Upgrade - 78: Rename Everything

Episode Date: February 29, 2016

Rumors of a new size of iPad Pro lead Myke and Jason to discuss how Apple chooses to name its products, and whether iPads would benefit from being named more like MacBooks. They also tackle the rumors of Siri coming to the Mac and grapple with disappointment and cable management in #askupgrade.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 78 today's show is brought to you by ministry of supply and fresh books my name is mike early and i am joined by mr jason snell hello mr jason snell hello mr mike hur. How are you? I am very well. I'm very well. It is the beginning of a new week. It is upgrade time. It is. This is how it begins. This is how it begins. The rumor has it that there's going to be an Apple event on a Monday again. And we had to deal with that last year when there was an Apple event on a Monday.

And we ended up doing a little post-event upgrade, which was very exciting. So we might get a chance to do that again in March, it sounds like. Yeah, we will. I mean, even if it's a Tuesday, we'll just move the show to Tuesday. Yeah, usually I think that's the best. There's nothing worse. Well, I was on that two and a half hour long episode of the talk show with that might be redundant with with grouper the day we we recorded it like three days before the Apple event. But then it got edited, you know, and the editing took a little while. And so I think he dropped it like the morning of the Apple event. I'm like, people, if they listen now, they will barely be able to get through the podcast before the Apple event starts, which was not ideal timing. So it's not really great to put out an hour long episode of a podcast, even the night before an Apple event, because who's going to listen to it? And then they're just going to skip over it because you know, they want to hear,

they already know what happened. There's nothing worse than listening to speculation about what will happen during an Apple event after it happened. Right. Sure. I mean, and I feel like with this event as well, if you're going to be at the events,

which you've had a pretty good track record of being at the events, we may as well just wait. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. Let's cross my fingers to get a to get an invite to this one but um if but regardless right i think regardless it's it's better to talk about

the event in its aftermath than to to create you know a show about speculation about what's going to happen you know less than a day later it's's no point. And what I've quite liked recently, and we've done this and now I'm trying to make more of an effort of it, is this show will be the show reacting to the event, so recorded as soon as possible after it has occurred. And then we do Connected a day or two later and give some, like, more thought based on what has come out subsequently. You've had time to reflect exactly at that point you know because uh federico especially is obviously extremely busy that day

too there's there's kind of not much point in dragging both of you out to do this so yeah that there you go everybody there's a look behind the curtain of how we do apple event coverage it really so we'll see we'll see if the event is actually announced, which it hasn't been. Everybody's talking about, oh, the date moved. Well, there hasn't been a date announced, so it hasn't moved. And we'll see if I get invited, and we'll see what they announce, and then we'll talk about it. It might have moved.

That's how it works. It might have moved. I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea of just because Apple hasn't announced it doesn't mean it's true. Well, until they've announced it, I mean, there are lots of things. That's like saying that the iPhone lost mind about when it was scheduling this event. And originally it was looking good for this date and they decided to do a different date. But that is not quite the same as Apple rescheduling the event since they've not ever made a public statement about the event or even a hint about it. It's like you got to give them... They get take-backs on that.

They get a mulligan on that one because they didn't actually take their finger off the chess piece. It must cost so much money if they do need to reschedule these events. It must just cost a fortune. Yeah, well, they've got the money. Yeah, they can handle it, you know. It's not like us moving an event of some description. This is a whole serious business.

We don't even know. I think the rumor is Town Hall, but we don't actually even know where they're going to be. Yeah, if it's Town Hall, it's not that expensive for them, I'm sure. It's not so bad. The janitor of Town Hall is like, guys, this is going to cost in the thousands. Yeah, I got to bring in some overtime on

this one yeah all right so should we do some follow-up let's do it so a very quick note um i just wanted to mention this i was watching uh mkbhd's kind of thoughts about the galaxy s7 and there was just one thing that that struck out to me because you know we were talking about and you were kind of i think applauding them for looking at the product and bringing back some of the features that they had left out um one of the things that i found quite interesting was uh the galaxy s7 is a millimeter thicker than the s6 uh and they did that because they wanted to add a larger battery and i just thought that was interesting to bring up. Amazing. Imagine

that. Exactly. Imagine. Imagine having a slightly thicker phone to add a larger battery. Imagine a world in which that could exist. I didn't know phones could get thicker. I thought they just got thinner over time. Until they disappeared, yeah.

And after talking about Android phones a bunch, and I've been meaning to do this for a while, I bought a Nexus 6P this week. Well, this past week. 6P? Mm-hmm. The Nexus 6P. That's the fancy metal one.

The fancy metal one. The screen, I think it's like 5.7 or something. It's just ever so slightly larger than the Plus. And it's got the fancy fingerprint reader on it and stuff. I've barely played with it so far. I'm still kind of in the setup, basically, trying to get it set up the way that I like. But this is by far the nicest Android phone I've ever owned.

And I've bought a few Nexus's over time. And this is by far the nicest android phone i've ever owned and i've bought a few nexus's over time and this is a very very nice device and i'm looking forward to digging into a little bit more but yeah i just it was talking about it so much seeing all these events i'm like i want to try android again um and plus with google play podcasts coming out i want to keep my eye on that and see what's going on over there. Yeah, well, I realized I didn't have a reference Android device of any kind that was even remotely modern, so I bought a 5X

not too long ago. And I've been meaning to spend more time using it, but one of the powerful things about the Apple Watch, if you like the Apple Watch, is it makes it very hard for me to try out an Android phone because I have to basically leave my watch off, too. Yeah. Yeah.

Or carry two phones around, which is stupid. So, yeah. But it's good to keep your eye on what's going on on the Android side, I think. So, I would not have bought it to, like, use it, really. I bought it to have an Android device around that i can try which is fine and if that's what you're looking for uh then access devices are always the best because they are stock yeah get the updates quicker and all that good stuff stuff that we're used to with apple i guess exactly all right so uh going back slightly to the fbi request hubbub uh andrew wrote in with

a question and we didn't address i thought thought was quite interesting um he wanted to know jason what you thought uh about how steve jobs may have reacted to this request do you think that it would have been different to how tim cook has and did react you know it's so hard with these hypothetical Steve Jobs, what would you have done kind of things. And I'm not I'm not sure he was an interesting guy that was full of contradictions. Right. So part of me thinks he might have tried very hard to work behind the scenes and keep it quiet and like do what they had to do just to make this issue go away, that it's a distraction. I'm not sure that would have worked because it seems like Apple actually did kind of try that, like tried to do some of this stuff behind the scenes with the FBI. And then the FBI wanted to make this a bigger issue in order to sort of force the question about whether they have access to

make Apple do this stuff for them and so it may not have worked anyway but i i do think that jobs was kind of like that where it's just like i don't want to be bothered that said when he got mad about something he would he would uh do the wrath of god thing where he's like fought but you know oh we're gonna blow everything up we're gonna fire everything like sue all the, sue all the companies. Was it going nuclear was the phrase, right? Yeah, exactly. To what's Android? Yeah.

