370: Ghost Finger
19 Mar 2020New MacBook Air and iPad Pro, and Magic Keyboards for (almost) everyone!
Episode Description:
- WWDC 2020 will be online-only
- Press release
- Original Gravity ("the beer-and-sausage place")
- Follow-up:
- Rebinding Xcode commands via Incoherent Toots
- Apple Style Guide
- New Apple Hardware
- Post-show: Consoles
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Chapters
- Online-only WWDC
- Follow-up: Xcode shortcuts
- Follow-up: Modifier order
- Sponsor: ExpressVPN
- Mac Mini had things happen
- MacBook Air
- Sponsor: Eero (code ATP)
- iPad Pro & Magic Keyboard
- Sponsor: Squarespace (code ATP)
- Magic Keyboard, cont’d.
- Ending theme
- Game consoles exist
Online-only WWDC
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We should do some of that. I have some things
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco to say about that.
⏹️ ▶️ John So write it in a document somewhere, please.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t have the authority to do that. You do. To add a top-level topic?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I hope you… I think you’re just fing around, but I hope you’re just fing around because of
⏹️ ▶️ John are. He is because he adds stuff all the time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, I wouldn’t feel bad editing the document, you know, when John’s not looking, but like at the same time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco John is editing it, I can’t…
⏹️ ▶️ Casey no, no, no. In that sense, I’m right there with you. I completely agree. A lot has
⏹️ ▶️ Casey happened since we last spoke. I feel like it’s been a month since I’ve spoken to you fine gentlemen. Uh, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’re going to go through things and probably random and weird order, but here we go. Let’s start out with, I will not be seeing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you guys in a few months. And that makes me sad. It’s for the best, but it makes me sad. WWDC
⏹️ ▶️ Casey entirely online this year.
⏹️ ▶️ John You won’t be seeing anybody. Well, you’ll be seeing them from a distance, I suppose. From a safe distance. You’ll be
⏹️ ▶️ John seeing videos. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But I won’t be, I won’t be on stage with you guys. I know that John looks forward to that every single year. Mm-hmm.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Mm-hmm. Yeah. Officially, WBC has gone online only for this year. No statements about future years,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as you’d expect. This is not a surprise. In fact, I think having it in person would have been a huge
⏹️ ▶️ Marco surprise, given the state of everything right now. In the middle of the COVID-19
⏹️ ▶️ Marco coronavirus epidemic and everything, there’s no reason anybody should be holding giant in-person conferences
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the next few months. This is the world we’re in right now. It’s rough for a lot of reasons, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re getting through it and Apple did what they had to do here. And compared to our speculation last week that they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would probably cancel it, we actually don’t have any additional information than what we had last
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time. Really? Like we were wondering last time, like, what are they going to do about things like labs where you have access
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the engineers and the press release that includes the, you know, the cancellation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco changes and everything. It does vaguely mention something like they’re trying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to find new ways to give people access to the engineers that work on this stuff. So it does sound
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like they’re working on something like that, but we don’t know what that is yet. Presumably because they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just have been scrambling to get all this together and it’s just not ready to be announced yet.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Among other details that are lacking, we also don’t even know the dates that they’re going to do the online conference
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or what the online conference will even really be. All they said was June,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but June is 30 days long, so we’ll find out. Ultimately though, since nobody has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to make travel plans to be there, with the exception of possibly if they have a media
⏹️ ▶️ Marco only keynote like in their Steve Jobs theater, which even that I think is a big question mark,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco whether that would be appropriate to do. But that only takes a short notice to plan.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That takes a couple of weeks maybe to set up. So they can hold off on that. But in the meantime,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all they say is June, And I think that gives them the flexibility to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not necessarily have to rush that beta one as hard to hit this early June
⏹️ ▶️ Marco target travel time and booking this big conference center and everything. Now, it can be mid-June
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or late June and they can do it whenever the software is ready for that beta one. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ve always heard, as you have I’m sure, that the rush to get that beta one is a really big push and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s massively overworking everybody get that beta one there in time for day
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one of WWDC. And so now that this is kind of free-floating
⏹️ ▶️ Marco within the whole month of June, maybe it’ll help that. Maybe it’ll help software quality a bit. We can be optimistic,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but either way, we don’t know most of the details yet, but they did the right thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John Flip side of that, presumably, like everyone else, their productivity is going way down, so maybe they will
⏹️ ▶️ John have to pull even more things from the OS to even hit the vague June date.
⏹️ ▶️ John We’ll see. you characterize this as like they announced the cancellation. They didn’t announce
⏹️ ▶️ John the cancellation. They announced the conference. They announced WWDC online 2020. There’s no, nothing
⏹️ ▶️ John was canceled. What could possibly have been canceled because nothing was announced. They had an announcement. This is another example of,
⏹️ ▶️ John uh, you know, Apple’s typical PR. It’d be interesting to see how their PR strategy
⏹️ ▶️ John holds up or evolves in the crucible that is the, the coronavirus situation.
⏹️ ▶️ John So they did, you know, they did a press release and a website and all and all that stuff, hey, announcing the BWC, it’s online.
⏹️ ▶️ John Their press release managed to go for a page and a half without mentioning corona
⏹️ ▶️ John or COVID-19 a single time. An amazing exercise in,
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, it’s weird, like, because, you know, it’s not, we all know, they said health reasons or
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever, some vague phrase or whatever, but they still didn’t want to put the word in there. It’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ John does that imbue it with some power, if you name it, or is it the opposite, By not naming it like
⏹️ ▶️ John Voldemort, are you? It’s fine, typically understated thing. It makes sense
⏹️ ▶️ John that we are announcing an online thing. And you’re right, Margo, they had vague notions
⏹️ ▶️ John of how they’re going to do things better. But they don’t know yet. How long, honestly, how long could they possibly have had? We
⏹️ ▶️ John know when this thing came to the awareness of the public. It’s only a couple of months, and so it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John very difficult to formulate a plan, to change what your plan was before,
⏹️ ▶️ John and to formulate an entirely new plan even in a couple of months is quite a scramble
⏹️ ▶️ John to figure out what to do. But I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m not actually expecting them to call a bunch of
⏹️ ▶️ John press there, but June is a ways away, so who knows what will happen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, I think we’re seeing, and we’ll get to this in a little while, this morning they released a bunch of new products,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and there had been this rumored March or Spring event for this year,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that didn’t happen. They’re kind of releasing products now without having press events, or without having big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco press events. And they’re probably shipping people review units, or maybe if, I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know if they’re gonna have small briefings with certain journalists, I have no idea. The releases that came out today, which we’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get to in a little while, they were not big, flashy releases. There was not a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to necessarily demo, with the exception of maybe that mouse stuff, but again, we’ll get to that. But it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was not like, this wouldn’t have made an event all by itself, like what we saw today. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe they still haven’t figured out how to do something like WBC, which usually
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s all software, and usually that’s a lot of things that need to be demoed. It’s a lot,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s like a big presentation telling the story of why certain features are there,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or certain needs they tried to solve. And you can do all that with like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pre-recorded video with no audience. You know, you can do that. But will they do that? It’s not really something they’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Marco done before, but it doesn’t mean they can’t. So yeah, we’ll see. I also, I do love,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco before we move on, I do love the the writing of this press release. You know as John said, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know very like P R E’s. My favorite thing is that it’s actually fairly hard to tell
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a while as you read it that like the in-person part has been canceled and that it is online only
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because they’re they’re using such optimistic PR speak at the whole time that it almost sounds like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re announcing the conference is going to take place normally. You really have to kind of read between the lines for a little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco while before you realize oh this is online only, but you kind of have to dig for it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, you don’t say anything negative. You don’t say what’s not there. You say WWDC is back with a new online,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, what’s good about it. It’s back. It’s here. It’s online. It’s new. It’s cool. And you never mentioned
⏹️ ▶️ John what it is not. Look at all these USB-C ports.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I also thought it was interesting that this line from the press release, Apple also announced it will commit $1
⏹️ ▶️ Casey million to local San Jose organizations to offset associated revenue loss as a result of WWDC
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 2020’s new online format. I mean, obviously, we’re never going to really know what that means. Does that mean they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Casey writing checks to businesses? Like what do you guys reckon? I do think it’s a good idea. Like I think that that’s the kind and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey appropriate thing to do, although a million dollars seems a little bit, a little bit cheap, but that’s okay.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But where, who is, who is going to be receiving this money? Do you reckon?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I don’t know how those, those mechanics
⏹️ ▶️ Marco work. That’s a huge question mark because like a million dollars, if it’s going to like every if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s going to offset the amount of commerce that would have been generated by 5,000 nerds
⏹️ ▶️ Marco living there for a week, that probably isn’t enough money. But it depends. Is it including things like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the hotels, which is probably everyone’s largest expense to be there? I think they’ll be okay
⏹️ ▶️ Marco without the money. The rates they’ve been charging there consistently for the last few years,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think they’ll be all right if they don’t have this one summer with that. But the way it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco worded and with the amount that it is, It’s probably, I would assume, the intention is going
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to things like bars and restaurants and event venues and stuff like that, that would be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much more strongly affected by this. But how do they determine who gets what?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Where do they draw these lines of, okay, we’re going to have, what, a radius around the conference center and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco every restaurant within this? It’s just a weird… It’s a great intention, but I’m really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco curious how the heck the details work on that.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know anything about this. And knowing Apple, they could do something weird. But when I read it, my assumption was that
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re giving it to the city, giving to some form of government. And then the government will decide how to spend it. And honestly, at
⏹️ ▶️ John this point, even back when they announced it, which was so long ago, like several days, it
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco seems so long ago,
⏹️ ▶️ John so much has changed that it’s like any money, if they did just give it to the government, any of that money,
⏹️ ▶️ John the best place to use that money is changing all the time. Right now, it’s like, oh, it should go to
⏹️ ▶️ John workers who are laid off. Like, oh, so Marriott will be fine, but what about all of the staff that
⏹️ ▶️ John runs it? And they’re getting laid off because nobody is booking hotels, right? So they need support so they can continue to
⏹️ ▶️ John live, right? Drawing the line from getting it to them, they seem the right thing to do.
⏹️ ▶️ John Five days from now, the right thing to do may be fund the manufacture
⏹️ ▶️ John of new ventilators. Like, we don’t know what the best place to do that money is, but in the triage, it
⏹️ ▶️ John starts off as like, oh, let’s offset lost business. Oh, let’s give money to people who have no job. Oh, let’s try to keep
⏹️ ▶️ John people alive. I don’t know what comes after that last one, but I don’t think we want to find out. But anyway, a million
⏹️ ▶️ John dollars is nothing. Hopefully, you know, Apple trying to do a token gesture
⏹️ ▶️ John in the direction of we’re taking economic activity away. Again, it’s a three days
⏹️ ▶️ John ago gesture or four days ago gesture. Like we’re less worried about the economic impact of
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple not holding a conference. We’re more worried about the economic impact of people no longer moving
⏹️ ▶️ John about society. It’s a bigger concern. So again, five days from now, we’ll see what it is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Either way, I am very, very sad. You know, WWDC and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey seeing all of my friends and colleagues there, it’s a highlight of my year and I’m really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sad to miss out on it. But I absolutely unequivocally think this is the right
⏹️ ▶️ Casey call and who knows, it may be better and probably will be better in at least a handful of ways,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey maybe even in a lot of ways. So I am very excited to see how this happens,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know, what comes of it are their labs? How does that work? How is the keynote? Is it really,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is it just a prerecorded thing? Is it something that’s done live with like a handful of people in the audience? I don’t have the faintest
⏹️ ▶️ Casey idea. None of us do, but I do think it will be a very fascinating and interesting thing to see.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And, and certainly as I think we’ve talked about on this show and certainly other shows have also talked about, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey WWDC is a very, like actually attending the conference itself as an extremely exclusive
⏹️ ▶️ Casey club and just going to San Jose. is a very exclusive club because of the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey absolute ridiculous cost of it. You know, even assuming you can travel there, you know, like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Marco said earlier, I mean, to put things in perspective, it is usually a couple of thousand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey dollars to have a reasonably decent hotel room, reasonably close
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the conference. Now, certainly you can go much further away, especially now that the scooters are everywhere, or were everywhere
⏹️ ▶️ Casey anyway, but it is a lot of money and the conference itself is, you know, $1,700, $1,600, something like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that. And it’s very expensive. And so I am happy not to be
⏹️ ▶️ Casey spending all that money this year, but I’m sad to be missing out on so much of it because so much of it is so great and so much fun
⏹️ ▶️ Casey too. And as much as I joke about how John doesn’t really love doing the live shows,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I really enjoy, and I think John does too, even though I’ll never admit it, I think we all really enjoy
⏹️ ▶️ Casey doing the live shows and getting to meet listeners. And I’m bummed that we’re not going to be able to do that this year. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hopefully next year, maybe, possibly, we’ll see. But next year is like 15 years from now,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or at least that’s the way it feels. So we’ll see what happens. But all in all, I do think this is a good call
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I am curious and excited to see how it ends up. **Matt
⏹️ ▶️ John Stauffer** Don’t forget the plane flight. I hate that part too. Jeff Lackman
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that’s right. I forgot how much you love being in the plane too, staring out the window for six hours straight.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Matt Stauffer You know what I’m really going to miss though? The box lunches. **Jeff
⏹️ ▶️ John should have known. Matt Stauffer You didn’t even have one last year, did you? Yeah, I did. Yeah, he ate one with us. Mm-hmm. Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I’ll miss those box lunches.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Definitely gonna miss the beer in Salzburg’s place too, though.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, Original Gravity is very good.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I hope they don’t go out of business. Honestly, I don’t know what their finances are. They probably won’t because they are the best
⏹️ ▶️ Marco place in that entire area. I hope they don’t. But I think one of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco challenges of the COVID-19 economic fallout is going to be, I think we’re you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco going to lose a lot of restaurants. Because restaurants are mostly having to shut down
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or entirely having to shut down. And restaurants are not high profit businesses.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They don’t have a lot of slack in their finances usually. So I’m very concerned
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about just, you know, the entire restaurant economy. How many people work in it, how
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many people are directly related to working in it Same thing with travel and tourism.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s all sorts of industries that are going to be hit very hard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by this. One of the lasting economic problems that we’re going to have from this is like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re probably going to lose a lot of restaurants that we like. And in addition to all the people who are going to be directly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco affected by losing their jobs, which is itself a huge problem, even if you think this won’t affect me,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I bet it will affect something in your town.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. And it’s that kind of fallout that is freaking me out. And I’m trying not to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey think too much about it because it, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. So you just got to move on.
Follow-up: Xcode shortcuts
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So speaking, moving on, let’s do that. You know, I got to tell you, gentlemen, I am becoming
⏹️ ▶️ Casey ever older and ever more curmudgeonly. And so I really do not care for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the thing on Twitter where you make some sort of cutesy name, particularly around the holidays. I find
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it to be very gross. But I have to say that if you’re going to choose a cutesy name, you got
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to go all in. And so we have the following tweet from Incoherent Toots. You can rebind
⏹️ ▶️ Casey those Xcode commands, John, in Xcode settings, not in system preferences. Can you tell me about the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey context here, if you don’t mind?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, this is me talking about Control 6 for the function pop-up thingy, and I couldn’t find the menu
⏹️ ▶️ John command. Two points here. One, there actually is a menu command. It’s buried in the view menu somewhere. It’s like a submenu. So I could
⏹️ ▶️ John have found it if I had searched. It’s just not called what I thought it would call. I forget what it’s called. It’s like show document items or something.
⏹️ ▶️ John It is a name that I never would have guessed. I don’t know. And two, Xcode, like BBEdit and like
⏹️ ▶️ John lots of fancy apps, has within itself a way for you to change key bindings for stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ John So you don’t need to go to system preferences and mess with it that way. You can actually go to the Xcode preferences and there
⏹️ ▶️ John you can set all the key bindings. And I did and now it’s Control F and I feel better.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, it’s view editor show document items as you suspected a moment ago.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, the one complaint I have is that like it does give you a warning, like a little yellow triangle or something if you bind it because
⏹️ ▶️ John Control F was bound to something else, but it lets you bind it. And then if you don’t notice that little warning, now it’s bound
⏹️ ▶️ John to two things and I have no idea how it resolves that. And when it bound, Like, I would expect it to say, like BVEdit does,
⏹️ ▶️ John hey, you can’t use Control-F, it’s used for watchamahoozie. And then even better, it would say, it’s used for watchamahoozie,
⏹️ ▶️ John do you want to steal it from watchamahoozie? And then I would say yes, and I’m done. Instead, it let me bind it, showed me a little icon
⏹️ ▶️ John that I had to click on and then track down the other one and erase it. So, still a little bit of work to be done, but
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a pretty good interface if you want to customize things in Xcode, I encourage that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, I approve, IncoherentTuts, it’s a great name.
