Upgrade - 59: You Need Faster Fingers

Episode Date: October 19, 2015

Revisiting some of the design decisions in Apple’s new “Magic” peripherals, why 3D Touch soars while Force Touch seems to lag behind, iWork gets a much needed update, and Myke and Jason watch ��Back to the Future Part II."

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 59 today's show is brought to you by our friends over at lynda.com stamps.com go to meeting and pdf pen 7 from smile my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by mr jason s. Jason, we will see each other in just a matter of days. It's just a few days away now. In just over, I would say probably in about, not 48 hours, but 58 hours, we will be in the same place. We sure will. We're both going to be at the Release Notes conference. We're not going to be recording Upgrade Live this time, but I think we are going to be doing Clock maybe right clockwise we'll we'll do a clockwise episode that live from release notes probably probably thursday since you're giving the keynote on

wednesday and we'll be your mind will be blown um maybe thursday but we will we will do a live clockwise um but not a live upgrade this time we'll be back here in uh i think i think next tuesday we'll be late by a day because of travel. But I think we'll be back here next week in our respective chairs. Yeah. But yeah, it's going to be nice to go to the Rees Notes. And I'm looking forward to speaking. I'm going because it sounds like a good conference.

And I'm somebody who's got an independent business now. So I'm actually interested in the business focus of that conference. But I'm also going because the list of people who will be there, including and steven uh it's like a little impromptu relay meetup and that's it's nice to to see you guys in person so yeah we have fun yeah and and in fact one of our listeners will be there too i know who's attending uh our friend from cincinnati who plays golf so um i'm looking forward to some some listener meets too that's kind of awesome yeah i'm looking forward to it that i i believe there's kind of awesome. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I believe there's quite a few listeners that are going to be there, so it's going to be fun.

Cool. We should just follow up. Christian wrote in. So last week we were talking about the speed of Touch ID a little bit and how it feels a bit more – it just feels better to use. It's faster to use, that kind of thing. Christian wrote in that he's a runner, and actually he's found that even after post-ian wrote and he's a runner and actually he's found that even after post-run when he's all sweaty and he has sweaty hands and fingers uh touch id 2

is working for him which i thought was really interesting and i wanted to see if you had any thoughts like do you think that apple have any of these use cases in mind when they do this kind of stuff uh yeah probably i mean they certainly are are aware that the wet finger thing was a problem, right? Because there's nothing worse than having the slightly damp finger and you can't unlock your phone. So I'm sure that was something that they were thinking about. I don't know whether they tried to solve the wet finger problem or whether they were just saying, we can make this thing read better and faster.

And we've learned a lot in the last year of building touch id and we can do a better job than the next time um but i i i can't if you're in charge of touch id how can one of the things on your list not be the the the wet finger problem it's got to be and also you know like the exercise thing in general like the sweat side is interesting because of how much apple like push on the exercise and in general, like the sweat side, is interesting because of how much Apple push on the exercise and stuff now the Apple Watch is around, you know? It's good that it works. So one of the things that we

also got feedback, we were talking about how do you do Apple Pay if it reads your finger too fast? And lots of people wrote in to say it's very simple. You put your finger on the home button, but don't push it in. And lots of people wrote in to say, it's very simple. You put your finger on the home button, but don't push it in. And then with your finger on the home button, you double click the home button and Apple Pay slides out and you use Apple Pay. So that's the

gesture there is, you know, if you, if you put your finger on and press down, it's going to unlock. But if you put your finger on and then go tap tap it goes to Apple Pay. So good tip. Pro tip there. Yeah, definitely. I still find it ends up unlocking the phone for me. But yeah. I don't know what I'm doing. It works for me. I think you need to be faster.

I mean you need faster fingers to do that. But if you just rest it on there and then go totally works for me. I think you need to be faster. You need faster fingers to do that. But if you just rest it on there and then go... Totally works for me anyway. There you go. Obviously, we spoke about the Magic devices last week. And I wanted to just address a little bit more of that now that obviously we know more information. I know more information about them anyway. Because I don't think we really spoke about the pricing.

I don't know if you knew what the pricing was going to be. Uh, yeah. So I, let's see. I think I knew, but I didn't, it wasn't on the spec sheet and they mentioned it in the briefing and I

wasn't a hundred percent sure that it was what I had down was right. So I just decided to wait until they released them and then could mention at that point what they cost. So when we talked, I didn't want to say it and get it wrong. Yeah, so it turns out that Magic Mouse 2 is $79. The Magic Keyboard 2 is $99. And the Magic Trackpad is $12 129 which is expensive yeah that's really like the trackpad is super expensive and it makes me think like if that's how much it costs or if

that's how much it costs and you need those margins should you do it? Well, I mean, if you're Apple, here's the thing. They're going to include this in their existing devices. So like the iMac, but the Mac Pro comes with input devices too. So it's going to be the thing that's included with iMacs, basically. And if you want to buy it as a separate thing, yeah, they're going to charge you a lot for it. There are other options. I think that this is Apple being Apple and saying, you want something cheaper, go buy something cheaper. We don't make the cheaper thing. We make the top of the line thing. And I understand that. I think these prices are a little surprising. At the same time, a lot of people are going to buy the Magic Trackpad 2, even at $129. So, you know, that's the story of Apple, right? Is that you look at the prices and you're like, wow, that's, you know, it's good, but it's also a little bit pricey.

And then they sell a lot of them. So I'm a little surprised. I think there's a lot of tech in that Trackpad, especially the $99 keyboard. You know know there are a lot of keyboards that are expensive that that doesn't seem too unreasonable and if if there's a big glass trackpad out there that costs a lot less than that i'd like to know about it i i suspect that you know this is this is a high price but but for the tech, not an unreasonable price. And nobody's making you buy it. I mean, I think that's the thing is that if this was a must have, but then it would be different. But it's, you know, if you want the full on Apple glass trackpad experience on a system like a, you know, like an iMac, this is what it costs. And if you'd rather just have a mouse or a trackpad or something, or a trackball or whatever,

you can just buy that from a third party if you want to, if you're not satisfied with the prices that Apple provides. So it is interesting. Sometimes Apple makes products that are a little aspirational. They're higher tech

than all the other products out there on the market. And that's purposeful, but they're also higher priced. And that's definitely happening here. And then of course, we have the charging port on the bottom of the mouse. So when you're charging it, it makes it unusable, and a lot of people have been very upset about that this week,

citing it as a sign of poor Apple design, the death of Johnny Ive, and the upsetting of Steve Jobs' ghost. What do you think about this? I don't know. I mean, I'm glad that I... My interest in mice is so low that I made the tactical decision of reviewing, quote-unquote,

the mouse as a footnote in my trackpad review where I said, yep, there's a mouse because I just kind of don't care about mice. I don't understand them. The fact that it doesn't, it doesn't have pressure sensitivity. So it doesn't do force touch. Um, I, you know, what's new about it. They, uh, there's a whole, uh, lavish article on medium by Steven Levy about the amazing, uh, design decisions that went into making this mouse and they changed the material that the feet of the feet and all this stuff and is it clicky enough and things like that and that's you know it's fine it doesn't interest me at all but it is a little fascinating

that for whatever reason they just decided it was okay to put the charger on the bottom and not try to engineer it for the to put the charger on the back so that you could use it wired. And I think it's a fair point to say that the other devices are engineered so that you can use them while they're charging, but the mouse isn't. And why is that? And there probably was a tradeoff in the design process. I'm sure that they had this argument. In the design process, I'm sure that they had this argument. I think people who suggest that Apple doesn't consider all this stuff, which happens all the time on the Internet, it's foolish. Of course they considered it.

And there was obviously an argument about it. And I think at some point what happened was somebody said, look, the chances that people need to use this wired are almost zero. Nobody needs to use this mouse wired. And by moving it here, we get this other thing in our design. It makes, this is the thing that's keeping it from being clicky. This is the thing that's keeping it from being lighter or whatever they prioritized. And we can say, you can very much argue maybe that's the wrong priority, but I'm sure that was the argument. And then the third part of the argument was probably, look, if you plug this in for 30 seconds, you can use it until lunchtime. So it's not that big a deal. You're not going to stop doing your job because your mouse ran

out of battery. And we're going to have software to give you a warning saying you should charge it tonight because it'll run out of battery tomorrow. And that's good enough. And so that argument about putting it on the back and redesigning all of the other hardware of the mouse around it so that they could charge it on the back rather than having kind of a, you know, the whole thing on the back kind of floating as part of the mouse, that won the day, obviously. And, you know, they, you know, and the fact is that if they had engineered it the other way, people might have said, this is too big, or it doesn't click well, or whatever. But we'll never know. But I'm sure they had that argument internally. And this is the result, which is,

yeah, you can't use it when it's plugged in because the plug-in's on the bottom and uh it does fast charge so if you plug it in for a minute you can use it the rest of the day basically and then charge it overnight and i guess that makes sense right like yeah the fast charging thing it's like well there's your trade-off like you know it's like the idea we want to we don't want to hide the lightning bolt we want to put it down here okay what can we do well we, we can do this. Fine. That's a balance. Like, that's how I imagine that kind of, that design went through. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you have to, there are trade-offs, right? And if you think about the way that the mouse is designed, I don't feel like there's a really obvious thing at the head of that mouse, at the top of that of that mouse where um well why didn't they just put it right here i mean they it would have been a very different hardware design if they put it there and and at some point they decided it just wasn't worth the trade-offs that they were willing to make to put it there for something that uh there's a very narrow use i mean basically they're saying look if you want a wired mouse go buy a wired mouse. We're not making it. And then secondarily, if you are worried about charging it, don't be because you're going to get a battery warning like three days before it runs out of battery and you need to charge it for 30 seconds in order to use it until

your lunch break or until you go home. And, you know, I think those are perfectly fine arguments. I don't think it's a requirement that you be able to plug in a mouse and use it simultaneously. But I see the point that Apple opens themselves up for this sort of criticism. I see it. And in fact, I think what I would say is the PR spin on this was, well, it charges on the bottom, but you can charge it really fast. That was the PR spin. And, you know, maybe, maybe in Stephen Levy's article, which didn't have this in so far as I can tell, maybe somewhere Apple should have said, here's why it's on the bottom. Here's the decision we made and why. And they didn't. And I know that, you know, one PR school of thought is don't ever open yourself up for criticism. Don't call attention to something like this. But it would be interesting to see how this would go if they said, yeah, it's on the bottom, but nobody's going to care.

And what you get for it being on the bottom is whatever the answer is there. But they certainly didn't forget. Oh, geez, where do we put the lightning port? I guess it's got to be on the bottom now. That didn't certainly didn't forget and go oh geez where do we put the lightning port i guess it's got to be on the bottom now that didn't happen but sometimes you read twitter and you feel like people are like ah we got you you forgot this nope they didn't forget it they just made a decision that opened themselves up to this and and uh sort of surprisingly they didn't have a didn't have a story beyond just well you can charge it fast so it doesn't matter but as you did briefly mentioned like this is their own doing.

