Upgrade - 81: Live From Interstate 280

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

Myke catches up with Jason fresh from Apple’s March 21 event in Cupertino and keeps him company on his long drive home up Interstate 280. From the new smaller iPad Pro to the interesting iPhone SE, we break down everything Apple announced—and some things it didn’t!

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 81 today's show is brought to you by ministry of supply squarespace it pro tv and fresh books my name is mike hurley of course today we have an episode all about the apple event that has occurred, the March 21st Apple event. But we're doing something a little bit different. Of course, we're going to talk about the event and everything that went down. But before we do, I want to hand over to our reporter in the field, Mr. Jason Snell. to Jason Snell. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, listeners. You are listening to me coming from

inside my car. I am Jason Snell, and this is the weirdest episode ever of Upgrade. So, uh, it's 7-E 7-11 and I am making my way from my home in Marin County, Northern California, just north of San Francisco. I'm going to go across the Golden Gate Bridge and then I'm going to end up going through the city of San Francisco and down US 101. Well, let's see. Through the city of

San Francisco. Well, okay. So here's the Sturvest, San Francisco. They don't have a lot of freeways where you might expect there to be freeways, like through the city. So after I get off the Golden Gate Bridge, I have to go on the streets of San Francisco through, through the city on Park Presidio Avenue and 19th Avenue. And then on to Interstate 280. And then that'll take me the rest of the way to Infinite Loop and Cupertino for the Apple event, which this episode is actually about. I'm on the freeway now, it's very exciting. So before we get to the post event part of the CarCast,

which is what I'm calling this, I thought I would talk a little bit about the event atmosphere, because I know Mike likes to do that. Mike likes me to talk about it, because he's never been to do that. Mike likes me to talk about it because he's never been to one of these Apple Media events. So this Town Hall, this is going to take place in the Town Hall Conference Center, which is in R&D 4 at Infinite Loop. And Stephen Hackett and I over the weekend compiled a list of kind of the notable town hall events that have happened since the iPod introduction in 2001, which I went to, and there were a few before then, but we decided

that the history of that place, it gets, internet history gets really vague before 2001, so we didn't want to make any claims. We feel like we're pretty confident that our list is everything that's been since 2001. And it's really like one a year that there have been these events at the town hall. Town hall, it was designed almost certainly for internal communications, right? Team meetings. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, there were probably team meetings in there. You can have up to 300 people talking about what the vision for the group is or the company or whatever. As a media event area, it used to be fine. The iPod event was just fine. But over the years, as interest in Apple has grown, a 300-seat venue is ridiculously small for any event. And at the end there, they were doing like,

they did a couple Mac-related events there. But in general, it's a tough ticket. And at the end there, they were doing like, they did a couple Mac-related events there. But in general, it's a tough ticket. And I'm fortunate to even be getting in there. Also, the way that they handled this over the years has really changed. It used to be you would show up in front of R&D 4, you just park in the parking lot behind number 4, and go up and there would like be a couple of fold-out tables, and PR people with little printed-out lists of people, and they'd check you in, and they'd give you a badge, and you'd go inside.

Actually, you'd wait outside, and they might have some bagels on a table over in the corner, but everybody would mill around outside, and eventually they would let us in to this teeny-tiny lobby on the inside, but that was super claustrophobic um and then eventually they let you in it was uh they they've changed it now that was the way it was for a long time there was this interim step where what they did was i don't know what usually is upstairs from there but i think they changed it at some point into a briefing center um or certainly it's convertible into that. So there's a there's an upstairs right off of the lobby for R&D 4 which is the super narrow lobby and there's

an upstairs with a large room like a common room that I think was meant to be sort of like the hangout meeting place area for the employees who work there and so then they started outfitting that with like it has chairs but they'd also like put some breakfast out up there the first time we saw that we're like what what is happening with apple that they're they're like giving us um like there were like like egg stations and stuff it was bizarre we're like what what is happening but i think they decided that it was a little embarrassing for them to have the folding tables and bagels in the corner. And they wanted to kind of do it up. And also there were so many people that it was unruly. So they put in that extra effort.

And for the last event, and what I believe they're doing today, is they're actually having us come to R&D 1. There's a special parking lot at the front that uh that is usually like visitor parking that they're going to limit for this which is good because another unreported story about apple is that parking at the apple campus is ridiculous these days um like ridiculous they they actually have hired a valet service and they they now double park cars in the apple parking lot because there's not enough room because the campus is packed. So, but they, for this event, they've made this space available over by One Infinite Loop, which is where it's the main entrance. That's where the new company store is. It's all over

right as you get in. And that's like what people think of as Apple headquarters is opening the door to One Infinite Loop. So just like last time, I assume today, we're going to go in through One Infinite Loop through the main entrance, which is very impressive. It's much more impressive. You're led in by PR people, and then they take you out into the center of the loop, which is where they've got a waiting area. And last time, there was a waiting area with some tents. waiting area. And last time there was a waiting area with some tents. And again, they're serving food because nothing gets journalists on your good side better than serving food. And that's where we kind of waited out. They told us to be there by nine. The event is at 10. That's to shame all of the late people into getting there on time.

And so we just hang out there, and that's where you see the people. There are people I only see at Apple events these days, which is pretty funny, and I like to see them, and I admire their work, and we interact on Twitter. But a lot of times, I only ever see them at Apple events. And not for very long. I see them before the Apple event,

because afterward, although I see them, we're all working on our stories. So what happens is they'll usher us in, you'll get a seat, it's super tight and uncomfortable. We'll all sit there, cover the event. And then afterward, we're usually let into a hands-on area. It may be outside this time, now that they're sort of like setting up this area outside it's possible it'll be outside if it's not outside it may be there's a piano bar

with the famous piano that was has been a part of apple for decades now um that piano bar space is right across from uh from town hall so it may be there and, and it may be outside, it might be upstairs, but usually there's a big hands-on area where everybody in the press can go and get their paws on the latest stuff, and it needs to be capacity for 300 people, because there's 300 people that fit in the venue, so it's always a challenge for them. A lot of times the size of the venue is controlled by the size of the hands-on area because even if you had a an auditorium that's seated a thousand that's not enough like the new one will do at the new apple campus that'll seat a thousand that's not enough you also need an area large

enough that you could take roughly a thousand journalists and give them a reasonable amount of access to a hands-on area because that's that's just part of the deal as far as apple is concerned so it'll be interesting to see how that's area because that's just part of the deal as far as Apple is concerned. So it'll be interesting to see how that's executed, but I have no doubt that the new Apple campus auditorium will have been designed with that need in mind, and that'll be interesting to see hopefully next year. So anyway, I'll see all those people in the hands-on area afterward, and we won't be talking because everybody's shooting video and taking pictures. And that area has become more and more intense over time because now people are committed, a lot of them, to shooting a bunch of photos and instantly posting a gallery or shooting a lot of video. And that's actually a new trend that kind of bugs me as somebody who's not that invested in it.

And that's actually a new trend that kind of bugs me as somebody who's not that invested in it. And I totally understand why people do it. But there's nothing worse than waiting around a hands-on area trying to look at a product only to discover that the person who's got it is there with a cameraman. And they're going to shoot, hey, guys, I'm here at the Apple event. Let me walk you through everything about this new iPhone. And it's going to take forever. So you just move on. Move on to another place.

One of these days they should probably have like a special area for people doing hands-on videos. I bet you that would be a better thing. Anyway, and then when all that is said and done, my plan right now is to hop back in the car and drive back home. And along the way do this experimental car cast. And the reason for that is largely because when they have these events in Cupertino, it takes me an hour and a half to get home. And that is prime time. I should really be working on something involving the event. But I haven't been able to do that because I've been just sitting there driving and there's sort of like nothing

nothing else I can do with that time it's just kind of a waste of my time and I said to Mike hey Mike what if we did a podcast during my drive home from the event so I will I will do a Skype call with Mike and then record my end using this microphone that I'm talking to you on now and Mike will put it together and it will have all of the magic and majesty of a podcast where somebody's in a car so now we're going to go into the upgrade time machine i'm going to throw it back to mike and mike is going to tell you about something really cool and then we are going to move ahead past the apple event to the aftermath take it away mike thank you to our man in the field our man on the way to the aftermath. Take it away, Mike. Thank you to our man in the field, our man on the way to the field at that point,

Mr. Jason Snell. As Jason said, when we come back from this break, we will be together talking about everything that happened in the Apple event from our very special show in which we're recording on the way back from location. This week's episode is brought to you by Ministry of Supply. Everyday clothing should be smarter. We know this. It should be designed

