Upgrade - 367: My Experience With the Floating Lozenges

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

This week we kick off our annual fundraising for St. Jude, ask listeners to call in with their questions, and discuss how Apple approaches putting features in--and taking them out--of its public betas.

From RelayFM, this is Upgrade, episode 367, and today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Moony Pizza Ovens, and FitBud. My name is Mike Early, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Early. I have a Hashtag Snell talk question for you. Ooh. It comes from Matt.

Matt wants to know, Jason, what is your favorite font? Isn't this follow-up from last week? Kind of, yes. This was asked during last week's episode. Because I was joking about, I think I was joking about, you know, dumb questions like, what's your favorite font? And here it is. Fine, Matt.

Here's my answer. I write in monospace font. I always have. I like it. I don't want to write in your, you know, fancy fonts. Dual space. I don't. It's the opposite, monospace.

Well, there is dual space font. And I'm about to mention that. That's the opposite of monospaced? Well, there is duospaced font. And I'm about to mention that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about proportional fonts like Times, Geneva. I use Geneva on my Kobo for e-book reading, and it's quite pleasant. But my favorite font is currently, and it changes. This is just something that comes in and out of fashion. I find other fonts that I like.

But right now, I would say my favorite font is JetBrains Mono, which is a monospace font that's very nice. I have it on all my devices. I've sideloaded it onto my iPad so I can write with it there. And I have it as the default font in BBEdit on my Mac. JetBrains Mono. They do have JetBrains Duo. It's basically a monospace font where the widest letters are double wide.

So like the M and the W and stuff. So it's not quite, or are they one and a half? They're not quite mono, but it's a monospace-esque font with this extra width for readability at times. But I don't generally use that. I just use mono because I'm comfortable a monospace-esque font with this extra width for readability at times. But I don't generally use that. I just use mono because I'm comfortable with monospace. Back in the day, it was Monaco.

Monoco. Monoco is the, you know, I'd say the definitive Apple monospace font is Monaco. Why do you like monospace fonts so much? It's just how i've always written and i think there's something about it it goes back to doing coding on the web and writing for a while writing articles with the html in the articles because that was how you did it for a while as you literally just would type your paragraph tags and write your paragraph and then close the paragraph tag and actually write a whole article using HTML.

And it just, it feels like writing to me basically. And honestly, proportional fonts, I mean, look, feel proportional fonts probably feel like writing to some people and that's fine. For me, proportional fonts feel like output and monospace feels like input. And this, this goes back to why I want to see links in Markdown when I do hypertext links and stuff like that. When I'm editing the text, it's the source code of my writing. And I want to see it all. And I don't want it to be prettified for me because I'm not the receiver of it. I'm the creator of it. And then when it's output, it looks pretty. It's actually related to this thing that Microsoft Office does now that drives me bananas, which is they have their cursor.

And at some point, I'm not sure it's true on the Mac, but it is true on iOS and it's true on Windows, that as you type in Word, instead of the cursor hopping to the end of every letter as you type it, it just slowly slides to the right. Why would it do that? And I think it's the same thing where it's like it's showbiz. It's this idea that like, as you write from left to right,

the cursor just sort of slides. Why make it all jumpy? And the answer is it's jumpy because it's jumping for every letter i press and and they're like no no we're gonna just smooth it out i do not want it smoothed out you you have really mistaken me microsoft i am not interested in your fantasy uh cursor that is not even reflecting what you're typing. Anyway, when I'm writing, I'm writing the source code of whatever I'm writing. And monospace is not fancy, but it's clear. And it works for me. And I'm used to it. So that's the other reason for it. So right now,

my favorite monospace font, JetBrains Mono, it's free. You can just go download it. Summer of fonts! Summer of fonts! There you go. See, you said font questions would be boring. I wasn't boring. I got a little ranty there at the end. Yeah, you see? Syracusian.

You got worked up. If you'd like to send in a hashtag Snell Talk question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk, or you can send in via our RelayFM members Discord, but question mark Snell Talk. It is

coming up to September real fast, and around this time of year, kind of mid-August to the end of September, here at RelayFM we raise money for St. Jude's... Summer of Fundraising! Summer of Fundraising. That's perfect, Jason. Thank you. St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

This is the third year that RelayFM has been joining together to raise money for this incredible place. Basically, St. Jude's whole thing is finding cures and saving children. For almost 60 years, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has been on the front lines of research, care, and treatment of childhood cancer. the front lines of research, care, and treatment of childhood cancer. Treatments invented at St. Jude helps help to push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since it opened. With one in five children not surviving, St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. But for that, they need our support. So join RelayFM's efforts to raise the funds and awareness needed to treat and defeat childhood cancer. Donate today at stjude.org slash relay.

This year, any donor making a single gift of $100 or more can redeem an exclusive RelayFM sticker thanks pack. At the end of the campaign, it has a sticker of the Fever Fighter,, you'll see this used in some of our imagery this year, it's a little superhero cartoon character who's designed by a St. Jude patient called Ethan, and he's all about fighting fevers, as well as there's going to be some RelayFM

branded stickers for this campaign, and one sticker of my face and one sticker of Stephen's face. If you follow me and Stephen on Twitter or Instagram, you may have seen us one sticker of steven's face if you follow me and steven on twitter or instagram you may have seen us putting stickers of each other's faces on things for every 500 raised this year i am putting a sticker of steven's face onto the desk that i am sitting at right now it is horrible so if you my i'm i'm hoping i'm i'm where i'm hoping that relay fm listeners will get me to cover this entire desk and just to put that in just to like give a little bit more information

about it this desk that i'm sitting at right now it is aesthetically the part of my studio that i like the most so i am going to ruin it if you donate enough money I think that's a pretty good reason to do that. So go to stjude.org slash relay, and you can donate today. The RelayFM podcast-a-thon for St. Jude will be happening again September 17th from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time at twitch.tv slash RelayFM. We're planning this year, our goal,

we have a couple of goals. So we have the main campaign goal, which is all the threes. $333,333.33 because it's the third year. But once we reach $197,000, over the last three years, the RelayFM community will have donated a million dollars

to St. Jude, which is an outstanding and incredible humbling, overwhelming number, which we're all so thankful for. And so, you know, look, this is a time when I know that we're all starting to look at our next technology purchases in our minds, right? I know I am. It wouldn't be a bad thing to take a little bit of money and send it to a truly incredible institution that does amazing work from literally saving children's lives, including the life of Stephen's child, Josiah, but also

using the research that they amass to help save children all over the world. This is what I love about St. Jude's. It does both things. It's actively helping people and then using what they learn to help others, which I think is a pretty nice metaphor for how we should all be in our lives. I adore the work that we get to do for St. Jude and it would mean the world to all of us if you could donate as much as you can no matter how small no matter how large at stjude.org relay it will all be put to good use and i think we can at least announce that the plan is that i'm going to reprise my role on the podcast-a-thon as the official game show host of relay fm we are so thankful for the work jason puts a lot of work in every year and he's going to

be doing it again for us and we're so thankful. So one of the longer segments of the podcast-a-thon will be a Jason Snell-hosted game show, which I'm very excited about, as always. So go there right now, stjude.org.relay. You can also find out we have different milestone streams that we're going to be doing.

Me and Steven, I think yesterday it was, just did a flight simulator stream which was terrible and great so you'll be doing more of those too so let's cure childhood cancer together one last time stjude.org slash relay we're going to be talking about this from now until

the end of September but please donate we have a summer of fun segment that we want to do next week this is going to take some pre work which is why we're going to talk about this week jason had the idea for the first ever call-in show we're gonna do a call-in show so submit your questions by uploading an audio clip to askupgradeoutloud.com if you go to that website askupgradeoutloud.com. If you go to that website, AskUpgradeOutloud.com. Yes, Jason, I registered a domain this morning. Yes, all right.