Yeah, so I think in the situation Apple is in now, the big difference would be, like, I was hearing, I think at ATP they were talking about that Tim Cook ABC News interview, which they posted basically the B-roll of the interview, which is the raw 30 minutes where they keep asking the same questions over and over again and he keeps giving the same answers which it shows you why they need to edit interviews because it was not really much of an interview it was sort of five minutes of content and a 30 minute video but that was the moment where i

thought steve would probably not be as controlled. And I think the ATP guys mentioned this, too. And I felt the same thing that that you get the sense Steve was not above giving out digs. Right. So my guess is that he would have been throwing some elbows and and being a little. Tim seems a little more restrained in terms of saying, look, this isn't about us picking a fight with the FBI. You know, I'm my guess would be that Steve would have insulted the FBI more, right? Instead of being like, oh, we think we can't do this. It's important for our customers. He might have gone down a different path of saying, come on, you know, this is a ploy by the FBI. These guys don't know what

they're doing. You bring up some FBI scandals. Maybe they made up all this other evidence in these other cases. Do you really trust these people? My guess is that it would be a little more toward the scorched earth approach, whereas Cook seems to be just very restrained about it. Maybe a little more emotional. Yeah, I think so. And if you look at Steve's tenure at Apple, I mean, he focused, he was a really idealistic guy in general, but he focused on the stuff he cared about, will win out and it has not served them well in general. And it's not to say that there isn't lobbying going on from the tech industry, but I feel like the tech industry has a long way to go to catch up in terms of playing that game. And I think a lot of people in the tech industry feel like, why should we have to play that game of basically greasing palms in Washington and elsewhere of politicians? And yet that is sort of how the world works. So I'm not sure Steve Jobs would have done any different on that score because he didn't when he was in charge. But I think in the end, that would be the biggest thing about it is that Tim Cook, Tim Cook is this very restrained customer focused statement that he's making about why it's important for, for, and he's come across, you know, by making those public statements about,

about equality and about the principles of him and of Apple. He has gone down that path before. And so it's consistent with him. Whereas Steve, I get the sense, you know, just didn't want to talk about that stuff in large part and connected to Apple. And so we'll see. We'll see what Tim does. We'll never know what Steve would do. But that's my guess is that we would have gotten a lot of pretty funny insults about the FBI and the government that would probably come back to haunt Apple later. that would probably come back to haunt Apple later. That's my guess. I feel like for as entertaining as it may have ended up being or not, Tim was probably the right person to have this fight.

It's almost as if you're a person in the public sphere, whether it's a CEO of a company or somebody running for office, it's almost like saying entertaining things is not the same as making good judgments. No idea what you might be talking about. Interesting. It's funny how things like that work. This week's episode is brought to you by our friends over at FreshBooks. FreshBooks are a mission.

Our mission is to help small business owners save time and let them avoid the stress that comes with running their businesses. Businesses run on money, right? We send out invoices, we receive invoices, things get paid. That's how businesses work. Money comes in, money goes out. Invoicing can be a pain, and this is what FreshBooks is here to solve. They have a super intuitive set of tools that make creating and sending invoicing can be a pain and this is what fresh books is here to solve they have a super intuitive set of tools that make creating and sending invoices simple it starts with the fantastic

statistic which is true because i did it today that it takes just 30 seconds to create and send an invoice and you can add your company logo for that extra touch which i have on all of our relay fm invoices we do use fresh books have used FreshBooks since the inception of our company. I sit down in front of FreshBooks every week. I'm going to be doing it again tomorrow, and I get my invoices sent out. They give our clients and your clients, too, so many different ways to pay you. You can get payment by card. You can integrate with services like PayPal. This means that you will get paid faster. FreshBooks customers get paid five days faster on average, which is fantastic. You can see whether your client has looked at an invoice or not, which is good.

So you know if they've seen it, you know if it might have gotten lost. And you can also set up automatic late payment reminders too. FreshBooks has a bunch of other features to help you keep organized with your business. You can easily track your expenses. You can automatically import your bank transactions for easy reconciliation. They have a great mobile app that will let you take photos of your receipts and FreshBooks can organize them for you later, which is fantastic. They have great reports to show you who owes what and kind of how late they are. So you can go on to the FreshBooks homepage and it can say to you, you know, these

people are 90 plus days late. So you can see what's going on and chase people up that way. They have tons of third party integrations, time tracking, fantastic support. It's at the core of FreshBooks. There's no phone tree. You'll be on the phone to someone when you call them. Super simple to get started. You do not need to be a numbers person. FreshBooks is offering a 30-day free trial to listeners of this very show with no credit card required, so there's no harm in going and checking it out. To claim your 30 days of unrestricted use,

go to freshbooks.com slash upgrade, and don't forget to enter upgrade in the How You Heard About Us section so FreshBooks knows that you came from this show. Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their continued support of upgrade and relay fm so in our recent trend uh we've been we've been covering a bit of rumor stuff uh at the moment um most of it is coming from german um and i think we're both at the feeling that we will talk about rumors if Mark Gurman is the source of them. Yeah. Right?

I don't really think we talk about too much stuff unless it's come from Mark because he knows what he's talking about. Mark Gurman, John Pekowski, I would put in that camp. Yeah. There's a few, but there's not that many that actually provide a lot of information and it's reliable. Yeah. So when we see these, I think that they add food for thought. And one of those today is that apparently with OS X 10.12, seriously, if that's what it's called,

I was listening to the Secret Subscriber podcast of Six Colors and listening to you and Dan talk about that. And I agree in a very brief recap of that you you think it should just be mac os 11 or whatever which i we will talk about this at a later date i think but completely agree with you 10.12 just sounds silly at this point but anyway that in 10.12 i can't let that go because i have to say if you become a subscriber to six colors you get access to the Secret Subscriber Podcast, which is mostly weekly, and it's me and Dan Morin talking about, you know,

tech stuff and occasionally other stuff for about half an hour. So there's my plug. That was my guerrilla marketing campaign for the Six Color membership. There will, of course, be a link in the show notes if people want to go and support you and Dan. And I must say say this is turning into a mini ad now i apologize everyone uh i really enjoy the subscriber podcast i do ah so thank you to six colors for sponsoring this episode of upgrade i guess that's what you're saying

i guess yeah i'm yeah we should talk about mac os naming at some point again. I've beaten that drum a lot. It does feel like, you know, let's just be done with 10.12, 10.13. But with 10.12, which will probably come out in the fall, Siri is looking like it's going to be added. Now, just to dispel any confusion, Dictation has been in OS X for a number of years now. Yes. Which is, of course, powered by the Siri engine. And voice control of some sort has been in since the classic Mac OS.

