The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Well, good news for you is my mic is like all set up

00:00:02 ◼   ► and I know how to use a external mic right now very well.

00:00:06 ◼   ► 'Cause that's my whole life.

00:00:07 ◼   ► - It is everybody's life.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I feel like everybody is becoming an expert.

00:00:14 ◼   ► - My whole setup is like,

00:00:16 ◼   ► usually when I podcast from YouTube,

00:00:17 ◼   ► it takes like 15 minutes to get all set and everything.

00:00:20 ◼   ► And I'm like, nope, got it.

00:00:21 ◼   ► All ready to sync the audio and GarageBand.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Everything's good.

00:00:28 ◼   ► My friend, Paul Kefasis, runs Rogue Amoeba Software.

00:00:31 ◼   ► They do, he's been on the show before.

00:00:34 ◼   ► They do audio hijack, sound source.

00:00:39 ◼   ► They do a whole bunch of things,

00:00:41 ◼   ► but largely audio related.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And so obviously there's a lot of interest in their software

00:00:45 ◼   ► 'cause people are recording audio from calls and stuff.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Anyway, there was a tweet today, I forget who sent it,

00:00:50 ◼   ► but there was a screenshot of Oprah

00:00:53 ◼   ► doing some kind of thing with FaceTime

00:00:55 ◼   ► and she had the audio hijack running on her Mac,

00:00:59 ◼   ► which was exciting for them.

00:01:00 ◼   ► It's Oprah, right?

00:01:01 ◼   ► It's Oprah, you know, but it's so funny

00:01:03 ◼   ► because she's just like us, right?

00:01:05 ◼   ► She's just got a Mac, she's running FaceTime,

00:01:08 ◼   ► and she's got her Mac propped up with like three or four

00:01:12 ◼   ► books to get the webcam up at a reasonable height,

00:01:14 ◼   ► and it's like, Oprah, she's a billionaire, she's Oprah,

00:01:18 ◼   ► and she's just like us, she's using books.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - She's just like us.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - She's using books.

00:01:22 ◼   ► What a good spread for them to do

00:01:25 ◼   ► in People Magazine this week.

00:01:27 ◼   ► The stars, or is it people, or is it Us Weekly

00:01:30 ◼   ► that do it, like the stars, they're just like us.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And they all are holding their iPhones up

00:01:35 ◼   ► with random things around their house,

00:01:37 ◼   ► and they are using lamps to light themselves,

00:01:40 ◼   ► and they are, I don't know, constructing random things

00:01:44 ◼   ► in their house to make their tech work.

00:01:45 ◼   ► - Right, it's, you know, and you know what, it's funny,

00:01:48 ◼   ► like the books thing, it seems like, wow, you're Oprah,

00:01:50 ◼   ► you should be able to have a proper laptop stand

00:01:53 ◼   ► or something, but books are sort of the best for that

00:01:56 ◼   ► because everybody who's smart or has lots of books,

00:02:01 ◼   ► books are very stable, right?

00:02:03 ◼   ► They're perfectly flat, and because you have,

00:02:06 ◼   ► if you just have one shelf full of books to choose from,

00:02:10 ◼   ► if you choose the right number of books,

00:02:12 ◼   ► it's actually very, very adjustable.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Like, if you decide, ah, this is so close,

00:02:18 ◼   ► but I really wish it was like a half an inch higher.

00:02:21 ◼   ► You could just find either like a half inch thick book

00:02:23 ◼   ► or get, you know, swap one book out

00:02:26 ◼   ► for one that's slightly thicker to move it up.

00:02:28 ◼   ► - Books. - Books.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - What a technology, books.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - You cannot do that with a Kindle book.

00:02:34 ◼   ► - No.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And actually books do work.

00:02:37 ◼   ► I've been using some books from my laptop,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but they do not work well for iPhone or iPad

00:02:42 ◼   ► if you don't have the right amount of books

00:02:44 ◼   ► because I find that like either it just falls,

00:02:46 ◼   ► and if you have no case on your iPhone or iPad,

00:02:50 ◼   ► it either falls forward or back.

00:02:53 ◼   ► I did a video about this a couple weeks ago,

00:02:56 ◼   ► how to make a homemade stand for your iPad

00:02:58 ◼   ► because I was putting my iPad on all these random things

00:03:00 ◼   ► and it kept falling backwards.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And I wanted to go order an iPad stand from Amazon

00:03:05 ◼   ► and of course they were back ordered forever.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Finally, I got them in this week.

00:03:09 ◼   ► But no, a wire hanger and a cardboard box,

00:03:12 ◼   ► great stands for your iPad.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - So you had a column on this?

00:03:18 ◼   ► - I wouldn't say a column, I did a quick video about this.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, a quick video.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Now this is for an iPad.

00:03:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, it works for an iPhone though too.

00:03:24 ◼   ► - Oh, I did see that, I did see that.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Yeah, and you made one out of Lego too, right?

00:03:27 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, that was my project, my son,

00:03:31 ◼   ► and then it falls every time.

00:03:32 ◼   ► We did a call this morning,

00:03:34 ◼   ► he had a doctor's appointment on FaceTime

00:03:36 ◼   ► and then the Legos just completely fell down.

00:03:38 ◼   ► So yeah, actually this all means to say

00:03:42 ◼   ► just buy a nice iPad stand.

00:03:44 ◼   ► - Well, it's funny though, because iPads,

00:03:46 ◼   ► they have better, we'll write into the show,

00:03:49 ◼   ► but this plays into your MacBook Air video from last week.

00:03:53 ◼   ► So it's a question, what device do you use

00:03:57 ◼   ► for doing a call, because your,

00:04:02 ◼   ► a Mac is most flexible, right?

00:04:04 ◼   ► And it's got, you just stack it on some books,

00:04:08 ◼   ► it's not top heavy, Macs, once you have it

00:04:10 ◼   ► on a pile of books, or any laptop, right?

00:04:13 ◼   ► any regular laptop, Mac, PC, whatever,

00:04:16 ◼   ► it's not gonna fall over because the screen

00:04:19 ◼   ► is very lightweight and the base with the keyboard

00:04:22 ◼   ► is very heavy.

00:04:23 ◼   ► So you put some books or anything to prop it up

00:04:25 ◼   ► and then you can tilt the screen just the way you want it.

00:04:28 ◼   ► There you go.

00:04:29 ◼   ► But terrible cameras.

00:04:32 ◼   ► iPads, great cameras, but they're very top heavy.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Kind of. - Correct.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And my big thing, 'cause when I was doing that video

00:04:42 ◼   ► on the iPad stands, I was recording a lot of video

00:04:45 ◼   ► using the front-facing camera from the iPad.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And I guess I'd always realize this,

00:04:51 ◼   ► but video calling with your iPad vertically

00:04:55 ◼   ► is not as good as video calling horizontally,

00:04:58 ◼   ► but the camera then gets put on the horizontal side

00:05:01 ◼   ► because the camera's located at the top of the screen

00:05:03 ◼   ► if the top of the screen is vertical.

00:05:05 ◼   ► You follow me?

00:05:06 ◼   ► - I do, and I ran into the exact same problem

00:05:10 ◼   ► where I was on a group Zoom happy hour last week

00:05:15 ◼   ► with a bunch of friends just,

00:05:17 ◼   ► "Hey, let's just talk to friends."

00:05:21 ◼   ► And I got complaints because my video was vertical

00:05:24 ◼   ► 'cause I was using my iPad vertically

00:05:27 ◼   ► and they were like, "Everybody else is horizontal.

00:05:30 ◼   ► They're driving a snot to John.

00:05:31 ◼   ► You gotta go horizontal."

00:05:33 ◼   ► But then when I went horizontal,

00:05:34 ◼   ► now my camera's off to the left.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I guess you could flip it around the other way

00:05:37 ◼   ► make it on the right, but either way, it's not centered.

00:05:40 ◼   ► - Right, and you're looking,

00:05:41 ◼   ► because you're used to video calling on a laptop,

00:05:43 ◼   ► you're looking smack in the middle of the laptop.

00:05:45 ◼   ► I mean, as much as, and I've always give this advice,

00:05:47 ◼   ► like I've written this work from home column every day

00:05:50 ◼   ► for our newsletter, and I'm like, feel like every day,

00:05:52 ◼   ► I'm like, look into the camera, look into the camera.

00:05:54 ◼   ► But like, it's so hard to look into the camera

00:05:56 ◼   ► when you're video chatting, you wanna look at the screen,

00:05:59 ◼   ► which makes sense, right?

00:06:00 ◼   ► You're looking at the person.

00:06:01 ◼   ► But with the iPad, you end up trying to look

00:06:04 ◼   ► at the center of the screen,

00:06:05 ◼   ► but actually that camera's off to the right,

00:06:06 ◼   ► so it just looks super weird to the viewer.

00:06:09 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Or the left.

00:06:10 ◼   ► - And we're all getting used to this,

00:06:12 ◼   ► and it's kind of,

00:06:13 ◼   ► in that way that we're collectively,

00:06:17 ◼   ► all the good people on the planet

00:06:19 ◼   ► are all pulling with each other,

00:06:21 ◼   ► and we're all forgiving of it,

00:06:22 ◼   ► and everybody's having business calls,

00:06:24 ◼   ► and we're all that guy,

00:06:26 ◼   ► remember that guy on the BBC and his little girl,

00:06:28 ◼   ► he was over in Taiwan or something,

00:06:29 ◼   ► and his little girl came barging into the room

00:06:32 ◼   ► a year or two ago? - Yeah, it was the best.

00:06:34 ◼   ► It was the best and they became worldwide celebrities because the girl was adorable

00:06:38 ◼   ► and she had this nice little march when she came in.

00:06:42 ◼   ► But we're all that now, right?

00:06:44 ◼   ► Dogs are coming in and kids are coming in and all sorts of crazy stuff.

00:06:48 ◼   ► You know, you could be in the middle of a very important meeting with your colleagues

00:06:53 ◼   ► remotely, and if the doorbell rings and you think it might be a shipment of toilet paper,

00:06:59 ◼   ► everybody agrees, "Go, go answer the door."

00:07:02 ◼   ► You cannot...

00:07:03 ◼   ► You cannot miss the possibility of receiving some TP.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Everybody gets it.

00:07:09 ◼   ► You know, we're all in this together.

00:07:11 ◼   ► But I do think that as forgiving as we all can be of makeshift offices and, you know,

00:07:20 ◼   ► PCs and webcams that people haven't been used to using in a professional context because

00:07:25 ◼   ► they just haven't needed them, it's weird when you're not making eye contact with the

00:07:30 ◼   ► camera because you look like you're like, what are you doing? Are you reading, you know,

00:07:34 ◼   ► something? Are you reading like a web browser over on the side? Are you not paying—you could

00:07:37 ◼   ► be paying complete attention to the meeting, but if your eyes are off to the side, it makes you look

00:07:42 ◼   ► like you're reading your phone or something. Yeah, and I think like before we were in this

00:07:49 ◼   ► period, we kind of took video chatting for granted, which is weird for me to say because we do it all

00:07:55 ◼   ► the time with my parents and, you know, my son with his grandparents. But like when I was doing

00:07:59 ◼   ► a video call with work people, it was always this sort of like, okay, like it's often the

00:08:03 ◼   ► side I'm not paying attention to it. But now I'm so desperate for human interaction and

00:08:09 ◼   ► face-to-face human interaction and this is the only way I'm communicating with colleagues that

00:08:12 ◼   ► like I'm actually paying attention to it. So you're like hypercritical of what you're seeing

00:08:17 ◼   ► and you're, you know, you want to make the experience better, but there's like you're

00:08:21 ◼   ► saying, there's like, you're not really sure what other people are doing, you've got the

00:08:26 ◼   ► quality in the middle of this all,

00:08:28 ◼   ► like the actual webcam quality,

00:08:30 ◼   ► the design of these devices,

00:08:32 ◼   ► and then of course, like the big one being these services,

00:08:35 ◼   ► the internet services, which are hit or miss

00:08:37 ◼   ► on terms of a lot of things.

00:08:38 ◼   ► I know you've been covering some of the Zoom issues.

00:08:42 ◼   ► So it's sort of all of a mess, really.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I mean, it's great.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Like on one hand, like it's great.

00:08:47 ◼   ► It's amazing that we have these tools and we can do it.

00:08:49 ◼   ► On the other hand, it's like,

00:08:50 ◼   ► this whole stuff has been a mess

00:08:51 ◼   ► and just like no one's really been paying attention to it.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you know, I keep thinking about the fact

00:08:56 ◼   ► that there's no, Josh Topolski had a column a week ago

00:09:01 ◼   ► over at The Input, his new thing,

00:09:03 ◼   ► and I just thought it was such a nice sentiment,

00:09:05 ◼   ► just thank God for the internet,

00:09:07 ◼   ► I think was actually the headline of the column.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And in a nutshell, it's true,

00:09:12 ◼   ► as awful as the whole situation is,

00:09:15 ◼   ► it is so much more bearable,

00:09:18 ◼   ► and so many of us are, and I realize, again,

00:09:22 ◼   ► it's really, I know that there are

00:09:25 ◼   ► millions and millions, tens of millions,

00:09:28 ◼   ► hundreds of millions, I guess,

00:09:29 ◼   ► of people who have jobs that can't be done remotely

00:09:32 ◼   ► and it's a huge economic problem.

00:09:34 ◼   ► But for those of us who can, it's terrific that we can,

00:09:38 ◼   ► but it's entirely enabled over the internet.

00:09:42 ◼   ► And then at a social level,

00:09:43 ◼   ► the fact that we're still able to do anything

00:09:46 ◼   ► other than simple phone calls,

00:09:48 ◼   ► and we can actually do things like see faces

00:09:51 ◼   ► and share screens and stuff,

00:09:54 ◼   ► and just keep ourselves from going insane

00:09:58 ◼   ► and doing something other than watching TV all day,

00:10:02 ◼   ► which is where we would have been 30 years ago.

00:10:04 ◼   ► It's unbelievable.

00:10:08 ◼   ► - No, and that's why I said it's a mess,

00:10:11 ◼   ► but it's like, we're not gonna complain about a lot of this.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And I feel like everything I've been writing

00:10:15 ◼   ► has been somewhat complaining, but also like,

00:10:18 ◼   ► well, I wouldn't have noticed this before.

00:10:20 ◼   ► That's how I sort of did this angle

00:10:22 ◼   ► with the webcam on the air review,

00:10:25 ◼   ► it's like this is something

00:10:27 ◼   ► we just didn't think about before.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Or maybe we thought about it,

00:10:30 ◼   ► but it wasn't number one on the thing to consider

00:10:33 ◼   ► about evaluating a laptop being the webcam.

00:10:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, we might as well start with it, but--

00:10:38 ◼   ► - Did we not start the show?

00:10:41 ◼   ► Is this not gonna go somewhere?

00:10:42 ◼   ► - I'm started.

