Gadgetory

we are live coming to you from San Francisco California it's the Apple byte extra country podcast with your host mr. Brian Tom what's up everybody welcome to the show guess would you guys all tuned in we have some issues with our iTunes podcast before for the pre-show the preview of WWDC you're here for the WWDC recap show we're going big here and when I talk about big we're timeout our executive level fine senior editor I call him ed editor extraordinaire Scott Stein in the house joining us for this entire podcast are you ready for this Scotty oh yeah I'm totally ready you've got a swivel chair oh that adds that adds like is that an augmented reality live streamis guy this is my VR chair you got a soul in your VR chair haha absolutely so everyone just obviously the orders of business when we start this show off this is a complimentary piece to our Apple bite video podcast that comes out weekly here we get a really deep dive get in-depth and talk to you guys and gals as well as the experts here see net but in case you want to be a part of the show because that's what it's all about you can always call us is our voicemail system at one eight hundred six one six two six three eight I think there's a lot of you that have thoughts and feelings about what just happened we'll talk about that but we also want to hear from you so make sure you call in your name where you're from and what you want to talk about but let's just jump in this Scott you were there on site I think that the way that mainstream media has been covering this event is always kind of a little different than how the tech media covers it of course there's a lot of excitement about the home pod and we're gonna kind of use it as our launching point the home pod tell me you were there you did get to see it correct yeah I got to see it I got to listen to it and that's what I want to hear about you know a lot of people aren't privy to being able to get into these demo rooms and see it can you explain to us exactly what they even showed because it doesn't feel like they obviously when they announced it they positioned it as a music speaker they really weren't trying to focus as much on the smart aspects of it maybe it's not baked yet that's fine but what did they actually show you on site really just the speaker demo completely didn't do if they didn't do anything smart with this thing I mean you know terms of smart functions um so this was a this is a chance just to listen to it and if you didn't order to get the message on stage that they were focusing on music for this and how it sounds that was completely the focus so it was like Siri you're in a room and you are sitting down listening to five songs and Apple showed it next to Sonos play three and Amazon echoes I was interesting they're actually computing products to listen against which is really not often the case uh in that demo and I'm not an audio reviewer so I want liked I Pendlebury in there or someone you know I want their ears but even they said it's hard to tell and it can contain demo you can't really judge what happened to make that experience occur but it sounded really good sure that demo was really crisp booming and they were trying to show that it worked in 360 degrees that if you walked around the room it sounded good from different angles whereas the play three up against the wall and the Amazon echo sounded flattered and or tenure um echo Sam much different so nose was fine but it didn't have the same 360 sound but you know what does that mean and how does that you know how is that actually going to feel later but they are showing that this is and they also played not just one home pod but two home pods so I got to listen to two in the same room and that's one of the pictures they're making is don't get one get two set them up to speakers multi a home pod your house in it they basically act as stereo speakers they split the music and do a surround more of a surround effect like you would with um you know putting home speakers in your house for for anything hey Scott so here's the thing right the three when it's it's always interesting when you're at Aquino because you know there's always kind of some level of the way that Apple shapes us and you you know sometimes you're around the buzz but you know I can't ignore the fact when they're demoing this it's almost like oh yeah by the way to home pods are seven hundred bucks yeah and when you talk about that just from the competitive landscape we know that Apple charges a premium you know my guess before the keynote would be that I would be like 249 the Amazon echo is 179 the Google home is 129 instead they went 349 and so it seems are they when you when you've been to so many of these events I don't want to say are they still kind of they are in this bubble of their own world but to kind of just brush it off like get to its 700 dollars like it's it's almost like are they paying attention to what's going out there do they we know they have a high-end customer that will buy that stuff we get calls in my emails about that all the time but you can't ignore that $700 for two speakers is completely out of the ballpark of what is actually happening in the industry from a standpoint of speaker slash smart speakers yeah it means like they were clearly playing in like a so no space or like Bang & Olufsen sort of territory you know this is like this felt like that type of a demo versus anything like Amazon echo or Google home this is not and also those are you know on sale a lot you get it for 100 bucks and you can get them as basically stocking stuffers you know even if you're not fully on board with what a smart speaker does at 100 bucks you play around with it and a 349 that's well out of that range so you're not going to just play around with it probably for that for that price and that's where I think this is a very different proposition and it's bigger Google home the Google home is not in in the demo so I don't know why but um Google home is really small and the home pod is not small it kind of feels like a cantaloupe that's a curtain you know we've seen a lot of obviously the internet reacted to it it was like oh it looks like a roll of toilet paper it looks like a cat scratching post I thought it looked just like a big giant marshmallow that I would want to you know toast oh yeah the other thing that you you mentioned is how they positioned it in they clearly were focusing on this is a music speaker and then maybe it's because they don't have with all the smart functionality baked in the biggest thing that I was expecting and we had talked about this before of what Apple could do here at WWDC is just talk about their vision for Siri and their platform and it just really didn't happen there were nods to Siri getting a little better but there's no actual real deep-dive of how it's smarter why it's smarter what things can it actually do was that a missed opportunity or is it something that you think okay I'll give you a chance to talk about it more in September but if we don't talk about it any more in September it's got to be kind of a red flag of as the industry is moving in that direction where does Apple really stand and I can think about that whole show I actually expected a lot more talk about Siri in general and I feel like for all we were expecting a lot of talk about Siri I don't think it was