Follow-up: Modifier order
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We had a couple of very, very cranky people perturbed at the way
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in which I had ordered the different modifiers for shortcut keys, and I don’t remember what I did, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was very, very wrong. And it was made clear by the cranky people that I was very wrong. And it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey turns out a couple of people pointed out to us that actually Apple has a print
⏹️ ▶️ Casey style guide that explains exactly how this is supposed to work. And it reads, keyboard shortcuts using combination
⏹️ ▶️ Casey keystrokes. And combination keystrokes use hyphens to signify that the user should hold down the first key or keys while
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pressing the last key. Don’t use a hyphen if each key should be pressed and released separately. Be sure to explain this convention
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of first use. So for example, control hyphen shift hyphen N versus escape
⏹️ ▶️ Casey space N. Capitalize, but don’t italicize or use code font for letters used
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as key names. So for example, capital C command hyphen C or capital C
⏹️ ▶️ Casey command hyphen X. If there’s more than one modifier key use this order function,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Control Option Shift Command. Again, Function Control Option Shift Command.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey When a keyboard shortcut includes a mouse or trackpad action, use the lowercase for the mouse
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or trackpad action. So for example, capital O option
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hyphen lowercase c click, or option swipe, which capital O lowercase
⏹️ ▶️ Casey s, with three fingers. And this is from the Apple Style Guide, which we will link in the show notes.
⏹️ ▶️ John We forgot about the Fn key, Marco’s favorite key, as a modifier, which I think is mostly
⏹️ ▶️ John bogus, because honestly, you’re not using the Fn key in keyboard modifiers unless you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John trained to get at something in one of the Fn keys. But yeah, so last show we talked about adjective
⏹️ ▶️ John order and the way these modifiers should go when you’re talking about them, Command-Shift-3, Command-Shift-4,
⏹️ ▶️ John and then we also talked about the order that the symbols appear in the menus, which was a different order, there wasn’t a reverse of
⏹️ ▶️ John the order that you talk about them. Here is a third order, and people saying this it’s like, oh, you’re wrong about the spoken
⏹️ ▶️ John order. Apple says this. No, this is for print. So we weren’t writing it. If you’re writing
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff and you want to conform to the Apple style guide, yes, use the Apple style guide. But if you’re speaking, it’s Command
⏹️ ▶️ John Shift 3. And if you do not say Command Shift 3, if you do it in this order, you will sound weird
⏹️ ▶️ John and you will basically sound, saying brown big bear. So it’s great that they have this
⏹️ ▶️ John guide. I’m not sure why the order is different in their print style guide. If you look through Apple’s print style
⏹️ ▶️ John guide, they do a lot of things that seem strange in there. I’m sure the print style guide has evolved over time,
⏹️ ▶️ John But trust me when I tell you, Command Shift 3.
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Mac Mini had things happen
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⏹️ ▶️ Marco our show. ♪ Upbeat
⏹️ ▶️ Casey music ♪ Apple dropped some new stuff on us. We should probably
⏹️ ▶️ Casey take this from least interesting to most interesting, so let’s start with the Mac mini.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s new, it’s got better stuff. That’s good, I like
⏹️ ▶️ John it new? I thought they just changed the storage options. I haven’t even had time to look at all the details. I should say it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey refreshed a little bit. Well, I wouldn’t even call it that. Fine. All right, the Mac mini
⏹️ ▶️ Casey had things happen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They’ve given you more capacity and stuff for the same price as before. So that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nice. That’s better than no change at all. This Mac mini was introduced
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at the exact same time, at the exact same event as the last generation MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Air, and although not the latest MacBook Air, but this MacBook Air and the current, or in the now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco outgoing iPad Pro. Yeah, so this Mac mini is a year and a half old now and it got
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no change. But I maintain that we are still just kind of lucky to have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this Mac mini existing in the world at all. It wasn’t especially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like price competitive when it came out. It still isn’t, but that’s not really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what it’s for. It is continuing to quietly and unglamorously
⏹️ ▶️ Marco serve the market it is for, and the market it is for doesn’t really need aggressive frequent
⏹️ ▶️ Marco updates, and they sure as hell don’t get them. So,
⏹️ ▶️ John I guess it’s fine. I always wonder when they do, and we’ll talk about this more on the MacBook Air, when they do things
⏹️ ▶️ John like storage adjustments, oh, now for the same amount of money you get more storage, it
⏹️ ▶️ John always makes me unreasonably angry. It’s like, so do you care about the economics
⏹️ ▶️ John of storage or do you not? Because your prices seem so disconnected from reality. If you want to do that,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like, oh, well, there’s no connection. It’s just, that’s how, just how they do things and that’s how they price them and just deal with it. Like all
⏹️ ▶️ John their profit margin is in the flash, right? But then when they adjust it, it’s like, what do you think you’re doing?
⏹️ ▶️ John Like it’s, obviously, shouldn’t you be happy they adjusted? You thought it was too expensive and now you get twice as much
⏹️ ▶️ John for the same price. It’s like, yeah, but it’s still so far off of
⏹️ ▶️ John like competitive market prices that it doesn’t seem to make any sense.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like why adjust it at all? Like, do you think it makes it more attractive or
⏹️ ▶️ John do you think it just makes it less embarrassing? I don’t think it makes it more attractive and I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John think it makes it less embarrassing. I mean, it’s less embarrassing than if you didn’t change it, but only barely,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? Only barely is it less, it’s just, it’s like, look, if you wanna get one of these with any reasonable amount of storage, you’re gonna be paying
⏹️ ▶️ John a whole bunch more memory. Do we really care that you, you know, even double the capacity because you’re overcharging
⏹️ ▶️ John so much of the storage or, I don’t know, this is my new thing that I’m annoyed about. It used to be known
⏹️ ▶️ John about RAM when Apple would ship Macs with just way too little RAM, or you’d have to buy third party RAM because Apple’s RAM buyers
⏹️ ▶️ John were crazy, and be like, why are you offering this machine with so little RAM? It’s criminal. They don’t do that anymore,
⏹️ ▶️ John mostly because the RAM’s soldered to the motherboard, and you really can’t upgrade it on most of the machines. So they give reasonable amounts of RAM
⏹️ ▶️ John when we celebrate that. But Flash is soldered to the motherboard, or in a M.2
⏹️ ▶️ John card or whatever, like Flash is almost as integral as RAM, and still
⏹️ ▶️ John the pricing is not great. Setting aside, like Marco said, whole rest of the mini and how expensive it is for the power
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re getting yada yada you know we probably shouldn’t complain should applaud them for making any adjustments at all but as I said it makes
⏹️ ▶️ John me unreasonably upset when they make these adjustments because it breaks my mental model and just
⏹️ ▶️ John makes me angry all over again about the very uncompetitive prices they offer for internal
⏹️ ▶️ John flash storage on Macs.
MacBook Air
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Moving on from not very interesting to slightly interesting, we have a new MacBook Air, which is
⏹️ ▶️ John Slightly interesting? This is the most interesting announcement.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, why? Well, you’re just angry at the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John iPad people. I know, I know, I’m just trying to anger the iPad people.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, obviously I like Macs better than iPads, but I don’t like laptops, but
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve always been a fan of the MacBook Air and the quote unquote return of the MacBook Air with the butterfly
⏹️ ▶️ John keyboard, blah, blah, blah, the computer that’s sitting five feet away from me over here, never felt like
⏹️ ▶️ John a proper sequel to what was one of the best Macs ever made, which is its predecessor, the non-Retina
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco back when it was
⏹️ ▶️ John not embarrassingly non-Retina, right? That was a great machine, a great balance of size and features. It was the one we
⏹️ ▶️ John recommend that everybody get. It was just, you know, had a great balance of portability and power and utility,
⏹️ ▶️ John and it was sturdy, and boy, it was great. And then this in-betweeny one, which is nice form
⏹️ ▶️ John factor-wise, but not that great, and had the bad keyboard and was
⏹️ ▶️ John just kind of like, it’s good, but, and then of course, so they replaced the 16 inch
⏹️ ▶️ John with the one with the good keyboard. And now we’re just staring at every other laptop saying, okay, well, when is it your turn? And
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m pleasant, super pleasantly surprised that the MacBook Air didn’t have to wait like
⏹️ ▶️ John at the end of the line, right? It came, it got, it’s the first one to get updated after the fancy one.
⏹️ ▶️ John And now I feel like, especially with the speed bump and everything they put, and the price drop, you know, there’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John model under a thousand dollars, which isn’t that great of a model again because of the meager SSD space. But anyway, there’s a model under $1,000.
⏹️ ▶️ John It has a good keyboard. It still has a great balance of size and weight and functionality. I
⏹️ ▶️ John think this is a really good laptop now. Whereas the old one was like, it’s okay. And if you don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John want a big, you know, MacBook Pro, you should consider it. Now I feel
⏹️ ▶️ John comfortable recommending this computer based on the price, the features and the good keyboard. So I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John excited about this. This is the announcement that I am the most happy about it. because the other announcements that we’ll talk about, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, obviously the iPad Pros are really cool and there’s a bunch of stuff we’ll talk about there, but they’ve always been hitting it out of the park with the
⏹️ ▶️ John iPads, right? Not so much in the laptop line. So I feel like it’s worth celebrating this MacBook Air much
⏹️ ▶️ John more so than the iPad Pros, even though they’re probably more impressive technically.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like in many ways, the MacBook Air was more badly needed. The iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pro has been fine. Yes, it is a year and a half old going into today, but it’s been great.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I use mine every day for various stuff around the house, and it’s totally fine. And in fact, which we’ll get to,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I actually am not that motivated by the new one. That’s how fine the old one is. It’s great.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Whereas the Air, it had the stupid butterfly keyboard. The Air, I think, it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most surprising to me that the Air got updated with seemingly almost no other major
⏹️ ▶️ Marco case changes. So it actually did, I looked at the numbers, it did get slightly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thicker and heavier. But to give you some idea, the thickest part went from 15.6
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to 16.1 millimeters. So it gained half a millimeter or 3.2%
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at the thickest part of thickness, because you know, it’s wedge shaped. And then the weight
⏹️ ▶️ Marco also gained 3.2%, coincidentally. So it got 40 grams heavier,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it gained half a millimeter of thickness at the thickest part. The battery
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is the same size as the 2019 model. The kind of the most like galling
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing about this is we’ve always been assuming that the butterfly keyboard was necessary
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to achieve certain size goals for the 12 inch and then later the 13 inch MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pro. And I think what this shows to kind of like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my great joy and also frustration is that it was totally unnecessary.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that it is clearly 100% possible to design this size computer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like it got 3% thicker and 3% heavier and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it completely and vastly fixed its greatest problem.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean you don’t have to do that much complicated math. The old keyboard was whatever it was .56 millimeters of travel
⏹️ ▶️ John and the new one was one millimeter. So you got to make it about a half a millimeter thicker at minimum. And they basically
⏹️ ▶️ John made it a little bit, you they made it almost a millimeter thicker, but either way, you factor in. No,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they made it exactly a half a millimeter thicker at the thickest part. But the thinnest part’s the same.
⏹️ ▶️ John And no one’s gonna notice that and no one’s gonna care, but everyone’s going to appreciate the better keyboard. And
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve always liked this one because it’s got the real function keys, but it still has Touch ID, not a big fan of the touch
⏹️ ▶️ John bar. The other thing that I enjoy about the MacBook Air is it’s a computer,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a size and weight, where the fact that it only has two ports is somewhat
⏹️ ▶️ John more excusable, right? I get angry about the ports on the big, fancy, super expensive ones,
⏹️ ▶️ John but if you’re gonna have a limited number of ports on a MacBook Air-sized machine, I can say, okay,
⏹️ ▶️ John fine. Honestly, you should have four
⏹️ ▶️ John it, but the fact that you have two, you’re only half off, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Whenever you missed it by 100%,
⏹️ ▶️ John which is better than, you know, Casey’s computer, which missed it by like two or 300%.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I feel like, you know, this is, I’m happy that there is a cheap,
⏹️ ▶️ John good laptop from Apple that I can feel comfortable recommending to people
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s always been the problem with the laptops. Like for the longest time, people would say, hey, I’m thinking of getting a Mac, which one should I get? I’m into,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, they don’t have to say they’re into laptops. You know when they say that they mean laptop because nobody buys desktops. And I’ve always
⏹️ ▶️ John had to be like, oh, the current laptops aren’t that good. But I was like, you should probably
⏹️ ▶️ John wait. But like, especially years into the butterfly, I was like, I can’t tell people to wait. I have no idea if
⏹️ ▶️ John and when this is gonna resolve. And I’d have to give this sort of sad answer and they’d be like, oh, no.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, over the ones you think, which one do you know? It was just a depressing conversation. And even with the 16 inch,
⏹️ ▶️ John if they wanted a super duper fancy one, I’m like, oh, the 16 inch is good. And they’d be like, oh, I don’t want something that big. That’s gigantic and
⏹️ ▶️ John super expensive. I want just a regular Mac laptop. And then I’d have to have the sad conversation again.
⏹️ ▶️ John have a much nicer conversation and say, look, there’s one under a thousand dollars, which
⏹️ ▶️ John gets people in the door. They won’t actually buy that one. If they followed my advice, they’ll get one with more, but like it’s a good,
⏹️ ▶️ John cheap laptop. And I think the reason they did this, you know, this one second, we
⏹️ ▶️ John worried about, oh, they’re gonna leave this one at the end because I think the butterfly is fine. As we pointed out many times, every time we talk about this, this
⏹️ ▶️ John is surely their best-selling, you know, this slot in their lineup is always their best-selling computer because
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s cheap and Macs are expensive and people like laptops. Therefore, people who want a Mac, they
⏹️ ▶️ John go in there and say, how can I get a Mac laptop without breaking the bank? The answer is always whatever machine is in this slot.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I’m really happy to see them dropping below 1,000. I’m really happy to see this computer getting better. And I will
⏹️ ▶️ John be able to have a happy conversation if someone says, hey, I want a new Mac. I’ll just be like, MacBook Air, done. And then
⏹️ ▶️ John we can talk about how to spec it. But you will be happy with that computer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s what we’ve been missing for all these years in the interim. Ever since the old Air got
⏹️ ▶️ Marco embarrassingly out of date with the retina situation. And then when the new one came out that was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco okay, but had this terrible keyboard. It’s funny, actually, my mother just needed a new computer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What she’s been using is, first, a 2010 MacBook Air
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I bought for her in 2010 when it was new. And then at some point
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a few years back, something about it died and her friend gave her the MD101.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so she’s been using the 101, that old non-retina 13-inch MacBook Pro, like that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco last one that was for sale forever. She’s been using that for a few years. that has finally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco had some fatal problem. And she was just asking me like what to get. And I’m like, look, I’m like, it’s kind of a bad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time. Because it’s like, what you should have is a new Air that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has, you know, these things, but that’s not, that doesn’t exist right now. And I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if it’s coming next week or next month or never. We didn’t know like until today, until
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this new Air came out with this keyboard, we didn’t know if the Air would ever get
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this keyboard because we didn’t know, will it fit? Will they be able to do it? Or will
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they give the good keyboard to the pro line and then leave the Air with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this butterfly keyboard as a compromise for its size and thinness? We didn’t know that this would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even be possible. And yet, now this is resolved. Now, here we are,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we have a new Air. We are still not back to where we were with the Air, like in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco terms of how great it is. We are closer. We are a lot, we just took a big step closer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by getting rid of that terrible keyboard. But, you know, keep in mind the previous, you know, the 2010 to 2015 MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Air, that had like all the ports,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, there were basically no compromises to it, except a little bit of performance compromise
⏹️ ▶️ Marco compared to the higher end machines. But it was still like, it was a very, very strong
⏹️ ▶️ Marco option for almost everybody, almost all the time, including a lot of pros who chose it just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because it was smaller and the performance was good enough for a lot of development
⏹️ ▶️ Marco work and stuff like that. Maybe not if you’re doing high-end video stuff, but I know a lot of developers who use 13-inch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco airs for a long time, or even the 11-inch. And the 11-inch was even greater. It was like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all those exact same ports and power and versatility, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there were almost no compromises for the 11 down from the 13, and it was super tiny.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then we entered this era where you got less for more.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, the 12-inch MacBook came out, replacing the 11-inch MacBook Air, and it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was a way worse computer than the 11-inch MacBook Air. It had way fewer ports, it had way worse
⏹️ ▶️ Marco performance, it had worse battery life even. Like, it was not, it was, I know everyone loved it, Casey,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but like, it was in many ways a step down. The only real step up was that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was a little bit smaller and lighter, and it was Retina. but if they would’ve just done a Retina 11-inch Air instead, I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people would’ve liked it better. But then, and then, you know, we moved
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into the 13-inch Air replacement eventually, through, you know, through the Escape Jungle, but eventually we got
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the 13-inch Air replacement, and it wasn’t a direct replacement
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the old 13-inch Air. It had this controversial and very breakage-prone, expensive, repair-prone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keyboard. It only has these two ports. It had not great performance
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because they actually reduced the thermal class of processor that went into it compared to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco old Airs. And so it actually didn’t have the same performance category
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as the old ones, but it still cost the same or it was still in the same cost ballpark.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it had this retina screen, that was nice. But even the screen was a pretty big compromise. Like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was a lot dimmer than the other screens. Actually, I forgot to look at that exchange. But anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it wasn’t the like be all, must recommend this computer. This is a great for everybody thing. There were all these asterisks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on it, and all these ways in which it was newer than what it replaced,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it wasn’t necessarily better. The new one still has a lot of those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco aspects, but this gets it a lot closer to where it should have been all this time. It
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gets it way closer, because it totally solves the keyboard problem. Like, the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Magic Keyboard is, I wouldn’t call it an amazing keyboard. It isn’t an amazing keyboard. It’s a totally fine
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keyboard, the way laptop keyboards were forever. Like it is a laptop keyboard that works and that’s the way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they have been throughout most of laptop history. And we haven’t had to think about them. They
⏹️ ▶️ Marco work, they aren’t as nice as using a big desktop keyboard, but we don’t care because they’re convenient and they’re on our laptops. Okay,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so it’s one of those again. Great, just like the old one basically. So that’s wonderful.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It still only has those two ports, which is still not enough. And I maintain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they can fit more because they could at least put a USB-C next to the headphone jack Cause we like the way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the ports were arranged physically, like you could see they could at least do that. But otherwise like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with a few nitpicks that I have with it, things like the port situation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco overall, it’s close enough now to being that generalist
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all purpose computer that for most buyers, I would recommend this now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that’s something I haven’t been able to say about any Mac since
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably 2014, 2013? Like, how long has it been
⏹️ ▶️ Marco since there’s been one Mac in the lineup where we can say most people should buy this one without qualification?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think that was the 2010 MacBook Air. And that lasted until Retina became
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a thing that we decided everyone should have.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I feel like the things that are deficits in this are now our cultural deficits. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John if you, you know, the lack of ports is now not just like, oh, an oversight in this model. It
⏹️ ▶️ John is a, at least within the Apple world, a pervasive cultural thing. Like it’s an expectation. Like, yes,
⏹️ ▶️ John we assume that they won’t have enough ports. Every single model won’t have enough ports. Again, if you’re going to have a small
⏹️ ▶️ John number of ports, a tiny model is easier to excuse than the big honking one, because like, what’s the point of having a big honking
⏹️ ▶️ John one if you’re still going to starve for ports? So it’s more excusable, but in general, it’s just like a cultural
⏹️ ▶️ John thing. And if you think about the 13 that we all loved, try to forget that it had an SD card slot
⏹️ ▶️ John because that’s just a thing we don’t even talk about anymore. Cause it’s a cultural thing. I didn’t forget. It’s a cultural thing. It’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ John oh, well, Apple’s laptops just don’t come with that anymore. Why? Just because they don’t. Like they think
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not worth the space and expense for the number of people who use it. That’s their calculation.
