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505: A Mental Laxative

 

00:00:00   I know, I just gotta get on all on the same page and get the balls rolling.

00:00:03   Agreed. Love those balls.

00:00:05   See, if someone other than Marco edited the show, that little clip would be like at the

00:00:10   beginning or the end of the show. Oh, without question. Without question.

00:00:14   Just want to point that out.

00:00:16   So this Apple event kind of came out of nowhere? Like what?

00:00:20   It's not an event. We had an item in the notes that, you know, now is moved and should be deleted.

00:00:26   I'll go to that now, that was like,

00:00:27   oh rumor is that there won't be an October event,

00:00:30   it will just be a bunch of products

00:00:31   put out into the world through a press release,

00:00:34   but we never got to that topic and that's what happened.

00:00:37   So if you didn't see that topic down in the notes marker,

00:00:39   you might not have known this was happening.

00:00:41   I saw that you were doing something else

00:00:42   and when you came back online, you're like,

00:00:44   wow, new Apple products,

00:00:45   but everyone else knew it was happening.

00:00:46   - Yeah, that's literally what happened.

00:00:48   I was deep in work mode, which by the way,

00:00:50   it's going amazingly.

00:00:52   I decided to try this other product,

00:00:54   I mentioned last week that I was making this dumb little app

00:00:57   for sand drivers here to kind of share condition reports

00:01:01   with each other.

00:01:02   And so this is an app that's gonna be used

00:01:03   by maybe 15 people.

00:01:05   It's not like a major audience or business kind of thing.

00:01:09   However, I'm using it in part as a break from Overcast,

00:01:14   both to kind of regroup after a very difficult summer

00:01:17   of nothing working that I was doing

00:01:20   that was very demoralizing,

00:01:21   and also to help me learn all the new stuff.

00:01:26   Like this is, I'm doing everything in Swift,

00:01:28   Swift UI, and the new Swift concurrency stuff,

00:01:31   all the, you know, the async, everything.

00:01:34   And it is glorious.

00:01:37   Like, because what I'm making effectively

00:01:41   is the kind of app that is simple enough

00:01:45   that it's almost like the WBC video,

00:01:47   or like the example apps they make,

00:01:49   where like, it's like oh, I have this simple JSON list

00:01:53   that my web service is dumping out

00:01:54   and I have to show it like in a UI basically.

00:01:57   Like that's--

00:01:58   - They're a little fancy though, wasn't the food truck app?

00:01:59   I actually had a lot of screens and features this past year.

00:02:02   - Yeah, well and it turns out everything these days

00:02:04   have a lot of, like part of what I'm doing

00:02:06   requires location access and talk about like needing

00:02:10   some UI there, like to try to manage those permissions

00:02:13   and getting the user to understand what's going on,

00:02:15   especially because for it to work really well,

00:02:17   I want some people to use the always location access.

00:02:20   - Ooh, uh-oh. - And good luck.

00:02:21   That's a whole thing.

00:02:24   Apple really does not want you to do that

00:02:27   and they really make it difficult.

00:02:29   But anyway, which is probably for the best, honestly.

00:02:32   But anyways, so, but using SwiftUI

00:02:36   and doing all this stuff, using all the async stuff,

00:02:38   oh, it's finally coming together.

00:02:40   It's finally clicking.

00:02:41   My journey with both Swift itself

00:02:44   and certainly with SwiftUI and more recently

00:02:47   the Async stuff that I barely have used yet,

00:02:50   it really has felt like,

00:02:52   I was gonna say starting a car in fifth gear, but--

00:02:56   - That's not at all what you mean.

00:02:57   I know what you mean, but that's not what you mean.

00:02:59   - That metaphor is difficult in part

00:03:01   because my start was even slower,

00:03:04   and in part because I don't even know

00:03:06   how many gears modern cars have.

00:03:08   - Oh, God.

00:03:09   - When fifth was the highest gear,

00:03:11   it's like starting a car in fifth gear.

00:03:13   And that was back when engines sucked too.

00:03:14   And so they were not very powerful.

00:03:16   And unless you had a fairly hefty grunt there,

00:03:19   that was fairly difficult to do.

00:03:21   That's not to say I never did it,

00:03:23   but just a bit as you start out really slow

00:03:27   and maybe you stall a few times,

00:03:29   but eventually if you keep at it,

00:03:31   you can build up quite some speed.

00:03:34   It takes a long time.

00:03:35   But anyway, that's how I started all this stuff.

00:03:38   and by hopping out briefly of my massive legacy code base

00:03:43   and just trying something brand new from scratch,

00:03:47   the way we should be doing it now at the most modern way,

00:03:52   oh my god, it really got everything moving.

00:03:54   - It's funny you used to that.

00:03:55   - It's like a mental laxative for developer block.

00:03:58   Like it's just, everything's moving now.

00:04:00   I'm on a roll, I'm super, I'm happy.

00:04:05   I think part of the reason I was so miserable all summer

00:04:08   and first half of fall so far is because everything

00:04:10   I'm doing with Overcast recently has just not worked.

00:04:12   And I used to tell people, whenever people ask me,

00:04:16   hey, should I be a programmer or could I be a programmer,

00:04:19   the gist of what I always say is, look,

00:04:22   programming is a bunch of frustration

00:04:27   and hitting your head against the wall,

00:04:28   followed by making something and something working.

00:04:32   and the satisfaction of that, of like when it works,

00:04:36   has to be motivating enough to you

00:04:38   to make all the other stuff worth it,

00:04:40   to make the road to get there,

00:04:41   banging your head against the wall,

00:04:42   being frustrated by weird bugs

00:04:44   or weird compiler errors or whatever.

00:04:47   The process of getting there,

00:04:49   the payoff needs to make all that worthwhile.

00:04:53   And for like the last six months,

00:04:54   I've been on the wrong end of that ratio.

00:04:57   I've been putting so much work in to server-side stuff

00:05:02   that didn't go anywhere, clients had ideas

00:05:03   that didn't go anywhere, clients had stuff

00:05:05   that took longer than I thought it would

00:05:06   'cause it was using old code.

00:05:07   There have been so much, just to mix a whole bunch

00:05:11   more metaphors, like grinding my gears

00:05:13   and just generally not getting anywhere

00:05:17   and not ever getting that payoff of things working nicely

00:05:21   and things being done.

00:05:23   And so to take a week to do this thing,

00:05:26   to help out my local community and myself here

00:05:29   in some small way, that has some value.

00:05:33   But the greater value to me is that it's basically

00:05:36   unfreezing my mental block.

00:05:38   And it's like, it's a good fix for my developer depression

00:05:43   like over the last few months of just like,

00:05:45   let me get something that actually works.

00:05:47   I'm a programmer, like I need that.

00:05:49   And I haven't felt like a programmer recently.

00:05:51   And this has made me feel like a programmer

00:05:53   and I'm very happy about that.

00:05:55   Even though it's a dumb little app that is not gonna have

00:05:57   lot of obvious value, but it has quite a lot of knock-on effect value for me.

00:06:02   No, I think that's extremely important, and, you know, I have not had near the slog that

00:06:06   you have with Overcast, but I've been fiddling with something new over the last couple of

00:06:11   weeks and similarly, like, I'm not leaving behind this, like, legacy codebase like Overcast

00:06:16   is, you know, neither of my codebases are particularly old, but I don't know, I wanted

00:06:20   to scratch an itch and try something and I've been working on this new thing and it's using

00:06:24   APIs, like Apple APIs, but APIs that I've not really used before, including a little

00:06:30   bit of AV Foundation, so I feel like I'm suddenly Marco Jr. over here. But no, it is really

00:06:37   refreshing to get a clean slate, and I feel like with every piece of code I write, I learn

00:06:42   a little something and I get a little bit better, and I make more mistakes, but then

00:06:46   I learn from them usually. And so every time I write something new, I feel, usually I feel

00:06:53   proud of that new thing and I see where I've improved in my craft, which is really valuable.

00:07:01   We don't need to belabor this because we have a lot to talk about, but out of curiosity,

00:07:05   what are you thinking about the async stuff? Because I don't feel like I'm great at it,

00:07:11   but I do like it. And I kind of especially like that I can intermingle combine and async

00:07:17   if I so choose, which I usually don't for the record, but there are some affordances

00:07:23   to going back and forth between the two.

00:07:25   How are you enjoying it, and are you,

00:07:27   when you say you're using async stuff,

00:07:28   are you simply using APIs that Apple's exposing,

00:07:32   or are you doing checked continuations

00:07:34   and checked throwing continuations

00:07:35   and the whole rigmarole in making your own async streams?

00:07:38   - Mostly Apple's, some of, I've made a couple of my own,

00:07:42   basically to get around Apple APIs

00:07:44   that don't yet offer async calls.

00:07:45   - Yeah, it's so frustrating.

00:07:46   I understand it, but it's so frustrating.

00:07:48   - Yeah, requesting location permission

00:07:50   is one of those things where you have to request permission,

00:07:52   then you have to wait for a delegate call

00:07:54   to come back to you.

00:07:54   And it's like, and yeah, it's like,

00:07:57   I know this stuff is all very, very new.

00:07:58   I'll give Apple a pass for a while.

00:08:00   I really hope in the coming years,

00:08:03   all of that gets wrappers around it

00:08:05   that make it async compatible.

00:08:07   Because, oh my god, it's so nice when that's there.

00:08:10   Like for the few APIs that do offer that,

00:08:12   oh man, it's nice.

00:08:13   And so to answer your, the first question,

00:08:15   how am I liking it?

00:08:17   So far, I don't have yet a great understanding

00:08:21   of what's happening.

00:08:22   like of how some of these things were implemented.

00:08:24   - Me neither.

00:08:24   - And so I wanna go back and rewatch,

00:08:26   like you know, back when it was announced,

00:08:28   I watched the W2C sessions on it and everything,

00:08:30   but that was not only, not only was that like what,

00:08:33   two years ago now, but also I hadn't used it yet.

00:08:36   And so the information didn't stick as well.

00:08:39   Now that I've used it some, and I've seen how it behaves,

00:08:42   I'm getting a feel for how it works,

00:08:44   now is a good time for me to go and watch,

00:08:47   not only the intro talks, but to watch all of the talks

00:08:49   that have been on Swift Concurrency so far,

00:08:51   to just learn some of those details of,

00:08:53   okay, well when I do this, this, and this,

00:08:55   what threads is it gonna be called on,

00:08:57   or what's gonna wait for what,

00:08:58   and what happens when this thing throws

00:09:00   an exception and whatever else,

00:09:02   and so there are all those little implementation details

00:09:05   that I really feel more comfortable when I know them,

00:09:09   even though you don't necessarily need to.

00:09:10   I mean, I'm using it right now and not knowing them,

00:09:13   but that's the kind of programmer I am,

00:09:16   is I like to understand everything

00:09:17   that's happening below the surface.

00:09:19   You don't usually need to know that deep of the knowledge,

00:09:22   but sometimes you do.

00:09:24   And yeah, I kind of prep myself on that, so anyway.

00:09:27   So I'm really enjoying it and it's making me,

00:09:30   I came to a realization, I talked a little bit about it

00:09:33   on Under the Radar last week.

00:09:35   It's a very good episode if you find yourself ever

00:09:37   like in a slump motivationally or things like that.

00:09:40   But I found myself realizing like,

00:09:43   the more time I spend in Xcode versus other apps,

00:09:49   like TextMate, Terminal, the web browser,

00:09:51   like Xcode is my happy place.

00:09:55   I wanna rearrange my priorities and such

00:09:58   so that I can increase the amount of time

00:10:01   I spend in Xcode and decrease the amount of time

00:10:03   I spend doing other types of work for apps.

00:10:07   And so that means less server work, less web stuff,

00:10:11   less running my own backends.

00:10:12   I'm still gonna have to run them,

00:10:13   but run less complicated ones that need less input from me,

00:10:18   possibly using semantic services, but you know,

00:10:21   that's, I need to get to a place where I'm doing

00:10:24   more Xcode time because this past summer,

00:10:28   I would sometimes go a week without even opening Xcode.

00:10:31   Like that, it was that bad.

00:10:34   This is not where I wanna be.

00:10:35   I also, I've gotten to the point now,

00:10:38   and I hate to say it, but I've finally gotten

00:10:40   to the point now where I really don't want

00:10:43   to work on Objective-C code, first of all,

00:10:47   But not only that, I don't wanna work on UIKit anymore.

00:10:51   - Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

00:10:53   I'm right there with you.

00:10:54   I can go on quite a rant and quite a terrace,

00:10:57   I'm sure you could as well,

00:10:58   about how much of a pain in the hindquarters SwiftUI can be.

00:11:02   But golly, it's hard not to look at it and say,

00:11:06   well, yeah, this is probably the future.

00:11:07   Like, you know, there are warts, there are blemishes,

00:11:11   there are pimples, there are zits,

00:11:12   but all told, it's clearly the direction

00:11:16   that I would like to walk, whether or not Apple wants us to.

00:11:19   I think you could still make an argument one way or the other,

00:11:21   although certainly the party line is they do want you to walk that way.

00:11:23   But I really think that SwiftUI has so much potential,

00:11:30   and if Apple really does keep cranking on it,

00:11:33   I really think it could be quite incredible.

00:11:34   It will mean that things will be different for the developers,

00:11:39   they will potentially be different for users,

00:11:41   but nevertheless, I really think it is impressive.

00:11:44   It's the same with the async stuff, right?

00:11:45   Like, I think the async stuff is more solid so far,

00:11:50   but I really like where this is going,

00:11:52   and I really like when all these things work together

00:11:57   and just click, and it's such a refreshing experience

00:12:00   and so lovely, and I really can't wait

00:12:04   for both of them to get better.

00:12:06   And I mean, coincidentally, this thing that I'm working on

00:12:08   that may or may not ever see the light of day,

00:12:11   you know, I'm using Location Manager,

00:12:12   and so what did I have to do?

00:12:13   I had to wrap the CL location manager,

00:12:15   give it an async API.

00:12:16   And I would have talked to you about this

00:12:18   had I realized you were working on it,

00:12:19   which I've actually come to think of it,

00:12:20   I think you might have mentioned this

00:12:21   and I should have thought about it.

00:12:22   But anyways, maybe we could have worked together

00:12:26   for a hot 30 seconds until we both decided

00:12:28   we wanted to do it our own way

00:12:29   and then turned our backs on each other.

00:12:31   But nevertheless, I want there to be more robust

00:12:35   async/await support in more APIs.

00:12:38   I want more control in SwiftUI

00:12:40   and more ways of doing the things that I wanna do,

00:12:43   or simpler ways of doing the things that I wanna do.

00:12:46   But golly, when it really is working well,

00:12:49   when you're not bumping up against

00:12:50   one of the many, many, many walls,

00:12:53   it is so nice, it's just so, so nice.

00:12:55   - Yeah, and I'm getting, you know,

00:12:57   like when you're dealing with

00:12:58   a very opinionated, prickly situation,

00:13:03   like Swift, like App Review,

00:13:05   there's a lot of these that,

00:13:10   again, it's like a starting in fifth year kind of thing.

00:13:13   It's really hard to get going from nothing

00:13:16   because you hit every single sharp edge there is,

00:13:19   you hit every single spike,

00:13:21   you hit every single opinionated wall,

00:13:23   and a lot of times in ways that are very frustrating

00:13:25   and that don't make sense with error messages

00:13:26   or anything like that.

00:13:27   And so this is how SwiftUI has been for me,

00:13:31   but now I'm getting really fast at it.

00:13:34   And I'm getting to the point where I,

00:13:38   And I keep hitting instances where I know how to do

00:13:42   the thing I wanna do in UIKit, and I know that it's a slog,

00:13:46   and I just did it in SwiftUI in 30 seconds.

00:13:48   - Yep. - And I'm hitting

00:13:50   so many of those now.

00:13:52   There are still areas where it's still a buggy mess,

00:13:56   and it's very difficult to use.

00:13:58   For instance, complex navigation hierarchies,

00:14:01   it's still crappy at that.

00:14:03   And someday it might get better, I hope it does.

00:14:05   But that's still tough for it.

00:14:07   However, there are fewer and fewer areas

00:14:12   where you shouldn't use SwiftUI.

00:14:14   And over time, that's going to shrink.

00:14:16   And Apple is going to keep telling us UIKit is not

00:14:20   going anywhere.

00:14:22   In the same way, they're saying you can still use VST.

00:14:24   You can.

00:14:25   You can still use UIKit.

00:14:27   You can still do these things.

00:14:28   However, it is very clear to me how many years

00:14:32   have I been using UIKit since 2008.

00:14:36   So a 14-year veteran of UIKit?

00:14:40   It's extremely clear to me that there

00:14:44   are lots of capabilities being added to the frameworks

00:14:47   that you can only do in SwiftUI, even within UIKit kind

00:14:51   of areas, things like, how do you

00:14:54   put this kind of thing in a navigation bar,

00:14:57   but I want the text to be over here?

00:14:59   I keep hitting stuff like that where

00:15:00   I know how to do it in UIKit, and it

00:15:03   takes a whole bunch of hacks or a huge amount

00:15:05   configuration and huge amount of code.

00:15:07   Or there are certain things that I know

00:15:10   really aren't possible to do in UIKit

00:15:12   without rewriting the whole control from scratch,

00:15:14   and SwiftUI lets me do it in two lines.

00:15:17   So I'm seeing now, there's so many areas

00:15:20   where I'm using SwiftUI and I'm hitting things

00:15:23   that I know I couldn't do either at all

00:15:26   or without a whole bunch of work in UIKit

00:15:28   that just happened in SwiftUI.

00:15:30   And so it's to the point now where I had to adjust

00:15:33   something in UIKit, I forget what it was,

00:15:35   and it felt like writing assembly code

00:15:38   compared to what I've been doing.

00:15:40   It's like, what, I have to do everything.

00:15:43   Why do I need to do all this?

00:15:44   This is so clunky.

00:15:46   And yeah, so, SwiftUI, I don't think SwiftUI is the future.

00:15:52   It's the present.

00:15:54   It is here now, and I think that anybody

00:15:58   who is making iPhone apps in particular, or iPad,

00:16:03   iOS apps, we'll get to that, but this whole thing

00:16:07   we're calling iPad OS its own thing, okay, it's iOS.

00:16:10   Anybody who's making iOS apps,

00:16:13   you need to be using SwiftUI.

00:16:14   If you want your skills to be modern

00:16:17   and to have a strong future, you need to be using SwiftUI.

00:16:21   That's it, UIKit is on its way out.

00:16:24   I'm telling you, it is very obvious when you use SwiftUI,

00:16:27   oh, this is where the work is going.

00:16:29   and UIKit is not, you know, that's,

00:16:31   UIKit's clearly in maintenance/legacy teams mode

00:16:36   because there's still a huge amount of UIKit code out there

00:16:40   and there will be for decades, you know,

00:16:41   so they have to maintain it.

00:16:43   But that's not where the effort's going.

00:16:44   The effort's going into SwiftUI.

00:16:46   And when it comes to Apple,

00:16:48   you wanna be where the effort's going.

00:16:49   Like, you don't wanna be where they're in maintenance mode.

00:16:53   They don't often put a lot of resources into that, you know.

00:16:56   So you want to generally be where the maintenance is going.

00:16:59   I think what I want to do now is really

00:17:04   take Overcast very strongly into the present day,

00:17:08   code-wise and API-wise, and to some degree design-wise

00:17:11   as well.

00:17:12   I was happy with the redesign that I did last winter.

00:17:17   I need to go further with that, much further.

00:17:19   And I need to rewrite vast swaths of the app in SwiftUI.

00:17:24   and vast swaths of the underlying code

00:17:29   in Swift and Swift async and possibly CloudKit.

00:17:34   That's the direction I need to go

00:17:35   because if I stay where I am, I'm stuck, I can't go anywhere.

00:17:38   I'm so burdened by my huge amount of complex legacy code,

00:17:43   I need to start the very long and initially painful process

00:17:49   of modernizing it all.

00:17:50   But the good thing is I think at the end,

00:17:52   I'll be in a much better place

00:17:53   and it will have a much better future.

00:17:55   Because frankly, getting a little bigger picture here,

00:17:57   I don't want to sell this app and go do something else.

00:18:01   I wanna keep working on this app, I like it.

00:18:04   I still use it, it's still a great business.

00:18:06   I don't want someone else to take it and mess it up.

00:18:08   I haven't had great experiences with selling stuff

00:18:11   and having it be working out well for me.

00:18:14   So I wanna just keep this.

00:18:17   I want this to be kind of my long-term thing.

00:18:19   And as an app monogamist, I guess,

00:18:22   a serial app monogamous, like you were saying,

00:18:25   Casey, a few minutes ago, how fun it is

00:18:27   to do something brand new and to see,

00:18:29   oh, this is how I would do it if I was doing it new.

00:18:31   Well, when your job is basically you have one app

00:18:34   and you stick with that app for five to 10 years,

00:18:37   you hardly ever get to do that.

00:18:38   You hardly ever get to do things the new way

00:18:41   or rewrite things from scratch.

00:18:42   That's almost never on the table

00:18:44   when that's the way you work.

00:18:46   If there was some hot new thing I wanted to do,

00:18:49   this is the time in my life where I would just go do that.

00:18:52   But there isn't, I wanna still do this.

00:18:54   I just wanna do it like, you know, well and modern

00:18:57   and you know, get myself moving again.

00:18:59   So that's what I'm gonna do.

00:19:02   - I don't know, it's funny too because even though

00:19:05   the apps that are already in the app store for me

00:19:08   are not that big and they make a little bit of money

00:19:11   but it's not, you know, it's not overcast money

00:19:13   and I don't mean that to be flippant, I'm being genuine.

00:19:16   But even still, when I work on this new thing,

00:19:19   That may or may not ever be a real app.

00:19:22   I can't help but feel guilty

00:19:23   that I'm leaving my existing kids to wither.