00:10:44 ◼   ► - I've started.

00:10:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm fully into it.

00:10:45 ◼   ► This is the show.

00:10:46 ◼   ► - This is the show.

00:10:48 ◼   ► I think we should now just tell people

00:10:50 ◼   ► we did not officially start the show.

00:10:51 ◼   ► I just called John and just started talking like this,

00:10:55 ◼   ► which is what I always assume his show is.

00:10:57 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:10:59 ◼   ► - I love how you also, you were like, I'm off today.

00:11:01 ◼   ► I'm not working today, technically.

00:11:03 ◼   ► When I'm gonna, in my life, when I say I'm not working,

00:11:05 ◼   ► I'm off, like I'm, it's pretty much I'm always working.

00:11:08 ◼   ► But you were like, why would you wanna spend the day with me?

00:11:10 ◼   ► I'm like, this is not work for me.

00:11:12 ◼   ► - Well, that's very kind of you to say, Joanna.

00:11:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - I do, I don't know.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I mean, I know that you have, you know,

00:11:20 ◼   ► the full institutional organization

00:11:25 ◼   ► of the Wall Street Journal to work within.

00:11:30 ◼   ► And so there is more of a structure.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I have to say, on an ordinary basis,

00:11:35 ◼   ► in normal times, the way I work,

00:11:37 ◼   ► the fact that I don't really have colleagues,

00:11:40 ◼   ► I can lose track of what day it is.

00:11:42 ◼   ► In the midst of this, it is absolutely nuts

00:11:47 ◼   ► how frequently I completely forget

00:11:50 ◼   ► what day of the week it is.

00:11:51 ◼   ► - Same, same.

00:11:54 ◼   ► - You said yesterday, you thought yesterday was Friday.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Number one, it did occur to me,

00:11:59 ◼   ► you mentioned this on chat yesterday

00:12:00 ◼   ► that you thought yesterday was Friday.

00:12:02 ◼   ► Now this was like at like eight or nine o'clock at night,

00:12:06 ◼   ► which does make me think that therefore

00:12:08 ◼   ► you must have thought you blew off our show

00:12:11 ◼   ► because we said we were gonna do it on Friday.

00:12:14 ◼   ► I didn't call you out on it.

00:12:16 ◼   ► I was like, oh, I should check in with him

00:12:18 ◼   ► about when we should do the show.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And I was like, but I thought it was supposed to be today,

00:12:23 ◼   ► so I might have missed it.

00:12:25 ◼   ► But oh well, I mean, then you didn't remind me.

00:12:27 ◼   ► - No, I went to-- - To do the show.

00:12:29 ◼   ► If I had missed it, you didn't remind me to do it.

00:12:31 ◼   ► - No, I did not check in.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Tuesday, it was like, I don't know, I worked till like,

00:12:36 ◼   ► I mean, I took a break for dinner and stuff,

00:12:39 ◼   ► but then I went back to work,

00:12:40 ◼   ► and I think I wasn't really done working on stuff

00:12:43 ◼   ► for during "Fireball" until around midnight.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And I'm a night owl, and this whole situation

00:12:48 ◼   ► has only exacerbated the fact that it doesn't really matter

00:12:51 ◼   ► what time of day I do anything.

00:12:54 ◼   ► But I didn't get done until, I don't know, midnight or so.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Wanted to watch some TV with Amy,

00:13:00 ◼   ► and she's gotten, she's shifted way from waking up early

00:13:04 ◼   ► to sleeping in a bit and staying up later,

00:13:07 ◼   ► so wasn't stretching it too much.

00:13:09 ◼   ► I was 100% convinced it was Monday.

00:13:11 ◼   ► It was Tuesday at midnight, so it was two days

00:13:13 ◼   ► into the week and she was, I forget how it came up,

00:13:15 ◼   ► she was like, "No, today's Tuesday."

00:13:17 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh." (laughs)

00:13:19 ◼   ► Really had no idea.

00:13:20 ◼   ► I honestly, I was so convinced of it,

00:13:22 ◼   ► I actually looked at my phone and was like,

00:13:25 ◼   ► "Ah, she's really right."

00:13:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, for me, I work pretty much all the time,

00:13:30 ◼   ► even when this isn't happening.

00:13:32 ◼   ► I feel like I've had to really just come to tell myself

00:13:39 ◼   ► and agree with myself, I love to work, I love what I do,

00:13:41 ◼   ► And so either I'm thinking of ideas usually,

00:13:44 ◼   ► or I'm writing something, or I'm producing a video,

00:13:47 ◼   ► or I'm always thinking about the next thing I'm working on.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I also do some management stuff at the journal

00:13:51 ◼   ► with our video team.

00:13:52 ◼   ► So I'm usually juggling a million projects at the same time.

00:13:55 ◼   ► But I go to the office now,

00:13:58 ◼   ► and I've been going to the office.

00:14:00 ◼   ► There was a point in my life when I started at the journal

00:14:02 ◼   ► where I would go maybe two or three times a week.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I wouldn't go.

00:14:05 ◼   ► But then I took on a management role

00:14:08 ◼   ► in the video department a couple of years ago,

00:14:09 ◼   ► and I had to be there every day.

00:14:11 ◼   ► And so I really got into this pattern of,

00:14:13 ◼   ► I would go, even if I work super late hours,

00:14:16 ◼   ► some days there, I don't come home till midnight

00:14:18 ◼   ► and take a car home or something like that.

00:14:20 ◼   ► That delineation, just like going to a place,

00:14:23 ◼   ► makes a huge difference to me.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Even if mentally I'm always working,

00:14:27 ◼   ► or I'm working, like going to that place

00:14:29 ◼   ► gives me that structure, now I have none of that,

00:14:33 ◼   ► and I truly just feel like my life is on hold.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I don't know when, where, and when things are happening.

00:14:40 ◼   ► - It is really, it is bizarre how it screws

00:14:43 ◼   ► with your sense of time where, and at both ways.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Like, and it's a meme, everybody's in it together.

00:14:50 ◼   ► Everybody agrees that March 2020

00:14:53 ◼   ► felt like it was around 300 days long.

00:14:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I couldn't believe, I even looked at my stuff,

00:15:00 ◼   ► I was like, wow, I did a lot of work this month.

00:15:02 ◼   ► That month started with me reviewing the Galaxy S20.

00:15:05 ◼   ► I was like, what?

00:15:06 ◼   ► That phone came out this month?

00:15:08 ◼   ► or it was even like, I guess it came out

00:15:11 ◼   ► at the very end of February.

00:15:13 ◼   ► I'm like, what?

00:15:14 ◼   ► Like that truly feels to me like a year ago.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - It feels like, I feel like the iPad Pro

00:15:21 ◼   ► and MacBook Air announcement was a while ago, you know?

00:15:24 ◼   ► And even that was in the early days

00:15:27 ◼   ► of the shelter in place stuff,

00:15:29 ◼   ► because it was a remote presentation from Apple

00:15:32 ◼   ► and everything had to be shipped.

00:15:34 ◼   ► There was no, you know,

00:15:35 ◼   ► we didn't meet with anybody face to face.

00:15:37 ◼   ► I was like, that feels like forever ago.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And it was like-- - I mean,

00:15:40 ◼   ► I think that was three weeks ago now.

00:15:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was three weeks. (laughs)

00:15:45 ◼   ► - Anyway, yeah. - Well, but very timely.

00:15:50 ◼   ► I mean, and obviously you were going

00:15:52 ◼   ► to review the MacBook Air.

00:15:54 ◼   ► I mean, this is really right in every single way.

00:15:58 ◼   ► And we can talk about the,

00:15:59 ◼   ► we'll talk about the MacBook Air itself.

00:16:01 ◼   ► But right aligned with your interests,

00:16:06 ◼   ► right aligned with your advocacy on the keyboard issue

00:16:10 ◼   ► and everything like that.

00:16:11 ◼   ► But your video that accompanied it

00:16:13 ◼   ► was specifically on the issue of,

00:16:15 ◼   ► hey, the webcam on this thing stinks.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And it's sort of an emblematic problem

00:16:22 ◼   ► on laptops in general.

00:16:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I really,

00:16:29 ◼   ► and also like just, I realized a blind spot in my reviewing.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Like I had never, I went back

00:16:35 ◼   ► and I searched for webcam on my other reviews,

00:16:38 ◼   ► and I really had never mentioned it.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Which, you know, it would have only been a line,

00:16:44 ◼   ► something like, why does this thing suck,

00:16:46 ◼   ► or something like that, or it's still only 720p

00:16:49 ◼   ► or something, but yeah, it's really quite bad.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And again, the reason I noticed that was I was starting to,

00:16:56 ◼   ► I've been trying to do a video a week still,

00:16:58 ◼   ► try to keep up with my video fun,

00:17:01 ◼   ► and I just started realizing, I was like, wow,

00:17:04 ◼   ► why would I ever shoot anything here with this webcam?

00:17:08 ◼   ► And that got me on this path of looking at other laptops.

00:17:11 ◼   ► And it was funny, I actually had to run to the office

00:17:13 ◼   ► to go get some other laptops to compare to,

00:17:15 ◼   ► 'cause I was like, I can't just do this piece about Apple

00:17:18 ◼   ► because it's not just Apple.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Like I started looking at the specs and I was like,

00:17:22 ◼   ► it's not just Apple, it's Microsoft is doing this,

00:17:25 ◼   ► Dell, they're all using sort of low resolution webcams,

00:17:28 ◼   ► at least low resolution for today.

00:17:30 ◼   ► So I ran to my office, I got approval to enter the building,

00:17:33 ◼   ► I wore my gloves, my mask.

00:17:35 ◼   ► I basically risked my life to do this review for everybody,

00:17:37 ◼   ► okay, is what I'm saying.

00:17:39 ◼   ► And I got all, I got, you know, my office,

00:17:42 ◼   ► I've got a ton of stuff, so I grab all my laptops

00:17:44 ◼   ► and I said, you know what, I'm gonna grab this old Pro

00:17:46 ◼   ► that I had here, this old MacBook Pro that I had here.

00:17:49 ◼   ► And that was to me like, I was like,

00:17:51 ◼   ► "Yeah, let me just see if it still works,

00:17:52 ◼   ► "'cause I have all my old laptops there."

00:17:54 ◼   ► My 10-year-old MacBook Pro, when I compared the quality,

00:17:57 ◼   ► it was shocking to me that in some conditions

00:18:00 ◼   ► it's actually better than the new Air.

00:18:02 ◼   ► I thought that was one of the most fascinating parts

00:18:05 ◼   ► of the review because it totally jibed with my gut feeling

00:18:10 ◼   ► of, you know, as much as we gripe about these webcam

00:18:15 ◼   ► quality issues right now, doesn't it seem like

00:18:17 ◼   ► they've actually gotten worse?

00:18:19 ◼   ► And then in the back of my head, I think,

00:18:21 ◼   ► ah, that's just one of those things that you think,

00:18:23 ◼   ► and if you actually looked at a 10-year-old webcam

00:18:26 ◼   ► on a MacBook, you'd be shocked.

00:18:28 ◼   ► But the truth is, especially in lower light situations,

00:18:31 ◼   ► It wasn't just a little bit better, it was a lot better.

00:18:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a lot better in the low light test.

00:18:38 ◼   ► And I mean, even when I looked at,

00:18:41 ◼   ► it didn't really come through that well in the video

00:18:43 ◼   ► just because of compression and all of that stuff,

00:18:45 ◼   ► but even like just this very grainy,

00:18:48 ◼   ► the 720p camera on the Air.

00:18:50 ◼   ► And even though you're getting better resolution,

00:18:53 ◼   ► when you look at the quality next to each other,

00:18:55 ◼   ► it's just, it's very grainy.

00:18:57 ◼   ► And in some shots that MacBook Pro looked like

00:19:00 ◼   ► there were parts of my face that looked crisper,

00:19:02 ◼   ► like just like looking around the glasses or my hair.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I was just like, that is not pixelated.

00:19:07 ◼   ► - So 720p is pretty, that's pretty bad just on specs.

00:19:13 ◼   ► That's outdated.

00:19:14 ◼   ► - Right.

00:19:15 ◼   ► - But I would say that the bigger problem,

00:19:19 ◼   ► and it's easy, and I kind of feel like in a lot of reviews,

00:19:22 ◼   ► that's just sort of how we collectively

00:19:26 ◼   ► in the reviewer industry have sort of been

00:19:29 ◼   ► brushing this issue. It's at the end of the reviews, and you know, if the review format

00:19:34 ◼   ► for your publication has pros and cons, everybody remembers in the cons to stick in a 720p webcam.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Isn't that great? Or it kind of stinks or whatever you want to say. And yeah, just on the spec alone,

00:19:48 ◼   ► 720p, that's really low res. But the bigger issue, I would take a 720p camera if it had better

00:19:56 ◼   ► lighting characteristics. And the thing I run into too, so low light, any time after sun is,

00:20:02 ◼   ► the sun is down, it's really, really bad. And we've been spoiled, right? You mentioned this,

00:20:08 ◼   ► and you compared the footage. We've got these phones in our pockets with us all the time,

00:20:12 ◼   ► and you turn to pick the phone up and point it at your face in the exact same lighting, and

00:20:17 ◼   ► it gets a reasonable, you know, and then when you compare it to the webcam, it's amazing.

00:20:24 ◼   ► But the other problems that I've seen as I've done a lot more—even without colleagues, I've done a

00:20:28 ◼   ► lot more video chats in the last few weeks. I just had a meeting, you know, before we recorded today

00:20:33 ◼   ► with somebody for a product demo. Middle of the day, and it's actually kind of nice lighting.

00:20:39 ◼   ► It's a little overcast here in Philly. It's probably the same in New York, but, you know,

00:20:43 ◼   ► which makes for good lighting. And my desk in my home office is right next to a window, but the

00:20:48 ◼   ► The window's on the side, right?

00:20:51 ◼   ► I'm not staring at the window, it's on my side.

00:20:53 ◼   ► And with the MacBook Pro webcam,

00:20:55 ◼   ► it's either half of my face, the one on the window,

00:20:58 ◼   ► is completely blown out,

00:21:01 ◼   ► or it gets a good,

00:21:03 ◼   ► a good, what's the word, not white balance, but...

00:21:08 ◼   ► - Just like general balance.

00:21:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, it just gets a good balance

00:21:14 ◼   ► on the light side of my face by the window,

00:21:16 ◼   ► and then the other side of my face

00:21:17 ◼   ► It looks like I'm in a film noir,

00:21:19 ◼   ► and it's just completely black.

00:21:22 ◼   ► You can only see half my face.

00:21:24 ◼   ► It just does not have a very--

00:21:25 ◼   ► - So you're Phantom of the Opera.

00:21:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it just doesn't have the range.