It's great. It takes you to a Dropbox file request page so you can upload an audio clip. Now, I have some rules that I'm going to put in place for this. There are some rules, okay? So this can be questions, topic suggestions, whatever you want. So that part's up to you.

What do you want us to talk about? What do you want to hear us talk about? That's up to you. It can be ask upgrade or it can be like, hey, what do you think about this thing? We could talk a little bit more about it. But there are rules about how you submit it. There'll also be a link in the show notes. If the URL doesn't work for you, it's a forwarded domain.

Everybody does this, forwarded domains. You can't do HTTPS colon colon slash slash i can't help you there'll be a link in the show notes if that doesn't work for you people already pointing out in the discord so i just had to say it so if you have a dedicated microphone like you use a usb microphone for something or you whatever you know use that use the best microphone you have available to you. Otherwise, please record directly into your iPhone like it's a phone call. That's what I would like. I know people have AirPods or whatever. If you have to do that, but it would be much better

if you hold it to your face, the phone. It's a better microphone. You must record in a quiet environment. If you're recording in a loud environment, we cannot use your clip because we You must record in a quiet environment. If you record in a loud environment, we cannot use your clip because we don't record in loud environments. It's part of the show. You must state your first name

and where you're calling from and then your question. Does that sound fair, Jason? Yep, I think this is reasonable. I mean, the truth is this is not a contest. If a clip sounds bad, we're not going to use it. So this is more advice to you if you'd like us to use your clip.

Yeah, you can use voice memos. That's fine. But yeah, hold your iPhone up to your face is a great way to do it. Do it somewhere quiet, ideally. Say your name. Say where you're calling from. Upload that to the link, askupgradeout out loud.com or the link in the show notes. And we may use your question live on the air in the first ever upgrade

summer of fun call-in show. So ask upgrade essentially by voice. So you have to record the audio first, like that website is just to upload it. Right. So like you don't go there to record it. So you have to record the audio first. Like that website is just to upload it, right? So like you don't go there to record it. So as Jason said, use voice memos or like QuickTime on a Mac or something like that. You can upload it in any audio format you want.

We'll manage that stuff on our side. Don't worry about that. So yeah, we're going to try this out. We're going to see how it goes. Some are fun. AskUpgradeOutloud.com This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by our friends over at Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company

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Jason Snow, you are a pizza aficionado. Tell our audience how much you love your Ooni pizza oven. It's really good. I just made some last week, and I am mastering Ooni's recipe now using their dough recipe instead of the dough recipe I've used for like 20 years, which makes this really thin dough, which is really great for kind of that classic wood-fired pizza. And I think I've got it right now where you get the like blackened edges, like it's in a wood-fired pizza oven. Like it's just the temperature.

When I put the pizza in last week, it was 730 degrees on the pizza stone, right? You can't do this in your oven at home so for that real uh you know made at a pizza shop on a real hot pizza oven this is the trick and i'm just using literally the same propane tank in mind that i can use for my gas barbecue grill it's just you know it's super easy couldn't be easier to to make it work and uh the pizza tasted great that's my report so you can go and check this out for yourself and you can become as cool as jason and have an amazing pizza yeah cooler even maybe maybe even if you could think of such a thing listeners of this show can get 10 off their purchase of an uni pizza oven which is

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to your own backyard. Just go to Ooni.com, that's O-O-N-I.com, and use the code UPGRADE0821 for 10% off. Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show. Apple is once again delaying their return to work plans for employees, especially at Apple Park. They had previously delayed this to October and now it's being pushed back further to January 2022 at the earliest. An internal memo states that they're going to be sticking

to a one-month notice for returning. So they're going to say, hey, one month from now, like whenever it is that they're going to have people come back to the office. And as it stands right now, the three-day minimum for being in the office applies, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. And Apple, just as an added note, have not as of yet maintained, sorry, mandated vaccines for their employees who will be returning to the office. I know

some companies have done this. Apple has not said anything about that, it seems. Yeah, I would be surprised if they don't do this, especially now that vaccines are being formally approved here in the US. It seems like that's going to be increasing the number of mandates that go out for vaccination. I can't believe that, by the way. I mean, I don't understand enough about how the FDA works,

but like the form, I don't. It's like here, the approvalda works but like the form i don't it's like here the pros the the approval process just got like expedited so it would just be approved it just seems like such an interesting thing to have not done it that way but i don't understand enough about how the american system works neither do i want to know fancy american medical uh process but anyway so uh it's going to be a while so we're going to be talking about more Apple products and more of their product cycle that's done with largely people not being physically present. I would imagine that this is going to defer some of the real back and forth between employees and managers about this three-day minimum being in the office sort of thing,

but also it's pushing all of this off a little bit too. So people are still going to be working from home in the meantime. Makes sense. I wonder if that makes it better or worse, like the problems there. Bit of both, I would say, probably. Probably a little bit of both. Because it just kicks it down the road, right? Yeah.

Yeah, they're just kicking the can down the road at this point. For good reason, right? Delta variant has meant there's a lot more virus out there even in the bay area and so they're you know they're gonna they're gonna push this off a bit and hope that things calm down by the time that they uh return next year markman has reported in his newsletter, Power On, that an M1X Mac Mini is expected to debut in the near future. I think this is something that had been rumored a little bit. This is really the thing that we all wondered about when they kept the Intel Mac Mini on sale and they released a new Mac Mini that was an M1 in silver, right?

It was like almost the very implication of it is there are two mac minis there is the low-end mac mini and the high-end mac mini and the high-end mac mini is that intel one now whether they keep that distinction in the long run remains to be seen but this is clearly their first you know their first pass was they wanted to get a mac mini out there on the m1 but they knew that it wasn't going to fulfill all the uses that the Mac Mini has and that they needed something more powerful. So I guess we're going to get that M1X, which, you know, more ports, more processor cores, and more appropriate for high-end use.

Updated design. There's been some rumors that it's going to get like, I saw like a plexiglass top or something. I don't know what that would be for. Look, unless I can see into it, which is what I would want, I don't care. I want to see the guts of that thing working. A question for you around updated design.

Do you think they would change the physical size very much? I don't know. I mean, the Mac Mini is mini. What would they do if they changed it? I mean, it could get real mini though, right? It could get much smaller. It could. I would love it.

I would love it if the Mini was like truly mini. I've been beating that drum for a long time now, right? That Intel has been making these little NUCs and then you see what Raspberry Pis are. And, you know, a Mac is not either of those, but you can look at the size of the innards of a MacBook Air and realize that the Mac Mini could be super small. Or you look at the Mac Mini, the M1 Mac Mini, and you look inside there and there's very little in there. So they could definitely make something that's much smaller. Maybe they will. I don't know. I mean, the challenge here is that they also want to leave enough room for them to put in a high-end model, put something

that's going to throw off some heat and need some ventilation. So I don't know. I'm curious about it. I've been expecting that they'd change the look of the Mac mini any day now for years, and it hasn't happened. It's been a long time since we got to the current version of it. So I hope so, because I think that the assumptions of that last version are no longer true. So this could end up being, I guess, the first professional grade desktop Mac, right? professional grade desktop Mac, right? Yeah. I mean, assuming that that larger higher end iMac is not coming, then this is going to be just as we had the two laptops and the Mac mini with the M1 launch. I feel like that's what we're going to get here is we're going to get two MacBook Pros

and an M1X Mac mini as the fall launch. And then other M1X products will come later and that's presumably the iMac. Because it really feels like the iMac Pro is not going to be around for a while at least because there had been the rumor or the suggestion that Apple took people away from that project to work on just getting the iMac over the line and there's also no there are like there are more there's more

smoke around all the other products right even the Mac Pro yeah there's not a lot of buzz about that iMac right now which leads me to believe that it's not you know it's not a lot of buzz about that iMac right now, which leads me to believe that it's not imminent. It's going to happen next year. As somebody who is very seriously considering that computer, whatever it is, that frustrates me. The iMac Pro. Yeah, the high-end, yeah, larger iMac. I'm frustrated that it's not coming soon. But then again, it's probably okay because at least in my own personal circumstance,

I still have some software that is not optimized for Apple Silicon. And this is why I am still using my iMac Pro and I'm still happy with it is that there's stuff that I've tried on M1 Macs and it's really slow. So the audio plugins and stuff like that. So I'm still better off on this computer for now, but I'm interested in it.