00:19:28   And yet I feel like in ways

00:19:31   that you articulated very eloquently

00:19:33   that sometimes you just need that.

00:19:35   You need that distraction.

00:19:36   You need that to rev your engine

00:19:39   and to get yourself just cruising again.

00:19:41   And as we beat these carnal Gs to death.

00:19:44   But no, I agree with you.

00:19:47   And even though I feel guilty,

00:19:49   I figure, you know, I'll give myself a little bit more time with this and if I hit a wall where I'm really like, oh

00:19:54   This is just this is just not worth it. Then that's my answer, you know, and then then that's that's that

00:20:00   But if I continue and next thing I know I'm releasing this to the App Store then hey, that's awesome

00:20:05   There's nothing wrong with that either

00:20:06   So we'll see but uh, but I am I'm also having fun right now and I don't want to lose that momentum

00:20:12   And I hope you don't either

00:20:14   Now real time ish follow up

00:20:16   The modern Corvette c7 modern 911s last I checked seven speed manual transmissions most cars still six speeds though

00:20:23   Okay, so starting in seventh gear. All right

00:20:25   And it's totally different for automatics, which now have like 12 years

00:20:28   Oh and and to answer hey you DVD in the chat

00:20:31   Hey, you DVD asks

00:20:32   Is there a way to have the smart speed settings and overcast?

00:20:35   Detect when music is playing and automatically switch to 1x and then resume the factor speed when talking resumes or is it a difficult problem to?

00:20:42   Solve well, hey you DVD

00:20:45   Now I'm announcing for the very first time,

00:20:47   this is one of those features that I've tried to do

00:20:50   over the last few years and have failed to do.

00:20:52   This is something that I have put

00:20:54   a significant amount of time into.

00:20:55   In fact, when I briefly mentioned that,

00:21:01   when I talked about the 16 inch

00:21:03   and how I've only heard the fans spin up once,

00:21:05   and it was because I was stressing the CPU and GPU

00:21:08   for multiple hours, what I was doing was training a model

00:21:12   to detect music versus speech.

00:21:13   That's what that was.

00:21:14   I gave it a huge amount of samples

00:21:17   that I pulled from podcasts everywhere

00:21:18   and was detecting music versus speech

00:21:20   and this massive amount of data

00:21:22   and it was churning on that

00:21:23   trying to generate an ML model to do that.

00:21:26   And the answer is yes, it is possible to detect music.

00:21:30   It is not, it doesn't work as well as I want it to

00:21:34   and there are a lot of limitations

00:21:36   and a lot of costs to doing it

00:21:38   that I'm not yet willing to bear for it,

00:21:42   for the quality that I was able to achieve.

00:21:44   So maybe in the future, if I get it to work better

00:21:46   and to have fewer downsides, yeah, I'd love to do that.

00:21:50   But I'm not there yet, and I don't know

00:21:51   if I'll ever get there.

00:21:52   But that's one of the many things that I have tried to do

00:21:54   and it just didn't work.

00:21:56   - Yeah, I remember you talked about that privately with us

00:21:58   and I still do admire the lengths you were going through

00:22:03   in order to try to get this to work,

00:22:05   but I don't blame you for not only getting frustrated by it,

00:22:07   but putting it aside as well.

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00:24:10   uh...

00:24:14   those they are much longer pre-show than i think any of the three of us

00:24:17   intended that's okay i think that was valuable

00:24:19   uh... but we should file through some follow up before we get to the meat of

00:24:21   the episode and let's start with apple t_v_'s match contents

00:24:26   uh... which by the way i tried i had it off and i tried it very briefly

00:24:30   and by turned it on and i forgive me i don't remember the exact settings

00:24:34   scissors like sub settings or whatever

00:24:35   i think it's turned it fall on

00:24:38   and

00:24:38   Literally that very day, like an hour later,

00:24:42   Declan came running out, I think I was on the screen,

00:24:44   and Porsche came running out.

00:24:46   Dad, dad, dad, something's wrong with the TV.

00:24:48   It's going black like a lot.

00:24:51   Like, anytime I do anything, it goes black for a long time.

00:24:53   It's like, huh, oh, I bet I know what that is.

00:24:56   And so I turned it right back off.

00:24:58   Just, it was on for like three hours.

00:25:00   And I decided it was not for me.

00:25:02   But that's just my experience.

00:25:04   I know you should probably listen to Jon,

00:25:05   'cause Jon actually knows what he's talking about.

00:25:06   But tell me about HDMI QMS, Jon.

00:25:10   - Yeah, so the black screen thing is one of the big downsides.

00:25:12   I warned everybody about it, but now people are trying it

00:25:14   and they're like, "You weren't kidding."

00:25:16   - The screen goes black between doing stuff.

00:25:18   - Yeah, it does.

00:25:18   And the analogy I made was to, you know,

00:25:21   when we got the ARM-based Macs and all of a sudden

00:25:24   changing screen resolution was like instant

00:25:26   and plugging in an external monitor was like instant

00:25:28   as compared to the Intel days when your screen

00:25:30   would go black for a while and then it would come back in

00:25:32   at the new resolution.

00:25:33   It's like we need that to happen in the television world.

00:25:37   There is actually a subpart of the HDMI 2.1A spec,

00:25:42   a feature called quick media switching

00:25:44   that is trying to address this problem.

00:25:47   Unfortunately, it does it by leveraging VRR,

00:25:51   variable refresh rate,

00:25:52   because the variable refresh rate lets things like games,

00:25:55   like not be at a fixed refresh,

00:25:57   not have the television not be at a fixed refresh rate.

00:25:59   So the television doesn't say,

00:26:00   I'm going to show you 30 new pictures every second.

00:26:02   The television instead is kind of led by the game and saying,

00:26:05   hey game, when you've got a new frame, give it to me,

00:26:07   and then I, the television, will display it.

00:26:08   I'm not gonna be on this regimented schedule.

00:26:11   I will vary my frame rate based on, you know,

00:26:13   so it's good for games.

00:26:14   Well, that same feature, as you can imagine,

00:26:16   could be used to seamlessly change the frame rate

00:26:19   when going from, say, a 60 hertz Apple TV menu screen

00:26:23   to a 29.97 hertz television show

00:26:28   that you're watching on Netflix

00:26:30   or something like that, right?

00:26:31   Why have the screen go black?

00:26:32   why not just use VRR to change the frame rate?

00:26:34   That's what QMS does, but there are caveats.

00:26:37   The first one is that it's part of the HDMI 2.1A spec

00:26:41   and like everything in HDMI 2.1, it's optional.

00:26:44   So you're a thing that says HDMI 2.1 somewhere in the specs,

00:26:47   maybe it doesn't have this feature.

00:26:49   Second thing is this thing works only as long

00:26:52   as the resolution remains the same.

00:26:54   So the only thing that can change is the frame rate, right?

00:26:58   I don't know because I haven't tested this.

00:27:00   I don't know if that also encompasses SDR versus HDR.

00:27:05   I imagine that's also excluded because the sentence,

00:27:08   again, I'll read it right from the spec,

00:27:09   as long as the resolution remains the same

00:27:11   and only the frame rate changes.

00:27:13   Well, changing from SDR to HDR,

00:27:15   I would say that counts as not only the frame rate changing,

00:27:18   but still it can help in those cases.

00:27:21   Another caveat,

00:27:22   both devices have to support this optional feature.

00:27:25   So the Apple TV has to support it,

00:27:26   which I'm pretty sure it doesn't,

00:27:28   and your television or your receiver

00:27:30   or would ever have to support it.

00:27:31   So you have to have both ends of it.

00:27:32   It could be added to devices through a firmware update

00:27:35   according to this fact that we'll link in the show notes.

00:27:37   So there is some hope that you might not have

00:27:39   to buy new devices, but if the thing you have

00:27:41   doesn't even support HDMI 2.1, which is common

00:27:43   for a lot of people's older setups,

00:27:45   then you can forget about it.

00:27:46   I kind of wish they had reached a little farther

00:27:51   for the stars here and say,

00:27:52   "We're gonna solve this problem, but only for frame rate."

00:27:55   Well, you know HDR and SDR are a thing,

00:27:57   and I feel like that is the main time,

00:27:59   The most difficult decision I have in choosing

00:28:02   what the settings are is going forward,

00:28:05   I would imagine there will be more and more HDR content

00:28:08   'cause HDR content looks better than SDR content.

00:28:11   It's what I'm looking for in my fancy new TV.

00:28:14   The best they can do is show me 4K HDR content,

00:28:18   but there's stuff that's just 4K in SDR.

00:28:20   There's stuff that's 1080p in SDR,

00:28:22   all the way down the line.

00:28:23   So I would imagine over time, it'll be more and more HDR.

00:28:27   And that's why I run the UI on my Apple TV

00:28:32   in 4K Dolby Vision.

00:28:35   Like just the little thing with the little rectangles.

00:28:36   I run that in 4K Dolby Vision,

00:28:38   which just like, it doesn't make any sense.

00:28:39   Like there's no HDR content on the menu screen.

00:28:42   Like why are you even doing that?

00:28:43   I'm doing that because I hope against hope

00:28:46   that I can go from the 4K HDR menu

00:28:50   right into 4K HDR content.

00:28:52   And it won't have to black out the screen

00:28:54   because nothing changes.

00:28:55   In practice, I can tell you that rarely happens, if ever,

00:28:59   because maybe just the way the Apple TV

00:29:00   does the app launching where it always blacks it out

00:29:02   or whatever, that's what I'm hoping will happen.

00:29:04   So anyway, keep your fingers crossed

00:29:06   for seven years from now when HDMI QMS quick media syncing

00:29:11   is available on all our devices.

00:29:13   Another thing people sent me in response to this

00:29:16   was that the YouTube app,

00:29:17   apparently if you watch the YouTube app on your Apple TV

00:29:20   and you don't have like whatever the hell it's called

00:29:22   where you don't see ads in YouTube,

00:29:24   honestly, I don't even know what that is

00:29:25   I've been paying for it for years.

00:29:26   If you see ads on YouTube, every time YouTube plays an ad,

00:29:30   blacks out the screen.

00:29:31   Because the ads are a different frame rate or resolution

00:29:33   or HDR than the video.

00:29:35   And it's just maddening.

00:29:36   It's impossible to use.

00:29:37   You can't keep match content on if you use YouTube TV

00:29:41   or whatever to actually watch stuff.

00:29:44   Can you imagine every commercial bracket blacked out?

00:29:46   It's ridiculous, right?

00:29:48   And on that front, if you just can't run it

00:29:51   because the blackouts are too much

00:29:52   because you have a kid who will not deal with the blackouts.

00:29:54   and I don't blame you, I put up with it

00:29:56   because I want the best of the best,

00:29:57   I don't want it to be cleaned straight through

00:29:58   and have everything match up,

00:29:59   I can tolerate the black screen for two seconds,

00:30:01   I'm also not channel surfing or going from app to app,

00:30:04   I'm watching one show, it's fine.

00:30:06   Most modern TVs will actually undo the damage done

00:30:11   by trying to watch 24 frames per second content

00:30:14   in a 60 hertz thing, right?

00:30:15   So what happens is you put your Apple TV in whatever,

00:30:19   in 60 hertz, right?

00:30:20   And it's just locked there all the time.

00:30:23   And then even when you watch a movie,

00:30:24   it sends 60 hertz signals to the television

00:30:28   filled with janky 24 frames per second video

00:30:31   where some frames are displayed longer than other frames.

00:30:35   So it sends that gross signal to the television.

00:30:37   And then the television says,

00:30:39   "Well, I've got a 60 hertz video signal talking to me."

00:30:41   But it like looks at the image and says,

00:30:44   "Yeah, this is 60 hertz, but it looks kinda like,

00:30:47   it seems kinda like it's actually 24 frame per second

00:30:50   content where some frames are being shown longer than others

00:30:52   So I'll fix that for you.

00:30:53   And basically it takes the incoming frames,

00:30:56   batches them up into batches.

00:30:57   Okay, so these three 60 hertz frames

00:31:00   look like one frame because nothing changed.

00:31:01   Then these two 60 hertz frames look like nothing changed.

00:31:03   So these are a frame.

00:31:04   And then it basically shows 24 frames per second

00:31:07   by de-janking your content.

00:31:09   Like it's called judder, auto de-judder.

00:31:12   So we'll put a link into the Artings article

00:31:13   where Artings when they rate television

00:31:15   tells you whether your television can do this or not.

00:31:19   Obviously me with my empathy for the machine thinks

00:31:21   this is awful.

00:31:22   Why would I send a screwed up signal to my TV?

00:31:25   And let my TV use video processing to unscrew it up.

00:31:28   Why don't I just send the TV 24 frames every second?

00:31:30   And that's why I turn on match content

00:31:32   and that's why I recommend it.

00:31:33   But if you really can't stand the black screen,

00:31:35   check out this RTINGS link,

00:31:36   see if your television can de-judger it.

00:31:39   And if your television can't,

00:31:40   what you'll see is,

00:31:42   like there's a little hitch in the movement.

00:31:43   You'll see it mostly like in slow panning shots or whatever,

00:31:45   but it shows certain frames for longer than other frames.

00:31:48   And it's, you know, if you're not sensitive to it,

00:31:50   maybe you'll never notice,

00:31:51   but I notice and I don't like it.

00:31:53   So there you have it.

00:31:55   I still recommend the match content.

00:31:56   - It's John Sirkius' story.

00:31:58   - Yeah, and also the, so I was gonna ask you Casey,

00:32:00   but it seems like you can't remember

00:32:01   and I haven't looked at it recently.

00:32:02   I think there are two settings.

00:32:03   One is do you want me to match the frame rate?

00:32:05   And the de-jutter thing will fix that for you.

00:32:08   But the other one is, do you want me to match HDR versus SDR?

00:32:12   - I believe you are correct.

00:32:13   And I didn't spend the time to piddle about

00:32:16   and figure out which one was the more offensive one.

00:32:19   if one was the real issue.

00:32:21   - Well, I can tell you which one

00:32:23   is definitely more offensive.

00:32:24   So the frame rate thing the TV can save you from,

00:32:27   but HDR versus SDR, if you don't have that turned on,

00:32:31   then I think bad things will happen no matter what.

00:32:33   Because if you have it just set to SDR

00:32:35   and you try to watch a show that's supposed to be in HDR,

00:32:37   best case, you'll just miss out on the HDR,

00:32:39   which is crappy.

00:32:40   Like you pay for an HDR TV, don't like never see HDR content

00:32:44   because you have Apple TV stuck into SDR, right?

00:32:47   But worst case, it will try to show it in HDR,

00:32:50   or the TV will think it's getting an HDR signal,

00:32:52   but it could be really messed up

00:32:54   and your picture will be all screwed up, right?

00:32:56   So I think match HDR versus SDR,

00:32:58   you kinda have to turn that on.

00:33:00   And if you try to do it the other way,

00:33:02   I'm gonna force everything into HDR.

00:33:03   That will also screw up all your SDR content.

00:33:05   So really, I think that one is the one

00:33:07   that no television, I don't think there's anything

00:33:10   that the television can do to save you from it.

00:33:11   You really need to watch HDR content in HDR.

00:33:14   How much SDR content in HDR?

00:33:15   The frame rate, the television can try to save you

00:33:17   from using image processing, but it's kind of gross.

00:33:20   - So I'm talking straight out of my keyster

00:33:21   'cause I don't have an Apple TV in the room I'm in

00:33:23   and I don't have a TV that I can see from where I'm sitting.

00:33:25   - Have you heard our show before, Casey?

00:33:27   - Fair, fair.

00:33:29   If you're interested in talking out of our keysters,

00:33:31   then let me tell you about neutral.

00:33:33   But anyways, my recollection is that I had everything off

00:33:37   when I arrived at the setting after we spoke last week.

00:33:41   Again, I could be lying by accident,

00:33:42   but I had everything off.

00:33:43   And I can tell you that all the video content that I have been watching on this Apple TV

00:33:47   4K for the last year or so, it all looked correct.

00:33:52   Now maybe I wasn't getting HDR when I thought I was.

00:33:56   As we all know of the three of us, I have probably the least discerning eye for this

00:33:59   sort of thing.

00:34:00   But I can tell you that when I watch Dolby Vision content on my LG C9, it shows a little

00:34:06   Dolby Vision icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen for a couple seconds

00:34:09   when it goes into what I presume to be the Dolby Vision mode.

00:34:13   And when I watch something on like Disney Plus, for example, that I know should be Dolby

00:34:18   Vision, it shows up as Dolby Vision on the television.

00:34:23   And that's not an Apple TV thing as far as I'm aware.

00:34:26   That's the actual television showing that.

00:34:28   So even if I'm in the fully off match content mode, it appears that it is doing something

00:34:36   to give me the Dolby Vision stuff that I'm asking for when I'm asking for it.

00:34:39   Does that make sense?

00:34:40   - Yeah, if you look in the Apple TV interface,

00:34:42   it has this weird, I don't know if it's an Apple TV

00:34:45   distinction or something else,

00:34:45   like it's not just the Apple TV,

00:34:48   some televisions do this distinguishing

00:34:49   between Dolby Vision and HDR,

00:34:51   which sounds dumb, you're like,

00:34:52   aren't they both, isn't Dolby Vision just a kind of HDR?

00:34:54   It is, the other standard, the competing standard is HDR 10

00:34:58   and there's also HDR 10 plus,

00:34:59   but very often Dolby Vision is treated--

00:35:01   - Is it pronounced HDR X?

00:35:02   - Yeah, very often Dolby Vision is treated

00:35:06   as a separate thing, so Dolby Vision may be excluded

00:35:09   from the like match HDR versus SDR

00:35:11   because it'd be like, well, forget about HDR and SDR.

00:35:13   This is Dolby Vision

00:35:14   and we're always just gonna send this through.

00:35:15   So I don't know the details

00:35:16   and obviously it varies by television as well

00:35:17   because different televisions,

00:35:19   I mean, for example, my television

00:35:20   doesn't even support HDR 10 plus,

00:35:22   which we'll talk about later in the show,

00:35:23   but does support Dolby Vision

00:35:24   and Samsung televisions are basically the opposite.

00:35:26   They don't support Dolby Vision but do support HDR 10 plus

00:35:29   and lots of television support plain old HDR 10.

00:35:31   It's very complicated.

00:35:33   So anyway, try these features out,

00:35:34   see how they work for your actual programming.

00:35:37   If match content just degrades your user experience

00:35:40   to the point where you can't handle it,

00:35:42   then at least look up your TV on the de-jutter list

00:35:44   and see if it can do the right thing with the frame rate.

00:35:46   And if you're happy with how the colors look,

00:35:49   then either you're not getting HDR and don't miss it,

00:35:51   or you are getting it anyway, like Casey seems to be.

00:35:55   - Well, I think.

00:35:56   Who really knows?

00:35:57   But I think so.

00:35:58   - There are things you could use to test this,

00:35:59   but if your television says that it thinks

00:36:01   it's getting a television signal, it's probably right.

00:36:02   I mean, like you said, if it's a television UI doing that,

00:36:05   the Apple TV wouldn't have any influence over that.

00:36:07   - Right, right, right.

00:36:08   Very, very quick follow up.

00:36:09   When the iPhones, what are we on, 14 now?

00:36:12   I've already lost track.

00:36:13   When the iPhones 14 came out with only eSIMs in America,

00:36:18   I was grumbly a little bit because I had said,

00:36:21   in years past with AT&T, I would take my SIM,

00:36:25   my physical SIM, I would move it from one phone to the other

00:36:27   and AT&T would be, well, I mean, they would know,

00:36:30   but they would be none the wiser

00:36:31   from a billing perspective.

00:36:33   They would not bill me the $35 upgrade fee or whatever

00:36:35   that they want to do when you order

00:36:37   like an AT&T locked iPhone or what have you.

00:36:40   Well, this year I'm on Verizon.

00:36:42   This is my first year using an eSIM

00:36:43   and I transferred my physical SIM to an eSIM

00:36:46   before I got my new phone, as we spoke about on the show.

00:36:50   And then when the phone came, I did the eSIM transfer

00:36:52   and it has been a month and whatever, a month and change now

00:36:56   and to the best of my knowledge,

00:36:57   I did not get charged a ridiculous upgrade fee

00:37:01   for upgrading my phone.

00:37:02   Now that's in part because I bought the phone outright, so I think the upgrade fee is often

00:37:07   associated with when you're like financing the phone through the carrier.

00:37:12   But I just wanted to follow up that as far as I can tell I did not get charged an upgrade

00:37:15   fee when I have a phone that I own and I switch from that to a new phone that I also own,

00:37:21   which is very good.

00:37:22   I'm excited about that.

00:37:23   And I feel like I've heard AT&T people say the same thing, but don't quote me on that.

00:37:27   I also have some follow-up for the most recent episode of Upgrade #429, Freedom Doors, which

00:37:33   Jason was very perturbed and lit me up in a very gentle and polite way.

00:37:39   Lit me up privately about the fact that we did not mention trackpad gestures during our

00:37:44   disaster of a window management segment.

00:37:48   And I wanted to mention that for me, I really, really love hot corners.

00:37:53   one for show desktop, one for expose,

00:37:56   where it shows all the open windows.

00:37:58   - Hot Corners sounds like some kind of junk food

00:38:00   that you would love and we'd make fun of you for.

00:38:02   - Oh, hell yeah.

00:38:03   - Burn the roof of your mouth

00:38:04   by eating your hot corners too fast, yeah.

00:38:06   - You know, I haven't had a Hot Pocket in years,

00:38:08   and man, did I love 'em back in the day.

00:38:09   - I didn't say that.

00:38:10   That's their brand.

00:38:11   Their brand is so strong that the word hot

00:38:13   plus burning your mouth immediately says, "Oh, Hot Pockets."

00:38:16   - Well, I feel like they have the problem

00:38:18   of being a food designed for microwaves

00:38:22   means that you're gonna have the edges be way too hot and it'll be frozen.

