iOS 8 and Beyond: A New Era of Exploration

As we continue to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of technology, it's clear that Apple is pushing the boundaries of what's possible with its latest software updates. iOS 8, and its subsequent releases, have brought about a slew of new features and functionalities that are redefining the user experience. While some may be hesitant to adopt these changes, others see them as opportunities for growth and exploration.

The Human Interface Guidelines: A Shift in Focus

One of the most significant aspects of iOS 8 is the emphasis on design consistency and adherence to human interface guidelines. This shift in focus has led to a renewed attention on creating user-friendly interfaces that are intuitive and accessible. While some may lament the loss of certain features, others see this as a necessary step towards creating a more streamlined and efficient experience.

A New Era of Connectivity

The introduction of iOS 8 has also marked a new era of connectivity and innovation. With the proliferation of devices and platforms, it's becoming increasingly important for Apple to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to connectivity options. The removal of the headphone jack on newer iPhone models has been met with both excitement and frustration, but one Chinese company is taking steps to address this issue.

Lightning to Headphone Adapters: A Potential Solution

A Chinese company has developed a series of lightning to headphone adapters that could potentially solve the problem of deleting the 3.5mm headphone jack on newer iPhone models. The adapters feature controls for volume up and down, as well as play/pause functions, making them an attractive option for those who still want to use their headphones with their devices. While these adapters are not yet available for purchase, they demonstrate a willingness among companies to adapt to changing user needs.

The Benefits of Digital Audio

One of the key advantages of using lightning ports is the ability to take advantage of digital audio outputs. This allows users to bypass the need for analog-to-digital conversion, resulting in higher quality sound and reduced distortion. The inclusion of these adapters would provide a convenient solution for those who want to upgrade their listening experience without having to invest in new hardware.

Using Digital Audio with Home Components

For those who prefer to use their audio equipment at home, using digital audio outputs can be a game-changer. By connecting your iPhone or other devices directly to your amplifier or receiver, you can take full advantage of the improved sound quality and reduce noise and distortion. The use of adapters like the one described earlier would provide a convenient way to do so.

A Word from Mikey Campbell

We had the opportunity to speak with Mikey Campbell, who shared his thoughts on the latest developments in audio technology. With his extensive experience in the field, Mikey offered valuable insights into the importance of staying up-to-date with the latest advancements in sound quality and connectivity. His enthusiasm for new technologies is contagious, and we're excited to see where this journey takes us.