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and show your support for this show. I love the clothes that Ministry of Supply make. They are comfortable. They are fantastic and I've seen in person that they do not need to be ironed. I have them. I've seen other people wearing them and they look great. I've had compliments from my shirts. I know other people have too. I think you're going to look fantastic in them. Not only can you get 15% off your first purchase at ministryofsupply.com upgrade. If you want to go to a Ministry of Supply store, just mention this show and you will get that same 15% discount. Thank you so much to Ministry of Supply for their support of this show and RelayFM. apply for their support of this show and RelayFM. Okay, so dialing in from a road somewhere in Cupertino is our intrepid man in the field, Mr. Jason Snell. Hello, Mr. Jason Snell. Welcome to

Upgrade. Hi, Mike. Welcome to Upgrade indeed. I am coming to you live from the uh interstate 280 you might know it from the maps icon and uh i just have left the apple campus where i i just uh finished working on uh the uh the apple media event interstate 280 is my favorite of all the interstates it's the best number of all of them 280 so we are trying something a little bit different today uh you are we wanted to get the show out as quick as possible with all of the information and you're now taking this drive and so many people listen to podcasts while they drive we figured why why not do a driving podcast so here we are it's double the cars double the cars so you're on your way back now back to uh six colors hq and yes so i want to do our usual i want to talk about the event um obviously you were there it was a small uh small

audience right this this is a much smaller event when they do them uh town hall yeah it's uh 300 capacity i think it's very small and it used to be sufficient for little apple events here and there uh back in the day but apple is so popular and successful now that it's not really sufficient for anything but the the kind of smallest of events and this was one of those smaller events but still it was a tough ticket a lot of people who usually go weren't there and it's probably as steven hackett and i wrote about on six colors this week and as tim cook mentioned at the end of the presentation so that was a pretty good bit of timing uh probably the last event in that venue so so did you see everybody like was was there a good crowd there today yeah i mean it's

a lot of the same people that i usually see uh jim dalrymple john grouper matt panzerino renee ritchie uh you know uh clayton morris uh i saw steven levy um you know the people that i see at apple events a lot of them were there but it's a smaller crowd so obviously there were a lot of people who i often see at these events who who couldn't fit in the room so weren't there yeah of course um so i have my notes i was watching at home uh i was watching on my imac with my ipad pro in front of me that i was taking notes on and reading twitter so i had a whole multi-screen setup going on um so i figured we would go through the event chronologically and kind of talk about each of them.

So we started off with a video, which was kind of a reminder that in a couple of weeks' time, on April 1st, Apple is 40 years old. So they did kind of a 40-second intro where they showed a lot of kind of the history and the buzzwords and the colors and the product names of the company's history you know i guess you probably recognized quite a few things from that list including the crossed out newton that's the uh that's how you deleted things on the newton was writing with that way yeah i i recognized a lot of that stuff and uh i'm looking

forward to going back through the video and watching it because obviously it just shot by and and uh there's probably i i did have an idea for a few stories based on that because i want to write about the 40th anniversary too i'm sure mr steven hackett is already writing the complete annotated version of that video and if he isn't he should probably get on that yeah Yeah, most definitely. I think he sent me a message, I believe, and he said, I should have made this. And it's like, yeah, that feels like this is right up your alley. And then it was Tim time. Tim came out and he said a couple of words

about how many Apple devices that there are. And we kind of heard about this on the last financial analyst call that there's 1 billion Apple devices in use right now. And he used this as a springboard to jump right into the FBI thing. And me and you spoke about this last week. And I think we both came to the conclusion that it was likely that this would come up in some way. And Tim went at it head on. And he started talking about the way that our devices are personal to us. And he was saying things like, how much power should we give the government over our data and privacy? And he carried on by saying, as Apple,

we did not expect to be at odds with our government, but we believe we have a responsibility to our customers. We owe it to them and will not shrink from this responsibility. This performed very well. It was considered and impassioned. How did it feel being in the room? This got quite an ovation afterwards to hear Tim so strongly talk about this FBI scenario. strongly talk about this FBI scenario? Well, you know, we've heard him talk about this before, so it wasn't surprising, I guess. And the people in the room get it. It's the people in the room, it's the first five rows are Apple employees or special guests, and then the rest of the room is reporters covering Apple. But anybody who's writing about this and understands the technology

industry knows, you know, knows what Apple's doing here and knows what the FBI is trying to pull. And I'm pretty sure that almost everybody in that room believes that Apple is in the right. And I was surprised and we talked about it, like you said last week, I was a little surprised that this is that it was in as depth as it was. I sort of anticipated a nod to it, you know, like a, you know, of course, we take your privacy seriously. You may have heard something about that.

But instead, he, you know, to Tim Cook's credit, he tackled it head on. I feel like he is an incredibly, I think one of his superpowers, actually, is that he's a very, he seems like a very honest and straightforward guy. I just, I don't get any artifice from Tim Cook. He feels like a genuine person.

And so when he says we care about this stuff and it matters to us and we want to, when they say that they want to leave the world a better place. And when they say that they care about the privacy and security of their customers you know i believe him i don't think this is i mean it is the challenge is it is also pr right this is a press event it's a media event yeah it's meant to be company pr it is company pr it does make them look good but i also think they believe in and tim cook certainly i think it. Yeah, I definitely stand with you on the believing part. You can tell he does. This did feel to me like the reason they're bringing this up now is because there has been some public pushback,

maybe from the media spinning this or people that just don't believe that this should be Apple's view. So I definitely saw this as a time where they can say, this is why we're doing it. There are customers of ours that think this is the right thing to do. We wanted to give you a little bit of background as to why we believe this is important, for the people watching that maybe didn't agree.

Having seen that, and having seen this from Apple today, I can definitely see why they did this. I think that it was the right thing for them to come out and say something on this stage, because if they didn't, you know, they would have basically just been called cowards in the press. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you, actually. And in looking at it like that, I like that. I think you're right. How could you not talk about it? Like, how could you not? How could you? Apple, you know, Apple today tried to release a bunch of products while ignoring the huge, you know, the elephant in the room, essentially.

So, you know, I'm glad I'm glad Cook took the time. I'm glad they took the time to talk about the other stuff that we're going to get to. I think I think it needed to be said in some form. We know that we've seen for the last few weeks. the last few weeks it's a back and forth dialogue between the apple and between apple and the fbi in terms of uh who who says what to whom and and and what abed runs and what newspaper or on what website and this was apple's serve apple got a chance in its own event to to make its pitch and tomorrow you know tomorrow we're going to get it on a neutral court theoretically in the case between the Apple FBI case. And we'll see then. But this was their, how do you pass up an opportunity

to have your swing today? And so they took it. Yeah, and I think it was the right thing to do. And then they took an interesting move on from here. And I want to get some thoughts from you in a moment as to why they may have done this. But they went into two different areas, environment and health.

So first up, they brought Lisa Jackson onto stage. I believe this is her first outing on the stage for Apple. I think so. And basically, this was all about Apple's renewable energy and their recycling. They're kind of the two big things they were focusing on. 93% of Apple's facilities currently run on renewable energy. They're targeting 100. And they were given some examples of facilities where they're building their own renewable energy sources where they can't get eco power from the grid.

So that was really cool to see some of those. And also they were showing about their efforts in packaging, and 99% of their packaging now comes from recycled paper or sustainably managed forests. But the really cool thing that they showed off was an R&D project called Liam. And they even created a little video about this. And Liam is a robot that is disassembling... Or not. showed off was an R&D project called Liam. And they even created a little video about this.

And Liam is a robot that is disassembling... Or not. Yeah, or not. He's disassembling Apple's products. So they showed this little system of it detecting parts with a camera which it can remove and then it sort of filters them so they can harvest the materials, basically, for use in later products.

This thing is crazy. Yeah, I like the idea that what Apple's saying is that they're using their, they're not just using their technical acumen to build products. They're actually using some of their technical acumen to build products that disassemble tools, that disassemble their products so that they're in a better... Because that's one of the problems with electronics recycling is that it's this mixed up set of waste of different kinds of metals and glass and all of these different things that go into this. And so I think it's really interesting that Apple is now highlighting

that they built a tool and she said it was built in California. They built a robot or not that it's designed to pick apart Apple products so that Apple's recycling efforts of its own products can be more efficient. The video is really great. People should definitely check out the video. It is a really impressive, cool little bit of machinery. Yeah, I don't know where that video lives. So I'll see if I can find that. I assume it's in the presentation stream. Presumably they will post all of those videos on their own at some point to Apple.com. But, you know, we're recording this like an hour after the event,

so it may not be up yet. Yeah, but it will be at least in the presentation for sure. It's not on their environment page right now, but it might be there. Oh, Kyle's the Gray has just sent to me in the chat room the recycling page, and the Liam video is at the bottom of the recycling page. This is also a thing that apple

viva revamped or they're pushing more which is their uh recycling efforts bringing in stuff you can send products to them now you can print off uh your shipping labels for free uh i'll tell you something i like on the recycling page jason you can't see this all of the images of the products they're all dinged up every single one uh they've all got scratches on them and nick's taken out of them and it's really fun to see apple's products on their own website uh all dinged up like this so that's that's really cool i like that so you can they're really promoting this heavily which is good stuff you know to to to really highlight these types of things a little bit more. Also, they went into health and Jeff Williams came on stage again for this.

