Upgrade - 96: Two Ports is One More Port than One Port

Episode Date: July 4, 2016

In this episode there’s a bunch of headphone-jack followup, then we discuss Apple’s relationships with Spotify and Tidal, before Myke asks Jason about his own independence on Independence Day.

from relay fm this is upgrade and this is episode 96 today's show is brought to you by pingdom casper and igloo my name is mike hurley and i am joined by mr jason snell happy independence day to you mr jason snell thank you sir uh not happy independence day to you, Mr. Jason Snell. Thank you, sir. Not happy Independence Day to you because you don't, this is not a holiday for you UK type people. It's not even a bank holiday, is it? Not too far away from our Independence Day though, huh?

Yeah, I was gonna say, hey Mike, how do you feel about countries breaking away from other organizations that, yeah, let's not. How do I feel, huh? Let's not, let's not how do i feel huh let's not let's not but uh we are breaking the fourth wall a little bit we are recording this a few days earlier than usual yeah this is one of those the uh quantum super positional states that happens with podcasts where uh you know while you're listening to me do this now on a podcast, I am simultaneously not at my desk, and I'm probably grilling something somewhere.

But we figure, as always, because Upgrade is a majorly news-focused show, that considering we do usually record and publish on the same day, whenever we don't, I feel like it's always important to mention it in case any news breaks over the following days, which is extremely unlikely over Independence Day weekend unless you're trying to bury something. But sometimes that can be some of the most interesting news to discuss. That's true. It's true. Sometimes the news gets buried on a Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend. Man, that is prime news burial time. Yeah, that is the swamps time yeah that is the uh that is the the swamps of new jersey of the week that's my question for you now actually because i think that this stuff you know the idea

of burying news probably made a lot more sense before the internet is that still the case like can you still really bury something like this well i, it's so in the old days, it was like at the end of the week so that it would be in the Saturday newspaper, which was the least read newspaper that obviously newspapers, how do they work? But I think it's still the case that nobody, people are paying less attention on a Friday night or on a Saturday. And then by the time you get to paying attention, maybe on Sunday evening or Monday morning, it's not news anymore, possibly. I mean, I think that that still applies that this is when you get bad news out because it it distracts people is sometime on a Friday or

over a over a holiday weekend. Like I said, Friday, Friday going into a holiday weekend is great because people are extra distracted and it's even longer before they come back and pay attention again. Because I guess the benefit, I guess maybe part of the reason you would do it is because people, some people might only look at this stuff when they're at work. And if they're not at work, they're not online checking CNBC

or something. Yeah, they're just hanging out with people and they're not, or they're not looking as closely. I think that's part of it. So, what we're saying here is probably something really embarrassing happened and was announced on Friday afternoon and we don't know about it because we recorded this earlier on Friday. Yep. Sorry. We'll leave that one to the other podcasts.

A very important piece of follow-up. The Upgrade Baby has turned one year old. I know, it's amazing context for anybody that has no idea me and jason didn't adopt a child mike and i made a baby yeah we're not gonna explain how it happened but yeah no uh jim wrote in to us a year ago with an ask upgrade question for us to guess the sex of his upcoming child. They were going to be having their baby on that very day. Me and Jason correctly guessed girl. And Jim has tweeted a picture to us of Mackenzie in her one-year-old birthday outfit.

Yep. And she looks adorable. So happy birthday to Mackenzie, the Upgrade baby baby which is probably something she won't appreciate being called like throughout her life because i'm sure it won't really mean anything to her but just so we know she's very important to us it's very important to us exactly right and that's what matters really exactly so happy birthday to mackenzie and uh yes that, that's Mike. Should our listeners use the hashtag AskUpgrade for other important life decisions and events? I 100% believe that it is a very good idea

for people to use the hashtag AskUpgrade as a way to get us to help them out in their lifetime. Yeah. I think that that is good. We can provide... I want to name a baby now. Okay. Well, there's one really easy way to...

Well, easy is... There's one way to do that, Mike. That's the straightest line here. I might not get naming rights. Okay. You know, I follow the John Syracuse idea here. I cannot remember where he discussed this. It was probably Reconcilable Differences.

At some point, they spoke about baby names, and he chose the name, I think it was October, but was overruled. Huh. And when we were talking about it, I believe he said that he was allowing me to try with that name. You know, I could try the name October. He was giving it to me, which is a very kind gift from John.

And I mentioned it to Idina and she wasn't interested. Yeah. That's because it's a month and not a name. Yeah. I think I've just found the episode of Reconcilable Differences, episode 18. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I liked it because you could use the name Toby,

short for October, and I quite liked that a lot. But Idina wasn't interested, so I might not get naming. But anyway, John says that he believes the reason that he didn't get to name the movie that, and he believes that I am fully on board with this thinking, is it would be my partner's buddy. She has final say on the name. It's like, totally get it.

You're going through that. You get naming rights. Should we talk about the headphone jack some more? I'd rather honestly talk more about baby names, but yes, we probably should. Because I think we both had some additional thoughts. There's been a bunch of follow-up. You wrote a nice little article that you published, so I want to talk about that. First off, I just want to mention the talk show, because we'd both not gotten to it by the time we recorded

the last episode. I have, and I think it's great. As expected, Marco went into a lot more technical detail than me or you would ever go into, I think, because he is really focused on this stuff, like with his headphone love and things like that. And they did a really good job. I really enjoyed every time that John would give an argument and Marco just like, just try and smash it down as hard as he could. That was very funny to me. And my number one favorite moment in the show is where, this is pointless nitpicking words, but like where John slips up and calls the removal of the headphone jack a feature.

Yeah. I really enjoyed that. It was just because Marco was like, that's not a feature. I know exactly why John said it, but I just thought that was so funny. Yeah, no, it's a good conversation. And if you don't want to listen to a two and a half hour podcast you can get to that conversation

and just listen to that that chunk and it's it's a kind of a great podcast on its own yep yep uh we got a piece of feedback from listener phil um that i thought was interesting he said you mentioned compatibility uh but uh ios headphones with inline controls and android headphones with inline controls and Android headphones with inline controls are not compatible generally because of different ways that they're implemented and I think it's a fair point but I would say the larger point is

you can literally plug any headphones into any device and hear audio yeah it's just the buttons the play pause button and the volume buttons don't work. But I don't consider this incompatibility. If you get lightning headphones and try and plug them into a USB slot, it just won't fit and nothing will happen. It's maybe you don't get all of the features, but it still works. You just might have to just press a button on the phone rather than on the headphones.

You don't go to an AV setup somewhere where you're going to be playing some music or doing a presentation and get the headphone jack and go, oh, this is an Android headphone jack, right? It's just a headphone jack. It's just every device will play through that. Yeah. But I get the point. Like, it's not completely completely compatible but the fundamental use of

the headphones can still be performed yeah and that's what we were talking about so i've been thinking a little bit more about this um and i've been thinking about wireless earpods uh and we'll mention your article in a minute that you wrote you basically wrote this kind of thing out as well where i was thinking about an actual product that Apple could make, either wireless or with a lightning connector or, you know, that kind of thing. So let's say, for example, that Apple released lightning earpods that were on a cable. That'd be fine. I guess you just live with it, right? Like, that's just what you would do. They would come in the box, and if you used earppods then you would kind of just deal with it and yeah whatever like that's just how it is as some you

know if you use earpods and they're the headphones that you use they will still what kind of work in the same kind of way you just can't really use them on any other device maybe uh and that kind of thing you just kind of get on with it but that's not fantastic but if they were to make a product which people are calling i guess airpods and i think they have a trademark on that name right seems like the logical name to be honest if you have something called earpods that you would call them airpods if they were wireless uh i think i would actually kind of like the product that i think of in my brain for this so you know, I imagine maybe

that it would be on a cable like those Jaybird ones are. I think you kind of have to have them on a cable like that links the two things together because I imagine it would just be too easy to lose individual like little pods and I guess where would the battery go? That kind of thing.

I don't know. But imagine that you had this product and it had a male lightning port on it and you would plug it in to charge it or get a quick charge on it like you can with a pencil. If Apple made something like this, I would just want that. Like I would want that product.

