0:00:00I've had a terrible week for technology.
0:00:02- Oh, tell me more.
0:00:04- A few episodes ago, I described my choice
0:00:07to not get another Synology for the beach,
0:00:11but instead, just get a couple of large SSDs
0:00:15in an external USB enclosure,
0:00:17and just use them as local disks,
0:00:19and host Time Machine for that and everything.
0:00:21- I gotta interrupt you, are you in a mental place
0:00:23where I'm allowed to laugh at you for your misfortune,
0:00:26or are you in need of me to be sympathetic
0:00:29and understanding?
0:00:31- I have almost ordered a Synology
0:00:33to fix the problem that I'm having.
0:00:35- Well, you're really trying me.
0:00:36- I'm not quite there yet.
0:00:37- You're really trying me here.
0:00:38Okay, I'm gonna try to be good.
0:00:40- To answer your question, you are totally allowed
0:00:42to gloat about how right now, my solution
0:00:46is not working well.
0:00:48- All right, so all kidding aside, what's going on?
0:00:50- So, I got these big SSDs in.
0:00:54I had some weirdness where sometimes
0:00:57they would unmount themselves,
0:01:00or sometimes, after the first Time Machine backup,
0:01:04it took a while, and after the first Time Machine backup,
0:01:07I started getting errors that they couldn't complete
0:01:10another backup, and the errors would report
0:01:13some kind of weird file system problem,
0:01:16and so I would run the disk repair healing thing,
0:01:19and it would fail.
0:01:20Like, okay, well that's good.
0:01:22So I tried blowing away the partition,
0:01:25start over, erase the whole disk, start over,
0:01:29start Time Machine again, and it couldn't even complete
0:01:33a whole backup.
0:01:34It would just stall for a while and eventually fail.
0:01:37Or there's this weird step of Time Machine
0:01:39where after you do, it seems like after you do
0:01:41a first Time Machine backup, it then tries to encrypt
0:01:45the whole disk for some reason.
0:01:47This is all still on Catalina, by the way.
0:01:49It wouldn't get through that process.
0:01:51It would just stall, and so I eventually concluded,
0:01:54okay, it's very possible that these SSDs are already bad,
0:01:58or at least one of them is.
0:01:59Which, I know there are these Micron 7.68 terabyte SSDs.
0:02:04They're a very low price for that capacity,
0:02:08but it's still not a low price, in absolute terms.
0:02:12So this is a decent amount of money at stake,
0:02:15and for SSDs that are just outside of the Amazon
0:02:19return window, so I'd have to deal with Micron directly,
0:02:22which I don't wanna have to do that.
0:02:24- What kind of case are they in, though?
0:02:26That's the thing that I would suspect,
0:02:27'cause you have the two separate sticks,
0:02:29but they're being joined by a hardware RAID 0 thing?
0:02:33- It joined in this kind of Cable Matters box
0:02:36that Cable Matters doesn't appear to make,
0:02:38'cause a few other sellers on Amazon sell
0:02:39the exact same box, and they're their brand names
0:02:41for the same price.
0:02:42And it has a hardware RAID thing on it,
0:02:45but I have the RAID disabled, so they just appear
0:02:47as two separate disks.
0:02:49But I also thought, maybe it's the enclosure.
0:02:52That's certainly where my mind went first.
0:02:56- Wait, but you're using them as two separate disks,
0:02:58but which one of the two are you targeting
0:03:00with Time Machine?
0:03:01- Only one of them.
0:03:02The other one was my big archive drive.
0:03:05But fortunately, I haven't put anything on it yet.
0:03:07- Did you try the other one with Time Machine?
0:03:09- I probably should have attempted that.
0:03:11No is the answer, I didn't.
0:03:12- Anyway, what did Micron say?
0:03:15- Well, I didn't go to them yet,
0:03:16'cause first I figured, well, let me order
0:03:19a couple of cheap enclosures that are just single disk,
0:03:21regular enclosures, just so I can rule out,
0:03:23is the enclosure being buggy?
0:03:25As I'm working on that, as I have no Time Machine,
0:03:29Tiff's laptop dies.
0:03:31- Oh, I heard about that.
0:03:33That was the overheating thing, right?
0:03:35- I don't know if it was overheating.
0:03:37However, as part of the, so the symptom is,
0:03:40just would not power on, no matter what you did.
0:03:43No matter what kind of crazy key commands,
0:03:45what kind of crazy SMC resets and PM whatever resets
0:03:49and all the, like, reset the T to,
0:03:51every possible thing that we could think of to do,
0:03:54none of it would make this computer turn on.
0:03:57Followed every single possible thing.
0:03:58And after a while of doing some of these things,
0:04:03Tiff's like, oh my god, I smell burning plastic.
0:04:06- Oh no.
0:04:07- And sure enough, out of the right side vent,
0:04:12it was the distinct smell of burnt electronics.
0:04:14You know, like, I don't know if it's like a burnt capacitor
0:04:16or what, but it's like, it's the smell
0:04:17of a dead power supply.
0:04:18- Don't smell that.
0:04:19- Yeah, oh yeah, we didn't take a big long sniff.
0:04:22Yeah, it's the distinctive smell of a dead power supply
0:04:27or something, coming from inside the laptop.
0:04:29We're like, oh, okay.
