Upgrade - 451: I've Come Around to Reality

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Is the iPad still the future of computing, or is it the Mac (again)? This week we're pondering Apple's dividing lines between the iPad Pro and the Mac, and wonder if each product is limiting the potential of the other. Also, is Apple planning on raising iPad Pro prices to new heights? We also consider Apple's moves to show fiscal responsibility without laying off a lot of people like the rest of the tech industry.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 451 today's show is brought to you by ladder text expander and set up my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snow hi jason hi mike it's good to be here um i have a little more energy today. I don't know why. I think it's because my dog wakes me up at 6 in the morning now. So I'm more awake for upgrade. So the dog is doing a service, important service for this show to get me up early on Monday morning. Before we get to Snow Talk this week,

we're starting a new week. I just want to put energy out into the world that I would really love to find out the dates for WBDC. Okay. At this point, I would really love to find out the dates for WBDC. At this point, I would really like that information. So if anyone's been sitting there and thinking, I'm not sure when to tell people. Is this the week?

If you could make it this week, I would appreciate it, is what I'm saying. I have a lot of empathy going on right now, because of course as one of the only people who i know who's a you know especially in our business who actually lives in the bay area it matters so much less for me than literally everybody else yeah well lucky you and my kids my kids are no longer

in in uh public school here in the bay area uh so I'm not even aware of, but it's almost always literally the last week of school. There's usually a graduation conflict. I mean, it's going to be the 5th through the 9th, right? Right? Well, I mean, that's- I'm almost certain that it'll be the 5th through the 9th. Why? I'd like to announce, hi, this is Jason Snell.

I'm proud to announce that WWDC is going to be held. Sorry, let me try that again. This is Tim. We're very excited that WWDC 2023, we're going to have all the great stuff that you love from last year, plus more great stuff that's a mystery. We'll all be happening June 5th through the 9th at Apple Park in Cupertino.

Select developers will be invited you will you will be in touch about how you can apply and uh we can't wait to see you all whether you're here in reality or whether you're here virtually wink sneaking in there that's tim out this is a big get for us. So I appreciate that. Thanks, Tim. I didn't even try to do his accent, which I'm sorry about, but it's Monday morning. What do you want from me?

It's probably for the best. I mean, I agree with you that the 5th to the 9th makes the most sense, but 12th to the 16th could also be it, right? But I expect, yes, it would probably be 5th to the 9th, but I can't go ahead and make any bookings for plane tickets on a,

this is what I think it's going to be. Right. Let me check. This is an important thing for me to check is let me check the school calendar. Last day of school is the 9th, so that would be the week, right? If they're assuming that they do this all just to vex people whose kids are in school, including everybody who works at Apple, whose kids are in school, the last week of school is that week.

Sure, let's do WWDC that week. That'll be the week. So yeah, okay. Well, you can take my word for it or not. Don't take my word for it. I'm not taking your word for it. I'm taking Tim's word for it. He just came and told us.

Yeah. I just want it. I just want the information. I just want it sooner rather than later. I get it. I get it. Because every day the plane tickets just get more and more expensive.

I know. I have a Snell Talk question for you that comes from Janice. Janice wants to know, since your iPhone lives mostly on your charger, Jason Snell, and you mentioned that you often leave your house with just the Apple Watch, could you do without an iPhone? And for a tangent tangent what would it take i can't because there are certain circumstances when i do need it right like if i'm out and about

the because the the apple watch i mean i guess that is the what would it take like i can't take pictures when i have the apple watch i can't i can't go into Slack and check it out with the Apple Watch and check in with people. It's a very reactive kind of thing. The Apple Watch is super minimal. I will get some push notifications. I can send texts and I can listen to my podcasts. But all the other stuff that I do, the iPhone will let me do that portably in some way or another. The Apple Watch really is limited.

So I don't think it's an interesting thought experiment, but I think the answer is it would take a lot of apps that currently I rely on that run on my iPhone to run independently on my Apple watch. And I just don't think that that's in the cards for most of these apps. So, you know, like Slack, I do a lot of work in Slack and all the Slack will let you like get a

notification. And I don't think it'll let you reply or I've had trouble with that, but like, what I can't do is go in and check the, you know, check the emergency channel and see what's going on or whatever. Like, I can't do that. I can't send, you know, a message to,

like, we're driving to curling and we're stuck in traffic and I can't send a message to the channel for our league saying we're going to be a little bit late. I can't do that in Slack because it just doesn't work. So I think that's the fundamental problem is so I can get, you know, I can lock and unlock my front door and I can listen to podcasts and stuff like that.

And it's like enough for me to be out for an hour. But if I'm actually like out and about, I need more than that. And, you know, certainly when we were on our trip to New Zealand, like when we're in the car driving 1500 miles around or we're walking around or whatever, like the phone being with me is it was a good thing because it's like I can take pictures. I can send texts.

I can send pictures to people from the places that we are, which was a lot of fun. Yeah. So so I think it would take a lot. And I think a lot of like camera is a great example. Like, I don't know how there's a workable Apple Watch camera, right? I don't know how there is that. I already forego when I walk the dog and I just have the Apple Watch. I am foregoing pictures.

I was walking the dog the other day and we got to a pretty spot and I actually had brought my phone for that. Most because I had driven and I was uncomfortable. I'm not uncomfortable leaving the house to walk around my neighborhood, but I am uncomfortable driving without having my phone with me. It's like a bridge too far. And I took a picture of a beautiful view from that dog walk. And I thought, well, this is something I can do with my phone that I can't do without my phone. So I think these are the reasons why it's unlikely, even though I don't use my phone a lot.

It's mostly something we were talking about before we started. I work at home, right? But when I am in a context, when I am out and about, I am still relying on my iPhone just like everybody else is. I'm just not out and about very often. And when I'm at home, yeah, I'm not sitting on the couch scrolling on my iPhone. At that point, I'll use an iPad. If you would like to send in a question for us to open a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send us in a Snow Talk question.

I have some follow-up now. So we've been talking a lot about SMS codes and stuff like that, right? So like the idea of two-factor codes coming in via SMS and that kind of stuff. Patrick wrote in to say, you can eliminate having to deal with a bunch of random phone numbers from SMS codes clogging up your messages app by going to Settings, Messages, Unknown and Spam and turn on the option for Filter Unknown Sers then when you use sms auto filling and stuff like that when a message comes in you select it it will mark the message as read and

will tuck it away under unknown senders so you'll never be bothered by it again i'm not sure why this is disabled by default says patrick so when you turn this setting on i tried out today it actually creates like a new like back button and messages, which currently it says edit, but then it changes to filters. And then you have a set of filters, like kind of like email filters, you know, like inbox sent, that kind of stuff. And you get all messages, known senders, unknown senders, and unread messages. So you get those filters that you can then choose which one you want. Yep. I didn't know this was there

or I'd forgotten that this was there. I turned it on, but the thing I was confused about, I turned it back off again for other reasons I'll get to in a minute. The thing that I don't know because I haven't had it happen to me yet is like, let's imagine that I'm living

in the known messages or known senders area, which probably is the logical one. If I get a text from someone that's an unknown sender how easily is this shown to me like does it still badge the messages app like how do i know yeah that that's i believe it is badged if you have badges i believe if you tap on the notification it goes to that in the unknown senders filter, which means that to get back the next time you use the app to actually see your known senders, I believe you have to swipe back up to that top level that now exists and

then go in. And that is when I turned it off too, because I turned this on a few weeks ago, months ago as a way to possibly deal with a lot of this kind of garbage that we then talked about. And what I realized is it creates a level of overhead and management inside messages that I found unwelcome. Like I don't, I really don't want to manage

message mailboxes, right? I don't want that. I would rather have a, I'd almost rather have a toggle, you know, show hide kind of thing where it's like show all or show only known or something like that but instead they're using again a perfectly valid iphone ios metaphor which is you go back out it's basically like a drawer you go back out to the top and then tap into another one but i just i found myself in a place i didn't want to be way too often so i just turned that feature off, you answered it for me then.

But maybe you out there didn't even know this existed like me and now you might want that. So that was Patrick's follow-up. Yeah, maybe you try it. I feel like if I were talking to somebody on the messages team at Apple, that would be my question for them is,

do you think that the perfectly valid, well-worn drawer metaphor where there's this hierarchy that gets added on top that is all those filters is the most effective way of dealing with the idea that you've got people you know and people you don't know. I'll give them credit. One of the things that they've done that's really great is they've added favorites and I use those. So I've got favorite contexts that are pinned at the top. That's great. And I know that it's chronological, right?