00:38:26   Yep. Is that the problem with the Hot Pockets? I thought the problem was that they are basically a...

00:38:30   what is it, like a containment vessel? You know how you make a bomb, but you put

00:38:34   something with... you put something with lots of energy inside a contained thing,

00:38:37   right? So the Hot Pockets, the container is the pocket, and the stuff that's inside

00:38:43   it is the lava-like filling, and so it's like a bomb waiting to go... like a

00:38:48   cherry tomato, right? So when you bite into it, you burst the containment, and

00:38:51   And then the hot lava squirts out against the roof of your mouth and burns the skin

00:38:55   off.

00:38:56   Like it's a design, it's part of the design.

00:38:57   It's the fact that it's a pocket.

00:38:59   Yes, yes.

00:39:00   No, I can attest to this.

00:39:01   But man, I should get some hot pockets.

00:39:03   I haven't had those in years.

00:39:04   But anyways.

00:39:05   It doesn't take much encouragement to have Casey eat junk food.

00:39:06   Please stop.

00:39:07   No.

00:39:08   Have a carrot.

00:39:09   Anyway, the point is, so I like these hot corners that I set to expose and show desktop

00:39:16   and whatnot.

00:39:17   And Jason was very, very perturbed with me that I didn't mention the gestures on the

00:39:21   trackpad because if you s- like splay four fingers out that gives you expose and if you

00:39:26   do the same motion with five fingers that gives you show desktop and then if you you

00:39:31   pinch all five fingers back in that will bring you back from show desktop mode and wow this

00:39:37   animation is just kind of disturbingly fast I don't even know what to make of that but

00:39:40   anyways that's the thing that if you use trackpads which I actually do and I have for a couple

00:39:44   of few years now that that's something you can do and I would like to perhaps excuse

00:39:49   or at least provide justification for why I didn't mention them.

00:39:53   So I was a devout mouse, like actual mouse person, like John, for years.

00:39:59   And up until the last, I don't know, two to four years, I just wouldn't, and this is well

00:40:04   after the trackpads were a thing on the desktop, I would not touch a trackpad on the desktop.

00:40:09   Like it was not for me.

00:40:10   Of course I used it on the laptops, but I just did not care for it.

00:40:13   And I don't know what changed, to be honest with you, but all of a sudden I was like,

00:40:16   "Well, let me switch and see what I think," and then I never turned back.

00:40:19   So when I was mousing, I didn't have the gestures for show desktop and expose and stuff like

00:40:25   that, so I had to use hot corners.

00:40:28   Then at this point, my muscle memory was established, and I wasn't seeking a replacement for it,

00:40:33   right?

00:40:34   Seeing that these gestures are a thing, yes, that's probably what I should have brought

00:40:38   up, and it is probably a better approach.

00:40:40   I am issuing my formal apologies to Mr. Jason Snell for not saying anything about this.

00:40:45   I am so sorry, Jason.

00:40:46   I have failed you and I have failed the listeners.

00:40:48   it's for a reason.

00:40:49   It's 'cause I was a dumb mouse person

00:40:51   and I didn't know any better, I'm so sorry.

00:40:53   - I'm gonna rescind Casey's apology.

00:40:55   We weren't giving a complete tour of every feature

00:40:58   of the Mac UI, we were just saying how we manage Windows.

00:41:01   Obviously not gonna be comprehensive.

00:41:02   We also didn't mention the bazillion third party applications

00:41:05   that do stuff, we just talked about our own habits

00:41:07   and gave some suggestions of large categories

00:41:10   of ways that people work.

00:41:11   I suppose if we can be faulted,

00:41:12   it's because we didn't list what we did.

00:41:14   I think one of the major things was like

00:41:15   trackpad gestures, right?

00:41:17   but it was thumbnail sketch by saying,

00:41:19   oh, use full screen and then swipe your fingers

00:41:21   around the track by the switch apps.

00:41:22   And there's obviously more to it than that

00:41:24   because you can do more than just swipe sideways

00:41:26   to get from one space to the other.

00:41:28   There's all those other gestures, but anyway, yeah.

00:41:31   The Mac has lots of features

00:41:32   and that's even before you consider third party apps,

00:41:35   of which there are many.

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00:43:25   (upbeat music)

00:43:28   - All right, so John, tell me,

00:43:29   do you have some things going on with your mouse now?

00:43:32   - I don't know, it's just like my cheese graters, right?

00:43:34   So we already went through that thing

00:43:35   with my Microsoft Precision mouse,

00:43:37   and one of them went bad and I had to return,

00:43:38   and I had to send the video,

00:43:39   and I bought the backup mouse and it was making noise.

00:43:41   I don't remember what episode that was in.

00:43:42   We talked about it a while ago.

00:43:43   Anyway, it's about almost exactly a year anniversary

00:43:46   of me doing that exchange, and guess what?

00:43:49   One of my meeses is going bad again.

00:43:52   Same problem as before.

00:43:54   At first I thought, oh, is the track pad,

00:43:57   is the mouse pad gummy or something?

00:43:59   Then I'm like, wait a second, no, it's like missing,

00:44:02   I'll move the mouse from left to right three inches,

00:44:04   and a couple of random millimeters

00:44:06   of that three inch movement are not sent to the computer.

00:44:10   And so I took out my other backup mouse and plugged it in,

00:44:12   sure enough the backup mouse works fine and you know I can A/B test them. It's not as bad as it was before so now I'm like

00:44:17   Do I try to RMA this thing again?

00:44:20   Do I have to make a video again? Because the video before was super convincing because I had let it get so bad because I had

00:44:24   misdiagnosed it so many times. Now I know it's coming and it's

00:44:27   It's just a fatal flaw of this mouse I guess is that eventually a year later it just stops working right?

00:44:33   Really disappointing, but if you remember the reason I was using this mouse and I

00:44:38   I can't for the life of me remember if the one that has gone bad is the one that they sent me back as a

00:44:44   refurbished thing or

00:44:46   If it's the brand new backup one that I bought I can't I don't even know which is which which is kind of often look

00:44:51   Up the serial numbers and see if I could figure it out, but they look identical obviously, so I can't tell right

00:44:56   But the other mouse the reason I was using the mouse

00:44:58   I was using is because the other mouse was the one that made the noise when I typed you remember that whole thing like

00:45:02   to type and it would shake your thing.

00:45:05   And so I'm like, but I can't, I just can't stand using,

00:45:07   now that I know what the problem is,

00:45:08   it's like, imagine if the mouse just like

00:45:11   only translated 90% of your motion.

00:45:13   It sounds like, oh, that should be fine, you can use it.

00:45:15   And you can, but it's so annoying.

00:45:16   For me, a devoted mouse user who hates track pads

00:45:20   with a fiery passion, right?

00:45:22   I need to have a mouse that works.

00:45:24   And it's just, it was just making me so upset.

00:45:25   So I took out the other mouse,

00:45:26   but then of course you got the noise.

00:45:28   And so there I am trying to figure out

00:45:30   what the noise is again.

00:45:31   It's just so weird.

00:45:31   Like all the noise goes away when you unplug the USB cable.

00:45:35   So maybe it's something about the cable connector.

00:45:36   Can you make the noise happen on its own?

00:45:38   Why is it that it goes away?

00:45:40   But I think I found it.

00:45:42   Just in fact, just earlier today after days of like,

00:45:46   because then I can't stand the noise of this thing.

00:45:48   Like I'm typing, I can't stand the noise,

00:45:49   but I can't stand the mouse.

00:45:50   Like I can't, you know, I was just,

00:45:51   I was between a rock and a hard place,

00:45:53   but today I think I figured it out.

00:45:55   - Tell me.

00:45:57   - The thing that was making the noise.

00:45:58   If you bring up a picture of this button,

00:46:00   the Microsoft Precision mouse,

00:46:02   the thing that I think was making the noise

00:46:04   was the very skinny three side buttons on the mouse.

00:46:09   One of the reasons I like this mouse

00:46:11   is I don't use side buttons at all

00:46:13   and these side buttons are very, very thin.

00:46:15   They're kind of like wedged in a gap

00:46:17   between the top surface of the mouse

00:46:19   and the side surface of the mouse.

00:46:21   Three very skinny buttons

00:46:22   and one or more of them were rattling up and down

00:46:26   within their sort of containment cage

00:46:29   And that's what was making the noise.

00:46:31   So I took a carefully cut piece of post-it note,

00:46:34   folded it up a few times, took a knife

00:46:37   and wedged it in underneath those buttons.

00:46:40   No more noise.

00:46:41   - Is this the Surface Precision Mouse?

00:46:44   Is that correct, Jon?

00:46:45   - No, it's just called Microsoft Precision Mouse.

00:46:47   There is a Microsoft Surface Mouse,

00:46:49   but Microsoft Precision Mouse, it's black.

00:46:51   It has three buttons on the side, a track, a scroll wheel.

00:46:55   There's a couple of products that look almost identical

00:46:58   that aren't exactly this thing.

00:47:00   But yeah, that's what was making the noise.

00:47:01   So now I have one working mouse that doesn't make noise

00:47:05   and one mouse that doesn't make noise

00:47:06   but the tracking is going.

00:47:08   Not sure what I'm gonna do about it.

00:47:09   I'm kind of upset that the one mouse I really, really like

00:47:12   has multiple problems, 'cause remember the other problem

00:47:14   is that where my thumb rests, it slowly wears away

00:47:16   the soft touch plastic and it gets kind of rumply

00:47:18   and annoying and like eventually like, you know.

00:47:20   So that, still got that problem.

00:47:22   And then they go bad in tracking after about a year.

00:47:24   And then also this one had a rattle,

00:47:25   but at least I've solved the rattle.

00:47:26   So I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about this,

00:47:28   but my plan to just buy like 50 of these,

00:47:31   like Marco's keyboards and have them in reserve

00:47:33   is really like, I stopped it too,

00:47:35   because they were going bad.

00:47:37   And the second one that I bought had a rattle.

00:47:38   So maybe, I don't know.

00:47:39   And I don't wanna spend, like there's an expensive mouse.

00:47:41   It's like $99 retail.

00:47:43   Maybe you can get it for 80 or 70 if you see it on sale.

00:47:46   I don't wanna spend that every year on a mouse,

00:47:48   but I don't know, maybe I do.

00:47:49   Maybe it's the type of thing

00:47:50   when they stop making this mouse,

00:47:51   they'll be like, you know what?

00:47:52   I would willingly pay $100 a year

00:47:53   if I could get a new one of those mice every year.

00:47:54   So we'll see.

00:47:56   I mean, I'll tell you what, for whatever it's worth,

00:47:59   for the gaming PCs we have the Razer mice.

00:48:03   Those are, I think, like 70 or 80 bucks-y

00:48:06   for the ones we have.

00:48:07   I've used Logitech mice before, not super heavily recently,

00:48:11   but the Apple stupid Magic Mouse is still my favorite mouse

00:48:15   in part because I just love the touch nature of it

00:48:19   and the touch scrolling and everything

00:48:21   is just invaluable to me.

00:48:22   That's the biggest part.

00:48:24   But just for whatever it's worth, it lasts.

00:48:27   Like I've never, I don't think I've ever had

00:48:29   one of these die.

00:48:30   - Yeah, apple knives are good quality.

00:48:32   I just don't like the shape of that one.

00:48:34   Like I'm not shunning it for any other reason.

00:48:36   It's just not, and you know, that's basically it.

00:48:39   If it was shaped like this one, I would get it.

00:48:41   'Cause it's not like I have some dedication

00:48:42   to the scroll wheel versus touch.

00:48:43   I just don't like how that's shaped.

00:48:45   - Yeah, I feel like it's almost a different kind of device

00:48:48   than, like if you're expecting, it's like sour beer.

00:48:50   Like if you say give me a beer

00:48:53   and somebody gives you a sour.

00:48:54   It's like, okay, people like this,

00:48:57   but if you're asking for a beer and you get a sour,

00:49:00   you're gonna be very surprised probably in a negative way.

00:49:03   So I feel like it needs,

00:49:04   it's almost like a separate thing, right?

00:49:06   See also Chicago pizza.

00:49:07   So I feel like the Magic Mouse,

00:49:09   like if you're expecting a mouse, this isn't that.

00:49:13   This is a different thing that you might really like,

00:49:17   but you have to go into it knowing like,

00:49:20   okay, you're gonna have to get used to

00:49:21   holding this differently, moving it differently,

00:49:23   like your whole grip is gonna be different with this

00:49:26   than it is with a mouse.

00:49:27   And I feel like if you are open to that,

00:49:30   then it's wonderful.

00:49:32   And that's like where I landed, I love this mouse

00:49:34   and I've forsaken all other mice

00:49:37   since discovering this one because it's just that good

00:49:39   and none of the other ones have the touch scrolling

00:49:42   integration with Mac stuff.

00:49:43   So like to me, there is no other mouse basically.

00:49:46   Anyway, I'll just say like when I've used like,

00:49:48   you know, the Razer ones, the gaming PCs,

00:49:50   We have three Razer PCs with three mice.

00:49:54   I think I've had to replace four of them

00:49:56   in the last two years.

00:49:57   - Oh my gosh.

00:49:58   - Like, it's just, like, they're terrible.

00:50:01   Like, they're just bad.

00:50:03   And I probably should switch to Logitech or whatever,

00:50:05   but you know, it's kind of what I'm used to.

00:50:06   - Logitech has better reliability.

00:50:07   If I liked how the, like, the MX Master 3

00:50:10   or whatever fancy one I have, like, I like that mouse.

00:50:12   It's just not quite the right shape.

00:50:14   Like, I'm shopping almost entirely by shape.

00:50:16   And then within shapes that I find acceptable,

00:50:18   obviously I want expensive feeling and good,

00:50:19   and this Microsoft was a nice, had all those best attributes.

00:50:23   A lot, but the logic ones, like,

00:50:24   we've had serious logic mice and they've never gone bad.

00:50:27   It's just a question of whether I like the shape or not.

00:50:30   And you know, the Apple one is, you know,

00:50:31   super high quality.

00:50:32   It's just like an Apple thing.

00:50:33   It's got dumb charging, but other than that, it's real nice.

00:50:35   I just wish it was shaped the way I want it to be,

00:50:37   which is not like a low profile piece of sushi.

00:50:40   - Yeah, no, that is very true.

00:50:42   I will put links in the show notes.

00:50:44   I'm not sure which episode is the one in question,

00:50:47   about ATP number 449,

00:50:49   which was late September of last year.

00:50:52   An unclean mouse, which I think was more about your mousepad

00:50:56   than it was your mouse itself, but maybe that was it.

00:50:58   - Yeah, 'cause I thought it was the mousepad.

00:50:59   Yeah, I did the return on September 9th, 2021.

00:51:02   - Okay, there you go.

00:51:03   And then also, ATP episode number 361,

00:51:06   A Button in the Thumb Shelf,

00:51:09   which I presume is also about your mouse.

00:51:11   - Yeah.

00:51:12   - All right, where were we?

00:51:13   My goodness.

00:51:13   All right, and then you have had some speaker adventures

00:51:16   or problems or things, what's going on there?

00:51:18   - It's related to your discussion last week

00:51:20   about setting up your new Sonos thing

00:51:22   and the surround speakers and calibrating them

00:51:24   and all that stuff.

00:51:25   Of course I talked about that when I got

00:51:26   all my new TV set up, how I used that Dirac Live app

00:51:29   that you run on your Mac and that it connects

00:51:31   to your receiver.

00:51:33   - Ah, yes, yes.

00:51:33   - You have a microphone that you move

00:51:35   to 17 different spots in the room

00:51:37   to calibrate things or whatever.

00:51:38   And I did that calibration and then shortly after that

00:51:43   when the family started watching the fancy new TV,

00:51:45   It was a persistent complaint from everybody, including me,

00:51:48   but especially my wife,

00:51:49   that she couldn't understand people's dialogue.

00:51:51   And I'm like, oh, that's a problem I can solve

00:51:52   'cause I can adjust the channels individually.

00:51:55   In fact, my receiver even has like a quick way

00:51:56   to adjust, like just crank up the center channel.

00:51:59   'Cause if you have surround sound,

00:52:01   the dialogue pretty much always comes

00:52:02   through the center channel.

00:52:03   So it's really easy to just make the dialogue louder

00:52:04   and leave everything the same volume.

00:52:06   And I would do that, but that setting wouldn't stick

00:52:08   'cause the Dirac settings would always take over.

00:52:10   And I'm like, oh, I just need to readjust this with Dirac.

00:52:12   But eventually it was just like,

00:52:15   She refused to even let me use the external speakers

00:52:17   'cause the dialogue sounded terrible.

00:52:19   And I'm like, "You know, it does sound pretty bad."

00:52:20   And I was listening to things and I'm like,

00:52:21   "Why is the dialogue,

00:52:23   "why can none of us hear the dial?"

00:52:25   So I'd finally got a chance,

00:52:27   'cause I would have done this a long time ago,

00:52:29   but to do the direct calibration, you need quiet.

00:52:32   The app yells at you if you try to do anything.

00:52:35   It'll be in the middle of doing some calibration thing

00:52:36   and it'll just stop and pop up a dial

00:52:38   and it'll be like, "I'm sorry, something made a noise."

00:52:40   So that means kids can't be home, wife can't be home,

00:52:44   dog can't be home, construction cannot be happening,

00:52:47   which by the way, they've been ripping up the gas mains

00:52:48   in my street this entire summer.

00:52:50   So no construction can be happening outside.

00:52:52   You know, it's just, it actually needs to be quiet.

00:52:55   So I finally found a time when everybody's gone

00:52:58   and my dog is at the, you know, her doggy play date, right?

00:53:02   And I'm just in the house by myself

00:53:04   and I do the calibration and the D-Roc app is really fancy

00:53:07   and I got okay at using it the first time

00:53:09   I did the calibrations, but I got to go through

00:53:11   so many more times that I'm much better at using it now

00:53:14   and it's kind of, it's not a native Mac app, first of all.

00:53:17   Second of all, it's weird.

00:53:19   It reminds me of like a Unix app.

00:53:20   It's like something from Linux, not even from Windows.

00:53:22   It's really weird looking, or maybe Java.

00:53:25   Anyway, one of the things you do

00:53:28   is after you do the volume adjustment,

00:53:29   which I didn't even know how to use the first few times

00:53:32   that I kind of figured that out.

00:53:34   Another one is where it does,

00:53:36   I don't know what you'd call them,

00:53:36   like frequency response graphs.

00:53:38   You see this for speakers a lot,

00:53:40   but you put the microphone somewhere in a room

00:53:42   and then it plays tones through all the speakers

00:53:43   and you'll see a graph with one line for each speaker saying,

00:53:48   I guess it's amplitude is the y-axis,

00:53:50   I guess it's like how loud it was,

00:53:51   and then the x-axis horizontally is frequency range,

00:53:55   so low frequencies on the left

00:53:56   and high frequencies on the right.

00:53:57   And what you wanna kinda see for a linear response

00:53:59   is pretty much a plateau,

00:54:00   like the speaker doesn't reproduce any frequencies

00:54:04   below whatever hertz,

00:54:05   and then for most of the range of human hearing,

00:54:07   you wanna see a nice, long, steady plateau

00:54:09   with some wiggles saying here, look at the speaker,

00:54:11   it's able to reproduce all these different frequencies

00:54:13   more or less the same amplitude, right?

00:54:15   Obviously no ideal speaker is going to be a perfect plateau.

00:54:17   They're going to wiggle around and everything,

00:54:18   and that's what Dirac is adjusting for

00:54:20   at different locations in the room

00:54:21   to try to level that out with DSP, right?

00:54:24   But what I noticed when I looked at these graphs

00:54:26   is you got all my 5.1 speakers,

00:54:29   but one of the lines was not with the other lines.

00:54:32   It took a nose dive like three-quarters of the way

00:54:35   through the graph.

00:54:37   Basically, my center channel had no high frequencies, right?

00:54:40   And my center channel speaker has like a,

00:54:42   you know, a big cone and driver,

00:54:45   and then it's got one of those little tiny metal-looking

00:54:47   Tweeter-y drivers.

00:54:49   - Tweeters, yes.

00:54:50   - Yeah.

00:54:51   And so I took off the little, the mesh,

00:54:53   what is that thing called?

00:54:55   - The grill?

00:54:56   - Yeah, anyway.

00:54:56   I took that off, and I'm trying to figure out,

00:54:59   does this Tweeter work?

00:55:00   So I'm playing some dialogue, and I'm just like,

00:55:02   you know, putting your ear next to the speaker is weird,

00:55:04   and you can't, so I'm just,

00:55:05   I'm gonna touch it with my finger,

00:55:06   'cause if a speaker is working,

00:55:07   I'm being able to feel some kind of vibration.

00:55:10   I'm not sure if that's entirely true of Tweeters,

00:55:11   but I basically determined that my tweeter

00:55:13   was blown to my center channel.

00:55:15   And I couldn't figure out,

00:55:17   'cause I don't have ears that are used to picking this out,

00:55:19   couldn't figure it out from listening,

00:55:20   I just said, the dialogue sounds weird,

00:55:21   like it's not clear and we can't hear it,

00:55:24   but when I saw the graph, that was like,

00:55:26   no high frequencies, tweeter broken, right?

00:55:28   So I guess I'm a visual learner, as they say.

00:55:31   (laughing)

00:55:32   So my center channel was bad,

00:55:34   I was pretty sure it was bad based on the graph,

00:55:36   that was pretty incontrovertible reference,

00:55:37   so I needed to buy a new center channel speaker,

00:55:39   but of course the surround speakers I got

00:55:41   are just some cheapo surround speaker setup

00:55:44   I got years ago.

00:55:44   Like it just came with all in one package.

00:55:46   You get all the speakers on the subwoofer

00:55:48   that comes together in a package deal

00:55:49   and this one was pretty well rated

00:55:50   for the price and the quality or whatever.

00:55:53   And importantly, the speakers are very small

00:55:55   'cause I have to tuck them into weird places in my room.

