MacBreak Weekly 871, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Jason Snell, Andy, and aco. Alex, Lindsay and I, we're all here. Of course, we'll be talking about Apple's event a week from Monday. What will the VR headset bring? And will it be evolutionary or revolutionary? Jason Embargo has lifted. He can talk about his one week review of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the iPad. And then Andy brings back a classic Macintosh game. All that and more. Coming up next on MacBreak Weekly podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWI twi.

(00:00:38):
This is MacBreak Weekly episode 871, recorded Tuesday, May 23rd. 2023. Andy's Wild Thumb MacBreak Weekly is brought to you by Melissa. More than 10,000 clients worldwide rely on Melissa for full spectrum data quality and ID verification software. Make sure your customer contact date is up to date. Get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free at melissa.com/twit and by AG one from Athletic Greens. If you're looking for a simpler, cost effective supplement routine, ag one is giving away a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packets with your first purchase of a subscription. Go to athletic greens.com/MacBreak. It's time for MacBreak Weekly, the show we cover the latest Apple News. Jason Snell in the house. Six colors.com and he is now embargoed.

Jason Snell (00:01:39):
I am, I'm unencumbered by Apple Embargoes. I can tell all about headset. Nope. Final cut and logic for the iPad. That's, sorry. He

Leo Laporte (00:01:47):
Very, very careful also with us a we'll tell you about what that's all about in a second. Also with us. Andy Inco. Chico. No. W G B H in Boston. Almost said the other thing. <Laugh>. Hello Andrew. Hello. You always tell you always told when Jason is up from un under embargo, his, his hair is like L lighter. More and more bounce more body <laugh>. That's right. I thought it was the head and shoulders. What did I know? And Mr. Alex Lindsay from Office hours.global Hello. Hello, hello. Alex Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference kicking off Less than a week away. No more than a week away. A week from Monday.

Jason Snell (00:02:28):
Scared me. I

Leo Laporte (00:02:29):
Scared you. <Laugh> a week from it's official though. They've put out a press release. So a week from Monday and we'll be here recording our coverage. We did that this morning at 9:00 AM I got up to watch Satya. Nadela, say Microsoft's all about a AI kind of knew that <laugh> well i's all about the cloud. I'ma do it. It's the cloud and ai. It's together. Last, there we go. Two. Great. It's about the cloud as a service in one, I think. Yeah. And tomorrow we'll cover it as well from 9:00 AM and then Oh, oh good. I'm glad it's not this Monday. A week from Monday, <laugh> June 5th, 10:00 AM Pacific, we will cover the WW d c Keino, which, for which I'm getting more and more excited, especially since Costco is selling Mac Mini's for 300 bucks. That's cheaper than a brisket. They're <laugh>, they're actually

Andy Ihnatko (00:03:19):
That, that they're in amount that that is. And, and because the the raspberry pie is so short stocked because of component shortages that might be actually less than you might pay for like a top of the line raspberry pie. Wouldn't that

Leo Laporte (00:03:32):
Be while you

Andy Ihnatko (00:03:33):
Actually needed one? Wouldn't that be with markups?

Leo Laporte (00:03:35):
I'm just gonna stick that behind a, you know, screen and make a picture key thing. You can put Velcro on it and just attach it to the Yeah, yeah. To the well, I asked John, I said, do we need more Mac Minis? He said, well, we have lots of Mac Minis, but they're the old Intel ones, but they work fine. So, you know, they're doing all things such a difference. I knows such a difference. But they're not doing anything. They're running, you know, software somewhere. I dunno, we'll get, we'll get 'em when we need 'em anyway. They're all sold out anyway. But they're still brisket if anybody wants to pick someone. <Laugh> and giant bags of Doritos. Another Tuesday morning, another Apple announcement. They have announced a multi-billion dollar deal with Broadcom. You may remember Apple made a commitment to the US government in 2021 to invest 430 billion in the US economy, cuz all of their money comes from China. So they're gonna put it, put it back into the US economy. So they've made a big deal with Broadcom to build 5G radio frequency components in the us I'm s when they say 5g, they're talking about phones, right? Yeah, it

Andy Ihnatko (00:04:46):
Could, it couldn't be anything else. Yeah. The on the only, and, and the only question is that, does that mean that they're, the, it is they're involving themselves in US manufacturing. So does that mean that they're going to be using Broadcom as their chip manufacturer for their own design of modem chips? Or does that mean that they're committing to sticking with Qualcomm for their modem modem chips for the next two or three years? Unclear Right.

Leo Laporte (00:05:09):
Tell unclear the 5G radio. This is from cnbc. The 5G radio components developed by Broadcom will include f bar filters and other wireless connectivity components according to the release. These components are different from the 5G modems made by Qualcomm. Yeah,

Jason Snell (00:05:26):
It seems, it seems, I mean, they, we don't, it doesn't tell us either way. I've seen some people react to the story of saying, wow, I does this mean Apple's not making their own modems? And I think unless we hear otherwise, no, it doesn't mean that it, they are still doing that. But they have a deal with Broadcom. This is best read, I think as a, as a, we generate jobs in America. Yes. Press release. It's a political and not as anything beyond that because it is, I mean, it's great and they may use Broadcom to build the chips. Somebody's gonna have to build the chips. Apple doesn't build its own chips, but, so when it does make that move away from Qualcomm, if it ever does maybe Broadcom helps with that. I don't know. But I, I think, yeah, I think you could read too much into this announcement cuz this is in the Apple loves to do these PR blitzes where they're like, look at how many jobs we create. And this is one of those PR

Andy Ihnatko (00:06:12):
Thing and could be, could be a Foxconn thing too. Remember how they made big noise about, Hey, look, we're building actually manufacturing plants in the United States and in the Midwest. We're creating jobs. Then five years later, hey, they're basically creating jobs of security guards to mine the empty lot where nothing's being built. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:06:28):
We're actually in an old Broadcom office right now, right here. They moved out and they moved next door and then they've moved out next door. So we, they've moved down the road a piece. But Broadcom was originally part of hp, the semi conductor product division of Hewlett Packard. And then they spun it off to Alan, which made Petaluma the telecom Valley briefly. We had a lot of, we had a lot of telecom going on here. Anyway, that's, I guess, you know, it's, they, they said they'd do it. So they've done it and they're Yep. Now you have it. Now you have it. Did we, for them, did we, did we learn any, we didn't learn any. I should have looked at this Worldwide Developer's conference press release. They didn't tell us anything. We didn't already know, right?

Jason Snell (00:07:19):
Nope. Okay. Nope. It really was. I mean, what happened today is essentially that the press got invited. We already knew there were the developers who were invited. The press got invited today. We

Leo Laporte (00:07:30):
Did not get an invite here at MacBreak Weekly. But Jason, I imagine you did.

Jason Snell (00:07:35):
Yeah, I'll be there. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:07:37):
Micah went last year. Did not get invited this year. Yeah.

Jason Snell (00:07:40):
No, we rode a, we wrote a cart. Yeah. Together. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:07:44):
<Laugh>. You wrote a cart. Cart,

Jason Snell (00:07:46):
Yeah. Golf cart. They, that was, that wasn't that event. That was a different event. Oh. But we did go. Okay. And and yeah, they were like, oh we'll just drive you over to do this podcast on a golf cart. And we're like, well, how do you say no when Apple offers to Dr. She just to shepherd you around their campus on golf. I think

Leo Laporte (00:08:04):
That's fun. Yes. Yeah. Was

Jason Snell (00:08:05):
It, and then you wave at everybody as you go by. It was

Leo Laporte (00:08:07):
Great. Did it have leather seats? Was it like a special golf

Jason Snell (00:08:11):
Cart? No, it was not like an Apple golf cart. It was just a golf cart. They didn't let you use the bikes. Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, again, a, a golf cart driven by an Apple employee taking us where we were allowed to, go's supposed to go be clear. We don't wanna be handing you bikes. You might bike going up into the, it's like free range. You could just go anywhere and

Leo Laporte (00:08:31):
Stick you out. What's the,

Andy Ihnatko (00:08:33):
What's the, what's, what's the gaming term? It was, it was on rails. <Laugh> not, not, not open.

Jason Snell (00:08:38):
Exactly. Exactly. Because if you get on a bike, they gotta like, take a metal pole and stick it in the spokes and knock you over and get you outta there. Because I think they have those little auto locking bikes. Like there's a Nope. Oh, you can't go to not in that zone. You're not, it doesn't kill that zone. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:08:51):
Although, although there was, there were a couple of, like, people who were posting developers who got invites to posting about how as the broad like, sort of welcome party schedule of includes. Of course, the keynote, of course, a lunch of the platform, say of the union, all that stuff is like traditional every single year, but followed by a special tour, tour of Apple Park, and then a quote, special evening activity that you won't want to miss, unquote

Leo Laporte (00:09:18):
Ooh.

Andy Ihnatko (00:09:20):
Concerts and a and a smaller and a smaller dev event at the Operat Developer Center on Tuesday to quote, discuss some of the latest announcements.

Leo Laporte (00:09:29):
Now I, but you know what? I'm not gonna check my Gmail. I'm not, I know. I didn't get invited. I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction Apple. So fun. But that sounds

Andy Ihnatko (00:09:38):
Like fun. Will be tested for pinkeye before the Tuesday

Leo Laporte (00:09:41):
Event. <Laugh>, you will be going to that Jason, I'm sure.

Jason Snell (00:09:45):
Well, that's a developer event. So what they do. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:09:47):
You don't get to go to the concert is

Jason Snell (00:09:49):
Unclear. Well, it's unclear, right? I, I, maybe, maybe not. What is it? It's a mystery. Like, they don't specify. I I mean, maybe it's been a while, Leo, but like, they're not really forthcoming about Yeah. You know, I've been

Leo Laporte (00:10:03):
To, I wouldn't

Jason Snell (00:10:04):
Know on a Monday morning. And then what happens after that is between, it's the, but it keeps you on, on your toes. It's the wonder of the mystery.

Leo Laporte (00:10:11):
Is there a little Pandora Locke golf cart trinket attached to your maybe a little hint. No, this is the invite we'll see, which I'll have to have to defer to Matthew Panzano at TechCrunch for his copy. You're invited. R S v SVP to join us in person to watch the keynote address kicking off at ww d c at Apple Park June 5th. 10:00 AM Have fun.

Jason Snell (00:10:34):
It's the same art that they use for all of the WWC stuff this year, so. Oh, is it? Oh, okay. Nothing new to be gleaned. Yeah. That the, it's the Apple Park ring and it's colors. And some people have said that. It also suggests that it's the lenses the different refract, the Periscope

Leo Laporte (00:10:48):
Lenses lenses on the iPhone 15.

Jason Snell (00:10:51):
No. Of the of the, the lenses in the headset. But

Leo Laporte (00:10:55):
Wilson Oh, the headset. What's that? <Laugh>

Jason Snell (00:10:58):
Everybody. It's the product that you, that you're convinced is not gonna happen. Oh, that's totally happen.

Leo Laporte (00:11:04):
That gonna happen. Actually, it's not me. It's Glen Fleischman, who's

Jason Snell (00:11:08):
Glen Fleischman was surprised that they're gonna release a headset. I I wonder where he's been. <Laugh>. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:11:14):
Anyway, anyway. So I can,

Andy Ihnatko (00:11:16):
I can cut that be I did, I have, I haven't, I haven't checked my junk mail folder yet, so maybe it just collect, got kicked into junk mail. I'll, I'll wait till, but I should focus on the show. So I'll I'll pick that up like

Leo Laporte (00:11:27):
Afterward. Yeah. Yeah. We, we have been introduced to the 2023 finalists for the Apple Design Awards, which will be announced also on that Monday, I think. Right? yep. Do you wanna know in the inclusivity category and universe, passenger assistance finding Hannah Ancient Board Game Collection and Stitch in Delight. Those seem like delightful and fun apps, but there is a separate category for those duo lingo. Cream chantings, pocket card jockey, ride On Not Words, which you recommended Jason and I'm still using. Right. Love it. And After Place Interaction Shuffles by Pinterest. Can you win twice or so these have to be new, right? Or no? I don't know. Some, I don't recognize a lot of these titles. Tile Guide Charts and Tables Flighty, which I do use. It's a subscription program. Yeah, I think that was a, a pick at one point. That's excellent. A great tool. Yeah. Automat Toys, rail Bound and Kimono Cats. One of my favorites for Social Impact Duolingo. Again, Sego Mini first words Headspace meditation app. Hindsight Ling Extension is forever. And Beer. Decarbonize Visuals and graphics. Any distance gentler streak. Health Fitness. Rio Diablo. Immortal. The game that costs you forever. Resident Medieval Village. Aling. Again. Innovation Camo. Yay. Camo Studio. Swing Vision.

Andy Ihnatko (00:13:08):
Yep. That another pick.

Leo Laporte (00:13:10):
Yep. Rise Energy and Sleep Tracker. I'm familiar with that. Resident Evil Village played that briefly. Oh. stitch or Stitch

Andy Ihnatko (00:13:20):
Stitch. Yeah. That's a no. Nominated twice.

Leo Laporte (00:13:22):
Yeah. And Marvel Snap. What is, let's look at, it's one of my pitch. Marvel Snap. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Stitch it to Puzzle out. So Stitch, you have to sew according to the numbers digitally. And then it's a Chicago puzzle, huh? Huh. Hmm. Huh.

Andy Ihnatko (00:13:40):
Yeah, those are, those are always fun because they're not necessarily, they're, they're certainly not the most popular. They're maybe not even apps that have gotten a lot of traction. They really are the ones that are, they're trying to, they're trying to reward developers who are most creative and or support. Most of what Apple has been promoting as here is what a proper and creative and innovative Mac app or iPhone app should look like. So it's not, it's not the, it's, it's, it's, it's not like the, the cable Ace awards or the, or the Grammy Awards.

Leo Laporte (00:14:08):
They're paragons of Apple for virtue. Yes. <laugh>,

Andy Ihnatko (00:14:12):
Filthy. They've been the knee very, very

Leo Laporte (00:14:13):
Well. And the knee anyway, there's the design awards for us,

Andy Ihnatko (00:14:16):
But they're, they're, but they're great stuff. Yeah. They're, they're, they're al they're, they're always, I, they're always a lot of apps that I've never heard of. And then when I try them out, they're like, oh my God, how come I never heard this? This is so cool.