The way that Apple always position themselves as sweating every detail and all that kind of stuff ends up in a scenario where they open themselves up to this type of criticism. So you almost need to blunt it, right? You almost need to say, here's why we sweated this detail, because this mouse is appreciably better because we moved the plug to the bottom. And tell that story. And it may or may not be true. It's spin, of course.

But it's interesting that I don't think we've heard that story. And that, along with their track record, opens them up to that kind of criticism. Totally. Yep. So you also did some testing with the Magic Trackpad 2 on some other macs rather than the iMac I did um one of the interesting things about the magic trackpad 2 unlike the mouse and the keyboard is that it says that it requires a uh bluetooth 4 mac which are not that doesn't go back that far actually that that's two or three years in most models.

The old cheese grater Mac Pros don't support it. Lots of older systems don't support it. And so this is one of those things where people were saying, oh, I really want it for my older iMac, but my older iMac doesn't have Bluetooth 4. And so I did try this. I don't know, I've heard conflicting reports about whether somebody who uses like a USB dongle that does Bluetooth 4, whether that would work or not. I've heard some people can get stuff to work with that and other people can't.

I have in my house. I used to have the access to the Macworld Lab, which when I was working at Macworld, we had like so many old computers. Oh my God. And, but now I don't, I have access to my house. And so I have a 2009 iMac that is on my daughter's desk. I have a 2009 MacBook Pro that is in my, it's right behind my desk here. I've got a, I've got a 2010, I think, no, 2011 MacBook Air. Anyway, I did, I did try it on the MacBook Pro and the iMac. So the iMac, I plugged it in and it didn't work. I think maybe the cursor moved, maybe not even that, but it was running yosemite so then i upgraded it to el capitan and then it worked i plugged it in thinking well it's not going to work with bluetooth but what if if you plug the keyboard and the trackpad in they'll work over usb you can turn off your bluetooth and they still work which is cool um so they they are wired in a way that the mouse is not a totally fair point um so that

worked and i was like all right it worked it worked uh with uh force touch the whole thing worked that's pretty cool um and then i unplugged the cable and it still worked and i don't i have no explanation for this it's it still worked maybe it just like became friends and didn't want to leave it did not want to leave with the whatever the incompatible and it may be that the bluetooth uh because it's not bluetooth le maybe the the battery gets uh run down faster it may be that there's some sort of like sleep mode that that kicks in at some point and disconnects that makes it a really bad experience i heard from somebody who tried on an older Mac to use it,

and they said that it worked for a little while, and then it stopped working, and they couldn't get it to work again. And it may be that this, you know, since it's not supported, there may be bugs. One of the reasons it may not be supported is that they couldn't get it to work to Apple satisfaction, and so they just said, nope, it's not supported. But what I've been saying, and when I tried

on the MacBook Pro, it was similar, it worked as a trackpad. But without El Capitan, that's all it that's all it did was it did a single click, it wouldn't even do a two finger click. So it was seeing it as a pointing device. But not as, as a trackpad, essentially, not as anything more than just sort of moving a cursor around and clicking. But on that 2009 iMac, it was working to its full capabilities, gestures, force touch, the works, when you're running El Capitan. So, you know, the short version of this is, if you've got an older Mac that doesn't appear to be compatible with a Magic Trackpad 2, but you really want a Magic Trackpad 2, I would recommend ordering one and seeing if it works.

And if it doesn't work, send it back. But it might work. That's all I can really say is it might work. It might not work. And I don't have anything comprehensive to say because I've only tried it on two systems. But if you're running El Capitan and you plug it in, it might very well work. And it might even work unplugged. But certainly, I think you've got a decent chance of it working if you keep it plugged in via USB. So if you want to give it a shot, give it a shot. And you'll find out. It also seems like the Bluetooth powers down when it's plugged in, and it runs over the cable. data is over the cable so even you know even if you left bluetooth on i think maybe it would still work on usb mode and i heard from

somebody who said that they were um they were rf sensitive they were sensitive to radio frequencies which um you know i think they would you know they are not broadcasting when they're plugged in but i don't know that for sure. So that's all I know. But it's an expensive thing to just try out. I guess you can return it. Well, you need to return it. That's it. I mean, it needs to be something that you are able to return, right? So whatever check, wherever you buy it, if you're going to try this out, make sure that it's a place that offers you a window in which to return it.

Go to the Apple Store. that offers you a window in which to return it. Go to the Apple Store. I think Apple offers a return policy of, I don't even know what it is. I think it's 14 days is the standard one for Apple. Just to bring it back. So I think what you're risking is your time at that point.

If it doesn't work, you can always bring it back. All right, let's take a break and we'll jump into some more false touch stuff. Yeah. Because we're all about input devices these days. I guess so. That's what it's all about. This episode is brought to you by lynda.com. They are the online learning platform that has over 3,000 on-demand video courses that are there to help you strengthen your business technology and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, you can visit lynda.com slash upgrade. That's lynda.com slash upgrade. If you are looking to learn anything, lynda.com can help you.

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browser, you can follow along with their great transcripts as well, and you can also search these later. Just skip to a specific point in a video. When you sign up for lynda.com, your membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics for one flat rate. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, go ahead and visit lynda.com slash upgrade and sign up for your free 10-day trial. Thank you so much, lynda.com, for their support of this very show. Now, Jason, you wrote a piece on your lovingly titled, I think this is fantastic, More Color column on Macworld. I don't know if you've mentioned that on the show before, but it's a great little title for your, is this like an op-ed column?

It seems mostly. Basically, Macworld is paying me to write things once a week in that space and uh suzy came up with the uh the title uh more color which is a nice play off of six colors and also off of the uh analysts always asking tim cook for more color during conference calls so it's a little bit of both so on your uh more color column this week you spoke a little bit about the kind of under utilization of force touch on the mac um and maybe the interesting way how if you compare it to ios like ios is already swimming in force touch but whilst it's been touch on the mac um and maybe the interesting way how if you compare it to ios like ios is already swimming in force touch but whilst it's been around on the mac for longer there doesn't really seem to have been too much adoption is that am i fair to say that yeah i

there there are so many issues here so um first there's the issue of of what do you call it right and it was funny when when the trackpad came out i was surprised that a lot of the feedback i got from people was what do you mean force touch isn't it called 3d touch now and no they should have standardized they really should have and i know why they didn't i understand that but i think it made more sense to if they would have standardized yeah i i think i think the problem is that they my guess is they have standardized which is that 3d touch is the new

name and that my guess is because again they could keep them as separate names but it seems silly even if they are different technologies on different operating systems three different operating systems it seems silly to have two different brand names for pressure sensitive things, right? It seems silly. So they obviously had Force Touch because they put it on the trackpad and in the watch, and now they've changed their mind for, I think, you know, maybe some good reasons. It's, I think it's a better, clearer title, 3D Touch. Nice brand name. And that's what it is now, but I don't think they're going to rebrand the existing force touch until later. And my guess with the Mac is that it's going to be until the next version of OS 10, at which point they will call it 3d touch and MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro that they revved, and now it's also on the 15, and now it's also on the trackpad. But it was sort of added piecemeal.

It was in the middle of an OS cycle. And surprisingly, El Capitan didn't do anything to advance it. And so you end up in this weird state where when 3D Touch came out on the iPhones, Apple said, okay, here's how it works. On icons, it does this. And in apps, you can do whatever you want, but we built an API for peak and pop that you can use. And we built it into a whole bunch of our apps. And this is a good metaphor for this. And on the Mac, they said, you know, good luck to

developers. And for their own part, they basically wired it up to the three finger click and added a few different demonstrations basically like in quick time of variable speed but not a lot an iMovie there's an there was a a modification where you'd get some haptic feedback when you were snapping or when dragging to the end of an item some like demos and cool demos but not a lot more than that and in the intervening time I haven't used used Force Touch since I returned that review MacBook that I got until this week. And not much has changed. Which we're going to talk about in a second. The iWork update that came out last week actually does have some haptic feedback stuff in it.

But it's just kind of all over the place. And most third party apps don't seem to support it. And Apple's inconsistent and Apple's apps are inconsistent. And it's just it's striking to see that story versus the story with 3D Touch, where it's very clear. Now, 3D Touch is a lot easier because there aren't alternate taps for iOS right now. There's like a tap and I guess a long press, right? And that's about it. But on the Mac, you already have control click or right click or whatever you want to call it

or two finger click. And so what do you do? You can't count on this being there. And it seems kind of pointless to waste it on just another gesture for the control click. So they made it the three finger thing. But the three finger thing is where you kind of stuff everything that isn't important because most people aren't going to ever three finger click on something. So it's kind of, it's just, it's all over the place. It's not consistent. The names don't match. It just, it strikes me that

they had an opportunity to do this and clarify this with El Capitan and they didn't. And we may all be waiting until the next version of OS X before we get more clarity. Because I do think they need to do peak and pop or something that's the equivalent of that on OS X. And just like on iOS, it's not mandatory. You can't expect it to be there because there are lots of devices that don't support it. But if you do have a device that supports it, you know how it works and it works that way in pretty much all modern apps. And on the Mac, you know, there's not much there. There's just not that much there.

Yeah, I mean, I wonder why they didn't create Peek and Pop for the Mac. Maybe because Force Touch is less of a marketing thing on the Mac than it maybe is on iOS? I don't know. Or maybe, do you know, is the pressure sensitivity of the trackpads as good as the phone? It seems so, right?

Because you can do the multiple layer thing for the quick time moving around. Yeah, seems so. It's very interesting. Even if they wanted to keep the Peek and Pop stuff so it was more sellable on the iPhone, right? So they come up with this great thing. So they're like, oh, we can do this,

but we're going to put it on the iPhone because it makes a nicer marketing message to introduce it there. It's still strange that it hasn't come back to the Mac yet. Maybe it will, but marketing message to introduce it there. It's still strange that it hasn't come back to the Mac yet. Maybe it will, but you'd think that it maybe would have come with El Capitan. Yeah, that's what I think. And I'm surprised that it didn't. And maybe it's just that they were not capable of getting it into El Capitan. It's strange knowing that the Force Touch was going to extend to anybody who wants to buy this Magic Trackpad 2,

that that wouldn't be something they would consider, and that it was in all their new generation laptops now. But again, yeah, maybe they weren't ready. Maybe the 3D Touch stuff on iOS was being baked separately. And until it got kind of locked in, the Mac people, you know, it would be very hard. They could have done it. But the other way to do it would be like, okay, we're going to unify our pressure, you know, sensitive stuff. We're going to unify it all.

It's all going to behave the same way. And we're going to put those in the iOS release in El Capitan. And probably what they said was, you know what? We're just going to do it in iOS. And once we figure it out in iOS and do it there, then OS X can do it next year. And that's probably what happened. What's weird is the hardware is there now and was there before the iOS hardware was out. So I don't know. I mean, I don't have a problem with force touch as a concept on the Mac.