talked about all that much WWE and not enough and you know I am holding the air freshener here the Google home um I've got it biblically is so small yes is like a really cute little thing and you could just put this somewhere and not worry about it but this is the market that Apple needs to think about what are they doing to make their thing smarter and I think there's a lot that needs to be addressed with that sure how apps hook into it how Siri is going to listen better they better have a separate event diving into all that I don't know if that can be shoehorned into share the stage with an iPhone event because it sounds like a lot maybe it's a separate event and it's coming out in December so and and for Apple sometimes a month means like the very end of the month so you know like was December going to be like December 31st I have no idea but you know it's usually they tend to the the window tends to be a little bit later um I don't know that's anecdotally um yeah I really want to know a lot about what it's going to do how it's going to be aware in your home that's an interesting part of it too is how it's meant to be spatially aware and understand where the other one is or even they didn't explain how but how it understands what's going on in your room is it sending out is it infrared or sound waves or you know what is it what is it doing the math your room out and and push the audio in a direction that it sees makes the most sense so that's pretty interesting as tech there are others that I think have dabbled in that but that you know that kind of remains to be seen that was really not explained what is the media's feeling around it because when you're there everyone knows that they're behind Amazon echo there behind the Google home and when Apple talks about is it almost like I don't want to say it's tongue-in-cheek but are the reporters kind of like okay you guys have to admit that you're not really you're not there yet but they don't admit that is there almost a weird tension or thing that is just there while they're talking about this and you guys like uh you know you guys are really behind still I think we're just waiting for some of those things to show up and when Apple is going to amplify the solution you know I think there's you know when you see VR being mentioned on stage you go okay uh VR is here you know Apple is finally addressing VR the same thing with AR um I like the direction that they were choosing what they are I feel like it's almost like Google cardboard you know it's they're trying to make it much more accessible and I think it's a it's a smart move but yeah you do wait for like machine learning there was like machine learning drinking game online before you know how many times can you mention it you also get numbed out when you start hearing machine learning because what is it you know it sounds like an 80s dance craze you know what is the hahahaha machine learning uh craft work you know it's it's very what does that mean for Pete it means like eight different things there's a billion ways you can apply more than eight you apply so many different ways the machine learning does things it's really like programming you know it's like that doesn't really explain what it does at the end so I do think that there is a question that on the other hand Apple will also I'm always interested that press sometimes even seems more optimistic about some of the directions like the iPad introducing computing features there's a whole other thing we can get into Oh Joe the iPad because I have a few distinct thoughts on that well you know what will transition over that I do want to talk a little bit just quickly since you didn't mention it earlier hear about the augmented reality you know push for Apple I thought is really fascinating because we've we've seen demos like that before but then all of a sudden again it shows how powerful the muscle the ecosystem the reach that Apple has when once they show this you're like holy crap you have you have all these devices on the market you won't need to buy any single bit of additional hardware to enjoy these experiences and developers obviously are smart enough to be thinking hey the platform is there the App Store is there the devices are there it's time for me to finally develop for the iOS platform when they touted their instantly you know the largest AR platform alike they absolutely are and it's smart just from a business standpoint yeah and they also can so as compared to Google because I was thinking well why isn't Google doing like a you know air toolkit in its in Android and I think the answer is that Apple just has a much more contained hardware platform and they can say just a nine and eight ten chips that they can optimize graphically for it and I think that's why Google had to make a tango phone among other things and that same thing with daydream where only certain phones get daydream VR because there were just so many Android phones and so many Android solutions that they can't optimize for particular things unless they create a cutoff so Apple at least has that advantage and it's smart because then you you have a lot of people using it it we're already using a Optimum's between snapchat Pokemon go whatever and they're and they're basically saying okay we know that everyone's making these things anyhow let's just make them better and more consistent I think they're trying to create lookup like a core framework and thinking so like maybe down the road if they're thinking about other types of things that could start being set up now but it's it's it's beginning that demo with the lamb I thought was really cool it it's like it looked better than I got to look at Microsoft's view mixed reality which was it AR through their Windows machine and they had that at their education event that was okay but it was a little more like pop up in a little more a little bit more janky it didn't look as polished because again they I don't think it was as graphically optimized from what I saw but um I guess it was like an early peak but I think it's good I I think it's not like rocket science I don't think it's something that's you know really all that different than other things that are out there but bring together um I'm not I'm not an engineer where am I it might be rocket science I have no idea dismissive such a dismissive thing for me to say no come on you're such a jerk it's not rocket science I mean a bike but I do think it's really it looked really good I think for a lot of people this is going to be what AR is and so it's a smart move for Apple with that VR though it looks like they're just trying to make creative toolkits yes froggy and platforms and it's like if you're making your big Star Wars experience at ILM or if you work in VR design sure but they're not even looking at like games or the average person using VR the other thing is and as we talked about this a our VR platform and how Apple is really sinking their teeth into it you know they showed off the iMac Pro and obviously it's going to be a beast and obviously they're like look you can develop VR on here your metal 2 platform is going to be able to help support that as well so we have the tools in place but it reminds me a lot of hey look people don't think of the Mac as a gaming platform people have already started their development in their workflow on the PC for