Upgrade - 58: What’s Magic About That Keyboard?

Episode Date: October 13, 2015

Apple announces a bunch of new iMacs, including a 21.5-inch 4K model, and Jason’s got his full review. Also, Jason provides an inside look at the new input devices Apple has released, namely the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, and Magic Trackpad 2.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 58 today's show is brought to you by hover simplified domain management stamps.com posted on demand and brain tree code for easy online payments my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Jason Snell. Hi, Mike. How's it going? Very well, sir. How are you? What is my plan?

We'll find out over the course of this episode. I think perhaps we will. The Jason Snell five-step plan to success. That's right. Something like that. Step three, profit. I don't know what happens after that. I'm still working on the plan.

So, we've got an exciting episode today. Got some cool stuff to talk about, but as is tradition, we have some follow-up to do, which we'll get through now. A couple of little things that we want to mention. So there is

now a live streaming app. Relay has a live streaming app, which you can grab. It's in the App Store. It's available for the iPhone and the iPad. And we built this along with a company called TapJets, who you may know that previously was a company called Glide. They worked on Loop Magazine. And they've been working with us to create this brand new app. And you'll be able to listen to us live. And there's a bunch of really exciting stuff in there for you to play around with. So I really think that you should go and check it out.

It's got some great animations. And it will help you listen live. There's also some back catalog stuff in there. And if you find anything new that maybe you haven't listened to before, there's an easy button to help you subscribe in your podcast app of choice. We're really proud of it. I hope that you go check it out. Let us know what you think. We're always

doing new stuff, working on new things to add to it. We're thinking, well, we are going to be adding at some point in the future chat functionality and stuff like that. We'll be coming in a later update, but we're full steam ahead. I'm really trying to make this a great experience to listen live to our shows

on iOS. Yeah, and a bunch of people were um sort of what's the difference between this and a podcast app and i think that's the important distinction is this is about alerting you when things are live so you can listen live that's a lot of fun being able to interact live coming down the road i think it's going to be a great a great thing too and yes if you want to just uh stream an episode you can do that too so yeah it's worth checking out if you're if you're happy with your podcast app of choice in fact it works with it if you discover a show that you want to subscribe to you can just sort of uh send it off to your podcast app of choice too so it's not meant to replace overcast or podcast or no or uh or

pocketcast or any of the others we took great pains to make sure that we weren't competing it was never a thing for us where we wanted to to try and compete with podcast apps because one we don't really desire to do that i don't think we we were really interested in building a platform to do it and also like i consider you know itunes and all of the third party app makers like overcast and pocketcast to be like partners um and we have no desire to try and, you know, upset them or usurp them because they help us out a lot. So for example, you can't download episodes in the Relay FM map.

It's just streaming and primarily built around the live experience. So what we hope it will do is help more people listen live that haven't been able to before because it makes it a lot easier. A lot, lot easier. So go check it out. We have some Mike at the movies news don't we we do indeed two pieces of mike at the movies news this is very exciting mike at the movies is becoming a a huge franchise and expanding to other areas you may it is it is um and we're not kidding so there's two things happening one is that next week we're going to do a mike at the movies episode um and we're doing it for uh timely reasons given that it is october of 2015 we are going to watch

back to the future part two for next week's episode yeah so we're slightly changing the rules of of mike at the movies for this one episode because obviously i have seen back to the future two it's one of my favorite movies it is from the 80s though so we've got that in 1989 so that that for me and it's like i feel like there's i wanted to do one that week there's no way that we could in that week not do back to the future i i think so it's when it for those who don't know this is the point to which marty mcfly travels from 1985 the first movie set in 1985 and they go back 30 years to 1955 in the second movie they go they do go back to 55 but they also go forward 30 years to 2015 and yes that does mean that back to the Future, the original, is now as far away from us as 1955 was from Marty in the movie. But since we are living in the future, we're going to watch Back to the Future Part 2 for next week.

Those will be good. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. The other news is, we're not kidding about the Mike in the Movies franchise. We, for various reasons, you and I have talked about this for a little while now. Obviously, in the shows that we do at RelayFM, there's a lot of talk of current events in the technology industry. So we'll have these shows that are all about current events,

and then we'll talk about a classic movie for half an hour or an hour. And that's great in the sort of stream day-to-day. It's nice to have a little bonus at the end of an episode of Upgrade or Analog about a classic movie. But a year from now, the classic movie discussion is still going to be great, but the tech discussion, while great, is going to be dated. So what we are doing is we are doing a separate podcast feed for Mike at the Movies. So if there is a movie that

you want to watch and then listen to, and it doesn't fit in with your day-to-day listening to this show or to Analog, but you enjoy us talking about movies, you can listen to just the movie reviews. They'll be posted with a bit of a delay. I think we're thinking about a month delay because we have sponsors on these shows. And this is where the idea for this feed is that it's sort of the classic. It's always accessible. You can listen to any of these movie reviews whenever you want. And it's at The Incomparable.

Yes. Because that's your place to go for pop culture podcasting. So if you go to TheIncomparable.com slash Mike, that's M-Y-K-E, like Mike Hurley, you will find the new Mike at the Movies podcast, which has got all of our old episodes. So it's got the Raiders of the Lost Ark episode. This is Spinal Tap. I'm just realizing, I think I don't have the Princess Bride in there. So I'm going to have to add that. I think I just missed that one. But we'll fix it up. We're still working it out. But Sneakers and The Rocketeer from you and Casey are in there. And so we'll just,

you know, we will put them there. And then if you want to go back and you're like, I can't listen to that now and then it sort of escapes you, you can always just tune in to the Mike of the Movies feed

and those old conversations will live there. So, and if Mike should talk about a movie on some other Relay podcast at some point, those will pop in there too. So right now, right now we have nine and since i just remembered that one is missing there'll be 10 uh yay and uh so you can check all those out and uh and i think uh i think it's a i think it's a cool thing and the art um stupendous spectacular i think it's my favorite i think you may be getting a movie poster of this

artwork yeah frank is is coming to england um at the end of the month uh so i'm finally gonna get to meet him and he's gonna make me a poster version which i am incredibly excited about yeah it's really nice nice uh 60s uh movie poster style it's got some glasses it's got your glasses on it so anyway if you like the mike of the movie segments if you want to revisit them or uh file them away for later listening uh check that out the incomparable.com slash mike and also more mike of the movies news uh so as well as there being back to the future next week me and casey are also doing um a mike at the movies episode of analog Back to the Future next week, me and Casey are also doing a Mike at the Movies episode of Analog that will come out next week on True Lies.

Wow. Yep. Because I'm going to be away at release notes, so we're going to bank an episode on True Lies. So I watched True Lies today. I'm going to see you there. You will be seeing me there. You know, our first Mike Watches of Movies was The Princess Bride,

and I totally missed it. So I guess there'll be a zero episode of Mike Watches of Movies was The Princess Bride, and I totally missed it. So I guess there'll be a zero episode of Mike at the Movies. Perfect. Zero is perfect. You got to start from zero, right? I wanted to do just one little piece of follow-up before we get into the meat of today's episode, which was around the whole Apple, Amazon, Netflix thing that we were talking about last week. Because we had quite a few people making comments about what we were talking about, about, you know,

how fair it is that these companies pay to 30%. My stance being that I believe that once a company gets to a certain size, Apple should be doing deals. But there are many people, which is totally fine, have the belief that they think everyone should be treated equally by Apple, which I appreciate that. I appreciate the idyllic fairness of it all. You know, it's a level playing field. I do, that I think that for Apple's platform to continue to advance and grow, it will eventually require them needing to make deals with other companies. That's my feeling about this. They are in a very, very strong position. But when big companies like Amazon just say, well, no, we're not going to sell your products anymore, it them in in situations which they don't need to be in um i think and if they really want to continue pushing down the content and entertainment route

with the apple tv like i think they're going to need to do a little bit more glad handling than they are at the moment yeah one of the things that uh that we definitely hear is is no no they can't play favorites apple's got to to do 30% for everyone. But, you know, Apple can do what it wants. So it's not true. People, I think some people seem to think that that's some sort of law or rule that isn't violent. And I just, it could change. Apple could make a deal. That happens all the time.