So you can't have a strip of people and then a line and then the unknown below it because theoretically your known conversations go on forever basically down there. I get that this is a hard problem. My reaction to the drawer thing suggests that if I was talking to that theoretical person who worked on the messages team, I would say to them, that suggests that maybe there should be a different approach, right? I don't know what that approach is. And I don't know if there is a good different approach. But what I do know is I turned that on. I thought, oh, this is a good idea. Used it for like a day and I turned it back off. So you remember a long time ago, we spent a bunch of time talking about Ted Lasso merch,

that there was none and then there was some and it wasn't that great. Well, with Ted Lasso season three, Nike is now making a bunch of merchandise, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and team jerseys, like actual football shirts. Yes, they're in the show when they play. I know that in episode one, sweatshirts, and team jerseys, like actual football shirts. Yes. They're in the show when they play.

I know that in episode one, they don't play a match, right? Okay. I've seen the first three. Okay. Look at me. Look at this guy. Jason, can I tell you a tale of woe here? Oh, yeah, sure. I also have access to this.

The screeners? I have had access to the screeners app. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago, I had Ted Lasso episode one, and I thought'm gonna hold it for a bit i didn't watch it then i tried to log in one day and my access had been completely removed to the screen same exact same thing happened to me yeah i contacted them and they reinstated my access but i no longer have access to ted lasso all the other shows but not ted lasso and i emailed them and said can i have access to ted lasso again please and they did not respond to me.

So I don't know what I did, but now I'm no Ted for me. I think they lowered the boom on Ted Lasso access. Cause they, cause it's so high profile. They came back to me and they said, and this was with Apple PR helping me get in touch with the people who do the screeners.

And they still came back to me and said, okay, send me your like reasons why you need this. Yeah. And so I said me and said, okay, send me your reasons why you need this. Oh. Yeah. And so I said, well, I discussed streaming on Upgrade and Downstream. And then I'm also the co-host of a podcast about Ted Lasso and a podcast about For All Mankind. And they're like, okay, fine.

Because they gave me my access back. No problem. They were like, oh, yeah, sorry about that. And they just gave me my access back. And I have all my other shows in there, which I have lots of shows in there, which I'm very thankful for. But no Ted. So no Ted for me. That's rough.

Well, anyway, having seen the first three episodes, thumbs up. I think it's going great. So people should look forward to that. And they do play matches. And they are in the Nike kit as part of the – they don't mention that they got a Nike kit, but the Nike kit's in the show. So obviously they made a deal. Warner Brothers, the producers of the show, a deal with nike to to outfit this well do you remember months and months and months ago that they that nike teased it yeah yeah oh yeah yeah i think we spoke about this

has been rolling out for a while but now but now it's available you can get the the uh richmond uh jersey actual soccer jersey and then they've also got some other merch that's got the Nike swoosh and got the Richmond Shield. It's going to be high quality too. It's in the show, and they're in FIFA too, which I love. They're in FIFA. You can play as AFC Richmond. There's a great story about how Brett Goldstein

played FIFA against his nephew or something, and as Roy Kent and in the game, Roy Kent goes, at one point, when he scores or something, and then he kent and in the game roy kent goes at one point at when he scores or something and then he turns to his nephew and goes the same thing he's just it's a highlight of his life that he did that so uh yeah so ted lasso with season three which might be the last who knows it's a great mystery nobody's saying they're all just saying these they've all been coached right which is like this the story. It's the end of the story that we originally planned on telling.

And I mean, I suspect that some of it is just, they're being coy because the results of season three will indicate what happens next and they're not going to talk about it. But anyway, yeah, they've gotten their merch story together now after a couple of years of trying to figure it out and so uh so yeah and if people want to hear me talk about episode one uh football's life is the podcast over on the incomparable uh it's a rotating cast so i'm not going to do episode two but i did episode one um which i i mostly like there are a couple parts of it that i criticized i feel like ted lasso takes a little time to get into the vibe yeah so i haven't seen the first episode i'm waiting to get a couple in and then i'll start yeah so anyway but it's good to have it back and if you're by the way if people haven't we we talk about this stuff when it gets like announced that they're going to make it and

then it's like years pass um i will say if you're looking if you like ted lasso and you're looking for something that's kind of in that vibe um shrinking with jake and siegel is fantastic and one of the reasons it's got that vibe is bill lawrence and brett goldstein from ted lasso are the co-creators of that show so it's all it it's a not about soccer but it is one of those kind of a bunch of people hanging out and talking about their lives and dealing with issues. And I love that show. I guess it's got one more to drop before this first season is over. They're already officially renewed for a second season and Harrison Ford's

in it, folks, Harrison Ford and Harrison Ford is hilarious in the show. Jessica Williams is in it and has scenes with Harrison Ford. And it's like, she was on the flop house and now she's acting with Harrison Ford. How does this happen? It's amazing.

Yeah, so good. Shrinking gives me like Ted Lasso season one vibes. Like the way I feel about it like makes me feel good and I'm so excited to watch more of it and it's so refreshing and different in a way.

Like yeah, it's a great show. Super good. Once again, Apple just making great television shows who would have thought you know what i mean i read a really good review of the tetris movie too which is an apple tv thing at the end of the month i know itself by southwest and i i read a really positive review of that a funny funny positive review but because it was by somebody who'd never heard of tetris how is that possible anyway oh yeah i'm looking forward

to the tetra the trailer look great so i'm looking forward to the tetris movie i wish we talked about and conflated it with the battleship movie which i think is hilarious like the blocks are coming down attack the blocks and that's not what the tetris movie is it's actually a looks like fictionalized to make it more exciting story of the creation of tetris absolutely not apple related but have you seen the trailer for the blackberry movie i have it looks really good it actually looks it reminded me of the trailer for the tetris movie which is i don't think it was actually this exciting but this is exciting yeah yeah and it's got that one has uh such a great cast that I couldn't believe was in it. That it's Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny and A.P. Bio

as the guy who's the CEO of BlackBerry. And Jay Baruchel is like the co-founder guy. And with those guys in the cast, I suspect that it is a funny movie. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that one too. Yeah, I think it's like serious, but funny. But funny. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if these movies are kind of going for the big short kind of vibe, right? Which is like, it's a movie about business, but it's got a skewed angle, right?

It's got a different kind of angle. Like the big short or i guess i haven't seen the wolf of wall street but maybe like that i don't know it's the the idea like it's a movie about business but but not right like i don't know you uh made a post on six colors wrote positive colors about camo studio two yes so this was like camo previously like sherlock but continue to camera basically did continue to camera right camo was an an app you ran on your iphone and then you ran it on your mac and you could use your iphone as your webcam and apple was like that's a good idea what if we just built it in so that your mac can take over your iphone without running an app

and just make it a camera yeah which was you know bad if're Camo. Not that Camo didn't do a lot of stuff that continuity camera doesn't do because as we've detailed here, Apple is really reluctant to give people control over their cameras. They just want little on-off switches. They don't want to have any other tweaks to camera settings. So what Camo did, Reincubate, the company that makes Camo Studio, they went away and used their code base

to make a new version of the app that works with any webcam, including continuity camera. So it still has an app. You can still run it. You get more features if you run their app on the iPhone versus using continuity camera, but it will use continuity camera. will use the uh studio display camera it will use third-party

webcams if you've got a webcam and you've been frustrated by how lousy its settings app is you can try camo and and if it may be a much nicer solution because camo has got a lot of great features, including some of the stuff that I love is the crop on Apple's cameras is terrible, right? Like the studio display, especially like it, if, if you don't have sorry center stage turned on almost at stage manager, watch it center stage. If you turn that off, it gets you the shot where you're sort of like head is at the bottom. And then there's just huge amounts of headroom above you. And it's like, how am I supposed to use that? Well, Camo will let you zoom, control the zoom and control the crop.

So you can say zoom in a little bit and have it be at the bottom and you can get yourself sort of like framed properly. You can also like, it's got a bunch of settings to like adjust the colors and adjust the brightness and it works better on better cameras. I mean, the studio display camera is just what it is, but it will also work with continuity camera, which doesn't give you those controls. They even built their own version of portrait mode that they claim is better and also more like processor efficient than Apple's version. And I can tell you in using it that it actually was better at leaving things. Apple's portrait mode tends to leave some things right next to my head that are in the background unblurred.

So it looks like I've got like a little halo of unblurredness around my head. And then I switched to Camo's version of that and it did it right. So that's interesting too. So in the end, this is why Sherlocking is not necessarily a thing because Apple never grabs 100%.