VR development although they have the hardware there yes it's a build it and they will come I'm really curious to see how many developers are just going to be all of a sudden ok we're just going to go to the Mac exclusively and develop here now when HTC vive oculus they've had they've established at least a framework for years and will those developers and those companies all of a sudden want to pivot what will that Mac iMac pro be that compelling that they that they want to do that do they want actually if they even look at the Mac platform when they maybe even want to look at the actual future Mac Pro modular design whatever that is instead of say hey we're gonna go all gung-ho on a $5,000 plus a Mac Pro I think I can see what they're trying to build there and lay the foundation but as as a usual right hardware software goes hand in hand I don't know if developers are gonna flock over the iMac I haven't seen even any stories of developers saying we're definitely going to give the Mac a try now for our VR AR development at least VLS a VR yeah I totally agree first of all there was that you know they've acknowledged there's a future MacPro that'll be more upgradable and then you'd want to wait for that uh if you are developing VR you know and you're really in the industry you're probably using what you've got to be using Windows thing for all of its ability to experience and develop and and the graphics flexibility there were some tweet or some comments that had said that this is more for people already use Mac's and I think I would agree with that and I think this is I think the I'm they're trying to say that here's a solution um should you want to use Mac's we're going to be there we're going to offer this and it's it's available now versus later but I agree how many people going to pick that I don't know I think it's trying to provide a solution for high-end Mac users who one also dabble in creating VR and have a machine that's capable that's that that's definitely a subset I don't know you're buying saying is $5,000 um and it's not upgradable I don't know right that sounds that sounds rough it doesn't sound like the most attractive proposition and yes you can find buy one potentially with eighteen an eighteen core Xeon processor based iMac pro but again it still won't be expandable once you buy it right I mean it won't truly expandable the other thing that I saw when we were watching this photo oh go ahead then it just becomes the one that your kids use the $10,000 18 cores yeah I'm out do your homework on the Mac bro hey minecraft looks amazing on that I Mac Pro come on let's not let's not discredit that okay but the other thing about the iMac Pro when I saw the announcement the first thing that I just you know when you have like that what I call the sniff test when I watched it I was like wow this was their actual vision for their next Pro machine we know the Mac Pro the trash can the cylinder design it hasn't been touched and they hadn't acknowledged that they made a boo-boo but it's really interesting because the iMac Pro that we saw today is really what they believe or believed for at least the past three years that this was going to be their next new Pro machine when all of a sudden this April they're like actually yeah we realize we're alienating our Pro users that want expandability customization but it I don't want to call it a lame duck product because it's going to appeal to a certain audience but that's what they thought would be their next Pro machine I thought it was kind of interesting like it's almost like a relic of the past of their thinking being put on stage because they still have to but I'm really curious to see how many people are gonna actually buy the iMac Pro with that idea of a pro machine I think the value is still there the price points there but that is what they felt was their Pro machine what do you think about that did you feel that at all either um yeah hard to tell I would I would say I'd want to wait and you know I'd kick myself if there was a new Mac Pro that was more like the thing I'd need so yeah if it's launching at a weird time December or end of the year you know when is it coming out like you know they said the summers with it yeah so it's it's an odd time and uh I don't know I mean you might want to wait that's what I'll have totally agree yeah I just I don't know meanwhile I guess the Mac Pro became the home pod exactly that thing looks just like a Mac Pro do you know what the best part about I don't know if you've seen the videos but if you look at the original Mac Pro launch videos like you know when they have their sexy teaser videos I kid you not the angles the way they tilt it the way they is exactly you could literally swap them out for each other right it's just missing the hole in the center the hole is now the Siri because here we go right but it's like practically it's it's smaller but I mean it's it really is like very much in that zone we pulled out on the Apple byte uh you know are one of our prototypes that we stole from their headquarters and we literally wrapped a MacPro in the fishnet stockings that's great so that that is that's exactly to your point right make your own may you can have a Mac Pro looking thing for 3:49 now let's you know let's jump to the iPad pro people that listen to this show I should stop saying it no I'm a big fan of the iPad pro I know you have your thoughts on it I felt that it was to me the star of the show from a standpoint of I know that the surface pro as a hybrid device that has a desktop OS and the tablet OS can do more but what I really liked and maybe it feels like it's a year too late but what I really loved about the iPad pro is it feels like its own thing like what the way that you're interacting with it you can't do that with a service although yes the service can technically do more I liked how they finally made it a beast of its own and really I don't even know if they should call this iOS 11 on the iPad they should it should be it's finally its own thing and I I applaud them for that but it does feel like it came a little late especially with tablet sales just continuing to decline I don't know if it's going to give them a spike i pre-ordered mine right after the announcement because again I am the biggest iPad pro freak but I'd love to hear your thoughts because you clearly have some about them yeah so I been looking forward to the iPad pro getting an update for a while and iOS being updated for the iPad so I thought a lot of those updates when I wrote it like a preview wishlist piece a lot of those got net on the dock the file system the the added modes for presentation I think those are great I like the fact that it's going to be more pencil based where you can instantly take notes new handwriting search making those old great moves and looking at the 10.5 it's definitely a nice screen enhancement my other question is if you have a nine point seven inch iPad pro I don't think you would need to upgrade because it's it's a modest screen gain you are getting processor but who knows I mean it's not it's not clear and right now it's not clear on iOS 11 will make it you know great compared to the nine point seven or the previous generation iPad pro the twelve point nine from late 2015 maybe that one is great you get that on sale so I don't know that's that as a thought as you know