Upgrade - 74: Tablet Incorporated

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

This week we use Apple’s quarterly results as a jumping-off point to discuss Apple’s product philosophy, the overall strength of the iPhone, and Apple’s missed opportunities with the iPad.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 74 today's show is brought to you by ministry of supply and squarespace my name is mike hurley and i'm joined as always by the one and only mr jason snell hi mike i do whatever a spider can. Yes, you do. You do indeed. Jason man, Jason man. For everybody listening now, me and Jason were just talking about Spider-Man for 20 minutes, and it'll be a B-side for today's episode, so you can go and get

that if you would like to. Listen to us talk about Spider-Man and digital comics. Spider-Man, Spider-Man. I want to just jump straight in follow-up this week, Jason. Let's do it. We'll leap like a spider. Exactly. Immediately, we're pouncing onto the

follow-up. I'm going to say listener Jan, I'm going to go with Jan, sent us a link to an iMac which was referred to as the Special Edition iMac. Do you remember this? Yes, I remember that well.

Oh yeah, it's the graphite was the color because it's got a gray plastic bubble. This is the classic CRT-based iMac. And this was, I believe, now Stephen Hackett would be able to tell you exactly, but I believe that this was a faster processor. It was a more expensive model, a faster processor. I'm not sure if this had ports,

because the iMac DV is what added FireWire across the line. So I'm not sure if there was a special extra ports or something, or if it was just a faster processor, but it was graphite. It was gray. It was serious. It was not a silly, frivolous, colorful computer. It was the graphite iMac special edition. And it's just funny. It's a reminder that Apple used to differentiate the iMac and the iBook by color, like they would do eventually with iPods. And we don't see color differentiation other than,

I mean, we now do have gold, space gray, and silver on the MacBook. So that's something. But for a long time, color just kind of went away from the Mac product line. But back in the day, you know, they had the special edition iMac, and the most notable thing about it, other than I think it was the top of the line, you know, config, it was it was gray I gotta say looking at this now that is still an incredible looking machine you know so striking it yeah yeah it is it is kind of brilliant I mean what it's timeless yeah I'd say I'd say the only thing about the iMac that hasn't aged well is also part of its brilliance, which is...

And this is, you know, one of those full credit to Johnny Ive moments. He, you know, we see these videos and he's like... Johnny Ive always talks about in his White Room videos about how, you know, a product needs to be true to itself. But that was so true about the iMac. It was a computer with an integrated monitor, which means it needed, and you saw in the run-up to the iMac, in hindsight, some of those other all-in-ones that they made, the molar that we've talked about before, that G3 beige all-in-one that was primarily for education, that looked like a big tooth, beige all-in-one that was primarily for education that looked like a big tooth um that johnny i've kind of struggled with how do you integrate a crt because the crt has the screen that you see

as you're using it you don't think about but it's got this huge bulb on the back of it because it's got a you know a raster like gun painting the screen, painting the phosphors on the screen, right? That CRT technology worked like that. And that's what the iMac is. The iMac like fully embraces that there's this giant bulb on the back, this giant tube that is the CRT. And so on one level, it is a perfect and brilliant design on another level from the perspective of now where the crt is completely dead tech um it is particularly

anachronistic but i mean that's true of classic movies now too there are lots of classic sci-fi movies that um the thing that stops me short when i watch them now is that there are crts everywhere you go oh um yeah and if you can see like the bulk of them in the curve of the glass screen and it's like very clearly a crt and you think yeah that's not that's you know we that's gone we we in the last 10 years have basically eradicated crts so um so that's when i look at the imac that's what i think it's like on one level it's like wow. And another level, it's like, boy, the CRT was dumb. It's all we had. So, but it's so big. And that's why that iMac looks like that, you know, but it is brilliant. It is a brilliant design. And the moment that I, I mean, I remember

the first time we saw it, we're like, I mean, whoa, it's basically what we all said. And it totally changed the, you know, Apple's fortunes. I mean, that was the thing that stopped Apple from sliding into the abyss, really, was the iMac. And that design was a huge part of it because it was not a super powerful computer. It was not for the iMac now is the sweet spot of the Mac line. But back then, it was kind of underpowered. It was not a power Mac, but the design of it was kind of underpowered it was it was not a power mac but uh the design of it was kind of spectacular every time i see one i do wish for a little bit more color in the product line again and i know that this is just a personal taste thing like i am a uh clearly i am a documented

relatively flamboyant person when it comes to my technology right i like color i like stickers i like all that stickers stuff right that is just a thing that i like so my own personal tastes would love to see a little bit more color uh come back to come back to the line the product line i mean i've always been a big fan of the 5c for that reason and it's why i have like i have blue and orange cases for my iPhone. It's why I have multiple colored sport bands and stuff like that. That is just what I like. I suspect we are going to enter an era where Apple is at least confident enough with their anodization of aluminum to make the MacBook come in three different colors. And it wouldn't surprise me if at some point you know all the laptops certainly were like that i'm not sure whether

they're going to ever offer multiple colors of the of the imac or the mac pro can you imagine like the like the cherry red mac pro because that's what you need is it's a style it's a style thing but um but it's it's a start i I am actually a little disappointed that they don't offer iPod colors for the iPhones and for the MacBook. My only thinking behind this is just for the pure logistical nightmare that it would be to manage eight color options of the iPhone. that it would be to manage eight color options of the iphone in my mind like they're edging it up slowly over time but you can't really have four bright colors right you have to have a range like they did with the ipods i think if you're going to go down that route you'd need to have what they have now so you know remove rose gold from the equation because that would just become pink right they just make that color but you need to have your gold silver and gray but then you'd need to have

like red blue orange pink green yeah you know it would you'd need a much broader spectrum and that might be why and also it's like that feels like in a year maybe when the s right line has not got a lot to do that's when they throw the color in. You can keep that one in the back pocket, right? Because you don't need to do it now if you're adding enough as it is. Or maybe our friend, the 5SE, will be the one that gets put in a bunch of colors like they did with the C. Maybe. I think for stocking reasons, it's complicated, but they did it with the iPod, right?

I mean, they had the iPod in all the different colors, and it was it was fine yeah but the ipod didn't sell as many as the iphone i mean that's why i think there could be an issue with it you know yeah but what about the macbook you know why wouldn't you why wouldn't you do a limited edition red mac you know product red macbook that you could only order online or something like that apple's shown their ability to do this so you know it may just be that they, I think simplicity is probably it in the supply chain. Sure. All the way through the distribution to the retail side that, you know, it's a big step for them to have three instead of one for a laptop. It's been a long time.

But it is hard not to look at those old iMacs, you know, before they went to the flat screen and became kind of monochromatic. They were this incredible color thing, and they all had personality, right? And in the end, it got a little ridiculous with the patterns, with the cowboy one and the hippie one, the blue Dalmatian and flower power. But, you know, they learned their lesson there and the iMac they they or the iPod they stayed on brand right they stayed on colors there were you know they would make the colors more vibrant or whatever which was probably a process thing but they had like kind of a core set of colors and they knew which you know they ultimately I think they knew what demand was for each color so they could they could really kind of control that

that could be the same I don't know I mean maybe people aren't clamoring for a blue macbook but uh but oh man actually you know if there were a thing that would push me over the edge to buy a macbook to replace my macbook air at some point having it be in a cool color that might do it that might do it so who knows i don't know get a lovely orange one match your crazy keyboard. Yeah, I could. I could. That's true. I mean, it's just fun. They made those, the iBook. They had the orange, the tangerine, right? They had the orange and the blue iBook at the beginning, too, the colors you could get.