There are moments where I, what I would say is there are moments where I think this would be a really nice place if I could do an alternate click. This would be a really nice place if I could do a force click that brought up a, that executed a script or that brought up a contextual menu that was different from the usual two finger click contextual menu. from the usual two-finger click contextual menu. It happens every now and then that I think this might be a good place for it. And, you know, they just, it's not there. I think one of the reasons is because how many developers are spending all their time using a device that's got one of these trackpads in it? More now, more soon, at least, I think, because they will get this device and they will be able to explore it more than maybe if they're just using a MacBook Pro. Because even, I mean, I know developers use MacBook Pros a lot, but are they using them as their main systems? And are they using them as their main systems without like an external mouse and keyboard?

It's probably a smaller percentage so i think this magic trackpad 2 could go a long way to increasing the number of third-party developers who are at least aware of uh force touch on the mac whether they'll do anything with it i don't know but it's just it's just kind of not being used consistently and apple could lead the way here like they did on ios with 3d touch and they and they really haven't i think that it also speaks to the platform advancement because, you know, I understand the idea of Mac developers not having Magic Track Pass to test on, but so many iOS developers were implementing Force Touch before they had the devices, right, to get it out on day one. I just think it speaks to the platforms a little bit more that on iOS you want to make sure you've got the

latest and greatest because it's potentially more of a benefit than having the latest and greatest on the Mac. It's true. It's true. And there's more active development happening on iOS than on the Mac. But that all said, there are people who make their living on the Mac as developers. But it certainly seems like those developers aren't really making their money from the App Store. And I think the reason that iOS developers race is because they'll get the App Store features if they have the new stuff in. So if we think about some of the companies that we know, like OmniFocus or James Thompson, who develops Peacock, James Thompson who develops Peacock. They don't seem, they do direct

sale and obviously they move that way and they seem to I mean there are a couple of developers that I wanted to bring to mind because they're always putting the new stuff in, right? But I know that James was like, he goes crazy trying to get all the iOS stuff in

mind the same way the OmniFocus and the OmniGroup guys do. Because I guess on iOS, it's more important because if you can get that made for iPhone 6 feature, that's awesome, right? I know I was looking in there, right? The moment that they had that up, I was looking in there seeing what are the new apps

that Apple has said these use the features of iOS 9. Because you want to test them. But this doesn't exist really on the Mac. I mean, does anybody really look in there? apple has said these use the features of of ios 9 because you want to test them but yeah that this doesn't exist really on the mac i mean does anybody really look in the mac app store for anything does anyone browse it like i never browse the mac app so i browse the uh the ios app store like a couple of times a week i did use it last week for this and i went to the search box in the Mac App Store and I typed I typed force touch and there were no no responses there were no search results but it feels like there's got to be an app in there somewhere that has force touch in the description but it's just not finding them

you you would think but either way it's not good either way that is a really really bad sign so I don't know I mean I want to say though that Apple's got the right approach on iOS to this, which is we're going to show you how you use this and we're going to build it in. And they didn't build it in everywhere and we can complain like Control Center should have it and there's lots of stuff that should probably have it that isn't there.

But lots of Apple's apps have it built in and they are generally using the peak and pop metaphor and they supplied an API so that developers didn't have to build peak and pop themselves. They just use what Apple built and it works like you'd expect. And that's good. That's smart. And on Mac OS, on OS X, they have examples and there's APIs and all, but it's not like they don't have the unified approach that they, that they brought to iOS. And I guess I understand it on one level,

but it just seems bizarre to me that they would bring out the hardware and have the software kind of, kind of not be hooked up very well. I mean, it works, but what is it for? And, and El Capitan could have made that case and it didn't make that case. So it's just now that I've got this force touch trackpad sitting here, this magic mouse or magic trackpad too, what can I use it for? And I'm sure there will be some things that will be coming out now that, now that this product exists, I think it will help. And I'm sure that there will be some really nerdy utilities that will let you bind strange behaviors to a force touch. But it's just not, you know,

it's just, it's disappointing that it's not further along. I will say, and we can get to this more in a minute, some of the stuff in the iWork update I'm intrigued by, that's using the haptics rather than the force touch. It's interesting that Apple has gone that way with iWork, and that may encourage some developers to use that feature a little bit more. Let's put a pin in that. We'll come back to iWork in a moment. But just before we get off this topic, you are a Mac user primarily, right? You use the Mac way more than iOS, don't you?

Yeah. Yeah. right you use the mac way more than ios don't you uh yeah yeah is there any feature that you can think um that you would really like to see with false touch on the mac like is there any part of the os or any part of apple's apps or outside of peak and pop or any third-party apps like you you see is like i really really want to have false touch here for x reason well for me for me a lot of it is about it's a productivity boost. Is there something that I need to do with a keyboard shortcut or going to a menu that I need to do right here? Something I could select and then do. And the problem is, this is one of

the problems with the UI is a lot of that stuff is on the contextual menu already. So why do you need an additional context? And what I would say is there are cases where the contextual menu is very general and I want something incredibly specific. And that's why I mentioned, you know, the idea of something that takes a script or, or runs an automator action or something like that, where I could, I could bind it directly to a script, or I could bind it to a quick pop-up menu of like three things that I could choose from instead of the big full-on contextual menu that I normally get. That would be an example. I can imagine in something like Logic having the ability to do a force touch on something

in order to get a separate set of controls. What I would really love to do, because you know with Logic you can set your clicks, can't you, to be different tools, so you can choose two tools, right? So you can have left- can set your clicks can't you to be different tools so you can choose two tools right so you can have left click and right click effectively it's different tools i would love to be able to have force touch as a third tool yeah sure it'd be great right because why not i would love that or even uh you know better ways to zoom and pan and i feel that there's some stuff there for the pro apps that could be really interesting.

I just wonder what could come out of the more consumer stuff outside of Peek and Pop, which, as we said, should really, really be there now, especially in messages and stuff like that. I would really like to see that.

Whilst we're talking about Peek and Pop, totally different thing, but I just wanted to mention this because it's been on my mind and it just popped into my head. Peek and Pop. Did this because it's been on my mind and it just popped into my head peek and pop did you peek at first i did and that was popped in uh i really like it on ios but i have one one problem how in like um let's say say you're in messages and you have a link and you can peek the link and if you pop it it doesn't pop into place then the app like safari slides in from the side i And if you pop it, it doesn't pop into place.

The app, like Safari, slides in from the side. I really wish it wouldn't do that. I wish it would just pop it in. Because like in TweetBot, for example, I don't know if Twitterific has peek and pop. Yeah, same thing. It's using Safari View Controller. But it just pops into place.

Yeah. But with something like Messages on Mail, it opens the Safari app, and it's like you're peeking it. Oh, this looks nice. You pop it, and it goes the Safari app, and it's like you're peeking at all this stuff, and you pop it, and it goes, whoop, and it just flirts. And I just wish it wouldn't do that. I wish it would just open it. In a world with Safari View Controller, which is the new thing in iOS 9 that basically lets apps have Safari inside them,

and it's like full-on Safari, and then there's that Done button that you can, you know. And there's some UI issues there that they seem to be working out. Apple's apps should probably use it. Yeah, because it's nicer. It's a nicer experience. Because then you never leave the app that you're in. But instead, all of Apple's apps go from messages or mail or whatever and open the full Safari instead of using Safari view controller. I think that's a really interesting argument that, you know, if I want to use Safari, I'll be using Safari. And if I want to open this in Safari, I can do that.

But the default should probably be just open this page here. And then when I'm done, I'll continue on with messages. Because that action, like the idea of opening the extra app, it breaks the UI flow of peek and pop. Because it pops in it opens another app and then loads it again yeah it's no you you i i never i never really considered that but you're absolutely right that that there is um that it's actually bad i would say bad user experience right like if you're in mail why why would it not flip up a uh and this goes in general i think why would it not flip up a safari view control i mean they're they're i'm sure there's a whole big argument there but i i do wonder with some of these if it if it perhaps is just that that's not how it's been done in the

past and i i wonder did that argument happen or was it more like look too much we're not gonna we're not gonna debate safari View Controller in mail. We're just going to ship it the way it's always been. But wouldn't it be? I think there's an argument to be made that it's always a better user experience. And again, I'm not saying that this is true. I'm saying there's an argument to be made that it's always a better experience to stay in the app you're in when you click a link to a webpage, bring up the Safari View Controller in iOS 9, and then when you're done, you dismiss it because you're in Facebook or you're in, well, they don't use it, but you're in mail, you're in

messages, you're not in Safari. And it would actually reduce the number of times you'd have to see that little thing in the corner that says, go back to the app you were in before. And if you think that the majority of people probably use third-party apps mostly, right? Or at least we do. We use third-party apps more than Apple's apps. We end up in a world where Apple seems to be doing the weird thing rather than the third parties, right? By not using Safari View Controller. Yeah. It's just something that it's been bugging me so i'm pleased that i remembered to bring it up but we should talk about the iwork update but before we do that jason could you please thank stamps.com for sponsoring this week's episode indeed stamps.com is uh is our is

one of our sponsors this week and i've been using it i've actually been using it a lot the last couple of weeks um most of us especially if you're in a small business you're trying to find more time to get things done and trips to the post office and waiting in line and having them weigh your packages and having, you know, having to get postage and, and, uh, drop things in the box and all that. It's just, it's a hassle. And the, the world we live in, uh, with our, with our computers and printers and things mean you don't have to do this anymore.

And that's enabled by stamps.com. With stamps.com, you can buy and print official US postage. It's not anything weird. It is official approved by the US Postal Service postage right from your computer and printer. They will send you a digital scale. It automatically calculates the exact postage you need. It's great. There's a browser plugin. It's crazy. And it's a USB scale and you put a box on it or a thick envelope. And in the web page form for stamps.com, it like puts in the weight immediately. It's crazy. It's kind of like, all right, I'll move on. I keep expecting to have to put in the weight.

And so, no, it's already in there because there's a there's a browser plug in that does it. It's very cool. So it all happens right there, automatically calculated. You don't have to spend time going to the post office. You can do it from your desk with stamps.com. You print the postage you need. You put it on a letter or a package. You know, you can tape it on. They've got some, you know, they've also got some like sticker forms available, but you

can also just print it on paper and tape it on. And that's it. Hand it to the mail carrier when they come to your door and they'll take take it away, and you're done, and you didn't go to the post office. Now, stamps.com is a service. It costs $15.99 a month, but you don't have to make any long-term multi-year commitments like postage meters require. There are no markups on postage. In fact, you can get postage discounts with stamps.com. So it's really a no-brainer.