00:55:57   Like I don't have room for like real speakers, right?

00:56:00   So you can't buy just the center channel.

00:56:04   You can only buy the full set against.

00:56:06   Then I have to go on eBay

00:56:07   find people selling just the center channel, find the one that I thought was the least

00:56:10   gross looking. They sent it to me and it was only slightly broken when I got it in terms

00:56:16   of like the grill was snapped off and it was all kind of, but whatever. I swapped it out

00:56:21   for the other one and lo and behold the graph leveled out and you can understand dialogue

00:56:26   again so yay for applications that show you a visual representation of how your speakers

00:56:30   are performing. And by the way I recalibrated everything and put in an inherent like four

00:56:35   four or five decibel bump to the center channel,

00:56:37   but of everything else, and now everyone in the family

00:56:39   is much happier with the audio.

00:56:41   - Who'd have thunk it?

00:56:42   So, I'm sorry, not that I'm really looking

00:56:45   to defend Marco on this issue,

00:56:47   but you're beating the snot out of Marco last week

00:56:50   for having a two channel setup,

00:56:51   yet one of your channels was effectively broken,

00:56:55   and by your own admission,

00:56:56   all of your speakers are straight up trash.

00:56:59   - They're not trash, they're just not really good.

00:57:02   I mean, I would have bought better speakers

00:57:04   they would have fit, but the places where I have to physically put them are not big

00:57:08   enough to put speakers that sound better than these.

00:57:11   But you say, "Oh, it was broken."

00:57:14   When the tweeter doesn't work, I'm sure someone who's more averse to listening to, "Oh, that

00:57:19   speaker has a blown tweeter," most of the frequencies of speech are not up in the super

00:57:24   high or super low end.

00:57:26   So it's reproducing most of them, but missing out on the few things that do go into the

00:57:30   the highs makes the dialogue a little bit muddier.

00:57:35   I wish I had saved, I really wish I had taken a screenshot

00:57:39   'cause I would have put it for the chapter art.

00:57:40   If you look at the graph, it falls off earlier

00:57:43   than all the other ones, but if you look at the actual

00:57:44   Hertz number or whatever, 'cause that's what I was doing,

00:57:47   maybe center channels are supposed to do that?

00:57:48   What is the usual frequency range of speech?

00:57:51   And I looked at this frequency range of speech,

00:57:52   and I'm like, yeah, the frequency range of human speech

00:57:54   is right in the plateau part, so maybe that's not,

00:57:57   but anyway, it was just broken.

00:58:00   At any part, if speaker fail in any system,

00:58:04   then you have to fix it.

00:58:05   So if one of the tweeters fails on one of Marco's stereo

00:58:06   speakers, he would have to figure that out somehow

00:58:09   and replace the speaker as well.

00:58:10   It's not a side effect of surround.

00:58:13   But yeah, my speakers are not particularly fancy.

00:58:17   But it was like $500 or $600 for the system

00:58:20   and I bought it a few years ago.

00:58:21   And for a complete surround system that is very, very small,

00:58:25   it works well.

00:58:25   And as far as like Sonos and stuff,

00:58:27   when you're talking about that, one

00:58:29   One of the features I need for my setup is I need them to be small speakers that are

00:58:35   connected with speaker wire because I have no place to plug in anything.

00:58:39   So they either have to be battery powered wireless surrounds, which I don't want to

00:58:42   deal with charging them up or anything like that, or speakers connected with speaker wire

00:58:48   that are small enough to fit in the places I squirrel them away.

00:58:52   My room is not designed for television.

00:58:54   I'm doing what I can here, right?

00:58:56   But yeah, they're pretty good for what they are.

00:58:58   And most importantly, they're way better than the speaker that's built into the television.

00:59:02   In fact, our television has a feature where it can use the TV itself as the center channel,

00:59:07   and that really lets you A/B test exactly how much better even this sort of cheap center

00:59:12   channel speaker is than the television speakers.

00:59:16   I think it's funny that here you are telling Marco that he's a monster for using only two

00:59:22   channels, yet I bet his two speakers that he's using are pretty, pretty nice.

00:59:27   And it sounds like, I'm not sure I could say the same for yours.

00:59:30   Yeah, but I wouldn't want to watch a movie on his two speakers versus my five, that's

00:59:33   for sure.

00:59:34   Does the movie contain any music?

00:59:36   I'm sure it does, but surround sound, man.

00:59:39   Surround sound!

00:59:41   It surrounds you.

00:59:42   Gacy got all done talking about it.

00:59:43   It is an experience that cannot be duplicated by two speakers sitting in front of you.

00:59:49   Moving right along, Marco, tell me about the Apple Watch Ultra screen size, if you please.

00:59:54   So as I mentioned last week, as part of the reason I got the,

00:59:57   one of the biggest reasons I got the Ultra was,

00:59:59   I said the screen is so much bigger,

01:00:01   it makes everything feel different.

01:00:03   Like apps feel different, layouts need to be different,

01:00:06   and a few people pointed out,

01:00:08   the screen is actually not as much bigger as I thought

01:00:11   than the 45 millimeter series seven and eight screens.

01:00:14   Last year with the series seven,

01:00:16   when the screens got bigger,

01:00:17   you got a lot more screen space with that move

01:00:20   than we had before.

01:00:20   and I've been using the 40 and 41 size recently

01:00:24   and so I was used to the smaller size.

01:00:26   So when you actually look at the pixel differences,

01:00:29   the Ultra is bigger than the 45,

01:00:32   but it's not, it's a smaller step

01:00:34   than going from the 41 to the 45.

01:00:37   And so anyway, now that I've been using the Ultra

01:00:40   most of the past week,

01:00:42   where I think it's still very different

01:00:45   is the shape of the screen in addition to the size.

01:00:47   So I still am very happy I have it

01:00:50   and I'm not gonna return it because it is still

01:00:53   very different not having those curved corners,

01:00:57   like the way that the regular Apple Watch is,

01:01:00   the crystal is this big kind of rounded plateau shape.

01:01:03   The Apple Watch Ultra is just a single piece of flat sapphire

01:01:07   and so it is still different enough that I think

01:01:11   if you design an Apple Watch app,

01:01:12   you should probably have one.

01:01:14   That being said, if you're only gonna have one

01:01:19   Apple Watch size that you're gonna design for,

01:01:21   the 44 or 45 is fine.

01:01:24   I looked at my own stats to compare.

01:01:26   The 44/45, if I treat that as one size,

01:01:29   which arguably they might not need to be,

01:01:33   but anyway, if you treat the 44 and 45 as the same size,

01:01:36   60% of my Apple Watch users use that size.

01:01:39   30% use 40 or 41.

01:01:43   6% use the, roughly 6% use the old sizes

01:01:48   like the serious zero to three sizes still.

01:01:51   And already about 5% of my Apple Watch users have the Ultra.

01:01:56   - Wow.

01:01:57   - Which is very impressive for a model

01:02:00   that's only been out for a couple of weeks

01:02:01   and is still in very short supply

01:02:03   and is the highest end on the price scale.

01:02:06   Well, you know, excluding like Hermes and stuff.

01:02:09   So I think this is going to sell like crazy,

01:02:12   especially throughout the holiday season,

01:02:14   especially as supply increases.

01:02:16   So I think, again, if you design an Apple Watch app,

01:02:21   I think you should probably have an Ultra, if you can.

01:02:24   You know, granted it's a luxury,

01:02:26   but it's funny, like somebody on Twitter was like,

01:02:28   you know, they were like feeling bad for me

01:02:30   that I'm buying an Ultra for, you know, almost no users

01:02:34   and it certainly wouldn't pay off for me to have this.

01:02:37   When I tell you that, you know, I think, let me see,

01:02:40   I have something like 20% or so, I think,

01:02:45   of my active users have the Apple Watch app installed.

01:02:49   So it's like, that's not a small number of people.

01:02:52   That's like, that's way more than things

01:02:56   that I've spent a lot more time on.

01:02:58   So trust me, it matters.

01:03:00   I should probably have every Apple Watch size.

01:03:03   I don't, I probably should.

01:03:04   Like that's how much it matters.

01:03:06   And then secondly, as you know, wearing the Ultra,

01:03:09   a few more impressions after a week of wearing it

01:03:12   most of the time, it is really big,

01:03:16   but it's looking less ridiculous on me as I'm used to it.

01:03:20   It's funny, I took the, I took my Tide G Shock watch

01:03:25   out of my car to compare, which when I first got

01:03:28   the Tide watch, I tried it on just to see

01:03:30   what it was like to wear a G Shock

01:03:31   and I never had before, and it seemed ridiculous.

01:03:34   And I'm like, I could never wear this.

01:03:36   Well, when I put it on tonight, like after wearing

01:03:39   the Ultra for a week. The G-Shock is about the same size and a million times lighter.

01:03:46   So it's actually, I will say the, for the, for the Ultra, the, the weight of it, I think

01:03:56   is the biggest challenge because it, because it is such a large watch and they did a good

01:04:00   job making it light for its size. However, it is so big that it needs like a pretty strong

01:04:09   strap and I've been kind of going back and forth between different straps. I

01:04:12   haven't loved any strap option I found for it yet. I have the the orange alpine

01:04:19   loop that's the one that came with it in part because that's what was in stock

01:04:22   but also in part because I think it probably looks the best out of all the

01:04:27   straps that are that are officially for the Ultra. I think it really it really

01:04:31   needs the orange to be used in the straps and I got separately from that

01:04:37   because I really in my lifestyle as mentioned before you know things are wet

01:04:41   all the time around here so I really like rubber straps so the rubber strap

01:04:45   that it has offered does not have an orange option it only has blue white and

01:04:50   yellow I saw them all in the store played with them all didn't really love

01:04:54   any of them but I would set her to go with the blue to try that strap out just

01:04:58   because I have white and for all my other rubber bands I kind of want it's

01:05:01   like something different for the ultra and I didn't think the white looked

01:05:04   amazing with the orange accents of the watch. Whereas the blue I thought kind of played

01:05:09   with that contrast a little bit better. Anyway, I tried the blue Ocean Strap. It's okay. I

01:05:16   still like the sport bands better. Main reason I like the sport bands better is that the

01:05:21   tail tucks in on the sport band and on the Ocean Strap the tail sticks up the way all

01:05:27   other watch straps tend to work. And I understand why they do that. It's more secure the way

01:05:31   they do it and the keeper that which is the little metal loop that you tuck the tail under

01:05:37   after you attach the you know the main buckle there you have like excess strap you tuck

01:05:42   it under this little loop it's called a keeper on the ocean strap I initially thought it

01:05:46   was going to be bad for me because I like when I tried on the store I just had too much

01:05:51   excess and I was like I don't want this excess like tail like snagging on things as I walk

01:05:55   past things but it turns out you you put the keeper wherever you want you know the ocean

01:06:00   strap it's there's a bunch of holes all on the whole strap and the keeper comes

01:06:04   out and you stick it in whatever hole you want it to be in so you can stick it

01:06:08   like near the top and so you so you tuck in almost the entire tail and just a

01:06:13   little bit of it sticking out past the keeper so that I thought was a really

01:06:16   nice little detail there that being said I haven't quite found a comfortable fit

01:06:20   on that strap yet and fit on the ultra is really important because it's so big

01:06:26   and kind of heavy if it's if you don't have a nice snug fit it scoots around

01:06:31   your wrist a lot like it flops back and forth as you move your wrist that the

01:06:34   bigger and heavier a watch is the more they do that and I've still I still have

01:06:38   that problem a lot with the ultra where I haven't yet nailed the fit of a strap

01:06:42   what has fit the best so far is I just put the regular sport band on it and I

01:06:47   don't even have any 44 or 45 millimeter sport bands so I just put on the regular

01:06:53   like 40 millimeter ones that I have that you know they they don't fill the whole

01:06:58   slot where they go in but it actually looks reasonably okay and it's not a

01:07:05   perfect fit it the way that the way those straps kind of curve out from the

01:07:10   watch body looks kind of stupid on me but it does hold it better against my

01:07:15   wrist than the other ones have so far so I'm still still kind of dealing with

01:07:19   that this company Nomad Goods has this orange sport strap

01:07:24   for presale right now, it looks pretty good,

01:07:26   so I ordered one of those to try.

01:07:28   I wish they had more orange straps.

01:07:32   And I'm pretty sure the reason they don't

01:07:34   is because of the Apple Watch Hermes deal.

01:07:37   Hermes is, you know, orange is like their color,

01:07:40   and they're probably protective of that,

01:07:43   and I'm guessing they probably have some deal with Apple,

01:07:47   with the Apple Watch Hermes where maybe Apple's not allowed

01:07:51   to use orange in that many other watch products,

01:07:56   but somehow they negotiated the Alpine loop,

01:07:58   so I don't know how, but anyway,

01:08:00   what the Ultra really needs is a really good

01:08:03   orange sport band.

01:08:05   The problem is that already exists

01:08:09   for the Apple Watch Hermes,

01:08:11   'cause what I didn't know until I researched it last year

01:08:13   is that the Hermes edition watches,

01:08:16   whatever strap you get with them,

01:08:17   like the $500 leather straps,

01:08:20   they also come with sport bands that are the Hermes Orange.

01:08:25   Apple has occasionally sold orange bands before,

01:08:28   but they're never really orange.

01:08:29   They're like salmon, or they're kind of like,

01:08:31   you know, pinkish orange or yellowish,

01:08:33   like they're not really bold orange.

01:08:35   So the Hermes ones though,

01:08:37   they're only sold with the Hermes watches.

01:08:39   So I got one on eBay last summer,

01:08:42   and I didn't find much use for it as much as I wanted to

01:08:45   with my regular Apple Watch,

01:08:47   but it looks really good with the Ultra.

01:08:50   So right now I'm just using an eBay Hermes one.

01:08:53   Ultimately I think what the Ultra,

01:08:55   I think what I hope they make for it

01:08:58   is the orange, what else is it called?

01:09:02   The Ocean Band.

01:09:03   Like the, so the rubber one that's made for it

01:09:04   with all the circles in it.

01:09:05   I hope they make an orange version of that.

01:09:07   I think that would look really good.

01:09:08   It has these wonderful orange accents on the watch

01:09:11   and you have to really play with those

01:09:13   and work with those to make it look good.

01:09:15   Like I don't think the yellow strap looks good

01:09:17   because it kind of clashes with it.

01:09:18   What you want with orange is you want navy

01:09:21   or dark gray or white maybe.

01:09:24   That's kind of where you want to be

01:09:26   to pair well with orange.

01:09:27   So I'm happy with my orange strap for now

01:09:30   and I'm gonna keep looking for other strap options.

01:09:32   Hopefully that Nomad Goods one ends up being good

01:09:36   because if so, if that ends up being a good strap

01:09:38   then that's it, that's what I want.

01:09:39   But it's not out yet so we'll see how that goes.

01:09:42   Anyway, Ultra Life, other than that, is pretty good.

01:09:45   I have noticed, I don't know if this is simply

01:09:48   because of differences in fit.

01:09:50   During my workout, the Ultra is able to seemingly

01:09:55   keep a much better lock on monitoring my heart rate.

01:09:59   My Series 7, and I think all watches before it,

01:10:02   I'll look down during a workout to check my heart rate,

01:10:05   and a lot of times it'll be like the grayed out numbers

01:10:07   where it's not really measuring yet, you know,

01:10:08   and you gotta kinda wait and keep checking it

01:10:10   over the next few seconds and it'll eventually pop in.

01:10:12   The Ultra seems better at locking it in

01:10:15   and just having it always be monitored.

01:10:17   I don't know if that's a thing that actually has changed

01:10:19   with any of the hardware or whether that's just,

01:10:22   I happen to have a better fit on that for the hole

01:10:25   and the sport band I'm using or whatever, who knows.

01:10:27   But that is something I've noticed.

01:10:29   And if that actually is a thing,

01:10:31   that would be a valuable difference to me.

01:10:35   But anyway, I still, during the few times that I have

01:10:39   in the past week put back on my regular, you know, series seven titanium 41.

01:10:44   It's a dream to put that back on. I like after wearing this thing,

01:10:48   and then to put that on, it's like, I feel like I'm wearing nothing at all.

01:10:51   And I'm like going under sleeves, no problem. It's not chunky. Like, yeah,

01:10:55   I still, I still very much love the regular Apple watch. Uh, so

01:10:59   this is, this is a wonderful thing to play around with,

01:11:02   to get a feel for and design my app for. Um, but I don't,

01:11:05   I don't think I'm going to be sticking with it longterm,

01:11:07   especially as we head solidly into long sleeve season.

01:11:12   - It's good news for your Tesla.

01:11:13   (laughing)

01:11:14   New watch coming its way.

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01:13:16   - All right, we should probably get to

01:13:21   the elephant in the room and that is,

01:13:23   Apple has released a bunch of new stuff

01:13:26   and they did it via press release

01:13:28   as the German gods foretold.

01:13:31   We've got, very, very briefly,

01:13:33   We've got a new regular iPad.

01:13:35   We've got a new iPad Pro.

01:13:37   And semi-surprisingly, we've got a new Apple TV.

01:13:40   So I guess we can start with the regular iPad.

01:13:45   This is the iPad 10th generation.

01:13:48   Short short version.

01:13:49   It's using an A14, which is from late 2020, the iPhone 12.

01:13:53   Flat sides, no home button, touch ID on the power lock, whatever you call it, button.

01:13:58   Blue, pink, yellow, and silver.

01:14:00   And isn't there like a gray as well?

01:14:02   I believe gray as well.

01:14:03   - By the way, they called it the top button

01:14:04   in the presentation.

01:14:06   - Ah, my mistake.

01:14:07   10.9 inch screen.

01:14:09   There's USB-C, Wi-Fi 6, 5G.

01:14:13   It offers both physical and eSIM.

01:14:15   And then there's a,

01:14:18   the front facing camera is on the side,

01:14:21   the way we think of it as a side,

01:14:22   or on the top when you're in landscape,

01:14:24   which here, here, I'm definitely enjoying that.

01:14:28   Then it does not support stage manager,

01:14:32   and it starts a little more expensive,

01:14:34   450 bucks for the Wi-Fi version,

01:14:36   600 bucks for the Wi-Fi plus cellular version,

01:14:39   which is about 120 bucks more than last year's model,

01:14:42   and that's 64 gigs.

01:14:44   Also, it uses the original Apple Pencil,

01:14:46   which we have plenty to say about,

01:14:48   talk about in just a minute,

01:14:50   but I wanna gloss over that for just a moment.

01:14:52   And then it also has a new Magic Keyboard Folio,

01:14:55   which is, I don't know what Microsoft calls

01:14:56   Surface keyboard, but it is basically that.

01:15:00   And I have some thoughts on that as well.

01:15:01   But that is the nickel tour of the iPad.

01:15:05   Where would we like to start with this?

01:15:06   A couple of items that you bounced over that I think are worth adding, especially as it

01:15:11   relates to the price.

01:15:12   The screen is not P3.

01:15:15   The Bluetooth is 5.2, which may not mean anything to you, but it'll be interesting to see that

01:15:21   from the hodgepodge of products they announce what Bluetooth standards do other products

01:15:24   get.

01:15:25   Very quickly, I looked into this briefly this morning.

01:15:29   It doesn't seem to me, and Neil, maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem to

01:15:32   me that 5.1 adds a whole lot over 5.0, but 5.2 adds low energy audio, which I presume

01:15:41   is something that Apple is interested in, unless they're already doing that with AirPods,

01:15:46   I didn't think they were.

01:15:47   So 5.2 adding low energy audio, which is on this iPad, that might be a big deal in the

01:15:53   future.

01:15:54   This does have a sim slot. So it's got an e-sim as well, but it also supports nano sim

01:15:59   So it's got a slot on it. So they didn't do what they did with the phones there

01:16:02   The it's interesting for the both the speakers and the camera like you know to the the camera is

01:16:09   Not along the short edge. It is along the long edge

01:16:12   They call it the landscape camera the landscape 12 megapixel ultra wide camera, right and the speakers they call landscape stereo speakers

01:16:20   I don't know where the speakers were on previous models

01:16:22   but I'm assuming this is saying that the speakers

01:16:25   are on the short edges,

01:16:26   but they call them landscape stereo speakers

01:16:28   because they're stereo

01:16:29   when you're holding it in landscape mode.

01:16:30   Anyway, their naming is weird, but the camera being moved--

01:16:34   - Everything about this iPad is weird.

01:16:36   - Yeah, well, the first one I saw

01:16:37   that they had moved the landscape camera,

01:16:39   everyone's like, "Oh, that's good

01:16:40   "'cause when you do FaceTime, it'll look more normal."

01:16:41   'Cause if you've never done FaceTime in landscape mode

01:16:44   on an existing iPad, you're always not quite looking,

01:16:47   it's like sideways to you,

01:16:48   it's to your left or to your right,

01:16:50   so it looks kind of weird.

01:16:52   When it's above, it looks more like you're doing FaceTime

01:16:54   for a Mac, so the camera looks at you a little bit

01:16:56   from above, but at least your eyes are aligned

01:16:58   left, right, wise, you know, to be straight at the screen.

01:17:01   But when I saw that, I'm like, oh, that's great.

01:17:03   That means when I'm unlocking it, my hand won't block

01:17:05   the Face ID thing, and it won't have that arrow.

01:17:07   Oh, it doesn't even have Face ID, nevermind.

01:17:09   So the exciting thing about this product,

01:17:12   oh, one more, I think, the battery, exactly the same size

01:17:15   as the iPad Air, 28.6 watt hours, right?

01:17:18   And so that's what's interesting about this product

01:17:20   before we even get into the Pencil thing is,

01:17:23   how is this not a MacBook, not a MacBook, an iPad Air?

01:17:26   'Cause I look at this, I'm like, isn't that the iPad Air?

01:17:28   And the answer is no, it's not the iPad Air, it's close.

01:17:33   So here are the differences between this and the iPad Air.