There have been things that you could... Tell me a joke. And you could say, like, computer and then a command, and it would do some very rudimentary stuff. It's been in there for a very long time, but it's not Siri. And Siri has not come to OS X. So this rumor story says that Siri is going to be one of the features, maybe even a banner feature, in what is now at least 10.12. What would you use Siri for on the on the mac why i don't understand i can't think of a reason to add siri um so i would like to know if you can think of any reasons why you would put

siri on os10 i mean what dan and i talked about in that podcast was very much like uh i could see some places where it might be useful in terms of kicking off automation. My fear is that it's just going to be Siri in a box from iOS, and it's going to do what Siri does in iOS and nothing more, really. And that's less compelling to me because I think having an agent that can kick off things that are more Mac-like would be more interesting. And a lot of Macs come with microphones, not all. I think, did we figure out the, we figured out Mac Pro and Mac Mini don't have their own built-in microphones, but like an iMac and all the laptops have built-in microphones. So you can talk to it and especially if it's on, if it's permanently plugged into power.

It can always be listening and you can give it commands. But is that practical? There are a lot of situations. When I'm at my Mac, I tend to have my hands free to work on the Mac interface itself. So I could see value. I mean, for some people saying, ahoy, computer, put this on my reminders list or remind me to do this later or make a new event, you know, Tuesday at 4 p.m. is going to be something that could potentially be useful because some people like to work that way and other people don't. So, you know, turns your iMac into kind of an Amazon Echo sort of thing, maybe.

Why not, I guess, is my point here. Well, sure, I understand that feeling. But if it is a why not, why now? Why has it taken this long? And why do it now? So the only thing that I can think of is we are out of features for OS X. Yeah, well, this is... We can put a link in the show notes to this blog post that somebody actually sent in. It's a much larger blog post. It's a WWDC wish list by Steve Troughton Smith.

But I was struck by one phrase that he put in it, which was, OS X is a dead platform. And he said that in the context of wanting to see basically app development from iOS coming to the Mac. He wants a unified app platform that lets, just like on Apple TV, lets you use sort of the UI kit stuff that developers use to build iOS apps come to the Mac. And his point was not just to make a whole bunch of Mac apps that look like iPhone apps run on the Mac. But his point was, there's not a lot going on in the Mac right now. And it's funny, because I actually wrote that last week, too. I

was a little more charitable and didn't call OS X a dead platform. I think I said something like the Mac market for software is mature. But I wrote this piece on Macworld about why I like using both the iPad and the Mac. And I'm not an absolutist and how I think that there are a lot of people who can use both tools and that you don't have to be in one camp or the other. You can use both. But the fact is that the stuff that I use on the Mac is much more mature, whereas the great thing about using the iPad is there are all these different apps coming out and adding features and doing new things. And, you know, that kind of can't be denied. And so when Steve Troughton Smith says OS X is a dead platform, there's some hyperbole there. And it is interesting if you watch what kind of features Apple has added to the Mac. And it is mature, right? It's got all these features that iOS lacks. But when you see what they're adding to the Mac and have been adding over the last few years, a lot of those features are sold as being kind of like interoperability and convergence.

But, you know, the bottom line is those are features from iOS that are being put. We'll put that on the mac too and uh and this depending on the implementation this might be more than siri on an iphone but it definitely feels like it's um well we've got the siri thing we could put that on the mac what can we do what can we do on the mac um you know it's on iPhones, it's on iPads. Let's put it on the Mac too. Why not? I feel like all of the new Mac software that I add to my machine now

are companion apps for my iOS apps. I don't feel like anything new, for me at least, is happening that makes me want to specifically know specifically get this mac app that's out you know i don't know there are there are some i mean there are new services like i use slack on the mac now all the time right yeah but for me though in way i'm looking at it

that is an ios app that i've got on my mac because i want to do it on my Mac as well. Well, and in fact, I think I like the iOS implementation of it, which is funny. And I like the iOS implementation of Twitter clients better than I like them on the Mac too. So, I mean, I think there's a really good argument to be made. I'm surprised it hasn't happened up till now. Because I always thought there was a good argument to be made that instead of something like Dashboard back in the day, that you should just have an iOS compatibility layer on the Mac. So not like turning the Mac into iOS or running iOS on the Mac, but running apps in little Windows. I wouldn't be adverse to that if it could be done right. Yes.

I don't want a unified platform. That's not what I Yes. I don't want a unified platform. That's not what I want. I don't want that to be all that there is. But if it was as well, you know, and I'm sure there's many technical things, you know, that's not what I'm here to discuss. But if it could be done and I could then have an app

that I really like be on both platforms because i might need it for something and it's easy for the developer to do that i would be very happy with that you know as a solution for for some of maybe for some smaller applications that i really love on ios but but they don't have a mac app yeah yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. This is like an email app, for example. Right. And whether it's something that just is sort of, I mean, ideally it would not just be an iOS app in a box. It would be the developer of the iOS app would be able to do some work, but not a huge amount of work and have it run on the Mac. And right now, believe it or not, that's not the case. And that's what Steve Trott and Smith's piece, you know, that's one of his wish list things is how do you make that easier?

Like why is Icon Factory not doing Twitterific on the Mac and that there's still this ancient version of Twitterific that runs on the Mac? And the answer is it's non-trivial, like seriously non-trivial to bring that iOS stuff to the Mac. And so they don't. And they're not alone. There's a lot of that kind of going around that wouldn't it be nice if it was easier for all that effort that's put into iOS app development could be leveraged better to bring it to the Mac. And I understand the reasons to keep those things separately, but it's hard to deny in general, whether it's OS features or whether it's the app story that the Mac is, you can, you could say dead or you could say mature, but either way, there's not,

there's not as much going on on the platform now. And that's true. That's true of desktop platforms or traditional computer platforms in general. This is the case right now. All the heat, all the excitement is on smartphone platforms. And I, you know, I totally accept that. And I think that's fine. But it does, it does make you wonder, what do you what is the role of ongoing development of a desktop, essentially a PC platform? And is it just to keep parity with your mobile platforms? Or, and if so, does that extend beyond things like bringing your mobile features to your PC operating system? Or does it mean extending the development that way? Because Apple hasn't gone down that path very far. I don't know. I don't know. But I did have that same reaction

to the Siri announcement. It's like, okay, I can sort of see that. It hasn't been on there before, but it is sort of like the new features in the Mac are things that we already have on iOS, and it's just sort of bringing them over. So it's not really new. It's just new to you. Unless there's a reason I just can't see.

I'm just really struggling, like why you would do it now. I don't think they need to be adding new features to the Mac to make Macs sell in the same way that they do with iOS for the iPhone. I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't know. I mean, all we have is a rumor that Siri is going to be there, right? So there is probably a whole story about it. And I feel like there are sort of two answers here.

