wouldn't recommend it for music. If you listen to music in the shower as well, I would recommend getting one of those nicer kind of Bluetooth, waterproof Bluetooth speakers. Like my daughter has one of those and you can like take them to into a

swimming pool or whatever. Like it really doesn't matter. But for me, for listening to podcasts, the sound bot with the suction cup works great. Do you know that the, which one they have a few now? Well,

the one that I have is not apparently made anymore. Okay. But if you search, because I looked when Jack asked this question, I looked for my model, and my model is not for sale on Amazon right now. But there are others, and I'm sure that they're all the same in being not very good quality but good enough for podcasts and they live with you in the shower which is nice so you know mine is the sb517 but uh it's not currently for sale at amazon so i would recommend one of the others but it has served me well so i used to use one of the soundbot speakers but ended up not liking it because i had to keep recharging it and i'd get in the shower and turn it on and it wasn't charged it beeps every 30

seconds it makes me so angry when it does that there you go i had enough of that uh so you know what i do i bring my phone into the shower uh and i have a little shelf in the shower which i can put it on it doesn't get like water isn't pouring on it i mean it gets wet but and it like and it bounces the audio off the shelf right well no whole shelf into a little speaker no because the shelf is wire oh okay well that's not as good i find that it is loud enough you know i use overcast i have voice boost i have my phone cranked up to the maximum and it is more than loud enough. You know, I use Overcast. I have voice boost. I have my phone cranked up to the maximum. And it is more than loud enough for me to hear clearly. So I've done that in a hotel shower before, for sure. I've also done that when the sound bot starts beeping at me that it doesn't have any battery anymore.

And, you know, then I'm kind of like reaching outside for the towel and then drying off my hands enough to take the leather case off of my phone. And then I'll bring the phone in and I'll put it on the little tile and then it echoes that back out. So that would be another way to go because these phones are water resistant. I wouldn't put it right under the shower or anything, but getting a little damp is not a big deal. But I just have taken to every week or so, I just recharge the sound bot and avoid that annoying beeping thing because that's no good. I wish it would beep once every like five minutes or something, but it's every 30 seconds and it makes the podcast unlistenable.

That's a bad day when the beeping is happening in the shower. It's not good. Matt asks, do you think that any non-pro iPads will have USB-C ports instead of lightning in the future? What do you think about this? I think eventually.

I think eventually. I think, okay, so if Apple do what is rumored and expected, which is to at some point have no charging port on the iPhone, which I think is a possibility for at some point in the future, I think at that point all iPads go USB-C, so they don't end up with some iPads being lightning and some being USB-C, because I don't imagine in the near to medium future, the iPad going like Qi charging.

It's too big, right? So even the small iPads, they're too big right um so even even the small ipads you know they're too big for that it would be weird it would be difficult to make that work properly so i would imagine it happening then but honestly like i could see them doing it at any point now like honestly like i could just imagine being like oh yeah ipads charged by usbc that's that this is this is like will any other ipads get the apple pencil and the answer was eventually yeah all of them right or almost all of them i feel like this is going to be the same thing which is just eventually as the ipad evolves now it's going to be slow right i'm like i'm not i'm not convinced that the ipad the ipad could get

a redesign to look more like the ipad pro or it could not. And they could just keep on doing that Tim Cook thing where they keep it exactly the same shape, but just very slowly integrate new features very slowly. But I think eventually it's inevitable because eventually Apple will want all the iPads to have the same connector. Just could be a long time. Yeah. And L asks if the next iphone does have flat sides like the ipad do you think apple would bring back the bumper case i wish i uh why not i hadn't really thought about it but why not that was a that was a great little case and steve jobs said yeah you can have one begrudgingly gave them away for free yeah yeah i i loved that case that was a good case it was basically just a case that went around the outside of the iphone 4 and had no back on it really nice nice. It was still like

it kept the phone feeling thin. You still got to appreciate the glass back. Yeah, I would like that a lot, personally. But we'll see. People make them, you know, people make them for every iPhone, you know. But I would like to see one

made by Apple again if they went with that flat sides. You know, I I would, I would like to see one made by Apple again, if they went with that flat sides, you know, I was thinking like I am a case person, but if that design of the new iPhone is as that people think it's going to be, or, you know, I would, I feel like I would really hate to have a case on it. Cause it, you know, if it's anything like the iPad design, I really love how that feels. It would be a shame, I think, to put a case on that phone. The beauty of having a bumper case is your... Apple has struggled with the iPhone 11. Right?

Because Jamie's got one of these. She's got a purple iPhone. It looks great, but she's got the clear case on it. The clear case is fine, but I think you're trading the niceness of seeing the color of the phone for the ugliness of having a big case on it. And I think the case is ugly, but the purple color is nice. color is nice a bumper design you know of a case shows you the beauty of the color while still making it grippable which is one of the reasons you do it like it's not super protective but it it's protective in the sense that you can hold it in your hand without feeling like it's going to slip out it protects the the parts that are the most uh damage prone which are the corners like the corners hitting and also

it keeps the screen in the back away from the ground so if it does hit it doesn't like hit the ground right if it's landing on a flat surface even if it went straight down because there's like a little lip that it creates so would be cool I would like it

I would like it I mean but there is that thing about like well if the flat sides are a thing and you are still covering, it might feel really nice. We'll see. At the end of the day, like, maybe I'll just throw a pop socket on the back and just leave it at that, right? Like, less of a risk of breaking my phone when

I don't go out as much. So we'll see. Alright, that is it for this week's episode. If you would like to send in a question for a future episode of the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade or in the RelayFM members Discord, question mark, AskUpgrade. You can get in the RelayFM members Discord

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That's at getupgradeplus.com. Thanks so much to Smile, KiwiCo, and Hover for their support of this show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, oh, you can find us in a bunch of places. Sixcolors.com at jsnall. You can go to relay.fm slash shows.

If you want more information about this episode, relay.fm slash upgrade slash 310. I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

Goodbye, Mike Hurley. Thank you.