If you remember, Jeff, he introduced Research Kit and they had an update about Research Kit today. They were talking about how some of the things that come from Research Kit, some of the studies have become some of the largest medical studies in history. And this has happened basically overnight because of the amount of people they're able to get onto these programs by offering these apps through the phone. And they showed some really great videos of some of the apps and tools that are helping discover children with autism, highlighting data collection for Parkinson's and epilepsy. data collection for Parkinson's and epilepsy. And, you know, they're really heartwarming videos, but they're a good thing to show because this is stuff that Apple is helping create,

and they're helping provide the tools for people to go out and make these apps and experiences. And they also showed off CareKit today, which is a new framework to build apps specifically to help people take an active role in their care. So they're starting with, like, a Parkinson's app to try and help people understand how to take better care of

themselves by logging activity and logging their feelings and they also showed how you can share this information with a doctor and they can update what medications you should be taking and stuff like that. So again this is just another really nice thing that Apple's doing. And, you know, I saw quite a few people mention the Dent in the Universe line. And this stuff does highlight that. I mean, it can be easy when you're talking about these things as an Apple fan to sound sycophantic, right? That you're saying that Apple is amazing because they changed the world by making it better for everyone. But if this stuff really does make a difference in medical care,

this is great because, you know what, they don't have to do this. Yeah, I think Apple, I mean, we're talking again, we talked about it last year too, about their core values. This is an interesting place where Apple could just stop at selling a phone, or a watch but it's got a strategy and the strategy involves making money but it also involves sort of like how do we take advantage of this technology and that's in all of our pockets and on our many of our wrists right and some of that is health like health and and fitness stuff. But definitely they, and I think the reason Jeff Williams is doing a lot of this

is because he's so involved with the Apple Watch stuff, that this is part of Apple's belief that if we've all got supercomputers in our pockets and we can start to have sensors on our bodies that are all connected, that somebody needs to put all of that together and all that data and be able to, again, make the world a better place, right? And I think this is one of those areas where Apple's business motives

and maybe its altruistic motives are in alignment, that this shows off and provides a use for this technology that they're building and selling. But at the same time, I think that there's the question of, well, who else would do this, right? It's sort of up to the platform vendors to push forward on this. And I don't know what Google's initiatives are in this area for using Android. And if they work with hardware partners on it, they may. And they may have that, too. But certainly from Apple's perspective, as the platform owner, as the designer of the hardware and the software for so many of these devices,

for certainly the iPhone and the Apple Watch, that, you know, it fits. It fits with what they're doing. And that's what, to me, that's what that whole first part of this presentation was about, is never forget it's a PR event. Apple wants you to know how great they are about doing those things, but it doesn't change the fact that they're doing them. Yeah, definitely. But why do you think Apple chose to open the event in this style?

Why not the usual retail updates? Why this kind of messaging, do you think? I think this is, I don't know. I mean, it feels a little bit like an example of Apple rethinking its sort of standard playbook. Like, yes, tell us about how many retail stores you opened. Yes, tell us again how many you know activations you've got they did say there were a billion you know apple devices currently active but um i don't know

do you have to do that every time when do you get a chance to talk about research kit is it a wwdc you know maybe but i so i think i i don't know i mean i think they don't need to remind us how great their numbers are. Also, you know, let's, not to be cynical, but the iPhone sales aren't exactly shooting through the stratosphere right now. They've kind of plateaued. So maybe they've decided this is a perfectly good time

to get the focus a little bit off of raw numbers. And then I'll throw in there too, when Apple is trying to portray itself in this battle with the FBI, especially as caring about its customers coming out i is it is it maybe a liability that they're one of the most profitable companies in history does that make it problematic for them to say that they're there they have altruistic motives and they care about their customers when they're incredibly profitable and it could it could be seen as boasting about their success if they do that

versus seeming a little more humble and giving back and taking that approach. Maybe that's a better approach tone-wise while they're locked in a battle with the U.S. government over these privacy issues. Yeah, it definitely doesn't hurt to take this kind of stance from a PR perspective. And I agree. I think as maybe some of the sales numbers get just a little bit less crazier and crazier every time and they become more flat maybe, it becomes less of an exciting story to show them off, I think. Right. Then it becomes, yep, we made more money.

We made more billions of dollars on the iPhone. Yep. Which is less exciting than, look at the iPhone growth. It's amazing. We're in these new countries. And, you know, look at all of our retail sales expansion. Maybe that's not as big a deal now. And, you know, people are going to be much more inclined to listen to a company that is talking about how it wants to make the world a better place than if it's like Scrooge McDuck diving in a giant pool of gold coins, right? Which is being seen as boastful and rich and all of that.

Those are not good things to put yourself out as being, especially when you're really relying on the public to get behind you. Yep. All right. After this break, we're going to talk about some of the product updates and announcements. But first, let me take a moment to thank our friends over at ITProTV for making this episode possible. Do you have a career plan set in motion?

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That's less than $40 per month or $399 per year. And don't forget to mark your calendar for their CCMP security courses which will stream live for the first time beginning March 21st. So that's itpro.tv slash upgrade and the code upgrade30. Thank you so much to itpro.tv for their support of this week's show, this special episode of Upgrade. So we move on to the Apple Watch now um just a very quick update on the apple watch um basically some statistics which not very useful uh top selling smartwatch number one

in customer satisfaction market's not huge right now yeah take a drink on the customer set numbers uh the i guess the biggest news is the new bands the the watch does now start at 299 so there's been a price drop which is great um but you know the product is getting a bit old now so a price drop is not crazy um this will probably help shift some of the stock that they've got in advance of new hardware later in the year so we have a few new bands we have a woven nylon band it's kind of like the nato bands that people were talking about um the images that apple showed on stage they didn't look too great to me uh the images on apple's website and from verge hands-on look nicer so i'm assuming you've seen these these bands jason what's your opinion uh they're not i mean they're not for me but they're nice they're they're i like you know

we had those rumors about that they were going to do the nato watch strap style sort of thing and instead it's more like apple's take on that with the with the woven nylon. So if you want a woven fabric band, they look nice. That's not my preference in terms of style, but they look nice. And then they also did, Tim Cook actually said, I believe, spring colors.

These are our spring colors. So it's fascinating to see the fashion angle here where they refresh the colors. So there are like, I don't know, I have a picture of it, like 20 new bands, if you count all the different colors of all the different styles. There's even like the sport band, the orange that I've got, that's out. There's a new orange. So see, this is what I'm saying is that it's fascinating because it's all about personalization and style and fashion. And I think that's fun. I wish Apple would get beyond the four colors of the iPhone and MacBook.

I wish we would have some more fun colors in the other products they make. Well, all of the colors, the new spring colors are reflected in the, in new cases for the iPhone. Yeah. You can put a case on that. That's fine. I just, you know, I would love the iPhone to get colorful again, uh, or, or colorful like the nanos got colorful at some point. I know we've talked about that before, but, but yeah, they But yeah, you know, it's more styles. And there was a statistic too. I forget what it was that, what, a third of Apple Watch users wear more than one band. I didn't catch that, but that doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, and I'm one of those people. I have three different bands. I switch them around. I like wearing them all. And it's just kind of fun. It my watch feel more um fun to wear because it's not the same old same old all the time yeah you know i wear the orange for a while i've got the orange on now orange sport and then i'll think oh i'm gonna switch to the black leather now and i'll wear that for a little while and then i'll switch to the black sport and just it's it's fun to have that i i you know i am

not a fashionable person so it's i'm not really doing it so much to be seen as i am to uh to just have kind of fun and and enjoy what i'm wearing and yeah and uh just have it not seem like you know it's like you bought a new thing except you didn't you just swapped in a new band for a while so uh the the new sport bands that i'm personally interested in there is a yellow a royal blue and the product red um so i wanted to go to a store and look at those they have the woven nylon bands which i want to take a look at um i'm hoping that maybe they'll be in the apple stores tomorrow i'll take a look on to see if i can reserve one and go take a look at one they have a new black milanese loop and they for the first time have

colors in the classic buckle so they have a bunch of colored leather and colors in the modern buckle as well so they're branching out of just the standard ones there um yeah there was a there was like a purpley purpley or bluey kind of I'm bad with colors classic buckle that I thought looked really great. Yeah. And I know I thought of you the moment I saw this. I thought of you and I thought, oh, Mike's going to be going to the Apple store and stare at the pretty new colors and come home with a new Apple Watch Band or two. I love them. I really, as you say, like it's about the customization thing.

