Upgrade - 73: Put on your Rumor Pants

Episode Date: January 25, 2016

It’s the official start of Rumo(u)r season, as Jason and Myke discuss the first suggestions of what Apple might release this spring and in the fall. How full does an Apple Event need to be in order for it to be worth calling? And there’s also some clicky keyboard and English muffin follow-up.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 73 today's show is brought to you by mail route and fresh books my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by mr jason snell from arizona from arizona yes i'm in the phoenix bureau today hi how are you? How is the Phoenix Bureau? You know, it's fine. It's not, you know, I come to Arizona and I kind of would like it to be wonderfully warm and sort of summer breezes all year round. But it's only about 5 or 10 degrees warmer than it is at home. So, you know, it's just a different location.

Dryer. Dryer and hotter. Yep, out in the desert. I would like it to be even hotter than it is, but it's not. I'm sorry about that. That's okay. In the summer, it's ridiculously hot, so it's better to visit in the winter, I think. I have, I'm going to pull back from my original claim of no more muffins discussion.

Yeah, I was surprised that you put this in the show notes because I thought we were going to just sort of walk whistling past the muffin feedback. Yeah, I just figured Chris asked and I figured maybe I have eaten the muffins now. They have been consumed. So I figured I should at least just tell everyone that I enjoyed them. Okay. That's kind of it. I enjoyed the muffins.

I had them with jam. I toasted them. That's kind of it. I enjoyed the muffins. I had them with jam. I toasted them. Adina had one. She seemed to like it too, but we haven't bought any more. Oh, all right. But we did go to a bakery over the weekend

and they were everywhere. It was so funny. It's like I can't escape them now. What is that German term for when you see something everywhere? There is a term for that. I always bring this up but can never remember the term um it's like once you've seen something oh it's the beta

meinhof phenomenon when you see something or you think about something or you discover something you see it everywhere like a lot of people say like oh yeah you want to get a new car and you have a car that you want and then you just see that car on the road constantly that's what i'm like with muffins now i see muffins everywhere i go we actually have that with uh with dogs we got a uh boxer and now we see boxers everywhere now we we see them they were apparently always there and we just never noticed them but now that we have one we see them everywhere. It is a non-exclusive phenomenon.

It can be dogs, cars, muffins. The beta-minor phenomenon happens to everything. Yeah, that's good. It would be weird if it just happened to muffins. Why would they even call it that? The beta-muffin phenomenon. Oh, we're off the rails already. I think that would be more like the muffin scone hypothesis something like that ray gown on twitter i've wanted to know and i meant to bring this up

last week but completely forgot where did you get your custom keycaps from like the beautiful orange ones and then today you went ahead and wrote a little blog post uh about your beautiful killer key keyboard and it has even more orange keycaps than than previous yes the orange keycaps have increased it's like it's like there's some kind of illness in the keyboard it's just spreading it's spreading the orange orange is spreading it's a citrus keyboard disease the uh so i so as the recap i bought this leopold 660m i think is it's a 10 keyless mechanical keyboard. It's got cherry blue switches.

It's a clicky, clacky, loud keyboard, and I'm really enjoying it. But it came, it was a black keyboard with black keys, just all black. It's a Darth Vader keyboard. And I thought, and it's a Windows keyboard, so it's got a Windows logo and it's got an alt key and it's got these keys that don't really fit my Mac lifestyle. So what I did was I ordered some custom keycaps and you can get custom keycaps are available all over the place. It turns out I have fallen into a rabbit hole of finicky, clicky keyboard ways to spend money, including MassDrop.com, which has a lot of group sales of keyboard stuff I've discovered.

But the orange keys in particular are from WASD Keyboards, which is the maker of the Code Keyboard and a bunch of other mechanical keyboards. And then they also sell keycaps. They have keycap sets. Are these the guys that do the one with no markings on the top yes what is that i don't get yeah that's uh somebody asked me about that today on twitter and said i i think that's uh i think that's showing off a little bit much i i don't i don't approve of unlabeled keys even though i i almost never look at my key caps um

they should be labeled to buy a keyboard that specifically has no labels is showing off it's yeah it is so so they but they do and they have custom so so it i wish it was a little more self-serve i would love it if i could do custom keycaps like upload a file and say here's the size of the keycap and the color and here's the what i want on it and print that for me and they don't do that but they have key cap sets uh and they've got some blank keys that you can get and so that's how i got the you know i have the command key instead of the alt key and i removed the the uh the windows key and replaced it with a blank um because i'd rather have a blank option key than an option key with a Windows logo on it,

because I just, I feel that's right. How come you could get a command key, but not an option key? That's kind of strange, right? Well, one of the weird things is that part of it is that the option, you know, option is alt. And so it's harder to get an option key and get an option key in the style that matches. And the challenge for me with the Leopold keyboard is that it's got to be that one it's got to be the one by one key size and i think that's that in the corners of this funny little keyboard there are some non-standard key sizes or at least less common key sizes and so wasd's keyboards have a different sized key down there

so i think it would be i think I could probably get an orange option key to fit that spot, but I would probably have to order like a $15 set of 20 keys, one of which I would use and the rest of them I would not use. And that seemed pointless when I could just order a blank. So I just ordered the blank and it's fine.

It's fine. So now I've got this kind of cool orange and black keyboard and I did, I added more. I just had the blank and it's it's fine it's fine so now i've got this kind of cool orange and black keyboard and it's and i did i added more i just had the arrow keys in the and the command keys before and now i have all the numbers and letters and so it's just kind of some of the modifiers that are that are still in black and i like it i like how it looks and actually honestly these keycaps they're actually a little bit taller than the keycaps that came with the keyboard and they they they feel better they feel like they're of a better material yeah you can see that they're different looking i think yeah and i ordered them in in in with mac style labeling on them so they've got the kind of like

the letter right in the center rather than right then uh then a lot of uh pc style keyboards or standard style keyboards that do it a little differently it feels a little more like a like a mac keyboard which is what i was going for. One thing on the option key, whilst we're in complete keyboard nerdery, did you know that in the UK we actually don't have option written on the key?

What does it say? It's alt and it has the little symbol. Oh, but it has the little option symbol. It has the option symbol, but it says alt. It doesn't say the word option on it. Okay, but it's got the, yeah, okay. So that works. Ours, I'm looking at my MacBook Air right now, and it has alt and option on it.