It in fact provided a great opportunity for Camo. I know that the reincubate had to do a lot of work here, but they support continuity camera now. So that's great. it's a lot easier to use your iphone than it used to be there are camera mounts for iphones now which back when when they made this software they did a whole blog post on their website we talked about it back in the day uh where they're like we tried a whole bunch of camera iphone mounts uh and they're terrible right like all of them were terrible. So now the existence of continuity camera,

boom, there are camera mounts for iPhones. So that's great. It's great if you've got a different webcam. And I basically would say if you are somebody who uses webcams

on a regular basis, you should check it out and see if it's right for you. It is expensive. It's $80 to buy it straight out or I think it's like $40 a year. But you could try it out and see. It just adds a watermark. You could actually use it like that, I think. But if you are somebody who is so frustrated that you can't control what your

webcam is doing, this does that. This will do all of that so for me as somebody who does you know lots of different videos and stuff uh it's a it's kind of a no-brainer it's uh nice to have some features on top of continuity camera since apple won't provide them i downloaded the app today to see if it will allow me to change the refresh rate right from 60 to 50 hertz so i wouldn't get that flickering anymore couldn't find any settings for that on the studio display and it may just be like what i've experienced before i don't think apple exposes that as possible yeah i don't think they have the ability to to grab that i will say though the the best quality setting still is to run the camo app on your phone because when you do that you get access to

like every single one of the cameras you can pick which camera you it gives you the most control over it because they're replacing apple's sort of like very simple uh camera api with an iphone app that has access to the entire camera um so that's better but the problem with that is you have to unlock your phone and launch the app and then put it where you need it to be. And like, that was the problem. That's why continuity camera is so great is like, all you have to do is, is say, let's use it and it turns itself on and it just works. And that's pretty great. Although it shows that maybe Apple should be better at providing options for people who want more options. options for people who want more options. Even if it's just an API and they don't build the UI, let Reincubate build the UI. But anyway, it's a great app. It's very limited. Kind of people who want it. I feel like if you know if you might want it and they do let you try it out. So you can try it out before paying

any money and see if it helps you and helps your situation. This episode is brought to you by Ladder. Let's be real. We all have a tendency to put some things off until the very last minute, whether that's going to the DMV, arranging a dental checkup, getting to that next home improvement project. You know the kinds of things I'm talking about. I do it all the time. You do it all the time. This is normal. And while most of the time, this is fine. It all works out. The one thing in life that you actually can't afford to wait on is setting up term coverage life insurance. You've probably seen life insurance commercials on TV and thought similarly, I'll get to that

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That's L-A-D-D-E-R life.com upgrade. One last time, that's ladderlife.com upgrade. Well, thanks to Ladder for the support of this show and RelayFM. Room around uptime. Yeehaw! Apple's open source code resources are making references to

both RealityOS and Reality Simulator. Sure sounds like that's it. Yeah. Well, Reality Simulator, I guess that's some kind of development tool right like right that that will be some simulation tool that you can run on some other hardware maybe and then potentially though if there's a simulator like that what does that mean for um like development kits and stuff like that and like how is that going to work like that yeah

but it may it may also be that the simulator is the thing that runs on your mac and then you plug in a headset and you can test your software using the headset but it's being projected from your development environment right that could be it yes that's what i would hope right because previous simulators they're just pretending to be the devices right you open a window and it's now an iphone you open a window and it's now an iPhone. You open a window and it's now an iPad, right? Like that's the Xcode simulator as such. But yeah, I hope that you're right, that it's related to some kind of actual

put it on your head and do something with it kind of thing. Reality OS, I prefer this to XROS, which is one of the other rumors. And I was also thinking that like, obviously we've heard rumor for a while that Apple reality or reality pro is probably going to be the product name yeah and that would tie in right because we have iPad OS Mac OS watch OS I had this thought yesterday that they should rename it iPhone OS again like they should actually do that but it's

too late now because it's now iOS will be the odd one out right because everything else is named after the platform that it runs on just iphone could take it back to iphone os maybe i don't know yeah i don't know but it's fine i think reality is a good like i i've come to terms with it i mean i never thought it was terrible i don't think but like i've come to terms with it that like apple, Apple reality and Apple reality pro and reality OS and like going all in on that as a brand name, I think is fine. I think that's because in the end, Apple's Apple's entire marketing machine and their product development machine and their retail you know, retail machine, like all of the power of Apple means that as long as the name is fine, they will be able to define it. So like Apple Watch, it's like, it's a generic name. It's like, yeah. And yet Apple Watch and people are like, oh, iPad, that's a silly name. It's like, yeah, iPad, everybody gets it. Everybody

knows what it is. So I still laugh when there's like a movie or tv show and somebody says uh you know he was called he was holding an ipad or get your ipad i'm like okay that's i mean it's it it makes it actually is less jarring than uh get your tablet right which is like nobody nobody does that uh so i don't know i mean it's it's it's generic but i think that as long as the product um the product's to work or not, and it's not going to have anything to do with the name, and if the product works, whatever degree the product works, the name will go along with it and we'll represent it. It'll be fine. Yeah. And I think I'm coming around to reality now. I think that's

a funny phrase. Finally, we've been trying to get you to come around to reality. Yeah, now as I say that, I'm like, oh, here we go again. I know, right? Right now we've been trying to get you to come around to reality. Yeah, now as I say that, I'm like, oh, here we go again. I know, right? Right now we've got this whole other thing that we're going to have to get used to. First we need to make all the jokes, and then we'll need to find some way of actually saying these things out loud. Like how weird to deal with Macs chips. Yeah, yes.

M2 Macs chips. I've just gotten used to that over time. Because M2 Macs Macs, it is just like, you just can't. It doesn't make any sense. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, anytime now, right? It's going to be anytime now. We'll maybe start finding out some of this stuff. Mark Gurman is reporting

that Apple is currently on a cost-cutting push in order to prevent layoffs at the company. So as Mark was talking about in his newsletter, clearly Apple is in a better position than some of its tech rivals, but the economy is causing some trouble for the company, like every company. So they are pursuing measures to weather this. Like, for example, they're going to be delaying bonuses. So a lot of bonuses that Apple apparently

paid out twice a year, but Apple's going to be delaying the first one of those payments and keeping all the payments until October. So the money's not going to change, but just when you get it is going to change. This is apparently so Apple keeps a little more cash on hand and then they'll deal with it later on. They are prioritizing their research and development budgets. For example, the rumored HomePod with a screen has been pushed back in their timelines. For example, the rumored HomePod with a screen has been pushed back in their timelines. Mark Gurman is now saying it will be 2024 at the earliest for this product, which I know we knew that was the case anyway. But my expectation is like that probably means it's closer to the end than the start of the year. Right.

Right. It also he may know that it was planned for this year and got pushed back or something like that. But by the time we know that it exists, it's already being talked about in the next year context. So that pushback already happened, but we don't know. There's going to be stricter approvals on budget increases and travel, hiring

freezes, people that have left and their roles open, they're going to be keeping those roles open. And a quote from the article I want to read in in full managers have become as strict as ever about office attendance so like coming into work three days a week and some workers believe this is a harbinger to the company firing employees who don't meet the requirement so i just thought that was intriguing that was intriguing to me and then also again it's like who's given that information that feels like you know sure this is like people were worried about that kind of thing right now so here's the here's the funny

thing as mark german makes clear and i thought that this was a really nice part of his newsletter apple has an enormous amount of cash on hand apple can weather any storm right apple apple can weather almost any storm maybe not like complete break with China, right? We talked about that. But basically, Apple can weather an economic storm like this. They really can. So on one level, I think it's admirable that Apple is trying very hard not to lay off people. And it's trying. I looked at this too and I thought, you know, Mark Gurman's report here is actually serving Apple. It serves Apple for this to get out there because here's the truth, people.

This is all about demonstrating to your shareholders that you're taking the economy seriously. In the case of some companies, laying off a lot of people is about realizing that you are in trouble and you've hired too many people. But that's not the case in Apple's case, right? Apple has not gone on a hiring spree. Apple has grown, but Apple has not done what its peers in the tech industry have done. Apple is enormously profitable and Apple has a huge amount of cash on hand. So the truth is Apple doesn't need to do any of these things that it's done. It's doing it to demonstrate to the community at large and to its investors in particular that it's financially responsible and it's taking things seriously. But let's be clear,

like Apple's got billions of dollars in cash. Apple is supposedly the company that invests through a downturn, right? So it's hard for me not to look at this and sort of say, this is a, on the one hand, a cynical demonstration of having to, like, times are tough and we're taking it seriously so that people know that they're doing that when they could just keep going the way they have been. Now, there's a couple of things here, right? One is downturns are a great time to make changes that you want to make and use it as an excuse. So that's some of it, right? the screws on people's office attendance and not replacing people in, you know, using attrition to cut the size of groups that you actually didn't think needed to be that size. Like you can use

it as an excuse, right? I get that. And then maybe your HR people come to you and say, why are we paying some groups out twice with bonuses and other groups out once with bonuses? And they're using this as a reason to like make that consistent across the company with the single bonuses under the guise of it being about the economy. So forgive me for puncturing this story a little bit, but I think Mark Gurman did it too. They don't need to do any of this. They literally don't need to do any of this. They're doing it to show that they are responsible, basically. And if they start laying people off, then it's even more offensive, right?

