Upgrade - 52: Click to Click

Episode Date: August 31, 2015

This week we look forward to the Sept. 9 Apple media event, which Jason will be attending. What will it take for a new Apple TV to be a success? Also, a Wii U game wins over a party of eleven-year-old boys in a mouseless house, and we further ponder the eternal mystery of why some people don’t like Tap to Click.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 52 today's show is brought to you by lynda.com where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts hover simplify domain management and fracture photos printed in vivid color directly on to glass my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by mr six colors mr jason snell hi mike i uh i'm uh orange today orange today orange you're glad it's monday jason yeah oh look at look at you look at you with the puns I've been working hard on that one yeah you worked

nothing wrong with orange that's the sad thing about it how's it going it's another week we're counting down we're just about as we record this it's the last day of August so we're just about free of the interminable month of August the dog days of August where the tech news slows to a crawl and tech podcasts begin talking about subjects that are not interesting because there's not a lot to talk about.

And we're getting revved up for Apple News in September, as is the tradition. So I feel like we're on the precipice here. I feel like this is our this is where we turn the corner and uh we we leave summer behind and we head to fall mention talking about that about tech podcasts talking about things which aren't interesting uh last week of which welcome to our podcast last week in podcasting land was mouse week so uh feel like we already covered this several weeks or months ago, and now everybody's just getting caught up with Upgrade. But be that as it may.

So we spoke a little bit about input things last week, and then ATP spoke about mice, and then we spoke about mice on Connected, and then also again me and Gray spoke about mice on Connected. And then also, again, me and Gray spoke about mice on Cortex. So if you like input devices, this is your month. This is a sweeping vertical on mice. I was fascinated by the ATP discussion. I'm so backed up on podcasts.

But I did listen to the ATP discussion about mice and I I'm fascinated by it because I have, I have not used a mouse as my regular pointing device since like 1994, 1993. I just haven't used a mouse. I've used a track ball and now I use the, the, the track uh the magic trackpad so it was fascinating to hear uh on ATP in particular podcasters trying to describe the various hand positions of and the heights of mice and things like that that's pretty funny oh actually I do have a I have a relevant anecdote oh my god I have a relevant anecdote to tell you and it's this we had my son's birthday party over the weekend and uh it was the theme was video games because my son loves video games and um we actually played i don't know if you've heard and forgive me if you've talked about this on your video game themed podcast but um runbo which is a game for w U just came out. I haven't played it yet but it's on my

list because this is one of the very rare what is currently being referred to as an indie game a Nintendo indie game. There aren't a lot of them. Nintendo are making a real push at this now. They are creating this thing called

Nindie and it's like this little program that they're doing and they're doing some really really interesting things uh as part of the program so they marketed this i actually got an email last week from nintendo saying runbo is out you should play runbo and uh i looked at it and it looked cute and um it was a 15 download and the thing about it that's the most interesting is it offers group play up to nine people in front of one television. And I thought, we have eight boys coming over for my son's birthday party. And they love games.

And the whole theme is video games. It's like bring your computer or bring your iPad. We'll play games. We'll have pizza. We'll have cake. There'll be presents and then we'll play more games and then we'll wake up in the morning. We'll play more games. This was the whole plan. So it turned into a rainbow party essentially, because once they started playing that, they couldn't stop. It was Steve Lubitz said in the, um, in, in the relay, uh, Slack chat, when I was talking to him about this, that it was, uh was uh uh you know his his

kids were playing it and it was at like super smash bros level of enthusiasm and i can i can attest to that too and the brilliant thing about it is so the wii u you can have up to four controllers plus the the actual big uh wii console handheld thing gamepad the gamepad that's it the ridiculous gamepad cool but ridiculous uh so that's five input devices up from the wii which had four but each of the wii motes can have a uh the nunchuck attached to them and we have four wii motes with four nunchucks and the way runbo works the nunchuck can be used by a separate person from the wii mode genius that is amazing so you have to be close because they're tethered,

but you just sit next to each other. And I'm not sure we ever had nine. We did have eight at one point playing simultaneously. So that's brilliant because you can get the entire group involved instead of just four or five people with the most multiplayer versions that you can get for the Wii. But on top of that, as a parent looking at it, I really appreciated how the game

was built. It had multiple game modes. It's got a run. It's got a race, a king of the hill. It's got a bunch of different customizable characters, which are brilliant. The art direction is brilliant. The music is fantastic. It's like a Saul Bass title sequence from the 60s is what it struck me as being like.

Super stylized and cool. And the concept, it's very colorful because Runbow is Run and Rainbow put together. And the idea is that there are all these platforms on this game that are different colors. And a rainbow basically like sweeps over the screen. So for every three or four seconds, a new primary color or a new color

pops over the entire screen. And whatever color platforms match the color pops over the entire screen and whatever color platforms match the color that goes to the background essentially they disappear so if you're standing on an orange platform and everything turns orange you fall so there there's this added it's it's great and there's a mode where the person on the game pad is playing the color master and basically they're they're in opposition to all the players who are running on screen and they're like dropping bombs and and dropping um and throwing paint to sort of like ruin everybody's uh experience and then you try to see who whether they can somebody can reach the goal before the color master destroys everybody so many variations it's a 15 game and

the boys were playing it forever so that was great so that turned up to be most of the time for it. And I highly recommend Rainbow if you've got a Wii U. So good. And it puts, I love to what you were saying, I love that Nintendo is trying to do this because indie games, clever indie games like this really can help increase the value of the Wii U. Because right now the story on the Wii U is basically it's for first party titles. And I really like the first party titles that are on the Wii U, but I don't regret buying the Wii U because my kids really love the Nintendo games that are available for the Wii U plus our old Wii games. But it's a whole added dimension. If you had a bunch of these really great downloadable indie games that were also coming to the Nintendo platform, that would make it even more impressive and exciting. So

I'm glad that we discovered this one. But one of my son's friends came over with a laptop and they wanted to do some Minecraft stuff. And he was baffled by our house. He was like, do you have a mouse in our house? Because he was using my daughter's um you know he didn't bring a laptop he was using my daughter's iMac uh and they were playing Minecraft and and it has her i her her iMac has my old trackball that I used to use before I got the magic trackpad and um he's like do you guys have a mouse and we had a whole conversation it's like do we have a mouse is there a mouse in the house and the answer is this is turning into a Dr. Seuss, by the way. Could there be, you know, have you possibly, could you possibly souse where there's a, no, I can't do it.

Is there a mouse in the house? And there isn't. I think maybe I've got a mouse, a USB mouse, like buried at the bottom of this giant plastic bin I have full of cables and old hard drives and stuff. Maybe there's one there that, that like I bought a used Mac at some point and they threw in this mouse and I never used it, but no, we have no mice in the house at all. Um, just a magic track pads and, uh, and track balls. And I ha it was just a funny moment. So I had that realization that we are just a, we're not a mouse house mouseless house the house has no mouse so anyway that's a that's a whole that's our birthday party vertical right there Mike I know

you weren't expecting it I wasn't expecting it either but there it is we talked about video games and we talked about how Jason's house has no mice in it of either kind I hope Ben wrote in Jason's house has no mice in it. Of either kind, I hope. Ben wrote in. Anyway, follow-up. That was a really great follow-up. And birthday party follow-up. So Ben wrote in about,

we were talking again and again and again, as we have many times in the past, about pen and paper versus... We also have no pens in our... No, that's not true. We do have pens in our house. Yeah, I would send a care package if you didn't. Don't worry. He wrote in to say to us that he finds that computer screens

disconnect him from the physical space, whereas pen and paper lets him stay more engaged with the speaker when he's taking notes. I can attest to this. I find, you I find we talk about distraction-free writing environments. Well, pens and paper have no distraction, right? There's nothing jumping out at them.