So that was kind of fun. I mean, fun, right? Like buying a computer, it can be fun on its own. But adding this whole other level of like, not just should I buy a computer, which model do you want, but would you like it in blue or would you like it in orange and getting to decide that. That's kind of fun. So, yeah, special edition iMac takes us back to back when it was a bold move to offer a Mac in monochrome. Back when it was a bold move to offer a Mac in monochrome. A moment ago, you mentioned the supply chain, which takes us to more rumors this week.

Following up on last week, we were talking about the potential product offering for the spring. It now would appear that the iPad Air 3 is slated to be unveiled at this March event, which is still scheduled to be kind of around the 14th, as it stands right now. Yeah. There have been some rumors from the supply chain. There's also been rumors from some case manufacturers

on kind of what's coming from there. And basically, the iPad Air 3 is looking to be the iPad Pro Mini. We're talking four speakers, a smart connector, and Apple Pencil support, but also a flash for the camera. to be the ipad pro mini we're talking four speakers a smart connector and apple pencil support but also a flash for the camera um again that you know whilst that seems crazy to some i mean they the last of things the ipad air 2 when uh they basically spent a lot of time devoting to saying look this people take pictures on this thing so we're putting a good camera and if you're going to put a good camera in it put put a flash in it too, right?

You know, it seems at this point seems silly not to. What do you think of this, Jason? Are we likely to see the iPad Pro Mini here? Do you think that's what Apple, they're not going to pitch it as this, but do you think it's really going to have all of the same features that the Pro has? There's so much here. There's so much here. There's so much here. And we are going to talk more about what we

saw in Apple's earnings report. Oh yeah, do I have a lot to say about the iPad later on? And they connect, right? They connect. So what I will say now is I think, I mean, first off, this is a Mark Gurman report, and I trust him.

His sources are pretty much impeccable. I think this is going to happen. I think it's interesting that they haven't nailed down the date yet. I mean, that means that Apple probably hasn't nailed down the date yet. That's the week of the Yosemite conference, by the way. So Serenity Caldwell and Jim Dalrymple and I are probably sitting here going, oh man, because, you know, that's not good. are probably sitting here going, oh man, because, you know, that's not good. I've been waiting for Apple to do an event the week that I'm supposed to be speaking at a conference and it might

actually happen. Not quite sure what we're going to do about that. Hey, Apple, I'll go. Just want to let you know, if you're listening, I'll go for them all. Sure. So, so Gurman, you know, he's solid. It's, it's probably a done deal. It makes a lot of sense. We will talk later, but, I mean, when we were talking about iPad sales last week being down again, I heard from a lot of people who said they didn't update their most popular iPad. Why do you think, you know, there wasn't a boost? And it's a fair point.

No iPad Air 3 in the fall. Instead, the Pro and the Mini got the updates. No iPad air three in the fall. Instead, the pro and the mini got the updates. I'm keeping my mouth closed right now. Those are the edge cases. So I think that's that. What I will say about these specific, the specific specs that you mentioned, I think it's funny. Sometimes it really does pay to ask yourself the question, what are the most logical things to be upgraded in a product just just like leave everything else behind and say and walk through it of like what do people use what is there to be upgraded what's in other products what what are the things

that and you can make a list and not everything on that list maybe will happen but there are some things on that list that this is the same process that Apple goes through, right? Which is like, what are the things we could do to update this product? It's a fairly mature product. What are the things? And, you know, Apple Pencil support and smart connector support seem completely logical. Why would you have those be one-off products on the iPad Pro? That seems like you were trying them out on the iPad Pro and then pulling them to the

mainstream with the iPad Air 3. Also good since it took you a while to make enough pencils, right? So, see, again, kind of makes sense. Still not in all the stores in London that I go to. And lots of bugs in the smart connector too, right? We've heard about that iOS 9.3 fixes a lot of problems with that Logitech keyboard, that create keyboard, right? That there have been bugs there. So you shake the bugs out and then you put it in the more mainstream product a little bit later. The four speakers thing, again, we saw in the iPad Pro

gives you a much better sound. That kind of makes a lot of sense. And then the flash for camera thing, although the iPad Pro doesn't have something like that, you mentioned it. This is Apple embracing how these products are used, even if their anticipation about how they would be used was maybe not accurate. And the iPad as a thing where you take pictures, it happens. Yesterday, I took a bunch of pictures with my iPad because I was sitting on the couch. I was reading, and I saw that my dog and cat, who are not, we only have the dog for a few months, they are gradually warming up to each other, in that the cat no longer hates us for bringing a dog into the house.

But they were sitting, because the great equalizer is the sunbeam, right? So they're both sitting in a sunbeam. And I knew that if I stood up and went and got my phone or some other camera to take a picture, the moment would be gone because I would get up and the dog would follow me around or the cat would run away or something like that. But my iPad was next to me. So I picked it up. I took a bunch of pictures with my iPad because it was there. It was the camera that I had with me. So, you know, embracing that the iPad is going to be used for photography, whether we can complain about it's not appropriate or whatever, it's too bad.

It's going to get used. So putting a flash on it, I mean, it's not going to be probably the same level of technology as on the iPhone, maybe, you know, that I'm sure they're cooking up even more great technology for the iPhone for this later this year, but it makes the iPad better to have a flash on it. Why not? Why not do that? It makes it a better product. So you follow, you start to follow the lines there. And then you

read a story like this from Mark Gurman and it, uh, it makes sense. This is how do you make the iPad air two better? Uh, yeah, you upgrade the processor and all that, but you do these other things. Yeah. You, you, you add these other little things and it pushes the whole line forward and it gives people who are still using an iPad three, um 3 or an iPad Air 1 reason to buy a new iPad, which is good for Apple. They need that. Yeah, they really do. I want to talk about earnings, which is not something that we do very often on this show. We'll talk about on the side of a sudden's break why we're doing that.

But this week's episode is brought to you by Ministry of Supply i really like these guys they're doing some really interesting things and and their whole idea as a company is built around the fact that we're all on the go these days and our clothing is something that obviously we have to wear uh but sometimes it can actually be restrictive and kind of work against us right you can be wearing a shirt a nice shirt to work but it's warm outside, so it makes you sweat. And that kind of feels a bit frustrating, right? The clothes that you have to wear are actually kind of working against you. This is the vision that drives Ministry of Supply. They are a performance professional menswear company that launched out of MIT four

years ago. They make polished business clothes that are engineered by these MIT-trained engineers to provide technical benefits like body temperature regulation. They have sweat-wicking fibers to keep you dry and stretchable fabric to help you move freely. Their most tech-forward dress shirt is called the Apollo. It's made with those moisture-wicking fibers. And what this does is it makes sure that it keeps you cool

and it makes sure that it keeps you cool and it makes sure that it's keeping you dry there's temperature regulating phase change material jason you'll like this this is the same stuff that nasa developed to keep astronauts cool in space oh yeah i have i have some of their stuff and it actually feels really great and uh it's a little a little bit high tech it is um it but it feels really it it doesn't feel like you're wearing a space suit it feels really like super comfortable plus it's got all these other attributes like light knit construction for breathability and four-way stretch for mobility all of their clothes is one of my favorite features are easy to maintain and wrinkle

resistant as well so you can wash and dry them at home and you don't need to iron them i hate ironing i hate i hate ironing so much and the fact that there is this incredible stuff and we're talking like real nice shirts right i have a real nice shirt a real nice jumper for ministry as a blight or a sweater i believe as you would call it jason um and their stuff it looks really great it fits in real nice with just the regular nice clothes that you would wear but also has all these added benefits to keep you cool, to keep you nice and flexible. They're absolutely fantastic. You can find out more and shop online at ministryofsupply.com slash upgrade and use the code upgrade to get 15% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. But my favorite thing, if you shop in

person at a Ministry of Supply store, just mention this podcast and you'll get 15% off your first purchase. And Jason, somebody sent me a tweet that they've been into a store in Boston, they mentioned our shows, and they got that discount. How amazing is that? Yeah, I saw the picture. Thank you so much to Ministry of Supply for supporting this show and RelayFM. All right, so a couple of reasons we don't usually talk about earnings. This show is on a Monday, and the earnings usually come out midweek. And also, also, it tends not to be that exciting. Right.