Conclusion

As we move forward in an ever-changing technological landscape, it's clear that Apple is committed to pushing the boundaries of what's possible. From the introduction of iOS 8 to the development of innovative adapters like those described earlier, it's evident that the company is dedicated to creating a better user experience. Whether you're a seasoned tech enthusiast or just starting to explore the world of digital audio, there's never been a more exciting time to be alive.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to this the 71st episode of the Apple Insider podcast I'm your host Victor marks and joining me today is Jason Johnson who is the CEO of August now August makes a a doorbell camera a smart keypad and a Smart Lock and the Smart Lock uh is now homekit compatible so Jason why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and about August well Victor thanks for having me on so uh yeah so uh I'm the CEO and co-founder uh of August home um august.com as as our address and my co-founder is Eve Bahar uh a well-known product designer and he and I started the company about 3 years ago with a uh with a goal to change the way people access the home um people as well as goods and services and we can talk about that a little later but um uh we have four products now on the market and uh and are are really having a great time uh changing the way that we get into our homes cool now tell me I mean this this sort of fits Under The Heading of Internet of things and we used to call it connected home and before that we called it home automation so so so just tell our listeners a little bit about this space and and what's going on in this space that they should know about it yeah so the Internet of Things is is a is a term in fact a friend of mine came up with it a number of years ago um and he was really referring to the idea of adding intelligence and and connectivity to uh everyday objects and at the time they were really focused on on uh adding sensors um tags to Consumer packaged Goods being able to track uh packages as they move through Logistics um but we borrowed it in in in the uh particularly in the consumer World in consumer electronics we have this wave of Internet of Things devices that that several of us are are making uh for consumers to use uh you know particularly in the home and the the idea being that um things that traditionally were not um very intelligent or sophisticated such as a door block which really hasn't changed for a couple hundred years um you know we add we add radios we add intelligence uh computing power to the to that device as well as the doorbell and of course we hear about other devices like thermostats and lights and you know really all the systems in the home uh are becoming more and more intelligent so where where does August fit into that world well you know we chose to to focus on a very particular part of the home um really the the the entry ways into the home and uh why we chose to focus on that was was both my co-founder and I had had had challenges of giving access to uh to people in the past we we talked about how we both had house cleaners that we had given a a key to um you know a traditional Metal Key um but later when uh in the case of mine my housekeeper moved moved far moved away I never got that key back and so I had to make a decision do I do I you know do I just say hey I'm sure that key is is in a safe place and I don't have to worry about my home ever being access without my knowing or do I change the lock or have a locksmith come and Rey the lock and we thought that's really that's really a you know not the the ideal way to manage access to the home and so we sought out to build products that could really solve that that problem so that leads me to my next question which is is who is your ideal consumer who's this for well we've uh you know we've definitely found that um those people who are who are largely responsible for um the day-to-day activities around the house um call them the Homemaker um uh the person who's really responsible for um coordinating with house cleaners or dog walkers or let's say you have relatives or friends coming for the weekend and you need to give them a key uh it's that person that that often has to you know juggle um making sure that there's a key under a mat or or behind a flower pot or or going and making copies of keys at you know at Home Depot um that person we've we really we've really helped them to uh to really manage access to the home more easily and we've had some some great successes now with also some some service providers that are also partnering with us um from Airbnb which which does uh vacation rentals to uh Sears Home Services which um you can you can use what we call August access um to give Sears uh the ability to come to your home and repair appliances or install appliances without you having to be there without you having to wait you know in that 4-Hour window for that person to arrive cool you know I uh I feel like some of those examples aren't necessarily things you do every day that uh that there're specific problems you know it's um for the most part we aren't renting our house out to our BNB guest or we aren't having cleaners come all the time but uh I can definitely see where you're worried about that access and either having to give up your whole day to wait around or you know do you worry about that key that's out there somewhere I I can see how that solves the problem m so what did you have on your door before you had an August cuz I presume you have your own product on your door yeah I do I do um um so I had a I had a very normal um deadbolt lock you know it's technically called a single cylinder deadbolt uh in fact it was a it was a very inexpensive one that I bought on on Costco.com for $30 like like eight years ago and um um the uh you know the uh the neat thing about it is is that lock is actually still on my door um because the August Smart Lock actually attaches to your existing lock um the best way to think of August it's like a it's like a large hockey puck um maybe two hockey pucks stacked together um uh if you will a robot that you attach on the inside of your door to your existing lock and then and then using using your your smartphone you can control that robot to lock and unlock the door for you uh either when you're in front of the door or if you are you know if you are remote and you have the remote access capability um you can do that remotely and um and so the the old lock that I that I I put on there actually eight years ago was still on there and it works just fine so it sounds like you didn't end up rekeying the lock or or worrying too much about that key that's out there in the world no no I uh I I I've been pretty safe about uh about um giving out keys to uh to my to the current lock on the door so for for my own use what we've had here at my house is uh about 15 years ago 16 years ago we bought a a keypad lock and it was maybe $80 but it was a dumb keypad lock it didn't have any radio connectivity it didn't have anything else with a key fob it just had push buttons that would open the deadbolt MH and it also had a single cylinder key for the front of it and we used that for a long time and I I decided that well it was cool I I and I liked the idea of not carrying Keys around and just using the combination I I wanted to be able to use the phone and tell whether or not I'd locked things or not because it didn't automatically lock and so that's where we started exploring in my house things like August and and some of your competitors and um my my problem and well the curse of living with me is that I'll change these things and then leave for a trip and leave my wife my long-suffering wife to experience to figure out how to use the thing when my absence and so I have text messages from her saying it would sure be nice if I could figure out how to get into my own home right right yeah it's important when you develop these Technologies for the home that um you think about that situation in fact one of one of our one of our advisers um uh Nicholas Negron the founder of MIT media lab one of the early pieces of advice he gave Eve and me was um whatever you whatever systems whatever devices you make you have to make sure that it doesn't take away from the existing experience in other words your lock should work just like it did before right regardless of whether the August Smart Lock is working whether whether the internet is working right whether there's power to the house right it should still work just like a normal lock same thing with our doorbell camera even if the Wi-Fi is down even if if uh if if our software you know uh fails you would press that doorbell button your doorbell chimes inside the house should still ring and always ring 100% of the time and and that's the that's that is critical especially when you when you have people that you live with um you don't want to make them necessarily change their their behavior at least not right away so as as as mentioned a moment ago you can still use a key um and uh uh in fact I probably should admit this but my wife actually does does carry a key um on her key she she drives so she has a car and and and so she has she has that key that she could use if she ever had to as a backup me I don't have a car I don't drive um so I don't all I carry is my is my is my iPhone and uh I like that freedom yeah I I carry one key on my key ring and that is the key for the car and uh when when this happened when my wife texted me this with the the Angry Emoji um I was able to use August lock and August connect to be able to unlock the door remotely for her oh great so that was actually a success and thank you for that that's good to hear um of course there was the time where I I'd installed the the new version of iOS and uh had to reset my app and reset my app password and wasn't able to get into the August block I had to reinstall the app in the driveway and then re get into the you know resign into the app to be able to unlock the door so I was kind of delayed about 10 minutes getting into my house from the airport yeah and that you know with with we use two- Factor authentication as as as you know full well you know it can take a few minutes to to do that process right to to sign in and uh you know hopefully you don't do that very often um I think I haven't done it for the past year had to resign into the app but uh but yeah we we air on the side of of of high security and and you know a little bit of inconvenience there um um so sorry about you being laay there a balancing act right indeed it is when it comes to you know your home um you know I'm I'm a family man and you know keeping my family safe is is is you know if not my highest priority one of my highest priorities and and uh I wouldn't put a product like this on my home if I didn't trust that that that the company that made it went to extreme lengths to make sure it was very secure yeah well I'm I'm hoping that when I install the keypad that will speed up my entry even if I don't have the app going and uh yes that is a nice nice little Bluetooth accessory to the lock I uh uh I don't like to run with my phone I like to just you know just run free without anything in my hands and uh it's nice to come back from a run and type in my my personal code into the keypad and have it unlock the door let me let me ask is there a length limit on the number of digits for that code uh yeah it's it's it's you can do between four and six digits and uh and and the great thing is is you you know you you can create a unique uh pin for each person and in fact in the activity logs of the app you can see exactly when those individual people you gave that code to um when they when they when they entered uh the house um so uh yeah you can you can create your own pin or there's also a little autogenerated feature in the app that does it for you if you prefer cool now the the new version of the lock is homekit compatible indeed yes it is so if I have the app installed but haven't signed into it is it possible for me to use homekit to open the door with Siri um if you let's see if you have the app on your on your iOS device and you're not signed into the app can you use Siri I know it's a difficult question it's a it's a weird one um I think you can actually yes um um once you once you set up the homekit feature on the August Smart Lock and you associate it with your with your Apple ID um then um then Siri can control the lock and in fact other applications can as well um I have I have a couple of of homekit compatible apps on my phone that um Can discover the Smart Lock and control it what are your favorite aggregator apps you know I uh um yeah I have to go right to if right if is my is my favorite you know I I do lots of if recipes and I control a lot of things from if and I think it's cool that they made that little that little do app that that makes things really fast and easy so um you know I use that um uh I have I have Inson throughout my house which um some of your listeners might not be familiar with it's it's like an alternative to zigg and zwave so you have the Hub Pro setup for homekit I do yeah indeed I do and um you know I installed these inston light switches about 8 years ago and um um and the great thing was is that eight years ago these things these things are fairly old at8 years but the day that I set up that that that Hub Pro uh I suddenly had the ability to control all my lights throughout my house using Siri uh and that was pretty cool yeah and I noticed in the inston app that their symbol for a door lock is the August lock indeed it is yeah feel good about that one it it was fun to that when I was setting up my My Hub that wasn't some pre-arranged partnership that was just something they did no that was just something they did it was a nice little nice little surprise very cool so um what what other devices do you have in your network besides the the inston switches for the lamps um so I for inst and mainly I I it's all lighting um um and then and then I have I'm sure like yourself I have a lot of technology in my house have lot of devices and systems that are intelligent and and I use I use um I use Alexa with with my I I have several echoes in my house and I I control a lot of those with with Echo as well I can't find the fact did you hear that it just it just triggered Alexa when I when I I said that that's pretty funny so you you have the inst on lights do you have um do you have any the ceiling fans or thermostats um I have a nest thermostat which which uh was really delightful the day that I was able to control that using Alexa um because you know it's not always convenient to go to that hallway where that what the thermostat is to control it and uh it's it's nice to be able to to change the temperature with your voice so what is what are some of the if recipes the if recipes that people should use with the Smart Lock well the um you know the main thing that that that that we we we just announced um um yesterday the if integration and the main thing that we sought to do was uh to enable you to um have August be a trigger for for for other events activities in the home um that is when you say you come home and you unlock the door um using August um you can have say your lights turn on so I I have I mentioned my inston lights I also have Phillips Hue Lights um and other lights that work on if can be turned on uh automatically as you unlock the door you could also turn up the temperature um you can um you can really trigger any any systems in the house um uh another one I do is I have it log um on uh on on a it's kind of funny on a on a Google Document it logs all of the activity um just a fun way to capture all that information yeah I have automatic which is the uh the OBD2 reader um send all of my driving logs to a spreadsheet yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's a fun way to capture all that and uh so um uh so entering the home um and triggering things but Al as you leave the home and you lock the door you can have it automatically turn off your lights turn down the thermostat um one of my favorites um uh is the the GE oven um so we don't have a GE oven but I'm I'm thinking about buying one because if you're leaving the house you lock the door you can have if uh turn off your GE oven in case you left it on which we have done multiple times in at our house so um it would be it be nice to have that but one of the problems that I have with these kinds of recipes and and one of the things that concerns me about them is that you know you and I we don't live alone right we have families so when I leave the house and it turns off the lights have I just turned or sets the temperature down have I just turned off the lights and thermostat on people that are still in the house it's a great question in fact um it's one that um we spent time thinking about um as we you know people have been asking for us to do an if uh uh an if integration for quite some time and and we thought through it for quite a while before we did it and one of the things we wanted to solve was was this and and the way that we've approached it is um when you create your if recipe using August um you can actually um select the individual person um and and whether or not they are able to um have that specific event be tied to that person right so um for example in my household um my wife and I have a certain you know pattern in which I'm generally the last one to leave the house right so I know that I can have all the systems in the house shut off when I lock the door when I leave um and you know it's not going to turn off the lights on her or turn down the temperature on her I know she's always generally gone um but if it was the opposite if if every time she locked the door um then I might be you know I might be in the shower and all of a lights went off that would not be good um so it's it's nice to have that ability to choose on an individual level um when those triggers occur so you have to think through a little bit what uh what the recipes are and who they're for and and using those those personal IDs that You' set up yeah and I think when you use if you you should you should always think through these things and that's you know that's it's the beauty of if is you can you can do it's very powerful right you can do a lot of really fancy recipes um but yeah you want to think through you know how is this going to work in in daily life and uh make sure that it's it's adding to your life and it's making your life more convenient and comfortable and and not not adding stress not adding you know more something you have to maintain yeah my my personal wish and they'll never do it but my personal wish is that if would uh would add one more conditional to the recipes you know currently it's the if this then that kind of thing and it's very hardcore one conditional one result mhm and you know we we had the uh the weimo sensors that had the uh the motion detection yes and so if I could do the conditional if I've locked the door and there's still motion in the house don't turn on the lights you know don't don't change everything right right yeah just be that much more aware of stuff yeah and and this is this is some of the things that um I think uh you know Nest is is is seeking to do with with their Works withth Nest program right they're they're seeking to leverage um lots of sensors in the home that can detect motion right because because they have that capability with their with their thermostat and with their smoke detectors and and and and and I'm with you I think having the ability to to have more intelligence in the in the process um so you can you can hopefully reduce you know false positives or or false negatives so you August works with homekit works with Nest works with Alexa works with if what's what's your view of all of these competing things well you know I think that they're you know they're all great they're all great systems and we're we're we're honored to be working with um with uh some of the companies you you mentioned and um uh it's you know it's made our product you know more more featur um uh people who have those systems in their homes uh we also hope that you know that we also make their platforms more more interesting more valuable um it's you know it's it's great that we are seeing a you know movement towards people being able to buy the best what we call Point Solutions and not being forced to buy all of the all of the things on a platform right um you know once upon a time you know you had to buy a home system that came from one vendor and there was only one option for a thermostat and one option for a a music controller Etc or light controller you us to have to go all in on Inson or all in on control 4 or one of those things indeed indeed it's great that we can now pick pick and choose the best best of breed and uh and they talk to each other and and and and uh we have systems like if and works with nest and and homekit that help us do that is there one that you you find that you favor when you're using things personally you know I use all of them actually um uh and you know each has their own benefits you know I have um uh I have different devices in different rims of the house and so it you know each has its own unique you know purpose um but I I I got to I'm really enjoying voice control I'm really enjoying the ability um to be able to to use my voice and uh and control the systems of my house um it's uh it's just it's fun being able to choose on a given day which which name am i g to am I going to say which trigger word am I going to say to to control something so this is one of the questions that I end up answering a lot and I I end up talking about a lot is is how does a person start what's the first thing that someone should get and how should they grow from there if they're interested in this well you know I think that it's it's it's good to to look at what is what are what are those things that are really going to change like your daily life and make your make your life EAS we're all we're all really busy we all have a lot of Demands on our time on our on our on our on our our minds right and you know having to maintain one more thing for the home you know um frankly I don't think any of us need you know need more more burden there so I think we should choose carefully those those those devices which are are definitely going to make us um you know feel more safe more more comfortable um um perhaps save you know save money I think I think I think a smart thermostat is a great way to to save on Heating and Cooling bills um obviously I think that a I think that a Smart Lock um is a is is is much safer than giving out metal keys which we talked about earlier can be uh could also be just lost right you can always just you know misplace one or or a you if you uh um U you know if you have if you have an issue of of of of one in your car something your car gets broken into then you got to worry about whether somebody got a hold of that key um so those you know those those systems in the house that make you more uh feel more safe more comfortable and perhaps save you money very cool and and so of the three August products that I'm holding here in my hands the keypad the lock and the camera what do you think should be a person's first entry into August well um so our two Flagship products the lock and the and the doorbell camera um were both designed to be installed in about about 10 minutes um by by really anyone and um with the lock we have about a 98% self-installation rate which we think is one of the highest uh you know self-installation rates for a for a technology like this for the home um so it's really easy um and I really can't I can't overstate um how easy it is so um I highly recommend the lock um uh doorbell camera of course is great um whether you have the lock or not it's a it's great to be able to see and speak to your visitors at your door um but if you have both um as uh as I hope you'll soon uh enjoy when you set up yours you know you can you can see and speak to that person and you can let them in your house and uh in fact I do that I I will I will let UPS or FedEx uh uh I'll see them at my door I'll be at my office I'll be traveling I'll say hey I'm going to unlock the door for you just go and put that package inside the door and close it and uh I watch him drop the package he closes the door he waves to me and I I lock the door and uh it's a it's great to not have to get that little sticky note on the door when I get back from from from travels about that package I have to go stand in line at the uh at UPS or FedEx and and and pick up do you have internal cameras inside your house as well I do I do I have I have a nest cam um and uh um and it's also pointed at my front door and uh and and part of our partnership with Nest was we were