Leo Laporte (00:14:25):
Well, this is for a good example, Anne. The first one I mentioned, Morse assistant for Deafblind people. So you can communicate through vibrations. That's interesting. Oh, Anne is Helen Keller's assistant. That's right. She drew on her on her hand. Right? A gate, a gate Deafblind gateway to the outside world, powered by Morse code and iPhone. What an interesting idea. Yeah. Yeah. And it looks very pretty too. Yeah, nicely done. That's very cool. So that's just a, a little sampler of what you can expect. Apple is now appealing. Let's see, they've, it's complicated. The EU tax, remember Apple one. So it's Ireland that's appealing, or the EU is appealing. Apple one in this overseas tax in in Ireland, the back taxes of 30 billion Irish dollars, pounds, euros. That's what it is. 13 billion Euros. Apple won in 2020 after insisting in 2020, it would appeal.

(00:15:39):
The European Commission has finally petitioned three years later, the Court of Justice of the European Union to get that 13 bill. The contention was that Ireland extended preferential treatment to Apple that was illegal in the eu. And so apple should have paid that tax. And the courts did not say that. They said, no, apple doesn't owe that tax, which is, does seem kind of unfair to Apple. Hmm. And, and Ireland said we didn't want it. <Laugh>. Yeah. Ireland said, we already for forgave them. Yeah, we, yeah. Never asked for it. Yeah. Yeah. In 2020 July, 2020, the EU second highest court ruled in favor of Apple and Ireland saying that it was not an unlawful tax preference, but they're gonna appeal it. Apple said, we paid our taxes. We paid ex every penny that we were legally required to. We paid every penny. All right. I think it's time for hands on. We, let's get hands on. Jason Snell. Hands on the hard body. I like to call it if <laugh>

Jason Snell (00:16:49):
Easy. Now, easy.

Leo Laporte (00:16:50):
Now you have, you have for a week. Cl very stealthily been using Final Cut Pro for the iPad and Logic for the iPad.

Jason Snell (00:16:58):
It's true. It's true. Yeah. Barger just dropped and, what can I say? Logic. So, okay. A lot of podcasters out there who are Mac users have been using Logic to edit their podcasts. I use Logic to edit my podcast on the Mac. And they're very curious about, would this mean they could edit those podcasts on, on the iPad or Round Tripp them between the Mac and the iPad? And I'm here to tell you two things about that. One is, you could always edit a podcast on the iPad. The app's called Fair Right Recording Studio. It's excellent. It's made for podcasters and you should use it. And two Logic on the Mac is like and I said this, I said this I think last week. It's like an app that we can use, but it's like we're using it wrong. It's not for us. It's not made for us. It's made for it's music apps. It's a music app. It's

Leo Laporte (00:17:44):
Not for

Jason Snell (00:17:44):
Music app

Leo Laporte (00:17:45):
Speech

Jason Snell (00:17:46):
Particularly. Exactly. Right. I mean, it's not, you have to, you can set it up to do it, but it's like, it really wants to have musical bars in a tempo. Correct. And you can kind of hide that stuff. When Apple built Logic for the iPad, what did they do? Well, they emphasize what it's for, which is music. It's got even fewer of the features that podcasters might use. And while you can edit spoken word things and logic for the iPad don't, don't, don't try. It's, it's really unpleasant. You can do it, but it's like, there are so many better options. Phite is a much better option. And like even I tried to bring in a project that I brought that I, a podcast project project that I built on the Mac to the iPad. And it said, sorry, although this is a logic project, it is not saved using the music grid.

(00:18:30):
So although they talk about Round Tripp, it actually is for very specific kinds of projects, which are music projects. Otherwise it won't even open a Logic project from the Max. So there's a lot. Right. So anyway, final Cut. I think it's way more interesting, even though when the announcements came out, we were all like, oh final Cut is dozen round trip and it's limited feature set. It doesn't have all the features of the Mac. It's gonna be disappointing and Logic's gonna be exciting. Logic has more limitations compared to the Mac version than you might think if you're a podcaster. Anyway. Final cut's really good. It needs to be better. There's some things they could do to make it better. If you're using it just with touch, there are things they could do to make it better if you're using Apple Pencil. But I was able to, once I got the, the hang of it and they've done some very clever things to move some stuff around in the interface, I can edit pretty quickly. I think that it's got a huge amount of potential. Even if, you know, there's stuff that here's that apps like far-right learned a while ago that that that it, it needs to learn like little multi-touch gestures and things to make it a little faster.

Leo Laporte (00:19:34):
Here's a bug. You found pencil, you dragged the video track and it flipped it upside down.

Jason Snell (00:19:38):
<Laugh> turn up. Well, that was right before Crash. First it flips it upside down and that's the, that's like the sign of the devil. And then if you continue to use it, then it just crashes entirely. And I found that a lot. I had trouble dragging things around sometimes. Other times it worked fine. Yeah. I did capture the moment where it inverted the waveform right before it crashed.

Leo Laporte (00:19:55):
Very nicely done. Yeah. You

Jason Snell (00:19:57):
So smacked that. Yeah. I mean, it's a 1.0, but like, I feel like they could add, add some niceties and, and it would be something. And, and in terms of the power of the iPad, I mean, we're talking about M one and M two devices. They are on the Mac, they're just fine. And guess what? They're just fine on the iPad too, in terms of editing and exporting, encoding video, all of those things. It, it just works. So strangely though, yeah, it's optimized for Touch, doesn't have a lot of multi-touch niceties and the keyboard shortcuts are actually pretty good. And can help speed things along. Because, you know, if you want to split a clip or you want to delete a clip really fast, or you want to toggle, play or pause on the iPad with Touch, you've gotta like do a tap or two in a particular place.

(00:20:41):
And if you've got a keyboard, it's just what you're used to, which is press the Space Bar or command B to blade the clip or delete key to delete the clip. It it, it's very familiar when you're using that. So like, I feel like they're, they're really close and that this is only gonna get better. And if I, honestly, if I were to edit a podcast on the iPad and I wasn't allowed to use phite, I'd probably use Final Cut <laugh>, not Logic, because that's, I'm not a musician and that's not what it's for. It's not, it's not their fault. Right. Like, that's what that app is for. It's, we were just sneaking in there and trying to use it for things it wasn't intended for. But <inaudible>, I was really impressed. I think there's a lot of room for it to grow, but I think it's a good start.

Leo Laporte (00:21:18):
And if you were a musician, you might have a different opinion of logic for them. It's

Jason Snell (00:21:22):
For them. Right? Like, I mean, I, I can't wait to see what musically inclined people say about Logic on the iPad. Because in, I, I've seen enough of logic to know, like I'm very impressed with what they put in there, but also it's literally all the features that I turn off on Max. So I'm not, you're not, I'm not gonna give the answer there. I look forward to the Yeah. Official musician reviews of Logic on here.

Leo Laporte (00:21:46):
Yeah. If you're editing audio, there are far better tools, fair Right's a great one. But they're far better tools even on the Mac. So it's kind of, but you know what, you have Logic. The difference is you paid once for Logic. Probably if you're like me years ago, a

Jason Snell (00:22:01):
Very long time ago.

Leo Laporte (00:22:02):
Yeah. This would be different. You'd have to pay either $5 a month or $50 a year to use it. So it's Right. It's not Fair

Jason Snell (00:22:09):
Right's. 20 bucks iPad users,

Leo Laporte (00:22:11):
It's 20 bucks and, and out, out the door done. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> actually you say 30 in your article. 30 or 20. It's a

Jason Snell (00:22:18):
30. Oh, yeah. Oh, so it changes. It's free. Then there's a app purchase in app purchase. It must be 30. And then what they do is actually you get those features forever. And then the next time he does the complicated thing. That's actually, I think, the best way to do software purchases in the App store. But it's complicated, which is, you know, the next version will come out and they'll be an in-app purchase for existing users. That'll be smaller, but new users will have to pay more. And it's like, this is why everybody's given up and and done subscriptions. But the guy who does Phite has not done that. So it's free to use. And then if you wanna unlock the premium features, it's Yeah, I guess a $30 Ann Net purchase still a bargain. Like the best bargain in a non-linear audio editor that you're ever gonna see on any platform, I think other than free. Above Free, it's pretty, $30 is pretty cheap. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:23:04):
Yeah. <Laugh> yeah, there's the pricing, $30 per

Jason Snell (00:23:08):
You can see it, right? Yeah. It gets complicated. It's like Fari two Pro Fair, right. Three Pro. Like this is why people don't do this. This is why they just do subs. Yeah. Instead, yeah. Because the app store is so, it's complicated, unfriendly to developers who wanna Yeah. Do a traditional kind of upgrade model. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:23:24):
Well, good. I, you know, I think is there a trial period? No. You can't just try before you buy. Yeah.

Jason Snell (00:23:29):
It's 30 day trial.

Leo Laporte (00:23:30):
Oh, there is. Oh, good. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Alex, did your people have anything to say about, you know, it, not everyone, all of us. I'm, I'm still trying to,

Alex Lindsay (00:23:45):
It you know, the, it came out today, it, one thing that Apple is trying, I think trying to prove is that they're not giving themselves any special treatment because you can't even search for it on the store. Like what? Like you search for Final Cut and then like, Nope. And, and so I finally found the article about Final Cut, and then I said, oh no, you have to upgrade. So I've been slowly trying to get my, my iPad ready to download it. So we haven't I know a couple people have been playing with it. So fully Bias who's in our in Office Hours was doing like a live stream of who's gonna edit a music video this morning. But I was prepping for the show. <Laugh>, I didn't see it, but, oh. But the but he's, but so I think a bunch of people are jumping into it.

(00:24:22):
I think it's gonna be really interesting. I'm there's a lot of curiosity as to whether the, this code eventually becomes final cut. Like, you know, are we gonna just see this become the desktop version? You know, that's, you know, that that eventually is just installed once on, you know, like, like other apps that are M one that they'll just install onto a, onto a Mac mini or a computer or on your iPad and just one, one code base. Wouldn't, you know, two years from now, you know, or something like that. Whether they're just gonna keep all evolving the code, but it, it looks interesting. I mean, I think that I'm still trying to figure out where I'll use either one of these because I need all the features that generally are in there for both of them. So one question for Jason. Does it support the plug plug-ins? I mean, does it support third party plug-ins?

Jason Snell (00:25:15):
So the story there is varied, right? Like there are audio plug-ins that are supported in iPad os like audio units in terms of Final Cut. There are Apple's given a kind of a hazy story about plug-ins where there's like, they've got content and they've got that there's something coming. Like I feel like it's very much like there's a little Post-It note on that part of the product that's like, check back later. So I honestly, I, I think that it's all in the planning stages, but that they launched this product, obviously, it's like they just decided that now was the time to get it out there, and now they can start that process. But, so like on the audio side if somebody has released audio units for iPad and a few people have, you can use those as audio plugins and then on the,

Alex Lindsay (00:25:57):
Like, does the Isotope stuff work in, in

Jason Snell (00:25:59):
Isotope does not believe that the iPad is a platform? So, no. No. Like, I, I would love that cuz that's what I use. I

Alex Lindsay (00:26:06):
Know. I was like, I was like, I don't think I can do a podcast without, without rx. Yeah. Like I, I,

Jason Snell (00:26:10):
I know I, I agree with you. I, I pre-press and the answer for people who, who wonder how do I edit on iPad? The answer is I pre-processed all my audio files on the Mac and then I send them to my iPad for editing. Right. Because Isotope is not on the iPad. And then, yeah. Right. So, and on the final cut side, like, I think they want there to be a lot more content on both of those apps actually in terms of available stuff from Apple and from third parties, which would include plugins. But you know, it's early days for that. But they did, yeah, it was a couple years ago. They put audio units three on the platform and I have some that I can use inside Phite and other, and like fab filters make some pretty good like compressors mm-hmm. <Affirmative> for the iPad and they work great. Right. It's just that you're, if you rely on a particular vendor like Isotope and they seem to be completely clueless about the existence of the iPad

Alex Lindsay (00:26:58):
Right. Then

Jason Snell (00:26:59):
It's not so great. Right. And that's where we are with, I hope this might actually be a spurred of isotope to finally get with the program, but we'll see. I'm kinda surprised. I thought there

Alex Lindsay (00:27:06):
Was a standard plug-in architecture. Yeah,

Jason Snell (00:27:08):
It's audio units three. It is standard, but you have to, in order to sell it on the iPad, you actually have to make a, at least a wrapper app and put it in the app store and isotope. So can install doesn't sell in the app store, they only sell it via their own thing. They've got like a proprietary subscription management thing on the Mac that you have to run. And it's a whole, like, I think there's a cultural problem at, at, at Isotope, but I hope they change. Right.

Alex Lindsay (00:27:32):
Also, there was a, there's a final cut, a new final cut was released for the Mac as well, so, right. You know, there's an update to that. So is that of course feature parity

Andy Ihnatko (00:27:41):
Or

Alex Lindsay (00:27:42):
I don't think so. I think that it, it does allow the, some versions of round tripping, you know, so you import a project, you can't send it to the iPad, but you can take it from the iPad, right? So if you start a project on your iPad I think the iPad has less features always then, then the desktop version. So you can bring your iPad version in and con continue it, which is kind of cool because that means you're gonna be on the road, you shoot a bunch of stuff, you start working on it, and then you come home and you dump it into into the full version of Final Cut and, and go from there. I think it's got also some H D R stuff some new titles and effects and a screen removal, a scene removal mask to remove backgrounds, which I haven't played with yet.

Jason Snell (00:28:21):
So, so that those, it's funny cuz those features got announced for the iPad and people are like, oh, those aren't in the Mac. Is there gonna be a bifurcation on the answer? No, no, no. There's an update today on the Mac that adds all those features. Those are all there. You mentioned hdr. I will say one of the really interesting uses of this a final cut on the iPad is I think a lot of people, I mean, if you've got a MacBook Pro, then you've got a pretty good HDR screen. But like if you don't, or, or if you're out in the field having an iPad that's got that full on HDR display, an iPad Pro 12.9, while you're editing H D R video or looking at HD R video, that's pretty powerful, right? That in your hand you've got that HD R preview monitor that's also an editor that you can then take back home and import into the Mac side. That's a pretty good story.

Alex Lindsay (00:29:10):
Yeah, it's great. I mean, I know when I'm testing hdr, one of the first places I look is an iPad <laugh>. I just open it up when I'm, you know, we're, we're slowly moving it looks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're slowly moving office hours to HDR and, and and, and so I'm, I'm constantly opening it up and watching the stream to see if it, you know, if it's actually turning out. And so being able to see it when you're especially in the field, it's kind of amazing.