Like from a it's like everything's up. Wall Street's crazy. Oh, my God. Yeah, we're not we're not a I mean, this is what I tell people when I write about it on Six Colors. And when I wrote about it, a macro back in the day, it like, I am not an investor. I'm not an investment journalist. I don't have Apple stock. I don't have technology stock. I don't care. I mean, I really, I legitimately don't care about this except as a way to, because this is mandated because Apple is a public company, we get to look at apple's business and understand it better and for me that's the most important thing is how are the products doing why is apple making the decisions that they're making um what can we use how can we use this information to understand

apple and its decisions and its products better and also as people that talk about this stuff and try to look ahead that's kind of a lot of what, you know, we do as thinkers about these things. This really helps us. It gives us some guidance to look ahead because you can kind of see where the products are going and Apple are not going to put all of their money into the failing area, right? And just not make iPhones anymore. You know, you can kind of see a little bit more about where they're going as a company. Now, for anybody that doesn't know, I'll give a couple of the headlines from this earnings report. Their revenue is $75.9 billion, 16.1 million iPads sold, 74.8 million iPhones sold, 5.3 million Macs, and a quarterly net profit of $18.4 billion.

So, again, this has been said everywhere because it's an important fact. It's an interesting fact. And especially in our circles, people use it to try and butt against the crazy Wall Street analysis. This is the most profit any company has ever posted in the history of all companies. This amount of money, this 70-something, how much did 75.9 billion dollars is the most ever and it's up on last year by by a hair right like it wasn't an awful lot but it was still up and that's kind of setting the stage for something interesting in that tim Cook basically got on the call and said, next quarter we're down. And that is unprecedented, right? It's been a while. Next quarter, our iPhone sales are going to be down. Jason, what is going on here?

Wow. What an open-ended question that is. Well, you listened to the call, right? are iphone sales going to be down next quarter why what's happening there well i mean who knows it's my answer to that we don't we don't know it looks like um the iphone has um there's a question about like growth has slowed essentially it isn't necessarily stopped although uh next quarter is going to be down year over year. Apple's got some, you know, they've got some excuses for that that I think don't, that are deflection. They say, well, last year we couldn't ship enough in the holiday quarter. And so there was pent up demand that we had to meet in the first quarter. So the first quarter was higher than it would normally be. And so it's going to be hard for us to match that in the first calendar quarter of 2016.

Yeah, I like that excuse because that means that if you would have shipped them all, then Q4 would... Like this Q1 wouldn't have been as big. It would have been down, right? That you would have been down somewhere. Conference call today would be the first time you've gone down year over year, instead of in three months. It just shifts it. It doesn't actually change it.

You can kind of understand that thinking a little bit, right? Because it was selling into China for the first time, and they had a lot of pent-up demand, and basically sales went through the roof because they sold into China for the first time. And I don't know what the carrier situation is like, but if it's anything like the rest of the world, a lot of those people won't be upgrading for two years or so, right? If it's similar to places like Europe and America. So, yeah, maybe it would have been a bit different.

But that's kind of where we are. So, yeah, maybe it would have been a bit different. But that's kind of where we are. And one of the most interesting things, and this is kind of why the analysts have all gone crazy in the stock field through the fall, is that the iPhone didn't grow by like 10 million sales year on year. And next quarter, it's going to be down. And that's why people are kind of getting so upset about this. So I've been thinking about this, right? And I mean, okay.

Again, right? We're not going to talk about this from the perspective of what the market feels like because whatever. Is this a bad thing? The iPhone clearly seems to have reached now its maximum. And it had to happen because they're eventually they were going to run out of people that could buy it but what it would appear to be from the surface is that as we stand right now the iphone has seen as big as it can get and now we're just

going to be in a stage where it will grow very small if it grows at all. And all you'll see now is people buying new ones. Is that what we're likely to see, do you think? Like, is that the situation that we're in? Well, so I think one of the challenges is that a lot of the language that Apple uses to communicate with Wall Street and financial analysts is about growth, because that's what they're concerned about is growth. Wall Street and financial analysts is about growth, because that's what they're concerned about is growth. And so for the average everyday person, they can misinterpret that as being a discussion about iPhone sales stopping. Like, what they're talking about is the acceleration stops. And what I think a lot of people hear is people have stopped buying iPhones and sales are down.

And my argument would be that iPhone sales aren't really going to go down anytime soon. Next quarter, they're going to be down year on year a little bit. But in the long run, I don't think what we've seen is peak iPhone in the sense that there's a peak and then it comes down the other side, like with the iPod. I don't think that's the case. I think the I wrote a piece about this a little bit at iMore on Friday called The Persistence of iPhone. And one of the subheads in there is what goes up stays up. I don't think this is the dome kind of chart where you see the iPod goes up and then it comes back down until it's gone. Because the iPod got replaced by smartphones.

But smartphone category is the special category. It is we live in the smartphone era. I don't see any product on the horizon that is going to replace the smartphone. And I don't see people stopic time when we could build technology, but it wasn't small enough to fit in our pocket. Now, maybe in 10 or 20 years, there'll be a thing you put in your ear or on your eyeball or whatever in your brain that we'll all be like, oh, well, the smartphone isn't that silly because we had to hold a piece of glass and put it in our pocket. But those are probably a ways off. So for the foreseeable future, smartphones are going to be huge. And unless Apple blows it like and like hands the market to Android phones, which they've shown no sign of doing the places where Apple competes, Apple does very well. I think the iPhone is going to continue to sell and Apple will make the argument that the iPhone is it still has room to grow because they see switchers from Android a lot. And they

have markets that they're not very strong in. And although that's a little counterintuitive to point at some place like India and say, India is a great growth opportunity for Apple, when you have very little presence in a market, there's a lot of growth opportunity, because you are doing nothing there. And if you can find a way to do something there, it's pretty much all going to be growth, because you're starting from zero or close to zero. So Apple's argument is there's still room for growth. I think Apple would not even try to argue that there's still room for 100% growth year over year because first off, they're too big. Like you said, everybody's got one. We seem to have left the

people don't have smartphones and are now adding smartphones. That era in most places, especially in the richer, more industrialized countries, seems to have passed. And so it's a different phase. And if you're a Wall Street investor looking for massive growth, the iPhone is not going to give it to you, I think, anymore. It'll still give you growth, and Apple will still have growth in other places. And Apple, actually, they spent a lot of time talking about which we can talk about little little things in other places but um that that can provide growth but as the main iphone i think it's going to be an annuity um you know where it's going to be throwing off