I've been using it a lot. So the Incomparable won the Parsec Award, which is a sci-fi podcasting award, for the second time, which is pretty awesome. Because really, once you win one award, you're an award winner forever. It's a beautiful thing. You just need one. But we've got two Parsecs now. So they have neat little trophies with stars on them. And you can get – I bought trophies for all the panelists on

The Incomparable. So I need to, they sent them to me in a big box, giant box full of trophies. So I had to, had to send those out. And I actually went to the post office once and got a bunch of their prepaid, well, they're not prepaid, they're standard boxes. And stamps.com works with that. So I was able to go into the stamps.com interface and say, okay, I'm using the postal service box. Here's who I'm sending it to. It calculates all the postage. It prints the label. I put the label on the box. And then again, my letter carrier comes to the door and I can hand them a stack of boxes and say, take these away. And that's for their flat rate. I have also sent some things where it's just a cardboard box from my garage, wrap it up, weigh it, put in the dimensions and

hand it to the postal worker when they come to my door. Pretty great. You can sign up for stamps.com right now. Please use this promo code, upgrade the name of the show you're listening to for this special offer. You'll get a four-week trial of stamps.com. And there's $110 bonus offer, including postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Go to stamps.com. Before you do anything else, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in the word upgrade. That's stamps.com and enter upgrade. Thank you to stamps.com for sponsoring Upgrade this week.

So we finally got some updates to pages, numbers, and keynote across the board. Yeah. So we got iOSos and os 10 updates um i know that people hate it when you say things are late right but this this was late you know because it's like it's not late until apple says it's late this was late right why would they not have had these ready to go when the new phones shipped or when ios 9 shipped like they were late right is that fair to say jason yeah um on the mac side the same thing right on the mac side the the apps hadn't been updated in ages um and didn't get updated with el capitan or ios 9 but they did get

updated yeah they're here now which is great we had we have this was a topic on clockwise at one point which was like concerned that apple did apple need to care about i work anymore now that you know microsoft is is on ios with good apps and google's got good apps on ios you know i work is i work uh originally it was sort of a hedge like you can be productive on the ipad but now there's so many ways to be productive but they did they did finally update it so full credit to them it added a lot of features um some of which are kind of embarrassing like backward compatibility with old versions where it used to be like you had to keep the old version around and like when you installed the new version it would move the old version into a folder but keep it there because if you had old old files they wouldn't open in new versions which is so bad

but they added they added support for for older versions um and uh and there's some there's some other cool stuff in there it's it's funny that it took this long um but i'm glad they're here because for those people i i hear from a lot of people who rely on i work and i don't i love keynote and i use that i'm giving a presentation at a user group tomorrow and i'm going to use keynote i powerpoint is a lot better than it used to be but i keynote is my presentation tool of choice and i actually use numbers a lot to make charts because i think that the charts and graph stuff in numbers is is very pretty um yeah that's why i use numbers because i don't fully understand Yeah, that's why I use Numbers, because I don't fully understand everything that Excel can do. And I like the way that Numbers charts look. If I have to make anything to send to somebody, like, you know, like we sometimes I make like proposals for sponsorship.

Right. So someone will say, you know, I have this much budget. What do you want to do with that? And I'll put together a nice looking document in pages and numbers, which is what I really like to use them for. I mean, I do use Microsoft products quite a lot, but I tend to use them because people send me Microsoft files, right, they send me Word files and stuff, but it's not where I necessarily go.

I personally just, the OS X first UI of the iWork suite makes the most sense to me. Well, I learned back when the charting tools in Excel for the Mac were really awful. I learned how to, numbers came out and they were pretty and I learned how to use it. And now my understanding is that the chart generation stuff in Excel is a lot better than it was. I don't know if it's as good as numbers, but it's a lot better than it was. I don't know if it's as good as Numbers, but it's a lot better than it was. The charts output can be made a lot prettier, but it's too late.

I've learned how to use Numbers. Numbers makes pretty charts. And so I'm happy to use that. And like I said about Keynote, one of the funny things that they did do on the Mac side here is they support haptic feedback for for i think it's snapping to guides when you're in uh when you're in some of these apps so it's really interesting i'm not sure whether i like it or not i well i kind of like it i think i think it's kind of interesting that um in addition to the visual like snap when you're when you're moving to something and it's trying to show you alignment possibilities so it gives you it gives it drops the um it's not even snapping it's dropping

an alignment guide when you move it into proper drops the um it's not even snapping it's dropping an alignment guide when you move it into proper alignment i guess it does snap a little bit um and that that that's great for lining things up it's a great feature but now you get this faint kind of like bump when that appears so it's almost like you can it's almost like you can feel the the location positions for an item as you're dragging it around on the on the canvas which is kind of fun so um that when we were talking about the force touch trackpads earlier um i should say that this is an interesting bit of haptic feedback that they built into um i was i was using the numbers earlier today and uh it's kind of cool and uh and uh an interesting different kind of

interaction uh you know feedback model like it's in addition to the visual now you've got a little bit of feel on that on that otherwise unremarkable glass surface now you actually are kind of feeling a texture in the app that you're using which is uh that's actually uh pretty cool that's bringing the whimsy via force touch it is a little bit that's not a bad thing i think that yeah it's a good thing it's what apple's good at like what you've just explained there it's not needed right but it's nice that it's there yeah i mean what are the what are those um what are those alignment guides for they're to give you feedback that you may be, you know, you've sort of snapped to a place that might be exactly where you need to be.

And then, you know, and then when you move it a little bit, you're, I'm doing it right now, you get this little boop, little thing that says, oh, now you're in alignment. And it may drive some people crazy, but I think it's kind of a neat idea to just, what if we had the ability to do,

to give more feedback than visual? Now we do with this, with this haptic little buzzer in the trackpad, we can give people a little jolt. I would use that, like iMovie having that thing that tells you when you're at the end of a drag, I could totally see that in Logic.

I would love to see that in Logic where when I was moving things around, I got a little bit of haptic feedback to go with dragging things or opening, expanding or contracting clips. I think that would be a, again, it's just another reminder. Sometimes you're dragging and you're not paying that close attention and you're getting a little feel in addition to something on screen. I don't know. Is it, you know, it's new. It's a new interaction for me. And I don't know how useful it is. But I like the idea of trying.

As someone who's just been putting together a presentation in Keynote, I am in the snap to alignment camp. Yeah. I like how it does that because I cannot align things by my eyes. Oh, no, that's one of my favorite i mean in keynote and in uh and in numbers it's one of my favorite features the the fact that you've got this ability to uh to i can't eyeball centering something to save my life right but it'll just do it it'll be like yep now it's centered okay good good feedback thanks uh thanks app um but yeah like for what's new in keynote i just opened it and it's got you know split

view support for el capitan open keynote 08 and 06 presentations yeah i can't believe i just can't believe that that was a thing that you couldn't do that like it's kind of crazy i mean it's not like it was a years years and years ago but it just is it's kind of crazy to me that it doesn't that it doesn't work um on ios basically it's you know it got all of the ios 9 stuff right it got yeah split view slide over listen 3d touch stuff all the stuff that you want but one of the things that didn't happen which i was hoping would happen would be better collaboration tools with the web yeah which came out of the web client i guess is no longer called the beta yeah i mean they're saying that they're doing more with it and i mean i can't remember off the top of my head but apple has this big chart that i'll put in the put

in the show notes and they're saying they're doing more, but it's still the idea, which is just crazy to me, of, you know, that if you want to collaborate with somebody, you download their version that they share with you, then you make your own changes to it. Like, it just doesn't make any sense. You can't do any collaboration. And I think if you can't do collaboration like the Google Drive stuff,

you can't say you do any i feel like they're in the place that i think microsoft was a while ago which i think microsoft is now in a better place where you've got multiple people open on a document and they lock it at like for word it's like at the paragraph level um and that's what you want is you you start with it being a serial collaboration which is like we've Microsoft, that was what their story was for a long time was like, we've got we've got collaboration, everybody can take a turn. It's like, okay, well, what if I want to collaborate simultaneously with somebody on a long document where they're in this chapter, and I'm in this chapter?

What about then? Nope, doesn't work, right? And now I think it does in Microsoft stuff, it definitely doesn't Google stuff. But, you know, Apple's got some work to do there. And I think you can do that all on the web, right? But not in the apps. Yeah. And that's the crazy thing. There is an amount of it that you can do on the web, but the fact that you can't,

I mean, because when I probably should have prefaced that, say it's about the apps for me, which is important. And the fact that you can't do the stuff in the apps is crazy to me. Like, I've seen Dropbox look to be doing something, right? They've got their thing called Paper. Paper, sure, why not?

Because everyone can have an app called Paper. We should call the RelayFM app Paper. Paper, everything. Paper for RelayFM. PaperFM. New show, Paper. It's everything. Paper for RelayFM. Paper FM. Yeah, new show, Paper. It's just all the old shows. And they haven't currently got an app working, and they're saying maybe at some point,

but there doesn't really seem to be concrete plans that's being reported right now that they have an app. And it's like, you've got to have an app. You just do. If you're making a tool like this people are only going to be able to adopt it for for collaboration if they can use it everywhere which is why you know some people don't like google docs but it's why it is it's irreplaceable for me and i've tried some other services have you ever heard of quip jason yes so me and federico tried to use that for a while,

but the overall experience was relatively inconsistent. But it was at least doing everything that you needed. You could do collaboration on the web, and you could do collaboration in the apps, and it was all live. And that's the exact sort of stuff that you need to be doing. I think if you want something like this, if you want to say you have a document collaboration tool like this, it has to be able to be cross-platform and running live everywhere.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think we should give some credit to the fact that the iWork collaboration stuff is much more functional than it used to be. Yeah. Oh, it's way better than it was back when it asked you to take action yeah i mean there is an episode of the prompt i'll put it in the show notes this is going deep catalog uh but where we tried to use it to plan that episode and it was just it was horrific it was bad. And it has gotten way better, but it's still lacking in so many of the things

that we found it lacking in then. Oh man, yeah. That is one of my favorite episodes of The Prompt because you guys just get more angry as it goes. Yeah, and the take action was because there was a dialogue. I can't even remember what the dialogue said, but it only had one option

and the option was take action. Take action. No, it's come a long way since then. It is a much more functional thing. I'm glad they took the beta label off of it. But you're right. I think you need to be able to collaborate in apps, and it needs to be real time. And, you know, that just needs to be how it is because people do document collaboration.

That's how the world works these days. Yep. And it's not serial, you know especially on large documents but even on small documents you'll have a lot of people in there and it's google you know google set the bar here and everybody else has to has to match it on that on that point all right we still have uh we're doing back to the future part two like at the movies at the end of the six episodes so why don't we do some ask upgrade Upgrade now to ease us into a very exciting Mike to the Movies, I think.

Let's do it. But first, would you like to tell people about our Ask Upgrade sponsor, Mike? I would love to. And this week, that is GoToMeeting. I want you to take a moment, think about all of the time that it takes for you to try and arrange a meeting

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Lasers. Yeah, because I imagine it like the lasers coming down to the stage, right? I don't know what stage, but the stage that we're doing this show. The Ask Upgrade stage. Paul wants to know, are the new iMacs available with the VESA mount option? Yes. I looked it up, Paul. Yes, they are.

