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The Talk Show

266: ‘iPhone-Colored Glasses’ With Rene Ritchie

 

00:00:00   There's a lot going on yeah, it's good time to be us

00:00:03   Yeah, absolutely. I

00:00:05   Don't even know where to start I guess

00:00:08   Did I miss anything? I feel like I I had like a I got a weekend list of things. I wanted to write about today and

00:00:15   And you know, it wasn't like extensive I didn't write anything huge I just had a few things we're recording on Monday the 21st and

00:00:24   it's like

00:00:26   just like in today there's like so much new stuff that has come out like and and I

00:00:31   Feel like I'm already behind in other words. I was just watching pixel review videos all morning

00:00:37   I've hardly even touched the pixel for reviews because I was trying to catch up on the stuff

00:00:43   That I wanted to write from over the weekend. Yeah, so I read Dieter bones in the verge didn't watch the video yet. I

00:00:53   Don't know what's the consensus at Dieter's who seemed excellent it also seemed

00:00:57   I'll share my thoughts on it in a second. But what would you what do you take as the consensus?

00:01:03   Yeah, so I think the consensus is that it's got you know, still got really good stills

00:01:09   Disappointing video the battery life especially in the small one was bad enough that a few people couldn't recommend it just based on that alone

00:01:17   and it it it seemed like I

00:01:21   I think there was a lot of spoilers that went out

00:01:23   before the event.

00:01:24   And people were expecting more than the spoilers,

00:01:27   and they didn't get it.

00:01:28   They got slightly less.

00:01:30   And your project solely was this huge, cool--

00:01:32   you'd be able to twist your fingers in midair and do

00:01:34   things, and right now you just wave at your phone.

00:01:37   So partially a tech demo, but it didn't

00:01:39   seem like anyone was that blown away by it this year.

00:01:44   Yeah, I guess.

00:01:45   I mean, it's almost like an interesting experiment

00:01:50   in pre-leaking as much detail as you can.

00:01:54   You know, and what is the effect going to have on reaction?

00:02:00   You know, I mean, and you can-- you know,

00:02:03   you and I are going to see this through iPhone-colored glasses

00:02:08   just from our perspective.

00:02:10   But you know, there's often, when stuff leaks about Apple

00:02:14   stuff, there's sometimes an undercurrent of, well,

00:02:18   who cares?

00:02:18   it's all just hype or or the the conspiracy theory of you know that every

00:02:24   leak that proves accurate must have been delivered on Apple's part and they they

00:02:29   drip drip drip these leaks out as a way of increasing hype which is not true

00:02:35   yeah absolutely not true and I think part of it is the per I think part of it

00:02:42   is just personal. I really do think that from Schiller and

00:02:45   Jaws on down in Apple, there's just a personal desire to keep

00:02:51   this stuff secret. And Steve, you know, and the DNA of the

00:02:55   company is shaped by its founder, you know, Steve Jobs,

00:02:57   absolutely, whether you could have mathematically proven to

00:03:00   him, that there was financial value to be had in pre leaking

00:03:05   stuff, you just said to hell with it, I'm not only gonna

00:03:07   goddamn thing, I want to tell people about it on stage. So

00:03:10   Part of it is personality-wise,

00:03:11   and part of it, though, I think,

00:03:12   is that it is the correct PR strategy to surprise people

00:03:16   and to have features come out,

00:03:18   to have the first impression of the features

00:03:24   be what you want that first impression to be

00:03:27   as the company releasing it,

00:03:29   as opposed to some random leaker's perspective on it,

00:03:32   which may or may not be positive.

00:03:36   - Yeah, and also the talking point after all the events is,

00:03:38   oh, there was no surprises.

00:03:40   Sort of like reading the script to Star Wars

00:03:42   and then complaining you didn't get any surprises

00:03:44   in the movie.

00:03:45   But that ends up being the buzz after the event.

00:03:47   And this one, the Android events are weird to me,

00:03:50   just coming from an Apple background,

00:03:51   because more and more, and I think Google,

00:03:53   maybe for the first time, the event starts

00:03:56   and then the hands-on embargo drops,

00:03:58   because they bring people in before the event even

00:04:00   to show them the phone and they shoot video

00:04:03   and then they put up their videos.

00:04:04   And I don't know what to watch.

00:04:05   Like I'm watching the event

00:04:06   and I see like an MKBHD video come out

00:04:09   or a Verge video come out,

00:04:10   and then I don't know where to put my attention anymore,

00:04:12   and I think it makes it harder to follow the events.

00:04:14   - Yeah, I think so too.

00:04:19   Did you, you didn't go to the Pixel event, right?

00:04:23   - No, I had my colleagues go, but I did order one.

00:04:25   I ordered the orange one during the event.

00:04:27   - I ordered the white one,

00:04:29   and I'm in the process of selling my Pixel 3,

00:04:32   which is in mint condition, I have to say.

00:04:34   I did keep it in a case most of the year,

00:04:36   mainly because it was always sort of a secondary camera and so

00:04:40   but there were you know were you know, and I'm I don't baby my iPhones but you know, the one of the knocks against last year's

00:04:46   pixel 3 was that the the

00:04:48   matte finish glass was easily scratched that you know as easily scratched as

00:04:54   Like your fingernail and people would be like, well, that's not scratch

00:04:58   That's just calcium from your fingernail rubbing off and people were like no. No, it's actually the class

00:05:03   I don't know big one or the small one. No, I always get the small one because I tried to I

00:05:07   Try to as best as I can

00:05:11   Buy the one you know that I would get if I were going to use it and I you know

00:05:16   I still prefer the smaller of the iPhone

00:05:18   10

00:05:21   series phones and I still would prefer the

00:05:24   smaller pixel for now again, I saw the initial

00:05:29   Reviews, you know even Dieter's not even I don't mean that that Dieter pointed out

00:05:33   I mean in the even in the sense that I've only read one

00:05:36   Yeah, even the one review I read which happens to be Dieter's mentions that has it very, you know

00:05:42   gives it gives a different rating to both phones and and one of the reasons that the

00:05:45   XL gets a better rating is that the battery is

00:05:48   Average in his terms whereas the battery life on the smaller one is poor

00:05:52   I don't know why I enjoy site for the first time said that they couldn't recommend the small pixel just based on but I don't

00:05:57   remember them ever not recommending a Pixel before.

00:06:00   I don't know why the battery life is worse though. I'm not quite sure given how limited

00:06:08   my review depth is. Are people saying it's worse than the Pixel 3 smaller one last year?

00:06:14   And if so, I can't understand why it's worse because I...

00:06:16   The Pixel 3 was terrible. The Pixel 4 is a small battery but also they have a 90 hertz

00:06:22   display which is sucking down more power.

00:06:24   Yeah.

00:06:25   more of the ML on device which is sucking down more power.

00:06:28   Yeah, that might be the explanation. I thought that the battery life on the Pixel 3 was fine.

00:06:32   And you know, using, mostly using the camera, which should be a battery, you know, a draw

00:06:36   because the display is on and it's reading and writing. But we'll see what I think

00:06:41   about the Pixel 4. But I bought the white one because I bought the black one last year

00:06:50   it was too hard to tell apart from all my black iPhones.

00:06:55   And so I needed to buy a color that would be

00:06:59   easily distinguishable while they're in front of me.

00:07:03   'Cause I wind up doing things,

00:07:05   it's more than just like two phones side by side.

00:07:07   I mean, I'm just a mess in September and October,

00:07:14   really I'm just sort of coming down from it.

00:07:16   Because I'm testing multiple new iPhones now

00:07:20   from Apple. And I, you know, as I mentioned, talking to Ben

00:07:25   Thompson, on my last episode of the show, I really didn't even

00:07:29   spend much time with the 11 Pro Max, just because I did enough

00:07:36   to trust to verify that Apple what Apple was saying that this

00:07:40   is the same phone just bigger. And once I verified it, then all

00:07:43   I did was test the 11 and the 11 Pro because it's just too much.

00:07:48   But I've still got it out. It's laying around on my desk, you know, so I've got like new three two or three new iPhones

00:07:53   I've got my year-old iPhone that I'm using as like a baseline to measure year over year

00:07:58   And then I've got the pixel three out to like measure. How's this night sight compared with their night sight, etc?

00:08:03   So having them all be black was just terrible

00:08:06   So I got the white one

00:08:08   I think it has a nice stormtrooper II look which is what I sort of think about like the addition

00:08:13   Apple watch the the ceramic edition Apple watch

00:08:17   And I it's funny like the orange seems to be

00:08:23   In certain photographs, I love orange and black. I went to a high school with colors that were orange and black

00:08:30   I think orange and black are underrated colors on sports teams. I

00:08:33   Do I think they go very well together?

00:08:36   The other colors I use for vector it's it's a underused combination I really like it

00:08:44   I think, you know, I think orange is sometimes difficult to get right and but when you do it can look great

00:08:49   But I there's sort of a different photograph show the orange in different light

00:08:54   You know some of them look a lot more coral and some of them don't look coral at all

00:08:58   And I don't really care for coral so I didn't go that way. I got white

00:09:01   I'm just a sucker for new color, so I'll almost always get whatever it color is new

00:09:05   The thing that surprised me in Dieter's review though is well

00:09:08   You know Google made that big pitch about they have the the pixel neural core now and they can do live preview

00:09:13   And what I didn't realize it was just for HDR plus and I really wanted it for portrait mode

00:09:18   And then Dieter responded on Twitter that Google doesn't think that preview on portrait mode is any good and a mutual friend Matthew pans

00:09:26   We know if TechCrunch had a mini a mini stroke episode Twitter right after that. I see I missed all of this

00:09:32   This is all context that I have missed. I

00:09:35   do know I did that is an interesting philosophical difference between

00:09:40   Google's internal pixel camera team and apples and Apple real apples internal team is

00:09:46   Very very keen about doing everything live almost religious

00:09:51   Yeah, and in fact that makes the exception that is deep fusion

00:09:56   Notable, even though it's in my testing. It seems to be well under a second

00:10:03   usually but noticeable like

00:10:07   long longer enough that you wouldn't call it instantaneous but

00:10:10   Generally less than a second and you can sort of see a little update in the you know

00:10:14   You snap your picture the deep focus post-processing takes place and then the preview little

00:10:20   Avatar icon whatever you want to call it updates

00:10:23   So that's not live in the camera

00:10:28   But just about everything else is and and Apple even goes to great lengths now

00:10:32   Now they can't, it's, you know, the definition of the feature means that night mode is, can't

00:10:39   be done live because it's a multiple second exposure from when you begin it.

00:10:44   So without the ability to travel into the future a few seconds, there's no way to do

00:10:50   it.

00:10:51   But yet the live, what you do see in the viewfinder on the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro for night mode

00:10:58   is remarkably close to what you end up getting.

00:11:02   I'm not quite sure even how they do that.

00:11:04   Whereas that has absolutely been,

00:11:06   I don't have a Pixel 4 yet,

00:11:07   and I've pre-ordered, we'll be here soon,

00:11:10   but the Pixel 3, as much as they deserve kudos

00:11:12   for their night sight last year,

00:11:14   the live version of it was garbage.

00:11:17   - Yes.

00:11:18   Yeah. - It was really bad.

00:11:19   I mean, you really-- - I like it

00:11:20   for portrait mode 'cause I can,

00:11:22   if it's messing around with the glasses or the ears,

00:11:24   I can just move it a little bit

00:11:25   and it fixes it before I waste time taking photos.

00:11:28   - You could use it for composition,

00:11:31   but it was absolutely useless in terms of finding out

00:11:35   what is the end result going to look like.

00:11:38   Now, was it better to have the feature than not have it?

00:11:42   Sure, you know, but I can also see why in that state

00:11:46   Apple wouldn't have shipped it.

00:11:47   Apple would say that's not ready to go

00:11:49   because we want it to be a reasonable representation.

00:11:52   Anyway, I thought that the whole framing of Dieter's review,

00:11:58   my take on the Pixel all along,

00:12:00   Ever since they rebooted their internal,

00:12:05   this is Google's Android phone

00:12:08   from the Nexus line to the Pixel line.

00:12:10   And I think it's worth treating as a new line.

00:12:14   Like they changed philosophically, in my opinion,

00:12:18   not just, it wasn't just a rose by any other name.

00:12:22   They took a lot more in-house.

00:12:26   It really wasn't,

00:12:27   The Pixel phones are a lot more than just pure Android,

00:12:30   which is what the Nexus phones were.

00:12:33   They really are Google's version of Android,

00:12:36   by taking Android and Googling it up with extra degrees.

00:12:39   I've always felt that at a basic level,

00:12:43   the Pixels are Android phones

00:12:49   for people who like iPhone hardware.

00:12:52   That it's, not that they're copies, you know,

00:12:56   But the Pixel phones have always been a lot more iPhone-like.

00:13:00   Putting aside what you see in the software, which

00:13:04   is the iOS versus Android, but just treating them

00:13:06   as hardware devices, boy, they're very iPhone-like.

00:13:11   They're iPhone-like in dimension.

00:13:13   They're iPhone-like in feel, sort of, varying.

00:13:17   Some of the earlier ones were very similar in design.

00:13:20   Yeah.

00:13:21   They've always put the camera in the upper left corner

00:13:25   the back, which seems like a little thing but an awful—especially three, four years

00:13:30   ago, a lot of high-end Android phones still had the cameras centered in the back.

00:13:34   Yeah, many of them still do.

00:13:35   They still do, you know, and those are all, you know, but it's just, you know, at a

00:13:41   basic level, it just sort of looks like, boy, if you could just run an Android on an iPhone,

00:13:48   that's sort of the Pixel aesthetic.

00:13:50   - So for me, they've always been curious

00:13:53   because my understanding is that

00:13:55   there was a sort of a shakeup in Google leadership

00:13:57   and one of the people in charge really wanted an iPhone.

00:14:01   They just wanted Google to have an iPhone

00:14:04   and they started putting a lot of the elements in place

00:14:06   from internal design groups.

00:14:07   They bought HTC, well, they bought HTC Design in house.

00:14:12   They started working on their own silicon.

00:14:13   They started doing a lot of things to make an iPhone

00:14:15   but at the same time,

00:14:17   they never made the same kind of choices Apple would.

00:14:19   Like they never, or even Huawei or Samsung,

00:14:21   they never put great camera hardware on there

00:14:24   because they figured their camera software was so great

00:14:27   they could do with a less capable camera.

00:14:30   And they had a lot of trouble with screens.

00:14:32   So they didn't make the manufacturing choices

00:14:34   that Apple would make,

00:14:36   but they still sort of wanted an iPhone.

00:14:38   And then over the last year,

00:14:39   some of those initiatives didn't really work out

00:14:41   the way they hoped.

00:14:42   So now it just feels like they want a platform

00:14:44   to showcase the best of Google algorithms and software.

00:14:48   - Right.

00:14:49   - Oh, and they're definitely keen on the camera angle.

00:14:51   I mean, there's no doubt about it and they deserve it,

00:14:54   but it sort of feels this year too.

00:14:59   And again, I didn't read all the reviews,

00:15:01   so I'm not sure what they're gonna say,

00:15:03   but it seems like yet last year was a real high point

00:15:07   for their ability to do stuff computationally.

00:15:12   Night Sight in particular would be the shining--

00:15:16   - And Super Zoom was another good example.

00:15:18   Superzoom is another good example, where they do digital zoom, but by taking multiple exposures

00:15:23   and running it through a neural net. And it's a great, to me, it's a great example of how

00:15:31   this AI stuff really does deserve to be treated as a different sort of computing than, you

00:15:42   know what I mean? It's like there's all sorts of algorithms that are supposed to make things

00:15:47   seems smarter. Is it AI? No, not in a classical sense, but using a more efficient sorting

00:15:54   algorithm when you have to sort something, if it makes your spreadsheet faster when you're

00:15:59   reordering 10,000 columns of data by having a more efficient sort algorithm. That's just

00:16:05   classic computer science of being faster and stuff like this. Whereas the way that they're

00:16:10   doing the super zoom isn't really a human thinking, "Well, if this pixel is this color

00:16:17   and this next pixel in a tenth of a second later exposure is within 9%, then do this

00:16:23   and that. It really is just sort of feeding this into a machine learning model and by

00:16:30   telling it this looks better, this looks worse, and then you feed these things in there, all

00:16:34   of a sudden they come out with a way to very quickly, using the dedicated chips for this,

00:16:41   a digital zoom that is just seemingly way, way better than you could expect to get out

00:16:47   of a digital zoom.