But I'm going to give them credit. Apple, it's not just that Apple is in this position and it's not just that Apple has the money. I think that this shows that they don't want to lay people off, right? They don't want to lay people off and they don't think they have to. Apple thinks it can get away

with demonstrating its financial prudence without doing a huge number of layoffs. And that's great. But I would say at the same time, thousands of people just got laid off in the tech industry. At some point, Apple should start hiring them, right? Yeah, but they are though, right? And they are. They're not doing a hiring freeze, right? Or they have had hiring freezes in some places but like not in other places right and so that's that's part of this story too so anyway i just wanted to say that that like this is better than their peers but they didn't you know do they really need to do all of this of course not of course they don't they're doing this you know to demonstrate their fiscal

uh prudence and uh and wall Street will appreciate it, presumably. To me, I find this is a hard thing to get mad about. Everyone in our live chat right now is really mad at Apple for doing this. But all of these things we've just spoken about, they don't really affect people. These are things that are delaying bonuses. We still get to get the bonus. And also, it's not great to rely on bonuses, right? You shouldn't rely on bonuses.

They're bonuses, right? Prior prioritizing r&d budgets if they're moving products back maybe they think like oh these are like products we don't think will sell very well right now because of the economy so we'll move them like i said prioritizing uh things often is under the guise of you know in this economy but it's actually like we can afford to push that product later every company in tech is laying people off. They could lay people off now if they want to, but they're not. And I think that that's like, that's the ultimate important thing here.

Everything else here is just like, it's window dressing, you know? I don't think you can say bonuses are just bonuses because the fact is bonuses are also a competitive tool that's used for employee retention and also to lure people to a company from another company. So bonuses are part of that story. Right. They're still going to get them though. It's still in the package.

But you're absolutely right. I just wanted to say, you're like, well, bonuses are bonuses. It's a bonus. Not everybody gets the bonus. I get that. But they're not cutting the bonuses. They're delaying the bonuses. And they're not even bringing everybody back into the office five days a week. They're just leaning on the people who are not in the office three days a week. And that's enforcing the previous rule they already made. Yeah. So it's all about techniques and tools. And again, a lot of this, I suspect, is the pretense of this allows us to do some stuff we want to do and point at the economy and has the added benefit of allowing us to demonstrate to the outside world that we're taking this very seriously, even if we're not laying thousands of people off.

Because that's a greater offense, right? The greater offense is not needing to have a thousand people lose their jobs, but doing it just as a demonstration to Wall Street that you're a responsible company. That's far more offensive. And I'm going to give Apple's management huge credit here. They seem to be trying everything to look responsible while not cutting jobs. And that's good. Like, that's really good. But I can't let it go without pointing out, as Mark Gurman did, they got a lot of cash. They got a lot of profits. They're doing fine. And this is more about making a demonstration of prudence and fiscal responsibility than it is something that they actually need to do. Yeah. And no one knows what's going to happen. Yes, they have all the money in the world, but they can't just spend it all forever, right? If they're just like, hey, no, it's all fine. Nothing's wrong. But if sales are down because of economy you know these are just things you have to prepare for and i think like looking at this list at least what mark german is talking about all of these things feel superfluous and or just like moving around deck chairs like i said

it i think i think it is a demonstration of fiscal prudence and i think that mark german reporting about it in bloomberg is part of the strategy. I don't know if he got this from Apple in an unauthorized way or not, but Apple can't be sad that Bloomberg, a business-focused website that is read by lots and lots of investors, is doing a detailed report about all the ways that Apple is being fiscally prudent. No, they're not laying people off, but boy, they're doing a lot of stuff. So it's okay. They're aware of it. They're on it. And that's what they want. That's the message that Apple wants out there in the investor community is we're taking it seriously. Even if secretly behind the scenes, they're like, oh yeah, that guy got laid off by Google. Let's make an offer, right? Like that stuff may totally be happening

behind the scenes at the key levels, but they need to show this. So it's, yeah, I just wanted to say it's for show. They are doing it. It's real. It is for show. And they could be doing a lot worse than they are. And that's good that people aren't losing their jobs

at this point. Although I am a little worried about the uh this is giving them a tool to basically say you need to be in the office three days a week or you're out uh but that was you know that that's been their policy for a while now yeah it's interesting that they've been kind of letting it slide and this is an again an opportunity for them to use this as a way to not let it slide. Yeah. But I think that that was probably in play anyway, right? Sure. Like I said, you know, sometimes it, take it from somebody who used to have a senior vice president title and have like, I don't know how many, 60, 70 people reporting to me.

Like, sometimes you just need an excuse, right? Sometimes it's that simple. It's like they'll come to you and they'll say, well, there's a downturn and we're going to have a little, we're going to have some budget cuts, but now's the chance, right? To be like, now's the chance to get rid of that person who's a problem on your staff. Now's the chance to get rid of this policy that I don't like.

It's stuff like that, that absolutely happens it's business baby oh uh skylar in the discord single big man jason with a look i hated that job it was it was it was a miserable job and then i quit uh but and and i still a job you had though and the senior vice president made me laugh so much i laughed when they made me vice president and editorial director something like that was unnecessary and then president made me laugh so much. I laugh when they made me vice president and editorial director or something like that. That was unnecessary. And then they made me senior vice president and editorial director. And I'm like, this is doubly unnecessary. But the relevant thing is that I was in a company big enough to have a lot of reports and also have to talk to the CEOs and the money people. the money people. And that is a, I'll tell you as an editor, as a content person, well, that's a different world, right? Like it's just a totally different world. And I imagine the same is true with a company like Apple, where like you're a developer or even like a product manager, like there's that. And then there's the like money people who are up there and they've got their budgets and they're looking at the whole thing and and they speak a different language and that's the that's business right that's the people who

are wearing the business hats and they're the ones who come to you and go how about you we uh change your your uh bonus structure for your group and you're like okay because what are you gonna do and you know like something like this is very different to what meta's doing where meta's deciding they're just gonna lay off people for efficiency sakes now yes yeah absolutely very different it's a huge contrast i think that that's why i think this story is so fascinating and why i've been talking about it so much here is that is that it's um it's both of these things it's the duality of it right it is simultaneously apple making a bunch of gestures of things that they probably didn't need to do but they're doing because they need

to show that they're doing something but it's also apple not doing what meta and google and microsoft have done which is have hundreds or thousands of people losing their jobs. Didn't Meta just do a second wave? Yeah, another 10,000 people because they think it would make the company be more efficient. Yeah, so that's what Apple's not doing.

And I think that that's also why Apple feels the need to demonstrate that it's doing things, right? Is because otherwise you risk having your shareholders and Wall Street in general saying Apple is irresponsible. Apple is spending too much money. And when you're spending a lot of money on R&D projects like VR and a car, having a reputation for being responsible helps you say, yes, we know that budget is huge, but we're a very

responsible company. And that is important. It actually is because at the end of the day, Wall Street and the investors, the shareholders do matter. They do report to them. And Apple has shown over the last few years, and they just had their annual shareholders meeting and everything got approved. Apple has shown they've actually gotten really good at keeping wall street happy and keeping their shareholders happy and stuff like this is a part of that a korean industry outlet the elec is citing their sources to suggest that the 2024 ipad pro models feature oled screens and could see a large price increase because of it. They are expecting starting prices of $1,500 and $1,800

for the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models. For context, they are currently $799 and $1099 for the 11 and the 12.9. Ross Young, industry analyst of displays, is also expecting price increases because of Apple's requirements for quality. Now, I also want to read a quote from the MacRumors article I got this from.

It says, Samsung is set to invest in 8th generation OLED production lines, which should theoretically result in lower costing panels, but they are already being earmarked for Apple's future OLED production lines, which should theoretically result in lower costing panels, but they are already being earmarked for Apple's future OLED MacBooks, which are expected to debut in 2024. Now, so what I'll say is, with all of that in mind, the expectation here, I think, seems pretty clear that the iPad Pro will become more expensive once it gets an OLED screen. Do I think it will jump from $799 to $1500?

I don't, but I imagine it will get closer to it. And I think that's real rough. Yeah, yeah. I'm skeptical of these numbers, right? I am because those are enormous price disparities from a company that really tries to not do that. I mean, we talk about how Apple's stuff is expensive and it absolutely is expensive but there are limits right so i i'm going to be skeptical of that like doubling almost doubling the price of a product uh is wild right

so there's that i also have to ask the question I know we're going to talk about this later too, which is like who, even people who love their iPad pro and I am one of them, who can find value in a, certainly in a 1500 or $1,800 iPad pro. Who is that? Who is that who is willing to pay $700 more for an OLED screen, especially in the larger one that already has the good, if not great, mini LED backlit screen? Very, very good screen. Like, who is that? And so one, that makes me think these prices are probably too high because I don't know if it's a viable product there. And two, like, what is that value proposition?