I think that that is a really just great, succinct way of putting that, like the difference between them. Yeah, I mean, you can get your... Like if you're on a tablet and you're using a pen or you're or you're typing i i think you could get it set up to the point where you would you could try to stay engaged but you are absolutely right that the interface of pen on paper is as simple there's no interface

to fiddle with doodling is the closest you can get to fiddling with the interface on a pen and paper and then you're not going to get any notifications and you're not going to have any temptation to switch to different apps all you have is the pen and the paper i would also argue especially for me um and especially if we're talking about tablets as a thing for note-taking uh you can it's easier to take notes not looking at a piece of paper um and like looking at what's in front of you you're not gonna you're not gonna be like oh i wrote on my leg right you're going to put pen on you know ink on paper and and even if you're not looking okay so there we go well i wonder what happens in some time a few weeks time maybe when we find out if we're going to get this magical pen in the iPad.

Jim wrote in to tell us that he has found some third party watch bands on eBay. We were talking last week about third party bands for the Apple Watch and how both of us were kind of unsure about it. Jim was really happy with the results. One of them looks very much like

a leather loop. Like, you show me this picture and I at first thought he was showing us his Apple leather loop for comparison. But no, he bought that leather loop from eBay. And then also a black Milanese band. What do they call that? Is that loop as well? Yeah, loop. Milanese loop.

Looks nice in the black, I think. It does. I think that's a nice look. I think, and Jim said he's very happy i mean obviously 35 i think it's 35 pounds 35 dollars i can't remember where uh jim was writing him from but it was 35 of his local currency uh and i agree they do look really good uh and but my my kind of hesitation remains that I don't know how I feel buying a watch strap that doesn't have the Apple approved and created lugs. I'm just worried that it's going to break or slip off or something gets lodged in there or I don't know what. Yeah, I need to – I'm curious i mean this this comes down to what

people's experiences are like is this does this work is this is this good enough or are they you know the the ones that we saw the pictures of jim says he's happy with them uh they look good that that's just my hesitation is do they when when you look at them in real life, do they look good and do they fit and feel good? And then do they last or are they kind of crappy and they fall apart? I don't know. But for 35 pounds, I mean, they can last for, I could get four of them, right? Apple's margins are so large, too, that if somebody else wants to take this down, you know, and clearly what Apple wants to do is have this lug licensing program thing where you use their lugs. And it's a you know, it's sort of like that's how Apple makes some money off of the third party sales.

But, you know, there's nothing stopping somebody from from trying to do something like this. My question is just what's the what's the quality? But they definitely look very nice. And, you know, it it's, I'm having this cause my wife is her, her, uh, our anniversary is coming up and her birthday is coming up and we, and she wants an Apple watch. And we were talking in the car yesterday about, um, about bands and about, uh, the different models. And this is the challenge is that, you know, when we talk about Apple watch bands, we're not just talking about the price of the bands, which are, you know, the bands aren't cheap, the Apple bands, but the Apple bands are all color matched other than the sport bands with the stainless model. And I mean, let's leave addition out of it. They're a color match with

the stainless model and, um, stainless model is more, much more expensive than the than the sport model so so you start talking about like well if you wanted the milanese loop then you get that with the stainless and now you know now that band doesn't just cost what it costs you've also now upgraded to the stainless model of the watch and one of the interesting things with something like this is it's not just cheaper but if it's cut if if loop that's color-matched to a sport instead of stainless, that's a different story too. So there's a lot there, and I don't know what we're going to do with what Lauren wants for her watch. I think she should probably get a stainless, but I think she's going to

balk at the price of it, which I understand. So she wants one, but hasn't yet got one. Hasn't yet got one. We're going to go to the Apple store and she's going to do, she's going to do, I told her she has to try them on. She has to see what the leather and what the, what the modern buckle looks like and what the, what the, you know, what the different watches look like. Cause all she's ever seen are my band, my current one and the one that I had the day

that they shipped. And she knows, she she knows one thing which is she doesn't like the bright color bands she kind of thinks the black is okay and she saw the white and she said she thought that was pretty nice um so yeah we're gonna do that but it's just funny because that's part of the apple watch shopping experience is you start to talk about these other band types and then it becomes a whole thing about well does that mean i get the stainless steel watch too because as stephen hackett would say um you know if the lugs don't match then you're just you know you're asking to be laughed at which i don't agree with but i see it it's better if they match i think it's so important to go to the trial because every opinion i created for myself about what the straps would feel like was 100 wrong in every single instance right so you do have to try them on you do the funny thing

over time i always said i'm gonna get the milliners i'm gonna get the milliners i don't think i'm gonna get it like i have four uh sport bands and i love the sport bands. I have absolutely no feeling now of needing anything else. I talked so much about getting the classic buckle because I love the black leather band with a classic buckle look and feel. And plastic watch bands have always bothered me because they get all sweaty and and weird um and when i started running i started running again a couple months ago and i i switched to the sport band just because i thought i don't want to i don't want to run with this leather band i'm going to sweat all over it it's going to ruin it um and i'll just swap on the the leather band at other times. Well, I've been wearing the sport band since then. And I like the leather band. And if I was going, if I was dressing up and going out to dinner or something like that, I might swap into the leather.

garage and going for runs and sweating and things like that. Um, the sport band has been fine and it doesn't bother me at all, which really surprised me because I, I, I, I cannot begin to describe how much I dislike, um, uh, plastic watch bands. I just, I hate them. Um, because they leave my wrist feeling kind of weird and damp. And it's just, ooh, I don't like it. And yet here I am with the sport band. I mean, I know it's played out now, but they're not plastic, right? They are this other thing, which is funny because, you know, it's like, oh, fluoroelastomer. But they don't feel like plastic to me they do have a different feeling um and i guess that you know that's the special plastic that they ended up making yeah i think that's i think that's exactly

it which is uh uh it it's it's better you know it uh, so, so I'm, I'm kind of with you. Um, the, the try on was really great and, uh, we're going to definitely do that for Lauren's watch. So I'll report back, uh, if we, if, if she gets one, what it is. Um, and you know, I've been encouraging her to, I think the stainless would be fine. I'm happy with her having a nicer watch than me. But we'll see how. We'll see what she says when we go to the Apple store. I have to say, the try-on was one of those things where Apple really demonstrated their knowledge of their own product. They knew that you needed to try it on

and how important that would be for the buying process. And how many people... you know, like, I don't think that Adina would have bought one unless she would have tried it on. She didn't want one, really. And then she tried it on and was like, yeah, I want one now. So that's how these things roll.

All right, should we wrap up the, close up the old follow-up bag or whatever it is and move on to topics? Great idea, Jason. Let's indeed close the follow up bag. Okay, I'm closing it now. I'm tying a knot. It's just a slipknot. You can untie it later.

It'll be pretty easy. Now I'm tossing it in the corner. All right, follow up bag is away. Mike, now what? Now we open the sponsor bag. All right, follow-up bag is away. Mike, now what? Now we open the sponsor bag.