Like it doesn't matter if they take the headphone jack away or not. A little product where it was able to draw some power from the phone to get a quick charge would be great. Because the thing that I don't like about Bluetooth headphones, and I have a pair, is the charge anxiety. So whenever I, if I'm going out for the day and I take my Bluetooth headphones with me, I still take earpods to put them in my pocket. Because I like having the buttons on the headphones that i have i have some sennheiser ones i'll put a link in the show notes to them um but i i'm kind of of

the sense that if i go out i want to be able to listen to music or podcasts like that you know when i'm out and about and if i had no headphones with me and my battery died then i would be sad but if i if they then died but i could just plug them into my phone for a minute or two and get like another hours of battery, you know, if that was how it worked, like the Apple Pencil, that would be fantastic. And I don't mind drawing a little bit of power from my phone in that scenario. I agree. I think that's a good scenario. Like the Apple Pencil, the Jaybird Blue Buds that I've got, you know, they've got a cap on the end with a micro USB plug inside. I could imagine, you know, something like this where there's a bigger cap like on the back of the pencil, actually, and you flip it open and there's the male lightning and you plug it in and it charges right right from the phone and then presumably at that point they do what they do with the pencil which is ship a female to female adapter in the

box that you could stick on the end of any uh any lightning cable and charge it by any other means i had another thought that that is um not about the the theoretical bluetooth headphones which which could provide mitigation to removing the headphone jack. But as I was talking to Marco Arment about this after he was on the talk show, and he said, you know, you could also release that product and keep the headphone jack, right? I mean, it's not required that the headphone jack has to go away. But I was thinking about the inline, an inline adapter. So, and I didn't write about this, but follow me here.

The idea that one way maybe that Apple could ship something in the box that would be maybe a good way of handling this is existing AirPods. But imagine that when they get to the end and there's the headphone jack, there's a very thin, basically inline adapter. Like some headphones have where there's like an extension, like they have short headphones and then there's a long cable you can attach. Anyway, an inline adapter still,

still in white that plugs into the headphone jack and then continues out with a little bit more cord. And then there's a lightning plug. If you shipped that in the iphone without the headphone jack uh the earpods would be lightning but you could also pull the plug and use those earpods on all the other apple devices you own that don't that do have a headphone jack or take the adapter and use it with other headphones and it would all be in one now i don't think

that's going to happen i think if they do this and there's an adapter it'll be 19 but yeah but uh but well but if what they do is change the lightning wiring uh in the in in this theoretical iphone to pass through analog audio to basically emulate a headphone jack, but with the lightning port, then that adapter would be pretty cheap. And it would certainly, I think, change the conversation if that's how they did it. Because one of the things that's hard to kind of get your head around is the idea that if lightning is the thing and there's a lightning set of headphones in the box, then not only is there this incompatibility with the headphone jack, but like those headphones can't be used on other Apple devices, which is also kind of annoying because I know people do that. People

plug them into their laptops and stuff like that. And that will be gone because they'll be lightning headphones. So what if they're not lightning headphones? What if they're just standard headphones, the ones that they've been making for ages and the only difference is that now they ship with a little inline adapter and i'm thinking of it that as that simple like you almost couldn't tell when it's all plugged in it's just all the same color there's just kind of like a little a little uh bump at the end uh and then and then it continues to a lightning adapter maybe maybe i'm just saying i think that would be a really nice way to do it. But yeah, it's hard to see Apple not just.

That would be kind of large, right? The adapter would be. Not necessarily. If it doesn't have to have a digital analog converter in it because it's just passing through an analog audio signal over the lightning port, it wouldn't necessarily have to be very large at all. Because lightning's not very large. You just,

I mean, you would need a, I've seen this like Shure makes these headphones that are, that are short. And then they, and then there's a long extension cord. And the idea there is that you can sort of choose what kind of cord you want and whether,

whether it's a long cord or a short cord. And that was, you know, it's, it's, it's larger than a wire, but it's not a lot larger. So maybe.

David in the chat room is mentioning something that many people have said, which is if Apple drops the headphone jack, it would be shocking if they didn't include an adapter in the box. They didn't do it when they changed from 30 pin to lightning. I don't think they would include an adapter because, and it's why I think whilst your product sounds nice, I also don't think they'll do it. Because anytime you include an adapter because and it's why i think whilst your product sounds nice i also don't think they'll do it because anytime you include an adapter you are saying that the change that you've made is not the benefit like it's not beneficial because it's like you are not willing

to move along with us in this story that we're telling because we're allowing you to claw on i mean i appreciate what you're saying makes sense but and i know it's like because then you could also use those headphones with other devices, but everybody already has headphones for other devices. And they wouldn't have to change the design of the AirPods because, or the ear pods, because they're, uh, they would just continue to be with a mini jack and they would just, just ship it. I don't know. It would be an interesting way to approach that situation, but I, that would solve a lot of these different issues but yeah but i think it shines a spotlight on what you're doing right like if you're like oh okay so

we've made this change we promise it's for the best but here's this little adapter that we're going to put in the box because maybe it's not as good as you would want it to be like yeah i just feel like they wouldn't do it if they didn't do it when they were saying the cables you've been building up for years and years and years were changing i don't see them doing headphones either i think it's not a perfect analog i think there's some differences but we'll see it was just it was a thought that occurred to me that it would be a way for them to super soft pedal it by just saying and we've got a you know and and of course the your your uh earpods come in the box uh they box. They come with an adapter so you can unplug them and plug them into your Mac. You can plug other headphones in.

Just like not a big deal. It's just like one of the features we provide. It's just a little thing in the box. It's like part of the earpods. It's not a big deal. I could see that as a way for them to kind of super downplay it. But this only works if they can build a cheap inline adapter that doesn't have to have a digital analog converter on it. And, you know, that's, we're so deep down. And this is one of the points I make in that article I wrote on Six Colors is

we can make all of the circumstances around this be anything we want, because it doesn't exist. We're all just making it up. There's just one rumor. And then everything else around it is speculation. So it's hard. So I've put in the show notes, of course, the article that you wrote. And I like when I read things like this and I can see how our conversation and everything else kind of leads into these articles. Oh, yeah. I love that type of stuff. But there was just a line that I just wanted to quote that I really liked where you were talking about some of the potential reasons for why they might want to do this and effectively summing it up in what I think is a great one-liner the root of any of these changes would be a decision to make the headphone

jack expendable like whatever Apple decide to do they feel that doing that is good enough to make the headphone jack ready to kill yeah uh i think i think i even in the first hour after posting my article i got a whole bunch of tweets that were like but what about this but what about this but what about this but what about this which i expected because my whole article is about what about um about 11 but but what about yeah and um and a lot of them can be answered by saying that's really more of an excuse than a reason right like the because the um i think i use that that what you just quoted in the space argument like oh well you could take out the headphone jack and use that space for something else it's like well you could but they apple has been keeping the headphone jack and finding other things to put in the iphone for a while uh so what was it that made them say this time oh this time it has to be the headphone jack

the answer is a concerted decision to remove the headphone jack in the end in in end, so many of the arguments come back to Apple decided that it was expendable because they deprioritized it. And that's, again, that could be fine depending on what the benefit is. It's just that I have yet to hear any benefit that really seems to counterbalance it. Because yeah, so many of these things, it's like, well, yes, they did this and they did that, but they could have done something else. They decided to drop the headphone jack as a part of a redesign that added something else. But I don't think I've seen an argument that says that headphone jack, without it there, that's all that's required. And the only way to do this is to take that out, you know, because I don't think that exists.

I think that in the end, Apple has to just decide we are going to do this we're going to make this trade and you know my question all along has been what are we trading it for okay jason uh we're still not done i have more things that i want to talk about with this okay but i want to take our first break first and thank igloo for supporting this week's episode look work is no longer a single location. Teams can be together half a world away. Look at me and Jason, right? We work together pretty much every day, but we are never in the same place

when we're doing this stuff, except for like two or three times a year. Igloo is a modern intranet designed to keep everyone on the same page. You can share files, have real conversations in real time, and do it all while still being able to use the apps that you're currently used to using every day. Apps like Box, Google Drive, and Skype. Igloo brings everything together and creates a single destination that lets you focus on your work.