And I feel like there are sort of two answers here. One is there will be a developer story on the Mac that isn't so much there on iOS or Apple TV. And that is ways you can hook into this and do more and provide access to cloud stuff and what is happening on your iOS devices and maybe even Apple TV devices from the Mac and sort of like connecting all that stuff together. It's also possible that it will be a little bit more like, hey, there's a find my friends widget in the notification center now where it's sort of like on an island. It's not in an app. You can't do anything else with it, but you can look at it. And that's the, it's the bare minimum of bringing a feature over from the other platform and it's a good question about which one of these stories it will be could use the siri maybe be uh apps in the app store thing only could be uh or it could be access to i yeah i don't know i don't

know it's possible they do that with a bunch of stuff. Because that might help, right? That might be things like, this is what makes the App Store awesome. There's more great stuff over here. But I don't think it will help. I think all it will do... I think all it will actually do is mean that people won't adopt Siri in their apps if they have to be in the App Store.

Because we've already played that game, right? And useful apps are not going into the App Store. They're going out of the App Store. iCloud Sync is probably more important than Siri would be, right? And it hasn't helped. Also, Apple has changed their approach here, right? I believe now they've changed it so you can do iCloud Sync out of the App Store

if you're in the App Store. So they've already sort of like loosened the restrictions there a little bit. Like if you've got an app that's both in and out of the app store if you're in the app store. So they've already sort of like loosened the restrictions there a little bit. Like if you've got an app that's both in and out of the app store, you can do iCloud syncing on it in either version. I think I saw that that had changed. So it may be that they changed the rules too. It seems unlikely to me that they would use,

try to use Siri as a battering ram to get people to break down and move their apps to the Mac App Store. I feel like that is just not going to... The way they're going to get more apps in the Mac App Store is to make it easier for developers to qualify for the Mac App Store with useful apps, not to dangle kind of iOS features that they don't have access to otherwise. Okay, so moving on to our next rumor of the day.

Jason, when is an iPad Pro not an iPad Pro? I don't know, Mike. What's the answer to this riddle? I haven't heard this one. We'll find out soon. So apparently what we have been referring to as the iPad Air 3 could actually be iPad Pro Mini? I don't know what they...

We don't know the name. The 10-inch iPad Pro. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro. This looks like... This is where how it's being kind of reported so far. In that the confirmation of what I believe has been expected, in that the confirmation of what I believe has been expected, that the successor to the Air will feature pencil support and potentially a keyboard with the little smart connector.

Yeah. But what it's looking like now is that that device will also have the internals, so the A9X processor and the RAM upgrades that the iPad Pro received to make it beefy, and that it may actually be falling into the Pro line as opposed to the current Air line. Yeah. So there isn't a lot to talk about here from a feature perspective that we haven't already discussed. Now, you can imagine this product, right?

We can all imagine this product. It's sort of like an iPad Pro, but it's in the 9.7 inch size. That's what it is, right? And we've talked about that. And that makes sense. So I want to talk about one of my very favorite things to talk about, no sarcasm, is Apple product naming. Their marketing decisions are always fascinating to me. And this is one of them.

So this is purely a marketing thing now. So why would Apple do this? Why make a smaller iPad Pro rather than the next iPad Air? Why would you do that? Is this the only logical next step? Are there no other routes that you can take the iPad that you have to kind of just give it what the iPad Pro has? Are you following what I'm saying?

There isn't anything else that could have given to the iPad. So the only features that we have are the ones on the Pro. We'll give it that one and call it a Pro. Yeah, well, where do you take the iPad Air 2? Right? Where does it go next? Nowhere exciting. Right.

That pops into my head, right? Like, what do you do with it? You make it faster. You put some more software stuff into it. But it's fine right it's also a even now a very good tablet it because it was so overpowered so powerful when it was launched that even now a year and a half later it's perfectly good which is one of the problems with the ipad product line in general is how do we sell more of these when these last and are good

as they are uh if you're Apple, you're like, well, what do we do? So I'm a little baffled by this iPad Pro rumor because this seems to me to be a mistake. I know the argument that Mark Gurman makes is trying to, I think, encapsulate the thinking at Apple, not his argument necessarily, is, well, you've got a 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro, is, well, you know, you've got a 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pro. So why not have a 10 and 13 inch iPad Pro? I don't love splitting product lines up like that. In the laptop sense, in the laptop world, it makes sense because they have had two lines.

And the way that the processors work from Intel, you know, the MacBook has a Core M processor. It is so much slower than the MacBook Pro, but it's got, you know, but it's thinner and lighter and all of those things. And over time, we may end up at a place where it doesn't make sense for there to be more than one line of MacBook. But right now it sort of makes sense. And then there's the MacBook Air,

which is obviously going to go away. Yeah, we get in this place every few years, right? Two becomes three until one of them goes away, becomes two again. Yeah, things come too close together, and then you've got to push them apart if you can differentiate them. But the problem with the iPad line, and part of me thinks this is a little bit of rearranging deck shares on the Titanic, where it's like, you know what our problem is with the iPad? It's the names.

The names are confusing. I don't think that's the problem. So we need to give them another name. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. I know. Let's just call it the new iPad. They did that with the iPad 3, right? And yet, on one level, I thought that was not a bad decision.

It's the iPad. Just with the iPad 3, right? And yet, on one level, I thought that was not a bad decision. It's the iPad. Just get the iPad. So I look at the iPad, and I ask myself, is this a product line that really needs that much differentiation, that it needs two separate lines of iPad? Is that really – is there enough differentiation? We've had two separate lines for a few years, right? We've had the iPad and the iPad mini. Right, but they've been differentiated on, the lines are differentiated on size. And what this rumor is suggesting is that the lines are not going to be differentiated on size.

So what it will be is processor, pencil, and keyboard, right? That would be the differentiators. Which are differentiators by features, which I guess is more like the laptops. I don't know. This is what confuses me about it is, okay, so you've got the iPad Pro that we have today. That's the 13-inch. And then you've got this 10-inch iPad that might be an iPad Pro instead of an iPad Air. What happens to the mini?

And does it exist anymore? And does it just keep bubbling away as the iPad Mini? What happens to the iPad Air 2? Presumably it stays on the product line. What's the long-term game? Is there only an iPad Pro? Or do you continue updating the iPad Air kind of after the fact and make it cheaper and have the new have that's the closest I can come to a concept here is that iPad, what we think of as the iPad now is really the iPad pro that it's all pro because it's all this high end, uh, premium tablet stuff. And when I look at this rumor, the best I can come up with is Apple's gonna, um, go down market a little bit with the tablet because they feel there's opportunity and there's a lot of pressure from cheap tablets. And that the iPad Pro is going to be what we think of as the latest and greatest cutting edge feature iPad Pro feature stuff.