Andy Ihnatko (00:29:30):
Yeah, my iPad Pro is the best screen I've got in the entire house. And whenever I'm editing something, it's a photo that's taken me like two or three days to edit. I'm really proud of it. The last thing I check is I'm just gonna open it up on my iPad. Cuz if it's, look, if it, if it looks good there, I'm not gonna accept anybody's complaints that <laugh> that it doesn't look good on their screen. Cause you need to be, get a better screen.

Leo Laporte (00:29:49):
Geezer nerd in our Discord says he did not have trouble finding either app. So I think maybe they've updated the search index now, so it's a little easier to find it. He also answered a question I had. One of the things I loved about Logic on the Mac was it had all sorts of gigabytes of instruments. He says when he installed Logic on the iPad, it prompted him to install, install three different musical instrument packages, classical, electronic and hip hop. About 600 megabytes. That's still far short of the total available instrument packages, but it shows you can install 'em, right?

Jason Snell (00:30:24):
That's part of that Post-it note, right? You can choose to install those at launch and then you can choose which ones. And Apple says, you know, more to come basically from Apple and also from third parties. But, you know, it's, it's, it's day one of these essentially. So there, there will be more. And, and like, when Alex and I are complaining about Isotope, I really do believe that all our complaints about Apple not being present on its own pro iPad platform with its pro apps, now that it's there, I hope one of the side effects is gonna be that some developers that kind of poo-pooed it are like, okay, all right, now that you've got logic and file, all right, we'll, we'll do, we'll get in the app store fine <laugh>. And I hope that happens. I

Leo Laporte (00:31:03):
Hope so too. Well,

Alex Lindsay (00:31:05):
Sometimes, I mean, it depends on how important Apple decides that it, how important they decide that having that feature is. Because if, if developers don't move over, sometimes Apple just develops it for them. <Laugh>. Yeah. Like, Hey, we need this. It's always the threat, you know? Yeah. Or they promote or they promote another, you know, suddenly something that is your direct competitor is being promoted on the plat part of the platform that you're not supporting, you know? And so those are the kind of things that happen when you don't pay attention. So

Leo Laporte (00:31:30):
Well, it's available now. You can download a final Cut Pro for the iPad if you have an M one or, or M two iPad Pro. Or if you have an 11 inch M one iPad air, it does require the M processor. Right? I think that was Yes. Yeah. So and somebody in our chat room saying, I don't have, I have a regular iPad and I don't see it in the search index, so maybe they are filtering it out unless you're compatible. Let's take a little break. More to come with Alex Lindsay, Andy anco, Jason Neller show today. Brought to you by Melissa, the address experts from forms on a webpage to check checkout customer data comes into your company from many different sources, which I'm sad to say, whether it's a customer service rep entering it or your customer his or herself that leaves room for errors and for missing information.

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Get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free at melissa.com/twit. Melissa, m e l i s s a melissa.com/twit. Melissa, the address experts, we thank 'em so much for their support of MacBreak Weekly. Of course, you support MacBreak Weekly when you go to that address. That way that they know you saw it here, melissa.com/twi. It was a very big quarter for switchers. This is a, a report from Krp, <laugh>, C I R P, I don't know how you pronounce that. Krp after a report last week about how long Apple users are keeping their iPhones, Kirk is out today with another study digging into how many new iPhone buyers in the US are coming from Google's platform. This is from nine to five Mac. The new survey shows Apple is attracting the most switchers from Android. It's seen in the past five years.

(00:35:26):
So the, the steep price, not scaring people off, although Apple does now offer a variety of price points. Largest number of folks switching to iPhone in the last five years. 15% of new iPhone owners saying, my last phone was an Android that's up 4% over last year, 5% higher than 2020. And 2021. 2% of new iPhone buyers say they came from a basic phone <laugh>. So basic or other, or were the first time smartphone kin. Yeah. Kin. That's very basic. Yeah. You know, I, I would like to have a kin. Yeah. So I don't know what that means. What do you think that, that how, what does that say about the market?

Andy Ihnatko (00:36:14):
It, it, it probably says that Apple's doing a really good job reaching into countries that have been primarily Android based. That means that they're selling more phones in India. They're selling more phones in in Southern Asia, south Asia all these, it's, it's not, I don't think they're not, there's so much sudden all of a sudden convincing a lot of people in the United States of America to dump their Samsung phones for iPhones. But it really does show that a market that they were under had had a reduced ability to compete in. Now they're figuring out were billing phones that a comply with local laws that are, that make sense for the consumers in that market. And that's, they're, and they're seeing the numbers to prove that hey, they're do, they're, they're, they continue to find people who have, who do not have iPhones yet, and they're gonna get 'em.

Leo Laporte (00:37:03):
Yeah. I think it's also I don't know, is this wrong to say? Not on this show, but that the Android phone is the phone you get when either you don't care or you don't get to choose, and then if you get to choose, you get the iPhone.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:17):
I actually think that it's, it's if you don't care or you care a lot. So I think that the thing is, is that people who buy the low end ones don't care. They just want a phone. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, my, my mom is like that. The, then the high-end ones are the people who are really particular. They want, they have very specific needs or they wanna push, you know, they want to customize it in a way that Apple's not gonna let you customize it. So I think that Android does have the two ends of that. Apple has folks that just want it to work and they're not as, I think that a lot of times the high-end Android user is much more passionate about what the phone can do than the, than an iPhone user. You know, they're, they really wanna push the outer envelope.

(00:37:57):
They wanna do those things with an iPhone user. I think a lot of times they just want it to be easy <laugh>. Like, it's like if it's not quite, if the camera isn't quite the same as the Android, eh, it's, but all the other stuff works really well and I don't have to think about it that much. I think that a lot of the, a lot an average iPhone user just wants it to be in the background, not in the foreground. And I think that that's a distinction between, but I think that the high end Android user is probably more particular than no, that's,

Leo Laporte (00:38:19):
That's convincing. In fact, Golia and our chat who's Israeli says she buys Android phones cuz she can customize them. She can, you can, you can fiddle with them. You can tweak them. Yeah. Yeah. It

Jason Snell (00:38:29):
Also feels like we're in a real you know, there was such a, a fight for market share and a fight for Mindshare between iOS and Android. And I feel like we're in a place now where iOS and Android are here. They're not going anywhere and there's kind of an ebb and flow that's gonna happen where different markets, like Andy said, different markets are gonna come in that are not very iPhone and they're gonna get a little more iPhone and that'll be good for Apple. And that there are other markets where it's gonna be, is there a hot phone? Right? Like is there a hot phone or a hot phone maker that drives sales to one way or the other? I think Apple is always talking about, I mean in the US where apple's maybe over 50% market share, it's a little bit harder for them to pick up users.

(00:39:07):
But like this is not a scenario where Apple is so dominant in any country that they can't pick up market shares. So they'll pick it up here and there and then they'll lose it here and there. Right. And I think that that's, that's sort of the steady state of, of the smartphone market we seem to be in now where it's like, you know, you pick your poison. And I, and I, I think there's truth to it. There are people who, there, there are two reasons. Like I know people who have Android phones and one reason is that they hate Apple. And the other reason is they looked at the price of the deal on the Android phone and the, on the iPhone and they're like, this is way cheaper and I don't care. Right? Like, because if it's way cheaper and you, and you do care, you'll find a way to get to an iPhone, I think. But if you don't care, then, then obviously you can get a much better deal down at the, at the lower end of the line. Not even the low low, but just lower end with an Android phone. So I, I don't know, it, it feels like I know they compete, but like, it doesn't it feel like it's just sort of a two different low and not a, not a war anymore? No.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:04):
The one that that I think concerns Google the most is the fact that the so many kids under under 18 are using iPhones. Like it is, it is a, it's like a crank. I don't know what I saw. I saw another report this week. It was like 88% or something like that. It's a really high number. And I talked to my kids about it and it's, you know, it, they're, it's the, it's the bubble.

Leo Laporte (00:40:25):
One of the reasons

Alex Lindsay (00:40:26):
Exactly what Andy talks about also, no one wants to be, no one in high, no one in school wants to be, have a green bubble. Like, cuz everyone's like, oh, don't, don't include them in the group. Like, then they have to go to Snap. It's also

Leo Laporte (00:40:34):
Though that that generation lacks the antipathy to Apple that older people sometimes have. My daughter 30 hates Apple. And the reason she has an Android phone is cuz she refuses to buy an Apple device.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:49):
What does she and why does she hate Apple? I guess

Leo Laporte (00:40:51):
I, you know, I I don't know if there's anything Apple can do about this cuz some of what people don't like about Apple is Apple users not Apple. Right. <laugh>, there's, there's this sense, you know, the guy who has the notch carved into his his hair, you know, there's this sense that Apple, the cult of Mac is outta, you know, weirdos and outta control and that kind of thing. I, I I think that that doesn't happen under 18 so much. That's, that's a kinda leftover from the, the old days.

Jason Snell (00:41:21):
Oh no, I mean that's been there since the seventies. I feel like on one level and you can point, I think some people point to it and some people ignore it. And certainly people talk about the cult of Apple and the cult of Mac and they've been doing that forever. And I, I just kind of roll my eyes, those people like, you know, like what you like and, and, and dislike what you don't like. And I, I think kids, even today, I mean I've got two kids in college now and you know, I, there's still ways to, to line it up. I mean, for gamers, you know, if you're a gamer the, the Mac is never gonna be on your right, your agenda, but maybe, but then you, for your smartphone, maybe you don't care. And so you, you see a lot of, I know a lot of my son's friends are, they've got a Windows PC for gaming and they've got an iPhone and that's just how they live. And I, I hate to break it to Mac users, and I know this is MacBreak weekly, but if you do the Mac, it's impossible for there to be more iPhone users who are Mac users than there are iPhone users who are Windows users. Just let that sink in.

Alex Lindsay (00:42:18):
My, my my son has an iPhone and and he just finished building his own PC <laugh>. So, so he's, you know and which I proudly supplied the, the hardware <laugh> so, so for him to, for him to put it together. And so, you know, I, I definitely agree that, and he's, and he got it specifically cuz he wants to do gaming. Me,

Leo Laporte (00:42:36):
I think Microsoft's aware of the fact that it, there are a lot of iPhone users, cuz this week windows announced the your phone or phone link I guess they call it now for that will work for iOS. It's not as complete as the Android version probably because of limitations on iOS. But I tried it on Windows Weekly last week and I set up my iPhone to work with my Windows pc and you can see messages, you can get notifications, you can send messages you know, effectively you're using Apple's messages on your, on your Windows pc, you can even make calls. So the only thing you really, it doesn't do is, is the running applications. You can, on Android, you can actually run an Android application windowed on your Windows PC running off your phone. And I can see why that's not possible with an iPhone.

Andy Ihnatko (00:43:24):
Well, that just shows how diff what a different business that Microsoft is in. They are, they are the, the, the, the gears and the grease that powers business. So it's, it's 100% in their best interest to make sure that they can support a bring your own device strategy if if a company wants to support that. So it's, it's, it's just a, it's, it's so hard to compare the two directly in any sort of way, shape, or form these days because it really does depend on what environment are these people in what country are they in, what kind, what kind of money they have to spend. I'm really keen to see this generation of kids who has, who have iPhones, how how long are they gonna, are, are they gonna continue to be loyal Apple iPhone users when they get well outta college and now they have to buy their, their first phone themselves?

(00:44:12):
Are they gonna, are they gonna settle for something that is still an iPhone but not the top of the line? Or they're, or are they gonna say, you know what, for the amount of money I'm going to spend on the middle tier iPhone, I could get a central, I I could get something that is, that is flagship grade in a pixel line or in a Samsung line. I, so I, I don't, and I don't, I don't know, but, and I don't, I'm not telling them what to do. I'm just, I'm, it's, it's an interesting piece of sociology to, to examine.

Alex Lindsay (00:44:37):
Yeah, it'd be interesting. I think the hard part with all of these things is the lock in on either side. So you really have to make a choice. I mean, I think that if you grow up on an iPhone, it's really hard to, you got a whole bunch of apps. It's not just the cost of the computer and the cost of the, the phone, but the cost of everything else that's related to it and all, you know, comfort and everything else. So I think that it's a, I mean that's why everyone's, that's why there's a lot of talking, a lot of articles about the number of kids that are using one platform. Is that like, it's, it it's pretty hard to get people to reverse it reverse trajectory at that point.

Andy Ihnatko (00:45:05):
Yeah, but to, to, to a great extent. So longs it can run TikTok so long as it can run a bunch of popular apps that are multi-platform. A lot of people are pretty good. It's I, I don't think, I don't think that's as big a deal, even even on my, even on my MacBook, even when I'm not really thinking about being platform agnostic. It's really, really hard to get me so locked in that that would become a really, really big re really, really big disincentive to switch from one to the other. The thing that really is a big disincentive is just that three weeks it will take, not to relearn something, but just to retrain my thumb that no, that's not how you, how how you switch from one app to another. I know exactly how you do it, but I'm still tr I'm still stuck to doing it doing it the old way. So as long as people have something that works, they're kind of apt to stick with it.

Leo Laporte (00:45:56):
I understand Annie. Cuz your thumb is really untrainable. You have a very, it's a

Andy Ihnatko (00:46:01):
Maverick. It's unbroken, it's untrained. It's not a yes thumb you that, that's why I have it on staff to challenge me, you know, to be that, be that, that, that, that that, that fly in the ointment, that gets us to rethink our whole, whole strategy. Yes, he's a pain in the butt, but you know what? We need more thumbs like that.

Leo Laporte (00:46:17):
He's a wild thumb <laugh>. Hey, you know what? Good news, if you are an iPhone user, France is fighting <laugh> fighting for, for you Yeah. To save your iPhone from an early death. That's the kind of kooky wired headline <laugh>. Actually it's an Arse Technica article from Wired. So they're all Conde Nat, it's all the same. French prosecutors have launched an investigation into the scourge of planned obsolescence, says Morgan Meer. Actually I am, I'm with them. What they really want is at least that you could change your battery for crying out loud, but it's all right to repair. This is article quoting Alexander Alexandra Aika, C e o of X Repair Academy, which is a renowned research and training group according to Wired that runs the to losee <laugh> technician's workshop. Every time a new iPhone's released, his team funds another part that has been locked to work only with this specific Apple device. First it was a cheap on the mother bird. This isn't, this is, this isn't like a government agency, right? This is just a, I don't know, ran a press release and ours picked it up. I get that's

Andy Ihnatko (00:47:36):
What it is. This is, this is a, no, this is, it's a little bit, it's a little bit more in depth than that. It's, there is

Leo Laporte (00:47:42):
A Paris prosecutor who has decided to take action.