40 billion dollars a year to apple for many many years to come and that's a enormous amount of money but is it going to suddenly next year throw off 60 or 70 billion probably not you know probably it'll be 39 billion and then 40 billion and then 41 billion and it's slow growth yeah and uh you know that's that's just that's how it is because like you said everybody's got one so you we're no no longer in that phase where you know 10 people stand in a room and only one has a smartphone now we're at the place where 10 people stand in a room and all 10 have a smartphone and one of them may have a second smartphone in their back pocket yeah i think we've seen i mean looking at the charts i think we've seen the end

of where there are 10 million more iphones sold every quarter on quarter i think we may looking at the charts, I think we've seen the end of where there are 10 million more iPhones sold every quarter on quarter. I think we may be at the end of that period of time. But the idea of, you know, the news stories I've seen, for example, for some reason, the BBC have really have it out for Apple right now. And they've been publishing story after story about the fact that the company is about to fail because of this. And I'm seeing a lot of this stuff around the internet and it's a very peculiar thing and i wonder why people write it because i think anybody who understands technology which you have to to get a job at these publications surely understands that if they continue to sell even 60 or 50 million of these every quarter they're around for a very long time. And plus, Apple have an ungodly amount of money in the bank. What are they up to now?

I have actually lost count. I need to look it up. It's an enormous amount of cash in the bank and in short-term annuities and things like that. I think, look, Apple doesn't need defending. It's a big company. It's one of the biggest companies in the world. It had the most successful quarter of any company ever, potentially this last quarter. But I will say this. There are people who've never understood Apple,

who don't like Apple. And the moment that there's perceived weakness, they will get the knives out. That's just how it is. That's just how it is. And people in the technology industry and well first off in journalism and i will say this mike you mentioned i mean the bbc you don't think about it so much but in british journalism especially if there's anybody successful who shows a sign of weakness the knives come out

that's like british journalism especially loves destroying anybody who is perceived as riding high. And journalism in general kind of does that, but especially in the UK. We love tragedy. Yeah, and also taking people down, right? Taking, oh, you think you're so great. We're going to, you're not. We're going to take you down. So there's that.

And then in technology, too, there's a lot of people who just have never liked Apple. Whether they never like their products, they're always the people who feel like Apple's who never got it. Right. They feel like Apple's products are too expensive and they aren't any better than the competition. And, you know, what can you say to people like that? Anybody who who is listening to this show probably has had that experience with at least one, if not many Apple products where they've said this is way better than a competition. And that's why I buy Apple products. But some people don't feel that way. Some people look at an Android phone or an Android tablet or a PC running Windows and say, it's fine. It's the same. And for those people, Apple success makes no sense and is frustrating

and has to be explained by everybody who does see value in Apple products being dumb or confused or tricked. And for people with that worldview, any sign of weakness for Apple is an opportunity to get the knives out. So that's what we're seeing. And it's ignorance because the fact is, yes, if Apple stopped selling products today, it could continue spending money at its current rate for, I forget what it would be now, but last time I checked, it was like 10 or 20 years. So Apple's not going away. In fact, Apple has one of the most profitable, successful products in the world right now, and it will continue to be so. I think the real questions are, what happens with growth? Where do they get growth?

And the answer there is, they talked about services. I would argue something like the Apple Watch and other things like that, that are about selling more products to existing customers in the ecosystem is part of it. And then when they talk about VR, when they talk about a car, that's Apple using its huge amount of cash and its knowledge of manufacturing and software and all these other bits of expertise they've got to kind of poke around and find other categories where they think they might be able to do something. And if any of those hits, there's your growth, the growth coming from the car. To find the next iPhone, right? I don't think there's ever going to be a next iPhone, or at least not for, maybe Apple will be involved in the next iPhone in 10 or 20 years, the next smartphone, right?

But I think even something like a car, unless Apple comes in and takes 20% of the car industry market, which is unlikely. These guys are not just going to walk in here and make a car, are they? Yeah, well, I mean, at this point, I feel like Apple could just buy a car maker if they really wanted to, but they don't want to. That's the thing is that there's no point. So I don't know. But that's what they're doing when they're doing all this R&D is that's where they're looking for growth. And that's where they're looking for the future. Because what they don't want to have happen is the next smartphone to happen and then be flat footed and miss it. And that's the end.

Right. They don't want that. And they don't have to. I mean, that's why they've got, you know, people can say and I've heard some people say that Apple should stick to its knitting and focus, not get distracted by these other things. But if you're Tim Cook and the board, you do need to be looking for growth. That is sort of how public companies work. And so they are doing that. And then in the meantime, they're taking some percentage of their cash and they're doing dividends and they're doing stock buybacks.

So they're basically kind of rewarding their investors. And, uh, and I think that's a smart move for them to just to, you know, a little bit of the financial thing, because, you know,

they are a public company, they have investors, the investors want growth. And I, I think that's what the car and the VR and whatever else might be going on. We haven't even talked about Tim Cook's little coy vr mention but um yeah that that was like when he spoke about that the watch right like a watch you remember the d conference where he was talking about watches yeah the that the wrist is an area of interest

yeah so is your eyes um just one last note that sounds like an insult a british insult hand your face just one last note on wall street and and that kind of world i think at this point it's it's kind of fruitless to get annoyed um like every time the stock goes down we all get annoyed like you're so stupid you know still making so much money the system works as it works right yeah and the system looks for growth because you want to invest in things that are going to make you more money and if growth is slowing down in theory the stock should fall in line with that because all you're

doing is putting money in to receive the same money if if the company's not growing right yep at a very basic level it does make sense also um and and this is the thing that i've tried to explain even some very smart people who i know and like and i've seen on twitter complain about this over the years i i try to explain it to them too it's like um it's expectation is built into the stock price that's the other thing about it. And somebody I heard describe this, maybe it was on ATP last week, about how expectation is built in and investing is gambling, right? It's speculation. It is literally speculation. It is somebody saying, I think this is going to be worth more. That's what it is. And so as a result, when like Apple has a record quarter, let's say not this quarter where there's

the issue of the future, but like a couple of years ago, and they would release record results and the price would go down, the stock price, and people would complain. The reason it went down is because everybody who believed Apple was going to do great had already bought in and believed it actually a little bit greater than it did. And so once the truth came out, everybody recalibrated and the stock went down. I mean, that is a simplification of it, but it's something that doesn't make sense if you're not thinking in those terms. It's a very different kind of way of thinking of it, but it's something that doesn't make sense if you're not thinking in those terms. It's a very different kind of way of thinking of it. So you think, hey, this did great, the stock should go up. And the answer is it already went up because people assumed it was

going to do great or predicted it was going to do great. And now it's going down because some other people are predicting that it will do less great or it's not as great as they thought. And it's counterintuitive if you're just a regular person to think, you know, shouldn't the more money you make, the higher your stock price be. And it kind of doesn't work like that, which is weird. And Apple stock is not always given its its ratio and all sorts of other like financial things. An argument could be made that Apple stock has is has often been underpriced and that

the people who invest in Apple often don't really understand how its business works because they try to find analogs in other companies, and I'm not sure there's a good one. So we could argue that Apple stock price movements are sometimes illogical, but the frustration people feel about the stock price or about analysts beating on Apple because they're afraid of a loss of growth, I think is mostly because it's just a cultural disconnect. The way that investors view the world is not the way that we do. Forgive me if I've told this story before, but the CEO of IDG once, in a meeting we were in, we talked about how we were a profitable company. This was years ago.