01:17:37   So obviously the iPad Air has the M1 and this doesn't.

01:17:40   And that also means this gets Stage Manager.

01:17:42   Despite the fact that they just announced

01:17:44   that they're extending Stage Manager down the line

01:17:47   to I think A12 based devices, and this has an A14

01:17:50   but doesn't get stage manager, but whatever.

01:17:52   iPad Air, M1, stage manager.

01:17:53   Better system on a chip and stage manager.

01:17:56   - A12X and Z get it, but the base A12 does not.

01:17:59   - Right, okay.

01:18:00   The iPad Air obviously uses the second gen Apple Pencil,

01:18:04   we'll talk about that in a bit.

01:18:05   The iPad Air is older, so it has Bluetooth 5.0, not 5.2.

01:18:08   The iPad Air has P3 color and a fully laminated display

01:18:11   with 1.8% reflectivity.

01:18:13   Basically the screen's a little bit better on the iPad Air.

01:18:16   I think the cameras are the same.

01:18:18   External display support is quite different.

01:18:20   The iPad Air supports up to a single display

01:18:23   with 6K resolution.

01:18:24   I think this one only does 4K.

01:18:26   What are the stats?

01:18:27   Oh, it's just 4K at like 30 Hertz or something?

01:18:29   I thought I had that, yeah.

01:18:30   Supports one external display at 4K

01:18:32   and 30 Hertz or 1080p at 60.

01:18:34   So the iPad Air does have a leg up on this

01:18:38   in many stat categories.

01:18:39   But if you saw them both sitting on the table,

01:18:41   you'd be forgiven for thinking that this is an iPad Air

01:18:45   unless you use the Apple Pencil with it.

01:18:46   And that I think is, of all the things we listed,

01:18:49   the most baffling thing about this product.

01:18:52   They changed the cheap low-end iPad

01:18:54   to have flat sides in the modern design.

01:18:56   It doesn't have a home button.

01:18:57   In case that doesn't go without saying,

01:18:58   it's got the Touch ID button on the top.

01:19:01   It's got all flat sides and everything,

01:19:03   but it doesn't use the pencil

01:19:05   that sticks to the flat-sided iPads.

01:19:07   It uses the pencil that's completely round,

01:19:09   the first-generation Apple Pencil,

01:19:11   which does not stick to this in any way, shape, or form,

01:19:14   nor does it plug into this in any way, shape or form.

01:19:17   You have to have a little adapter

01:19:19   that allows you to connect to the USB-C port at the bottom.

01:19:22   By the way, this doesn't have lightning, right?

01:19:23   This is USB-C, it's like the iPad Air form factor,

01:19:26   but it does not support the flat Apple Pencil.

01:19:28   So if you buy a new first generation Apple Pencil today,

01:19:31   which they're still selling,

01:19:32   it will come with this little adapter

01:19:34   that lets you plug it into a USB-C iPad.

01:19:37   And why would you need to plug it in?

01:19:38   Like, why do you care?

01:19:39   Can't you just charge it to somebody else?

01:19:40   You plug it in to basically pair it.

01:19:42   Like that's how the Apple pencils that plug in work.

01:19:46   You plug it in to pair it with the thing.

01:19:47   So you need to be able to actually

01:19:49   physically stick it into the iPad.

01:19:50   It's not just a matter of charging it.

01:19:52   It's a matter of pairing it with the iPad

01:19:54   and it also charges it through that.

01:19:55   If you have an old Apple pencil,

01:19:57   first generation Apple pencil,

01:19:58   you can buy the stupid little dongle thingy for $9, right?

01:20:02   This is disappointing.

01:20:05   (laughing)

01:20:07   Like not super disappointing.

01:20:08   What if you already have a first gen Apple pencil?

01:20:10   That's great, I get to reuse my pencil.

01:20:11   I'll buy a $9 dollar adapter and I can keep using my pencil.

01:20:13   But it's flat-sided, man.

01:20:15   Like, you wanna stick a pencil on there, but you can't.

01:20:19   It doesn't work with the Apple Pencil 2.

01:20:21   It's not that, and this is one of the questions

01:20:23   some people were asking, can I use an Apple Pencil 2

01:20:27   with it, like is there any crossover between a device

01:20:29   that's supposed to work with Apple Pencil 1

01:20:30   and Apple Pencil 2, and as far as I know, no.

01:20:33   There's not, like, they use a different way of,

01:20:36   like, you can't, right?

01:20:38   So if you have an Apple Pencil 2,

01:20:40   it's useless with this device.

01:20:41   It won't stick to the sides.

01:20:43   You can't pair it with it

01:20:44   and you can't draw on the screen with it.

01:20:46   Only the first generation round Apple Pencil,

01:20:48   which again, this is the thing that Steve Jobs used to do

01:20:51   because he had a bee in his butt about this.

01:20:54   When the new better thing comes out,

01:20:56   wipe the table clean of all that old junk

01:20:57   'cause why would you ever want the old junk?

01:20:59   Let's do the new.

01:21:00   And that is not how Apple has operated since he's been gone.

01:21:04   For better or for worse.

01:21:05   Very often for better in terms of having cheaper products,

01:21:07   it's, you know, stay in the lineup longer

01:21:09   so people can buy them, right?

01:21:11   But for worse, with this stupid first generation

01:21:13   Apple Pencil, which is not a bad product,

01:21:16   but Apple did Apple Pencil second generation,

01:21:19   everyone agrees, oh yeah, that's much better.

01:21:21   You fixed all the problems with the first one.

01:21:23   Like, get rid of the first generation Apple Pencil,

01:21:25   stop making it, and more importantly,

01:21:27   stop making new products that require that pencil,

01:21:30   because the second generation one is just plain better.

01:21:33   It's better that it magnetically attaches to the side.

01:21:36   It's better that it doesn't roll off the table.

01:21:37   It's better that there's no little cap

01:21:40   that you're inevitably gonna lose.

01:21:41   It's better that you don't stick it

01:21:42   into the side of the thing to pair it

01:21:44   so it's precariously sticking out the end

01:21:45   and just waiting for someone to snap it off.

01:21:47   Apple Pencil 2 is better.

01:21:49   Get rid of Apple Pencil,

01:21:50   this is like the Watch Series 3 all over again.

01:21:53   We've moved on, the world has moved on.

01:21:55   You yourself made a better pencil product.

01:21:57   Just, ugh, so frustrating.

01:21:59   - Yeah, and just to point out,

01:22:01   the Apple Pencil 2 came out four years ago.

01:22:04   This is not like a cutting edge thing.

01:22:07   that's pretty old in computer terms.

01:22:09   It's a four year old change and it was badly needed

01:22:13   for all the reasons you mentioned.

01:22:15   I mean, when I saw that picture on Twitter,

01:22:18   there were two in the show notes,

01:22:20   that showed the old teenage boy charging method

01:22:23   and then the new cable plus dongle.

01:22:26   I thought, I'm like, there's no way this is true.

01:22:28   I had to verify, surely this can't be real, right?

01:22:30   And no, it's real.

01:22:31   That is how, basically, what they're basically saying is,

01:22:37   or what I will say is if you want to use an Apple Pencil,

01:22:40   just don't get this model of iPad, just don't.

01:22:42   Like it is not, that hassle is not worth it.

01:22:47   Or if you insist on it, get the Logitech Crayon instead,

01:22:52   which is, this is a thing,

01:22:53   not a lot of people know about this.

01:22:55   Logitech has been selling a pencil-like stylus

01:22:59   called the Logitech Crayon for a number of years now

01:23:02   through Apple, like it's with their cooperation.

01:23:04   It works basically the same way as a pencil.

01:23:07   It lacks some of the power usury things.

01:23:09   I believe it doesn't have pressure sensitivity,

01:23:11   but if you're just using it for drawing and stuff

01:23:14   where you don't really need pressure sensitivity,

01:23:16   it's great.

01:23:17   It is a little more friendly in certain ways.

01:23:20   It has just a charging hole on it.

01:23:22   There's now a USB-C one.

01:23:23   I believe the new Logic Crayon works with both

01:23:27   old style and new style iPads, I believe,

01:23:31   and it is cheaper also.

01:23:33   So if you don't need the pressure or the tilt,

01:23:36   some of that advanced drawing stuff, that's an option.

01:23:38   I bought one a while ago, it was pretty good.

01:23:41   Oh, it has an off switch too, which is nice sometimes.

01:23:45   So anyway, that's an option

01:23:47   that people don't often know exists.

01:23:49   But going back to, this product,

01:23:53   this is a very strange product to me.

01:23:56   The rumors had been for a while that Apple was going

01:23:59   to do exactly what they did today,

01:24:00   which is a new iPad Pro and a new low-end iPad

01:24:05   that used USB-C.

01:24:06   And while we got both of those things,

01:24:10   I think there are so many little asterisks on them

01:24:13   that no one was expecting.

01:24:15   And by the way, I don't think anybody had the Apple TV

01:24:17   on their Bingo card, we'll get to that later.

01:24:18   But this is such a weird product.

01:24:21   We'll start with this,

01:24:22   'cause it's a little more interesting than the Pro.

01:24:24   This makes me wonder how many different COVID

01:24:28   and supply chain related problems is this the result of?

01:24:33   There is no way they planned for this.

01:24:35   - I'm not so sure about that.

01:24:37   I don't see anything here that says supply chain.

01:24:39   It's an awkward product,

01:24:40   but it seems to be an awkward product

01:24:41   that they chose to make.

01:24:43   As people are pointing in the chat room,

01:24:45   like the Apple Pencil 2 not magnetically attaching

01:24:48   to the side and charging there,

01:24:49   one explanation could be that that's where the camera is.

01:24:51   And they could have decided, well, okay,

01:24:54   we can't figure out for this cheap iPad

01:24:56   how to have the quote unquote landscape camera

01:24:59   and also the Pencil.

01:25:00   So which one do we think is more important?

01:25:02   and someone decided, eh, if people want the good pencil,

01:25:04   they should buy the expensive one.

01:25:05   Let's do the landscape camera.

01:25:06   And you could argue that's the right call,

01:25:08   but a series of decisions like that

01:25:10   leads to this product that is just kind of

01:25:13   awkwardly in the middle.

01:25:14   I mean, not awkwardly in the middle, it is in the middle.

01:25:16   Like, there's a reason I was talking about the iPad Air is,

01:25:18   first of all, they're still selling the previous one.

01:25:20   Like, they didn't discontinue the home button one.

01:25:23   - Yeah, that's the weird thing.

01:25:24   That's one of the weird things.

01:25:25   - Right, so, but if you look at the lineup,

01:25:27   and you see it go from, later in the document,

01:25:30   You can see it goes from the iPad, the old iPad,

01:25:33   the ninth generation iPad, the 10th generation iPad,

01:25:35   the iPad Air, and the iPad Pro.

01:25:37   The prices spread those things out,

01:25:39   and the features spread those things out.

01:25:42   It's just that trying to spread the features

01:25:44   over four iPads leaves you with some iPads

01:25:48   that have some features that you like

01:25:51   and some features that you don't.

01:25:52   And because the flat sides was so defined by the Pro,

01:25:55   when we see a flat-sided one, you're like,

01:25:57   "Okay, well, we get all the flat-sided stuff, right?"

01:25:59   I was like, no, you don't.

01:26:00   You get flat sides, but you don't get the other stuff.

01:26:03   You get USB-C, but you don't get the pencil, right?

01:26:05   Do you get quad stereo speakers?

01:26:07   No, but you get two of them,

01:26:08   but they're in a different position.

01:26:09   It's just, is the smart connector on the back

01:26:11   or is it on the side?

01:26:12   Well, it's on the side of this one,

01:26:12   and we'll get to the Magic Keyboard Folio in a little bit.

01:26:14   But like, this does fit in the slot,

01:26:18   in the lineup between those two things,

01:26:19   but to get something to fit there,

01:26:22   there's not a clean feature set where you're like,

01:26:25   this is one set of features that work in harmony,

01:26:27   and this is the second set of features that work in harmony.

01:26:28   Like it's features that work in Harmony from the neighbors,

01:26:33   a bunch of them pulled into this product

01:26:36   and then working together, not quite in Harmony.

01:26:38   So all the way down to the system on a chip

01:26:41   and just everything about it is a little bit weird.

01:26:44   I don't necessarily think it's bad

01:26:46   because it's better than the one with the home button,

01:26:49   but it's not as good as the Air,

01:26:51   but it's also $120 cheaper.

01:26:53   So like, okay.

01:26:55   But the Apple Funsel, like you said,

01:26:56   It feels, not like an insult, but it feels like this product

01:27:00   is telling you, if you're really into the pencil,

01:27:02   don't get this one.

01:27:03   - Yeah, it's, I mean, there's, and this is such,

01:27:07   you know, they do have a lineup now

01:27:11   that covers most prices in the range.

01:27:15   But with the exception of covering prices,

01:27:19   no other part of this lineup makes a lot of sense.

01:27:22   Almost every model that they sell, if not every model,

01:27:25   there are questions about it with like, wait a minute,

01:27:28   why don't you just get the one above it or the one below it?

01:27:32   Or why does this model have something nicer

01:27:36   than the thing above it?

01:27:37   - It's because they haven't refreshed them all at once.

01:27:39   This always happens when they do piecemeal refreshes,

01:27:44   'cause the newest one has some of the newer stuff,

01:27:48   but then the older ones have some better stuff,

01:27:50   but they don't have the newer stuff.

01:27:51   So example of a newer stuff, a newer stuff,

01:27:53   Apple seems to have finally decided, I guess,

01:27:55   people use their things in landscape

01:27:57   so the camera should go on the landscape edge, right?

01:27:59   That's a new decision they've made.

01:28:01   - And that's, by the way, that's great.

01:28:02   I fully support that.

01:28:04   In practice, the iPad is usually a landscape device

01:28:08   for every person I've ever seen using one,

01:28:09   including everyone in my household, for sure.

01:28:11   And so like, yeah, optimize it for landscape.

01:28:13   It's obvious, like yeah, leave it,

01:28:14   leave it the ability to rotate like it's always had,

01:28:17   but it should be a landscape-first design.

01:28:20   And that's, so it makes sense to move the camera to the top.

01:28:23   And when, for the Face ID models in particular,

01:28:26   like the, I think it's just the iPad Pro,

01:28:29   when I first, when they first moved to that in 2018,

01:28:34   four years ago, that was one of the biggest annoyances

01:28:39   of like, oh, I'm accidentally covering up the camera

01:28:42   because my hand goes there on the left side

01:28:45   and I'm covering up the camera

01:28:46   and so I can't unlock it yet.

01:28:47   Like, it took them four years to have the first model

01:28:51   that ever moved the camera over to the landscape,

01:28:55   but then if it's gonna come with all these trade-offs,

01:28:58   like does it really have to be centered?

01:29:00   Does it have to only be one camera?

01:29:02   - Well, we don't even know if that's a trade-off,

01:29:03   but the point is that is a new feature,

01:29:06   not necessarily an expensive feature

01:29:08   in terms of just moving the camera, right?

01:29:09   But then when you see the models

01:29:11   that didn't get as heavily revised,

01:29:12   like the pros that we'll get to in a little bit,

01:29:13   they don't get that new feature.

01:29:15   Even though they were supposedly updated at the same time,

01:29:17   it's clear that they have just, you know,

01:29:19   like spec bump update,

01:29:20   whereas this is an all new design for this product,

01:29:23   like the low-end iPad has never had the flat sides, right?

01:29:26   - But this isn't even the low-end iPad.

01:29:28   It's called iPad, but instead of being the low-end iPad,

01:29:31   it's $100 more.

01:29:32   - Well, the problem with Tim Cook's thing is like,

01:29:36   the fact that it's called iPad,

01:29:37   I think it is the low-end iPad,

01:29:38   but he'll keep around products that like,

01:29:40   well, people still want them,

01:29:41   and I think that's the right move here

01:29:42   to keep around the home button,

01:29:43   'cause it is significantly cheaper,

01:29:45   and maybe you don't care about the stupid flat sides

01:29:47   and you want the cheaper one,

01:29:48   But they didn't make a new name for this slot.

01:29:51   Like iPad Air was a new name to say,

01:29:52   "Hey, there's a place between the Pro and the regular iPad."

01:29:55   This is just called iPad.

01:29:56   It's called iPad 10th generation,

01:29:58   and you can also still buy the iPad 9th generation.

01:30:01   So they clearly both think they are filling

01:30:03   the iPad low-end role.

01:30:04   It's just that, "Hey, now we have an extra one

01:30:06   from last year that we can keep there

01:30:08   for an even lower price."

01:30:09   And I think that's an okay move,

01:30:11   but eventually when that one goes away,

01:30:14   this one will be the only low-end.

01:30:17   Maybe something will slot above it,

01:30:18   Like why aren't there two,

01:30:19   are we gonna get two generations of iPad Air

01:30:21   or do they only, does the low end,

01:30:22   like is this the iPad SE?

01:30:24   Like the ninth generation becomes the iPad SE or something?

01:30:27   Like what we would like to see if we had our way

01:30:29   and have less confusing lineup is,

01:30:31   all the iPads have flat sides,

01:30:33   there's a coherent scale down of features

01:30:35   from top to bottom,

01:30:36   and whatever good ideas that they have about iPad design,

01:30:39   whether it's the landscape camera

01:30:41   or the folio thing or whatever,

01:30:42   that they either all have that or all don't, right?

01:30:44   Because they all do have cameras.

01:30:46   And if Apple has decided the best place for the camera

01:30:48   is on the landscape edge,

01:30:49   then it should be there in all of them.

01:30:50   But if you don't update them all at the same time,

01:30:52   you can't do that.

01:30:53   Or if you don't update them all

01:30:54   like to the same degree at the same time,

01:30:56   where one is an all new design

01:30:58   and the second one is just an internal revision, right?

01:31:01   Then you end up with this kind of lumpy lineup.

01:31:03   - I mean, geez, there's so much about the iPad

01:31:04   that's, you know, lumpy.

01:31:06   But yeah, I think time will tell, like,

01:31:10   does this get resolved as we slowly pull our way

01:31:14   out of this weird supply chain thing

01:31:17   that the world's been going through.

01:31:18   Because, I mean, it's so hard to tell with Tim Cook

01:31:23   whether this was planned to be this weird

01:31:26   and such a, you know--

01:31:28   - It had to be planned,

01:31:29   'cause what supply are they missing

01:31:32   that would have made them make a different choice?

01:31:34   - Well, this brings us right to the iPad Pro.

01:31:37   If you look at the iPad Pro and the updates it got

01:31:40   versus the rumors we've had for like two years,

01:31:42   I think it slipped.

01:31:43   I think what happened was the iPad Pro

01:31:45   that was supposed to be for this generation,

01:31:47   I think a lot of stuff had to be delayed

01:31:49   until some future version.

01:31:51   Again, the world's been going through so much stuff

01:31:53   with supply chain and everything,

01:31:55   and Apple, again, they've been doing a really good job

01:31:57   of insulating us from it, from their products.

01:32:00   Their products have mostly not appeared

01:32:02   to have any problems to the outside world,

01:32:04   but I bet internally they've had all sorts of struggles

01:32:07   and all sorts of things, oh, we can't get this part

01:32:08   in enough volume, or this is gonna have to wait

01:32:10   'til the next version, and I'm sure that happens

01:32:11   to a lot of their stuff.

01:32:13   You can't just say like, oh, this isn't from COVID,

01:32:14   this is definitely Tim Cook's weirdness.

01:32:17   Tim Cook has no shortage of product fit weirdness

01:32:19   and no shame about charging high prices

01:32:23   and keeping old things around.

01:32:24   That's of course, that's all Tim Cook.

01:32:26   Like he's really, that's just him.

01:32:28   But we can't brush off the fact that this is probably

01:32:31   also the result of what's been happening in the world.

01:32:34   Whether they say so or not, they'll never say so.

01:32:37   - But like what specifically about this product

01:32:39   makes you think that?

01:32:40   I think they chose this feature set for this product.

01:32:42   Maybe the ship date changed based on supply constraints

01:32:45   or whatever, but I think somebody sat down

01:32:47   and like the iPad product designs,

01:32:48   which don't involve Tim Cook at all,

01:32:51   decided this was the feature set.

01:32:52   This is the right feature set for the new low-end iPad,

01:32:55   this set of compromises.

01:32:57   - I think we've seen over the last couple of years,

01:33:00   Apple has been more willing than before

01:33:03   to introduce new things at higher price points

01:33:08   and keep the old ones around and not lower their prices.

01:33:12   So this happened with the Apple Watch situation,

01:33:15   this happened with some of the phone stuff,

01:33:18   it certainly happened with the Macs, some of the Macs,

01:33:21   it happened with the new MacBook Air,

01:33:22   and now it's happening with the low-end iPad.

01:33:25   The low-end iPad, the iPad with no name, just iPad,

01:33:29   has been around for a number of years now

01:33:31   and has gotten very regular updates

01:33:34   and the price has stayed very regular.

01:33:37   and they sell a ton of those things.

01:33:39   That's bulk buys for schools and stuff like that.

01:33:42   They sell a ton of those things.

01:33:44   To now get this new update that is substantially more money

01:33:48   for a product whose entire existence is to be inexpensive

01:33:52   and to say, all right, we're gonna keep the old one around

01:33:54   and not even discount it.

01:33:56   Just, okay, now we have this new one

01:33:58   that's allegedly gonna replace it.

01:33:59   Yeah, just, again, see also the MacBook Air.

01:34:01   Like, this is supposed to replace this,

01:34:03   but we're gonna keep selling both

01:34:06   and the old one doesn't get cheaper.

01:34:08   That's Tim Cook right there.

01:34:09   But I do think, again, who knows,

01:34:14   maybe there were certain features

01:34:16   that they wanted to put in that they couldn't

01:34:18   for supply reasons.