Put simply, Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. Try it today at igloosoftware.com slash upgrade. Thank you so much to Igloo for their support of this show and RelayFM. Woo! I wanted to address the argument of Apple could do something that we haven't thought of. This is another argument that I think I've seen a lot, right? Like, oh, we just cannot conceive the magic that Apple might be able to create. There is history for this, right?

Like this is not a completely dumb argument, but it is used always. Whenever we think, whenever anybody thinks Apple's going to do something bad, this argument is brought out because there is precedent, but it's not always 100%. My belief is whatever the reason Apple give,

we already have discussed it. It has been discussed. Probably in the article that you've written, right? Like it's going to be one of those things. Or a combination of them, right? I mean, I have heard that from some people too. It's like, ah, you're looking for one reason, but it'll be all of the reasons. Okay. All of no good reasons is still not a good reason.

But if you multiply zero by four it still doesn't you know it's still a zero like you don't get anything out of it but i think now is just a case of the story how it is fun do you agree with that i i think well i think it's possible i've seen it where apple has brought something out and it's like oh but look what we did isn't this really clever and you're like oh oh interesting like it's possible i do think it's like, oh, but look what we did. Isn't this really clever? And you're like, oh, oh, interesting. Like, it's possible. I do think it's possible that there's something that we haven't quite got yet. Whether it's in the details of something that's related to something we've been talking about, but not quite what Apple's going to do, that they've got a very clever approach that we

haven't anticipated. A lot of really smart people at Apple who gets paid a lot of money to spend all of their brainpower on this stuff, right? All the time. So it's absolutely possible. But I agree with you that a more likely scenario is it's some collection of things that we've talked about with a story spun around it about why this product is so great and it does all of these things and why this is no longer here because it's not necessary because of all these great things that apple did and that is

the that's sort of how my story on that i wrote on six colors ends which is um which is that which is you know ultimately uh we don't know until apple tries to tell us why they did this then we'll know and be able to judge whether we think it's a good decision or a bad decision. But until that point, we're missing important and maybe even the most important piece of the puzzle, which is what's the story around this? Like, what's the explanation for this? And how is Apple selling this as a move forward? Because ultimately that's what I'm saying is I'm not seeing the benefit to this. Where's the tradeoff that adds this?

And they may tell us that. And that may be a satisfying answer or it may be not a satisfying answer. I think my concern right now is that I'm having a hard time seeing how it will be a satisfying answer for me. But I am also open to the idea that it might be. You never know. I mean, the piece I wrote on Six Colors finally lands. I was trying to think of scenarios that I really understand and can accept as like, okay, where's the final acceptance here? And my final acceptance ended up being that two ports is one more port than one port.

And that ultimately, this is what Apple does is simplify and take stuff away and try to have most, as many things as possible, go through as few channels as possible, ideally of the same kind. That's like a thing they do. And the company that made the MacBook is a company that would take a headphone jack off of a phone. It's like the same company. That does make sense to me. The idea of, well, you only need one port. Yes, I know you have peripherals. It's like the same company. That does make sense to me. The idea of, well, you only need one port. Yes, I know you have peripherals. Yes, I know you charge, but most people don't do both of those at the same time. Most people don't have peripherals at all. Those people will buy adapters. Yeah, it'll be more complex for that situation, but in all other

situations, it'll be less complex. And that's what we're going for here. That's the argument for the MacBook. And I think that probably would be the argument for losing the headphone jack. It's that simple. Not we needed to do it because we wanted to make it easier to waterproof, but more like headphone jack, don't need it. Lightning's good enough. Yeah, we know there's a little pain there, but most people use ear pods. It'll be fine. And i think maybe that's the most realistic scenario here is that it's that's it that that there's no big like sales pitch about like well we had to do this and it's really literally just hey it's one fewer port you can still listen using your headphones with an adapter and now we only have to have the one port on the iphone end

yeah i i think it's gonna i honestly think it's just going to be like, the times have changed and wireless is the best. It's pretty much as good as we're going to get. And let me tell you, I would rather have Apple say that than use some of these arguments that I've heard that I think are kind of bogus. I would much rather not... I don't want Apple to stand up there and say, oh, digital connection, better audio quality and stuff like that, because that's bogus. That's all just BS.

So I would much rather Apple just be typical Apple and say, removing the headphone jack makes it better because it's simpler. And there's an adapter if you need it, but the future is wireless. And isn't it awesome? And there are great, look at these great Beats Bluetooth headphones that we've got and they sound fantastic. And we're using the latest Bluetooth standards and they're awesome and yay. And then they move on and just leave it at that because we can still grumble about it, but in some ways, no justification is better than bad justification. So there have been some rumors over the last day or two, which I believe has been mostly debunked by this point that Apple is looking to buy Jay-Z's title. Yeah, there were

reports that they were in preliminary talks. And then I saw another report that said they had a couple of sources who said that Apple is absolutely not going to buy title. You know, maybe something big happened over the weekend that we don't know about but i i you know it's i doubt this is going to happen but it's worth us this leads into another conversation i think that that you wanted to have yeah well and i also do remember this exact same thing happening with beats right it was like true oh no no no it's crazy and then you know and then hey uh the reason i wanted to mention this is because title's big thing one of their big marketing points is high fidelity streaming music like they will stream lossless

um i tried to find some details about this in full on their website they have a hilarious video that you should just go and watch where they try and illustrate what lossless is like, where they basically just put more instruments into a song. It's kind of funny. But they do this. This is something that they do. They have high quality streams and they have lossless streams. So one thing I was thinking was if Apple were to do this, and again, this decision is probably too far down the pipe for this even to make any sense, but it did make me think of something that they could at least try and couple this in, and this could be an upcoming feature to Apple Music, lossless streaming,

is that a marketing reason for removing the headphone jack is because they are also doing lossless streaming, which they say will be better with lightning headphones for high quality audio, right? So it's like a lot of the crappy things that we've heard people talk about bundled together in one, right? We have high quality streams in Apple Music

for the high fidelity headphones you now have. I would much rather Apple be its classic arrogant self of we know best, you'll like it, trust us, you'll stop complaining and it won't matter, than to have them become like Neil Young and try to sell snake oil to people about how the digital connection on lightning is somehow better than the analog connection

from the headphone jack, because it's not true. It's just not true. It's dumb. But it flicked a switch in my brain when I saw this rumor. Well, I think the lossless audio and high-quality audio, because some people can tell the difference, and there are lower-quality streams when you're listening via streaming, right?

There's an option, at least, to have a lower-quality stream, because lossless also is really huge, and it'll eat up your cell phone data. But I could see Apple going down that route in terms of like marketing Apple with Apple music to offering a plan that has higher quality streams or something like that. Although quite frankly, the high quality streams are pretty great with Apple music. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know. It's a way to differentiate for Tidal, but I'm not sure that it's something that anybody really wants or could value. Yeah.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. But I was thinking, why would you do this? Like, you know, what would... I would assume that whether they buy them or not, they at least entertained it, which is where the rumor came from. Because Tidal were probably looking for a way out at this point.

I don't think they're doing very well. I think they have like 3 million subscribers or something. And a lot of people sign up for Tidal and quit Tidal just so they can get the exclusive album. I mean, one of the things they could do this for is exclusives. They could be getting technology. They could be getting access to Jay-Z. Any of these reasons could be important to them

but uh this seemed like one of them last point today i do say today on the headphone jack uh yes i saw this linked uh on daring fireball that one of apple's suppliers a company called cirrus logic has released a kit for creating lightning headphones. The reason that this kit is interesting to me, and I assume the reason that John linked to it, is because it is available via Apple's MFI program. So you can get a reference design that they've created, a reference iOS app for making adjustments to the headphones, and also resources to help mfi licensees create lightning

headphones so this is even more smoke for the fire right whether this means the headphone jack's going away or not isn't is a different thing but they are trying to provide more ability for people to create these lightning headphones yep i, lightning headphones exist today. This will allow people to make more of them. I'm unclear. You know, as John said in his post, it's unclear whether this means they know something or they're just trying to be opportunistic in case the headphone jack goes away. Do they have inside information or do they have the same information we all have and are trying to get ahead of it?