And of course, we also have the rumor slash wishcasting about Apple doing an external display. And that's the other thing that's interesting is like, if they did an external display and they had these M1X systems that could use it, that's going to be tempting to some people right because you could get the power of the m1x and have it on your desk with an apple display and that would be a pretty great combination but we'll see what happens with that so i guess from what gumman is saying since the next several months i mean maybe this year like maybe that's gonna also come as you say with those laptops i think i think that's the october ish um second event where they do they roll out all the m1x max

i i think that's when anything like this would happen and then and maybe ipads too maybe like ipad mini and stuff like that that's's the second event. So the first event is Apple Watch and iPhone and maybe some other stuff, but basically that. And then the second event is Mac and iPad. So it's starting to shape up like that. What we're going to get is next wave of Apple Silicon with M1X powered later this fall. Should we do some upstream headlines?

Sure, that's a good idea. Apple has renewed Carpool Karaoke for a fifth season. Okay. So remember Carpool Karaoke? It was- Emmy nominated. I was watching Seth Meyers' corrections segment on YouTube, which is very funny, by the way.

And he mentioned their Emmy nominations in like a web series category. And one of them is Carpool Karaoke. And I was like, oh yeah, Carpool Karaoke on Apple Music slash Apple TV Plus. And this is one of those things that, you know, really precedes the modern Apple TV Plus strategy, but here it is. Because it was on Apple Music before now uh this season is going to be an apple tv plus so yep i'm surprised they're still doing this i don't know i mean i think people like it it's it's fairly cheap reality kind of content celebrity content it's it's part of the mix i think it's not unreasonable to be fair the cheapness part of it probably

doesn't actually really help. I'm not trying to be mean, but it doesn't seem like an incredibly complicated production shoot. No, I think this is the... I mean, all entertainment products, I think, have within them this idea of people like reality programming and reality programming isn't that expensive. And so buy some reality shows and put them in your product because people like them. You know, everybody has some version of this and their success with it. Reality or news or something is things that are things that people like and people watch.

Like I, I like, uh, last week tonight with John Oliver, not reality, but news, you know, sort of,

but like that's a cheap show. It is reality in a way. It is reality. You know, but John Oliver, not reality, but news, you know, sort of, but like that's a cheap show. It is reality in a way. It is reality. You know, but it's, it's, you see what I mean though, that like,

like no matter how much they pay John Oliver and his people, like that's a cheap show compared to foundation or C or for all mankind or whatever. It's a, it's a, those are all Apple TV shows, but you see what I'm getting at is, is,

uh, it's a cheap show. Even John, John Stewart show on Apple TV shows. But you see what I'm getting at is it's a cheap show. Even Jon Stewart's show on Apple TV Plus, again, even if it's a very expensive kind of what it is, is actually pretty cheap when you consider. So it makes good financial sense and people watch it. That's the thing about reality TV. That's why there's so much of it is that people watch it out of proportion to what it costs. So that's why people in so much of it, is that people watch it out of proportion to what it costs. So, that's why people in the TV business love it.

The final trailer for Foundation has been released ahead of its debut on September 24th. So, I mean, I expect this is probably just a recut of the trailers we've already seen. I've seen two trailers for this show. For me, that's enough trailers. I'm just going to wait and see it now.

There's some different stuff in here. This is like a full-on trailer, and I feel like they're trying to get at the premise a little bit more. I understand maybe a bit more of what the show is now than I did before, and I've read all the books and all that. But the question is, the books are very much this kind of broad, it's almost like an outline of the idea of the show. And then you're making a modern show.

You have to fill in the blanks. You have to figure out how to tell this great concept but like how do you tell that in a modern television context and um and i have a little bit better focus on like who at least one of the protagonists is okay um and and what's going on but i've also as a show with a a broad scope in terms of time because foundation is about events happening over long stretches of time one of the things that i find funny is they seem to have they have two actors cast who i can tell from watching the trailer how they're going to use those two actors and i'll not spoil it too much other than to say there is a character who appears in recorded messages kind of like a hologram throughout long stretches of time so you can use that actor

even if your story takes place over 100 years or 500 years or a thousand years and then there also seems to be the strong implication that there's a a clone a cloning process involved and i'm like that's. Cause you can use that actor over and over again as different versions of the same clone. And it's like, oh, that's very clever and a way to do it and keep some actors in the show. Because otherwise, if you did a show that really went over time, you'd have to change out. I mean, even for all mankind, which is just going decade by decade, like there's, you can't keep using the same people because their their characters are going to age out at some point so um i'm intrigued by it i think foundation is a great idea for a show i hope that they executed it looks beautiful it looks amazing

and it's a great premise so i i hope they uh i hope they do it there sounds like they're going to do a modified version of their uh of their binge and then watch weekly approach for this one. Two episodes on first day and then... I think that might be a good idea. My concern about this show, not really knowing anything about it yet, so just a big grain of salt, is I'm worried it's going to be too confusing. It's going to be really big and confusing and take a lot of time to set up like i'm you know just like from watching the trailers it's like this looks really nice uh but i don't really know what's going on and so maybe there's like dropping that too is like really they've got some world building to do and it

maybe would help if you get a couple of uh episodes in the can and then move forward from there. Yeah, I think that's wise. And this is one of the things that everybody is trying to figure out is knowing that Ted Lasso, the producers there thought they were going to be repeating their process of a three-episode drop, and it turned out they didn't. Apple wanted to stretch it out. I think it's interesting creatively that maybe some of these producers

are trying to structure their show in a way where they really want everybody to watch the first two. And it's essentially a two hour premiere in terms of like old school broadcast television. They're like, we want a couple hours to set the stage for our show and to make the sale basically for people to continue watching on a weekly basis. The morning show is coming back on September 17th. So just a couple of weeks away. They have a new trailer coming out too. I've decided I'm not going to watch this trailer

because I know I'm going to watch the show. I don't need to see the trailer now. Because I'm doing that kind of full media blackout kind of thing. Right. I mean, I think we saw a teaser. And what I remember of the teaser is basically the whole idea is they had some very dramatic things happen at the end of season one that I think were not part of the original plan

for the show and that season two is basically like well we're gonna deal with it like we're gonna this is not the show we thought we were making but it's the show we're making and I think that's really interesting to actually not try to hit reset and get it back to the way it was, but instead have it be something different. So I am looking forward to that. I didn't like how the first season ended. Actually, I disliked the last episode, but I did like the show enough that I will check out season two for sure.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yep. And Netflix is adding spatial audio support for iPhone and iPad. So they're going to be adding spatial audio support for iPhone and iPad. So they're going to be adding spatial audio to their content. It's really like that's fine. But this is more of I put this in as a thing for me to ask you a question of what do you feel about spatial audio? Not the music stuff, but just for video watching.