And I like changing them up. I think it's fun. They're not massively expensive. I mean, look, if you add up how much money I will have ended up spending, I could end up getting close to buying another Apple Watch. But my hope would be that these will work on my next one too. So I think this is just a fun little thing. I like to do it in the same way that people would buy clothes.

So that's all that we have on the Apple Watch, which is not surprising. I think that was all that we expected. I think maybe we got more band customization than we thought we were going to get. Some of those modern buckle and lever, the modern buckle and the clasp one and the classic buckle. I think that we weren't really expecting to get all of those. So there's more there. Then we move on to the Apple TV. Not really much mentioned here.

Just TVOS 9.2 is now available. It has folders and dictation. They mentioned on stage. Was this Joss giving this part of the presentation? Yeah, Greg Joswiak, who has been at Apple forever and occasionally appears in keynotes and other media events. And it was Jaws doing the... He did the iPhone. Did he do the Apple TV?

That might have been Tim Cook. Yeah, it was either Tim or Craig, I think. Basically, the usual suspects weren't on stage today. It was Tim, I think. Craig Federici wasn't on stage today. And neither was Eddie. No, that was Craig Josway. So the Apple TV stuff,

I mean, it's the stuff that was in the beta. So people who've been following the beta know about it. But, you know, I think for me, most notable is support for iCloud Photo Library. The fact, and for every Apple TV update,

we're going to say the same thing, which is why was that not in there when it launched? But it's in there now. That was one of the great mysteries to me. And yeah, support for dictation, support for more data sources with even more on the way. Tim Cook said, that was Tim Cook, because I remember him.

He got to say, great HBO, like Game of Thrones and Veep, and of course, Silicon Valley. So, so yeah, that's all, that's all good. It's just, it's funny. I'm not, I don't want to complain about it, because I think it's great that they keep iterating on Apple TV, and they should keep iterating on it. It's a little bit funny that, that a lot of this stuff has taken six months to get on the device but it's great that they're doing it i'm very happy to see after you know what a couple of years of stasis with the old apple tv that they the shipping of the apple tv uh last fall was not the end of the conversation that they're actively adding new stuff to it uh to this day that's actually great to see

you know when i when i hear this it's like and we look at this it's like i think it would have adding new stuff to it to this day. That's actually great to see. You know, when I hear this, and we look at this, it's like, I think it would have maybe just been easier for them if this just wasn't called the Apple TV. It was called something else. Because this is a product that already existed. We're on the fourth generation of it,

and we took major steps back, and eventually it will be better and much better. It already is better in some instances, but we lost some features that we're kind of clawing back over time and it's like well it is kind of it is a different product really but it unfortunately shares the same name but it would be um your comparison would be to the macbook right where the new macbook is not the macbook air which means that we can complain about it being slower than the macbook air but MacBook is not the MacBook Air which means that we can complain about it being slower than the MacBook Air but it's not the MacBook Air right we can't say the MacBook

Air just got slower because it's a different product with different attributes yeah and with the Apple TV it's just the Apple TV so it it looks like a you know it's progress on some fronts and regression on others. But it's good. Like I said, it's good to see this stuff. I can say that maybe some of it should have been there sooner, but you know, it's there now. And that's good. It's raining.

Can you hear that? Here comes the rain, yeah. This is the one thing we were hoping wouldn't happen. It is coming down hard. Don't you live in California? Yeah, I guess we get all of our rain in a very short burst. It's right now. Which is right now.

Actually, it's funny. Leaving Apple, it started to rain. And people were scurrying. And Apple PR people were like, engage rain protocol. Because the event was, as I mentioned at the beginning when I was driving down here, the event was, this is like a downpour. People are like stopped on the freeway. This is amazing.

The event was held in Town Hall, but we entered through R&D 1. So they had to station people throughout the entire center of the apple campus to show us where to go and more specifically to have us stay away from places the public is not supposed to go um and so uh those people all got very wet and some of them had umbrellas but that I think when they engaged the rain protocol, that's what they were doing. It was basically trying to figure out, like, can we hand out the raincoats to the people? Or do they have everybody exit some other direction or something? I don't know.

In California, we don't expect the rain. And so it's always a surprise when it comes. So moving on, we have the iPhone. So iPhone is up next. And basically, this is all about the iPhone SE, which is the product name. Apple kind of did a good job here, which is something I think they've been criticized that lately. And actually, they do a good job with the iPad as well,

which we'll talk about in a bit, of explaining why this product exists. This has been a criticism of previous keynotes, I think, in the tech press and other podcasts. They weren't doing a good job of explaining why the product exists. But they make this very clear. Well, you're going against conventional wisdom here too, right? The conventional wisdom is the future is bigger phones.

So why would you do something that was not a bigger phone? Why in the world would you go backward? And so they have to say... I'll tell you why. It's because they sold 30 million 4-inch phones in 2015. Yep. And again, this comes back to perspective. We tech-savvy people, yep and again this comes back to perspective we tech savvy people we're we're buying the more expensive phone we're on the cutting edge we want the giant screen our priorities are not the

priorities of everybody and that's what they said is like in certain parts of the world and in people buying their first smartphone. There are lots of scenarios where this is the this is the phone that they want is the four inch phone. And they sold a lot of them. And so it may be boring to us. It may be a small part of the market compared to the whole smartphone market, but it's still important. And I think the larger story is Apple needed a modern product to replace the 5S, right? Because they still want a product in that slot. They want a product of that size. They want a product of that price. But the 5S is just too old. It's too slow. It doesn't do Touch ID. It's just like, or I mean, not Touch ID,

it doesn't do Apple Pay. It's like all of these things that it can't do. The camera isn't very good. You got to do something there. And so this is, we kind of called it a couple of years ago, right? I think we talked about this a year, a year plus ago, that at some point they were going to have to decide, does the four inch phone fall off the bottom of the price list or not? And if not, what do you do? And this is the answer, which is, you know, we need to update the insides and make it a 6S, essentially, on the inside, even though it looks like a 5S on the outside. Yeah. So, which is essentially what they did from from a cosmetic perspective um basically all they seem to mention

on stage was matt chamford edges and it has all the colors and you know they have the reflective uh apple logo uh there was rumors of curved glass on the edges did you find this i'm sure you've seen and handled the six at the se yes i I held it in my hand. It is a 5S. It is a 5S through and through. You would not, other than some very subtle things, I'd say most

notably, very subtly that the apple on the back is different. And the fact that the chamfers are matte and not shiny. It is a 5S. It looks no different. It's that style. If you're hoping for a 4-inch phone that looks like an iPhone 6, you're not going to get it because it is a dead ringer for the iPhone 5S.

So I guess this was one of the things from the german rumors that didn't really pan out that way right yeah i wonder um we were also talking at the event about you know one of the challenges about not having any leaks for this product is how would you know if it if it looks exactly like the 5S, how would you even know that it was not the 5S, right? No part leak would do it justice because all the chassis, at least, is exactly the same or almost exactly the same. So that's a way for Apple to do things in secret, is not change the case. I don't know how far that's going to work. No, probably has limited usefulness, but it worked in this case.

So talking about the insides of this thing, it's a 6S in a small body. It has the A9 and the M9, significantly improved battery, has a 12 megapixel camera, significantly improved battery has a 12 megapixel megapixel camera focus pixels true tone flash live photos retina flash on the front because the phone's thicker there's no camera bump um it has apple pay in it as well this is you know for all intents and purposes this is an iphone 6s mini it it really is it really is and uh i i think some people will be surprised that it's so powerful. My gut feeling is that it's this powerful because they probably don't expect to update this product every year. Yeah, like what happened with the Mini. Exactly, right?

You make it with the iPad Air 2, right? Yeah. Where you make it really powerful and then you don't need to update it for a couple of years. And that's, I think that's what they're doing here is that I don't, I don't think in a year we're going to see a new bumped iPhone SE. I think the iPhone SE will be like this for a couple of years. And then at some point, maybe they will bump it to the iPhone 7 or 7S spec. But right now, it's a 6S to all intents and purposes. I mean, the processor may be clocked down.

I don't know. And I don't know about the RAM in it. But yeah, I mean, I asked about the camera and they said, well, the body is different because the phone body is different. But that the camera itself, I asked about the camera and they said, well, the body is different because the phone body is different. But that the camera itself, this 12 megapixel camera, I mean, it's basically a success camera. It does live photos, does big panoramas. It does all the stuff that the iPhone 6S does, just in a smaller size. I think for people who really like that size and are not enamored with the bigger phone, other than the fact that it's, um, the way you get the latest greatest, uh, you know, you're essentially not going to get any compromise. If you, if you get the four inch phone

right now, it's, you're getting, I'll grant you, you're getting last year's phone, right? That is something to think about is it's the current phone, but it's last year's phone it's the 2015 specs um in the 2016 product and maybe the 2017 product but um right right now it's yeah it's it's on class with the the iphone 6s and 6s plus so do you think that there's going to be a significant amount of people that go back down to the smaller size now that the performance is there? Oh, it's a good question. I feel like it's... A lot of us are going to just be used to the size and not go back, right?