And they could have preferred partners. And that happens all the time in business. And so I think they don't have to. The other thing that I got a lot of was like, I can't believe Apple doesn't have to do this. And it's like, well, no, Apple doesn't have to do this. But at some point, I think maybe Apple should do it. And we can disagree on that. But I think let's not pretend that Apple can't do what it wants. Apple could cut a deal if it feels like it's in its best interest to do so. So, you know, it may not be fair, but business isn't always fair.

That's just, that's business. That's how it works. So also we heard from some people who said, hey, what if this is all just in advance of Amazon stocking the new Apple TV because it's going to have an Amazon app? And that may be, that may, I wouldn't put it past them. I think it's going to have an Amazon app. And that may be. I wouldn't put it past them. I think it would be silly if Amazon didn't write an app for the new Apple TV. And I would imagine that it would be approved because it's not like other stuff isn't approved for the App Store, including all of Amazon's stuff today. So I would imagine that would continue on the Apple TV. But we'll see.

Amazon stuff today. So I would imagine that would continue on the Apple TV, but we'll see. Also, Mike asked, why can't Amazon just increase in-app prices to exactly offset Apple's 30% cut? And they can't do that because Apple explicitly says that they can't in the rules. So that is the thing. You can't sell your product or your subscription service for a cheaper price elsewhere, it has to match. So that's why. Yeah. And that policy has changed over time. But, um, but the other thing is Amazon's business model. One Amazon's business model is, uh, is based on the low margins, but, uh, two, then what you're, what you're doing essentially is Apple is saying you can lose money or you can be more expensive than us and

everything we sell on iTunes and iBooks. And, you know, for the book thing, this is what I keep coming back to is that the problematic thing here is that Apple is a platform vendor that is also selling media. And that is, that's problematic. That is a, it's a challenge because then when Apple makes these rules, it stops being about like, well, it's fair for the platform owner to do this and take their share. And it becomes, well, but they're also erecting barriers for their competition since they also sell books and comics and movies and TV shows and music. So that makes this messier. So that makes this messier. And I think I'm just a person who feels like Apple's media sales stuff should stand or fall based on its merits and not because of artificial barriers that are erected to protect

it. And I think that there's some of that going on here. And I'd rather Apple just let iBooks compete and iTunes compete on level playing field instead of having it be that Apple makes it harder for Amazon to do business on Apple platforms. And I think it makes the platforms worse when there isn't

that competition there. Definitely, definitely. All right, let's talk about the new iMacs. But before we do that, let me thank our first sponsor for this week, and that is Braintree,

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Thank you so much to Braintree for their support of this show. So, Jason, we have some new products. Now, we're talking just before the embargo goes out for these, so I know nothing about what you have in front of you. That's right. This episode is being timed to drop

once I can publicly discuss the products that I've been using for the last few days. But that means also that you are a babe in the woods and know nothing about what Apple announced and released. You could tell me anything and I would have to believe you. That's right. Well, they've got a 45-inch iMac.

Wow. That's not true. It's called the iMac Pro. It comes with a pen. That's not true. It's called the iMac Pro. It comes with a pen. Nope, not true. These are not true facts. These are all lies. So what do we have? So the iMac line

got a refresh this morning. That's what happened. New iMacs abound. In fact, I'm going to bring up, I actually spent the weekend with a spreadsheet of changes in this. But I mean, the big story is that there's a 21-inch Retina iMac now, 21.5-inch Retina iMac. That's new. That's exciting.

But the whole iMac line got refreshed. So even the non-retina 21 and a half inch iMac is refreshed for the first time since late 2013. Wow. So it's been a long time. There's Broadwell chips, which they call them the fifth generation Intel Core technology, but it's Broadwell chips in the 21.5-inch iMacs. And Apple's doing this thing that they tend to do, which is keep their price points and change the products inside the price points. So the iMac price points as of yesterday, as of Monday the 12th, were $1099, $1299, $1499, $1799, $1999 1499, 1799, 1999, and 2299. I love that 99. Yeah, they do.

They do. It's the buying psychology, I guess. I hate it. But at least it's not 1099 and 99 cents. Yeah. It's dumb. But anyway, those price points are all still there. What Apple has done is upgrade.

Look, show title. Upgrade everything inside those price points. So now the 1099 and 1299 price points are still 21.5-inch iMacs, but those are now using Broadwell processors instead of the old Haswell processors. So they're faster. It's 1.6 and 2.8 for the 1099 and the 1299 respectively. The RAM's a little bit faster. The storage on the 1099, which used to be half a gigabyte, is now a full, or 500 gigabytes, half a terabyte, is now a full terabyte. They're using Intel integrated graphics, but it's the newer integrated graphics. So it's the 6000 and the 6200.

And they support Thunderbolt 2 now. So they get a nice little upgrade for the cheap iMacs. But the big story is the $1499 slot, which used to be a 2.9 gigahertz, one terabyte, eight gigs of memory, 21 and a half inch iMac. It is now a Retina iMac for that same price. 3.1 gigahertz quad core i5 Broadwell uh eight gigs of memory the faster speed intel 6200 integrated graphics and two thunderbolt 2 uh ports and then there's uh and what drive does that have in it the the 21 that's got the that that the the 1499 model has a terabyte okay so i just reviewed it you can you can read my review at mac world uh i reviewed this model the 1499 terabyte hard drive it is a 5400 rpm spinning disk terabyte hard drive come on not

even a fusion so here's the so here's the thing yeah that that is the um uh okay i wasn't going to talk about this now but let's talk about it now. I haven't used a spinning disk Mac in ages now, right? I don't understand why they would do this. My daughter's iMac has a Fusion Drive, and my laptop is SSD only. My iMac is SSD only. And I admit this means that I'm spoiled, but let me tell you, when you boot up this brand new Mac, brand new Retina Mac, gorgeous display, we can talk about it a little bit more. You know, there's a 4K display, 4096 by 2304. It is beautiful. And then you wait because the disc is slow because it's this 5400

RPM hard drive. And then you launch an app and you wait some more for the app to launch. It is so clearly the problem in the device because it's not, you know, it's not the, the 3.1 gigahertz quad core i5 that's slowing it down, right? It's, it's this slow spinning hard drive. So yeah, it's not, it's not so great is what I'm saying. There is a configured order. I think for $100, you can go up to a terabyte Fusion Drive. And although there, what Apple has done is to make the Fusion Drive upgrade cheaper,

the one terabyte fusion drive actually has less flash storage in it. So if you're somebody who's like a heavy duty user, you're going to want to get the, and you want a fusion drive, you're going to want the two or I think there's a three terabyte option now as well. But the one terabyte option is $100 more.

I think it's like 40 gigs of flash and then the rest of it is um is the fusion drive but i i i don't think i would recommend anybody that they just spend 14.99 on a retina imac because if you're going to buy a brand new retina 4k imac 21 and a half inch imac i think you owe it to yourself to not be constrained by the speed of that disc. It kind of seems counterproductive to what you're attempting to do with it. Well, this is when I talk about them hitting the slots. I mean, I think this is what happens is this is how you hit the slot. This is how you hit $1499 and have this new iMac fit in the same price point as the previous model. I feel like you'd be better put in a 256 solid state and then a 1TB hard drive.