Now, is this a brand new next generation iPad Pro that has a whole bunch of other features of which we're not aware that are being bundled into whatever this thing is? Because it's been a while we've complained about it a lot it's been since 2018 really that we've been on the same set of models um they just update the processor but like it's they're they're and they've updated the display but like it hasn't doesn't look any different and it uses the same accessories so are they rethinking the ipad pro in general and if so what is that and we don't know that part of it. But I will say that I'm not very optimistic. I hope they're really rethinking it

because I'm kind of, as perverse as this sounds almost, I would love to see what Apple thinks an iPad Pro that's worth $1,500 does. Right? I would love to see what that is. You know what? For curiosity's sake, I agree with you. Right?

Like, what would that be? That would be, it's worth more than a MacBook Air by a lot. Like, right now they cost sort of what the MacBook Air costs, but, like, more than the MacBook Air. This thing, so it's really, really, and again, OLED, yes, but, like, are people, how many people are going to pay? People but like are you are people how many people are going to pay people will but like how many people are going to pay for a 1500 or 1800 or even a little less than that uh movie player oled screen like some people but i'm skeptical about the at the

added value there or i don't know what what else goes in there this is my question right is is what value gets uh added into the ipad pro for it to bear even higher prices than it already has because already it gets knocked for being kind of you know less capable than the macbook air for using the same parts and for roughly the same price so what happens in at least for the larger one so what what what value is there if you increase it if you increase it, if you ratchet it up even more, it's a little bit, I don't know, it's a little bit baffling for me, but, but yeah, I would love to see it. Right. Like, I mean, if, if somebody came to me and said,

uh, hi, I'm, I I'm at Apple and, uh, I'd like to, I'd like to have to come in for a briefing and I go to the briefing and they say, we're doing a new iPad Pro and it's going to cost $1,800. What I'm going to say is, wow, what makes it worth that? And I will get into my bag and I will pull out the popcorn that I bring with me and I will just be like, lay it on me. I would love to hear this story because what they have now, I mean mean i'm not entirely convinced that what they have now really bears the prices that they're currently charging for the ipad pro but i certainly don't feel that uh what they've got now uh could bear more given what it's capable of and given what other ipads there are so um yeah skeptic expression of skepticism here for this but i don't doubt that

the oled display would make them cost more i'm just yes i'm wondering what that price is and i'm wondering what value it offers beyond if they are or they aren't 1500 or 1800 we don't believe that from this report like it's whatever but i think it does indicate these two things together but what the elect are talking about what ross young are talking about indicate to me that the price will increase like it won't just be here's the thing it's like that's the thing that we're talking about here yeah maybe maybe it's 9.99 and 12.99 or you know 9.99 and 11.99 like having the having the low-end model go up to the small model go up to 9.99 that i that I believe more than $1,500, $1,499. That seems too much to me by a lot.

But just to put it in perspective, when the iPhone X was the first OLED phone, it was $300 more expensive than the iPhone 8, which is percentage-wise not that dissimilar from these price increases. And I know it was more than just the iPhone 8, which is, percentage-wise, not that dissimilar from these price increases. Right. And I know it was more than just the OLED screen, but I think everyone agreed the OLED screen was the big price difference.

Right, but it also did Face ID, right? The biometric authentication through Face ID. That was like a huge change. Loads of things that it did, right? Loads of things that are different. And that's where I come back and I say say what else is in this thing to bear the price increase whatever it is because that because even if here's the funny thing even if it's the oled screen that is really the reason you have to raise the price i'm not convinced that telling people

uh well yeah i mean yeah it's's $800 more, $700 more, but OLED screen is enough, right? There needs to be a bigger story. There needs to be more stuff. What is the next generation of the platform? How is it differentiated further from your very nice iPad Air? Because you say, like, realistically, realistically, how much different is the OLED to the mini LED?

Like, I don't think for most people it's that much of a difference. It's like, oh, it doesn't bloom. Great. No one sees this, right? Like, this is a thing that people that know what they're looking for get bothered by that. But realistically, people aren't bothered by that.

So like, that is not enough. And we're going to get to more than enough. And when I say, who's going to pay? pay who's gonna see the value proposition in our discord katherine said a lot of designers and illustrators who are like shut up and take my money absolutely but i guess my point is look apple differentiating the ipad pro up above the air is something we've talked about a lot it's actually part of the confusion of the ipad line right now it's like they're not that different. They're a little different, but they're not that different.

So Apple really differentiating them on one level makes sense. And it's not that there won't be markets for an OLED iPad Pro, right? Like Catherine says, there will be people who are like, I just, this is a great design product. I want it. Amazing. Like, great. The challenge is, are there enough people willing to pay that, whatever that price is that they set in order to make that product make sense? Because you want a high, high end products are never going to sell as well as the low end products. I get it, but they do need to sell, right? They're not just there for fun. They do need to sell. And that means they need to be a price with value inside the product that makes it worth people saying, yes, it's worth the price for

me to get it. And that's the challenge that you have with the iPad Pro is like, what else are you going to do to differentiate it? Because OLED may not be enough. This episode is brought to you by TextExpander. When you work in a small team, every moment counts. You don't want to be wasting your time finding video conferencing details to send to a new client. You don't want to have to be tracking down FAQs from the company website to send to people over and over and over again. These are the kinds of things you want instantly at your fingertips so you can get your work done faster, which is why you need TextExpander. With TextExpander, you can access what you type the most with just a few keystrokes, allowing you to work faster and eliminate repetition so you can focus on what matters

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Our thanks to TextExpander for their support of this show and RelayFM. So what does the iPad need? Well, funnily enough, podcaster and writer Jason Snell wrote an applauded article, I would say. I've been seeing this

popping up all over the place. Well, by some, not by others. Well, okay. Sure, sure. I will start with a quote from this Macworld piece. Over the last few years, it's started to feel like both the Mac and the iPad are increasingly limited by an artificial barrier that Apple has placed between them. So with the context of the idea that Apple may be starting to charge more money for the iPad, I think it's important for us to look at, well, what do we want from that then if that's the case where is that value who is using it um and i've been thinking about this for a while i actually had an outline for a much longer

story about it i dare i say federico vatici kind of length story and i just couldn't i just couldn't crack it i couldn't figure it out and so i i essentially wrote part of that story in this mac world piece and and there's one paragraph in it that's literally is supposed to be a whole other story that we'll get to, or I'll get to it or I won't, we'll see. And I know we've talked about this subject here a little bit, but I wanted to get it down because I feel like as time goes on, I am increasingly uneasy about the path of the iPad and the Mac and the fact that there are rules inside Apple that seem, you know, also I should say that rumor of a touchscreen Mac also set this off. Cause it's

like, well, wait a second, that breaks one of the rules. And I think that's good. And I think it'll be interesting to see where they go with it. But like the iPad is, is not allowed to do certain things and the Mac is not allowed to do certain things. And it feels like the rules are really, we got to keep those apart because that's what separates the Mac and the iPad. And I don't know how it's going to go, but it feels like the way forward should probably be that the Mac and the iPad should be able to do whatever they need to do, regardless of those rules. And that rule, the rule, whether it's an unwritten rule or it's actually stated inside Apple, that neither the twain shall meet, leads you down this path that's like, I'd say, antithetical to the Steve Jobs kind of ethos of be your own replacement kind of thing.

And it's more like, no, no, no, let's protect them both. I don't know why we you know i don't know why we ended up here i i have some suspicions that the mac was out of favor within apple for a while and it was just going to be kind of put off on an ice flow and be the legacy product and that the ipad was viewed as the future of desktop platforms future of computers is the ipad right they did the marketing it felt for a long time like apple's like the future we're reinventing what a computer is and there have been moments where i felt that like the when the cursor support came out in early 2020 it's like oh look they took what the mac did and they and they kind of did a modern

spin on it and they improved it in a bunch of ways and that was really exciting but mostly over the last few years what it feels like is the ipad has gotten features that are not as good as the Mac. They're like a light version of a feature that the Mac has. And it's made me increasingly uneasy that Apple no longer really believes that the iPad is the future of computing, but that the iPad is sort of a limited version of computing. And that if you want the full version, then you get a Mac instead. Whether it's files, which again is much more capable than it used to be, but it's also still not as capable as the Finder. Whether it's something like Stage Manager, which allows you to have windows, but not move them where you want them to

go. And I had this thought, and it's one line in that piece in Mac world, but I had this thought that it stuck with me and I want to expand on it at some point in a written article. But the thought was maybe the iPad Pro was a mistake. And I say that because Apple has invested a lot of time and energy into pushing the iPad Pro iPad OS up and adding these features that are kind of Mac-like, but not quite. And the only people who seem to want them are the power users of the iPad. But in the end, I'm not sure anybody is satisfied, right? Like I think the power users, at least the ones that I talked to, and I am sort of one of those two feel like they don't go far enough and i think also there's a real concern that these are features that the regular ipad users don't want don't need and don't understand and part of me thinks would