00:21:29 ◼   ► It just doesn't have the range

00:21:30 ◼   ► to get both half lit, half shadow.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Whereas every iPad or iPhone

00:21:36 ◼   ► or any other modern phone

00:21:39 ◼   ► is going to do a pretty good job in that sort of situation.

00:21:42 ◼   ► You don't really think about it

00:21:43 ◼   ► when you're using your phone as a selfie cam.

00:21:47 ◼   ► you don't really think about the fact

00:21:48 ◼   ► that the light is on half of your face.

00:21:49 ◼   ► You just look at it, look pretty good, take a picture.

00:21:54 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean, I think the big question is like,

00:21:58 ◼   ► what happens now?

00:21:59 ◼   ► Like, will they, I mean, I think most laptop manufacturers

00:22:03 ◼   ► will probably address this now,

00:22:04 ◼   ► given that we've been using them so much

00:22:07 ◼   ► and people are really, really,

00:22:08 ◼   ► I mean, The Verge had a piece yesterday,

00:22:10 ◼   ► which Neelai and I had been texting about last week as well,

00:22:13 ◼   ► which was kind of pegged to this,

00:22:15 ◼   ► which was that the Logitech cameras are sold out everywhere

00:22:17 ◼   ► and they're price gouged everywhere.

00:22:19 ◼   ► Neil, I tweeted, he paid like 90 or, I don't know,

00:22:23 ◼   ► over $100 for a $90 camera or something like that.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I had a family friend text me being like,

00:22:29 ◼   ► "What are you talking about?

00:22:30 ◼   ► These are not sold out.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I'm gonna buy this on Amazon."

00:22:33 ◼   ► I'm like, "You're gonna spend $300 for a $72 camera."

00:22:37 ◼   ► And so I think laptop makers are going to look

00:22:41 ◼   ► to address this.

00:22:42 ◼   ► The question I think, and you raised this in the post,

00:22:44 ◼   ► is how much of it has to do with the physics

00:22:46 ◼   ► and the mechanics of the system

00:22:49 ◼   ► and the amount of area that they can squeeze

00:22:50 ◼   ► these cameras into, plus price.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like how much is that gonna jack up

00:22:55 ◼   ► some of the prices on some of this?

00:22:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that the physical space issue

00:22:59 ◼   ► is too easy to overlook

00:23:02 ◼   ► if you're just being casual about it.

00:23:04 ◼   ► But if you really look at how thin

00:23:07 ◼   ► like the new MacBook Air lid is,

00:23:09 ◼   ► and it gets tapered up at the top so it's even thinner,

00:23:12 ◼   ► and compare that to just how thick your iPhone

00:23:17 ◼   ► or your iPad is, and combine it with the fact

00:23:20 ◼   ► that without doing a little mini lesson here

00:23:24 ◼   ► on the optical physics of cameras,

00:23:27 ◼   ► it is not a coincidence that every single phone

00:23:34 ◼   ► from every single manufacturer now has a camera bump

00:23:37 ◼   ► of some sort.

00:23:38 ◼   ► We don't even talk about camera bumps anymore

00:23:40 ◼   ► because it's just accepted that the camera housing

00:23:45 ◼   ► is going to stick out.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Now, the front-facing cameras don't have bumps.

00:23:50 ◼   ► But even so, the actual physical depth of the device

00:23:56 ◼   ► from the front surface to as far away

00:24:00 ◼   ► that the sensor can be is significantly,

00:24:03 ◼   ► I know that compared to standalone camera cameras,

00:24:07 ◼   ► they're all crazy thin.

00:24:10 ◼   ► but it really does make a difference

00:24:11 ◼   ► how thin laptop lids are.

00:24:13 ◼   ► So I guess the big, my, you know,

00:24:17 ◼   ► I don't think anybody wants the entire lid

00:24:19 ◼   ► of their laptop to be as thick as a tablet,

00:24:23 ◼   ► but could we go with a bump?

00:24:26 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:24:27 ◼   ► - That's--

00:24:28 ◼   ► - And I was also thinking,

00:24:29 ◼   ► and it's another piece I wrote this week about Face ID,

00:24:33 ◼   ► it's made me think, you know, well,

00:24:34 ◼   ► at least Windows has had facial recognition

00:24:37 ◼   ► for a while on laptops,

00:24:38 ◼   ► but Apple's never gone that route.

00:24:40 ◼   ► And what could face ID on a laptop bring

00:24:44 ◼   ► that they haven't been able to bring

00:24:45 ◼   ► with the fingerprint sensor?

00:24:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I wonder how much, again,

00:24:50 ◼   ► how much of that is cost?

00:24:51 ◼   ► It's gotta be somewhat of a factor,

00:24:53 ◼   ► and how much of it is that the face ID stuff needs

00:24:58 ◼   ► Z depth, Z access depth to go deeper.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I don't know, but...

00:25:09 ◼   ► - When you were saying that,

00:25:11 ◼   ► I thought you meant like, like, zee deps.

00:25:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:14 ◼   ► - I was putting on a French accent.

00:25:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, zee, if they want to zee you.

00:25:19 ◼   ► - But, ah, there's no good solution.

00:25:23 ◼   ► I will say that it's, you know,

00:25:25 ◼   ► and I've been using, ever since this trackpad thing came out,

00:25:28 ◼   ► I have been doing, I'm kind of addicted to it,

00:25:32 ◼   ► and all of a sudden, without, I've already,

00:25:34 ◼   ► I've already, yeah, for the iPad, I've already,

00:25:38 ◼   ► you know, written my iPad Pro review.

00:25:40 ◼   ► There wasn't really much to review.

00:25:41 ◼   ► It's kind of a minor, really a speed bump update.

00:25:44 ◼   ► But with this trackpad support,

00:25:46 ◼   ► I'm doing a lot more work in my kitchen

00:25:48 ◼   ► just to sort of not be locked in my home office

00:25:50 ◼   ► all day every day during this thing.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And rather than lug a MacBook around,

00:25:55 ◼   ► I'm just using my iPad in the kitchen

00:25:57 ◼   ► and my Mac and my desk in my office.

00:26:00 ◼   ► But it emphasizes for me, like,

00:26:04 ◼   ► when I'm working on my iPad like this,

00:26:07 ◼   ► sort of like a laptop, I've got the iPad sideways

00:26:10 ◼   ► and it just feels like the camera should be at the top

00:26:14 ◼   ► when the iPad is horizontal.

00:26:17 ◼   ► - Right, so then the question would be,

00:26:19 ◼   ► would they have to put two cameras in there?

00:26:22 ◼   ► Or would they just move the camera?

00:26:24 ◼   ► If we start, if we move to a pro situation

00:26:27 ◼   ► where we're using it in much more horizontal situations

00:26:30 ◼   ► like you're saying, does it make sense

00:26:32 ◼   ► just to move it there?

00:26:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then does it suddenly run into the issue

00:26:36 ◼   ► that all the people who hold it in the vertical orientation,

00:26:41 ◼   ► now their thumb is gonna be holding it all the time

00:26:44 ◼   ► when they're holding it up?

00:26:45 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I mean, there's no,

00:26:47 ◼   ► like the upside of,

00:26:51 ◼   ► especially tablets compared to phones,

00:26:56 ◼   ► I feel like we rotate them a lot more.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Yes, phones, ever since the iPhone, can rotate sideways.

00:27:01 ◼   ► But for the most part, I mean,

00:27:03 ◼   ► and now there's this whole quibi,

00:27:05 ◼   ► I think that's how you pronounce it.

00:27:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:27:07 ◼   ► - But people shoot lots of,

00:27:09 ◼   ► people are so used to holding their phones vertically

00:27:13 ◼   ► that they even shoot their video that way.

00:27:16 ◼   ► Most people wouldn't even notice

00:27:21 ◼   ► other than when they go to watch a horizontal video.

00:27:23 ◼   ► That's the only time, or I guess to play a game

00:27:25 ◼   ► for the most part, people don't turn their phone sideways.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Tablets they turn all the time.

00:27:30 ◼   ► And now that I've got this trackpad support,

00:27:33 ◼   ► I'm turning my iPad sideways,

00:27:37 ◼   ► turn it the other way, turn it the other way.

00:27:38 ◼   ► I'm going back and forth all the time,

00:27:40 ◼   ► and so there is no answer to where should the camera go.

00:27:44 ◼   ► They've gotta make, I don't think they're gonna double up.

00:27:47 ◼   ► It would increase the cost to some factor,

00:27:50 ◼   ► and it seems needlessly duplicate

00:27:54 ◼   ► to put two entirely different camera systems in there

00:27:57 ◼   ► just so that there's always one in the center,

00:27:59 ◼   ► But it sticks out the more you use your iPad

00:28:03 ◼   ► in horizontal orientation.

00:28:07 ◼   ► - Do you use Face ID on your iPad?

00:28:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love it.

00:28:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I feel like I don't use it as much,

00:28:14 ◼   ► but yeah, I think I've just gotten into the habit

00:28:17 ◼   ► of passwords on the iPad.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I also have, I have not spent a lot of time

00:28:22 ◼   ► with the new Pro.

00:28:23 ◼   ► I mean, I have it here, I have it sitting next

00:28:24 ◼   ► to the side of my bed, I've been using it at night.

00:28:26 ◼   ► But yeah, to your point, I've been using it far more

00:28:28 ◼   ► with that keyboard dock in horizontal than I have vertically.

00:28:32 ◼   ► But I'm very excited when I get the Magic,

00:28:35 ◼   ► what is it, the Magic Keyboard?

00:28:36 ◼   ► Is that what the--

00:28:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, unfortunately, they're just calling it

00:28:40 ◼   ► the Magic Keyboard, which is the exact same name

00:28:43 ◼   ► as the standalone, just plain Bluetooth keyboard.

00:28:46 ◼   ► It's a very, it's a very Apple-like thing

00:28:49 ◼   ► to just call it a Magic Keyboard.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Not the Magic Keyboard cover, not the Magic Keyboard case,

00:28:55 ◼   ► it's just called the Magic Keyboard.

00:28:57 ◼   ► I'm sort of calling it the Magic Keyboard Cover,

00:29:00 ◼   ► just to keep it clear in my head,

00:29:02 ◼   ► but it's not the official name.

00:29:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I think when I get that,

00:29:06 ◼   ► I mean, I just imagine I'm gonna be using it,

00:29:09 ◼   ► I don't know, 90% of the time horizontally.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

00:29:13 ◼   ► And it's funny because the new,

00:29:15 ◼   ► the cases that are out, the Smart Keyboard case,

00:29:18 ◼   ► the one that doesn't have a trackpad

00:29:19 ◼   ► and just has the fabric-covered keyboard,

00:29:22 ◼   ► for the first time, they put an Apple logo

00:29:25 ◼   ► on the back of the cover, and the Apple logo is oriented

00:29:30 ◼   ► such that the Apple logo looks correct

00:29:33 ◼   ► when it's in the horizontal laptop configuration.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So if you're holding it more like a book

00:29:40 ◼   ► and fold the cover around,

00:29:42 ◼   ► well, you cover up the Apple logo by covering,

00:29:45 ◼   ► by folding it around, so I guess that's one reason to do it.

00:29:48 ◼   ► But I kind of feel like they were resistant

00:29:49 ◼   ► to put Apple logos on those smart covers in the first place

00:29:53 ◼   ► because they didn't want it to look, quote unquote,

00:29:56 ◼   ► wrong half the time.

00:29:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've actually never noticed that.

00:30:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:30:01 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here

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00:30:51 ◼   ► where your actual internet comes into your house

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00:30:56 ◼   ► you manage it from the really, really simple,

00:30:59 ◼   ► well-designed Eero app, and it helps you plan

00:31:02 ◼   ► where else in your house to put the extra Eros,

00:31:06 ◼   ► depending on how big your house is,

00:31:07 ◼   ► how big your apartment is, and it really does work great.

00:31:11 ◼   ► No more buffering with Netflix

00:31:13 ◼   ► or whatever else you're streaming.

00:31:14 ◼   ► You can get a really strong WiFi signal

00:31:17 ◼   ► from the basement to the top floor,

00:31:19 ◼   ► across walls, stuff like that.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Really, really great.

00:31:23 ◼   ► You're hearing me right now speak to you

00:31:24 ◼   ► over on Eero Network, I love it.

00:31:27 ◼   ► You can get your home wifi improved as soon as tomorrow.

00:31:31 ◼   ► Right now, you can just pause this show,

00:31:32 ◼   ► go to ero.com/thetalkshow,

00:31:36 ◼   ► and enter code thetalkshow at checkout

00:31:38 ◼   ► and get free overnight shipping with your order.

00:31:41 ◼   ► That's ero.com/thetalkshow with code thetalkshow at checkout

00:31:46 ◼   ► and get your Eero delivered with free shipping overnight.

00:31:49 ◼   ► You've gotta use that URL though to get the special offer.

00:31:52 ◼   ► So I'll repeat it one last time, ero.com/thetalkshow.

00:31:56 ◼   ► - We're talking Eero to Eero now too.

00:31:59 ◼   ► I'm on the Eero network.

00:32:01 ◼   ► - Do you have a window open or something?

00:32:03 ◼   ► - No, why is that?

00:32:06 ◼   ► You hear something?

00:32:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hear something, like a little white noise.

00:32:09 ◼   ► - It's my laptop.

00:32:10 ◼   ► - Is it really?

00:32:12 ◼   ► Does it? - Yeah.

00:32:13 ◼   ► So we can talk about this.

00:32:14 ◼   ► We can talk about why this MacBook Pro makes that sound.

00:32:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's talk about it.

00:32:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this was part of my,

00:32:21 ◼   ► there was a couple lines in the MacBook Air review,

00:32:24 ◼   ► but I have just been finding that Chrome is,

00:32:29 ◼   ► I mean, we've known this for a long time,

00:32:31 ◼   ► but Chrome and the amount of stuff I do in Chrome,

00:32:35 ◼   ► and apparently I have some sort of Chrome extension

00:32:37 ◼   ► that runs in the background that uses an insane amount

00:32:40 ◼   ► of CPU and memory.

00:32:43 ◼   ► And so my laptop just constantly sounds like it's being,

00:32:47 ◼   ► it's going to take off for outer space or something.

00:32:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:32:52 ◼   ► - I know--

00:32:52 ◼   ► - I mean, I could move the laptop across the room,

00:32:55 ◼   ► but I'm plugged in with the mic to the laptop.

00:32:57 ◼   ► - Nah, just let it go.

00:32:59 ◼   ► - You know what I could do?

00:33:00 ◼   ► I could close Chrome.

00:33:01 ◼   ► That would be the biggest sacrifice of my life

00:33:03 ◼   ► I could make for you.

00:33:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, do you need it while we talk?

00:33:06 ◼   ► - How else will I check my email during your ad spots?

00:33:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:33:13 ◼   ► - Check it on your phone.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - I'm closing Chrome for you.

00:33:17 ◼   ► I've done it.

00:33:18 ◼   ► This is the biggest sacrifice someone could make

00:33:20 ◼   ► in life for you, John.