This was many years ago. We were a profitable company. We had profit margins of, you know, I forget what it was, you know, 5% profit margins or something like that. And basically what they said is your profit margins need to be greater. You need to make more money. And as an editor, I thought, well, wait a second, we're making money. Isn't that the point of a business is to make money? And what he said to me was, I could take the money that I'm investing in you guys right now and put it in the bank and make more money. And certainly I could put it in the stock market and make more money. And that was the moment where I realized, ah, we are a financial instrument for our investors,

right? They're not here to build a sustainable business that throws off profits. right? They're not here to build a sustainable business that throws off profits. They're here to put money in and get a return on their investment greater than they could get somewhere else. And a little return is not good enough for them because they can get more elsewhere. Why are they investing in us? And that is the cultural disconnect. And that's just the way the world works. Like you said, it's just the way it is and um you know the sooner you understand it the sooner you can kind of get over the frustration about it and move on to something else and you know i at some point i finally just got over it it's like look the stock's gonna do what it's gonna do i'm glad i don't write about stocks for a living all right ipad so last week um in our

ask upgrade segment we kind of got into talking about this and saying you know what we thought could happen with the ipad and i think that one point that i made was that if ipad sales aren't up it's dead um it's effectively what i said and and i my one of my sightings sightings for this was uh the ipad pro and i know a lot of people i was very bullish when A lot of people have said this, that the iPad Pro was too late in the quarter. I think that that's just like a scapegoat response for the fact that the iPad is down because not only is it down, it is 25% down year over year, which is really, really bad. And for me, the idea of the iPad Pro was too late or they didn't have the ipad air i just i just don't think that they're compelling enough reasons to tell me that it would have been

26 up i i just don't think that shaving a quarter off year over year would have been saved by those two products when it was on a downward trajectory anyway. I see what you're saying. And I know that you're skeptical of this, but it is a couple things. It is still throwing off $20 billion a year so far, although at this rate, it will be less as it goes. And I think the question is, we're looking at it losing losing because there was this initial run-up of enthusiasm about it um instead of a slow build there was a spike and then a drop off um so i think the question is wherever wherever it finds its if it finds it at all or if ipad sales just continue to crumble and nobody buys ipads because it turns out nobody likes them according to apple people who have ipads use them and like them. And that's not the issue here.

But and so I would say I think some of it gets lost in the in the initial enthusiasm for the iPad, that the sales were big, and now they're still coming down. And that at some point, I do actually think they will stabilize. But it's going to be at a level that is not at all what we thought this business was going to be for Apple and in general. And I think that it's easy to get frustrated because everybody thought this was a $40 billion a year business, and maybe it's a $10 billion a year business, which is good, but it's not what anybody thought about it. So I just wanted to say that, that I think, I don't think this is a case, talking to people, hearing what Apple says about this, I don't think this is a case where people are turned off of the iPad. I think it's a case where we got a lot, nobody had an iPad and a whole lot of people bought an iPad. And now we're at the point where some percentage of them are going to

keep buying iPads, but we're just not there yet. So rather than it, this would be a very different story if it just took, as I think we all thought in 2010, when it got announced that it just took five years for people to understand what the iPad was for. Instead, everybody was like, all right, let's go buy one. And now the numbers are coming down because that was not realistic, that people are not going to buy iPads at that level. But I don't think it's going to just go down to nothing. I think it is going to find a level and then probably grow from there. But, boy, you know, we keep drawing a line.

And you said this. We keep drawing a line and saying this is the level. And then waiting a quarter and going, well, maybe this is the level. And the level keeps dropping. There's no the level. And the level keeps dropping. There's no doubt about it. The level keeps dropping. So I have a lot of thoughts about this. And I need to preface all of this by saying this is coming from a person who now in 2016,

their favorite way of doing any kind of computing is from an iPad. You know, I want to do all the work from an iPad. I'm not a hater. I am a lover of the iPad in a big way. So you mentioned about the $20 billion a year business, right? The $20 billion a year business thing is something I see quite a lot. And also what follows that usually is this is bigger than so many companies. The iPad would be in the Fortune 500 on its own.

I understand all of that. But the next part of that story that never follows is if this was a company that made tablets. A Fortune 500 company that's tablet incorporated. Tablet incorporated. And every year they dropped by a quarter. We would be saying that they were dead and spiraling the drain. Whatever it is, 10, 8, 10 straight quarters of year over year sales drops.

Yeah. We would be saying this company is dying. That CEO would have been replaced by the board, right? Yeah. Of Tablet Incorporated. This is the thing, right? So when you look at it inside of Apple, you don't say that because the company's fine it's just this one product but it annoys me when people say you shouldn't say these things about the ipad failing because it would be its own

business because if it was its own business that business wouldn't be around anymore because its stock would be worth nothing just nothing right because apple apples is dropping because they are not going to have another $70 billion quarter or whatever, you know, whatever the thing is in the next one. But it's still going to be tens of billions. But this line is down a 25%. It falls and falls and falls. And then the other one is like the refresh cycle thing. That's the other thing that we all fall on, right? Like the refresh cycle's longer, that kind of thing. And we don't know the line yet, as you said. I think all of these are optimistic views. Like what if it's not about the refresh cycle at all?

It's just that people buy them once and they decide they don't want them. I think that is valid. I think that given I'm sort of I'm willing to take Apple at its word satisfied with them. And so, but this is the question, right, is what percentage of the iPad user base is an active, engaged iPad user who will buy a new iPad at some point? And what percentage doesn't really need it? They thought they wanted it, but they don't really want it. And I think that's the open question. We don't know. I believe that there is a level that the iPad will reach. That is, it's sort of replacement level.

And that's when it kind of hits the bottom. And then from there, I think it will actually grow slowly. But where that is, I don't know. I mean, and I think that's the skeptic would say exactly what you said, which is, you know, well, what if it's not? What if this is a product that people have rejected? Maybe, maybe. I think certainly some percentage of them have rejected. I don't buy the argument that, you know, 90% of iPad buyers love it and they're all going to buy a new iPad at some point, but it's going to be stretched out over the next five years. I don't think that's true.

There's a percentage of people who are like, yeah, I can just use my smartphone or my laptop is fine. I don't love the iPad enough to spend another $500 on a new iPad. I do think that there is a certain percentage that will go away. And that's the problem with that big sales spike the first couple of years of the iPad is we kind of don't know. This isn't a slow build. It's a lot harder to guess where the freefall stops. Because nothing happened either, right?

It was going up, up, up, up, up, then just started to go down. But there was nothing that happened in that period of time, which would suggest why. It just did. I mean, the iPad Air came out. And maybe, yeah. I mean, there's nothing that you could point at and say, aha, that's the moment that the iPad lost its thing. That was when they screwed up the iPad, right? Because there was never a thing.