Pencil and smart device connector and these multi-core processors and all of that. And then I guess there's the iPad, whether they call it Air and Mini or they just end up calling it iPad, that doesn't have those features and is a slower processor with fewer cores and is cheaper. And that doesn't sound like a very Apple strategy to me on one level, but at the same time, on another level, maybe this is where they are with the iPad, is that they need to try something different. And saying, you know, the iPad we've been making all along is a Pro, and now we're also going to have these other iPads kicking around down here that are not Pro. But in the intervening time, we've got this confusion of mini and air and

pro i have a uh i have a wild theory that i want to float by you oh well i just floated my wild theory so yeah i want to come back to the down market thing in a moment uh my would be that we end up with ipad and ipad pro but ipad is the mini could be could be i don't think that's gonna happen in two weeks uh it could do but my feeling would be that let's let's go down this discussion of down market for a moment. I think that that is a, I think that is very interesting as a point. You have a cheaper tablet that you're able to provide to people to combat what Amazon just did where you could buy a six pack, right? And I don't think they need to go to that level,

but I think they need to keep it below maybe 200. And I think the only way that you can really do that sustainably is to do that with the Mini, I think, because the Mini is obviously cheaper. And the competition is at the seven inch size from a cheapness perspective.

I think the Mini sells pretty well. I would love to know. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if the statistics were that the mini was the top selling ipad i would not be surprised i i don't think it is i i don't think it is i think i think everything that i've uh heard just in general and maybe this is conventional wisdom but everything that i've heard is that the mini is kind of not, it's kind of lackluster because people want to opt for the larger, the larger thing. But what if the, um, so you've got the eight inch basically mini

and the 10 inch air and the 13 inch pro, but what if the pro is what we currently think of as the iPad Pro, the iPad Air 3, and even arguably the iPad Mini 4? And what if the iPad is what we currently think of as the iPad Mini 2, which is being sold and the iPad Air? Let's look at this under the... Let's confuse this even more. Okay. Why not? By looking at this at how... Let's confuse this even more. Okay. By looking at this at how Apple breaks down the watch models.

Right? Where you have Apple Watch Sport, which would be the mini. Then you have the Pro, which is the edition. And then the watch is just the iPad one. Right? And that one is, so the Apple Watch is what Apple, I guess, would have assumed to be the most popular, but it's nicer. So the reason I brought that up is, let's say that the term iPad is kept around and

it is given to what is currently the Air model, And it's a year or so behind. Would you want the name of your product, the actual name of the product, to be attached to an older, kind of caught-behind version of that product? Well, given that these are Apple's own processors and all that, and given that we've already seen them do that with the Air 2, which is now a year behind, and the Mini 3 was, we didn't have a Mini 4 for a while, and we got it, and it's a year behind.

So the Air 2 came out a year ago, and the Mini 4 came out a year later. But none of those are just called ipad right right but i i think the problem i have is more about what their strategy is and how they would get there but is it unreasonable that that apple wants to get to a place where they say look there's two kinds of ipads the pros and the regular ipads and the pros are faster and they've got more features and then they're the regular iPads. And we have pro iPads in 13 and 10 or 13, 10 and 7 or 8, whatever it is. Yeah, 8.

And then we've also got the regular iPad and they come in 10 and 8. That isn't unreasonable. In fact, in some ways it's simpler to say there's two lines of ipad and there's the one with all these snazzy features and they're faster and then they're these ones that are cheaper that are don't have all the snazzy features the problem is how do you unwind the ipad air and make it into an ipad pro and just the ipad and how do you unwind the ipad mini? And Apple's history of keeping these products around with their same names for years means that they're going to be clogging up the

product list with these old names for a while, unless they do a renaming thing at some point here. So I don't know. I mean, this news is so baffling that I'm just trying to find patterns that make sense. And that's the best that I can come up with is very similar to what you said, which is that. I don't think that's unreasonable, though, to say, look, there's iPad and iPad Pro. The MacBook doesn't make the MacBook Pro seem bad because the MacBook has a Core M processor and a weird keyboard. a weird keyboard um it's you know it makes the macbook pro seem better because it's pro it's got that and more so i think you could get there with the ipad i just don't know you know what what's the right strategy if you if you're really going to go down this path what's the right strategy of how you change the names of the existing products or do you not and just sort of suck it up for a couple of years yeah because this is this is the right? If they do want to change the product names, then they have to kind of do something with the old stock.

They either stop selling it or they change that too, which is very peculiar, right? Because you can imagine they're still going to sell probably the Air 2 and maybe one of the old minis, maybe. At least they'll keep the Air 2 around and bump the price down, if history would tell you that, right? And especially if, you know,

going back to the going down market thing, that's a really easy way to make that happen, is to have an older model that you sell for cheaper. And what do they call it? Exactly. Do they call it iPad 8? Something like that. Count up all the original iPad generations.

There were four, right? And then there was Air and Air 2. So is Air 3 iPad 7? I think one of the easiest ways to do this is to rename everything and do it like you do with the laptops, that you ask for the iPad and then you choose your screen size. Like you ask for a MacBook Pro and choose your screen size. And we just refer to them as the iPad 8 inch and the iPad 10 inch and then the iPad Pro 10 and the iPad Pro 13.

I think that is the easiest way to do this. Yeah. And then it's just like laptops. You're referring to them like laptops. There's the MacBook Air 11 and 13. There's the MacBook Pro 13 and 15. And let's leave the MacBook aside because clearly that's the beginning of a new wave and the old wave will go away. But those laptops have been for ages. There are two lines and they've got sizes. And I could see the people, especially the people who know the Mac very well,

your Phil Schillers and the like, saying, let's stop treating the iPad naming like the iPhone. It's already broken down. If we're gonna really do this like laptops, let's commit to marketing these like laptops where there's a line and it's got different sizes and that's how we do it and we we take the name the numbers off of them and we

we market the lines and the sizes and this year's model you know yeah the nerds will say it's this is the 2016 model ipad pro but uh regular people just be, I got a MacBook Pro. It doesn't bother them that they don't have the, that it's not called the MacBook Pro 14, right? MacBook Pro 22, whatever the number is, there's no number. There is a generation, although even there, we've sort of given up and it's based on when it was released. And you know what? It works fine that way. So without a So it's got a model number that nobody cares about because all you really need to know is that you've got a 5K iMac from 2014. That's all you need to know. So I could really see them making that argument. And it's

going to take a move to get there that will be tricky. But I could totally see that. I think the question is, like you said, what happens to the traditional 10-inch that is currently the iPad Air 2? Is the iPad Air 2 the new 10-inch iPad, and we just leave it there, and it's the same product? And then next year it gets a little bit better, but not a lot better? If you look at iOS 9, it is to be said that Apple

are willing to try new things with the iPad. And it seems like that's going to continue to go in that direction. We hope that is the case. I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of radical change and this could be radical enough that you kind of

outline in its name that the iPad is meant for professionals and that there are two of them. It is a line of professional iPads for people that want to get their work done. And then you have the people that just want a tablet, like they might just want a laptop, and then they go with the iPad line.

And then we just move on from here. But Apple need to commit to it because they didn't commit to the new iPad. They went back to a name and a number again after that one. Joe Steele makes a good point in the chat room that I want to mention, which is Apple's strategy with the iPad and the iPhone has been to keep old products around and make them cheaper. And that's how you extend the product line. Yeah. And I feel like if extend the product line. Yeah.