we all be better off if apple embraced ipad like things in the Mac to serve that audience and let the iPad not get kind of polluted with attempts to be sort of Mac-like and just let the iPad be what it's great at, which is the stuff that's the kind of more mainstream features that people who use an iPad base model or an iPad Air use. And that's a big idea. And as somebody who's been a big advocate for the iPad Pro, I am troubled by the fact that I have had this thought, but I have had this thought that maybe the reason we're on this path is because at some point in the last 10 years, Apple thought the Mac was going away and that the iPad had to be built to replace it. And then they changed direction. And now we're left in this state where the ipad is not

quite a mac and it's all exacerbated by the fact that they all run the same hardware so you can't have that excuse anymore about like why does this do this and this not do this the answer is because apple's chosen that the software won't go there because otherwise like the m2 is the it's an m2 ipad pro and it's an m2 MacBook Air. They're the same essentially. And on top of that, one of the points of this article is the Mac can't be a convertible, can't have a touchscreen, can't do any of those experiments, can't have like a touch mode that's like an iPad. And the iPad can't be a laptop. It can be kind of a laptop but not really because that's the max thing and uh like if the touchscreen macbook pro is a breaking down of barriers and not a very conservative

limited simple implementation then that's a great sign but i don't know i just i i am having a little bit of a crisis of faith about the ipad pro and i think i think that the core of it is I am no longer convinced that Apple thinks the iPad Pro needs to be a powerful computer for people who are pros. It feels more like they want to go up to a certain point and then stop there. And so when I look at these reports about the expensive OLED iPads, that comes into my mind too, which is like, well, why would I pay $1,800 for an iPad Pro? What value are you going to give me for that? That I couldn't get from like, maybe I should buy a MacBook Air and an iPad Air. Maybe that's what I should do. If I'm not going to be able, because how much more

value can, if you're not, if it can't mac and you're you're really limited in what you're adding to ipad os how can you inscribe enough value in it for it to be fifteen hundred dollars so i will say that you saying that i i think i'm pretty much in agreement and i'm willing to say like definitively what you're not a hundred sure of is yes, I actually think the iPad Pro branding was a mistake. A mistake. It was a mistake. It shouldn't have been branded this way. They couldn't back it up, right? It's been eight years, eight years, I think.

They couldn't back it up. But the counterpoint that I will also make, even though I believe that, i am not complete you know i would have to do like a thorough research project on like how has apple actually marketed this product like what have they said that it is to be used for because most of the time they are talking about like some form of creative projects and they're very specific about the types of things that they talk about because obviously it can't do everything right and so like i feel like potentially it falls somewhere in the middle

of like apple has been pretty clear about what they think it can be used for however that branding pro and also to talk about the things that we talk about all the time, like the power of the machine, those two things are completely wrong. Where, you know, alternate timeline, iPad Studio, this is a creative machine for artists, would have made a lot more sense.

Right, especially since they introduced it with the apple pencil right that was one of the first things they did but then they brought but then i also introduced it the keyboard which is like that is more traditional worky right and they have done since the the introduction of the original ipad pro in 2015 to now like the ipad pro and ipad os is much better for very basic work tasks, right? That is undeniable. But I just said the word basic, right? Which is not what a Pro machine should be.

Now, of course, I think part of the expectation here falls on us of what we want the machine to do right and kind of like what we believe a pro ipad should do but that again it falls down to this idea of like we can only compare this to other like the macbook pro right because remember the iphone wasn't pro then either because like you could argue and i would argue the iphone pro follows the ipad pro in like what it realistically does that's different but the ipad pro kind of could follow the macbook pro is like well this should be more powerful and therefore should be better in a bunch of ways and apple have pushed the product forward but like i i would even say potentially even a bigger mistake is ipad os right separating it out and this is yeah

this is the the real challenge here is i'm not saying that i don't love my ipad because i do i'm not saying i don't use it to do lots of stuff i literally wrote this article on an ipad okay yep in a in a uh in a stand with a mechanical keyboard and a magic trackpad but you were doing all of that before the ipad pro and before ipad os right like that never changed that's true and when i when i bring up this mysterious moment that i somebody inside apple would have to actually say if it was true or not but like it felt very much like there was a shift in gears where the app where the mac went from being a legacy product to being the future. And maybe the decision to bring that to Apple Silicon and to really lean into the Mac was part of it.

I don't know. That's just all I can read from the outside. But it sure feels like the Mac got it back together. And I'm now starting to feel like as a part of that, the iPad got deprioritized because the iPad was no longer Apple's future bridge from the legacy product of the Mac. And it was more just another product in the lineup. Right. It was another part of Apple's. And I'm not saying that it's bad.

I'm saying it's it's no longer let's solve for a world where in 10 years the iPad can do enough that we don't need to have Mac OS anymore. And I don't know whether they were actually headed there or not but it certainly doesn't feel like they are now like everything is sort of like a little bit and and i honestly i'm gonna i'm gonna give like an optimistic view here and say i think one of the challenges here is also like if you look at stage manager stage manager i'm not as down on it as federico i i think it's got a lot going for it and I think it could get a lot better. I think the challenge there is that I have a hard time seeing it as being the answer to the question of like,

how do we do a full desktop environment on the iPad? It feels much more to me like we're going to give you just enough that you stop complaining, but we're not going to take it all the rest of the way. And that comes from prioritization inside Apple. It feels like they're either not capable of it, or they're not given the resources to do it, or they've decided not to push it. And then on the other side is the Mac that is now running Apple Silicon and now can

theoretically run iPad apps, right? They built a whole infrastructure where the Mac can run iPad apps. And this is what I keep coming back to is, well, if all the hardware is the same and you're going to add a touchscreen, and I will grant you that a convertible PC laptop is not as good as a proper laptop ergonomically. It's got a lot of weird issues, but it is convertible. It's got that going for it. At that point, isn't Mac OS capable of running, if it's got a touchscreen and it can run iPad apps, isn't it basically an iPad mode? Aren't you basically in an iPad mode now? And maybe that's the solution is, look, stop asking for more pro features on the iPad. What you really want is a Mac. Oh, but you say you like the iPad apps and you like the tablet thing. It's like, all right, we're going to let you do that. We're going to let you fold the keyboard back or pop it off or whatever. And we're going to let

you do both if you want to. And I know that Apple has poo-pooed this idea for a while, but I'm actually not saying of like merging the operating systems. I'm saying, and I think this is where I'm converging on as i write these articles is i'm saying that maybe it was a mistake to make ipad pro when what you really ought to have done is make ipad mode work on certain mac devices maybe that would have been a better path forward for those people who keep pushing iPadOS because they like, because like, why does Federico Vatici like the iPad? And he and I have, we send texts back and forth every now and then when something dramatic happens, like we both

came to the same conclusion, which is it's actually about ergonomics. It's about the fact that it's a convertible device that can be pencil driven, finger driven, keyboard and trackpad driven, just keyboard driven. It can be, it can look like a laptop. It can look like a pure touch tablet. It can be in a, in a dock and drive a big display. It can do all of those things. And the Mac can only do some of those things. That's the great thing about the iPad. But if that's the case, if you made a Mac that did those things, you wouldn't need an iPad. You might need iPad apps and you might need iPad OS or at least something like it. But the Mac already runs iPad apps.

We're already there, right? It's already running Apple Silicon. It will literally run apps that are just made for the iPad. So we're kind of most of the way there. This is, so this is what I struggle with is the iPad seems to be letting people down, um, at the high end, not anywhere else that the stuff at the high end, can they ever be pleased? Can those users ever be pleased without it turning into a Mac? And at some point, if you're Apple or you're, do you, do you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you don't want a Mac or you don't want an iPad. You want a Mac. And that gets me to the wall that I talked about, the artificial barrier,

which is it feels to me like right now. And for the last few years, the problem has been the Mac can't be an iPad and the iPad can't be a Mac. They can get close, but they can never cross over because it's not allowed. And I feel like they're reaching the end of the, of their limitate or, you know,

the edge of their limitations at that point without being able to stray over there. Um, and one of the thoughts that drove me in this direction was the touchscreen rumor on the MacBook pro. And the other thought was our conversation about allowing apps from outside the app store to be installed on iPadOS because I had that moment where I thought, well, couldn't you just run macOS in a VM on an M2 iPad Pro? And wouldn't it actually work pretty

well in a virtual machine environment? Not even having to reboot, but just put it in a run Parallels or VMware Fusion for iPad and boot macOS and put it in a keyboard, a magic keyboard, and don't you have a macOS laptop that's also an iPad? Like, I'm not saying that would happen, but I'm saying it absolutely could happen. It's completely possible that you could do that. Or you could dual boot if Apple wanted to support that. Like, all of that's on the table, but it doesn't exist. And that's, I mean, that's the source of my frustration about this. I can't do either of those things. I can make my iPad a laptop, but I can't make it a Mac.