But I like the little option symbol. I would get a key with that. I would totally pay $5 or something to get an orange key for my option key that was the option symbol. But I haven't been able to find that so uh yeah i think it this that key has a lot of names right because it's it's the alt key for windows users and i i'm a little confused about why that is labeled as alt even by apple why not just call it option put the option symbol on it and be done with it but they don't do that yeah keyboards man how do they work it's they're pretty weird yeah i have to say i've been looking at this and like i think i would like you know a clackety keyboard but i would never ever use it so

it's just not a road i'm gonna go down no you don't you don't write a lot and um and uh you podcast and you know as i said last week i have to, I now have to have a podcasting keyboard. Because I can't use that keyboard when I'm podcasting because you can hear it very clearly. Although I do like the clackety sound that the smart cover keyboard makes. It makes a sound. It's more like a slapping sound. It's a kind of strange noise. But I like it anyway.

Tactile feedback is a good thing that's why you know even though we may inevitably end up all typing on glass uh as our primary that may be where we're just going um there is something to be said i mean that's why i went to this is on one level it seems like a total throwback to the old the old days but what you get out of it is uh feel and sound and that that feels it feels and sounds good and uh and so you know it's not for everybody but but i'm loving it piece of follow-up from a show i think it's maybe last week or the week before i can't remember uh the chapters app that we mentioned is now available in the mac app store right. I'll put a link to chaptersapp.com where you can find out more information. And also there's links to the Mac App Store now

so you can go and download it. I believe it's on sale right now as we record. I think it was like 10 or 11 pounds or something like that, which I'm pleased to see that it's priced at a good price, you know, like a professional tool price, you know, professional utility i should say

this is a product for people who are making podcasts and want to put chapters in their podcasts you know and it shouldn't be a two dollar app because you you know it's a it's a tool for people who are taking their podcast creation seriously and you don't have to use it so if you if you care enough to want to put chapter markers in your MP3s for your podcast, then I think $15 is not too much to ask. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's such a niche. It's a niche utility even amongst podcasters.

So I'm pleased that it exists because this stuff should be more accessible because it is really difficult to do. And some of the web tools like orphanic that exist are not really that great to use um and this is a a better experience so if you are a podcaster i would suggest just checking it out or having it in your arsenal um like whilst we don't do chapters a lot um on the shows that we do here we do them when we feel that they're necessary and it's always good to have a tool around to be able to do that sort of stuff with.

So I recommend it. Somebody asked me, like, should we, you know, should every podcast have chapters? And, you know, I'm with you. I feel like chapter, we always have joked about that Germans want chapter markers because a lot of popular podcasts in germany have chapters and tools uh podcasting tools uh in in uh in germany and other parts of europe have built support in but now it's become broad more broadly supported um still it really needs to be your

content needs to make sense for chapters and a lot of the wide-ranging discussions we have don't necessarily fit i mean i didn't do this week's incomparable i didn't put chapters in it because it was really one discussion and i didn't feel a need but if we were talking about five different subjects i would probably drop in a bunch of chapter markers and so you know it's it's not for everyone but it can be it can be very useful clockwise is perfect yes you know exactly it fits you know there's four distinct topics and it's nice to jump from thing to thing like it makes sense in there and so we've used it like it was great for the upgrade different awards like it was all kind of nicely broken up right yeah so yeah i liked it did a good job so that is now available people should go and check it out. Absolutely. All right. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's do it.

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and please enter upgrade in the How You Heard About Us section when you sign up, so FreshBooks knows you came from this show. Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their support of Upgrade and RelayFM. It's Germanman time. Oh, yes, it is. We were waiting for this, and Mr. Gurman has come out with a whole host of rumors and reports and that kind of thing over the last couple of days.

The first, and this is all based around stuff that they say is going to be happening in the spring. So the first is Apple is developing and readying what is being dubbed currently as the iPhone 5 SE for a kind of a March, April time. And it's basically the updated iPhone 5S with a bunch of the six features. What do you think of the name 5SE? Now, Apple is saying this will stand for special edition.

Sure. I don't know. It's weird. It's weird. I guess what it means is that if it looks... The strange thing is the suggestion that it might not look... that it might look more like a 6 than a 5.

What it seems is they're at least going to be curving the glass on the front yeah i don't entirely understand it because you could argue that it means that what does iphone 5 mean versus iphone 6 is what i struggle with here and it if this thing is called the 5 5se and it looks more or less like a 5 then you're sort of well, really it's not the processor and the features that are inside it. It's the look. And this will look like a 5. And so we're going to call it a 5. It's the 5SE. But if they're curving the glass, is it going to look like a 5? Or is it going to look more like the 6? And maybe not. Maybe it's going to look a little different on the front, but it's going to look very similar on the back. I don't know's it's it's a little bit surprising at the same

time it firmly places it at the bottom of the you know of the hierarchy as the you know this is like the old five it is a it is a smaller phone than the six models and maybe that's important i don't know in the long run how you handle that and if you you just have iPhone 5s in the price list forever or what. But it's so – so I'm trying to parse like what does it mean? What does this name mean? And what – how it might affect things in the long run. But in the short term, it's not that bad a name in the sense that it just is an extension on the 5S. It's like, look, basically we did a refresh to the 5S to make it a little more modern because some people really like the 5S and they like the size of it.

I can hear them saying that. And so they just – it sounds a little like Special Edition. You're right, which is kind of funny. But I don't know. What do you think? I love the name. And I think I'm in the minority. I like 5SE and I like

5 Special Edition. I think that sounds great. I just like that kind of different branding for it. Special Edition's kind of cool, right? Because it's kind of like, ah, you're the one with the Special Edition 5. There's something about that

for me which works from a marketing perspective, because if it's going to be pretty much the same as the 5S, even if there's going to be some cosmetic changes, but maybe not too many. I mean, my kind of imagination of this is like some kind of, not in an ugly way, but Frankenstein device. Like it looks like a 5S at the back and a 6 at the front. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like they just removed the chamfer on the front and it's glass now but the chamfer is still on the back that's kind of what i assume this is going to look like um but we'll

wait i have to wait and see on that i mean i'd be very surprised if they went a whole way to create a brand new phone like they did with the c um but i don't know. We'll see. I explained all of these rumors to Adina, and she is very happy to hear that this product is going to exist because she is a 5S user, and she's complaining about her battery life. She knows she needs an upgrade, but she cannot go to a 6.