And first off, I would like to thank our friends over at lynda.com, the online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business technology and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, just go ahead and visit lynda.com slash upgrade. That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash upgrade. lynda.com is for people that have hobbies that they want to learn. It's for people that want to solve problems. It's for people that are curious. People want to make things happen.

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going to happen on the 9th which was the exact day that i didn't want it to happen because i'll be on the plane yeah you're going to be in the air while this all goes on yep and i land uh pretty much as soon as it ends um no wi-fi on the plane so so I'm going to have... It's going to be like 2010 or something for me, where I will be checking six colors at the end. Well, not that that existed, and I maybe would have looked at Macworld for your great

live blogging, and find out exactly what was announced. So it's all going to be a big surprise to me, and who knows when I'll get to actually watch the video, if at all. Probably by the time I've landed, there will be a thousand think pieces and twenty podcasts all I'll get to actually watch the video if at all probably by the time I've landed there will be a thousand think pieces and twenty podcasts all published for me to devour so

we have the event, the event is Siri focused is the invitation is Siri focused who knows what the event will be focused on we can take some good guesses but I would like to get some early ideas and predictions from the man with the plan, Mr. Jason Snell,

about what we might see next week. So what do you think we're going to get? Well, it's always an iPhone event, right? September, iPhone. It's always been that way. So I think, you know, we'll get new iPhones. If we had to follow the conventions of previous iPhone or Apple iPhone releases, it will be what? It'll be the 6S and 6S Plus, I imagine.

And then the old models will, you know, be brought down. Reports are that the 6 Plus will stay in the product line, which I find kind of baffling. I guess old models are easier to make and cheaper to make as time goes on. So we're going to have a lot of different models out there, it sounds like. It sounds like there'll still be the 5S, and then there'll be the 6 and the 6 Plus and the 6S and the 6S Plus. And they'll all be there at various price points. Was it 9to5Mac who said that the 5C will be discontinued? Could be. Could be. That's not surprising to me because it's at the bottom of the line now,

so they may just bump it off. Or they may keep it around but only in certain markets. That's another possibility. But at some point, even if the margins on it are pretty good, at some point, you've got to make it hit the end of its life. So that wouldn't surprise me. Of course, for all of our talk about a new version of a small phone, there's no sign of that in the supply chain. So it's not going to happen, almost certainly. the supply chain. So it's not going to happen almost certainly. I'm holding out hope that it may happen at a future time because I think that not having a small phone at all on the price list

would be problematic, but who knows, maybe Apple doesn't care. But I hope that they will update that at some point next year. They could even do it, honestly, they could even do it in the spring and just put out a press release that says, oh yeah, we updated the 5S, now it's the spring and uh just put out a press release that says oh yeah we updated the 5s now it's the 5s yes to i don't know what it would be the 6m just make some letters and numbers out there so what's so what would the the lineup be missing then the 5s wouldn't be able to do apple pay right but that's probably the only big thing that it couldn't do. Right. So you'd have the four, in terms of sort of the way that they're marketed, certainly in the US, that is the free phone. That becomes the free phone, free with contract,

or essentially walk out. For a lot of these plans now now it's walk out the door without paying anything for it uh and then agree to pay it over time so it's the lowest of the of it's the baseline price zero essentially and then up from there you have the steps up so you would have you would have a six that would be your hundred dollar and then you would have the 6S at the $199, along with maybe the 6 Plus, the old 6 Plus. The Mike was right phone. And then up from there, you'd have the 6S Plus. And then within that, then you'd have, those would be the base configurations in terms of storage. So then you'd go up from there.

Apple's happy to let you give them all the money if you want to if you want to do that so i think i think we're just going to see that it's going to be another turn of the wheel and we talked uh in previous shows about force touch being a possibility there and and uh some more kind of haptic feedback than we then we're used to seeing uh the rumors are upgraded uh optics upgraded uh uh camera in general, front and back. And that seems reasonable. Yeah, it seems like they're going to put a really good camera, like not at least. So Goermann is doing what Goermann does.

And there's piecemeal leaks coming out now. Sprinkling them out. Yeah, that's right. And what he's saying for the iPhone 6 line would be a larger front FaceTime camera. So it would have a better camera. I don't think that they say what it's going to have, but it will be better. Are they software flash? So the screen will flash?

Oh, yeah. Sure. Which I think is smart. I think it's a good idea. And also a rose gold. Have you seen this? Yeah, yeah. There's another color variation that they're going to do,

which is the rose gold, which is the, you know, it's the pinky gold version. So they'll have colors that match all the watches. Yeah, I guess so. I guess that's more or less right. So they'll have something for the watch bodies effectively but also i mean you know they're already anodizing throw another color in the lineup i don't have a skin but you know it's uh i like the rose gold color watch i think it's a nice color i wouldn't buy it myself personally but if i was gonna a gold

maybe i would go for that one um and i think it's kind of pinky right so it's uh probably gonna sell i reckon that would sell quite well um if depending on who they're trying to attract with that i think that's a smart move it's not gonna get everyone but i think it's if you can add something in the lineup that's not too difficult to do and it's gonna make a lot of people happier then go for it which is why i still i mean i just want to see him go full-on let's go with colors but um i agree i don't know when we're going to see that but i i think you know just do one silver one black and then four or five colors that's what i would like to see the ipods are all anodized aluminum i mean they you would think that they could do that and

have you know have them be in all the colors. I just assume it's the complexity at scale for iPhone sales numbers that makes that a nightmare. You've got to carry everywhere that sells iPhones now has to carry all the different models and then somebody comes in and says, I want to buy it right now. And instead of saying, yes, we've got it, you say, well, we don't have it in blue,

but we do have it in orange. Would you like orange? And they'll say, no, only Jason is orange today. And they leave. And then you've lost a sale. So you don't want to do that. You think you've got to have three storage sizes, six or seven color variations. And in some markets, phones for different networks or whatever. Yeah, it's too much.

Yeah, it's too much. But I would love to see it. You know, do something like Motorolaola does the moto maker type thing you buy it all online pick the color you want that's that's what i was going to say was uh maybe it's a an online order only color variation right where it's like if you want us to do it in blue or or orange or red or whatever we'll do that for online orders only but in the stores it's these these three colors these four colors but hey, more colors is good. People like colors.