00:16:48   Yes, absolutely.

00:16:50   But it feels like this year they're on a downside, even though they've added, you

00:16:54   know, extra hardware by adding a 2x telephoto lens and going beyond one camera lens on the

00:17:03   back. So they've definitely added hardware. It just feels like this is a down year for

00:17:07   there sort of will do most. Most of the benefit will come from our computational stuff and

00:17:13   we don't have to worry so much about the actual hardware. Like ideally you want both.

00:17:18   And I feel like…

00:17:19   Yes, absolutely. Because you also, I mean, you can tweak, like Apple is adding deep fusion

00:17:26   and they can tweak battery algorithms and they can tweak, but you can't go to everybody's

00:17:30   house and put a better camera system on their phone. You can't go to everybody's house

00:17:33   and stick a bigger battery in. You need a baseline. The better the hardware, the better

00:17:37   the software is going to work, and that's the balance they seem to be struggling with.

00:17:41   Dave Asprey And Apple is really doing some impressive

00:17:45   stuff with video. I mean, and that's always been the weak spot, Android wide, but Pixel

00:17:51   in particular, you know, the video stuff, just, you know, wherever you want to argue,

00:17:56   they rank on still mobile phone photography on video. Everything from Android is way behind

00:18:03   I mean, nobody else does 4K 60 yet, or maybe with some—

00:18:11   I think Samsung does.

00:18:12   Yeah, maybe some—

00:18:13   But I don't think they do the interleaved extended dynamic range at 60.

00:18:15   Yeah, put an asterisk there, and it's, okay, maybe they do, but it's not great.

00:18:19   Like, you pointed—I got it from you and gave you credit when I linked to it, but Jonathan

00:18:23   Morrison, you know, well-known Twitter—or not Twitter, but YouTube personality, who

00:18:32   does great work and usually shoots with, you know, really,

00:18:34   truly professional camera rig.

00:18:36   And Arri Alexa Mini, which is like, I think $85,000.

00:18:40   It's just, you know, as good as it gets. Yeah, you know, it's

00:18:44   super pro. Filmmaker style kit, had a video with his first

00:18:50   thoughts on the pixel four, and he shot the whole thing, not

00:18:53   just with the iPhone 11, but with the iPhone 11 front facing

00:18:56   camera and it's clearly 60 frames per second. It probably clearly 4k but I looked at it

00:19:05   on a 13 inch MacBook so I don't know if I could I don't mod 100% sure that I could peg

00:19:10   moving video is 4k versus 1080 on a screen that size but you can definitely tell 60 frames

00:19:14   per second. Yeah. And you know, just totally. I didn't know in advance I don't think I would

00:19:22   guest and then at the very end of his video he had some like meta shots showing him shooting

00:19:27   it showing that he shot it with the front-facing camera like i don't see how he was joking on

00:19:32   twitter when google announced that he's at their the iphone selfie camera now shoots better video

00:19:36   than the main camera on the pixel it really does i mean it's actually i mean at least by some

00:19:41   measure there may be some ways that the that the bigger sensor on the rear-facing camera

00:19:45   there might be some scenarios where you get better video on the rear facing you have really good like

00:19:50   but like their algorithms for color and balance

00:19:52   and for stabilization are amazing.

00:19:55   Like they have, again, amazing algorithms.

00:19:57   But today I think they put out a statement

00:19:58   saying they didn't do 60 frames per second

00:20:00   because they thought it was a waste.

00:20:02   It was too much storage.

00:20:04   And that's my biggest problem with Pixel in general

00:20:06   is that Google doesn't have a strong opinion.

00:20:08   They, the first Pixel, they said,

00:20:10   "We don't need a camera bump."

00:20:11   Second year, like, "Oh, we need a camera bump.

00:20:13   We don't need new camera.

00:20:14   We don't need two cameras.

00:20:15   Oh, we need two cameras, but we don't need a wide angle."

00:20:17   And you just know next year

00:20:18   they're gonna add a wide angle.

00:20:20   And it's the same, we have a chin and a forehead

00:20:22   because we want two front-facing speakers.

00:20:24   That's really important to us.

00:20:25   And this year they put the speaker

00:20:26   right where the iPhone is.

00:20:27   And it feels like they sort of go halfway

00:20:30   and then rationalize it

00:20:31   and then change their mind the next year.

00:20:33   And I just want them to be super opinionated

00:20:34   about what they want a phone to be.

00:20:36   - Yeah.

00:20:37   I would have encouraged them to go notchless

00:20:42   last year as well.

00:20:43   Like I feel like what they've done this year

00:20:46   where they, instead of having a notch,

00:20:48   It just goes across the top.

00:20:50   And so there's, you know, in that chin forehead terms,

00:20:53   they have a forehead, small by historical forehead sizes,

00:20:58   but still a forehead that's effectively the height of,

00:21:02   you know, what a notch would be on an iPhone 10

00:21:05   or any of the other phones that have curiously come out

00:21:08   with notches since the iPhone 10.

00:21:10   It has a bit of a chin, but not,

00:21:15   it's not anywhere close to the height of the forehead.

00:21:17   So iPhones have always been symmetrically designed

00:21:21   so that when you hold them sideways,

00:21:22   if it has a chin and forehead, it matches.

00:21:26   And if it doesn't have a chin or forehead,

00:21:27   it's the same bezel size all the way around.

00:21:29   I think that that's a better design

00:21:34   than the weird, ugly ass notch

00:21:36   that the Pixels had last year.

00:21:39   - And last year, the notch was only on the bigger one.

00:21:41   The smaller one didn't have a notch.

00:21:42   So did they have an opinion on notches?

00:21:44   Did they do one with a notch

00:21:45   just because they wanted to support it in Android

00:21:47   I figured they had to do it themselves.

00:21:48   I don't understand their opinions though.

00:21:50   - Yeah, and they obviously didn't spend a lot of work

00:21:53   last year on the corner radius of the rounded off screen.

00:21:57   Sort of like a first pass.

00:21:59   - And this year it's gestures.

00:22:00   I mean, they're sort of like the iPhone,

00:22:01   but they don't work the same as the iPhone

00:22:03   and they just end up confusing.

00:22:04   It's always a little bit of halfway.

00:22:06   - Yeah, I gotta say I'm not, I mean, I'll try it

00:22:08   and I don't wanna prejudge it,

00:22:09   but what they're doing the radar stuff with

00:22:13   does not interest me really.

00:22:15   I don't really, I can't imagine,

00:22:17   so they have a feature now that you can wave your hand

00:22:20   without touching the phone and do a couple things.

00:22:23   One of them is you can fast forward tracks

00:22:27   if music is playing by just passing your hand over it.

00:22:30   You can, the useful one seems to be that it'll sense

00:22:36   when your hand gets near and fire up

00:22:39   their face recognition sensors

00:22:42   so that before you're even pointing it at your face,

00:22:45   they're already looking because they know your hand

00:22:47   has entered the little sphere of three-dimensional space

00:22:50   above the phone.

00:22:52   And I guess you can tickle your Pokemon or something

00:22:54   on your home screen by just waving at it,

00:22:57   which really seems weird.

00:22:59   - The whole thing in there was odd to me too.

00:23:01   I think it's a good idea to warm up the camera

00:23:04   if it detects you, but Apple had the iPhone 11 event

00:23:07   and they have a U1 chip in the iPhone 11

00:23:09   and they didn't mention it because there's no compelling

00:23:11   user-facing feature yet.

00:23:13   on their product page at the bottom, it says,

00:23:15   "Yeah, it'll help you with AirDrop."

00:23:16   But the obvious consumer-facing feature hasn't shipped yet,

00:23:21   so they stayed mum.

00:23:23   Where with this, it feels like they don't,

00:23:25   it's nothing like the early demos.

00:23:27   The early demo showed people doing very fine-grained

00:23:29   controls of radios and video and all these things,

00:23:32   and none of that is ready.

00:23:34   So I would have just completely downplayed it,

00:23:36   just not mentioned it very much at all.

00:23:38   And everyone left being disappointed,

00:23:39   like, "Oh, it wasn't as good as the demo."

00:23:41   - Right, there are white papers on the technology,

00:23:45   or I don't know if that's their official term,

00:23:46   but they've talked about the technology for years,

00:23:49   and they make it sound as though it's as fine-grained

00:23:53   as the touchscreen itself, right?

00:23:55   So in the way-- - We have videos showing it.

00:23:57   - Yeah, so you can, if you're adjusting the volume

00:24:01   on your phone by using the slider in your finger,

00:24:03   and you have this incredible fine-grained control,

00:24:06   they're showing it that you could just hold your finger

00:24:08   above the phone and get the same thing,

00:24:10   Whereas all they really have here is simple,

00:24:13   broad stroke, fast forward, next track type.

00:24:15   - Which aren't working consistently.

00:24:17   If you look at the reviewers somewhere,

00:24:18   I think Marques was saying it worked 10% at first.

00:24:20   He's figured out how to make it work 60% of the time.

00:24:23   And that's not a flagship feature.

00:24:25   - No, but that's terrible.

00:24:26   I think anything that's less than 100% is terrible.

00:24:28   And it gets me to, I mean, I have complaints

00:24:31   about Apple stuff that works like that too.

00:24:33   - Yes, same.

00:24:34   - Trying to think of a good one.

00:24:38   I mean a lot of the stuff with iOS 13 is just still kind of busted.

00:24:44   Yeah, I'm trying to think of it. Off the top of my head I can't think of it, but maybe some Apple TV type interactions are pretty good.

00:24:52   Like even though I use Apple TV all the time, me using that little remote to move the selection around the screen, I'm still not as precise as I think I should be.

00:25:01   That's for example one example.

00:25:04   - The big one for me on Apple TV is apparently

00:25:06   the longer you press, it's whether it'll shoot you back

00:25:09   to the episode selector or all the way back to the screen.

00:25:12   And I could never get that right.

00:25:13   So I would just always try to go, no wrong episode,

00:25:15   try to go back, oh, I'm back on the home screen,

00:25:17   play the episode again, oh, I'm back on the home screen.

00:25:19   It was like a random frustration generator.

00:25:21   - Oh, I can think of a good example.

00:25:22   A good example is the keyboard problems

00:25:25   people are having on MacBooks,

00:25:27   where even if your keyboard isn't completely failed,

00:25:30   Like if it's just that like, you know, one time out of 50,

00:25:34   you'd hit the E key and get two E's instead of one E.

00:25:39   And it's only one out of 50.

00:25:40   That's terrible.

00:25:41   That's absolutely unacceptable.

00:25:42   It has to be every time.

00:25:43   Like when you click an okay button in the dialogue,

00:25:45   it has to click every time.

00:25:47   So like trying to do next track with a gesture

00:25:50   and the gesture only works 60% of the time,

00:25:52   that you'll, I mean, 60% is so low

00:25:56   that you'll stop using the feature.

00:25:57   There's no way.

00:25:58   - Even just like Siri still,

00:25:59   Like if I tell it to call my mom,

00:26:01   nine out of 10 times is perfect.

00:26:02   The 10th time it recommends a,

00:26:04   sorry, a veterinarian to cross town from me.

00:26:08   And then you have learned helplessness.

00:26:09   - Yeah, Siri's a perfect example of that too.

00:26:12   And there's just stuff,

00:26:13   and to me the bar for that is a little bit different

00:26:17   than a physical UI, right?

00:26:21   Like a button that you tap on a touchscreen

00:26:24   or click on a mouse-driven interface

00:26:28   or a keyboard shortcut you invoke to do it

00:26:31   is very, very, it's provable whether it worked

00:26:36   or didn't work exactly as expected

00:26:40   with the latency you expect.

00:26:42   Whereas the Siri stuff is always gonna be a little nebulous

00:26:46   as to where the edge conditions lie.

00:26:50   But for the most part, to me, I think that the standards

00:26:54   by which we should judge Siri

00:26:56   the similar voice assistants is basically what if you hired a college kid to be your intern?

00:27:01   Would you expect them to understand what you just said? And if you, you know, so if you hired

00:27:07   somebody to be your assistant and follow you around, and you're like, you wanted to call

00:27:12   your mom and you don't want to touch the phone, you're like, get my mom on the phone, right? You

00:27:17   expect your mother to be on the phone every single time. You don't expect to have like a pizza place

00:27:22   open up. Did you see Joanna's video for the Pixel this morning? With the speed talker? Yeah,

00:27:33   she's always so creative with those videos and she put the, because the new Google voice recorder

00:27:36   also transcribes, so of course she got someone with a Scottish accent, with a West Indian accent,

00:27:42   with a German accent, transatlantic, yeah maybe we're Australian or something, and the world's

00:27:47   fastest talker and just let them all loose on it. Yeah the world's fastest talker or fastest woman

00:27:52   talker. I'm not quite sure if she has the record, but that was just cruel.

00:27:58   But the stenographer kept up, which was amazing.

00:28:01   Yeah, I will. Yeah. And she had a professional court stenographer there,

00:28:04   like the Paul Bunyan, the real-life flesh and blood alternative. Anyway, that is a killer feature,

00:28:12   I have to say, for me personally, as somebody who occasionally, somewhat occasionally,

00:28:16   needs or wants transcription. Boy, that's a fantastic feature that I wish, I hope the iPhone

00:28:21   can follow as quickly as possible.

00:28:24   It seems to work for you.

00:28:25   Yeah, well someone pointed out that Clips does a little bit of that.

00:28:26   So hopefully Apple can flesh that out into a full-fledged.

00:28:29   Yeah.

00:28:30   But something like that if you have an on-the-record meeting as somebody

00:28:34   in the press, or if you're a student and you want to record a lecture

00:28:36   or something, that if you can hear it and understand it,

00:28:40   your iPhone can hear it and transcribe it.

00:28:43   And hopefully--

00:28:43   The other thing that was baffling for me is that they have the brand new Google

00:28:46   Assistant.

00:28:47   It's only available in the US for now, which that happens.

00:28:49   That's fine.

00:28:50   But if you have a Google Apps account,

00:28:53   doesn't matter if it's first account, second account.

00:28:57   If you have one on, the Assistant will not work.

00:28:59   What?

00:29:00   Yeah, if you have a Gmail account, it's fine.

00:29:02   But if you have a Google Apps account or a Gmail account

00:29:05   and a Google Apps account, the Assistant just will not work.

00:29:08   Oh, that's a strange limitation.

00:29:09   And they said they're working on a fix,

00:29:10   but it always seems like Google Apps accounts, which

00:29:12   people pay for, get way shorter shift than the Gmail accounts.

00:29:15   Wow, that's really weird.

00:29:16   And it also seems like the sort of problem

00:29:18   you'd more expect from Apple, you know,

00:29:21   the various ongoing problems that those of us

00:29:24   with two iTunes accounts, iCloud accounts,

00:29:27   whatever you wanna call them, Apple IDs, still get.

00:29:31   I don't wanna go on a whole sidetrack,

00:29:36   but basically I, among other old,

00:29:38   the longer you've been using Apple products,

00:29:40   the more likely you are to be in this boat,

00:29:42   where you opened up a iTunes store account

00:29:46   in the early 2000s with email address A,

00:29:51   and then later on with Mac.com,

00:29:53   created a Mac.com or a me.com account

00:29:56   to use Mac.com features,

00:30:00   but that's not the same thing you use for iTunes,

00:30:02   and still lo these many years later in 2019,

00:30:06   you've still got two separate accounts

00:30:09   because there's no way to merge them,

00:30:11   which I understand would be incredibly complicated,

00:30:14   and you know that there's all sorts of edge conditions

00:30:17   you could run into there.

00:30:18   Because if I want to, I can go to a new machine

00:30:20   and log in with my iTunes account.

00:30:22   And it is an Apple ID.

00:30:23   So I could use iMessage and note syncing

00:30:26   and calendar syncing all from that account.

00:30:29   I'm sure there's some people who are somehow

00:30:34   using two different things.

00:30:35   And so merging them would be complicated.

00:30:37   On the surface it sounds like, jeez,

00:30:41   why can't I just say I would like to just use

00:30:43   my iCloud account for everything and transfer all the iTunes accounts from this other account

00:30:47   over in a one-time transition and then that's that. But I get it, that's complicated.