Like, just from a user features. Because the speed is surely more important than the storage. Yeah, but there's still price issues. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. So what is that price again for the 4K? For the 21.5 inch 4K, it's $1499 US. Right, okay.

So it's the same as the highest end before configuration. Now, you can configure to order it with a discrete graphics processor, which is new, I believe, that you can put a GeForce GT750M in there. So by default, it uses Intel integrated graphics. And that's actually the reason why these aren't Skylake, the new generation, sixth generation processors, according to Apple, is that they don't have a chipset for Skylake

with integrated graphics, which is what they want here. Because again, to save money, there isn't an integrated graphics process or a discrete graphics processor instead it's just the intel integrated stuff that comes on the chipset it's part of the the broadwell collection right um but you can configure to order so if you do if you do want the smaller imac but you want the extra graphics power you can get it with a a discrete gpu And you can also increase that processor to 3.3 gigahertz quad core i7.

So there are a lot of nice configuration options at the top of the line. Plus you can choose, you know, one or two terabyte fusion, and you can choose 256 or 512 gigabyte flash storage. So there are lots of options that make it more expensive, but that make it much more powerful. But those are options because, again, they want to hit that 1499. And, you know, 1499 is a great price for a 21 and a half inch Retina iMac, a 4096 by 2304, a truly kind of 4K, more than 4,000 pixels wide iMac. But that configuration has the slow drive. It's just so interesting to me because when you look at the MacBook line, like they start with solid state, right? That's where you get, that's where they all are. They're all on solid state. I mean, I know that they're not a terabyte, right? That's where you get, that's where they all are. They're all on solid state.

I mean, I know that they're not a terabyte, right? You know, like for example, the 1299 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina comes with a 128 gigabyte flash storage, which is, I know it's barely nothing, but at least it's, I feel like my feeling about that

is actually the use of the machine would be better to have the flash than to have the hard drive, the spinning disk. Why do you think Apple have made the decision to put this one terabyte drive in there rather than throwing in a very small flash storage drive? I think it's price. Because surely the 128 gigabyte can't be that much more expensive, right? Because they're putting it in a $1,300 MacBook. Well, think of it this way. Yesterday, to add a 256 flash to an iMac was $200 upgrade from the 1 terabyte spinning hard drive.

So, yes, a lot of that is Apple's profit, but a lot of that is also expense that it costs. And I think also maybe some of Apple's research is in here that they know how people use iMacs. And perhaps they know that a big desktop iMac can't really, most people are not going to be satisfied with 128 gigs of storage in it, right? That's not a lot for a big iMac can't really, most people are not going to be satisfied with 128 gigs of storage in it. That's not a lot for a big iMac.

And then there's just, when you start to compare it to the laptops, I mean, this screen is huge. This screen is, it's 21 and a half inches. The biggest Retina MacBook Pro is 15. There are a lot more pixels. So it's a much bigger screen much more to drive much more graphics power needed to drive it um so you know it's not the same kind of system but yeah i think in the end it is uh flash storage is still way more expensive and fusion drive is supposed to be a way around that um that would be my thing is that i appreciate

that apple has made stepping up to fusion drive cheaper but i kind of wish that the stock configuration had a Fusion Drive. I feel like for the $1499, you're at the top of the line, you've got the Retina, it would be really nice if that had the Fusion Drive too. But obviously Apple felt like their margins weren't going to be good enough at $1499. So that's essentially a $1599 iMac with a terabyte Fusion Drive. Yeah, because you're really, you know, it's saying that I love you're cutting your nose off to spite your face at the point of buying the stock one i i can't recommend anybody buy a brand

new computer that that is fast in so many different areas and has this amazing screen and then is stuck with a 5400 rpm spinning disc in 2015 into exactly in late 2015 if you're going to spend 14.99 on a new iMac unless it's literally all the money that you can spend you should at the very least spend 15.99 and get the Fusion Drive because you need to get some of that speed that comes and the responsiveness that comes with having super fast flash storage and you may not be able to afford a big SSD and that's fine but go to the Fusion Drive if you can, because the drive is slow. It's just, you know, I could tell it makes everything sluggish. Once you've been on an SSD or a Fusion Drive even, you can tell when you're on a computer with a spinning disk.

It's painfully obvious. And it's just, you know, it's, yeah, it's the end of 2015. This is a Retina display machine. So anyway, yeah, it's the end of 2015. This is a retina display machine that, so anyway, yeah, I highly recommend that the, that upgrade. I should mention the memory. It, um, it comes with eight standard. You can, you can configure it with 16, but this is the 21 and a half inch model. And just like the last generation, cause these look, they look exactly the same. They're the same size. They're the same shape. They're the same weight. Um, and just as before the 21 and a half doesn't have the door on the back

for user installable ram so if you want 16 gigs of ram you need to order it with 16 gigs of ram otherwise you can't you know it doesn't have a door for you to pop it off and put in more ram later yeah sure but eight gigabytes of ram is a better starting point than a spinning disc right like in the ram department that's that's a good thing to do. Can you replace the hard drive? Is the hard drive user replaceable on the 21? I don't, I think it's as user replaceable as anything else is on these machines,

which is not very, because it's essentially a sealed, it's a sealed container. And yeah, so this is what you want to buy, right? Not the 21. No, you're going to buy the 27? Yeah. So I'm eagerly waiting for you to tell me about that in a moment.

But I want to talk a little bit more about the 21-inch, because I feel like all we've done is complain about it. And this is the one that I've spent time with. Tell me what is good about this machine. Well, the screen is amazing. It's the same story as when we got the 5K screen last time. It's a great screen. It looks good. Retina is so good that your photos look amazing on a Retina display. And having all of the area of a 21 and a half inch display, it's, you know, 27 inch is not

for everyone. It can really dominate a desk. It can really dominate a room. It can be unwieldy to move around. 21 and a half is a much more kind of human scale in some ways. A computer, having stared at a 27 for the last year, getting to 21, I was like, oh, it's so cute and reasonably sized. But it's still, it's not 5K, it's 4K, but it's still got this kind of incredible, bright, colorful screen. Apple's widened the color gamut on all of these iMacs. So they actually show more color. I forget what the number, they quoted a number 25% more color, especially in the reds and greens, which are the ones that I don't see very well. Yeah, I was going to say, can you see it? Like for anybody that doesn't know, Jason has some mild color blindness.

Yeah, I'm slightly red-green colorblind. I saw some demos at Apple that I could tell the difference. And a lot of it is, some of it is vibrancy and some of it is detail, where there's minute detail that gets washed out when you can't go into more detail with the variation in color. It all sort of becomes the same. And then if you add extra detail that can actually to the color space, it can add detail to your photos. It's not just about it being kind of more vibrant.

Actually you can see more variation and therefore your photos have more detail. So it's the P it's, it's 99%, I guess, of the P3 color space, I think, which is as opposed to the old srgb color space that that um that the old imax fit inside so if you're somebody who does a lot with photography or video um having the additional color is it's a subtle thing for me anyway maybe it'll be more dramatic for other people but even for me it was definitely there i don't think this is enough reason for people to take their old uh 27 inch red andMacs and throw them in in the bin um it's still pretty it's still a pretty good uh pretty good display regardless but the new ones have a wider color gamut that that

is uh that's for sure so that's good i imagine apple's sitting you down um in in the demo rooms and they're like jason look at, look at the change in these colors. And you're like, mm-hmm, yep, yeah, it looks great, guys. Well, apparently the LEDs, the white LEDs that most of these displays use tend to put out more, they have more ability to put out blue wavelengths than red or green. And as a result, the red and green variation is limited.