Her hands are way too small. She just wouldn't be able to do it. She would have to use a 6 as a two-handed device. There's just no way it would work for her so she's really happy to hear about it but that yeah but that branding i really like the branding do you think it's a it is a like a callback to the mac se no no you don't think that like it's just a happy coincidence yeah i think so someone on the marketing team knew that that was happening though right that right? Sure. They can't ignore it. They had a Macintosh SE and nobody died.

It was all fine. So we could name it that and people wouldn't care. I think it's, yeah, it's interesting. It's a weird product because we're talking about Apple kind of going backward, but also forward. So it's a, yeah, it's a funny thing. I think it's great because I think there are a lot of people out there like Adina who really want a smaller phone. I think that's a valid size

and offering an iPhone in that size that's got a little more modern tech inside it. I think it's good. I think it's a good thing. Yeah, because the next one, which was a post today, is that the 5SE is likely to include the A9 and M9 chips,

which is great because then they're bringing it up closer to spec, right? Yeah. Which is fantastic. I mean, you want it to be a better device. You want it to be faster. You want it to be more capable. If they would have just updated the design and then maybe put an A8 in there,

we'll probably look at an A10 in the iphone 7 so it would have been two um revolutions behind right what you want you you want to have it be like um it's like the ipad pro update is you you don't want to let a brand new product go to the work of making a new product and having it be two steps behind one step is okay but you don't want it to because six months from now it will be two steps behind if you do okay but you don't want to be two because six months from now it will be two steps behind if you do that so you you know you you don't want to end up with it three steps behind so this makes sense that if you're going to uh if you're going to release this product and have it be go through the trouble of engineering a new product right instead of

just making the old phone that you'd want to give it some life and so by putting the the a9 in it now then you know the other phones it's not going to get an update in the fall so it's going to fall behind immediately but that's okay because it's not going to be that far behind and it's got the stuff that you'd expect it's got the kind of always on ahoy telephone uh and you know the motion coprocessor. So you can do your, your pedometer and, you know, it's got Apple pay and it's got, you know, it's, it's an iPhone with all of the features of the iPhone. So that's a good thing. Even if it's not in six months, it's not on the same hardware. It's not like hopelessly behind where, you know, cause at some point

Adina would need a new phone and she'd look at that iphone 5 and say well i'm not getting that that why would i get that it's just the old phone yeah so at some point you need to have even if the size even if it's a cheaper model even if uh you know the size is the smaller size it needs to be somewhere in with inhaling distance of um of current technology yeah and what i also like uh is that they're going to be bringing apple pay and live photos to this device so it is kind of being treated like a current generation product right like it's not being left behind and whilst it won't have 3d touch they will probably do the implementation of live

photos to view them as you can now which is if you long press on a non-3d touch device the live photo works but this device will be able to take them which is excellent i think yeah it's it's uh i think this is all good news and this is how this this goes i mean i mentioned the ipads earlier but this this goes to apple's kind of modern product philosophy from the last few years, which is old products don't die. They just kind of use the old products to create a spread in the product line. That's sort of what we're seeing with this. It's a new product, but it's really just sort of filling in one of these niches that it comes from the old product being a little bit too old now, but they want to keep that slot around. Just like, you know, we've got three new iPad models plus a couple of old

iPad models that are for sale. So it totally fits in this approach. It is a lot less simpler an approach than what Apple used to do, but it allows them to hit a whole bunch of different market segments. Something I like from the report, this is a quote from Goeman, also contrary to the apple used to do but it allows them to hit a whole bunch of different market segments something i like from the report this is a quote from german also contrary to the rumors the device is not a preview of the iphone 7 as it will mostly retain the 5s's design and still include a headphone jack burn yeah well also that's kind of like that like uh non-denial denial type thing right like he's just put that in there he hasn't like german hasn't come out and said one way or the other what he knows about that but that's very much a wink wink type thing i mean i read that and like i'm i'm you know this thing

isn't hasn't got a vojack in it right the seven just hasn't at this point i think nine to five mac has reported that but not with a german byline and i just sort of assumed that just in terms of who writes for that site that if german felt like that report was bad he would probably have said something and they ran the report so i mean i don't know there's a part of me that's like i just see it as like separate he's i pretty much the way i look at that now is he has run of whatever he wants to do and i think he's mainly separate because i mean we spoke about this a bunch of times like german is so well connected and he's so good at what he does it is interesting that he continues to to write under somebody else's banner but that's what he's so good at what he does it is interesting that he continues to

to write under somebody else's banner but that's what he does so but when i look at it i just feel like he only ever does these kind of pieces now um so i think he pretty much is just involved at that level i just assume that behind the scenes you know i would like to believe that if they've got a major apple rumor report and you're the site that employs Mark Gurman, that you probably would have him see it and say, definitely not, or let me check that, or something just to save you from printing something that was totally bogus. But but it is. Yeah. Anyway, it is interesting that this is a reference, although you could you could read this as a sly reference to the other reports on the site and not necessarily specific confirmation, just sort of like putting in the context of the other site reports. I don't know how that all works because different people have different, you know, they may be different writers, maybe maybe more competitors than allies at some sites that that is the case, too. So I don't know what the what the backstory is there but but yeah that was a good good uh pickup that you got he's definitely putting in the context of iphone 7 with no headphone jack as well as this um also a kind of a

a report i wasn't expecting about the apple watch in that the watch 2 will be coming in september so which i really didn't want i don't want there to be enough a full product there were there were rumors that it was coming in the spring yeah well because what's happening is they're gonna i think maybe where it potentially got confused is at whatever is happening in the spring whether it be an event or whatever along with the 5se they're gonna have apple watch enough to talk about so they're gonna have 2SE they're going to have Apple Watch enough to talk about. So they're going to have 2-2, they're going to have apparently more watch bands and Goeman's reported

that made out of entirely new materials and more fashion partnerships beyond Hermes so there's going to be a lot of stuff to talk about with the watch like they have done in previous events but they're not actually bringing out Watch 2.