Just because it's like once you get the bigger screen size, it's awfully hard to give it up. But I do think there is a class of user who never upgraded because they wanted the small size. And I believe there's a class of user who upgraded to the bigger phone because they wanted the latest greatest hot phone and doesn't love the size but it's put up with it so i do think that there are people for in both of those camps i think most people aren't i think most people are going to be happy with the six

or the six plus or 6s and 6s plus size uh but there will definitely be um some people who go back and some people who never left and now don't have to. Do you have any other thoughts of your own? I assume looking at this device outside of the fact that you've already used a 5S before and you know what iOS 9.3 looks like, there probably isn't much exciting going on to talk about? Like there probably isn't much exciting going on to talk about. I think the excitement is if you're using a 5S, you're using a phone that's two years old, two and a half years old now.

And if you update to this, the excitement is, you know, it is if you draw the line from the 5S, it's like twice as fast and has better battery life and has this much better camera and does Apple Pay and all these features, every feature that has come in the last two and a half years to iPhones you haven't gotten because you're still on the 5S. So from that perspective is where it's especially impressive. For the rest of us, yeah, it is. If you can picture all the functionality of an iPhone 6S in an iPhone 5S, that's it.

That's what it is. Like literally, that's what it is. It has almost nothing else about it is different. It's this year's model in, you know, the last two years ago model's body. So this phone is starting at $399 for 16 gigabytes. Do you have any feeling about the 16 gigabyte? I saw people complaining about it on the internet because that's what people do. I don't know. I feel like for the essentially free phone, the free with contract rock-bottom prices phone,

I'm kind of okay with the 16. Same. There is a 64 option for $100 more. When they make the case that this is a phone that sells well to people who are looking for a cheaper phone or getting their first phone, I think this goes to that, which is this is the low phone on their price list. They've got to have places where they cut back. And this is not where I would complain about it being base 16. I'm going to complain more about 16 as a base in an iPhone 7.

But the iPhone SE, I think it's understandable that that would start at the rock bottom, just as low as we can possibly make it and still sell it. So it doesn't bother me. Does it bother you? In this phone, no, it doesn't. Because it is cheaper.

And this is the phone that for many people, they want to be as cheap as possible. So if this keeps the price down any, then every penny is well saved. We did just have somebody ask over Twitter, does this have 3D Touch, this phone? I don't think it does, right? It does not.

So that's the one thing that it is missing from the 6S then? Yes. Yes. Yeah, so as you said, there's a 64 gigabyte which is 499 uh pre-orders on march 24th available on march 31st and it'll be in 100 countries by the end of may yep yeah and i think i think i think it'll do well for them because as they put up the stats the 5s has been doing well for them and this is a way better phone yeah so i i think it's going to do well for them all of us again tech nerds are going to be bored by it but it's not for us

this was again another strange thing today um in talking about the justification of this product and then the justification of the smaller ipad pro they gave numbers away so they they gave numbers away of how many uh four inch phones are sold and they gave numbers away so they they gave numbers away of how many uh four inch phones are sold and they gave numbers away about how many uh you know 9.7 inch ipads have been sold i know they're teasing they're teasing us they love they love bringing out those numbers they know all the details right yeah and they don't have to release those in the financials and every now and then they do and this is where you see the chart from Horace Deju, where he's gotten like three times they've mentioned this figure. And I can make a chart from that, right? But it's not something we get every quarter. So you have to do

some intuiting of the numbers and what they all mean. So I love it when they do that. They drop just enough data to help their case, but it's not data we've heard before and we may never hear it again. It's hilarious, but they did. They talked about how many of those small phones they've sold and how many of those normal-sized iPads they've sold. The last thing on iPhone, I guess, it was in this segment, iOS 9.3 is available today. Yes. Yes, and I've been running that. Not really anything to say there that we don't already know.

I've been running that beta for a while. Have you? I know that there was a funny moment for people who aren't listening to Canvas, which is a great show about iOS productivity with Fraser and Federico. They were making statements about what the iPad could do based on the 9.3 beta, and somebody wrote in to say, why can't my device do that? And it turned out, oh,

that's because you're not on the beta. I have nothing but my highest recommendations for 9.3. I've been running the beta on that iPad Pro for a while. It fixes a lot of iPad Pro problems with 9.2 and has been very stable for me.

Yeah, outside of the issue that I have with the pencil, which has now been resolved, also nothing but good things to say about 9.3. Night Shift really is a fantastic feature and is worth upgrading alone just for that. It really will change the way that you think about using your device. It's lovely. I really like it. It's made me go and install Flux on my Mac

because I was enjoying it so much. I wish that they could have done it or could do it with the Apple Watch because now I have this bright blue light on my wrist in the evenings. But I would assume they would have done that if they could have done that. Maybe the display technology is not good enough to do that. All right, let's take our next break

and then we'll start talking about the iPad. This week's episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks are on a mission to help small business owners save time and avoid all of the stress and complication that comes with running your own business. Small businesses, this is what they're out to help. And all of this stuff and a lot of the stress that comes with running a business is around invoicing, is around getting the money in. And FreshBooks has created a super intuitive tool that takes this pain away by making the ability to create and send invoices really simple.

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Oh, yeah. So basically the kind of the spiel for this is Phil on stage doing this. He said many people are telling us that the iPad Pro is becoming their primary computing device. They had lots of quotes from people about how the iPad Pro and the Pencil is really helping those who work in design. They had John Lasseter up there. They had a couple of other people whose names I can't remember, but I've just read Creativity Inc., so John Lasseter's name is emblazoned in my brain. Right. They had Christopher Finn, who used to be the editor at Mac Format, I want to say, and they quoted him, which was fun to see somebody I know quoted as praising the pencil.

Basically, they have introduced what Apple's referring to as the second member of the iPad Pro family. It is 9.7 inches and weighs less than a pound. And Apple, again, they address, why are we making this, right? They are saying that the display, the 9.7 inch display,

is the display that they started with because it's large but easy enough to carry. It's portable. It's the most popular iPad size. They said they sold 200 million iPads in that size since they first started selling iPads.

And so again, you can kind of work out how many, with that number, you can now go back and work out how many iPad minis have been sold, you know, up to a certain point. You know, there's, Horace Deadhugh can run around with his hair on fire with that number now. He will. He was there today too, so I'm sure he was writing all those numbers down.

He probably already had the chart going. Also, this is something really interesting. They spent quite a bit of time talking about Windows here. And they basically said that the majority of people that come to Apple products from Windows go to the iPad, not the Mac. And then they gave a statistic that there are 600 million PCs in use that are over five years old. And Apple want these people. So I think I've seen some people, you know, saying, oh, that's good. They're still running.

I don't think the point was that Apple was saying look how old all these pcs are i think their point was these people are due for an upgrade soon and they want to make sure that they can be that upgrade with the ipad and they they referred to the ipad as the ultimate pc replacement in more than one instance here this is a repositioning of the ipad and i am thrilled to see this marketing message. Yeah, it's funny. They talk about it in terms of Windows PCs because they don't want to trample on the Mac, which didn't get mentioned at all. We'll get to that. I think that's good. I was talking to John Gruber afterward, and he pointed out quite rightly that it's sort of a hard sell to say, this makes laptops obsolete. Also, here are some new laptops.

I mean, how do you do that? That's my feeling on this as well. So you kind of leave those as separate. But, yeah, this is, seeing it as an opportunity, I know they feel that people use PCs for, if you think about a five-year-old or older PC, these are people who bought a PC, a lot of them, because they needed something to get on the Internet, right? Again, we have to have the perspective here of not like a super tech enthusiast, but just as a regular person. There was a time not too long ago where there were a whole class of things that we do that we considered computer

things, right? And we don't anymore because we have iPads and smartphones. We don't consider the computer, the personal computer is not the only way to do those things. But the people who bought these PCs, some percentage of them bought them for like email or to see the web. And I'm sure Apple's done a lot of research on this front. Those people are ripe to replace those things with iPads because they don't need anything more than an iPad to do those things. My mom is like that. My mom had a computer, had a MacBook Pro to do email and the web and some photos. And it was overkill, but that was sort of like the best way to get it. But she replaced that her, her, her MacBook with an iPad Pro or a iPad Air. And it's fine because she didn't need a computer.

She didn't need a PC to do what she did. And so I think that's what Apple is looking at when they're thinking of that opportunity. You could also argue, we've talked about a little bit, I know I've said that I think Microsoft Office is really great on iOS. There are people for whom the iPad is probably fine because their idea of why they have a computer is Microsoft Office, like is Excel or Word. And even for those people, there's a story for the iPad.