Andy Ihnatko (00:47:45):
It's, it's, well it's, it's more along the lines of a senator who has proposed a bill and is, and, and you know, it's not gonna, it's gonna go into committee and then it's gonna die in committee. But this senator decided to write this bill so they can, they can get the message out there that they're very much for this thing. Although the thing is, this is France and it's a very, very socialist country, and they're a lot, and they have done from our perspective, goofier things than order, order a phone company and say hi. You've got to re-engineer your entire platform because we feel as though you are abusing the power of the people to do what they need to do in order to, in order to tolerate their phones very, very well. So yeah, the

Leo Laporte (00:48:25):
Contention is that Apple essentially is built into its phones planned obsolescence because you're not using standard parts. It's not easy to fix these phones. And so it's a, a Parisian prosecutor who's investigating I don't, I don't know if that's gonna, he's delegated the investigation to Francis Department of Competition, consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention. They could find Apple and, and in fact, France was the one that introduced that repairability scoring system, you know?

Andy Ihnatko (00:48:59):
Yeah. And they, and, and they're also on, on the case for locking serial numbers for basically having to, you can't just simply buy a battery or buy a screen or buy a camera sensor and plug it in there. It has to be coded for that device for security reasons, of course, and not for reasons to prevent you from from getting your device fixed for one fourth or winter of the cost. And I as always, I'm not sure what the cor what the most correct answer is. I I, in principle, I think that you should be able to fix everything on your own or hire somebody you want to, to fix it. I think you should be able to get any, any component you need to and, and replace it yourself or hire someone to replace it for yourself. On the other hand, a phone, boy, you can't, you can't make these things outta Lego and still be able to put it in your pocket and take it out again.

(00:49:45):
But if, if by any, me, by any measure, I'm glad that government agencies are are at least willing to, to challenge Apple and say, hi. You are gonna have to present documentary evidence to, to, to back up your assertion that the way that you build up the iPhone is best for everybody, including yourselves, including the consumers. Because we've had several years of all, every manufacturer saying, oh, no, no, no. Yes, no. We're we, we, we won't. The thing is, we're we're, we're concerned about people buying counterfeit printer cartridges and then breaking their, their printers that are out of warranty. We're protecting the user by blocking them into our own super, super consumables. Like, okay, go ahead and say that, but now you're going to have to swear an oath under penalty of perjury and actually demonstrate that you are actually telling the truth. So that's why I'm not against the, these kind of in investigations and these kind of queries. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:50:42):
I have mixed feelings. I mean, you're right. I don't want any government regulator to specify how a phone should be built, but I do think Right to repair is a reasonable thing to demand. Yeah. To ask. And so I don't know what the answer is. This, this,

Jason Snell (00:50:54):
This story pushes all, all my buttons. And I'm like, if I back off of it, I'm like, you know what? Right to repair is good. Having, having governments say, you know, apple, there is a line you can't cross in terms of what, what was said before. The idea that yes, you wanna protect the consumer from counterfeit parts. No. You don't want to erect a barrier that allows you to charge a ridiculous amount of money for the official parts so that people don't bother and they just buy a new phone. Right? Like you, you wanna find a way to say yes to the one and no to the other. And, and some regulation can do that. At the same time, I am reminded that France is the place where for several years, apple had to sell the iPhone inside a larger box that contained a pair of EarPods, because there was a French law that said, all phones, I'm not gonna do the French accent, must come with a hands free kit because of, you know, woowoo scary cell phone, ra radiation, when the world had moved on to all sorts of other kinds of headphones in France, you got a, a phone in a box in a box, and that first box contained a phone in a box and a pair of headphones.

(00:52:03):
That's the sort of thing where you look at the regulations and you're like, well, that's ridiculous. But they move so slowly and they're, you know. Right. So, I I, I get, I love what's at the core of this, which is in the end, you should be able to replace the battery on your phone. And Apple has been forced by others. Apple has been moving in that direction, and I think that's good. And we need more of that, because I, the irony here is you talk about an early death, and yet Apple's support for old hardware in their current OSS is Yeah. Second to none. Right? Apple expects those phones to last. It's part of their business strategy. They want you to sell back your old phone so they can sell it to somebody else. Right. So it's it's a bit much to say planned obsolescence, but Right to repair. Yeah. I'm all for it. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:52:48):
It's, it's just super obnoxious when they're, that they're coding things like batteries and screens. Yeah. It's like, okay. Th at that point, you really are just unnecessarily making things more difficult for a third party repair people. Oh. But now we can all

Leo Laporte (00:53:00):
Agree. I'm with you. HP's requirement that you subscribe to the HP in renewal service in order to print with your printer is anti-competitive. But it feels like there's ways you pro prosecute that without saying Yeah. You know, I mean, there's, I think you're right. There's a line in the sand and, and you should make that a reasonable line. Yeah. I wanna drink some delicious AG one, if you don't mind. Let's take a little break for our sponsor. Ag one, like countless others. I, I want to support, you know, I don't eat right all the time and, you know, sometimes I feel like I need to supplement my normal regime just to make sure I'm getting the right vitamins and supplements and probiotics and prebiotics and all of that stuff. AG one is my solution. Founded in 2010, part of millions of routines, since it's one simple, all in one solution for daily nutrition.

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(00:54:47):
I'll be gone. Add it to the water, shake it up. You got everything you need if you're looking for a simpler and cost effective supplement routine ag one by Athletic Greens. In fact, if you order right now, you'll get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. So you're ready to go with your first purchase of a subscription. Go to athletic greens.com/MacBreak. That's athletic greens.com/MacBreak. I'm just gonna shake this up and enjoy these delicious stage G one by athletic greens, athletic greens.com/MacBreak. It really does taste fantastic. While I'm enjoying this, we can get back to the show. This, I actually need this cuz I got up really early so that I can watch a very lesson scintillating app, Microsoft keynote. I'm Jan. June 5th will be a lot more fun.

Jason Snell (00:55:45):
You rehydrate rehydrate. At least how that pace yourself. You gotta pace yourself. I know it's a long race. It's a marathon,

Leo Laporte (00:55:49):
Not a sprint. You know, Microsoft had one, one keynote that was so long, they had a yoga trainer come out and help people stretch in the intermission. <Laugh>, you didn't have to do that this time. I don't think. Yeah, that, that there should have been some notes during the, that reversal. <Laugh>. That's Keep it short. Keep it short. Alright, moving, moving right along with the program. Let's talk about June 5th. We're gonna see, I think Glen Fleischman notwithstanding we're gonna see VR helmet of some kind or as <laugh>

Jason Snell (00:56:25):
Ski goggles.

Andy Ihnatko (00:56:26):
It's ski goggles, right? I hope that's the metaphor of the day. I hope it's a helmet. I hope it's a helmet with a big like spiraly antennas just sticking out from the top. Joanna

Leo Laporte (00:56:34):
Stern, his

Alex Lindsay (00:56:35):
Coin, I think it should

Leo Laporte (00:56:36):
Coined the phrase, which I hope becomes standard of nerd helmet. I think that's what we should all call it from now. And go ahead, Alex.

Alex Lindsay (00:56:43):
I I think it should be, it should also filter the air <laugh> and, you know, just be a whole like,

Leo Laporte (00:56:48):
Like Dyson does,

Alex Lindsay (00:56:49):
Like Dyson, I think. I think you do a whole daft punk look, you know, and just, just have it all there. And I think that would be amazing. Let's do a

Jason Snell (00:56:56):
Voice changer in it too. So you can be like, bang one, right? You're

Leo Laporte (00:57:07):
Iru

Alex Lindsay (00:57:09):
You have one available for 2 99

Leo Laporte (00:57:11):
From from nine five

Andy Ihnatko (00:57:13):
Has any meeting for me. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:57:15):
From nine to five Mac, apple has now trademarked at least five different names for whatever this new operating system will

Alex Lindsay (00:57:23):
Be. Keep guessing.

Leo Laporte (00:57:24):
XR o s reality Os real os reality Pro Os and XR Pros have all been trademarked, but mark Gorman says he's pretty sure it's gonna be xr o s that's gonna be the official name because

Alex Lindsay (00:57:39):
It's a very mixed reality. Like I don't,

Leo Laporte (00:57:41):
Yeah, I don't like it. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (00:57:43):
I feel like reality os makes more sense. Yeah, it's happily,

Andy Ihnatko (00:57:48):
But that, but remember that this is the company that said, okay, so we've got, we're we're creating a brand new music player. It plays music, lots and lots of music. What are we gonna call it? The iPod. That's what we're gonna go with. Good point. The thing is Good point. And the thing is just like the iPad was not, Hey, we're not gonna call it the tablet. We we're not gonna call it iPad, iPad iMobile, but we got

Leo Laporte (00:58:10):
Used to it. Yeah, well we

Andy Ihnatko (00:58:10):
Got used to it. No, but yeah, I mean it's, I mean, apple watches probably the, the most, the iPhone of the Apple watch are probably the two most logical things they've come up with so far. But when you have a device like like a virtual reality headset, that's gonna be the simply the launching off point for a whole line of what they hope to be smaller and more practical and reasonable augmented reality. Things you could understand if they wanted to have something that was very, very malleable so that they could, they could use it to attach the next five or six years worth the products to it.

Leo Laporte (00:58:42):
Geezer nerd says X R O s kind of stumbles off the end of the tongue, then tumbles down the stair Wayne and breaks its neck.

Alex Lindsay (00:58:49):
Jammer

Leo Laporte (00:58:50):
B says, if we're gonna call it nerd helmet, jammer B says we should call it 10 Ross, which I don't, I hope does not become. Go ahead Alex. I'm sorry.

Alex Lindsay (00:59:00):
No, that's it. That's all. I think XR is too hard to say. Like XR

Leo Laporte (00:59:04):
Also,

Andy Ihnatko (00:59:04):
Also also you, you, you kind, you kind of expect the word windows to be in front of those two. Hey, excited about Windows xr. Yeah. Like it's a, a version of Windows 10 specifically for risk-based. Oh no. Oh, and Emma already

Jason Snell (00:59:17):
Did the iPhone 10 R. Right. So they've already been, they broke that, that one. I, I don't know. I mean, I like reality os I, I know that it's a mouthful and I know that it, but it does what it says on the tin in a way that xr like maybe one day we'll all be like, oh yes, xr, the XR revolution happened in 2023, right? But right now it's sort of like the what now, like VR people know and ar people, you know, but xr it's like too clever by half. But we'll get used to it if that's what it is. I

Leo Laporte (00:59:42):
Think Germond has in his newsletter pointed out that pretty much every Apple executive has now peed on the XR headset. <Laugh>.

Jason Snell (00:59:54):
Ew.

Andy Ihnatko (00:59:55):
Is that some sort of like rite of passage to marking the responsibility for apples? Phew. Ew.

Leo Laporte (01:00:02):
The, I mean the, the list of names includes Johnny Ive, for crying out loud, he's not even there anymore. <Laugh> Mike Rockwell, who's been in charge of it since 2016, he helped craft the vision according to Germin for the headset and the technology development group itself. Apple, c o o, Jeff Williams, a driving force behind the headsets development for the last few years. Dan Ricchio, Rockwell's boss, the conduit between the technology development group and the top executives. He has worked exclusively on the headset of the last two years. I mean, that's a lot of manpower, a lot of top level executives to devote to a product that isn't even out yet. Paul Mead, who's Rockwell's most senior lieutenant handling hardware engineering for the device, Fletcher Rothkoff and Ray Chang report to Mead. Johnny Ive, although no longer Ed Apple pushed the company to avoid designs that isolated you from the outside world. He lobbied for a more portable design, no external base station. He probably didn't like the idea. And I think we've heard this is gonna be the case that there is an external battery attached Jaws company's marketing chief, one of the biggest proponents of the headset on the executive team. Phil Schiller Jaws' predecessor Frank Casanova, head of marketing for the headset. We know Casanova. He's been there forever. Let's

Andy Ihnatko (01:01:31):
See. But that makes sense. But Apple doesn't do skunk Works projects.

Leo Laporte (01:01:34):
No, this

Andy Ihnatko (01:01:35):
Is not, this is, they don't, every, everything they do the, they're the top level of, of the, the top level of, of Apple. People are always like in on everything.

Leo Laporte (01:01:44):
This feels like all hands on deck though, like that. Let's put all the wood in these arrows or whatever it is. They say Jeff Norris, Johnny Truk Shannon gans, Jeff Stahl. I mean it's just a who's who of Apple executives.

Andy Ihnatko (01:01:59):
John Hodgman.

Leo Laporte (01:02:00):
John Hodgman. <Laugh>.

Jason Snell (01:02:03):
Well, I mean, like, it's all about, I mean this thing's been going on for what seven, eight years now. So I I, when I read stories about the executives here, I also had that thought of, like, I say, oh, well, Johnny Screwy was really grumpy about this and called it a science project. Okay, when was that? 2015. Right, right. Was that 2017? Was that last week? Like we don't, we don't know. And and the story behind that too is that at one point they conceived of this thing having like a little box, like, like the P S V R has a PlayStation and the little box did all the work and then it just sent the images wirelessly to the headset, made the headset lighter. But and, and apparently they built a processor for that and then they killed it and they're like, no, no, we're not gonna do it.

(01:02:47):
We're gonna do it all on device. So like, if I were Johnny Struggie and that happened, I would be grumpy about it. Right? Yeah. But that, that isn't, so it's very easy. Somebody in the, in the Discord just said, does anybody at Apple like this thing? Why are they even coming out with it? And the answer is, I feel like what we're getting is the story of seven years Right. Of development of a thing that was like gonna be one thing than it was gonna be a different thing than they couldn't do that. So they made it a difference. But here's

Leo Laporte (01:03:10):
The question, Jason, have they now converged, do they all agree now that this is the right thing at the right? I think tune

Jason Snell (01:03:16):
In <laugh> in two weeks to find out.

Alex Lindsay (01:03:19):
I will see that if they, if they're releasing it, I think they've probably converged on something Only because, you know, Apple's not afraid of killing things. Like they're not, like they'll put a lot of money. You know, I've heard stories of them spending hundreds of millions. This is billions, but they're almost decades into on products

Leo Laporte (01:03:34):
Project Titan. The car.