And I feel like if you go to this strategy with the iPad, that has to stop. And instead, your cheaper product is the other product line. So instead of it being iPad Mini 4 and iPad Mini 2 available, you've got the iPad Pro and the iPad. And maybe the iPad Pro is available ultimately in an 8-inch configuration that we would have called the iPad Mini 4 or 5 in an eight inch configuration that we would have called the iPad mini four or five, but we don't call it that anymore. We call it the iPad pro and that's this year's model or last year's model or whatever we're

selling right now. And if you want something cheaper, that's got less features, uh, go over there. And it's not the iPad mini two. It's just the iPad, the current iPad line line eight inch thing and uh that could work uh and and that's what they do with the laptops and and max in general and that that's what i keep coming back to here is this sounds very much like they're trying to uncouple the ipad from entirely from the phone naming and strategy and just kind of embrace it being more like a laptop and maybe that's good maybe that's a good idea because it probably is more like that i think that that's how they have

to do it yeah well we'll see or they'll do it however they want to do it but i think and unless they're thinking of something that we're not any other way adds more confusion yeah i think so i think it's actually less confusing and i actually think the product would be more appealing um i would be much less inclined to buy an ipad mini 2 knowing there's an ipad mini 4 right yeah because that's kind of weird it's like well i'm buying this really old thing and instead if it's just a product line that's not as powerful and it's got the stuff that you put in your pro line a year or two ago but now it's just a product line that's not as powerful, and it's got the stuff that you put in your pro line a year or two ago, but now it's finally made it to the non-pro line, it's a new product, right? That new iPad 8-inch is a new product. It's just using technology from

a couple of years ago that were in the pro line. And that's different. That's a different kind of story. And again, right. So this just all depends on how Apple are looking at this. Do they look at this like how they look at the iPhone or do they look at this like how they look on the Mac? Because if they look at it like they do at the iPhone, they have to keep these devices around for years, right? Like for three or four years, they keep pushing them down the chain, give people the options to buy. Or you look at it like the Mac, where when the new one comes out, the old one goes away. You don't continue to buy the last gen of MacBook Pro. You don't do that.

That isn't a thing that happens. So I think they need to make their choice. Yeah, so they sweep away this old approach that's the iPhone approach, which works for the iPhone, and that's fine. But you sweep it away, and instead you've got a new approach, which is there are two lines, they're always up to date. We might only update them every year or two, but they're always up to date. There's no last year's model being sold, because instead the last year's tech is going in this year's model of the cheaper product line. I think that's probably where they're going. See, this has been a good

conversation. I feel like I've learned a lot. Mike, thank you. Call us, Apple. We've got this set for you. Don't call us. This week's episode is also brought to you by our friends at Ministry of Supply. The reason that I love Ministry of Supply is because

they are focused around one very specific thing, that everyday clothing should be smarter by now, which is a nice thought, especially when you think about sweating in business suits like I have done and had done for many years on the tube every morning because that was just what you had to wear. You had to wear a suit to work, so you wear a suit to work and it was uncomfortable because clothing's not changed this is what ministry supply is all about they are here to help design clothes for the needs of a body in motion they are a performance professional menswear company that launched out of mit four years ago and they make business clothes that are engineered to provide technical benefits like body temperature regulation.

They help keep you dry with sweat-wicking fibers and have stretchable fabric to allow you to move more freely. They actually commissioned a study which proved that their clothing is 15 times more breathable than a 100% cotton dress shirt. And they have a four-way stretch for mobility to keep you moving. They have moisture-wicking fibers in their Apollo shirt, which is their most tech-forward dress shirt, which, with temperature-regulating phase-change material, will keep you nice and cool and dry. This is the same stuff that nasa developed to keep

astronauts cool in space yeah it's a space shirt it's spaceship so you know it's good right and it's why they call it the apollo space it's all space one of my favorite things about ministry supply clothing is that they are all easy to maintain and wrinkle resistant you can wash and dry them at home and you don't need to iron them. I am very happy with the stuff that they've sent me. I've worn their shirts and jumper as well, or sweater, as you would call it.

Designed very nicely. To look at them, you wouldn't think like, oh, that looks like a weird material or that looks like a weird thing. It's all really good looking stuff that does what it says on the tin. You can find out more

and shop online at ministryofsupply.com slash upgrade, and you can use the coupon code upgrade to get 15% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. Or if you want to shop in person at a Ministry of Supply store, just mention this podcast and you will get 15% off your first purchase. Thank you so much to Ministry of Supply for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right, so we have a bumper Ask Upgrade this week.

Yeah, you were worried, and so you shined the Ask Upgrade lasers out into the world, and the listeners delivered. They most definitely did. And the first up is Lucas. Lucas wants to know, do we think that Netflix will ever enable Picture in Picture on the iPad? I was very surprised a couple of days ago to discover the Amazon Prime Instant Video app

has Picture in Picture. Do you think Netflix are ever going to do it? Or at least in the near future? My only question is if there's a technical hangup or if they're just going to get to it. I don't know. I would assume that everything is going to get picture in picture on the iPad eventually. I assume that will happen. The only catch is, are there things that Netflix does with its DRM or I don't even know what, where the way that the app is built, it can't use Apple's picture

and picture system. And if that's the case, then it might take some time. But I think in the long run, all this stuff is going to be picture and picture because the people, people are going to demand it. And Netflix would love for you to be watching a show while you're doing something else on your iPad. They would love that. So I think Netflix wants to go there. I think there's a question of what if they implemented their video player in such a way that they look at this and they're like, God, I can't just do a couple of lines of code. It's going to take us a change to how we do this.

And we're either going to need to ask Apple to make a change so that we can enable this, or we're going to have to make a change with our app in order to enable this. And I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that that's what's happening here. It's possible with customizable video players or custom video players. Like that is a fact because Amazon have their own custom video player, right? Where you can tap the middle of the screen and it pauses it and they have their x-ray information. So they have a custom video player that they've made, but they've still been able to enable it. So Netflix's system might be different, which maybe is why they're taking them

longer. But it's not to say that if you don't use the system video player that you can't have picture in picture because there are a few apps that do. You said that you think that everyone will. I don't think that YouTube ever will. And I think this because of a difference in the model that these companies are made up on. Prime and Netflix, they don't care really what you're watching. They just want you to keep giving that money to them every month. They don't care if you're watching however many shows. But YouTube lives on you going to YouTube, watching a video in YouTube, and then continuing to watch more in YouTube. So being outside of YouTube and a video ending, that kind of goes against what they want you to be doing, I think.