Because I'm reminded of all the iPhone part leaks that end up being because case makers are trying to get the exact specs so that they can get their cases out on day and date or as close to it as possible with the new iPhone. And sometimes they're wrong and they've got cases that they can't use, but is it worth the risk in order to get the jump on sales?

And, you know, so that's the question here is, are they, do they know something or do they just know what we all know? I mean, whatever they know, Apple is distributing it. So, I mean, that's a little bit more than a case leak, right? Apple is distributing this guide that this company has created. You know, Apple likes people to make lightning things, right right so that it doesn't necessarily mean anything more than that all right our second sponsor this week is pingdom we love pingdom pingdom will give you a 14-day free trial if you go to pingdom.com upgrade and you also get 20 off if you enter the offer code upgrade at

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know when your site is down go to pingdom.com upgrade for a 14-day free trial and use the code upgrade at checkout to get 20 off thank you so much to pingdom for the continued support of this very program my service up i know that excellent because pingdom tells me so that's really good news i'm happy i'm very happy yeah there was a report this week on recode um that seems to indicate that apple and spotify are at loggerheads right now. Spotify are claiming that this is because Apple doesn't want competition for Apple Music. Apple is staying quiet. So the situation is that it all stems back to the fact that Spotify are very unhappy that they have to give Apple a cut when they use the in-app purchase subscription system.

that they have to give Apple a cut when they use the in-app purchase subscription system. And over the years, Spotify have tried to get around this in many different ways. They've always tried to push people to sign up on their site and they actually make it cheaper. So for example,

I think it's $9.99 a month if you sign up on the Spotify website or it's $12.99 a month if you sign up on the Spotify website, or it's $12.99 a month if you sign up in the app. Previously, they have run a $0.99 for three months deal to people that go and sign up online, and they've started doing this again recently. Apple are now apparently, as Spotify are claiming, blocking an app update and threatening removal if Spotify continues to do this. Spotify says Apple are trying to hold them down now because they don't want competition for Apple Music.

And I guess it is also worth noting for this discussion that Apple have just recently cut the subscription fee to 15% for any of their customers that are one year or over, right? Like with everybody. So there's a lot to unpack here. And I think one of the key parts to note is that Spotify have broken Apple's subscription rules, right? You can't do, you're not supposed to be able to do any of the stuff that Spotify is doing here, right? It should be the same price everywhere is one of them. You shouldn't be pushing people to your website to go and sign up. You're not supposed to do any of this. Yeah. But Spotify does it, which begs the question, why has Spotify been able to get away with it? And now why are Apple stopping them now? So I think there are valid arguments on both sides of this.

Spotify should toe the line and do what the rules say if they want to be on the iPhone. But you can understand maybe why Spotify is getting more upset now, because all of a sudden Apple has a problem with it. What do you think? It sounds to me, from what I've read about this that this is spotify trying to make trouble and complain right that that spotify's spotify is doing things in their app update that are pushing people out to the web that that apple has decided goes too far now i think this is a dumb thing i i actually this is this is a place where I think

Apple's guidelines are bad, which is, I'm okay with Apple saying, I don't love it, but I'm okay with it. And I understand it when Apple says, look, if you use our payment procedures, you need to pay us. And we're not going to let you integrate an alternate method of payment directly inside your app. Use ours. Ours is there. We trust it. Our users trust it. Use that. I don't like Apple saying, don't give people any indication that there are other ways for you to buy things. Because I think that that's user hostile. People can buy... I buy comics from Comixology and books from Amazon on my iPad all the time in Safari, right? It's not that you can't do it. It's that Apple doesn't want to make...

One, it doesn't want to make it easy for third parties to send people through an app experience, which is going to be less good. Although maybe they should allow it if they use Apple Pay. But I think it goes too far. That's my opinion. I feel like Amazon should be able to say, you can go to our web store if you want to buy books, and here's a link. And Spotify should say, you can go to our web store if you want to buy books. And here's a link. And Spotify should say, you know, you can go to our website to sign up. But, you know, Spotify is trying to make trouble because Apple's a competitor. It is true, and this is true with Amazon and books too,

that by raising their prices by 30%, they're less competitive than Apple Music because they're more expensive than Apple Music or they have to take a bigger hit. At the same time, they are allowed to sell outside of the store. And the benefit inside is that it's so easy to sign up and use Apple systems in order to do it. And now Apple's changed the term so that after a year, Spotify gets more of that money than they did in the past. They get 85% of it instead of 70. So Spotify wants what it can't have, I guess is what I would say. And I understand why they would want more. And there are some issues that I think they're probably in the right about that Apple should probably change its policies. But this seems like a very strange bit of brinksmanship to try and accomplish that.

What do you think about the idea that Apple is kind of putting their foot down now? Because it seems like Spotify aren't necessarily doing anything they haven't already done before. Do we know that? Do we know that? Or did Spotify put changes in their app necessarily doing anything they haven't already done before do we know that do we know that or or is spot did spotify put changes in their app that apple has decided go too far and so they're

going to say no no no no you don't get to do that so we don't know the exact details but we know they've broken the rules in public frequently in the past and apple has not stopped them. Do you think that they should be stopping them if they're breaking the rules? Yeah. I mean, the rules are the rules, right? Everybody else is going to want to break the rules if Apple lets Spotify do it, right? So I think this hinges on, did Spotify do something like stick a very clear message to potential customers that they should go to Spotify's website, which is against the rules?

Right. And that's what made Apple reject it. Or is this something that Spotify has been doing for a while now? It's also possible because, you know, the App Store. Right. It's also possible that this was against the rules and finally somebody noticed and then it escalated um which you know you'd hate to see because ideally people should be on top of this this is a major product from a major company uh but i i think i

for me that's one of the questions here is is spotify trying to do new stuff to get away from it in order to cause this to be a controversy and And I don't know, but given that, I mean, this is, they're trying to get Apple to get bad PR in order to get Apple to cave. It seems like a really bad strategy to me, especially since Apple just gave them back 15% of their customers' money after a year of subscriptions. So it's actually a better deal for spotify but i don't know so the recode piece cites that spotify tried to do this promotion again where they actively tell iphone users to sign up on the site but the biggest change here

is that they have also turned off this app Store billing option, which has led to the current dispute. So it seems like now maybe Apple were happy with it when they had both, even though they were breaking the rules. But now Spotify, they've turned off the ability to sign up. And now they're trying to push everyone away.

Now they're having a big problem with it. So, I don't know. I mean, this also goes back to the idea of who's worse off. Is Apple worse off if there's no Spotify or is Spotify worse off if they don't have Apple? I don't know what the answer to that question is, in all honesty. Because, I mean, you could say that Apple will do fine elsewhere, but Spotify is

bigger than Apple Music. It's massive and continuing to grow. And Apple ultimately sells hardware. Would they not want all of the big apps on their platform, right? But then in the same vein, there are many, many, many iPhone users. Arguably, there are arguments to say that they are more likely to buy things than Android users, right? That has been a long argument. I don't know the statistics of whether that's true or not. I'm just going on the perceived understanding. So is it more important for Spotify to be on iOS? It's difficult to weigh these two things up. I think they both kind of need each other, which is maybe why they've put up with each other for as long as they have. But it seems like that now they're at an inflection point. Spotify is just trying to squeeze more money out. I mean, that's the bottom line here.

And they're in a tough business. Streaming music is a tough business and the margins are bad and nobody, you know, and the artists don't get paid well. And I mean, it's a mess of a business anyway, except for consumers who love it. And they're trying to squeeze more money out of Apple, which is funny because they are going to get more money out of Apple with this new thing. But they want to not compensate Apple. want to not compensate apple and what apple's saying is you're on our platform you were going to compensate us for making money on our platform by using our payment system as the easy way now that they're breaking the rules and have removed apple's payment system they're kind of like yeah no way guys this has got to stop you know look i i think i think it would be perfectly without this is what amazon did and and it leads to a bad user experience.