one of the first that they gave us access to their API in the nestcam so that if you have a nestcam and you and you connect it to August um when your door is unlocked it it it begins recording immediately um and it will um it will give us a little 10-second uh video of that which goes right into your August log feed so you can see all the activity the door unlocking and you see you see the August doorbell cam video you see the nestcam video and you get that nice full picture of what's happening around your door so when when you allow the UPS fell to drop the package you can see that he just dropped the package and didn't do anything else that's right I can see that MH very cool so where can people purchase these products so we're we're in many many retail stores um um um all the Best Buy stores um um uh I believe this week um it's being rolled out in Target stores across the country and um uh of course Amazon and and august.com very cool well thank you Jason I really appreciate you being here yeah my pleasure V nice talking to you cool I'm just going to go ahead and and stop the recording there Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to Consumers eliminating commission-driven inflated prices its award-winning sleep surface was developed in-house has a Sleek design and is delivered in a small how did they do that sized box in addition to the mattress Casper also delivers an Adaptive pillow and soft breathable sheets and its quality an in-house team of Engineers spent thousands of hours developing the Casper and it combines springy latex and supportive memory foams for a sleep surface that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce and its breathable design keeps you cool and helps you regulate your temperature throughout the night mattresses are expensive you know if you go to a mattress place they're ridiculous and they cost over 1,500 bucks but Casper mattresses cost 500 for a twin-sized mattress or 600 for a twin XL 750 for a full 850 for a queen and 950 for a king and when you go to a mattress shop it's it's ridiculous right you go in they have a ton of mattresses all around and you're in your clothes and you try and lie down on a mattress in the shop for a few minutes and figure out if it's going to be comfortable or not and it stinks buying a Casper mattress is risk-free they offer free delivery and free returns with a 100 night inhome trial and so you go ahead and get it you sleep on it for 90 nights 100 nights and if you don't like it they'll pick it back up and refund you everything they understand the importance of sleeping on a mattress before you commit especially considering that you're going to spend a third of your life sleeping on it Time magazine named it one of the best inventiones of 2015 and right now it's the most awarded mattress of the decade and they have free shipping and returns in US and Canada you can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com inssider and using Insider as the code this is going to be a great night's sleep now to the rest of our show Mikey Mikey Campbell editor at appleinsider.com is joining us to talk about the latest and rumors yep not much this week not much well last time we talked about a MacBook Pro with the idea of having an OLED touch bar across where the function keys go indeed what's developed on that rumor since that time well quite fortuitously a uh supposed chassis or um the uh the subframe with with the you know the the the big aluminum part on the top the keyboard the top case uh yeah which Apple calls the unibody chassis since it attaches everything to it yes um so that supposedly leaked a uh 13in version um that has space at the top for you guest it an OLED touch bar so basically it's the Cordy keyboard cutouts right for those keys and instead of the function key row it's just a uh it's just blank aluminum with a slot on one side and then on the right side it has a what looks like a like a little indention where you could put a IND indentation where a recess for a connector isn't it yeah perhaps a connector although I was uh looking at it um the other day and uh kind of comparing it with Ming chees note about Touch ID and I was thinking that maybe that little bit of extra depth is is going to be home for a Mac version of touch ID well if you look at your current keyboard and you look at this image which is on our website at appleinsider.com that space is the space just north of the delete key which is traditionally where the power button located yes and and so the question is what do you do with power what do you do with with Touch ID exactly right logical place to put it so uh if they do incorporate it touch ID that is I would guess that they would um make it part of the OLED bar since that seems like the most uh space efficient way to design something like that I don't I don't think they would have it kind of like you know the uh the old uh ThinkPad oh the little bar that you swipe your fingerprint across scanner I don't think they would do something like that um so integrating it into the uh OLED bar would be the way to go I think I mean it could it could just be um that it's not going to be a standalone at all right so what I'm saying is they would integrate it as part of the OLED touch bar so it won't be like it own separate thing which would be cool yeah and also uh I mean the the chassis didn't really show too much it's kind of difficult to glean anything from laptop leaks so uh it it did however it showed a few things right let's let's cover the ports here right yeah it it had a four ports so that were shaped like um USBC style uh or shaped for USBC style plugs and that also lines up with the uh with quo note that um Apple's going to implement USBC and Thunderbolt 3 so there are no Thunderbolt ports or Thunderbolt 2 ports there are no Thunderbolt shaped ports as we usually understand them so it could suggest that indeed Thunderbolt 3 will be included okay the headphone jack moved to the right side yeah where is the mag safe connector on this thing there is none so whoa so that means that Apple's going to probably go USBC all the way and use the uh the 3.1 to uh Power it which I don't know if I I don't know if I like that or not well you'll just end up going with the uh you know the third party Griffin magnetic adapter for USBC well aside from the fact that uh mag safe is G or will be gone supposedly from this laptop if this laptop gets made yeah it it also eats up a port I don't I usually use my laptop plugged in so that means I'll be using it with one port occupied at all times for power not no bueno well use one of the many hubs I could but I don't want to buy a hub get get a dock station I don't want a dock I just want the computer as it has been for the past I don't know how many decades I get it they're trying to slim things down and make it you know small and do away with ports altogether but I do like having the option to expand whenever I want to without buying something else or attaching something to my computer right but but Mikey let's be clear if this laptop gets made you're going to buy one aren't you yeah okay look I'm just saying that this is what I would like but I will also buy it okay now what what should our listeners look out for as this rumor develops what what should they be paying attention to what's beneficial to them here um well we won't really know until uh they start the logic boards and all that the good stuff starts leaking out um I would look for the MacBook style battery cells could give us a clue as to uh what kind of life this thing is going to provide um you mean the battery cells that are layered that fill every inch every ounce of space occupiable inside the case yeah it's interesting though because this uh this chassis image looks like apple didn't really slim down on the current you as far as um making it thinner it's not really height of the case is still the same it looks like it uh I know you know looking at this I would say that it is slimmer because look at around the headphone Port you got remember well I'm looking at my uh 15in right now and I'm looking at my 15in as well and the amount of space above and below the headphone port on mine is significantly more than the one in this picture I don't really see that difference it's the the headphone Port is pretty much right up against the bottom and top of the case and on mine I've got a good 2 mm on either side of it really yeah hold on I can get out my calipers and measure this if you like oh sorry I've got some calipers around here yeah mine I don't know yeah measure it I guess it's just it's about a millimeter and a half on either side of the headphone Port top and bottom to the edge of the case just looking at there and and on this picture from from our our site it doesn't appear to be one much much Slimmer so millimeter Slimmer uh yeah looking like a half mil on each side well it would be good if they don't bow out the bottom you know how they uh have the yeah the the bottom tends to uh come in at an angle to to make it deeper in the center of the laptop they do away with that then it would be much Slimmer although I don't see any exhaust ports do you the exhaust ports traditionally on these laptops are in the screen hinge yeah no uh for the intake I mean the intake on the that's on the uh MacBook is you know the gills on the sides oh there they are yes there are six on this 15in so they're integrated with the top um case don't see that here although it's not really a clear picture oh or they can be integrated in the bottom now could be or they might do away with it you don't know know but yeah this this picture isn't really good at showing us that because this picture doesn't show us the bottom side view of what I'm worried about is a thermal efficiency and it once you go slim like this it's really hard to manage thermals if you want to you know put a decently Speedy processor in there and apple historically has had problems with thermal management and has historically had to overcome those problems you know we can go back the 12 and uh or or the original white MacBooks that had issues with with too much thermal paste but you know they they inevitably overcome these problems well it's not so much the it's not I it's a two different issues thermal paste is a production issue this they could run right but the 12in Mac the 12-in power book didn't have the thermal paste issue it just had a heat management issue right but that was a lot thicker so how are they going to compensate for this and still had that problem I don't know I I I fear that they're going to use a highly efficient processor which is is fine but on a pro model I don't know if it's a compromise or not well at this time there's so much we don't accurately know we don't know if this is a real model we don't know if this what range of the model the what what label within the product range this product would even have so we keep calling it a MacBook Pro just because it looks similar to assuming that this is to be the thing I mean this is the assumption that we're taking right now which is what we're discussing I don't know if it is or not uh it looks I mean it could really be anything considering the knockoffs that are coming out um I guess uh it does the the One giveaway I guess or not giveaway but supporting it is the um the mouse the trackpad which looks like it was similar to Apple's uh infrastruct or you know it's got cutouts that look like they belong with the force touch for the force touch stuff so it looks similar to that although I mean who knows it could be it could be an Asus for all we know we just don't know let's talk about Apple displays what about that Apple hasn't issued a display in a long time do do you have an Apple display do you have a thunderbolt display I I last Apple display I bought was a cinema display for my it's been a while G5 I believe wow it's been a long time it's been a long time since there's been a recent display and it's kind of an embarrassment to the Apple lineup that that the display has lay phow for so long because everything else has updated to retina displays except the MacBook Air and the Thunderbolt display right right so the rumor is that Apple's going to make a thunderbolt display and that it's going to be 5K indeed like the iMac 5K so because you said it's like the iMac does it make sense that this is possible is this something they could just grab the same panel and you horned in and call today yeah well I mean no they can't just do that they're going to need something to drive it which is why the rumor the rumor is that they're going to integrate a GPU into it so say you could uh theoretically connect your I don't know 2013 MacBook Air and be fine driving the 5K your good old 12-in MacBook so I mean that's the that's the theory and it's been floated around by a lot of different sources I think you mentioned one from Twitter we both saw a couple days ago yeah well I mean why why is this even plausible you know is it because that Thunderbolt can export support external graphics cards or yes I mean the ever since the Thunderbolt display was uh announced people were just kind of speculating that Apple would uh follow it up with a GPU model or one that would have GPU in it because they specifically mentioned that fact that uh uh Thunderbolt does support external gpus and just people just kind of put two and two together and said oh well one day the Thunderbolt display is going to going to have this really rocking GPU inside and it'll be outrageous pixel densities and that just hasn't just hasn't happened but the rumor just won't die yeah so this past week a fellow by the name of Steven fosket on Twitter tweeted at uh at John Gruber and said what if Apple put the graphics card in the monitor it would work with most all Thunderbolt Max wouldn't require two cables and this is this is how rumors start right sometimes we get rumors from analysts like M quo sometimes we get information from let's just call them sources people who we know or or have reason to trust who have information on the matter and sometimes they're just speculation that's not not unreasonable speculation but speculation right so so what happened after foset tweeted this and then guber said that he'd place money betting on it and uh you know it it it sort of became a thing well it just gained momentum mainstream media of course and you know it's a it's kind of a I mean the the display itself has a following right people like the look of the display it matches the other products except it's uh shorter than the than the iMac right well the iMac has a well remember the the whole thing about why why Apple didn't make the stand a bit taller so it would be in line so people could run an iMac and the display at the same time it looks weird because it's like just an inch shorter I think anyway well you get one of those 12 South products and stack it on it to make it fit yeah you put a drive underneath or something but but uh yeah I mean it just caught gain traction with the tech community and then I don't know just kind of escalated from there right so then then citing unnamed sources like we just said imore reported that a thunderbolt connected monitor with a 5k display is not happening at the keynot or anytime in the immediate future mhm yeah I mean I don't know what do you think are the chances that they're going to release it I mean it's been so long they might I feel like they maybe didn't abandon it that product but they just it's not something that they need to Market well so here here's the thing I was discussing with Shane a couple of weeks back right I I wanted a new Mac Mini and Shane told me I was nuts to expect one that there never will be one that Apple's plan is that you buy a laptop and use a display and Apple has sold the uh the Sharp LED monitor which is uh discontinued right so they'll pick a different monitor to buy in that's not the sharp one and uh and use that now it's interesting just because Sharp's business got bought by foxcon I believe and foxcon has a great working relationship with Apple for products like well your iPhone so it's entirely possible that down the road there could be a a foxcon made product for Apple that's based on the Shar remember that Apple that's me starting a rumor don't take it seriously also was actually an investor in sharp in their um uh God what anyway in their latest uh LED facility their plant they were said to be a quiet a silent investor in that so um that that plant was feeding um portable display portable device displays so but was also turning out TVs when Shar was still making them so Apple already had an interest in in sharp uh for a few years um and we didn't see we didn't see a display come out during that time so I don't know how how much stock I'd put in uh seeing one from foxcon sure it's it's not necessarily possible but the the notion is that Apple will just at least pick another supplier to sell monitors whether they pick up you know some some future foxcon product or they just Source another monitor that's existing in quality enough yeah it's it's been their thing to just take the raw display and add their own uh controller and stuff on it and just maybe a few additions right but they can resell someone else's just as easily at this point and especially if they're focused on selling more phones selling more iPads and selling more laptops it's weird because they're streamlining their lineup while at the same time bloating it out with relative ly similar models like a right the lineup is elastic at this point you know they're they're shrinking it in some ways while growing it weirdly in others I don't know um I don't I I displays were never their thing I mean they've they've always had good displays but they were priced out of the market for a lot of uh you know just casual consumers they had well they they existed for the design so that the display could match remember the uh the calibrated displays that they used to sell with the um the early Max as an option no think they were maybe Sony displays I don't remember but there were this was the day when flat panels This is like a this was like the big what what what year are you in maybe the '90s okay so Stone Age you could buy a Sony that was calibrated to match a a preg3 yeah Power Mac none of that stuff matters I mean they have let's let's if you're going to bring up dead history bring up the Power Mac G3 with the giant uh Trinitron tube monitor dressed in in blueberry and white frosted plastic that matched right or or bring up the cinema display that was a 4x3 ratio flat panel that matched the uh the the Mystic and the the the graphite Power Max that was a nice display right with the pin stripes in the display I have that one yeah or or even after that there was the uh the the white frosted one with the ADC connector and then yeah and and then then you get to the aluminum ones with the ADC connector and then the DVI connector and then finally finally finally Thunderbolt right and in each one of those cases for the past I want to say about 15 or 16 years you're getting a display that is a nominally good display okay display but the point of it is that it matches your computer yeah but do they need to do that when you already have they've been pushing their laptops like nobody's business do you even hear them mention precisely so if you have the laptop do you even need to buy a display that matches your laptop although some people do not many anymore I that I with the with these high resolution displays that they're the res displays they're using now uh there are few scenarios in which I would be tempted to have a second display but everything on here fits on my on my desktop right now I don't it doesn't necessitate so so the only people that're making the dis the display for is the Mac Mini and the Power Mac or I mean and they haven't made a new one of those either or Imaging Professionals of course but those guys go make buy better displays anyhow so I'm not really sure if uh I don't they never broke out the numbers so we don't know exactly how popular these displays were or are I guess we uh can kind of tell since they haven't have they even updated their because they haven't broken out the numbers therefore have they even yeah well that and also popular have they even updated their informational web page for the uh display in like the past two years I don't think they have yeah but I would so that's that's the summary I would like to see one Thunderbolt displays not happening at WWDC yeah I I don't think I don't know I don't think that would be the time to announce it either if they were to announce it they've waited this long the developers conference has always been a weird place to announce Hardware anyway but displays come on I would I would expect them to if anything announce it as an accessory to the MacBook Pro or the MacBook more uh more more likely accessory to the MacBook right it just has I care about iPhones do you care about iPhones do you love your iPhone uh I wouldn't go that far but it's uh it's a big part of my life why don't you love your iPhone Mikey does it not love you back Siri doesn't love me Siri totally loves you she's an ice queen you neglect her so Apple's moving this is a rumor to a threeyear major iPhone cycle don't know if I agree with that okay first of all tell me what it means uh okay so an analyst well the Nik speculated that they were moving to a three-year revamp cycle which would mean that every 3 years instead of now you get the uh the iPhone 6 and you get iPhone 6s and then you get to redesign after two years right so so iPhone 6 is the introduction of a design 6s is refinement and then you get a new one so in three years it would just uh as as uh you might expect be spread out over three years so it would be a six so you get intro refinement refinement and then new one yes so their reasoning is that the the supposed seven which we don't know if it's going to be called seven or if the uh case leaks are even valid but if they are it is not uh in any way uh major redesign over the 6 or 6s it has a it has a little a tweaked antenna pattern and um potentially a dual yeah but that's more of a functional change the the seven itself is not supposed to be is supposed to have only one shooter so it would look very similar to the 6s um so no design change which suggests that it would be a three-year cycle for this for the uh six series body which is what and that's that's also based on the idea that the 2017 iPhone is supposed to make the switch to OLED and have a edgo edge display and a curved display and new vibration Motors capable of complex patterns and all all kinds of stuff right I'm a bit I don't think that coming off a year where iPhone sales contracted for the first time year-over-year and I'm dubious that apple is going to make such a drastic shift in their in their strategy after you mean you mean why draw it out and keep sales flat for longer people are despite I mean people are drawn to looks right it's it's unavoidable that people are going to be more interested in a redesigned iPhone than they are one that gets 3D touch and a faster Touch ID an increased Ram is harder to sell than you can't say this is you're going to have to explain why this is new rather than saying yes obviously this is new it's a totally different looking phone it's self-explanatory it's a different phone it's new so I don't know that they would lengthen that time period between um Tik toks you know I don't right but here's the problem is that it it takes nine months to a year for for product development or more and so by the time you you look at that kind of decision it's pretty much already been made by what the product cycles look like right you know you're you're already that far down the road on product development you can't suddenly say oh my goodness sales are flat we need to change something drastically Now you kind of have to go with what you've already been developing which is interesting though uh to consider that um I don't know if you remember in the Samsung trial uh they uh one of the pieces of uh evidence was a bunch of pictures of prototype iPhone mock-ups and these were obviously done uh you know at least a couple years before the original iPhone launched in 2007 right so some of those models look very similar to say the iPhone 4 sandwich and even the iPhone 5 with the chamford edges and I some could argue that the six is also based on one of these uh prototypes just a highly modified version of it so Apple might not be they're obviously you know testing and developing models in Johnny IV's lab but from what it it looks like it looks like they have been using these prototypes as a as a jumping off point that were developed maybe in 2005 or 2006 so it's not like we it's not I don't know it's just interesting to consider that yeah but they've had seven years to keep cranking more of those I'm