Alex Lindsay (01:03:36):
The car. Right. And they, they, you know, they, yeah. I, I think that it, and, and it does really feel like we're getting gas litt, <laugh>, like, you know, like it's the

Leo Laporte (01:03:46):
By, there's

Alex Lindsay (01:03:47):
A lot of like low lowering expectations of, of everyone, you know, so it feels like,

Leo Laporte (01:03:52):
So they're telling people don't expect much. Yeah. This is just a developer unit don't expect. And then you ex you think app Alex, we will be blown away a week from Monday

Alex Lindsay (01:04:02):
If they release it. I think it's gonna be pretty impressive. Like, I don't know, you know, I don't know who'll be blown away, but I think if they release a product, you know, related to this, it's gonna be, it's gonna be probably the best headset that's been released so far. Yes. Is it going to make it be enough to turn it? But I think it's probably going Apple. I don't think Apple is gonna release something that said, well, it's almost as good as Oculus <laugh>. I think that that's not gonna be the case. So I think that as far as commercially available headsets, this is probably going to be the top of the line. I totally, I think it's a, I think that they'll, I think that there's certain numbers that they have to hit. I, you know, and I think that that's probably 90 frames a second 6k per eye.

(01:04:37):
Like I think that that's like a, you know, a number that they probably have to get to. Cuz you know, the other ones are, a lot of them are floating in that range or, or you know. And so I think that and I think that really the, what makes it, you know, the, the good enough for what, you know, a first release is probably, you know, 90, 96 frames, you know, six K per eye. The knock our socks off is eight or 10 K per eye at 120 frames a second. That's like everyone, they'll sell as many as they can make <laugh> like, you know, like, you know, that's, that's and, and so and so, and I don't think I, I I think that that's probably not the first version, but I think that if they, if they came out at that level, it will, it will be the thing that everybody wants to put on. Mm-Hmm.

Jason Snell (01:05:21):
<Affirmative>, it feels like their strategy here is very clearly release the best consumer or commercial widely available VR thing that could be made. Right. And it's gonna be too expensive and they're not gonna sell that many of them. But clearly they've decided rather than make, cuz they could have shifted gears again and made the thing that we hear is coming in a year or two, which is the cheaper version. Right? And they're going out with this. And I think the reason is they wanna, they wanna not only claim some territory here, but they also want to set the bar and they want to say, this is what a vr ar experience is. And it it, if, if they are clearly better in with these prices, I think we're gonna, that are rumored, I think that's what it's gonna be. If they can clearly say we made the best one anything less than this is not good enough until we come out with one. At which point we'll change it. That's what their strategy is. Whether it'll work or not, I think is a, is a real question. But I think that that's what they've decided to do is say, we are gonna define this category and try to beat us.

Andy Ihnatko (01:06:19):
I think, I think that Apple's gonna be going the exact opposite in the strategy that they did with the Apple Watch. I think that maybe even just in retrospect, but with Apple Watch, so long as they got the hardware right, so long as they designed a very beautiful, elegant watch that did not look like a gadget watch was small enough that the first conversation you had with anybody when you enter a room is, what the hell is that thing on your wrist? The, the software can come a little bit later as long as it tells the time and has a stopwatch. You can, they'll sell, they'll sell enough of them to get to the next iteration of the software. I think here they're in the opposite sort of boat so long as they get the software right Or at least show the potential of what they've got going on with here is what we think the operating system is gonna be for here is, well here is the sort of experiences and features and functions we want to enable through not only the stock apps, but through what developers can do with it. People are gonna be, the first generation of buyers are gonna be okay with essentially the Apple Lisa version of the headset. I don't, I don't think that they're gonna be able to stake out the term that, oh this is the absolutely the best headset that is possible to be made. It's like, well it's still too heavy. It's still has this cl it's not

Jason Snell (01:07:33):
Possible just

Andy Ihnatko (01:07:35):
Today's, well it, it's still, but then, then someone will say, well here's what other makers have been making for enterprise that are actually don't have some of these problems. Cuz they've been iterating, they've already been iterating for two or three, four years. That's not saying that month for failure. But that's just saying that I really think that Apple's story is gonna be all about the software and all about the operating system so that cuz we have no one's for th if, if even if $3,000 is setting us up to be really, really excited about a $2,000 price tag. A $2,000 price tag is still way too much for anybody. But a a real motivated enthusiast or somebody who is gonna write an app and make that money from this app they're gonna make for themselves for this feature that they're gonna build for this thing.

(01:08:20):
So it's so they, they really am not, not not in a position where they have to make something that wins the hearts and minds of, of everybody. It's not gonna be a practical thing for any, in any way, shape, or form. And once that is sort of, the pressure is off, it comes down to how, how fun is it? What, what, what, how did you design the theater rap so that when I'm watching when I'm, when I'm watching iTunes content, when I'm watching Apple TV content, how fun is it? Is it to watch Apple TV content with it? If you, if you decide, if you the, the, the, the, the game developers that you've haven been, that been had, that have been had, sorry, the game developers who have had access to these APIs already, probably now for a couple of months when they show up that first game, how cool is that game? And when someone comes up with something that's actually functional and practical, is that gonna say, this is not gonna change my life. This this productivity thing is not gonna justify the two to $3,000, but I can see how yeah, the next iteration of this hardware that's a little bit less expensive, a little bit lighter, a little bit more practical is definitely going to be something that wants me to put two, put $1,500 under my mattress for 2024.

Alex Lindsay (01:09:26):
Yeah. And I think that they can get away with a lot when they, by calling it the developer edition. So if you're gonna release it at ww d c call it the developer edition, this is just for developers. And so people might even have to pay a hundred dollars to extra to buy it. You know, like you have to be a developer to, I mean, they may just limit it to developers, which is millions of people and the most likely wants to pay that kind of money anyway. But I think that, I think, I think it's hard to make these, and I think that even at $3,000 or $2,000, whatever that number is, they'll make as, they'll sell as many as they can make, you know, like, you know, I don't think that, I think that it's, they, they don't have the capacity to probably put out a huge volume of them as it is just because they're very complicated and they're right on the outer edge of what's possible.

(01:10:10):
I do think you're gonna probably see a pretty big lineup of partners. So I'm gonna guess there's gonna be lots of slides with lots of logos on it, <laugh>, you know, like, you know, and they're gonna say, we have hundreds of people that have already been working on this and we've got blah, blah, blah. You know, like, that's gonna be, you know, like they're gonna, I, if it's Apple, they're gonna show this big, you know, group of people that are, that have already been built building things. I think that we're gonna see some things that have been running for a while that just happen to work on it. Like the, the Amazon I don't know if you, if you buy something on a phone on your iPhone, it'll, it'll ask you, Hey, do you wanna see this in your house? You know, like, for a lot of things.

(01:10:48):
And I think that they're gonna show, they're gonna show that stuff you know, of being able to throw that on and be able to walk around a house with, you know, the stuff from a, I wouldn't be, I would be really surprised if we don't see a Kia Home Depot Amazon, you know, like those ones showing, you know, you could walk around your house with all the new furniture that you just bought and just feel like you're there. And we're gonna take the lighting from the location and gonna light all the stuff and put it all together. And there's a bunch of things that it can do that, that are pretty, that could be that it could do that. It, that would be pretty interesting. So, so I think that those are the kind of things that you're gonna see. And then you're gonna see a lot of games.

(01:11:23):
You're gonna see a lot of, you know, some, I I, I still think we're gonna probably see, you know, the, the office apps, you know, get activated. And I'd be really interested to see if we get if we see mls, you know, like you, when there's a score, you can go back. If you throw on your headset right now, this is the big advantage we've talked about before, is the integration of it with all the other hardware devices that you may have in your house. So it knows where you are in the Apple tv. It knows where you are on your phone and you can put the headset on and it'll immediately jump into the state that it needs to be in to show you something that was related to what you were just looking at. Is really, really important because it's the one of the hardest things to do on the Oculus headset.

Leo Laporte (01:12:03):
You've stimulated a question that I wanna ask all of you. You know, when the iPod came out, it wasn't, it was evolutionary. It wasn't a amazing technological advancement on existing MP3 players. It was evolutionary and the content was, you know, not new. It was just playing the stuff that you already used to. When the iPhone came out, it was technically revolutionary. It was the first time we'd seen a pinch and zoom interface. There was a lot of technical innovation and, you know, the software was because of it revolutionary. So I'd be very curious Alex, two questions. I guess. Is this gonna be an evolutionary product or a revolutionary product? Will there be technologies on here that you go, wow, like this Foviated vision you were talking about in the Discord Jason, and then the kind of follow on, will the content be evolutionary or revolutionary? What do you think, Alex?

Alex Lindsay (01:13:01):
I think it's all gonna be evolutionary. And I think the iPhone was evolutionary. I think the iPhone did what all other apps had. Ma I mean, I had a trio that I could check email, I could go on the web, I could do the, you know, I could, I had gp ps I had almost everything. The iPad. Ipad did it just what, and the iPhone did. The big difference was the iPhone gave me a new interface for it. You know, it gave me a much sleeker interface. Well, that, that's

Leo Laporte (01:13:24):
A technical rev. I mean the, the simple slab of glass. Nobody had done that before.

Alex Lindsay (01:13:29):
No one had done that before. But I still, s i I I, I would still say that it, the functionality of that phone, other than that piece of glass, that was, I, but I would still argue that, that that wasn't a huge jump forward. It was just something that, you know, seemed obvious once you saw it <laugh>. And, and then the, the and then, but with the, and I agree that the older ones were, were evolutionary. I think the iPad, there's already tablets out there. Ipad

Leo Laporte (01:13:51):
Was just a big iPhone. I, iPad was definitely evolutionary.

Alex Lindsay (01:13:55):
Yeah, I think that the, I think that the evolutionary piece of this is that, you know, Oculus is out there. You know, they've, there's been other things that have been out there that have shown us a lot of what's possible. But I think that, you know what, so this

Leo Laporte (01:14:06):
Will just be a polished Oculus. Well, better,

Alex Lindsay (01:14:10):
I think it'll be more than that. I think that, I think that it'll have, I mean, I think that it's going to have a much higher, I mean, I think it's gonna significantly higher resolutions significantly. So it's a higher resolution with a higher frame rate, which makes a huge difference. Like, it's just, it's hard to describe like what it, what it means when you can see a higher resolution at a higher frame rate. It really feels like you're there, you know? And it's hard for people to imagine until you see it. But it's, it's, it's, it makes a massive difference. And so but the other thing that, that I think is, I, I wouldn't say revolutionary, but I do think that Apple is building a pipeline for generating new content that is much more robust than what Oculus has ever had. You know, and I think that that is a huge limiter to Oculus.

(01:14:53):
Oculus is hard to develop for, you know, and it becomes one of those things that's really cumbersome to build tools. Apple has been slowly building the tools in the pipeline for this for five years. You know, that when we watch U S D Z come out, when we watch Creator, you know, reality you know, the reality converter and the real, like all these reality tools and being able to play with it on the phone and do all the things that they're doing, all of those things become, those are all services that are designed for this headset. <Laugh>, like, you know, like, they're not for the phone. You know, the phone was a place for them to play on it. And so they're, they're building this, this big apparatus because that, that has been a huge issue. Like, when you wanna use an O Oculus, you can't, you know, oh, I have this, and now there's something on my keynote that, that they wanna show me.

(01:15:37):
And if I click on it, I can put this headset on or walk around it and, and look at it or rotate it and everything else. That means anybody can create something for, for the headset. You know, anybody could create potentially something in, in Keynote that they can sit there and just click on these things and they're all popping up. And it's an adventure that a teacher can create or, or an individual can create for other people or a salesperson. That's the kind of stuff that I think Apple's gonna do that Facebook just doesn't have the tools to do. They don't have the, and so I think that that's gonna be something that's really interesting. And I think Apple is very committed to it. <Laugh>, you know, and I think that we're gonna see a lot of, a lot of different kinds of content. I think that, I think Apple is going to fund a lot of things that go into this. This is a, this is an all or nothing thing. If they, if they actually announce it, you know in two weeks, I think you're gonna see, or a little less than two weeks you're gonna see an enormous amount of, of investment into this, into this channel because they can't afford to lose. Like, they can't, I mean, they, they can't afford to have this not not work. So,

Andy Ihnatko (01:16:39):
Andy, what do you think? Evolutionary revolutionary? I th I think that their roadmap is revolutionary. I think that what they're gonna show off in two weeks is evolutionary. I think that they have, I hate to, sorry to use a, a buzzword, but it's, it's perfectly descriptive. They have the longest runway of any company that wants to get into VR and ar. They can basically have a, they can have a five year plan that is predicated on them making no real progress for the first couple of years, except for getting everybody primed for version three of this headset. So if all they do with this first demo is, again, show off a really cool play in, in terms of packed in apps, the things you get for free with the, with the device, all of your Apple TV stuff, all your iTunes stuff. We've made this really cool theater sort of thing.

(01:17:28):
And also this really cool environment where you can actually be watching the, watching the movie or watching the TV show with your friends. And it's like they're, and you're, and if your friend is quote, sitting on quote to your left, you hear them. They're, they're making wise comments from from, from the, from the correct side of your, of your face that I think that's, that's gonna be enough. Because again, they have enough time to figure out who's gonna be, how, what kind of, what kind of people are, are buying this, are gonna be buying this stuff, what are they gonna be using it for? We know we got games. We know we've got col we know, we know we have training and and and basically collaborative shared experiences. Do we have something that, that is an iPhone is sort of device?

(01:18:12):
Do we have something that's even an iPad sort of device where someone changes the way that they work because they have one of these things? Or the ideal is gonna be that someone isn't just, Hey, I've got, I'm the sort of person who can blow $3,000 today and maybe $1,200, five years from now on this gadget. That looks like a lot of fun. And at the end of the day, we buy an iPhone because we can see ourselves doing things that we couldn't do before. We see this gonna save, it's gonna solve problems for us and create opportunities. And that's why we spend a thousand dollars on a phone. So they have five years to figure out how to make that argument to us. I don't think they're gonna be able to make it in the first year, but I do think that they have a five year plan that says that here is something that you haven't thought of. That here's the implications of having a collaborative environment in which it doesn't matter that everybody has the thing strapped, strapped to their face. Cuz no one's actually looking directly at anybody's face to begin with in this, in this conversation.

Leo Laporte (01:19:07):
So evolutionary then revolutionary

Andy Ihnatko (01:19:11):
For I am actually gonna come. I'm, I'm be, I'm betting on black and white <laugh> as long, not a double zero. I'm a winner. Jason,

Leo Laporte (01:19:17):
What do you think? Will this just be an evolution of existing hardware or is it gonna have some technologies in it that change things that are superior?