But if you really want to take your ball and go home, you put a Spotify app on the store that doesn't do anything unless you log in. And, you know, so you download Spotify and it says, you know, log in to your Spotify account here, but you can't, you know, you can't sign up and you have to go to Spotify's website to sign up. Now, that's really bad user behavior and it will repel some users, but it does essentially mean that 100% of your sales are going to come through the payment processing system that you control, which is exactly what Amazon does. And you could do that. They could do that. What they've chosen to do is use Apple's system because it allows them to do it in the app and it's do that. They could do that. They, what they've chosen to do is use Apple system because it allows them to do it

in the app and it's super easy and Apple takes a cut of that. And so, you know, those are the rules Apple has set out. And what Spotify is trying to do is say, we want those, we want that system, you know,

we want to have our cake and eat it too. And, you know, I, I would prefer that Apple let them do web links to their sign-in. But even then, I think it's okay for Apple to say, you can't offer in-app purchase and then drive everybody to not use it. That's a bad user experience too.

If you offer in-app purchase, let people just sign up with in-app purchase. Don't say, well you you really shouldn't yeah you should you should go there but you can if you want dummy but you shouldn't that's that's dumb so i don't know but it seems like apple do find it worse and and i get why when you then don't offer that option and then try and tell people to go sign up like that's i think that's too much rule breakingbreaking for them. I agree. Amazon aren't allowed to do that.

Netflix weren't allowed to do that before Netflix allowed you to sign up with the in-app purchase stuff, where basically you'd open the app and it just said login and had nothing else. And I think probably that's what it looks like at least Spotify were trying to go towards, but I expect it said, go and sign up. And up and they were like no we're not doing this and that's where they've

ended up getting to this point where they're like we let you break the rules because there were still some people that were giving us money yeah but and you were also big enough that we didn't want to kill you but now we've gone too far and again i i don't know how i feel about this because i mean i've said before and you know i felt this way uh with the 30 percent i i don't know how i feel about this um because i mean i've said before you know i felt this way uh with the 30 thing i didn't think 30 should have to apply to everyone because i think that apple needs netflix and amazon and spotify and others as much as right you know is the reverse but now with the 15 change i feel like you know, there's some steps being made in the right direction. And I do believe that the 15% change shows that there is possibility for Apple to be doing secret

deals with some of these bigger companies. Maybe they just say to them, look, it's 15% always for you guys, right? And I'm kind of okay with that, personally, because it isn't a level playing field. I'm sorry, like, that's just business, right? I don't think Apple are attempting to run like a socialist regime, you know? If they need something from these companies, they need to give a little bit in return. And that's how I believe the 15% thing came around, because they were giving it to TV people, because they wanted their apps on tvOS. And now it's kind of filtered down into iOS as well with the subscription stuff. And, you know, I hope that Apple are saying to Netflix, it's 15% for you always, because that will continue to push Netflix into doing things like picture in picture.

Right. It's a give and take here, you know. And maybe they're not doing anything for Amazon, right? Because they're like, screw you, Amazon. But I don't know. I just hope that Apple aren't being too stubborn about this, which could make Spotify leave their platform. I think the platform's too big for them to leave. I think Spotify

taking their ball and going home is Spotify taking all the IAP stuff out of the app. And Apple's leverage there is that Spotify knows that people want to sign up on the device and inside the app. And Apple provides that. And that's the price of being on the platform. If you want that easy access to the customers, you pay 30% for a year, which is basically your acquisition fee. And then it's 15% after that. It's not a terrible deal. It's not great. I admit it, but it's not a terrible deal, especially for a subscription service. It's much harder for, you know, Amazon, which is selling books and, and, uh, and comics and stuff like that, where the, you're never going to get down to 15% because it's not a subscription model. It's just individual purchase. But for Spotify, they'll get down there after a

year. And so, you know, I think that's what would happen is they would just rip out in-app purchase entirely and just say, you know, you have to sign up on the site. And maybe they'll head there. I don't know. I think what Spotify is ultimately going to do, my guess would be that they'll head there. I don't know. I think what Spotify is ultimately going to do, my guess would be that they'll blink and they'll do what Apple wants and they'll continue to agitate outside to see if they can get, you know, like they were trying very hard

to get like politicians to say because Elizabeth Warren came out and said, oh, this is Apple is using, she was like Amazon and Google and Apple are all doing monopolistic, terrible things. And Spotify was her example for Apple of like, oh, Apple Music and they're unfairly competing. And, you know, I agree that to a certain point it is murky once Apple is the one competing with these people who are there demanding a 30% mark up from. And that could be problematic for Apple, but so far it hasn't been. Spotify, I know you're out there listening.

My advice to you is play by the rules and then maybe Apple will will give you something in return how about that just play by the rules guys you've been breaking for far too long yeah this just in mike this just in yeah that was the the telegraph uh so this this also breaking news from several days ago for those who are listening on the podcast uh and not listening live but uh apple actually did respond to Spotify and sent a letter and specify something that we mentioned earlier, which is, according to Apple, Spotify removed the in-app purchase and added an account signup feature intended to circumvent Apple's in-app purchase rules. And that's clearly a violation that's not allowed. And then apparently

they did that again. They did that in May. They did that in June again, where they had the sign up feature, which was like put in an email address and then we will send you a link and then you can go sign up on the web. And that was rejected because that's, again, just trying to circumvent the rules. So we've got that. So it seems to me that this is uh just more more information about spotify

trying to uh precipitate a confrontation with apple about this and apple saying nope good work by us though huh like we got basically everything in our conversation but you know that like as the conversation starts is again let's break the fourth wall again listen i know you were screaming at us because you already knew this but we didn't know this but now we do know this we've come back in time it's kind of the best and worst time for the news to break yeah anyway the telegram there it is now we know very nice let's move on again it is independence. So Jason, why don't we talk about your independence a little bit? We haven't spoken about this for a while. I know when the show started out, me and you spent quite a bit of time talking about our new independent lives.

Your one was very fresh. Mine was pretty fresh at that point. And we were going through that pretty much together in those days. So we haven't really visited for a while. So I wanted to see how, you know, I think, what, you're approaching two years nearly? Yeah, it's coming up two years. Yep, same for both of us, really. And so I wondered, on the whole, do you feel like you made the right move?

Are you running back to IDG anytime soon? You know, the truth is, last night I had a nightmare where I was visiting IDG anytime soon? You know, the truth is, last night I had a nightmare where I was visiting IDG and was told to come to a meeting and they laid everybody off. Oh, no! Everybody. Why did they ask you? Actually, no. In the dream, they didn't

lay everybody off. They called everybody into a room and they said, yeah, yeah, come along. And then they called out the names of three people and said, you, and then everybody else like yes you all lost your jobs and i'm like but i i don't even work here anymore it was quite a quite a moment it was uh i woke up and i was like oh my god that was terrible uh they fired you from your own website i know what is happening i was like no but i was there as me today. I was like not, I was already gone. And yet I was witnessing this.

It was not good. I'm sorry, because this is probably my fault, right? Because you've read the document and you've gone to sleep. It's possible. It's possible. No, it was absolutely the right move. I mean, the reality is that if looking at what's going on there, I think that if I had wanted to stay, I would have stayed and I would have been allowed to stay. But I was so unhappy with my job that, you know, the the I had to go.

Right. I had to leave. There was no way that I could stay. It was not it had weighed down on me for far too long. I should have gone earlier. I so I, so I don't, I don't regret leaving at all. Um, uh, I, I probably should have done it earlier, like a year earlier when I, when I sort of tried to, when I, when I was building my home office that I'm now sitting in and, uh, and, and yeah, yeah, I should have. So, so absolutely the right, the right move to do that do that. And it's funny coming up on two years that it's also been the right move for me to do this and not like leave there and start applying for other corporate media jobs, which I don't want to do. conversation one of our if not our first one of our first conversations in person at all like in my first year in what like 2013 i'm gonna say or 14 um where we both sat down and kind of spoke about this stuff and i know for me it led me to decide to go off and do my own thing like that conversation was like a real turning point for me and it's funny to think like how long ago that was

now and then even for both of us it was funny to think like how long ago that was now. And then even for both of us, it was well over a year longer before we were able to do it. And I kind of wanted to go through a couple of the key things when looking back at this type of decision. I want to talk about maybe some mistakes you've made. Do you feel that you've done anything

over your last kind of 18 months that you did was worthwhile doing but you've realized i don't want to do that again nope it's all been perfect mike perfect perfect perfect good work uh no um mistakes i made uh well a lot of the stuff that happened at the beginning um i had good reasons for it so i'm not not sure I regret it, but like, um, yeah, no regrets. Like I don't,

anything that I've done is no regrets because I'm still in the learning phase, right? Like I'm still doing these things in two or three years time. That's a mistake. Yeah. David Chobb in the chat room says this incomparable superhero spectacular. Yes.