sure there's thousands of Variations by now but it's interesting that they Haven they've uh that these 2005 or 2006 whatever models are the basis for what actually ships so who knows but what I think as far as the uh whatever they call the 2017 model which if they do a redesign I don't know if they're going to call it the 7s it seems like that would be a mistake um it seems to me that the Nik is kind of is kind of you know grabbing onto this um notion a little too tightly I think maybe Apple could be uh hurrying up production for the OLED model and bringing that up a year instead of you know waiting until 2018 for it out say so instead of going to a year model they're actually truncating the the 2-year which is for the iPhone 7 so they're they're shortening that um that life cycle and introducing the 2017 early and then they could go back to like a two-year who knows or they could so at least one every year I don't know for the US market this stuff is is almost becoming academic right it mattered a lot when we were on subsidized plans in two-year contract and you couldn't change phones until your contract was up but with with the various different upgrade options provided by the carriers where they you know they'll sometimes let you upgrade once a year or they'll let you upgrade as many times throughout the course of the year as you like or using things like the Apple upgrade plan where you can upgrade after a full year you know if with with these kinds of options it almost doesn't matter because the cost of upgrading is is really nil to the consumer yep right Apple can shorten that up that that plan by that that cycle by years as you suggest and I won't mind one bit of course they are looking for switchers now so they're looking for switchers and they're looking for upgraders so yeah I recently set up an iPhone SE and as I was going through the setup process one of the options present was would you like to bring over your information from Android and it guided you through the steps of getting the uh the the app for Android to pour your data over yeah so I mean that combined with the uh financing strategy that they're rolling out they rolled out last year they're really making a push for for growth and and not relying just solely on the appeal of uh a sexy sexy new enclosure or some uh exotic technology there there it's become more of a it's become more of a brand strategy for them to just kind of lock people in even even tighter into the iOS e ecosystem right and I think the play in 2017 is going to be towards people that would otherwise uh uh that would otherwise get a Galaxy right what is galaxies claim to fame well and as we were we were saying you know Google is taking a greater role in the design of the Nexus phone they want to have a greater control and greater influence over what that thing's going to look like and feel like um they're also getting a little bit tighter about how the uh the the third parties that ship Android are are doing on updates and going to be enforcing that a little better that obviously needs to be done the it it's just way too fragmented but I don't know if they should be taking too much of a heavy hand to design that's one of Android's strengths well for their Nexus they can because that's the one that they brand for I don't know I I don't like Google's design language at all do you not a big fan of the material design on your Ione it's just it feels messy to me it feels like skorm in the early iOS uh iOS like 3 uh I I kind of have to disagree with that I'm not sure how Google's apps in material design feel like scoris well it feels like along those L it does not obviously the same thing it's not just all Frills I I'm not seeing any felt pool table you're not seeing the uh stitched Corinthian leather I'm not seeing no I'm not seeing the rich Corinthian leather it has a it has animation that I feel are unnecessary it it's it's cool to have that you know user feedback but I think they could have implemented in a different way anyway I just not a fan just not a fan I'm also not a fan of Johnny IV's super Spartan uh UI that he introduced with um iOS 8 or S yeah mhm it's just too much don't you think not convinced I mean all of these things are are exploring new territory and the first time you do it you have to figure out what's right and wrong what does Stu and well they keep figuring out what works and what doesn't what's necessary Works they're figuring out a lot of things that don't work that too I don't know QA and um that Apple software has gone down well it's not QA it's it's adherence to the human interface guidelines but if you're going to go back to those you're going to be uh mighty lonely yeah they've uh a lot of people have strayed from the past yeah so speaking of iPhone 7 we've talked before about the phone adapter the the idea that there's not going to be a headphone jack on the thing and we published a report about a Chinese company that is marketing lightning to headphone adapters perhaps taking uh taking advantage of the situation being a little there look to be three models as I'm looking at them and uh one of them is just straight lightning to headphone with uh volume up down and a play control in the middle uh uh they all have those controls the other two models are different only in their color and that they're white and black but they have what looks to be a female lightning port on them so that you can charge while lening that would solve a lot of concerns that I have about deleting the 3.5 Jack yeah now these obviously aren't available for purchase yet they have no price listed there's no way to buy them but they are on a website they they are there and we are contacting them to try and see if we can get them of course it would be useless or next to useless for our phones unless you really love your um unless you really love your lightning set you say that but it's not useless or next to useless it's it's it could be considered redundant but it's certainly not useless uh the the thing that's worth noting when you start using lightning is that you've got a digital output and you can take advantage of putting in a better quality digital audio you're going to have let me get this straight you're going to have uh I do these offer Dax it doesn't say right well they don't say but you just know that if you're doing digital and you have to get to analog somehow they put if you do if you go this route with this specific Chinese product they're they've already taken care of that stage for you right because it it's going out to 3.5 yes they' they've included one so I guess would you buy one from say um like would I buy one from this supplier a decent audio manufacturer that offered like a lightning uh breakout and like a some sort of 24 bit Dack or something if they're going to put in the bur Brown Dack or they're going to put one of these other ones that is wellknown and and and good yes indeed well you know I've I've been doing this here at home with the uh the digital AV connector right and going digital AV to HDMI and then breaking out headphone off long until we get the Mint app the mint amp with uh with tubes for lightning you know they offered that to Neil I think oh it's great Neil was talking about his headphone collection and offered that and he refused yeah look nothing against vacuum tubes I love I love their warm sound wonderful but uh I don't need I don't need to take it with me it's well not necessarily but the um no I've been using uh aftermaster which we saw at CES and I actually had a a I've got a prototype of it here uh the current version of aftermaster has the headphone port on it and what they're doing is interesting they've got a they've got a Dack they've got an fire they've got a CPU in there and instead of just um adjusting EQ for example what they're doing is they're dynamically looking at the signal and fixing things like the uh the loudness Wars for example and they they really do a wonderful job of of making the audio listenable it sounds so much better it's incredible and and using that with the digital EV adapter and the headphones is wonderful I'll stick to my home components well using this with your your home components is really awesome too no it is I got to I got to get a sample for you you're Bally blown I'm I'm waiting for my my to be blown spew brain Parts well then we'll have to arrange that all over the furniture Mikey where can people find tter Mikey Campbell 81 and on Apple Insider this is Victor marks and if Mikey Campbell gets a portable tube amplifier embedded in himself next week we'll tell you all about it on the Apple Insider podcastyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to this the 71st episode of the Apple Insider podcast I'm your host Victor marks and joining me today is Jason Johnson who is the CEO of August now August makes a a doorbell camera a smart keypad and a Smart Lock and the Smart Lock uh is now homekit compatible so Jason why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and about August well Victor thanks for having me on so uh yeah so uh I'm the CEO and co-founder uh of August home um august.com as as our address and my co-founder is Eve Bahar uh a well-known product designer and he and I started the company about 3 years ago with a uh with a goal to change the way people access the home um people as well as goods and services and we can talk about that a little later but um uh we have four products now on the market and uh and are are really having a great time uh changing the way that we get into our homes cool now tell me I mean this this sort of fits Under The Heading of Internet of things and we used to call it connected home and before that we called it home automation so so so just tell our listeners a little bit about this space and and what's going on in this space that they should know about it yeah so the Internet of Things is is a is a term in fact a friend of mine came up with it a number of years ago um and he was really referring to the idea of adding intelligence and and connectivity to uh everyday objects and at the time they were really focused on on uh adding sensors um tags to Consumer packaged Goods being able to track uh packages as they move through Logistics um but we borrowed it in in in the uh particularly in the consumer World in consumer electronics we have this wave of Internet of Things devices that that several of us are are making uh for consumers to use uh you know particularly in the home and the the idea being that um things that traditionally were not um very intelligent or sophisticated such as a door block which really hasn't changed for a couple hundred years um you know we add we add radios we add intelligence uh computing power to the to that device as well as the doorbell and of course we hear about other devices like thermostats and lights and you know really all the systems in the home uh are becoming more and more intelligent so where where does August fit into that world well you know we chose to to focus on a very particular part of the home um really the the the entry ways into the home and uh why we chose to focus on that was was both my co-founder and I had had had challenges of giving access to uh to people in the past we we talked about how we both had house cleaners that we had given a a key to um you know a traditional Metal Key um but later when uh in the case of mine my housekeeper moved moved far moved away I never got that key back and so I had to make a decision do I do I you know do I just say hey I'm sure that key is is in a safe place and I don't have to worry about my home ever being access without my knowing or do I change the lock or have a locksmith come and Rey the lock and we thought that's really that's really a you know not the the ideal way to manage access to the home and so we sought out to build products that could really solve that that problem so that leads me to my next question which is is who is your ideal consumer who's this for well we've uh you know we've definitely found that um those people who are who are largely responsible for um the day-to-day activities around the house um call them the Homemaker um uh the person who's really responsible for um coordinating with house cleaners or dog walkers or let's say you have relatives or friends coming for the weekend and you need to give them a key uh it's that person that that often has to you know juggle um making sure that there's a key under a mat or or behind a flower pot or or going and making copies of keys at you know at Home Depot um that person we've we really we've really helped them to uh to really manage access to the home more easily and we've had some some great successes now with also some some service providers that are also partnering with us um from Airbnb which which does uh vacation rentals to uh Sears Home Services which um you can you can use what we call August access um to give Sears uh the ability to come to your home and repair appliances or install appliances without you having to be there without you having to wait you know in that 4-Hour window for that person to arrive cool you know I uh I feel like some of those examples aren't necessarily things you do every day that uh that there're specific problems you know it's um for the most part we aren't renting our house out to our BNB guest or we aren't having cleaners come all the time but uh I can definitely see where you're worried about that access and either having to give up your whole day to wait around or you know do you worry about that key that's out there somewhere I I can see how that solves the problem m so what did you have on your door before you had an August cuz I presume you have your own product on your door yeah I do I do um um so I had a I had a very normal um deadbolt lock you know it's technically called a single cylinder deadbolt uh in fact it was a it was a very inexpensive one that I bought on on Costco.com for $30 like like eight years ago and um um the uh you know the uh the neat thing about it is is that lock is actually still on my door um because the August Smart Lock actually attaches to your existing lock um the best way to think of August it's like a it's like a large hockey puck um maybe two hockey pucks stacked together um uh if you will a robot that you attach on the inside of your door to your existing lock and then and then using using your your smartphone you can control that robot to lock and unlock the door for you uh either when you're in front of the door or if you are you know if you are remote and you have the remote access capability um you can do that remotely and um and so the the old lock that I that I I put on there actually eight years ago was still on there and it works just fine so it sounds like you didn't end up rekeying the lock or or worrying too much about that key that's out there in the world no no I uh I I I've been pretty safe about uh about um giving out keys to uh to my to the current lock on the door so for for my own use what we've had here at my house is uh about 15 years ago 16 years ago we bought a a keypad lock and it was maybe $80 but it was a dumb keypad lock it didn't have any radio connectivity it didn't have anything else with a key fob it just had push buttons that would open the deadbolt MH and it also had a single cylinder key for the front of it and we used that for a long time and I I decided that well it was cool I I and I liked the idea of not carrying Keys around and just using the combination I I wanted to be able to use the phone and tell whether or not I'd locked things or not because it didn't automatically lock and so that's where we started exploring in my house things like August and and some of your competitors and um my my problem and well the curse of living with me is that I'll change these things and then leave for a trip and leave my wife my long-suffering wife to experience to figure out how to use the thing when my absence and so I have text messages from her saying it would sure be nice if I could figure out how to get into my own home right right yeah it's important when you develop these Technologies for the home that um you think about that situation in fact one of one of our one of our advisers um uh Nicholas Negron the founder of MIT media lab one of the early pieces of advice he gave Eve and me was um whatever you whatever systems whatever devices you make you have to make sure that it doesn't take away from the existing experience in other words your lock should work just like it did before right regardless of whether the August Smart Lock is working whether whether the internet is working right whether there's power to the house right it should still work just like a normal lock same thing with our doorbell camera even if the Wi-Fi is down even if if uh if if our software you know uh fails you would press that doorbell button your doorbell chimes inside the house should still ring and always ring 100% of the time and and that's the that's that is critical especially when you when you have people that you live with um you don't want to make them necessarily change their their behavior at least not right away so as as as mentioned a moment ago you can still use a key um and uh uh in fact I probably should admit this but my wife actually does does carry a key um on her key she she drives so she has a car and and and so she has she has that key that she could use if she ever had to as a backup me I don't have a car I don't drive um so I don't all I carry is my is my is my iPhone and uh I like that freedom yeah I I carry one key on my key ring and that is the key for the car and uh when when this happened when my wife texted me this with the the Angry Emoji um I was able to use August lock and August connect to be able to unlock the door remotely for her oh great so that was actually a success and thank you for that that's good to hear um of course there was the time where I I'd installed the the new version of iOS and uh had to reset my app and reset my app password and wasn't able to get into the August block I had to reinstall the app in the driveway and then re get into the you know resign into the app to be able to unlock the door so I was kind of delayed about 10 minutes getting into my house from the airport yeah and that you know with with we use two- Factor authentication as as as you know full well you know it can take a few minutes to to do that process right to to sign in and uh you know hopefully you don't do that very often um I think I haven't done it for the past year had to resign into the app but uh but yeah we we air on the side of of of high security and and you know a little bit of inconvenience there um um so sorry about you being laay there a balancing act right indeed it is when it comes to you know your home um you know I'm I'm a family man and you know keeping my family safe is is is you know if not my highest priority one of my highest priorities and and uh I wouldn't put a product like this on my home if I didn't trust that that that the company that made it went to extreme lengths to make sure it was very secure yeah well I'm I'm hoping that when I install the keypad that will speed up my entry even if I don't have the app going and uh yes that is a nice nice little Bluetooth accessory to the lock I uh uh I don't like to run with my phone I like to just you know just run free without anything in my hands and uh it's nice to come back from a run and type in my my personal code into the keypad and have it unlock the door let me let me ask is there a length limit on the number of digits for that code uh yeah it's it's it's you can do between four and six digits and uh and and the great thing is is you you know you you can create a unique uh pin for each person and in fact in the activity logs of the app you can see exactly when those individual people you gave that code to um when they when they when they entered uh the house um so uh yeah you can you can create your own pin or there's also a little autogenerated feature in the app that does it for you if you prefer cool now the the new version of the lock is homekit compatible indeed yes it is so if I have the app installed but haven't signed into it is it possible for me to use homekit to open the door with Siri um if you let's see if you have the app on your on your iOS device and you're not signed into the app can you use Siri I know it's a difficult question it's a it's a weird one um I think you can actually yes um um once you once you set up the homekit feature on the August Smart Lock and you associate it with your with your Apple ID um then um then Siri can control the lock and in fact other applications can as well um I have I have a couple of of homekit compatible apps on my phone that um Can discover the Smart Lock and control it what are your favorite aggregator apps you know I uh um yeah I have to go right to if right if is my is my favorite you know I I do lots of if recipes and I control a lot of things from if and I think it's cool that they made that little that little do app that that makes things really fast and easy so um you know I use that um uh I have I have Inson throughout my house which um some of your listeners might not be familiar with it's it's like an alternative to zigg and zwave so you have the Hub Pro setup for homekit I do yeah indeed I do and um you know I installed these inston light switches about 8 years ago and um um and the great thing was is that eight years ago these things these things are fairly old at8 years but the day that I set up that that that Hub Pro uh I suddenly had the ability to control all my lights throughout my house using Siri uh and that was pretty cool yeah and I noticed in the inston app that their symbol for a door lock is the August lock indeed it is yeah feel good about that one it it was fun to that when I was setting up my My Hub that wasn't some pre-arranged partnership that was just something they did no that was just something they did it was a nice little nice little surprise very cool so um what what other devices do you have in your network besides the the inston switches for the lamps um so I for inst and mainly I I it's all lighting um um and then and then I have I'm sure like yourself I have a lot of technology in my house have lot of devices and systems that are intelligent and and I use I use um I use Alexa with with my I I have several echoes in my house and I I control a lot of those with with Echo as well I can't find the fact did you hear that it just it just triggered Alexa when I when I I said that that's pretty funny so you you have the inst on lights do you have um do you have any the ceiling fans or thermostats um I have a nest thermostat which which uh was really delightful the day that I was able to control that using Alexa um because you know it's not always convenient to go to that hallway where that what the thermostat is to control it and uh it's it's nice to be able to to change the temperature with your voice so what is what are some of the if recipes the if recipes that people should use with the Smart Lock well the um you know the main thing that that that that we we we just announced um um yesterday the if integration and the main thing that we sought to do was uh to enable you to um have August be a trigger for for for other events activities in the home um that is when you say you come home and you unlock the door um using August um you can have say your lights turn on so I I have I mentioned my inston lights I also have Phillips Hue Lights um and other lights that work on if can be turned on uh automatically as you unlock the door you could also turn up the temperature um you can um you can really trigger any any systems in the house um uh another one I do is I have it log um on uh on on a it's kind of funny on a on a Google Document it logs all of the activity um just a fun way to capture all that information yeah I have automatic which is the uh the OBD2 reader um send all of my driving logs to a spreadsheet yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's a fun way to capture all that and uh so um uh so entering the home um and triggering things but Al as you leave the home and you lock the door you can have it automatically turn off your lights turn down the thermostat um one of my favorites um uh is the the GE oven um so we don't have a GE oven but I'm I'm thinking about buying one because if you're leaving the house you lock the door you can have if uh turn off your GE oven in case you left it on which we have done multiple times in at our house so um it would be it be nice to have that but one of the problems that I have with these kinds of recipes and and one of the things that concerns me about them is that you know you and I we don't live alone right we have families so when I leave the house and it turns off the lights have I just turned or sets the temperature down have I just turned