⏹️ ▶️ John And you know, right or wrong, it is a cultural thing in the Apple world. So
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s why I feel like this is, you know, this is a right up the middle. like within the constraints of the current culture,
⏹️ ▶️ John which we may or may not rail against, this fixes all the problems with this computer and it is a great
⏹️ ▶️ John price and it’s the one we recommend to everybody. But if you’re still angry about the cultural constraints, especially
⏹️ ▶️ John say someone’s upgrading from the old 13 inch and they say, oh, you should get this new one. It’s a good computer. And they get it and they bring it home. They’re like,
⏹️ ▶️ John where do I plug in my thumb drive? And where’d the SD card slot? You still have to have that conversation. But at least that conversation is like, look,
⏹️ ▶️ John that none of them come with it anymore.
⏹️ ▶️ John have no choices. It’s not just a small, You didn’t get a bad model. You didn’t make a bad choice. And then the recommendation discussions,
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s what we’re saying is, if you are going to get a Mac, which setting aside like, oh, let’s look at PCs
⏹️ ▶️ John or let’s look at iPads or whatever. If you’re gonna get a Mac, this is an easy recommend. No,
⏹️ ▶️ John like we all give it a thumbs up or whatever, because what other choices do you have? If you’re not set on
⏹️ ▶️ John a Mac, then we can talk about iPads. We can talk about PC laptops, whatever it is that you’re doing. But you know, so
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s why I still mostly feel good about this, even though I still feel slightly bad about the pervasive
⏹️ ▶️ John cultural thing. Because as I said, when the 16 inch came out and everyone was excited by that and I was still a little bit
⏹️ ▶️ John cranky, like imagine if this thing came out with three USB-C
⏹️ ▶️ John ports and an SD card slot. Everybody would buy this. People would be ditching their 16 inches to buy this thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like it would be, it would be nerd. I say everybody would buy this, which is stupid. For tech nerds and people who have tech
⏹️ ▶️ John podcasts and who love Macs, we would all flip out about it. Would it sell better
⏹️ ▶️ John than this model with two ports? I don’t know, and again, maybe that’s why Apple’s calculus is right, but
⏹️ ▶️ John we tech enthusiasts would love it a lot better. And we tech enthusiasts would be considering ditching our 16
⏹️ ▶️ John inches to get this model because it just has one fewer port, but has an SD card slot, and it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John so much smaller and cheaper, yada yada. So I continue to think that if Apple really wants to
⏹️ ▶️ John please the super nerds, which is a thing that it does, because this Mac Pro that I’m sitting next to is
⏹️ ▶️ John a stupid computer, and the only people it pleases are the tiny sliver of professionals who
⏹️ ▶️ John need it and super nerds, so I feel like pleasing super nerds is a viable strategy
⏹️ ▶️ John that Apple sometimes does. The whole laptop line is waiting there for just for one, for them with
⏹️ ▶️ John one model to say, you know what, we’re gonna please the super nerds with this model. We’re gonna add more ports.
⏹️ ▶️ John We’re gonna add an SD card slot. Whatever that is you’re gonna do to, you know what we want, make
⏹️ ▶️ John one model that does it. They did it for the desktop Macs, still waiting for the Pro line, but
⏹️ ▶️ John for it to be the MacBook Air, it’s very unexpected. I would expect it to be, you know, the big pro laptop
⏹️ ▶️ John that they do this on. So again, that’s why I am at peace with this computer and I recommend it and I’m happy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One thing that I’m also really curious about is the new one has moved to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco quad core for two of its CPU options. And I believe that’s new
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for this thermal class. And these are, as far as I can tell, I think these are the first 10
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nanometer Intel chips in Macs.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I didn’t know that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, like the performance numbers on this are good, the price is good, like this is now a computer that again,
⏹️ ▶️ John we can all feel comfortable recommending.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But is the performance good? And I’m not trying to snark, I’m genuinely asking, because I was looking at this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I was thinking to myself, you know, I plan to replace my beloved Adorable that is slower than
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Dirt now. And I mean, it’s relatively old, so it’s not entirely unreasonable that it’s slower than Dirt. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey looking at the MacBook Air, and if I go whole hog and get the most expensive
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one in terms of like processor and RAM and stuff that I can, it’s still under two grand, which is, I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s a lot of money, don’t get me wrong, but for what you’re getting, it’s not a bad deal at all. But I’m looking at it and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the most fancy processor, unless I missed something, is a 1.2 gigahertz quad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey core 10th generation i7, which can boost up to 3.8 gigahertz. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as I stall for time and look over at my adorable, it has a 1.4 gigahertz. Now,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey admittedly, it’s dual core, but it’s an i7, and it has the same amount of RAM. So it’s two more cores,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which definitely makes a big difference, don’t get me wrong. But like, would I be gaming that much by
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John going to this computer? Yes, you would. They’re not really the same
⏹️ ▶️ John cores, even though Apple has been stuck on, God, I can’t remember. What is the architecture that they’ve been stuck on? 14 versus 10. Not the
⏹️ ▶️ John architectural change. Was it like Kaby Lake or something? I forget.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco They have- Oh
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah, right. Because the new one is Ice Lake.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, back when they were doing TikTok, the last big architectural change they’ve been tweaking over the years. So anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John the cores are better per clock than yours are for sure. And I think the turbo boost
⏹️ ▶️ John is higher, but like none of us have used this computer, but I have the previous generation MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John Air and it is for sure slower than this thing. And when I use it,
⏹️ ▶️ John it doesn’t feel particularly slow. It doesn’t feel fast, but I think it’s fine, which makes me think that doubling
⏹️ ▶️ John the number of cores and having the cores themselves be, you know, less power, because it’s a better process
⏹️ ▶️ John and a little bit faster, I think the performance of this will be fine for this class of computer. Because I think
⏹️ ▶️ John the performance of my computer is mostly fine, and this is
⏹️ ▶️ John a huge step up from that. Because you say, oh, two more cores, but what if I don’t have multi-threaded work?
⏹️ ▶️ John Just doing stuff on your computer, going from two to four is significant. There’s enough going on that you’re going
⏹️ ▶️ John to use four cores. It’s not like you have 28 cores and you have to have some special application to take advantage of it. Going from two
⏹️ ▶️ John to four is a big bonus.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh yeah, because one goes to Dropbox, One goes to Photos Agent.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey None of those are on any of my computers, thank you very much. Yeah. Although,
⏹️ ▶️ John if you want to, like, we’ll get to this in a second. But if you want to feel good about the performance of something,
⏹️ ▶️ John like it’s going to be way better than the old Mac, do not look at
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad Pro performance numbers. Just
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey pretend they don’t exist,
⏹️ ▶️ John because you will be depressed about the Mac in general.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s so true. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t, you know, you can’t compare the base clocks. Because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not only are these different architectures, but also like it’s weird turbo boost stuff. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so like whenever, whenever any of the power classes have gone up in core count,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usually the base clocks have gone down as a result and you’re still coming out way ahead because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usually they, for single core stuff, they usually can turbo boost up to the same levels or similar
⏹️ ▶️ Marco levels as these, as the lower core count or predecessors could. Um, and then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in almost every case you’re coming out way ahead performance wise, or at least tying where it was before. So in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this case, yeah, this would be a massive upgrade from your terrible MacBook One.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And also, in many other ways, it’s just so much better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for just general day-to-day usability. First of all, you have more screen space. Like yes, it is bigger
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and heavier, not by that much. It goes from two pounds to 2.8. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know that’s percentage-wise a big increase, but in absolute terms, that’s not a lot of difference.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and when you put it in a bag, it’s not gonna make a huge difference in how the bag feels,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco whether it has a two pound or a 2.8 pound laptop in it. Unless the bag itself
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is made of nothing and there’s nothing else in it, I don’t think you’re gonna notice that difference. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just having two ports instead of one is going to be a massive convenience
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for you. Like you know this.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Having to live
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with the one in your torture chamber. You’ll be able to actually power it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco while plugging in a peripheral. And that had to use like dongles or weird flaky
⏹️ ▶️ Marco adapters that might work and might not, and that you might not wanna run like audio stuff through and everything. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s a world of difference, believe me.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I’d like to wait for the Mythical Phantom 14-inch MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Pro, because I think that’s probably gonna be a better fit. Now, with that said, I don’t know where it is, I think I’m using this computer
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because I can’t leave the house for weeks, but in this hypothetical world that will eventually come back to some sort
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of new normal, I would like a new laptop. And I think it’s worth holding out to see
⏹️ ▶️ Casey whether the 14-inch, if it ever exists, is going to be a better fit for me. And I think it might
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be, but this is a very compelling computer. And I think the broader point that the both of you are trying to make
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is absolutely true, which is almost without reservation for almost anyone. I mean, I’m looking at using this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for Xcode and iOS development and things that are, you know, they’re not video editing, but they’re not exactly easy.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m looking to use it for that. And it’s a legitimate contender, which I think is a big improvement.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would like to state for the record that I think that the olds, and I’m halfway including myself in this,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think the olds need to get over the SD card slot, boys. It’s not gonna happen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco SD cards are not some past technology that has been replaced. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why this is different. You can’t like- But they are. But I don’t agree with that at all.
⏹️ ▶️ John If you buy a modern, the fanciest modern camera, like the fancy, super fancy, oh, I can’t use an iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ John But who does that? Well, that’s what I’m saying. Like, it’s a high-end choice. Like, so again, on the MacBook,
⏹️ ▶️ John on the MacBook Pro, the high-end computer, who’s buying fancy multi-thousand dollar
⏹️ ▶️ John cameras? People buy them and use them, you know, professionals buy them and use them to shoot pictures. And if they buy a professional
⏹️ ▶️ John laptop, they’ve got this professional camera, the current model that takes this supposedly obsolete
⏹️ ▶️ John piece of media, and it’s faster to transfer it when you can take the card and stick it into the thing than
⏹️ ▶️ John it is to try to do it wirelessly or even over, you know, dealing with cables and stuff like that. So it may
⏹️ ▶️ John be gone for, you know, it may be gone for most of the world, but on the high end for that one
⏹️ ▶️ John weird model that’s 16 inches and has got all this room along the side, those are the people who are going to buy
⏹️ ▶️ John an expensive camera. When it disappears from cameras, we’ll say, okay, well then there’s no point in this, you know, when the new cameras come
⏹️ ▶️ John out and they no longer have removable media in the form of an SD card, then we can say,
⏹️ ▶️ John fine, then this, the time has come and we need to to get rid of that, but until that happens, I think
⏹️ ▶️ John it is still a reasonable thing for Apple to consider for their one highest end
⏹️ ▶️ Marco model. It isn’t even just about cameras, and yes, I know, to stave off some of the emails, I know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s like these, you know, XQD or whatever, like there has been a successor to the SD card
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that is in some high-end models, but it’s very, it’s still not mainstream.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, yeah, replace SD card with like whatever the current high-end camera little flash storage thing is.
⏹️ ▶️ John You know, CF had a big thing in the Canon world as well. But like, what I’m saying is that removable media and cameras is still
⏹️ ▶️ John a thing. And whatever the most popular removable media and cameras is, it is reasonable to consider Apple putting that
⏹️ ▶️ John on their highest end laptop.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, and it isn’t only cameras. Like, so cameras, that’s a big one. That’s a huge one. And in fact, almost,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s funny, like, the way that Apple markets these laptops and, you know, the way they have this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pro workflow group, I bet most of the people who are demonstrating workflows
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and things and Apple marketing materials, and most of the people in the pro workflow group
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably could use an SD card reader in their MacBook Pro. Like so all these use cases
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they demonstrate as like, this is who they want us to believe is using these computers and who largely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is using these computers. Those people, those workflows, those awesome demo-able, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cool people making videos, they use SD cards. Not only them, of course, pro photographers,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as you said, amateur photographers, Anybody who still has a standalone camera that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is not their phone, chances are that camera uses an SD card. Also, audio.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s tons of audio recorders. There’s also tons of specialty equipment that is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff that doesn’t usually make it into marketing presentations, but a lot of equipment and peripherals
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and devices have SD cards for data for some kind of use.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Hobbyists use it for things like raspberry pies. There’s all sorts of uses for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco SD cards that many people who use an SD card as some part of their
⏹️ ▶️ Marco job use an ice computer as well, and it’s nice to have a slot. There’s a reason why it was on there for so long.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And certainly while it has become a little more specialized than it used to be,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not that much more specialized, not as much as you would think. Just the fact that like, quote,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most buyers may not use it, which I don’t necessarily believe, but if quote
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most buyers may not use it, that doesn’t mean that there’s no place for it. There’s all sorts of stuff that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they put in their computers that’s nice to have for some people some of the time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And most people might not use it all. But like, you know, as I said, there’s stuff in every
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple laptop that I don’t use, that I’m happy never to use. I almost never used
⏹️ ▶️ Marco HDMI ports when those were there. People still miss those, because HDMI dongles suck. You know, for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a long time, there were things like FireWire ports. I almost never use those. USB-C even,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have very few devices that are USB-C. I have a lot of devices, very few of them are USB-C.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have, I think, almost nothing that is Thunderbolt. The last
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing I need is all four ports to have all this Thunderbolt bandwidth, but it’s there.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because sometimes people need these things. Some people need them. And it’s nice to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have it when it’s there. So any argument that’s like, well, most people don’t need this so we can remove it, No, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not a valid argument. Do some people need it some of the time? Yes. Okay, what does
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it cost to leave it in? Is it really that bad? It’s not an expensive part. You know, it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco takes up some space, but it’s not a lot in like a large laptop. The thought process has to change from,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco well, do you really need this anymore? To, what are we gaining by removing it? And is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that gonna be worth it to all the people who still do use it and need it? And finally, one more use case to consider.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco These laptops are very expensive. The storage on them is very expensive,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you cannot upgrade the storage later. And many people use the SD
⏹️ ▶️ Marco card slot on the previous generation, the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro generation. Many people ended up using those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as add-on storage down the line. There’s a whole, there’s all those like flush mount micro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco SD things that like stick in there and match the metal, remember those things? Yeah. I had one. Those are very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco popular, and things like that are very popular. good way to temporarily or kind of semi-permanently
⏹️ ▶️ Marco expand your storage inexpensively late down the road or even up front on a laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where it’s very expensive to buy storage built in and you can never update it. So it’s good for economy,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s good for longevity, upgradability, in addition to all those pro use cases. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know the SD card slot man, nothing has replaced it. It is not like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you can’t apply the same things and the same logic as like when people did the, you know, when they removed the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco USB from the iMac, that was moving the industry forward. And, you know, no, that’s different. This
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a different thing. This isn’t like going from one type of port to another. This is going from having
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a complete type of ability to not having it, but that role still exists in the world. Now it’s just being,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, now you have to use a dongle to use it.