I like it because it does give you a real surround sound feel i mean i think it's it's trying to really push the uh location effects right but i think that's good when you're watching a tv show to have it feel like it's coming from all around you. I like it. I have a surround sound setup in my house, right? So I like this theater style soundscape and it's not quite the same if it's on AirPods, but it's, I think, better than just the stereo mix down that you'd get. However, there's one thing that I have an issue with, which is a lot of these implementations are using, maybe all of them, are using Apple's head tracking thing, where the idea is that if you're watching on an iPad, it sounds like all the sound is coming from your iPad. I, it's very clever, but I'd say it makes it feel less immersive to me because now it feels like it's emphasizing the fact that I'm watching this on the screen instead of sort of like having the rest of the world fade away and it just be me and the, and the content. So I'm not sure I like

the idea of having it be so tightly focused on the iPad or whatever device, the iPhone, that is playing the audio. But I do like spatial audio just to make movies sound better and more dynamic when I'm watching. I think I'm with you. I like the surround soundiness of it, that it does a bit of separation

and makes me feel more immersed. But I'm not so sure i need the if i turn my head i like like i don't think i need to feel like audio is coming from speakers on my ipad when it's not yeah in fact it's a little disconcerting right because you have to have that moment of like wait am i am I making a mistake? And the whole airplane is hearing what I'm playing. We just had this exact thing. So Adina hadn't experienced this because she hadn't used her AirPods with her iPad in a while. Because why would she have, right?

People don't do this as much and haven't done this as much. And we were on the plane and I saw her. She put her headphones in. She pressed play and then jumped at her iPad. And I knew what had happened. She thought that she had the audio blaring out and I'm like, oh no, no, no, it's fine. And I'm imagining lots of people have an experience like that now

where they think their audio is coming from their iPad which shows that the technology is, it works and it's impressive but that part of it I'm just not 100% sure is needed. So yeah, but I do, I like the surround sound part of it i'm just not 100 sure is needed um so yeah but i do i like the surround soundiness of it but the kind of like oh it's if i move my head left is you know i don't know about that part yeah and it's not not my favorite part but i'm happy that more people are at least implementing the spatial audio stuff. I'm pleased Netflix is actually doing something. I feel like for a while,

they've just ignored most of what Apple's doing. And I understand why. It's not criticism. Netflix doesn't have to do whatever Apple wants them to do. It's up to them what they want to do. But I'm pleased that they are implementing a feature that's part of the entertainment experience of iOS devices. I have one other

Apple TV Plus note, which is just that we watched Coda over the weekend, which is the movie that won the big prize at Sundance and that Apple bought for many, many, many, many millions of dollars. And Apple has been talking

it up in the last conference call with analysts. Tim Cook statement mentioned Ted Lasso and Coda. Those are the two things. It was like mini award, Emmy award nominee, Ted Lasso and the groundbreaking film Coda. So Apple's obviously very proud of it. Um, I saw it. It's a good movie.

I liked it. It is a, I got a heartwarming story of a, CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults. And so it's a story about a girl whose entire family is deaf, her brother and her parents. And she basically joins the choir and sings. And so there's this real, plus the parents are, uh, are really hardworking working class people. They've got a fishing boat, they're having financial distress and they rely on their daughter because of

the, the, um, not just because they're deaf and she's hearing, but also because they need another person pitching in. And so there's a lot of stuff working here in terms of the, uh, you know,

a young person asserting their independence, but also feeling like their parents depend on them. And, you know, she has the potential to really break out and make a move and go to college and things like that. And, and yet it,

the, the problem with it is that her parents need her and her parents also don't entirely understand her interest and how serious her interest is in music um i liked it i thought it was really really well done um the three family members are all deaf performers marley matlin uh who people know but the other other two actors as well uh i thought it was a nice it was a sweet movie so there that's my review. Thumbs up. Yeah, I've wanted to watch it, but I haven't yet. But I'll make sure that one goes on our list.

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on iOS and Android, and you can get started right now by going to fitbud.me slash upgrade, and you'll also get 25% of your membership. That's fitbud.me slash upgrade to try out FitBud for free and get 25% of your FitBud membership. Our thanks to FitBud for their support of this show and RelayFM. Bard for their support of this show and RelayFM. So the iOS 15 beta, I think it was beta 6, came out last week. And with it came the removal of big changes to a variety of features. And I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on this. So I think we'll start off with SharePlay. So SharePlay is this selection of technologies that really are allowing iOS users to have shared experiences with each other. Screen sharing is

one of them that's simple, but then also like, hey, maybe you're watching a movie and you're able to have a FaceTime call going on at the same time so you're all synced up and you can play and pause and it will all be at the same time. Or it could be games and stuff like that. For me, one of the things that was frustrating about SharePlay is that there always has to be an active FaceTime call with it, which I thought was a strange implementation detail. But SharePlay is now gone from this cycle for iOS 15.

RIP. The expectation is that it will come back later this fall. What do you think has gone on here with SharePlay? It's not good enough. I mean, I think this is pretty simple. This is Apple looking at finally locking features in or out for the shipping version that they're going to put on new iPhones and saying it's not good enough. You know, whether it's somebody at the top saying it's not good enough or whether it's somebody in the team saying we need more time. And Apple, I wrote about this at Macworld last week.

over the last few years, much more disciplined in making their calls about features in their OS betas and allowing features to slide out of the.0 release. And I think it's good. I think it's healthy. I think we can discuss what gives them the confidence to announce these features, potentially thinking they're going to be ready ready and then why they aren't ready. But in the end, Apple, they're not talking about it so much, but Apple really has gone in the last three or four years to a new model, which is they announce features that are going to be in, say, iOS 15, but they're not committing to them all being there on day one. They're just going to be part of the iOS development cycle in version 15. And so, you know, you see something like SharePlay, they're testing it out.

Obviously, they had something that was solid enough that they felt they could put it in betas, but it turned out to be not solid enough for them to ship for whatever reason. This has happened a bunch lately. enough for them to ship for whatever reason. This has happened a bunch lately. And so I think, I think that's probably what's going on here is that it's just not ready to go. It's possible that one of the reasons it's not ready to go is not on the user side, but on the third party developer side. I do wonder if part of this is the developers coming to them and saying, I know you want us to adopt this, but this bug, this bug, this bug, this bug, we can't use this. And so you're going to go out the door and almost nothing is going to support this. And that might be part of it too, right? It's not just about Apple pleasing users. It's Apple having it work for developers and if they have you know developers coming to them and saying this is broken in some ways and that would be another reason to stop it but i think there's nobody who's saying oh god we gotta have share play out there on day one or

everything is ruined um i saw somebody say oh well but this is the marquee feature of ios 15 like all right if you say so like they're in the. In the end, does that make it any better? If the marquee feature, if it is that, which I don't know if it is, if it is and it doesn't work right, well, geez, that's a really bad launch. And they have to launch iOS 15, right? They can't not launch it

because they know that they have built their new iPhone hardware on it. You and I argued last year about how maybe Apple needs to not couple the new phone hardware with the new OS launch and instead be willing to ship in an emergency the iPhones with 14 point something and then do the 15 update a few weeks later or even like when the when those phones ship but that doesn't seem to be what their strategy is so instead they'll just pull features out and i'll point out that like universal control the feature that many of us were most excited about it has never even appeared in a beta so that's probably not shipping with the point of release because they haven't even gotten it to the point where they will show it to the public.