off the lights and thermostat on people that are still in the house it's a great question in fact um it's one that um we spent time thinking about um as we you know people have been asking for us to do an if uh uh an if integration for quite some time and and we thought through it for quite a while before we did it and one of the things we wanted to solve was was this and and the way that we've approached it is um when you create your if recipe using August um you can actually um select the individual person um and and whether or not they are able to um have that specific event be tied to that person right so um for example in my household um my wife and I have a certain you know pattern in which I'm generally the last one to leave the house right so I know that I can have all the systems in the house shut off when I lock the door when I leave um and you know it's not going to turn off the lights on her or turn down the temperature on her I know she's always generally gone um but if it was the opposite if if every time she locked the door um then I might be you know I might be in the shower and all of a lights went off that would not be good um so it's it's nice to have that ability to choose on an individual level um when those triggers occur so you have to think through a little bit what uh what the recipes are and who they're for and and using those those personal IDs that You' set up yeah and I think when you use if you you should you should always think through these things and that's you know that's it's the beauty of if is you can you can do it's very powerful right you can do a lot of really fancy recipes um but yeah you want to think through you know how is this going to work in in daily life and uh make sure that it's it's adding to your life and it's making your life more convenient and comfortable and and not not adding stress not adding you know more something you have to maintain yeah my my personal wish and they'll never do it but my personal wish is that if would uh would add one more conditional to the recipes you know currently it's the if this then that kind of thing and it's very hardcore one conditional one result mhm and you know we we had the uh the weimo sensors that had the uh the motion detection yes and so if I could do the conditional if I've locked the door and there's still motion in the house don't turn on the lights you know don't don't change everything right right yeah just be that much more aware of stuff yeah and and this is this is some of the things that um I think uh you know Nest is is is seeking to do with with their Works withth Nest program right they're they're seeking to leverage um lots of sensors in the home that can detect motion right because because they have that capability with their with their thermostat and with their smoke detectors and and and and and I'm with you I think having the ability to to have more intelligence in the in the process um so you can you can hopefully reduce you know false positives or or false negatives so you August works with homekit works with Nest works with Alexa works with if what's what's your view of all of these competing things well you know I think that they're you know they're all great they're all great systems and we're we're we're honored to be working with um with uh some of the companies you you mentioned and um uh it's you know it's made our product you know more more featur um uh people who have those systems in their homes uh we also hope that you know that we also make their platforms more more interesting more valuable um it's you know it's it's great that we are seeing a you know movement towards people being able to buy the best what we call Point Solutions and not being forced to buy all of the all of the things on a platform right um you know once upon a time you know you had to buy a home system that came from one vendor and there was only one option for a thermostat and one option for a a music controller Etc or light controller you us to have to go all in on Inson or all in on control 4 or one of those things indeed indeed it's great that we can now pick pick and choose the best best of breed and uh and they talk to each other and and and and uh we have systems like if and works with nest and and homekit that help us do that is there one that you you find that you favor when you're using things personally you know I use all of them actually um uh and you know each has their own benefits you know I have um uh I have different devices in different rims of the house and so it you know each has its own unique you know purpose um but I I I got to I'm really enjoying voice control I'm really enjoying the ability um to be able to to use my voice and uh and control the systems of my house um it's uh it's just it's fun being able to choose on a given day which which name am i g to am I going to say which trigger word am I going to say to to control something so this is one of the questions that I end up answering a lot and I I end up talking about a lot is is how does a person start what's the first thing that someone should get and how should they grow from there if they're interested in this well you know I think that it's it's it's good to to look at what is what are what are those things that are really going to change like your daily life and make your make your life EAS we're all we're all really busy we all have a lot of Demands on our time on our on our on our on our our minds right and you know having to maintain one more thing for the home you know um frankly I don't think any of us need you know need more more burden there so I think we should choose carefully those those those devices which are are definitely going to make us um you know feel more safe more more comfortable um um perhaps save you know save money I think I think I think a smart thermostat is a great way to to save on Heating and Cooling bills um obviously I think that a I think that a Smart Lock um is a is is is much safer than giving out metal keys which we talked about earlier can be uh could also be just lost right you can always just you know misplace one or or a you if you uh um U you know if you have if you have an issue of of of of one in your car something your car gets broken into then you got to worry about whether somebody got a hold of that key um so those you know those those systems in the house that make you more uh feel more safe more comfortable and perhaps save you money very cool and and so of the three August products that I'm holding here in my hands the keypad the lock and the camera what do you think should be a person's first entry into August well um so our two Flagship products the lock and the and the doorbell camera um were both designed to be installed in about about 10 minutes um by by really anyone and um with the lock we have about a 98% self-installation rate which we think is one of the highest uh you know self-installation rates for a for a technology like this for the home um so it's really easy um and I really can't I can't overstate um how easy it is so um I highly recommend the lock um uh doorbell camera of course is great um whether you have the lock or not it's a it's great to be able to see and speak to your visitors at your door um but if you have both um as uh as I hope you'll soon uh enjoy when you set up yours you know you can you can see and speak to that person and you can let them in your house and uh in fact I do that I I will I will let UPS or FedEx uh uh I'll see them at my door I'll be at my office I'll be traveling I'll say hey I'm going to unlock the door for you just go and put that package inside the door and close it and uh I watch him drop the package he closes the door he waves to me and I I lock the door and uh it's a it's great to not have to get that little sticky note on the door when I get back from from from travels about that package I have to go stand in line at the uh at UPS or FedEx and and and pick up do you have internal cameras inside your house as well I do I do I have I have a nest cam um and uh um and it's also pointed at my front door and uh and and part of our partnership with Nest was we were one of the first that they gave us access to their API in the nestcam so that if you have a nestcam and you and you connect it to August um when your door is unlocked it it it begins recording immediately um and it will um it will give us a little 10-second uh video of that which goes right into your August log feed so you can see all the activity the door unlocking and you see you see the August doorbell cam video you see the nestcam video and you get that nice full picture of what's happening around your door so when when you allow the UPS fell to drop the package you can see that he just dropped the package and didn't do anything else that's right I can see that MH very cool so where can people purchase these products so we're we're in many many retail stores um um um all the Best Buy stores um um uh I believe this week um it's being rolled out in Target stores across the country and um uh of course Amazon and and august.com very cool well thank you Jason I really appreciate you being here yeah my pleasure V nice talking to you cool I'm just going to go ahead and and stop the recording there Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to Consumers eliminating commission-driven inflated prices its award-winning sleep surface was developed in-house has a Sleek design and is delivered in a small how did they do that sized box in addition to the mattress Casper also delivers an Adaptive pillow and soft breathable sheets and its quality an in-house team of Engineers spent thousands of hours developing the Casper and it combines springy latex and supportive memory foams for a sleep surface that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce and its breathable design keeps you cool and helps you regulate your temperature throughout the night mattresses are expensive you know if you go to a mattress place they're ridiculous and they cost over 1,500 bucks but Casper mattresses cost 500 for a twin-sized mattress or 600 for a twin XL 750 for a full 850 for a queen and 950 for a king and when you go to a mattress shop it's it's ridiculous right you go in they have a ton of mattresses all around and you're in your clothes and you try and lie down on a mattress in the shop for a few minutes and figure out if it's going to be comfortable or not and it stinks buying a Casper mattress is risk-free they offer free delivery and free returns with a 100 night inhome trial and so you go ahead and get it you sleep on it for 90 nights 100 nights and if you don't like it they'll pick it back up and refund you everything they understand the importance of sleeping on a mattress before you commit especially considering that you're going to spend a third of your life sleeping on it Time magazine named it one of the best inventiones of 2015 and right now it's the most awarded mattress of the decade and they have free shipping and returns in US and Canada you can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com inssider and using Insider as the code this is going to be a great night's sleep now to the rest of our show Mikey Mikey Campbell editor at appleinsider.com is joining us to talk about the latest and rumors yep not much this week not much well last time we talked about a MacBook Pro with the idea of having an OLED touch bar across where the function keys go indeed what's developed on that rumor since that time well quite fortuitously a uh supposed chassis or um the uh the subframe with with the you know the the the big aluminum part on the top the keyboard the top case uh yeah which Apple calls the unibody chassis since it attaches everything to it yes um so that supposedly leaked a uh 13in version um that has space at the top for you guest it an OLED touch bar so basically it's the Cordy keyboard cutouts right for those keys and instead of the function key row it's just a uh it's just blank aluminum with a slot on one side and then on the right side it has a what looks like a like a little indention where you could put a IND indentation where a recess for a connector isn't it yeah perhaps a connector although I was uh looking at it um the other day and uh kind of comparing it with Ming chees note about Touch ID and I was thinking that maybe that little bit of extra depth is is going to be home for a Mac version of touch ID well if you look at your current keyboard and you look at this image which is on our website at appleinsider.com that space is the space just north of the delete key which is traditionally where the power button located yes and and so the question is what do you do with power what do you do with with Touch ID exactly right logical place to put it so uh if they do incorporate it touch ID that is I would guess that they would um make it part of the OLED bar since that seems like the most uh space efficient way to design something like that I don't I don't think they would have it kind of like you know the uh the old uh ThinkPad oh the little bar that you swipe your fingerprint across scanner I don't think they would do something like that um so integrating it into the uh OLED bar would be the way to go I think I mean it could it could just be um that it's not going to be a standalone at all right so what I'm saying is they would integrate it as part of the OLED touch bar so it won't be like it own separate thing which would be cool yeah and also uh I mean the the chassis didn't really show too much it's kind of difficult to glean anything from laptop leaks so uh it it did however it showed a few things right let's let's cover the ports here right yeah it it had a four ports so that were shaped like um USBC style uh or shaped for USBC style plugs and that also lines up with the uh with quo note that um Apple's going to implement USBC and Thunderbolt 3 so there are no Thunderbolt ports or Thunderbolt 2 ports there are no Thunderbolt shaped ports as we usually understand them so it could suggest that indeed Thunderbolt 3 will be included okay the headphone jack moved to the right side yeah where is the mag safe connector on this thing there is none so whoa so that means that Apple's going to probably go USBC all the way and use the uh the 3.1 to uh Power it which I don't know if I I don't know if I like that or not well you'll just end up going with the uh you know the third party Griffin magnetic adapter for USBC well aside from the fact that uh mag safe is G or will be gone supposedly from this laptop if this laptop gets made yeah it it also eats up a port I don't I usually use my laptop plugged in so that means I'll be using it with one port occupied at all times for power not no bueno well use one of the many hubs I could but I don't want to buy a hub get get a dock station I don't want a dock I just want the computer as it has been for the past I don't know how many decades I get it they're trying to slim things down and make it you know small and do away with ports altogether but I do like having the option to expand whenever I want to without buying something else or attaching something to my computer right but but Mikey let's be clear if this laptop gets made you're going to buy one aren't you yeah okay look I'm just saying that this is what I would like but I will also buy it okay now what what should our listeners look out for as this rumor develops what what should they be paying attention to what's beneficial to them here um well we won't really know until uh they start the logic boards and all that the good stuff starts leaking out um I would look for the MacBook style battery cells could give us a clue as to uh what kind of life this thing is going to provide um you mean the battery cells that are layered that fill every inch every ounce of space occupiable inside the case yeah it's interesting though because this uh this chassis image looks like apple didn't really slim down on the current you as far as um making it thinner it's not really height of the case is still the same it looks like it uh I know you know looking at this I would say that it is slimmer because look at around the headphone Port you got remember well I'm looking at my uh 15in right now and I'm looking at my 15in as well and the amount of space above and below the headphone port on mine is significantly more than the one in this picture I don't really see that difference it's the the headphone Port is pretty much right up against the bottom and top of the case and on mine I've got a good 2 mm on either side of it really yeah hold on I can get out my calipers and measure this if you like oh sorry I've got some calipers around here yeah mine I don't know yeah measure it I guess it's just it's about a millimeter and a half on either side of the headphone Port top and bottom to the edge of the case just looking at there and and on this picture from from our our site it doesn't appear to be one much much Slimmer so millimeter Slimmer uh yeah looking like a half mil on each side well it would be good if they don't bow out the bottom you know how they uh have the yeah the the bottom tends to uh come in at an angle to to make it deeper in the center of the laptop they do away with that then it would be much Slimmer although I don't see any exhaust ports do you the exhaust ports traditionally on these laptops are in the screen hinge yeah no uh for the intake I mean the intake on the that's on the uh MacBook is you know the gills on the sides oh there they are yes there are six on this 15in so they're integrated with the top um case don't see that here although it's not really a clear picture oh or they can be integrated in the bottom now could be or they might do away with it you don't know know but yeah this this picture isn't really good at showing us that because this picture doesn't show us the bottom side view of what I'm worried about is a thermal efficiency and it once you go slim like this it's really hard to manage thermals if you want to you know put a decently Speedy processor in there and apple historically has had problems with thermal management and has historically had to overcome those problems you know we can go back the 12 and uh or or the original white MacBooks that had issues with with too much thermal paste but you know they they inevitably overcome these problems well it's not so much the it's not I it's a two different issues thermal paste is a production issue this they could run right but the 12in Mac the 12-in power book didn't have the thermal paste issue it just had a heat management issue right but that was a lot thicker so how are they going to compensate for this and still had that problem I don't know I I I fear that they're going to use a highly efficient processor which is is fine but on a pro model I don't know if it's a compromise or not well at this time there's so much we don't accurately know we don't know if this is a real model we don't know if this what range of the model the what what label within the product range this product would even have so we keep calling it a MacBook Pro just because it looks similar to assuming that this is to be the thing I mean this is the assumption that we're taking right now which is what we're discussing I don't know if it is or not uh it looks I mean it could really be anything considering the knockoffs that are coming out um I guess uh it does the the One giveaway I guess or not giveaway but supporting it is the um the mouse the trackpad which looks like it was similar to Apple's uh infrastruct or you know it's got cutouts that look like they belong with the force touch for the force touch stuff so it looks similar to that although I mean who knows it could be it could be an Asus for all we know we just don't know let's talk about Apple displays what about that Apple hasn't issued a display in a long time do do you have an Apple display do you have a thunderbolt display I I last Apple display I bought was a cinema display for my it's been a while G5 I believe wow it's been a long time it's been a long time since there's been a recent display and it's kind of an embarrassment to the Apple lineup that that the display has lay phow for so long because everything else has updated to retina displays except the MacBook Air and the Thunderbolt display right right so the rumor is that Apple's going to make a thunderbolt display and that it's going to be 5K indeed like the iMac 5K so because you said it's like the iMac does it make sense that this is possible is this something they could just grab the same panel and you horned in and call today yeah well I mean no they can't just do that they're going to need something to drive it which is why the rumor the rumor is that they're going to integrate a GPU into it so say you could uh theoretically connect your I don't know 2013 MacBook Air and be fine driving the 5K your good old 12-in MacBook so I mean that's the that's the theory and it's been floated around by a lot of different sources I think you mentioned one from Twitter we both saw a couple days ago yeah well I mean why why is this even plausible you know is it because that Thunderbolt can export support external graphics cards or yes I mean the ever since the Thunderbolt display was uh announced people were just kind of speculating that Apple would uh follow it up with a GPU model or one that would have GPU in it because they specifically mentioned that fact that uh uh Thunderbolt does support external gpus and just people just kind of put two and two together and said oh well one day the Thunderbolt display is going to going to have this really rocking GPU inside and it'll be outrageous pixel densities and that just hasn't just hasn't happened but the rumor just won't die yeah so this past week a fellow by the name of Steven fosket on Twitter tweeted at uh at John Gruber and said what if Apple put the graphics card in the monitor it would work with most all Thunderbolt Max wouldn't require two cables and this is this is how rumors start right sometimes we get rumors from analysts like M quo sometimes we get information from let's just call them sources people who we know or or have reason to trust who have information on the matter and sometimes they're just speculation that's not not unreasonable speculation but speculation right so so what happened after foset tweeted this and then guber said that he'd place money betting on it and uh you know it it it sort of became a thing well it just gained momentum mainstream media of course and you know it's a it's kind of a I mean the the display itself has a following right people like the look of the display it matches the other products except it's uh shorter than the than the iMac right well the iMac has a well remember the the whole thing about why why Apple didn't make the stand a bit taller so it would be in line so people could run an iMac and the display at the same time it looks weird because it's like just an inch shorter I think anyway well you get one of those 12 South products and stack it on it to make it fit yeah you put a drive underneath or something but but uh yeah I mean it just caught gain traction with the tech community and then I don't know just kind of escalated from there right so then then citing unnamed sources like we just said imore reported that a thunderbolt connected monitor with a 5k display is not happening at the keynot or anytime in the immediate future mhm yeah I mean I don't know what do you think are the chances that they're going to release it I mean it's been so long they might I feel like they maybe didn't abandon it that product but they just it's not something that they need to Market well so here here's the thing I was discussing with Shane a couple of weeks back right I I wanted a new Mac Mini and Shane told me I was nuts to expect one that there never will be one that Apple's plan is that you buy a laptop and use a display and Apple has sold the uh the Sharp LED monitor which is uh discontinued right so they'll pick a different monitor to buy in that's not the sharp one and uh and use that now it's interesting just because Sharp's business got bought by foxcon I believe and foxcon has a great working relationship with Apple for products like well your iPhone so it's entirely possible that down the road there could be a a foxcon made product for Apple that's based on the Shar remember that Apple that's me starting a rumor don't take it seriously also was actually an investor in sharp in their um uh God what anyway in their latest uh LED facility their plant they were said to be a quiet a silent investor in that so um that that plant was feeding um portable display portable device displays so but was also turning out TVs when Shar was still making them so Apple already had an interest in in sharp uh for a few years um and we didn't see we didn't see a display come out during that time so I don't know how how much