⏹️ ▶️ John For people frightened by that, they have not removed USB from the iMac. Margot just misspoke, don’t be
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco scared. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, whatever. They have not removed USB yet. Yeah, right. No, the iMac still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has, the desktops are still full of ports. The Mac Mini, the iMac, the Mac Pro even, although less for some reason,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but like, these are full of ports. Like, they’re fine on ports on the big ones. It’s just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the laptops where they rationalize away, both Apple and Apple fans, rationalize
⏹️ ▶️ Marco away that, oh, it’s okay to remove this stuff because people don’t use it anymore. But no, no, they do. It’s still
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t know, I just, I feel like, I feel like what you’re asking for is, well, I’m a developer,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I need that special developer key on my keyboard. And if other people don’t need it, fine, whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It doesn’t cost them anything. It’s just one more key. Who cares? They can just ignore the special developer key on the keyboard.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, but I need it. So that, so it better be there. Cause I need it. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel like the SD card slot is the same thing. Like I look at the regular people in my life. I’m not talking about the people in this racket. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not talking about YouTube. I’m not talking about the people at relay. I’m talking about regular people. I am sure I know a couple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of people with DSLRs, but I’m struggling to come up with it. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t think for a regular human, they’re looking at whether or not this thing has an SD card slot and saying, Oh, well, screw
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that. It doesn’t have an SD card slot. In fact, I’m glad you brought up the HDMI port because I was going to bring it up myself.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think that makes way more sense than an SD card slot because it is far more likely
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in my opinion, that the millions of these devices that are used in a workplace back before, you know, back before workplaces
⏹️ ▶️ Casey weren’t a thing or back when workplaces were a thing, all those people want to plug into projectors and things of that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey nature and they would do that with HDMI. And so I don’t disagree with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey your final thesis, you know, that especially on the bigger devices, as John
⏹️ ▶️ Casey has been saying, on like a 16, why not throw it all in? Yeah, I agree with you there. But for something like a MacBook Air,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like I don’t want to have a developer key on the MacBook Air. I want it to be flexible. I almost feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’re arguing for a hardware keyboard on our BlackBerry still. Like, yeah, yeah, okay, we could do the software
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s not even close. Oh, you’re making so many bad arguments. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John really arguing it for, I’m just saying if it was
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco on there, people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco flip. All right, we made it seven
⏹️ ▶️ John years, the show’s over. People would flip if it was on there because they would be excited by it. And the
⏹️ ▶️ John reason, you know, HDMI is another one, but like this is a really skinny laptop. SD card slot is a really skinny slot.
⏹️ ▶️ John It would fit, physically speaking, and sort of in the spirit of this machine.
⏹️ ▶️ John this the machine that’s big and has tons of room on the side of the reports? No, it’s not. It’s the second smallest
⏹️ ▶️ John one they make, or no, it’s currently the smallest because they don’t make the super skinny MacBook anymore, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John this is not the one to put tons of stuff in it. So if you’re gonna fit anything, more little USB-C holes.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then if you really wanted to go nuts, SD card. Obviously I feel like that’s a stretch and I still
⏹️ ▶️ John advocate for it on the bigger computers or whatever. So, but HDMI, I would have a harder
⏹️ ▶️ John time arguing for it just because physically speaking, it’s very difficult to wedge that in here just because
⏹️ ▶️ John this is the super slim laptop. You can totally fit it on the bigger ones. I’m all for that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with you. My point that I’m making poorly is just that I feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’re arguing for things that we personally want and not just understanding that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey by removing all of these things, you’re leaving the ultimate amount of flexibility. Yes, you have to use a dongle, and yes, dongles suck.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m not arguing those points. And candidly, I would like an SD card slot in my laptop. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel like I’m acknowledging the fact that I’m a weirdo, and I’m not sure that everyone on the show right now is
⏹️ ▶️ John that. You’re not gaining any flexibility from removing them. By removing them, you gain flexibility. No, you don’t. we’re not saying remove
⏹️ ▶️ John the USB-C ports, we’re not saying make them any less flexible. You would have all the same flexibility, plus also an SD card slot.
⏹️ ▶️ John Fair, fair, fair. Right, like your example
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco of having a developer key
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the keyboard, I mean, first of all, there are lots of keys on the keyboard that confuse regular people, but that aside,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that could be maybe getting in people’s way, maybe.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Again, I think that’s a stretch. I think people are already confused or not by certain keys, but oh well.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But ultimately, having something like an SD card slot or an HDMI port on the bigger models,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that doesn’t take away anything. That doesn’t cost the user anything. No one is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like, oh, I’m so confused by this hole in the side of my computer, I’m not gonna buy this computer now. Like, that’s just not, it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a thing that gets in anybody’s way. It isn’t a thing that’s really a problem for anybody. But then the flip side,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco think about all the people who need to plug something into their computer, and they go
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to do it, and they realize, oh, crap, I can’t. This thing doesn’t fit in this hole, or I lost
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that hole, or I lost that slot. Now I have to go buy and then carry with me a dongle,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an adapter, a different cable, whatever it is. That is such a negative customer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco experience that I feel like for some of these decisions, maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you make the laptop thinner and lighter and you have to cut some things and people like it. That’s kind of a net win for a lot of cases.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But some of these things like reducing the amount of ports that it has or dropping things
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the SD card, like some of those things seem to have no real upside or very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco little real upside, and then for the people who need it, a significant downside.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, there’s stuff in my laptop I don’t use. Like, you know, they spend a lot of time talking about the speakers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the microphone. I don’t use those that much. They spend a lot of time, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re always demoing FaceTime and everything, using the camera on the front. I hardly ever use that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco either. There’s all sorts of stuff that modern Macs include and can do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I never use. In case you gave the example of using video out, I almost never
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do that. And in fact, I would say for people who don’t ever, for people who don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco connect to office projectors, I bet video out is incredibly rarely used on laptops.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it wouldn’t surprise me if the percentage of people who use video out might actually be similar
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the percentage of people who use the SD card slot. Oh, come on. It’s probably at least the same order of magnitude.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Please, I would, I obviously would never be able to arbitrate this, but I would take that bet any day of the week.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Absolutely, I would take that bet. I don’t think that’s true either.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it’s just like the SD card slot, where a lot of people never use it, and some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people use it all the time. And so for the people who use it all the time, you think, well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what do you mean there’s part of the world that doesn’t do this? But I haven’t used Video Out on a laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on a regular basis for, jeez, since I owned a desktop. So since 2008. The
⏹️ ▶️ John part of the world that uses Video Out is like all office workers who are issued Macs, which is a larger group than
⏹️ ▶️ John professional photographers or people who use SD card
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s neither here nor there. We don’t need to argue the details of this thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, but that’s ruling out all people who mostly just have it for home. It’s also ruling out people who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t present things in their workplace but happen to also have a laptop. Like, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pretty big group of people, I think. Yeah, I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know. I think workers with laptops who have to project is a bigger group, but it
⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. point for the details of this particular computer. We’re just, I just threw
⏹️ ▶️ John in the SD card. He’s remember the 13 Habon and I thought it would be super appealing to geeks and I think it would be.
⏹️ ▶️ John And I understand why it’s not on this computer, but Marco mentioned something that I think we should touch on before we finally move on from
⏹️ ▶️ John this eternal laptop debate, which is the, the microphones
⏹️ ▶️ John and speakers. I didn’t see all the details, but it seems like they’re pitching this one. It’s similar. They did to the 16 inch. Hey,
⏹️ ▶️ John we improve the laptop speakers and microphone. I think they even,
⏹️ ▶️ John did they say they improved the camera is that too much to ask? But either way, I think they definitely improved the audio,
⏹️ ▶️ John which is good, like to see these, the benefits that they did on the 16 inch, they’ve spent a lot of time
⏹️ ▶️ John saying you could use the 16 inch to record podcasts, and we had the sample recordings of it, and it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John big step up. The thing that no one was asking for, that we were excited that we got, because it is an incremental improvement
⏹️ ▶️ John in a subsystem that definitely needed some improvement. So yay for better microphones, yay for better
⏹️ ▶️ John speakers, even on laptops, making that stuff better is important. Camera, does anyone have time
⏹️ ▶️ John to look to see if that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 720p FaceTime HD camera.
⏹️ ▶️ John not sound like it has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco changed. Same old garbage front facing camera that’s basically only used for FaceTime and Skype
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and Zoom and that’s it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Again, perhaps excusable on their very smallest, very cheapest laptop, so I’m not gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John ding them for that. I’m glad the speakers on the mic got better.
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iPad Pro & Magic Keyboard
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey Let’s talk about what I personally think is the most interesting thing that happened
⏹️ ▶️ Casey today, which is not even the new iPad Pros, but the new keyboard.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I guess we should start quickly with the Pros. They look about the same as the,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know if I should say outgoing but the ones they replace. The camera array is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a little bit different in the sense that it’s an array of two cameras, wide and ultra wide, and a LiDAR sensor,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which is kind of weird, but also fascinating. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey otherwise, they are physically about the same. The internals, we’ve heard reports
⏹️ ▶️ Casey earlier today that all models get six gigs of RAM, which is very impressive. I think
⏹️ ▶️ Casey storage remains the same. Did the base go up? No, the base went up, didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it? Yeah, base is now 128, it was 64 before, right? I believe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that’s right, yeah. So 128, 256, 512, or one terabyte for storage, starting at 800 bucks for the 11-inch,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the cellular’s still, I believe, 150 bucks extra? Correct.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But I would kind of like to move on from the iPads themselves as quickly as possible, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’d certainly like to give you guys a chance to weigh in. I have the 11-inch that came
⏹️ ▶️ Casey out when Marco and I worked together in October of, what was that, 2018? That
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was when the iPad Pro was brand new, I have the 11 inch. I can’t say I long for a new one in terms of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hardware. You know, maybe I’ll change my tune once new AR stuff lands that uses this fancy pants LiDAR sensor.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But in terms of my hardware, my iPad itself, I’m pretty happy with it sitting here now. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey plan to replace it, but I really am anxious or excited about that keyboard,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which we’ll talk about in a minute. Marco, thoughts on the iPad hardware itself, and we’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Casey talk about the keyboard in a moment.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, as I touched on earlier, I am so incredibly happy with my 11-inch iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pro from 2018. Same. The iPad itself, we’ll get to the keyboard in a minute, but the iPad itself
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is seemingly a fairly minor speed bump revision. Like, it’s kind of funny to think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of iPads as having speed bump revisions now, but I think we’re to that point. Like, I think the hardware is mature and advanced
⏹️ ▶️ Marco enough now that in many ways it is, it’s almost like a Mac, where you have some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco big years and some kind of just basic speed bump years. And that appears
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from what we know so far, again, this is still very early, no one has these yet, it appears
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that this is pretty much a speed bump upgrade. The camera got a little bit better in some ways, a lot better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in others, but again, this is one of those things, how many people use their iPad camera? It’s not zero,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s a good number. I use mine occasionally, Like if I’m shooting, if like I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco happen to be chatting with someone on my iPad and I wanna show them a picture of something that I happen to be looking at, like I’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stick it in that way.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John But otherwise
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like, and FaceTime I will use it if I’m facing on the iPad, I’m gonna like turn the camera around and show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them somebody else in the room or whatever. But I’m not tempted by this camera technology in the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because it’s just such a low usage camera for me. So, you know, it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco speed bump and a fun camera thing that appears to be it, that of you know what has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco actually changed here at least you know what the big headlining features of what has changed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so from that point of view I’m actually like you know I’m actually fine with my current one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it isn’t to say that anything’s wrong with this but you know just like when when a max speed bump comes out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you don’t buy every one of them you know like even even people like me who are totally ridiculous
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and try to find excuses to buy everything Apple makes, I don’t buy like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco every revision of every computer of theirs that I use. You know, like Macs have speed bump revisions
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they go a few years before things get interesting again. And I think that’s happening with this one. If
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have an 11 inch from 2018, you probably don’t need this one. But if you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have an old one and you are looking to upgrade and you were waiting for something to change,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is a good time to buy it because it’s great. I’m sure it’s gonna be just as great as the 11, better in some ways,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco great, good for them. But certainly at this price point, this is not like an every year upgrade for most people.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s exciting, an advance in nomenclature, because we used to have the X chips
⏹️ ▶️ John where there would be an A something and then the iPad would have the A something X. I think this is our first year with
⏹️ ▶️ John an A something Z. Skip right over Y, go right to Z. This is the A12Z.
⏹️ ▶️ John Most notably, it’s not an A13 variant. It is still
⏹️ ▶️ John variant, but instead of the X, it’s a Z. Oh. I was
⏹️ ▶️ John trying to figure out, I was trying to look up what the actual differences are. I don’t think the
⏹️ ▶️ John CPU core count changed. I think it’s still fast, four fast and four, quote unquote,
⏹️ ▶️ John energy efficient. Don’t call them slow cores. I think the GPU is eight
⏹️ ▶️ John instead of seven cores. I do wonder if that’s, I don’t know. I don’t have the dice in
⏹️ ▶️ John front of me. In the world of consoles, they often ship architectures
⏹️ ▶️ John where they allow one or more cores to be duds so their yields go up.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I wonder if the A12X is actually eight core where one’s allowed to be bad, but Apple being Apple, I’m thinking
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s not the case. But anyway, I think that’s the only difference I can find in this five seconds of frantic Googling
⏹️ ▶️ John for a thing that was announced today. The A12Z might have one more core on the CPU. We’ll
⏹️ ▶️ John have to look at the performance numbers. As I said in the Mac section, if you own a Mac, especially a laptop, do not look
⏹️ ▶️ John at iPad performance numbers because they will make you weep. The iPad
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware is so much better than Mac hardware in the portable space. It’s not even funny
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s fast It’s so much faster in single core than any Mac that Apple sells at any price including my
⏹️ ▶️ John ridiculous computer sitting next to me here The multi-core numbers are getting very frightening
⏹️ ▶️ John very fast as the core counts go up This new iPad Pro is so much faster than
⏹️ ▶️ John the new MacBook Air We were just talking about just try not to think about it. Just wait patiently for those
⏹️ ▶️ John so I think this hardware, you know, wasn’t broken, there was nothing bad about the previous
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad Pro. They, you know, gave it better specs, gave it a better
⏹️ ▶️ John CPU and GPU by how much, we’re not sure until we start seeing benchmarks of these things. The camera on the
⏹️ ▶️ John back, it’s got two cameras now. Before, yours just has one, right, Marco? Yeah. Yeah, so this has
⏹️ ▶️ John the wide angle. Now, the LiDAR thing makes perfect sense because Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ John been pushing AR And one of the things that makes AR better is a better
⏹️ ▶️ John sense of what your surroundings are. So now they have LiDAR, which is a better class of sensor than
⏹️ ▶️ John just trying to do depth sensing with multiple cameras. It’s better at depth sensing than
⏹️ ▶️ John FaceTime. IR sprayer, which is very close range. LiDAR is much bigger. So, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John the iPad is the platform they’ve been pushing this on because until and unless Apple gets something you can strap on your face, if
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re going to look through a magic window that makes things that aren’t really there appear to be there, looking through
⏹️ ▶️ John a bigger window is better than smaller. I had that same thought today when I was pulling up the, incidentally, the
⏹️ ▶️ John new iPad in AR. Apple, you know, on their product pages often has this thing that if you’re on an iOS device,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’ll be a little thing that says view this in AR, and if you tap it, it will let you put whatever it is you’re talking about, whether it’s the new Mac Pro, like
⏹️ ▶️ John they had at WWDC, or this new iPad, and place it on a surface. And I did that so I
⏹️ ▶️ John could take a look at it and see how the AR was and look at the different aspects of it, but I’m looking through my phone, which
⏹️ ▶️ John is like looking through a very small skinny portal into a magical world where there is
⏹️ ▶️ John a new iPad sitting on my bed. Would have been better with
⏹️ ▶️ John a bigger screen. And so I understand why this makes sense as the first platform for a LiDAR
⏹️ ▶️ John to appear on because it’s big, they have the room for the sensor. It’s not so important for it to have the third camera
⏹️ ▶️ John like the phone, which is a much more important camera system. And yeah, Apple is plowing
⏹️ ▶️ John bravely ahead with the AR stuff as they have been for many, many years. I expect this to make what is already
⏹️ ▶️ John a very good AR experience even better. Like, you know, I said I did it on my phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m always amazed at how good it is and how stable, how good it looks, because they have really good, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John shaders and graphic technologies to make it sort of sit in the environment and match the lighting
⏹️ ▶️ John and everything. How stable it is, I was doing it on my bed spread, which is just
⏹️ ▶️ John a rumply surface, but like, and I’m going real close to it. I’m looking at like the side and the little ports
⏹️ ▶️ John and I’m looking all over this 3D model. It was incredibly solid. This is with no LiDAR.