00:30:53   But anyway, living life like that is always a little bit more complicated than the people

00:30:57   who have it all in one. You don't know how lucky you are if you only have one. It's

00:31:02   good to know Google has problems like that too. Anyway, I thought Dieter's basic opening

00:31:07   is the framing of his review read very iPhone-y to me as well. So I've always thought that

00:31:18   the pixels were, as a whole, the whole project is sort of Google's take on iPhone-style hardware

00:31:22   with stuff like screens that aren't super-saturated, less blingy, more understated design. You

00:31:31   know, there is a sort of designed-in-California look to their stuff, too, that's different

00:31:36   than stuff that's designed in Korea or China or Japan, you know, with some of Sony's very

00:31:42   cool stuff. Dieter's review though made it almost it almost read like the opening to

00:31:49   like what kind of product is he reviewing here, you'd almost think it was an Apple product

00:31:53   because it was about how specs don't tell the story of the product. And you can't just

00:31:58   look at the specs. You have to kind of look at the actual experience and you could say,

00:32:03   this phone it doesn't have the fastest processor and it doesn't have the greatest camera hardware

00:32:07   but you look at the actual photos you get from it and they look better than

00:32:11   other ones the other phones that might on on paper seemingly have a better camera.

00:32:17   No that's absolutely true. Huawei and Samsung both have tremendous some of the Nokia stuff

00:32:22   tremendous optics on them and they just they junk them up with really bad color science really poor

00:32:26   color management the cameras look different from one system to the other and yeah or they

00:32:31   they overblow them with AI,

00:32:33   what they call their AI modes and they over saturate them.

00:32:35   And Google, you can, like, I think if you look at them,

00:32:38   you can subjectively choose which one you prefer

00:32:40   because at this point they're both so good.

00:32:42   It's the artistic choices.

00:32:43   Like Google's tend to look cooler.

00:32:46   Apple's tend to look a little bit warmer.

00:32:47   They do different stuff with the details.

00:32:49   Their semantic rendering is slightly different,

00:32:51   but that is just personal preference at this point.

00:32:53   And it's amazing we've gotten to the point

00:32:55   where it comes down to that.

00:32:56   - Yeah, there's definitely,

00:32:58   can definitely see the different internal aesthetic choices in there. So what else with

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00:36:13   So there was a story, another story at the Verge. I think it was like right after the

00:36:19   iPhone 11 events by Sam Byford. It was like, I think literally said that Apple needed to

00:36:26   catch up to Android this year on the camera.

00:36:31   And it had been taken as a point of just fact for the last year

00:36:37   that the Pixel 3 was a better camera than the iPhone XS.

00:36:42   And Vlad was writing that a lot as well.

00:36:44   And I disagree.

00:36:47   I really do.

00:36:47   And I might say, oh, you know, Neelay and I

00:36:50   talked about this a few weeks ago on the Verge crash.

00:36:54   I feel like the differences were, they were real.

00:36:57   And I could see why subjectively somebody would prefer

00:37:01   the Pixel 3 for still photography.

00:37:02   But objectively, I think that there were plus and minuses

00:37:06   on both sides.

00:37:07   And, you know, Night Sight was the one feature

00:37:11   the Pixel 3 had for a year that the iPhone XS couldn't do.

00:37:15   But it wasn't, you know, how often do you need it?

00:37:18   And, you know, I don't know.

00:37:21   - I mean, I was on that portrait mode

00:37:23   before Google did it, but it didn't seem

00:37:25   to have such a big a reaction.

00:37:26   - Right, you know, there's things

00:37:29   that the iPhone still camera could do

00:37:30   that the Pixel couldn't, and for just regular photography,

00:37:34   I think it was debatable.

00:37:35   But I thought-- - The biggest thing for me

00:37:36   is that we went to CES and I was shooting with an iPhone

00:37:39   and everyone from our Android team

00:37:40   started off shooting with a Pixel,

00:37:42   but the camera just wouldn't launch,

00:37:44   they would miss the shot and the video would drop frames,

00:37:46   and by a day in, they'd all switch to Samsung

00:37:48   and Huawei phones because it didn't matter

00:37:50   how good the camera was if it couldn't get

00:37:52   shocked for them. And I think that's one of the most underappreciated aspects of a

00:37:56   camera.

00:37:57   Yeah, and that was a knock against the Pixel 3 too with startup time. And we've all been

00:38:02   in that situation. And at times, I've even wondered whether Apple should make, you know,

00:38:07   should they add a dedicated phone button? And I can see why they don't. The Nokia

00:38:12   phones back in the day had a dedicated shutter button just for the camera and launching it.

00:38:19   We've all been in that situation where there's,

00:38:21   "Oh my God, there's something cute or amazing

00:38:23   "or whatever going on.

00:38:24   "I need to get my camera fired up as fast as possible."

00:38:26   And you really don't want that to be delayed.

00:38:28   But I thought the other thing, it was sort of a,

00:38:33   it's a well-known trope that the Macalope observes

00:38:39   very keenly, was that the gist of Biford's explanation

00:38:43   of how the, or assertion that the iPhone needed

00:38:46   catch up on the phone or on the camera was by citing at least three different Android

00:38:54   phones. You know, like, it didn't have Night Sight, which the Pixel did. It didn't have

00:38:59   an ultra wide lens, which these Huawei and other brand phones did. And it didn't have

00:39:05   something else that some other phone did. But none of those three phones have the three

00:39:09   features. You know what I mean? Like you could say, quote, unquote, Android had these three

00:39:12   features, but you had to have three different phones to have all three features. It's just

00:39:16   a sort of a classic gotcha of comparing the Apple ecosystem to Windows back in the day to Android in

00:39:24   recent years. I thought that the extra lens thing was particularly rich if you're going to—because

00:39:31   usually people held up the Pixel as the best Android camera phone, I think with good reason.

00:39:41   But if, you know, on those grounds, clearly it was the Pixel that needed to catch up and now still

00:39:46   needs to catch up. It still only has two lenses even at the highest lens, at the highest version.

00:39:51   And again, I don't say that that proves that the iPhone is ahead. I'm just saying I think

00:39:56   it requires a much more nuanced discussion. And I think that the certainty that some

00:40:03   Pixel aficionados feel that they have the best still camera phone is maybe not warranted.

00:40:09   Yeah, it's very subjective.

00:40:14   Which brings me to this discussion of, okay, if you're going to add, like the standard

00:40:19   lens on a modern cell phone camera is pretty consistently in field of view at what in 35

00:40:28   millimeter terms would be around a 26 to 28 millimeter lens.

00:40:37   And there's a good argument to be made that we should kind of get away from those terms

00:40:43   anymore.

00:40:45   And Apple certainly has.

00:40:46   Apple doesn't really describe them.

00:40:47   Apple just calls them 1x, 2x, and now 0.5x, which is a better way of thinking about it.

00:40:53   And field of view, which is measured in an angle.

00:40:56   In other words, what angle from the lens pointing forward is captured in the sensor makes more

00:41:08   sense than just using 35mm sensor film terms, especially as 35mm sensors become a smaller

00:41:15   and smaller part of the camera landscape.

00:41:21   So what we call a 1x lens on most of these cameras is very, very similar in field of

00:41:26   view. Just a tiny fraction. The iPhone is a little bit wider than the Pixel was last

00:41:31   year. I don't know how they compare this year. But if you set a Pixel 3 and an iPhone

00:41:36   XS up last year, you could, if you knew what to look for, if they were set up at the exact

00:41:42   same location, you could tell instantly which one was which because the iPhones would be

00:41:46   a little bit wider. So you'd capture a little bit more information along the sides of the

00:41:51   the image. So depending on the subject you were photographing, you could just see it

00:41:56   if there's a little bit more. Like I think if you really wanted to do a side-by-side,

00:42:03   like double-blind, which one do you like, part of it would have been you'd have to

00:42:08   crop the iPhone pictures like one or two percent and do like a center crop just to get the

00:42:14   same field of view. If you're going to add a second lens, and now everybody's adding

00:42:20   second lenses because it's just the physics of these devices and you know how thin they

00:42:26   need to be mean you at least in the near future there's no way to make a zoom lens meaning

00:42:33   a lens that adjusts from these different fields of view so if you want to get the effects

00:42:40   of a zoom lens the advantages meaning to be able to go even wider or to zoom in more without

00:42:48   resorting to digital zoom, you need second and third camera lenses. I kind of feel and

00:42:57   did you watch the Pixel 4 event?

00:42:59   Yes.

00:43:00   I forget the guy's name. Do you know the guy's name who's like their camera guy?

00:43:04   Oh, it's Mark. I'm blanking on his name too. He's the guy who made all those computations

00:43:08   with that original computational photography app.

00:43:11   Yeah, he's a very smart guy. I think he was a little salty about the ultra wide lens.

00:43:17   lens yeah like i kind of feel like google got caught with their just caught maybe making the

00:43:26   wrong decision on that front and that mark levoie mark levoie i'm gonna have to write this down

00:43:32   and i really think that apple made the right decision now that the non-pro

00:43:43   $799 new iPhone has two lenses. Instead of following in the footsteps of the iPhone 10

00:43:50   and 10S and going telephoto as the second lens, it only goes ultra-wide. I think that's

00:43:56   the right move for most people. I think it's also the right move for the non-pro phone.

00:44:03   And I'm on the record as saying we don't have to worry so much about what pro means in the

00:44:09   parlance of an iPhone Pro. It really can just mean iPhone premium. Yes, whether it's professional

00:44:16   or not. But the truth is, as just a basic rule of thumb, the wider the lens, the more

00:44:24   fun it is, right? And you can get, you know, some actual comical effects with the ultra

00:44:32   wide by having a subject really close and it exaggerates it. And then the longer the

00:44:38   lens the more serious it is. It just gives you a more serious feel. That's why the portrait lens,

00:44:43   you know, defaults to the two X perspective. It just is a more staid perspective. I remember

00:44:52   reading an interview once with Billy Crystal and he was talking, I forget who directed the movies,

00:45:00   but I think it was about city slickers to remember city slickers. And then there was

00:45:03   City Slickers was a smash hit and was a big, big hit and made Jack Parlance,

00:45:09   who was the crufty old cowboy, became a, you know, it had been like a big star in the 50s and 60s.

00:45:14   All of a sudden he became big star again. And then they made a sequel and the sequel wasn't so good.

00:45:21   And the story I heard was that Billy Crystal was talking to a new director for it and he was

00:45:26   talking to somebody else, I think like Rob Reiner, who wasn't involved with it. And he was just like,

00:45:31   from the set and he was just like so i could be butchering this anecdote but i know it was

00:45:34   billy crystal i know it was i know it was city slickers too may or may not have been rob riner

00:45:39   but anyway he was talking to somebody who he trusted as a director of comedy and he said hey

00:45:44   he always told me that wide angle lenses are funny and he's like yeah yeah that's real fast

00:45:48   you want something to be funny you got to put a wide angle lens on the camera and he goes would it

00:45:51   this guy's not putting nope this guy's shooting everything with a long lens and it was just like

00:45:55   crickets on the other end of the phone and then billy crystal was like yeah i thought so

00:45:59   It is though, but it's true. It really is fun. And I think just reading it, I think

00:46:06   I've read more people on Twitter who seem less, you know, prosumerary photo enthusiast

00:46:15   types and just more casual. I just shoot photos. They seem to be using the wide angle lens

00:46:21   more than, than I saw people using the telephoto lens in the whole two years when, when the

00:46:28   the iPhone if you had two lenses, or I guess three years maybe, where if the iPhone had

00:46:33   dual lenses, the second lens was telephoto.

00:46:36   Yeah, you know, I think that's really true. And it's interesting to me because I would

00:46:42   shoot a lot with the telephoto lens, but mostly because I wanted the bokeh and it gets a much

00:46:45   nicer natural bokeh than the other lens than the the ultra wide angle lens. But you can

00:46:50   computationally deliver telephoto Google did it last year with the Pixel three and super

00:46:55   That's essentially what they were doing was making a computational telephoto lens

00:46:58   But you can't do that with ultra wide-angle because you don't have the extra data. It just is it doesn't exist

00:47:04   So putting even on an iPhone 11 not the pro you have the wide-angle and the ultra wide-angle

00:47:09   You can still do a zoom

00:47:12   I wish Apple would put the button on there because I think it's a better user experience to just do the the 2x button

00:47:16   But you can zoom in and it's still a usable shot

00:47:19   You cannot zoom out on a pixel and I think that's a loss and when I look at a lot of the Android reviewers

00:47:24   Because like you mentioned not not a lot of the phones used to have every option but now a Huawei phone at Samsung phone

00:47:30   All of them have ultra wide all of them have night mode and it's pixel that stands out for not having everything. Yeah

00:47:36   Ben Rubenstein is the developer behind the excellent halide app along with his yes

00:47:43   Colleague Sebastian Dewit, who's the designer of the app?

00:47:48   Did some interesting work last year on?

00:47:54   Just comparing the 1x camera

00:47:57   Doing a 2x digital zoom versus yeah, Ben

00:48:02   Sandovski this name what I forget how I mispronounced it. Sorry Ben

00:48:06   But Ben Sandovski really smart developer really knows this stuff really found that in a lot a surprisingly well lit

00:48:14   Well lit but indoor lighting conditions a 1x camera with two with the 2x digital zoom

00:48:22   using a smart zoom algorithm would get you a better image than using a 2x camera with a slower lens meaning

00:48:28   slower meaning works worse with less light

00:48:31   You know digital the gist of it being digital zoom has gotten better than you think and in the old days when digital

00:48:39   Photography was new it was like don't ever resort to digital zoom, you know, unless you really really have to because it just looks like

00:48:46   muddy

00:48:48   Blurry pixels at every level whereas it's gotten better and like you said you can do it

00:48:55   However, whatever the trade-offs are of doing a digital zoom it

00:48:58   It's still certainly getting you that frame of view. Whereas there's absolutely no way to fake

00:49:04   0.5 X lens field of view

00:49:08   I don't think most people notice because on the iPhone it will switch between

00:49:11   The real telephoto and sort of a fake telephoto if it gets into lower light

00:49:15   And I don't know how many people actually notice when it's doing that because when I point it out they're super surprised

00:49:20   No, and nobody nobody noticed. I mean all of us we wrote I'm not maybe somebody noticed

00:49:25   I don't know but I even wrote a piece a couple weeks ago about how when you're in night

00:49:29   Night mode on the iPhone 11 Pro it always uses the 1x camera lens

00:49:34   So if you're doing 2x in in night mode on a 11 Pro

00:49:39   It's using the 1x sensor and doing a digital zoom

00:49:43   along with the interpolation of multiple exposures, you know

00:49:47   And nobody knew nobody really caught on to that and there was a bit of

00:49:53   Apple not wanting to talk about how it worked which was weird and should have raised a flag people because if you did get the

00:49:59   Telephoto lens it looked like night mode didn't work and then when you didn't get it

00:50:02   It looked like night mode worked and you couldn't figure out why sometimes you don't work at 2x and not others and it was just confusing

00:50:07   Yeah

00:50:08   And you can do you can always prove this and it's just the simplest most obvious thing in the world if you're ever confused as

00:50:13   of which camera lens your iPhone is using for a "2x" shot, just cover one of the lenses

00:50:19   with your finger and you can actually see it happen.

00:50:24   Basically, I think that the confusion is that Apple in some ways presents the new camera

00:50:32   zoom interface with these separate buttons.

00:50:35   On the iPhone 11, you get a 0.5 and 1x buttons, but no 2x button.

00:50:41   And then on the iPhone 11 Pro, you get three buttons, 0.5, 1, and 2x.

00:50:46   And at some level, they want you—and I think overall they've really achieved—I think

00:50:52   that the camera team at Apple is doing some of the best user experience work in the industry.