Jason Snell (01:19:26):
I like Andy, I'm gonna cheat. <Laugh> you cheat. I think hardware wise it's gonna be evolutionary, right? I think none of this, there have been some great videos and, and articles that have broken down the rumors about the, the hardware. We actually got a bill of lading analysis this week, right? About what the parts are. I think everybody knows what the panels are and what,

Leo Laporte (01:19:45):
What are they? They're last I saw there were conflicting reports. The information thought two eight K displays dis but the others said two 4k displays. What? Yeah,

Jason Snell (01:19:54):
It's, I mean, there's a little lack of clarity, but it's gonna be like 1400 or 14 to $1,600 just in parts, right? So it's gonna be very expensive, but we know it's gonna be pretty good. And none of the, like Apple is not rumored to have invented a new X for this, right? So it's gonna be, and

Leo Laporte (01:20:09):
Johnny I wanted it to have your eyeballs a screen.

Jason Snell (01:20:14):
Yeah. Mark Irman still thinks that that's gonna

Leo Laporte (01:20:16):
Happen. Cannot your

Jason Snell (01:20:17):
Imagine cannot imagine that. Now

Leo Laporte (01:20:20):
I would say that's revolutionary, as stupid as it is. So as dumb as it is, it's still something nobody ever did or thought of. So

Jason Snell (01:20:29):
It's, it's, it's, it's true. I mean they, they, they could surprise us. We've been talking about this for so long, and yet they could possibly surprise us, but they're assembling these things in a factory. So probably not. But what I would say is, while the hardware is gonna be like a spare no expense evolution, it's like really nice VR hardware. The revolutionary part, if it's possible, it'll be in the software and it may not be there or it may be there, or we may get a glimmer of it. But I, I do agree with Andy that that is where you get some of that secret apple sauce is what if Apple releases this thing and we all look at it and go, oh yeah, you know, I've used a psvr, I've used a quest. It's like that. Well, okay, that's not revolutionary, but I do think that there, behind the scenes for seven years working on this thing, I sure hope there are stuff, there are things in that demo that we look at that we go, oh wow. Oh, what an interesting idea. Right? Like that they have done some stuff that we haven't really seen. I

Leo Laporte (01:21:32):
Would consider Aviated View that would be a winner to be unique. Nobody's doing that, right?

Jason Snell (01:21:37):
No, I think somebody is al I think there's another headset out there that dys to rendering. I I, I don't think they're unique. Now, maybe

Leo Laporte (01:21:42):
A high end.

Jason Snell (01:21:44):
I think I

Leo Laporte (01:21:45):
Pyx P Im a X has a but no, whoever heard of them. <Laugh>. Yeah.

Jason Snell (01:21:51):
So, so I mean I, right. Like, so I think the hardware, you know, is gonna be really, really good, but not beyond what we expect the best to be. I, I do think the Wild Card is software because I, I, I don't think that that is a field that has been completely tilled, right? Like different people are trying different things and if there's a through line through a lot of Apple successes, it is that, it's not that it was revolutionary, but that they had a, a way to apply the existing tech and their software to make something that redefined what that product category was. And if they can get away with something like that in June that, or start getting away with it beginning in June, I think that would be the, the thing to look for is just, just how, how different is that? Or what do they always say? Blow away. It's blow away. They say losing all sense of grammar. That, that's what I'm intrigued by. Cuz I love the idea that they're gonna come out with some stuff for vr that everybody who's used VR up to now looks at and goes, oh, that's so much better than what I've seen before. I hope to see that.

Alex Lindsay (01:22:55):
Well, and, and I think that, I think that the, the content is gonna be important. Like what content is available Sure. What content is coming out. And, and I think that that's gonna be, as in as important as the software is the, there's plenty of content that a bunch of us have worked on that never saw the light of day that we were like, this is, this would sell a lot of headsets, but it was really hard to make <laugh>, you know, and, and, and we have to remember that Apple bought nbr. So there, there could be things where you have stereo VR of, again, in, in locations at a much higher resolution. And again, the frame rate and resolution are gonna be a big deal if they, if they turn that corner. There's a lot of things that become very possible and very interesting that just haven't, haven't been there yet in, in the anything that we've seen so far.

(01:23:35):
So, and that takes a lot of processing. I think one of the big advantages that Apple has here is to get back to the software and the hardware, is they're making the chips, they're making every bit, you know, they're making the chips and they're writing the software and, and they can integrate it with an iOS, iOS solutions T B O S solutions, Mac OS solutions, right? And that, and being able to have all of those things integrated into one unified experience where you put that on as part of an a, a bigger experience that's there. Is, I I think it's, you know, apple may fumble it. I mean they, that's, I mean there was a trashcan, Mac prop <laugh>, so, so

Andy Ihnatko (01:24:08):
When

Alex Lindsay (01:24:08):
There was, you know, they're like, there, there, there are, it's, you know, it's not that they can't do that, but they've been working on it for so long and they've built such a ramp for it. And you know, I think that that it'll be really interesting. I'm, you know, obviously very interested to see what happens.

Andy Ihnatko (01:24:21):
Yeah. And one, and one of the biggest assets they have that no other competitor can, can even approach is that they've developed a lot of good credit with their developing commu developer community. We, we talk a lot about how it, sometimes, sometimes Apple under serves their developers, but one thing they always come through with is that if they tell you that, Hey, we are, we are investing in this direction for, here's how we're gonna do cloud sharing. Here's how we're going to do reci multiple displays. Here's how we're gonna do X, Y, and Z. Here's our, our plan for whatever. If you, if you are excited as a developer about what you could do with these new APIs, you know that apple's not gonna pull the rug up from under you after two or three years. They're not gonna switch messaging platforms on you because somebody <laugh> somebody lost a bet and some someone lost a ran out of time on their career meter and now they're the messaging app that they've been they've been championing at the, at the company is dead and someone else's messaging app is coming in instead.

(01:25:22):
So if you feel so, and, and because Apple also has some of the most creative and passionate and artistic developers out there, they're exactly the sort of people to, you know what, I got $3,000. I'm gonna buy one of these things cuz I'm just curious to see what I could build with this. And then after two or three years, they become like the omni group, this company that did foot that a company that does for apple vr, what the Omni group did for next. And then Apple saying, we are not just writing incredibly good and innovative apps. We're writing incredibly good and innovative apps that uniquely take advantage of what this hardware and what this operating system and what these APIs can do. So they're, they're in a really good position. I just don't think I just don't think it's going to, it's gonna be for another couple of years.

(01:26:08):
Yet. One of the things just to, I'll, I'll be quick about it, is that with hardware devices like this, the first thing you have to see is who is manufacturing the sort of display technology that they're gonna need to really pull this off? You're not seeing it. Who's gonna have the sort of camera technology that can make them pull off what we're hoping that they'll pull off? Nobody's been now no one's, no one's been showing that stuff off yet. So we're still gonna be limited to relatively low frame rate, high resolution, but not as high as what we would like. Very limited field of view. So there's, there's not a whole lot you can do when you can't give people a peripheral vision. So they're gonna be stuck with what they can serve, given the components and given the technology they have available to right now. But, but like I said before, so long as they say that we've got our software story on lock, we've, we've got the, we've basically prepared this runway. We're not gonna get there. We're not gonna take off for three or four or five years, but oh boy, if you got three grand, you're gonna have fun. <Laugh>, you're gonna have fun on the steering this plane left and right on the ground.

Alex Lindsay (01:27:08):
And, and I think that they may not have a consumer device that's even aimed at the consumer that even has a pr you know, production for at least a year, if not too. So the thing is, is that this is gonna be, the way you get this is you're a developer and you buy the developer addition. You know, maybe the only way you buy this for a year or two and they'll still sell millions <laugh> of, of those, of those developer additions.

Andy Ihnatko (01:27:29):
I I I, I don't think that the, I don't think that Google Glass is the, the, the champion that they, that anybody wants to emulate. But some of the smart things they did do was, this is, we're calling this the Explorer edition, just like you alluded to before. It's called the developer edition. And we are not ba we're not putting these on pegs at Best Buy. If you send us an email and send, make a case for what you would do with this and why you would be useful for us as we're trying to figure out if this is a thing or not in bit, and Drs and drabs, we will allow you to pay $1,500 for this for this thing. That means that the, the first people they got were people who were ex either a journalists on expense accounts who really wanted you to just rip on that and get lots of copy out of it, which is fair. This is what we do for a living. But also people who are invested emotionally. And boy, I've always want, I've always thought this is a, a technology that could happen and I'm willing to spend a lot of money for a half baked product because this half baked product is the best that we have half baked though. It is. So this is, this is why it's gonna be exciting for the next few years. You know,

Alex Lindsay (01:28:34):
I think that the one, the one challenges with Google Glass was that the folks that got into it first were really into it and weren't thinking about all the impacts that they have with people around them. So what really hit, you know, the camera, which was the, the coolest part of Google Glass. Yeah. The, the fact that you could see the viewfinder right in front of you and have a camera was amazing. And, and it's still the best version of that that I've seen so far. And, but of course people started using 'em everywhere and, and it made everybody uncomfortable. And, and that was, that was the, I I, I really believe that was the downfall was that camera, but but you couldn't take it away because it was the coolest part of the whole, I mean, it's what I use. It's one for the, for Glass primarily.

(01:29:15):
What I used it for was to shoot videos of things right in front of me where I could point to things or with my kids or with other things. You know, that, that, you know, I I, you could create things that you just never were able to create before. And it's not the same as these little Facebook ray bands because I can't see what I'm shooting. Yeah. Like I, I, I can, I can shoot towards it, but what was great about the the GLA with glasses is that I could see what I was shooting. And anyway, it was

Andy Ihnatko (01:29:38):
Just all, it's, it's I I won't turn this into a, this, this is, this is starting to be one of those great conversations we have when you're staying over at my house and suddenly realize that, hey, you're <laugh> if you have to leave, if you have to leave your plane in eight hours. Yeah, exactly. That too late. Let's just, let's just stay up all night. But yeah, I, I keep, I keep thinking that all Google needed to do was add like a 22 cent piece of plastic, just a permanent cover for that camera that take, that's orange that says that. Oh, well I'm, I'm sure you've heard that does have a camera built into it, but as you can see, there's this big block of, of orange plastic in front of it that's covering the, the lens. You don't see anything. It looks like a lens here. Do you? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And of course I of course when I'm taking pictures, I'm playing with my kids. I wanna take pictures of, of video of me playing with my kids without, I flip it up. And that's why you can see it. But Oh no, of course, of course. The last thing Google wants to do is make you worry that when you're talking to me, that you're being, oh dear, 22 cents. I go 3D printer 22 cents, 18 minutes. Beautiful. Let's

Leo Laporte (01:30:33):
Not forget that Google Glass was more than 10 years ago. Yeah, right. It was so great.

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:39):
It was, you know, it's such a

Alex Lindsay (01:30:40):
Great piece of hardware,

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:41):
Apple. It was, it was great. I loved it. The, the goo you know, apple had the Newton message pad before they had the iPhone in the iPad. Yeah. This, I think that this is, there could be an analogy here where Google Glass had a lot of great ideas. It was before its time. And maybe there's gonna be a, maybe part of the problem is gonna be we, the, the generation that's really gonna slam dunk. This is the generation that grew up with smartphones, grew up with the expectation that yes, they're always, they're always cameras on me. Yes. I'm always sharing my life with total strangers. And those are gonna be the people who are gonna be less worried about themselves, going out in public with a device that everyone knows is partially a camera. And they themselves are gonna be less concerned in certain social groups with going out with people who are also wearing cameras on their faces. Who knows? This is a social experiment's. What I love about technology, it is a social experiment, not just a commercial and a technical one. It is a, it is ways that we learn about ourselves and who we are as a species. I'm not just, it's, it's time and time again, we ask questions that we would never have asked before, cuz we never had a need to ask before.

Leo Laporte (01:31:44):
Also I think Apple might be starting to say, gosh, we should have, I know Med is saying this, we didn't know that ar was gonna be, AI was gonna become the next big thing and we shoot <laugh>, we, we missed that one. I've, I find it really hard not to be skeptical and, and just think this is a terrible idea and it's not gonna go anywhere. The one thing, the one technological advance that would make make me second guess myself is if it's really small and comfortable. I don't think it's gonna be, I think what we're pretty sure it's gonna be big enough. But that would be the one thing. I, I just am very skeptical, having bought every VR helmet, every nerd helmet available, I just I've seen zero progress. It's just, there's no reason to think that anybody wants this. Anybody would buy it for any price. I don't care what content you see, what

Jason Snell (01:32:41):
Apple Story is. I I think that's gonna be the interesting thing is it's, I think it's entirely, I'm more optimistic than you are Leo, but I think it's entirely possible that you watch that demo and say, see, I told you there's nothing else here. I think it's possible and, and I'm curious to see what, whether they really advanced the ball or not. Cuz that's gonna be, I think a huge question here. Cuz if it's more of the same and you've just look at it and say, oh, okay, it's just more of the same. I think you are on much more solid ground to

Leo Laporte (01:33:12):
Well, and there's a risk that, I mean, I was just watching the Microsoft Build conference, of course their developer conference. But there's a risk that a lot of the developers who might consider VR content are, are saying, yeah, I'm gonna work on that AR thing. I just, that's what's, that's where it's really happening. I I don't know any what developer would say, oh yeah, VR now it's gonna happen. They're gonna have to really do some pitching.

Andy Ihnatko (01:33:35):
Yeah. But you know, if you've, if you've spent the last 10 years of your life working in vr, ar you're not gonna suddenly pivot to artificial intelligence. I mean, you're, you've got the skills you need to build. And also that's true. Apple got, Apple's got the checkbook open. If you've got, if you've been working in ai, that's where you're going going as well. Bureau

Leo Laporte (01:33:51):
Graphics person I guess, huh? I mean, we have a friend Gary, who's been vr VR eing for more than a decade, I think two decades. Certainly that's the first time I saw a VR helmet was at the CIG graph in 1992. And he's excited about every one of these that comes out. And they never <laugh> he returned to z Oculus Pro. Cuz it just,

Alex Lindsay (01:34:14):
Yeah, I mean, it just can't

Leo Laporte (01:34:15):
Break True. I think

Alex Lindsay (01:34:16):
The, well, I, yeah, and, but there's a lot of, I mean, I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of technologies that we talk about that takes, takes some time to, you know, get, get from one side to the other. You know, and, and I think that it is, and a lot of it has to do with just, just the money that's required. But I think that I, I wonder if Apple will also take some guide from Epic. One of the biggest successes to moving things forward and for Epic has been the mega grants. You know, those have been like, it's not an investment, it's just money. You know, and, and you can, if you're developing something new that's interesting, we're gonna give you some money to do it. And it can be in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. And I think that, that Apple should hopefully look at that really closely and go, well, we're gonna give a bunch of developers, like if they announced that they're gonna give a bunch of developers grants, you know, to go out and experiment with it. I think that that gets a lot of developers interested pretty quickly.