stock I'd put in uh seeing one from foxcon sure it's it's not necessarily possible but the the notion is that Apple will just at least pick another supplier to sell monitors whether they pick up you know some some future foxcon product or they just Source another monitor that's existing in quality enough yeah it's it's been their thing to just take the raw display and add their own uh controller and stuff on it and just maybe a few additions right but they can resell someone else's just as easily at this point and especially if they're focused on selling more phones selling more iPads and selling more laptops it's weird because they're streamlining their lineup while at the same time bloating it out with relative ly similar models like a right the lineup is elastic at this point you know they're they're shrinking it in some ways while growing it weirdly in others I don't know um I don't I I displays were never their thing I mean they've they've always had good displays but they were priced out of the market for a lot of uh you know just casual consumers they had well they they existed for the design so that the display could match remember the uh the calibrated displays that they used to sell with the um the early Max as an option no think they were maybe Sony displays I don't remember but there were this was the day when flat panels This is like a this was like the big what what what year are you in maybe the '90s okay so Stone Age you could buy a Sony that was calibrated to match a a preg3 yeah Power Mac none of that stuff matters I mean they have let's let's if you're going to bring up dead history bring up the Power Mac G3 with the giant uh Trinitron tube monitor dressed in in blueberry and white frosted plastic that matched right or or bring up the cinema display that was a 4x3 ratio flat panel that matched the uh the the Mystic and the the the graphite Power Max that was a nice display right with the pin stripes in the display I have that one yeah or or even after that there was the uh the the white frosted one with the ADC connector and then yeah and and then then you get to the aluminum ones with the ADC connector and then the DVI connector and then finally finally finally Thunderbolt right and in each one of those cases for the past I want to say about 15 or 16 years you're getting a display that is a nominally good display okay display but the point of it is that it matches your computer yeah but do they need to do that when you already have they've been pushing their laptops like nobody's business do you even hear them mention precisely so if you have the laptop do you even need to buy a display that matches your laptop although some people do not many anymore I that I with the with these high resolution displays that they're the res displays they're using now uh there are few scenarios in which I would be tempted to have a second display but everything on here fits on my on my desktop right now I don't it doesn't necessitate so so the only people that're making the dis the display for is the Mac Mini and the Power Mac or I mean and they haven't made a new one of those either or Imaging Professionals of course but those guys go make buy better displays anyhow so I'm not really sure if uh I don't they never broke out the numbers so we don't know exactly how popular these displays were or are I guess we uh can kind of tell since they haven't have they even updated their because they haven't broken out the numbers therefore have they even yeah well that and also popular have they even updated their informational web page for the uh display in like the past two years I don't think they have yeah but I would so that's that's the summary I would like to see one Thunderbolt displays not happening at WWDC yeah I I don't think I don't know I don't think that would be the time to announce it either if they were to announce it they've waited this long the developers conference has always been a weird place to announce Hardware anyway but displays come on I would I would expect them to if anything announce it as an accessory to the MacBook Pro or the MacBook more uh more more likely accessory to the MacBook right it just has I care about iPhones do you care about iPhones do you love your iPhone uh I wouldn't go that far but it's uh it's a big part of my life why don't you love your iPhone Mikey does it not love you back Siri doesn't love me Siri totally loves you she's an ice queen you neglect her so Apple's moving this is a rumor to a threeyear major iPhone cycle don't know if I agree with that okay first of all tell me what it means uh okay so an analyst well the Nik speculated that they were moving to a three-year revamp cycle which would mean that every 3 years instead of now you get the uh the iPhone 6 and you get iPhone 6s and then you get to redesign after two years right so so iPhone 6 is the introduction of a design 6s is refinement and then you get a new one so in three years it would just uh as as uh you might expect be spread out over three years so it would be a six so you get intro refinement refinement and then new one yes so their reasoning is that the the supposed seven which we don't know if it's going to be called seven or if the uh case leaks are even valid but if they are it is not uh in any way uh major redesign over the 6 or 6s it has a it has a little a tweaked antenna pattern and um potentially a dual yeah but that's more of a functional change the the seven itself is not supposed to be is supposed to have only one shooter so it would look very similar to the 6s um so no design change which suggests that it would be a three-year cycle for this for the uh six series body which is what and that's that's also based on the idea that the 2017 iPhone is supposed to make the switch to OLED and have a edgo edge display and a curved display and new vibration Motors capable of complex patterns and all all kinds of stuff right I'm a bit I don't think that coming off a year where iPhone sales contracted for the first time year-over-year and I'm dubious that apple is going to make such a drastic shift in their in their strategy after you mean you mean why draw it out and keep sales flat for longer people are despite I mean people are drawn to looks right it's it's unavoidable that people are going to be more interested in a redesigned iPhone than they are one that gets 3D touch and a faster Touch ID an increased Ram is harder to sell than you can't say this is you're going to have to explain why this is new rather than saying yes obviously this is new it's a totally different looking phone it's self-explanatory it's a different phone it's new so I don't know that they would lengthen that time period between um Tik toks you know I don't right but here's the problem is that it it takes nine months to a year for for product development or more and so by the time you you look at that kind of decision it's pretty much already been made by what the product cycles look like right you know you're you're already that far down the road on product development you can't suddenly say oh my goodness sales are flat we need to change something drastically Now you kind of have to go with what you've already been developing which is interesting though uh to consider that um I don't know if you remember in the Samsung trial uh they uh one of the pieces of uh evidence was a bunch of pictures of prototype iPhone mock-ups and these were obviously done uh you know at least a couple years before the original iPhone launched in 2007 right so some of those models look very similar to say the iPhone 4 sandwich and even the iPhone 5 with the chamford edges and I some could argue that the six is also based on one of these uh prototypes just a highly modified version of it so Apple might not be they're obviously you know testing and developing models in Johnny IV's lab but from what it it looks like it looks like they have been using these prototypes as a as a jumping off point that were developed maybe in 2005 or 2006 so it's not like we it's not I don't know it's just interesting to consider that yeah but they've had seven years to keep cranking more of those I'm sure there's thousands of Variations by now but it's interesting that they Haven they've uh that these 2005 or 2006 whatever models are the basis for what actually ships so who knows but what I think as far as the uh whatever they call the 2017 model which if they do a redesign I don't know if they're going to call it the 7s it seems like that would be a mistake um it seems to me that the Nik is kind of is kind of you know grabbing onto this um notion a little too tightly I think maybe Apple could be uh hurrying up production for the OLED model and bringing that up a year instead of you know waiting until 2018 for it out say so instead of going to a year model they're actually truncating the the 2-year which is for the iPhone 7 so they're they're shortening that um that life cycle and introducing the 2017 early and then they could go back to like a two-year who knows or they could so at least one every year I don't know for the US market this stuff is is almost becoming academic right it mattered a lot when we were on subsidized plans in two-year contract and you couldn't change phones until your contract was up but with with the various different upgrade options provided by the carriers where they you know they'll sometimes let you upgrade once a year or they'll let you upgrade as many times throughout the course of the year as you like or using things like the Apple upgrade plan where you can upgrade after a full year you know if with with these kinds of options it almost doesn't matter because the cost of upgrading is is really nil to the consumer yep right Apple can shorten that up that that plan by that that cycle by years as you suggest and I won't mind one bit of course they are looking for switchers now so they're looking for switchers and they're looking for upgraders so yeah I recently set up an iPhone SE and as I was going through the setup process one of the options present was would you like to bring over your information from Android and it guided you through the steps of getting the uh the the app for Android to pour your data over yeah so I mean that combined with the uh financing strategy that they're rolling out they rolled out last year they're really making a push for for growth and and not relying just solely on the appeal of uh a sexy sexy new enclosure or some uh exotic technology there there it's become more of a it's become more of a brand strategy for them to just kind of lock people in even even tighter into the iOS e ecosystem right and I think the play in 2017 is going to be towards people that would otherwise uh uh that would otherwise get a Galaxy right what is galaxies claim to fame well and as we were we were saying you know Google is taking a greater role in the design of the Nexus phone they want to have a greater control and greater influence over what that thing's going to look like and feel like um they're also getting a little bit tighter about how the uh the the third parties that ship Android are are doing on updates and going to be enforcing that a little better that obviously needs to be done the it it's just way too fragmented but I don't know if they should be taking too much of a heavy hand to design that's one of Android's strengths well for their Nexus they can because that's the one that they brand for I don't know I I don't like Google's design language at all do you not a big fan of the material design on your Ione it's just it feels messy to me it feels like skorm in the early iOS uh iOS like 3 uh I I kind of have to disagree with that I'm not sure how Google's apps in material design feel like scoris well it feels like along those L it does not obviously the same thing it's not just all Frills I I'm not seeing any felt pool table you're not seeing the uh stitched Corinthian leather I'm not seeing no I'm not seeing the rich Corinthian leather it has a it has animation that I feel are unnecessary it it's it's cool to have that you know user feedback but I think they could have implemented in a different way anyway I just not a fan just not a fan I'm also not a fan of Johnny IV's super Spartan uh UI that he introduced with um iOS 8 or S yeah mhm it's just too much don't you think not convinced I mean all of these things are are exploring new territory and the first time you do it you have to figure out what's right and wrong what does Stu and well they keep figuring out what works and what doesn't what's necessary Works they're figuring out a lot of things that don't work that too I don't know QA and um that Apple software has gone down well it's not QA it's it's adherence to the human interface guidelines but if you're going to go back to those you're going to be uh mighty lonely yeah they've uh a lot of people have strayed from the past yeah so speaking of iPhone 7 we've talked before about the phone adapter the the idea that there's not going to be a headphone jack on the thing and we published a report about a Chinese company that is marketing lightning to headphone adapters perhaps taking uh taking advantage of the situation being a little there look to be three models as I'm looking at them and uh one of them is just straight lightning to headphone with uh volume up down and a play control in the middle uh uh they all have those controls the other two models are different only in their color and that they're white and black but they have what looks to be a female lightning port on them so that you can charge while lening that would solve a lot of concerns that I have about deleting the 3.5 Jack yeah now these obviously aren't available for purchase yet they have no price listed there's no way to buy them but they are on a website they they are there and we are contacting them to try and see if we can get them of course it would be useless or next to useless for our phones unless you really love your um unless you really love your lightning set you say that but it's not useless or next to useless it's it's it could be considered redundant but it's certainly not useless uh the the thing that's worth noting when you start using lightning is that you've got a digital output and you can take advantage of putting in a better quality digital audio you're going to have let me get this straight you're going to have uh I do these offer Dax it doesn't say right well they don't say but you just know that if you're doing digital and you have to get to analog somehow they put if you do if you go this route with this specific Chinese product they're they've already taken care of that stage for you right because it it's going out to 3.5 yes they' they've included one so I guess would you buy one from say um like would I buy one from this supplier a decent audio manufacturer that offered like a lightning uh breakout and like a some sort of 24 bit Dack or something if they're going to put in the bur Brown Dack or they're going to put one of these other ones that is wellknown and and and good yes indeed well you know I've I've been doing this here at home with the uh the digital AV connector right and going digital AV to HDMI and then breaking out headphone off long until we get the Mint app the mint amp with uh with tubes for lightning you know they offered that to Neil I think oh it's great Neil was talking about his headphone collection and offered that and he refused yeah look nothing against vacuum tubes I love I love their warm sound wonderful but uh I don't need I don't need to take it with me it's well not necessarily but the um no I've been using uh aftermaster which we saw at CES and I actually had a a I've got a prototype of it here uh the current version of aftermaster has the headphone port on it and what they're doing is interesting they've got a they've got a Dack they've got an fire they've got a CPU in there and instead of just um adjusting EQ for example what they're doing is they're dynamically looking at the signal and fixing things like the uh the loudness Wars for example and they they really do a wonderful job of of making the audio listenable it sounds so much better it's incredible and and using that with the digital EV adapter and the headphones is wonderful I'll stick to my home components well using this with your your home components is really awesome too no it is I got to I got to get a sample for you you're Bally blown I'm I'm waiting for my my to be blown spew brain Parts well then we'll have to arrange that all over the furniture Mikey where can people find tter Mikey Campbell 81 and on Apple Insider this is Victor marks and if Mikey Campbell gets a portable tube amplifier embedded in himself next week we'll tell you all about it on the Apple Insider podcastyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to this the 71st episode of the Apple Insider podcast I'm your host Victor marks and joining me today is Jason Johnson who is the CEO of August now August makes a a doorbell camera a smart keypad and a Smart Lock and the Smart Lock uh is now homekit compatible so Jason why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and about August well Victor thanks for having me on so uh yeah so uh I'm the CEO and co-founder uh of August home um august.com as as our address and my co-founder is Eve Bahar uh a well-known product designer and he and I started the company about 3 years ago with a uh with a goal to change the way people access the home um people as well as goods and services and we can talk about that a little later but um uh we have four products now on the market and uh and are are really having a great time uh changing the way that we get into our homes cool now tell me I mean this this sort of fits Under The Heading of Internet of things and we used to call it connected home and before that we called it home automation so so so just tell our listeners a little bit about this space and and what's going on in this space that they should know about it yeah so the Internet of Things is is a is a term in fact a friend of mine came up with it a number of years ago um and he was really referring to the idea of adding intelligence and and connectivity to uh everyday objects and at the time they were really focused on on uh adding sensors um tags to Consumer packaged Goods being able to track uh packages as they move through Logistics um but we borrowed it in in in the uh particularly in the consumer World in consumer electronics we have this wave of Internet of Things devices that that several of us are are making uh for consumers to use uh you know particularly in the home and the the idea being that um things that traditionally were not um very intelligent or sophisticated such as a door block which really hasn't changed for a couple hundred years um you know we add we add radios we add intelligence uh computing power to the to that device as well as the doorbell and of course we hear about other devices like thermostats and lights and you know really all the systems in the home uh are becoming more and more intelligent so where where does August fit into that world well you know we chose to to focus on a very particular part of the home um really the the the entry ways into the home and uh why we chose to focus on that was was both my co-founder and I had had had challenges of giving access to uh to people in the past we we talked about how we both had house cleaners that we had given a a key to um you know a traditional Metal Key um but later when uh in the case of mine my housekeeper moved moved far moved away I never got that key back and so I had to make a decision do I do I you know do I just say hey I'm sure that key is is in a safe place and I don't have to worry about my home ever being access without my knowing or do I change the lock or have a locksmith come and Rey the lock and we thought that's really that's really a you know not the the ideal way to manage access to the home and so we sought out to build products that could really solve that that problem so that leads me to my next question which is is who is your ideal consumer who's this for well we've uh you know we've definitely found that um those people who are who are largely responsible for um the day-to-day activities around the house um call them the Homemaker um uh the person who's really responsible for um coordinating with house cleaners or dog walkers or let's say you have relatives or friends coming for the weekend and you need to give them a key uh it's that person that that often has to you know juggle um making sure that there's a key under a mat or or behind a flower pot or or going and making copies of keys at you know at Home Depot um that person we've we really we've really helped them to uh to really manage access to the home more easily and we've had some some great successes now with also some some service providers that are also partnering with us um from Airbnb which which does uh vacation rentals to uh Sears Home Services which um you can you can use what we call August access um to give Sears uh the ability to come to your home and repair appliances or install appliances without you having to be there without you having to wait you know in that 4-Hour window for that person to arrive cool you know I uh I feel like some of those examples aren't necessarily things you do every day that uh that there're specific problems you know it's um for the most part we aren't renting our house out to our BNB guest or we aren't having cleaners come all the time but uh I can definitely see where you're worried about that access and either having to give up your whole day to wait around or you know do you worry about that key that's out there somewhere I I can see how that solves the problem m so what did you have on your door before you had an August cuz I presume you have your own product on your door yeah I do I do um um so I had a I had a very normal um deadbolt lock you know it's technically called a single cylinder deadbolt uh in fact it was a it was a very inexpensive one that I bought on on Costco.com for $30 like like eight years ago and um um the uh you know the uh the neat thing about it is is that lock is actually still on my door um because the August Smart Lock actually attaches to your existing lock um the best way to think of August it's like a it's like a large hockey puck um maybe two hockey pucks stacked together um uh if you will a robot that you attach on the inside of your door to your existing lock and then and then using using your your smartphone you can control that robot to lock and unlock the door for you uh either when you're in front of the door or if you are you know if you are remote and you have the remote access capability um you can do that remotely and um and so the the old lock that I that I I put on there actually eight years ago was still on there and it works just fine so it sounds like you didn't end up rekeying the lock or or worrying too much about that key that's out there in the world no no I uh I I I've been pretty safe about uh about um giving out keys to uh to my to the current lock on the door so for for my own use what we've had here at my house is uh about 15 years ago 16 years ago we bought a a keypad lock and it was maybe $80 but it was a dumb keypad lock it didn't have any radio connectivity it didn't have anything else with a key fob it just had push buttons that would open the deadbolt MH and it also had a single cylinder key for the front of it and we used that for a long time and I I decided that well it was cool I I and I liked the idea of not carrying Keys around and just using the combination I I wanted to be able to use the phone and tell whether or not I'd locked things or not because it didn't automatically lock and so that's where we started exploring in my house things like August and and some of your competitors and um my my problem and well the curse of living with me is that I'll change these things and then leave for a trip and leave my wife my long-suffering wife to experience to figure out how to use the thing when my absence and so I have text messages from her saying it would sure be nice if I could figure out how to get into my own home right right yeah it's important when you develop these Technologies for the home that um you think about that situation in fact one of one of our one of our advisers um uh Nicholas Negron the founder of MIT media lab one of the early pieces of advice he gave Eve and me was um whatever you whatever systems whatever devices you make you have to make sure that it doesn't take away from the existing experience in other words your lock should work just like it did before right regardless of whether the August Smart Lock is working whether whether the internet is working right whether there's power to the house right it should still work just like a normal lock same thing with our doorbell camera even if the Wi-Fi