I think that live text is probably the marquee feature. I know why people would say it for SharePlay because Apple spent a lot of time on it. Sure. But I also think we forgot that they definitely spent more time on live text. They were showing that off so much. Honestly, I wonder too how much of it is our filter as people who know apple looking at something like share play and saying i know they're spending a lot of time on this but

is this really going to get used right like well i mean it's what we were saying at the time and i think it's it's this is only made worse now share play felt like a feature that was late you know like it felt like it was coming too late and i I know that COVID isn't over, not far from, but people are living their lives differently in larger groups now than we were a year and a half ago. This is also a bit of an esoteric feature. I was more excited about the URL invitations to FaceTime calls and things like that, and being able to do cross-platform FaceTime calls and things like that, which has also been kind of rough during the beta. But I was more excited about those features than I was about SharePlay. SharePlay is interesting, but I was always a little skeptical that it was ever going to get a lot of adoption. And yeah,

I think there are other things that were going to be new features that people were more likely to use than SharePlay, including live text. That's a great example of that, including the Safari changes, which is a whole other story about this summer. And honestly, for a lot of us, universal control, right? Like, I really would like to use universal control. I think that would be really great. But they're not ready for us yet. And I understand, like, that says something to me that

like they're like no no no no no i can't even give this to you yet like if that's true i don't want it because that means it's not working right and i i only want it if it works do you i'm i really feel like one of the reasons that this might have happened to is no one was using it or at least the people that apple wanted to be using it one or maybe they were saying hey we're not going to have this ready now but maybe if you give us a bit more time or whatever well the developer the developer question like i mentioned earlier like i think that's part of it probably is is there a developer adoption of this or are developers you know it could be we need more time it could also be we need to talk to you because things

don't work right and we've tried to implement your thing and they don't work right i feel like that is a very possible um scenario too um i don't know i i think the whole I think Apple has a problem with collaboration technologies over the internet that is broader than just share play. Our friend of the show, James Thompson, I was talking to him about some experiments that he's been doing because this collaboration stuff really does look interesting and like real-time gameplay across the internet in game center is a thing that basically doesn't work um apple there are sometimes apple's reach exceeds its grasp and it sometimes comes down to trying to do very clever things over the internet, whether it is in collaboration, right? Whether it is Game Center or it's SharePlay or it's honestly those cross platform video chat things that we tried earlier this summer where somebody's on a web browser and somebody's on an iPhone running FaceTime. And like those were really messy. And, you know, doing that is hard. It's really hard.

And it's not a place where Apple has the most expertise. And and so, you know, that informs me about SharePlay that like I think this is a clever idea, but it's it's kind of hitting right at some issues where Apple is not very good at what they do. But obviously the big one is Safari on iPhone. So that's that's the big thing that's the big thing going on here i think yeah that that was one of the big headlines and you know this is not not one of those things where they just sort of hear all the feedback what they haven't done is just take all the feedback and then suddenly the old safari appears right that's not what is happening with safari instead they have been iterating they seem to have it's almost like the iterations in the various betas were just there to show you they were doing

something and then they suddenly have dropped what feels like a complete answer like it wasn't like we saw it evolved to this point it's sort of like they threw a bunch of band-aids on it they were yeah they were basically shipping little components of it to try and show you like, hey, we're still working on this and then dropped what is a more complete version. I mean, this is so very clearly though not what Apple were originally intending.

No. No, but I do wonder if they were just building this or even had this sort of sketched out and sort of went back to it and then built this as the new whatever it is that they're doing. I don't know. I'm glad that they've gotten where they've gotten. I still don't think that the Mac and the iPad are great, but they're better than they were at the beginning of the summer. And I the iphone stuff is good they've taken the iphone and put the toolbar back at the bottom but kept the address bar at least initially at the bottom

so you can do the swipe thing i really like the swipe between tabs gesture um but it is they've also prominently made it that you can send that address bar back up to the top it's not only in settings you can long press on the address bar and bring it up. And in the Safari app, which seems aggressive to me, that you can, in the actual app, change the setting to have it go to the top rather than needing to go out to settings. That's like, all right, we get it, okay? You know people might not like this.

It's all very strange, really. This has all just been a very strange time like they they had this really wild safari design but like you can actually just very easily just make it look like nothing visually has changed in safari uh which is i don't know a lot of time has been spent on this you know a lot of energy has been exp on this. You know, a lot of energy has been expended from people inside and outside of Apple. I think it clearly highlights the importance of Safari to the operating system, right? There are always complaints about whatever it is Apple's doing,

and most of the time, I think they're pretty steadfast with the decisions that they make and they, you know, stand by and sometimes they end up being right. You know, like they make a change and people don't like it, but they stand by it. And then ultimately, we either come to accept it or in many cases like it. But it really felt like this was not going to be one of those things, right? Like this was not going to work out that way because it seemed like everything that they were trying to do was only just making people varying levels of mad. This, so, yeah, we've used a lot of time.

A lot of virtual ink has been spilled on this. used a lot of time a lot of virtual ink has been spilled on this i want to pull back a minute and consider what's going on inside of apple because again we every now and then something like this happens and i like to do the what's going on behind the scenes thing so i know i've touched on this a little bit in the past but just to put it out there again, clearly Safari 15 was polarizing inside Apple. I can tell you they knew people weren't going to like it because I think people inside Apple didn't like it. I haven't talked to anybody inside Apple who said, oh, yes, it's terrible. Everybody knew. Not at all.

But I can read between the lines. But I can read between the lines. I can read between the lines of even people at Apple on the week of WWDC approaching Safari 15 as an open question, which they never do that, right? Apple rolls out a new feature and they are very disciplined at being like, this is great. This is great. This is great. And the rest of us are on the outside going, it's not really great. And they're like, no, no, it is great. And then a classic Apple move is they say it's great. They say it's great. And then they change it and they say, now it's even greater. And you might have to wait three months for that or nine months for that or a year for that. But eventually they do that. This time with Safari, it was very much like, yeah, well, we'll see what you think. It's like, what? Like you are already not committed to this thing. And what that means is internally, they weren't committed to it, which fair. Apple's not a monolith.

You're going to have disagreements. What I would ask is who decided that despite what seems to be very clearly a lot of skepticism inside of Apple about Safari, especially on the iPhone, one of the most important aspects of their most important product, who decided that they were just going to put it out there. And maybe the decision was, let's put it out there and see what the people think. And if it really does get a lot of pushback, we will revert, but we won't know. Maybe people will like it. That doesn't sound very Apple-like at all. That sounds almost like a focus group, right? That doesn't seem Apple-like at all. But my guess is different. My guess is that somebody said, no, we are doing this. I declare it. Whoever that person is,

I don't know. And not everybody else, but then a lot of other people inside Apple are like, you're going to be sorry. Don't do it. Or we are right and you are wrong. They're like, no, no, no, I'm right. And that is what, from a management standpoint, if I was a senior person at Apple, that is what I would investigate, right? Which is, why is it that we had our big executives stand on stage in our video presentation for wwdc and trumpet this thing is the best thing ever when internally we were very very concerned and a lot of people were really confident that it was not the best thing ever and we immediately had to backpedal and we had to do this all in public and doing it in public it's not the best thing ever. And we immediately had to backpedal and we had to do this all in public and doing it in public. It's not the worst thing, right? But I know that Apple hates it. And so that would be my question is what, was there a dysfunction inside Apple that allowed

this thing to get out there with the full force of, well, okay. Their full force of their, of their rollout, not the full force of their well, okay, their full force of their rollout, not the full force of their PR, because like I said, immediately it felt like they were apologizing for it. But why did that happen? And is that the kind of thing that Apple wants to have happen? That controversial things that Apple disagrees about internally will just be thrown out there and then we'll see if people beat them up about it. I would investigate that because this strikes me as being dysfunctional, that somebody decided to go with this fairly radical and I would say fairly obviously not right design direction

and nobody stopped them. Nobody had the power to stop them. And maybe nobody above them understood, and this is part of the problem, quite what was happening. And they were sold on it by somebody as being great. A potential issue here, a potential reason here, is like you look at Apple's culture of secrecy, maybe just not enough people knew about this as well, right? To even bring it possible you know

it's possible and that would be a thing to investigate but like this is not a matter of just an executive got it wrong though because what i'm saying is i think clearly an executive got it wrong i think the and people can have opinions and that executive liked it for a lot of reasons presumably what i'm saying is what you want is a structure inside your company where if there is great debate about something and great concern that something hasn't been thought through, that all of that gets surfaced and everybody who's involved in the decision-making process is clear on what the ramifications of going out with this thing are. And if you're still all behind it and you can get everybody lined up about it, then great, roll it out. And it's not a democracy. I get all of that. But what I'm saying is, first off, I think it was very clear when we saw it. So to your point, maybe people didn't see it. Maybe it was siloed and the whole idea was like, we're not going to tell anybody about this and then we're going to just