⏹️ ▶️ John This is with, you know, not even a current iPhone. This is the year ago model of
⏹️ ▶️ John iPhone. So Apple’s doing really well in the AR space and I think this will be
⏹️ ▶️ John a fairly amazing tool. The LiDAR I think brings it up to the next level of precision where it can be used
⏹️ ▶️ John in even more professional contexts like an interior designer or an architect trying to walk people
⏹️ ▶️ John through a space and how it’s going to look. People are doing that today with much
⏹️ ▶️ John worse hardware on some ancient PC running Windows XP that they’re doing a fly-through of some architectural
⏹️ ▶️ John thing at the very top cutting edge, being able to have this technology to
⏹️ ▶️ John spray it around the room and place a bunch of furniture will just be amazing. We’re not there where it’s going
⏹️ ▶️ John to be useful enough that it’s a game changer because we have glasses on our face, but we are, as I’ve
⏹️ ▶️ John said every time we talk about this, Apple is doing what it didn’t do for many years
⏹️ ▶️ John when it came to many of other technical areas like having a modern operating system
⏹️ ▶️ John with memory protection and preemptive multitasking or having a modern computer programming language. They are laying the groundwork
⏹️ ▶️ John way ahead of time so that if and when the time comes that you can put all this magic into a pair of glasses,
⏹️ ▶️ John they will have an extremely mature hardware and software stack ready to plug
⏹️ ▶️ John into that, right? As opposed to saying, oh, it’s suddenly technically possible to put a cool little camera
⏹️ ▶️ John and glasses. How are we gonna take advantage of that? They’ll be perfectly positioned to
⏹️ ▶️ John do that. So I continue to look forward to that day.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John, what kind of iPad are you rocking these days? I don’t recall.
⏹️ ▶️ John I have the original iPad Pro. I thought about upgrading to one of these fancy ones. Mainly the
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that kept me away, this is a good transition to our next topic, is the stuff that you stick
⏹️ ▶️ John to the iPad. Having looked at the new iPad in person, I love the hardware
⏹️ ▶️ John itself. I love the new pencil, but I didn’t love the ice cream sandwich case.
⏹️ ▶️ John I really love, what I have on my iPad Pro is the
⏹️ ▶️ John rubbery whatever it is, the thing that goes around the back and the smart cover on the front.
⏹️ ▶️ John And they match and meet up, like the back cover wraps all the way around and makes it very grippy and not that much thicker.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the front smart cover just goes on the front. I don’t need or use a keyboard, right? So I just want basically
⏹️ ▶️ John an iPad that I hold in my hand that I can use to prop it up in landscape mode to watch TV shows
⏹️ ▶️ John on it, and then I can hold in portrait. And the new one just seemed, I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know, it had sharper edges, it just didn’t feel comfortable, or it was like a little, I wasn’t a big fan of
⏹️ ▶️ John the clothes, the accessories. Even though the new iPad is amazing and so
⏹️ ▶️ John much faster than mine and better and has a bigger screen, yada, yada, yada. So, that had me hauled off.
⏹️ ▶️ John Now, this new iPad has some new outfits. I’m not sure if it changes the equation for
⏹️ ▶️ John me, but it certainly changes the equation for a lot of other people because this new outfit looks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, so the thing that John is talking about, usually I’m the one that goes all
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in on these ridiculous analogies. I’m glad that it was you this time. The thing that John is talking about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is the new keyboard, which is the new, what are they calling it? A magic keyboard, is that right? Yep,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey magic keyboard for iPad Pro. Thank you. Oh my goodness, I want this.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey want this in my life right now, if you please. So what is this? So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the iPad Pro, what is it? The Smart Keyboard Folio? I forget
⏹️ ▶️ Casey their ridiculous names are for these things. So Smart Keyboard Folio, I actually do really like it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a lot. So I’m talking about the one that existed, oh, well, it still does exist, but existed yesterday
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and was, as of yesterday, the coolest thing in the world. Now it’s not the coolest thing in the world anymore.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But anyway, unlike the The Home Button iPad Pros,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if I understood it right, it did some sort of, like John’s, the keyboard for his would do some sort
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of like fold up on itself and then fold on top of the iPad, so it was like this three-layer dip
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sort of ridiculous thing. Is that a reasonable explanation, Marco? Do you wanna kind of help me out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yep, yeah, because on that one, on the 9.7 and the 10.5, the keyboard accessory attached
⏹️ ▶️ Marco via the smart connector on the edge of the iPad. And so it would like magnetically stick on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that one edge and you have to like fold the case into this little triangle thing. I have it right over there actually.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, you fold it into this little triangle thing and stand it up and the triangle angle was a little bit floppy,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it was, overall it was fine if not a little fiddly to get set up and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to get used to. And then the 11-inch and 12.9 that came out last fall with the new flat
⏹️ ▶️ Marco edge design and everything and then the face ID and everything, that changed, it moved the smart connector
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from the side of the iPad to the back. And then those mounted by basically having
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the entire back rectangle of the case stick to the iPad with magnets
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it happened to stick at one point for the connector. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just totally changed the move to the smart connector but made it much simpler. Just like now you have this whole
⏹️ ▶️ Marco plane attaching to it and mounting to it and for the keyboard. It made it way, way, way simpler
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to operate and more stable and in one dimension and it was fine. So that’s what I’ve been
⏹️ ▶️ Marco using. I use it, again, that’s how I use it every day. For me, I’m a very heavy iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keyboard user. I almost never use an iPad without the keyboard. And all those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years that iPads didn’t have good keyboards from Apple, I mostly just didn’t use them. Like I would buy them,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco telling myself every time, I’m gonna use this thing more. And inputting text was always so cumbersome that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would just not end up using it. It would sit in a drawer, it would discharge somewhere, and I would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco forget about it for weeks on end. But the keyboard really made me an iPad user. I keep
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it in the keyboard full-time all the time. It is my kitchen and dining room computer for the most part,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I really enjoy it for that. That being said, I’m actually less
⏹️ ▶️ Marco excited about the new Magic Keyboard because of certain details of how it works,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which we’ll get into, I think, in a second.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I’m very curious to hear that, but let me kind of finish explaining what this is. And I should also point out
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that the smart keyboard folio will charge
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or provide power to the keyboard that’s attached to it. So you never have to worry about like charging.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So take that in contrast to say the Logitech, like, you know, turn my iPad into
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a laptop things or the bridge is the other one that I’m thinking of that, you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know, the Mike Hurleys of the world love. And reasonably so, I’m not trying to take away from them. But one of the things
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that they have to do is because the keyboard, or at least I’m pretty sure this is accurate, the keyboard works via
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Bluetooth and you have to charge the keyboard periodically and that’s not a big deal, but it’s a nuisance. And the smart
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the record, I do think, I think there might have existed or might still exist some keyboards
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that plug into the USB port on the iPad Pro, but I think those are fairly unusual.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And you’re right, the keyboard, the smart keyboard is self-powered by the iPad and pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much everything else out there is Bluetooth. And in fact, I actually have direct experience of this currently in my household
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because my son, he’s small enough that an iPad mini is still the size that makes sense for him.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And there is no iPad mini smart keyboard from Apple. And he really wanted a keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for his iPad, and so I actually got him one for Christmas. It was this like, you know, no-name, cheap one from Amazon.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it’s Bluetooth, and yeah, I mean, he loves it, but he doesn’t know any better. The experience of using it kind of sucks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because it is separately charged. Sometimes it’s just out of power, and we have to like get like a little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco micro USB thing to plug in the side of the keyboard and charge it up separately. It
⏹️ ▶️ Marco does have like a power switch. You have to worry about like having it on or off. If you leave it on all the time, it does
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stay active and drain the battery sometimes. And if you want to use it without the keyboard, not only is it hard to,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, detach and reattach it, much harder than Apple’s case, but you have to make sure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that it’s off when you move away. Otherwise the Bluetooth connection will stay active and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the OS will still behave as though you have an external keyboard connected. So like it won’t show the on-screen keyboard by default and stuff
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like that. So like, the experience of using the Apple keyboard compared to any other keyboard is just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so much nicer because it is powered by the iPad, it is easy to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco attach and remove, and when you remove it, the keyboard is off. The keyboard does not have its own separate power switch.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It is just, it’s there unless you detach it, and then it’s gone. And it’s just so much simpler
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yep, couldn’t agree more. So the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s spiritually the same, but in execution, a fair bit different. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey first of all, it includes a trackpad. I’m just gonna put that aside for a moment. We’re gonna come back to that for sure, but it includes a small
⏹️ ▶️ Casey trackpad on it, which is very interesting. But what I am almost more jazzed
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about is the way in which you can mount the iPad and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey use the iPad. So the one big problem I have with the smart keyboard folio, or whatever the hell it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey called, is that you have two different positions that you can sit the iPad in, both of them stink, if you ask
⏹️ ▶️ Casey me. Like there are some, there are some occasions when one of them is just perfect, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey almost always they’re not where I want them to be. And you have literally only two choices. The
⏹️ ▶️ Casey way it works is all powered by magnets and divots. And there is literally no other way to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey use it other than these two positions. Short of like, you know, building an erector set around it or something.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, with the, I, the magic keyboard, if I understand things right, it uses
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this crazy cantilever system that looks like it should not possibly work
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or if anything, it would be, you know, extremely unstable from the looks of it. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey from what we have understood as we record on the 18th, before any reviewers have these in their hands,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s supposed to work from what we’re told from Apple. And you can pitch the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey at a varying range of angles, which is amazing. I know
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that sounds ridiculous, but it’s amazing. and dramatically increases the usefulness of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this device. And while we’re increasing the usefulness of this device, it has
⏹️ ▶️ Casey its own USB-C port. Now, mind you, that’s not because you need to charge the keyboard.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The USB-C port is pass through charging for the friggin iPad.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey How cool is that? So you plug in the you plug in power to the keyboard.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The keyboard is empowering the iPad via the smart connector instead of the other way around.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and then that leaves you a port to do things with on your iPad. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey now, if I get one of these keyboards, my iPad has more ports than my fricking computer does,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ridiculous and awesome. But Casey, most people who use an iPad don’t need the port
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for anything other than charging. They should just remove it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know, you’re right. They probably should, wireless charging all the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco way. You’re asking for a developer port, basically. I am asking for a developer port. Why should they ruin my iPad with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a developer port? I’m never gonna use.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing about it is, I actually don’t feel, I mean, I totally take your point. I actually don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey think that this is going to provide any real utility for me because the amount of times I’ve plugged other things into
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this iPad is almost zero. But I do like the fact that it’s at least giving me the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey option to do this and it makes it more useful, including for other things like SD card dongle.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, there’s a utility for it for sure because the port that is on the keyboard case
⏹️ ▶️ John is low down next to the desk. It’s not in midair next to the thing. So, you know, like it kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of makes sense where the, you know, traditionally where the the lightning slash USB-C port
⏹️ ▶️ John is on iOS devices. But having this thing down, it makes it, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, this whole thing with the iPad, setting aside the whole, you know, cultural war of of interface
⏹️ ▶️ John paradigms and all the iOS 14 potential changes and multitasking and a lot of stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ John This is a build it yourself floppy laptop, right? That’s how Marco is using his computer. That’s how this is used.
⏹️ ▶️ John It has advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages for a long time has been, yeah, but when
⏹️ ▶️ John you, you know, like, is it really set up to be a laptop? Like, laptops don’t have their power
⏹️ ▶️ John cord connect to the middle side of the display. Because of the way
⏹️ ▶️ John iPads are, that’s where the port is, the whole computer is in the display, it’s a different arrangement, it’s a little
⏹️ ▶️ John bit top-heavy, yada yada. Having this cord down at desk level is gonna be a big upgrade
⏹️ ▶️ John for people who spend like a lot of their day at a desk with an iPad,
⏹️ ▶️ John plugged in, right? I think the position of this port is just as important,
⏹️ ▶️ John if not more important than the fact that, oh, now you have two of them. Because this really is just charging, you can’t use it for all your peripherals.
⏹️ ▶️ John You still have to put your peripherals and dongles dangling off the side of the computer. And I get that, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John you can’t route all that through the smart connector, it makes sense. But that, I think, is the most exciting thing ergonomically.
⏹️ ▶️ John And I do really want to go to a store someday when this plague is over and
⏹️ ▶️ John play with this thing to see how the cantilever stuff works. One point I haven’t seen anyone
⏹️ ▶️ John mention, although I’m super far behind on Twitter, so I don’t know, and this just came out today. Like when you look at the design,
⏹️ ▶️ John they show it in profile on Apple’s site, and they have the, in the strange handwriting font, smooth angle adjustment,
⏹️ ▶️ John the thing that Casey was just getting excited about. Look, I can put it at any angle I want. And he, by the way, I barely
⏹️ ▶️ John use the, my wife has this keyboard, the same keyboard as Marco, I barely use it, and I have already been
⏹️ ▶️ John frustrated by those two angles. And Casey’s right, they’re never quite right, and it’s very, very annoying, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John So the smooth adjustment, when you look at it, and you’re like, wow, it’s smooth adjustment, because the whole iPad is
⏹️ ▶️ John hanging in midair. How does it even work? Look at this amazing thing that Apple’s done, so daring,
⏹️ ▶️ John so light, so floating in the air.
⏹️ ▶️ John reason it’s floating in the air. And that reason is not because
⏹️ ▶️ John it looks cool and it’s a daring thing to do. It floats in the air because if it didn’t,
⏹️ ▶️ John you wouldn’t have at least one row of keys in that keyboard. If you look at how the angles work out, at
⏹️ ▶️ John one, at the most, the steepest of the angles, like the two angles you have on the current keyboards, like at the, I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know what it is, like maybe 10 or 15 degrees off perfectly vertical or whatever, if
⏹️ ▶️ John you extend the line of the iPad down, you will see that you would lose whatever the top
⏹️ ▶️ John row of keys is on this thing. Like to bring it back to what we mentioned before, the trackpad, how did they find
⏹️ ▶️ John room for my trackpad? Is this keyboard only available on the big giant iPad? No, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John available on the 11 inch model. How is that possible? I look at the 11 inch model now and I see keys right from, you know, from the edge of
⏹️ ▶️ John the iPad screen all the way to the edge of this thing. I just see keys, keys, keys. How is there any more room?
⏹️ ▶️ John How can you find room for an entire trackpad? The answer is that the keyboard basically can now be
⏹️ ▶️ John sort of under the display. The display is over your fingers in certain angles when
⏹️ ▶️ John you were touching that top row of keys. That’s how they found room for all this stuff. You can’t get blood from a stone.
⏹️ ▶️ John They didn’t make the keys super duper tiny. They found room for a very short trackpad
⏹️ ▶️ John by allowing the computer to hover over some of the keyboard at
⏹️ ▶️ John certain angles, which I think is super clever and a perfect Apple solution of like, you know, how
⏹️ ▶️ John do we do this? Can we only do it on the big model? Can we, you know, can we not have a trackpad at all? This
⏹️ ▶️ John solution, if it works, is genius. If it doesn’t work, then it’s gonna be an embarrassing thing that keeps falling over on people’s
⏹️ ▶️ John laps and gets people angry. But considering none of us have seen it in person yet, I’m willing to believe right now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, that’s so many unknowns. This is why
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m hesitant to be excited about this for my own needs, just because I do wonder
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about that. That being said, you’re right about the hinge angles. That’s a huge thing. There’s a reason
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why laptop hinges don’t snap into only two preset angles.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s much nicer to be able to adjust it freely within a reasonable range, because your needs and preferences
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and situations change, and that’s nice. So if you’re gonna push this thing to be more laptop-like, which is what the market
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seems to want at the high end here, by all means, give it a real hinge.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that is what they appear to have done here. One concern I have though is like with the current one,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when I’m using the keyboard, which as you mentioned, like you know, the keys go pretty much all the way to the bottom of it. What
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that creates, when you include like where the back of the iPad is,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it allows you to place the iPad on a very short depth surface.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco In my case, where it usually lives is on a kitchen counter, right against a cabinet. So the current
⏹️ ▶️ Marco footprint of the previous 11 inch with the smart keyboard, with it propped up like that,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s about as much depth as will fit on that part of my counter. I actually think this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco might not, because this is leaning the iPad back more at certain angles, and I think even though
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the total size of the keyboard case obviously is gonna be the size of the iPad, which hasn’t changed,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m a little bit concerned that it won’t fit where you need to go now.