That was not a mistake. I loved that entire series. I think I'm the only person that did everybody no everybody loved it too good except the people who were on it yeah because it went on forever so here's my story um i first mistake i made like i said was um not allowing myself to be talked out of quitting um when i did because i ended up with eight more months of being really unhappy. I wish I could have launched Six Colors a month after I left IDG. And the way it turned out is my last full day of work at IDG was the day that the iPhone

came out and the iPhone 6 and that the day the Apple watch was announced. Yeah. Uh, and that is the high season for Apple stuff. I got a phone under embargo for the next week for Mac world. And it was my last day and I knew it was my last day. And so I launched Six Colors on the 16th when I came back from XOXO. So I left Macworld, had a day, had dinner with Scott McNulty, who was visiting. And the next day I went to Portland and was there for a long weekend, flew back and then launched the site. And so that is a regret, but I think it was necessary because it was the time to hit when people were listening, people are watching and say, now is the time. And we launched Upgrade then too, the same time, same day.

Whilst I was in Italy, I think. Right. But we pre-recorded and released it. So it's one of those things where I always envy people who quit their jobs or leave their jobs or whatever. And then they're like, oh, well, I'm going to go not work for a month. And then I start my new job or two weeks or whatever. And that just didn't happen. So I kind of regret that.

But it had to be done. And then I took on some assignments that I didn't love and they paid me and that was fine. But those were instructional in the sense that I learned what I like to do and don't like to do and was able to calibrate sort of like assignments that I don't want. But in the early days, I took, I said yes to a lot of things that I didn't, uh, I didn't really enjoy. And, uh, it, it's one of those things where it's nice to know that there are assignments out there like that. It's nice to be in a position where you can turn down assignments and essentially turn down money. But I realized there's certain kind of work that I would prefer not to do if I can fill my time with other kinds of work. So I, I'd say that was, that was a lesson learned. Um, not So I'd say that was a lesson learned. Not sure I would say that was a mistake so much as just that it was, yeah, it was something I had to learn and that I wouldn't do again. And then the other thing I would say that I look back on is I wish I had,

I was so reluctant to ask people for money that I put off doing memberships on Six Colors for a good like nine months when I could have launched it in the matter. It only took me a couple of days to get it up and running. But I put it off for nine months because I was really reluctant to do it. The fretting over that, basically, which was many conversations that me and you had you know you you really kind of took your time on that i mean it meant you did it right but uh you could have you could have done it sooner than you did i think yeah i mean i i the stuff i did in whenever it was september or something august september when i when i launched it it was no different than what I would have done in January. Yeah.

I just didn't do it. And it was really, I kept putting it off because I didn't want to. And the fact is, it's made a huge difference. The fact that we've got subscribers who support us, it makes Six Colors much more viable. It insulates it when there are times when there are no ads on the site. It gives us other means for us to keep prioritizing it and doing it.

And so it's been another piece of the puzzle. And I wish I had done that sooner. I think for me, like when I think back over this time period as well, I don't think I've made any like, well, I know I haven't, any catastrophic mistakes. I've just learned how to operate some business relationships. You know, I now know the types of relationships that I like,

the type that I don't, and how to work better within those relationships and to like put different constraints on them, ask for different things. You know, I work with many companies, lots and lots of companies. And, you know, there are big companies, there are companies that are go-betweens, you know, I'm thinking about the business stuff, the sponsorship stuff. And I've just gotten better at dealing with that, understanding what those companies need. And a lot of that, like just in the understanding, it was just realizing that I can ask questions. I think that was a big thing for me. It was like

people would say terms and I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. But I had no idea what they were talking about, right? Because there is a jargon in the industry that I'm in, right? In the advertising industry, I guess there is a jargon. Everybody understands some accepted terms, but didn't make sense to me because I'd never done it before. But learning that I was okay to ask questions of that stuff has been something that I have learned a lot. But I wouldn't really say that I've had any big mistakes. What do you think are some of the best opportunities

that have come your way in your year of independence? Oh, I don't know. I'd say podcasting. I would actually say when I set off on this, I expected that I would have sort of like the Six Colors and freelance writing stream and some podcasting opportunities too but i didn't really know what to make of that and you know incomparable has been uh has been good and we've launched a bunch of shows there and then all the stuff on relay too hello hi how does it feel uh How does it feel to be mainly solo, though, right? You don't have a team of people around bit. I feel like I do have teams around me. There's Dan, who does a lot of Six Color stuff with me, the Relay team, the Incomparable team. got, um, that you, you've got different projects with different people. And that, that may be something that more and more people experience is rather than having one project with one group of

coworkers, they've got a bunch of different stuff going on with different people. And then those people have different projects going on and so on and so on. And I feel like it's not quite the same because I do feel the pressure with six colors of like, you know, in some cases, if I don't do it, it doesn't happen. And so I need to do it. I don't have yeah i don't have somebody i can be like okay you guys take care of this while i'm gone i do some of that like with dan where he can pick up for me a little bit but it's not the same so um that's the downside of it but i do feel like i'm i'm not i'm not on my own that i've got collaborators all over the place yeah i think i mostly agree with with that um i am right now in like a post-conference slump where like i was around everyone for a few

days and it's kind of sad to come back and there's nobody here right like or just like one or two people if that and you know so that sort of stuff it can be like a bit like oh this isn't nice that's nice and that's kind of how i feel right now but on the whole i do agree like i don't need there to be an office i don't need everyone to be around all the time because it actually kind of works slack stuff works and and one of the big things for me where i don't feel lonely is that i do stuff like this like i talk to people all the time i talk to all my friends i talk to you more than i would if we lived in the same town because we talk every week right like imagine there's no podcast right and we work in some company together or we're

just friends i definitely talk to you more because we have this structured time that we talk every week. But it is a bit, you know, it can be a bit sad when you're departed from everyone again after being around each other for so long. And that, you know, that's independence, but that's how it is, right? When you're independent in this way. And I'm even more independent because I live on the other side of the world to everybody else um what are some of the things that you still want to do in your self-employment that you haven't had the chance to do yet uh I want to do I want to do videos I want to do more videos um because I'm really intrigued by that medium and it's just one of those things that I have not, I have to, I have to find time to do it. And that's a challenge. Um, I need to rewrite my, uh, finish rewriting my novel, which I'm only partway through because I would like to

finish the rewrite and publish it. Um, and I would like to do more, um, I would say more books or another book project. I want to do a podcasting project, a book, video, something. I'm not sure. But carving out the time for that is hard. I'm also updating my photos book, which is going to take some time this summer because there's a lot going on with photos now, it turns out. But yeah, so there's a bunch of things I've got on my list. And that's the challenge is always, how do you balance your time? And not, you know,

when do you put in the extra hours? And what projects do you put those in on? And what's the return in terms of sort of long term growth, and short term cash and things like that? Yeah, I get all of that. totally um what are some things that you think you're definitely going to change in year three though like you know there are things you still want to do but are there any that are on the kind of the near horizon to you that you think will definitely be able to change uh who knows i mean every day I'm thinking about it. So I think that's, that's the question is just finding, finding balance, finding a way to do the right number of projects for the, the right, the right benefit, whatever that benefit might be. Because some of the projects I do,

I do because they're interesting or fun or new or try something different. And some of the projects I do because I think this is going to be a smart project that is going to help me make my living. And, um, so different motivations for different kinds of projects. And I'm, but I'm always, I'm always looking at that. I think, I think that's healthy. I think, you know, you and Steven do that with relay too. It's like, you're always, always making those questions about like, uh, so I don't, I don't have a, I don't have a year three list or something. nor do I have a even go by calendar year. I just don't do that. But I do, I'm asking myself that question all the time.