And they've got a new LED that is much better at putting out red and green wavelengths and that's that according to apple that's the thing that makes this uh capable of the wider color gamut but you know i did warn them i did say you know i'm a red green color blind but i still they were like can you see this can you see this it became more of a test for me it was like an eye test at that point but uh it was but you can you can tell. You could definitely tell. And they had a funny moment. They said that the Denver Broncos of the NFL, their orange jersey is outside of the SRGB color space. So they say whenever you see, unless you're there in person, whenever you see a picture or video of the Denver Broncos, you're not seeing the right orange.

What a very peculiar and specific thing to pick. I know. Well, I think it's good, though, because it's a good example of a shade that maybe doesn't render exactly right. But again, is this a huge feature? For most people, probably not. But for some people, it'll be pretty nice. But the flexibility of the retina displays I wanted to mention, which is this isn't just about it being a 4K display. It's about the fact that once you've got this many pixels on a screen, this densely populated, you can scale the interface and not have it look bad. It used to be when we went to LCD screens, flat screens, that

you used to be able to change monitor resolutions on CRTs. It was, you could make everything bigger, make everything smaller. You could do that and it still looked good. But on LCD panels, it never looked good because the resolution just isn't high enough and it would dither it and anti-alias and it looked bad.

But these are so high resolution that you can do that. So if you want to make your, everything on the screen a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller so you have more room, you can do that on these retina displays super easily. And I know people who don't run in 100% 2X mode on their retina display. They actually run it with everything a little bit smaller. And it makes it seem like a bigger screen or with everything a little bit bigger. And it still looks crisp because there are so many pixels there that even though it is scaling it and anti-aliasing it, you can't see it because there are just too many.

The pixels are too dense. You don't even see that it's happening. My MacBook Pro I run in most space mode. See? Yeah. And I love that. Yeah, exactly. And so that now comes to the

to the 21 and a half inch imac size with with this so i think that's good uh thunderbolt 2 more speed the the broadwell processors are um are faster than the haswell that came before and i like that uh this top of the line 21 and a half inch does have those build to order options so if you just don't want if you want the power but you don't want the size of the 27-inch, you can do that. You can get the 4K iMac, upgrade the storage, upgrade the processor, and that's a good thing. Right. Oh, so one thing before we go on. I was saying that there are discrete graphics as an update.

There aren't. I got that wrong. It's 6200 integrated graphics is what you get you can't build to order discrete on that one so if you if you really want the the the superpower you want the 27 inch because that one has all of the options the the only things you can configure on the 21 and a half inch retina you can give the you can get the i7 and you can upgrade the storage but you cannot go to integrated graphics on that one okay okay that that graphic stuff really confuses me now yeah well i mean the short version of it is that intel tries to make it so you don't need to buy a graphics uh you know

a gpu from someone else because intel's got you covered but it's never you know it's never as good as having the the discrete graphics chip it's just that those are's never, you know, it's never as good as having the discrete graphics chip. It's just that those are expensive. And so, you know, everything's better if you've got one, but it's expensive. And so the 27s have them and the 21 and a half don't. And partially, that's a function that they're driving a smaller display. And so there's not as much penalty and part of it is cost. Okay. All right. So I want to know about is 27 because it's what I've been waiting for. So have I been right to be waiting? Well, yeah, because this is the, although there was this sort of interim step in the spring that was basically like a lower end model. They took the last fall when the 5K iMac came out, it was sitting above the 27-inch iMacs

that existed, and it was more expensive. And that's the one I bought. And then this spring, they came around with one that was sort of the cheaper model that allowed them to hit some other price points. So that was the one that let them do, what, $19.99. And then they lowered the price on the one that I bought to $22.99. So now the old non-retina 27-inch iMacs have been cleared away. They're gone. Oh, wow.

Gone. What were they? I don't even remember them. It's like they were never there. Forget I even said non-retina iMacs, 27 inches. Nope, nope, it's not a thing. So $1799, $1999, $2299, those are your price points, and those are where the the three new 5k

imax sit they've all got that uh wider color gamut 5k screen 5120 by 2880 they're using skylight processors so it's the it's the sixth generation intel core um architecture uh it's a 3.2 gigahertz, uh, quad core I five on the 1799 and the 1999 models. And it's a 3.3 gigahertz quad core I five on the 2299 model. Um, they all have discrete graphics from AMD. It's a Radeon R9 M380 in the 1799, M390 in the 1999, and M395 on the 2299. I'm sure there are reasons why those are different, and I don't understand them. And then on the storage side, the 1799 comes with a spinning hard drive, although it is a 7200 rpm spinning hard drive because it's the bigger the bigger drive so so it's faster 1999 comes with a terabyte fusion drive standard and the 2299 comes

with the two terabyte fusion drive standard and that 1999 terabyte fusion drive i believe i i mentioned earlier that's the one that's got it's actually got less flash in it than the old terabyte Fusion Drive did. As this is Apple's attempt to try and get it, get Fusion Drive to be more affordable so that they can make it standard sooner. But it's just not standard yet on some of these systems like we've been talking about. So that's the 27-inch. They've got, you know, they've got the stuff that they already had, that the Retina 1 already had in terms of Thunderbolt 2 and all of that. And then the build-to-order configuration options, the two high-end models can be upgraded to a 4 GHz i7. All three models can be upgraded to the Radeon 395 with four gigs of GDDR5 magic memory.

Memory, memory, memory nerds out there. When I listen to ATP and they talk about chipsets, I'm like, yeah, I don't care so much. They really love it. But anyway, yeah. So you can upgrade to the super awesome graphics. And even on the 2299, that upgrade is basically more memory to the GPU. The stock is 8 gigs of memory, but you can go all the way up to 32. It does have the door, so you can do it yourself if you want to do it that way. And it's got all the storage options, 1, 2, or 3 terabyte Fusion drives,

256 or 512 flash on the 1799 model and the 1999 and the 2299 you can configure a terabyte flash too so uh you know it's it's basically uh the old 5k imac spread across the whole line with upgraded processors to to skylight that's exactly what i was looking for apple is not saying this is four times faster than the old model. I think these are incrementally faster. I think it's not a radical change there, but it is the newer architecture, newer graphics processors, newer CPUs. So everything's a little bit better, but it's not like um a quantum leap it's not gonna blow the doors off no no but keeping in mind that the high-end one really

hasn't updated in a year i mean this is and then they basically pulled it down to 1999 in the spring and now they've pulled it all the way down to 1799 and everything's a little bit better at those price points so i will be getting the top of the line. I'll push it. You can take it up to 4 gigahertz, you said, and I7. Yeah. Yeah, and then I'm going to throw 16 gigabytes of RAM and a terabyte flash in there.

Beauty. That is going to be my screen. Top of the line. Yeah. That's good. So I will mention this, and i will mention it at another point i'm not going to belabor it i will be selling my mac pro if you are in the uk and you're interested let me know i'm going to take it in for full service with apple and then i'm going to be

selling it so if if you want to jump the gun on that i'll i'll give you a good price on it um and i'm also going to be getting rid of my 25 inch dell monitor that i have uh and i'm going to be trading it in for a beautiful 27-inch iMac. Very excited. It's a good thing. Welcome. Welcome to 27-inch iMac world. I've been so happy with my 27-inch iMac that I definitely recommend it to people.