So, you know, I think it's interesting that they're going straight at old PCs, but I think it also makes sense. It goes back to the kind of initial argument about the iPad, which is for a lot of people, it's that car-truck argument in a way. For a lot of people, you really don't need to buy another PC. If you're in the market for a new device to replace your windows pc why would you buy another pc you you don't need to use it for any of those things the ipad will do it all and be lighter and and better so then they go on to talk about this product in a little bit more detail. So, well, they throw in one million iPad apps.

You know, fine. Basically, we have the same display materials here. They said it's the iPad Pro 12.9, but they have something new called True Tone, which appears to just be in the 9.7 iPad

Pro for now. Yeah, there are a couple features that are only in the 9.7 iPad Pro, and we're really going to have to come up with some shorthand for these things because 9.7-inch iPad Pro is a mouthful. Yeah. Let's see where this ends up settling down. Maybe Marco can give it a name like he did MacBook One. Yeah, I saw Michael Gartenberg and serenity caldwell both

were calling it the baby pro um so we'll see but at least for now let's continue with 9 7 and 12 9 so so there's true tone and then really quickly the other the other feature that's that's slightly interesting is uh a wider color gamut so you know when know, when the 5K iMac got revved and the 4K iMac came out, they had the support for this better color gamut. They show more colors than the old 5K iMac that I've got. That's the color gamut on the new iPad Pro, the 9.7 inch. It's got, and not

on the big iPad Pro. So they're putting that wider color gamut into mobile devices now, and this is the first one to get it. So as well as the wide color gamut was this True Tone, which is basically some additional

sensors that measure ambient light and adjust the color temperature of the display to make the display look more natural looking this sounds really great uh i've got to say i'm a little bit miffed that this is in just this version it's interesting to me that just after a couple of months of the as the ipad pro existing that the the the line has not only been duplicated but bifurcated and that is a interesting decision to make on apple's part here yeah i guess gone are the days of everything moving in lockstep right now things are just sort of like new features keep coming into the product line and then keep moving out of the product line. I wonder, there's a whole

thing to be considered about what this means for the iPad Pro, the big one. Like, now that there's some pencil support in the smaller device and all these other things that are great in the smaller device, you know, the iPad Pro is now a different choice, choice right it's a choice based on wanting the size more than it is wanting the features right because the smaller ipad now has so it'll be interesting to see how that goes i too am kind of bummed out that my ipad pro doesn't have this sensor um so you know all these all these devices have ambient light sensors so you can have an auto adjust the brightness and i always hated that and generally i've turned that off in most of my devices because i always i always hate sitting somewhere and the lighting slightly changes in

the room and suddenly my iphone gets dimmer really bugs me yeah but this is really interesting and that now it's detecting color the color temperature of the light in the room that you're in and adjusting the, uh, the white point on the display, which is, uh, it's really cool. That's a cool idea that, um, if you're in a room with really yellow light, what happens is your eyes adapt and your eyes do, um, what photographers would call a white balance in a camera. Cause a camera is not eyes not eyes, your eyes adapt and say that this, you know, yellow light on this white piece of paper is white. But your iPad doesn't change color. And this was their demo was really smart.

Like the iPad is always just like whatever color temperature it's set to. So in a yellowish light, it's still going to have this really bluish white so with this sensor if you're in yellowish light it's going to reset its white point to that and everything on the screen is going to be yellowish which on one level you'd be like well wait hold on a second i don't want that but um in a lot of cases you probably do want that it's It probably feels a lot more natural to use the device. And if you've ever flipped open your iPad or your iPhone in a dim and sort of yellowy lit room and been shocked at how bright and blue the light seems,

this is the feature that prevents that. And you can turn it on and off. So if you don't like it, it's system-wide. You just turn it off and it doesn't do it anymore. Just like the Night Shift setting. Then we have four stereo speakers, the A9X and the M9, like the larger iPad Pro. Then accessories. This is where it starts to get a little bit interesting.

So we have a new smart keyboard to fit the size. Did you get to try this? I did. little bit interesting so we have a new smart keyboard to fit the size did you get to try this i did um you know they shrunk down the keys they shrunk down the keys the only way to get a keyboard on that smaller ipad is to make all the keys smaller so while the smart keyboard the keyboard cover on the uh on the on the ip on the iPad pro big iPad pro is a full-size keyboard. This isn't, this is a shrunken down keyboard and it, otherwise it feels exactly the same as the other one. And they, they tried to make the modifier keys a little bit smaller so that they could, I'm sure maximize the amount of, uh, of key cap size for all the, all the, all the keys. But if you're used to typing on a standard

size keyboard this one is not going to do it for you because it's not that size it's scaled down for some people it won't matter it's going to really depend on your personal typing preferences but uh it does not have going for it what the regular you know know, the big iPad Pro keyboard cover has going for it, which is it's a standard keyboard layout. This is a shrunken down keyboard layout. They then say that the greatest accessory Apple has ever made, the Apple Pencil, is also enabled for this iPad Pro. I agree with that.

They're making a smaller version of the Pencil, so that's good news. Like the little Pencil Mini is not happening. It's just a regular old Pencil. That would be bad, though. There is a new SD card reader and a new powered USB camera adapter, but this is only half the story because this thing has a USB cable on,

and Schiller specifically called out on stage you can do your podcasts right from an ipad pro yeah so he mentioned podcasts on stage from the ipad pro that blew me away that was very interesting to even mention that i know oh podcasters want to attach microphones to it and then i looked i thought about whether i should applaud then but i didn't want to be the only one applauding. And then Rene Ritchie started applauding. And I immediately started applauding with him. And we got a round of applause for podcasters using microphones on the iPad Pro.

Let's get real here for a moment, shall we? I mean, congratulations. We have a piece of hardware. Were we not real before? Where is the software that we need to go along with? Now this isn't Apple's thing, but like you can you know, it's fantastic that you can use a good microphone. I don't know if it's going to

power the setup that I would need. Who knows? We can find out. Maybe it would. But you know, what I would want to know is that I have the software to use alongside it. And what I want to be able to do is to have a call in the background and also record that call. Now, until that happens, nobody's doing.

Well, there are people, but I can't. Just because you've given me the ability to have a better microphone, that actually doesn't really help too much. I mean, it's great that you can do it, but it's one step. The next step is being able to record the call right right and and you know when you when you announce a product like this you're trying to come up with an example um of how you use this it's funny that they still call it the camera connector and yet everybody knows and it's even recognized on stage when it's announced they're like yeah it's called the camera connector and you can connect your camera but you can connect other usb devices at two two like podcasters with microphones so my question is why don't you

call it the usb connector well we have one why not call it the usb connector two why did you bring up the podcast did you just feel you wanted another example why did you bring it up on stage and three if you care enough to use that as an example will you care enough to add better support for audio recording into ios 10 i guess we'll have to wait and see for that one but if they do then we'll all point back to this announcement and be like aha see that's where they were going and if they don this announcement and be like, aha, see? That's where they were going. And if they don't, we'll be like, you know, sad trombone. Oh well. Because I'll say, right, people have been asking me about it, as you can imagine.

I mean, the fact that you can power, this is step one. This was the first thing that I wanted. It was the ability to use, hopefully, any microphone I want, or better microphones than the ones that are currently that work. That is step one. Step two is the software part and if that comes to bear yeah I would do it I mean I don't think I would change my everyday podcast recording but on location and

stuff like that 100% I would just use the iPad then and you know if Apple puts support for this sort of stuff into iOS would i have a problem with federico doing it then no i wouldn't like my issue right now with with say like someone like him doing this is purely because it just can't work elegantly you know there are people that do it but they have to do it in really weird ways like what we're doing today is similar like i'm speaking to you over your iphone headset and then we have a recording at the end but i can't hear you as clearly that affects the way that i you know that i can interpret what you're saying and i want to hear you as clearly as i can my better

microphone is not attached to my iphone it's attached to a recorder that is sitting here on my passenger seat recording me with this clip on microphone on my shirt. But you can't hear that right as we record this live. But in the final recording, people will be able to hear that one. And this is a case where if you can unify that so that I can attach a good microphone and record it on my end and you can hear it live, and then I can send you my recording when I'm done, then we will have solved it. But it's not, that requires some software help from Apple really in order to

get it to work right. So maybe we'll, maybe we'll get there. And there are a few ways Apple could do it too. You know, Apple could do it. I don't want to spend too much time podcasters talking about podcasting, but Apple could do it by changing things in about podcasting but apple could do it by uh changing things in the system apple could also do it by supporting some of the audio controls in uh the web browser that like chrome supports and then you could actually potentially use web apps to do it which would be a pretty sweet solution huh no but i would really rather i would really rather apple made it possible to just sort of like record arbitrarily from an input device while other apps are running

and using the same input devices. That's what I really want is I want Rogamiba to be able to make audio hijack for iOS and let me say, okay, here's my microphone that I'm going to use on this Skype call. Start recording it and then switch to Skype and make a and how and right now you can't do that you can't have them both function simultaneously no and it would be lovely anyway it's the other piece of the puzzle was always how do you know i bought i in fact bought a uh a usb hub the other week on amazon

specifically so that i could power a microphone attached to an iPad. And this will probably make that unnecessary, which is pretty cool. So in the usual, what happens after these events, little bits come out that you might not know about. So it's an interesting thing. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro transfers data over that adapter at USB 3 speeds. The 9.7 is at USB 2 speeds. Ah, aha! Take that, baby iPad Pro.