0:04:30- I would have worried that it was a battery fire situation.
0:04:32- We did, and in fact, we brought it outside,
0:04:35holding it over a pit of sand while I continued
0:04:39to try to get it to power on,
0:04:40just in case it would catch additional fire.
0:04:42- Wait, is that a butterfly keyboard?
0:04:44- It sure is.
0:04:46- Because sand is its mortal enemy.
0:04:47- Yes, I thought of that as well.
0:04:50- What a fitting end.
0:04:51- Of course it's the butterfly keyboard.
0:04:53This freaking keyboard.
0:04:55So anyway, so Tiff's laptop is totally dead.
0:05:00This laptop is only like 15 months old.
0:05:03It's the 2019 15 inch, the very last butterfly keyboard,
0:05:0815 inch.
0:05:09- It just couldn't bear to go on.
0:05:13- Yeah, exactly.
0:05:14So that, and guess what?
0:05:16We bought it last year, and my standard policy
0:05:20is I don't buy AppleCare on most things.
0:05:24This is the very first time it's ever really bitten me hard.
0:05:28- Well, did it bite you?
0:05:29'Cause now you get to get one with a good keyboard.
0:05:31- So we look at this and we're like, okay,
0:05:32well, this computer is a $2,300-ish a year ago computer
0:05:41that we don't want it to be worth nothing now.
0:05:44- I don't think people usually don't buy them
0:05:46on the used market once the magic smoke has escaped.
0:05:48- Yes, exactly.
0:05:50And we figured it would probably not cost $2,300
0:05:53to repair it out of warranty, and sure enough, it didn't.
0:05:57Apple repaired it for something like $750.
0:06:00It's on its way back to us now.
0:06:01We'll see if it's actually repaired.
0:06:02God, I hope so.
0:06:03- Mm-hmm, did they tell you what they thought
0:06:06was wrong with it?
0:06:07- No, it's funny, actually.
0:06:09Again, I've never actually seen an Apple paid repair process
0:06:14for a computer.
0:06:15I don't think I've ever actually done a paid repair.
0:06:18- They'll give you a parts and labor kind of breakdown
0:06:20at the end of it.
0:06:21- Anyway, so that also happened.
0:06:25Thank God for Backblaze, 'cause we didn't have
0:06:29Time Machine during this. (laughs)
0:06:32So we had no Time Machine, 'cause my Time Machine disk died.
0:06:36TIFF's laptop then died.
0:06:39And then my laptop, it worked in the sense
0:06:44that it was running the Big Sur beta, and it functioned.
0:06:49But now my laptop has to then take over
0:06:52and be two people's laptop.
0:06:55And we had been using TIFFs for a few things
0:06:57because none of my audio apps work yet on Big Sur.
0:07:01And so we had to keep a Catalina laptop
0:07:06operating in the house, so we still needed that.
0:07:09So it's like, okay, well we still kinda need
0:07:10a Catalina laptop.
0:07:12I'm not gonna go buy a new one now,
0:07:15like right before the ARM transition,
0:07:17since it's a terrible time. (laughs)
0:07:19So I'm not gonna buy something now.
0:07:22There is no way I can rationalize it.
0:07:23Like, oh, well if I buy some new thing I want,
0:07:25then we can sell TIFFs when it gets back.
0:07:27Like, there's no way to rationalize that right now.
0:07:29This is a terrible time.
0:07:31So I'm like, all right, well let me,
0:07:34I think the most pragmatic thing to do,
0:07:37I was having a lot of problems with my laptop's
0:07:39installation of Mac OS anyway.
0:07:42And this is not necessarily Big Sur's fault.
0:07:44I was having issues under Catalina.
0:07:46Severe performance problems.
0:07:49To the point where you kinda can't tell at first,
0:07:52like is this like a hardware problem?
0:07:55It's things like every keystroke I would type in mail
0:08:00would bog down the system.
0:08:02Or like changing the selection between things
0:08:05in mail and other apps.
0:08:06It was just slow.
0:08:08It would take a while to load every new thing it was doing.
0:08:10And it was just so much better, it was just slow.
0:08:13And I would see, sometimes I would see problems
0:08:15like what people have reported with,
0:08:16I think it's accounts D.
0:08:18This is a common issue coming up recently for a lot of people
0:08:20where like some background demon in Catalina
0:08:23would just use, and Big Sur,
0:08:25would just use massive amounts of CPU power
0:08:27for no apparent reason.
0:08:28Whether it's like FS events D, or accounts D,
0:08:31or other various things.
0:08:33Certainly the, what's the privacy one?
0:08:35TCC, something like that?
0:08:37Whatever the privacy one is, that one too.
0:08:39There were so many weird problems with installations.
0:08:42I'm like, you know what, I've wanted for a while
0:08:44to do a clean install on this laptop.
0:08:47Now that we suddenly are in need of a laptop
0:08:50that is not running this beta OS,
0:08:53why don't I just revert it and do a clean install?
0:08:56So I tackled that during this time,
0:08:59because we really needed a laptop that was usable
0:09:02so that Tiff could use it while hers was out for repair,
0:09:04and that I could have my audio needs satisfied better
0:09:07and get rid of this massive performance problem.
0:09:10So going through all that now,
0:09:13reinstalling all that stuff, and then,
0:09:15oh, by the way, during this process,
0:09:17the entire family got a virus.