00:51:00   In terms of what they're doing with the user interface and exposing a little bit more

00:51:05   complexity but in ways that don't get in a way of using the camera in the most

00:51:13   simplistic way possible which they know is what most people do is open the

00:51:18   camera make sure you're either in camera or video mode and then hit the button

00:51:22   right that's what people do and they've really not gotten in the way of that but

00:51:27   they've really exposed what you can do in a very you know very useful ways

00:51:33   there's a little bit of conflation there though where they really want you to

00:51:38   treat it as one camera yeah you can zoom in and out of and you don't have to

00:51:42   worry about the fact that there are three physical cameras on the back it's

00:51:47   just one camera app and it just zooms in and out like the way a point-and-shoot

00:51:52   camera can zoom in and out you know and you don't have to worry about it that

00:51:55   it's technically three different cameras and three different sensors and three

00:51:59   different maximum, you know, exposure speeds and stuff like

00:52:04   that. You don't have to worry about it. It'll just do what you

00:52:06   needs to do to get the best image at the perspective you're

00:52:10   looking for. But at the other hand, they still there is some

00:52:14   aspect of it, whereby only having the two x button on the

00:52:18   one that has the two x lens physical lens. It kind of makes

00:52:22   you feel that hitting that button is giving you that

00:52:25   camera that physical can agreed yeah it whereas that's not the case it's really

00:52:32   just about the field of view and it just means 0.5 is always going to give you

00:52:37   the 0.5 camera because there's no other way to fake it 1x is always going to

00:52:42   give you the 1x camera because if it's the best camera period so if you want

00:52:47   the 1x field of view it's never going to be better by cropping the other the

00:52:52   other images. The 2x though is the mystery where sometimes it if you're outdoors and

00:53:00   there's lots of light it's going to give you the 2x camera physically but indoors it may

00:53:04   not and if night sight it never will. Yeah. But that's okay. The other interesting thing

00:53:10   for me is that there's there's almost like this battle inside Apple because on one hand

00:53:14   they exactly what you said they just want it to be a camera you pick it up you shoot

00:53:18   you don't worry about it but on the other hand some of the technology is so cool they

00:53:21   resist talking about it. So I think like in a perfect world they wouldn't really

00:53:25   talk about deep fusion it would just be the camera shoots and it gives you the

00:53:29   best possible image based on when you're shooting and over time right now we have

00:53:34   Smart HDR and we have deep fusion and we have night mode and they're distinct and

00:53:38   it switches between them but over time it's probably going to do some amount of

00:53:42   each of them depending exactly on where you are in the continuum of lighting and

00:53:46   they will be less distinct but for right now people keep asking well when when do

00:53:50   I see deep fusion and Apple clearly doesn't want you to care because there's no deep fusion button

00:53:55   There's no night mode button, but at the same time they love the technology so much

00:53:58   They talk about it so people think that they're these distinct modes. Yeah. Yeah

00:54:02   I

00:54:04   Still haven't done I'm kind of waiting, you know

00:54:06   I have I went ahead and put I was thirteen point two developer betas on my my daily carry iPhone just because

00:54:14   Because I say what do I have to lose?

00:54:16   based on I would say the

00:54:19   point one point two is okay. It's not a horror show of bugs. Point three is slightly better.

00:54:27   I think I'd already switched to the developer base before that. But I just figured why not,

00:54:33   I might as well just use this and get deep fusion as quickly as possible.

00:54:38   But people are sweating a lot. They're just showing these sweater pictures and saying,

00:54:42   "Can you see the difference?" And I don't think you're meant to. I don't think it's

00:54:44   supposed to work that way. Yeah, I don't think so either.

00:54:47   I forget where I was going with that, but basically I feel like Apple did the right

00:54:57   thing by going ultra-wide on the 11. I think it's more fun. I think it's impossible

00:55:03   to duplicate in software. And I do agree with you. I still kind of feel, though, that the

00:55:10   regular iPhone 11 non-pro should have a 2X button.

00:55:14   Yeah, and they could even style it differently like make it like a lighter color or light slightly less vibrant

00:55:21   I don't know. There's some kind of some kind of indication to show that it would that it would be software only

00:55:25   Maybe I don't know or maybe not

00:55:27   Software only portrait mode and they didn't really they didn't write any different way

00:55:31   It was just right, but just just as a convenient way to jump to an exact 2x digital zoom

00:55:38   Which is an interesting perspective and you know it to me

00:55:43   Yes, you can you can get there through the dial and the dial clicks a little bit at the 2x marker

00:55:48   But it just does a nice way to jump there and to get the exact if that's what you want for a couple of shots

00:55:54   To know that you're exactly at two point zero X and not two point one or one point nine that would satisfy me

00:56:01   the the vaguely

00:56:04   OCD parts of my brain if I'm gonna take a series of shots from this field of view

00:56:08   I want it to be exactly 2.0. I don't want it faster than dialing it dialing

00:56:13   It is a little bit of fidgety pressing that button is just immediate. Yeah, it's very immediate very exact very satisfying

00:56:19   so I but I so it's sort of hard to defend not including it other than as

00:56:24   What I call marketing spite that they just wanted to reserve that as a way to emphasize that the iPhone 11 pro

00:56:32   Has a 2x an entire 2x camera system. Yeah, that's three modes instead of two

00:56:38   Yeah

00:56:40   Here before we take another break I've got follow-up I would need to mention from my last episode

00:56:45   I was talking about Ben Ben Thompson, and I were talking about our

00:56:49   sort of

00:56:52   Conservative upgrade cycle to new versions of Mac OS and then neither of us were upgrading primary machines to Catalina yet

00:56:58   Ben's Ben waits like a year. It's very he's very pessimistic on new Mac OS software quality

00:57:06   I'm gonna upgrade sooner rather than later

00:57:08   I usually wait a year, but I did it this year just cuz I could not finish the review without using it on my primary

00:57:14   Machine there was just too much new stuff

00:57:15   I mentioned looking forward to sidecar

00:57:17   But I also mentioned looking forward to sidecar after extolling my my deep and abiding love for the 2014

00:57:25   MacBook Pro that is my daily driver

00:57:28   Completely forgetting the fact that sidecar requires like a 2016 MacBook or later

00:57:34   Yeah, because it needs like the t2 chip and I knew that

00:57:37   But I completely forgot it while I was talking about it and it doesn't really reduce my interest in upgrading this machine to Catalina

00:57:44   But a little bit it does because I'm gonna have to use a different machine just to try

00:57:48   sidecar

00:57:50   but I'm curious what you think of sidecar sidecar of course is the feature that allows you to

00:57:54   Use your iPad as an external display

00:57:57   Including using the pencil for as input to a Mac app

00:58:01   that can take

00:58:04   stylus type input and

00:58:07   And you, as somebody who illustrates and is a big pencil user, I'm curious,

00:58:12   have you given Sidecar a good ride yet?

00:58:13   **Matt Stauffer** Yeah. I mean, I used it a lot through the beta,

00:58:16   but it was kind of hard to use because none of the apps, none of the third-party apps could be

00:58:21   updated to support it yet. I like some of the features, some of the stuff they say,

00:58:25   like, you can just use it to sign documents. I do that stuff directly on the iPad or just sketching

00:58:29   notes. I just do that directly on the iPad. I don't need it. Maybe if I'm using the Mac already,

00:58:33   It's slightly more convenient, but I would just pick up the iPad and use those directly

00:58:37   I love it as a second screen though

00:58:39   especially if I'm editing in Final Cut and I have like a meeting on Google Meet or I just wanted to have slack or

00:58:45   I message up I have that all the time now

00:58:47   I just put the iPad up and it's great because I can leave the full screen on Final Cut and I can do everything else

00:58:52   on the iPad and slowly but surely

00:58:55   Photoshop was was tough but slowly but surely apps are updating now and I love that

00:59:00   but I can just pick it up, draw with the pencil,

00:59:03   put it back down, go back to editing with the mouse.

00:59:06   I think over the next month or two,

00:59:07   as the more and more apps update,

00:59:09   I'm just gonna do that all the time.

00:59:11   - And there's a happy little story here where

00:59:14   Luna Display, which is a great little company

00:59:19   that came out with these dongles

00:59:21   that go into the USB-C port of your newer Mac

00:59:29   or the Thunderbolt port on a slightly older Mac

00:59:33   and trick the Mac into thinking it's an entire display

00:59:36   that's been plugged in where what it really does

00:59:38   is just transmit the image to the Luna Display app

00:59:41   on your iPad so that you can use your iPad

00:59:43   as a second display.

00:59:45   And yeah, sidecar to use our little rackets term for it,

00:59:51   Sherlock to that feature pretty hard

00:59:53   because it's built into the system.

00:59:57   going to do things that using an app and a dongle just aren't as convenient for.

01:00:02   But the good news is the Luna Display team, rather than just go and drink and be sad about

01:00:11   getting Sherlock to put their heads down and did a lot of work, already have announced that they've

01:00:17   They've got a Mac to Mac mode for Luna display, which will let you use, like, for example,

01:00:27   a 5K iMac as an external display wirelessly, which is really, really cool.

01:00:35   A really interesting use case for, like, especially to me, the device that really stands out as,

01:00:42   that's this is a great way to keep that machine and your active use is the like

01:00:46   The five six year old iMac 5k is which still have but by today's standards outstanding displays

01:00:54   It's still hard. It is really hard to find a

01:00:58   5k external display and with

01:01:01   Like the price of like the selling price of like a 5k

01:01:05   iMac even a new one is actually in the ballpark of what you might expect for you know

01:01:09   You think like well what a waste to have an entire

01:01:11   iMac computer go to waste and just use it as a display, but when you look at the prices,

01:01:17   it's actually not bad.

01:01:19   Jared Polin It's great, and Apple doesn't sell a standalone.

01:01:22   Pete Turner Right.

01:01:23   Jared Polin It's like that.

01:01:24   Pete Turner As we head towards the launch of the Mac Pro,

01:01:29   and it's like, are we really going to have a scenario where the only first-party Apple

01:01:34   display is a $6,000 Pro Display XDR?

01:01:39   6K for 6K.

01:01:43   What the hell am I going to do?

01:01:44   People who don't really want to buy the LG displays, it seems ridiculous to buy this

01:01:50   expensive Mac Pro and then use an iMac as your display, but it might be a good secondary

01:01:56   display.

01:01:57   I don't know.

01:01:58   I just see this as being very useful to a lot of people.

01:02:00   I'm glad to see Lunax still doing awesome work.

01:02:04   Yeah, absolutely.

01:02:05   Absolutely. Probably get Sherlock'd in 1016 next year.

01:02:08   And they'll just Mario art him right back again. Yeah, exactly. Just but I mean, it's just the

01:02:14   perfect attitude with your hardware software developer. It's like you kind of have to,

01:02:17   you ought to be thinking with whether it's an app or a product. Might Apple steal this idea?

01:02:23   I mean, I don't know, maybe that's a hard word steal. But you know what I mean? At least if

01:02:27   you're on the team, it's can feel like they stole your idea. If the answer is yes, then you should

01:02:31   should have a plan B for when that'll happen. Like if it seems

01:02:34   like it would be a good idea built into the system. It

01:02:38   there's a very high chance it will be built into the system.

01:02:40   And it's probably you know, the truth is, it's probably a higher

01:02:43   chance than if you didn't build your product because the

01:02:46   existence proof of Hey, here's a cool product that does this

01:02:48   thing makes it a very compelling argument. You know, inside Apple

01:02:53   to Yeah, we should do this right. Like that sounds like a

01:02:56   good idea is one thing here. Look at this. Look at what these

01:02:59   guys did is a way more compelling way to say, "Yeah, we should build that into the system."

01:03:05   Steve McLaughlin Yeah, but they're also almost always only

01:03:07   going to do the baseline feature and leave a lot of gaps. So you can really thrive in

01:03:12   making the better version.

01:03:13   Dave Asprey Right. If there's room in whatever your idea

01:03:15   is to go deeper and stuff like that, usually there's room to do that. For example, my

01:03:22   favorite example this year is the beefed up reminders app, which is, I think, I don't

01:03:28   how you could argue that it's not an improvement over the almost rudimentary reminders app

01:03:35   we've had until now, but I don't think is going to put any kind of dent in the sales

01:03:40   of apps like Things and OmniFocus, whatever your favorite to-do list app is. Because there's

01:03:48   just people have so many diverse needs for the way they want to do a to-do system that

01:03:54   nothing that Apple builds into the system that's meant for 90%

01:03:58   of people to use is ever going to touch most of those things.

01:04:01   The same thing with, you know, calendar and fantastic. Cal and

01:04:04   mail and spark and some people just always use the Google

01:04:06   version of the app regardless of whether they're using Apple

01:04:09   hardware.

01:04:09   Right or the fantastic group has the card hop, which is a context

01:04:15   app. Yeah, way better. But also, I wouldn't suggest it as

01:04:19   something Apple should adopt as the the system app. You know,

01:04:24   Fantastic All is probably a little closer to being, you know, it's so, you know, but

01:04:32   I can see why Apple didn't go that route on some of the UI decisions. But it definitely

01:04:37   has some power user type features that really make it worthwhile. I guess I could take a

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01:07:26   I guess we gotta talk, I can't just ignore it.

01:07:29   I gotta talk about the Apple Hong Kong China stuff.

01:07:31   But I feel like I've written so much about it

01:07:33   I don't need to spend a whole segment of the show on it." And it seems to have calmed down

01:07:40   a little bit. Basically, Apple got caught in sort of a perfect storm of China-related stuff.

01:07:51   It really is unrelated and just purely coincidental that the NBA situation where the GM

01:07:57   of the Houston Rockets just retweeted a simple pro-Hong Kong tweet and really set off a firestorm

01:08:07   of controversy that made even the Apple one seem small. And how often do you hear that,

01:08:11   like where Apple gets caught up in a controversy and somebody else is in the same controversy and

01:08:15   it's getting way more attention? But the Apple-related aspects, there's the HK Map Live app

01:08:27   and then there's this the sub secondary story of Apple requesting / demanding

01:08:40   that the people creating the shows for Apple TV Plus keep them China friendly

01:08:45   meaning don't don't don't put stuff in your shows that would anger the Chinese

01:08:49   or create a controversy with the HK map live I've written enough a lot about it

01:08:56   one thing I can say, and I'm not quite sure I made clear in my writing is that I've from multiple

01:09:00   people inside Apple, including a couple of people who are really, really interested at a personal

01:09:07   level that they, you know, whether it's their family or significant others, but they have a

01:09:13   personal investment in the whole situation in Hong Kong, in particular. And asked around within the

01:09:22   the company. I verified this from a couple people that the initial rejection of that

01:09:27   app was not a strategic dictum from the top of the company. That was just a single app

01:09:33   reviewer who looked at the app and thought, "Well, this Hong Kong stuff is controversial.

01:09:38   This seems like it's meant to circumvent the law. I'm going to deny it."

01:09:46   I think everything that happened after that came from that one ultimately erroneous decision.

01:09:51   So the three steps of the controversy is the developer submits this app to Apple.

01:09:57   And it's a map app that shows users submitted information about police activity and protest

01:10:06   activity around Hong Kong.

01:10:10   And you, the user, can use it however you see fit, whether it's because you want to

01:10:14   join in a protest or whether because you want to avoid the protests and as information about

01:10:20   like where tear gas is being used, which for obvious reasons is something that if you're,

01:10:25   you know, you might want to avoid. If the app had just been accepted, which internally

01:10:32   Apple determined it should have been, that this is not something, it's not illegal,

01:10:36   the app itself, the app is not illegal in Hong Kong, it's just information, should

01:10:42   have been accepted. I don't think it would have been that big of a news. I don't think

01:10:46   any kind of controversy would have come of it.

01:10:48   Nobody would have noticed no, I it's you know, I think word, you know

01:10:53   I think the app is somewhat popular in Hong Kong for obvious reasons. I think there's you know, it's it's small densely populated

01:11:00   Populated city. It's not like anybody in Hong Kong is unaware of the months-long protests

01:11:07   It's also a wrapper around the web page, which is accessible still to everybody right? What you know, we can mention

01:11:12   I just don't think it would have been news

01:11:14   I think Apple accepts this app that also is on the web and also is on Android is not a news story

01:11:21   The news story was the and again it people aren't wrong for assuming it right that that this was this was a corporate

01:11:29   executive level decision to

01:11:32   placate the mainland Chinese government by

01:11:37   Disallowing this app which is seemingly an app meant for people protesting for the democratic rights in Hong Kong

01:11:44   So then when the news came out that the app was rejected, more people than not, or at least the

01:11:51   sort of people who were tweeting about it or writing about it, were operating under the

01:11:56   assumption that that was policy from Apple, which I didn't think it was, but I didn't know. Two days

01:12:05   later, Apple, Apple agreed, you know, changed its mind the appeal process and the developer of the

01:12:10   app themselves. I don't want to say himself or herself. I don't

01:12:13   I'm not it's not even clear whether it's one person or

01:12:15   multiple people. But for obvious reasons of wanting to keep

01:12:18   their identity hidden from the Chinese government, they're

01:12:20   they're anonymous. So the developer, I'll just say plural

01:12:25   developers of the app, even tweeted when they said, Hey,

01:12:28   this, you know, we've submitted an appeal, we think this might

01:12:31   just be a bureaucratic mistake. You know, they weren't jumping

01:12:34   to the conclusion that Apple was trying to suppress the app. Two

01:12:37   days later, Apple said, Okay, the app is fine. There's no

01:12:39   problem with it, doesn't break the law. Now it's in the App Store and then it was in the

01:12:43   App Store. And then another two days later, they pulled it from the App Store. And in

01:12:47   the in the in the interim, there was a lot of publicity about it, including multiple

01:12:55   op eds in state run newspapers in mainland China, which the assumption is always have

01:13:02   the backing of the government. You know, the state run newspapers don't just run random

01:13:07   op-eds, absolutely dragging Apple over the coals for this, you know, saying that they're helping,

01:13:15   you know, rioters, you know, they're in mainland China, these people aren't protesters for

01:13:19   democracy, they're rioters who were making trouble. Very, very strongly worded.