You keep your display warmth. We got you there. There's also a new 29-watt USB-C power adapter that enables faster charging on these devices. Huh. That makes sense, right? So it's USB-C to uh to lightning yeah yeah huh preparing us for the usbc future yep yep um then also we have the camera so the camera on the new ipad uh it's as good a camera as I believe in the iPhone, the current

iPhones. But it's got a bump. Yeah, the camera bump has moved from the iPhone 6 to the iPad Pro. It's got a bump. It's got the same bump.

Yeah, so did you get I'm sure you got to handle this device. Did you get to see if that affected anything? I didn't put it flat down on the table and try to write on it. My guess is that it would probably not be a very serious little, you know, it would rock a little bit. But I didn't get a chance to try that out. I did some sketching in my hand, which is fun because, you know, on the iPad Pro, you kind of need to put it down to do that. And I was able to just hold the iPad, the small iPad Pro in my hand and sketch with the other hand.

That was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. But I didn't lay it down and check what the kind of like whether it rocks too much on a flat surface. I imagine somebody will complain about it and and somebody else will say, it's fine, and that's where it'll probably end up. But it definitely has the same bump. Hmm. I don't know about that.

That's upsetting. The camera bump is such an upsetting thing. For it to go onto another device, you know. If you use a case, it's fine, but know if you use a case it's fine but i wouldn't use a case on an ipad like on the back i use a case on my iphone so i never noticed the bump but i don't think i would like it so much on a device that i very frequently have flat on a desk and interact with it and if there is a rock on that i would notice that way more than than an iphone because you i don't think you have an

iPhone down on a desk interacting with it as much as you do an iPad. Maybe with the smart cover flipped around to the back it would be fine if you use it like that. You know, so it could be okay that way. I don't know if it would rock on the smart cover, probably not. So it might still be okay, but I know a lot of people like to use their devices completely clean, especially the iPad.

So it's a shame. It's a shame. But they've got to put the camera in there. But then on the other side, for most people, they don't really care about the camera. Do you want to know something exciting? I do. I'm home.

So the CarCast was a success, but you're now back in your office. Well, the car cast was such a rousing success that the listeners of this podcast just accompanied me on a drive from Cupertino to Mill Valley. You can do the math. You can see how it works. I went through a rainstorm. But I'm home now. Yeah. As you can tell, because there are no more car sounds.

But I'm home now, as you can tell, because there are no more car sounds. So just going back a second then so we can pick back up. I mean, I assume that Apple are aware of how many people use cameras on these devices. So whilst we complain that, you know, now this thing might rock on the table, depending on how you use it. They wouldn't put this camera in there unless they needed to. They didn't do it on the Pro because maybe they assumed people would take photos less on that because it's so big. I assume that they know that people use this camera and that's why they've gone the lengths to upgrading it. I assume so i think i

think this comes back to apple knowing um things that we don't we may scoff at but that everybody else knows and we saw this we've seen this the last couple of times that they've updated the ipad it feels like they are embracing the fact that people use the ipad to take pictures and so they might as well put a good camera back there. And it took some time for them to kind of come around from the idea that it wasn't necessary, but they've come around now. Yeah.

So we'll see. I don't know about that one. There are colors, like cases, and there are also colors of the device. So you can get the device in gold and rose gold, which you can't get with the 12.9. And the colored cases, like the smart covers and stuff, they have colored versions.

You also still can't get those for the 12.9. They're really, you know, whilst this is a pro device, 12.9 is for serious business and 9.7 is for fun. Monochrome. Very peculiar. Yeah, I don't get it it may just be that it's not worth it that they're not enough the sales are not big enough that it's worth

having that many variations yeah I guess so right I guess so but it's strange because they're making them now yeah we haven't talked about the price I mean this is the aspect of it that's interesting too is the this is the aspect of it that's interesting too is the air 2 um was cheaper yeah so this starts at 599 for the 32 right yep so that's that's an interesting wrinkle is that it's it's it's 599 32 that's where that's

where it begins and it's calling it pro all of these things there are plenty of good reasons for it but it is interesting that that's the case and it goes up to a massive 256 gigabytes which is now on the 12.9 which will take your purchase price over a thousand dollars if you go for the big ipad pro uh i think with LTE... Oh, yeah. With and without LTE, the 256 will take you over $1,000. Sure. $1,300 for the 256 with LTE.

256, though, that's pretty cool, huh? What would you do with that amount of space on an iPad? I don't even know. I don't even know either. Photos? How many photos is that? That's a lot of photos. That's a lot of photos. Movies? But do you really need...

I don't know. I guess you could fill it, but I'd be surprised if many people would fill it right now. Alright, but we have the product line. We have the naming. So we have iPad Mini, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro 9.7 inch, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch.

That's what the slide said. Yeah. Yep. I don't really, you know, it seems like Apple are referring to them as the 9.7 and the 12.9. I guess fine if that's how you want to do it. It's not massively complicated they they drop the numbers on the ipad mini uh i don't know why they still call it ipad air 2 when it doesn't seem

like they're selling any other ipad airs well i mean that's the it's the version number right they're they're iphone 6 yeah but they don't know they oh yeah it's still ipad mini 4 it's still iPad Mini 4. It's still called the iPad Mini 4. It just said iPad Mini on the slide. Okay, so there you go. They used a line at the end, which they used a bunch. They called the iPad Pro the future of personal computing.

So yeah, I think that really wraps into why we didn't see Macs today. I think so. I think it's a different conversation, different audience. The Mac is... I would be surprised if they even...

I mean, I think the Mac is going to get... Some people are going to get invites and get briefings, and then there's going to be a press release and some embargoes will drop. And that's how we'll find out about new Macs. Between now and WWwdc do you think yeah probably the rumors are that that stuff is ready to go so that'll probably happen maybe

next month makes sense i really do think that this was a uh this was a decision um to make a statement about the ipad yeah yeah i think so and calling it pro is interesting because they're saying this is a you know this is a professional thing and maybe that's also saying that if you aren't thinking of this as a professional thing then um then buy the air 2 instead for less than it used to cost. Any other thoughts on the iPad from handling it? You know, it's an iPad Air, essentially. It is not that different. It doesn't seem that different. This is something that could have been released

as an iPad Air 3 and we wouldn't have blinked, I think. Yeah. Other than to say, and here's the argument that I think somebody at Apple probably made. Other than to say, how is the iPad Pro a Pro if the only thing differentiating it from this is the size. I think that was the right decision. And so at that point, why would you call that pro?

If there was another one that was just as good, but smaller. So I can see, you know, you could argue that they need to give the iPad Pro some kind of name, the big one. And then what do you do with this one then? Because now you've kind of either walled it off from those features, or you're going to have those features. And then why is this not Pro? So all right, here it is now it's Pro. And then that gets back to what we were talking about, about product lines that at that point, the nonpro ones are the kind of not as advanced, but they're cheaper. And that's what the iPad Air 2 is. And the question is, you know, what happens to the iPad Air? Do we end up with an iPad Air, you know, SE, iPad SE at some point that is essentially kind of a two-year-old tech but cheaper instead of just

selling the old model it'll be interesting to see what happens what's the next step in this strategy beyond uh beyond this this year um i'm interested to see how that plays out so overall how do you feel about this event? You know, it's a minor event in a lot of ways. It's a small event at Town Hall. These are not, other than like a couple new features, these are not like huge groundbreaking new products. There's already an iPad Air size and there's already iPad Pro features. This is just sort of bringing them together. And likewise, there's already iPhone 6S features and there's already the iPhone 5S design and the iPhone SE just brings them together. And so it's important for Apple's business. Apple wants to set the stage for these products.

These are products that actually, what's interesting about them is they are more interesting as part of an ensemble than they are on their own. I think, you know, what's interesting about the new iPad Pro is that it's an iPad Pro with a big brother, and that's how it's being pitched. What's interesting about the iPhone SE is that it's the four- inch iPhone in a family with two larger phones that are similarly spec. I think those are both interesting, but they're both sort of supporting players. Now, I think that the, the, the, the 9.7 inch iPad pro will be the best selling iPad of the next year, right? I mean, I think that's the sweet spot. It's the new iPad and the size that people are comfortable with.