The product has had the same iteration as the iPhone, right? Although I would make the argument that what screwed up the iPad to a certain degree is that initial success was so great that it gave Apple no reason to really invest. And we've talked about this on previous shows, really invest in ways of differentiating the iPad. ways of differentiating the iPad. And I think it's funny, listening to Marco, especially on ATP, the last few weeks and the last few months talking about threats for Apple, the one that I keep coming back to, and I think the iPad is a great example, which is when everything's going great, Apple has no reason to try to fix something if Apple thinks that what they're doing is great. And the corporate culture is supposed to be replace your, you know, great thing with an even greater thing and just don't rest

and nothing's ever good enough. But I think the iPad's a great example. And the app store is another good example of this, right? Of Apple saying, hey, it's totally great and believing their own PR a little too much. And with the iPad, like the initial numbers were so great. Why do we need to invest in making the iPad have features that the iPhone doesn't? The iPhone is much bigger than the iPad. The iPad's doing fine. We're just not going to bother.

And it took them, what, four or five years before they were like, oh, this is a problem. Maybe we should invest more in software features for the iPad and hardware features for the iPad. It took them too long. And I think that's that. So how did they screw up the iPad? In some ways, I think it did so well so soon,

more success than any of us really thought it would have, that it took the pressure off. I struggle with all of this. I do. I just don't know if there are any things like that where it's like, oh, software will fix it. Because the software has made it a lot better. But I just don't see at this point that there is like a magical fix to get it back up to $25 million a quarter or something like that anymore. Oh, definitely not.

I think $25 million, you know, that's when you talk about like five years from now maybe they get back up there yeah i really think that what we're looking at and where we'll end up being is that it's going to keep going down for another couple of years and then they'll settle in to like 10 million a quarter yeah you know as the high um and then it will maybe start to creep back up again i look at the mac charts and that's what i think yeah this is going to be yeah this is the initial spike of people who are unlike most tech products that take time to build this was an initial enthusiasm because of the iphone really people like yeah ipad it's like the iphone it's the next big thing there's that spike of enthusiasm that kind of makes it confusing and messes up all your graphs, but that at some point it will just settle. And it's all a matter of taking, if we were investors in fictional tablet corporation,

it would all be taking bets about where we think that line's going to go. And, you know, what is the level and what is the profit of that product line? This is hard for me too, because like you, the is used constantly in in my house yeah i have the ipad pro now and i use it all the time and my wife has an ipad air 2 and she uses it all the time and my son has my old ipad mini 2 and uh uses it all the time so so three of the four people in our house are avid iPad users. And, you know, when my wife goes on the laptop, I notice, like, it is rare. She does certain kinds of things on the laptop, but most of the time she's just got the iPad. And, you know, I very rarely bring the laptop out of the office here.

I generally am using the iPad. So for me, it's hard because I can see the use cases and why this is a great product. And so what I have to try to do is imagine that for a lot of people, they don't need that third product, right? They need to have a laptop because of work or whatever. And that's not going away as fast as maybe people thought. And everybody needs to have their smartphone. And so, you know, you've got an iPad and, you know, your kids use it to watch videos. And as John Syracuse said the other week on ATP, you know, for a lot of uses of the iPad, you could just buy one of those $50 Amazon tablets and it would be fine because all it's doing is playing video. So being the Lord of the premium tablet market,

how big is that market? And we just don't know. But it's hard for me to see it because we use them and we love them. So I firmly believe this is a good product that has a market. But yeah, what's that market? We're still drawing those lines and hoping maybe this is the bottom. And you've gone from being sunny to being so dark. But I'd say I think it's worth asking yourself, at what point do you say, you know, I can't just keep drawing the line and saying this time for sure. Maybe it's time for us to just expect that it's got a long ways to go before it hits bottom.

Yeah. I mean, I look at the iPad now and I'm like, I see this is the future of computing, but not like this. The Apple iPad, as it is today, whatever this device is, whatever it will be for the next couple of years, is not the thing. But it's closer to whatever the next personal computer revolution is than the Mac that I'm looking at right now. That is closer to it, but it is than the Mac that I'm looking at right now. That is closer to it, but it is not the thing. Well, I occasionally have those moments where I think that, I mean, I think Apple's vision is that it's sinking and, you know, all your data is kind of migrating from your phone and that in the long run, your tablet is kind of your more comfortable lean back screen that you use when

you're, you know, that gives you a view into the same stuff as your phone. But, you know, is that, I don't know, it's, it's also, let's, let's say Apple's trying everything, right? Apple's got the iPad. They've also got the MacBook, which is what if we applied iPad technology to a more traditional laptop? How, you know, How would people react to that? And then they've got the iPhone. I think one of the advantages Apple has here is they don't need to have, they're not tablet incorporated, right? They can have the tablet and they can have the laptop and they can have the other laptop and they can have the phone large and small and smaller. And part of that is that they have a varied product line and

part of that is they can find out what works and they can try stuff and see and it still makes enough money right like even with it falling it's still making enough money if the mac at five million units a quarter is making enough money the ipads surely making enough money right so you can keep going with it and keep trying to find it but i think we all just need to accept that this product is going to keep falling for a for a way more i think at least another year it's going to keep dropping and then it will stabilize that that that's kind of the way that i look at it and and you need to disassociate the product itself, I think, because the iPad now is better than it's ever been. It's better than it was in Q1 2014.

It is. It really is. And we just have to understand and hope that Apple's going to continue to show the dedication to the platform that they showed of iOS 9 and that they're going to keep developing and working on it. And eventually, I think that whatever the next thing is

that comes after the iPad, we'll learn a lot from the iPad and have a much brighter success and a much brighter future than this product does. Because I really think that now we're at a point where a lot of the excuses

that we've been telling ourselves since 2014 don't work anymore about why this product isn't working. Because it's just a state now where none of those things make sense to me anymore, I don't think. Well, my only question here is, although it was too late, does Apple now have an understanding that the iPad needs to be more than the iPhone? And will they invest the effort in continuing that? And although I don't believe this, I have heard from people, these aren't sources, just you know readers and listeners speculating about this thing that we've talked about where there's ios and and tv os and watch os and so would there

not be mac os right which i which i think is the way to go um i've had some people say well maybe it should be phone os and pad os and i think that's unlikely because i think the ipad is is very clearly um the same thing as the iphone in in in many ways and yet you know apple tv and the apple watch are basically running ios but they are no longer considered that and i have my moments where i think at some point would it be better for the ipad as a product if it wasn't iOS anymore and that they were able to diverge a little bit more? Unfortunately, right now, I feel like the only reason that the iPad has the viability that it does is because it is part of the same ecosystem as the iPhone. part of the same ecosystem as the iphone and so it benefits like you're an i you're an app developer and you're developing iphone apps and you're like yeah okay i'll do what's necessary to have it also run on the ipad and so the ipad benefits from that i understand where you're coming from but

you know this right like if you if you break the ipad out there are no apps it goes the way windows phone that's exactly right because it's hard enough right these days for some developers i think to consider the ipad like as we record today um the airmail for iphone has come out and that's all it's on and they're saying that they're considering ipad and working on ipad but there is no ip app. Right. So I feel like the path forward for the iPad is basically what Apple is already doing. And so that's the one I would say ray of hope here about this is Apple seems to have figured out now that the iPad needs to be more than the iPhone and it needs to do other things that are fitting for the iPad as a product. And honestly, I don't feel as somebody

who's used the iPad since day one, there were many years where it felt like after the iPad as a product. And honestly, I don't feel as somebody who's used the iPad since day one, there were many years where it felt like after the iPad launched, pretty much the iPad was along for the ride with the iPhone. Yeah. And it seems like they've changed the philosophy in the last year or two to be like, all right, we're going to take more care. And I think that's one way that you make the iPad a better product and have the where people don't look at it and say, yeah, I guess it's fine,

and say, oh, I have to have one of those. But they're late to the party because they haven't really done that until the last year or two. Yeah. WWDC, iOS 10, that was a lot of answers for me as to where this thing could potentially be going.