Andy Ihnatko (01:35:09):
Yeah. But the, the, but that is, it is a good thing to be concerned about because generative AI is something that is kind of right up Apple Street in terms of what they feel themselves to be a company, the sort of products that, that they like to do as a company. When you talk about when you talk about Armageddon, we'll put that to aside, we'll, we'll focus on the idea of, you know, you here's how easy it is to write software. It's like we will that, if you can just simply describe it, our generative AI will swift we, we have a new version of our developer kit that can, that can co-pilot whatever it is you're trying to write. This is not for professionals. Cause professionals are gonna wanna fine tune things better. But this will walk you through the development of Mac and iOS software, if or if you've got, if if you need some help on, if, if you took a bad picture.

(01:35:56):
We've got onboard secure privacy or privacy oriented software that will do stuff like what we're seeing in the, the new Photoshop Beta <laugh>. That, that's basically, basically saying, yeah. Basically our, my daughter brought a guy that he'd been da she's been dating for two weeks to a big family wedding and now he's in all the wedding pictures and now we need him gone <laugh>. And basically, boop, not just simply Magic Eraser, but it looks like nothing was, was there to begin with. All of the sort of stuff is, is empowering people, allowing them to do things they couldn't do before to explore parts of their creativity that they didn't have the technical skills or the technical training to be able to explore before. Yeah. So if, so, if Apple products are not the sort of thing that lets you do that and you have for that, you have to buy something else and use it with an Apple product that kind of makes Apple stuff lesser than, particularly compared to what Windows will offer, particularly compared to what Android is gonna offer.

Alex Lindsay (01:36:54):
I think that what will be interesting again, is, I don't know if you need generative AI as much as you just need to have a really large library of things. So, like, for instance, someone puts a headset on and goes, give me a, a chair over here, and I need this over here, and I need that over there. It doesn't need to build those from genitor ba I mean ai, it could have huge libraries of stuff, and maybe those are from a Kia from Home Depot, and I could walk again, walk in and say, I want this here, this year, this year, and start talking.

Leo Laporte (01:37:17):
How often do

Alex Lindsay (01:37:17):
You do that though? Oh, no. One because no one, it doesn't happen. But you don't could,

Leo Laporte (01:37:22):
How often would you do it? You wouldn't do it every day. You wouldn't do it every week or months. You might do it once in a while. It's not, that's not a big market. Yeah. You know, there's one other thing that psychologically, and this is a really far out there though, but I, I noticed that people are watching less tv. They're listening to Les podcast, fewer podcasts, pandemic is over, and we want to go outside. And it seems to me this might be the wrong time to put out a product that fixes you in front of a screen and isolates you from the outside. It psychologically be just the absolute wrong time to release this product. I'm just throwing it out there. I

Alex Lindsay (01:38:00):
Well, I maybe, but the problem is, is that if you look at the success or not, or lack thereof for, for events, that's not been the case. You know, no, people don't

Leo Laporte (01:38:09):
Wanna go to an event either. They want to go for a, they

Alex Lindsay (01:38:14):
Wanna, they don't wanna go to offices, they don't wanna go to events they don't want, you know, like, so, but I'm just saying that I don't, maybe that's the case, but there's also a lot of people that are, you know, and I think that I do think that when you're seeing drops in a lot of these things, you know, I am looking at my own behavior. I am there's other things that are coming up. So like a lot of magazines, having lots of audio has filled a lot of my time that used to be podcasts, you know, like, and so, you know, I listened to, I listened to whatever it is news over audio or whatever all the time. <Laugh>, you know, like, because it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's just popcorn of, of audio that didn't exist a year ago or two years ago at least I didn't know about it. And, and I, I find myself, I almost never watch broadcast TV anymore. Like, I watch a little bit of, I watch a little bit of, of a show that I'm interested in Netflix or a show on Apple tv, and then almost, you know, a solid 60, 70% of my viewing is in YouTube.

Leo Laporte (01:39:10):
You're not

Alex Lindsay (01:39:10):
Normal

Leo Laporte (01:39:11):
Though. I don't think you're the typical,

Alex Lindsay (01:39:12):
And I don't know, I talk to a lot of people that talk about how much they're watching because it's about things that you're interested in. It's not that people are watching goofy things on YouTube. It is, I need to know how to do this thing. Like, my son built a com PC by watching a video on YouTube. My s my daughter plays three instruments, which she's only learned by watching YouTube <laugh>, like, like

Leo Laporte (01:39:31):
Literally she's

Alex Lindsay (01:39:31):
Almost no

Leo Laporte (01:39:32):
Lessons instruments and stuff. I just don't think we're norm. We're normal people. But

Alex Lindsay (01:39:36):
I, I don't, I mean, it just seems like in, in their world, I will say it, it is like the culture of you go to YouTube to learn how to do things. Like it's just, you know, like that's how they, you know, absorb it in a way that looks really painful to me. Like learning how to play a piece of music by stopping and rewinding, stopping rewinding. Right. Stopping rewinding, stopping Rewinding to me is like a little version of hell, but she figures out how to do it and she learns whole songs like once a week. Right. You know, so. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:40:02):
Well, we'll see. I'm just giving Apple an excuse for when it's a huge flop, which is going to be <laugh>. I don't know. I wish I didn't. But and I wish I, and I hope I'm wrong actually, cuz I think you know, that that sci-fi premise of a, of a metaverse is very exciting, but I

Alex Lindsay (01:40:19):
So much of it, it has to do with hardware. I mean, I walked in, I, you know, 1998, I walked into a, a, a pretty, you know, gray room that was probably 20 feet by 20 feet. There was a big umbilical cord, and I put a headset on and yeah, I said, give me a cube this big. And I put my hand out and it appeared, and I was able to pull it and turn it and everything else. And I only had a couple minutes in there and I was like, oh my gosh, by 2005, I'm not gonna have to use mouse to model. I'm gonna be able to do all this stuff and everything else. And when you dig into it, it's just the hardware is so hard to do that well. And again, it comes down to, you know, frame rate and, and resolution are just very unforgiving things.

(01:40:57):
And people don't want to have something on their head that is low resolution or low frame rate. You know, like that bothers them. And they don't know it, but it just becomes tiresome for them. And as that frame rate and resolution go up, it feels more and more natural for them to be in those areas. And so I think that that's why I think that the, all, all the work that I've done, and I mean, I've done a lot of AR and VR work for, for companies and, and, and it, it really came down when they, when that resolution and frame rate started going up you started just wanting, you spent more and more time in the, in the environment.

Andy Ihnatko (01:41:30):
Yeah. But that's, that's just where, but AI comes in that, that kind of space too, when you think about this device that has, that is almost certainly gonna have cameras that, that are taking in the environment around it, just by virtue of the fact that you're walking around your office or walking around your house. It could be using it could be using neural radiance fields to be always building and updating a 3D model of your environment and inviting and inviting other people to share that environment with you. And we talked about this briefly last week where Google's Google's super demo, super vaporware super realistic 3d video chat booth technology is about you don't, you think that you're looking at video of somebody, but you're actually looking at a 3D model of them that's being, that's being updated and redrawn from where perspective it needs to be at.

(01:42:18):
So this is, this is where we've, one of the, one of the minor news stories this week is about how Apple job listings have a lot of stuff for artificial intelligence researchers, artificial people who are building practical things with ai. And yeah, it'd be nice if they updated Siri with something more conversational, and that's one way they could leapfrog their competitors for the first time since the product really came out. But if they have this holistic approach that we can actually create these experiences that aren't just this weird <laugh> to two super smooth, super shaven version of Mark Zuckerberg, this fixed face in v in virtual reality land. It's just that incidentally, I didn't, I didn't have to build this model of my living room. It just simply exists because this is where I've been using this VR headset. I didn't have to create models of the people that I'm talking to because these things just happen to exist because of the fact that they've been using these VR headsets for so long, and then all of a sudden you are using iMessage and you think that, hey, great, I've got this great HD virtual HD screen in front of me so I can actually be engaged what I'm doing, but also have this chat.

(01:43:22):
But then there's this, then there's a software update where there's a third icon <laugh> where it's like, would you like to actually be in the, have this person virtually in this shared space with you instead of in a square? That's the sort of stuff that it's gonna have to be a holistic approach of everything, and it's not something that we're gonna see until all of these Legos snap into place.

Alex Lindsay (01:43:40):
I'll be really surprised if emoji doesn't show itself in this <laugh>, you know, like I feel like they've been, they've been building up emojis for a long time, giant poop

Leo Laporte (01:43:50):
Emoji right there on

Alex Lindsay (01:43:52):
Top of your desk. But, but the me emojis, I mean, apple is the only company so far, in my opinion, that has figured out a way to build versions of ourselves that look cooler than ourselves, because all the other ones look like kind of a weird dorky version of, of, of every, I mean, every other ar head is like, wow, that looks stupid. Yeah. You know, and, and I'm like, I, I can do a stupid version of myself and my emoji. I'm like, I wouldn't mind if I look like my emoji. Do you use it? And so, sorry. Do

Leo Laporte (01:44:18):
You use it a lot?

Alex Lindsay (01:44:20):
Yeah, yeah. I use it a lot. I use

Leo Laporte (01:44:22):
What do you send it too much?

Alex Lindsay (01:44:23):
I send it to my family and friends and like, that's how I, I do, like, instead of having a smile, a lot of times it's my little head or whatever, and it's the thing that's on all my computers when I

Leo Laporte (01:44:32):
Log. See, I use it as an, as an emoji that looks

Alex Lindsay (01:44:35):
Like, yeah, like an emoji. I don't, I don't use it. You don't do the, i I don't use it as much with the talking one with video. Yeah. If, if it was easier, I, I'd be, to be honest, if it was easier to export it, I would probably use it a lot more. Like, it's just that it, it's like this weird thing that's in clips or in messages. If it, you know, if they put output it, like for instance, if they, if they had me emojis able to be exported and opened in motion or in Final Cut, people would use it for all kinds of things. Maybe things they don't want it to be used for, but, but that would be you know, they, they would definitely be more, it'd be more useful. So, but it's, but I think that I, I feel like when I saw 'em emojis the first time, I was like, oh, they're getting, they're getting that ready for the headset <laugh>, you know, like that was immediately Yeah, sure. The moment I saw 'em emojis, I was like, that's what you replace your head with and you get everybody working on it for years and you get them comfortable with the version that they have. And then when they see their friends, you know, with their, with that on their head or what, whatever they're gonna be comfortable with it because they've been seeing it for, for years. But I, that was, I mean, the moment I saw it, I was like, good point that I know what that's for <laugh>. So

Leo Laporte (01:45:37):
I guess I'm just a grumpy old man. Well find out. I mean, I'm very much looking forward to June 5th and to see what it is. And I'm sure that I won't be living in the reality distortion field for at least a little bit, the buzz and all that. Let's take a break when we come back. Your picks of the week, my friends. But first I want to give a little plug to our great Club Club twit. This is one of the things Lisa came up with a couple of years ago as advertising started to dwindle during Covid. And now of course with the debt ceiling default imminent advertisers are very, very nervous about everything. We decided, are you unique international macroeconomic headwinds? Yes. Yes. Uhhuh <affirmative> we decided maybe we should let our audience help support the network and you have come forward with great gusto and I'm so grateful to our 7,000 Club TWI members, but I also note that's only about 1% of the total audience, which means there's a lot of room for growth.

(01:46:41):
So let me give you a pitch, because if you're hearing this, you're not a Club TWI member. I know that because Club TWI members hear no ads. That's the first thing you get for your $7 a month, an ad free version of every show we do, including this one. You also get shows we don't put out anywhere else. Our Hands on Macintosh show with Micah Sergeant or Paul T's hands on windows of the Untitled Lennox Show, Stacey's Book Club or br or Brand New. This is another great thing. We're able to bring back shows that in the past have not self-supported. But the Club can support like Home Theater Geeks with Scott Wilkinson, which is now back in the fold. We're really thrilled to have that and a whole lot more. We also have special events. We have a great Discord, which is full of wonderful people talking about not just the shows that are going on, but everything in One's Geek Life, I'm sure.

(01:47:32):
In fact, I'm pretty sure we have a ar vr section. I'm sure that'll be heating up pretty soon with all sorts of conversations. There's the book club, there's coding, there's fitness, there's music and movies and pets and a whole lot more. If you're not yet a member of Club Twit, seven bucks a month, you get all of that. I think it's a great deal. We have family plans, we have yearly plans, we have corporate memberships as well. Just go to twit.tv/club twit tv slash club. And and I would thank you in advance because we know you'll want to be a member and support what we do here. It really helps. It makes a huge difference. We appreciate it. Jason Snell, let's kick things off with your pick of the week, if you don't mind.

Jason Snell (01:48:16):
I don't mind at all. That's why I put a pick in the document. It's cuz I, in fact, I love it. You have a pick. I do. Just out this week, MI Stream version 1.0, I've been using this app, I think it's been a pick before for a couple of years in beta. They kept adding features. They kept saying, we will let you pay for it at some point. That time is now there's a special deal. It's a subscription thing and here's what it is. It's a Gmail client that is written entirely in Swift for Mac os. So if you use Gmail and you would like to use an email client that's made for it, not one that uses IMAP to kind of map mailboxes to tags and stuff like that, but something that uses everything that's in the native G Gmail api.

(01:48:56):
So you can set filters and vacation messages. You can do very qu quick searches. My favorite thing, the reason that I keep using Gmail is of course, guess what? Google's good at search. I can search all my messages from within Mime Stream and the, it's just as fast as searching within Gmail, except I'm in the context of a Mac app instead of in the context of a web browser window. So since I switched to this a couple years ago, I haven't looked back. The it's a five person team led by Neil Javari, who is used to be on the mail team and the notes team at Apple. And he has decided to go out on his own and make a really good standalone Mac app. They say their next step is gonna be an iOS app, but they, you know, obviously they've just launched the Mac app at 1.0.

(01:49:40):
But having used it for almost two years now, I can tell you it's a really good, if you love your Mac and you love Mac native software and you use Gmail it's got some really nice Mac stuff too. Like it supports focus filters. So like you can have multiple accounts and you can have them be in different profiles where, you know, your business profile has your three work Gmail accounts and your personal profile just has your personal, you can toggle between them. You go into a focus mode, itll automatically toggle between them. Just a lot of really nice touches while also being a first class Gmail citizen, which differentiates it from all of those email apps that are based on imap, which is like the standard but is weird with Gmail. And as a Gmail user, I just, I love it. I I have not looked back. I'm so glad that it's out and that I have signed up for my subscription to it because I wouldn't go back to any other client.