And if you go, so because there's no Apple Store anymore online, it's just the Apple website. If you try to buy an iMac, so you go to the like buy this iMac kind of page, there is, if you scroll down, there's a paragraph basically that says these are also available in a V a Visa mount option. And if you click that, then you get to buy them with that. So yes, they are available. They don't make it a mainstream thing, but they know that some people want to mount them on an arm or on a wall or something instead. And so they are still available that way. And as with the last versions, I believe it's the same story, which is it's one or the other. It's no longer an adapter kit. You either get it without a foot or you get it with a foot. And those are your only choices.

So I will put an award for this. If you're somebody who plans on using your iMac at like a desk, consider it. I did it. I have my iMac on an arm and it's nice. I can, it's adjustable. I can push it away. I can pull it closer. I can tilt it.

I can lift it up and put it lower down toward the desk. I've got an adjustable desk. It's a sit-stand desk. So that's nice because I can adjust my iMac too. And the iMac floats on the desk. So I have access to my whole desktop. So it does mean that yes, when I'm done with it and I want to give it to somebody else, I'm going to have to find a VESA mount stand for it because it's now permanently, you know, not with an iMac foot, but I'll, I'll, I'll deal with that. Those are available and I'll deal with that when I get there, but I'm really glad that I got it on the, uh, uh, the VESA mount version and put it on an arm instead. So think about it. So I can't, um, I can't do this with the mac the eyeball

you can't no because i didn't buy a vaso one so you can't like convert them right no somebody makes like an arm that has a clamp that grabs on to the foot nope it's not no no it's it's no it's actually it's a really very funny to look at uh and you know you got to do what you got to do but no it's no under no circumstances am i doing that that's that seems you're in no you're in or you're out you gotta you gotta embrace the uh the mounting arm thing or or not and i did i and i fretted about it when I bought my 5K iMac last year. I fretted about it. But I've been really happy with it. And I was actually already using this arm for a Dell monitor, like a 27-inch Dell monitor that I was using to dock my MacBook Air. And it supported

the weight. I looked at the specs and it supported the weight of the iMac. And so I just took the Dell monitor off and put the iMac on. And it's been a year and it has served me well. So I've got clamped. Yeah, I've got the monitor arm clamped to one part of my desk. And I've got a microphone boom arm clamped to the other part of the desk. But it works really well. And it keeps my desktop clear, which is nice.

I can move things in and out. And I can, you know, it's good. I recommend it if you're somebody who, you know, who is in a work situation or a home office situation where you might be better off with it on an arm somewhere instead of just sitting on a desk.

Real-time follow-up. CGP Grey is very angry at you right now. Oh, is he? Yeah. Well, this won't be the first time he wanted the vase of mount option now but but has now put himself in a situation where he can't but knowing gray he'll just buy another one he he's mad at me for bringing information that's what i think so okay thanks uh it is it is available as all i'm is is is paul a pseudonym for cgp gray listener paul is that you listener paul

maybe maybe maybe that's what the p stands for apple does not make it easy for you you have to go to apple.com slash imac and click the buy button which you know again it takes you to this weird thing that oh it's not an online apple store except it's apple.com slash shop, right? But no, no, no. And there they've got all of the, look at all of the 21-inch models, look at all the 27-inch models. And then right below that, it says, looking for an iMac with a built-in VESA mount adapter? Question mark. What's the answer? Well, you must click to find out. And when you click, it's the same page essentially again, except with the Visa Mount versions. I think Gray's very upset that we didn't give him this information last week. I think that's his demand.

Cancel your order and order again. Do it. Do it. Join the Visa. Oh, but it's being delivered tomorrow. So is mine, actually. I think it's going to arrive. It will definitely arrive whilst i'm away

um so i'm very much looking forward to uh getting it all ready because especially as we won't be recording on the monday that gives me more time to get everything ready um and i will be able to talk about what the life with a 27 inch retina iMac is like for me oh nice benjamin would like to know is there a way to instantly pair the magic keyboard to an ios device like you can with a mac nope you still have to go through the just type in this thing and do this thing yeah it uh it'll bring it up and and it'll say like magic keyboard and you'll tap it in ios and then it pairs and then it's a bluetooth keyboard but there's no magic because it's it would need to be like a lightning to lightning cable or something and i don't think they bothered that

if that yeah no just bluetooth pair it it's fine so uh i have a question so well a question to me actually hashtag ask up ask yourself on upgrade i got wrong. This person's name is Michael, but it's not me asking myself a question. Michael wanted to know what ergonomic keyboard I use because I mentioned this. And I use the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard. I will put a link in the show notes to Marco's review to this because, one, it gives you the details you need. And, two, Marco was the one that recommended this to me. you to this because one it gives you the details you need and two marco was the one that recommended this to me um it does not have a um mac layout it is a windows right layout uh but you can go in and you can actually in keyboard preferences you can change it to pc so it kind of just works right

yeah so i change it to british pc because i have a british version here um do you know the difference some of the differences between us and british keyboards if you ever seen a british keyboard you probably have right i have so on my on my visits to to the uk um and i think maybe i saw this on on on might have even be been yours but on somebody's laptop in the us but certainly when i was in the uk i was looking at somebody's keyboard and I had a moment of like, wait, wait, wait. What is that? Because you think, oh yeah, we speak the same language. It's all fine. And you guys don't have our keyboard. No. We have a vastly superior keyboard with a beautiful key that we call the return key, which functions as the enter key. And it's this upside

down boot shape. It's glorious. That's weird. And also we have things like above the two is quotation marks and the at symbol is above the comma. Just little things like that. the comma. Just little things like that. That's wild. And I have a pound key. Well, you should. So I can very easily go hashtag crazy without

needing to know a keyboard shortcut. Not pound as in currency. British pound. Oh, you have an actual number sign. Yeah. we have that it's on the keyboard that's so strange i love it i'm a big i love my i love my uh uk keyboard but yeah i so i use the microsoft sculpt i like it a lot i think at some point in the future i want to talk about this type of stuff a little bit more because i am having some severe wrist pains right now and i want to

i'm trying out a bunch of different input devices um so i want to talk about these like right now i am using a wacom for everything um so i want to talk about this a little bit more maybe in a future episode uh as this is something that is finding its way into my life but luckily i have lots of friends like mr syracuse who give me great advice of books and things to check out so maybe we'll talk about this in a future episode but i do really like the sculpt ergonomic keyboard it's one of those ones that puts a hole in the middle of your keyboard and kind of slugs everything towards it yeah i can't use those but they're better for for a lot of people who have ergonomic problems yeah my problem is i can't use the office it's like it's you know it's best of a bad lot it's

actually it's funny people were talking about the extended keyboards on the uh uh that that apple's keyboard doesn't have uh it's 10 keyless i was told by i think maybe marco armand actually it might have been cgp gray 10 keyless is the proper term which is a ridiculous term but uh i like that word it's ridiculous you know it doesn't have that it doesn't have the extra stuff on the side um but one of the reasons i like the really small keyboard um not not small keycaps the keycaps are full size but something like the new magic keyboard that is just uh it doesn't have a number pad or anything like that one One of the reasons I like that is that it gets my, uh, my track pad closer to my keyboard. Yeah. And I like that because that's less sort of like spreading out that I have to

do with my, with my wrists. I, it's all, it's all just sort of right in front of me. And instead of having this very little used thing, since I'm right-handed, especially little used thing that sits between the keys that I type on and

the, the, the track pad that I use for, for moving around on screen. So I like, I like that. I know that for some people, I also grew up using an Apple two that didn't have a 10,

a 10 key. And so I learned how to type numbers on the, the horizontal number row instead. And I know that if you learned to use a keypad, then it's like death to not have it. But I, I didn't learn on that. And so it didn't matter to me yeah the uh the sculpt is 10 keyless but it comes with a little 10 key additional thing which is great which you can put next to it uh which i i like that because

all right working in finance and banking as i did for so long i am so fast on the 10 key oh i bet It's ridiculous. Sure. It's one of those things where I don't even know where the keys are, but my hand does. You know?

Anyway. I'm going to go with Masayaj Rotin to say that he's considering buying a 5K iMac with 8GB of RAM and later swapping it

with 32GB to save money. So there's a couple of RAM and later swapping it with a 32 gigabytes to save money. So there's a couple of questions about this. Does it affect warranty? Which manufacturer should I pick? And did I consider doing this? So Jason, do you know the answers to the first two? Does it affect your warranty? And it doesn't anymore. 27? No, it the 27 inch iMac has a RAM door on the back, you open the door and you put in RAM, and it doesn't affect your warranty because it's a user-serviceable feature. It's built to let users do that. So I believe the 27-inch iMac has four slots. So I think it ships with, what?

Does it ship with 2.4 gig? I think so. I think it's 2.4 gig, and I have 16. I think I just bought it with a 2.4 gig? I think so. I think it's 2.4 gig, and I have 16. I think I just bought it with a 2.4 and then added two more 4 gig modules, so I have 16 gigs of RAM. Yeah, and I think Stephen said to me, because I got the 16, but he said he thinks it's 2.8,

so I can still put more in as well. I recommend Crucial for RAM. I've used them in the past. The prices are really good. They're really good in the UK and the US because they have a UK supplier, like they also supply in the UK. I've always used their stuff.

I've always been happy with it whenever I've done this stuff. So I recommend Crucial because they also have guides as well for how to upgrade this stuff, which is really useful. So I've usedcial because they also have guides as well for how to upgrade this stuff, which is really useful. So I've used them in the past. I don't know if you have anybody else that you recommend for RAM.