And that will be coming with apparently a full redesign in the fall, which is not what I'd heard, not what I've heard other people say, and not what I expected. The Apple Watch is going to be long in the tooth come September. There will be two years since it was announced yeah a year and a half since it shipped so it's effectively two years old right because they couldn't have changed too much which is surprising i i wonder and you know i guess i don't know if i would say

that only because it was an unusual case because it was pre-announced but will we say that the uh It was an unusual case because it was pre-announced, but would we say that the iPhone 7 is a year old in next January? Because we will assume that they had prototypes and they knew roughly what it was going to be right now. Well, but they don't show it, though, do they? Yeah, but the only difference is because they have an existing product that they don't want to cannibalize. The Apple Watch, when they announced it, didn't exist, right? I mean, it didn't really exist. It was still being worked on. And so I'm not sure that's entirely fair to start the countdown early for the announcement. Certainly story-wise, narrative-wise, just like, you know,

oh, the Apple Watch, I've heard of that. Hasn't that been around a couple of years? That will absolutely be the case. Our conception of the Apple Watch will have been the same for two years. But, you know, I would give them a little bit of credit. I mean, the hardware only started shipping less than a year ago. So before that, it was in process. I do this more as, I can say this

more as a way of trying to wonder if the Apple Watch will become a yearly product or not. Because I don't know if it needs to. I feel like it really doesn't. But we also don't know how major an Apple Watch 2 is. And they will have done, if they do a spring refresh of materials

and bands and things like that, then that will have been its third kind of product line refresh on top of the existing hardware. So what's the cycle there? Is it a six-month cycle or a four-month cycle, except the base hardware doesn't change? And how big is the change come September if we get to that point? Is it a real rethinking of the Apple Watch in terms of the hardware, or is it just sort of a slight improvement? There's a lot of information

that's still out here, but I kind of agree with you. I don't feel like this is a product that needs to get updated. Certainly not every year, but can you go two years? Maybe you can if you're every six months, if you're refreshing materials and updating the software. Yeah, I feel like this is a product that is different. And it's different because Apple thinks about it as a fashion product. Because they don't need to, you know, they release a new iPhone every year for whatever reason they do that. But now it's kind of expected because people want a new phone every year, right? So, like, they want the new thing, you know,

and Apple builds their marketing campaigns around it. You know, like the whole success campaign is like everything about it is, you know, what I say, everything about it is different or something along those lines. I can't remember the exact tagline, but, you know, it's kind of talking about the fact that they keep doing it. They keep refreshing it. But the Apple Watch, you just have to keep bringing out new bands, right?

And you bring out new bands and you put a new band on your watch, it looks like a different watch. And I think that you can keep doing that, keep it in line with season changes, like the fashion industry, have the fall collection and have the summer collection. And I think that that would really work. You know, you do that a couple of times, maybe two or three times, and then bring out a new body. And then Apple can still bring in, you know, the good money from the accessory sales. Yeah, this is, it's a different move for them.

But I think that the idea that you can do new watch bands and call it a sort of product line update, it's a very different thing. Then, then I guess you could change the iPod colors. They did that a couple of times, but you know, it's more like that where this is a product where you can change some things around it and make some new materials or some new colors. And that's, and that's fine because I don't think people are buying, you know, a new one of these are going to buy a new one of these every six months or every year or maybe even every two years.

So you just kind of you keep iterating and providing people with more options and different options and they see something they like, they're going to buy it. And it's a it's still a work in progress. I mean, Apple may be still trying to figure this out too right because what works in the tech industry or in the fashion industry may not be the same rules that something like an apple watch follows it may be like a completely different beast we don't know so these uh updates are rumored to be debuting in the week of march the 14th which kind of lines up with 9.3 as a spring release, because you would assume that these new devices would come along with an update, right, of some description, right? They update iOS to go in these new devices. So 9.3 being teased by Apple's coming in the spring lines up

with kind of a March event to a later in March, early April release of the 5SE. Do you think that if this is what they have, they would do an in-person event? Is this enough for an event? Well, what is that bar? Where do you cross the bar? Exactly. Like, what is the bar at which you have to start inviting press to come to a place?

I mean, not to go back to ancient history, but I mean, the reason that I wasn't at the original iMac event is that the two previous Apple events that they called press to with no information about what was going to be discussed were stinkers. They had nothing interesting to say. And since then, every Apple event has been substantive. That was a key rule. So I don't know how you define it, but there needs to be enough for you to feel like it's an event. So is it, if it's

new watch bands and a new old phone, and a new old phone, is that enough for a media event? And who knows, maybe there are mac announcements that they throw in there too i don't i don't know there's also rumblings of an ipad air 3 but apparently again according to german he has no confirmation on that like he knows it's being

worked on but it's unclear whether that's ready right because we talked about that being something that you could potentially move into a spring a spring time frame instead of the instead of the fall they don't all have to be in sync and the ipad pro led the way so maybe the air you know gets revved in the spring rather than waiting for the fall and and they turn that product line around and and do it that way i feel like an air three a watch and watch updates and the 5se is enough for like an on-campus event at least. Well, sure, an on-campus event would be easier, although that's a very small event that's got iPhone in the name. I mean, the problem is whenever there's an iPhone something, everybody gets...

And just at this point, an Apple event has a level of hype around it that you do not want people walking away saying, why did they call that event? So I think that's a good question. Um, they, they, they have to have, they have to have a story to tell. Um, and, and what Apple has shown lately is that they can roll products out and work with members of the press to give them some exclusives and get coverage without ever having to do an event.

So it's possible that they wouldn't have to. It's also possible that they could, you know, these events are, they have value to Apple, because they do generate coverage, and they focus people on Apple for a little while. But there are also a lot of effort to put out, you've got to invite people and set up the set up the venue and rent a venue if you're doing off campus. And there's all sorts of things that go into that. And you are raising expectations. And then you need to deliver. And you need to have everything done in time.

And you need to have your shipping worked out. So it's a lot easier to just sort of announce products one by one by press release and briefings and things like that. So I don't know. I mean, it would be unusual, I would say, for Apple to just go for six months without doing an event of some kind, but they totally could. And you're right, it's that what passes the weight test, if it's a revised iPhone 5, and some changes to the Apple Watch bands, and, you know, an update

to make the iPad Air more like the iPad Pro, is that an event in and of itself? Or, you know, would you need something else to really blend it the way that it needs to have? Not every event has to be the iPhone launch, right? I mean, not and no other event can be that. But you kind of always want something new, right? And revisions to old products is not something new and and that would be my hesitation with something like that is i feel like you need to come in with something that's actually new um and not just you know an ipad air that's more like the pro and uh an iphone 5 that's more like the 6 and you know apple watch bands that are you know more of what you've already got i I think as well with Apple moving more towards the everything in

September schedule, they're moving even more towards that. I think in the new age of Apple working in the media and doing things that we don't expect, right, which I think 2015 was definitely the year of and 2016 is continuing to be, I be it would be prudent to have products just appear on the website with some nice videos you know to be like look we're doing some different stuff now so they give themselves the ability to do more of that later on because that september event you know we're looking like iphones ipads apple tv and Apple Watch now. That is getting real big. And the last one was very long for that reason.