01:13:26   The denouncements of Apple's decision to publish this, which wouldn't have happened in the first

01:13:34   place if they had simply accepted the app on first pass. Boy, this put Apple in a bad

01:13:41   position. And I really, I wish they had just weathered the storm and left the app in the

01:13:47   store and just had nothing to say about it. But instead, they pulled it again two days

01:13:54   later. And that's where it really gets interesting. I don't know what you think about it. The

01:13:59   assumption on the outside is clearly that Apple is simply placating the mainland Chinese

01:14:03   government. And that's, again, I say that's perfectly reasonable. There's no reason to

01:14:08   think otherwise. But from what I've heard internally from multiple people is that higher

01:14:15   level and lower level is basically that what Tim Cook's company-wide memo said, which I

01:14:27   even said really just didn't stand up to scrutiny. I mean, I think you kind of agreed with that

01:14:32   too.

01:14:33   It stands up a little better if you assume, and this is what I believe to be the case,

01:14:39   that Apple sort of got thrown under the bus by the Hong Kong government, not the mainland China.

01:14:45   It wasn't, you know, the mainland China communicates very, I don't think Apple heard from them. I really

01:14:51   don't. And I've heard from no one who said they did. I don't think mainland China sends messages

01:14:57   like that. They communicate indirectly.

01:15:01   Through disappointed editorials, usually anonymous in state newspapers.

01:15:05   Exactly. So, Apple's internal apparatus isn't really hooked up. They're hooked up

01:15:15   on Hong Kong in particular to protect Hong Kong from mainland China. And their assumption is that

01:15:23   if there's pressure overt or otherwise with tensions between mainland China's

01:15:31   laws and rules and desires and and hypersensitivity to perceptive issues

01:15:39   you know like there's there's this whole thing in recent years where China

01:15:44   effectively demanded that a bunch of airlines around the world that if you

01:15:48   fly into like Taiwan and Hong Kong that that these places be labeled as part of

01:15:52   China and not as independent locations. Very, very sensitive to stuff like this.

01:16:00   Apple set up internally to protect Hong Kong from China. And so their internal systems were set up

01:16:13   to, "Hey, if Hong Kong tells us blank, we should take their word for it and do it." And Hong Kong

01:16:19   authorities, not mainland Chinese authorities, Hong Kong authorities told Apple, hey, this app

01:16:25   is no good. This this isn't helping, you know, the right people. This is causing, you know, looters

01:16:30   and rioters are using it to circumvent police into the stuff that Tim Cook says they were told. I

01:16:36   actually think they were told by the Hong Kong authorities. That's part of the conflict in this

01:16:41   whole, you know, we could obviously do a whole podcast about it. And we're not experts. I'm

01:16:48   certainly not an expert on the politics of the Hong Kong thing, but part of it is that what people

01:16:51   are protesting for is they'd like to elect their own leaders, whereas the Wade stuff is set up with

01:16:56   the two systems, one country promise ever since the United Kingdom handed over control of Hong

01:17:08   Kong to China in 1997. You know, that the Hong Kong authorities aren't representatives of mainland

01:17:16   China, but they're appointed by mainland China. And part of this whole thing with these protests

01:17:20   is that the protesters are arguing, you know, that, that, you know, they'd like, they'd like

01:17:25   to replace them with people of their own choosing, you know, and I think like the the current leader

01:17:30   of Hong Kong is something like 15 or 19% approval rating or something like that, something that

01:17:35   totally untenable if if if the position were duly elected in a real democracy.

01:17:40   Apple just isn't set up to deal with that or wasn't set up to deal with that, that they,

01:17:46   you know, Hong Kong said X, Y, and Z, and Apple said, "Okay, X, Y, and Z, we should,

01:17:49   you know, pull this app from the store." Knowing, I mean, I'm not saying that the people at Apple

01:17:54   who made that decision weren't fully aware that, "Hey, this looks terrible for us because it looks

01:18:01   like we're flip-flopping all over the place. Reject, accept, reject all within five days."

01:18:06   And they knew that that looks bad. And they knew that there were all these op-eds in China

01:18:11   decrying them for this. And so they knew how weak it makes them look, but they thought it was the

01:18:15   the right thing to do because Hong Kong was asking for it.

01:18:18   - Yeah, I think it was a, like to your original point,

01:18:24   the minute that app was first rejected,

01:18:26   by putting it back on the store,

01:18:29   there was no easy out for them on this whole thing.

01:18:32   It was either they have to keep it in the store

01:18:35   and risk what is happening in Hong Kong and China,

01:18:38   or take it down and risk being seen

01:18:40   as an instrument of mainland China.

01:18:42   The whole issue with Apple in China is so fascinating

01:18:44   because they are so deeply intertwined with China.

01:18:48   You know, one of my favorite things about reviews

01:18:50   is when people say, "Oh, a phone shouldn't cost this much,"

01:18:52   is if they have any idea what a phone,

01:18:54   what goes into making a phone.

01:18:56   And the reason the phones don't cost way more in part

01:18:59   is the way that they're manufactured.

01:19:01   And Apple has been leveraging that in China for years.

01:19:05   There's no easy exit for them there.

01:19:07   And at the same time, Tim Cook has this consistent policy,

01:19:11   and you can see this everywhere from how he deals

01:19:13   with situations with the mining of materials

01:19:17   to civil liberties in the US

01:19:19   to engaging the Trump administration,

01:19:21   to engaging China is that he believes

01:19:23   if he's not part of the conversation,

01:19:25   he has no ability to affect change.

01:19:28   But that's always dangerous

01:19:29   because one, you're gonna get those editorials

01:19:31   that say that you're appeasing people

01:19:32   because engagement and appeasement

01:19:34   is a very, very small buffer between them

01:19:36   and one can quickly be perceived as,

01:19:38   if not become, the other.

01:19:40   But at the same time, you give them a conduit back into you

01:19:44   and it's often easier.

01:19:46   I think you said this really well

01:19:47   in one of your posts a while ago,

01:19:48   is the only thing you can't tolerate is intolerance.

01:19:51   But by reaching out and making those engagements,

01:19:53   you give them a bridge back to you and they start to,

01:19:56   whether they actually influence your policy or not,

01:19:58   it's perceived again that they're influencing your policy.

01:20:01   So Apple has all of these things happening in China,

01:20:03   the removal of the Quartz app,

01:20:05   Tim Cook being elected chairman of the business school,

01:20:08   which could have been anybody it used to be.

01:20:11   There's a whole bunch of US CEOs on that board

01:20:13   and they all take turns.

01:20:14   But right now at the same time,

01:20:15   it just happens to be his turn and could he have gone,

01:20:18   "No, no, no, give it to Zuckerberg this time.

01:20:20   "I'll take it next time."

01:20:21   But all these things happen at once

01:20:23   and it creates really bad optics for them.

01:20:26   And the concern is always that China, for example,

01:20:29   wants iCloud storage in China

01:20:32   and people will find that dangerous.

01:20:34   But by the same token,

01:20:35   there are a lot of people outside the US

01:20:36   who want nothing to do with having data stored

01:20:38   in the US right now.

01:20:40   And France wants their citizens, their data,

01:20:42   and that's gonna be an increasing movement around the world.

01:20:45   But the fear is that China will ask for encryption keys

01:20:47   one day, the same way the FBI,

01:20:49   or ask for a backdoor the same way the US government did.

01:20:53   And the US government, you can see it, it's apparent,

01:20:56   there's a legal battle, there's litigation.

01:20:58   All this stuff happens in the open,

01:20:59   where with China, it's not that form of government.

01:21:02   And I think that's sort of the fear

01:21:03   that underlies all this,

01:21:04   is that when it happens in China,

01:21:07   it's gonna be much harder for Apple to affect,

01:21:09   to sort of stand their ground,

01:21:11   especially given all the small negotiations

01:21:14   that are happening now.

01:21:15   - I forget what the context was this week,

01:21:19   but I thought I had a good observation

01:21:22   on something with Apple in China

01:21:26   where Apple didn't fully, oh, I know what it was.

01:21:30   It's the safe browsing story.

01:21:32   - Yeah.

01:21:32   So one of the other little stories this week was that Safari has long had this safe browsing

01:21:38   feature where I didn't even notice when it expanded to include Tencent, which is the

01:21:45   state-owned Japanese conglomerate. But Google famously is shut out of China at the moment.

01:21:53   So if you're in China and you're behind the great firewall, you can't use Google search.

01:22:00   You can't use Google anything for the most part.

01:22:04   And so the safe browsing feature that Safari has had for a while, which uses a blacklist

01:22:09   of either known or for all effect and purposes known malware or otherwise stuff that you

01:22:18   would want blocked.

01:22:21   Safari uses Google's server for this, can't use it in China, so they use Tencent.

01:22:26   the way Google or the way Apple wrote the description. If you were like, "Hmm,

01:22:32   let me find out about this feature." It just said, "Safari may send your IP address." It's like the

01:22:44   privacy policy for the features. "Safari may send your IP address to Google or Tencent."

01:22:50   Yeah, it was completely tone deaf.

01:22:53   And people rightly jumped to the plain reading of it, which is that you don't know when they're

01:23:00   using one or the other.

01:23:02   And so they might be in the United States, you might be in the middle of Tennessee or

01:23:06   Texas and they're sending your IP address to its server in China in a state-owned media

01:23:11   conglomerate with all your…

01:23:14   The feature is as you would expect from Apple.

01:23:16   It is designed with privacy in mind and it uses hashed URLs and prefixes of the URLs

01:23:22   instead of the whole thing to keep Google or Tencent from seeing the specific URLs you're

01:23:28   visiting.

01:23:29   There's no way to avoid – well, I guess I shouldn't say there's no way.

01:23:32   I guess they could proxy the calls through an Apple server, which is an interesting question

01:23:36   as to why they're not.

01:23:38   The IP address is getting sent to these providers because Safari is calling them directly.

01:23:46   I guess there's a performance argument there that proxying is by necessity going to have

01:23:51   an extra hop where your device is talking to Apple and Apple's talking to Google and

01:23:56   then Google talks back to Apple and then Apple talks…

01:23:58   And the potential source of failure, which is what happens with Siri when it's like,

01:24:02   "Wait a second. Hold on."

01:24:04   Yeah. So, you know, there's obviously reasons for performance and simplicity to let your

01:24:08   device talk directly to Google. And then there's reasons of privacy where you'd want it proxied.

01:24:13   Yeah.

01:24:14   a separate thing. To me, the problem was the way this feature was described by Apple.

01:24:23   >> Absolutely.

01:24:24   >> And what I wrote is, "Trust us is not good enough." Like, effectively, these things are

01:24:28   sort of written with a trust us attitude that, look, you can trust us, we're Apple. And so

01:24:33   my assumption when this story broke last weekend was, well, I would guess that they're only

01:24:38   using Tencent for users in mainland China and they're using Google everywhere else in

01:24:42   the world. And in fact, that is how the feature works. But they didn't say that. And so the

01:24:48   people who jumped to the wrong conclusion, I don't think they're crazy. And I happen

01:24:51   to know it ties into Hong Kong specifically because this story went nuts in the Hong Kong

01:24:59   the multi user chat groups that they use. What do they use? What's the app? I forget.

01:25:05   I'm not sure it's Weibo in China. I'm not sure what it is. And it's not signal. It's

01:25:09   the other one. No, the one that starts with a T. Telegram. Telegram. Yeah. So Telegram

01:25:14   supports big multi-user chats. And so there's a whole bunch of groups in Hong Kong who are using

01:25:22   Telegram. And it went rampant, went super kindling going up in a fire, viral of, "Hey, turn off safe

01:25:34   browsing because they're going to send your IP address to Tencent. And, you know, protesters

01:25:39   in Hong Kong obviously don't want anything sent. I mean, your IP address isn't that,

01:25:44   you know, it doesn't reveal that much about you. But, you know, if I were a protester

01:25:47   in Hong Kong, I'd want to be sure that my even my IP address wasn't being sent to China.

01:25:52   I don't want it sent to Google. So I totally get that. And so the downside to this is that

01:25:56   anybody who got caught up in this, you know, it could really, it wasn't getting sent to

01:26:01   10 cent. It was getting sent to Google. But you could wind up disabling a useful feature,

01:26:07   you know, that and now all of a sudden you're browsing, you think you've made your browsing

01:26:11   safer because you've protected yourself from having your IP address sent to 10 cent, but

01:26:15   it wasn't being sent there in the first place. And now you're liable, you know, you're susceptible

01:26:20   to all the sites that safe browsing would have blocked you from, which might be sites

01:26:23   that the that the yes, the Chinese government is using to try to hack Hong Kong protesters.

01:26:30   Yep.

01:26:31   And so anyway, trust us isn't good enough.

01:26:35   And my take, my quip was, if Apple is too embarrassed to explain in detail exactly what

01:26:40   they're doing to comply with Chinese law, then they shouldn't be doing it.

01:26:43   And I really feel like they, I wish that they had a white paper describing in more detail

01:26:48   how the setup is that iCloud users server data is stored in mainland China on third

01:26:55   party company hardware.

01:26:56   I wish that they would describe that in as much detail as they as they could

01:27:00   Standing is that it's there but Apple retains this the encryption keys

01:27:05   But I it shouldn't be our understanding. There should be a white paper that explains it in my opinion

01:27:10   You know and so that you can make your own

01:27:14   informed decision about how likely it is that the Chinese police could storm in and demand stuff how what what

01:27:23   What what the dangers are just that the Chinese government might have moles working for the company that hosts these servers, etc

01:27:31   Etc, but we don't know anything. It's it's way more of a black box than it should be in my opinion

01:27:35   I don't mean to be flippant about it at all

01:27:37   But you know that that line from equilibrium we said the easiest way to get us weapon from a grammaton cleric is to ask him

01:27:44   For it. They just made tic tocs. We just all give them

01:27:49   like they need to trick us into it anymore. They just made a catchy social media company.

01:27:53   Yeah, yeah. Ben Thompson has some good takes on this. And his observation, which to me was very

01:28:02   keen, and I'm like, "Yeah, why isn't everybody saying this?" is that with the NBA thing, so

01:28:06   this NBA executive, Dan Morey, I think his name is, who tweeted this one pro-Hong Kong tweet,

01:28:12   which was really just like, "Stand up for Hong Kong." It wasn't like, you know, "Hong Kong

01:28:16   should set the city on fire. It was, you know, we support Hong Kong. It was tweeted, which

01:28:24   is a social network that is completely blocked within China. And yet somehow the Chinese

01:28:29   state media would have us believe that millions of Chinese NBA fans saw this tweet and were

01:28:34   deeply offended by it. Like, you know, I thought it was a pretty keen observation of this is

01:28:40   manufactured because how could one message on a social network banned within China have

01:28:47   caused millions of people to be angry in China? They can't read it. But meanwhile, we on

01:28:53   the West with our open values totally allow—so we allow them to block our social networks.

01:29:00   I mean, here I am standing up for Facebook, you know. But I mean, on principle, it doesn't

01:29:06   right that we allow them to say, "Yeah, no Instagram in China, but we'll take TikTok

01:29:11   and let everybody install it on their phones." And if it's fun enough, people will have it.

01:29:15   Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, the thing that scares me is that this is like, there's that old saying

01:29:24   from the West Wing where there's no amount of manpower or money that equals a criminal being

01:29:29   stupid. And a lot of the stuff that we see all the time is buffoonery. It's just so dumb, it's easy

01:29:34   to catch. And especially with this stuff, it creates such a Streisand effect that it ends up

01:29:38   shining a huge light on things that are happening. But it's the stuff that we don't hear about that

01:29:43   worries me. It's the requests that get made that aren't, you know, "Oh, as we saw Twitter for an

01:29:48   NBA." That's ludicrous. It's just absolutely ludicrous. But it's the stuff that's not

01:29:52   so above board or so public that I worry more about.