with the with the OS make it great um would you want the new one no matter what so we have to kind of measure that out but I think it's great I'm disappointed by the fact that it still feels a little too much like iOS for iPhone you know I want I agree it needs to be its own thing I think they should just keep moving away get away from the grid of apps uh be comfortable making a bold move because I don't think it's going to be that crazy a change people will get used to it at this point and it would help present more things on screen you have a lot of screen space plus accessories they did not announce new threes for this that so I thought that's the first thing that shocked me not only that right so i pre-ordered this so I have an original iPad pro I was always mad and jealous about the true tone screen I love this whole 120 you know Hertz refresh rate and the fact that the pencil is gonna work better much your point earlier about Oh will someone upgrade I think if you're someone that really does use the pencil artistically or how you use your iPad pro today you should if you or if you're thinking about upgrading I think it's worth it but if you're just using your iPad like you're using the iPad the same way you did three years ago four years ago I don't know if there's an its I don't think it's worth upgrading right it's right it's actually a lot of it yeah so um but your point about accessories so I buy this iPad problem like all winners you know what are these new cool you know what are the cool things I can get and I don't know if you saw this but they're selling a freaking case like a leather case for the pencil just like a sleeve specifically for the pencil pretentiously yeah just like like a cover for the pencil for 29 bucks and I'm like wait okay let me look out and see what else they have now they have a full leather sleeve that has a little slot for you to put your pencil and it's like 149 I'm like but then it completely exposes the iPad when you need to take it out like I'm sorry I kind of need to have it protected on the backside which was then weird to me because they completely got rid of that silicon rear case for the iPad they don't have any of them online they have third-party ones but not an Apple one and that don't leak secure so you know that that hard she'll kind of Apple branded yacon that's not available for the 12.9 and it's not on there when you search for it that it's not there this is the one here um if you go go to store go to store at Apple comm and then they'll be like yeah and goes is accessory there's but what I'd use this silicon kittib axle-back back and it's very useful yeah it's just it's just standard right but then what what about the smart connector man I mean that what it are they completely ignoring the fact that they put that on the iPad let's talk about the smart connector because I was asking Apple about this and it's the same technology in the new smart connector as the last one you would have heard about it it was upgrade course you know uh right now the smart connector Li was two things keyboards and charge Docs like to allow charging through pipe and Apple and Logitech are the only companies I know of that are making anything um like Logitech is like the kind of exclusive third party partner for it or you know I don't know how it's being arranged but there are no other companies and I'm sure others have been wanting to I would think no there are no other accessories out there that I've seen and it's super limited and why what else can it do you know you should you should be able to drive a trackpad which so I would love that I would love to see a trackpad I love whether or not Apple C is any it's like of course you could have certain app support it and you could edit and that would be worth it for people or a doc that would do other things I don't know just it is strange like the whole idea of that was meant to be a modularity and there is very little in terms of options and Apple's own smart case the keyboard cover is the same it's okay I like logitech's better it's bet it's much more lap friendly it's backlit types better and so surprised that Apple didn't upgrade their keyboard and take a chance of doing something a little new maybe add backlighting at least maybe it's not powerful enough to but no it is Logitech says backlighting of course it's powerful enough um yeah you could have made a backlit some cool glowing keys whatever um it's just so strange to me that you had this new product in this big design and accessories were not part of it that transformed the iPad and that's like the one remaining thing that prevents me from using it as a laptop real laptop replacement that in certain software things but um you know that's usually that that's usually the whole thing that holds me back and I bought the smart keyboard for the iPad pro 2.9 inch are originally but I returned it literally maybe two days later because I hated how it felt it doesn't even feel good you know when you compare they're the Apple branded keyboard to let's say the Microsoft Surface keyboard it's not even close like right the way it just feels the feedback to push and so you know I like I did like the Logitech one but it you know it's a little thicker for me I want them to give me a thin feeling sleeve type nice responsive keyboard but that appears to be too hard for them you know why could they not have done the twelve it they've developed this super small butterfly keyboard mechanism the other the macros and 12-inch MacBook you can't put that on a case and offer that it's so strange to me like that's that's what Microsoft did they should have had two variations at least the the soft one and a hard one that's the minimum you have to do and then the the maximum is to rethink some of this stuff and think about a new solution when is that going to happen I it's such a slow I mean the piece I wrote about it you know was exactly that that I felt like this is a gradual evolution and it seems like we're just going to have to that's the way it's going to be but it is it's super frustrating because as much as I like where the software is going I you know I reminds me of iOS 9 they had good updates for the iPad and then iOS 10 they had no updates for the iPad or almost none and then iOS 11 they're doing updates for the iPad is I mean they're going to skip another year and then you're going to see it later you know just feels feels a little glacial uh and I think it needs to be happening more aggressively this leads me to another question that I've always felt for why now especially after Apple put all their apples and you know in in the basket for the Apple watch do does it feel like Apple is spread too thin because they're doing just too many things now that they they've lost kind of some of the focus to bring some of that level of Polish or you know you used to feel like hey this is a solution they've got all this they're focusing on this we see it year after year but to your point it's like okay iOS 11 gets that finally gets the new tweaks it took to it's like a two year cycle just across the board of a lot of their things now yeah and so we right before the event I remember the one thing I got to say was I was looking for synthesis product for the kid for the keynote I don't think we had that nope at the keynote there was no grand unified theory of of Apple and it