0:09:20Not the virus, but a virus.
0:09:22A real life one, a like, you know,
0:09:23kind of medium grade cold.
0:09:26Not only was this not a good time
0:09:28to lose time machine,
0:09:29and not only was this not a good time
0:09:33to need possibly another laptop,
0:09:37this was especially not a good time to get a cold.
0:09:40- Oh my word. - This is not
0:09:42at all a time that you want to have a cold.
0:09:46So in the middle of all this, we also have to,
0:09:50like, first of all, freak out about whether this is a virus
0:09:53or the virus, and then, to get our kid
0:09:56to be able to go back to school,
0:09:58we had to all get COVID tests.
0:10:00So that was fun too. (laughs)
0:10:03So it's been, negative, by the way,
0:10:06but it's, whew, it's been a week.
0:10:10- I have to congratulate you.
0:10:12I don't know if that's what I'm looking for,
0:10:13but I admire that you didn't somehow,
0:10:17like Marco of just a year or two ago,
0:10:19turn this, or end this story with,
0:10:21and then I bought a Mac Pro.
0:10:23Because some way, somehow, Marco of a year or two ago
0:10:25would have ended this story with,
0:10:27and then I bought a Mac Pro.
0:10:28Would it have made sense?
0:10:29No, but that was the Marco way.
0:10:31And you didn't do that this time, so I'm very proud of you.
0:10:33- I mean, I almost bought, like,
0:10:34seven new laptops in the process.
0:10:36- Yeah, I've got the pressure for,
0:10:38we'll talk about this later when we talk about the Apple app,
0:10:40but the pressure for a new laptop in this house is building,
0:10:42and I keep fending them off, I'm like, just, no,
0:10:44you said it would be the next Apple event.
0:10:45It's like, no, maybe not this one,
0:10:46but just, we're not buying another Intel laptop.
0:10:49- Yeah, exactly, yeah, like,
0:10:51if you really, really, really, really have to find,
0:10:53and I was telling Titchfield, I'm like,
0:10:55this is not a great time to need a replacement big laptop,
0:11:00because the big ones might not be the first ones.
0:11:03Like, it's my theory, maybe we'll get to this later,
0:11:05but it's my theory that the Macs that need discrete GPUs
0:11:10to be competitive in their category might be coming later.
0:11:14Like, I don't think we're getting the discrete GPU category
0:11:18of Macs going ARM first.
0:11:21I think it's way more likely that the things
0:11:23that go ARM first are Macs that historically
0:11:26had only integrated GPUs.
0:11:27So basically, the small laptops,
0:11:29the cheapest iMac, and the Mac Mini.
0:11:31But who knows?
0:11:33- I'm sorry, that's no fun.
0:11:35Although, I am more than a little bit amused
0:11:39that the end of the story might involve
0:11:41you buying a new Synology.
0:11:42We have some follow-up.
0:11:45We, largely me, but we, totally missed
0:11:52on the Facebook versus Apple thing from last week.
0:11:55So this was-- - Disagree.
0:11:57- Okay, listeners, all of your angry email,
0:12:01do not direct to me this time.
0:12:03John is the one who's saying that we handled it okay.
0:12:05So what we didn't have in our notes
0:12:09and what I didn't talk about,
0:12:11and what I think we should have talked about,
0:12:12was the fact that the Apple takes 30% of this purchase
0:12:17that was shown under a button on Facebook.
0:12:19That was a button where you were paying an individual
0:12:24or like a small company.
0:12:26So like, I wanna go take an online fitness course
0:12:29and so I can purchase access for $9.99
0:12:32and then Apple takes 30% of this purchase, learn more.
0:12:34Well, I had thought, reading our show notes
0:12:37and not having spent enough time reading the article,
0:12:39apparently, that Facebook was the one losing out on 30%.
0:12:43And that was not correct.
0:12:46What was actually happening was the local business
0:12:49was the one losing out on the 30%
0:12:51and Facebook was just trying to let you know,
0:12:52hey, Apple's being a little greedy here.
0:12:55They're taking 30% of this.
0:12:57We're not taking anything, they're taking 30%.
0:13:00And I grossly misunderstood that.
0:13:03And furthermore, after a bunch of complaining and moaning
0:13:06from a bunch of people about this very issue,
0:13:08we missed last week, because this had happened
0:13:11before we spoke about it,
0:13:12Apple decided not to take that 30% cut after all,
0:13:14at least for now.
0:13:16So we did miss some important context there
0:13:20and I, for one, am sorry about that.
0:13:22John, explain why we're not wrong, apparently.
0:13:25- I mean, you did complain about Facebook
0:13:28in a few ways that were not fair, but here's the thing.
0:13:30This is interesting that, remember this issue
0:13:32where Apple replied about the 30% thing
0:13:34and their reason was like, it goes against this guideline
0:13:38that says you can't present the customers
0:13:39with irrelevant information, right?
0:13:41I feel like the whole situation
0:13:43with how much money Facebook were taking
0:13:45is mostly irrelevant information
0:13:47in the context of how this item was presented.
0:13:49Maybe not in the context of you guys are going on
0:13:52and complaining about how mean Facebook was after that.
0:13:55But anyway, this item from last week,
0:13:58this was the point of the item.