01:29:55   Pete: Yeah, totally. So anyway, Apple, they're in a tough spot in China. I think that it could get,

01:30:03   I think that my takeaway from this this whole saga though is that it's not that Apple

01:30:09   Just got through a terrible

01:30:13   Exposure

01:30:18   To to their foothold in China. It's that it just sort of hinted at how bad it could be

01:30:23   Yes, right like what happens? I mean if there is a Tiananmen Square like crackdown on the Hong Kong

01:30:33   protesters, you know what happens if if if the Chinese government

01:30:36   sends, you know, the their military into Hong Kong to put it put it into this, you know, it's

01:30:42   They you know there it's it's in my opinion right up there with natural disasters, you know as

01:30:51   Which would affect every company though, right?

01:30:55   Like Apple is sort of uniquely exposed in China as a Western company because no other

01:31:01   Western company is so reliant on them for manufacturing and

01:31:04   You know that this the second factor of Apple's sales within China

01:31:10   It's like this more or less tied, you know, it goes back and forth it ebbs and flows more

01:31:15   But you know us is the is the biggest market

01:31:18   US, you know or call it North America if you want to include, you know our Canadian friends like you

01:31:22   You know the North America is the biggest market China and Europe greater Western

01:31:29   Europe are more or less tied as their second biggest markets

01:31:32   It's a big market for Apple. It's certainly one of growth

01:31:36   It's certainly part of their growth story and everybody knows growth is important for the message of Apple to Wall Street

01:31:41   It would obviously be a shit show if Apple had to pull out or if their sales within mainland China were decimated through bad publicity

01:31:49   Or tariffs or any of their various things that could go bad, but Apple could exist as we know it

01:31:55   with their sales in

01:31:59   two consumers in mainland China being cut off. It would be a significant hit. It would be reflected

01:32:04   in the stock price, but Apple as we know it would still be there. It would be like, I don't know,

01:32:10   I think ballparking it, I don't know, like 20%, 25%, something like that.

01:32:14   Yeah, and it's hard too because even if it's not a disaster—

01:32:18   Where is the myth—

01:32:19   Sorry.

01:32:20   Keep going. No, keep going.

01:32:21   No, I was going to say, even if it's not something like an incident in Hong Kong,

01:32:24   even if it's something like tariffs, and people will say, "Well, Apple represents way too much

01:32:29   of the gross domestic product of Southern China

01:32:31   for any of that to, like the Chinese government

01:32:33   to want to affect that in any way,

01:32:35   but they have a remarkable ability for absorbing pain.

01:32:38   I think we don't understand the extent

01:32:41   at which they would allow something to happen

01:32:43   that was moderately, that was even severely painful

01:32:46   for them if it was worse

01:32:47   for whomever they were contending with.

01:32:50   And just if the tariffs got too bad

01:32:52   and it destroyed Apple's ability

01:32:54   to compete manufacturing in China,

01:32:55   even if it cost every job in Shenzhen province,

01:32:58   I don't think at the end of the day,

01:33:00   they would have that big a problem with it.

01:33:02   - Yeah, the manufacturing thing is just the angle

01:33:06   that cannot be, it just cannot be understated.

01:33:09   And there was a story, the Wall Street Journal

01:33:11   just had a story over the weekend.

01:33:12   Do you see this about how there's iPhone XRs,

01:33:14   I think being made in India now,

01:33:17   which is a weird thing to see.

01:33:19   It's just a weird thing to see that small print

01:33:21   that says, designed by Apple in California,

01:33:24   assembled in India.

01:33:26   But India, the Indian national government

01:33:28   is making a huge press to appeal

01:33:31   to smartphone manufacturers in particular

01:33:34   to build up India as a major production center

01:33:37   for smartphone hardware.

01:33:40   You know, Apple's part of it,

01:33:42   but it's, even if they put the pedal to the metal

01:33:46   and accelerated their trying to become independent of China

01:33:53   if they wanted to for manufacturing and assembly,

01:33:57   even the fastest they could do it, the most efficient way,

01:34:00   if they didn't make any mistakes, made all the right moves,

01:34:03   spent as much money as they needed to,

01:34:04   it's still a years-long process, possibly many years long.

01:34:09   Fascinating. - They made a deliberate choice

01:34:10   not to own the core technologies

01:34:12   when it comes to manufacturing,

01:34:13   and that gives them exposure.

01:34:15   - Right, they're absolutely exposed.

01:34:17   And in particular, the iPhone,

01:34:19   everybody knows it's the most important,

01:34:21   best-selling biggest revenue and profit maker will be for years to come. It's utterly dependent

01:34:29   on China at the moment. All right, let me take one final break here and thank our third and final

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01:36:24   of this podcast.

01:36:26   All right, how about this?

01:36:30   Let's go forward thinking.

01:36:31   Do we, or are you done?

01:36:33   I think we're done on China.

01:36:34   What do you think?

01:36:35   Yes, I agree. Apple event. As we record, this is the sort of segment of a podcast that could

01:36:41   be blown apart between recording and publishing. But as we speak on Monday, October 21st, there

01:36:48   are no signs, no invitations, no rumors that I've seen that there's going to be an Apple

01:36:52   event this fall. Another Apple event.

01:36:56   No event this month at least.

01:36:59   It's possible. I look back at the last few years. So last year, they sent out invitations

01:37:03   on the 18th of October for the October 30 event that was in Brooklyn. Two years before that,

01:37:09   in 2016, they sent out invitations on October 19th for—I think it was the last ever event at Town

01:37:17   Hall in Cupertino. But that was only eight days ahead. It was actually on the 27th, and it was

01:37:22   weird. It was a Thursday, which is—I don't remember that, but it was right.

01:37:27   **Ezra Klein:** So I'm going to use the dreaded "my understanding" language again, but my

01:37:29   My understanding is they're way too busy launching TV+ to have the resources to do an event in

01:37:34   October.

01:37:35   That sounds right to me.

01:37:37   October…

01:37:38   Because they're all over the place at the premiers, right?

01:37:41   Right.

01:37:42   The PR is spread thin.

01:37:45   And that's launching November 1st, right?

01:37:49   Yeah.

01:37:50   That makes sense.

01:37:51   To my knowledge, Apple has never held a fall event in November.

01:37:55   And the closer you get to Thanksgiving, the more impossible it would be.

01:37:59   So the further along you get, the less anything that you want to announce would have time

01:38:06   to factor into holiday gift purchases.

01:38:11   What do we think is coming?

01:38:13   The three products?

01:38:14   So my guess is that it won't be consumer products.

01:38:18   It'll be professional products and it'll be similar.

01:38:23   Like I know they didn't show anything off at WWDC the way they did with the iMac Pro,

01:38:27   My guess is still that it'll be something like that,

01:38:30   where they have a very specific, not a giant media event,

01:38:33   but they have a bunch of stuff put together

01:38:35   to show us how the products are used in context.

01:38:38   - Well, the big-- - And we get

01:38:39   our introduction that way.

01:38:40   - The one product we've already been told by Apple

01:38:42   is to expect this calendar year is the Mac Pro, right?

01:38:46   And to me, what's instructive is to go back to 2017

01:38:51   when they were on a similar schedule with the iMac Pro,

01:38:54   where they showed it at WWDC in June.

01:38:57   said you can expect it later this year. And then they didn't have an event for the launch

01:39:05   of the iMac Pro. What they did was hold small private media briefings in New York and I

01:39:12   believe in Cupertino as well so that West Coast media didn't have to travel to New

01:39:17   York and vice versa from the East Coast. And there was no keynote. There was nothing that

01:39:23   It was live broadcast.

01:39:24   It was just small briefings of groups.

01:39:27   I think I was in a group of six or something like that.

01:39:30   And they had multiple demos set up in their little townhouse

01:39:34   in-- well, little-- their big townhouse in New York,

01:39:38   where we would just move from station to station.

01:39:40   And they'd show us, here's what the iMac Pro means

01:39:43   for developers.

01:39:44   Here's what it means for people who do 3D modeling

01:39:47   and rendering.

01:39:47   And here's what it means in these other demos.

01:39:53   There you go. I could see them doing that exact sort of thing again with the Mac Pro.

01:39:57   I could even see them doing it again if there is, as rumored, a 16-inch MacBook Pro coming

01:40:02   before the end of the year. Because what do you got? What would you, even if it wasn't

01:40:07   a time compression like, "Oh, we're so busy with TV+ that we don't even have time

01:40:12   to do this event," what are you going to do with a 16-inch MacBook Pro? You've already

01:40:17   shown Catalina. What's the demo? You know, what is the story to be held on stage? You

01:40:21   know, they don't hold stage events just because there's a new product. They have to have something

01:40:25   to talk about. And they're not going to talk about how bad the keyboard was for right.

01:40:29   Right. They're totally not gonna do it. Yeah, they're, you know, they might talk about how

01:40:36   great the new keyboard is, but they're not going to talk about how bad the old keyboard

01:40:39   was. Yeah. So the only other product that's rumored that might, you know, come out before

01:40:44   the end of the year, at least that I'm aware of is the AirPods with noise cancel relation.

01:40:49   Yeah. And again, it's pro cause everything's pro. They could just hold a briefing for that

01:40:53   and tell the press how great they sound. I don't see them holding an event for that.

01:40:57   Yeah. No, likewise. So I guess the one last thing I wanted to talk about this week

01:41:01   is a little bit on Catalina, which I've been playing with a little and a catalyst in

01:41:09   particular, which you sort of need Catalina to do. And I just know, I just know for the whole

01:41:14   next year, I'm going to say catalyst when I mean Catalina and Catalina. I've been doing

01:41:19   that too. It's just I make errors like that. It's, you know, talking about like hashing algorithms,

01:41:27   it's just I file stuff in my head alphabetically and C-A-T-A-L just doesn't have many items in it

01:41:34   and to have two of them be related to the same version of Mac OS is really going to screw me up.

01:41:42   So I apologize to everybody out there listening for all of the catalyst Catalina conflations I'm

01:41:48   about to make. The draft for my review, I called it Mac OS Catalyst. I had to fix it before it went live.

01:41:54   In the headline? Yeah. I'm glad you caught it. They had press briefings for Catalina for the

01:42:06   whole OS the week before it shipped. And, you know, Apple PR reached out to me to see if I'd

01:42:16   I'd be interested in going up to New York to have the briefing and I was and I thought,

01:42:23   "Boy, that's weird though." Like I was kind of more intrigued than I would have been because

01:42:27   in my head I thought that they said it was a briefing entirely about catalyst and I thought,

01:42:31   "Oh, this might be really interesting. They're preemptively having an entire briefing just

01:42:36   about this catalyst thing." And then I realized it wasn't. It was Catalina. It was the whole

01:42:42   a recap of the whole song and dance of all the—it wasn't—I'm glad I went. It was useful. It was

01:42:46   interesting. But it wasn't anywhere near as juicy as I thought it would have been if it would have

01:42:51   been catalyst-specific. So anyway, are you using catalyst—not catalyst, Catalina on your primary

01:42:58   machine? I did it. I don't usually do it because I have to edit video on it and I have to edit

01:43:02   podcasts on it and I'm very nervous about it. But again, I was using it on an alternate machine and

01:43:07   it just wasn't enough to actually review it. I felt like I had to use it. So I put it on my

01:43:11   main machine. It had some ups and downs, but it's pretty solid now.

01:43:15   So one of the big changes is that 32-bit apps are now gone. And Apple managed this transition

01:43:23   about as well as they could. They gave plenty of heads up years ago starting at WWDCs that

01:43:30   soon enough—at whatever point they made the announcement 32-bit frameworks—

01:43:36   Frameworks no leopard. It was up on remember Bertrand put up the huge 32-bit banner at snow leopard

01:43:41   Was that really when they first started?

01:43:42   I think they mentioned it a little bit with leopard but it was like it was a headline feature and snow leopard

01:43:47   Was that just though going to 64-bit? That's yeah. Yeah

01:43:51   As soon as they went to 64-bit apps

01:43:54   Everybody should have known that eventually they're gonna do away with 32-bit apps and it took a long time and that's the way it should

01:44:00   be

01:44:01   You know, I think it took longer on the Mac than then than it did on iOS iOS made the transition

01:44:08   Yeah quicker and that's the way it should be because the Mac is you know, it's just the nature of a desktop

01:44:12   Computing platform so I don't think Apple made a wrong decision at all

01:44:17   It might have been too long

01:44:19   It's like you know how sometimes you forget to plug in your iPad because a battery lasts so long

01:44:23   Yeah, you have to put this was like it was like 10 years and I think some companies like oh, they're never gonna do it

01:44:28   We're safe, you know, that's that's funny

01:44:30   you say that, you know, I didn't really think about that, but I think you're right, that

01:44:33   there might have been, it might have been too long. I don't know. But every time one

01:44:37   of these transitions gets made or when something goes away, you know, it's a little sad, you

01:44:41   know, that there's, you know, drags that sad the drag thing doesn't run anymore. You know,

01:44:48   there's some 32 bit stuff that isn't going to make the 64 bit transition and it's a bit

01:44:53   sad, but it was sad when classic went away. I hadn't, you know, nobody who really, what

01:44:58   of your, however fond your memories of classic Mac OS were. And mine are super fond. And

01:45:03   there are entire essays I could write about things of the user interface of the classic

01:45:07   Mac OS that I still think were vastly superior to anything that's come since, including Mac

01:45:12   OS and iOS. But running classic apps in Mac OS X was never a great experience, never looked

01:45:19   right, never felt right. But once the classic layer was removed from Mac OS X, it still

01:45:25   was a poor one out moment that you can't even launch these things anymore without an emulation

01:45:30   layer. For me personally, I don't think there's anything that I use that's 32-bit. I went

01:45:36   through. There's a way to check in, I think the best way, because it's not just checking

01:45:42   what's running in the activity monitor. You can add in activity monitor. You can go up

01:45:49   to the view menu, I think, and in the columns that are displayed, you can display type and

01:45:54   it'll say whether it's a 64 or 32-bit app.

01:45:57   And if you sort by that column,

01:45:58   you can see if you have any 32-bit stuffs running.

01:46:02   If you go to About This Mac

01:46:04   and then go to the system report,

01:46:06   when you go to applications,

01:46:07   it'll show all the applications

01:46:08   that are installed on your system

01:46:10   in your applications folder,

01:46:13   which is a better way of seeing

01:46:14   if you have anything laying around

01:46:16   that won't run if you upgrade.

01:46:19   And I think that even when you run the upgrader,

01:46:22   the updater from 10.14 to 10.15,

01:46:24   it'll even then point out,

01:46:26   hey, you've got this X, Y, and Z apps installed

01:46:29   that won't run.

01:46:31   They're doing as much as you can.

01:46:33   I think it's a non-issue for the most part.

01:46:35   - Because a lot of plugins seem to get bit,

01:46:38   especially audio plugins.

01:46:40   - Yeah, that seems like a huge thing.

01:46:43   And I know a couple of people who work on audio apps,

01:46:46   seems like that's a really big deal

01:46:49   and sort of unfortunate, I guess.

01:46:51   I don't know why they haven't made the transition.

01:46:53   You would think they'd be actively maintained,

01:46:55   but they're not.

01:46:57   - Oh, yeah.

01:46:58   I was wondering if Adobe was gonna make it on time

01:47:01   because Adobe, they did.

01:47:03   - Yeah.

01:47:04   So, you know, and I have upgraded a machine

01:47:08   that's not my primary machine.

01:47:10   And I know that one of the other things about Catalina

01:47:12   that people are complaining about

01:47:13   is that they've tightened up some of the,

01:47:15   you know, it's that fine line between

01:47:20   Is it a security feature or a privacy feature?

01:47:22   It's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B,

01:47:25   but they've made the desktop a magic location

01:47:29   that apps have to have special permission.

01:47:31   Like such and such app is trying to read files

01:47:35   from your desktop.

01:47:38   - The first time you launch an app that was already open

01:47:41   when you upgraded and had documents from the desktop,

01:47:45   the downloads file and the documents folder open

01:47:47   at the time and it tries to reload them, God help you,

01:47:50   because it starts asking permission for every directory,

01:47:52   for every file that you had open at the time.