drop it on them and they're going to love it. And there was some delusion involved. That is entirely possible. But again, Apple University, whatever is going on here, some analysis about why this happened. Because I'll tell you, by the time they announced it at WWDC, I think Apple itself, if I could make it an entity for a moment, realized it probably wasn't going to work. I feel like enough people inside had realized that this thing was kind of a dog. It was almost like a bad movie being released where they're like, well, we got to sell it, but it's really no good. If I was a senior manager at Apple, I would be very curious about why this was allowed to happen when people inside Apple were trying to wave their arms and say that it was bad or were not allowed to see it until it was too late. And it went out there. And if you like the design, that's fine. Maybe people felt like they couldn't wave their arms yeah well this is the thing right this is what you have to investigate is it was did everybody else lose an argument and not get

the ear of the right executive i don't know i don't i don't know any of that if you like the safari design and are sad that they changed it you know not not everybody has to agree. I think that it was predominantly disliked and that Apple knew it. And the fact that Apple has gone to the great lengths to change it over the summer suggests that more people disliked it and were concerned about it. I mean, I feel like they saved all the good parts. I don't know what people could be upset about like about like what they've ended up with i feel like all of the good parts of this design have been saved like i will have my url bar at the bottom because that is easier for me to reach to it makes more sense to have all the controls in one place pull to refresh is there if you still want to do that which i do want

to do like i i haven't put the better on my phone but i've been paying attention recently and i've realized that like i have times where i would want to pull to refresh a web page more than i have the ability to do that that's great tab groups are still there the new tab view is still there they have a bunch of new gestures the like maps like ui of cards swiping up from the bottom for like history and stuff is still there which is a really nice design in general i think it's like you know i feel like it's retained all of the stuff that's good but they have not taken it too far which was the floating bar no buttons you know trying to be more contextual about realizing what you want when that doesn't work that way um you know like the fact that it was the content could go below it or like underneath the bar and all that kind of stuff, which was just going to, it was going to cause more problems than solutions and niceties it was going to give you.

And I want to be clear, I applaud the process that happened this summer because Apple got a lot of pushback. Apple talks about doing public betas because they want feedback. This is the point of it. Yeah. It's generally about bugs more than it is about, I disagree with your design choices, but bad UI is a bug, right? It's a bug of information organization and how it's interpreted by users. It is a kind of bug. And in the end, I think they've gotten to a much better point. I think the iOS 15 launch in the fall probably, I would also ask the question, is this how you want it to be? Because this is one way to do it, is to release features that are not entirely, I don't want to say not well thought out, I'm saying not entirely debated to their ends and resolved inside Apple and they

keep it in the family. But instead, they let it out there and they gauge the response to it and they use that to fuel their internal arguments about where they go next. And they fix it over the summer and then they release it in the fall and everybody yells about it in the summer. All the nerds yell about it during the summer. And all the regular people who just use the iPhone have no idea that this has gone on at all and they get their iPhone update in the fall and it's fine, right? Do you want that to be how this works? Because that's fine. That's viable. We could do this all day. We could do this every summer from now until the end of the world, we could do it. But I will say that would be very different from Apple, how Apple has behaved generally, because Apple doesn't like to do things in public,

anything, including this kind of stuff in public. And that's why I say it's worth people at Apple asking the question, how did it occur this way? It's entirely possible that what happened was that the people who thought this was a bad idea didn't win the argument and thought to themselves, well, we'll see how the beta goes, right? Like, we're going to see how... And it feels very much like an I told you so kind of thing, which is like, this isn't going to work. My gut feeling, by the way, about this is that one of the interesting UI flourishes that's in iOS 15

is these little floating lozenges. And they're all over the place. And they are trying to replace toolbars with little hovery things because they look kind of interesting and they're lighter and all of that, but they cover content. And I think that the reason they're in Safari

is because they're in other parts of iOS and they thought that they could extend it to Safari and it's just part of their design language across the OS. And I think maybe the problem is higher up, which is the lozenge thing covering content didn't get maybe the level of scrutiny that it needed. It is super easy in design of anything to get lost in your own work. You know, like, I just want to state, like, you know, we're talking about like, oh, maybe there's a,

and like, it seems like an insidious thing, right? Like, oh, someone must force it. Like, I don't necessarily think it has to be that. I've gotten myself in these situations where like, you start a thing and then you add to it and you add to it. And it's like the slow boiling of the frog idea, right? Like, the more we have added and added and added,

we're not seeing the like step one to step 12 that other people will see and that they may have just gotten to a point where everybody was convinced that they'd done the right thing or enough people were convinced that they'd done the right thing or that oh this is going to be fine and that they were surprised when the reaction was this way because they thought that they were going down the right path. Like it's definitely possible to get lost. I have done this so many times.

Like you're convinced this makes sense. This is easy. People are going to love this. And then you put it out there and they're like, you didn't do this thing. You're like, oh my God, I never even saw that. Right. And this is why I bring up the internal processes, right?

Because there's two ways you can be realized that you missed it. And one of them is before you ship it, before you announce it internally. And the other is in public. And I'm sure Apple would always prefer internally to in public is all I'm saying. And in this case that for whatever reason

that didn't happen, I'm concerned that this is there are lots of ways this could have happened the concern i think if you're somebody internally is did this happen because somebody who's got power refused to listen that's the concern if that's not the case and this is more systemic then uh that's fine right? Like things happen, investigate it and all that. But my concern is this feels kind of like, again, I don't know. It feels kind of like somebody in a position of power

refused to listen to all of the criticism that people were leveling and just said, we'll ship it. And higher ups at Apple need to decide whether that was the right decision or not. Not because that person was right or wrong, but because it meant everything played out in public instead of in private. And I'm leaving the door open to the possibility

that Apple executives look at what happened this summer and said, you know what? This is why we do a beta. Let the ideas go out there. Refine them. This is good. Let's do this from now on. And that would be a very big change.

Not necessarily bad for Apple to be like, summer is when we try stuff out and you tell us what's wrong with it and we fix it on an even broader scale. That would be fine. I would love it for Apple to listen to everybody about lots of things. By the way, we had a question in our Discord about floating lozenges, and I'll just say my experience with the floating lozenges this summer has been when I'm writing in my text editor on my iPad, there used to be, even though I've got the keyboard attached, right? I've got the hardware keyboard attached. There's still like a quick correct bar at the bottom of the screen that I can't make go away. And now it's a floating lozenge and what that suggests to me is that every app that that has

to deal with the floating lozenge has to basically move its content away from that just like web pages are supposed to do in safari when it was a floating lozenge there you're supposed to sort of like so it's floating over content but really if you've got important stuff you should make sure it's not floating over that and what i find is it's distracting and it floats over content. But then if you're supposed to move the content out of the way, then there's no point having the floating. I think the idea is you move UI elements out of the way. And what you do is you consider your editable region of your content above it. But you show more content underneath it and it's more like a preview.

And it gives you this kind of cool effect, right? Which is that you've got floating interface elements. The problem is that the floating interface elements will float over things that are important. And like I've had it happen. And again, this is because the apps haven't been updated, but like I've had it happen where I'm trying to read or select text at the bottom of a document and I can't go down below it without hitting return a bunch of times. And I can't get to it when it, when it's at the end of the document, because it's under the lozenge. So I have to go select all right arrow, get to the end, click right, you know, return,

return, return, return. Now it's above the lozenge. Now I can see it. It's dumb. So I think there's a, there's a larger and it looks great, right? But it's, it's not quite all there yet. So anyway, I hope this segment was a little bit less beating on Safari and a little bit more kind of making us wonder

what processes and procedures Apple is using to develop this stuff internally and also how they bring it to the world. In the end, it appears like it worked. Before we do move on, I do want to go back to like what you were saying about this process and showing off at wwdc and having the summer if like this is the idea right that hey we're not 100 because this could be a minute right maybe they're like we're not 100 sure about this we think this might be an interesting way to go but hey look we have the beta process let's put it out there and see what people think, right?