may be that you know they feel there can't really be one um but yeah I agree that I mean the when you that whole style of presentation which was like we've got six things to talk about and we go so let's go we got a hurry we got a hurry um it felt like we were already rushing and and to keep up with all the points as opposed to breathing and saying what is the one thing we want to take away what is the one idea and it sounds like Apple has got a lot of work in a lot of different areas they're trying to accomplish pushing into a lot of areas that are going to matter in the future a RvR um still wearable tech and health um some of them are very interesting and AI and machine learning but it is all over the place it feels like when you hear about it and you wonder you know the classic thing is for instance when you're at home with your products ok Siri works one way or in my iPhone it works another way on my Apple TV works another way on the watch on the iPhone I have some apps that take advantage of 3d touch some apps that take advantage of Siri summit absent iMessage you don't know which are going to be which and there's still such a wide open area I remember app developers in the past we're feeling like they really had to make choices between do I support this do I support this because you can't you can't do them all I think Apple is offering so many options to explore that I wonder about what's going to happen because you know do you support Apple watch do you support this part of the Apple watch do you support this part of iPad um it's it's kind of never-ending and it doesn't feel like there's a clear hierarchy of and it should have started with Siri and maybe it still will the iPhone but when are they going to announce that what are they going to address that well that's what's you know to the casual observer to the tech fan to the tech reporter to media it's it's not it's not like this is hard for them to figure out everyone wants to know what they're doing in that space and if they really don't have anything to show off or to tell a story like I think about yeah they may not be as sexy but at Google's i/o they told the story of what they were doing with AI how they were building it what improvements they've done from your a to B or whatever but they told us a story and I this WWDC the first thing as we were watching like this feels really rushed there is no storytelling we to get us maybe at least informed and also a little more invested in okay this is why they're doing it there's none of that it's just AI OS has so many features that they didn't talk about that I would have thought might have been interesting but because they were so jam-packed they just went through maybe five or six real fast they showed off Mac OS Sierra's like did it I did it and there was no reason or rhyme to be like look this is where we're going this is why we're doing this they couldn't even spend five minutes on something like that and so it just feels like do they really know where they're going and because it doesn't seem like to us that they're telling us that other than product product product product WWDC and at the same time I know there's workshops at WWDC I don't even feel like this keynote was even really truly catered to the developers that much you know a little bit of showing the AR kit but we've seen other demos where they've gotten a little nitty gritty because it's a Developers Conference developers get no access to what they're doing with Syria or with the home pod I just think that the even the glaring you and I talked about it they're in a lot of different directions they haven't set some sort of clear path that we can all be like okay we're on board with this oh he dropped uh-oh no Scotty dropped off he's coming back okay he's calling us back in a second Scott I don't know how much you heard of that or not I don't know what happened I got I was thrown into the abyss I know I didn't hear it how how much did you not hear a fair amount everything I talked to after Cirie I didn't you guys said especially Cirie and then maybe the Cirie God's punishment ha ha ha well that's where Tana punished me oh you're saying after you spoke it cut off yeah oh so you didn't even hear me talk at all huh it was like dropping the mic oh you just meant boom well you know what well ultimately I just said everything about their keynote felt rushed they didn't give us any type of storytelling and it you know Google explains their AI how they're evolving it what's happened before why they're doing this and we're not getting any of that it was like product product product and it's I just we know we want to see a direction of what they're thinking and they're not telling us that well I think also it's the it's inevitable effect of for a while now a couple of years they had not been having products at the developer conference there you know they would say okay we're not gonna crowd this developer conference with products we're going to focus on software this year they introduced a ton of products and then the flip you know there was literally how many likes to eight or whatever you know they're the max the iMac Pro the iPad home pod that's like a whole product event yeah so when you do that in a two-hour span then yeah you even have less time to talk about software and strategy I think that was the biggest reason why it felt so rushed yeah so you know we could talk about this for hours I think that we want to just get to some of the phone calls and then we'll wrap things up are you good with that Scott yeah okay let's uh let's see where we're at with the Apple bite nation and again for all you listening to extra crunchy you can always call us at calls and we got you know some positives about WDC and we got some negatives about oh very play both and see what everyone had to say right hey guys it's Ryan from Sacramento I have to say that yesterday's Developers Conference was one of the best that we've seen in a while and that's exciting uh my question today is about the smart speaker that we saw I like it many other people already have an Amazon echo I have the dot and being in the Apple ecosystem that I'm naturally going to want to buy this new speaker because I could play my iTunes I can use I messaging all that stuff that I can't do with Alexa but I also don't want to lose the smart assistant Alexa because it seems to be better than Siri so my question is will I be able to pair these speakers together somehow I know that echo dot can pair wirelessly with other speakers so I want to get the smart assistant Alexa but still be able to play my musics at a better sound quality and use iMessage will I be able to do this it's like having two girlfriends one sexier one sounds better the other one's smarter has a better personality and I'm just trying to get them in bed together you know what I mean Brian loved the show can't wait to hear we guys don't go warriors yes as if I have experience in that area Scott I'll what do you think I mean yeah sure it's always it it always the dream for us to have the best of both worlds from the two top devices that we love I feel like it's always a dream for us I want to climb into bed with all the smart speakers at once we can arrange that I mean we can do a photo shoot it it could be awkward but it could be amazing at the same time I don't think that you can count on the echo