01:47:55   - So there's, you know, it takes some getting used to.

01:47:59   I really, I have a rant in me about it.

01:48:02   Like I kind of see why Apple's doing this,

01:48:05   but it really doesn't play well in the context

01:48:08   of that classic get a Mac ad,

01:48:11   where the John Hodgman PC got upgraded to Vista and was,

01:48:15   do you authorize this, yes or no?

01:48:18   Do you authorize that, yes or no?

01:48:20   You know?

01:48:21   - It'll only ask you once, but for every app.

01:48:23   It'll only ask you if you wanna download once,

01:48:25   but for every website.

01:48:26   - Yeah, it's a lot.

01:48:29   And it brings in, I get it, I get why they're doing this.

01:48:36   I think some of these things are in response

01:48:39   to actual malware attack vectors that Apple is aware of.

01:48:44   My son ran into one.

01:48:48   I think I talked about this on the show a year or two ago,

01:48:51   but my son ran into one about two years ago,

01:48:54   maybe 18 months ago, but it was really interesting

01:48:57   where he somehow stumbled on a site

01:49:00   or he clicked on something.

01:49:01   It wasn't like super dubious.

01:49:03   It wasn't like he was trying to download,

01:49:05   crack games or something like that.

01:49:07   I forget, but he could reproduce it.

01:49:09   And there was a URL where it was like a fake Amazon result.

01:49:13   And I guess he kind of clicked on it accidentally.

01:49:16   But what it did is it went to one of these sites

01:49:21   claiming that your Mac had,

01:49:24   the site had detected that your Mac had malware

01:49:30   and that's why it was running slow

01:49:33   and that you needed to call this number.

01:49:34   And I'm sure if you did call it,

01:49:36   you know, that they would talk you into it.

01:49:38   You know, everybody knows people who've had family members

01:49:41   fall victim to this, where you call them up

01:49:42   they talk you into installing like a back door on your Mac. Just terrible stuff, terribly

01:49:49   shifty stuff. But the devious part of this website my son stumbled upon was what they

01:49:55   were doing was sending your browser downloads of, they were like empty text files or maybe

01:50:06   they were like text files that contained four characters like just just literally just like

01:50:10   Two or three characters and and but they were sending them as fast as the as they could and

01:50:17   Safari even just a year or two ago was willing to say, okay, you're gonna send me all these downloads

01:50:22   I'll download them as fast as as fast as I can

01:50:24   and

01:50:27   Just by downloading as many of these files as it could as fast as it could it

01:50:32   Made Safari really slow. It really was it slowed down it exactly as the website promised. It didn't install anything

01:50:39   It wasn't a year, you know

01:50:41   There was no malware running on your machine

01:50:43   But it slowed your browser down so fast that if you couldn't if you didn't know like the trick to force quit Safari

01:50:49   It was tough to get out of like it was so slow it slowed Safari down so far so fast that you couldn't really close

01:50:58   the window. So you could totally see how people would fall for it. And I'm sure that there's

01:51:03   a hundred other tricks that are similarly deep.

01:51:05   A bunch of Google Ad hijacks that would just send you to a fake website. Yeah.

01:51:10   So there's all sorts of stuff, I'm sure, that are out there. But some of this stuff, though,

01:51:17   it's like tightening up Safari I get, because I really do feel like you don't know what

01:51:22   you're getting there. I feel like having apps that beg for permission to read files off

01:51:29   your desktop, I feel like that's over the line. I feel like I'm not quite sure what

01:51:34   and again, maybe I'm wrong. And there's apps that are taking advantage of this and just

01:51:39   guessing that you have juicy personal stuff on your desktop and, you know, slurping all

01:51:44   the data from it. But it just seems contrary to the way that the Mac is trying to mitigate

01:51:49   Like if you double click or if you drag,

01:51:52   it's an explicit user action, so that overrides the check.

01:51:55   But it's just like when you do that reinstall

01:51:57   and you already have stuff open,

01:51:59   you don't have the opportunity to drag anything.

01:52:01   So that's like the worst case scenario.

01:52:03   - And it's just so telling, it's so much cleaner on,

01:52:08   even though iOS and iPadOS are still more limiting overall

01:52:13   in terms of being able to use an app

01:52:15   that can just see the real file system.

01:52:17   And I know that the files app has beefed this up

01:52:21   and there's integration with Dropbox.

01:52:23   But if you're treating data as files,

01:52:25   as opposed to just being a library app, right?

01:52:30   Like when you use photos and you use the Apple Notes app,

01:52:34   you don't treat the individual photos as files,

01:52:37   you don't treat notes as files,

01:52:39   they're just items in a library,

01:52:42   which is the sort of modern way

01:52:43   to have multiple bits of data in an app.

01:52:46   And in a lot of cases, it's great.

01:52:48   It's just conceptually simpler.

01:52:49   It's neater.

01:52:50   You're successfully encapsulating the file system

01:52:55   from the user.

01:52:56   You're not missing anything by not having these,

01:52:59   you know, your individual hundreds of notes

01:53:01   as individual files in a file system.

01:53:04   But if you really do want to deal with documents

01:53:06   in the traditional document mindset,

01:53:10   iOS's way is still limiting, right?

01:53:14   And the Mac is just natural.

01:53:15   It's just the way, you know, when you boot up into a Mac,

01:53:18   it still is the case where the default application

01:53:20   that's running is the finder, which is the file system app.

01:53:23   I feel like nannying all these decisions with,

01:53:29   are you sure you want to let this app read from the desktop?

01:53:31   Is just, it's just a pain in the ass.

01:53:34   And I really kind of wish there were,

01:53:38   if it's, even if there is a good idea for this,

01:53:40   I really wished that there was a developer mode,

01:53:45   for lack of a better word.

01:53:46   And I feel like the calling it developer mode

01:53:48   would properly scare the people off

01:53:52   who shouldn't be turning it on,

01:53:54   as opposed to calling it advanced user mode or something.

01:53:58   Just call it developer mode

01:53:59   and it would turn off almost all of that stuff.

01:54:03   And just say, I trust that I'm not getting tricked

01:54:06   into installing malware on my Mac.

01:54:09   Let me run the Mac the way I was running it

01:54:12   five, six years ago, where I can write scripts

01:54:14   and not have to tell the system that Terminal app

01:54:19   has full disk access and stuff like that.

01:54:23   Just call it developer.

01:54:24   - They have a bit of that.

01:54:25   Like they got rid of the option to run any app.

01:54:27   Now there's only App Store and certified apps,

01:54:29   sorry, but you can go into Terminal and type in a command

01:54:33   and it restores the button for running the app.

01:54:36   But that's just one at a time.

01:54:37   There's no like Konami code to unlock all of it.

01:54:39   - Right, I just feel like the way that this has been added

01:54:44   over time to a design

01:54:47   That is you know, that is the way Mac OS X was originally conceived from the next era through the the you know

01:54:54   the transition period in 2000

01:54:56   Circa 2000 let's say

01:54:59   It's resulted in this system where you have to do these things a hundred times, you know, maybe that's an exaggeration

01:55:05   But you have to drag each app and drag, you know into full disk access and you have to authorize this and authorize that

01:55:11   Whereas I really feel like there should be a way to get and you have to jump all over the system to get these different

01:55:17   Things right and god bless them like Apple gets no exemption

01:55:20   I'd launched QuickTime for the first time and drew to a screen record

01:55:23   I had to launch settings go in check a box and then quick time and then reload and then it says like if you want

01:55:29   It to apply you've got to quit and restart the app, which is like very Skype or something

01:55:33   I really feel like there should be a they should take into account a way that if you really want to turn that stuff off

01:55:39   It's it's either all one checkbox like an idea I had is you know how like right now you can in users and groups you can

01:55:47   have

01:55:48   Administrator accounts yeah

01:55:49   And then you can have standard users and a standard user is limited in all sorts of ways where they can't delete apps

01:55:54   They have to have an admin password. Well. Why not make in addition to an administrator account?

01:55:58   Why not make a developer account and you can't just have an entire account?

01:56:02   That's you know has all the all the all the powers of an administrator

01:56:07   Plus the powers of a developer which is mostly I trust the software on my Mac. Yes

01:56:11   Yeah, I'm a grown-ass adult and I want to make these decisions. I mean, well, I'm an or you know, I'm an expert

01:56:18   You know like, you know, I'm an expert and I I trust myself to control the software that's running on my Mac

01:56:23   And it's a lot of little things to like I didn't notice this when I wrote my review

01:56:27   But I was using music and I'd right-clicked and I said oh show me and find it

01:56:31   It worked fine

01:56:32   and then I went to

01:56:33   Podcasts and I wanted to get the actual file for the podcast and I right-clicked on that option doesn't exist because it's a catalyst app

01:56:38   It doesn't it's not aware of I'm sure they could put it in but they didn't and so it's one less

01:56:43   It's one less feature that I use occasionally that's available to me. Well that brings me to my next section, which is the catalyst griping

01:56:49   Which could be an entire episode of the show and maybe will be in the coming weeks

01:56:57   But at the moment, you know, let's keep it short

01:57:00   Well shortish short by the standards of a segment on this podcast

01:57:05   The catalyst apps I

01:57:09   mean there's

01:57:11   Two groups of them. I mean there's apples own and then there's

01:57:15   Third party ones that are now in the app store

01:57:18   The

01:57:23   Apple ones are

01:57:25   Home where there's the the ones that we had left from last year home news and stocks

01:57:30   which I consider one app because they're really sort of the same stocks is just a

01:57:35   Version of news that has business related news. Yeah voice memos and

01:57:41   Podcasts or I guess podcast was was is new this year. So the four from last year home news stocks voice memos

01:57:49   All of these are weird and un-mack like in their own ways

01:57:55   and people including some people from Apple last year said well that's early given time and then

01:58:00   This year they didn't really look much improved at all and Craig Federighi

01:58:06   I forget who he was visit who talking to Vititi. I mean but

01:58:10   After WWDC said well, you know, these are design decisions. They're not I asked him about it on stage at my podcast

01:58:17   Yeah, and he said, you know, they're not technical limitations their design limitations, which is sort of a euphemistic way of there's

01:58:24   There's untalented people designing these apps, honestly.

01:58:29   - Or they were experimenting.

01:58:31   - But then later on, he said,

01:58:33   but it's early in the beta, they'll improve by the end.

01:58:35   Well, they didn't improve at all.

01:58:37   If they changed anything other than to fix bugs,

01:58:39   I can't notice it.

01:58:41   I mean, the home app still looks like an iOS app.

01:58:44   A lot, I mean, it even has the weird iOS-like controls

01:58:48   for the date picker.

01:58:50   - There were no design changes.

01:58:51   They optimized a few things

01:58:52   in terms of the mechanics of the apps,

01:58:54   but the designs didn't change.

01:58:55   - And that using iOS controls in a Mac app,

01:58:59   especially one from Apple, it's mind blowing to me.

01:59:02   I mean, part of what made the iPhone so great,

01:59:07   right from the get-go, was that they said

01:59:10   at like a technical level, you know,

01:59:12   we're building this, you know,

01:59:13   it's like a stripped down version of OS X

01:59:15   and we've, you know, taken our Cocoa frameworks

01:59:18   and made a new version for iOS.

01:59:21   there was no leakage at all of anything

01:59:25   that would look like a Mac control on iPhone.

01:59:30   Every single control that they had was,

01:59:35   I mean like push buttons are the one example

01:59:36   of a thing that works pretty much the same on a touchscreen

01:59:39   as on a mouse screen.

01:59:42   But things like date pickers or pop-up menus

01:59:46   all had very, very iOS style controls.

01:59:49   And even on the web, even in mobile Safari,

01:59:51   they went out of their way to create every,

01:59:54   take every single standard HTML user interface control,

01:59:58   like pop-up menus and do them in an iOS way.

02:00:01   And even today in 2019,

02:00:04   where one of the flagship features,

02:00:06   if not the flagship featured in my opinion of iPad OS 13,

02:00:11   is desktop class browsing, right?

02:00:14   Where it reliably asserts itself as Safari for Mac,

02:00:18   as opposed to Safari for iPhone,

02:00:20   so that you get the Mac, what you'd see on a Mac

02:00:23   or any other desktop class browser in the iPad.

02:00:27   Even though that's true, and I think it's just absolutely

02:00:31   my very favorite thing about iPad OS 13,

02:00:35   the hardest thing that would drive me crazy

02:00:38   if I had to go back to iOS 12 on an iPad.

02:00:41   Even so, they're not desktop style controls, right?

02:00:45   It renders the page that way, but you still

02:00:47   get touch-optimized versions of these controls.

02:00:51   They're not little tiny things that you need a pencil to pick.

02:00:55   They have big, fat, finger-sized things that you can tap on.

02:01:00   Everything is touch-optimized.

02:01:02   So to take something that's not mouse-optimized at all

02:01:05   and to stick it on the Mac almost literally unchanged,

02:01:08   it's mind-boggling.

02:01:09   It's just as offensive to me as a UI connoisseur

02:01:14   as it would have been if you had, every once in a while,

02:01:17   had a tiny little menu bar show up in an iPhone app.

02:01:21   - The original Windows on tablets.

02:01:23   - Right, it's mind boggling to me.

02:01:26   So the two new apps this year for Catalina

02:01:31   are Find My and Podcasts.

02:01:33   Those are both Catalina apps as well.

02:01:36   Podcasts is the standout.

02:01:39   It looks the most like it's non-Catalyst siblings,

02:01:43   TV and music. There's obviously a lot of confusion out there between what's Catalyst and what's

02:01:51   not Catalyst. I mean, I know a lot of people think that the App Store app is Catalyst because

02:01:58   it is very iOS-y. There's an awful lot of things in the App Store app that to me are

02:02:04   UI mistakes, but that they come across as iOS-isms. I mean, one that I just think it's

02:02:11   a bad decision is when you look at an app and you click in your updates and you can

02:02:17   click more to read the release notes. It opens up in a very iOS-style panel that has no close

02:02:23   button or done button. It just is like a rectangle on your screen and the only way to close it

02:02:29   is to click away.

02:02:30   Tim Cynova Yeah, it's baffling.

02:02:31   Dave Asprey It's a very—that's just bizarre from

02:02:35   a Mac user's experience perspective of how a window or a sheet or anything like that

02:02:40   would be dismissed.

02:02:42   Like, it's just strange.

02:02:44   But anyway, it's not a catalyst app.

02:02:46   App Store app, however, you know,

02:02:49   ultimately the user shouldn't have to know.

02:02:51   That's a key point, right?

02:02:53   And so like 32-bit versus 64-bit, typical user,

02:02:57   never had any idea, never should have had any idea.

02:03:01   When Swift became a way to make real Mac apps,

02:03:04   there was no way to like double click an app and tell,

02:03:07   oh, this app was written in Swift,

02:03:09   And this one was written in Objective C.

02:03:12   Like the programming language is not something

02:03:14   that a user should ever have to worry about.

02:03:16   There were some tiny, some things that, you know,

02:03:20   as an, even as a non-developer,

02:03:22   you could kind of get a hint.

02:03:23   Like you can always in the Mac, poke around in the,

02:03:26   you know, click on the control click or right click,

02:03:29   whatever you want to call it on the .app bundle.

02:03:32   Show the package contests and poke around in there

02:03:35   and look at the frameworks.

02:03:36   And until recently, an app that used Swift,

02:03:39   whether it was written entirely in Swift or partially in Swift,

02:03:41   had to include the Swift frameworks within the app bundle

02:03:44   because they weren't part of the system for technical reasons

02:03:49   that are irrelevant.

02:03:50   So you could poke around as a user

02:03:52   and just poking around the app bundles,

02:03:54   tell if it used Swift or not.

02:03:57   But as a typical user, there was no sign of it.

02:04:00   And that's how Catalyst should be.

02:04:02   Catalyst should not be something that users have to think,

02:04:05   like, hey, I know that this app is on the iPad

02:04:08   and it's on my Mac, is this Catalyst,

02:04:11   or is it just an AppKit app and a UIKit app for the iPad?

02:04:15   You shouldn't have to know.

02:04:16   Only developers should have to know.

02:04:18   But the truth is, you look at these Catalyst apps,

02:04:20   and they do stick out.

02:04:21   There's telltale signs that these are Catalyst apps.

02:04:24   Yeah.

02:04:26   And it's hilarious that if an AppKit app is something bad,

02:04:29   people should see them as Catalyst.