01:34:18   Maybe it is something like the Apple Pencil

01:34:21   magnetic mounting stuff that maybe they couldn't

01:34:23   get that cheap enough or they couldn't redesign it

01:34:25   fast enough 'cause they were at reduced capacity

01:34:30   for the last couple years.

01:34:31   Who knows what it was?

01:34:32   But this product lineup looks very confused,

01:34:35   even more so than you'd expect from Tim Cook Apple.

01:34:39   And so I think stuff happens that we don't know about

01:34:42   that is keeping things from coming out normally.

01:34:46   - One interesting supply chain thing may be

01:34:48   that it has an A14, which you may think,

01:34:50   ah, it's a long iPad, whatever, it's got the A14.

01:34:51   But as we'll see in a little bit,

01:34:53   the Apple TV got the A15, and the iPad gets the A14.

01:34:58   I mean, it's a little bit weird.

01:35:00   And another thing, they did bump the RAM.

01:35:01   It used to have three gigs.

01:35:03   the old iPad at 3 gigs the new one has 4 which is nice.

01:35:07   So I wanted to briefly talk about the Magic Keyboard Folio.

01:35:14   So the iPad itself starts at $600.

01:35:18   The Magic Keyboard Folio is $250, almost half the cost of the entire iPad.

01:35:24   In the Magic Keyboard comparison it's $300.

01:35:27   The Magic Keyboard Folio only comes in white, so white, ladies and gents and peoples, can

01:35:33   just happen to you, it really can. The way this works is it's got a case on the back

01:35:40   of the iPad that has a kickstand, and then a detachable keyboard. So again, if you've

01:35:44   seen the Microsoft Surface, it's very very similar to that. What's interesting to me

01:35:50   about this though, it has a function key row, including an escape key. Two things that I

01:35:57   I would kill for on the floaty hinge Magic keyboard that we know and love.

01:36:03   I suspect the reason it has all this is because there's more space.

01:36:07   Because if we think of the way the Magic keyboard and the iPad Pro works, the very, very back

01:36:11   of the keyboard, there's like two to three to four inches of just empty space, because

01:36:15   that's where the bottom of the iPad kind of hinges or hangs over it, particularly when

01:36:19   you tilt it so it's pointed upwards.

01:36:22   So there's a bunch of dead space there.

01:36:23   Whereas here, there is no dead space.

01:36:25   The entirety of that pain, that surface, is available for keys and trackpad and so on

01:36:32   and so forth.

01:36:33   So I'm guessing that's why, but I want this.

01:36:35   I want function keys, and I don't necessarily want to give up the hinge, the floaty hinge

01:36:40   thing, the cantilevered whatever hinge thing, because I really, really, really like that

01:36:43   a lot.

01:36:44   But I want a function row key, and I want an escape key, please and thank you.

01:36:50   A function row might even come in handy with stage manager.

01:36:52   Oh, never mind.

01:36:53   Oh, just kidding.

01:36:54   I know that the interesting thing about this,

01:36:56   when I was looking at Apple's page for this,

01:36:58   is one of their snippets of marketing text

01:36:59   was no pairing or charging required, which is true.

01:37:03   Like this is one that uses a smart connector,

01:37:05   doesn't have batteries.

01:37:06   But that felt like a subtle dig at all the third party iPad

01:37:09   keyboard products that either have their own battery

01:37:12   or have to be charged separately.

01:37:14   You have to pair during Bluetooth.

01:37:15   It's like, yeah, it's nice when you make the hardware, isn't

01:37:17   it, Apple?

01:37:18   You can just have the keyboard that snaps right

01:37:19   on to the brand new product.

01:37:23   This is interesting, I'm not sure, unlike the landscape camera which seems like something

01:37:27   we all wish was here, this thing with the kickstand and the floppy detachable keyboard,

01:37:32   it has advantages.

01:37:33   Hey, you can detach the keyboard, some people like kickstands, it also has disadvantages.

01:37:38   It's not quite as sturdy and laptop-like as the other thing.

01:37:42   By the way, speaking of other things, Zach Hall had a good tweet here.

01:37:44   I'm not sure if this is exhaustive, but he says, "Apple now makes Smart Cover, Smart

01:37:49   Keyboard, Smart Keyboard Folio, Smart Folio, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Keyboard Folio for

01:37:53   iPad."

01:37:54   Wow.

01:37:55   Is there any wonder we can't keep track of what these friggin' products are?

01:37:59   Smart and Magic and keyboards and folios and anyway.

01:38:03   They make a lot of floppy things that snap onto your iPad and make it try to be a laptop.

01:38:08   This is an interesting and new set of compromises.

01:38:11   and I think this is a good set of compromises

01:38:13   for the low-end iPad.

01:38:14   Hey, you get a keyboard and a trackpad

01:38:17   and you get the function keys,

01:38:18   which seems to be like what you said about the space case,

01:38:21   it makes a lot of sense,

01:38:21   but also the idea that Apple has heard the cries

01:38:25   of the people who want that row of keys

01:38:27   and said, "Let's find a way to provide them."

01:38:29   This is a slightly less expensive product.

01:38:32   It's $250, like half the price of the iPad,

01:38:34   but still lightweight, smallish,

01:38:38   not as fancy as whatever the one that's called

01:38:40   that's like a stiff little Robo hinge thing.

01:38:44   So I think it's the right accessory for this

01:38:49   and it is another example of a new thing,

01:38:50   new thinking Apple has about accessories,

01:38:54   mainly the function row and also the idea

01:38:56   that a keyboard without a track pad for the iPad

01:38:59   in this day and age is not as useful

01:39:01   because their cursor support is so great

01:39:02   it should have the track pad and so it does.

01:39:05   - I just wanted to call a quick mention

01:39:06   to Dan Morin's take on six colors,

01:39:09   which talks about all the iPad lineup,

01:39:11   and we're gonna talk about the iPad Pro right now,

01:39:13   but I wanted to make mention that that article

01:39:15   was really good and worth reading as well.

01:39:17   So let's talk about the iPad Pro.

01:39:18   It gets the M2 as we would expect.

01:39:21   It now says iPad Pro on the back, which is new.

01:39:23   It has Wi-Fi 6E, which is allegedly

01:39:26   up to 2.4 gigabits per second.

01:39:29   Also, the cellular models get 5G,

01:39:31   and my beloved millimeter wave

01:39:33   on my don't call it a park bench picnic table,

01:39:35   it gets Bluetooth 5.3,

01:39:38   which I looked into the difference between point two,

01:39:40   which is on the iPad and point three,

01:39:42   which is on the iPad Pro.

01:39:43   Didn't see anything special.

01:39:44   Again, maybe I missed something.

01:39:46   It gets a hover with the Apple Pencil.

01:39:48   We'll come back to that in just a moment.

01:39:49   Price is unchanged.

01:39:51   And otherwise it looks like it's basically the same stuff.

01:39:55   So the hover with Apple Pencil,

01:39:57   this is with the same second generation Apple Pencil,

01:40:00   reading a quote here from the newsroom article

01:40:02   that Apple put out.

01:40:04   "Apple Pencil is now detected up to 12 millimeters

01:40:06   above the display, allowing users to see a preview

01:40:09   of their mark before they make it.

01:40:10   This also allows users to sketch and illustrate

01:40:12   with even greater precision and makes everything users do

01:40:14   with Apple Pencil even more effortless.

01:40:16   For example, with Scribble, text fields automatically expand

01:40:19   when the pencil gets near the screen

01:40:20   and handwriting converts to text even faster.

01:40:22   Third-party apps can also take advantage of this new feature

01:40:24   to enable entirely new marking and drawing experiences.

01:40:27   They showed an example of this

01:40:28   in their like 10-minute marketing video.

01:40:29   I forget what app it was, but the user was hovering.

01:40:32   It was a Procreate, okay, thank you.

01:40:34   They were hovering their pencil over the iPad screen and then using their left hand--this

01:40:39   was in their right hand--using their left hand to pinch and zoom.

01:40:42   I believe that was adjusting the size of the mark that they were using, what they were

01:40:46   about to make with the pencil.

01:40:47   And you can see a little shadow of where that mark would be and how big it would be on the

01:40:52   screen before the pencil actually contacts the screen, which is pretty cool.

01:40:57   And we'll put a link in the show notes to a video of this happening, which is pretty

01:41:00   slick.

01:41:01   Yeah, the prices are the same between 128 gigs and two terabytes starting at $800 for the 11 inch Wi-Fi

01:41:07   thousand bucks for the 11 inch Wi-Fi starting from and

01:41:11   Starting from $1,100 excuse me. I'm sorry thousand dollars for cellular

01:41:15   Starting from $1,100 on the 12.9 for Wi-Fi

01:41:19   1300 for cellular and these go all the way up to

01:41:22   $2,400 for a 12.9 inch 2 terabyte with cellular

01:41:26   Yeah, so we can start talking about all the things that this thing didn't get

01:41:30   No landscape camera no keyboard with any function keys on it. You know no detachable keyboard thing

01:41:38   It

01:41:40   You know it doesn't the 11-inch does not get a mini LED screen is still only on the 12.9 inch

01:41:47   None of them get OLED screens or anything so it's kind of just like an internal refresh basically they kept in Mac parlance

01:41:53   They kept the case the same. It's got the same

01:41:55   Features the same ports the same you know that there are many ports to be go

01:41:58   but it's the same stuff on the outside.

01:42:03   And on the inside, just swap out the M1 for the M2,

01:42:06   which makes sense.

01:42:07   The M2 does have the ProRes encoders.

01:42:11   Like this is not new to the iPad, it's just part of the M2.

01:42:14   But it allows it to do things that the M1 just couldn't do

01:42:16   in terms of like, this is from Apple's marketing copy,

01:42:18   allows users to capture ProRes video for the first time

01:42:21   and transcode ProRes footage up to three times faster.

01:42:23   That means content creators can capture, edit,

01:42:24   and publish cinema-grade video

01:42:26   from a single device out in the field,

01:42:28   as long as you consider the iPad camera,

01:42:31   which is unchanged, to be cinema grade video.

01:42:34   But the editing part is totally cinema grade.

01:42:37   So it's in isolation.

01:42:42   Oh hey, they updated the iPad Pro,

01:42:43   and now it's got the M2,

01:42:44   and the specs are a little bit better.

01:42:46   Like for example, the WiFi 6E,

01:42:47   that's twice as fast as the previous WiFi in theory.

01:42:50   A little bit over two gigabits

01:42:52   for instead of one gigabit, right?

01:42:54   This is a good spec bump upgrade to the iPad Pro.

01:42:57   and Bluetooth 5.3, whatever.

01:42:59   The problem is you got the other iPad over there saying,

01:43:02   "Hey, you got a spec bump,

01:43:04   "but I got some new ideas about what makes an iPad."

01:43:07   Like the landscape camera and the detachable keyboard,

01:43:09   and you didn't get any of that stuff.

01:43:11   And by the way, you didn't even,

01:43:13   I'm kinda catching up to you in some ways,

01:43:15   like your cameras aren't massively improved

01:43:16   over what they were before,

01:43:17   and I have some pretty good cameras now too.

01:43:19   So what do you think of that?

01:43:21   And the hover Apple Pencil thing,

01:43:23   one of the most clever things about that is

01:43:25   it doesn't require a new pencil.

01:43:27   If you have an Apple Pencil 2nd Gen

01:43:30   that you bought four years ago, or however old the thing is,

01:43:33   you can use it with this new iPad

01:43:35   and it does the hover thing.

01:43:36   And I've used that, most people won't be familiar

01:43:39   with that feature from tablets,

01:43:40   like the Wacom tablets or Wacom

01:43:42   or however you're supposed to say it,

01:43:44   and lots of other companies

01:43:45   who have the hover pencil pen thing for a while.

01:43:48   It's interesting that Apple,

01:43:52   the Apple Pencil does not have a button on it.

01:43:54   lots of tablets, third party tablets for Mac,

01:43:57   have had a button on them.

01:43:58   And one of the things you can do with that

01:43:59   is kind of use it as a hovering cursor

01:44:01   and then click with the mouse button,

01:44:03   with the button that's on the stylus.

01:44:06   On the Apple Pencil, I believe you can tap the pencil

01:44:08   and the accelerometers will register that.

01:44:10   - Yeah, like double tap the side.

01:44:12   - Yeah.

01:44:13   - Which is, in my experience, fairly unreliable

01:44:15   and it's hard to get right.

01:44:17   - It's not quite the same as a button, but--

01:44:19   - It would be way better if it was a button,

01:44:20   because it would be so much less likely

01:44:23   to have accidental input or miss.

01:44:25   - Yeah, and that's an interesting way to,

01:44:27   if you've ever tried to use, I mean,

01:44:28   it's mostly a Mac, if you've ever tried to use a Mac

01:44:30   by hovering a stylus over a tablet

01:44:33   and using the button to click, it can be done

01:44:36   and it's kind of interesting,

01:44:38   but Apple's not quite ready to go there

01:44:39   and I kind of don't blame them

01:44:40   because it is much simpler to have it without the thing

01:44:43   and 12 millimeters is not that big of a range either.

01:44:45   This feature, the hover thing, like obviously the pencil

01:44:50   always had whatever it took to support this

01:44:52   And it was just a matter of having the OS integration

01:44:55   and maybe some additional hardware.

01:44:56   I'm not sure if it's just one or both of those things.

01:44:59   But importantly, cursor support.

01:45:02   Because cursor support was acquired in iPad OS

01:45:05   to even have the concept of a place on the screen

01:45:09   where there is something hovering, you know what I mean?

01:45:12   But not actually clicking,

01:45:13   because your fingers don't work with hover, right?

01:45:16   As far as I know,

01:45:17   they're not gonna enable our fingers to work with hover.

01:45:19   They could do that with a future iPad, I suppose.

01:45:21   But right now they don't, right?

01:45:22   You're either touching the screen

01:45:23   or you're not touching the screen.

01:45:24   But Hover basically gives you a cursor.

01:45:26   And you can move that cursor around

01:45:28   just like you would by using a track pad,

01:45:29   but you're not clicking on anything yet

01:45:31   until you do a click motion,

01:45:32   which could be in some applications

01:45:33   whacking the pencil or whatever.

01:45:34   So I think that's great.

01:45:36   And I think that would get a lot of oohs and aahs

01:45:40   if people weren't saying,

01:45:40   "Oh man, my hand's still gonna cover the FaceTime camera.

01:45:44   "What's up with that?"

01:45:45   (laughing)

01:45:46   - Yeah, so a couple of really good tweets

01:45:49   or excerpts from articles.

01:45:51   Federico Fattici, says the base model iPad

01:45:53   gets a landscape camera, yes,

01:45:55   and a brand new Magic Keyboard Folio, yes,

01:45:57   with a detachable keyboard and kickstand, yes,

01:46:00   and function keys, yes, but the iPad Pro gets none of this.

01:46:05   Which, yep. - This is why, again,

01:46:07   you look at what's been rumored for the last couple of years,

01:46:11   wireless charging, mag safety. - OLED screens, please.

01:46:14   - OLED, there's so much, and this got none of it?

01:46:18   That's why, I have to think, it was not planned

01:46:21   to be this small and update originally,

01:46:23   and things had to change for whatever reason,

01:46:25   and they shipped what they could,

01:46:27   and sometime in the future we'll get the better one.

01:46:30   - The thing that I think that prevented them

01:46:33   from doing the thing is I think,

01:46:34   supply, even if COVID had never happened,

01:46:37   I don't think that there are screens ready

01:46:41   that meet their requirements, OLED screens ready

01:46:43   that meet their requirements in this application.

01:46:46   I think mini-LED seems like a supply chain thing,

01:46:49   'cause obviously they do have mini-LEDs

01:46:50   that fit their specs, but it's still only on the 12.9.

01:46:53   Why didn't you get 11-inch ones of those?

01:46:55   That seems like a supply chain thing.

01:46:57   But I think just, I don't think anybody makes an OLED

01:47:01   that meets their requirement.

01:47:02   They're not using OLEDs in any of them.

01:47:03   They're not using it in their laptops.

01:47:04   They're not using it anywhere.

01:47:05   But again, look at the laptops.

01:47:06   It's clear that in a laptop application

01:47:09   and in an iPad application,

01:47:10   many LED screens exist that are phenomenal.

01:47:13   It's just that, does the iPad 11-inch Pro get one?

01:47:16   No, it just doesn't.

01:47:17   For the second year in a row, it just doesn't.

01:47:18   12.9 gets it, the laptops get it,

01:47:21   but the poor 11-inch iPad just doesn't get it,

01:47:23   and that just smells like a supply chain or a pricing thing.

01:47:27   But OLED, they need to wait until,

01:47:30   when OLED is ready to be better than the mini-LEDs

01:47:34   in these applications, some product will get it,

01:47:36   whether it's a laptop or the iPads,

01:47:38   and then it'll roll out.

01:47:39   So I'm just waiting for that,

01:47:40   'cause I watch a tremendous amount of TV on my iPad,

01:47:44   and that'll really be an upgrade to the picture quality.

01:47:48   But yeah, they're like having this be just a spec bump

01:47:50   update, I don't think is bad in the grand scheme of things.

01:47:54   Like it's, the iPad Pro is a good design.

01:47:56   It's just having its little brother have some new thinking

01:47:59   about iPads that makes you go, oh,

01:48:02   I'd like the new thinking over here too.

01:48:03   That's what you get for updating a line,

01:48:05   not in sync with each other in terms of the TikTok thing

01:48:08   of like, when do we do a whole new case design?

01:48:10   And when do we do a spec bump?

01:48:11   Next year, the regular iPad 10th Gen

01:48:14   is gonna get a spec bump, right?

01:48:16   And maybe the Pro will get the big redesign

01:48:18   because the Pro did get the big redesign

01:48:19   and the non-Pro was looking pretty cruddy next to it

01:48:23   for many years because the Pro got the flat sides,

01:48:26   new pencil, all the features,

01:48:27   and took a while for those to roll out.

01:48:29   I mean, the Mini, the foreground of the Mini

01:48:31   has the magnetic pencil.

01:48:32   I was reminded of this when I was in Apple Store recently.

01:48:35   The pencil fills the whole side of the Mini,

01:48:37   but it's got the good pencil.

01:48:39   The new iPad does not.

01:48:40   - Yeah, it's a little bit wild.

01:48:42   And I've been thinking a lot about this, obviously,

01:48:45   and I don't have any good answers,

01:48:47   and I'm not plugged in enough to get good answers,

01:48:49   but the only conclusion I can come to is,

01:48:52   you know, there's only, and we say this a lot about Apple,

01:48:54   but there's only so many people

01:48:55   that can work on all these things,

01:48:57   and if you're gonna work on something,

01:49:01   I would assume the most lucrative, or God help me,

01:49:05   you know, the best return on investment

01:49:07   is to work on the thing that most people are going to buy,

01:49:09   and that's gotta be the regular, plain old iPad.

01:49:13   And yeah, you're making it more expensive,

01:49:15   might ruin my whole train of thought here, but I feel like if they're going to choose one iPad to

01:49:21   work on, they're going to work on the one that's selling the best, and that's probably the now

01:49:27   10th generation iPad. But it still bums me out, and it's still incongruous that the allegedly cheap

01:49:35   one, again leaving aside the 9th gen iPad, the cheap one is the one that has all the new hotness,

01:49:42   and the Pro one, the one that's for your most ardent and loyal fans, eh, shrug, you'll get

01:49:48   there eventually.

01:49:49   And I don't know, I get it, but I can't help but it bumming me out a little bit.

01:49:55   And so I'm jumping ahead slightly, but I was going to ask you two if you bought anything,

01:49:59   but I'll tell you that I did buy a half terabyte, 11 inch cellular iPad Pro.

01:50:08   And most of the reason I did that was because my current iPad Pro is a 2018 model.

01:50:12   You know, it was the original OG Face ID iPad Pro.

01:50:18   And I think I'm not going to cancel this order.

01:50:21   The more I think about it.

01:50:24   What upgrade between those two models were you looking for?

01:50:26   Because it's same form vector, same features, Face ID, good Apple Pencil, blah, blah, blah.

01:50:31   Obviously this one is tremendously faster, but does that manifest?

01:50:34   Like it has, and this one has more RAM.

01:50:35   - I'll sell you my M1, one for a good price.

01:50:38   - Well, and that's the thing, is that part of the reason,

01:50:42   I told myself I was gonna get a new iPad this year

01:50:44   because it's been four years, and I feel like four years

01:50:47   is a pretty decent longevity for an iPad.

01:50:49   Like, I mean, hell, four years for a computer for Marco,

01:50:52   that's like 15 computers for you.

01:50:54   - And about a third of a computer for John.

01:50:56   (laughing)

01:50:57   - Well done.

01:50:58   But I feel like four years for an iPad,

01:51:01   that's not unreasonable, and it just felt like time.

01:51:04   But I spoke to a couple of friends who also are on 11-inch 2018 iPads, or iPad Pros, and

01:51:13   I've been thinking about it, and I think I would like, I think I'm going to keep this

01:51:17   one that I'm going to be picking up at the store on Wednesday or whatever day.

01:51:21   But to answer your question, Jon, I don't have a great answer for that question.

01:51:26   I do want 5G because, again, I like having a cellular iPad.

01:51:30   I would like it to be a little bit speedier when I'm not connected to Wi-Fi.

01:51:35   I'd like a faster processor, but I don't often feel like I'm hamstrung by whatever processor

01:51:43   is in this one.

01:51:44   I don't even remember anymore.

01:51:45   A12X.

01:51:46   Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, actually.

01:51:49   And then I'd like to be able to use Stage Manager because I feel like that's relevant

01:51:52   for my job, as in to talk to you guys about it, because I guess I could use it on the

01:51:58   the one that I have now, but it's slightly hamstrung,

01:52:00   if I remember correctly.

01:52:02   Who even really knows how it's gonna work out?

01:52:03   - No, you can use everything except

01:52:05   external screens, I believe.

01:52:06   - Okay, there you go.