00:33:22 ◼   ► And I bet you it's gonna go away soon.

00:33:26 ◼   ► - Our mutual friend, Walt Mossberg,

00:33:28 ◼   ► had a tweet a week or two ago,

00:33:31 ◼   ► something, I guess I could look it up,

00:33:33 ◼   ► but basically he was just saying something to the effect of,

00:33:36 ◼   ► hey, if you use Chrome, okay,

00:33:39 ◼   ► but accept that it's going to use a lot more CPU resources

00:33:44 ◼   ► and hog your battery and make your fan come on.

00:33:47 ◼   ► And you should think about switching.

00:33:50 ◼   ► And if you're on a Mac, you could switch to Safari.

00:33:52 ◼   ► You could switch to Firefox if you're looking

00:33:54 ◼   ► for something other than Safari.

00:33:56 ◼   ► There's a lot of other options.

00:33:59 ◼   ► There are other options out there.

00:34:01 ◼   ► And it's just a different set of,

00:34:05 ◼   ► and people love Chrome.

00:34:06 ◼   ► Chrome has some features that other browsers just don't have.

00:34:09 ◼   ► They have that extension ecosystem.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And I hear it all the time.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Whenever I bring it up, I always get responses from people

00:34:16 ◼   ► who are like, you know, I'd like to leave Chrome

00:34:18 ◼   ► because I understand, I see what it does to the battery

00:34:21 ◼   ► or something like that, but they'll say,

00:34:24 ◼   ► and the but often involves,

00:34:25 ◼   ► but there's like these two extensions

00:34:27 ◼   ► that I just can't live without,

00:34:29 ◼   ► and they're not available for other browsers,

00:34:32 ◼   ► and that's the trade-off, you know?

00:34:33 ◼   ► It's like so much of technology is,

00:34:36 ◼   ► like what we do is writing about trade-offs.

00:34:39 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, and I've felt the same way,

00:34:41 ◼   ► and I have to hand it to the Safari team.

00:34:43 ◼   ► Anytime I write about why I can't go to Safari,

00:34:46 ◼   ► and I'll give a couple of reasons why,

00:34:49 ◼   ► I don't wanna say they do it for me.

00:34:51 ◼   ► I'm sure they do it for a lot of people,

00:34:52 ◼   ► but they end up solving a lot of those problems.

00:34:55 ◼   ► For me, one of the last holdout issues that I was having

00:34:57 ◼   ► was the favicons.

00:34:58 ◼   ► It was one of the things about Chrome

00:35:00 ◼   ► that was just like, I could instantly know what app

00:35:02 ◼   ► or what website I was on with the favicons.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And they built that into Safari, and I was like,

00:35:06 ◼   ► okay, I'm gonna switch over to Safari.

00:35:08 ◼   ► I finally got it.

00:35:09 ◼   ► I think it was like maybe two WWACs ago they announced that.

00:35:13 ◼   ► I think it was--

00:35:15 ◼   ► - I forget the timing on that.

00:35:16 ◼   ► I had a little effort--

00:35:17 ◼   ► - It was in Catalina.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I think maybe we talked about, I mean, I'm sure,

00:35:21 ◼   ► no one can take sole credit for it,

00:35:25 ◼   ► but probably you could.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And so I was like, I'm gonna switch over,

00:35:30 ◼   ► and then I switch over and I do so much in Google,

00:35:33 ◼   ► Google Docs with Gmail, with Drive,

00:35:37 ◼   ► it just works better in Chrome.

00:35:38 ◼   ► And so I say, okay, I'm gonna just keep Chrome open

00:35:40 ◼   ► for those things, but then managing two browsers

00:35:43 ◼   ► is like a ridiculous thing where you don't know which one,

00:35:46 ◼   ► and you need to set a default

00:35:47 ◼   ► because then you're clicking from one app to another

00:35:49 ◼   ► and you're in three different browsers

00:35:50 ◼   ► or two different browsers.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And so I do, I need to just be able to say, you know what?

00:35:56 ◼   ► I'm just gonna use Safari

00:35:57 ◼   ► and I will maybe just use something like Firefox

00:36:01 ◼   ► or something like that as an alt to Chrome

00:36:03 ◼   ► for certain things, but it's a big move.

00:36:07 ◼   ► It's like a life-changing move.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - For anybody who doesn't know the backstory,

00:36:10 ◼   ► favicons, favicons, I don't know how you pronounce it,

00:36:13 ◼   ► but favicons are the little site icons.

00:36:15 ◼   ► So you go to the wallstreetjournal.com,

00:36:17 ◼   ► there's a little icon with the Wall Street Journal logo.

00:36:19 ◼   ► You go to Daring Fireball,

00:36:20 ◼   ► there's a little Daring Fireball logo in the URL bar.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And in most browsers, every browser except Safari,

00:36:28 ◼   ► when you open tabs,

00:36:30 ◼   ► it's the little icon that represents the site

00:36:33 ◼   ► and it's in the tab.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And then the more tabs you open in a window,

00:36:36 ◼   ► smaller each tab gets, which means the less text of the name of the tab can show, and

00:36:44 ◼   ► the icons become the only way to really identify which tab is which.

00:36:48 ◼   ► And insanely to me, Safari had no option, not even an option, to show these icons until

00:36:56 ◼   ► like a year and a half ago, maybe it was two years ago at this point.

00:37:00 ◼   ► I'm trying to look.

00:37:02 ◼   ► But I complained about it and I got some feedback from people on the Safari team who were like,

00:37:09 ◼   ► "You know what?

00:37:10 ◼   ► You know, this has been a, you know, we're aware of this.

00:37:13 ◼   ► This has been a battle inside."

00:37:15 ◼   ► I have, you know, I don't know the inside story of who, but apparently, you know, obviously

00:37:19 ◼   ► it wasn't like Apple wasn't aware of the issue.

00:37:22 ◼   ► There's, there is some, either a person or a small cater of people within Apple who did

00:37:29 ◼   ► not want support for these icons in Safari because they thought it would look bad to

00:37:35 ◼   ► have all these random icons and colors in breaking up the beauty of Safari's monochrome

00:37:41 ◼   ► appearance.

00:37:43 ◼   ► And that's partially why, you know how like when you do a pinned tab, I never use, I don't

00:37:49 ◼   ► like the pinned tab feature, but I know some people love it.

00:37:53 ◼   ► But Safari implemented its own standard for pin tabs

00:37:57 ◼   ► where they use, literally enforce a monochromatic icon

00:38:02 ◼   ► so that the icon is just a black and white image

00:38:05 ◼   ► and then I guess they color it in gray

00:38:07 ◼   ► so it's just a shape, not color.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And I think that that was a concession

00:38:12 ◼   ► to the same people who didn't want the favicons

00:38:15 ◼   ► in the regular tabs because they thought the color,

00:38:19 ◼   ► any random site's color is like, oh my God, you're at CNN,

00:38:22 ◼   ► Now you've got this red icon, it clashes with the beauty

00:38:25 ◼   ► of this other tab's icon, which is crazy, right?

00:38:30 ◼   ► I mean-- - That's fascinating.

00:38:31 ◼   ► I never knew this, I just added the story.

00:38:33 ◼   ► I mean, I guess it makes sense.

00:38:35 ◼   ► - I may not be expressing the argument against favicons well

00:38:40 ◼   ► because it doesn't make any sense to me,

00:38:41 ◼   ► but basically they thought it was ugly, I guess,

00:38:44 ◼   ► and that they couldn't, and that somebody had

00:38:46 ◼   ► the political clout to keep the feature from being added,

00:38:50 ◼   ► And me publicly writing about it, I think you complain,

00:38:55 ◼   ► I mean, we certainly aren't the only two tech pundits

00:38:57 ◼   ► who were complaining about it,

00:38:58 ◼   ► but I really kind of went all in on it.

00:39:01 ◼   ► - I remember this now, yeah.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - And I guess the thing that I found out

00:39:05 ◼   ► and that I was told would be very influential

00:39:08 ◼   ► was that I shared the number of people

00:39:12 ◼   ► who either listen to my show or read my site

00:39:14 ◼   ► who wrote to me and said, in all sincerity,

00:39:18 ◼   ► would switch to Safari except for the no icons and tabs thing like so it wasn't even down to

00:39:24 ◼   ► Extensions or other factors that might keep them on Chrome or Firefox or something

00:39:29 ◼   ► It was literally I have 20 tabs open at a time. I can't tell what they are without icons

00:39:35 ◼   ► So I can't switch to Safari and that apparently was a compelling argument that kind of broke the logjam within

00:39:42 ◼   ► Apple and was like look we're actually our refusal to put icons in the tabs is actually keeping people from using Safari

00:39:50 ◼   ► And they're like, okay, but even every I mean I'm looking at your piece you wrote it in August

00:39:55 ◼   ► 2017 right and so I um, I think that it happened. I forget when it happened boy that that feels like a long time ago

00:40:02 ◼   ► It's 2000 I mean to be fair yesterday feels like three years ago. So so I forget when they actually fixed it

00:40:10 ◼   ► - I was like about two years ago.

00:40:12 ◼   ► - That makes sense.

00:40:14 ◼   ► - It was before Catalina, so.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - I wanna say like the summer of 2018.

00:40:18 ◼   ► - Yes, 'cause I remember them announcing it at WBC

00:40:21 ◼   ► and me like wanting to clap.

00:40:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, yes, I wanted to like storm the stage.

00:40:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, but here's the funny thing,

00:40:28 ◼   ► is that they did embrace it, but only to a degree.

00:40:31 ◼   ► This is still something you have to go turn on.

00:40:34 ◼   ► - Exactly, it's still off by default.

00:40:36 ◼   ► - And so like when I was setting up this new Mac,

00:40:39 ◼   ► I was like, oh, freaking with the favicons again.

00:40:41 ◼   ► And I was like, I gotta like go to Google,

00:40:43 ◼   ► how to turn it on.

00:40:43 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, it's super easy.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Just go to preferences and tabs and turn it on.

00:40:47 ◼   ► But I'm like, why do I have to do that?

00:40:49 ◼   ► - Right, it still seems, and again,

00:40:51 ◼   ► that there still is that contingent within,

00:40:56 ◼   ► I don't know who the people are, honestly.

00:40:59 ◼   ► And I realize normal people don't change the defaults.

00:41:03 ◼   ► The default preferences for any sort of software

00:41:08 ◼   ► are so important because so few people think to change them.

00:41:12 ◼   ► And they shouldn't, right?

00:41:13 ◼   ► That's just, you know, that's the whole point

00:41:15 ◼   ► of personal technology is that the stuff should--

00:41:18 ◼   ► - Work.

00:41:20 ◼   ► - Just work out of the box to the best degree as possible.

00:41:25 ◼   ► I still think, I don't wanna complain

00:41:27 ◼   ► because they did add the feature, but I will complain.

00:41:30 ◼   ► I don't wanna do it, but I have to do it.

00:41:32 ◼   ► That I still think the default should be that they're on.

00:41:35 ◼   ► I mean, it has to be that any reasonable person

00:41:39 ◼   ► who uses more than one tab at a time

00:41:43 ◼   ► would like to have the icons in the tabs.

00:41:46 ◼   ► It just seems crazy.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - I'm totally with you on that, but if I complain

00:41:50 ◼   ► and then I'm like, well, if they do this,

00:41:51 ◼   ► then I'll switch from Chrome, I'd be lying.

00:41:55 ◼   ► - Chrome lets you really get tiny, tiny tabs too.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I mean, it's an interesting user interface

00:42:04 ◼   ► interface debate and study, and if I were teaching like a course on user interface design,

00:42:13 ◼   ► I would love to do like a whole segment of the class.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Let's just think about how tabs work in a browser and compare the implementations from

00:42:22 ◼   ► a couple of popular browsers, because it's a very specific feature.

00:42:26 ◼   ► If you don't really think about it, you might think, "Ah, they're all mostly the same.

00:42:30 ◼   ► They're these, you know, they're tabs.

00:42:31 ◼   ► You can close them.

00:42:33 ◼   ► You can move them around.

00:42:34 ◼   ► can drag them out to Windows. But there's some really interesting differences in there.

00:42:37 ◼   ► And one of the, I think, a really big difference is that Chrome will keep shrinking the tabs

00:42:44 ◼   ► to the size of an icon, practically, before it does something else to, you know, more

00:42:52 ◼   ► or less make the tab bar a scrollable region. Whereas Safari on, you know, I'm talking about

00:42:57 ◼   ► the Mac here on desktop, but the iPad version of Safari is a lot like the tabs are a lot

00:43:04 ◼   ► like the Mac version. Like obviously on the phone they're different because they're not

00:43:09 ◼   ► really tabs at all on the phone. They're these browser windows that sort of scroll up and

00:43:15 ◼   ► down. Let's leave the phone aside for now. The minimum width of a tab in Safari is, I'm

00:43:23 ◼   ► I'm gonna say here, maybe about an inch and a half,

00:43:27 ◼   ► something, you know, like physically,

00:43:29 ◼   ► it's definitely more than an inch.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Whereas Chrome will let you shrink it down

00:43:34 ◼   ► to just like a quarter of an inch,

00:43:36 ◼   ► where it's really just a little thing with the icon.

00:43:40 ◼   ► - Right, where it's just the favicon.

00:43:41 ◼   ► - Right, and--

00:43:42 ◼   ► - So by the way, I looked it up,

00:43:44 ◼   ► they enabled this in Safari 12 in 2018.

00:43:48 ◼   ► - Huh, what--

00:43:51 ◼   ► - So it was two years ago.

00:43:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, tabs, Safari 12, there we go.

00:43:55 ◼   ► Thank you Safari team.

00:43:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and we don't mean, we are thankful.

00:43:59 ◼   ► We don't mean to complain,

00:44:00 ◼   ► but we also could keep complaining.

00:44:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:05 ◼   ► - All right, so I guess we should go back

00:44:09 ◼   ► to the MacBook Air.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Your review of the MacBook Air.

00:44:14 ◼   ► I thought it was, I was waiting for it.

00:44:18 ◼   ► I was waiting for your review to see what you'd have to say.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I suspected you would like the keyboard,

00:44:23 ◼   ► but basically, - I did.

00:44:25 ◼   ► - You know, your conclusion was, you know,

00:44:28 ◼   ► not to put words in your mouth, but this is the laptop.

00:44:30 ◼   ► If you're gonna get a Mac laptop,

00:44:32 ◼   ► this is the one most people should buy.

00:44:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, even though I'm not buying it,

00:44:37 ◼   ► which goes back to this Chrome thing, by the way.

00:44:40 ◼   ► So, and I had a couple of lines in there,

00:44:42 ◼   ► but I realized through writing this piece

00:44:45 ◼   ► that I'm actually more of a pro user now than I ever was.