02:04:31   That's very true.

02:04:32   It's very telling.

02:04:34   So the Podcasts app-- so people are confused.

02:04:36   People think of music, TV, and podcasts are all catalyst apps.

02:04:40   They're not.

02:04:41   The music and TV apps are effectively

02:04:45   two forks of the old iTunes app.

02:04:47   And I love-- I just love-- I almost

02:04:50   feel like it's a troll from Apple--

02:04:52   that the preferences window is still a modal dialog box.

02:04:57   They rewrote so much of those apps to make them look new

02:05:00   and to separate stuff, and yet they still

02:05:03   have a modal dialog box, which is just wonderful.

02:05:05   - It's amazing to me, it's all of these apps,

02:05:07   even like the podcasts and music and TVs,

02:05:09   if you open up any list view or grid view

02:05:13   and you click into anything, you get this whole row

02:05:15   that all it has is a back button in it, a little circle.

02:05:18   And you go back and it just blanks you back into the grid.

02:05:22   Like on iOS, the title of the master view

02:05:25   becomes the title of the detail view

02:05:26   and it slides you back and forth so you're spatially aware.

02:05:29   Here it's just, oh, we're gonna throw an entire row up there

02:05:31   stick a little button in and then cross fade you in and out.

02:05:35   And it's across all the apps and it's baffling to me too.

02:05:37   - And it's, yeah, it doesn't read well as a Mac.

02:05:41   But then there's other things in the podcast app

02:05:43   that are just telltale signs that just,

02:05:45   it just would never imagine a Mac app,

02:05:47   let alone a Mac app from Apple that doesn't support this.

02:05:50   So like you go into the episodes of a show

02:05:54   and it lists them and you click on one,

02:05:56   you can use shift and then arrow key

02:05:58   to extend the selection and select multiple episodes.

02:06:02   Right, now there's a thing you think,

02:06:03   that's cool because you know that's the thing you expect to be able to do in a

02:06:07   Mac app with a list view is select multiple items by shift arrowing or

02:06:10   command clicking on just continuous one so you can select numbers one and three

02:06:16   but not two but guess what if you hit command a which you would expect to

02:06:22   select all the episodes nothing happens like yeah command a just isn't hooked up

02:06:27   which is like I guess it's an oversight you know I bet they fix it because the

02:06:35   podcast app really really goes out of its way to be as Mac like as it possibly

02:06:39   can but you the reason it sticks out is that support for command-a as select all

02:06:46   in a list view isn't something that's part of the beauty of cocoa and the app

02:06:50   can frameworks is that the reason that brand new apps never had we forgot about

02:06:56   about hooking up Command-A is that they didn't have to remember it because it just came for

02:07:00   free with AppKit, right? Like, that's why you can't remember even a brand new app that

02:07:05   didn't have support for Select All because it came for free and you didn't have to keep

02:07:10   this checklist of 50, 60, 100 standard little things that we have to hook up manually because

02:07:17   they don't come across for free because Command-A for Select All isn't a thing on UIKit on iOS.

02:07:23   I also mentioned that you can't right-click and go to see the file in Finder because there's

02:07:28   no directory. All my directories that had podcasts in are empty now, and they're all

02:07:31   in some /library/podcast/cache file.

02:07:35   Right. And that's just… I realize maybe that's the future we're heading towards,

02:07:42   but to me, it's a future that would be best provided by either an iPad OS device or another

02:07:51   iOS device that is iOS on a laptop form factor, not macOS. What macOS is, to me, is inextricably

02:07:59   tied to being, if you want, I think it's great that it has evolved in a way for casual users

02:08:05   that don't really have to interact with files in the file system often, but if you want

02:08:10   to, you should be able to. And in an app like that, where you know the back end is a file,

02:08:16   an image in photos or a podcast episode and a podcast player you expect to be

02:08:24   able to get to it in the finder somehow by and and the way that I you know the

02:08:28   most obvious thing to try that I would try is what you just tried is right

02:08:32   clicking on it and then you expect a reveal and finder menu item and you

02:08:35   expect it to open a finder window and there it is and it doesn't work not so

02:08:40   much right and I get it like you know when they move to Swift you know Swift

02:08:45   is going to be a multi-year transition, APFS is going to be a multi-year transition, Catalyst

02:08:50   is going to be a multi-year transition, and next year's will be better than this year's.

02:08:54   It's just these feel so much more palpable because they're the apps that you're dealing

02:08:56   with now. I think most casual users never see APFS, they never see Swift, but boy do

02:09:01   they see like home.app in front of them. So you were watching the sausage getting made

02:09:07   and I don't think we're used to that.

02:09:08   Yeah, and you know, I don't know, I played with the Twitter app a little bit and it's

02:09:13   not horrible and I guess I'm I guess I would have to agree that it is better to

02:09:18   have this Twitter app with a bunch of deficiencies that I would consider just

02:09:23   standard in a Mac app then no Twitter app at all but it is particularly galling

02:09:30   to me with Twitter because I'm I'm opened and and sensitive to the idea

02:09:40   that like for a one or two person developer shop, yes, that maintaining fewer apps and

02:09:48   less small, a smaller code base is a huge advantage. And that maybe it is the difference

02:09:53   between being able to offer a Mac app and not, and only having an iOS and iPad app.

02:10:00   Twitter doesn't have that excuse. Twitter is a billion dollar company with like 3000

02:10:04   employees, like what the hell are they doing? And in addition to the fact that they can't

02:10:10   beg poor, right, they can't say we can't afford to have a Mac development team. They're there.

02:10:17   They've when they acquired Tweety and Lauren brick there back in the day, they acquired

02:10:23   a one person now again, Lauren brick there is a friend and a fine fellow and genius UI

02:10:30   and an incredibly talented developer and is exceptional in all those regards,

02:10:36   including just being a good person. He really is an exceptional person. I

02:10:40   realized that you can't expect everybody to be a Lauren Briktor, but it

02:10:46   was a one-person company that had a great iPhone app, a great real Mac app,

02:10:53   and not just a great iPad app, but still to this date arguably the most

02:10:58   innovative user interface in an iPad app that anybody's ever created that was pushing the

02:11:04   boundaries that even Apple had defined for the experience of a multi-level app and how

02:11:11   you would navigate the depth of the hierarchy you were at and how you would indicate the

02:11:17   depth of the hierarchy you were at, all from one person. And now we're told that Twitter

02:11:22   couldn't afford to keep up a Mac app. And so this is great. Now they'll have a Mac app

02:11:27   because they can use their iOS app and we get this garbage.

02:11:31   And it's funny because you mentioned Ben Sandofsky before.

02:11:34   Hell, his old job was doing the entire Twitter for Mac app.

02:11:37   They've never invested in it. It's perplexing.

02:11:43   Yeah. And I remember when they had—I knew the writing was on the wall. And I'm a

02:11:52   a Tweetbot user myself, both Mac and iOS. So part of it I'm not too concerned, you

02:11:58   know, because my use of Twitter isn't that affected. But I would like to see the native

02:12:05   Twitter app be as good as possible, just on general principle. And you realize that that's

02:12:11   what most people are going to use. But I knew the writing was on the wall when they added

02:12:17   the notification support for Twitter stuff in the system multiple versions ago. When

02:12:23   you'd click on it, even if you had the Twitter Mac app installed, it would open in the Twitter.com

02:12:28   website. I remember asking Apple about that, and they were like, "Well, off the record,

02:12:35   that's what Twitter wanted." It wasn't Apple's decision. It was Twitter's. So even if you

02:12:39   had the Mac app and you opened a DM notification, it would open the DM in the website, even

02:12:45   you have their app installed.

02:12:47   Yeah.

02:12:48   And I use Tweetbot all the time, too,

02:12:49   but they keep changing Twitter just in ways

02:12:51   that degrade the experience.

02:12:53   They can no longer just pull up a thread anymore.

02:12:55   You have to do all these complex moves

02:12:57   to try to reassemble the thread.

02:12:58   And sometimes it doesn't work.

02:12:59   So you can't even see replies to your own message sometimes.

02:13:02   It's just so frustrating.

02:13:04   Yeah.

02:13:05   It's-- I don't know.

02:13:07   I'd still use it, but yeah, for reading a thread,

02:13:11   especially a thread that's even just a day or two old.

02:13:14   So like the, because they can't just pull up the thread, they only can show the messages

02:13:18   in the thread that they already have cached. And so if you're, somebody is showing you

02:13:24   a tweet from somebody you don't even follow, you have to go to the website or twitter.app.

02:13:29   You know, anyway, I just don't think it's a great app. I don't think it's a great

02:13:33   selling point of Catalyst. But it's, you know, maybe overall it's better than I feared.

02:13:39   I guess that's my take so far on Catalyst is that it seems like it's better than I

02:13:43   feared and the potentials there. I think the biggest question I have isn't whether Catalyst

02:13:52   is a good or bad idea in principle. It is, why did they decide it was worth shipping

02:13:57   when they did? Because I don't think it's, even this year, I feel like it's a little

02:14:01   iffy and an awful lot of the apps that are the best examples of it seem to have to jump

02:14:07   out of UIKit into AppKit, which seemingly defeats the whole purpose of doing it in the

02:14:12   first place. Yeah well this year in general I feel like last year was such a

02:14:17   good balance of new features and going back and just maintaining like you know

02:14:22   paying down foundational debt. Yeah. And this year it feels like they tried to

02:14:26   catch up and it was just too much and we've seen that just splatter all over

02:14:30   the releases recently and I you know and they probably thought you know they

02:14:34   would get all of the stuff done I don't know how they thought that but I hope we

02:14:38   can just I think last year was a much better pace and if we could just stick

02:14:40   to that pace. We won't get as many new features every year, but the ones that we do get will

02:14:44   be better, and the older ones will be maintained better. And I think that's just a much better

02:14:48   plan going forward.

02:14:50   Yeah, I hope so. It is an interesting year-over-year difference, where it really did seem like

02:14:59   last year's, "Hey, we're focused on performance and bug fixing and making stuff smaller and

02:15:04   just more reliable and working, getting this older." If we support five years back, we

02:15:10   want this version of iOS on a five-year-old phone

02:15:13   to still run great.

02:15:14   And they did it.

02:15:15   And it was like, wow, this is unbelievable.

02:15:17   And then the next year, probably, I don't know,

02:15:20   inarguably, inarguably is too strong a word,

02:15:22   but by consensus, the buggiest year in recent memory.

02:15:26   - And a lot of the stuff, again,

02:15:28   I also have this thinking that instead of announcing

02:15:31   this is what we're shipping for iOS 13,

02:15:33   this is what we're shipping for Catalina,

02:15:35   this is the next year of iOS.

02:15:36   This is the next year of Catalina.

02:15:38   And take the pressure off having to ship everything

02:15:40   in September and if some stuff comes off in October,

02:15:42   if some stuff comes up in December,

02:15:45   if some stuff ships in March, that's fine.

02:15:47   This is what you're gonna get.

02:15:49   It's a roadmap for the next year.

02:15:50   - Yeah, and I would like to see it.

02:15:52   I would really like to see,

02:15:54   macOS in particular, I really don't feel like

02:15:58   needs an annual update.

02:16:00   And I don't know how,

02:16:00   now that they've gotten into that pattern

02:16:02   and it seems like somebody at Apple is gonna listen to me

02:16:06   say this and they're gonna say,

02:16:07   "Well, there's no way we can make you happy."

02:16:09   Because maybe a few years ago when they weren't on an annual update,

02:16:13   people-- maybe even me in particular-- were complaining that the Mac wasn't

02:16:16   getting updated frequently enough.

02:16:18   I'm sensitive to that.

02:16:19   You make them less audacious updates.

02:16:21   Make sure that whatever features you need to be parallel with iOS do that,

02:16:24   but you don't have to do--

02:16:25   I'll be happy with five amazing things.

02:16:27   I don't need 10 things that are struggling to ship.

02:16:29   Right.

02:16:30   To me, the stuff that I-- only thing--

02:16:32   I get it that iOS is on an annual update,

02:16:34   because the hardware is on an annual update.

02:16:37   And that's important to Apple financially right now,

02:16:39   and it's important in the competitive landscape.

02:16:41   It's just cell phones are, you know,

02:16:43   they're just so, they're just so big,

02:16:46   so much bigger than everything else.

02:16:48   And so if there's a new iPhone every September,

02:16:50   and they're really, you know, of course, technically,

02:16:54   if they didn't have an iPhone next year in September,

02:16:57   it wouldn't be the end of the world for the company,

02:17:00   but it would certainly be bizarre,

02:17:02   and a sign that something had gone terribly wrong.

02:17:05   So for some definition of has to,

02:17:07   there has to be a new iPhone every September.

02:17:09   And if there has to be a new iPhone every September,

02:17:11   there has to be a new version of iOS.

02:17:13   And it would be really, really hard

02:17:15   to separate just the hardware-specific stuff

02:17:18   that requires a new version from the feature-related stuff.

02:17:22   But it just bleeds over to now,

02:17:26   if we're gonna do a macOS version two,

02:17:28   all of the new features that are Mac-specific,

02:17:32   we have to do at the same time

02:17:34   we do the features like sidecar which obviously by definition needs the Mac to go to get new

02:17:41   stuff in in addition to the iOS stuff at the same time. The new reminders has to sync between

02:17:46   iOS and MacOS. I would like to see them just put the Mac on the annual update cycle just

02:17:53   for those features that have to be updated to keep pace with iOS and let the other stuff

02:17:58   on the Mac, take as much time as it takes to get right. And just let the Mac as the

02:18:04   more mature, you know, by however you want to define it, it's decades old platform,

02:18:09   you know, let it be the mature platform that it is that doesn't need to change radically

02:18:14   or radically is the wrong word, but doesn't need to change it as fast at pace as a mobile

02:18:20   operating system does.

02:18:21   **Ezra Klein:** Yeah, no, totally agreed. And even with iOS,

02:18:24   I mean we get already some features don't come until the point one release like the new emoji and take things like portrait mode and

02:18:32   And deep fusion just make that the norm know exactly what you can ship in September and then have other features because they're gonna do

02:18:39   An update in March anyway, so just stage out those features and we'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree and

02:18:46   Hopefully I you know, I can't imagine that internal to Apple. There's not going to be some sort of you know

02:18:53   Hey, let's let's do a post op on you know, yeah

02:18:57   But let's make sure a post modem on this and figure out where did we go wrong? How early how do we detect it next year?

02:19:03   How do we better?

02:19:04   Better estimate what will be done at at a certain time and how do we better?

02:19:09   Separate stuff that needs to be done

02:19:11   For 14.0 in September and stuff that can wait and how do we sort of stage them out?

02:19:19   Totally someone's gonna go you jackass. I said there's nothing wrong or unlucky about 13 now. Look what happened

02:19:24   You know, I've had people send me that like how come you're not talking about that and it's like you do you read my stuff?

02:19:30   at all do you realize how

02:19:32   Like I'm the opposite I get annoyed every time I look at an elevator and don't see a 13. I'm so mad

02:19:37   I'm so mad. I'm like it is a mark

02:19:40   You know this this giant skyscraper is a marvel of engineering and yet we're going to cater to the nitwits who think that

02:19:47   Yes, the 13th floor would be unlucky

02:19:49   Anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up. That's a good show Renee. It's always good to talk to you people can

02:19:56   Read you on Twitter at your handles Renee Richie. Yes, you you write it

02:20:02   I'm or you've got your your pod or not your podcast your your we do have podcasts, too

02:20:07   But yeah, you're a man of many talents

02:20:08   But the big thing I know you're pouring a lot of work into and it really shows is vector your show on YouTube

02:20:14   What's the best way to get to vector YouTube slash vector? Yep, that's it

02:20:18   Yeah, and it's not spelled funny or anything like that. Just know you see just under or lots of work there looks good

02:20:25   You're doing so good there. It's really so much. I really do. You enjoy it. You like the youtubing? Yeah, I love it

02:20:31   It's just after so many years of blogging. It's just another way to tell stories and I've been editing since I was younger

02:20:37   It's just a great way to tell a story these days. Yeah. Yeah, it's great stuff

02:20:42   So my thanks to having you here always good to talk to you. Thank you. And my thanks for our sponsors this week

02:20:47   Three classics three of the three that stalwarts of the talk show sponsorship

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02:21:05   Especially they're great carry-on which I recommend wholeheartedly my thanks to them. All right adios Renee