So I think it would be a good idea for Apple to show we are not afraid to just put things out into the world with some devices that we sent out to BuzzFeed and the New York Times. I think that that is a good way of kind of showing

a bit more of a change from them and kind of being like, yeah, we don't need to invite the world's media to the Flint Center to do everything. Well, and I feel like there is probably another Apple event that is the campus event that is like a Mac announcement event. That's the smaller scale. It's not about

the iPhone. And presumably at some point this year, they'll do something interesting with the Mac line. And we'll see that. And that'll be an event. And that event is always much smaller. But they usually do something like that. And might do that again but yeah i agree with you i i feel like um maybe they don't need to do these events because they have that they are really trying all of these other tools pr tools to get the the message out you know they'll they'll they'll do a briefing uh with under embargo with some key partners and then they will brief everybody else in the gap after the embargo drops and before the product ships and then they'll ship the product and they'll get coverage and they can do it whenever they want and if it if it gets delayed a week they'll just delay it a

week and not have to worry about it so um it's a it's a good question about whether we're going to see more apple announcements or fewer will we only get wwdc and the fall event and maybe a Mac event at some point? I don't know. This is totally off topic, but whilst we're talking about Apple getting people together, I had a thought. So Google I.O. is moving to Mountain View in May. They are not going to be at the Moscone anymore. Do you think that when Campus 2 opens opens they'll continue to do wwdc in mosconi i don't know enough i mean apple campus two has a has a giant uh presentation venue i thought about this i actually did think about this the same thing of would apple do wwdc on campus and i think the answer is probably no but um because there are so many people at wwdc and I'm not sure that the campus, Apple campus, even the new one, would be able to work in that way.

I don't know what, like, the hotel situation is like around that area. I assume not good. Not good is the, yeah, that's exactly. I was talking to people in the relay Slack. We were talking about people like the material hosts coming for for google io and and in mountain view and they said you know what are the hotels around mountain view and how do you get to mountain view if you stay in san francisco and i'm like uh you take the google bus maybe because like the train doesn't run there the train will only get you close-ish and then you

have to take a bus or or or a cab or something it's it's problematic and that you know silicon valley's built in the suburbs those those are not cities they're it's, it's problematic. And, you know, Silicon Valley is built in the suburbs, those, those are not cities, they're suburbs. And it's problematic that because of the founders of those companies growing up in the suburbs and becoming the founders of those companies that you now have these companies that are in the suburbs, instead of in something like in downtown San Francisco, where it's much more dense. And so it would be a challenge. So I'm doubtful, but it's, you know, you never know. That event is so out of control. I think it's a better question to say,

at what point does WWDC become something altogether different? Because such a small fraction of the developer audience can go to it and they are streaming all of the all of the stuff if not live then like next day so at some point you know why are we doing wwdc uh as a physical event at all other than you know it is great for all of us who come but in terms of attendees it's a tiny percentage who actually get to of the developer community who actually can can get in the door it's getting smaller and smaller every year as well right when they say about how many the massive percentage of first timers that there is every year it's like it's just showing how many

more and more and more people every single year are developing an apple platform and the io uh google io uh keynote is happening at shoreline which is the amphitheater behind the Googleplex. And that's like where rock concerts are held. Really? It's got a huge, that's my understanding. I think that's where they're doing it is at Shoreline. And imagine that like, okay, everybody wants to come to our developer conference. Sure, you can come.

We have a big bowl with thousands of people in it so so come on down yeah it's at shoreline please we need to fill the seats they say google io i think as a whole is at shoreline and i'm unclear whether they are like are they going to do breakout sessions on the lawn or something i don't know how that's going to work but uh anyway um it will be interesting to see what they how that works. And I do wonder about that with Apple just in general. I'm not sure. I mean, Apple famously said, oh, we don't need to do trade shows anymore. The Apple Store is better than any trade show. And they dump Macworld Expo and all of that. So this is Apple's own show. But at some point,

I don't know, at some point, I think it's worth asking the question of like, what's the value of this if it's an incredibly hot ticket to the point where you can't, you know, you basically can't meet demand. It's impossible for you to have enough seats anywhere for this event. And, you know, you can do it all. They're doing the right things, which is putting all the videos online. And that's great. So that even if you can't get a seat, you can see it all. They're doing the right things, which is putting all the videos online. And that's great. So that even if you can't get a seat, you can see it all. You could take the time off from work and just stay home and watch the videos and you would see WWDC. You wouldn't get to the social aspect of it, but you would get all the content. But so is the whole thing just there to provide

an excuse for some subset to meet in person? Is is that the reason that that they're going to the you know trouble of holding that event at all because at some point literally everything is on the on the internet um are the people who are there just the live studio audience to provide applause at the beginning and end to make it seem more realistic i don't know it's just uh you know it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but it's pretty funny. I expect at least that all at least media events will probably move there. Oh, certainly. That's the reason that the new theater is being built is that town hall is incredibly tiny. And they want to be able to do media events on campus.

But that's not WWDC, right? Media events are controllable and they're very small. campus but that's not wwdc right media events are controllable and they're very small so i i think i think that's for sure going to happen that as soon as campus 2 is open all the apple media events will be on the apple campus they want and then they control the venue they don't have to book the venue they can hold those meetings anytime they want they'll be able to invite the press and not like say well we can only invite 200 press this time because our little theater just can't hold any more people. They can invite the big crowd and they control every aspect of it because it's their real estate. So they literally can control everything that happens there, which they can't do at these outside venues.

They, you know, they're renting the space for, you know, a few days before the event. There's only so much they can do. Do you have anything more you want to say on this? I don't think so. I mean, I guess it's rumor season now. Everybody put on your, I don't know what, your rumor pants. It's rumor season. It's safe to wear them now.