I don't think I have any particular brand that I would recommend. Okay. So I would say Crucial. I don't know if other people will be upset with that. I haven't considered doing this. I decided to just go with 16, just put 16 in there because it wasn't massively more. And I figured I just want to get it put in and have it delivered to me and i can put more in later if i need it but i don't see myself needing more than 16 for a while like 16 for me is is really good that's really hefty i have 16 in the mac pro and i'm never in a scenario i'm like oh let's just have more ram it's just not not not a that I feel I need. I feel like now that there are,

at least with some of the stuff that I'm doing, there are bottlenecks in other places and RAM isn't going to help it. So, you know, that's that. And Hakon asked, which 3D touch setting do you use? So I'm assuming that he means in the accessibility preferences. I've turned mine down all the way

to the most sensitive like the softest uh have you changed it on your uh ios i think mine's i think mine's in the middle i think mine's still the default standard yeah all right yeah i mean i i like it at the softest level um personally uh but i have found that i very easily trigger it off when I'm into long press. And I think that that might be because it's at the softest level. So, I think that is it for Ask Upgrade, which means

it's time to discuss Back to the Future Part 2 for a special Mike at the Movies, and we will reiterate in a moment why we're doing this one and what makes it different. But before we do that, let me take a moment to thank our sponsor for Mike at the Movies this week, and that is the great Smile and PDF Pen 7 for the Mac. PDF Pen is the ultimate all-purpose PDF editor,

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PDFPen, or you're interested in it, just go and watch these videos. They'll be at smilesoftware.com slash upgrade, and he will be able to show you exactly how to use this stuff. If anything, just hear david's great voice you can you know he has a great voice he's really good at this stuff he's great at teaching he's going to help you understand how to use this stuff and i just wanted to add to all of this i love pdf pen like i mentioned earlier about needing uh word documents sometimes people send me word documents that i need to sign

Word documents. Sometimes people send me Word documents that I need to sign. It's like, what am I going to do here? Do I have to print this? But no. What I do is I open it in PDF pen, and then I can sign it, and I can even export it back out as a Word document again, or a PDF. It is so cool. I love it for that. It saves my bacon every week where I get sent these documents that I need to sign and do stuff with. PDFPen really just makes it super, super simple for me. You can learn more about PDFPen from Smile at smilesoftware.com slash upgrade where you'll also be able to watch those videos. PDFPen 7 and PDFPen Pro 7 require OS X Yosemite

but are also ready for El Capitan. Thank you so much to smile for sponsoring this week's episode of upgrade so we mentioned this before but we're doing back to the future part two this week um it's a departure from the usual format of uh mike at the movies um because i have seen this movie yes not only have i seen this movie it is one of my favorite movies but considering this week actually on wednesday is the day that marty flies into the future right it felt like a fitting uh mike at the movies to do absolutely it couldn't be more timely so there's a bunch of stuff for a movie made in 1990 exactly 1989 so it even fits in the the usual

80s rule okay at least that's what imdb tells me so again we're not breaking rules here all right 1980 and november 1989 you're right there you go so uh you have done an incomparable about uh back to about all the movies it's a pretty old one it's number 41 but people can check that out this was back when the incomparable did much broader topics yes back back when i didn't realize that we would be nearing 300 episodes let's talk about movies today we did seriously we did an episode about Joss Whedon. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I could do 10 episodes about Buffy alone and we did one episode that was

everything Joss Whedon has done. Yeah, smart. We didn't know what we were doing. But yes, we did a live episode in the Macworld podcast room which got increasingly stuffy as it goes, so we get a little punchy at the end. But it was me and Dan Frakes and Lex Friedman and Serenity and Dan.

I think that was who the crowd was, but it's number 41. It's called, but your kids are going to love it. So you can check that out. And this is, you know, this is a great week because this week there is stuff everywhere.

But back to the future, like there are lots of things, there are lots of companies that are bringing out awesome stuff. I'm really excited for what the week's going to bring as a massive fan of this series I love Back to the Future Back to the Future and Back to the Future 2 are in my top list of movies of all time

I love these movies so much Back to the Future 2 was always my favourite as a kid because of the 2015 scene. There was something about it. It just grabbed me and I loved it so much. Over time, though, part one and part two have jostled as which is my favorite of the series. And I'm going to talk about a little later on why that is, because it was only up until about six months ago that i always thought that part two was my favorite and i think i think it's i think that uh back to the future one is my

favorite now that's a good choice but and i'll talk about what it is there's a specific part that you know anybody that knows the movie probably knows what i'm gonna what i'm referring to but we should do as we always do um kind of go through this chronologically. I don't have as detailed notes as usual because I know this movie so well that I didn't really think it was necessary. And plus I want to talk a little bit more about the movie

and kind of in the way that it has influenced a bunch of things and how interesting it is to me now watching it with the context of it was talking about right now right which i like but i did want to mention a listener tom sent in a link to an amazon.com listing for the 30th anniversary trilogy box set that they're selling and there's a video that you can watch which is an ad for it. And it's very, very clever because they are basically saying in the ad

to show you the future that we would have had if Marty and the doc hadn't messed with it. So what they're saying is like, we don't have all the stuff that's in this because they messed with the timeline. I thought that was very clever. I wonder if listener Tom is. I like that a lot. I wonder if listener Tom is Tom Wilson

who plays Biff in Back to the Future. Probably. We'll just say it is. We'll say it. Tom, last name withheld. That's headcanon right there. That is my headcanon. Yeah, that's right.

So one of the consistent themes that I'm going to talk about for what i love about this movie is the way that it is intertwined with the first movie and i love that this movie begins with the end scene of the first movie which obviously they reshot because uh the actress that plays jennifer didn't renew like she didn't come back. For some reason, yeah. Lauren and I were talking about this when we watched this last night. And she says, well, given how little she has to do in this movie, and it's Elizabeth Shue they get to replace her,

it's got to be that she wasn't available. Because even if they decided, oh no, she's not a very good actress and now we need her, she's basically not in the movie. I think it was money related. So it must have been something like that yeah which i believe is the same for crispin glover as well yeah crispin well he's also a weirdo so he may just have not wanted to come back but he definitely didn't come back the first movie made a lot of money and then they see you know steven spielberg is lining up to produce this two movies back to back. They shot two and three together.

And I could see how somebody might try to hold out for a bigger payday. I could sort of see that. I think it hurts the movie because I really love the original. And this is a recreation of it here. Instead of it really being the same scene as the previous movie, it's this not quite the same because it's Elizabeth Shue and she's got like a wig to match the girl from the other movie. And her hair is really weird. I don't know. It's too bad because I have so much goodwill because of loving the first movie so much. And the opening scene, it feels a little sour to me

because it is absolutely a re-recorded version. It's almost like you're watching kind of the stage version of Back to the Future here at the beginning. It is funny that I love it for that and you, because I love that they just did. I just love that they did it. I just love, because they didn't even need to do it, right? Because they start this movie with no explanation. Like you had to have seen back to the future one

oh yeah they could have just as easily started with them in the car right like in the future having just gone you know or start with biff looking up as the delorean flies away but they'd recreate that scene which i i mean i can see why you wouldn't like it for the reason that you mentioned it's a very good point but I love it because of that and like one of my long running theme one of the things I'm going to mention it now because we're talking about it now but I think Back to the Future 2

is the most sequely sequel ever in all of the right ways it is like the most perfect sequel because it like reuses elements and scenes from the first movie and is completely intertwined with it. It is, for me, I think, a fantastic achievement of editing, the way that they put this together.

I agree. There's some amazing stuff in here. I would say, yeah, we'll get to it. I think you're right. Biff is the reason this scene is replayed, because you need to see that he... They have to have him look up and see them see them all go away but it could have started there if you know they could do that that way yeah it's it's fine i a conversation we had last night was um the at the end of back to the future it's a joke it's a great ending they say goodbye to the doc marty's back everything's

okay he's with his girl they're gonna go to the lake or whatever it's all great yep and then there's a great joke that ends the movie which is he returns he's got to go to the future they're going to be married and their kids are in trouble and where we're going we don't need roads and it flies and it's the end it's like yeah that was the greatest ending ever and then you do a sequel and you're like oh man well we got to pick it up from there and it's interesting that i feel the movie kind of struggles for the first half hour because it's trying to live up to the joke at the end of the first movie and i'm sure it you know it would have been they could have told a better story from the beginning if they didn't have to kind of hit all the notes that are mentioned in that last scene.

Cause it's just kind of funny that they, they, by making such a great last scene of the first movie, they, they made their jobs for the sequel much harder. This is so interesting with Jennifer and you have to deal with Biff. You have to deal with the kids. There have to be kids.

The kids have to be involved and they have to be in trouble. And, and, and that's sort of like, they might have made different choices, but they have to live up to the joke from the first, which is a great joke at the end of the first movie. And it just changes the trajectory because they have to live up to it. Then we get the fantastic theme, the Back to the Future theme, which I love so much. It's great. Beautiful. Who scored this? It's Alan Silvestri, I love so much. It's great. It's beautiful. Who scored this?

Alan Silvestri, I think. Yes, you're right. You're right. So Silvestri, yeah. It's John Williams-esque in a way, but it's Alan Silvestri, but it's got that same kind of soaring orchestral. You know it.

If you've seen the Back to the Future movies, you know that theme. So obviously we go to the future, right? In what is one of my most favorite... We're in 2015! Yes, the impossible future of 2015. And this is probably... I mean, it's mainly for nostalgic reasons,

but this is my favorite scene of any movie ever. Because since being a little boy, I have just been obsessed with this scene. I love this scene when they arrive in the future. Mainly the scene from when Marty walks out into Hill Valley, into the town square. That's what I love. I love that scene so much. into the town square that's what i love i love that scene so much um before that hilarious to me how they just put jennifer in the trash right she's just we'll deal with you later like we don't want you now yeah we don't want you in the movie so we're gonna put you to sleep and stick you over here with the garbage it's great and we'll get you but and not leave you in the car and uh because

biff is gonna to steal it. So or whatever the reason is, but it's just it's because you need to be kidnapped. It's so bad because, again, they don't they don't need her. But she was in the first movie or at the end of the first movie. So they've got to do something with her. And that's not the only time this happens. They dump her on the front porch later, too. Oh, it's not it's not good.

But then, yeah, but then the doc has to go. He's going to delay Marty's son so that Marty can take his place. And he basically says, and actually this is a laugh out loud funny joke, which is he says, Marty, you look just like your son now. You need to go out there,

go to the 80s diner and buy yourself a Pepsi. Here's a 50. Yeah. That kills me. That just pepsi here's a 50 yeah that kills me that just kills me here's a 50 yeah it's a very subtle joke but it's excellent uh i'm drinking a coke zero right now not a pepsi perfect but i'm sure from the perspective of 30 years ago both are equally ridiculous pepsi are releasing pepsi perfect this i know like in very limited numbers like 3 000 of them for 50 i think it's 50 i think it's 50 it will cost you 50 to get a pepsi perfect i wish i could get my hands on one easy i i want to buy everything that comes out this week

i'm hoping and praying and praying that nike release on general release the shoes the self lacing shoes they don't even need to be self-lacing they just need to look like that the booty the boot shoes because they did them for charity didn't they a few years ago i think so they did and they were they were like a thousand dollars so marty walks out and there and here it is the world of tomorrow which is it is a wonderful moment of like well what's the future going to be like and and and here it is it's this it's a bright and sunny and there's a movie theater that's showing jaws 14 or whatever it is yeah now it's really personal or something like that it's really really personal yeah really really personal so i wanted to just i have a list here of some of the key advancements that 2015 brings and i would like us to assess them yes all cars are flying

well most cars are flying and they're selling conversions for your old wheelies to be flying cars that's actually a an ad that i think biff is involved somehow in the automotive industry at this point right oh that's goldie wilson oh it's goldie goldie goldie the third that's right it's and they're doing the conversions of your old wheeled cars to be the flying cars. 3D movies, which funnily enough in 2015, and maybe not as popular as they were in earlier years, but they are there, right? So that's one. Now, this is the weird one, right, is my assumption. You're going to have to explain this to me.

The Cubs. The Cubs. Sure. you're gonna have to explain this to me the cubs the cubs sure so there's a uh a great gag in the movie where and it's during wednesday during the day which is not right because it's a news alert that the cubs have won the world series um and world series games are played at night not in the future even on the weekend but uh. So they missed the cynicism of that. But it's an announcement. Maybe it's just delayed.