00:44:49 ◼   ► I've been doing a lot of heavy video work and I use Chrome,

00:44:54 ◼   ► and that is another thing.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And I find that like, I'm just, even on this 16 inch Pro,

00:44:59 ◼   ► sometimes tapping out the CPU and memory

00:45:03 ◼   ► with the amount of things I'm doing in Chrome.

00:45:06 ◼   ► But between audio, video,

00:45:07 ◼   ► and sometimes I've got Photoshop open,

00:45:09 ◼   ► I've got Premiere open, I've got a bunch of stuff,

00:45:10 ◼   ► and I just like, it was too much for the air,

00:45:13 ◼   ► even though I love that machine.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And it was also, you know, again,

00:45:16 ◼   ► kind of the circumstances of reviewing it right now.

00:45:21 ◼   ► I just want this kind of desktop replacement laptop

00:45:24 ◼   ► in my life right now, 'cause I'm not commuting.

00:45:25 ◼   ► I have not even seen my backpack now for, I don't know,

00:45:30 ◼   ► weeks, I miss my backpack.

00:45:33 ◼   ► I miss so many things about my old life.

00:45:35 ◼   ► So it might be a little bit of that,

00:45:40 ◼   ► but I am holding out for this 14 inch,

00:45:43 ◼   ► the 13 inch replacement model.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I think that's gonna be the Goldilocks for me, just right.

00:45:50 ◼   ► - I think so for me too.

00:45:51 ◼   ► I still love, I'm using it right now,

00:45:57 ◼   ► I still love my 2014, 2015, 13-inch MacBook Pro.

00:46:02 ◼   ► I really do love, no, 2014, I always forget,

00:46:08 ◼   ► this is like the third time on my podcast

00:46:10 ◼   ► where I've forgotten just how old this MacBook Pro is.

00:46:14 ◼   ► It's mid-2014, so it's almost six years old at this point.

00:46:18 ◼   ► It's like five and a half years old.

00:46:19 ◼   ► Still is a fantastic little machine.

00:46:23 ◼   ► I love the size.

00:46:24 ◼   ► And the Air for me is the same way.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And it's even just using, even using Safari,

00:46:31 ◼   ► I can't even complain about Chrome,

00:46:32 ◼   ► but if you are like me and don't close,

00:46:37 ◼   ► I don't really close tabs, I just,

00:46:40 ◼   ► if I feel like my window has gotten too crowded with tabs,

00:46:42 ◼   ► my way of declaring tab bankruptcy

00:46:45 ◼   ► isn't to close everything or clean it up.

00:46:47 ◼   ► I just make a new window and start piling up tabs.

00:46:50 ◼   ► - So you just leave the tabs in the background?

00:46:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, more or less, until maybe like once every two weeks,

00:46:56 ◼   ► then I'll go and actually, all right, I gotta figure,

00:47:01 ◼   ► I gotta do something here because my,

00:47:03 ◼   ► when Safari makes your fan go on,

00:47:05 ◼   ► then you know you have too many tabs.

00:47:07 ◼   ► - You know it's bad.

00:47:09 ◼   ► - But I don't really clean it up until then.

00:47:11 ◼   ► - But also sometimes, do you find that,

00:47:13 ◼   ► do you get that alert sometimes where,

00:47:15 ◼   ► if you're, use Gmail, right, or Google Mail?

00:47:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I don't use it through the Gmail interface

00:47:20 ◼   ► for the most part.

00:47:22 ◼   ► I usually use it through the Mail interface,

00:47:24 ◼   ► so I don't really leave Gmail open.

00:47:26 ◼   ► And the other trick I have is for privacy reasons

00:47:31 ◼   ► and for, it just seems to work better,

00:47:34 ◼   ► I more or less use Chrome.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I don't use Chrome for regular browsing,

00:47:37 ◼   ► but I use Chrome for anything Google related,

00:47:40 ◼   ► other than YouTube.

00:47:41 ◼   ► So YouTube, you can't avoid just using.

00:47:44 ◼   ► But if I actually want to use the Gmail web interface

00:47:49 ◼   ► for Gmail, I actually fire up Chrome

00:47:52 ◼   ► and it automatically reopens all my Gmail accounts

00:47:56 ◼   ► into tabs in Chrome and I just go through it there.

00:47:59 ◼   ► - Right, but that, yeah, that's the nightmare

00:48:01 ◼   ► of trying to do that and balance that

00:48:03 ◼   ► 'cause then if you're clicking into things from Chrome

00:48:06 ◼   ► and in your Gmail, then you're getting kicked back to Chrome.

00:48:09 ◼   ► You're not going back to Safari.

00:48:11 ◼   ► That's what I've been trying to manage the two browsers

00:48:13 ◼   ► for weeks or months or whatever.

00:48:16 ◼   ► And it just, it's sort of a nightmare.

00:48:17 ◼   ► You've got to commit to one.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I love the Air.

00:48:25 ◼   ► I think it's a great system.

00:48:26 ◼   ► I heard from many readers who were super excited

00:48:29 ◼   ► to finally be able to get rid of their old Air

00:48:31 ◼   ► and who were waiting and waiting and waiting

00:48:35 ◼   ► because they had read all about the keyboard situation

00:48:37 ◼   ► and said, no way, no way.

00:48:38 ◼   ► And so they finally felt really good.

00:48:40 ◼   ► and I felt really confident in saying,

00:48:42 ◼   ► "Finally, you can get this machine."

00:48:45 ◼   ► But yeah, for me, I'm actually still stuck

00:48:48 ◼   ► with my old Air for my actual computer,

00:48:52 ◼   ► though I've been using the 16-inch MacBook Pro loaner

00:48:55 ◼   ► on and off because I really wanted

00:48:56 ◼   ► to test the keyboard over time.

00:48:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, same here.

00:48:59 ◼   ► That's why I'm still using the 16-inch review unit.

00:49:02 ◼   ► I find that the keyboard, I thought this was interesting,

00:49:04 ◼   ► and I don't know, again, it seems like the sort of thing

00:49:09 ◼   ► where maybe it's the placebo effect

00:49:11 ◼   ► and I'm feeling what I wanna feel,

00:49:13 ◼   ► but I feel like it's, if anything,

00:49:14 ◼   ► it's gotten better over time.

00:49:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I said that too.

00:49:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think it's just my imagination.

00:49:21 ◼   ► It just feels like, unlike the butterfly key,

00:49:24 ◼   ► which tends to get stuck over time,

00:49:27 ◼   ► it feels like the new scissor switch one,

00:49:31 ◼   ► it just sort of breaks, it wears in,

00:49:34 ◼   ► but it's not like they've got,

00:49:35 ◼   ► the keys have gotten wobbly in any way.

00:49:37 ◼   ► They're not wobbly.

00:49:39 ◼   ► It just feels like a very, very nice keyboard to type on, which seems like--

00:49:44 ◼   ► Yes, I said in my review, I said it feels like this is broken in versus broken.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Right.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Oh, man, you're a good writer.

00:49:51 ◼   ► That's a good line.

00:49:52 ◼   ► That one just came to me, and I just felt like I had to do a live reading right here,

00:49:56 ◼   ► right now for it.

00:49:57 ◼   ► But yeah, I feel the same way.

00:50:00 ◼   ► The 16-inch just feels--

00:50:02 ◼   ► I love writing on it.

00:50:04 ◼   ► For some reason, I'm just like--

00:50:06 ◼   ► and it's not for some reason.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I will use my other air for some of my other work stuff

00:50:11 ◼   ► 'cause it has all my programs on it and stuff,

00:50:15 ◼   ► like expenses or whatever,

00:50:16 ◼   ► I just kinda always go back to it.

00:50:17 ◼   ► But if I'm writing, I've written the last,

00:50:21 ◼   ► I don't know, last six months,

00:50:22 ◼   ► five months of columns, scripts.

00:50:24 ◼   ► I've worked on this long video project,

00:50:26 ◼   ► all been on the 16-inch air.

00:50:28 ◼   ► - I think, and it's funny because--

00:50:32 ◼   ► - I'm sorry, 16-inch MacBook Pro, not air.

00:50:34 ◼   ► - Well, it's the only 16-inch product,

00:50:36 ◼   ► So I knew what you were talking about.

00:50:38 ◼   ► It seems like so long ago, and I mention this all the time,

00:50:43 ◼   ► but I can't help but do it when I go to,

00:50:46 ◼   ► well, when I used to go to a coffee shop

00:50:49 ◼   ► or I'd be going through an airport or walking,

00:50:52 ◼   ► like I'm on an airplane and I'm traveling somewhere

00:50:55 ◼   ► and I have to go to the restroom and I walk back.

00:50:58 ◼   ► I just look at what people are using

00:51:00 ◼   ► and I always, you know, I just see, like, oh, there's--

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Me too, yeah.

00:51:04 ◼   ► It's one of those things Apple is secretive about

00:51:08 ◼   ► for competitive reasons.

00:51:09 ◼   ► They don't break down the model numbers and say,

00:51:12 ◼   ► 67% of our MacBooks were MacBook Airs

00:51:16 ◼   ► and 33% were MacBook Pros and the MacBook Pros were split

00:51:21 ◼   ► this way between the big one and the small one.

00:51:23 ◼   ► They don't tell you.

00:51:24 ◼   ► They just say, they don't even tell you MacBooks.

00:51:26 ◼   ► They don't even break down portables versus desktops anymore.

00:51:29 ◼   ► They just say, we sold four million Macs last quarter

00:51:32 ◼   ► and that's it.

00:51:34 ◼   ► But eyeballing it when we used to be able to go out

00:51:37 ◼   ► and see other people and what they're using,

00:51:40 ◼   ► I just feel like Apple did tell us

00:51:44 ◼   ► when the new MacBook Air came out,

00:51:47 ◼   ► those three very long weeks ago,

00:51:49 ◼   ► they did tell us that it was their most popular Mac.

00:51:52 ◼   ► But I feel like even that is underselling

00:51:56 ◼   ► by what degree the MacBook Air is the most popular Mac.

00:52:01 ◼   ► It's just anecdotally, it just feels like

00:52:06 ◼   ► that is what people think of when they think of a Mac.

00:52:08 ◼   ► If you're gonna buy a Mac,

00:52:09 ◼   ► people just, they don't even look at anything else.

00:52:11 ◼   ► They know they don't wanna spend the extra money

00:52:13 ◼   ► on a MacBook Pro.

00:52:15 ◼   ► They know they want a portable for the most part.

00:52:17 ◼   ► And if you don't, if you really do want a desktop,

00:52:20 ◼   ► you can get the iMac and it's a great machine.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And I'm sure they, it's not like they sell no iMacs,

00:52:25 ◼   ► but for the most part, most people want a laptop.

00:52:27 ◼   ► And if they want a laptop, they want the Air.

00:52:29 ◼   ► and it's so easy to eyeball it

00:52:32 ◼   ► because of the teardrop shape, right?

00:52:34 ◼   ► You don't have to get real close and creep on somebody.

00:52:37 ◼   ► It's a very distinctive profile, and you can see it.

00:52:42 ◼   ► And it's been, for something that's so popular

00:52:47 ◼   ► and so essential to so many people's lives,

00:52:50 ◼   ► it has been such a very strange transition

00:52:53 ◼   ► to go from the old pre-retina MacBook Airs

00:52:56 ◼   ► when they were recommendable,

00:52:58 ◼   ► like five, six, seven years ago.

00:53:01 ◼   ► - I mean, I spent half my career recommending that.

00:53:03 ◼   ► - Right, and it's just been a very strange transition.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And I don't think that the 2018 MacBook Airs were bad,

00:53:11 ◼   ► and especially when they did the

00:53:14 ◼   ► interim third generation butterfly switch update,

00:53:21 ◼   ► which, again, to give you credit,

00:53:24 ◼   ► I think was largely inspired internally

00:53:27 ◼   ► by the, I called it last year the column of the year.

00:53:32 ◼   ► I still think it's gonna go down,

00:53:33 ◼   ► it should probably get credited

00:53:35 ◼   ► as the personal technology column of the decade.

00:53:38 ◼   ► - Oh, I appreciate that.

00:53:40 ◼   ► That's the award.

00:53:42 ◼   ► I don't know if they, they probably didn't submit it

00:53:44 ◼   ► for any awards at the journal,

00:53:45 ◼   ► but this is the award that matters the most to me, John,

00:53:47 ◼   ► so thank you.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Can you send me a Gruber?

00:53:50 ◼   ► Is like a Gruber award a thing?

00:53:51 ◼   ► You should do that.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Send me a Gruber.

00:53:54 ◼   ► It's a 3D printed bust of you.

00:53:59 ◼   ► - Would it be a bust of me or would it be just

00:54:01 ◼   ► like a sphere with a star on it?

00:54:03 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it could be your favicon, sure.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Maybe it's the size of a favicon.

00:54:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it's tiny.

00:54:11 ◼   ► You can lose it.

00:54:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - It's like the size of a--

00:54:14 ◼   ► - It's a little tiny pin.

00:54:15 ◼   ► It could be an earring.

00:54:17 ◼   ► You could tie pins for men, earrings for women.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Or men, if you wear a earring.

00:54:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, like a jelly bean.

00:54:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, you have such dedicated listeners.

00:54:26 ◼   ► I bet you people after they listen to this ask for that.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:30 ◼   ► So I do, you know, especially after the post Joanna's,

00:54:35 ◼   ► you know, what was the headline?

00:54:38 ◼   ► What was the, I always forget.

00:54:39 ◼   ► - I mean, it was missing letters.

00:54:41 ◼   ► Apple still hasn't fixed your MacBook keyboard

00:54:44 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Right, and you know, the online version, you know,

00:54:48 ◼   ► not to reiterate the whole thing,

00:54:49 ◼   ► but you got the development team

00:54:51 ◼   ► at the wallstreetjournal.com

00:54:52 ◼   ► to write some JavaScript software

00:54:54 ◼   ► so that people could adjust the sliders

00:54:56 ◼   ► and by default all the Es were missing

00:54:58 ◼   ► and half the Ss or something.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And then you could, if you really couldn't even read it,

00:55:02 ◼   ► you could adjust it with sliders

00:55:04 ◼   ► and get the missing letters back in.

00:55:06 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It wasn't a bad key,

00:55:09 ◼   ► it wasn't a bad MacBook Air.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And once they went retina,

00:55:13 ◼   ► and yeah, it was a little too expensive,

00:55:14 ◼   ► and yeah, the keyboard wasn't great

00:55:16 ◼   ► even with the third generation thing,

00:55:17 ◼   ► but it was all right.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And you could say, well,

00:55:19 ◼   ► if you really need a new MacBook Air,

00:55:20 ◼   ► you can get this one.

00:55:21 ◼   ► It wasn't like you would unrecommend it,

00:55:26 ◼   ► but now it just feels like, boy,

00:55:28 ◼   ► you can really recommend this to everybody

00:55:30 ◼   ► because they've gotten back down to the $999 starting price

00:55:34 ◼   ► and it's a good config.