Because the other alternative is for them to look at iPad sales and say, you know what, it's not worth it to invest all of these engineering resources in the iPad. And if they go back to the old way, which is really let's just focus on the iPhone and the iPad will come along for the ride and it'll be whatever it'll be, that'll be your sign that, you i i think that apple even apple has said uh you know it's not worth the investment and i hope that i hope that doesn't happen i remain confident because you could have made this assumption in that decision before ios 9 and the ipad pro but they went ahead and did them anyway yeah you know you you could have looked at the sales numbers before either of those things went into development and decided that it wasn't worth it yeah and no and they rededicated themselves to making it a great product which you know we can argue about did they should they have done that from the beginning but they there definitely seems to

be within apple now based on their output um a desire to make the ipad much more than it was and they got a lot of work left to do but um but they seem to be moving on it and that's great because that's what they have to do it was hidden you know it was hidden before this i think you know when they were just having the ipad follow along with the iphone the ipad sales were not astronomical but they were going up so why would you have done it any differently and then it was too late i think yeah should we do some ask upgrade i think it's a great idea this week's episode of upgrade and the ask upgrade segment is brought to you by our friends squarespace you can start booting your own website today at squarespace.com and you want to use the offer code upgrade at checkout because

not only will that show your support for this show it'll also get you 10 percent off squarespace build it beautiful when it comes to giving a place for yourself on the internet, I believe that Squarespace is somewhere that you should be checking out for yourself. I'm recommending to others as well because Squarespace give you all of the powerful features you're going to want when it comes to building your own website or, you know, building your own portfolio or store, band page, restaurant page, business page, whatever it is you want to build. But they also make sure that they take care of all of the things that you maybe don't want to do or don't know how to do, like taking care of hosting and scaling, giving

support and security updates, and also incredibly powerful tools which are always changing over time and getting more and more powerful, more and more easy to use. They have great WYSIWYG page building tools, you're able to put a site together regardless of your skill level no coding experience required it's a lot of drag and drop stuff it's really really easy to do really customizable as well

they have these beautiful templates that you can start with and you can make some great changes to them around typography and color to really make them feel like a place that is your own on the internet they all feature responsive design they look great on all sizes of device

Squarespace is trusted by millions of people around the world because of these features and because they ensure security and stability with their state-of-the-art technology that they use to power every single one of these millions of websites that they host for their customers. They have 24-7 support with live chat and email. This is good for you if you need help, but also good if you're introducing somebody else to Squarespace. You can get them set up and then let Squarespace's great support team help that person with any problems and questions that they may have. Because quite fundamentally as well, they know Squarespace better than you do, most likely, right? So they're going to be able to help whoever it is you get set up. They have their commerce platform. This is something that we use

at Real AFM. We use Squarespace for our blog. We use Squarespace for our store. I know Brad Dowdy, host of The Pen Addict, he has an entire business that he runs on Squarespace, which is not co. They build and produce their own pen cases and paraphernalia like that. They use Squarespace Commerce to run their business. Squarespace have a dev platform, so you can tinker with the code if it's something you do know how to do and make some little changes if that's something you want. But you don't have to, but it's there if you need it. If you sign up for a year, you'll get a free domain name so you can give your site

the name that you really like. And their plans start at just $8 a month. But you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card needed and start booting your own website straight away by going to squarespace.com and use the code upgrade when you decide to sign up.

You'll get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for this show. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of RelayFM. Squarespace, really beautiful. Okay, so our first Ask Upgrade question this week comes from John. John would like to know,

do you think there will be an updated Apple TV if Apple do announce a streaming service in September of this year that would be needed to take advantage of it i don't i think we'll be living with yeah i think we'll be living with the fourth gen apple tv for a while which is what you want right because you don't want to have to buy new hardware i mean and also the rumors uh around the release time was that this was the hardware that was supposed to run that but it just wasn't ready yeah the only the only caveat i'll say is i think at some point they will do a 4K capable Apple TV.

And that might happen this fall or it might be later. But I think at some point they'll do it just because they have some competition that can do it. And there aren't a lot of 4K video sources or Ultra HD is really what it is. Joe Steele's in the chat room. His head's going to explode. is really what it is. Joe Steele's in the chat room. His head's going to explode. But basically, 2160 HD, double resolution, quad pixels, yada, yada. Netflix has content that does that. Amazon has content that does that. It would be nice if Apple, one, had content that did that, and then, two, also had a box that was capable of playing that resolution.

So that might happen, but I think otherwise it will be the same hardware that we know now, and I don't expect anything big to change. By the way, speaking of, I'm surprised there's still no Amazon app for the Apple TV. I'm a little surprised. Jimmy would like to know, give us a link to a rumor. We have a rumor here. This was on 9to5Mac. This is not a Gurman TM source. Do you think that this rumor of the iPhone 7 Plus could potentially feature a dual camera system for better photos with two to three times optical zoom and a bunch of other like focusing features do you think that this could be a sign for the ability to record 3d video on the iphone so let's take this in in two parts all right yes the iphone 7 plus having two cameras for additional functionality and technology yes possible i think i i will refer you to my previous statement about looking at um what products how could products get better right one maybe at the top of the list well no the top of the list um is it shouldn't break when you drop

it and it shouldn't break if you put it in water uh These are at the top of the list. I would say being able to see it when you're outside clearly in bright light is something that I'd put high on the list. And having the camera be better, having the camera continue to be better is a vitally important feature. So using technology, especially since they don't want to get thicker with the phone, using technology to add sensors to increase the quality of the image so that it's more like SLR quality, absolutely possible. I think it's a, I think it's exciting. I think it's a great idea. And I think they're going to have to do something like that because they aren't going to make that camera bulge more or, you know, and they're

probably not going to have something that pops out of the back when you're taking a picture and then pops back in, right? Chances are they're going to have to have something that pops out of the back when you're taking a picture and then pops back in, right? Chances are they're going to have to just find ways to improve image quality in that very thin phone enclosure. So it sounds like a good idea to me. And this is also tied to the fact that Apple acquired a company called Lynx around a year ago, which does exactly this. They use multiple sensors to create fantastic looking photos i think this sounds credible i don't know if it's the iphone 7 but i think that this is a potential place that they could go to however the 3d video thing because there is an lg phone i believe uh somewhere that has two cameras and it shoots 3d right because it can do that it makes

sense two lenses 3d you'd also need a 3d screen to play the footage back on yeah and that kind of flopped um i i this is what i will say about 3d i don't think 3d but um what if you had something like live photos that let you think of the the effect on the apple tv icons where there are planes and so as you pan and and and slide them you see depth because it's moving between you know across that that's what i would say is if you've got two cameras you could potentially do a fun feature like live photos that lets you kind of change the plane of the picture because you've got some depth information because you you've taken two pictures that are you know or taking two pictures that are several inches apart right so that's what comes to mind for something like

that is is there a fun feature there that lets you kind of uh set the set the depth of field or or kind of uh slide the picture back and forth a little bit and have it feel a little like you're you know opening one eye and closing the other and going back and forth and making it kind of like that i don't know but that that was what occurred to me is not 3d per se but being able to use those two separate images to do some sort of fun effect well there's that light row right um right the guys will make that camera that you can change the focus i would love that that would be awesome that kind of technology and that that's i mean i saw there's some some camera out there that tiffany arment sent the link around that people

are working on that's got like eight can't eight uh sensors on the back it looks like a phone i think it's not a phone i think it's a camera but it looks like a phone. I think it's not a phone. I think it's a camera, but it looks like a phone. And it's the same thing is, is one way you, you get interesting photo effects is not by having a big lens and a big sensor, but a bunch of little lenses and sensors and then software that stitches it all together. And that's a direction that, that Apple could go in where they stick, you know, a bunch of sensors on the back of a camera or on the back of a phone or on the back of a phone, and you take pictures that way and just let the software deal with it.