is down even if if uh if if our software you know uh fails you would press that doorbell button your doorbell chimes inside the house should still ring and always ring 100% of the time and and that's the that's that is critical especially when you when you have people that you live with um you don't want to make them necessarily change their their behavior at least not right away so as as as mentioned a moment ago you can still use a key um and uh uh in fact I probably should admit this but my wife actually does does carry a key um on her key she she drives so she has a car and and and so she has she has that key that she could use if she ever had to as a backup me I don't have a car I don't drive um so I don't all I carry is my is my is my iPhone and uh I like that freedom yeah I I carry one key on my key ring and that is the key for the car and uh when when this happened when my wife texted me this with the the Angry Emoji um I was able to use August lock and August connect to be able to unlock the door remotely for her oh great so that was actually a success and thank you for that that's good to hear um of course there was the time where I I'd installed the the new version of iOS and uh had to reset my app and reset my app password and wasn't able to get into the August block I had to reinstall the app in the driveway and then re get into the you know resign into the app to be able to unlock the door so I was kind of delayed about 10 minutes getting into my house from the airport yeah and that you know with with we use two- Factor authentication as as as you know full well you know it can take a few minutes to to do that process right to to sign in and uh you know hopefully you don't do that very often um I think I haven't done it for the past year had to resign into the app but uh but yeah we we air on the side of of of high security and and you know a little bit of inconvenience there um um so sorry about you being laay there a balancing act right indeed it is when it comes to you know your home um you know I'm I'm a family man and you know keeping my family safe is is is you know if not my highest priority one of my highest priorities and and uh I wouldn't put a product like this on my home if I didn't trust that that that the company that made it went to extreme lengths to make sure it was very secure yeah well I'm I'm hoping that when I install the keypad that will speed up my entry even if I don't have the app going and uh yes that is a nice nice little Bluetooth accessory to the lock I uh uh I don't like to run with my phone I like to just you know just run free without anything in my hands and uh it's nice to come back from a run and type in my my personal code into the keypad and have it unlock the door let me let me ask is there a length limit on the number of digits for that code uh yeah it's it's it's you can do between four and six digits and uh and and the great thing is is you you know you you can create a unique uh pin for each person and in fact in the activity logs of the app you can see exactly when those individual people you gave that code to um when they when they when they entered uh the house um so uh yeah you can you can create your own pin or there's also a little autogenerated feature in the app that does it for you if you prefer cool now the the new version of the lock is homekit compatible indeed yes it is so if I have the app installed but haven't signed into it is it possible for me to use homekit to open the door with Siri um if you let's see if you have the app on your on your iOS device and you're not signed into the app can you use Siri I know it's a difficult question it's a it's a weird one um I think you can actually yes um um once you once you set up the homekit feature on the August Smart Lock and you associate it with your with your Apple ID um then um then Siri can control the lock and in fact other applications can as well um I have I have a couple of of homekit compatible apps on my phone that um Can discover the Smart Lock and control it what are your favorite aggregator apps you know I uh um yeah I have to go right to if right if is my is my favorite you know I I do lots of if recipes and I control a lot of things from if and I think it's cool that they made that little that little do app that that makes things really fast and easy so um you know I use that um uh I have I have Inson throughout my house which um some of your listeners might not be familiar with it's it's like an alternative to zigg and zwave so you have the Hub Pro setup for homekit I do yeah indeed I do and um you know I installed these inston light switches about 8 years ago and um um and the great thing was is that eight years ago these things these things are fairly old at8 years but the day that I set up that that that Hub Pro uh I suddenly had the ability to control all my lights throughout my house using Siri uh and that was pretty cool yeah and I noticed in the inston app that their symbol for a door lock is the August lock indeed it is yeah feel good about that one it it was fun to that when I was setting up my My Hub that wasn't some pre-arranged partnership that was just something they did no that was just something they did it was a nice little nice little surprise very cool so um what what other devices do you have in your network besides the the inston switches for the lamps um so I for inst and mainly I I it's all lighting um um and then and then I have I'm sure like yourself I have a lot of technology in my house have lot of devices and systems that are intelligent and and I use I use um I use Alexa with with my I I have several echoes in my house and I I control a lot of those with with Echo as well I can't find the fact did you hear that it just it just triggered Alexa when I when I I said that that's pretty funny so you you have the inst on lights do you have um do you have any the ceiling fans or thermostats um I have a nest thermostat which which uh was really delightful the day that I was able to control that using Alexa um because you know it's not always convenient to go to that hallway where that what the thermostat is to control it and uh it's it's nice to be able to to change the temperature with your voice so what is what are some of the if recipes the if recipes that people should use with the Smart Lock well the um you know the main thing that that that that we we we just announced um um yesterday the if integration and the main thing that we sought to do was uh to enable you to um have August be a trigger for for for other events activities in the home um that is when you say you come home and you unlock the door um using August um you can have say your lights turn on so I I have I mentioned my inston lights I also have Phillips Hue Lights um and other lights that work on if can be turned on uh automatically as you unlock the door you could also turn up the temperature um you can um you can really trigger any any systems in the house um uh another one I do is I have it log um on uh on on a it's kind of funny on a on a Google Document it logs all of the activity um just a fun way to capture all that information yeah I have automatic which is the uh the OBD2 reader um send all of my driving logs to a spreadsheet yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's a fun way to capture all that and uh so um uh so entering the home um and triggering things but Al as you leave the home and you lock the door you can have it automatically turn off your lights turn down the thermostat um one of my favorites um uh is the the GE oven um so we don't have a GE oven but I'm I'm thinking about buying one because if you're leaving the house you lock the door you can have if uh turn off your GE oven in case you left it on which we have done multiple times in at our house so um it would be it be nice to have that but one of the problems that I have with these kinds of recipes and and one of the things that concerns me about them is that you know you and I we don't live alone right we have families so when I leave the house and it turns off the lights have I just turned or sets the temperature down have I just turned off the lights and thermostat on people that are still in the house it's a great question in fact um it's one that um we spent time thinking about um as we you know people have been asking for us to do an if uh uh an if integration for quite some time and and we thought through it for quite a while before we did it and one of the things we wanted to solve was was this and and the way that we've approached it is um when you create your if recipe using August um you can actually um select the individual person um and and whether or not they are able to um have that specific event be tied to that person right so um for example in my household um my wife and I have a certain you know pattern in which I'm generally the last one to leave the house right so I know that I can have all the systems in the house shut off when I lock the door when I leave um and you know it's not going to turn off the lights on her or turn down the temperature on her I know she's always generally gone um but if it was the opposite if if every time she locked the door um then I might be you know I might be in the shower and all of a lights went off that would not be good um so it's it's nice to have that ability to choose on an individual level um when those triggers occur so you have to think through a little bit what uh what the recipes are and who they're for and and using those those personal IDs that You' set up yeah and I think when you use if you you should you should always think through these things and that's you know that's it's the beauty of if is you can you can do it's very powerful right you can do a lot of really fancy recipes um but yeah you want to think through you know how is this going to work in in daily life and uh make sure that it's it's adding to your life and it's making your life more convenient and comfortable and and not not adding stress not adding you know more something you have to maintain yeah my my personal wish and they'll never do it but my personal wish is that if would uh would add one more conditional to the recipes you know currently it's the if this then that kind of thing and it's very hardcore one conditional one result mhm and you know we we had the uh the weimo sensors that had the uh the motion detection yes and so if I could do the conditional if I've locked the door and there's still motion in the house don't turn on the lights you know don't don't change everything right right yeah just be that much more aware of stuff yeah and and this is this is some of the things that um I think uh you know Nest is is is seeking to do with with their Works withth Nest program right they're they're seeking to leverage um lots of sensors in the home that can detect motion right because because they have that capability with their with their thermostat and with their smoke detectors and and and and and I'm with you I think having the ability to to have more intelligence in the in the process um so you can you can hopefully reduce you know false positives or or false negatives so you August works with homekit works with Nest works with Alexa works with if what's what's your view of all of these competing things well you know I think that they're you know they're all great they're all great systems and we're we're we're honored to be working with um with uh some of the companies you you mentioned and um uh it's you know it's made our product you know more more featur um uh people who have those systems in their homes uh we also hope that you know that we also make their platforms more more interesting more valuable um it's you know it's it's great that we are seeing a you know movement towards people being able to buy the best what we call Point Solutions and not being forced to buy all of the all of the things on a platform right um you know once upon a time you know you had to buy a home system that came from one vendor and there was only one option for a thermostat and one option for a a music controller Etc or light controller you us to have to go all in on Inson or all in on control 4 or one of those things indeed indeed it's great that we can now pick pick and choose the best best of breed and uh and they talk to each other and and and and uh we have systems like if and works with nest and and homekit that help us do that is there one that you you find that you favor when you're using things personally you know I use all of them actually um uh and you know each has their own benefits you know I have um uh I have different devices in different rims of the house and so it you know each has its own unique you know purpose um but I I I got to I'm really enjoying voice control I'm really enjoying the ability um to be able to to use my voice and uh and control the systems of my house um it's uh it's just it's fun being able to choose on a given day which which name am i g to am I going to say which trigger word am I going to say to to control something so this is one of the questions that I end up answering a lot and I I end up talking about a lot is is how does a person start what's the first thing that someone should get and how should they grow from there if they're interested in this well you know I think that it's it's it's good to to look at what is what are what are those things that are really going to change like your daily life and make your make your life EAS we're all we're all really busy we all have a lot of Demands on our time on our on our on our on our our minds right and you know having to maintain one more thing for the home you know um frankly I don't think any of us need you know need more more burden there so I think we should choose carefully those those those devices which are are definitely going to make us um you know feel more safe more more comfortable um um perhaps save you know save money I think I think I think a smart thermostat is a great way to to save on Heating and Cooling bills um obviously I think that a I think that a Smart Lock um is a is is is much safer than giving out metal keys which we talked about earlier can be uh could also be just lost right you can always just you know misplace one or or a you if you uh um U you know if you have if you have an issue of of of of one in your car something your car gets broken into then you got to worry about whether somebody got a hold of that key um so those you know those those systems in the house that make you more uh feel more safe more comfortable and perhaps save you money very cool and and so of the three August products that I'm holding here in my hands the keypad the lock and the camera what do you think should be a person's first entry into August well um so our two Flagship products the lock and the and the doorbell camera um were both designed to be installed in about about 10 minutes um by by really anyone and um with the lock we have about a 98% self-installation rate which we think is one of the highest uh you know self-installation rates for a for a technology like this for the home um so it's really easy um and I really can't I can't overstate um how easy it is so um I highly recommend the lock um uh doorbell camera of course is great um whether you have the lock or not it's a it's great to be able to see and speak to your visitors at your door um but if you have both um as uh as I hope you'll soon uh enjoy when you set up yours you know you can you can see and speak to that person and you can let them in your house and uh in fact I do that I I will I will let UPS or FedEx uh uh I'll see them at my door I'll be at my office I'll be traveling I'll say hey I'm going to unlock the door for you just go and put that package inside the door and close it and uh I watch him drop the package he closes the door he waves to me and I I lock the door and uh it's a it's great to not have to get that little sticky note on the door when I get back from from from travels about that package I have to go stand in line at the uh at UPS or FedEx and and and pick up do you have internal cameras inside your house as well I do I do I have I have a nest cam um and uh um and it's also pointed at my front door and uh and and part of our partnership with Nest was we were one of the first that they gave us access to their API in the nestcam so that if you have a nestcam and you and you connect it to August um when your door is unlocked it it it begins recording immediately um and it will um it will give us a little 10-second uh video of that which goes right into your August log feed so you can see all the activity the door unlocking and you see you see the August doorbell cam video you see the nestcam video and you get that nice full picture of what's happening around your door so when when you allow the UPS fell to drop the package you can see that he just dropped the package and didn't do anything else that's right I can see that MH very cool so where can people purchase these products so we're we're in many many retail stores um um um all the Best Buy stores um um uh I believe this week um it's being rolled out in Target stores across the country and um uh of course Amazon and and august.com very cool well thank you Jason I really appreciate you being here yeah my pleasure V nice talking to you cool I'm just going to go ahead and and stop the recording there Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to Consumers eliminating commission-driven inflated prices its award-winning sleep surface was developed in-house has a Sleek design and is delivered in a small how did they do that sized box in addition to the mattress Casper also delivers an Adaptive pillow and soft breathable sheets and its quality an in-house team of Engineers spent thousands of hours developing the Casper and it combines springy latex and supportive memory foams for a sleep surface that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce and its breathable design keeps you cool and helps you regulate your temperature throughout the night mattresses are expensive you know if you go to a mattress place they're ridiculous and they cost over 1,500 bucks but Casper mattresses cost 500 for a twin-sized mattress or 600 for a twin XL 750 for a full 850 for a queen and 950 for a king and when you go to a mattress shop it's it's ridiculous right you go in they have a ton of mattresses all around and you're in your clothes and you try and lie down on a mattress in the shop for a few minutes and figure out if it's going to be comfortable or not and it stinks buying a Casper mattress is risk-free they offer free delivery and free returns with a 100 night inhome trial and so you go ahead and get it you sleep on it for 90 nights 100 nights and if you don't like it they'll pick it back up and refund you everything they understand the importance of sleeping on a mattress before you commit especially considering that you're going to spend a third of your life sleeping on it Time magazine named it one of the best inventiones of 2015 and right now it's the most awarded mattress of the decade and they have free shipping and returns in US and Canada you can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com inssider and using Insider as the code this is going to be a great night's sleep now to the rest of our show Mikey Mikey Campbell editor at appleinsider.com is joining us to talk about the latest and rumors yep not much this week not much well last time we talked about a MacBook Pro with the idea of having an OLED touch bar across where the function keys go indeed what's developed on that rumor since that time well quite fortuitously a uh supposed chassis or um the uh the subframe with with the you know the the the big aluminum part on the top the keyboard the top case uh yeah which Apple calls the unibody chassis since it attaches everything to it yes um so that supposedly leaked a uh 13in version um that has space at the top for you guest it an OLED touch bar so basically it's the Cordy keyboard cutouts right for those keys and instead of the function key row it's just a uh it's just blank aluminum with a slot on one side and then on the right side it has a what looks like a like a little indention where you could put a IND indentation where a recess for a connector isn't it yeah perhaps a connector although I was uh looking at it um the other day and uh kind of comparing it with Ming chees note about Touch ID and I was thinking that maybe that little bit of extra depth is is going to be home for a Mac version of touch ID well if you look at your current keyboard and you look at this image which is on our website at appleinsider.com that space is the space just north of the delete key which is traditionally where the power button located yes and and so the question is what do you do with power what do you do with with Touch ID exactly right logical place to put it so uh if they do incorporate it touch ID that is I would guess that they would um make it part of the OLED bar since that seems like the most uh space efficient way to design something like that I don't I don't think they would have it kind of like you know the uh the old uh ThinkPad oh the little bar that you swipe your fingerprint across scanner I don't think they would do something like that um so integrating it into the uh OLED bar would be the way to go I think I mean it could it could just be um that it's not going to be a standalone at all right so what I'm saying is they would integrate it as part of the OLED touch bar so it won't be like it own separate thing which would be cool yeah and also uh I mean the the chassis didn't really show too much it's kind of difficult to glean anything from laptop leaks so uh it it did however it showed a few things right let's let's cover the ports here right yeah it it had a four ports so that were shaped like um USBC style uh or shaped for USBC style plugs and that also lines up with the uh with quo note that um Apple's going to implement USBC and Thunderbolt 3 so there are no Thunderbolt ports or Thunderbolt 2 ports there are no Thunderbolt shaped ports as we usually understand them so it could suggest that indeed Thunderbolt 3 will be included okay the headphone jack moved to the right side yeah where is the mag safe connector on this thing there is none so whoa so that means that Apple's going to probably go USBC all the way and use the uh the 3.1 to uh Power it which I don't know if I I don't know if I like that or not well you'll just end up going with the uh you know the third party Griffin magnetic adapter for USBC well aside from the fact that uh mag safe is G or will be gone supposedly from this laptop if this laptop gets made yeah it it also eats up a port I don't I usually use my laptop plugged in so that means I'll be using it with one port occupied at all times for power not no bueno well use one of the many hubs I could but I don't want to buy a hub get get a dock station I don't want a dock I just want the computer as it has been for the past I don't know how many decades I get it they're trying to slim things down and make it you know small and do away with ports altogether but I do like having the option to expand whenever I want to without buying something else or attaching something to my computer right but but Mikey let's be clear if this laptop gets made you're going to buy one aren't you yeah okay look I'm just saying that this is what I would like but I will also buy it okay now what what should our listeners look out for as this rumor develops what what should they be paying attention to what's beneficial to them here um well we won't really know until uh they start the logic boards and all that the good stuff starts leaking out um I would look for the MacBook style battery cells could give us a clue as to uh what kind of life this thing is going to provide um you mean the battery cells that are layered that fill every inch every ounce of space occupiable inside the case yeah it's interesting though because this uh this chassis image looks like apple didn't really slim down on the current you as far as um making it thinner it's not really height of the case is still the same it looks like it uh I know you know looking at this I would say that it is slimmer because look at around the headphone Port you got remember well I'm looking at my uh 15in right now and I'm looking at my 15in as well and the amount of space above and below the headphone port on mine is significantly more than the one in this picture I don't really see that difference it's the the headphone Port is pretty much right up against the bottom and top of the case and on mine I've got a good 2 mm on either side of it really yeah hold on I can get out my calipers and measure this if you like oh sorry I've got some calipers around here yeah mine I don't know yeah measure it I guess it's just it's about a millimeter and a half on either