It's funny. One of the things that I actually wrote about in the Macworld article is, who needs a desktop? Because there is that argument right like um i think it's more than three quarters of the max that it's or or it's roughly three quarters of the max that apple sells our laptops now but i think there are lots i think there are lots of um uses for desktops dedicated workstations with lots of power um i think are nice big screens are really nice. And I think

there are a lot of intangibles too. Like for me, the work-life balance thing that this is this huge, not only is this a huge, powerful computer with a big screen, but it's also at my desk. And when I leave it, I'm not working then. And yeah, I can get a laptop and I can do stuff, but this becomes my workplace. And I kind of like that, that the power, the computing power is concentrated here. And this is where I want to be if I'm working. And when I step away, I'm stepping away from all of that stuff. And I think there's something to that. I also know a lot of families who, you know, an iMac is a nice shared computer. They put it on a desk in the family room or

something like that. And the kids take turns or work on it together. Rather than having sort of a laptop that where'd it go, it's floating around, it stays anchored to the table. So there are lots of reasons why, but I've been really happy with the iMac, and I hadn't used an iMac as my primary system in quite a while. And it's a great system. So now it's even better. Yeah, when you were talking about the 21, I was thinking, oh, that seems like the perfect student computer. And like, you know, where is that going to be used?

You know, like in a dorm room or something. And then I realized, no, you use a laptop for that because you can take it to class. Like the 27 is like that. It's that one exactly. It's for the creative professional. That is the new machine. It's not the Mac Pro because this thing has an incredible screen on it right and i feel like that's probably why it's

edging it for many people as the pro machine now this top of the line 27 so i'm wondering who is the 21 for is it just for price conscious or space conscious people because that is a really weird group to have a machine for like in my mind anyway i i think for a lot of people 27 inches is just too much computer i i really i really believe that i i have and i've seen people see a 27 inch iMac and go oh my god it's so huge um and uh 21 and a half is a much more like i said human scale almost i i think i think 27 it is so big and it's beautiful that it that it's this big screen but um it's not for everyone and then the price is the same thing right i mean uh 14.99 that that it's a lot so if you don't need the the the size and the screen space um and you can save

money that's it just it's logical so i think i think for a lot of people i think that's a much more casual user kind of computer than uh than the 27 I think, you know, you can see it now that there's, they still haven't pushed it down to 1099, right. That'll probably happen in the next year or two, but you know, for now it's, it's, uh, it's the higher end model, but it's for, you know, I, I know people who would not buy the 27 inch and they've got, and money's no object for them because it's just too big and they don don't need a computer that's that big. And their house doesn't have a place to fit it. I think there's perfectly reasonable use cases for the 21.5.

Okay. And in the long run, this is also part of Apple clearing the non-retina out of the product line. So, you know, in a year, let's say, when the 21 and a half inch 1099 iMac, you know, maybe next year, maybe the year after when that one is gone, and certainly the 1299 next year, right? We will get to a point very soon where the MacBook Air and these 21 and a half inch iMacs will be gone and we'll be all Retina across Apple's product line at that point. And it's coming. It continues to push downward until there's nothing left. Any rumblings about an external display?

No, I got no rumblings. And in fact, these Retina ones still don't do target display mode, which the old ones did, where you could use it as a – once it had ended its life as a computer, you could turn it into a monitor for a different computer. They don't do that. And I think it goes down to the fact that connectivity is still an issue. Driving a display like this is still an issue. Right. And from what I've heard, Thunderbolt 2 can drive some large HD displays and Thunderbolt 3 will do a much better job of it. And I feel like maybe this is just Apple waiting for the technology to get to the point where they can do it. Or for them to have sold enough systems that can support it for them to sell it.

Because that's part of the thing, too. If you release a monitor that only the computer you announced that day can use, I mean, they might do that if they update a Mac Pro and say, and here's the external monitor you use with it. They might do that, but it would be better if they sort of had already seeded the market with Macs

that were capable of driving it with laptops and maybe even iMacs that could drive it as a second retina display. So no rumblings, but I feel like we're getting closer to that. And I do think it will happen eventually. I think the question is, is it going to happen soon? Is it going to happen with Thunderbolt 3? I don't know. All right. That isn't the only news of the day, though. I want to talk about input devices with you because i see the titles of these in our document and i'm very intrigued because i everything else i could guess uh there's some there's some words in this document that i don't

understand yes as as the imac always does it comes with input input devices but the input devices in these new imacss are different. But first, I think we should hear from a friend. This week's episode is brought to you by Hover, the best way to buy and manage domain names. When you have an idea for a project that you want to start, or you want to take a blog or a site or a portfolio, something you've been working on,

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helping support this show and relay fm thank you for so much to hover for their support of today's show so tell me what we've got here are you sitting down i'm sitting down all right uh so with these new imax uh apple also announced and and we'll be shipping separately as well the new magic keyboard okay the magic trackpad 2 and and the magic mouse 2 okay the sequels uh magic keyboard now i'll tell you what i think this is. I haven't heard it. I expect it's the new... See, I feel like what I'm going to say is so crazy. The new style, so the San Francisco font with the new keycaps. And if it's magic, there's some kind of movement device built into the keyboard.

That's what I would say. Nope. Okay, hit me with it. What's magic about it i don't know what's it seems to me that the magic of it is that it's rechargeable okay uh the font the font is different um i just was checking with my uh with my other keyboard here now the so the story here with the keyboard, and with all these devices actually,

is that they're rechargeable. All the Apple, especially the trackpad and the keyboard, were built around this cylinder at the back with AA batteries in it. And they've replaced all of that with a lightning connector and a rechargeable battery inside. Lightning is the perfect connection for this i was wondering where you were going to go with that so they're much um they're much thinner like the keyboard is super thin all the way to the top it's wedge shaped so it's much

thinner at the bottom than at the top but it's uh it's a much less of an angle which is also good i think ergonomically that it's not quite as, as, uh, as angled from top to bottom, but it is still wedge shaped. And on the, on the, on the back edge is this, um, is a lightning connector and an on off switch. And, uh, it is, so let's see, uh, people will be very happy to know that it is not using the butterfly mechanism of the MacBook. It's not based on the MacBook keyboard. I think this is a really good sign

that they're not going to make us use that keyboard technology with everything. It feels like they have designed that keyboard technology now, I can see this, to work where it's needed. So they designed it for the MacBook, but they also wanted to put it in the iPad Pro keyboard cover. Because you need really, really thin keyboards in those scenarios. Right. So this uses a scissor mechanism, although Apple says that they improved on the scissor mechanism, Apple says that they improved on the scissor mechanism,

that the keycaps are slightly larger, that it makes a clicky sound, which it actually does. It's soft, but there is definitely, you know, you can hear yourself typing, and that they say that the keycaps are more

stable, and I think they're right. But it is, there's more travel, it feels like, than on the MacBook. It definitely feels more like a regular typing experience than the MacBook keyboard does. I think they say there's a millimeter of travel, which Apple declares is the optimal amount of key travel. So, okay, who are we to argue? But it definitely takes up a lot less space. So last week, I fell into this sort of hole of looking at keyboards on eBay after Joshua Topolsky tweeted these pictures

of these incredible like little tiny keyboards that are just, they don't even have the function row. It's just numbers. And it's, so what's one, two, three, four, five, like five rows of keys and then the edge of the keyboard. Like it's a super tiny keyboard. And I four five like five rows of keys and and then the edge of the keyboard like it's a super tiny keyboard and i love that because i don't like the extended

keyboards um that is a similar design to this apple keyboard actually there's not a lot of space around it it does have the function key row at the top and they're actually full-sized function keys they're not half height they're full height but that's it yeah i wonder if it's because they had the space because they needed to put in the battery and things like that that that it couldn't get much smaller and the funny thing it's worked in the inverse to to usual yeah yeah but it's it's it's a funny thing well because you've got to keep the symmetry right because it's the same border around it but it's very very much there's not a lot of extra space around the keys. You basically get white keys framed by the silver keyboard. So yeah, I've been typing on it all weekend. I would say it's pretty nice. I don't think I've

come to a verdict yet about whether I prefer it to some of the other keyboards that I've got around here, but I have not felt miserable after using it for days and days, which is what happened to me with the MacBook keyboard. So I take that for what it's will, what you will. I don't like the fact that it's got the, like the MacBook, it's got full size left and right arrow keys, but split up and down arrow keys because I used that space where the small left and right arrow keys left on the keyboard. I used that to kind of orient. So I've had to kind of relearn that part of it.