I think it'll sell really well. I think that'll be the winner of the iPad line. So it's not like it's a minor iPad. It's probably the best of the iPads and the biggest selling of the iPads. But what's interesting about it is where it fits in the family, because it's stuff we've seen before with a couple exceptions, just not together in the same product. So shall we move on to some Ask Upgrade questions? Sure. We have Ask Upgrade. Do I need to get back in the car? No, you can stay where you are. Okay. Okay.

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questions. The first comes from Rob. Who does all the clapping at the Apple events? The first five rows or so are reserved for Apple employees. You get Tim Cook and Phil Schiller and Greg Joswiak and people like that in the first couple of rows.

But there are also a bunch of Apple people there. And then there are also Apple-invited guests who are not press. And those people will all clap. Some press will clap occasionally, maybe perfunctorily. But then the Apple employees will clap loudly, and they start a lot of applause. And then once you've got an applause going, everybody know, might politely applause. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. I did a polite silent clap a couple of times, but, um, but mostly it's the Apple employees. And then that's true of any Apple event. They put VIPs and employees in the crowd

and they're whooping it up. And that helps make it seem less like a dead press conference because journalists wouldn't do it, generally. This comes in from Jan. About the 9.7-inch iPad price point. So before it was $499 for 16 gigabytes. Now it's $599 for 32 gigabytes instead of what was $64 before. Why are they priced at this way now my thinking would be that apple feels that the additional features like the ability to use the pencil the

screen stuff and the ability to take this device i mean albeit with more hundreds of dollars in accessories bolted on to a another level i think is what they feel gives it that higher entry-level price. Why do you think it has the higher entry-level price, though? I think it's that. I think they've got it at $32,000, and they have the Pro features, and I think they've just decided to embrace that, that it's a more expensive product. It's got a better screen. It's got the pencil support. It's got the smart connector. It's got all those features that were in the more

expensive iPad Pro already. And so this is an opportunity for them to just sort of go in on it and say, the people who are buying this product are people who want the Pro features and the Pro features cost more. So I'm sure there's some buying psychology involved too, but I'm sure some of it is the margins. This is almost certainly a more expensive product to make. This comes in from Mike. For reading comics and magazines, would you recommend the new 9.7 inch iPad Pro

or the iPad mini 4? Oh, for reading comics and magazines, I would always recommend the bigger screen. Especially now with the increased color and all that sort of stuff i guess it's even better right yeah yeah yeah i i had an ipad mini for many years and um you know it's small it was always it was always small um even though it's got the same number of pixels they're all so small and unless you've got very good vision um you know you're going to end up zooming and panning and stuff and so i think for reading comics and

magazines a bigger display is better uh mickles wrote in to ask are we planning on selling our 12 inch ipad pros than a nine inch what about you no no i i have no plans to do that i uh we'll we'll see you know how much i'll try it out and i'll see but i i like the i like the big size now i look at my wife's ipad air 2 and it looks like a toy um and split view and stuff like that it's just so much better and then you drop in a picture and picture and it's just like yeah i mean i i've kind of embraced that i don't think i want to ever give that up yeah i'm all in on the size. It's not just the fact that it's the Pro, like what the iPad Pro gets you.

It really is the size for me. Yeah. Yeah, plus I like the keyboard. I mean, I've got issues with the keyboard, but I was using, for complicated reasons, I briefly was using an iPad Air 2 this weekend, and it brought its keyboard up, and I had a moment of recoil i was like oh like oh no give me back my full-sized lots of keys ipad pro keyboard yeah so is that i that keyboard is like the original ipad keyboard then yeah i think so i i i didn't actually look but i

don't see how it could couldn't be it's a 9.7 inch ipad so it's going to have the standard ipad keyboard i'll take a quick sidebar about the uh smart keyboard cover still no international layout yeah and i heard from somebody that that was going to come eventually but instead they made a smaller version of it apple told federico that it would come they gave him that on the record maybe it will come someday, but they had to build this one first. I don't know. It's too bad. Or did they tell him the software keyboard would be changed?

Either or, the layouts. Neither of them is true today. And our final Ask Upgrade question this week is, how noticeable is the new display on the 9.7 inch ipad pro versus 12.9 did you really see much of a difference from the minimal time you had with it you're asking the wrong guy because it's about color gamut and i can't see those colors could you see the temperature change stuff though like if you were to use it yeah you'd see that oh yeah definitely you know Oh, yeah, definitely. Similar, in fact, to the night mode.

It's the same thing. It's changing the color temperature of the display, essentially. And, yeah, you can tell. It's pretty dramatic. Even just in what you think of as a normally neutrally lit room, and then you press the button and you go, oh. And everything gets a little in this case a little a little more yellow a little less blue and something uh that i'd forgotten to mention until now which is kind of weird i think that the ipad air 2 and the ipad mini 4 are the same price now yes that's weird right i guess i guess it's uh they both do the same thing

so they're the same price and you just pick your poison yeah maybe the mini will go down in price at a later time who knows it may just be that but the mini must be cheaper to produce surely i don't know i mean it's got a smaller doesn't mean cheaper right? Some of that means components are miniaturized and they're more expensive. And it's a relatively recent update. And that means the margins are probably higher right now, but will get lower over time. So probably it'll get its price cut in six months or a year. Good point. Good point. I have a couple of follow-up items before we finish today.

Yeah, let's do it. Pepperoni pizza. Pineapple pepperoni pizza. Sweeping the world. Jason was right. You had some. I made some this weekend. And then like 10 other people tweeted pictures of pepperoni pineapple pizza.

Yeah, we started a trend over the weekend. Some people were on board. Some people were being convinced. Some people really hated me. But I did it and I loved it jason oh my word it was so good so good i really loved it uh it is pizza it maybe is not the pizza that comes from places like new york or italy but i definitely made a pizza um i put those toppings on it and i enjoyed it very much that's all i can ask people everybody should just enjoy what they want to enjoy and uh and if they don't want to enjoy it that's fine but definitely it it's um it was definitely uh uh it's one of my favorites i don't even remember how i discussed discovered it but there there was yeah that is

easily a favorite flavor pairing because i've always liked uh ham and pineapple quite a lot it was like one of my go-tos but i pepperoni is my as of like maybe the last couple of years has been my favorite i think this might be edging it that the mix of the sweet and savory yeah i'm a fan of that and uh we mentioned about the upgrade merchandise all of my stuff came in i'm so happy with it uh the hoodies came out fantastically uh in so much now is that our faithful designer frank has created an iphone and mac wallpaper with the special design that was inside of the hoodie. So there's two things here. If you want to see what that design looked like, you can go and take a look at the wallpaper.

There'll be a link in the show notes. And if you have seen it and you love it and you want to adorn your devices with it, you now can. The Upgradian wallpaper exists. And that design is what is printed on the inside of the Upgrade hoodies. So if you didn't get one now you can

be jealous of all the people that did get one and you should have listened to us when we told you to get one because we told you you'd want it uh because it's also i've been wearing mine all week it's so toasty and warm oh i love it and we we've been getting pictures from people showing off their upgrade hoodies and uh they're all members of the secret society now and uh those pictures have been great so thanks to all the people tweeting at us um those have been those have been great a lot less love for the brain ball shirts but i love i think it's my favorite shirt that i've had made from a podcast now i wore the brain ball i got the raglan and i wore it this weekend and i for the first time and i love it in fact at one point i had the upgrade hoodie over the brain ball raglan and i felt like

i was flying the flag it was me over the weekend too oh that was good raglan was came out really well i'm really happy with it that was i'm pleased that we did all of that so uh again and i've i'm really pleased that we did that and i hope that everybody that has them enjoys them so i think that wraps up our Apple event coverage. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you enjoyed the car cast, as it were. We have a bunch of links in our show notes as always. You can head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 81 to get all of those.

I want to take a moment to thank all of our sponsors for this week's episode, Ministry of Supply, Squarespace, ITProTV, and FreshBooks. Jason, thank you for being on the scene and for reporting in for Upgrade. We obviously all really appreciate that. Thank you for keeping me company, everyone, while I was driving back from the Apple event. You will find a lot more of Jason's thoughts and opinions and feelings about the products from today's announcement over at sixcolors.com. And I believe you'll be doing some stuff for other places, but you'll link to them there.

You should always go to Six Colors first and then go to other websites from there. That's how I do all of my web browsing. I begin at Six Colors and then hopefully find a link out to Google. That's how I work. If you want to find Jason on Twitter, he's at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week.

Until then. Oh, I won't be, actually. You have another special guest next week. You blew it. I get the week off. Yep. Yes, I will be back with another special guest next week. You blew it. I get the week off. Yep. Yes, I will be back with a special guest. Hopefully, it

will be Serenity Caldwell to talk about perhaps her thoughts about this and what it means for pencil lovers to have a new iPad Pro in the family. But hopefully, Serenity will be here next week to fill in for you, Mr. Hurley. Goodbye, everybody.

Goodbye.