It is an expression of their personality. They get to choose a color, at least from a limited palette, but they still get to make a choice. And that's good. So what else are we going to see next week, Jason? Let's see. Well, the rumors are there's a new Apple TV, uh, that's coming now. This is the rumor. Sorry, I should stop and laugh here. There it is again. A rumor that we've seen before. Uh, but maybe we won't see it again. It sounds like this is pretty solid that the new Apple TV hardware

is finally going to happen. And, uh, the implication I think behind having Siri as the center of the, uh, invitation, not only is it just kind of a cheeky joke of, you know, maybe Siri knows what Apple's going to do next, but that there are products that involve Siri that will be shown. And, you know, the iPhone has Siri and that's nice. But what if, as the rumors foretell, Apple TV had Siri as well, like Siri Remote or something like that, where you could ask the Apple TV for something and use the same kind of technology to do that. And that's one of the rumors. So it looks like the new Apple TV thing might happen. And I'm really excited to see if this new Apple TV has an app store, has an API, the ability for third- party developers to develop for it, a game story behind it and other apps, too. But like I'm intrigued by the idea of Apple trying to use its its power in iOS development. developers and so many iOS games and being able to sort of transfer that

try anyway to transfer that to the living room because they have a huge advantage in mobile and if they could transfer that to the living room that could be powerful for them I'm going to steal this idea from

a good friend of the show, Mr. James Thompson. The outside bet, the magical thing that could happen is they unveil the TV and bring out Nintendo as the first game demo. Well, they're working with that developer

on iOS games, right? Dina. Yeah. So would it be that far a step for them to say they're still saying end of the year before the end of the year they'll have the first nintendo game uh on smartphones still wouldn't it wouldn't be that would be kind of crazy to say hey here's a nintendo game you can play on a box attached to a tv that's not a nintendo box yeah you want to sell the app store that's the way you do it yeah that would be uh that would be pretty wild yeah and then apple chucks a ton of money at them to give them an exclusive yeah you know it's it's not too crazy uh a bet but it's still just crazy enough but it would be it would be a home run if they could manage it because i mean

they're going to do their usual partnership stuff because the idea being there will be an sdk right that's that's kind of the big thing because they're saying that the well the all of the rumors are indicating that the streaming service isn't ready so they really need to push on the on the development stuff right so this is the and it's the holiday quarter i mean we talked about this before the holiday quarter is huge for Apple. What better? I mean, I made this argument like four years ago, and it didn't come true, which is an Apple TV with an SDK, with an app store, with a game story to tell. It could be a huge seller at the holidays because not only does it give you access to Netflix and all of those things, but it's a game console for 150 bucks or 200 bucks that plays all of these games. And they've got the iOS game library to, you know, not all those games

translate, but some of them do. I mean, I've been playing Pac-Man 256 that translates perfectly fine to a controller with physical buttons. And the rumor is that the Apple TV controller has both physical buttons and a touch, a little touchpad thing on it. So you could actually do swiping and the like as well. So it'll be interesting to see. With so much of this, the rumors tell us a lot about the technology. And you could argue that there's no point in watching the thing. Like, you're going to be in the air.

It's fine. You know everything that's going to happen because all the rumors're going to be in the air, it's fine. You know everything that's going to happen because all the rumors are going to be out there. And by the time you get on that plane, you'll know, I would say within a high degree of certainty, you'll know what the hardware is that's going to get announced

and what its features are. But what you won't know until you get off that plane is how Apple tells the story of those products. And to me, that is why it's always worth watching these Apple events, even if you feel like you know everything that's going to happen. Because it's not what the products are. It's what Apple says the products are that I find fascinating. Because how do you sell an Apple TV?

How do you sell that box and say, here's another thing to hook up to your TV? Well, I've got things hooked up to it. Well, no, but you really want this one to be hooked up to it. Well, why would I want that? And then they have to answer that. And in this case, I think one of the answers is it plays games.

You know all those games you like on your iPad and your iPhone? Well, they're going to be versions of those for this thing that you can play with your family. And it comes with a controller. Plus you can use your iPhone and your iPad as controllers. Plus you can buy more controllers. And they've got motion things in them.

So they're kind of like the Wii. And there's a story to be told there if that's the story they're going to tell. I also am curious if they're going to be first-party games. If there are games for the Apple TV, would Apple build some games? They did that on the iPod back in the day. They had poker for the iPod. I don't think they need to anymore. I don't think they do. i don't think they need to anymore like i don't think they do i don't think they do but i i'm just i'm wondering do you do something like

wii sports just to show what's possible on the platform or do you just go to your developer partners and say do this and have them have them make it probably probably they don't the world does not need apple to get into game development but i i wonder uh then if they're not going to do it they need to show off the platform the best things about this platform and tell that story and that that means game demos it means having developers who know about the platform who can say look what we did with this controller you know remote thing whatever it is whatever it's called. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm really looking forward to with the Apple TV, like the iPhone, I feel like we know what, you know, the iPhone pays the bills. iPhone is really great. So they're going to sell

a lot of them. It's the most important thing that will get announced. But we also kind of know what the story is that they're going to tell with the iPhone. Everybody loves the iPhone. It's great. This one's even better because it's got this and that look how many people are using Apple pay. Now there's this new people on the, on the watch love the force touch so we're bringing that in you can sort of tell how that story is going to be sketched but how are they going to sketch the story of the apple tv i think it's a tougher sell you know and and uh yeah and how much do they go into games they certainly with the ipod touch used to really lean into games in october right and be like if holidays are coming it's a game platform. Buy it for your kids and they'll play games on it.

So do they do that with the Apple TV or do they, you know, do they just sort of allude to it? I don't know. I'm fascinated to find out. I struggle to see, or at least I won't feel that they will have a commitment to games until they give us a controller with a bunch of physical buttons on it. Not like a couple of buttons and a touchpad, because that's not how console gaming works. And not just because that's how it's always been, it's because if you are looking at the TV screen and not your hands... Yeah, you're not going to look down.

You can't use a touchpad effectively, because you can't tap for where the character will go because you're not looking at the screen right you need to be able it's and as well like a lot of ios games will not be able to be ported in and without significant changes to the way that they work well so nine to five back says that there will be the existing remote the or you know this rumored remote that they're going to offer but that they'll also have bluetooth controller support so i i feel like the current ios devices have that like but like you know you can buy these third-party controllers i just mean

like i won't buy from apple a commitment to gaming developers can be committed to gaming and make the exact games that they want to make and have support for these controllers. But I won't buy a commitment from Apple until they actually make a real controller for a games console, like Amazon did with the Fire TV. That's a good question.

Would Apple make... Boy, can you imagine the John Syracuse rant about an Apple-made video game controller? Oh my God. It probably wouldn't be as good as third parties could make, but I just want to see them make it, right? Because the Amazon one is okay, but at least they made it. Apple bother? Or would they say, yeah, no, third parties are going to make it. It's fine. Because it, it, it says something about the platform that it's like, yes, we also make available this controller that, and that's one of the ways they'll have to sell it is, are they going to sell this remote? It's like, look right out of the box, you've got a remote that has, you know, a multi-axis controller and you can, you know, you can wave it around. And it's just like the

Wii, the Wii remotes used to be, except much smaller. Um, and it does all the things that they do. Plus you've got your phones or do you say, you know, also we have a, you know, we have a pro controller that you can buy. It's 50 bucks and you know, you can use those with games too. Or, or will they say, we have a great partner who's going to make a pro controller that works and all the Bluetooth pro controllers work. I think, I think you're right i i think it's not necessary but maybe it sends a message if they say yeah we've got an apple pro controller yeah and then john i think it's important to talk about it for eight hours you know because like you know you bring up you bring up the wii mo again and i agree with it but the wii mo is still buttons and it had gyroscopes in it right

covered in buttons it's the problem the problem is a touch screen or a touch pad uh will not work as well i think there are physical buttons on the rumored apple tv remote yeah but it's like okay so the other thing is if you want to make a game controller it can't double as a remote because ergonomically they have to be extremely different things that's probably true unless they're very clever if you want to know about the ergonomics of game controllers I have a great episode of Hypercritical for you

yeah yeah oh I mean a thin remote that doubles as a Wiimote is not going to be the same as a Wiimote there's no doubt about that doubles as a Wiimote is not going to be the same as a Wiimote. There's no doubt about that. Yeah, because the Wiimote was still built to be held, and it was chunky, and it had specific parts in it that you would hold it. But that was not a good controller for the hand, right?