Gurman's reports are usually very, very accurate. Especially recently. He's untouchable, right? No, he has great sources i think i think for something this far out even you can see how he words things um things are still in flux things can change and that's a lot of times people like mark german are i think unfairly uh graded as being wrong when something they predict that's way out doesn't come to pass. But if you look at German, you know, his as his reports go along, I really get the sense that he is reporting on what is

generally thought to be happening at Apple. But it's a long time between now and the fall, and things can change, right? So if we listen to this podcast, before the Apple event in September, we may say, oh, wow, a lot of this stuff isn't going to happen. But that may be stuff that happens in the next three or four months that changes what the output is. His information, though, is generally good. I would think it's far more likely than not that this is what the current thinking is at Apple about all this stuff. All right. Do you want to take a break? Yeah. I'm interested in some Ask Upgrade.

I think that would be a great idea. Ask Upgrade, by the way, I don't know if you knew this, Mike. I don't know if I did. This edition of Ask Upgrade brought to you by our good friends at MailRoute. Yay! Yay!

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That's it. That's all they do. They do it better and have been doing it longer than anyone else. Thank you to mail route for sponsoring ask upgrade. Got to say about mail route as well as they are fantastic sports. That 10% of the lifetime deal. That's a really good deal. It's amazing. Yeah it's an amazing deal like that that is a i like that that i'm pleased that they do that yeah we just had scheming in the chat room ask uh any thoughts on what tomorrow's earnings are

going to look like i mean this is what i expect more money than ever before more iphone sold than ever before uh china is a burgeoning market uh and the one other thing that i expect is this is the first quarter up on the ipad that there's been in a long time i think that the ipad pro probably has a pretty good profit margin um because it is an expensive device and i think they will have sold enough of them i think a change in that um in that vertical the ipad vertical i'm gonna go with that all right i think a change in that um will so reversing that kind of a couple of years of uh of lack of growth yeah i don't think it's going to be huge uh but i think it's going to be a tick up i think it's going to be a bucking of the trend i don't know if it will continue but i think it this is

going to be the first upswing on the ipad um as i think in maybe the last couple of years or something at least the maybe the last five or six quarters well it's the holiday quarter so it'll be interesting to see if it is up year over year from the holiday quarter last year and yeah that's that's what i'm talking about yeah not a bad prediction i think if it's not that is a bigger problem than there has been in any other quarter uh over the last couple of years i think you're right too i think i think since the holiday quarter it's going to be the biggest one ever and it's going to be the biggest sales of everything ever um and then what's going to happen my guess given what everybody's talking about is that they're going to release their guidance for the following quarter and if it shows even a hint that they think there might be softness in iphone sales in the next

quarter that uh the stock market will go crazy and Apple stock will get hammered. And I'm not an Apple investor, nor do I pretend to be an investment expert. But it looks like there's a lot of there are a lot of knives being sharpened over Apple's iPhone growth. They're concerned that Apple's iPhone growth is not continuing, that it's not like not like it won't continue to be a great business for Apple. But when you're an investor, you're looking for growth. And growth is what's priced, usually is priced into stock prices, is this assumption of a certain level of growth. And when that growth starts to tail off, people start to tail off their opinion of that stock because they're like, well, this company is running out of growth. And it's going to be what they call, I guess, a value stock instead of a growth stock.

And I think there's going to be a lot of talk of that tomorrow, too, even if it's record iPhone sales. In fact, I would even predict there will be a bunch of really grumpy people saying, oh, sure, have your best quarter ever, and the best iPhone sales ever. And why is the stock getting hammered? And that would be the reason why is if there's truth to this sort of rumbling that iPhone, iPhone numbers going forward might not be quite as good as Apple had hoped that they would be that there might be a little softness in the in the iPhone sales market. Or alternately, maybe that maybe they will put their, you know, their boot down and say, Nope, it's doing great. And just essentially dare the people who made those reports to, to show their work because, uh, that would be interesting too.

I have no way of even being close to knowing this. I don't think we're at that point yet, but it's gonna happen. There is gonna be a quarter where iPhone sales are down. Like it has to happen eventually, but I, I would be surprised if it was now, but I'm also not an analyst, so I don't pay enough attention. Well, it's interesting when you started talking about what, what the question was, what, what tomorrow's earnings will be. And you immediately started to talk about sort of like this product doing this and this product doing that. And I think that that says something about who we are, which is people who care about the products. I mean, like I said, I'm not an Apple investor, nor am I an Apple investment analyst. I care about the Apple financial results because I'm interested in seeing where Apple's businesses are and where they're going in terms of the products and how they make their decisions about where the products go.

And that's it. That's what I care about. The money moves the product. And that's what I care about. Because they will put their money. Where the products are. Right. Because Apple stock has actually gotten.

It has not performed well. Over the last year. But I don't care about that. I hear people complaining about that. And I totally don't care about it either. And if you care about it. Because you're an Apple investor. Then fair enough I hear people complaining about that. And I totally don't care about it either. And if you care about it because you're an Apple investor, then fair enough, you should care about that. You're invested in Apple. But just so you know where we're coming from, we don't care about that. And quite frankly, even if I were to be an investor in technology

stocks, which I'm not, and I will not allow myself to be because I write about it for a living. And I think that that's a problematic, that's a conflict of interest it is possible you could affect it I will I will yeah I mean possible it's not yeah it's less likely for these big companies than it would be for smaller companies but it's possible and then you know you just why would you say something bad about a company that you want to grow and you want to say good things about them so that they grow and I just I don't want to even touch that. That's, that's crazy. But here's, here's the thing. I'm not sure Apple stock has ever been logical.

I mean, there've been plenty of times where people, you've looked at the stock performance of Apple and you're like, why? You know, there, there have been arguments that it's been underpriced at a lot of points. And, uh, so I, I'm not sure that's a stock that I would ever put a lot of faith in anyway, because, because I'm not sure the investors understand Apple. And so they make decisions based on what they perceive to be where Apple's going. But I'm not sure it's based on an actual understanding of that company. And so, you know, irrationality uh driving your stock price is problematic and i think it's good that apple whenever apple stock goes down apple buys a lot of apple stock back

and i i think that's actually a would be a would be a a silver lining they use some of that cash to just buy back the stock when it when they think it's undervalued i just wish they would buy it all back and yeah i know we don't have to deal with this the problem the problem if they went private is that we would then they would never tell us anything about how they're doing they would they would just it would be all bezos charts all the time yeah you know and from apple it would be even worse than from jeff bezos it would be it would be you know we think we're we we think we're doing great here's a chart here's that chart about how how much faster the ipad is than the original iphone okay so at least at least they have to tell us how they're doing that's the that's the how much faster the iPad is than the original iPhone. Okay.