⏹️ ▶️ John You can make the screen totally vertical. It’ll take up less room than your current one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco does. Maybe, I have to look at that. But so, I’m gonna look at that. Go
⏹️ ▶️ John look at the angle adjustment thing. Like do the stupid, this vertical scroll thing. I got to hear my wife,
⏹️ ▶️ John whether she knew it or not, get frustrated with the vertical
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey scroll because I sent
⏹️ ▶️ John page to take a look at it. And she’s like, I just want to see the thing. And I hear her mouse wheel going, shink,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey shink, shink, shink, shink, shink. Because
⏹️ ▶️ John you just want to see the stuff, but you have to basically manually, It’s like a jack-in-the-box. You’re
⏹️ ▶️ John rotating the handle to go through all the animations. Anyway, do that on the page. Somewhere when
⏹️ ▶️ John your scroll thumb is somewhere in the middle, you can make it perfectly vertical. So it is assuming
⏹️ ▶️ John it stays in that position, which you can’t really tell from this animation. I think you’re probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fine. That’s interesting. Yeah, because now that I’m looking at it, yeah, you might be right. I have to be able to see it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically, and play with it. And the other
⏹️ ▶️ John thing I- Look at the font, by the way, on that smooth angle adjustment if you’re on that thing. See where it says smooth angle adjustment? What
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s an Apple Pencil ad. It’s, look, you can write with this, it’s creative.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco It’s fun. I know,
⏹️ ▶️ John but among all handwriting fonts, it is an interesting choice. An all caps, very sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John aggressive marker, I don’t know, I don’t know enough fonts to complain about this. It just strikes me as strange.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s a cute, like, look, you could create this entire ad on your iPad Pro kind of thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fun. So I do have a couple other bonuses and a couple other concerns. So my main other concern,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco besides, so I am concerned about possible increased depth
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the footprint by having this mechanism and being able to do that and having the trackpad push the keyboard up and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I also, you know, this is gonna sound completely ridiculous. I’m pretty sure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the previous, which is now still for sale, but we’re gonna call it the previous smart keyboard,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think that used butterfly keys. It was this fabric covered butterfly key thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I never had a single issue with those keyboards. I had two of them, first I had, or three.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I had the 9.7, then the 10.5, then the 11. So those are three different ones of these keyboards. Never had any problems with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any of them. I use them every day and I actually don’t hate them. I don’t love them,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I don’t hate them. They have a totally different feel and key cap design than
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the laptop butterfly keyboards. And for whatever reason, those differences, I liked them, they were fine.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And they seem totally necessary for this kind of, you know, super thin, super lightweight thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So this is the only time that you’ll hear me defending what is, I don’t even know if anybody’s ever even confirmed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they are butterfly keys, but I think they’re butterfly keys in those. Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right. Assuming they are. So I actually will defend that butterfly keyboard because that butterfly keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was actually very well sealed against the environment. The key caps were like, you know, narrower
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and had lots of space between them and it was inexpensive to replace,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco relatively speaking, if anything ever went wrong, but nothing ever did for me. So that was fine. Now going
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the magic keyboard, I think I’m going to lose if I get this, which bonus
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feature, I’m able to without getting the new iPad because this magic keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco will also work with the 2018 iPad pro models. So if you have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the iPad pros that look like this one, it will work with those too. The downside
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is it costs a lot of money, but we’ll get to that. But uh, I actually think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this actually might be worse for me, Even if I can get past the angle issues, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I’d be a little bit more worried about things like having food around it. Because what if crumbs get under the magic
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keycap? Scissor mechanisms, like the magic keyboard, are way more resilient to stuff getting under them than
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the butterfly was. But the previous butterfly keyboards for the iPad were sealed. They had that like fabric-y
⏹️ ▶️ Marco kind of sealing layer on top of them. And so they were basically immune to stuff
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like that happening. Like, it’s something that almost never happened. And I had no qualms, no reservations,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no nervousness about operating it while I’m cooking or, you know, just having
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it around food and stuff, having it around the kitchen. I never was worried about, like, what might
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get into it and break the keyboard. Whereas having a more advanced and, you know, regularly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco open scissor mechanism, like what the Magic Keyboard has, might actually be worse for that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or it might at least give me more anxiety about that.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think you should be more excited because they’ll feel better. I mean, I would expect that they will. I know you said you like
⏹️ ▶️ John the other one with the butterfly thing, but come on, these uncovered scissor switch keys have to feel better,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? They probably will feel better, but I don’t know that that’ll be enough to get me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco over the fear of stuff getting under them.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think you should be afraid, given how much I personally have eaten over scissor switch keyboards at work and how much
⏹️ ▶️ John the office eat over the keyboards and the exact amount of food that I have shaken out of my scissor switch Apple keyboards.
⏹️ ▶️ John Thank you. All right, we’ll see. Gross. Gross but true.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s one area where the iPad has always been really, really nice for me. I will
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use it in situations and places like the kitchen or like, you know, certain things when you’re out and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about where I wouldn’t take out a MacBook because I wouldn’t want damage to occur to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco MacBook whereas the iPad seemed to be a little more better suited to certain types of situations like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that. So I hope this maintains that if I decide to go this route. The other concern I have besides
⏹️ ▶️ Marco price, which again is big, is it’s probably gonna be significantly heavier.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think anybody has weight specs on it yet, but already when you feel an iPad Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by itself, feels wow, this is great, then you stick one of the folio cases on a keyboard or not,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but especially the keyboard ones, it becomes significantly heavier and bulkier.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, just a bigger, it’s a much bigger thing. this is probably gonna add yet
⏹️ ▶️ Marco more bulk and heft compared even to the regular other keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cover. I worry like how big and chunky is the resulting combination
⏹️ ▶️ Marco going to be? And at that point, like, are you in MacBook territory? Probably, right? You’re probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very close to at least the MacBook Air territory at that point in both price and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco size and weight. So I don’t know, I think those are my two big concerns about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this, if I had to say, I’m really concerned about size and weight, and I’m really concerned about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how high-end and fragile will this feel? Will it feel like a laptop that I have to protect a little bit,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or will it feel more like the iPad keyboard cover before that I knew I could kind of abuse
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it would be fine?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, you’re definitely in big floppy laptop territory for sure, and I think the extra weight, I would also guess it’s gonna have
⏹️ ▶️ John extra weight, if only because of whatever mechanism is in that big fat hinge, that mechanism has gotta
⏹️ ▶️ John be weighty, and the rest of it, I don’t see how they saved much weight on the rest of it. This has backlights
⏹️ ▶️ John in it too, by the way. So I think the weight is going to be equal or greater than the
⏹️ ▶️ John other keyboard. The good thing about it though is, again, in big floppy laptop territory,
⏹️ ▶️ John having the weight concentrated in that hinge down at the bottom is good
⏹️ ▶️ John in terms of trying to balance the equation of the weird sort of reverse laptop where all the weight is in the quote
⏹️ ▶️ John unquote screen, because that’s where the whole computer is, and the keyboard is lighter. So I think that could work
⏹️ ▶️ John out to aid stability. Again, it’s hard to tell without having used one of these things. Yeah, so
⏹️ ▶️ John it being a laptop territory, what they’re trying to do is get most of the benefits of laptops,
⏹️ ▶️ John the sort of secure stability, the good keyboard, and now the trackpad, while
⏹️ ▶️ John still maintaining all the benefits of an iPad. And you mentioned that this is getting, you know, getting into laptop
⏹️ ▶️ John territory, it’s getting there in terms of price. And I would once again make the point that it is faster than
⏹️ ▶️ John all of Apple’s laptops.
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey I am super amped about this keyboard and I have pretty much decided I’m going to get one for my
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPad. And yeah, it is worth noting it, like Marco said, it does work with the 2018 era iPad pros.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Basically any iPad pro that does not have a home button, it’ll work with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that. I also wanted to quickly call out, you know, a lot of times
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we see or know that Apple has been planning something for a long time.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And this is one of the occasions that it has been just so eminently obvious
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to me how far ahead of us Apple is. Because if you look at
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the smart connector on my iPad Pro, to the best of my knowledge,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have never, nor could I, put power into that connector
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up until today, or really in May when these keyboards ship, which is a bummer. I really wish I could get my hands on one immediately.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That actually isn’t entirely true. Oh no? Logitech made some weird charging
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mount for it that almost nobody bought. Oh, I didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco okay. It charged it very slowly, I think. And this actually might have the same issue. I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what the specs are for the smart connector
⏹️ ▶️ Marco input, but it might not be a very fast way to charge your iPad. It might just kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of keep it topped off, right? Or it might charge it very, very slowly. Who knows? Maybe they’ve raised
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the wattage for the new iPad, but maybe if you use it on the one that you and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have, maybe it will be slow. Who knows? But it might not be a great charger,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it has always been a charger. Just almost no one ever used it.
⏹️ ▶️ John And speaking of Logitech, by the way, Logitech has a keyboard with a trackpad in it available, announced
⏹️ ▶️ John today as well. So another one of those privileged partners that gets to announce similar products
⏹️ ▶️ John on the same day as Apple that surely worked with Apple on that product. And that’s for the other
⏹️ ▶️ John iPads, the lesser iPads that Apple did not decide to make this product for. So if you’ve got an
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad with a home button and you want a keyboard for it that has a trackpad, Logitech may have a model for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. But I think, Mark, you said this a minute ago, or maybe it was John that said this a minute ago, it is backlit,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which is not something that I can say I’ve ever really wanted, but it’s additive and it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Casey going to hurt anything, so why not? But I cannot stress enough how excited I am
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about the way in which you can tilt this thing to work at almost any angle.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And Marco, you’ve said this, I think you said it a fair bit last week, I think you’ve said it tonight as well,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey having a physical keyboard attached to an iPad really dramatically changes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and in my personal opinion, increases its utility. It changes how you interact
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with and use the iPad. It wasn’t until I got this iPad Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey late 2018 that I realized, because this is the first one I had with a keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that was always attached, it wasn’t until I got this one that I realized the profound difference having a keyboard that is attached
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the iPad makes. I can totally understand how the Jasons
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and Mikes of the world would end up in the Brydge keyboard or what have you if they were going to be treating this more like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a laptop. I think this is workable with the Smartfolio as a laptop-like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing, but this Magic Keyboard looks like it’s going to be much, much better in that department.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And the other thing that I’m still evaluating, but is very intriguing, and I never would have thought I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey wanted, is mouse support in iPadOS. And I think it’s probably about time we talk
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about that. So this Magic Keyboard includes, as has been briefly mentioned, a very, very small
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or short squat trackpad on it. And in iOS 13.4, which as we record
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was released today for developers and will be released in like a week for regular people,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey um, it supports, it has mouse support everywhere. It’s not just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an accessibility hack anymore. It is full, honest to goodness, mouse support everywhere. And so I put
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it on my iPad pro earlier today and I connected it to a magic mouse. I have not tried it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with a track pad yet, but I connected it to a magic mouse. I think I like it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Like, I don’t know that I’ll use it a lot, but I think I like it. And I’m very disturbed
⏹️ ▶️ Casey by the fact that I think I like it. And one of the things that I find
⏹️ ▶️ Casey absolutely fascinating, but I’m not sure if I like, is when you’re mousing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey around, like, let’s take Safari. So I have my mouse connected to my iPad right now,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I’m looking at Safari. And as I’m mousing across the toolbar, you know, there’s the bookmarks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey icon, which is like the little open book. I mouse from left to right past the back and forward
⏹️ ▶️ Casey arrows, which are currently disabled because I’m on a blank page, and then I hit the book,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and suddenly the circular mouse cursor goes away, because by the way, it’s a circle, not an arrow. The circular
⏹️ ▶️ Casey mouse cursor goes away, and suddenly I’ve got this blob that’s highlighting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the book, the particular icon on the toolbar that I’m on. And then as I continue swiping from left
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to right, I eventually leave that toolbar icon, now I’m back to a circle
⏹️ ▶️ Casey again. And then I hit the address bar and suddenly I’m not an I bar, but I’m like a pipe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and it’s so on and so forth. But the key is that your cursor can optionally change
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to highlight the particular thing that you’re on. Whether or not you,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you two and you, the listener enjoy this, I think it is just such an unbelievably clever and interesting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey way to adapt mousing to a touch first device. And I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just think it’s It’s extremely, extremely cool. Now have either of you had any time to play with this?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Marco, have you played with this
⏹️ ▶️ John at all? I’ve seen a video of it. Two things. One, that experience that you’re experiencing there, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a preference. You can change it so it doesn’t do that, so that the cursor is not subsumed.
⏹️ ▶️ John But two, the second thing that made me think about when I saw, I bought a demo video up demonstrating
⏹️ ▶️ John this. I think Jason put it up on his Six Colors channel. It’s on YouTube. We’ll try to put a link for the show notes.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not so much a cursor as a ghost finger. Like that’s how I’m conceptualizing
⏹️ ▶️ John what I see, right? Because we know in the world of the Mac, you have a cursor, it’s on the screen, it’s controlled by your mouse or
⏹️ ▶️ John your trackpad or whatever. The default cursor is the typical little arrow from the early days of the GUI
⏹️ ▶️ John and the Mac. And it changes based on where you are. If you’re in a text field, it becomes a little
⏹️ ▶️ John insertion point I-beam thing. If you’re over a link, it becomes a little Mickey Mouse hand with the pointing finger.
⏹️ ▶️ John Other applications have different cursors and different modes, but it’s always a cursor. And on the
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad in accessibility mode, before this new OS came out, it was like a
⏹️ ▶️ John circular blob. And you can conceptualize that circular blob as trying to say, look,
⏹️ ▶️ John iPadOS doesn’t have a cursor per se, but here is a proxy for your finger, especially if it’s an accessibility
⏹️ ▶️ John feature. It’s like, well, if you can’t use your finger, you can use this other device and this is your virtual finger, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John This new mode where it’s like, okay, we’re adding cursor support. I think some people thought, oh, there’s gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John be a little Mac OS arrow on my screen. No, the default cursor is still
⏹️ ▶️ John the ghost finger blob, right? But it changes based on context. Does it change to an I-beam?
⏹️ ▶️ John Does it change to a finger with a hand pointing? It changes
⏹️ ▶️ John to different ghostly shapes for sure. Casey just talked about one of them that you’ll see in the video. When you go across the buttons, it
⏹️ ▶️ John changes to the shape of the button. In fact, that interaction sort of subsumes your ghost
⏹️ ▶️ John finger to becoming a new thing if that preference is not set. The I-beam, it’s vertical,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it’s not really an I, it’s more like a lowercase L or a capital I in
⏹️ ▶️ John a font with no serifs. It’s a long, skinny lozenge. So it evokes the idea of an
⏹️ ▶️ John I-beam or a selection thing, but it is still a ghostly transparent blob, a thing that would be absolutely
⏹️ ▶️ John impossible in a one-bit computer screen when the Mac was introduced, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Can you tell me, Casey, if you go over a link in Safari, what kind of ghost finger you get?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It is, well that’s a button, where’s like a link? Of course I choose a page that has no traditional links on it. No, it’s still
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just the ghost finger.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. So in the 10 minute video I saw where Craig Federerigi demonstrates
⏹️ ▶️ John all these various features, it always looked like a ghost finger to me. So that I feel like is the mental model
⏹️ ▶️ John that Apple is, the sort of aesthetic and semantic model for this interaction
⏹️ ▶️ John is, it’s more precise than a finger because you can’t make your finger into like a vertical bar
⏹️ ▶️ John that can cleanly split words and
⏹️ ▶️ John text. But the fact that it is dim and transparent, like it’s ghostly.