ecosystem syncing and working with this smart speaker I don't think there's any way that's not that's not part of the game plan and but I do think there's a chance it's a question that all of these devices do have is that we're going to start maybe having more than one of them in our home how do you deal with that you know what what can you set up some to do some things and some to do other do these companies start acknowledging that it's different than when you have a phone and you pick one phone it their price so that you could easily have multiple devices in your home and it's like all of these companies don't really want to think about that but they're going to have to and I think will be really smart to come up with a solution that acknowledges that you know the one company that's trying to do this I don't know if you recall Andy Rubin he released the essential phone which is kind of their answer to the phones but he also announced the essential home which is kind of their again they're smart speaker home assistant they didn't show it off it's only in renders but you know their goal or really their dream he said like we want this to be platform agnostic we want it to be able to run Siri we want it to run Alexa we want it to run Google Google's assistant but you know when you say that out loud and you realize wait you have to make deals with all these with these three groups to in order to run their assistance on your hardware it just doesn't seem realistic based on how then the history of time how these companies who have built these platforms to really be an ecosystem that doesn't necessarily play front friendly with others for that to actually happen I just don't see it I don't try to be a you know I'm it's not that I'm not optimistic but I just don't see something like that happening well yes interesting I got to talk with with Essentials president a little bit Nicola Damacy I yeah exactly that the strategy that they're laying out is they want to go it's like it's like central wants to be the Android of smart home and accessories that these are going to be open source but then they acknowledge that not everyone's going to play nicely with them I do think that there's a chance that two of the three will play nicely yeah yeah because Android Alexa is actually really open Alexa generally plays nicely with everyone so I think that will probably be fine and considering Andy Reubens relationship and it's they're using an Android phone um I would think that they're going to develop some way to fold in Google assistant um but then it's really it's Siri as the outlier and Apple I think it's the one they're probably referring to I mean I also feel like if the the idea that they were pitching was like quark they kept calling it choreographing the home uh which maybe sounds like a way to dance around that how about their fingers can you scare me really fold them in yeah or is this is it like a logitech harmony or you like developing scripts that begin to learn how to deal with handing off things to other services that don't that aren't really integrated I don't know if that's a right analogy but I kind of feel like that might be what they're trying to do but they're also trying to become another player in the game lightly they're gonna have their own assistant and they're gonna want to be like the one that you choose that's a lot of things it is you know for the Ferrari hey did we just want to throw in a guitar riff just to give you some of that bang auto auto play which I will be fitting will be addressed by a map by Mac OS hi Sierra alright let's uh Sofer to answer the question to our color I mean you can hold both of them in your arms in the bed at the same time but they we don't expect I highly don't expect Apple I'll be working with you know being able to talk to those anytime soon like that it's just not an apples DNA we got to try to make a video where we put them two next to each other and try to get them to talk to each other somehow like trigger their words so that they say things that trigger the other one so be it'll be amazing I'm gonna try to figure that out I'll let you handle that Beach all right I'm gonna put the next call here we go hey Brian my name is Johnny from Washington DC I love the show I'm actually a past contestant winner so that's a thanks for the awesome gift on that whoo so WWDC was this week and I'm a little confused as to what Apple has created that's innovative because from what I see there's actually nothing new that they've presented for example the Apple does a new app store they didn't have to create no one told them to create a new app store that's not innovation let's see Apple pay they created a venmo and then no app I don't understand what's what's a so different about that I mean it's basically the same thing as venmo um let's see Safari will block I will play videos that should have been done from the very beginning that is a security patch not an innovation I don't understand what Apple has cooked demoscene Oh shown this this year to be innovative it's quite frankly in my opinion this is probably one of Apple's and worse WWDC yet the only thing that in my opinion might you know have some innovation to it is the new live photo features the software capability to create like for example the seamless move and some of the other effects those definitely took much effort and from from offensive software standpoint so in that aspect yes I do agree they didn't probably have some innovation but in some good money investing into that but everything else there's nothing impressive so I don't I honestly if this is what the new iOS is bringing I'm a little scared as to what the new iPhone is going to look like I hope that they seriously step up your game this is ice apples you know landmark iPhone yet so they need to bring something that is going to outshine and outpace this past WWDC thanks for the thanks for listening out it's long those long I use use lighting at all Gowanus you just letting it all roll but that's okay look we'll see what hats the thing it to me it's also kind of weird that we're giving Apple the benefit of the doubt to say like hey maybe they'll show us something more with Siri at the iPhone event which they might but really they should have done it at WWDC so I'm just gonna wait until then but man if we don't hear about how it's changed or evolved or really is you know at least leveled up to a point where Kim where it can at least hold its ground in certain ways or maybe do unique things it just feels like Syria's one you know the stepchild that we're just going to keep on beating up on when everyone else is doing big things just got drop off again no I'm here I'm just like quietly listening I am I think they've done a few things that were innovative that are useful I think a our kit is actually really useful for developers are already excited about that because I don't know if there are that many toolkits that people can jump in right now and really develop a our apps with the way that I think Apple is enabling it yeah but I think that was nice I don't think there's that much more and that brings up the point I think innovation of the OS was surprisingly not there you know like except for iPad I agree I was very surprised at iOS 11 for the big supposed 10th anniversary yeah thing that we think is going to happen with the iPhone you know