But you look at the gamepad, the gamepad is way thicker than it needs to be. Because if you open one of those up, there's massive spaces in it. But they made it so it could be held. They think about the ergonomics, right? than it needs to be because if you open one of those up there's massive spaces in it but they made it so it could be held they think about the ergonomics right and that's why like a remote and a controller are fundamentally different things right so you need both right you need something that's that's cheap and small and is not ideal but it can be used and then you've got an alternative that is better that needs to be available i don't know i we have we could really go down the the rabbit hole and we may have already we're already

halfway down about apple tv and and gaming i'm also curious about other other apps if they talk about you know here's major league baseball that's made this amazing new new app that has all these features like because the major league baseball app for example for playstation is it's just amazing i think the xbox one version is too amazing and then the apple tv one is it's fine you know it's it plays games you can you can watch uh watch a baseball game but the playstation version is even better than the version that's on ios actually it's on iOS, actually. It's got like event data where you can go, you can say like, oh, let's jump to when on this archived game, let's jump to when the next run was scored. And you can do it. You can see, oh, they got a hit there. Let's jump to there. And so, you know, whether it's Major League Baseball or somebody else, somebody who's maybe a video provider

saying, look, we're going to build an app for this that really takes advantage of this platform as well. That'd be interesting to see. Do they do that? Do they have somebody like Netflix or HBO Go or Major League Baseball or somebody in that vein to talk about the entertainment possibilities that can be built out of this that aren't games, but like video and other interfaces like that i don't know we'll see if they don't have the cable service thing that they're going to make ready then most definitely they will because otherwise you'd be like here's the apple tv has no tv on it yeah well right but but is it part of the is it just like hey we've got the same old things you love which is menus of things you can pick from and watch a show or do they say this is going to be great for your channel providers too because

look at this amazing new hbo go app it's so much better than the old one because of x y and z and here's a developer at hbo to tell you why how easy it was to build this amazing thing that would be a different story than um then like yep it's also got hbo on it all right let me take our second break and we'll get back to this we spoke way longer about the apple tv than i was expecting yeah me too this week's episode is brought to you by fracture i love fracture they do something that's really awesome you've heard us talk about it before and you should own a fracture of your own by now but if you don't let me tell you why you should. Fracture is taking the hundreds and hundreds of photos that you may have and help you surface the best ones to display at home.

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Do you think new iPads? I'm still holding on to my theory that they're going to unveil the new iPads. I know it would seem like a jam-packed event, but I'm standing by that. I think my theory being that, and I spoke about this on Connected first, I still think they're going to do it because they really will want to put the ipads front and center to make sure they get as many people as possible to see them and the best place to do that is at the iphone event which is why they're gonna unveil the apple tv there as well but i'm still holding out for the ipads i don't think so yeah it feels it does feel less likely

as the days go on but i'm still i'm still to hold on to it because if I'm right, great. If I'm wrong, everyone can forget about it. Well, by pattern, the new iPads would come in October. I feel like if Apple is trying to send a message that the iPad is important, killing the October event and moving it all into September at the end of the iPhone event is a really bad way of signaling that they're still bullish on the iPad. If they want to make a splash with a new iPad model that is going to, you know, change how the world thinks of the iPad, putting that in the iPhone event, I think is not giving it a big stage. I think it's overshadowing it with other stuff. So, you know, I mean, the iPhone event is the biggest stage though. It is, but then, you know, do you want to, this is the question question do you want to be the star of a smaller event or number two or three on the agenda in a larger event i think that's the that's the question do you want to do you want to open for the rolling stones and have people

throw things at you or do you want to have a nice uh concert in a decent sized hall that where you're the where you're the star that that's a bad metaphor but that that's what i'm getting at here is i feel like um i don't know i i think it says not good things about the ipad if apple stuffs it into the uh the phone event because one they've gotten rid of the ipad as its own event and they feel the need to you know have it be part of the iPhone show. I just, if they're launching a brand new iPad, an iPad Pro, wow. I think they need more time to talk about it. If there's truly like new iPhones

and new Apple TV with things to talk about, it would be a very stuffed schedule if they did that. So I'm not saying they won't. I'm just saying that if I had to pick, I would say it's more likely that they'll do it in October as they've done in the past. Talk about the iPad and how great it is.

And maybe even have some other products like new max to, to drop for the holiday quarter and do that all in October. But you know, never say never. They could absolutely pack it all in to one event in September. Okay. No, I see it.

I get what you're saying. We'll see. I'm just going to hold out. No, good. That's good. We got it. I get what you're saying. We'll see. I'm just going to hold out. No, good. That's good. We got to, we got to have, uh, that, that'll be your big question when you're the plane lands and you can turn on your phone. Was Mike right? Was Mike right? We'll find out. Is that an international flight that you're on during that? Yeah, that's to Portland. That's all. Well, actually I'm that first flight, the flight that I'm on during the event is to Canada. And when I arrive

in Canada, I will be refreshing my phone incessantly and then get on a flight down to Portland. Wow. You're flying London to Vancouver? I believe it's Vancouver, yeah. Alright. Okay, well, we'll have some fans waiting for you at the gate. No, we won't.

Nope. I won't be leaving the airport, so they won't see me. They won't see you. They'll be outside just touching the glass walls and saying, Mike's in there somewhere, and it'll be not creepy at all. Feel free to come on down, but you won't see me. Anything else? I mean, I think that we're going to see some watch bands or something, something for the holiday season.

Yeah, so watchOS 2 is I think the big question because iOS will come out. They'll, you know, they'll say, oh, because this is all going to happen on September 9th. And they'll probably say this will all be on sale starting the 18th, the following Friday. That's the pattern. So that's probably what they'll do. And they'll probably say iOS 9 will come out, you know, next, you know, maybe like the 16th, something like that. They'll release the final version of iOS 9 because it'll be on those phones. The question is watch OS 2. Does watch OS 2 come out then? Or does watch OS 2 come out later? Because we've got, we've still got OS 10

to come out. And so I think it's an open question. Will they talk about the watch? I mean, I'm sure they'll talk about it. Will they talk about watchOS 2 coming out the following week? Or will they say it'll be out this fall, push it off a little bit, and then if they do an October event, talk about it then, release it then, and also maybe make some announcements then about different bands or things like that. I don't know. My feeling would be watchOS 2 and iOS 9 same time. That would be my feeling.

That feels like a one-two punch to me. And I think in a lot of people's minds, they're connected in a way. Yeah, it may depend on what shape watchOS 2 is in. What shape do you think it's in? I think it's pretty good. I think it's actually doing really well. I've been using it for the last few weeks and I like it.