They won the night before. But the Cubs have won the World Series. Also, the World Series isn't going to be for another week because they've stretched out the playoffs a lot longer since 30 years ago. But the joke is the Cubs, the Chicago Cubs in Major League Baseball, are one of the original National League teams. They've been playing since the early 20th century, since the National League came into being in like 1902 or something like that. And they haven't played in the World Series since 1945. And they haven't won the World Series since 1908, I believe. So yeah, so the joke is the Cubs won the World Series. So that's joke number one, because the Cubs haven't even been in the World Series in all this time. What's interesting is the Cubs are currently in the National League Championship Series against the Mets. So there's,

there is, as we record this, there is still a chance the Cubs will be in and maybe even win the World Series in 2015. Wouldn't that be amazing? The other joke is that they beat Miami and there's a picture of like an alligator. So they're like the Miami Gators or something. And this is funny. And I had to explain this to my kids last night because there's a major league team in Miami now, the Miami Marlins. They're in the national league, like the Cubs. So they couldn't meet in the world series, but it is there. The joke is in 1985 or 1989, when this movie came out, there was no major league baseball team in florida so that's a joke that has come true and and made it less funny because it's like against miami well that's in the wrong league but yeah that that's a team but it wasn't a team in 1989 so so there's a

couple little baseball jokes there and what's funny is the the writer of this movie is a st louis cardinals fan who are actually the enemies of the Chicago Cubs. And he was saying how when the Cubs and the Cardinals were playing in the previous round of the postseason here, he was saying, well, I would really rather the Cardinals win. But if the Cubs win, I'll look like a genius. So that's still active as we record this. Javelin goes into cars. Isn't that just like oil or something?

Yeah, it's some kind of thing. Yeah, I was struck that there's still sort of a gas station. There's like a robot gas station and all of that. I was a little surprised that they hadn't made them nuclear cars or electric cars or something like that. The way I take this is it's alternative fuel. And so I give it a tick because we now have electric. So we'll, you know, a half tick.

All right. Bionic implants is another one. Yeah. I don't think we have those. Well, we have lots of, you know, we have people with cochlear ear implants and they're working on like artificial retinas and there are people with very sophisticated prostheses and things like that. They don't have like, because with Biff, it's like he's got bionic or griff or whatever. His bionic implants are on the fritz and he's like, yeah, he's like a cyborg practically.

And it seems normal. Hoverboards. Hoverboards. So there is a thing called hoverboards now but it's not the same thing no it's just a smart marketing thing i suppose yes yeah it's the right time if you're going to have a product call it a hoverboard we don't have kind of interesting but you know flying cars and floating skateboards are not things that we have video games that you don't control with your hands

that's all we know but it's what the kids mention i i love that scene where there's they're in the 80s diner which i have to say actually i think they nailed there's there's an article i read this week that said that uh that uh they they knew even when they were making the first movie they knew they were making a bit of 80s nostalgia, that Back to the Future is itself very 80s, aggressively 80s in a way that you wouldn't do if you were trying to make it sort of a little more timeless, but that they knew that since the movie was about looking at the 50s with nostalgia, that making the 80s be heightened was actually a good idea because then you get the contrast. and i think as time goes on it also becomes about you know about 80s uh styles and and it becomes its own period piece and i thought

that was interesting they nail in back to the future too they nail the 80s diner like yeah there's stuff that's not in there um that that uh but like the sign is very 80s it's like i think they did from the even from from the perspective of 1989 they did a pretty good job of saying this is really 80s and one of the things in there is a video game thing where marty plays it and it's it's a it's a shooter thing which is totally a preview for back to the future part three which there are several of in this in this uh to set that up but uh the kids are disgusted that you have to hold the controls and stuff, which is very, you know, connect and stuff like that. I think that's a good one.

And the last one that I wanted to point out was, and this comes up later in the movie as well, when the clock tower guy approaches Marty and asks him to donate money to save the clock tower, he has a tablet-like device in his hand with a fingerprint reader on the to save the clock tower he has a tablet-like device in his hand with a fingerprint reader on it to debit the money it's apple pay is what i'm gonna go with there it's apple pay except that he's got his own terminal instead of um instead of like a person yeah right exactly right or something that a person would tap instead it's just put your thumb

on it which so it's not not close not quite but but close the the cab is the other one the cab when biff gets uh a cab ride to marty's house um is that it yeah i think so and it's like 130 or something is the cab fare because that's the running gag of everything's being all the inflation that's happened, which didn't happen, actually. But the cab driver has essentially, it's like a wireless pay terminal like you used to see and still sometimes see in cabs. A lot of them have them built in now, or they use smartphones.

But that's a totally like, that's the technology. The only difference is that he thumbs the price instead of like, again, tapping a smartphone or running a card. They did a good job with that. They did. I mean, I love everything about this scene. I love it all.

What they don't get is computers and the internet. Or smartphones or nothing. Well, that's exactly it. Smartphones, the internet. Another thing that made me cackle throughout this movie is its reliance on the newspaper. Although to be fair, USA Today is still being published. And if you're in one of our fine American hotel rooms,

you may receive the USA Today at your door, whether you want it or not. So there is a 2015 USA Today edition. I wonder if they'll have a special logo on Wednesday. I hope they do just a wrap. They just do like a wrap around the paper. That would be really cool. But that would be funny.

Universal should pay for that. But there are newspapers as information sources. And it's a motif. They need it in the 50s too. But it's just kind of funny that that's the thing. Just like we joke about this on The Incomparable, we were talking about the Flash TV show and how one of the plot points in the first episode of The Flash. So I'm not really spoiling anything. It's in the very first episode, but there's basically a newspaper from the future.

And I could tell that they really wanted it to be a newspaper front page, but the producers knew, and it's supposed to be from like 2025 or something, and the producers are like, this kind of can't be a newspaper, can it? So it's like a webpage from the future. It's like a newspaper site from the future, which I'm not sure how that would work. Like, does the HTML change when the timeline shifts?

I don't know how that works. How far in the future? I think it's 10 years in the future. I still you could go in the flash papers you could still yeah newspapers yeah but it's just it's they i think but they they like hedged it it looks kind of like a newspaper but it also looks sort of digital and it's the same thing so anyway there are newspapers used throughout and the information technology kind of revolution is the thing that that most sci-fi stuff trying to project our future uh didn't see although i did so when the when biff and his crew come in and are harassing

marty jr and marty and then later when they're having the hoverboard chase and all of that i did turn to my daughter who is 14 and say wow teenagers in 2015 are awful and she was like yep my main annoyance with the first act of this movie is the exposition like for example when Biff is telling Marty who Biff believes to be Marty McFly Jr Marty's kid

about the fact that you know your dad, Marty McFly Sr who flushed his life down the toilet. Every character has explained to them what their parents are like. Later on, when they're in the McFly home, and Lorraine is explaining to Marty's daughter about the fact that, you know, you remember?

As you know already, you remember your father? As you know already, daughter, your father had this history. And on that day when he had that accident and he broke his hand and that really changed the, you know, this is, I mean, people call this the as you know Bob phenomenon, right? Which is like dialogue that is just a clunker because it's exposition. You're telling somebody who already knows things that they don't need to hear because the audience needs to hear it and yeah there's all there's a whole lot of that in in because they're doing all that look i i like their projections of the future i think that's i think that's fun even though i don't love the the beginning of this movie i think

that that part is fun but it becomes very clear. I think when you step back a little bit that the first like 40 minutes of this movie is really dedicated to, um, putting all the pieces in place so that they can go back and play with the original movie. And, um, and you know, when they get to that point, it kind of great but they gotta do it they do a lot of work to get it set up first and it's not as fun to watch that the setup as it is to watch it pay off they gotta do it and i think they do it the best way that they can but it is kind of annoying like they try you can see they're trying hard like to set it up so they can deliver the exposition but like trying really hard yeah but there but there's no way around it.

If you're going to do it, you've just got to do it. This scene, so this is in the Cafe 80 scene when this exposition begins, but this is also when another long-running theme in this movie begins, which I think is great. They do a really, really good job with the special effects to show the same actor in the same scene twice. Whilst watching this movie,

there is no scenario where it doesn't look real to me. No, I mean, you can tell that it's locked down camera and all those things, but Robert Zemeckis, I mean, if there's one thing that is all part of Robert Zemeckis' career, it is trying to creatively use technology. And, you know, we can argue that Zemeckis sometimes seems to make movies because he wants to use the technology rather than using them to solve problems. Like Polar Express, for example. Well, right. Exactly. And when, you know, like there's a scene in Contact where Forrest Gump is the biggest example.

He followed these movies with forrest gump which where they put tom hanks into historical footage right and and that was that was that was what that movie was this movie is all about split screen um multiple actors or same actor playing different roles and there's a scene with biff old biff and young biff in a car where where the camera is panning and they're handing things back to each other. And you can tell it's like, on one level, it's really showy, like, look, I handed this book to him,

where you're like, you're showing off. On another level, it's like, how did he hand that book to him? And it makes it seem more real at the same time as it's sort of calling out that it's being clever. But anyway, in Contact, he did

something similar where he's like panning through glass that isn't there anymore or through a mirror and stuff like that he does this in his movies but it's very impressive here and then when you talk about the different actors michael j fox his performance as the other members of his family is incredible like when he plays martin mcfly jr it's it's like a different person it i've i find anyway that i can watch this and i know who is who just by the way that they act i think he does a great job of it yeah yeah i mean they're they're very brief um and it's got a little of the gimmicky feel like it's you know the clumps or something like that. I don't know. He's like, he'll play every part.

But it's a gag and it's obviously him. But they're differentiated. I mean, they're very broad characters. One of the problems I have with this future stuff is that it's so broad. All of it is so broad. Marty Sr. is a loser and Marty Jr. is an idiot. And, you know, it is what it is. And every time I watch this movie, I always forget and always take great joy in Marlene McFly, so Marty's daughter. I always forget that Michael J. Fox dresses up as a young girl in this movie

and every single time it just i just burst into into laughter because he does it's so funny like just the way that he like she like saunters down the stairs and looks around like when they go to the home later on it just it gets me every time i love it but before we leave uh the the clock tower area um i do love about this movie that that it is throughout that they reenact scenes from the first movie. So like they reenact the chase and and, you know, later at the end of the movie, they reenact the manure going into this car. I love that. I think this is what I said, like it's the most sequely sequel. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, the hoverboard chase is a reenactment. He's right down to grabbing the back bumper of a floating car in this case. And then Biff says there's something, like, so this is old Biff, right? Who was Biff back in the past. It's the older guy. There's something very familiar about this. Yeah.