01:52:07   But I mean, I'd like to try with an external screen,

01:52:09   not because I think I'll do that often,

01:52:10   but because I'd like to talk about it.

01:52:12   But more than anything else,

01:52:14   the thing I think I'm most looking forward to

01:52:16   is my current iPad, it's just showing age.

01:52:20   The screen looks like garbage in no small part

01:52:23   because my kids use a lot.

01:52:24   The battery is okay.

01:52:26   It's not trash, but it's not great.

01:52:28   I mean, it's four years on.

01:52:30   So I think just having a fresh start would be nice.

01:52:34   But your point, your implied point, Jon, is very good,

01:52:37   that I'm not sure I'm getting that much.

01:52:41   In terms of what I would do day to day,

01:52:43   I'm not saying that math is the same for anyone else,

01:52:45   but for me, I'm not getting that much.

01:52:48   I'm probably gonna attempt to just keep the same keyboard

01:52:51   because I really don't wanna buy another one

01:52:53   even though my smart keyboard is showing its age

01:52:56   kind of peeling away at the edges a little bit. But I'd rather not spend $300 on a new keyboard

01:53:00   that does the exact same thing. I don't plan on getting a new Apple Pencil. So if I can skirt by

01:53:06   by just by just spending $1,300 or whatever it was on this iPad, I think that's reasonable. It's a

01:53:13   reasonable thing to do after four years. But the couple of friends that I spoke to, they were like,

01:53:17   "Yeah, I think I'll pass. I don't think I'm gonna do it." And I'm not sure that I'm right and they're

01:53:21   they're wrong, they might be right.

01:53:24   - Well, and if they, you know, if in a year and a half

01:53:27   or so, we get like what this was maybe supposed to be,

01:53:32   like if we get one that's like a little bit more redesigned,

01:53:35   has maybe, you know, with some of the,

01:53:37   maybe it moves the camera, maybe it has a different keyboard

01:53:39   that detaches and has an escape key and a function row.

01:53:42   - Mini LED screen on the 11 inch,

01:53:45   improved cameras, moved cameras, yeah.

01:53:48   - Right, like if that comes out next,

01:53:50   which is probably gonna be roughly 12 to 18 months from now,

01:53:54   are you gonna wish you would've waited for that

01:53:56   rather than getting something that,

01:53:58   I think in day-to-day usage,

01:54:00   I would be surprised if you even noticed

01:54:02   the difference going from the one you have to this one.

01:54:04   - It's possible, it's possible.

01:54:06   And I'm glad you phrased it that way,

01:54:08   like would I regret not having waited.

01:54:11   I don't think so,

01:54:13   because it is going to be at least a year,

01:54:16   I mean, unless Apple changes its cadence,

01:54:18   which is possible,

01:54:19   But if history tells us anything,

01:54:21   it'll be at least a year to your point,

01:54:23   maybe a year and a half before we get a new iPad Pro.

01:54:26   And I feel like in a year to a year and a half,

01:54:29   I can get some pretty good use out of this one

01:54:31   that I'm picking up Wednesday, hypothetically.

01:54:33   And I could always trade in or resell it

01:54:37   a year, year and a half on,

01:54:39   and I wouldn't make all of my money back,

01:54:41   but I'd presumably make at least half of my money back,

01:54:44   especially for a half terabyte and for a cellular model.

01:54:48   I would be able to get a few hundred bucks for that.

01:54:51   So I don't think I would regret it, but here again, I take your point that in day-to-day

01:54:56   use, with the exception of cellular, I really think the cellular upgrade might be a somewhat

01:55:00   big deal because I do use the iPad on cellular semi-often, but other than that, I'm not sure

01:55:07   day-to-day would make that much of a difference.

01:55:09   But sitting here now, I think I am going to stick with the order that is forthcoming,

01:55:14   but who knows?

01:55:15   Maybe I'll decide to save my shekels and wait.

01:55:17   - Yeah, cellular is great.

01:55:19   I mean, and it's, so like the reason,

01:55:21   I mean, it's almost the whole reason

01:55:22   I currently have an iPad is because I needed something

01:55:25   that was separate from my other devices and had cellular.

01:55:29   And it's great for that.

01:55:31   But oh my God, it drives me nuts.

01:55:33   Like I hate, I just hate iPad OS.

01:55:35   Like it's just not, for everyone it's for,

01:55:37   I'm happy for you, it's not for me.

01:55:38   Like every time I use it, I wish it was a Mac.

01:55:42   Like if there was just a MacBook Air with cellular,

01:55:44   like I would throw this out the window.

01:55:47   I've literally used mine as a small television like I think I do at least half my television watching that I bet I use it

01:55:52   It's a small television with with an iPhone attached to it because when I'm watching shows that don't require full attention

01:55:57   I can pull Twitter and slide over or slack and slide over

01:56:01   While I'm watching the show and the rest of the screen. It's basically a two-screen experience on one screen

01:56:07   And then you can see why I'm very interested in OLED screen

01:56:11   Cuz if you use your iPad primarily as a television like television tech is what I want out of it

01:56:15   I do other things with it too, but like if you looked at the hours just the television hours

01:56:19   They're just so much, you know the fact that it runs all the streaming apps right so you know

01:56:23   It's not like I'm just watching Netflix

01:56:25   It's all the various things that I subscribe to plus I can use my TiVo app and watch my you know televisions

01:56:31   So that's what I'm using it for so I tend not to get into the frustrations of iPad OS

01:56:35   But you know I will give stage manager another try in the official release

01:56:40   I just I tried it in the beta's and pretty much ran away screaming. Yeah

01:56:44   I tried actually doing my work in Stage Manager

01:56:46   like for this little iPad.

01:56:48   And it's simple, it's like mail and notes

01:56:50   and the browser going back between those three mainly.

01:56:53   Oh my God, I hated every second of it.

01:56:55   And I tried, I'm like let me give this a good honest try.

01:56:58   Similar to how I'm wearing the Ultra

01:57:00   even though I didn't think it would fit me.

01:57:02   But I'm like oh, let me give this a good honest try.

01:57:03   So I tried working on the iPad in those,

01:57:07   like in Stage Manager for I think two weeks this summer.

01:57:10   and it just fought me at every turn

01:57:14   and nothing ever worked the way I thought it would.

01:57:16   It was, oh God, it was awful.

01:57:20   And I wanted so badly to like it.

01:57:23   That's the biggest reason I upgraded to this iPad

01:57:26   in the first place was because I couldn't, quote,

01:57:28   couldn't run Stage Manager on my old one,

01:57:30   which of course was later modified

01:57:32   to have Stage Manager support, thanks for that, Apple.

01:57:34   (laughs)

01:57:35   No, it's cool, it was the right move.

01:57:37   I'm sure, I'm glad they did it,

01:57:38   even though it screwed me a little bit,

01:57:40   but it's all right.

01:57:41   I'll forgive you for making Swift Async so good.

01:57:45   Anyway, I tried it.

01:57:47   The entire way people work on iPads is, I think,

01:57:54   incompatible with both the things I do

01:57:57   and just the way I like to work.

01:57:59   And it's a shame because the hardware,

01:58:02   even though we just said how much it didn't change,

01:58:04   but the hardware, I really like a lot about the hardware.

01:58:08   and I wish the Mac would get some of the niceties

01:58:10   that the iPad has, especially in regards to cellular.

01:58:14   That's like the number one thing I want to see

01:58:16   on the MacBook Air.

01:58:17   But even again, I would love to have a MacBook Air

01:58:19   that's a little bit closer to the size of the 11 inch,

01:58:21   so maybe a 12 inch MacBook Air.

01:58:23   I would love to see that with cellular.

01:58:25   Oh my God, take my money.

01:58:27   But in the absence of that,

01:58:29   I wanted to really make this work and I just couldn't.

01:58:32   But look, if you're an iPad power user out there

01:58:34   and you're excited about all this stuff, great.

01:58:36   All this is to say I didn't buy anything today.

01:58:38   - So I was on Clockwise earlier today

01:58:42   and I had asked on Clockwise,

01:58:44   do you buy cellular iPads and why or why not?

01:58:48   And bonus question, would you buy a cellular MacBook?

01:58:52   And as I told the three co-hosts,

01:58:56   which was Dan Moore and Jason Snell and Kathy Campbell,

01:58:58   all of whom I consider very good friends,

01:59:00   I would kill all three of them

01:59:02   and the two of you by the way,

01:59:03   to get a cellular MacBook.

01:59:06   Like, I would kill for one.

01:59:08   I would love it so much.

01:59:10   And, oh my gosh, I am holding out hope

01:59:13   that now that Apple is in the modem business,

01:59:16   that maybe that will be a thing one day,

01:59:17   because I would love it.

01:59:20   All right, anything else on iPad?

01:59:23   We still have to talk Apple TV.

01:59:24   Jon, did you buy an iPad today?

01:59:26   - I did not.

01:59:27   I've got an M1, and you know, there's nothing for me

01:59:29   in this upgrade watching my streaming apps

01:59:32   that would not be improved by an M2.

01:59:34   - Fair enough.

01:59:35   Yeah, I mean, I don't think we need to believe it anymore,

01:59:37   but, and we also talked about this on Clockwise today,

01:59:40   but the middle section of the iPad lineup,

01:59:43   the Air, the iPad 10th gen, and the iPad 9th gen,

01:59:47   it's just, it's weird.

01:59:48   Like, I don't feel like there's any clear answers,

01:59:52   and that's okay, I guess, but I don't know.

01:59:57   I feel like in an effort to have an iPad

02:00:01   at every price point, we've ended up with an iPad

02:00:03   at every dollar value between whatever the iPad Mini

02:00:07   starts at in the $2,400 or whatever I said it was

02:00:10   for the 13-inch iPad Pro.

02:00:12   It's just, there's a lot there.

02:00:14   - They didn't bump the RAM, right?

02:00:15   It's still, the specs for the new iPad Pro

02:00:18   is eight gigs of RAM on the models

02:00:20   with up to 512 gig storage,

02:00:23   and 16 gigs of RAM on the one and two terabyte.

02:00:25   And I think that's the same as it was.

02:00:27   It is kind of weird that the RAM is tied

02:00:28   to the storage in that way, 'cause hey,

02:00:29   what if you need a lot of RAM,

02:00:30   but not a lot of storage, well, tough luck.

02:00:32   But that's a healthy amount of RAM.

02:00:35   You can get an iPad with an M2 and 16 gigs of RAM,

02:00:39   but you can't have more than four windows in Stage Manager.

02:00:42   (laughing)

02:00:44   - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:00:45   All right, let's talk about the Apple TV.

02:00:46   We're running a little bit long,

02:00:47   so maybe there won't be much to say about this.

02:00:50   There are two models.

02:00:51   There's 64 gig, which is WiFi only,

02:00:54   and there's, what is it, 128 gig,

02:00:57   which is WiFi and Ethernet and Thread Radio,

02:01:02   because the 64 gig does not have Ethernet

02:01:06   and it does not have a Thread Radio,

02:01:08   which, okay, that's a little interesting to me,

02:01:12   but I'll go with it.

02:01:14   It has an A15, which is from late 2021.

02:01:17   This is the iPhone 13's chip.

02:01:18   It did have an A12 in the past that's from late 2018,

02:01:22   which is the iPhone XS.

02:01:24   To put things in perspective, Michaela was born in 2018,

02:01:27   just throwing that out there.

02:01:28   And apparently, maybe I knew this and I forgot,

02:01:34   but I don't know if I knew this.

02:01:35   Apparently the Apple TV used to have a fan

02:01:37   and now because of how efficient the A15 is,

02:01:40   does not need more.

02:01:41   - Yeah, I believe ever since the 4K,

02:01:43   I mean, first of all, the very, very original one did,

02:01:46   the one that was like basically an Xbox inside.

02:01:49   - But it was a Mac Mini.

02:01:51   - Yeah, right. - Yeah, not really,

02:01:52   but it looked like it.

02:01:53   - Well, it was kind of like an Xbox,

02:01:54   so you look at the processor.

02:01:55   Anyway, it was like, wasn't it like a 700 megahertz Celeron?

02:01:58   It's like, that's kind of very similar to what the Xbox.

02:02:00   Anyway.

02:02:01   - No, I was not, I gotta look up what the,

02:02:03   what the hell was in the, it was more like a Mac.

02:02:06   It ran basically a variant of Mac OS inside.

02:02:10   Anyway, that was far away.

02:02:12   In the era of the black puck Apple TVs,

02:02:16   I believe they were fanless and then they got a fan,

02:02:20   I don't know, anyway, here's the important thing about--

02:02:21   - I believe the 4K ones went to fans.

02:02:24   When the 4K came out, I believe that added the fan.

02:02:27   - But the important thing about the fan of the Apple TV is,

02:02:29   it is literally inaudible.

02:02:31   Like you cannot, it is like of all the things,

02:02:35   I applaud removable fans everywhere,

02:02:37   but this and the airport extreme that Marco gave me,

02:02:41   the like the tower airport extreme,

02:02:43   both of those things had fans and both of those fans

02:02:46   were completely inaudible to my middle-aged adult ears

02:02:50   from like any distance.

02:02:52   Like I would shove my ear up to the thing,

02:02:54   It was just so, but hey, kudos for getting rid of the fan

02:02:57   'cause that's one last thing that can go wrong, right?

02:02:59   - So I'm trying to figure out

02:03:00   what the original Apple TV was running

02:03:03   and the answer is some variant of a Pentium M processor

02:03:07   and apparently ran a variant of Mac OS X Tiger.

02:03:10   But I go to Wikipedia and I go to Apple TV, Apple TV.

02:03:15   This article is about the hardware media player

02:03:16   with a streaming service, see Apple TV Plus.

02:03:19   For the media player app from Apple, see Apple TV app.

02:03:21   For other uses, see Apple TV.

02:03:24   What a friggin' mess this is.

02:03:27   Oh my gosh.

02:03:29   - Related to that, the new Puck,

02:03:31   all right, so it's got the A15, it's got no fan in it.

02:03:33   It is smaller than the previous Puck.

02:03:36   It is, you know, it is shorter, so it's not as high,

02:03:39   and it also, dimensionally, this little square

02:03:41   at the edges of the square are smaller.

02:03:43   The old one was 3.9 inches, this is 3.66 inches.

02:03:46   The old one was 1.4 inches tall, this is 1.2 inches tall,

02:03:49   and no fan, and the other one said, on top of it,

02:03:52   Apple TV, but it didn't say the word Apple.

02:03:54   It had the Apple logo and then a lowercase T

02:03:57   and then lowercase V.

02:03:58   The new one just has the Apple logo dead center.

02:04:01   So it is smaller, quieter in theory,

02:04:05   if you had amazing hearing.

02:04:07   And selling one without ethernet, that makes sense.

02:04:10   Not only weirdos have ethernet by their TV.

02:04:12   Everybody should, whatever.

02:04:13   Selling without the Thread Radio,

02:04:15   the Apple TV is the ideal home kit hub

02:04:18   because it's plugged in all the time.

02:04:21   like it's probably in a central location,

02:04:23   that's a great thing to be your home GitHub.

02:04:25   Why wouldn't it support through a radio?

02:04:26   But part of the explanation of this

02:04:28   is if you go down to the pricing,

02:04:30   these are actually cheaper than the previous

02:04:33   horrendously overpriced Apple TVs.

02:04:34   So these are less horrendously overpriced.

02:04:36   The old one was you'd get for 180 bucks,

02:04:39   you get a 32 gig one and for $200, you get a 64 gig one.

02:04:44   Now you can get a 64 gig one for $130.

02:04:47   So $70 price reduction

02:04:49   for basically the same amount of storage,

02:04:52   but of course you get no ethernet and thread radio,

02:04:54   you don't have that either.

02:04:55   And then 128 for 150 bucks.

02:04:57   So there is no more $200 Apple TV

02:05:00   and the storage sizes have doubled on both of the things.

02:05:04   So they're going in the right direction.

02:05:06   It would have been better

02:05:08   if the low end one had a thread radio and was $99,

02:05:10   but you know, baby steps, we'll get there.

02:05:12   So I ordered this immediately.

02:05:15   Of course I did.

02:05:16   I ordered every Apple TV. - With why?

02:05:17   I ordered the big one with the Ethernet port.

02:05:21   It's a good thing too because I was like, "Should I get the one with the big storage?"

02:05:24   Because I was ordering so fast, I just took a glance out of the corner and I'm like, "Wait

02:05:28   a second.

02:05:29   Why does that say Ethernet?"

02:05:30   So I'm glad I didn't accidentally order the bad one.

02:05:32   Oh, you forgot to mention they now support HDR10+.

02:05:36   That is the television-related feature that they've added.

02:05:39   I think they cranked up the wireless to 802.11ax with 2x2 MIMO and HDR 10+ support and of course

02:05:50   an A15 which is a significantly better processor.

02:05:53   So this is all around a better Apple TV than the old one.

02:05:56   I don't think there's any other big TV related stuff.

02:06:00   I'm assuming those changes are just related to TV OS.

02:06:02   But this is, oh, and it has Bluetooth 5.0, not 5.2 and not 4.3, just plain old 5.0.

02:06:10   But we've buried the lead because the most interesting thing about this, that everyone

02:06:15   is cheering, and I think I am too, the Siri remote, which looks identical at a glance,

02:06:21   now charges via USB-C. And it also weighs one tenth of an ounce or three grams more,

02:06:26   which is interesting.

02:06:27   But USB-C.

02:06:28   Insert "It's happening" GIF here.

02:06:32   - Finally, it's finally happening.

02:06:33   - It's happening, it's happening everybody.

02:06:35   - This is it, we're going to USB-C slowly,

02:06:39   where it's gonna take a long time, but we're going there.

02:06:42   - Yep, and actually just very briefly

02:06:44   to go back to the iPad Pro, you know what I really,

02:06:46   really wanted on the iPad Pro, which I didn't expect to get,

02:06:49   but I really wanted-- - Another USB-C port?

02:06:50   - Well, maybe, but no, actually what I really wanted

02:06:53   was MagSafe, like the same MagSafe I have for my laptop

02:06:56   I wish was on the iPad, and I can think of 1,010 reasons

02:06:59   why that wouldn't be there, but I wanted it, you guys,

02:07:02   and I didn't get it, and that makes me sad.

02:07:03   But anyway, I am happy that the Siri remote is USB-C.

02:07:07   The, what is it, the canary in the coal mine has croaked,

02:07:10   so things are indeed happening.

02:07:12   It's happening .gif, like you said.

02:07:14   - Yeah, and the reason we're saying this,

02:07:15   if you're not steeped in the lore of Apple stuff,

02:07:17   is lots of Apple peripherals and devices

02:07:20   have lightning connectors,

02:07:21   just as sort of their way of charging.

02:07:23   So my keyboard is like that, the Apple mouse is like that,

02:07:26   the Apple track pads are like that,

02:07:28   - AirPods. - The use of the air remote

02:07:29   was like that.

02:07:30   It was kind of the default,

02:07:32   ah, this doesn't have any kind of data connection,

02:07:34   but we need some way to charge it.

02:07:35   It's got a rechargeable battery.

02:07:36   So how about I use a slim connector for that?

02:07:37   Let's just use lightning, right?

02:07:38   That's been Apple's default for years and years.

02:07:41   Now in a sane world, you would say,

02:07:43   well, that shouldn't be lightning anymore.

02:07:44   That should all be USB-C.

02:07:45   And so this is the first product that has been revised

02:07:49   with the new thinking that we assume is,

02:07:51   okay, every single one of those products I just listed,

02:07:53   if and when they eventually revise those,

02:07:55   they will come with USB-C.

02:07:58   and of course culminating or perhaps leading to the big one,

02:08:01   which is we've talked about a million times

02:08:02   the iPhone going to USB-C.

02:08:03   So that's why when we see this remote

02:08:05   and it's got a USB-C connection, why do we care about that?

02:08:07   Why are we excited about it?

02:08:08   Who cares?

02:08:09   It shows that Apple understands the time of lightning

02:08:12   as the default Apple,

02:08:13   oh, I just need a charging port on this thing

02:08:15   is coming to an end.

02:08:17   - Yep, I'm very, very happy about this.

02:08:19   I insta ordered this for also not great reasons.

02:08:23   - It's so cheap, I too.

02:08:26   - Well, it's funny you say that

02:08:27   because first of all, it does feel a lot cheaper,

02:08:30   even though it is still expensive compared to its peers.

02:08:33   - Or compared to not buying anything

02:08:34   because all these apps are built into your smart TV.

02:08:37   - Also true.

02:08:38   But what I've decided to do is I've wanted,

02:08:42   and I was waiting for this to launch,

02:08:44   whenever it may be, be it this year or next year,

02:08:46   and it turns out it was yesterday as we record,

02:08:49   I wanted to take the Apple TV 4K

02:08:51   that's currently in my living room,

02:08:53   I wanted to bump that back to our bedroom,

02:08:55   even though we very rarely use the bedroom TV,

02:08:58   and if we do, it's usually for exercising,

02:09:00   but nevertheless, like, you know,

02:09:01   doing a Fitness Plus video or something like that.

02:09:03   Well anyways, we have a 4K TV in the bedroom,

02:09:07   a very unremarkable 4K TV in the bedroom,

02:09:09   but we have the Apple TV, whatever it's called,

02:09:12   the 1080 Apple TV that still supports apps.

02:09:14   I forget, what is it, the HD or whatever?

02:09:16   - HD. - Yep, thank you.

02:09:18   Which is now dead, by the way.

02:09:19   But anyways, we have that on the bedroom TV.

02:09:22   - That's even more than the Apple Pencil One, I think.