⏹️ ▶️ John It is fatter than the precise pointing devices on the Mac because the entire interface of
⏹️ ▶️ John the iPad is fatter because of all our fat fingers, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John But they want to give you more precision without saying the door is busted wide open, feel free
⏹️ ▶️ John to make iPad apps that are absolutely impossible to use with your finger, right? And the sort of way
⏹️ ▶️ John to nudge the world to say, Apple doesn’t want you to do that is, even the cursor
⏹️ ▶️ John is a little bit chunky. Like the default cursor is the fat ghost finger, the
⏹️ ▶️ John I-beam cursor is a lozenge of transparentness, right? So
⏹️ ▶️ John cursor support, you know, it looks like it’s gonna do all the things that you’d expect it to
⏹️ ▶️ John do. You got hover states, you’ve got all the different text selection, but it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John the same as on the Mac. Like when you select a thing, you can just click and drag the whole paragraph, which is not the traditional
⏹️ ▶️ John Mac paradigm for moving text around, because you can do it with your finger and you can also do it with the mouse. So,
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of like when all of the multitasking stuff was introduced to iOS or
⏹️ ▶️ John iPhone OS, like every time iOS has made an advancement, what Apple has done has made sense
⏹️ ▶️ John to me, like in terms of the paradigm, that, you know, like, oh, within the world
⏹️ ▶️ John of iOS, this way of doing multitasking certainly makes sense. It fits in like it
⏹️ ▶️ John looks. It’s not just taking what was done on the Mac and shoving it on their iOS devices. It is
⏹️ ▶️ John purpose-built for this context and it looks like it fits in. The question is always, okay, it fits in and it’s part
⏹️ ▶️ John of the model. How does it compare in terms of efficiency
⏹️ ▶️ John and discoverability and ease of use and all the things that we’ve talked about that
⏹️ ▶️ John you can judge an interface by? Like this gives me a little bit more power but how easy is it
⏹️ ▶️ John to use? if I learn this set of rules about the Ghost Finger, can I apply them across the entire operating
⏹️ ▶️ John system and that will give me a leg up in every application or is it custom for each? And the same questions we can ask about any aspect
⏹️ ▶️ John of a GUI. For, again, looking at a five minute video on the day that it was announced,
⏹️ ▶️ John I think the Ghost Finger is more, is probably gonna be more widely applicable
⏹️ ▶️ John and more pleasing to use than, let’s say, iPad multitasking, which has already had a couple of revisions and is not
⏹️ ▶️ John really where it should be as we’ve discussed on past shows. Um, but, uh,
⏹️ ▶️ John more importantly, it is not just the Mac cursor shoved on your iPad, which I think
⏹️ ▶️ John is smart. Uh, and I mean, I’m not gonna say it’s limiting
⏹️ ▶️ John what they can do because they’re, you know, you can, they can do whatever they want to do. But like, initially,
⏹️ ▶️ John it seems like they’re intentionally limiting the functionality to things that are
⏹️ ▶️ John reasonable to imagine might be part of a touch interface, as opposed to saying the door is wide open for
⏹️ ▶️ John you to make pixel precise interfaces on iPadOS.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, this clearly has had a lot of thought. And I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m sure there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey problems, but it’s had a lot of thought. And again, as I was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just sitting on the couch using my iPad with a mouse, quote unquote, attached
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to it, paired with it, I don’t know that I would choose to do this. Me personally, I don’t know that I would choose
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to do it very often, but if I was someone like a Jason or a Federico or a Mike, this would change
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my frigging life, man. And I mean, if I was using an iPad as my computer,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as my professional device, having a trackpad or, or mouse, you know, either
⏹️ ▶️ Casey paired or attached in the case of the magic keyboard would, would absolutely change my
⏹️ ▶️ Casey relationship with the iPad. Now, for me that just uses it as a recreational device for the most part.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think it would be cool to have the trackpad for when you need it. I can’t say that I expect
⏹️ ▶️ Casey myself to be mousing around the iPad often, but I do think this is a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very welcome development and I’m glad that we didn’t just get a pointer and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we got the ghost finger as you said, John. It seems at a glance having used it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for just about an hour, it seems extremely well thought out and very well done and I’m super excited
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to see what apps do with this over time. Something I’ve noticed and perhaps it’s user error,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey perhaps I’d need a trackpad for it, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to swipe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey through the three panes of the left-hand pane of Slack.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So you know how in Slack you have leftmost is your different workspaces and the center is like the different channels
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in your workspace, and the right is direct messages. Well, using the mouse anyway, maybe you can with the trackpad, there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey currently no way to swipe at all on that left-hand pane, which is really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey makes Slack impossible to use. But in Slack’s defense, these APIs
⏹️ ▶️ Casey either aren’t out or just came out today, so there wasn’t really a whole lot they could do about it. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey even with that aside, this just is incredibly, incredibly well done, and I am very
⏹️ ▶️ Casey excited to see what comes of it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, it’s more than just the pointing of things if you watch the demo. They added all the expected shortcuts like, well, what about
⏹️ ▶️ John this thing where you swipe from the edge? How am I supposed to do that with the cursor? Well, there’s an equivalent shortcut. Well, how do I get control center?
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, actually, you can click on the thing. It’s all powered by the amazing technology known as hover
⏹️ ▶️ John state. Like when you have a finger, that’s one thing that, with our current touch technology,
⏹️ ▶️ John there is no hover state. The iPad has no idea if your finger is hovering over a button,
⏹️ ▶️ John as in not touching the screen, but right above it, it has no idea. Now it could, you know, it’s an accident
⏹️ ▶️ John in history slash a design decision. There are lots of touch technologies that have the ability
⏹️ ▶️ John to know when your finger is hovering, but Apple didn’t use one in either of the industry, and it’s probably for the best, because they were all kind of janky,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? But when you have a cursor, you absolutely have hover because the cursor can be positioned on the screen,
⏹️ ▶️ John but you haven’t yet clicked on it or whatever. And because of that, pulling control
⏹️ ▶️ John center is, oh, you just bring the cursor up and hover it over like the time in the upper right. And it highlights to
⏹️ ▶️ John let you know, hey, this is the thing that you can click on. I can tell you’re hovering over it. I haven’t pulled control center
⏹️ ▶️ John down yet, but when you want it, just click on it. Same thing with the edges, you can just slam the cursor against
⏹️ ▶️ John the edge. A lot of people are saying they should have done corners where you can slam the cursor into the corner and make it do things. think they did that,
⏹️ ▶️ John but hover state. And so for Slack, uh, they didn’t previously have any way to know
⏹️ ▶️ John if a thing like a cursor is hovering over them. So how could they implement that feature? Now the whole
⏹️ ▶️ John door is open to things we take for granted on the Mac, which is like, Hey, I can take my mouse and slide it over
⏹️ ▶️ John a window that’s in the background and scroll. And it knows to scroll that window instead
⏹️ ▶️ John of the window that’s in the foreground, because I just put my cursor over it and I’m hovering over it. It’s a thing, you know, whereas
⏹️ ▶️ John on the iPad, there was no focus and no hover state. And so it was like, oh, if I do a gesture,
⏹️ ▶️ John I have to kind of make the gesture fit in the region where the thing is, and it will know that I
⏹️ ▶️ John mean the gesture for that. But if it’s in a slide over thing, I got to do the little gesture on the little tiny
⏹️ ▶️ John bar on the bottom. Anyway, hover state, it’s good, and it will improve everyone’s life on iPad.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Real time follow up. It does appear that if you use the paging indicator
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on the bottom of that left-hand pane, If you get it just right, you can
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actually get between the different panes, but it’s very, very fiddly. And again, in Slack’s defense, this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey app was never designed to be used with a mouse cursor of any sort. The other
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing I’m noticing as I’m listening to you and goofing off with this thing, when you click the mouse, it kind
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of shrinks the ghost finger, so it almost looks as though it’s getting smaller,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as though it’s getting further away from
⏹️ ▶️ John you. It should make it get bigger. It should be squish state.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey That’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ John fat finger is squishing against the screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, but I know what you’re saying, but it does feel like this is the correct
⏹️ ▶️ Casey action for it to take. Again, I take your point. Interestingly, when I slam it against the right-hand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey side of the screen, I get a little peek of the SlideOver app that was most recently up.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Then if I continue to mouse over without having clicked anything, SlideOver then pops open.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So in my case, unsurprisingly, I have GIF wrapped that I most recently used in SlideOver.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So if I mouse all the way to the right side, I see a little bit of GIFRAP peek out, and then as I continue to mouse, it comes on
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as the slide over app. It’s just so much of this is so very, very well done and I’m so impressed
⏹️ ▶️ Casey by it. I’m really interested to see what comes of it. The
⏹️ ▶️ Casey only thing I will say is that I’m not in love with not having more gestures with the Magic
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mouse. So it feels a little weird slamming the mouse into the bottom of the screen
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in order to get the dock up. I wish there was, and maybe there isn’t, I just don’t know it, but I wish there was a way to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey do like a, some, something on a swipe or something on the top of the mouse to get it to come up.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Um, or like two, I was instinctively doing two finger swipes left and right to go, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey between active multitasking pains. And that doesn’t seem to work. Maybe there’s a different
⏹️ ▶️ Casey combination that I’m not aware of. I believe on a track pad, there are some of these things. So maybe it’s the limitation
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the fact that I’m using a physical mouse, not a track pad, but nevertheless, even with these gripes, like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this is still incredibly impressive and I’m really excited to see what comes of
⏹️ ▶️ John it. One of the limitations is the size of that little trackpad. Like there’s only so much room for fingers on there.
⏹️ ▶️ John It is by modern Apple standards it is a tiny tiny trackpad, you know, because it’s just not a lot
⏹️ ▶️ John of room there. So if there’s any sort of three or even, you know, heaven forbid, four
⏹️ ▶️ John finger gestures, just, you know, not really that much room for all your fingers to be
⏹️ ▶️ John on there. Again, we’ll put the link in the show notes to this video. This video
⏹️ ▶️ John looks like kind of thing they would demonstrate in the keynote but it’s just Craig Federighi in what I believe is 60 frames
⏹️ ▶️ John per second in this very sort of uncanny valley video maybe shot we shot
⏹️ ▶️ John an iPhone in 4k 60 anyway they show him demonstrating all these features you get to see what
⏹️ ▶️ John happens on the screen when he does it and you get to see his fingers as you get to see him take three of his fingers and try to
⏹️ ▶️ John fit them on the thing and then swipe them in a particular direction without running out of room to make all these shortcuts happen I’m not
⏹️ ▶️ John sure he demonstrates all the shortcuts but he demonstrates a lot of them so So this will be a fun thing for people to discover.
⏹️ ▶️ John Unfortunately, and this brings me back to my love of the Mac,
⏹️ ▶️ John this type of advancement, hey, you have a cursor and hover state and
⏹️ ▶️ John regions of the screen that you can go to and multitasking, yada, yada. On the Mac,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s always been possible for a developer to see some feature added to the operating system and say,
⏹️ ▶️ John oh, I think it would be cool if the corners of the screen did this thing. and they can write an
⏹️ ▶️ John app for the Mac that makes the corners of your screen hot. Let’s say Apple didn’t add that feature, it wasn’t there yet.
⏹️ ▶️ John And when you put your cursor in the corner of the screen, this app would activate
⏹️ ▶️ John and do a thing. I mean, arguably my dinky little apps do something similar on the Mac. They
⏹️ ▶️ John try to provide what could be thought of as OS level features through a
⏹️ ▶️ John small, simple application because the APIs exist to do that. As far as I’m aware, there are
⏹️ ▶️ John no APIs available on iPadOS that would let a third-party developer make an
⏹️ ▶️ John application that says, hey, when you jam your cursor into the lower left corner, even though it normally does nothing,
⏹️ ▶️ John because you have my app, what it’ll do is bring up the multitasking switcher or bring up a custom window
⏹️ ▶️ John from my application to let you choose from frequently used folders in the files app or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ John Those sort of system extension applications, the lack of any of those being possible in general
⏹️ ▶️ John on the iPad, I think slows down the pace of evolution of the
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad interface. We just have to sit around and mostly wait for Apple to do things. With a few
⏹️ ▶️ John exceptions, like shortcuts being plucked out of the third-party world and share extensions and everything
⏹️ ▶️ John showing areas where people want some functionality, even if it’s awkward, they’re willing
⏹️ ▶️ John to deal with it going through like the share icon or something. We don’t have the sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John rich ecosystem that used to exist on the Mac, where if there’s some way of using this
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware device with a software thing that is sort of spans applications, it’s not like
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m in an app and doing a thing. It’s like, I wanna make these corners hotter. I wanna add a new gesture.
⏹️ ▶️ John I wanna add, you know, just think of like Quicksilver or, you know, LaunchBar or the sort of command space
⏹️ ▶️ John launcher, switcher things. Like those existed all over the place before Apple bothered to add
⏹️ ▶️ John one officially. And even then the third party ones are much more powerful, right? I feel like we’re still missing
⏹️ ▶️ John that on iPadOS. I know maybe the iPad users, well, I was gonna say the iPad users would say, oh, I don’t want that complexity,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s too much like the Mac, but they wouldn’t say that. The iPad, the most heavy iPad users would love features like
⏹️ ▶️ John this. It’s just that thus far, Apple has not dedicated the resources required
⏹️ ▶️ John to allow that functionality to exist in a safe and secure way. But
⏹️ ▶️ John they eventually got around to third-party keyboards, which is an incredible safety and security, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, bees nest. So I still hope that somewhere inside Apple, someone is thinking about
⏹️ ▶️ John how do we enable third-party developers to extend iPadOS in the same ways that macOS
⏹️ ▶️ John has been extended? That, you know, I don’t know if iPadOS 14, that’s gonna happen, but if not, put it on the schedule
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We all know that you’re just trying to get your, you know, Mac apps onto the iPad. You can just mess up.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I know what this diatribe
⏹️ ▶️ John is about. I don’t want these specific ones, but it’d be cool to make
⏹️ ▶️ John similar kind. I don’t have any designs to do that. By the way, speaking of big floppy laptops
⏹️ ▶️ John and this whole iPad revolution, as many people have pointed out, the Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John logo on the back of this new keyboard is right side up when the computer
⏹️ ▶️ John is in laptop mode. So it’s sideways
⏹️ ▶️ Marco normally. And can I say, finally, like the iPad Pro, like I understand
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that Apple considers the iPad a portrait device in many contexts.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think the iPad Pro, especially once they realize, oh, the keyboard’s kind of a big deal
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and people like it, and we seem to be selling a lot of them, the iPad Pro should always have been presented as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a landscape device. The fact that the firmware still considers it, like when you boot it up,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the orientation of the boot up Apple logo is still portrait, at least on the models
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up till today. I don’t know if the new ones have that yet. But it always seemed weird. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the last generation of keyboard cases, there just wasn’t an Apple logo. And there was just this like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco giant expanse of flat black, or flat dark gray vinyl. They look
⏹️ ▶️ Marco terrible. So to have this, kind of have what appears to be like a leathery kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of texture, or maybe it is just that flat vinyl. It’s kind of hard to tell from the product shots, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I know it is, I guess it is just flat vinyl. But to at least have like an Apple logo there, in the correct
⏹️ ▶️ Marco orientation, that’s nice. It is about time. That is-
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco uh, no, it’s, it’s correct.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I know it’s, it’s like, it looks like an, it looks like an Apple laptop now. Like, you know, when you, it isn’t quite like the, the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco vertical centering is a little bit odd compared to a laptop, uh, just cause of the way, the way the case folds,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it is laptop like, uh, so that’s, that’s good. No. And I going back to the trackpad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a second, uh, when I first read about Apple, including this, I was initially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not excited. I’m like, Oh, I’m, I’m never going to use that. I don’t need a trackpad on my iPad.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I’ve learned when it comes to the iPad to try pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much everything because I never know what is going to stick with me and what’s not.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, even the external keyboard, I thought was kind of a lark. Like when I first bought that, I was like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco eh, I don’t know if I’ll actually use this. The Apple Pencil, I thought, you know, I’m not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an artist, I will almost never use this thing. I probably shouldn’t spend $120 or whatever it is to buy one. But you know what, I bought
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it, and I don’t use it very often,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but when I do use it, it’s really cool, and I’m glad I have it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, agreed 100%.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I think the trackpad might prove similar. You know, if I actually spring for one of these
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things, which I mean, it’s me, I probably will, let’s be honest. If I actually get one of these things,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I am concerned about things like the depth, I am concerned about things like Chrome entry into the keyboard,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I also, I haven’t been tempted in theory, because like, well, I don’t know if I’d use a trackpad.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But then I also think like, you know, there are a lot of times when I’m like editing text on my iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and some of those trackpad gestures would be really nice. Because even though the keyboard is great for inputting text,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco editing text on the iPad still sucks. This seems like it would probably improve that quite a bit.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so, hey, maybe I would actually use that. Maybe I get some value out of that. I don’t know. So I think it’s the kind of thing like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco almost every iPad hardware advancement. We’ve said when it first came out, is that really necessary?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Or, oh, that just makes it a little laptop. Turns out, laptops are great. Little laptops are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco awesome. Making the iPad more laptop-like over time has been great, and many
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people have enjoyed that, myself included, despite initial skepticism, despite
⏹️ ▶️ Marco our own initial skepticism. So this is something that I am right now, right at this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco moment, not very excited about. But I think if I tried it, I think I would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco actually get used to it, and I think I would actually really enjoy having it, even if I only needed it occasionally.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I would, first of all, I think I would probably end up using it more than I think, because of things like text
⏹️ ▶️ Marco editing shortcuts. And I think I would end up enjoying it more than I expect to.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know why you’re even questioning it. You used your iPad like a laptop already anyway. You totally want, again,
⏹️ ▶️ John assuming the hinge is fine and stable, doesn’t tip over, and doesn’t have any weird things. Assuming it works in the stability
⏹️ ▶️ John realm the same as the other one, you’re gonna use this trackpad like crazy. That’s my prediction.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You might be right, I don’t know. I should probably buy it and find out. But, and one thing, to kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of close my thoughts on the iPad for now, even though this appears that the iPad itself doesn’t appear to be a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco significant hardware upgrade for most, like the AR, the AR camera, that’s great.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I still am not an AR person. I still have no use for it, almost
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ever. It continues to be a technology that I think is potentially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe cool in the future, but I have yet to see any good use for it today that’s actually mainstream
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and common. But fine, this is clearly the AR iPad,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco camera-wise. That’s great, that’s not anything I care about. But the rest of it, I feel like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I said something similar last year, I believe, when you look at the Mac lineup, especially the laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco specifically, the laptop lineup almost seems punitive a lot of the time, of like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let’s give people the least we possibly can give them. Charge them the most we can possibly. charge them,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and over time, make everything worse and make it do less and take away even more from our users. Like, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how the laptop lineup has felt for a while. Like, it just, over time, you’re just getting less and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it costs more and there’s more downsides to it, right? The iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is going the opposite direction. Where the Mac feels kind of punitive on the laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco side, iPads, as laptop replacements, feel like this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco glorious Christmas day every time they’re updated. Like everything is just better. You look at this model.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There is nothing about this that’s worse than the last model. Everything about it is either the same
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or better. The keyboard, probably, we don’t know yet, but probably is gonna be better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in most ways. We, again, we don’t know. I’m still concerned about weight, but it’s probably gonna be great.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPad OS, yeah, the multitasking is a mess still. And that’s gonna be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a mess for some time, I think, because I think Apple still hasn’t figured out how to do it. but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the hardware wise and a lot about the iPad software is really great
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and as they push it forward, it just gets better and it seems like it gets better faster
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than the Mac does in both hardware and software. It’s just such a pleasure to have this device
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to quickly grab it, hit the power button or tap the screen, it’s on, it recognizes you,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco camera covered up, now it recognizes you, okay. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have cellular optionally. Like I love a cellular iPad. Like when I’m like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco traveling somewhere for the day, I’ll just throw that in a bag. It’s great. It is such a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pleasure to be in the iPad ecosystem. Not all the time, certainly, but it seems
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like it is the place to be. It is where all the excitement is happening. It is where
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things are moving forward. And on the Mac, it doesn’t feel that way a lot of the time,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco especially on the laptops. but even Mac OS too, it doesn’t feel recently, frequently
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the Mac that everything’s great, we’re moving forward, it’s a party, yay! Like that’s how the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feels. Like it almost feels like you’re at the Mac party and your neighbor’s the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco party and you can see everyone there’s like having fun, bouncing around, people all look pretty cool
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you’re looking at your party and everyone’s kind of like standing around looking at each other, kind of upset, like no
⏹️ ▶️ John cool. That’s because you got Mac laptops. You’re looking over at my Mac party. What’s happening
⏹️ ▶️ John over here? Oh, gosh.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, John’s like in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John the skyscraper.