I would think that they would come together. And I think that if they mention it, it would feel like just a good time to say, oh, we have a whole new range of bands coming for the holiday season. And these are all the new sport band colors and etc etc because i do think that there will be new bands for christmas um just something else something a little bit more just to help shift some more uh watches and some more watch related yeah why not yeah why why not do that and and whether it's yeah right whether it's selling more watches with those bands or

whether it's selling bands to existing watch owners um i i think a refresh look september 9th when they do this event that will mark the year anniversary of the announcement of the apple watch yep which is why i think they'll give some time to it yeah so so i think that's probably a good idea uh you know like i said if they if it's too packed, they may decide, let's just talk about this in October if they've got an October event on the way. But they may very well talk about it then. It's been in our consciousness for a while now. And so you want to remind people that it's there. And so talking about it, releasing the new version of the operating system, and yes, maybe some variations. I've wondered for a while now if they would do material variations on the watch, you know, if they would do a different version of the watch that's still the same internals and it's still running the same software, but is different in some way. You know, it's a different color a different material um and i

don't think that will happen but it might certainly new new uh bands would make a lot of sense and or here are our favorite third parties and the bands that they've created they could do that it seems it seems i wouldn't have more of their own because it'd be crazy not to i mean all you need to do is just throw some different color inks in the in the fluoroelastomer pot you would think because they had all those ones i mean there's that picture that you can find it they did at a fashion show right some fashion show somewhere and the star wars thing jj abrams had like a midnight blue he had a he had one that does not exist in stores that he had, that he obviously had gotten from Apple. So I don't know.

I don't know. So you'll be in the room, right? I will. I believe Dan Morin and I will both be there. Both received invites for Six Colors. So we should be in the room. The room being the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, which is not an event place that Apple has used before, I believe. It's in San Francisco.

It's a few blocks down. It's at 7th Street, I San Francisco, it's a few blocks down. It's at 7th Street, I think. So it's a little further away. The Yerba Buena is at 3rd and Moscone is at 4th. So, you know, three or four blocks further down and it's on the other side of Market Street. So essentially, what is that?

Six or seven blocks away from the usual suspects. And it's a big venue, which I think is good because so many of these Apple events, they're so jam-packed full of people. It's really uncomfortable for everyone involved. The Flint Center last year was the worst. It was just the worst. We were in the last row. There were photographers bumping up against us. It was just an uncomfortable place to be because it wasn't that big and there were a lot of people there. So this is a big venue. So hopefully it'll be better for all concerned logistically. I'm looking forward to it. So yes, in a real time follow up, somebody saying, oh, it might have been used for the Apple II announcement. Well, let's just say in my history covering Apple, they've never done an event there.

And if they had an event there in prehistory, those people are all probably retired and living on an island now. So anyway, that's Dan and I will be there at whatever, 10 o'clock in the morning on the 9th. Celebrating the end of our time at time at macworld too as a part of that because that that's all bound up in this too is that was our last that was the last day basically that we were all working at macworld and the next day everybody got uh laid off uh what's the game plan remains to be seen i mean we'll have two people in the room so we'll probably do the live tweet thing and uh i think that's what it worked pretty well the last time is dad

dan did the live tweet thing and i uh took notes and planned to you know write something but but but do a little bit more of the the contempl thing. Now, the real question, Mike, and this ties into what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks is, the real question is, do I bring a pen? Do I do full Gruber and just bring a pen and field notes? Let me buy something for you. That's the question.

I've got some lovely pens and I've got some field notes books. So I could do that. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I don't know. It's nice for me to be on Twitter and make comments here and there as the event's going on. But I'm certainly planning on being more in the moment of watching the event rather than frantically typing and things like that.

I'm going to let Dan do the frantic typing because he's good at it. Are you working on any reviews right now? Like, are you now scrambling to get anything done ahead of next week? So, no. So Dan and I will probably work together on an iOS 9 something or other, but I have not written a word of it.

Our friend Federico has written tens of thousands of words about iOS 9. I think he's up to a billion now. I think it's a billion words. Approximately a billion words. Yeah, a billion words. I haven't done that. I've been using it, but I haven't written it.

And I feel no need to write a 10,000-word review of iOS 9. So I think Dan and I will work on something, and we will collaborate on something for Six Colors about iOS 9. But I don't feel like the obligation to write a giant review of everything. Now I, I am hoping very much that, uh, that I will be able to review the new iPhones when they come out. I did that last year. Um, whether it's for Mac world or for six colors remains to be seen, but I would very much like to do that. I would very much like to review a new Apple TV, should it emerge. And I am working on an El Capitan review for Macworld,

but I don't anticipate El Capitan coming out. I will be really hating life if El Capitan comes out at the same time as the iPhone, because I can't write all those reviews at once. So I should probably start writing an El Capitan review too, but I'm anticipating that'll be more of an October thing. And, uh, and so I, I haven't written a word of that either. I've just been using it and taking notes. Um, so yeah, this is going to be that period where I end up writing huge number of words, not a billion, but, uh, but I haven't written any of them yet. That that's not, I, I keep thinking that every now and then somebody, somebody is going to be like,

oh, I bet Jason's writing a bunch of those. Nope. Nope. Not yet. I'm just using, I'm just using the stuff I've been using iOS nine. I've been using watchOS two. I've been using El Capitan, but I'm, I haven't gotten to the point where I, uh, I sit down and write because quite honestly, that's never really worked for me. I kind of like don't want to come in early in the game. I want to wait until late in the game so that everything is kind of more fully formed and I've had more experience using it. That's impractical if you're doing something of the length of John Syracuse's OS X reviews or of Federico's iOS reviews, but I'm not trying to write 20,000 words about this stuff. So we'll see. So that's sort of what I'm doing. Honestly, right now I'm trying to clear the decks because I know how busy it's going to be. Plus we're going to XOXO. So this event's going to happen. I'm also going

to be at a conference. This happened last year too. I was at the conference with the phones, trying to think of and write the review i wrote i wrote a lot of that review on the train from from portland to seattle last year it was crazy so i know that's going to happen again to some degree so i've been doing a lot of work the last couple of weeks to get things out of the way so that i so that i can take a week or two and just focus entirely on the new products. Talking about the new products, when do you think they're going to come out? When do you think the new iPhones will actually come out?

I think it's that if it follows the pattern, it'll be the following Friday, the Friday after the event or the following week after the event. So that would be the 18th. And then you would probably see, you know, first reviews from the press in the 15th, 16th range. But who knows? So I've yet to decide whether this, for me, is a good or bad thing.

So if they were going to come out, like if the event was the week earlier, it was this week, and then the phones came out on the 11th then they would have come out during xoxo which they have for many other years right many other times they've come out during so in that scenario i could have bought one there right um in portland and and not had to have the sales tax but then i would also be lining up uh on the first day of the conference to buy a phone um the other scenario is they come out when i'm at home so i can just get one when i'm at home which is what will happen now right

but the bad part of that is i will likely line up because the i have had such bad experiences with delivery drivers on iphone day they just don't work there's too many orders they just don't work. There's too many orders. They just can't, these delivery companies can't cope here. But that means the day after I arrive home from a transatlantic flight, waking up at the crack of dawn to go to an Apple store to get in line. Fun. There's no good scenario.

However, if the thing is, I want to disrupt my life in the least way and get an iPhone, then the way it's going to go is better. Because I don't want to spend one of the mornings of my holiday standing outside. Absolutely not. So I'll just go and pick one up, hopefully on the Friday or so. I think I'm going to go completely off contract this time. Good.

Good for you. I'm a little bit fed up with just dealing with these companies. So I'm going to reduce the price of my plan, get a month-to-month plan, and get an off-contract phone, I think. So the last thing I want to mention on this is what's happening with this show, because that's all over the shop.