00:55:35 ◼   ► The $999 MacBook Air is a pretty good laptop

00:55:40 ◼   ► for an awful lot of people.

00:55:42 ◼   ► There's, you know--

00:55:43 ◼   ► - And for $256 starting now on storage, it's great.

00:55:47 ◼   ► It's a great deal.

00:55:48 ◼   ► It is, it really is.

00:55:51 ◼   ► And I wonder what some of the motivation was for Apple

00:55:54 ◼   ► to drop the price back and to drop that storage back.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Was it a little bit of,

00:55:59 ◼   ► well, we know this is the thing that sells the most

00:56:01 ◼   ► and we wanna juice that and we wanna get more people,

00:56:03 ◼   ► these in the hands of more people.

00:56:04 ◼   ► They even did that education deal, right?

00:56:06 ◼   ► It's 8.99 for education.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Was it also like, eh, we know this last one,

00:56:12 ◼   ► we kinda messed up, so maybe we make it,

00:56:15 ◼   ► this is my just thought is a little bit like,

00:56:17 ◼   ► if someone's gonna buy a new computer

00:56:19 ◼   ► 'cause they hate that keyboard,

00:56:20 ◼   ► well, maybe is it a little bit easier for them to buy this

00:56:22 ◼   ► if we drop this price a little bit?

00:56:23 ◼   ► I highly doubt that was any motivation,

00:56:25 ◼   ► but I, in my mind, like to think

00:56:28 ◼   ► they were thinking that or something.

00:56:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, and with the keyboard, it seems anecdotally

00:56:34 ◼   ► that once they got to that final generation

00:56:37 ◼   ► of the butterfly switch keyboard,

00:56:39 ◼   ► they did fix the reliability issues,

00:56:43 ◼   ► or at least to the point where it really does seem,

00:56:47 ◼   ► looking at my email from people who read the site,

00:56:50 ◼   ► and I'm sure you did too,

00:56:53 ◼   ► after you emphasized it so many times.

00:56:55 ◼   ► You got a lot of reader--

00:56:56 ◼   ► - So much, so much.

00:56:57 ◼   ► - It really does seem like the final generation

00:57:00 ◼   ► of the butterfly switch thing was as good

00:57:02 ◼   ► as that fundamental design was going to get,

00:57:04 ◼   ► and they fixed, and the reliability issues

00:57:08 ◼   ► were above and beyond anything else,

00:57:10 ◼   ► because it just seems mind-boggling

00:57:14 ◼   ► that you couldn't rely on your keyboard on these devices.

00:57:17 ◼   ► They fixed that, but it still, it just didn't feel great.

00:57:21 ◼   ► It didn't sound good.

00:57:22 ◼   ► And you've written about the sound.

00:57:24 ◼   ► Ever since they first came out,

00:57:25 ◼   ► like with the 12-inch MacBook that didn't--

00:57:28 ◼   ► - I hate the sound.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - It just, it, hmm.

00:57:31 ◼   ► - And they fixed that here too.

00:57:32 ◼   ► I mean, they really did.

00:57:34 ◼   ► When the 16-inch came out, I did a sound comparison

00:57:38 ◼   ► and comparing sounds of keyboards.

00:57:40 ◼   ► And I mean, this is so much quieter

00:57:42 ◼   ► and it's so much more satisfying to listen to.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I mean, it will be interesting, I think,

00:57:51 ◼   ► to see where they go from here,

00:57:54 ◼   ► because I've always had this obsession with the Air.

00:57:56 ◼   ► It sort of was the highlight of my career at the Verge

00:58:01 ◼   ► where I would tell people,

00:58:02 ◼   ► this is the best Windows computer,

00:58:04 ◼   ► and I sort of became known in a meme way for saying,

00:58:08 ◼   ► well, for $200 more, you can always get the MacBook Air.

00:58:10 ◼   ► And honestly, if you asked me to this date,

00:58:12 ◼   ► what I think is the best Apple gadget,

00:58:14 ◼   ► I will say the MacBook Air,

00:58:15 ◼   ► because I just don't think there was ever a laptop

00:58:19 ◼   ► at a time, especially, was it 2000,

00:58:22 ◼   ► probably around 2014-ish timeframe,

00:58:27 ◼   ► that there was just no better mix of portability

00:58:32 ◼   ► and performance and endurance than the MacBook Air.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And it sort of was like this thing you hold up

00:58:36 ◼   ► and you're like, this is the best computer there is.

00:58:40 ◼   ► it's probably not gonna get much better.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Or I at least had said that for many years.

00:58:44 ◼   ► And so now we're at this point where I keep thinking about

00:58:46 ◼   ► like what's next, I've always thought about

00:58:48 ◼   ► like what's next for the Air.

00:58:50 ◼   ► And I thought it was really interesting

00:58:53 ◼   ► that they announced the Air and the Pro the same day

00:58:56 ◼   ► and the Pro with the keyboard, with the Magic Keyboard.

00:58:59 ◼   ► And for me, it kind of, I was gonna do my review

00:59:02 ◼   ► sort of comparing the two and thinking about like,

00:59:04 ◼   ► well, what do you buy, which one?

00:59:06 ◼   ► And it really mostly just came down to,

00:59:07 ◼   ► I was like, you know, people still wanna buy an Air,

00:59:09 ◼   ► they wanna buy an Air, if people wanna buy an iPad,

00:59:12 ◼   ► they're probably looking at the Pro.

00:59:14 ◼   ► But I do really put the two side by side

00:59:16 ◼   ► and wonder to myself, these two have to converge

00:59:19 ◼   ► at some point, because it just,

00:59:23 ◼   ► there's so many overlapping use cases for them.

00:59:29 ◼   ► - It is a very strange strategy.

00:59:33 ◼   ► I don't think they have to.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Like, I feel like at the highest level,

00:59:37 ◼   ► it feels like they have to converge

00:59:39 ◼   ► because they're so similar and they even, like you said,

00:59:42 ◼   ► they even, you know, in just two products

00:59:45 ◼   ► that they announce at the same time

00:59:47 ◼   ► and they're both, you know,

00:59:49 ◼   ► if you look at the 12.9 inch iPad Pro,

00:59:53 ◼   ► it's effectively a 13 inch screen.

00:59:55 ◼   ► I mean, it's 12.9 inches.

00:59:56 ◼   ► It's a tenth of an inch difference diagonally.

00:59:59 ◼   ► And they've, the big selling point

01:00:02 ◼   ► for the iPad announcement was this magic keyboard accessory

01:00:06 ◼   ► that turns it, we don't have it in our hands yet,

01:00:09 ◼   ► but it's the one thing,

01:00:11 ◼   ► it's what made writing the iPad review so hard

01:00:14 ◼   ► is that the one thing everybody wanted to hear about

01:00:16 ◼   ► and the thing I most wanted to play with

01:00:17 ◼   ► is the thing that's not coming out until quote unquote May.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And-- - And that's actually why

01:00:23 ◼   ► I didn't write the review or do the comparison right now.

01:00:26 ◼   ► - And it turns the iPad into a laptop.

01:00:29 ◼   ► I mean, and they keep saying they can,

01:00:32 ◼   ► that it's a touch first platform

01:00:35 ◼   ► and it doesn't take away from touch at all,

01:00:38 ◼   ► but it's a laptop, right?

01:00:41 ◼   ► And they even mentioned that it is, in plain English,

01:00:46 ◼   ► the magnetic attachment is secure enough

01:00:50 ◼   ► and the way that it's weighted is secure enough

01:00:53 ◼   ► that they emphasized when we talked to them

01:00:58 ◼   ► that you can use it on your lap.

01:01:00 ◼   ► You can sit on a train

01:01:03 ◼   ► when wherever we're allowed to ride on pins again

01:01:06 ◼   ► and put it on your lap.

01:01:07 ◼   ► And you could, you know, they released commercials

01:01:11 ◼   ► and they showed people sitting in a park

01:01:14 ◼   ► and just sitting on the, you know,

01:01:15 ◼   ► like sitting on the grass with the,

01:01:18 ◼   ► or on their bed or something like that

01:01:20 ◼   ► with it in laptop configuration on their lap.

01:01:23 ◼   ► And so you think, well,

01:01:25 ◼   ► how can you have two different platforms

01:01:27 ◼   ► that are the same fundamental form factor?

01:01:31 ◼   ► But then when you really look at the details, I don't know,

01:01:33 ◼   ► I don't see the convergence, I really don't.

01:01:35 ◼   ► I don't see the Mac platform converging

01:01:39 ◼   ► with iPad OS in any way.

01:01:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think, I've thought about my use cases

01:01:45 ◼   ► and I use such specialized apps for certain things

01:01:47 ◼   ► where I say, okay, that I couldn't go to the iPad

01:01:50 ◼   ► and if I just needed to do lighter work,

01:01:53 ◼   ► I could use the Air, and then maybe I could have a desktop

01:01:56 ◼   ► at home or something, I have odd computing needs, obviously.

01:02:01 ◼   ► But for most people using the Air,

01:02:05 ◼   ► and the people we recommend the Air to,

01:02:07 ◼   ► what do they do with it?

01:02:08 ◼   ► - Email, the web, social media, right?

01:02:15 ◼   ► - And why then, why not the iPad for those things?

01:02:19 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:02:20 ◼   ► It is a very strange situation to be in.

01:02:28 ◼   ► I don't know if I accept it through cognitive dissonance

01:02:33 ◼   ► or what.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I'm willing to accept it because I don't think either one,

01:02:41 ◼   ► either platform should get a whole lot more like the other.

01:02:46 ◼   ► I know I've been more critical this year in my writing

01:02:50 ◼   ► about iPad OS and the multitasking interface in particular.

01:02:55 ◼   ► in particular. And the knee-jerk response to that from people who really love multitasking on the

01:03:05 ◼   ► iPad and have, you know, put their professional life much more or entirely on, in some cases,

01:03:13 ◼   ► and I believe you, I believe these people who spend, you know, use their iPad as their main

01:03:17 ◼   ► work computer. And the knee-jerk response to my criticism is to assume that what I'm

01:03:24 ◼   ► saying is that I want the iPad OS to get more like Mac OS and do things the Mac OS way at

01:03:32 ◼   ► the interface level. And that's, I don't think I ever wrote that. If I did, I didn't mean

01:03:36 ◼   ► to, that that was bad writing. And it's not what I mean. But I do think that the iPad

01:03:44 ◼   ► OS, for me at least, has to be able to do things, doesn't have to do it the way the

01:03:49 ◼   ► Mac does it, but I want to be able to do it the same way.

01:03:53 ◼   ► You want to get it done.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Right.

01:03:56 ◼   ► And I don't want to get confused about things that I find confusing on iPad OS multitasking.

01:04:02 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be done, and I think it would be wrong.

01:04:05 ◼   ► I will go so far as to say it would be wrong to copy the Mac way of doing things.

01:04:11 ◼   ► What I would like is for Apple to come up with a way that's better than the Mac way

01:04:16 ◼   ► of doing it.

01:04:17 ◼   ► Like, wouldn't that be so terribly exciting if there was a way, a multitasking interface

01:04:22 ◼   ► that was better than the Mac way of doing things and arranging things?

01:04:30 ◼   ► And conversely, I certainly don't think, I feel even stronger the other way, that I don't

01:04:35 ◼   ► think that Mac OS should get more like iPad OS in terms of the way, I mean it just doesn't

01:04:43 ◼   ► even make any sense to me that you would want to get rid of Windows, overlapping Windows that you

01:04:50 ◼   ► can resize to any degree on the Mac. So I just don't see how they converge further. And I know

01:04:56 ◼   ► that some people are going to want to immediately say, "Well what about Catalyst?" Catalyst, the

01:05:00 ◼   ► whole point is convergence where you can take your iPad apps and use the catalyst frameworks

01:05:06 ◼   ► in the latest version of Mac OS and now you can have one app that is adjusted, you know,

01:05:13 ◼   ► the developers can do work and now you've got this app that is the iPad app and now it's a Mac

01:05:18 ◼   ► app at the same time but that's still it's not really convergence and the the catalyst apps that

01:05:25 ◼   ► do it the best are the most different between the iPad and the Mac versions, and the developers

01:05:31 ◼   ► have to do the most work.

01:05:33 ◼   ► And if it's working out well, ideally it's still a lot less work and a lot more familiar

01:05:38 ◼   ► to the developer than doing a wholly separate Mac app and iPad app.

01:05:44 ◼   ► But it still is not just click a checkbox in Xcode and out comes a Mac app and it looks

01:05:50 ◼   ► and works in the way Mac users expect a Mac app to work.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, maybe converge is the wrong word.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Maybe replace.

01:06:03 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:06:05 ◼   ► And that more and more people,

01:06:06 ◼   ► if they're looking to spend somewhere between

01:06:10 ◼   ► a thousand and $1,200 on an Apple device

01:06:14 ◼   ► that you can use as a laptop.

01:06:20 ◼   ► - Then they buy an iPad Pro.

01:06:22 ◼   ► - Right, and get the Magic Keyboard for when they do it.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And it is, if you're going to have just one $1,100,

01:06:31 ◼   ► let's just say $1,100 or, I guess, no, I guess, yeah.

01:06:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:37 ◼   ► - Well, it's somewhere in that range.

01:06:39 ◼   ► - If you get the Pro, the 12.9 with the Magic Keyboard,

01:06:43 ◼   ► I think you're at 14.

01:06:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you get the 11, it's smaller.

01:06:47 ◼   ► - That's gonna drop.

01:06:48 ◼   ► That will drop over time.

01:06:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, hopefully, I would think so.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Certainly the iPad portion should drop over time.

01:06:56 ◼   ► But it's certainly a more flexible device

01:07:00 ◼   ► because you can do things with it.

01:07:02 ◼   ► The two-in-one form factor where you can use it as a laptop

01:07:06 ◼   ► when you're doing laptop-y things

01:07:08 ◼   ► and you want to have a trackpad

01:07:10 ◼   ► for things that are great with a trackpad.

01:07:13 ◼   ► And then that you can just,

01:07:17 ◼   ► You don't have to really disconnect cables or anything.

01:07:20 ◼   ► You just unmagnetically snap it from the thing,

01:07:24 ◼   ► and now you've got an ebook reader,

01:07:25 ◼   ► and you can just sit there on your couch and lean back,

01:07:29 ◼   ► and you don't have to worry about the keyboard,

01:07:31 ◼   ► and just sit there and flip through a book or webpages

01:07:35 ◼   ► or whatever you do,

01:07:36 ◼   ► the thing most people have done with an iPad

01:07:40 ◼   ► for most of the time.

01:07:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like the ultimate flexibility,

01:07:44 ◼   ► and I think that's, maybe that'll also be

01:07:47 ◼   ► the driving force of people to say,

01:07:49 ◼   ► you know, I don't need all of that,

01:07:50 ◼   ► I just need a plain old laptop

01:07:52 ◼   ► and then they'll still get the air.