0:14:00Apple is telling Facebook not to tell the truth
0:14:03about what Apple does, and that's a crappy thing
0:14:06for Apple to do.
0:14:07That was the item.
0:14:08It was, hey, Apple doing something crappy.
0:14:10Like, why shouldn't Facebook be able to tell the truth?
0:14:12It's kind of shady, it's kind of crappy, right?
0:14:14They should be able to stand
0:14:15behind their business arrangement, it's bad, blah, blah, blah.
0:14:18That was the story.
0:14:20You would have thought from the feedback
0:14:22that the story was Facebook is evil.
0:14:24It was, no, Apple is the bad guy in the story, unequivocally.
0:14:27The entire point of the thing was
0:14:29Apple wouldn't let a developer say that they take 30%,
0:14:32which was the truth at the time, right?
0:14:34And isn't that crappy of Apple?
0:14:36But the Facebook people came out of the woodworks
0:14:38and say, how dare you be so mean to Facebook?
0:14:40I'm like, and for the longest time, I'm like, wait, what?
0:14:42Mean to Facebook?
0:14:44No, we were telling you that Apple
0:14:45was the bad guy in this story.
0:14:46Then I listened back to the show and I heard
0:14:48that some mean things were said about Facebook later,
0:14:50which was unfair and we should have clarified
0:14:53that this was just, that they were,
0:14:58what Facebook was calling out Apple for was like,
0:15:01don't blame us, but this is Apple doing this thing,
0:15:03which is the point we kind of made is like,
0:15:05look, Facebook's trying to turn sentiment against Apple
0:15:08to say, look, it's not Facebook doing this mean thing.
0:15:11Let me tell you exactly in print right underneath the button,
0:15:14if you're worried that not all this money's
0:15:15going to this thing, it's Apple's fault,
0:15:17and which we agreed with, it was Apple's fault,
0:15:19like that was their requirement or whatever, right?
0:15:21And so that part of the story was also true,
0:15:23but it seems like all anyone heard in the story
0:15:25was Facebook is mean, which I don't understand at all, so.
0:15:28- Well, anyway, in all fairness,
0:15:30we were missing some critical context,
0:15:34but also Facebook is a horrible company.
0:15:36Both things can be true.
0:15:38- We can't have another barrage
0:15:41of that feedback, Marco.
0:15:42Stop saying mean things about Facebook.
0:15:43They're innocent.
0:15:44Yeah, no, I feel like it is irrelevant information.
0:15:46Like, yes, this was about a live event,
0:15:48and Facebook wasn't taking any money and giving it all,
0:15:50and aren't they nice and magnanimous,
0:15:52and Apple was the meanie,
0:15:53which lends itself to the point of the story,
0:15:55which was Apple was being stupid and/or mean, right?
0:15:57That was the point.
0:15:58It wasn't, you know, that, hey, Apple's taking this money
0:16:02and not even letting Facebook explain what's happening, so.
0:16:06There we go, and yeah, Apple did back down,
0:16:08although Apple backed down temporarily.
0:16:10We'll put a link in the show notes to a story about this.
0:16:12It seems like Apple has not committed
0:16:13to forever allow this to happen.
0:16:15Apple is just saying, oh, for now, we won't take the 30%,
0:16:19but it seems like they reserve the right to later to say,
0:16:21you know what, we want that 30% again.
0:16:23- I gotta tell you,
0:16:25we get a preposterous amount of feedback for the show,
0:16:29which usually is very good,
0:16:31and that means people are listening,
0:16:32people care, and that's wonderful.
0:16:34But when you read a pile of feedback
0:16:37and it's defending Facebook.
0:16:40- No, no, you're digging yourself into gig case.
0:16:43You remember, everyone's all friendly to Facebook.
0:16:45They're banning QAnon, they're stopping political ads
0:16:47after the election, which makes very little sense.
0:16:49But no, we're only saying nice things about Facebook.
0:16:51- Speak for yourself.
0:16:52I agree to nothing.
0:16:54Facebook is terrible.
0:16:55- Sorry, sorry, Facebook fans, I tried.
0:16:57- I didn't.
0:16:58- All I'm saying is that it was an uncomfortable position
0:16:59to be in.
0:17:00I'm not saying I was right, I'm just saying my word.
0:17:02When everyone's coming to the defense of Facebook,
0:17:05it makes you wonder what on earth did you do wrong?
0:17:07- Yeah, no, I was wondering about it,
0:17:09because like I said, it was baffling to me.
0:17:11It was like, when did we say something mean about Facebook
0:17:13other than the normal sort of baseline level
0:17:15of our joint hatred of Facebook,
0:17:17which were, you know, it's unspoken most of the time.
0:17:19By the way, incidentally, in the last episode,
0:17:21I recorded a rec diffs.
0:17:22I also complained about Facebook a lot.
0:17:23So if you'd love to hear me say mean things about Facebook,
0:17:25that's another podcast you can listen to.
0:17:28Anyway, in the context of the story
0:17:30about how Apple is mean and dumb
0:17:31for not letting people tell the truth about their cut,
0:17:34the information about how Facebook was being magnanimous
0:17:37and letting all the proceeds of this thing
0:17:38go to the live event thing is irrelevant information,
0:17:40but it is true, so now we have said it on the program.
0:17:44And Apple can't stop us.