Leo Laporte (01:50:31):
Makes me jealous cuz I don't use Gmail <laugh> and I would love <laugh>. I would love it. But

Jason Snell (01:50:35):
Next on their list after iOS will be, they said probably support for imap. But the problem is it's the exact opposite problem of most male clients in Gmail, right? Which is you're trying to translate one metaphor into another and they're not the same. IMAP and Gmail just aren't the same. So you have to kind of fake it. So if they do it, they're gonna have to do the other thing and try to fake it the other direction. But iOS first for them,

Leo Laporte (01:50:56):
It's been beta for a couple of years, as Jason said. It is now official version 1.0 of Mime Stream free for 14 days, then $30 for your first year, 50 for the second and subsequent years. Mime stream.com if you wanna look or just look on your Macapp store for Mime Stream. But again, Gmail only, just to

Jason Snell (01:51:17):
Be clear, just just for Gmail, it is a, it is not, I, I got a, i some fan mail actually yesterday where for where somebody wrote to me and said, thank you for calling it a Gmail client and not an email client. Right? <laugh>, like, it's very important, right? It's not an email client, it is a Gmail client. It only works with Gmail, but if you're a Gmail user, you should check it out. And a Mac user, you should check it out. Nice. For

Leo Laporte (01:51:38):
Sure. Ah Mr. Andy anco your pick of the week.

Andy Ihnatko (01:51:42):
My Pickle Week is an old Mac game that has been rewritten to be new and work with apple silicon. It's Glyph and it's, it's called Glyph Vintage. You can go get it at it's on the it's on the scene game platform. This is, it's, it's, it's, it's chows, but it's been available f it was one of the earliest really, really great games for the Mac. So yeah, it's a simple <laugh> left button, right button to go left and right, press a space face bar to flap other people are right also writing ostrich's or whatever it is. And with Lances, so long as your lance is higher than the lance of the per person you're bumping into, you win and you can scoop up an egg. If yours, if theirs is higher than yours, then you die. And you keep repeating that until it's time for your Zoom meeting <laugh>.

(01:52:25):
And, but this, but it's, it's exactly the sort of game that I like. I'm not, I don't have enough time for like weeks and weeks and weeks of these beautiful, wonderful, immersive cinematic games. I just want something to have some fun with for about 10 or 15 minutes at a time. And then maybe get sick of like in two months for, for four bucks. It's a lot of entertainment. For those of you who are of a certain age, you'll say, oh my God, this is, I'm, it's right. I'm right back in the computer lab in the high school and I'm being told, Hey, you're not supposed to be playing games in here. You're supposed to be working on your turn paper. And I'm saying, go, go to Heck because I'm the person who keeps these things maintained. If you want me to get the printer Spooler working again, you'll let me play another round of this. I'm sorry,

Leo Laporte (01:53:05):
Sorry. Specific Andy <laugh>

Andy Ihnatko (01:53:09):
Quite, I was Lucky Adventure. It was higher than like you were there.

Leo Laporte (01:53:13):
Glyph Vintage is on Steam, so you can get it on your steam.

Andy Ihnatko (01:53:18):
Four damn dollars definitely worth it. It's

Leo Laporte (01:53:19):
Really for damn dollars. You know, when I first saw just the simple screen, I thought, oh, this is a dark castle. But it's, but it's, it's kind of Dark Castle meets Joust. It's what? It's it's that era.

Jason Snell (01:53:29):
Yeah, it's that era where they had to make knockoffs of popular games because those games weren't available on the Mac. And they all look kind of like Dark Castle. But this is the joust

Leo Laporte (01:53:38):
One. Yeah. And you can play it on Windows. Same this if you wish. Yeah. [inaudible] Good pick. Thank you Mr. Alex. Lindsay, what's your pick this week?

Alex Lindsay (01:53:47):
So I wasn't sure we were gonna talk about it during the show, so I just waited cause I had like a couple things to stick in there. But, but chat chat. G p T is now available on iOS with its own app. Opening Eyes, put it out. It's way better than going to the webpage. Like, that's all I like to say. And if you have some other, you know, stupid version of it that, that all these people who are using the API and trying to put some front end on it and do doing whatever, you should just get this one. It works. It's not, there's nothing special about it. It doesn't do anything more than the webpage does. It's just way easier now you can open up. It never asks you to lock in. You can just you know, you know, I think you log in once or whatever, but then you're just using it and it's just so much fun. You know, like I I, I don't, I'm not trying to write a research paper with it. I'm just having it entertain me doing, doing crazy things like making it Fortune cookies. And I have, my new obsession has been to ask it to do prompts for me. So I go, <laugh> <laugh>, I'm looking, I said, you are a designer and a prompt expert. I'm looking for a logo. That is

Andy Ihnatko (01:54:46):
A great way to do that.

Alex Lindsay (01:54:47):
This and this that. And I give it like a little thing and then it creates this huge paragraph that I look at and go, I don't think this is gonna work in Mid Journey and tell to do it for Mid Journey. It writes this thing for Mid Journey that is really long and I put it in a mid journey and it looks great. And I'm just like, okay, the machines know how to talk to each other. <Laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (01:55:06):
I was gonna say, get each other, you know, I was like, this is exactly what the AI researchers were saying. What happens when we let these ais like build their own railroad track for them to follow

Alex Lindsay (01:55:15):
<Laugh>? I'm, I'm already like waiting for the, the, the pipe that goes from chat G B T into Mid Journey. So I can say, Hey, chat G B T make me a, I need a graphic that looks like this. And then have it just iterate and then hand me back a couple hundred photos to look at, like, what do you think of these? And then I select a couple and then it gives me a bunch more of those. And, but, so I'm, I'm waiting for that all to get tied in. But in, in the meantime it is, it's, it's really fun, you know, it, it is again, I, I think the chat p t is about as smart as a book. Smart. And you know, it read a bunch of things and it is about as accurate as someone who just read a bunch of things and didn't actually ever do it. So I I I, I find it to be, you know, I re I, there's a little bit of a, a pinch of salt that I put on everything that it gives me, but it's not bad. Like it's, and it's, it, it's, it's, and it's a lot of fun. And I'm, I just made another ano a new OSH soup that generated by the one that's on the app there. So which is better than the last one. And so they, which was

Leo Laporte (01:56:10):
Good. Do you know, it's fine. Do you have to pay for chat G P T or? I

Alex Lindsay (01:56:15):
Think I logged in and I, I, you have, you can use it and it'll give you the free version, but it might take time for it to do it. Okay. I pay for it. So I, I think that it might, when you

Leo Laporte (01:56:23):
Log in, its, and is it using log version four or is it using 3.5?

Alex Lindsay (01:56:28):
You can switch to version four has, so it has all the five four.

Leo Laporte (01:56:30):
Okay. Yeah, so it's just like using the web webinar interface, but

Alex Lindsay (01:56:34):
It's just like using the web interface except for that it's an app and it just runs a lot smoother. And you know, it it, the web interface was hard because occasionally it was gonna ask you to log back in. It's like a weird webpage and a little clunky and this is just, it, it isn't different, but it doesn't cost anything either. Like it's just a smoother, better interface for the one that you had before.

Leo Laporte (01:56:52):
It is number one in productivity, which cracks me up, <laugh>. It's gonna make

Alex Lindsay (01:56:57):
You so productive and then not productive at all. At all. You don't chat

Leo Laporte (01:57:02):
Gpt from open ai. It's the official. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:57:06):
What were you saying?

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:07):
I was just, I haven't downloaded yet. Does it let you subscribe to chat G p t four, like through the app and is that a, and is that a way for Apple to benefit from, from

Leo Laporte (01:57:16):
AI 30%?

Alex Lindsay (01:57:17):
Exactly. Exactly. I don't know. I, I, I I already had it. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Just curious. Yeah. <laugh>, not sure.

Leo Laporte (01:57:27):
Very good. Pick all three.

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:29):
Be be very aware if, if, if it gives you an a quote wacky image prompt that looks like it might be a stack overflow buffer over flow exploit for something.

Leo Laporte (01:57:37):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Maybe maybe

Alex Lindsay (01:57:39):
Taking over take it back. Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:57:41):
So I don't know if I think our title today is going to be Andy's Wild Thumb. I don't know if that will become a good prompt or not, but I'm gonna let you, we'll find

Alex Lindsay (01:57:51):
Out, <laugh>, we'll find out.

Leo Laporte (01:57:52):
I'll let you play with that. And if you are watching the podcast at home or listening to the podcast at home, look at the album art. If it's Andy's Wild Thumb, then you know that Alex succeeded <laugh>. Thank you. Alex Lindsay. Office Hours dot Globals the place to go to see what's going on. You're, you're doing all sorts of stuff now. This this, this week is completely different than

Alex Lindsay (01:58:15):
Other weeks. Yeah, I mean, it just, it's, it's great. I mean, like, I, what is

Leo Laporte (01:58:20):
Is subdivision surface, I don't even, subdivision

Alex Lindsay (01:58:22):
Surfaces is basically how most things get modeled. So if you see a 3D model, most most 3D models on the web or anywhere are getting start off with subdivision services. And so Alan Hawks, who's been an old friend of mine, I've known him for, you know, 15 years or so, and he's, he does really high end you know, surfacing and modeling, so on and so forth. So he came in and talked about that. Yesterday we had Cindy SDA on who does, she does wood turning. This looks so

Leo Laporte (01:58:47):
Cool. Like late.

Alex Lindsay (01:58:48):
She does online wood turning. And you know, Cindy's, she's, she's in our, she's in our community and she's just so great. But I hadn't seen her in her environment, like, right. Like she, like I never seen. And you're just like, she, she goes, she's like talking about it a little bit and then she goes, here, let me show you how I do this. And she's been doing this for 10 years or maybe eight years or whatever. So suddenly she starts just seamlessly jumping between camera to camera to camera with her key over top of it and showing, you know, and, and it's a, it's a incredible master's course on on how to show people what you're teaching. Right. You know, and for her it's, it's wood turning, but it could be a lot of other things. But she's so good at it. And it was really, really interesting to see her whole production.

(01:59:31):
She's got like five or six cameras and she's got a closeup while she shows you the wide. And she's, you know, and she cool, you know, she's green screen. You can see it here. Like she's, you can see her working, but you see the closeup that's there and she's got it. And, and it's all seamless. Like, she's got a stream deck and she's got vMix and you know, it's not, you know, it's, it's a it's really intense. And so it was really interesting. And then we had last week we had folks on from the N B NBC team talking about htr <laugh>. They've were talking about like how to think about this and, and you know, and, and, and so on and so forth. So that was you know, and we've just had, it's just, we're starting to get into the zone where we just have one great you know, one great second hour after another. So it's a lot of fun.

Leo Laporte (02:00:12):
Office hours.global to find out more. And of course, if you wanna hire Mr. Lindsay, zero nine Media, zero nine Media. Andy Ann aco, when are you gonna be on gbh? Next?

Andy Ihnatko (02:00:25):
I am on Friday at noon at the Boston Public Library. Yay. So if you're in Boston area, come on and drop by and watch the show live. Stick around, get yourself a cup of coffee. You got a cookie, which you will have to pay for both of them <laugh> or you can listen to it live or later@wgbhnews.org.

Leo Laporte (02:00:41):
Here's a man who knows how to pronounce Carl Greski. That's all I can say. There you go. Yes.

Andy Ihnatko (02:00:45):
Y a s t r z e m s k

Leo Laporte (02:00:47):
I. He even knows how to spell it. Wow. Jason Snell, he's a Giants fan, but he's also the major domo@sixcolors.com.

Jason Snell (02:00:56):
Also know how to spell him Zremski, right? Yes. Because we got that in common now. Austin and San Francisco's.

Leo Laporte (02:01:03):
He's on the team. His grandson, grandson

Jason Snell (02:01:04):
Grandson's on the team. That's right. That's

Leo Laporte (02:01:06):
Great. I love that.

Jason Snell (02:01:07):
Yeah. Six colors.com. You read my thing about Final Cut and a little bit about Logic and why I think it's not really suitable for podcast editing right now. And there's a, I did a live stream earlier today, so there's like a half hour, or you can watch me edit something in Final Cut Pro on the iPad. Nice. Where you can see the screen and you can also see my hands on the screen. So that you, where do you

Leo Laporte (02:01:27):
Live? Stream on YouTube or Twitch?

Alex Lindsay (02:01:29):
Yeah,

Jason Snell (02:01:29):
Youtube. Youtube. I've got a six Colors YouTube channel. Okay. Twitch is a little too, I'm not doing it enough to build up a whole Twitch culture. And, you know, you gotta have like a community and I, I I'm not, I'm not, I don't do it enough for that. So it's just YouTube. It's easier on

Leo Laporte (02:01:43):
Youtube. But you got the setup, man. You're doing it, dad. That's all. Man, I got a

Jason Snell (02:01:46):
Camera up there, man. I, I, I can I can switch. I'm ready

Leo Laporte (02:01:49):
To go. Can switch? I can switch. Thank you Jason Snell six colors.com. Yep. Thank you. Andy Inco. Thank you Alex. Lindsay, thanks most of all to you for joining us as you do. I hope every week. We're here Tuesday's 11:00 AM Pacific, 2:00 PM Eastern Time, 1800 utc. If you are around at that time, you can watch or listen to the livestream@livetwit.tv. There's live video and audio. If you're watching Live chat live in our irc, that's open to all at irc TWI tv. But we also have the Discord for Club Twit members. You can chat there if you remember after the fact on-demand versions of the show are available at twit tv slash mb w That page also has a link to our YouTube channel where you can watch at any time. All of our shows go up there. There's also links to your favorite podcast players, cuz the easiest way really to, to get the show whether audio or video is to subscribe that way it downloads automatically the minute it's available and you can listen at your leisure. Thank y'all for being here. But now I have to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Put down that chat, g p t cuz it's time to get back to work. Break time is over. Byebye.

Mikah Sargent (02:03:02):
Oh hey, that's a really nice iPhone you have there. You totally picked the right color. Hey, since you do use an iPhone and maybe use an iPad or an Apple Watch or an Apple tv, well you should check out iOS today. It's a show that I, Micah Sergeant and my co-host, Rosemary Orchard host every Tuesday right here on the Twit Network. It covers all things iOS, tv, os, home, pod, os, watch, os, iPad os. It's all the OSS that Apple has on offer and we love to give you tips and tricks about making the most of those devices, checking out great apps and services and answering your tech questions. I hope you check it out.