Well, I feel like it could be worked on though, right? I agree, but then there are also like hour-long YouTube videos. Yeah, but they don't want you watching those though, really. They want you watching like the couple of minute ones where they can throw up another ad because the next video starts. i actually think the ad is the bigger problem i'm not sure whether the ad pre-rules and all of that really work with the picture and picture thing or if you need a single a single kind of video stream i don't know um i think youtube might get it at some point but i think that that there will have to be that's a case

where where they may go to apple and say look we, we can't just, we, our videos are short, right? Let's not even talk about the ads. Our videos are short. And so what, when it ends, we don't want our app to just go away. We want to be able to put up something that plays the next video, or we want to automatically play the next video in a, in a recommendation or something like that. But they could totally, they could totally come up with a way to do it where after one video plays if you're in picture in picture mode it basically picks another video for you and starts to play it i don't know if they can technically do that with apple system but that would be a way around the problem joe steel again has made another suggestion that i know they may do it for youtube red subscribers. Oh, that's a great thought, too.

I think you could get there. I guess I guess what I'm saying is I think you could get there. And I think it's to the benefit of all these video streaming services, even YouTube, to allow picture in picture, because a lot of people use YouTube as background. My kids use YouTube as background all the time. YouTube makes the most sense, which is the one that makes it the worst, because kids would just be playing Minecraft, watching Minecraft videos. But I just think that there is a fundamental difference in business model, which might mean that it takes them longer to implement it than some others. Like, for example, they've pushed out a big iPad Pro update and a big iPad update. They've gone native resolution now, but picture-in-picture is not part of that. And I think that it would

stay that way for YouTube for the foreseeable future at least if ever what is the ratio of landscape versus portrait use on your iPad Pro I find myself using landscape 90% of the time I agree with that

I do use my iPad Pro in portrait sometimes like if I'm reading a long document, maybe if I'm reading Twitter I might put it into portrait. Nope. I'm with you there, although I don't think I do that with Twitter. I do with long articles or things because

you can actually hold the iPad Pro, especially if it's got the smart cover on it, folded back. You can kind of hold it in one hand and read it a little more like a newspaper. I'll do that occasionally, but I'm with you and Mihir 90% of the time. I have it in landscape. But that was true of all of my iPad use. Not the same for me.

I use my iPad Pro in landscape way more than I used any other iPad in landscape. And I think there are a few things for that. The iPad Pro size feels more natural to me in landscape. I have the keyboard attached to it quite a lot, obviously, in landscape. And the split screen looks way better and is more comfortable in landscape. So I think the combination of those factors has led me to be using my iPad more in that rotation. Robert would want to know, do you think it's possible in the future for Apple to make iPhone encryption such that even Apple cannot crack? I don't know the answer to this. I would say yes,

maybe, but I don't know the answer. I don't know enough about encryption. I really don't. I think that Apple can make encryption that it can't. That's what it's trying to do. Now, especially that it knows that it's going to get court orders demanding that it hand over more and more information that it's capable of getting. I think Apple's strategy is to make as much stuff encrypted as possible with Apple not having the key. The problem is the more you do that, the fewer fallbacks you have. Like right now, the reason Apple can provide the FBI with people's iCloud backups under court order is because Apple keeps a key to your iCloud backups.

And why does it do that? It's because if you forget your password and all your photos are in iCloud, if they don't have that key, your stuff is gone forever. And that's a bad user experience. It's a bad customer experience. So they keep the key so they can bail you out of that particular instance. They can bail you out if you forget your password. And that's a challenge, right? Because they can lock this down, but it's locked down in a way that makes it scary for what might happen, what bad things might happen to people. So I think that's going to be Apple's challenge in the long run is how do you make this acceptable for customers and what things are optional and what are not optional but i do think that apple is going to try to make it and i think it's certainly possible it's just

a matter of how far down that road does apple want to go because most regular users are not going to want a sophisticated security regimen with you know secret uh backup codes stored in on a piece of paper that they keep in a safe at the bank or something like that, which you could do with Google, I think. I think I have that for Google, where I've got backup codes for my two-factor that are in a secret document. But that's kind of too much for most regular people. So I think that's the problem here more than anything technical is it can be a bad situation. It can be a bad user experience if there's no way to get that.

You see people all the time who are really furious about, what do you mean I can't get that back just because I don't know my password? Isn't there any way you can retrieve that for me? And in some cases, the answer is no. All right. I feel like we'll be talking about encryption forever. Mark wants to know, do you ever feed your cables through the hole in the iMac stand? I do. I do.

I don't think everything, but a lot of cables that I have going into the back of my iMac are fed through the hole in the stand. My thinking is the hole is there. Why not use it? Yeah, if you've got the hole, you might as well use the hole. I used to do that occasionally, but now

I have an iMac with no stand. So how is your cables managed on the management of the cables? So I've got the arm, so I'm not running it through the hole, but this is why I've got the arm so um i'm not running it through the hole but i've got this is why i've got the um thunderbolt breakout box that i got when my macbook air was my main system and i was attaching it i was docking it every day um and i've kept it because of the cable management thing

so i've got a bunch of cables running into the thunderbolt breakout box and then a single cable running up into my into my mac and uh Mac. And so those are tied off and just the Thunderbolt and power run off the back of the desk. That sounds very managed. Yeah, it's more than is usual for me. I'm not one, I would guess that most of our listeners

are more finicky about stuff like that than I am. But I did decide, and yes, John Syracuse did see my setup and shamed me. That happens every four or five years. He sees where I work in person and shakes his head, and I feel bad. But I figured that was a cool use. I like the idea that I've got that breakout box Velcroed to the back of the base of my desk, basically. So that's where the cables are, back of the base of my desk, basically. So that's where the cables are, but I don't see it. And I've got this, and because my iMac's arm is on an arm and hovers over the desk, my desk is surprisingly clear, which is pleasant. I like that. Brad would like to know what our biggest

technology letdowns have been in the past year. And I tried to think about this and I thought, you know, we were upset about the iPhone setup processes. We've been upset about Apple TV stuff, about watch stuff. But your choice for this, I can't think of something bigger than this. That's annoying me more right now and I think is annoying me more than those things annoyed me. me more right now and I think is annoying me more than those things annoyed me. So what is your choice? Google apps on the iPad in general and the iPad Pro in particular. That's the biggest letdown. And we've mentioned it and Federico Vatici mentions it every time that there's a new update for Google, the Google apps for iPad Pro that doesn't make them work with the iPad Pro better. It's disappointing. They are, they were at one point impressive, and they now feel not impressive when you compare them to

so many other productivity apps that, like the Microsoft Office Suite, for example, that has been updated for iPad Pro and works great. And then we rely on Google Docs for so many things, Google Spreadsheets and Docs. And the iPad Pro, it's like whenever I think I need to look in a, like for this show, I woke up this morning and I thought, oh, I should look at the document and see if Mike's put some stuff in our document for the show. And I thought, yeah, it's a Google Doc. I'm just going to wait until I'm at my Mac later because it's just not, I can't even bear it to use it. It's just, it's crappy. So hopefully they'll do something with it.