But I'd say it's pretty nice. And I haven't even told you the most amusing part of it, which is the Apple-est touch of all. If you get one of these, and you have to be on a system that's running El Capitan, but if you get one of these, and you have to be on a system that's running El Capitan, but if you get one of these and you plug it in to the lightning port that comes with it, it comes with a lightning to USB cord. If you plug that lightning to USB cord into the keyboard and into your Mac running El Capitan, it insta-pairs. So you don't have to do Bluetooth pairing or anything.

It sees that you've attached the Magic keyboard, and maybe that's what the Magic is, and it instantly pairs, which is just, it's a really nice touch, and it's fun to not have to go through that. And they say that it lasts a long time. It's in a two-hour charge, you can get more than a month of use they say out of it

and it's just another place to charge your apple pencil i guess so i don't think that we'll we'll see i've been thinking about that recently like all of the places in my life that i could charge an apple pencil and it seems like i'm now gonna have some more options but i've got this logitech rechargeable keyboard and um it runs out of battery like every week. And Apple says this is a month or more, depending on how you use it. And I should say that the story Apple's telling with all of these devices is that it's about getting the batteries out and they tell an environmental story like it's much better that now it's a rechargeable thing instead of having people use batteries that you then

throw away in a landfill or something like that. I like the idea of rechargeable devices because I mean I use rechargeable batteries for my input devices but it's still a pain that I have to keep recharging these batteries separately and then they often don't last as long then. Yeah they don't last as long at all. So that seems like a good thing for me. I don't know if I would switch to the Magic Keyboard because I use one of these ergonomic-y keyboards. Yeah, you probably wouldn't do it. So there's not really a lot of benefit.

I'm using this Logitech rechargeable keyboard that is very similar to this one, in fact. And I might switch. I might. We'll see. So it doesn't sound like there's a lot of magic in this keyboard. So I hope there's a little bit more magic in the trackpad and mouse. There's more magic in the trackpad. mouse uh there's more magic in the trackpad okay this is a shame okay um the the trackpad so similarly the trackpad is charged by lightning and will pair via lightning to you to a mac running el

capitan via usb um you can you can use these with things that aren't running you el capitan i think but they they will lack in a lot of functionality. So the new Magic Trackpad is not silver on top. It's white, which I think is interesting. All right. The trackpad space is 29% more area. So it's physically a much larger trackpad. It's basically, uh, if you imagine the magic, the magic trackpad, it's got that whole non trackpad part up at the top, which is also

where the batteries live. You cut that off. Imagine that that's gone, but that then you add another sort of inch on the side of the trackpad. So it shorter and wider it isn't again isn't angled as high because it doesn't have the the uh the double a batteries in there um that's big and and of course so it's well it's a little bit bigger it's it's just it's a little bit wider okay but but but not as high and it matches the keyboard perfectly um and it's so it's a glass trackpad um and of course the old Magic Trackpad and Apple is happy to point out its flaws now it had the little feet that sat on the desk

and they sort of indented when you pressed them but they were at the bottom so you couldn't really click as well from the top and of course this one clicks everywhere because it's a force touch and they're still calling it force touch they still are because that's what the feature is

on the mac maybe they'll change it later i wondered if they maybe this would be like the the overall like you know the next shift oh this is 3d touch like no weird okay i think 3d touch is a different feature right it's a it's it this is what this is called and they're not going to rebrand it yet i think maybe that'll take an os revision before they do that seems um but anyway it doesn't it's not that it doesn't depress actually um if you look all around the whole the whole top of it is kind of floating over a a very thin sort of squishy something i'm not quite sure what it is but if if you turn it off, if you watch as you press, you can see that the physical, the glass top does depress a little bit, but if you turn

it off and try to do it, you don't feel anything. I mean, it is not, you would never feel a click. So the click feelings are all emulated through vibration, just as they were on the MacBook. It's the same idea and on the new MacBook Pros that use this technology. And you can do the force touch. You can press harder on a Word and a web browser and it pops up the definitions and all the other things that you could do on the laptop, you can now do on a desktop with this track with this uh trackpad um and uh it's even got just as the just as the laptops do it even has a setting uh for the sound of the click so it's got in it i think it's got a little speaker in it somewhere that makes the the sound that you associate with clicking and you can turn that off and it's still if you know it still makes a little

bit of a noise because it's vibrating and certainly on my desk it makes a little bit of a noise but it's much quieter when you do that and it's actually a little disconcerting i turn the click back on because and this is why they have it but it's totally artificial it's like cars that pipe in that you know that make fake car noise electric cars that make fake car noise because they want it to sound more like a car. It's a little bit like that. And that's true on the MacBook. It's the same thing. They add some clicky noise to give you more feel

that it's actually clicking even though it's not really. It's just all in your head. The thing that keeps sticking with me though that you mentioned a moment ago is that they changed it to white. Yeah, it's white. So the keyboard, is it

aluminium and white? Yes. So it's matching the keycaps. Interesting. Rather than the metal frame. Okay. Yeah, I was surprised too. That just seems odd. I can't really put my finger on why because everything else has white in it all the other input devices um but yeah but usually trackpads

well i guess trackpads do for anyway never mind but yeah so anything else in the trackpad that's interesting so yeah two hour charge a month or more of use they say um and you can click because it's this force touch you can click anywhere on it. So this clickable area is much larger. And of course, the actual surface area of the thing is much larger too. Okay. And I've been using it for the weekend and it feels good. I'm a Magic Mouse user and I like it.

That said, you know, the number of things you can force touch in OS X, it's still not particularly great. But I feel like this is actually going to speed adoption of those features because of a couple things. One, it makes those features accessible to everybody who doesn't have those new laptops. And especially developers oftentimes are using a desktop computer and don't have access to those features and now they can buy the magic trackpad and they can actually get those features and uh and see the see for them themselves and that's a nice uh i think that will help that developers can actually try this stuff out now instead of uh kind of scoffing and saying no it's it's not that important i I'm not going to bother.