Which is great. I agree. I agree. Oh, here's a future thing. Thecfly house is controlled uh with fingerprint entry and voice to turn on the lights it's home kit jason yeah and and we hear uh computer voice a lot for voice interaction but it sounds like stephen hawking's uh voice instead of uh like a siri or something like that but it is there's voice there's voice control although i did laugh that they have a like that but it is there's voice there's voice control although i did laugh that they have a smart door but it has no doorknob which is uh

it's funny because you know it makes it more futuristic but really no doorknob why why do you need a doorknob but i mean they do that so jennifer can't escape right that's exactly yeah that's why that's there and obviously fax machines yes the fax machines are hilarious. Marty is fired by fax and it arrives all over the house, which is just so funny. And then we get into, so, you know, at this point, we're, let's just say we're back in 18.5 now, right? So they've done everything they need in 2015. We go back to 85. Right.

But it turns out that Biff has changed the timeline. So they go back to a dark, terrible, dystopian 1985. Marty can't believe it's 1985, but it turns out that biff has changed the timeline so they go back to a dark uh terrible dystopian 1985 marty can't believe it's 1985 but it is this is the bit of the movie that over time has tainted the way that i feel about back to the future too yeah it's too dark it it's it's way too dark it goes on way too long. It's really unpleasant. I mean, they're setting up the stakes of, oh my God, I can't believe it. But it is so dark and it is so long. And this is a movie where we're supposed to be having fun. And all it really should be is like, oh no, they changed it.

Things are wrong. Biff's in charge now. My dad is dead. I got to go back. There are elements which they can do and it's fine. But the fact that there are kids driving around shooting everyone, you know, that's not needed. The whole town is a wasteland. And Marty's mom is a recurring motif in these movies.

And so to see her with the plastic surgery and all of that. But it goes on so long. And there's that painful argument where she completely, you know, basically Biff says, but I won't pay money to your kids and they'll be destitute. And she says, OK, well, I'll stay. And it's your problem where it's this is like horrible, abusive relationship. And it's like, guys, yeah, OK, but but this is supposed to be a fun movie. And it's it's not fun that that whole that I agree with you. I think that is the worst the worst segment of this movie.

It didn't need to be this. Once the timeline is messed up and Biff messed it up to benefit himself, that's all we need, really, I think. There are still some good parts in this act. I guess this is the second act, right? Yeah. But there are still some good parts in it, but the overall feeling of it is not.

It's icky. Yeah. It's icky. This is where we get the alternate 1985 explanation which i love i love that scene um and i like the kind of the chase right so once um marty is on to biff like i like that part right so when he's they're having that confrontation in the room right and then they chase he chases him up to the roof and then he jumps off the roof and is on the DeLorean. I feel like that could have been the whole thing, was Marty and Doc come, and Doc's got to go check out his house,

and Marty sees that Biff is in charge, confronts Biff. Biff's like, oh, jeez, they warned me you would be coming. And he sees his mom, and it's all horrible, and he goes to the roof, and Doc picks him up because doc's found out that his timeline has changed too and they go to the past it could have been i think it could have been a lot shorter and a lot less unpleasant because it's it's really unpleasant and i get that they're trying to make them have reasons why they have to go and change the past to be right although really just changing

it back to being right is a reason enough but but to have us all have to squirm. Oh, because your dad's dead. Yeah. Because your dad's dead because Biff's in charge and he's awful. Right. I mean, that's all it really takes.

And, uh, yeah, it's kind of unpleasant, but you know what? The good thing about this, this segment is when it ends, this movie just goes into hyperdrive.

Once, once they get to the f 50s, this is fantastic. This is my favorite. I would say this is my favorite segment of the Back to the Future franchise is when they're playing around inside of the first movie because I love the first movie. And this is what they've been setting up. And boy, it pays off.

Even without Crisppin glover so they have to use his footage from the the first movie i think that really works because they seamlessly blend kind of the footage from the first movie with the second in a way that that first scene didn't and so that and the whole rest of the story takes place during the other movie how great is that it is genius and it's something that so many like cartoons and stuff have tried to to to touch on since right and you know you've seen different like ways that this has been done there have been other takes dr who has done a little bit of this but not but this is just to take an iconic film and with many of the same actors a few years later because they know it's

already iconic go back because it's a time travel story and be able to mess with it i mean it is a it is a rare kind of thing to be able to do this and and they they do it for all my complaints about the first part of this movie this part is just it's so delightful yeah it i love it i think it's it's just spectacular so great you know when i when i talk about the technical achievement this is it like yeah and the editing and all of the work that must have gone in to do this it's really really really superb yeah the sound and you've got you've got snatches of dialogue from the previous movie happening in the background there's that scene where marty is in the principal's office and he hears the you know hey you get your damn hands off her from crispin clover from the

first movie hand happening outside and he turns around there's a moment where marty sees himself and he's like whoa this is so you know and and and doc has the interaction where he hands the wrench to or the screwdriver to the wrench to himself yeah um and and it's just uh that's all that's all just great stuff yeah and i do love the the scene in the in the principal's office that's just a good scene right where marty's trying to hide and he gets his hand crushed and has to like silently scream yeah um and yeah and then you know the punch that punching scene is outside of the window it's woven back in so well yeah he goes over the uh the the top of the stage when he's playing johnny be good um the you know yeah i mean literally he's crawling through the film as we go it's amazing fantastic and then they have a hoverboard and car chase

again right which is the final a great final action set piece which ends in biff uh going into manure more manure more manure and of course you know this is why i wrote down the most sequel sequel ever and i just think it's perfect and so and you've got the chance to do a time travel movie. What do you... And again, I'm going to come back to Doctor Who, because the current era of Doctor Who with Stephen Moffat in charge, he's a very smart man who's been working in TV of stories you could tell with time travel all the different ways that time travel could be involved and historically dr who was sort of you take the time machine somewhere and have an adventure but with stephen moffat it's been adventures where the time machine is a part of the action and i think about that because that's what happens in back to the future too and at the end it's very it's a super clever great cliffhanger kind of moment that could only happen in a time travel franchise, which is the DeLorean gets hit by lightning and disappears. And Marty is stranded in the 50s.

And you wonder, oh, my God, what's going to happen? What happened to Doc? And a car drives up and a guy gets out. And he gives him a letter and he says, we've had this letter for 70 years. I'm from western union and it's a letter from doc from the old west that's been waiting for him for 70 years they said they they said you would be here there's actually an episode of doctor who that's just like this they said you would be here we had a bet about it and it's and and docs in the past and but it doesn't change the cliffhanger, which is what happens now?

And so he goes and then we get our final little. So that's a great little wrinkle. And then we get the final little moment where we play with the first movie, which is they go back. Marty goes back to the future at the end of the first movie. Doc is there to help when the lightning hits the clock tower. The fire trails are on the street. Doc is like, yes, I've sent Marty back to the future. And immediately Marty appears and goes, Doc, I need your help and he goes so great there's only one

man who can help me now and and it's great scott right great that's right great scott and he passes out but but it's such a moment of like how i don't even know how you solve this and the answer is you go talk to doc um and that means that we end the movie um even though we've set up the the sequel uh the second sequel uh we end the movie doing what the movie did best which is play with something that we know very well from the first movie which is that we've never seen doc's perspective on what happens when marty goes back to the future right because we just go back with marty and now we get to see it and it it turns out what happens next to Doc is Marty from the future confronts him. That's great. So great. But the other thing that I don't like is how much of the third movie they show at the end. Like they spoil the entire movie by showing what's coming up next.

It was unprecedented, essentially, to shoot these two sequels simultaneously. And now they do that all the time. I was just reading an article about the Hunger Games. You know, the Mockingjay part one and two was all shot together and then released as two movies. Well, that's what they did

with Back to the Future. And as a result, they had both scripts. They seeded it with all these hints about what was coming. But I think they were worried that people are going to be angry that it ends on a cliffhanger,

even though I think it's really fulfilling as a film. But it ends on a cliffhanger, even though I think it's really fulfilling as a film. But it ends on a cliffhanger and they wanted to show people what they were going to do next just so that they I mean, there's no dialogue, but they show a whole lot of stuff that's old Westy. Yeah. In hindsight, it could be less and give away less. But I think they were really worried and the studio was really worried about how people were going to go out of the theater. Are they going to give good word of mouth about this movie if there's no promise, you know, if it ends on a cliffhanger? So they wanted to give everybody like a glimpse of what the third movie would be like. Yeah, and it doesn't bother me that they did it.

It's just how much they show. They show too much of the stuff that ends up being the cliffhanger. Like, you know they they kind of end up showing that there's like a way out for them it ruins the movie that you know um but i mean it's unfortunate i haven't seen back to the future part three in a while i need to go and watch that yeah we're gonna we're gonna watch that too that that one was shot in my hometown oh really yeah yeah that that the the train in back to the future 3 is the sierra railroad um and uh which is jamestown california which is about four miles from where i grew up and uh five

it's not a lot very short distance it's in the sonora area and they uh they built all that the old west set it burned down like 15 years ago or something like that but they built that old west set out there because there's a a little portion of uh of the uh the grasslands out there where the train runs by and it's not really visible from the highway and there there are no there are basically no structures visible so it's a really good double for the old west so they shot it just they shot it there and the whole cast and crew were in town for a couple weeks and then they shot a bunch of other like westerns on it until it burned down. It was used again and again as an old West set

because they had it. So I want to sum up and say that I continue to love this movie. Still one of my favorites. Every time I see it, I just continue to love it. This would be my favorite if it wasn't for that. If the alternate 1985 wasn't so dystopian, that is something that really ruins it for me

because it puts too much stress in a fun movie. And I didn't realise this until I watched it recently with Idina. It was her first time seeing it. And she said she just didn't like the movie at all because of that, because it really brought her down. And i hadn't seen it from that perspective before um and and it might be why when i was younger i always forgot that that scene was in the movie maybe i was like blanking it out or something um but yeah other than that i think other than that i actually do consider this to be a perfect movie. There is so much about it that I love in what I love about movies.

I just think it does such a great job and I'm really happy that we covered it today. And I encourage everyone to, if they have listened to this, obviously I would expect a massive amount of people that are listening to this have seen this movie. Go and watch it again. It's the right time to do it.

Yeah, it is. And I, what I would just say is I think half of this this movie is is incredibly good and half of it i could really live without um and fortunately it's right down the middle um so watch the first part because it's got some amusing things to say about what 30 years ago thought 30 years from then would be since we're living in it the middle part is really dark and unpleasant and then the last part is fantastic and we should also say if you're listening to this on upgrade you should uh also

look if you enjoy us talking about movies you should go to the incomparable.com slash mike m-y-k-e for the mike at the movies feed where you'll find edited together just the movies parts of various relay podcasts where casey and i watch movies with mike yep so you can and then you can listen to them in the future and this will appear in that feed in about a month yeah which feels about right so if you want to catch uh links for that and everything else we've spoken about in this week's episode head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 59 if you want to find jason online he's at sixcolors.com and at jay s on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much to Smile,

GoToMeeting, Stamps.com, and Linda for supporting this episode, and most importantly, thank you for listening. Watch out for the hoverboards. It is that time. Bye-bye, everybody. Great Scott! I cannot love you more than

I love you right now.