But that's what I'm going to say is my biggest letdown right now. 2016 edition at least. Stuart has asked, is there anything Apple could announce for the MacBook on the 21st that would make you transition back from an iPad Pro? Jason? No, not really. I feel like they're very different devices. I really enjoy, as I wrote in that Macworld story that I mentioned earlier, I like using my iPad when I'm not at my desk. I've

got my Mac setting here where I'm working in my office and I've got this setup. And then when I am not here, I prefer to use the iPad. It's a nice change of pace. It handles everything that I really need when I'm not sitting at my desk. And I like that about it. But I will say that eventually, I'm going to need either the iPad will need to be capable of doing recording podcasts, or I will have to buy at some point a replacement for this 11 inch core i7 MacBook Air, which is going to last me. It's already like way faster than the current MacBook is. So it seems unlikely that I will need a replacement for it anytime soon as the thing that I use, essentially I bring with me for this single task. So it's the race is on, I guess, about whether podcast recording support comes to iOS or I need a new laptop.

But I don't think there's anything they could announce for the new MacBook that would make me want one. There's nothing that could come to the Mac now which would make me want to go back to using the Mac as my primary computer for the majority of work that I do. You know, I've said this before, with some exceptions where like, you know, maybe I'm like, so like for today, I've done most of my work on the Mac because I was recording and then I had two hours or so and then we'll be recording again. So I was like, I'm just going to sit here and do some editing and stuff and be at my Mac and do some other tasks here today. But the majority of my work that is not recording audio or editing audio is being done on my iPad now. And I don't think that there's anything that a new Mac could get

that would make me change that. Just because I prefer iOS for a lot of that stuff now. It's just how my brain is working. But I do have some hope actually for this, for some new Mac announcements because I would really like to replace my MacBook Pro with something thinner and lighter solely because now the only time that I ever use a MacBook Pro

is editing a podcast on a plane. So I would like that device to be a thinner, lighter device so when I'm carrying it in my bag on my back for multiple hours going through airports and wherever I might be traveling, I would like that machine to be less noticeable and easier to get around. Because with the iPad Pro and the MacBookbook pro in my bag that can start to add up a bit yeah that makes sense that makes sense i just i i i don't view this as a as a uh kind of uh metronome thing where on the tick i go to the ipad pro and on the talk i go i go back to

the to the the macbook I feel like at this point, I love my MacBook Air. I've always loved my MacBook Air, but I very rarely use it now because the iPad is, I think, a better tool and a better fit for when I'm out of the context of being at my desk on this giant iMac. And if I didn't have the iMac and I need to use the, I would need to use a Mac to do some of this stuff because I do prefer a lot of the stuff that I do on, on the Mac. Um, and that would change it. But having the desktop makes me less, uh, like I need, feel like I need to use the laptop. So I'm, I'm pretty happy with the, with the iPad and giant desktop computer lifestyle right

now what is one company this comes from jeff that you wish apple would acquire that they probably never will uh mine is twitter and purely because i feel that if apple bought twitter apple would care less about trying to make Twitter make money. Which means that it would stay more and would be more likely to stay the way that I like it. I'm going to say a video service like HBO or Netflix.

Why is that? Well, because Apple's talking about spending, well no, rumors are and speculation is that Apple might start doing more beyond this Dr. Dre show that they're doing for Apple Music. They might use this as a way to grow their services revenue is by doing a video service. And I thought, well, you could also just buy a video service. And Netflix and HBO are interesting examples of that. Yeah, because I guess as well, if they buy something, they get something all wrapped up

and ready to go for them and they won't have to spend so much time and effort and energy and resource in trying to set up their own, I guess. Not that I can imagine integrating a pre-existing company into your company

is a very easy thing to do, but they did it with beats. Yeah, but they probably never will, which was the question. Yep. And finally today, this is a question directed to me from John, and John starts off by saying, Jason talks about sports, Mike, but you never do. Did you want to be a footballer when you were a kid?

Did you have a poster of David Beckham on your wall? I have and had and continue to have and probably always will have no interest in sports I've never been good at sport I've had fleeting interests in things like I used to go to a local basketball games as a kid there are some sports that I don't mind watching when they're on I like to watch basketball I like to watch the super bowl but i have no interest in in real sports i have a documented love of professional wrestling but it's not a sport not a sport it's not it's an entertainment show and they do athletic things but it's not a sport in the term of what people think of when they think of sports. It is a sporty-like thing, but it is, you know, it's not a team sport.

It's not an individual sport. It's not tennis. It's not football. It's none of those things. So, no, I don't have a love of any traditional sport, and I can't imagine that ever changing. It just doesn't push my buttons. Fair enough i i was

never good at sports but i i love them so i don't think you have to be good at them in order to like them but you were neither good at them nor like them exactly so you know it was kind of both really and i think they ended up feeding each other as time went on yeah no understandable there's a huge portion of the uh of of the audience of i would imagine this show that uh doesn't like sports and that that's always been interesting for me because i do and i i've got definitely gotten that wait a second nerds aren't supposed to like sports don't you know and i i guess i missed that memo because there are actually a lot of sports nerds out there too i gotta gotta break it to you they're pen nerds they're sports nerds just because there are actually a lot of sports nerds out there too you gotta break it to you there are pen nerds they're sports nerds just because there are jocks who beat you up there it seems

like there are not a lot of nerds that like uh baseball because there's a lot of statistics in baseball very very much so very much because it is it is there there are statistic nerds for every sport but baseball has drawn a lot of them because it is so so quantified by statistics and you can capture a lot about the sport just from the statistics of it

Arrel no David Beckham posters for you maybe a poster of a wrestler yeah probably when I was a kid because it has been a thing that I've liked since I was a child so there I am that's me thank I've liked since I was a child. All right. There I am. That's me. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade.

I won't be here next week, but you have a special guest planned. Yeah, next week, hopefully, if everything is aligned properly, we'll be joined by Mr. John Syracuse to talk about who knows what. But stay tuned for that because we're going to try to make that happen. And I'll look forward to listening to that. On my way back from a wedding in Dallas, I met Alexander of RelayFM. He's not really of RelayFM. He has a show with me that we do occasionally.

Most of the time, he's just selling pants. Exactly. He's getting married, so I'm going to be going out for that, which I'm looking forward to. All right. But if you want to catch our show notes, as you should, obviously, head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 78. Thanks again to our friends at Ministry of Supply and Fresh Books

for sponsoring this week's episode. If you want to find Jason online, head on over to sixcolors.com, and he does some podcasts at the incomparable and a couple other shows on the lovely relay fm want to find me online i am uh over at mikewasright.com for some stuff and i do many shows on relay fm we're both on twitter jason is at jsnl j-s-n-e-double-l i am at imike i-m-y-k-e and if you would like to follow the Upgrade FM podcast account it is underscore upgrade FM thank you so much for listening

we'll be back, well Jason will next time, until then, say goodbye Mr. Snell have fun in Dallas Mike yeehaw woohoo