This is a very possible thing. But like, you know, because it's exciting, we jumped to the conclusion that like, there must have been an error in the chain of command. But there is a potential of this story where it's like, they weren't sure. And there were two teams and they both had different ideas so they thought well we'll settle it with this entire process we have built however it doesn't seem like

them but it could be you never know though right because well because what they have done is the result of that occurred right where like i feel like in the past look at ios 7 right everyone was saying this is too much this is too much we've gone too far we've gone too far and it came out and people hated it right and like you know maybe they shouldn't have gone as far as they did nevertheless a long time ago my point being if that was the thing that apple have done or is a thing that apple want to do wwdc needs to be different it can't be what it is now which is like wwdc is kind of like hey we finished this thing but you're going to get it in three months like google do this kind of stuff in quite a different way where

they kind of just drop their beta and it has some features and then they add more and more and more until they release the operating system in september october. And that is much more of a, we've got this stuff and like slowly building it up. And it feels more like they are giving you a beta of their operating system because it is not shown to you as a finished product that is really only finished at a surface level, right? So if Apple want to move this way, I think they might have to change a little bit about what WWDC is. I don't know how they would

do that. I don't really think that it would be good to make a video and be like, hey, we're working on this new Safari. We're not sure yet. Do you want to let us know? That's not a good idea. I think they could change it in tone, but again, they're going to have to change how they refer to things because Apple is so disciplined about saying, the whole, we can't wait to see what you do with it

is literally, we baked it. It's baked. You go now. Matt in the Discord just said, we're so excited to hear what you change in it, which I think is so good. Yeah, because that's literally what they would have to do

is they need to recalibrate's literally what they would have to do is they need to recalibrate their language to say things like, this is a pretty radical change to Safari. And we know that it's going to make people wonder what the heck is going on here. And we look forward to your feedback about that because we want Safari to be the best. We think this is a step in the right direction, but we want your feedback. They could do it like that, right? Which is literally a beta rollout of we build a feature. We want you to beat on it and tell us what's wrong with it. And we'll fix it because we think this is an important direction to go. In fact, they could have even framed it as, you know, one of the big problems that we have on the iPhone is we have big phones and our controls

are at the top. So we move them to the bottom. And we also have a problem with the discoverability of tabs. We've told you how important tabs are on all of our other platforms. And we've got this new feature for tab groups. What about the iPhone? And so we've, we put those two together and this is the interface that we've got. And that's where we're going. We would love your feedback, right? They can do it in that way. Like explain why you're doing it. Say, here is our first crack at it. and we want your feedback. And that would not be too different from what they do now,

but it would be different. And I guess that's my overarching question is, does Apple really want that to be the process or do they really want it to not happen like it happened this summer? And I don't know. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to help you build your online presence

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to finish out today's episode. And these were sent in to us via text as they normally are until next week. Tyler asks, do you think that Center Stage would come to the iPhone? So Center Stage is a feature that's a part of the iPad Pro right now, where it uses an ultra wide camera to follow you around

and also make sure that people are in frame. Do you think this is a technology that will come to the iPhone or maybe other products Apple makes? Yeah, I think probably it will eventually. I think the challenge with the iPhone is that iPhones tend to be handheld and center stage is trying to really solve a problem where you are not pivoting and moving your device around to catch people. That said, I can see scenarios where you're holding your iPhone and talking to somebody and somebody is next to you and it's already got the ultra wide camera on there. So it can say, oh, there's two people in the,

in the shot. I'm going to make it the two people versus the one. Like, I feel like it's less needed on the iPhone, but I think center stage is kind of going to come everywhere eventually because Apple likes the idea that they built this thing that detects where you are and make sure you're framed properly and cropped properly. But you know, it's because you're holding your iPhone in your hand. Most of the time it's less, it's less uh less useful selfie cameras should all be ultra wide anyway because that makes sense because especially if you're taking group selfies google is the only company to get this right like i know apple has the zoom out thing but it's not much of a difference it's a little bit of a difference one of the google pixel phones i don't remember which one it

was now had like a really good um uh ultra wide camera and it would do detection so if people were in the frame it would like pop out for them very cool i would love to see apple put on the iphone an ultra wide to the level and quality that they have on the ipad it's really good and really wide uh i love center stage so uh me and adina have a call with uh james and saskia james the previously mentioned james thompson we talk every friday we've been doing this since the beginning of the pandemic it's very nice and we both have the nice ipad pros now well adina has one and james has one so we have our call every friday with the center stage stuff and not only does it work really well sometimes it still produces really funny moments right like somebody moves a little bit and it's like zoom in like i like it it's good

it's funny i agree like but it's also just like so much better than it was before plus i'll just say like you know the microphones cameras and those is just so much better we i haven't yet been able to have a good experience of the um enhancements to FaceTime. I'm looking forward to seeing what they're like in 15, like the audio improvements, right? Have you had much experience with those on an iPad? The noise isolation

and all that kind of stuff. It's been, FaceTime has been very unreliable in places. But I like Center Stage a lot as well, and we use it and I can't wait until everybody's got it because like Center Stage a lot as well. And we use it. And I can't wait till everybody's got it because it'll be a lot better then. Jonathan asks,

I love the Apple Watch, but it seems to have hit a bit of a plateau in terms of being able to introduce significant upgrades every year. Do you think Apple would ever switch away from its yearly upgrade cycle? Oh, wow. This question hit me in a way I wasn't expecting.

Like when Jonathan said it, I was like, okay, so last year, I know I was a little bit like I didn't really get it, right? Like the new Apple Watch. And I do wonder if this is a product that maybe would more quickly hit its maturity just because of physical space constraints. And it did make me think, like, do we need an Apple Watch every year? Well, I think Apple likes doing it every year, and Apple's got space in its product cycle to do it every year.

I agree with you. I think they could do it every year and a half and it would be fine. So here's a possibility. Maybe, remember that rumor of like other Apple Watches? Maybe they release an Apple Watch every year, but it might not be an update to the previous year's model. I don't know. i don't know i i think they like incrementing the series and that it drives sales over time and that they're on this cycle like they could change it if they wanted to but i think they they find enough it doesn't have to be a huge thing it literally can be it's the new model year if you look at something like cars you you end up with these generations of cars where they do a new model year every year, but the major changes only happen

every few years, right? I think if Apple doesn't feel like it's saving anything by going to 18 months or two years, it gets the advantage of making a new Apple launch announcement every year. That's marketing. That's making people with older ones think maybe they do want to get the new one because it's got a feature in it that might interest them. And it makes the people who are potentially new Apple Watch buyers feel a little more confident that they've got the latest and greatest. So I think it's kind of a marketing decision as much as it is a technology decision. And so ever, like, I mean, maybe it wouldn't be shocking if Apple did Apple Watch every 18 months or something. But if it works for them, like significant upgrades every year, like it doesn't have to be a significant upgrade every year. It could literally be a little bit faster processor and maybe a new sensor or a new feature and some different uh materials because again you know think of the car model year not every year it needs to needs to be huge for to allow them to increment the materials and color actually that could be that could be the thing that they end up

pushing on most and like and again before people close your twitter compose box the the point of this is not the we're not talking about this, they have to do this because everyone upgrades year over year. Most people do not. But if you only have small upgrades and you do them every year, it still might not be as much of an impact, right?