So at least, at least they have to tell us how they're doing. That's the, that's the brilliant thing about Apple being a public company is they actually do have to disclose things about their business. And that's why you see every Apple site out there with all those charts that we're all going to make again on, on, on Tuesday,

the 26th, um, because that's our one time where there's government-mandated disclosure of Apple about its business. And you know they would rather not do it, but they have to. It's the law.

So we get to see it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the only thing is like the money and the numbers is like whatever. I just like to see the trends and what's been sold and stuff like that. Because the money is so big,

I can't even comprehend it. Right. Like I have no comprehension of the amount of money that they bring in, like $45 billion a quarter. Like what is that? That's like, it's like magic. It's doesn't even really exist.

It's so large, you know? Yeah. It's yeah. It's play money. Yeah. It is effectively is because they can't even spend it. Right. Like they're, they're just sitting on this war chest of hundreds of billions of dollars. It's, yeah, it's play money. Yeah, it effectively is because they can't even spend it, right?

Like, they're just sitting on this war chest of hundreds of billions of dollars because what are you going to do with that money? That's the funny thing about Apple. It's like, we're getting into a completely random topic now, but there's nothing you can do with it. You buy a country? Like, what are you going to do with that amount of money? At a certain point, there's nothing you can even do with it it's just too much yeah yeah save it for a rainy day i mean i do wonder it's like you know invested in a car company you know build a build a car in your spare

time and and uh weather the storm if there is a storm in the future use it for r&d yeah there's yeah but then again you know they may there may be a moment where there's a an acquisition they want to make that they're able to pull the trigger on because they uh they have that they have that cash yeah yeah definitely all right let's let's move on anyway because we have more ask upgrade to do andrew to know, do we think that there will ever be picture-in-picture on the Apple TV? I'm going to say no. Oh, really? I would have thought that this would have made

the perfect sense, right? Because TVs have this, don't they? Picture-in-picture. Well, they used to, but they basically don't anymore. Oh, okay. Because it's a feature that, one, it's a feature that very few people used,

and two, it requires you to have multiple sources that are being played at the same time, which on modern digital boxes is actually more than the hardware can often take. You know, they're optimized to play back one signal at a time and not two. And so back when it was sort of two antenna inputs, they were like, hey, we could do two pictures. But those have all sort of fallen out. And I'm not quite sure what the use case would be on the Apple TV. those have all sort of fallen out and i'm not quite sure what the what the use case would be on the apple tv i mean it's possible i if what andrew means is like the idea that you could have

a uh you know video playing in the corner while you're looking through the app interface to find a different video to play or something like that well sure that's what i was thinking like how it was on the like on netflix or something yeah where netflix is playing or youtube is playing and you're still able to find like the next thing but um yeah sure but uh i don't know i i don't i i just doubt that that's a priority feature uh wes would like to know i like this question uh any tips for a married couple about to start their first podcast together so you seem to have some tips here i had i've been thinking about this today. Um, so I have, I have four points that I want to say to, to Wes and his partner. Um, I think you should record some test episodes so you can both get used to it. If you've never done any podcasting before, you can get used to what it sounds like to hear

yourself. You can get used to using the microphone and kind of playing around with it and trying to find a little bit about what it is you want to talk about and how you want to talk about it um let your personalities come through so i will recommend you know if you don't already listen to top four uh with tiff and marco arment because their relationship is the thing that's so fantastic about that show um you hear them as a couple and it's fantastic. It's the same as with Phil and Lisa Rue in the movies on The Incomparable. You hear the relationship between the two

and that's what makes the show so brilliant. Because you get chemistry at its highest level, which I think is what makes podcasts great anyway. And a couple have the best kind of chemistry. Even better than me and you, Jason. Hard to believe. Don't overcomplicate the technology part.

Don't worry about getting the best microphone. Don't worry about finding the best hosting. Just find what works, find what's affordable, and go from there. And most importantly, and I give this piece of advice to everyone considering podcasting as a thing, treat it as an enjoyable hobby.

Don't think about how you're going to make money. Yeah, because you probably won't. Yeah, this is a hobby. That's how I started it. It's how everybody that I know started it. I mean, there are still people that I know today that do podcasts just for fun, and they have very successful businesses. There are shows that I podcasts just for fun and they have very successful businesses.

You know, there are shows that I do just for fun. Still, I have shows that we take no ads on because I like to do them because that's part of the hobby side of the business that I run. You've got to remember that first and foremost, because if you start thinking about the business from day one, I don't think you're ever going to fully enjoy it. Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything you said. Hardware-wise, you might want to think about the microphone.

Although if it is your loved one, then you can get up close to a single mic if you need to. If you've got a Yeti, there's a two-across modeross mode basically where you can sit on opposite sides of it and it records. And yeah, you can go up to having like two microphones set up if you really want to. But I wouldn't worry about it too much. And I think your advice is just so great that do it because you like it. You know, half the podcasts I do, I do not to make money but because it's fun, which is good because they don't make any money. So, you know, I've got three podcasts, three or four that make money. And, you know, that's great because I do like 10 of them.