0:17:45- Wow.
0:17:46Jordan Ryan Moore writes to tell us
0:17:48that merchants have been allowed to add surcharges
0:17:50for credit card transactions since January of 2013.
0:17:54- Yeah, this was my fault. - I don't need all
0:17:55the details in this, but I heard two things
0:17:57about this from the feedback.
0:17:58One was this bit about how there was a lawsuit
0:18:00and people wanted to be able to charge different amounts
0:18:03and, you know, all that stuff.
0:18:04And the other thing was that there was actually a law passed
0:18:06to make it so that credit card companies
0:18:08weren't allowed to require this,
0:18:09and I'm not sure if they're both true
0:18:11or if they both combined or they both did the same thing,
0:18:13but it seems like that old rule
0:18:17about not being allowed to charge two different prices
0:18:21and basically making the vendor eat the cost
0:18:24of the credit card transaction,
0:18:25they can't sort of pass it on to their customer,
0:18:27is no longer in effect.
0:18:28And the thing I forgot to mention on the last show
0:18:29about this was that Apple used to do the same thing
0:18:32back in the day.
0:18:33I also don't remember the details of this,
0:18:34but remember a time when Apple said,
0:18:36oh, you can sell a thing on the web
0:18:38and also an in-app purchase,
0:18:39but they have to be the same price?
0:18:41- That was a very short-lived thing
0:18:43that everyone talks about,
0:18:45as though it was a much longer-lived thing.
0:18:47- Yeah, like they stopped doing it,
0:18:49probably for the same reason,
0:18:50that like, you know, people said, well, come on, right?
0:18:53But we remember it so much because it was so audacious.
0:18:56It's like, you're gonna charge 30% and then say,
0:19:00you know, you can't pass that on to the customer
0:19:02'cause it puts us at a disadvantage?
0:19:03Again, it's kind of like telling the truth.
0:19:05Like, look, Apple is taking a bite out of this.
0:19:07If you buy it from the web, you can get it cheaper
0:19:09because Apple's bite isn't there, right?
0:19:11And that was something that Apple didn't want conveyed.
0:19:14In the same way, the credit card makers didn't want people,
0:19:16it's like, oh, if I pay for a credit card, it's 1% more?
0:19:19Well, I'm gonna pay with cash then, right?
0:19:21I think the credit card thing lasted a lot longer
0:19:23than the App Store thing,
0:19:24but the instinct is the same to try to hide the fact
0:19:28that you are taking a bite out of somebody's,
0:19:31you know, income, real-time follow-up
0:19:34'cause I don't wanna get email about this.
0:19:35According to this article that we will link in the show notes
0:19:37which may be a bit old, 10 states have laws
0:19:39restricting any type of surcharge fees,
0:19:41California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine,
0:19:44Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas.
0:19:46So as with anything in these United States,
0:19:49things tend to vary from state to state,
0:19:52even things that you might not expect,
0:19:53like rules about how much you can charge
0:19:55when someone uses a credit card.
0:19:58And furthermore, I would love to hear an update
0:20:01on Adam's watch battery, please.
0:20:03- Oh, yeah, so I said last week
0:20:05that after the very first day of school
0:20:07with Adam's family set up independent watch,
0:20:10that he only had like 33% battery left.
0:20:14Second day was way better.
0:20:16The main difference is on the second day,
0:20:19so not only is it just like not the first full day of use
0:20:23so that any kind of like background process
0:20:26that the system is doing with a new OS install,
0:20:29like that had time to complete
0:20:30if that was ever a thing on watchOS,
0:20:32but also on day two, I changed the watch
0:20:35from raise to wake to tap to wake only.
0:20:39So this is like, you know,
0:20:40so it doesn't just respond to wrist turning
0:20:43and turn the screen on,
0:20:44you have to tap the screen to turn it on.
0:20:46And as a result of that change
0:20:48and whatever time has passed,
0:20:51now the typical school day ends around 60 to 70% battery
0:20:55instead of 30% battery.
0:20:57And so battery life right now
0:20:59seems to no longer be a concern.
0:21:02So, so far, so good.
0:21:04And we remain very happy with the functionality
0:21:07of the family set up Apple Watch.
0:21:10- Moving on, Nathaniel writes
0:21:11with regard to cell tower trees,
0:21:13I work in finance for a very large cell phone tower company.
0:21:16The fake trees are almost always a local zoning rule.
0:21:18The local government thinks they look better
0:21:20than past rules mandating their use for any tower.
0:21:23Those fake branches do break off in the wind,
0:21:25which requires maintenance.
0:21:26The fake pine trees are just the tip
0:21:28of the quote unquote stealth structures.
0:21:30I've seen palm trees, cacti, flag poles, church steeples,
0:21:32faux water tanks, street lights, repurposed smoke stacks,
0:21:36faux modern art installations, et cetera.
0:21:38You're also correct that the more rich the area,
0:21:42general speaking--
0:21:42- Oh, just do it, come on.
0:21:44- No, I will not.
0:21:46- You can do it, I believe in you.
0:21:47You can take multiple runs at it
0:21:49and Marco will put the right one in during the other.
0:21:50- No, no, I'm not even gonna do it.
0:21:53- The less receptive the town is to having cell towers.