side of the headphone Port top and bottom to the edge of the case just looking at there and and on this picture from from our our site it doesn't appear to be one much much Slimmer so millimeter Slimmer uh yeah looking like a half mil on each side well it would be good if they don't bow out the bottom you know how they uh have the yeah the the bottom tends to uh come in at an angle to to make it deeper in the center of the laptop they do away with that then it would be much Slimmer although I don't see any exhaust ports do you the exhaust ports traditionally on these laptops are in the screen hinge yeah no uh for the intake I mean the intake on the that's on the uh MacBook is you know the gills on the sides oh there they are yes there are six on this 15in so they're integrated with the top um case don't see that here although it's not really a clear picture oh or they can be integrated in the bottom now could be or they might do away with it you don't know know but yeah this this picture isn't really good at showing us that because this picture doesn't show us the bottom side view of what I'm worried about is a thermal efficiency and it once you go slim like this it's really hard to manage thermals if you want to you know put a decently Speedy processor in there and apple historically has had problems with thermal management and has historically had to overcome those problems you know we can go back the 12 and uh or or the original white MacBooks that had issues with with too much thermal paste but you know they they inevitably overcome these problems well it's not so much the it's not I it's a two different issues thermal paste is a production issue this they could run right but the 12in Mac the 12-in power book didn't have the thermal paste issue it just had a heat management issue right but that was a lot thicker so how are they going to compensate for this and still had that problem I don't know I I I fear that they're going to use a highly efficient processor which is is fine but on a pro model I don't know if it's a compromise or not well at this time there's so much we don't accurately know we don't know if this is a real model we don't know if this what range of the model the what what label within the product range this product would even have so we keep calling it a MacBook Pro just because it looks similar to assuming that this is to be the thing I mean this is the assumption that we're taking right now which is what we're discussing I don't know if it is or not uh it looks I mean it could really be anything considering the knockoffs that are coming out um I guess uh it does the the One giveaway I guess or not giveaway but supporting it is the um the mouse the trackpad which looks like it was similar to Apple's uh infrastruct or you know it's got cutouts that look like they belong with the force touch for the force touch stuff so it looks similar to that although I mean who knows it could be it could be an Asus for all we know we just don't know let's talk about Apple displays what about that Apple hasn't issued a display in a long time do do you have an Apple display do you have a thunderbolt display I I last Apple display I bought was a cinema display for my it's been a while G5 I believe wow it's been a long time it's been a long time since there's been a recent display and it's kind of an embarrassment to the Apple lineup that that the display has lay phow for so long because everything else has updated to retina displays except the MacBook Air and the Thunderbolt display right right so the rumor is that Apple's going to make a thunderbolt display and that it's going to be 5K indeed like the iMac 5K so because you said it's like the iMac does it make sense that this is possible is this something they could just grab the same panel and you horned in and call today yeah well I mean no they can't just do that they're going to need something to drive it which is why the rumor the rumor is that they're going to integrate a GPU into it so say you could uh theoretically connect your I don't know 2013 MacBook Air and be fine driving the 5K your good old 12-in MacBook so I mean that's the that's the theory and it's been floated around by a lot of different sources I think you mentioned one from Twitter we both saw a couple days ago yeah well I mean why why is this even plausible you know is it because that Thunderbolt can export support external graphics cards or yes I mean the ever since the Thunderbolt display was uh announced people were just kind of speculating that Apple would uh follow it up with a GPU model or one that would have GPU in it because they specifically mentioned that fact that uh uh Thunderbolt does support external gpus and just people just kind of put two and two together and said oh well one day the Thunderbolt display is going to going to have this really rocking GPU inside and it'll be outrageous pixel densities and that just hasn't just hasn't happened but the rumor just won't die yeah so this past week a fellow by the name of Steven fosket on Twitter tweeted at uh at John Gruber and said what if Apple put the graphics card in the monitor it would work with most all Thunderbolt Max wouldn't require two cables and this is this is how rumors start right sometimes we get rumors from analysts like M quo sometimes we get information from let's just call them sources people who we know or or have reason to trust who have information on the matter and sometimes they're just speculation that's not not unreasonable speculation but speculation right so so what happened after foset tweeted this and then guber said that he'd place money betting on it and uh you know it it it sort of became a thing well it just gained momentum mainstream media of course and you know it's a it's kind of a I mean the the display itself has a following right people like the look of the display it matches the other products except it's uh shorter than the than the iMac right well the iMac has a well remember the the whole thing about why why Apple didn't make the stand a bit taller so it would be in line so people could run an iMac and the display at the same time it looks weird because it's like just an inch shorter I think anyway well you get one of those 12 South products and stack it on it to make it fit yeah you put a drive underneath or something but but uh yeah I mean it just caught gain traction with the tech community and then I don't know just kind of escalated from there right so then then citing unnamed sources like we just said imore reported that a thunderbolt connected monitor with a 5k display is not happening at the keynot or anytime in the immediate future mhm yeah I mean I don't know what do you think are the chances that they're going to release it I mean it's been so long they might I feel like they maybe didn't abandon it that product but they just it's not something that they need to Market well so here here's the thing I was discussing with Shane a couple of weeks back right I I wanted a new Mac Mini and Shane told me I was nuts to expect one that there never will be one that Apple's plan is that you buy a laptop and use a display and Apple has sold the uh the Sharp LED monitor which is uh discontinued right so they'll pick a different monitor to buy in that's not the sharp one and uh and use that now it's interesting just because Sharp's business got bought by foxcon I believe and foxcon has a great working relationship with Apple for products like well your iPhone so it's entirely possible that down the road there could be a a foxcon made product for Apple that's based on the Shar remember that Apple that's me starting a rumor don't take it seriously also was actually an investor in sharp in their um uh God what anyway in their latest uh LED facility their plant they were said to be a quiet a silent investor in that so um that that plant was feeding um portable display portable device displays so but was also turning out TVs when Shar was still making them so Apple already had an interest in in sharp uh for a few years um and we didn't see we didn't see a display come out during that time so I don't know how how much stock I'd put in uh seeing one from foxcon sure it's it's not necessarily possible but the the notion is that Apple will just at least pick another supplier to sell monitors whether they pick up you know some some future foxcon product or they just Source another monitor that's existing in quality enough yeah it's it's been their thing to just take the raw display and add their own uh controller and stuff on it and just maybe a few additions right but they can resell someone else's just as easily at this point and especially if they're focused on selling more phones selling more iPads and selling more laptops it's weird because they're streamlining their lineup while at the same time bloating it out with relative ly similar models like a right the lineup is elastic at this point you know they're they're shrinking it in some ways while growing it weirdly in others I don't know um I don't I I displays were never their thing I mean they've they've always had good displays but they were priced out of the market for a lot of uh you know just casual consumers they had well they they existed for the design so that the display could match remember the uh the calibrated displays that they used to sell with the um the early Max as an option no think they were maybe Sony displays I don't remember but there were this was the day when flat panels This is like a this was like the big what what what year are you in maybe the '90s okay so Stone Age you could buy a Sony that was calibrated to match a a preg3 yeah Power Mac none of that stuff matters I mean they have let's let's if you're going to bring up dead history bring up the Power Mac G3 with the giant uh Trinitron tube monitor dressed in in blueberry and white frosted plastic that matched right or or bring up the cinema display that was a 4x3 ratio flat panel that matched the uh the the Mystic and the the the graphite Power Max that was a nice display right with the pin stripes in the display I have that one yeah or or even after that there was the uh the the white frosted one with the ADC connector and then yeah and and then then you get to the aluminum ones with the ADC connector and then the DVI connector and then finally finally finally Thunderbolt right and in each one of those cases for the past I want to say about 15 or 16 years you're getting a display that is a nominally good display okay display but the point of it is that it matches your computer yeah but do they need to do that when you already have they've been pushing their laptops like nobody's business do you even hear them mention precisely so if you have the laptop do you even need to buy a display that matches your laptop although some people do not many anymore I that I with the with these high resolution displays that they're the res displays they're using now uh there are few scenarios in which I would be tempted to have a second display but everything on here fits on my on my desktop right now I don't it doesn't necessitate so so the only people that're making the dis the display for is the Mac Mini and the Power Mac or I mean and they haven't made a new one of those either or Imaging Professionals of course but those guys go make buy better displays anyhow so I'm not really sure if uh I don't they never broke out the numbers so we don't know exactly how popular these displays were or are I guess we uh can kind of tell since they haven't have they even updated their because they haven't broken out the numbers therefore have they even yeah well that and also popular have they even updated their informational web page for the uh display in like the past two years I don't think they have yeah but I would so that's that's the summary I would like to see one Thunderbolt displays not happening at WWDC yeah I I don't think I don't know I don't think that would be the time to announce it either if they were to announce it they've waited this long the developers conference has always been a weird place to announce Hardware anyway but displays come on I would I would expect them to if anything announce it as an accessory to the MacBook Pro or the MacBook more uh more more likely accessory to the MacBook right it just has I care about iPhones do you care about iPhones do you love your iPhone uh I wouldn't go that far but it's uh it's a big part of my life why don't you love your iPhone Mikey does it not love you back Siri doesn't love me Siri totally loves you she's an ice queen you neglect her so Apple's moving this is a rumor to a threeyear major iPhone cycle don't know if I agree with that okay first of all tell me what it means uh okay so an analyst well the Nik speculated that they were moving to a three-year revamp cycle which would mean that every 3 years instead of now you get the uh the iPhone 6 and you get iPhone 6s and then you get to redesign after two years right so so iPhone 6 is the introduction of a design 6s is refinement and then you get a new one so in three years it would just uh as as uh you might expect be spread out over three years so it would be a six so you get intro refinement refinement and then new one yes so their reasoning is that the the supposed seven which we don't know if it's going to be called seven or if the uh case leaks are even valid but if they are it is not uh in any way uh major redesign over the 6 or 6s it has a it has a little a tweaked antenna pattern and um potentially a dual yeah but that's more of a functional change the the seven itself is not supposed to be is supposed to have only one shooter so it would look very similar to the 6s um so no design change which suggests that it would be a three-year cycle for this for the uh six series body which is what and that's that's also based on the idea that the 2017 iPhone is supposed to make the switch to OLED and have a edgo edge display and a curved display and new vibration Motors capable of complex patterns and all all kinds of stuff right I'm a bit I don't think that coming off a year where iPhone sales contracted for the first time year-over-year and I'm dubious that apple is going to make such a drastic shift in their in their strategy after you mean you mean why draw it out and keep sales flat for longer people are despite I mean people are drawn to looks right it's it's unavoidable that people are going to be more interested in a redesigned iPhone than they are one that gets 3D touch and a faster Touch ID an increased Ram is harder to sell than you can't say this is you're going to have to explain why this is new rather than saying yes obviously this is new it's a totally different looking phone it's self-explanatory it's a different phone it's new so I don't know that they would lengthen that time period between um Tik toks you know I don't right but here's the problem is that it it takes nine months to a year for for product development or more and so by the time you you look at that kind of decision it's pretty much already been made by what the product cycles look like right you know you're you're already that far down the road on product development you can't suddenly say oh my goodness sales are flat we need to change something drastically Now you kind of have to go with what you've already been developing which is interesting though uh to consider that um I don't know if you remember in the Samsung trial uh they uh one of the pieces of uh evidence was a bunch of pictures of prototype iPhone mock-ups and these were obviously done uh you know at least a couple years before the original iPhone launched in 2007 right so some of those models look very similar to say the iPhone 4 sandwich and even the iPhone 5 with the chamford edges and I some could argue that the six is also based on one of these uh prototypes just a highly modified version of it so Apple might not be they're obviously you know testing and developing models in Johnny IV's lab but from what it it looks like it looks like they have been using these prototypes as a as a jumping off point that were developed maybe in 2005 or 2006 so it's not like we it's not I don't know it's just interesting to consider that yeah but they've had seven years to keep cranking more of those I'm sure there's thousands of Variations by now but it's interesting that they Haven they've uh that these 2005 or 2006 whatever models are the basis for what actually ships so who knows but what I think as far as the uh whatever they call the 2017 model which if they do a redesign I don't know if they're going to call it the 7s it seems like that would be a mistake um it seems to me that the Nik is kind of is kind of you know grabbing onto this um notion a little too tightly I think maybe Apple could be uh hurrying up production for the OLED model and bringing that up a year instead of you know waiting until 2018 for it out say so instead of going to a year model they're actually truncating the the 2-year which is for the iPhone 7 so they're they're shortening that um that life cycle and introducing the 2017 early and then they could go back to like a two-year who knows or they could so at least one every year I don't know for the US market this stuff is is almost becoming academic right it mattered a lot when we were on subsidized plans in two-year contract and you couldn't change phones until your contract was up but with with the various different upgrade options provided by the carriers where they you know they'll sometimes let you upgrade once a year or they'll let you upgrade as many times throughout the course of the year as you like or using things like the Apple upgrade plan where you can upgrade after a full year you know if with with these kinds of options it almost doesn't matter because the cost of upgrading is is really nil to the consumer yep right Apple can shorten that up that that plan by that that cycle by years as you suggest and I won't mind one bit of course they are looking for switchers now so they're looking for switchers and they're looking for upgraders so yeah I recently set up an iPhone SE and as I was going through the setup process one of the options present was would you like to bring over your information from Android and it guided you through the steps of getting the uh the the app for Android to pour your data over yeah so I mean that combined with the uh financing strategy that they're rolling out they rolled out last year they're really making a push for for growth and and not relying just solely on the appeal of uh a sexy sexy new enclosure or some uh exotic technology there there it's become more of a it's become more of a brand strategy for them to just kind of lock people in even even tighter into the iOS e ecosystem right and I think the play in 2017 is going to be towards people that would otherwise uh uh that would otherwise get a Galaxy right what is galaxies claim to fame well and as we were we were saying you know Google is taking a greater role in the design of the Nexus phone they want to have a greater control and greater influence over what that thing's going to look like and feel like um they're also getting a little bit tighter about how the uh the the third parties that ship Android are are doing on updates and going to be enforcing that a little better that obviously needs to be done the it it's just way too fragmented but I don't know if they should be taking too much of a heavy hand to design that's one of Android's strengths well for their Nexus they can because that's the one that they brand for I don't know I I don't like Google's design language at all do you not a big fan of the material design on your Ione it's just it feels messy to me it feels like skorm in the early iOS uh iOS like 3 uh I I kind of have to disagree with that I'm not sure how Google's apps in material design feel like scoris well it feels like along those L it does not obviously the same thing it's not just all Frills I I'm not seeing any felt pool table you're not seeing the uh stitched Corinthian leather I'm not seeing no I'm not seeing the rich Corinthian leather it has a it has animation that I feel are unnecessary it it's it's cool to have that you know user feedback but I think they could have implemented in a different way anyway I just not a fan just not a fan I'm also not a fan of Johnny IV's super Spartan uh UI that he introduced with um iOS 8 or S yeah mhm it's just too much don't you think not convinced I mean all of these things are are exploring new territory and the first time you do it you have to figure out what's right and wrong what does Stu and well they keep figuring out what works and what doesn't what's necessary Works they're figuring out a lot of things that don't work that too I don't know QA and um that Apple software has gone down well it's not QA it's it's adherence to the human interface guidelines but if you're going to go back to those you're going to be uh mighty lonely yeah they've uh a lot of people have strayed from the past yeah so speaking of iPhone 7 we've talked before about the phone adapter the the idea that there's not going to be a headphone jack on the thing and we published a report about a Chinese company that is marketing lightning to headphone adapters perhaps taking uh taking advantage of the situation being a little there look to be three models as I'm looking at them and uh one of them is just straight lightning to headphone with uh volume up down and a play control in the middle uh uh they all have those controls the other two models are different only in their color and that they're white and black but they have what looks to be a female lightning port on them so that you can charge while lening that would solve a lot of concerns that I have about deleting the 3.5 Jack yeah now these obviously aren't available for purchase yet they have no price listed there's no way to buy them but they are on a website they they are there and we are contacting them to try and see if we can get them of course it would be useless or next to useless for our phones unless you really love your um unless you really love your lightning set you say that but it's not useless or next to useless it's it's it could be considered redundant but it's certainly not useless uh the the thing that's worth noting when you start using lightning is that you've got a digital output and you can take advantage of putting in a better quality digital audio you're going to have let me get this straight you're going to have uh I do these offer Dax it doesn't say right well they don't say but you just know that if you're doing digital and you have to get to analog somehow they put if you do if you go this route with this specific Chinese product they're they've already taken care of that stage for you right because it it's going out to 3.5 yes they' they've included one so I guess would you buy one from say um like would I buy one from this supplier a decent audio manufacturer that offered like a lightning uh breakout and like a some sort of 24 bit Dack or something if they're going to put in the bur Brown Dack or they're going to put one of these other ones that is wellknown and and and good yes indeed well you know I've I've been doing this here at home with the uh the digital AV connector right and going digital AV to HDMI and then breaking out headphone off long until we get the Mint app the mint amp with uh with tubes for lightning you know they offered that to Neil I think oh it's great Neil was talking about his headphone collection and offered that and he refused yeah look nothing against vacuum tubes I love I love their warm sound wonderful but uh I don't need I don't need to take it with me it's well not necessarily but the um no I've been using uh aftermaster which we saw at CES and I actually had a a I've got a prototype of it here uh the current version of aftermaster has the headphone port on it and what they're doing is interesting they've got a they've got a Dack they've got an fire they've got a CPU in there and instead of just um adjusting EQ for example what they're doing is they're dynamically looking at the signal and fixing things like the uh the loudness Wars for example and they they really do a wonderful job of of making the audio listenable it sounds so much better it's incredible and and using that with the digital EV adapter and the headphones is wonderful I'll stick to my home components well using this with your your home components is really awesome too no it is I got to I got to get a sample for you you're Bally blown I'm I'm waiting for my my to be blown spew brain Parts well then we'll have to arrange that all over the furniture Mikey where can people find tter Mikey Campbell 81 and on Apple Insider this is Victor marks and if Mikey Campbell gets a portable tube amplifier embedded in himself next week we'll tell you all about it on the Apple Insider podcast\n"