Yeah, I think about this stuff and I think about it in a relatively informal way. I think we're going to do it a little bit more formally for year three of RelayFM. Like me and Stephen are going to be together for our anniversary week and that's one of the things we're going to talk about i'm heading out to memphis we're going to do a bunch of stuff from memphis um so i think that's going to be something that we can look at a little

bit more in a more structured way i don't know if we if it if that is what works for us but we're going to try it anyway you know because we haven't really't really. I mean, at least I don't. I think of things a little bit more informally. And we thought about goals and stuff as a company, but maybe there is a better structure for us than the one that we currently have. Would you like to add anything more to your independence topic before we move into Ask Upgrade? I don't think so. Thank you for asking. I think it's going pretty well. I am very grateful that I was thinking about this the other day that before I had the nightmare that I when I started this, I really didn't know how it was going to work, how long it was going to go. basic worries of like, can this work? And right now I'm in a place where I'm definitely not complacent. I'm always concerned about it, but I feel like, you know, this is what I do. And I've been able to do this and stay doing this. And that makes me happy because that's, this is what I want to do. So I hope I can continue to do that. There are always threats out there and there are always going to be opportunities and setbacks. But the fact that I am here nearly two years later still doing this

is kind of amazing to me on one level, and I'm very grateful for it. This week's episode is also brought to you by Casper, the company focused on sleep. Casper has created the perfect mattress that it sells directly to consumers, eliminating commission-driven inflated prices. Casper revolutionized the mattress industry by cutting the cost of resellers and showrooms. The prices are usually hiked up to deal with all of that infrastructure and then taking those extra savings and passing them directly to the consumer by creating a product that is award-winning and also a fair price.

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casper.com slash upgrade and using the code upgrade at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Casper for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. It's time for Ask Upgrade, Jason. Yay! Choo-choo-choo! Ask Upgrade! Nice. I'm going to go with the pronunciation of Lachlan here,

because it sounds fancy enough that it might be correct. And they would like to know, I think this is probably directed at me exclusively, if there is any kind of time when I use both of my iPads at once. I am well

known as being a multi-iPad person. There are definitely times where I use them both at once. I very frequently use more than one iOS device. It might be my iPhone and my iPad or both of my iPads. And some of this stuff can come from me wanting to be able to see multiple applications in full screen

at once, or it can be me getting around an application that doesn't use split screen. So sometimes I will need to update some Google Sheets and we'll use one iPad with the Google Sheet and the other one with some reference material that I need. Maybe I'm filling out like a spreadsheet of download statistics or something. So I'm using my web browser and Google Sheets and I'm using two iPads that way. But there also can be times where I am watching a video and maybe want to take notes on it and want to watch the video in full screen. So I can do that or I can prop up the video and maybe want to take notes on it and want to watch the video in full screen so I can do that

or I can prop up the video and take notes or maybe, you know, I was using that talk show app recently and I had multiple things happening and once I was doing that on one iPad because I wanted the full screen there and then I also have some notes running on another one.

I know it can be kind of crazy to use both and to be honest, that's not why I own both. It's not so I can use them both at the same time. An iPad for every app. Every iPad has one app. Exactly. It's more that I just believe that each iPad has different uses. But I do like having the flexibility of having them both to use if I do want to do that. You know, there might be some times where we're me and Adina, we're watching a video in bed, and I want to just grab something to do some work or whatever. And I if I do want to do that. You know, there might be some times where me and Adina might be watching a video in bed and I want to just grab something to do some work or whatever,

and I have two iPads to do that with, and it's nice. But mostly it's just I like to use them both for their different things that I use them with, as opposed to having these devices so they can be used simultaneously. Lachlan did have a second question, which is... Of course. What do you use the Apple Pencil for most

and what apps take advantage of it nicely the most use I get out of the Apple Pencil is navigating UI so scrolling and interacting with things and I do this a lot and I find it very comfortable I am a Wacom user on my Mac I'm very used to dealing with this

one of my favorite things for this is if I'm using a spreadsheet I can have the spreadsheet zoomed way out because the pencil has a much more precise touch target than I do with my chubby fingers. You know, I'm able to hit inside of cells and stuff very easily with the Apple Pencil, and I like it for that. If I'm doing something that requires lots of tapping, then I will do for that. If I'm doing something that requires lots of tapping, then I will do that. Like if I'm sitting down to do something like spreadsheet work, and I know I'm mentioning spreadsheets a lot. I do work in a lot of spreadsheets, which is probably why. And what apps take advantage of it nicely? I mean, if you're

thinking about like drawing apps and stuff like that, you know, there are applications like Procreate and Paper that do a good job with this stuff. I use two note taking applications, one called Notability and one called GoodNotes. They're really good for taking notes of stuff and dealing with documents. But the other thing that I use my pencil for a lot is signing stuff um and i use pdf pen to sign contracts and things like that i i do that a lot with uh with my apple pencil because more than anything i like to sign an actual document i like it i like signing stuff if we have an actual little pencil where it's really signing it. I know it's kind of silly, but I don't know. It feels more fancy to me.

Next up is from Will. And Will wants to know, and I'm going to go to you first, Jason, because I didn't even think it was worth asking you about the Apple Pencil, to be honest. No. Do you name your computers or iPads or devices in your home? If so, can you give an example of some of the names and what would be a good name for Will's Pixel C?

So Will is giving us an important life question to answer. So we can come to that in a moment. But do you name your devices? Yes, I do. Why do you do this? Why not? Exactly. You have the ability to, right? why not give them names i can name

them and also when in certain circumstances when you're on a network or you're looking at itunes to authorize or deauthorize devices having them say iphone is not helpful right yeah it's it's better for them to have names my generally my devices that I own have Monkey in the name because, why not? Monkeys are great. And so, like, my iMac is iMonkey. My phone is MonkeyPhone 6S. My iPad is, I believe my iPad Pro is MonkeyPad Pro. I believe that's what it's now called.

I like that that Monkey can be either the i section or the other part section, right? So you have eye monkey, but then monkey phone and monkey pad. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Monkey Mac. That's no good. Eye monkey. Yes, that's it.

And for ancillary devices, I will sometimes name them after other apes or monkeys or other primates. So my server, my Mac mini server right now is called Gibbon. And I think it used to be Gorilla and now it's Gibbon. When I redid it, I gave it a new name or maybe Gorilla. Gorilla might even be the name of the hard drive, the volume on which the Gibbon server runs just to mix my apes. But I decided for a theme when, just to mix my apes. But I decided for a theme when, so Adam and Tanya Angst who do Tidbits, they got on the internet very early. They had lots of different servers in the tidbits.com domain, including all of the devices. And all of their devices at their house had names, and they were all the names of penguins. And if you go back in time to many different Unix labs, especially computer labs at universities in the early days of the Internet, they all had naming themes or many of them had naming themes where it would be penguins or cats or whatever.

And so I took from that some inspiration to say, OK, monkeys are going to be and other apes and primates are going to be my thing. I have named stuff in the past um and it would go with a convention so uh i had marvel superheroes at one point um i and i would give an appropriate name to each of them you know depending on maybe the size of the device or for some sure you know so like the mac would be the hulk that's why my server with the big hard drive was Gorilla, you see. And I have used Scott Pilgrim characters because that's a property I like a lot. I don't have names for my devices right now,

except my phone, which is called Hashtag Michael's Right. Can't help it. So I would actually like some suggestions from the Upgrade audience for a new naming convention, and I will then rename everything to fit within that convention. So I would like a good convention going forward.

So I will petition for the Upgrade audience to contact me via Twitter at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. Using the hashtag AskUpgrade for this would be really good because then they'll go into a spreadsheet and I definitely won't miss any. So that's always good to go with a double hitter. So please help me there. We do have names for lots of products in the home

because Idina really likes to name stuff. And she likes to give her products names, like regular names. So like her phone is called joffrey mac is called frank and i think her phone should be called jeffrey by the way but she's taking a game of thrones thing i think from this um and we our canary is called buster because he will bust any criminals okay i really like that one. And we refer to it as Buster. We just call it Buster.

So I would like some naming for a new naming convention for my devices, because I've laxed on that. But I do think it's fun. So what shall we suggest for Will's Pixel C, then? I'm going to go with Pico, P-I-C-O, Pico the Pixel. I quite like that. Do you have a name? I do.