0:21:55The most likely place in those instances
0:21:57where a town might have a tower is on the DPW's
0:22:00Department for Public Works, is that right?
0:22:01- Department of Public Works, yeah.
0:22:02- Or Police Station Property,
0:22:04and then the tower company provides space
0:22:05to the municipal service for their radios.
0:22:08- Yeah, I love the idea of making fake trees
0:22:10and then having to pay as the limbs break off
0:22:13because, you know, first of all,
0:22:14limbs fall off real trees all the time,
0:22:16and second of all, real trees are surprisingly sturdy
0:22:19as compared to manmade ones and surprisingly resilient
0:22:22when it comes to wind, so it's kind of inevitable
0:22:25that all these sort of useless cosmetic only things,
0:22:28like you're basically making a bunch of things
0:22:29to catch the wind that serve no functional purpose
0:22:32but absolutely will bend and break off in the wind,
0:22:35and now you have something else that you need to do,
0:22:36maintain your hideously ugly tree.
0:22:39We got a lot, one batch of good feedback we got
0:22:41from last show was tons of people sending us pictures
0:22:44of hilarious cell phone trees,
0:22:46and I did see a couple of cacti in there
0:22:49and weird palm trees and pine trees
0:22:52and just you name it, cell towers are everywhere
0:22:55except near rich people.
0:22:57- And I'm sorry, if you didn't wanna say rich,
0:23:00what else could you say?
0:23:01- Affluent.
0:23:02- I was just thinking about it,
0:23:03and I was gonna go the other direction,
0:23:05so I'm glad I didn't say anything.
0:23:06- I know, you just need to get that pathway,
0:23:11you know, it's like an e-fuse.
0:23:13I've been reading too much about consoles.
0:23:15You know what an e-fuse is?
0:23:16- No.
0:23:17- This kind of blows my mind.
0:23:18Electronic fuses inside CPUs, right?
0:23:22It's like a fuse, just like a regular fuse,
0:23:24but it's inside the CPU and you can blow it at any time
0:23:27with software essentially,
0:23:28and then once it's blown, it's blown, right?
0:23:29- What? - What?
0:23:30- And when-- - Wait, what?
0:23:32- I forget which of the Xboxes,
0:23:34maybe it was the 360, maybe it was the most recent one,
0:23:36but anyway, they used e-fuses to,
0:23:39they would blow e-fuses with updates
0:23:41to prevent you from being able to revert
0:23:43to a previous version.
0:23:44- Oh, wow. - What?
0:23:46- So how many e-fuses are there?
0:23:48- I don't know how many, but it's like,
0:23:50that's the pulling out the big guns to try.
0:23:52And of course, it never actually stops piracy.
0:23:54Like the pirates are incredibly clever
0:23:56and they find a way around it, but it just makes it harder.
0:23:58Sony did not do this apparently, but Microsoft did.
0:24:00I'm like, man, can you imagine the pressure
0:24:02of like accidentally bricking or screwing something up
0:24:05when you know you're literally blowing tiny hardware fuses
0:24:08inside people's consoles when they update?
0:24:10It's terrifying.
0:24:11- I'm also told a real-time follow-up from Jelly
0:24:13that the Switch also has e-fuses apparently.
0:24:15- Yeah, try not to think about this type of stuff.
0:24:19- Man, that's weird.
0:24:20All right, moving on.
0:24:22With regard to an Ask ATP question from last week
0:24:25and baby monitors, I had recommended the Infant Optics DVR
0:24:30something, something, I forget exactly what it was.
0:24:31It's in the show notes from last week.
0:24:33We had a handful of people write in,
0:24:35including a friend of the show,
0:24:36Dan Provost from Studio Neat,
0:24:38recommending the Wirecutter pick,
0:24:40which is the, I guess, Eufy Space View.
0:24:43And Dan writes, "I had the same Infant Optics monitor
0:24:45"as Casey for our first baby,
0:24:46"but we decided to treat ourselves to a new one
0:24:49"for our new baby.
0:24:50"We went with the Wirecutter pick, the Eufy,
0:24:51"and it is significantly better in every way
0:24:53"except the kickstand, just in case you are directing
0:24:55"your parents to a baby monitor.
0:24:57"They definitely want the Eufy and not the Infant Optics,
0:24:59"which had a good run but is outdated.
0:25:01"Also, I fully agree with Marco.
0:25:02"I would never want an S-style solution,
0:25:04"even if the quality and latency were flawless,
0:25:06"just too annoying to be constantly opening an app
0:25:08"versus having a constant monitor."
0:25:11So yeah, the Eufy, from what I understand,
0:25:13is somebody who gave a crap designed a baby monitor.
0:25:16It is not flawless.
0:25:18The kickstand, I guess, sucks.
0:25:19It looks like the Nintendo Switch kickstand,
0:25:20which definitely sucks.
0:25:22There's also no lights.
0:25:24Like, the Infant Optics has a series of LEDs
0:25:26that will light up, so you can have the monitor screen off.
0:25:29You can have the volume off.
0:25:30You can still get a level of how much volume
0:25:33there is in the room.
0:25:34The Eufy doesn't have that.
0:25:36But apparently, in every other way, it's actually modern,
0:25:40whereas the Infant Optics one is clearly out of the mid-2010s.
0:25:45And coincidentally, the Eufy Space View came out
0:25:48like six months after Michaela was born.