⏹️ ▶️ John I get what you’re coming from, especially on the laptop side. But I do feel like it’s more of a trend line thing
⏹️ ▶️ John than absolute value. So the iPads are exciting because every time they come out with new
⏹️ ▶️ John iPads and new stuff, they’re adding input methods, the pencil, the trackpad.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’re adding ports instead of taking them away. And the ports they have, they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John making more capable. Lightning replaced with USB-C, a standardized port that can do more, you know, so on and so forth.
⏹️ ▶️ John We don’t see that happening in laptops. Laptops are not adding input devices. They’re not adding ports. They’re taking them away or maintaining
⏹️ ▶️ John a status quo. But in absolute numbers, the iPad is still not caught up with
⏹️ ▶️ John the most fanciest of laptops. So Apple’s high end pro
⏹️ ▶️ John laptops do not have two ports, one of which you can only charge through. They have four ports, all
⏹️ ▶️ John of which you could do all sorts of crazy stuff Right, so I do wonder that you know
⏹️ ▶️ John as the iPad matures and becomes an ever more capable floppy laptop
⏹️ ▶️ John running iPad OS Does it stop when it hits the number
⏹️ ▶️ John of I mean, it’s already past the number of input methods, right? So that’s what argument to say. No, they’re not gonna stop They’re just gonna plow
⏹️ ▶️ John ahead right because you can touch you can use the pencil you can use a keyboard you can use a trackpad That’s already more than the Pro Max.
⏹️ ▶️ John You can’t touch those guys and you can’t use a pencil on them, right? but port wise
⏹️ ▶️ John You know, you mentioned about this being a portrait orientation device by default, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John as evidenced by the boot screen, although it does make me wonder why they can’t add some super special hardware to have an accelerometer
⏹️ ▶️ John and show the boot logo in the right orientation. I know that would be tricky, you know, given
⏹️ ▶️ John how long it takes to anyway, anyway, that’d be cool. But for this thing to be,
⏹️ ▶️ John if it’s going to be horizontal, the case has the Apple logo facing that way and everything you start to look at
⏹️ ▶️ John and say, what is that USB-C port in in the center bottom of the portrait mode
⏹️ ▶️ John orientation of the thing. If you’re going to add more ports to this and say, this new
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad Pro has two or three or even four USB-C ports
⏹️ ▶️ John or maybe one of them is Thunderbolt, where do they go on the device? How does that, you know, when do we stop
⏹️ ▶️ John thinking of the iPad as the original portrait mode thing with a button on the bottom of it and start
⏹️ ▶️ John thinking of it as a Microsoft Surface running a weird OS, right? and we’re
⏹️ ▶️ John getting there by inches, I do wonder, like, where does this meet? Where
⏹️ ▶️ John does it meet in the middle? Where do we see sort of complexity parity between
⏹️ ▶️ John the iPad and the MacBook Pro in terms of hardware, if not software?
⏹️ ▶️ John And with the pace the iPad is going, it’s like three or four more generations
⏹️ ▶️ John and we’re gonna be at the point where we start doing capability comparisons to
⏹️ ▶️ John the hardware side and say, this pro iPad has more capable
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware in all possible ways than the Mac. And that’ll be, if they don’t hurry up and make touchscreen
⏹️ ▶️ John Macs before then, that’ll be an interesting time.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And the other thing about it is, and granted I have a very chapped bottom when it comes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to OSs and stuff on my computer, but Catalina
⏹️ ▶️ Casey has not been great. And I feel like, you know, the very,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very beginnings of iOS 13 notwithstanding, you know, iPadOS seems to be doing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a lot of really great, interesting and innovative things and doing them even in point releases.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Like this isn’t iOS 14, this is iOS 13.4. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I really feel like there’s a lot more positive energy in the iPad world
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right now than there is basically anywhere else. And, well, maybe not the phone.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s not fair. there’s a lot of positive energy in the phone, but compared to other computer like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey devices, this is where a lot of the action is, like you guys are saying, and even on the software side. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I am really excited for June, whatever date in June it may be, that we get to see what’s happening
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for iPadOS 14, because I have a feeling whatever it is, it’s gonna be really, really exciting and really,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really interesting.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Thanks to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Eero, and ExpressVPN, and we’ll talk to you
Ending theme
⏹️ ▶️ John Now the show is over, they didn’t even mean to begin, cause
⏹️ ▶️ John it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
⏹️ ▶️ John John didn’t do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn’t let him, cause
⏹️ ▶️ John it was accidental, it was accidental. It was accidental
⏹️ ▶️ John And you can find the show notes at atp.fm And
⏹️ ▶️ John if you’re into Twitter You can follow them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at c-a-s-e-y-l-i-s-s So that’s Casey Liss
⏹️ ▶️ Marco M-a-r-c-o-a-r-m N-t Marco Armin
⏹️ ▶️ John S-i-r-a-c-u-s-a Syracuse It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John to. New Accidental Tech Podcasts,
Game consoles exist
⏹️ ▶️ John I have some post-show stuff that you two will surely be interested
⏹️ ▶️ John in. Alright, tell me. It’s a thing you could know if you looked at the document, but
⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t so it’ll be a surprise. Guess what? Game consoles are a thing that exists and I’m excited about them.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco there have been a
⏹️ ▶️ John bunch of announcements this week about game consoles. They’re cool. Alright, so I was going to bring them
⏹️ ▶️ John up in context when we were talking about the other stuff, but I saved it for the post-show
⏹️ ▶️ John for all of you. when we were talking about the clock speeds on the,
⏹️ ▶️ John what was it, the first one, the MacBook Air. I was like, oh, it’s so slow, it’s 1.2 gigahertz, but
⏹️ ▶️ John then like it turbos up to 3.8, and when does it turbo, and how fast is it? And sort of the modern
⏹️ ▶️ John processors of, if you have lots of cores, you can’t have them all running at the max speed all the time,
⏹️ ▶️ John but if you just have one running, maybe you can turbo boost off briefly to 3.8, and all, the way modern CPUs
⏹️ ▶️ John work that we’re kind of used to. Microsoft made an interesting choice when it comes to their next generation
⏹️ ▶️ John console, which is actually very interesting from a hardware perspective. They have a AMD
⏹️ ▶️ John CPU, GPU combo with a whole bunch of cores and blah, blah, blah, like all standard stuff that you would imagine.
⏹️ ▶️ John But they made the interesting choice to run all of their cores locked
⏹️ ▶️ John at a pretty high frequency. There is no turboing up and there is no turboing down.
⏹️ ▶️ John They run at whatever their, whatever the frequency is, I forget, but it’s not like 1.2 gigahertz. It is a high frequency,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, a PC level or sort of like, really, you’re gonna run at that frequency all the time? Yep,
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s it, locked. And so they committed to cooling that, and their argument was that on a game console,
⏹️ ▶️ John they don’t want performance variability, you know, in response to
⏹️ ▶️ John temperature, which makes sense because consoles are in a very hostile environment
⏹️ ▶️ John as compared to PCs. Often they’re in an entertainment center under a TV, cooped up with a bunch of other hot things,
⏹️ ▶️ John and they produce a lot of heat. And if you had something that thermal throttled
⏹️ ▶️ John or just turbo boosted up, it would be very difficult to get consistent performance out
⏹️ ▶️ John of it. So they are, you know, bucking the modern trend and have pegged
⏹️ ▶️ John the CPU speed of, I think they’re all the CPU cores and maybe also all their GPU cores to fairly
⏹️ ▶️ John high frequencies, which is very impressive. Did either one of you see any of the videos in your travels
⏹️ ▶️ John of what the new Xbox looks like, what the hardware looks like? because they allowed a bunch of people to go out to Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John and take the thing apart and put it together. Did any of you see those videos?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, of course not. Yeah, of course not. But I did see a photograph of somebody sitting next
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the new Xbox, and it looked like a humongous version of the final Airport Express, you know, like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the cylinder. It actually looked like the way I envisioned the Mighty Black
⏹️ ▶️ John Stump. Yeah, it’s like a vertical shoebox or a vertical, you know, two, as people said,
⏹️ ▶️ John two GameCubes stacked on top of each other, if you can envision that. I thought you might have seen it because Mike Hurley’s new co-host
⏹️ ▶️ John for one of his new podcasts was one of the people who got to go
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft. Austin Evans got to go there. Microsoft did a cool thing PR-wise. It would be
⏹️ ▶️ John really cool if Apple ever did this. So this is way early to be showing this stuff, but Microsoft’s like, look, we’re gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware. It’s not final hardware. This thing is coming out six months from now or whatever, but it’s basically
⏹️ ▶️ John final, and here are all the pieces, and we’ll have all the hardware people explain to you. Here’s where we did the cooling this way. It’s like a chimney
⏹️ ▶️ John cooler. pulls in air from the bottom it shoves it out the top very much like the trashcan
⏹️ ▶️ John macros only got one fan and one big honking fan at the top again much like the trashcan Mac Pro a
⏹️ ▶️ John lot of similarities there only the only difference is they don’t need to shove any different internals to this case they can make a totally new case
⏹️ ▶️ John when they make a new console but but anyway they had all the parts there and they wanted
⏹️ ▶️ John everyone who got to go through this thing to get the feel of how it goes together actually goes together with
⏹️ ▶️ John fasteners on some kind I’m assuming but what they did was they embedded these tiny powerful magnets
⏹️ ▶️ John in every part of the thing so that the people who are there could actually quote unquote assemble it,
⏹️ ▶️ John take the two logic board things and connect them to this internal metal thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John take the heat sink and put it on top, take the power supply and put it in, take the, you know, and all
⏹️ ▶️ John the pieces would magnet together much like Apple’s smart cases and all that other stuff, like so it’s impossible to put it in the
⏹️ ▶️ John wrong place but you also don’t have to use fasteners. Such a clever idea. Everybody, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, I saw videos from lots of people in my various YouTube subscriptions who went through this process. And it was great.
⏹️ ▶️ John People got to build the new Xbox themselves. Half of them didn’t seem to even know
⏹️ ▶️ John or realize that the thing doesn’t actually magnetically stick together. They’re gonna use screws in the real thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco This is just for
⏹️ ▶️ John you so that you can’t mess it up and you can’t put it on the wrong way and it’ll just snap into place.
⏹️ ▶️ John Very clever hardware design. Yeah, it is a big vertical thing. And there were some questions of like,
⏹️ ▶️ John how do you fit this under your TV? Well, the first answer is you can lay it on its side. But even laying on its
⏹️ ▶️ John side, it’s a very tall console. It’s more like two consoles stacked on
⏹️ ▶️ John top of each other. They did some cool stuff where they made it exactly the same height to the millimeter as
⏹️ ▶️ John the previous Xbox standing on its edge. Right, so if you put them right next to each other, they have like
⏹️ ▶️ John the same texture of plastic, they’re the same color, and they’re exactly the same height, which is very nice. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a good family resemblance there. It has an optical drive in it, this is a thing we already knew. But anyway, seeing the design, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John like, wow, we’re really using a lot of space for that optical drive whose sole purpose is to get the bits off of it
⏹️ ▶️ John and shove it in there. As we all knew already, talked about this with
⏹️ ▶️ John the PS5, solid state storage for everything. The new Xbox has a
⏹️ ▶️ John one terabyte SSD, which
⏹️ ▶️ John impressive. A fast one terabyte SSD. And
⏹️ ▶️ John it also has an expansion slot in the back of this proprietary thing where you can shove in another
⏹️ ▶️ John one terabyte SSD and a little card. some proprietary connector which people are angry about, and I kind of understand that,
⏹️ ▶️ John and who knows how much they’ll cost, but if you want a second terabyte, you can just shove this little cartridge
⏹️ ▶️ John in the back, and of course, I’m sure they’ll have two terabyte ones or three terabyte ones if they need them, or if they can stand
⏹️ ▶️ John the expense. They partnered with Seagate to do that. It’s just like a little metal card that is very hefty, and the
⏹️ ▶️ John metal is for like a partial heat sink, so yeah, SSDs for everything. The PS5
⏹️ ▶️ John had a tech presentation today. I didn’t get to see all of it. I got to see most of it.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s more in depth and they didn’t invite a bunch of people to come take the thing apart. In fact, I’m pretty sure no one
⏹️ ▶️ John still knows what the PS5 looks like. If they show it at the end of the video, I haven’t seen it yet, so no
⏹️ ▶️ John spoilers. But by the time you listen to this, I will have seen the rest of the video. But they were touting that they
⏹️ ▶️ John had, Sony’s already had a bunch of presentations touting the speed of their SSD. This was a much more in depth
⏹️ ▶️ John one, explaining exactly how they’ve tailored the system for games But
⏹️ ▶️ John forget about all the game stuff aside, their SSD, they’re saying it gets five and
⏹️ ▶️ John a half gigabytes per second, which is faster than the SSD in my Mac Pro, which is not that impressive because you can buy like
⏹️ ▶️ John an aftermarket SSD and shove it in here, and it’s also faster than the SSD in my Mac Pro, but still, five and a half gigabytes
⏹️ ▶️ John per second is fast. Sony, I was gonna say cheaped out, but they had
⏹️ ▶️ John this whole explanation, a very Apple-like explanation of the exact sizes of their SSD.
⏹️ ▶️ John Given the speed that they wanted to get and the chips available to them, it turns
⏹️ ▶️ John out that 825 gigabytes or whatever was the right size for the SSD. Basically, they
⏹️ ▶️ John had to explain, why isn’t it a terabyte? Xbox has a terabyte, why don’t you have a terabyte? And it’s like, look, this is how the chips worked
⏹️ ▶️ John out. And the Xbox does some weird stuff with chips as well. Like they have some high speed RAM and some slow speed RAM and
⏹️ ▶️ John they divvy it up. And anyway, I find the architecture of these machines endlessly fascinating because
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re so much more interesting and exotic and do weird, clever things for the purposes
⏹️ ▶️ John of running games. So anyone who looks at these things and said, oh, it’s just like a PC in like a weird case.
⏹️ ▶️ John Not at all. So I would encourage everybody to, I mean, I guess we’ll link to
⏹️ ▶️ John the Austin Evans thing on the Xbox and we’ll link to the Sony presentation on the PS5
⏹️ ▶️ John if you are at all interested in this kind of hardware nerdery. Even if you don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ John or care anything about game consoles, you should check these things out because they’re super cool.
⏹️ ▶️ John Aren’t you glad you know all that now?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel so much better.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, crap. We never mentioned the price. It’s 300 bucks.
⏹️ ▶️ John What’s the other keyboard? Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well 350 for the big one,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John right or something
⏹️ ▶️ John like that. Christ me. I but it’s so much bigger is 50 bucks more. Obviously.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, it’s I love that. It’s 50 bucks more. Why because it is bigger. Yeah, that’s it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s no reason why
⏹️ ▶️ John just because it is you pay by square inch. Everyone knows that.