So I hope to see more because honestly, there are not a lot of places where I'm using the force touch feature now. And I would like more of that. There isn't peek and pop in iOS 10 yet, is there? No, I mean, it could be implemented by somebody, but they would have to do it themselves. Whereas in iOS 9 um it's implemented the apple has provided an api for peak and pop but there's nothing like that i my hope is that there's either in a in an os 10 update or or in the next version next year that they kind of

revisit all of this stuff and and make it more consistent and maybe they change the name um but it hasn't it hasn't happened yet okay and the magic mouse 2 then i so i was hoping that this was going to solve an issue that i'm having so you know how much i love as everybody does the logitech mx master yes i'm having severe wrist pain and i think it's the blame um and i think the reason is is because i set it up with all these buttons to do all of these things i think i'm i'm exercising muscles in my hands and wrists so i shouldn't be to make it do certain things like clicking this button to change spaces and this button to pause and i think that the movements that i'm doing with my hand and wrist are not good for it. So what I was hoping was I was going to be able to get a new Magic Mouse

which had some false touchy type stuff in it or something that would be a bit more useful to me. But this doesn't sound like what is about to be described to me. No, it is very much like the old Magic Mouse. Okay. Apple says that the structure is a little more rigid and the feet have been redesigned and that it's lighter. So they say that, you know, it clicks better and has a better feel in your hand. And I'm not a mouse user, so I'm going to kind of take them at their word here, but I don't really know.

So I'm going to kind of take them at their word here, but I don't really know. But what it does have, so beyond those things, what it does have is a lightning port. You can plug to pair. It recharges. Now, the problem is the lightning port is on the bottom. So here's the question. What happens when you're in the middle of a project and the Magic Mouse 2 runs out of battery. That's crazy.

Because the MX Master charges via USB, but the USB port is right in the front. So you plug it in and it's just like a wired mouse. So what Apple says is in 30 seconds, you can get four hours of use. And in a minute, you can get an eight hour day of use out of it. All right. So if you end up in trouble, you plug it in for a minute and then you're good for the rest of the day. And then overnight you let it charge.

But that's it though. There's no force anything. It's a physically moving, you know, pivots from the back. So you click on the top magic mouse. So there's not a I would say it's not a huge story but it is different and the big story is

that it's lighter and rechargeable okay well I am a trackpad user I might start using the trackpad more as a way to combat these issues that I'm having so maybe I'll pick up one of these trackpads as well and see what it's like.

But I'm sad about the mouse. I was hoping to get a little bit more than that. Yeah, it's not that exciting. But again, they claim about a month. All of these devices, they say, it's basically got a month-ish of battery life. And all of this stuff is available now? All of this stuff should be available now.

In quantity is my understanding for the iMacs. They should be in stores. Lovely. So this is, I think they've been making them and now they're releasing them to the wild. This is not one of those, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be, this is probably one of those things where if they'd wanted to, they could have mentioned it back on September 9th, but they didn't want to. And that was a really busy thing. And they would

have had to say, well, they're shipping in October, but instead they just didn't say anything. And then, you know, here's the announcement. So here it is, new iMacs, new keyboard, new trackpad, slightly new mouse. And yeah, it's news from Apple. Overall good stuff, you feel? Yeah. Well, the keyboard is a huge relief. I mean, we can talk about this. I'm still trying to get some perspective on it and working on some stories that I'm going to post in six colors about this stuff.

But the keyboard, I am, as somebody who's not a fan of the MacBook keyboard, and hey, some people like it and good for them. It's great, but I don't like it. I think it's a mistake to put that keyboard with all of its compromises on other devices. And even Apple, when they introduced it, admitted that it was compromised, but they needed to do it for the MacBook. I'm really happy to see that there's a brand new keyboard created by Apple that isn't the

MacBook keyboard brought to the external keyboard, but is something that maybe takes some cues from it in terms of what they tried to do, like improving key stability, but uses a scissor mechanism. And we'll see what the keyboard snobs all say about whether it's any good or not. But I will say this, it is way better than that MacBook keyboard in my estimation. And that's a good sign that Apple doesn't think that the MacBook keyboard is the one that everybody should use and that it will probably not appear on all its devices. So I like the keyboard, but I love the signal it sends about what Apple thinks about keyboards, which is not quite what I feared it would be. And the Magic Trackpad 2 is really nice. And as a magic trackpad user i am absolutely gonna buy it because i like you know i i like the idea of uh of doing more force touch

stuff but i also uh i like the idea that it's uh rechargeable and uh takes up it's got more surface area um and is flatter i think those are all good things too. And it's pretty. Cool. Sounds good. All right, should we do some Ask Upgrade to round out today's episode? Let's do it. And I look forward to next week talking about hopefully the new 27-inch iMac

that I will have purchased. Woo-hoo! So do you want to thank Stamps.com for sponsoring this week's episode? That's a good idea. Stamps.com is sponsoring this week's episode and hashtag ask upgrade. You know, mailing and shipping are a routine part of running your business.

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Hashtag ask upgrade. That's lodged in my brain now. I can't get it out. So there we go. For anybody that was missing mailbagging, you've got... That's coming back soon, though. In the Incomparable Radio Theater, there's a mailbagging reference. People should check that out. Oh, it warmed my heart greatly.

Wow. And I have been... David Law has told me to keep listening so what he tells me i um yes and again i'll just put in a plug here please uh check out the incomparable radio theater it's like it's incredible i will say it for you i i love it so much and i'm so happy you guys are making it because it is a real joy to listen to it's like podcast dessert oh i like that i that. I like that. I like that phrasing. Yeah. It's funny and short. They're all about 20 minutes long and it's very different

from most of the podcasts I would imagine that are in your podcast players because it's fictional and has sound effects and acting, acting from good actors, acting from tech people that you know, who may or may not be good actors, and much more. So yeah, please check it out. But there is a mail route sponsored the first four episodes. So there are lots of jokes in there, including a mailbagging joke that relate to that. So for upgrade listeners, that's a little callback. Our first question this week comes from, I believe this name would be Hjalti. I'm going to go with that.

I think so. You said that Touch ID is faster on the 6S. Is it also more accurate, i.e. more forgiving of smudgy and sweaty fingers? I have found that yes to be the case. It feels more accurate to me. Jason, would you agree? I don't know if I have done it enough to say that it definitely is. done it enough to say that it definitely is it seems like i'm not getting rejected by touch id like i like i used to even when when there's moisture on my fingertips but um you know i i

i'm glad that you have that perception because i i just i haven't i haven't been through it enough times to say that it's definitely that way but it seems like it may be one uh annoyance that i have with the new touch id sensor now is how much harder it is to activate the apple pay gesture with the double tap uh-huh because it wants to unlock your phone yeah it's because it's just like oh you want to you want to unlock great here you go but if you unlock then you can double tap and it will go to Apple Pay. Really? Yeah. Double tap.

Yeah, okay. Or I mean double press the home button. Well, doesn't that activate multitasking though? Oh, you're right. You're right. I thought, no, it's got to be on the lock screen. Well, that's no good. Well, just don't activate it.