01:07:53 ◼   ► And maybe they just keep 'em around forever and ever,

01:07:55 ◼   ► until, at least until we are out of house arrest.

01:07:58 ◼   ► - Let me take a break on that note

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01:09:39 ◼   ► you're gonna need your audio editor

01:09:42 ◼   ► to edit out my stomach rumbling.

01:09:44 ◼   ► (Dave laughs)

01:09:46 ◼   ► I legit believe that it's probably being picked up on.

01:09:49 ◼   ► - Are you?

01:09:52 ◼   ► - My eating schedule's so out of sorts.

01:09:54 ◼   ► I made matzo pizza with my son at 11 o'clock

01:09:59 ◼   ► and now I'm starving.

01:10:01 ◼   ► - I tend to be a, in addition to my regular night owl,

01:10:09 ◼   ► sleeping schedule, I tend to eat most of my calories

01:10:12 ◼   ► later in the day.

01:10:13 ◼   ► But at-- - Same.

01:10:14 ◼   ► - But this whole thing has thrown me off,

01:10:16 ◼   ► and I will go, I'll realize, I'm like,

01:10:18 ◼   ► "Wait, have I eaten in like 16 hours?

01:10:20 ◼   ► "Maybe that's why I'm hungry?"

01:10:21 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:10:23 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, that's, I probably,

01:10:26 ◼   ► like I didn't eat breakfast, I had something to eat at 11,

01:10:28 ◼   ► and now I'm like, "Okay, it's time for lunch."

01:10:31 ◼   ► Or dinner, or linner, whatever.

01:10:33 ◼   ► - We just eat at any time.

01:10:36 ◼   ► There's no time.

01:10:38 ◼   ► There's no time.

01:10:39 ◼   ► And we're certainly not running out of food,

01:10:42 ◼   ► is the other thing, which is a great thing,

01:10:44 ◼   ► but we just have these constant, like, Instacart

01:10:48 ◼   ► or Fresh Direct deliveries

01:10:49 ◼   ► that we're just trying not to lose spots, so.

01:10:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, same here.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Have you seen this thing?

01:10:55 ◼   ► Again, I think most people have elevated their humaneness.

01:11:02 ◼   ► People have written about it,

01:11:07 ◼   ► that people are saying hello to each other more

01:11:10 ◼   ► when you're out or you just, you smile.

01:11:12 ◼   ► It's like, there's just this collective sense

01:11:15 ◼   ► that we're all in it together

01:11:16 ◼   ► and people are being nice to each other

01:11:19 ◼   ► to the best that we can

01:11:20 ◼   ► while maintaining our social distancing.

01:11:22 ◼   ► And then when you find out that there are people

01:11:26 ◼   ► who are taking advantage of the situation,

01:11:28 ◼   ► you're like, what the hell is wrong with you?

01:11:29 ◼   ► I just read this story last night

01:11:30 ◼   ► about people who are offering big Instacart tips.

01:11:37 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I saw this.

01:11:38 ◼   ► - And then after the stuff gets dropped off at their door,

01:11:42 ◼   ► you can apparently, Amy handles the Instacart stuff,

01:11:45 ◼   ► but apparently you can like revoke the tip afterwards,

01:11:48 ◼   ► and then they just take the whole thing away.

01:11:51 ◼   ► It's like you are a garbage person.

01:11:53 ◼   ► That, I mean, you might as well, that's like walking,

01:11:57 ◼   ► you're just stealing money from somebody.

01:11:59 ◼   ► That's like, if you are, well, remember,

01:12:02 ◼   ► do you remember restaurants?

01:12:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:04 ◼   ► - I remember that.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - Like if you pay your check and you're like,

01:12:08 ◼   ► get up from the table and you're walking out

01:12:10 ◼   ► and you see that there's another,

01:12:12 ◼   ► some other table had left a cash tip

01:12:15 ◼   ► and you just pick it off the table

01:12:16 ◼   ► as you walk off the, as you leave the restaurant.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's-- - No, unless your Instacart

01:12:23 ◼   ► delivery person punched you in the face.

01:12:26 ◼   ► - Right.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - Came to the door, took out your bottle of seltzer

01:12:31 ◼   ► and smacked you in the face with it,

01:12:33 ◼   ► That's the only reason to revoke your tip right now.

01:12:36 ◼   ► - It is, and I mentioned before,

01:12:40 ◼   ► like thank God for the internet

01:12:41 ◼   ► and how would we be doing this 30 years ago

01:12:43 ◼   ► or 25 years ago or even with the internet,

01:12:46 ◼   ► but before some of these services,

01:12:48 ◼   ► like Instacart is, and these delivery services

01:12:53 ◼   ► are helping us collectively maintain social distancing.

01:12:58 ◼   ► I really do, I want these people to be paid appropriately.

01:13:03 ◼   ► I want them to be tipped well.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And I know there've been some walkouts and stuff,

01:13:07 ◼   ► and the labor issues are serious.

01:13:09 ◼   ► And I really hope they get worked out

01:13:11 ◼   ► so that the people who are willing to do this work

01:13:14 ◼   ► are getting compensated appropriately.

01:13:16 ◼   ► But I think collectively it is good for us

01:13:19 ◼   ► that if one person can do the shopping

01:13:22 ◼   ► for 10, 15, 20 other people in the course of a day,

01:13:26 ◼   ► that's better because there are fewer people

01:13:28 ◼   ► out circulating and maintaining the distance.

01:13:32 ◼   ► I don't know what we would do.

01:13:33 ◼   ► I mean, I guess we would all be going to the grocery store

01:13:37 ◼   ► on a usual schedule, and it just seems so contrary

01:13:40 ◼   ► to what we're supposed to be doing collectively

01:13:47 ◼   ► to help flatten the curve.

01:13:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, we would all be going,

01:13:52 ◼   ► and they already have certain times

01:13:55 ◼   ► for certain types of people,

01:13:56 ◼   ► for people above a certain age, or if you're pregnant.

01:14:00 ◼   ► I mean, I would assume some of those restrictions

01:14:02 ◼   ► be even worse. Because this has allowed, I mean at least in major metropolitan areas

01:14:08 ◼   ► like we live, it's really allowed people to decrease the amount of traffic, or it's allowed

01:14:13 ◼   ► these stores to decrease the amount of traffic.

01:14:16 ◼   ► We haven't been, I think, is it a week or two? I'm actually forgetting if it's a full

01:14:22 ◼   ► week at this point or two weeks. I think it's a full week where nobody here, we haven't

01:14:26 ◼   ► done any shopping outside the house.

01:14:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, for me, it's that long too.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I do go to my local coffee shop still

01:14:33 ◼   ► 'cause they have takeout and it's just sort of a window

01:14:36 ◼   ► and it's easy to do and I feel like I'm supporting them.

01:14:40 ◼   ► But I haven't been to, I mean, I went to Target

01:14:42 ◼   ► about a week and a half ago, it was my wife's birthday

01:14:44 ◼   ► and I wanted to get her some stuff.

01:14:47 ◼   ► But other than that, no.

01:14:48 ◼   ► - Let me see here, I can look on my Apple Pay,

01:14:52 ◼   ► my Apple Wallet and I can see

01:14:54 ◼   ► when I actually charged something, 327.

01:14:59 ◼   ► So March 27th, I went to Trader Joe's.

01:15:01 ◼   ► So how many, how long ago was March 27th?

01:15:05 ◼   ► That feels like a year ago.

01:15:07 ◼   ► - That was at least 13, 14 days ago, right?

01:15:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so it's been like two weeks

01:15:14 ◼   ► since I did shopping outside the house.

01:15:17 ◼   ► I got a pizza delivered the other day,

01:15:22 ◼   ► and it felt like I was eating like a Roman emperor.

01:15:28 ◼   ► It just felt like, oh my God,

01:15:32 ◼   ► and it's like the easiest thing in the world.

01:15:33 ◼   ► Whoever really worries about getting a pizza delivered,

01:15:36 ◼   ► but it just felt like, well, here's something

01:15:38 ◼   ► I wouldn't really be able to make at home.

01:15:40 ◼   ► You can make pizza at home.

01:15:42 ◼   ► We do make pizza at home sometimes,

01:15:43 ◼   ► but it's a good crust that you get.

01:15:46 ◼   ► I'm not a expert.

01:15:49 ◼   ► I have friends who are expert pizza makers at home,

01:15:51 ◼   ► and they're Instagramming their pizzas,

01:15:53 ◼   ► and I'm like, oh, I wish I'd gotten on team

01:15:56 ◼   ► learn how to make good pizza at home.

01:15:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:15:59 ◼   ► I'm keeping Passover right now,

01:16:01 ◼   ► so we're making matzah pizza.

01:16:03 ◼   ► If you'd like my recipe for that delicious meal,

01:16:06 ◼   ► I'm happy to pass it on to you.

01:16:07 ◼   ► It's basically a cracker with tomato sauce

01:16:10 ◼   ► and melted cheese.

01:16:11 ◼   ► - I am not Jewish, but I love matzah bread.

01:16:17 ◼   ► Loved it.

01:16:18 ◼   ► One of my best friends in grade school was Jewish,

01:16:21 ◼   ► and I won't use his name because it would be ratting him out.

01:16:26 ◼   ► He was not a fan, and so I would trade him packed lunch.

01:16:30 ◼   ► I used to pack a lunch and I would trade him

01:16:33 ◼   ► like my regular bread for some of his matzo bread

01:16:35 ◼   ► during Passover.

01:16:37 ◼   ► I love it.

01:16:38 ◼   ► I just feel like I had you.

01:16:40 ◼   ► - Says every non-Jew and every Jew is like, "No."

01:16:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, I know.

01:16:46 ◼   ► - No, again, no, we like it like the first two days.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Like we're still in like the early section here

01:16:51 ◼   ► and I usually keep it.

01:16:52 ◼   ► I really try to keep this tradition

01:16:54 ◼   ► and try to keep the whole eight days with no bread

01:16:56 ◼   ► or really anything that has, well, yeah,

01:17:01 ◼   ► I won't say I keep it all, but I do a pretty good job.

01:17:05 ◼   ► Like I won't eat chips and I won't eat wraps

01:17:09 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:17:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a lot easier to say as a non-Jew

01:17:12 ◼   ► when you're just sneaking, taking it here and there

01:17:14 ◼   ► as opposed to maintaining it over the whole length

01:17:18 ◼   ► of Passover, but.

01:17:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:17:20 ◼   ► Well, yeah, no, it sounds like we're doing really,

01:17:24 ◼   ► we're pretty good citizens keeping our social distancing.

01:17:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:17:29 ◼   ► It is weird.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And I know I've gotten feedback from people

01:17:35 ◼   ► and people wanna hear more podcasts.

01:17:39 ◼   ► Some people I've gotten and I don't know how not

01:17:43 ◼   ► to talk about it.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Like there've been a few people

01:17:45 ◼   ► and it's one of those things where you can't please everybody

01:17:47 ◼   ► and I know, I mean with the readership of your column

01:17:50 ◼   ► at the Wall Street Journal,

01:17:51 ◼   ► You certainly know it even better than I do.

01:17:54 ◼   ► And I know that there's at least some people

01:17:57 ◼   ► who would like for me to do the podcast

01:18:00 ◼   ► without even mentioning it,

01:18:01 ◼   ► 'cause they kinda wanna get their mind off it,

01:18:02 ◼   ► but I don't know how to do that.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Like, it's, you know, I can't not mention it.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And so I apologize if that's what you would prefer,

01:18:11 ◼   ► but I just can't help but talk about

01:18:14 ◼   ► the way that technology intersects

01:18:17 ◼   ► with this great quarantine.

01:18:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, everything I've written for the last month

01:18:24 ◼   ► or so or more has had to do with it

01:18:26 ◼   ► because I was also just been doing a lot on work from home

01:18:30 ◼   ► and that stuff has really been so useful to our readers

01:18:32 ◼   ► and people who are just honestly not set up

01:18:35 ◼   ► with the right tech tools to work from home.

01:18:36 ◼   ► And I've been doing constant tips for our newsletters

01:18:39 ◼   ► and I do a daily tip for our newsletters and our podcasts

01:18:41 ◼   ► and people have been loving it.

01:18:43 ◼   ► But also I'm like, at one point I'm like,

01:18:44 ◼   ► "What, like how much is too much here?"

01:18:46 ◼   ► And I've been struggling with that.

01:18:47 ◼   ► And I've struggled with that with the air review,

01:18:49 ◼   ► which was, I can't review this in a vacuum.

01:18:52 ◼   ► I can't just ignore how I used this system

01:18:56 ◼   ► and under what conditions.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And that's how I came to that webcam part of that review.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And people said, oh, she just has to whine about more things.

01:19:03 ◼   ► And I was like, well, no, I'm whining about the thing

01:19:06 ◼   ► that I have been using the most now.

01:19:07 ◼   ► And I really tried to balance that,

01:19:10 ◼   ► at least the written review about both of them.

01:19:12 ◼   ► The video, I obviously focused on the webcam.

01:19:14 ◼   ► And I did a piece yesterday because over the weekend,

01:19:17 ◼   ► I woke up on Saturday morning,

01:19:19 ◼   ► And this was, you know, last Friday was Trump

01:19:22 ◼   ► and CDC's recommendation that we all wear masks.

01:19:25 ◼   ► Or we start to wear masks.

01:19:26 ◼   ► And I woke up on Saturday morning

01:19:27 ◼   ► from two emails from reporters,

01:19:29 ◼   ► couple emails from readers being like,

01:19:31 ◼   ► "My face ID doesn't work with a mask."

01:19:33 ◼   ► And I sort of said, "Okay, well, just do this.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Enter an alternate appearance."

01:19:39 ◼   ► And they were like, "That doesn't work."

01:19:41 ◼   ► And I started playing around with it,

01:19:42 ◼   ► and I was like, "All right, I'm gonna write

01:19:43 ◼   ► a little bit about this."

01:19:44 ◼   ► And is it a first world problem?

01:19:47 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:19:48 ◼   ► we all can put in our passwords.

01:19:50 ◼   ► But it was an interesting story to go down the road

01:19:53 ◼   ► of looking at how our faces are being read from,

01:19:56 ◼   ► or how our faces are not being able to be read

01:19:59 ◼   ► with a mask on and how some people have gotten it.

01:20:01 ◼   ► And I found this woman who has been creating Face ID masks,

01:20:04 ◼   ► which are completely nuts.

01:20:06 ◼   ► - Oh, really?

01:20:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:20:08 ◼   ► It's like, and I was like, you know what?

01:20:09 ◼   ► I'm gonna do this story because it's interesting.

01:20:12 ◼   ► We use this, I'm using it as a point

01:20:13 ◼   ► to talk a little bit about Face ID.

01:20:15 ◼   ► And yeah, I struggled.

01:20:17 ◼   ► I definitely struggle right now with what should I cover?