Because if we do a show next Monday, there's no point in it existing, right? Indeed. And it's also a holiday in the US. It's Labor Day. It's the day that Americans take all their white pants and put them away until the next spring. I don't know if you were aware of that. It's very important. It sounds very important. Don't wear white after Labor it's a it's a key factor key thing you have to

take off your white apple watch sport bands at that point um so i'm not going to even be here and what is the point we would do that show it would post monday evening and then you know 36 hours later would be completely invalidated so So we're not going to do it. No, we're not going to do it. So like there is a place for these types of shows that we've done today. And we could do it on Monday. But the thing is, because you're going to be there, it feels like there should be a show after the event, which there will be. Now, obviously, I won't be broadcasting from a plane.

So Stephen Hackett is going to fill in and he will be uh taking my duties next week and the show will go out will be recorded and will be released on wednesday at some point after the event wednesday evening probably after the event wednesday evening wednesday night so we're hoping we'll do a special upgrade with me and steven hackett on the ninth uh in the evening so day day of and we're hoping to do clockwise then too. So it's going to be a marathon of post-event podcasting. But we do hope to do both of those things on Wednesday. So don't listen for Upgrade on Monday

and its usual drop date next week. We're going to wait and do it right after the Apple event. And then, bonus, then we're all going to Xoxo festival in portland and uh i'm flying home the following monday morning and you're staying in portland for a few days so what we're going to do is we're going to record an upgrade while we're together it'll be our what is that third fourth together live upgrade maybe it's just the third. And we'll do that over the weekend.

We'll do that probably on the Sunday. And I'm not sure we'll stream it live, but regardless, that episode will come out more or less, maybe a little bit earlier than usual. And we'll talk even more about the aftermath of the Apple event. And that'll be Jason and Mike in person, which is always fun. Yep.

And then we'll be back on our normal schedule after this. Yes, we will. So there you go. Schedul we'll be back on our normal schedule after this. We will. So, there you go. Scheduling stuff is the best part of all podcast discussion. It is my favorite. Should we get on to Ask Upgrade? I think it's time. This week's Ask Upgrade is brought to you by our friends over at Hover.

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outright hostile about tap to click? A relatively innocuous software feature that I'm fairly sure is not even abled by default. Its mere mention seems to cause otherwise rational people to become frenzied internet attack dogs. And I can't for the life of me think of another software feature that provokes this kind of reaction. Myself, I've used tap to click for as long as I can remember, I've found it to be entirely unproblematic. Except, of course, when I'm foolish enough to mention it on the internet. I'm directing this question to you because your particular expression of hostility was somewhat muted, suggesting your infection with this dynamic is mild in character, and that you might therefore be able to master your feelings Jedi style and offer a rational answer to this baffling conundrum.

Great letter. Great letter. And my answer is, I actually, I, you know, I don't like tap to click and that's just the problem. The problem, I think when you're somebody who has your, who broadcasts your opinions on the internet for a living, um, even more so than if you're just a person on the internet, is you end up having to respond to people who want you to defend, like, why? Why did you choose this? I love this other way. And honestly, with something like Tap to Click, I've just sort of been worn down by all the people who are the zealots who enjoy Tap to Click so much and don't understand why everybody doesn't use it.

And I think, I suspect that's what other people feel as well. It's like, if you don't use tap to click, if you don't like tap to click, you have heard from so many users of tap to click about how great it is and how everybody should use it and why you should use it and why you're wrong not to use it. And I think it kind of wears you down. And after a while, you say, oh, God, tap to click. I hate tap to click. Not because you actually hate the feature, but you hate talking about it because people

keep telling you, no, it's great. Why don't you like it? You shouldn't mention it. Don't forget it. You should always mention it. And it just gets tiring. So I think this is a case where it the pro my problem is not with tap to click as a feature it just doesn't work for me um i when i find it

i do find it unpleasant when it's turned on and i immediately turn it off because i miss click my fingers um do whatever needs to be recognized as a click when they're moving across the trackpad and it causes annoyances and you know it bugs me so i turn it off so i don't i don't like it i absolutely don't like it but i think it's more than that i think it's it's that after a while you get tired of the the people saying have you heard the good news about tap to click you're like yes i know about tap to click i don't like it stop talking about it i i suspect i don't know for sure christophe but i suspect that is one of the reasons behind it. So I think just as you feel that my infection with this dynamic is mild in character, I would return that to you as well. You two seem very polite and rational and not just telling me, why can't you use tap to click?

And so I appreciate the question. And that's my answer. That's all I got. I do. I will remain resolute that I use and enjoy tap to click i am a hybrid clicker i use tap to click and i use to click to click i don't even know what the other one's called now click click it's called click no no you click you click you don't click to click the click doesn't lead to a click the click is the click no at least tap well tap emulates a click

through a tap i feel like maybe on a force touch trackpad it is click to click is the click no at least tap well tap emulates a click through a tap i feel like maybe on a force touch trackpad it is click to click i don't even know what it is anymore push to click all right let's not talk about the force touch trackpad that's a whole other can of worms that we'll have to click on later interesting point here from steven steven said is the taptic engine a given for the iphone 6s i haven't heard anyone discuss how awesome it could be in an iphone so i'm thinking so thinking about this it's obviously false touch but probably bring with it the the haptic right so you press on something and you feel it right could the haptic engine replace the standard vibrate motor in the iphone and if it does could it be strong enough in a

pocket and would it be silent it's a good question and i i think i i imagine all of the stories that apple would tell about this and i think that i i i'm i'm intrigued to find out because it could could it replace it could they use the existing vibration motor could they upgrade the the existing vibration uh generator in the iphone to one that's more subtle or has more variety to it. I doubt that Apple is going to put two different vibrating items inside the iPhone, although it's not impossible. But I think this is the question is, will there be subtleties of vibration patterns and things like that that are more than the current iPhone is capable of? Or is the vibration motor in the iPhone currently capable of a lot more than the software does to drive it? I don't know. I think it's, I don't know enough about it. And I'm really curious to find out how they approach this, that if they decide you really do need haptic feedback for this, you can't just have it be pressure sensitive, then what do they do? And is the current placement of the vibration on the phone, is it effective at being haptic feedback where your brain connects your press with the feel of

the vibration and makes you feel like you depressed something is that what they want i'm i'm really interesting to interested in seeing uh what they what they do here because i think you have you make a very good point there's already a vibration thing in the phone so how does that change with uh with force touch i feel like there's a great little ad um in you know a lady sitting in the office or a guy sitting in the office and their phone's on silent and like they're in a meeting and you hear like, and then they do it like, you know, they show what the new life of the iPhone 6 is, where it's just completely quiet and it's tapping you. You know, I think that there's a little there's a little video in there which could be fun. So I think it would be interesting to see the Taptic find its way to the iPhone. Wimsy asked, my mom wants to record an audio book for the first time.

Someone recommended a Snowball and Audacity for starting. What are your thoughts? So this would be the blue Snowball. I would suggest, if possible, if the budget stretches, get a blue Yeti instead of a Snowball. They're both fine but the yeti is better than a snowball so if you can do that do that because i don't actually think there's a massive cost difference between the two um it depends on what's on sale and when yes um the snowball is is affordable that's the first podcast mic i ever used is that the first one you

used no the first ever microphone i had was a Logitech headset. The first sort of real microphone was the Yeti. All right. Well, I had the Snowball for years and it was, and it is fine. The Yeti is better. Not only does it sound better, it's got a headphone jack so you can hear yourself. And that's very important because when you can't hear yourself, you could be too loud. You could be popping all of your peas. You could be far away from the microphone, turning away and not realizing that people can't hear you and so having that feedback is really great but it is maybe 40 more so if you if you have a budget uh a limited budget the the you know the eddie is not may not be within it but the eddie is i think

the best cheap all-purpose podcast mic even now um there's more competition but it's still a relatively it sounds pretty good in especially in the less echoey environments. It sounds pretty good. It's not that expensive. It's pretty solid. Yeah. And also Audacity, if you're using a Mac, use GarageBand. It's easier to use and understand.