0:25:51And so that's why I was not at all aware of it.
0:25:53But if you haven't yet bought a monitor,
0:25:55I've heard and would recommend the Eufy Space View,
0:26:00because apparently it is very good.
0:26:02- I feel like these are all tongue twisters.
0:26:03- Yeah, they really are.
0:26:04- What Casey was saying was infant, as in a baby infant,
0:26:07infant optics, right?
0:26:10So that's the first one, infant optics.
0:26:11That's infant space optics.
0:26:13And then Eufy is E-U-F-Y,
0:26:16which apparently is the smart home sub-brand of Anchor,
0:26:20someone in the chat room says.
0:26:21- Oh, I didn't know that.
0:26:22- Oh, yeah.
0:26:23- E-U-F-Y, there you go.
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0:28:13- Is this the time, and I'm asking not sarcastically,
0:28:20is this the time that we do the report card
0:28:21year in review thing that Marco came up with
0:28:23a few years ago, or am I crazy?
0:28:24- Exit interview, he used to call it.
0:28:26- That's what it was.
0:28:27Thank you.
0:28:28I knew report card wasn't right.
0:28:28I couldn't think of what the name of it was.
0:28:30Thank you.
0:28:31Exit interview.
0:28:31We're obviously referring to,
0:28:33there's gonna be an Apple event on this coming Tuesday.
0:28:36I don't know what day, what is that?
0:28:37The 13th, lucky number 13.
0:28:39There'll be an Apple event.
0:28:40And so this is the last week before our iPhones,
0:28:45our current iPhones are pieces of utter garbage.
0:28:47And so now is the time to do the iPhone 11 Pro report card.
0:28:52John, what--
0:28:54- Exit interview.
0:28:55- Sorry, exit interview.
0:28:56See, we gotta change in the show notes.
0:28:57I'm like Ron Burgundy, for goodness sakes.
0:29:00So anyways, so John, what are you on?
0:29:03Are you on a 10 or an 11 Pro?
0:29:06- 10S.
0:29:07My wife has the 11 Pro.
0:29:09- Okay.
0:29:10So I am on the 11 Pro.
0:29:12Marco, you're on an 11 Pro as well, right?
0:29:14- I sure am.
0:29:15- Okay.
0:29:16So I still love this darn phone.
0:29:20The one major complaint I have about it
0:29:24is that I feel like,
0:29:26I think I talked about this on the show,
0:29:27I feel like this screen has been scratched to smithereens.
0:29:32And it is probably my fault.
0:29:36I'm not saying it's not my fault.
0:29:37But it is scratched so badly in so many places,
0:29:41so much worse than any other phone I've ever had.
0:29:44And I treat it the same way I've treated every iPhone
0:29:47since the 3GS, which was my first.
0:29:50It is scratched to death.
0:29:53Marco, do you find the same thing on your phone?
0:29:55- I actually haven't had that problem on the 11.
0:29:57I did have that problem on,
0:29:59I forget whether it was the 10 or the 10S.
0:30:01One of them was the same problem for me,
0:30:04where I didn't abuse it anymore or less than any other phone
0:30:07but it just got scratched to hell for some reason,
0:30:08like on the screen.
0:30:10'Cause it's hard when you're designing the screen materials.
0:30:13There's a lot of tension between various
0:30:16physical characteristics to optimize for.
0:30:18You know, if you optimize for scratch resistance,
0:30:21that usually it makes it harder and more brittle
0:30:23and more prone to cracks when people drop it.
0:30:26And if you're being pragmatic about
0:30:29how you're designing a phone,
0:30:31I think you probably want to protect against
0:30:34shattering when it's dropped
0:30:36more than you want to protect against
0:30:38minor scratchability from just the surface
0:30:41being a little bit soft.
0:30:42And even though that's worse for people like us
0:30:45who don't drop our phones, it's much worse for us.
0:30:48But if you're optimizing for the whole population,
0:30:50I can see why you would make that decision.
0:30:52- Sure, yeah.
0:30:53And otherwise, I really, really love this phone.
0:30:57I love the camera system.
0:30:59I still think it looks a little quirky
0:31:02having the three big lenses back there,
0:31:04but as with the Notch, like within a couple of weeks,
0:31:07I mostly have been able to ignore it.
0:31:10The Notch also, I don't mind it at all.
0:31:13And in fact, I remember when we were
0:31:16all about to get our iPhone 10s that I thought,
0:31:18oh, this is gonna bother me for a long time.
0:31:20And it didn't.
0:31:20So the Notch really doesn't bother me.
0:31:22I do think it would be neat to have
0:31:25one of the more circular pinhole style setups
0:31:27like the Android phones have,
0:31:29but I'm not going to complain if the iPhone 12
0:31:32or whatever's coming next has a Notch as well.
0:31:34I don't think it's a big deal.
0:31:36But the camera system's great.
0:31:38The phone is still fast.
0:31:40I don't even know what size mine is,
0:31:42but I'm not running out of space.
0:31:44I love this thing with the exception of the
0:31:49screen getting scratched to smithereens.
0:31:51And I am really hopeful that the next one,
0:31:56by the way, mine is a 256 gig model.