I would say Will should find something that is a fun, in the vein of me having monkey names, find a favorite animal or TV show or movie or whatever that you like and uh pick a pick a fun name for that and then just continue on maybe maybe of something small and adorable like a pixel c or like call it r2d2 r2c2 oh yeah there you go or p2 p2c2 or Or just C3PO. Oh. Less little and cute. That's true. But better.

Depends. If you find your Pixel C to be insufferable and annoying, maybe you'll go for C3PO. How about P3CO? Yeah, there you go. We're all over this. We're all over this. High five.

I self-high-fived. Yep. If two people self-high-five whilst having a conversation does i think that counts as a high five it's it's really just a really slow clap at that point but yeah rajiv asked um i'm concerned about shared clipboard security in ios. Can it be disabled, Jason? Yes, you can turn off shared clipboard. It is proximity-based, so you would have to have a device that's very close to your Mac, and then you would need to... And it's also time-limited as well,

which is another good thing. So it's two minutes. It's got to be close to your Mac. Both devices have to be on the same iCloud account. And then the data actually doesn't transfer until the paste. But if that's still not enough security for you, yes, you just turn it off and then it's off. I can imagine many family scenarios

where it wouldn't work, right? Where people were sharing iCloud accounts. Maybe they shouldn't be, but people do because there was previously a time where it was all you could do. Maybe they shouldn't be, but people do because there was previously a time where it was all you could do. We have a document, we have a topic in our document which has been here for a very long time,

which is how bad family iCloud sharing is, which is another reason why people might not be doing this. But I can imagine, right, people in the same home where someone could hit paste and it could be the wrong thing. Like I can see that occurring.

So the ability to turn it off is a good thing. Max has asked, would you consider iPad multitasking vital enough to warrant an upgrade, or just a nice-to-have feature? I think it's vital. And the reason I think

this is because it was iPad multitasking was what got me on the iPad track, and I think you're probably in the same boat. Yep. reason i think this is because it was ipad multitasking was what got me on the ipad track and i think you're probably in the same boat yep so i mean we do work from our ipads if you have work that you want to do and and when i see the thing is my work is also sometimes reading twitter and talking in slack right like i do think of this as work sometimes so there is also fun things to do with these with the multitasking in these devices i really do think that it's worth it and it's i'm trying to push casey towards a 9.7 inch ipad pro because the mini well i think the mini is one of the most

ridiculous devices that apple makes now oh the ipad mini it's barely even an ipad and it's it's for me now and i didn't feel this way before but the ipad mini is approaching phablet territory and ridiculousness because it kind of has none of the benefits of either a phone or a tablet and a lot of the downsides of being in the middle my son loves his and it is the same number of pixels as the ipad air it's just smaller so i'm fine with it yep and adina loves the one that i gave her it's like she really really does love it yeah but you know i just think it yeah it has the same pixels doesn't have the same features you can't do the the you can't do multi split screen multitasking on it can you or maybe you can on the most recent one? On the Mini 4, yeah. Okay, well, she doesn't have a Mini 4.

But anyway, I'm trying to push Casey towards the 9.7 because it's awesome because it has all of the other great stuff in it. I'm talking about the Pro, of course, but the pencil and the keyboard because the keyboard is amazing. Love it. Absolutely love it.

Mark asked, so Macs, yes, I think it is vital. So if you're on the fence, I think you should go for it because it's fantastic. If you have an iPad that doesn't support it. Mark has asked, do you believe or do you think that they will honor Steve on the new campus? There could be like a conference room or a garden path or something. Or Mark suggests, which I think is kind of nice, an office that is steve's office that nobody uses uh i think that's nice but maybe it would be better if they kept the old one as opposed to giving him a new one because he never actually was in there anyway so it doesn't mean the same uh maybe if they're going to knock down the old campus

recreating his office no but like you know like if they ever do do that taking steve's office as i assume it probably is untouched i expect i don't know yes i think so um if they ever do do that, taking Steve's office, as I assume it probably is untouched, I expect. I don't know this. Yes, I think so. If they took it and moved it, that would also be a nice touch. But do you think they definitely should? Do you think they will?

And what do you think they might do? So Pixar named their main building the Steve Jobs building after he passed away. They dedicated it to him. My guess is they will absolutely honor Steve on the new campus. I'm going to say they're probably going to name the new campus the Steve Jobs Campus. I was just about to say that because it doesn't have a name right now. No, it's the spaceship, right? Or Campus 2.

Campus 2, right. I think it's going to be the Steve Jobs Campus, Apple's Steve Jobs Campus. Or the Jobs Building or something like something or or the or they'll name that the uh the big auditorium complex that they've got for events the steve jobs auditorium or something like that but i think it would be extremely prominent and i would be actually a little surprised if the name of the campus itself is not the steve jobs campus yeah if it gets a name and it's not related to steve jobs in some way that would be really peculiar yeah it name and it's not related to steve jobs in some way that would be really peculiar yeah it's not it's not gonna happen because they already have the perfect name for the campus in use which is the infinite loop right like it's it's already a circle right

like you're done you can't name it that because you've got the previous one yeah so i figure they may as well and they read i think they should call it like the job building or something like that but it'd be nice that'd be very nice if they do. We'll see. And finally today, Jeff asked, what is the best? Oh, what the hell? I'll give that a try.

Tech purchase that you've ever made. For me, it's the TiVo, the first generation TiVo. I bought that kind of on a lark. My wife was very skeptical. It's like, but it's a digital video recorder. It records shows on a hard drive and then you can delete them and watch them at any point. You can watch one while it's like but it's a it's a it's a digital video recorder it records shows on a hard drive and then you can you can delete them and watch them at any point you can watch one while it's

recording another you can play it back from earlier on while it's recording later on she's like yeah this seems like it's really expensive and a bad idea and it turned out to be a fantastic idea and now everybody's got a DVR so but I had that first generation TiVo it was great it was really great. So I will start off with a recent one. And I'll say Mr. Buster that sits out there and protects my home was definitely an impulse buy. I was in an Apple store. I've been thinking about something to get like this.

But it was an impulse buy. But the great thing about it is the Canary gives you peace of mind which is fantastic and i love it for that um but probably the best impulse buy i ever made was the ipod mini because it was fantastic but also set me on this path that i'm now here like the ipod mini was what kind of got me into the apple ecosystem and really pushed me down that path and also it was so cool because mine again it was like it was an impulse thing because i i bought a pink one i didn't want a pink one but it was all they had in the store so i went with it and just kind of then began what oh man the mini was so cool i mean i know we're talking about with the the iMacs, but the colors, man. Give me the colors. I know. I want the colors.

Give me the colors, Apple. Come on. We'll see. Alright, so that is it for this week's episode of Upgrade. USA! USA! USA! USA is A-OK by me. That's what I say. Happy Independence Day to all

the Americans listening. Yeah, I hope that you're all enjoying... While you're barbecuing. When I say I that you're all enjoying it. While you're barbecuing. When I say I hope you're all enjoying your independence, it is not a threat. Or, like, it's not me begrudgingly saying it. I really do hope you're enjoying it. Because, you know, many people make many jokes to me on Independence Day. Independence Day is one of my least favorite days of the year.

Because people on the internet remind me of something i just couldn't care less about which is the fact that america was once part of the united kingdom like yeah yeah king george i think i think the english didn't like king george a whole lot either frankly so i mean like really i don't care uh and i'm very happy that america is its own little thing because i like America for what it is. And frankly, right now, I wish that America will take my island nation and make it a state all of its own. 51st state, come on over. Please.

Just get the pontoons up and just drift across the Atlantic. Gosh, that would be amazing. We'll put you just south of Nova Scotia. I don't care if you move me or not. It would be kind of beautiful. I mean, you know, we own the, is it the Bermuda Islands, I believe? Yes, Bermuda.

You know, so America could take us. It would be real nice. If you want to find show notes for this week's episode, head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 96 if you'd like to find Jason online he is at jsnl on twitter j-s-n-e-l-l and he's over at sixcolors.com and theincomparable.com

and he is the host of a fine selection of shows at relay.fm as well I am at imike on twitter that is where you can suggest to me some names or some naming conventions for my flock of devices that I own here. Thanks again to our sponsors for this week,

Casper, Pingdom, and Igloo. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Remember, hashtag AskUpgrade for all your important personal life moments. Things that only your favorite podcast hosts can give you the real suggestions for.