01:20:20 ◼   ► How can I be of most help to people?

01:20:22 ◼   ► I've also just been writing and doing stuff all the time,

01:20:27 ◼   ► so I don't really have time to think about it.

01:20:28 ◼   ► - So I-- - That's also better.

01:20:30 ◼   ► - So the face ID versus masks thing

01:20:32 ◼   ► is something I mean to write about,

01:20:35 ◼   ► I do wanna write about, I'm getting email about,

01:20:37 ◼   ► and the only reason I haven't written about it

01:20:39 ◼   ► is that I'm still thinking it through.

01:20:43 ◼   ► But how does a Face ID capable mask work?

01:20:47 ◼   ► What is the, what's the trick?

01:20:51 ◼   ► How does, I don't even understand how that would work.

01:20:53 ◼   ► - So I've done, this has been my last week of like,

01:20:56 ◼   ► not week, I just kind of crammed out

01:20:57 ◼   ► a lot of the reporting over the weekend

01:20:59 ◼   ► 'cause I became so interested in it.

01:21:01 ◼   ► But basically, no, you cannot register your face

01:21:04 ◼   ► as an alternate appearance in Face ID with a mask.

01:21:08 ◼   ► It just says obstructed, right?

01:21:10 ◼   ► It says like, Face Obstructed, can't register.

01:21:13 ◼   ► Long story as you read in the piece,

01:21:16 ◼   ► some researchers in, they're in Hong Kong I believe,

01:21:21 ◼   ► or maybe they're mainland China,

01:21:23 ◼   ► they figured out if you fold the mask in half,

01:21:25 ◼   ► you can register your face.

01:21:27 ◼   ► And then you put the mask on and it could work.

01:21:30 ◼   ► That did not work for me.

01:21:31 ◼   ► It works with very success, honestly.

01:21:35 ◼   ► Then I found this woman who decided,

01:21:39 ◼   ► she had heard about this issue a couple months ago,

01:21:42 ◼   ► and she said, "Oh, I'm gonna just print my face on a mask,

01:21:46 ◼   ► "and then it'll work."

01:21:48 ◼   ► Then she realized, no, that won't work,

01:21:50 ◼   ► because Face ID and the whole TrueDepth system

01:21:53 ◼   ► is looking for a 3D,

01:21:56 ◼   ► I mean, really, it's looking for your face,

01:21:57 ◼   ► it's looking for--

01:21:58 ◼   ► - It's the same technology that's there to defeat me

01:22:01 ◼   ► holding up a photo of Joanna Stern

01:22:04 ◼   ► in front of my iPhone Face ID to log in as you.

01:22:09 ◼   ► - And that's exactly what I wrote in the piece,

01:22:11 ◼   ► which is like, there's a lot of irony here,

01:22:12 ◼   ► which is that Face ID was actually engineered.

01:22:14 ◼   ► You know, I did that piece back when the 10 came out

01:22:17 ◼   ► when I tried to get my face recreated in masks,

01:22:20 ◼   ► and it didn't work.

01:22:21 ◼   ► It's like the opposite here.

01:22:23 ◼   ► And so, yeah, then she figured out

01:22:26 ◼   ► that if she made a clay mold of a mouth and nose,

01:22:30 ◼   ► and then she went through this elaborate process,

01:22:32 ◼   ► you can watch it in the video,

01:22:33 ◼   ► and she made a mask with a nose and mouth,

01:22:37 ◼   ► and she then goes and registers that mask

01:22:40 ◼   ► as an alternate appearance with that, it works.

01:22:43 ◼   ► - Huh, I did not read that.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I will have to look for it.

01:22:49 ◼   ► - I mean, she did, and like, just for,

01:22:51 ◼   ► like this woman's awesome.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Her name is Danielle Baskin.

01:22:54 ◼   ► She's been doing, you know, I don't know

01:22:55 ◼   ► if you've heard of this other thing called quarantine chat

01:22:57 ◼   ► where you can call a random person and talk.

01:22:59 ◼   ► She's a product designer and sort of an artist

01:23:03 ◼   ► in San Francisco, and so she came up with this,

01:23:05 ◼   ► and she doesn't really plan to sell them right now.

01:23:07 ◼   ► She also makes a really good point.

01:23:09 ◼   ► It's just like, if I can get mask materials,

01:23:11 ◼   ► I'm gonna make them for people that need it right now.

01:23:14 ◼   ► But yeah, this works.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - I have to admit, I really feel like this whole thing is,

01:23:22 ◼   ► it's an exercise in empathy and examining your own biases.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I've been aware ever since Face ID first became

01:23:33 ◼   ► the replacement for Touch ID with the iPhone X,

01:23:36 ◼   ► now what, two and a half years ago,

01:23:38 ◼   ► that I'm certainly aware enough that in a lot of Asian countries, face mask wearing

01:23:49 ◼   ► in cold and flu season is common.

01:23:52 ◼   ► It's common as an allergen type thing.

01:23:57 ◼   ► It's considered polite if you yourself feel like you have a cold or something but not

01:24:03 ◼   ► sick enough that you want to stay home, that you wear a mask as a courtesy to others around

01:24:08 ◼   ► to lower the spreading.

01:24:10 ◼   ► I'm aware of that and I certainly,

01:24:17 ◼   ► I heard right from the get-go that,

01:24:19 ◼   ► hey, Face ID doesn't really work when you're wearing a mask

01:24:22 ◼   ► and people over here wear masks all the time.

01:24:25 ◼   ► And it wasn't that I dismissed it completely,

01:24:29 ◼   ► but I dismissed it as a concern to some degree

01:24:33 ◼   ► out of my own cultural bias,

01:24:35 ◼   ► where I sort of, and this,

01:24:39 ◼   ► I don't mean to sound dismissive,

01:24:42 ◼   ► but I'd sort of written off

01:24:44 ◼   ► the whole Asian face mask culture thing

01:24:46 ◼   ► as a bit of low-grade hypochondria.

01:24:50 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And it's,

01:24:54 ◼   ► just self-examining my own cultural bias,

01:24:56 ◼   ► it's like, hmm, now that I really think about it,

01:24:59 ◼   ► we're the ones who were wrong, clearly.

01:25:02 ◼   ► - For sure. - And as this,

01:25:04 ◼   ► this particular COVID-19 epidemic engulfed the world,

01:25:09 ◼   ► they must have been looking at how long it took us

01:25:14 ◼   ► in the US, in North America,

01:25:17 ◼   ► and in other European countries to start wearing masks

01:25:22 ◼   ► as though we were insane.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Because they could tell that surely wearing a mask

01:25:29 ◼   ► as you're out and about, however effective it is,

01:25:32 ◼   ► It has to be at least more effective

01:25:35 ◼   ► than not wearing a mask at all.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Even if it's 1% improvement,

01:25:39 ◼   ► it has to be some level of an improvement.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And everything that I've read about it

01:25:47 ◼   ► certainly suggests it's more effective than that.

01:25:50 ◼   ► We must have looked crazy going until the end of March

01:25:53 ◼   ► without doing it.

01:25:54 ◼   ► And now all of a sudden you look at Face ID

01:25:56 ◼   ► and you think, hmm, this is a problem.

01:25:59 ◼   ► And surely Apple must be considering this as well.

01:26:03 ◼   ► And as well as, I haven't actually tried it on my Pixel 4,

01:26:06 ◼   ► but Pixel has, the Pixel 4 has,

01:26:09 ◼   ► all sorts of other Android phones have--

01:26:11 ◼   ► - I tried it on the Samsung, I don't have the Pixel with me

01:26:13 ◼   ► and I did not wanna make a trip to the office for it

01:26:15 ◼   ► for this piece, so I had a Samsung here

01:26:17 ◼   ► and I had the same problem,

01:26:18 ◼   ► but it also wouldn't register with the mask on.

01:26:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't work as a second face.

01:26:26 ◼   ► 'Cause it needs more of your face to get,

01:26:29 ◼   ► some, you know, whatever it's doing for the idea.

01:26:31 ◼   ► And I will admit too, it's not just

01:26:33 ◼   ► Asian culture versus American culture.

01:26:36 ◼   ► I also got some very, at least,

01:26:40 ◼   ► it was a whole email thread,

01:26:42 ◼   ► but from a daring fireball reader

01:26:43 ◼   ► who's a surgeon here in America.

01:26:46 ◼   ► - Oh, this is in my piece, yeah, go on, but yeah.

01:26:48 ◼   ► - Well, and he wrote about it,

01:26:50 ◼   ► and he, you know, is an enthusiastic, you know,

01:26:53 ◼   ► obviously he's a daring fireball reader, he's into it,

01:26:56 ◼   ► and wrote me this whole thing about all the effort

01:26:58 ◼   ► he tried to get through to get his Face ID-powered,

01:27:01 ◼   ► you know, enabled phone to work with a surgical mask

01:27:04 ◼   ► and never really got a good,

01:27:06 ◼   ► it was like, ultimately came to the conclusion

01:27:08 ◼   ► that there's no good way to get this to work.

01:27:11 ◼   ► - No, I had the same exact experience.

01:27:12 ◼   ► So when I started doing some reporting on it,

01:27:15 ◼   ► that's what I started realizing.

01:27:16 ◼   ► And then I looked through my emails, I was like,

01:27:17 ◼   ► oh, this guy's a doctor.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And in the piece, in the written piece,

01:27:21 ◼   ► I mean, it kind of goes all over the place

01:27:23 ◼   ► 'cause there was a lot to cover

01:27:24 ◼   ► and there's only so many words I can convince my editors

01:27:27 ◼   ► about face ID and face masks right now.

01:27:29 ◼   ► But they've been dealing with this

01:27:32 ◼   ► in the medical community for years.

01:27:35 ◼   ► And one of the doctors I interviewed said,

01:27:39 ◼   ► right now more than ever, it's actually a very big problem.

01:27:42 ◼   ► And he walked me through why.

01:27:43 ◼   ► It was because if he's in the operating room,

01:27:47 ◼   ► and right now there's limited PPE,

01:27:49 ◼   ► there's really limited supplies for them.

01:27:51 ◼   ► He's in the operating room,

01:27:52 ◼   ► and this is something I realized too,

01:27:55 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago, my mom was in the hospital,

01:27:58 ◼   ► all of these hospitals run on phones at this point.

01:28:00 ◼   ► It was nuts to me, it was completely surprising to me

01:28:03 ◼   ► when I was with my mom there a couple of weeks ago.

01:28:06 ◼   ► And he says, "There's no pager system,

01:28:09 ◼   ► "there's no other way for another doctor in the hospital

01:28:11 ◼   ► "to get in touch with me, they have to text."

01:28:14 ◼   ► They use a, at this one, he specifically said,

01:28:16 ◼   ► "We use iPhones."

01:28:17 ◼   ► So if he's in the operating room,

01:28:19 ◼   ► or he's going into the cath lab or something,

01:28:21 ◼   ► he has to, he can't pull down his mask,

01:28:25 ◼   ► because right now that means he'd have to replace the mask

01:28:28 ◼   ► or make himself susceptible to other things in the room.

01:28:30 ◼   ► And so he doesn't want to pull down the mask

01:28:32 ◼   ► and he will also have gloves on

01:28:35 ◼   ► and doesn't want to contaminate the gloves.

01:28:36 ◼   ► So he often will ask the nurse or somebody else in the room,

01:28:39 ◼   ► they will tell them his password.

01:28:41 ◼   ► And then they have the password, they put it in,

01:28:44 ◼   ► and then he says he often changes his password.

01:28:47 ◼   ► I heard this from other people right now

01:28:50 ◼   ► in the medical community too,

01:28:51 ◼   ► because again, they don't wanna be taking on

01:28:53 ◼   ► and off the masks, and they don't wanna be touching

01:28:56 ◼   ► and contaminating more gloves and replacing the gloves.

01:28:59 ◼   ► - And again, outside the professional sphere,

01:29:04 ◼   ► there are more people now wearing gloves

01:29:07 ◼   ► as part of their personal protection going out.

01:29:11 ◼   ► I don't think it's as effective,

01:29:13 ◼   ► and I actually think that because of,

01:29:15 ◼   ► if you frequently wash your hands,

01:29:16 ◼   ► you might be better off just using your bare hands

01:29:19 ◼   ► and washing and using hand sanitizer very frequently.

01:29:22 ◼   ► But if you wanna wear gloves, you wear gloves,

01:29:24 ◼   ► but if you're wearing gloves and a mask,

01:29:26 ◼   ► you're no good with any of these

01:29:28 ◼   ► biometric authentication things.

01:29:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, in my piece, as you'll see,

01:29:33 ◼   ► the gloves work fine for putting your password in.

01:29:35 ◼   ► If you have rubber gloves,

01:29:36 ◼   ► it works completely fine on the touchscreen.

01:29:38 ◼   ► - Right, but it wouldn't work for Touch ID.

01:29:39 ◼   ► You're down to using the passcode.

01:29:43 ◼   ► - You're back to the passcode.

01:29:44 ◼   ► - Right, and it's funny because until,

01:29:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess about six months ago,

01:29:50 ◼   ► I just had a six digit numeric PIN number from my phone.

01:29:55 ◼   ► And at some point in one of these law enforcement

01:30:00 ◼   ► hacking into iPhone, like, oh,

01:30:04 ◼   ► and then there's this Israeli company that makes a device,

01:30:07 ◼   ► then they can go through, remember that,

01:30:10 ◼   ► and people were doing the math?

01:30:12 ◼   ► And they can't go through as many numbers as you think

01:30:15 ◼   ► because the security chip in the iPhone

01:30:20 ◼   ► that protects it only allows, at a technical level,

01:30:26 ◼   ► only allows like 12 attempts per second.

01:30:29 ◼   ► I think that's what it is.

01:30:32 ◼   ► 12, which sounds like a lot,

01:30:35 ◼   ► but when you really wanna go through

01:30:36 ◼   ► the total number of six-digit passcodes possible,

01:30:42 ◼   ► 12 per second isn't that great.

01:30:44 ◼   ► But if you increase to an alphanumeric one,

01:30:49 ◼   ► you don't need to have a crazy long password.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Like the way that you, the basic advice for how,

01:30:58 ◼   ► you're signing up for a new web experience

01:31:01 ◼   ► and you wanna create a strong password

01:31:03 ◼   ► and it's 27 characters long,

01:31:07 ◼   ► uppercase and lowercase and punctuation and numbers.

01:31:10 ◼   ► You don't need that with a phone to be very, very secure.

01:31:13 ◼   ► like a six or seven character password that uses just,

01:31:18 ◼   ► you know, could just be like all lowercase

01:31:22 ◼   ► and a punctuation character.

01:31:25 ◼   ► Just that number of characters puts you into like

01:31:29 ◼   ► 27 years on average to crack your phone

01:31:32 ◼   ► or something like that, or even longer.

01:31:34 ◼   ► So you don't need-- - So you changed it?