It's made by a company called Light, and it is the L16, and it has 16 camera lenses. That's the one. Yeah, and it's mad to look at, like absolutely bonkers. The Verge had a good piece on it. That's how I remembered it.

I'll put that in our show notes if people want to go and see it but that thing is bat poop crazy yeah i would describe that uh carlos has written in is there an easy way to shut down a mac plex server using just an ios device i use an app called team viewer but i would like an easier way jason do you have an answer for this question? I don't. I just use iTeleporter screens from my iOS device and control the screen of the Mac server. There may be some way to kick off a script that does something or other, but I don't know it. I do run Plex on my on my

mac mini server and it's great but when i i'll either walk out here and just turn on the screen or i will uh i'll use uh screens or i teleport and do uh screen sharing screens from adobe yeah so vnc yeah yeah that's that's a good one that is is a good suggestion because you can do whatever it is you need to do. If anybody has another suggestion for Carlos, please let us know. I'd want to mention, I'm becoming more and more interested in Plex as a thing. That's all I wanted to say.

I don't have anything set up. I don't have a system at home that I would run it on very easily. But I'm becoming... Actually, I do have a Mac Mini run it on very easily but I'm becoming actually I do have a Mac Mini in the cupboard I'm becoming more and more interested in doing this yeah it's

I like having it I like the idea of sharing libraries perfectly legally of our home videos that sounds cool well I recommend on the great podcast network RelayFN, maybe you've heard of it, episode 299 of Mac Power

Users is all about Plex. So you should check that out. There you go. I have that one saved because I'm not ready. So it's sitting in Overcast for the day that I become ready to go ahead and dive into Plex

Alright, our next question this week comes from Jean-Rey and Jean-Rey would like to know what is the allure of Sonos over a regular Airplay or Bluetooth speaker? We've been discussing Sonos a lot on Connected recently as both Stephen and Federico the next week

bought a Sonos and I believe that you have one Jason, and I wantedico the next week bought a Sonos. And I know that I believe that you have one, Jason. And I wanted to see from your perspective, why do you like a Sonos maybe over using some other computing technologies? So, yeah, I'm trying it out. Sonos sent me a sample and I'm trying it out. I used and still use in some rooms the Logitech squeeze box system, which is very similar

to sonos um what what what genre's question i tried to answer it on twitter and it's very hard to fit this into into 140 characters uh and the question was also i mean it's not just what's the allure of sonos but it is over a regular airplay or bluetooth set of speakers and my answer is um i don't find airplay or bluetooth particularly reliable i don't enjoy the pairing process my phones come unpaired or ipads come unpaired from these bluetooth speakers and then i have to do repairing or and maybe there's weird audio artifacts um i i'm i don't like the having to uh plug in if you want to use an aux port instead, plug in your phone and then let it sit there. None of these have really thrilled me.

And what I like about Sonos and the Squeezebox is I can be anywhere in the house. I can turn on the music. I can press play on the box and it just picks up where it left off. So all of these things are nice. It has access to my entire music library. It has access to all of my streaming services. It's all in one place. The remote app on the device has access to all of those things in one place instead of switching around. And it does multi-speaker syncing so that you can play the same music out of several different speakers and they all work together and suddenly your whole house is filled with music. So there

are lots of reasons that I have it. But bottom line for me is I find the airplane Bluetooth stuff super fiddly. And again, I've got speakers in my living room. I've got a speaker in my living room i've got a speaker in my kitchen i've got a speaker in the bathroom uh they're all over the place and to have to keep switching among them and it just and and like with bluetooth the idea of hooking a bluetooth dongle or something up to my stereo in order to get out of the good speakers in my living room they make those things they're not particularly reliable it's just i you know if if a set of airplay speakers or bluetooth speakers works for you great but i feel like once you've got multiple speakers in the house um i don't know my experience with them has been poor and i've never liked them and so i always preferred something that just uh has access to my own

library um on a server in my case and all the streaming services that i subscribe to and i just don't have to worry about it there you go so i like i have the allure of that as well but uh just right now i'm good i'm good just playing things on my devices over the loudspeaker on my ipad pro while i'm walking around the house oh yeah well there's that too i mean sonos has some problems sonos doesn't do podcasts very well that's actually why I still have the squeeze boxes and parts of my house, even though I'm trying out the Sonos stuff, I can't, they don't just, they just don't handle podcasts well. So hopefully they will get on it on that because that's a missed opportunity for them. But, um, but I, I, you know, they sound good and they don't require my phone to be,

I just, I also don't just don't like the idea. Like I'm using my phone. Like I had this where I was listening via Bluetooth to something and then I was typing an email and in the middle of the podcast or music, I'm hearing the clicky keyboard sound. I hate, that's terrible. I just, it makes me uncomfortable that, um, I'm trying to use my phone for one thing and then the speaker elsewhere is slaved to it. And if I make a wrong move, the music goes away. And I know that's kind of not rational, because if I'm listening to music on my headphones on my iPhone, it's the same story. But there's something about it, and I just feel like Bluetooth is so brittle.

And if Bluetooth works for you, don't email me. Because I hear from people, people like it's great i never have any problems like i hear you i have not had that experience last question this week comes from chris lately my computer has been acting possessed this has got me wondering have you guys ever experienced anything paranormal jason it's Interesting question to end on, I think. Well, last week it was, maybe the week before was about condiments. I'm trying

to find a fun question to end the episode. It's nice. Well, I'm no fun. I have never experienced anything paranormal. Well, there's a good reason for that, Mike. Paranormal things are not real. i was hoping this was this is one of those risky questions in which you know you say to me yes there is a ghost

right here no there are no ghosts ghosts don't exist no that's why they're paranormal is that nobody can prove them and they don't exist because they are imaginary and they're fun but they're not real if you'd like to find our show notes for this week's episode head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 74 i was letting you take that bullet for me in case you didn't realize uh if you'd like to find jason online you can go to six colors.com the incomparable.com and at jay snell on twitter j s n e double l i am at i mike i m y k e and i write occasionally people who have like bluetooth speakers and believe in ghosts really hate me now yeah i'm sorry definitely bluetooth ghosts do ghosts do bluetooth you've slotted yourselfotted yourself into that little corner quite nicely.

Yes, I'm definitively anti-Bluetooth speakers and anti-ghost. I have yet to truly understand if people will either hate me or not for my iPad comments. But remember, everybody, I love the iPad. Thanks again to Ministry of Supply and Squarespace. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week for more Upgrade. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. I was a ghost all along!

Woo!