If you're using a PC, Audacity is the best thing I know of. I actually use Audacity still for some stuff. It has pretty decent noise removal tools, and there's some stuff that it can do in taking stereo files and turning them into mono files and stuff like that that I find easier and faster to do with Audacity than any other app. I've been meaning to try out Adobe Audition for their noise removal stuff

because Marco recommends it. That's on my list. But Audacity is very, very powerful. It's just ugly as sin and really, really confusing. But if you can understand it and or you need something that's free, go with Audacity, in my opinion. It does everything you're going to need.

I can't actually, I don't really understand how it exists, but it does. So, go for it. Yep. I think that's perfectly reasonable. Alistair asks, given the new security features in LCAP, do you think it's still

necessary to run antivirus software on OS X? The still there. Yeah. My answer to this, this out of there is i don't think it's ever been necessary uh it's always been superfluous to run antivirus on a mac i never have never ever have uh back in the os OS system seven days, we had viruses on floppy disks. But on OS X, never, never. I think I had it on once when some IT person put it on my Mac at work, and then I think we all disabled it and went back to not. And in fact, right now, the truth is that the stuff that's most threatening to you is going to be stuff that's zero day, essentially.

It's not going to be in there. So, you know, in the virus definitions database and all of that so i don't know i i don't think i don't think it's necessary right now just do the you know don't run flash unless you have to keep gatekeeper turned on so you know buy your stuff from the buy your stuff from the mac app store or have it be stuff that's signed by known developers and stay out of the dark and scary parts of the internet and you'll probably be fine. My feeling would be if you think it's currently

necessary to run an antivirus software on OS X, it will always be. Sure, sure. That's my feeling. James asks, what product or technology do you think will be Apple's growth engine over the medium and longer term i would say medium iphone longer term apple phone the next generation iphone uh it's the the iphone will for as i think for as long as we can see into the

future uh a a small handheld computer will continue to be Apple's big product. And if you're looking for growth beyond or replacement for growth as the iPhone growth eventually slows, I'm not sure that's a product that's even been envisioned yet. I mean, I guess if Apple gets into cars and that becomes a successful thing, that would be another growth area for them. But nothing is going to grow, I think, like the smartphone market in the next maybe even 30 years, because this is the moment where these computers are in everybody's pockets all over the world. It's going to be hard to top that in a rapid expansion,

which I'm not saying it won't happen. I think it's a lot less likely to happen. This is a very special thing. And I think people make a mistake if they to happen. This is a very special thing. And I think people make a mistake if they think that it's repeatable on a regular basis, something like the smartphone market. It's a very special moment in, I'd say, human history when this product has come to pass at a time where it can spread as it has spread. So I do think we will reach a point where there are lots of doom and gloom stories about Apple, even more than now, talking about slowing iPhone growth, just because the smartphone market is going to slow at some point, it's just going to have to, there won't

be new people to find who want smartphones. Although, since Apple focuses on the higher end of the market, you do have this possibility that in markets that have lower standards of living, there will be an initial flood of Android phones, and then Apple will sort of feed the second generation or the third generation of sales in those markets as people in their middle class and upper classes decide that they want to pay the premium for a more expensive and better quality phone like an iPhone that was previously maybe not what people were buying because they were buying these cheaper phones that were being sent to that market initially. I don't know. But, yeah. Yeah.

That's going to happen, though. There will be that moment where it's like, oh, God, the iPhone growth is slowing and it will still be an enormous business for Apple. Enormous. But if you're looking at it from an investment standpoint, people will freak out because investment is all about growth. And I think that is, as Tim Cook has a fiduciary responsibility as the CEO of Apple, I think that's why we see them investigating things like cars, is why not? They've got the cash now and they know that they're going to need new markets. So maybe, you know, you put some money in cars and see if a bet on cars pays off because that would be another growth area.

It might not ever be as big as their smartphone business, but it would be a growth area and growth is what investors like to see. I don't see the watch ever being that. No, no. I mean... I think it's fundamentally not what people will want. For as long as we have the internet,

people will want a screen to see it at. Yeah, not at the volumes that are required for it to be a huge growth engine. I mean, it's a nice addition to the portfolio, but it's not going to be, and never was going to be, like the next iPhone. I just's not it's not going to be and never was going to be like the next iphone it's i just don't think that's going to happen justin asks will a model of the new apple tv include airport functionality like for example maybe it'll be a wi-fi router or

a time machine i think it's not a bad idea you know the one device to rule them all but i think at a certain point you end up having to put too much stuff in it. Yeah, I think I would love to see a product that does that, but it seems like they won't do that. One of the topics we were going to talk about and we didn't this week, we'll have to push it off and talk about it someday, is our home networks. And, you know, I've got a cable modem and I've got a router that I'm using just to route traffic. And then I've got a separate one of those flat airport extremes that's just doing the Wi-Fi. That should probably be one box. And for various reasons, it's not. But when I look at this question, I think, you know, wouldn't it be great if we had something that was a multitasker like that?

But I think it's unlikely because it's going to make it bigger. It's going to make it more complicated. And Apple wants this thing to be small and cheap, as cheap as they can make it. And that's probably too much. But it would be nice. It would certainly be nice if it knew that you had an airport on your network and offered to extend the base station, even if it didn't do all the routing if it was just an extender kind of thing um that would be nice it would also be nice if it uh like the like the current apple tv um you know it should hook into your stereo or a speaker or something so it's

also a driver for like apple music playback and airplay stuff which i imagine it will okay and then we have uh next up from finally actually from kevin kevin says have you seen my car keys i have kevin they're in the last place that you're gonna look yep and that wraps up uh let's go great this week we ended strong finished strong i know so next time uh me you record, we'll be in person. So I'll look forward to that. And I look forward to listening to the show and hearing your opinions of what happens at the Apple event. Yeah, you'll get settled in Portland and then you'll be able to download that new episode of Upgrade and hear all about what Stephen and I think of the new stuff.

Maybe Dan too. We might have Dan. He'll be around. Maybe we'll pop new stuff. Maybe Dan too. We might have Dan. Yeah. He'll be around. Maybe we'll pop Dan in on that one too. Why don't you try and get Dan to scare the bejesus out of Steven? Oh, that's nice.

So you pull it, pull a, pull a Federico. You mean? Yeah. That'd be fun. So thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. If you'd like to find our show notes,

you know where to go. Relay.fm slash upgrade slash 52. If you want to find Jason online, he's over at sixcolors.com, and he's at jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. What is the account that people will want to follow next week, Jason, for the live tweeting? They will want to follow Six Colors Event on Twitter. It'll also be linked to from the sixcolors.com homepage. But that's our special live event Twitter account.

So sixcolors event and you can get all of our great live coverage. Of course you'll find a link to that in all of the show notes. If you want to find me on Twitter, I am at imyke. I'll be back in a couple of weeks and the show will be back next week.

Thank you so much for listening. Thanks again to our sponsors this week, the lovely people over at Hover, Fracture and lynda.com. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. I'll see you soon, Mike.