And I can't make my MacBook Air an iPad. So I feel like something has gone wrong here. That's fundamentally. There was a different timeline, you know? Yes. There are like two different timelines. Like one is where the iPad just kind of remained what an iPad always was,

that they never tried to push it further. Or they actually did the thing, you know? And they made a macOS bootable mode on iPadOS. You're right. And we're in between them. And that is the feeling I get. Again, I don't have any facts about what's happening inside of Apple and what has happened over the last decade. But that is, Mike, I think that's exactly how I'm feeling, which is there's a world in which the iPad is never pushed up into Mac feature territory.

And the Mac at some point goes to Apple Silicon and says, oh, guess what? We made a convertible. We were able to make a convertible Mac now that can be an iPad sometimes. And you're like, oh, well, that's cool. I like iPad apps and I like tablets. And then sometimes I need to go back to my work. There's also a timeline where Apple said, and I, again, no evidence, but it feels like it's true. Maybe it's not true, but it sure feels like anybody who spent a lot of time looking at Apple and the Mac in the mid 2010s, it felt like it's true. Maybe it's not true, but it sure feels like anybody who spent a lot of time looking at Apple and the Mac in the mid 2010s, it felt like the Mac had been abandoned.

It really felt like the Mac had been abandoned. And I think there's a scenario where they're like Mac, Intel legacy hardware over there, iPad OS, we're going to build it up. By the time we need to kill the Mac, we will have made a, you know,

we will have moved the mac to apple silicon maybe or maybe it just stays on intel but we will move mac compatibility to ipad os and we'll have that keyboard and trackpad and all of that and you'll be able to run mac stuff and maybe we'll do a desktop down the road who knows but like eventually there'll be a crossover point where the ipad is also the mac and we'll solve that problem. And so when the Mac fades away, we keep all those users and we maybe even find a way to run that, run that legacy software. We'll have them recompile it for Apple Silicon and we'll do that. Like that was a scenario, but we're in neither of those scenarios. We are in this weird intermixed scenario where the Mac can't be that, the iPad can't be that. And that's,

I mean, it's okay. But when I look at the future of this, and when we talk about rumors like that OLED iPad Pro, I think to myself, what are we doing here? Like, what is the goal of the iPad Pro? Is the goal of the iPad Pro and iPadOS to keep pushing up market? Because I could make an argument that that gets harder and harder. And what the iPad is best at is not the stuff that's up, up, up. It's the stuff that's in the middle. It's the stuff that's more mainstream,

you know, just using nice apps to scroll through the internet. And that all this effort going into pushing the high end of the iPad to be more capable, like, is it worth it to do that? Is it worth it to do that? If it's never going to be enough for a lot of the people who are up there? And again, maybe for some people it is enough. Maybe for the people who are getting, you know, doing DaVinci Resolve or they're doing incredible, you know, artwork on it and then they're happy for

it to be that. Maybe that's the answer maybe the answer is everybody who thought that it was going to be a more broad productivity machine it's not that is going to remain the mac um and there'll be some nice things up there but it's hard to look at something like stage manager and say okay well that does that fit that profile i just described i don't think it does i think it feels it fits a more broad productivity profile that i don't think is stage manager the files app all of the i work apps you know like all of this stuff was made for it to be a replacement for the mac it's sure pointing in that direction right and yet when you look at a lot of these features i had somebody on mastodon say uh to me and federico is like what has changed in the last two years?

Like you guys used to be really into this and now you're complaining about it. What has changed? And he was a little argumentative about it. But like what I said is, well, one thing is two years have passed in addition to the other years that have passed and we're waiting. And now I'm starting to feel like Apple's commitment is not full.

And, and then I had that question in my head, which is, and should it be like, should they, should they, their heart certainly isn't in it. Like, I had that question in my head, which is, and should it be? Like, should they? Should they? Their heart certainly isn't in it. I don't feel like Apple believes, it's just fundamentally, I don't feel like Apple believes that the iPad is the future of computing. I don't. I don't think they believe that. I believe that they believed it at one point. I absolutely believe that they believed it at one point. But now I think that they are so high on record Mac sales and how great the Mac is on Apple Silicon and the fact that they've now rolled iPad compatibility, app compatibility into Macs that they're not.

And that's okay, right? Like, I'm not saying how dare you. I was told the iPad would be the future. What I'm saying is it doesn't feel like the iPad is the future anymore. It now feels like the iPad is a compromise that brings some things to, to, uh, the iPad side that are familiar to Mac users, but doesn't really go all the way because the Mac is that, and that, and that's fine. Right? Like I feel like that's where we are right now. And that, when I say maybe the iPad pro was a mistake, that's sort of what I'm actually getting at is the iPad Pro era when it started, it felt like, oh, here we go. Apple has a vision for the future of computing, and it's the iPad.

And that is absolutely not the case. I see no evidence that that's the case now. I think that they want to make the iPad nice and have some nice features. And if they can sell some iPad Pros for $12 or $13 or $15 or $18 or whatever the number is, $100, then great. But the Mac is the future of the Mac now. And as a longtime Mac user, that's great. But it brings me back to my other problem, which is, but I like the ergonomic adaptability of the iPad. And if you're not going to give me Mac features on my iPad, how about giving me iPad features on my Mac? And that's, there's the wall, which is like, no, no, no. Macs are laptops.

They're never detachable. They're never touch tablets. It's not allowed. And, you know, I guess it's very Apple to say, just buy one of each, but I'll tell you in the long run, if I know that the iPad is never going to be a Mac in that way, the functionality of a Mac that lets me do my job and travel just with an iPad in the long run. I'm already headed there. I've seen Federico is headed there.

I think you are headed there. 100%. I mean, I use an iPad mini now. It's the only one I use. Yeah, right. So that's the point.

And I travel with a MacBook air now, and it's only a matter of time before I say, you know what? I'm just going to get a Mac or an iPad Air. Forget the iPad Pro because I have given up attempting to do work on it or at least serious work on it. I'm always traveling with my MacBook Air. So what are we even doing here? I'll just drop down the price list to something that is a perfectly nice touch tablet.

And then I'll do all the other work on Mac OS. And I mean, that's fine. But like that is what's different. That is what's changed is it's no longer like we're pointed in the direction of the future. It's more like, well, the iPad also exists. I'm very happy with where the iPad sits in my lineup right now. I love it. I'm very happy with where the iPad sits in my lineup right now.

I love it. But now I feel like I have the right iPad at the right price and the right form factor for what I want it for, which is like the perfect little consumption device for me when I'm at home. I'd probably go down in size. I mean, obviously, if I got the Air, I would go down in size because I've got the big one, right? And I love the big screen, but it's heavy. And every time I pick up Lauren's smaller iPad Pro, I think, oh, this is really nice. Like it doesn't fit as much stuff, but it's like so much nicer. And I think to myself, well, if I'm not, if I'm not using it when I'm traveling for work or I'm not, you know, attaching it to a stand and using it that way, like if I'm just sort of like

committing to the touch tablet part of it, I could get away with a smaller iPad for sure. And a cheaper iPad. it, I could get away with a smaller iPad for sure. And a cheaper iPad. Absolutely, I could. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Setapp. With all of the tools available to us these days, looking for something new to improve the way that we work can feel like drowning in an ocean of apps and services. There's so many things available. Not all of them are worth your time and money.

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Michael wants to know, how long do you prepare for each show? Is there a rule of thumb you use to estimate the amount to prepare for each minute of the show? My co-hosts and I on my podcast always try to balance between preparation and spontaneity when it comes to our recordings. let's start with you because this one you you build the show doc so

you're the one who's doing the heavy lifting before the show so i don't i don't have a rule of like how long i should prepare for the runtime because also as well we don't know what the runtime is going to be me and jason are very good at keeping the show within a typical limit you know like i think like an hour 45 is is like i reckon a pretty regular episode runtime for the show because that just fits with the way that we run the show in the segments that we run it and i also think we're pretty good at just like feeling out like what a segment's going to be so i don't think of it that way. But what is a pretty typical equation is I do set for every minute of the show, I do like 30 seconds of prep. So if the show is going to run for two hours, I've probably done about an hour. So typically my preparation time for upgrade every Monday is between one hour to 90 minutes, depending on how deep a topic is and how

much I might want to outline it beforehand. That includes like all of the reading and stuff. I'm adding like links to my notes for the whole week, right? Like I see something pop up and I'm like, I want to read that on Monday. And I try and keep all of the stuff and read it on Monday. So it's all fresh in my mind, right? So like I saw everyone was linking to that article that you wrote at Macworld, but I left it till this morning so i read it today have all my notes it's fresh in my head and i could talk about it so it's usually about 50 of runtime is how long i prepared i set aside half an hour on friday afternoon um since by the time i wake up monday morning we're doing the podcast basically uh to think about and sometimes nothing comes of it. And other times I am sending Mike messages or putting them in notes or whatever about things for the podcast.