and and maybe a huge iPhone revamp in the fall well this didn't really seem like this did not suggest that yeah yeah even like you said even the suggestion of it write it again we'll see we'll see maybe because of specific hardware features they'll show us more but the basic suggestion of it being you know a big new revamp even you know I'm not the type of person that needs to ask for a complete facelift but if it is this 10th anniversary phone you want it to feel like oh like that's it but we didn't get any of that no all right next call all right no more hey guys this is Blair and West Hollywood you are able to listen to YouTube with your browser and phone closed on your phone it's called YouTube red you have to pay 10 bucks guys probably both got free for a month or three months and just forgot that was what it is and why is it that YouTube can play it faster on the computer but you aren't allowed to change speed on the phone or the iPad thanks that the more you know yeah I'm not gonna pay time not gonna pay would you would you pay $10 Scott to just so you could hear the audio in the background on your YouTube videos with your phone turned off or the screen off so I tried out YouTube bread as a trial and now I'm paying for it so the answer is yes but accidentally what's the content on YouTube is it just because you like not getting ads basically and it's except I got a free trial for YouTube bread and I tried it out and I was curious but um I'm not really into like you know unique YouTube content and ads I can deal with on YouTube I'm not tremendously bothered no it was really just like I wanted to try yeah and now but no but I would not want to add that is yet another thing I'm paying for are you personally paying for an Apple music subscription I'd the trial but I never decided to get on board I heard there's a lot of really flack about the planet of the apps show that just released on Apple music they're just saying like it's a really drab attempt at a shark tank without being anywhere nearly remotely as interesting so I'm paying for Apple music and now I'm also paying for spot I basically I need to stop paying for all these music services I I'm also paying for Spotify a lot of us to have things to test on different device exactly exactly to do but I've got pick one the problem now is Apple music I'm worried about how it has glommed into my my existing cloud music library uh and I know people have problems in the past when you've deactivated it might a little hard to get rid of some of your music right somebody's my dad was some of your own library somehow like associate those with the cloud that's why I've always been paired that's why I've never wanted to do it after I had a bad experience with iTunes Match scary - all glommed and I don't know my original music library is it's like on some server I haven't plugged in for a while so it's all like in the cloud I dumped air ascitic you know it's got some symbiotic relationship that I I feel like I I don't know what to do with this I've walked down a road that I feel like I should just try and pull it out yeah and then I think it's gonna like rip the brain stem out of my music collection scare and I'm got to start all over and I'll cry well that's that exactly right now right cuz you you kind of invested in and now you're like okay where do I go from here I can't really go back I can't really go full for but I'm you're in the tweener spot right now you're in the tweener spot oh and yeah and by the way why aren't they dressing that more I would like Apple to talk about that weird relationship with with music which never you know I feel like we deal with but they haven't tried upgrading and dealing with and that makes me think like I'm not a huge fan of the Apple music app at all games of its layout and to address with that guy said about Arabia's before that about the App Store I do not like the new App Store design I was turned off by it immediately it's you can't what the first thing you look at is just a single icon of a single app now but it's less discovery and totally they suggested there's stories and there will be articles and I don't really need that at all yeah I need I need ways to compare collections and you want to look at charts and it's it just seems yeah it seems way too presumptively curating like yep you know oh this is the one app you need today yeah like I don't need apps every day I'm not it's not a daily I'm not gonna look there every day for like today's app fix well you know how you were talking about oh I don't really like how the aesthetic of the Apple music app it really feels and looks like that they're trying to get that aesthetic across the board not only in the App Store but even the messages app kind of has a little bit of Apple music aesthetic and you know in iOS 11 it's it's kind of interesting some of the decisions that they're taking and making but I'm completely even I'm not even a personally a developer just as a consumer who wants to discover more content I hate how the new app store looks like and as a developer you've got to hate that too I think it's going to be painful and it the whole I really don't get the daily thing that there's a today view because with music it makes sense if you're a music subscriber you want new things every day to list put to have in your ears that you're paying for all this free content that you what you're paying for it but I mean it's you know you get to try it all you don't get to try all apps it's not like you have a key to every app in the kingdom and so daily discovery of apps just seems like a bizarre a use case that they would focus on maybe this is what the show plan of the apps is about for discovering new app that's their answer to redesigning the app store what app are you using today like I don't wake up every morning going like time to try a new exactly I've never yeah it's all about the buzz or what you hear alright do one more one more all right let's get to it hey Brian hey Steven really great show great job you both are doing this is Pritam yo I'm calling from Fremont California so usually I tend to watch your show live but if not I watch it late at night so thanks for the show and good informated stuff now coming on to the question so you know there's been a lot of talk about Apple offering its own video streaming service similar to let's say Netflix Hulu and all that with the live TV you know it's funny thing that the Apple TV came out in September 2015 and it's been 2 years almost and still they haven't given any service what's up that that I mean I just wanted to kind of understand the thoughts going behind was that you know people like AT&T DirecTV now sling TV PlayStation view Hugh Liu live TV and you know there's so many subscription services now everyone's doing it what is Apple up to something why is that dead lagging behind just wanted to know your thoughts and have a good discussion on this thanks bye yeah thanks so much for the K Brian hey thanks so much for the call we've we've talked about this a bunch of our show earlier in past episodes of just how you know there were many reports about how Apple you know who thinks they're still Apple walked in the room with executives from the content providers the network the cable operators and they want their own terms you know they do have a large user install base but the prices that they