So let's start. Just have fun with it. And then the audience will know that you're having fun with it. And if it becomes successful creatively or with an audience or financially at some point that's awesome but that's not the reason to do it i i do i get those questions i'm sure you do too which is i've been thinking of quitting my job and starting a podcast to make a living like no don't oh not even so much that but just i you know we we see a lot of people uh contact me to want to be on relay or i just get people ask me questions all the time which i'm'm more than happy to do. And I actually will include in the show notes,

what I include for a lot of people on emails is the talk that I gave at the Apple store about how I got started in podcasting, because there's a bunch of just like, little tips about hosting and tools and stuff that you should use and what I consider is a good start for people. But I see so many, you know, oh, and then they mention monetization or they mention ads or sponsorship in it. Like, I just don't think you should think about that in the beginning because really it should be a hobby, I think. Because I think people think about this less

when they're starting a blog, I think, about how much money they're going to make. And I don't really know why that is. Do not start a creative endeavor because you want to make as a career move, especially as a financial calculation, because it's a lot harder than it looks. And with podcasts, you have to build up a very large audience before you could even possibly make money at it. And what's the quality of your thing going to be if it's just a money making vehicle instead of something with something to say? And unless you're somebody who's famous in some other realm and can kind of

transfer that in, if that's the case, then maybe you've got a, you know, something to create. But even there, I would say, think long and hard about it. And do it it you know do something because you care about it and you like it and not just because it's some sort of transaction so i'm sure wes is not planning it that way but no i think it's good good advice because we see that from a lot of a lot of people and and uh you know don't over complicate the technology part two is absolutely true to you know keep it simple record some test episodes let your personalities come through you i think you got it mike that's i i endorse the mike hurley podcast plan benjamin uh has written to say my mom is familiar with a pc and it's time for her to move to a new device should she get a macbook or an ipad pro of apple

pencil now we don't know anything about benjamin's mom no No. So this is a difficult question to ask, but it's one that I'm starting to see a lot more. Basically, what do they do? If this person is surfing the internet, maybe doing some email, maybe watching some YouTube videos, playing some games, I would say you probably want an iOS device at this point for stuff like that.

That's how I feel. Just a casual user, these devices are way easier to use. They take a lot less technical support from you and they are a lot less risky in things that can go wrong with them and they are more resilient.

They're easier to move around. They take a lot less setting up. I would say go ios in that scenario yeah also you you don't have the um metaphor problem of going from a mac a pc to a mac where it's sort of like but different yeah it's just totally it's a break it's totally different um and depend if that's their use case i mean i'm I'm down here in Arizona visiting my mom, and she started with an iBook and had Mac laptops for years. And the last time I was down here, I took her old laptop away because she's got an iPad now, and she doesn't need anything else, and she doesn't want anything else yep now if they're if they're like a serious heavy microsoft office user or something like that then they should yeah although i could actually argue that microsoft

office is better on the ipad than on the mac but um you know i could see there are some cases where we're getting a macbook but you're asking that your mom to transfer uh platforms and um the strangely the ipad i feel like is a better transfer location, like you said, because it's so different that I feel like it's going to be less jarring than having to figure out, well, you know, why does it look like this? So if she's a PC power user, I would say she should just get another PC. And if she's not and she's just using it because it's her computer to do internet right then that that is like mike said a perfect use for uh for an ipad and finally today is a question comes from chris i cannot believe we've not been asked this before now it's hard to believe if you guys could have any superpower what would it be so i used to want to control time um i said i said this on analog once it sounds so terrible but i now kind

of do control my own time because the reason i wanted to control time is i wanted to sleep more and i wanted more time to work on my side business but now i kind of can choose when i wake up and how much work i do right i mean what happens is if i choose to do no work i make no money right it's not i'm not in a world of of lollipops and rainbows here. But I have the ability to set my own schedule now. So I kind of have what I always wanted. That was the only reason I wanted that ability. So now I'd probably go with flight because I spend a lot of money on flights every year.

And it'd be nice to have to do that. Yeah, I keep, you know, the easy ones are flight or invisibility, something like that. I think that would be very interesting. But I actually like your idea. And so I'm going to crib off of that and say, I would love the ability to control where I go in time and space. So I could have access, so I could go back in time and like see how things really happened at any particular time in any place. Um, and, uh, that would be great. So time, time and space. So I could sort of teleport and pop in and out. Basically I want to be Dr. Who without even needing the equipment of the time machine. Just let me go where I want to and see what happened for real. And I think that would be pretty cool because it drives me crazy every now and then I read these stories about, um, uh, sort of ancient history and how there are things that we just don't know about what happened in these particular events

because the recollections are lost and there's just sort of like a fifth hand version of the story. You know, the library of Alexandria was lost and some of the books got out, but some of the books were lost forever. And I love the idea of being able to just kind of pop back there and say, oh, that's how it happened. some of the books were lost forever and i i love the idea of being able to just kind of kind of pop

back there and and say oh that's how it happened and uh or or take those books and pop back forward again before they burn uh and increase sort of like human knowledge i think that would be really awesome plus i could go in the future and see what's going on up there i see i don't know if i want to move through time like that that's's scary to me. My control of time was just being able to stop it. That was all I wanted. I don't... If I could go backwards and forwards in time, Jason,

I would be creating wormholes and rifts all over the place. I just want to travel. I just want to go here and there and see what's going on. Oh no, that's good, but you just clearly have more self-control than me. i would have instead of editing podcasts i would just go back in time to change what i said it's like i would be that kind of terrible wow that is a bad power that is the i always used to joke i think i might have even said that here before

that the the worst superpower would be short-range time travel where you know you could you could change the you could change the outcome of the future but it would be like only minor things that would generally be allowed so you could you could go like an hour back in time and but what's that it's like uh you know check the left tire it's a little bit low that's just what could you you do with limited time travel don't eat that egg it's rotten that's That's the worst kind of power. So I want ultimate mastery of the universe. That's it. Easy.

Perfect. All right, I think that brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you want to find show notes for today, go on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 73. Jason writes no matter where he is, whether it's in San Francisco or in Arizona,

over at sixcolors.com and he has many other podcasts including Liftoff and Clockwise on RelayFM I'm looking forward to the next Liftoff I'm hoping to hear some new planet discussion We have a lot of things to talk about on the next Liftoff Yes, absolutely I have to put a link in the show notes to your Yahoo article about that

actually because i was explaining all of this to adina over the weekend because i read your great uh article on yahoo is it yahoo yahoo tech is where it's sort of hosted but they want to do more space stuff so i'm writing space some space stories for them i sounded very smart right because i could explain everything that happened uh in this in the space news about the new planet so go check that out put that in the show notes so you can go and read that but also of course you can go and find jason and the incomparable and he's at jay snell on twitter i am at i mike i m y k e um and i have recently been dipping my toe in the water of trying to put more things on the internet and I have changed the URL Jason it is you can now find my tumblr blog at mikewasright.com

I noticed it was like I've had the redirect going for a bit and then I was just like I'll forget it I'm going all in on this so as of this this morning, it's now MikeWasRight.com. It's my personal brand. It's good. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Thank you so much to FreshBooks and MailRoute for sponsoring. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Mr. Snell.

Goodbye, Mr. Hurley.