Just, I don't know. You're right. That is a problem yeah i find that i have to like hit it with my nail like you know purposely trying to get away from it but um yeah it's a lot faster if if i want to see the lock screen i do a lot of uh it's like my thumb is on is on tiptoes i do it like the edge of my thumb the front of my thumb where it can't recognize my thumb i do i do that a lot yeah the problems is a faster touch id yeah jeremy asked with ims9 itunes does not seem to transfer purchases this is mean if i upgrade my phone to a success i will have to redownload apps with a limited bandwidth as a rural user i can't afford to download apps again so this goes back to that discussion we've been having recently. And this definitely seems to be

the case, right? Like, if you do an iOS 9 upgrade now, your purchases are redownloaded from the cloud. Like, I couldn't seem to find a way to get transfer purchases to mean that when I did my backup, I restored from backup, it seemed like everything just went to download from the cloud. Yeah, that was my experience too. And I think it's a mistake. I think Apple needs to provide a way for you to completely image your phone and then restore it. Because for people like Jeremy, that is a cost to him. It comes out of his pocket to get his phone back to normal again. This is an example of a lack of perspective that happens sometimes, I think, when people who work at Apple and have great internet connections and have huge amounts of data and don't worry about this stuff, don't realize that people in rural areas are on super

slow data or super slow cellular and maybe metered. And there's so many different reasons why you can't just assume that you're going to reinstall everything from the cloud. And I feel like this is an example where that has become a problem where Apple apparently in Antarctica, right, and I don't have an internet connection to speak of except some tiny satellite thing that comes over every few hours, and I want to restore my phone, I should probably – I've got all the data right there, right? I shouldn't need to give up until I leave when the summer comes and I can get back out again or whatever it is. Sorry, Antarctica. But you see what I mean? I mean, a lot of times people are in data challenge situations and the data is right on your phone. You should be able to do something with it. And I think it's problematic that you can't. So if people have tips about ways to get around this, I would love to hear it. But I think Apple needs to make this an easier process. This goes back to what we were talking about a couple weeks ago when we were talking about upgrade problems is it would really be

nice if Apple would let you plug in your phone and say, all right, I'm transferring this to a new phone, press a button, have it suck everything off of it, and then have it say, okay, plug in your new phone and then drop everything back onto it. And we don't have that right now. And this falls in that category too, where you shouldn't have to take an app that you already have downloaded and re-download it. Yep. I agree. It's a shame. Sorry, Jeremy. We can't help. I don't think so. Afraid not. David asked, with ongoing iCloud issues and storage costs,

should I upgrade to the iPad Pro to replace my MacBook Air or go with a new Mac? So my feeling for this question, I feel like a lot of people might ask this question or be asking it of themselves. I think the iPad Pro is only an option as a replacement for you if you can currently do it with an iPad right now. If right now you can't take an iPad Air

and replace your laptop with that, then the iPad Pro will not be an answer to you is the way that I feel. Because all the iPad Pro is doing is giving you more space and more power and a bit more flexibility with input devices. It's not currently, at least, it's not feasible to say now that it's going to fundamentally change the iPad in any way greater than that.

It may over time, but that's not going to happen in a month's time from now. If you can't currently do all of your work on an iPad, even if maybe it's a bit more cramped, then you won't be able to switch to the iPad Pro completely. That's my feeling. I agree because you can use external keyboards with the iPad Air and you can use pens, although not maybe of the quality of the Apple Pencil, you can use different pens with those. So if you can't make a go of it now, just because the iPad Pro is going to be bigger and faster and have the Apple Pencil support. But really, it's still running iOS. It's going to be what an iPad is. And if that's not

enough, then the answer is no. I don't really understand the with ongoing iCloud issues and storage costs here too, because either an iPad or a MacBook Air can bypass Apple's stuff for a lot. You know, you can use other services other than Apple's. You have to sign in with your Apple ID for a few things, including apps, but so much of this stuff can be replaced. So I'm not sure that it's as big an issue as that. I feel like unless you're having kind of huge iCloud issues with restoring or something like that, but otherwise, you know, you can use Dropbox or you can use Microsoft stuff with the iPad or with your Mac. And I'm not sure that that is going to make a big difference. Yep, definitely. And finally today, Brandon asked, what do you think Amazon is doing with

the Kindle? They haven't changed it to be a better reading device in a while. What do you think, Jason? So obviously this is the e-ink Kindle, right? Yeah, I'm a fan and I have bought many and I'm using their current version, the Voyage. I guess they got an updated version of it, but I've got the first generation of the Kindle Voyage. I guess they got an updated version of it, but I've got the first generation of the Kindle Voyage. I think that they have a place until other devices can do what they do in terms of readability, providing contrast and readability in bright light and battery life. So I think that it's a good niche product. It's not for everybody. I know a lot of people are reading books on their smartphones or their iPads, and that's fine. But for some of us, including me, the Kindle is a nice dedicated reading device. And I love that I have a dedicated reading device. That's where my books are. And I read on that device, and I find it pleasant that that is the place that I'm doing it.

on that device. And I find it pleasant that that is the place that I'm doing it. Is that a big enough market for Amazon to invest a lot of R&D into that? I don't know. I mean, you could argue that it's not. You could also argue that Amazon owns that market. And so they want to keep pushing the ball forward there. Amazon's had a lot of problems with a lot of their hardware. So, you know, this is, I don't know enough about what's happening inside Amazon to know whether they're investing anything at all in Kindle or not. They added a font and some other stuff. I would hope that they were continuing to improve it. That said, I feel like the hardware is pretty good.

If the e-ink screens just keep getting better and more high resolution, that's nice. better and high more higher high resolution that's nice um i think their software is is uh due for a refresh because i think the kindle software is feels still feels really primitive but um but i don't know it feels to me like that product has matured and really now is incremental change and software revisions is the only thing that they can really do yeah yeah i mean the the um uh they will um they'll push it forward as the technology because i think e-ink stuff will continue to get better um but yeah it has it has matured and it is very targeted at at what it at that at this little audience and with the rise of tablets and smartphones, it isn't because it isn't for everyone.

Um, that is, you know, if I were Amazon as a cold, you know, cold business decision, I think it would be hard for me to justify huge amounts of investment in the Kindle. Um, Because how much of a growth area is that? It's a nice product that does a pretty good

job at what it does. And does it need to be more than it is? Like I said, I'd rather they invest in making the software on the existing devices better than in building new devices or build new devices that are not that different from the old ones, but have much better software in them. I think that would be better because I think the Kindle software, the typography, the user interfaces, it could do some more work there. But, you know, they're fine. I like my Kindle. I'd like to see them marching forward. I just don't want them to be discontinued. So I hope they continue to make them. That would be crazy to me if they got rid of that product.

It's so core to Amazon's business. Yeah, I think you're right. There've got to be enough people there that care about reading. So many readers are not tech people too. I think we lose, again, with the tech podcast world and tech media world, we lose sight of the fact that so many people who are readers are not us. There is a huge, the book reading audience is big, but it is demograph. It is older. And I would say it is less comfortable with technology. And so Kindles can be really good for people who are older, less comfortable with technology because this is like a book, you know, except you can buy things right on it. And I've seen that happen time and again. Over time, I kept buying or handing down older Kindles to my mom and she's got an iPad now and she doesn't need the Kindle anymore. She doesn't use the Kindle anymore because she just does it on the iPad now.

And that may continue to happen where people who might be perfect targets for this have other devices and feel that they don't need... If you're less technical and you've already got an iPad, you're probably not inclined to be a multi-device person, right? You want to simplify. And I think the Kindle gets the boot in that case. So yeah, I love it. It's a niche that I'm in, but I appreciate that it's a little niche. Right. I think that about wraps up this week. Jason, where should people go to read all of your coverage and your thoughts about these new products today?

You can read my review of the 21.5-inch iMac, 4K iMac on Macworld. You can read about a whole bunch of other stuff, including the input devices and some other thoughts about the iMac line at sixcolors.com. And as always, you can find me on Twitter at jsnell and read me in general on sixcolors.com.

Okay, you can find the new mic at the movie's subcast. Is that, that's your phrasing for them, isn't it? No, it's a pod, that's not a subcast. This is a full-on podcast. Wow, look at that. Absolutely. That's over at theincomparable.com slash Mike, which is my favorite URL on the internet now.

And you can find our show notes for this week, which has links to all of that sort of stuff over at relay.fm slash upgrade slash 58. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors for this week's episode. The great people over at Braintree, Hover, and Stamps.com. Thank you so much for

your support, and most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Jason will be maybe the same, and I will be with a wallet that is very much lighter. Until then, say goodbye, Mr. Snell. Bye, everybody.