were asking or what they wanted right they they want it their way they don't want it they don't want to take a group of maybe 20 or 30 channels they want maybe ten of the best channels they want to control the terms and it's not going to happen that way and we've complained about it for I feel like I've complained about it for at least over a year and a half we've been talking about a long time just the fact that they couldn't get it done at every every six months that went by you saw a new player enter into the market to have their own service and now even if you look at the Apple TV interface they have this watch app or the TV app I can't remember what they call it remember was like confusing to me but they have this app that now kind of curates the streaming services and those of the ones that our partners are kind of all integrated in this single app where you can watch TV shows but it doesn't include things like Netflix or Amazon video it's just the partners that they have it was almost to me a cop out of the fact that they were not going to do a TV service I don't expect that we see them see one from them now maybe they'll surprise us but there are no indications that they've gone back to the table to even do anything like this and to me it's a little bit of the reason why we don't see it today is kind of more like apples hubris gets in the way when it has to deal with other companies and it's kind of in their DNA unfortunately Scott do you have any take on that yeah it's they did not address Apple TV much at all at this and I feel like that was something that we expected it was like the Amazon announcement was the main thing and then they kind of wrapped it up how was it on yeah and it's like okay we knew that would happen but I agree like I used to use I still use fan TV reviews you know that was my discovery app and I always felt like their TV app is trying to be like that to go cross-platform and it doesn't even hook in everything the way that I'd still like it to and then I totally agree if they're not going to be making their own TV streaming package they should be integrating other people's TV streaming packages in Apple TV in a way that allows you to pick one and bring it to the forefront you know like you should like you should be able to pick sling or something else and and make it your instant on TV and build an interface around that it's very it's very strange I feel like I don't really understand where that's going and they're not really talking about app development much I feel like you're you're not hearing any more about other types of apps for the T which like we're because it's yeah pretty powerful box and why are they not wise nothing happening yeah again you know when we talk about are they confused or they spread too thin I don't know where the focus on that product is either you know everyone's like just give me a 4k Apple TV look that's the most basic thing that they could do that's just easy for them to do but then we're talking about how will the platform how is the platform evolving what are they doing with the TV service look I have a PlayStation view I love it but that's what I use is my TV streaming service I I don't know if there's ever gonna be a reason for me to really switch over an Apple one but so many people are now invested in these other TV streaming services well if they even get back in there what are they going to do and then like you mentioned the whole app development WWDC they spent three two minutes on just saying Amazon is coming to Apple TV and that was all that was literally it that's crazy and they haven't tried they're certainly not keeping up with what everybody else is doing and they're definitely not going to the next level with where it could be I do think for a brief time when the when the revamped Apple TV came out it was introducing a few new ideas like the ability to backup and hear what somebody said or um you know a couple of other functions like that but yeah now um you know what what is it doing to advance and rethink the TV it's not yeah it's not that's just the bottom line it's not so you know what before we leave Scott do you have maybe I don't want to put a number on it but what was your overall feeling about WWDC as a whole you know thumbs up thumbs middle thumbs down where do you stand with all of that I'm more thumbs up yeah me not because I think that you know look there are many years we kept saying why are there no new products or we're not talking about this and they did oh they did a lot in this show but I'm I'm just you know it's skepticism about where all these things are going to go and how big any one of them is going to be like they did have their home speaker we just don't know anything more about we you know they they dip they dipped in AR and VR big-time but we just don't know how transformative either one will be for them and they updated the iPad you know there's there's all these areas that we've been talking about like will they do it um so in that sense a lot of bases were covered but the reason why I'm feeling you know it's just like are you feeling it like as you're watching it you know when something resonates with you totally and you go that's awesome and I there weren't really many moments like that and so that's the part where you go was just going too fast or just you know and you wonder where they if it was a bigger thing why wouldn't they emphasize it more so I just feel like it you don't step away having been inspired in a lot of different directions and that's a big part of what a developer conference should be - because you're talking to developers you're meant to be inspiring developers this is a pitch you know you're saying it's tools but it's also a pitch and I think that there wasn't enough of that big bold inspirational push all right oh my voice just cracked did you hear that that means the time it's time for the podcast and holy cow I hope people still listen to us all the way through but they completely ignored that fact all right Scott thanks the Pres my voice is shot you're the one that flew in on a red-eye and just got a home back in the East Coast and I'm the one whose voice is cracking um I may or may not just be wearing boxer shorts let's um yeah that we you can keep the camera tilted up I really know but um okay but the UM San Jose was fun I got to have delicious foie Thanks recommendation from Lynn LA yes and that was just a comment you want to throw in there before we in the show right that was just a comment I wanted to say I don't know why I'm plugging a bowl of noodle soup no consciousness just coming out at the end of the show but I just know I'm just feeling like exactly that uh it was nice to be there I was exhausted maybe that's why my voice didn't fall apart well Scott hey thanks so much for everything we love it when you come back in right after these bake keynotes we know you're busy guy so thank you for all your work in your inside and we appreciate it okay hey thank you guys thanks very much all right so that's gonna wrap it up for this week's show again you guys and gals can always call us for the Apple byte extra crunchy 1-866 263 eight I know we didn't get to hear Stephens smooth voice that much today all good y'all gettin uh happy to sit back and just listen you guys alright that's gonna do for this week we'll see you guys next time be safe peace