And sometimes that will extend over the weekend where I will send Mike a note about this thing or that thing that we're working on. But the truth is that it's basically the half hour before the show that I put in the rest of that time is I will sit down. I mean, occasionally it's a problem where it's like five minutes before the show and I'm like, oh, let me look at the show doc or it's like, wait, wait, Mike, I'm still going through the show doc. And sometimes Mike will,

five minutes before the show, I'll be like, can we change the Snell talk question? But I try to make it a little more like half an hour before where I start going through it and looking at it and being prepared so that we'll be ready to go. But this one's on Mike. I mean, for the most part,

you're the one who's doing the, for the most part, I, you know, you're, you're the one who's doing the bulk of the prep work, which is different for like for downstream. I'm the one who does that. But for upgrade, you're the one who does it most of the time,

unless we're doing something weird and collaborative, in which case we'll be building in advance. And then that's more work. And it's a different process. Yeah. But for a typical episode, I've built the run run like what we're going to talk about and part of that is because like our main topic today well it was all stuff you'd

already thought about or like you don't you already wrote the article that we were talking about so that kind of you've already done the work and now i'm doing it secondly we talk about on the show matthew asks i find myself changing watch bands several times a day based on activities such as work workout sleep that kind of thing do you have a band strategy or are you just one and done oh yeah my band strategy is i do change the bands but i change them um almost seasonally okay i would say i mean i change them when I'm in the mood for a different watch band, but then I leave it on. So this is the, this is the problem is I have like a leather band and I don't wear it. Um, mostly because if I'm exercising or if I'm washing the dishes or

something, I'm going to get it wet and I don't like that. Uh, so I end up primarily using the sport band the sport loop or the other loop the nice loop the braided loop yeah the braided loop those are my three that i generally do and the braided loop can get wet but i'm not i'm not as worried about it you know but i have like when i was in new zealand i had a sport band and my orange sport band on i came home and then I used a braided loop for a while. Although here's the thing, those elastic loops, they get looser over time. I think I want another. My braided loops are not, they're not like what they were before. So I think I might actually need to, I don't think I need a smaller size because the smaller size is going to really pinch. I think I just need a new one because they've relaxed.

That's how they get you. They've relaxed. And I don't want to wear it halfway up my arm. So that is how they get you. But I don't change it during the day. I just don't. I mean, it might be if I'm going out to dinner or something like that, I might change it at that point.

But that's maybe, but probably not even then. And I do also have my dad's um fancy rolex and if i'm really going someplace fancy maybe i'll just break that out and wear that and not worry about the apple watch for that one and then you know come home and put it back away so i wear the leather link is my watch band of choice um and i've worn that for the entire time that i've had my series seven um that's my daily one i think it's the nicest looking um this was a watch band that they they originally or had it very early and it was bad and then it went away right now it's back and it's great so if you tried the leather link and didn't like it, I recommend trying it again.

It looks really classy. I think it's very nice. When I'm working out, I use a Nike sport band. And if I'm wanting to dress up my Apple Watch, I have a gold Milanese loop that I wear. But they're the three that I have now, or that I use. I mean, I have a bunch of old sport bands from back in the day, but like, I just rotate through those three. But I wear the same watch band all day

and when I sleep, because I sleep my Apple Watch on now, and I still use the link. I only change it for working out and on the occasions where I might want to dress it up a bit. Anonymous asks, setting aside possible discounts i know setting aside possible discounts do you think apple cares if you buy a full price product from them directly or a retailer like best buy so i was thinking about this this morning right so i was running through it now best buy are going to take some money out of that, right? So there's going to be like a wholesale

price, so they're not getting the full price. But then they're not paying for the cost of the Apple store, right, in that. So price-wise, I don't think it's that much of a difference. I would say that they probably care about the experience

and the opportunity for upselling. But they obviously don't care enough that they've took their products out of these stores, which I would argue they probably could, but I don't know how much of a difference it would make. Yeah, I think that this is one of those things where Apple sees value in being other places and that they're happy for you to pay them full price directly without a middleman. But they're also, you know, in the end, they're on Amazon because they want to be on Amazon.

Yeah. And because realistically, no matter what else, like Amazon Best Buy, they can't get out of carrier stores. So for as long as they're there, they might as well be in other places too, right? They can't get out of carrier stores for the iPhone and stuff like that. I'm sure they would, to answer this

question directly, I am sure they would rather you buy it directly from them. Yes. Of course. But they're going to make it available elsewhere because not everybody is going to buy it directly from them. And Quinn asks, which, if any, apps do you use in fullscreen

mode? Do you use any use in full screen mode? Do you use any apps in full screen mode? On the Mac? No. No, neither do I. No, no, I don't like full screen mode. I have tried full screen mode with apps that you would think would be good for full screen mode because I open the window to be the full size of my screen, like Logic. And I don't. And the reason I don't is that I'm dragging stuff to be the full size of my screen, like logic. And I don't.

And the reason I don't is that I'm dragging stuff in from the desktop. And at least Stage Manager on the Mac lets you have the desktop be present and lets you get to things on the desktop. Somebody learned their lesson there. But like, yeah, I hate it. I hate it on the Mac. And if you love it, then great.

But like, I don't use any, I don't use split view. I don't use full screen mode, not on my big iMac, not on my MacBook air. I will make a window really big, but I won't do that because I will need to pull something out of the finder. If not on the desktop, then somewhere in the finder, I do that all the time. And maybe I'm not using it right, right? Maybe I should be inserting everything from a menu inside of Logic or whatever, but I don't. That's not how I work.

I go back to the desktop. I go back to the finder. So every time I try it, I use it for a short amount of time and then have a moment where it slides away and now I'm somewhere else and I think, nope. And that's the end of that full screen mode.

Yeah, I don't like it because it's just more difficult to do everything when you're in full screen mode. And similarly to you, I have like, if I'm in Logic, I will extend it to basically fill up every possible pixel, but I still would prefer to have it do that than being the actual full screen mode. Yeah. David in Discord actual full screen mode.

David in Discord mentions games and videos. I mean, yeah, sure. But I don't play games on my Mac and I don't watch videos in full screen either because usually I'm sitting in front of a 28 inch display. I don't need, I'm like right in front of it. Like I don't want the window to actually be that large. I use, if I'm watching something on on youtube or really any web web uh based video i will put it in like youtube i put it in theater mode and then i just

make the window larger that it makes it pleasant for me i'll adjust the safari window but i i almost never put it in full screen even then it's just not very good i don't know why like i don't know what it is exactly but i just don't like it i know and everything i do on the ipad is in full screen even then it's just not very good i don't know why like i don't know what it is exactly but i just don't like it i know and everything i do on the ipad is in full screen mode but not on the mac i mean i think it's like for me the difference the ipad is like the ipad doesn't have the menu bar and doesn't you know and also getting to the dock is easier it's more natural where like on on the mac you've got to like just wait you know wave it over and wait a second and it will pop up but like on the ipad if you want to like, just wait, you know, wave it over and wait a second,

then it will pop up. But like on the iPad, if you want to get to the dock, it's just more natural of like, I just, I swipe up and it happens instantly. You know, it's like a different method. Yeah, I don't like full screen on the Mac. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in your Ask Upgrade questions there. Thank you so much to everybody thatback.com and you can send in your ask upgrade questions there thank you so much to everybody that has uh you can check out jason's writing in the meantime until we're back next week and always at sixcolors.com and you can hear jason's other podcasts at the incomparable.com and here on relay fm we mentioned a couple on this episode right you can get football is life which jason's sometimes on over on the incomparable you can get downstream as well here on relay fm one of my favorite podcasts uh you can

listen to my shows here on relay fm and check out my work cortexbrand.com we're both on mastodon i'm having an increasingly good time on mastodon i find mastodon to be a significantly better experience to me than twitter has been in maybe the last 10 years. So you can find me. I'm on mike.social as at imike. And you can find Jason on zeppelin.flights as at jsnell. You can send us your feedback and questions at upgradefeedback.com. Thank you to those of you who support us with Upgrade Plus.

You can go to getupgradeplus.com to get longer, ad-free episodes of the show every single week, getupgradeplus.com. Thank you to our sponsors, the fine folks over at Setapp, TextExpander, and Ladder. But most of all, thank you for listening, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

Bye, Mike Hurley.