Like you've still got to, if you're going to do it, you have to change something, but it could be as much as, here's the new processor and this new range of colors as the thing that they could just keep doing every year. And then maybe you'll meet people every couple of years with this

big new sensor that they've been working on. I'll also say, no, there isn't an annual upgrade cycle for most people, but there is a waiting period for people who bought an Apple Watch and think, should I get the new Apple Watch? And I think some people probably think, I'll wait two generations, I'll wait two years, or I'll wait three years. If you lengthen the update cycle, you potentially are lengthening their update cycle, right? Oh, well, I already have a five, so I'm going to wait till the seven. the 7, means the same, you know, it means right now two years. But if it means three years or four years, right? Like that's not as good for Apple.

But I think that there is some psychology there. And also there are a lot of people that will update every year, no matter what. So why would you not have a product for them every year? Right? Yeah. Like I know lots of people don't, but lots of people do. It doesn't seem like the Apple Watch... And they're selling as many as they are. They're selling those, right?

They're selling them all the time. So it's not as if, like, what do they save by going to 18 months? What do they save? And the answer is, I guess they save a little bit of time in a design cycle, but I'm not sure that's bit of time in a design cycle, but I'm not sure that's enough of a savings for them to... My point about them selling them all is like, if you make a new one, people will buy it. If you wait, people are still buying. So on that level, you're not maybe affecting sales. But at the same time, if you make a new one, it's not like you're

stopping all the sales of the old watch. You're just taking them, if you make a new one, it's not like you're stopping all the sales of the old watch. You're just taking them and putting them in the new watch. So you're not really interrupting the cycle to drop in a minor update. It doesn't have a real cost there. And it has a benefit in terms of it being new marketing and a new name and some other new stuff going on. So it really comes down to, is revving the Apple Watch every year such a burden on the back end that they will be amazingly happy to go to an 18-month cycle? And thus far, I've seen no evidence of that. Marina asks, I'm returning to teach in a physical classroom soon, but I want to keep the practice of projecting my slides from my iPad and marking them up. Can you

recommend a stand that will keep it stable enough to write on while also raising it high enough off the podium to be comfortable to use while I'm standing? I don't know. What do you think? I think that maybe the best product for this here would be the Hoverbar Duo from 12S south because you can clamp it because i feel like any stand if you've got it at its highest height none of them are completely stable like you put enough force on it the ipad will fall over and or the or it has to be much much heavier and no one makes a product like that because the sand would have to be really friggin heavy right like to completely counterbalance that weight but the hover bar duo from 12 south has two attachments it comes with a weight and it also comes with a clamp so you could clamp it onto the desk

if you're using it with an ample pencil you're not going to stop the wobbling like it's still going to wobble a little bit but it's not going to topple over. And I think the wobbling shouldn't be so bad that it would be an issue for you. You can also put your hand, you know, behind it when you're writing if you need to. But yeah, that's the best that I could come up with. It is going to wobble though. Like that's the challenge is high enough off the podium to be comfortable while standing. You know, ideally, you know, might want to look at getting a, I don't know about the physical classroom layout, but the other thing would be to get a lectern or something

that actually raises up that you can lay the iPad on. And it's like you're providing, giving a speech and you've got your notes, except it's your iPad. But I do like the Hoverbar Duo. It's just the way the iPad, it's going to shimmy a little bit on a stand. That's just how it is. It's a heavy thing.

But if this one does work for you, it is also really usable in a bunch of situations, which is another reason I would recommend it. It's my favorite of these products and I've tried a lot of them. And finally, today Stitch asks, what Apple related thing would you most want a tell-all book or documentary on what do you think i want johnny eyes autobiography that's what i want more

than anything else i think he would have just the most interesting stories and his career now is maybe one of the most interesting to me because of what it has spanned, you know, like, and how involved he has been in basically every product for Apple's entire boom period, you know,

and is also, you know, like a big part of why they are who they are now. I would, I also just feel like I bet he would just be a very interesting person to learn stuff from in a book form like this i don't think he will ever do this because he seemed to be so held back and reserved but to be honest so seemed steve jobs and he had a book you know it was you know i know it was a biography uh and i know it maybe wasn't great but it did have stuff in it uh i really hope

that johnny ive does this one day um because he just has so much that he could share so many stories and i understand look obviously i understand and appreciate the secrecy of apple is one of the things that makes them so interesting to me as a company but there is also a lot of interesting history there and i and i think it would be such a shame if a lot of these stories are never told because of this so i i hope that some some people write some stuff one day hmm my hope and again i'm not, this is about me, right? What Apple related thing do you want? I want the definitive history of Apple from 1997 to 2007.

That's what I want. I want them, I want somebody, a journalist. Nothing much then, huh? To interview. It's going to have to be multi-volumes. The first volume can be 97 to 2001 and cover the run-up to the iPod from the near-death experience. But that's what I want. I want to talk to the people who were there with Steve Jobs, talking about the decisions that probably still can't be done because people are still at Apple. But I want the one with Phil Schiller in it and John Rubenstein and Greg Joswiak and Jonathan Ive. with everybody willing to tell the secrets, because this is what this premise is, tell all about what actually went on

in that 10-year transformational period. And I know some of that is in other things, but what I really want is the people involved. Because I heard, when I was doing my research for 20Macs for 2020, I heard a couple of stories that I had never heard before about the original iMac. And, you know, Apple executives going to the chip maker, going to Motorola and getting a PowerPC, you know, price for that processor.

That was the only way they were able to do the iMac at an affordable price. And how they kind of, you know, they kind of took Motorola. They kind of like confused them into giving them a good deal. And it's a hilarious story that, you know, I don't think I'm at liberty to tell beyond that, but like people could open up about this stuff and there's some great stories there that I would love to see. And yeah, it can cover sort of like how King Kassandra's book about the beginnings of safari. I mean, there's little bits that we've seen, but I think the big picture of taking Apple from a company that was about to die to the company that basically was on its way to being the biggest company in the world by value is a story that I would like to hear by the people who are on the inside.

And we would all love it if you were the person that did it. I'm not a book writer, and I'm not going to interview all those people, but somebody has good relationships with all those people, and they ought to write that book. If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show next week, do it differently. Go to askupgradeout loud.com and upload an audio clip of yourself asking us a question maybe you want us to talk about something maybe you just want our opinion about something yeah you have talk it could be like you pick a topic whatever whatever you want this is your opportunity to be a part of an episode of upgrade you want to hear

yourself on one of your favorite shows well go, go to askupgradeoutloud.com and upload some audio. Connected's not available, but you can be on Upgrade. Congratulations, everyone. I wasn't going to say this is people's favorite show, you know, like,

but I'm obviously expecting that everyone that listens to this show, Upgrade, is one of their favorite shows. Okay, all right. Askupgradeoutloud.com. If you want to hear the rules again, just go back to the chapter

where I told you what the rules are for getting on the show. And that will be next week's episode. We're going to be bringing back the summer of fun because we've had a few pretty heavy weeks here. So I'm looking forward to that.

If you want to find us online, you go to SixColors.com for Jason's work. And he is at Jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. Jason hosts many shows over at The Incomparable, focused on pop culture, movies, TV shows

and more, including you do a weekly, I know you're a part of a weekly Ted Lasso recap show. Yeah, that's not, I mean I'm on it occasionally. I'll be on it this coming weekend but it's sort of different hosts and different people. It's a little bit incomparable.

You are a part of, because I know that Jason, no, you're Jason, James Thompson, who we've mentioned 17 times on this episode, just hosted one episode, which is very fun, so you can go check that out. The show is called Football is Life, because football is life.

Jason also hosts many shows here at RelayFM, as do I. You can go to relay.fm.shows, pick out a new show for yourself. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. And don't forget to donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital at stjude.org.relay. Thank you so much to all of you that do. We'll be back next time.

Thanks to Squarespace, Fitbod, and Ooni for their support. Say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Hurley.