02:09:25   You're probably right. And so the one that is currently on the bedroom TV will get demoted to a full-time travel

02:09:31   Appliance because when we go anywhere for more than just a couple of days, I like to bring an Apple TV

02:09:35   You can think I'm nuts for that. That's totally fine. But that's what I like. I like to do that

02:09:39   So that'll be the the travel Apple TV until it doesn't work anymore

02:09:43   the current Apple TV 4k will then get bumped up to the bedroom and then this guy will go down in the living room and

02:09:49   Be connected to our nice LG C9 and and I'm looking forward to it

02:09:54   even though, again, I have no particular problems

02:09:56   with my current Apple TV, I'm excited to have this.

02:09:59   I did get the Ethernet model

02:10:00   because there is Ethernet back there

02:10:01   and I prefer it to be on Ethernet,

02:10:03   especially when air playing.

02:10:05   Maybe this will get better when I eventually move

02:10:07   to like Wi-Fi 6E or whatever it's called,

02:10:09   but I really find that the air play experience

02:10:12   is a lot better when at least one of the things

02:10:14   air playing is on Ethernet, even better when both are.

02:10:16   So your mileage may vary, but that's what I like.

02:10:19   And so yeah, that'll be coming,

02:10:21   when is it, coming November or something like that?

02:10:22   - Yeah, in a couple weeks.

02:10:24   I'm doing exactly the same bump up.

02:10:25   That's always been my strategy.

02:10:26   Every time I get a new one, it goes on the good TV.

02:10:28   The one that's on the good TV goes in the bedroom.

02:10:30   The one that's in the bedroom becomes the travel Apple TV.

02:10:32   That's just, that's just, that's why I buy them

02:10:34   every time a new one comes out.

02:10:36   'Cause I always want whatever new things they have.

02:10:38   And I think the Thread Radio, another forward looking thing,

02:10:41   like what is the iPod, the HomePod Mini has the Thread Radio.

02:10:45   Now one of the Apple TVs has it.

02:10:48   - But the previous generation, they both had it.

02:10:50   - I just feel like they were trying to hit a price

02:10:52   with the cheap one and the price wasn't even $99,

02:10:55   which it needs to be.

02:10:56   And I think a lot of that is, it's A15, right?

02:10:58   I think A15 seems like a little bit overkill for this,

02:11:01   but maybe their gaming angle is like it makes game

02:11:04   development for Apple TV easier, as if the problem

02:11:05   was the SLC, but anyway.

02:11:08   Like it's great that it hasn't A15,

02:11:10   but if you could have made it $99 with a thread radiator

02:11:13   with an A14, that would have been a better product.

02:11:15   - Yeah, I think I agree with you.

02:11:16   - Yeah, but that being said, you know,

02:11:19   with the exception of the small one lacking the thread,

02:11:22   Overall, this looks like an even better update

02:11:25   than the iPad update today, honestly.

02:11:27   In terms of like-- - No, it's absolutely.

02:11:28   Like this, if you ignore the low-end Apple TV

02:11:31   and just look at the high-end one, it is just a pure win.

02:11:33   Everything about it is better than the old one.

02:11:35   Significantly better SoC, no fan, smaller, lighter,

02:11:38   less power, some new features like HDR10, better WiFi.

02:11:42   It is a spec bump and also a form factor slight revision.

02:11:46   Again, form factor doesn't really matter

02:11:47   for something that sits on your TV

02:11:48   and you don't touch it or whatever,

02:11:49   But in the aspects that do matter, size, heat,

02:11:53   but they improved on all that.

02:11:55   So good job Apple TV, another pretty good revision

02:11:58   that suckers like me will just continue to buy

02:12:00   until you stop making it.

02:12:01   - Yep, yep, I agree.

02:12:03   I really, really like my Apple TV.

02:12:05   And now that I'm all in on the Apple TV

02:12:07   by way of not having really any other thing

02:12:10   connected to the TV other than the Switch,

02:12:12   and did we talk about, I actually dug out the Wii recently,

02:12:14   I don't remember if we talked about that.

02:12:16   But anyway, the only thing that we do for TV watching

02:12:19   is the Apple TV. And I can totally make arguments that it's overkill, it's silly, it's expensive,

02:12:24   et cetera, but I really like it. I really do think TV OS has its problems, but all in

02:12:30   all, I really, really like it. It's really nice to have our cable television coming through

02:12:34   the Apple TV. John, I'm not asking you to agree. I know that you love your TiVo. That's

02:12:38   fine. That's fine. But for me, I really, really like the combination of channels for live

02:12:44   stuff and DVR, Plex for anything that we want to watch that's kind of like our long-term

02:12:50   storage and then stuff like Disney+ or whatever else.

02:12:54   The Apple TV apps for all these things tend to be very, very good.

02:12:57   And I just really, really like having this as my TV setup.

02:13:01   And basically, any TV that has an internet connection, like any television that has an

02:13:08   Apple TV with an internet connection connected to it, it's no different than being at home,

02:13:12   which is so awesome.

02:13:13   I can watch my cable TV anywhere.

02:13:15   I can watch my Plex anywhere.

02:13:17   I can watch Disney Plus anywhere.

02:13:19   It's just so nice.

02:13:21   It's such a small little box,

02:13:23   and it's an internal power supply.

02:13:24   You don't have to worry about a stupid brick or anything.

02:13:26   I really, really love it,

02:13:28   and that's why I take it traveling

02:13:30   is because it is so nice not only for times

02:13:33   when the kids wanna watch a little TV,

02:13:35   they can do it themselves,

02:13:37   but then when I wanna watch a little TV

02:13:39   at the end of the day,

02:13:40   then it's all my stuff right there.

02:13:42   So I really love the Apple TV a lot,

02:13:44   and I Insta-bought one of these

02:13:47   just because why wouldn't I?

02:13:48   Marco, did you say, I'm sorry, did I miss it,

02:13:49   did you say if you bought one of these?

02:13:51   - I did not, but it's only because

02:13:54   I think all the Apple TVs that we regularly use

02:13:57   are currently like the last 4K model

02:13:59   that was just replaced, and so they're fine.

02:14:01   Like, you know, whenever they stop working,

02:14:04   then I'll replace them with this,

02:14:06   but I don't have any immediate needs.

02:14:08   - Yeah, you know, if it wasn't for me

02:14:10   wanting to do the trickle-down

02:14:11   like Jon and I were both talking about.

02:14:12   I don't know that I would have bought it,

02:14:13   but because I had a quote unquote need to trickle down,

02:14:17   that's why I did it, but I'm totally with you.

02:14:20   I'm not sure that there's that much to gain.

02:14:21   - But you have Samsung TVs, aren't you?

02:14:22   Do you have any Samsung TVs that support HDR 10 plus?

02:14:26   Maybe yours are all too old for that.

02:14:27   - Mine, well it doesn't, I mean they're just the frame TVs

02:14:30   and therefore I don't even think,

02:14:32   I don't even think the panel is capable

02:14:33   of high dynamic range anything.

02:14:35   Like they're terrible panels, they're terrible TVs.

02:14:38   Nobody should buy them.

02:14:40   - You don't need this Apple TV then.

02:14:41   - No, I really don't.

02:14:43   Now on the OLED I have back in Westchester

02:14:45   that's burned in with the Minecraft HUD,

02:14:48   that could probably use it.

02:14:50   - Does that support, but I think it might support

02:14:51   Dolby Vision though.

02:14:52   - It is, yeah.

02:14:53   I already had HDR throughout the Apple TV through that.

02:14:55   - Yeah, all right.

02:14:57   - Cool, well that was a long episode.

02:15:00   Thanks to our sponsors this week,

02:15:02   Squarespace, Linode, and Collide,

02:15:04   and thanks to our members who support us directly.

02:15:06   You can join at atb.fm/join.

02:15:09   Remember, this episode was six minutes shorter.

02:15:12   You could have saved six minutes.

02:15:15   Anyway, thank you so much,

02:15:16   and we will talk to you next week.

02:15:18   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

02:15:23   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

02:15:26   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

02:15:28   ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

02:15:31   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

02:15:33   ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

02:15:36   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

02:15:39   And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm And if you're into Twitter, you can follow

02:15:46   them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

02:15:58   Auntie Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Siracusa

02:16:05   ♪ USA, Syracuse, it's accidental ♪

02:16:10   ♪ They didn't mean to, accidental ♪

02:16:16   ♪ Tech podcast so long ♪

02:16:19   - All right, so I have a quick story.

02:16:22   It's a little bit of a sad story, I guess,

02:16:23   to offset my delightful story from last week

02:16:28   about my Sonos stuff.

02:16:30   I got ripped off on Amazon.

02:16:32   This is such an odd story.

02:16:33   Maybe this is something that everyone knew about but me.

02:16:37   So I have for a long time been looking at,

02:16:40   and I think it was Marco that brought this to my attention,

02:16:42   the Lenovo ThinkVision M14.

02:16:45   - It sure was.

02:16:46   - Okay, so it's a little,

02:16:47   I mean, I've never actually seen one in person,

02:16:49   so jump in when you're ready, Marco,

02:16:50   but it's a little 1080p 14-inch monitor

02:16:54   that you can power and give data to just over USB-C.

02:16:58   Is that a fair summary?

02:16:59   - That is correct, and it's great for portable things,

02:17:02   is really what it's made for.

02:17:04   We use it as like a monitor so that Tiff and Adam

02:17:08   can see what I can see.

02:17:10   So it just mirrors my laptop screen during our streaming

02:17:12   so they can see themselves in the webcams

02:17:14   and the chat and everything else.

02:17:16   - So I have had my eye on this for a while.

02:17:19   It currently is on Amazon for 260 bucks.

02:17:22   And I'm not trying to say that's an unreasonable price

02:17:25   for this thing, but I didn't want to pay that much.

02:17:28   So I think I had on CamelCamelCamel a price watch for it.

02:17:32   and it dropped to something like 200 bucks.

02:17:34   I could look it up, but it doesn't really matter.

02:17:36   It dropped enough that I was like,

02:17:37   "Oh, oh, oh, okay, now's the time, again.

02:17:40   "It's happening, Duck If."

02:17:41   And so I went ahead and bought it,

02:17:44   and this was like a month ago now,

02:17:46   but we hadn't had a chance to talk about it.

02:17:47   So I bought it, and I bought it,

02:17:49   it was one of those third-party sellers

02:17:51   that's selling on Amazon or whatever.

02:17:53   And so I bought it, and that was that.

02:17:54   And they sent me a tracking number,

02:17:57   and that was all well and good.

02:17:59   And I watched it march across the country

02:18:02   California to my town and so, and I don't actually live in Richmond proper, I live in one of the suburbs,

02:18:09   so the town name is a little different, but we'll just say it was Richmond for the sake of this

02:18:13   discussion, and so I'm watching it march from California to Richmond and then one day, the day

02:18:17   it was due to be delivered, I had I think Parcel, which is my preferred delivery tracking app,

02:18:25   I had Parcel open, and it did its periodic check to say,

02:18:30   "Okay, what's new? What's updated?"

02:18:32   And it said, "Oh, it's been delivered."

02:18:34   That's odd, because I knew it was coming via the post office.

02:18:37   And my office in my house has a view of the front of the house,

02:18:42   and I can very clearly see the road,

02:18:44   and I can see our mailbox.

02:18:46   And I had been in the office for the last several hours,

02:18:49   and I hadn't seen the mail truck go through.

02:18:52   So, okay.

02:18:54   And I thought, "Well, my father-in-law was a postal carrier for a long, long, long time,

02:18:59   and I've talked to him about things like this, and he said that other postal carriers will sometimes

02:19:03   scan things before they've actually been delivered or whatever." So I thought, "Okay, well, I'll just

02:19:06   wait, and surely it'll show up in just a few minutes." And sure enough, like half an hour later,

02:19:10   the postal worker came by and dropped off our mail. So I went running downstairs to collect my treat,

02:19:14   and there was nothing there. So that's weird, okay? So I reached out to the post office and was—oh,

02:19:22   - Oh no, I'm sorry, I waited a day,

02:19:23   because a lot of times things will just get a little

02:19:27   gunked up, especially in these unprecedented times.

02:19:29   - Especially with the post office.

02:19:30   They play a little fast and loose

02:19:32   with the shipping statuses.

02:19:34   - Exactly. - Tracking statuses.

02:19:35   - Do you guys have that feature where you can see

02:19:37   a photo of your mail before it's delivered to your house?

02:19:39   - Yes, yes. - No.

02:19:41   - Oh, you've not heard of this, what is it?

02:19:42   Shoot, it's informed delivery, I think.

02:19:45   You should definitely do this.

02:19:47   It's an American.

02:19:48   - I don't have mail delivery to my house.

02:19:49   - I mean, they probably send you the picture

02:19:51   a day after you get the mail where you live.

02:19:53   - That's probably true.

02:19:55   But anyway, so I don't recall, that's a good question,

02:19:58   I know what you're driving at,

02:19:59   I don't recall if it had anything in form delivery.

02:20:01   I don't think it did.

02:20:04   But I knew from parcel, or parcels or whatever it's called,

02:20:06   I'll put a link in the show notes,

02:20:08   that it was due to be delivered that day.

02:20:10   So I wait, I see the truck pass by, it's not there,

02:20:12   I wait another day, collect the mail, nothing there.

02:20:15   So I'm like, okay, I reach out to the post office,

02:20:18   and I fill out a little form,

02:20:19   and I expect that form to go to Dev null.

02:20:21   but I say, "Oh, this thing says it's delivered.

02:20:23   "Here's the tracking number.

02:20:24   "It never showed up.

02:20:25   "Do you happen to know what's going on?"

02:20:27   Sure enough, I got a call pretty early the next morning,

02:20:29   which I'm stunned by and I'm very thankful for.

02:20:32   And I forget exactly how the conversation went against,

02:20:35   again, this was like a month ago,

02:20:36   but I got on the phone and was like,

02:20:37   "Hey, you know, this is the situation.

02:20:38   "Yeah, I totally hear you.

02:20:39   "We delivered something, but it wasn't to you."

02:20:43   Sorry, what? - What? (laughs)

02:20:45   - We delivered something here in Richmond,

02:20:48   but it definitely wasn't to your address.

02:20:51   and it matches that tracking number.

02:20:53   What?

02:20:54   Did you buy something on Amazon or something like that?

02:20:58   Yeah.

02:21:00   Oh yeah, you totally got scammed.

02:21:02   What? (laughing)

02:21:05   Wait, so hold on.

02:21:06   You're saying something got delivered to Richmond,

02:21:09   but not to me.

02:21:11   Yeah, this happens all the time.

02:21:12   This is not unusual.

02:21:13   It totally was delivered to somebody else.

02:21:16   Wait, but.

02:21:17   - What?

02:21:19   I basically like blue screened, right?

02:21:21   Okay, so hold on.

02:21:22   How much did this thing weigh that got delivered?

02:21:25   Can you tell me that?

02:21:26   Like I know you probably can't tell me where it went

02:21:27   or whatever, that's fine,

02:21:28   but can you tell me how much it weighed?

02:21:30   Let me look.

02:21:32   10 ounces.

02:21:33   I have not held one of these monitors, Marco,

02:21:35   but I have to assume that it weighs at least a pound.

02:21:38   And a pound, last I looked, is 16 ounces.

02:21:40   So I'm pretty sure whatever was delivered

02:21:44   was not one of these Lenovo ThinkVision M14s.

02:21:47   - It is pretty lightweight,

02:21:48   but it's not that lightweight.

02:21:49   And also, if I recall, it had a good deal of packaging.

02:21:52   It comes with a sleeve.

02:21:53   It comes with a whole bunch of stuff.

02:21:55   - Exactly.

02:21:56   So apparently it was delivered somewhere.

02:21:59   So at this point I'm like, okay, that's really fishy.

02:22:03   So I go back to Amazon and I look at, okay,

02:22:06   who the F sold this to me?

02:22:08   And it was sold by Alex Smart LLC,

02:22:11   which, okay, I've never heard of it, but that's fine.

02:22:14   and I will put a link to Alex Mart LLC

02:22:18   in the show notes on Amazon.

02:22:21   And sure enough, as I'm looking through the feedback

02:22:24   for Alex Mart LLC, it says package never delivered, one star.

02:22:29   I never got it, one star.

02:22:30   This is a scam, one star.

02:22:32   This is BS, one star.

02:22:33   And this goes for like two, three, four pages.

02:22:35   I looked at it, I'm looking at it right now,

02:22:37   right at this very moment.

02:22:39   0% positive reviews in the last 12 months, 115 ratings.

02:22:44   Oh my God. Cool. So apparently this is a thing where they take your money,

02:22:50   they ship something to somewhere in your town so that as far as you're concerned,

02:22:57   Oh, sorry, the post office screwed up. They must,

02:22:59   it must be the post office cause something went from California or wherever to

02:23:03   Richmond, but it just didn't show up in my doorstep.

02:23:06   It must have been the post office. Well, that's BS because the post office,

02:23:11   I mean, maybe the post office was lying to me, but I really don't think so, especially when she said 10 ounces.

02:23:16   And at this point, I don't believe I disclosed what it was. I just asked how heavy was the thing?

02:23:20   She said 10 ounces and I was like, well, there's no way a computer monitor was 10 ounces.

02:23:24   So I got on the horn with Amazon via their chat, and I was like, hey, this never got delivered.

02:23:30   Oh, well, you have to wait until the end of your delivery window,

02:23:34   which was in like three, it was probably like now, even though this was a month ago.

02:23:37   And at that point you can request a refund. And I'm like, no.

02:23:41   No, no this clearly I mean I've spoken to the post office. They said it was a scam that this is not gonna work for me

02:23:46   Okay, fine. Here's what we can do. We'll refund you now

02:23:49   But if you do get that monitor, we expect you to send it back. Okay, sure fine

02:23:53   If I somehow by miracle get this thing

02:23:55   I promise I pinky swear I will send it back and sure enough Amazon refunded my money and as far as I am concerned

02:24:02   Everything is fine now, but never in the almost 20 years at this point that I've been using Amazon

02:24:09   Have I ever had to work like you've had to worry about buying counterfeit like apples like, you know power supplies

02:24:15   You know what I'm saying? Like power bricks and things like that. Like that was known to be ripe for gross

02:24:20   You know white labeled stuff or I'm sorry, that's probably not kosher

02:24:24   But you know whatever it is where they rebrand they they make some garbage and they make it look like an Apple thing and then

02:24:29   You get it and you're like, oh, this is totally not an out first party thing

02:24:32   Well, I've known to look at that

02:24:33   I've never known that these sellers would swoop in create what appeared to be a valid listing and

02:24:39   "Send garbage to your own town and then take away your money."

02:24:44   Like, this is, again, maybe this is a thing that I should have known about,

02:24:48   but I was not aware of this at all.

02:24:50   Have you guys heard of this, or am I the only one that's in the dark?

02:24:53   - I haven't heard of this particular scam, but Amazon is indeed filled with scam attempts.

02:25:00   And I think we've been lucky that, you know, like, the amount of stuff that I order from Amazon,

02:25:06   I've been lucky that I haven't really been scammed

02:25:08   as far as I know, at least I can remember,

02:25:10   you know, in any major way.

02:25:11   But, you know, they make it very easy

02:25:15   for people to register as sellers.

02:25:18   They make it very easy to blend, you know,

02:25:21   your listings in with everyone else's listings,

02:25:23   and they make it very difficult when you're buying

02:25:25   to see, you know, who you're buying from

02:25:28   unless you look really carefully.

02:25:30   And it's really easy to not look at the tiny little text

02:25:33   that says who it's sold from and just assume

02:25:35   when you're buying a major brand,

02:25:37   products from a major website that's gonna come

02:25:39   from that website or whatever.

02:25:41   Amazon's design is intentionally, I think,

02:25:44   set to blur everything together into one giant soup

02:25:48   and to make it very difficult to be very diligent

02:25:52   about who you're buying from and when.

02:25:54   - This sounds like an improvement on the old scam

02:25:56   where they would ship you a brick or something,

02:25:58   'cause now they don't even ship you the brick.

02:26:00   - Right, it's so true.

02:26:01   - 'Cause you know that 10 ounce thing that they're sending

02:26:03   is like a bunch of tissue paper that they send

02:26:06   to a random PO box or something.

02:26:09   And whoever got it is either-- it's some sort of non-thing

02:26:14   just to show a package transfer, but 10 ounces,

02:26:16   that's just all packaging.

02:26:18   There's nothing actually in that.

02:26:19   And then you don't have anything on your end.

02:26:21   GT in the chat room is talking about a scan

02:26:24   with experience where ordered expensive 4 terabyte SSDs

02:26:29   and got an empty box with nothing in it.

02:26:32   No signs of tampering, just an empty box,

02:26:34   and so complained to Amazon.

02:26:35   And they said there was nothing we could do about it,

02:26:37   you need to file a claim.

02:26:37   So this person filed a claim and the claim got rejected.

02:26:40   So then this person did what most people do,

02:26:42   is just tell the credit card company

02:26:43   to reverse the charges, right?

02:26:45   'Cause credit cards are usually good about, you know,

02:26:46   not paying when you feel like you got scammed.

02:26:48   And Amazon responding by locking this person's account.

02:26:51   - Oh, neat.

02:26:52   - So the account they've had for 20 plus years,

02:26:54   they lost access to all of their Kindle and audio books

02:26:57   and music and stuff like that,

02:26:58   because Amazon gets angry when you reverse the charges

02:27:00   on an expensive purchase apparently.

02:27:02   But yeah, I feel like if you order something

02:27:04   and you get an empty box and it's completely sealed,

02:27:07   empty box, and I go, "Oh, sorry, nothing we can do about it."

02:27:09   Like, I mean, this Alex Smart page that you were gonna put

02:27:12   the link into it, you should check that URL

02:27:14   'cause I was getting a weird error

02:27:15   when I was trying to open it.

02:27:16   Anyway, it says, "About the seller,

02:27:18   Alex Smart LLC is committed to providing each customer

02:27:21   with the highest standard of customer service."

02:27:23   And again, it is 99% negative ratings, 1% neutral.

02:27:28   (laughing)

02:27:29   Lifetime, lifetime for this vendor.

02:27:31   [beeping]

02:27:33   [ Silence ]