0:31:58I'm really hoping that the next one
0:32:00does indeed have the square sides like the rumors say,
0:32:03because I don't mind the curved sides,
0:32:06and it's not the most slippery phone
0:32:08I've ever used in my life, but it is slippery.
0:32:11And I feel like having those solid or straight sides,
0:32:15flat sides would be extremely nice.
0:32:19But I'm getting ahead of myself, I suppose.
0:32:21I really, really love this phone,
0:32:24and I am definitely getting a new one
0:32:27because I'm a sucker, but I am not actively looking
0:32:32to get rid of this one as much as I am actively looking
0:32:35to get a new screen or a new glass on the screen,
0:32:38which I could do to this,
0:32:39but I would be without a phone for a little while.
0:32:41Marco, other thoughts on the 11 Pro?
0:32:43- Yeah, I think I agree with much
0:32:45of what you've said about it.
0:32:49One regression of the 11 Pro compared to the 10S,
0:32:52in my opinion, is they changed the texturing on the back.
0:32:56Like, the back of these phones have alternated
0:32:58between almost like a sandblaster kind of textured finish
0:33:02and a flat polished glass finish.
0:33:05And on the 11, I believe, this is when they switched it,
0:33:08used to be that the whole back of it was glossy,
0:33:10and then the area around the camera cutout was matte.
0:33:14And with the 11 series, the entire back was matte,
0:33:18and the camera area was glossy.
0:33:19What that did for me was make the phone impossible
0:33:23to use without a case.
0:33:24Like, the 10 and the 10S, I would occasionally,
0:33:27like if I was wearing tight jeans, you know,
0:33:30like my skinny pants, then I wouldn't want the bulk
0:33:35of a giant case, or any giant phone really,
0:33:38in my pocket and sort of minimize the bulk,
0:33:40I would take the phone out of the case for a few days
0:33:43and use it like that.
0:33:44And with the 11, I cannot do that.
0:33:46Like the 11 Pro, excuse me, I think the 11 actually,
0:33:50the non-Pro I think actually flips it around
0:33:52and actually fixes this.
0:33:53Anyway, the Pro, I can't do that.
0:33:55It's so slippery, I can't use this phone without a case.
0:33:59And it's the first phone in a long time
0:34:01that I can say that about.
0:34:03Like usually, like ever since the 6 series,
0:34:07I've been using cases just because the stupid,
0:34:08you know, bar of soap sides design
0:34:11made case use nearly inevitable.
0:34:14But I could get by it with previous phones.
0:34:17This one, I can't.
0:34:18It's just, it's way too slippery.
0:34:20So much more slippery than even the XS was.
0:34:23So besides that, I am overall very satisfied with it,
0:34:28but I really do wish for a lighter weight
0:34:33and slightly smaller phone.
0:34:35I'm very curious about the rumored,
0:34:37like slightly smaller one, the five point something inch one.
0:34:41Unless that phone has some kind of major,
0:34:43like feature cut downsides,
0:34:46I'll probably go for that this year.
0:34:48Because this phone is just a little bit big
0:34:51and a little bit heavy.
0:34:52That being said, you know, the screen is great.
0:34:55I love the screen when I'm using it,
0:34:57you know, when I'm not just carrying it,
0:34:58when I'm not trying to wedge it into a pocket
0:35:00or move it around so it's not like all sticking out
0:35:03weird as I walk.
0:35:04But I just, I don't like how this phone feels in my pocket.
0:35:09It's too big still.
0:35:11It's not like super massive, like the Max,
0:35:14but it's bigger than I would like.
0:35:16So I'm really hoping for the smaller one.
0:35:19I'm also hoping that if a smaller one comes,
0:35:22that it doesn't sacrifice too much on battery life.
0:35:25'Cause historically, part of the trade off
0:35:27of bigger versus smaller phones,
0:35:30is that the bigger phones get bigger batteries,
0:35:32which does make them heavier, you know, admittedly.
0:35:35But that's usually a pretty good feature of the big ones.
0:35:39The 11 has such great battery life,
0:35:42the 11 Pro rather, has such great battery life,
0:35:44that if the smaller one that comes out allegedly next week
0:35:48has significantly less battery life in practice,
0:35:51that's gonna be disappointing.
0:35:52But I think I'm still gonna probably go for the smaller one
0:35:54unless like, if the camera's not anywhere near as good.
0:35:59Now if I just lose the 2X lens,
0:36:01but I still have like the regular and the wide,
0:36:04I think I'd probably still take that trade off
0:36:05and take the small one.
0:36:07- Really?
0:36:07- Yeah, I wouldn't have thought this a year ago,
0:36:11but I actually have been using the wide
0:36:13more than I've expected to,
0:36:16and I've been using the 2X less than I expect to.
0:36:19Maybe if I suddenly lost it,
0:36:21I would realize I miss it more than I thought.
0:36:24But I'm looking forward to a smaller phone,
0:36:27and if it takes the loss of a 2X camera to get that,
0:36:32and nothing else about it is really significantly worse,
0:36:35then I will probably take that trade off.
0:36:38Finally, again I know this is a long shot,
0:36:41I really still want USB-C.
0:36:43- Cosine.
0:36:44- I am so tired of lightning,
0:36:47because my house is full of wires and they're all different.
0:36:51And I have to have different chargers and different wires,
0:36:54and I gotta always know which cable,
0:36:55just the entire world has moved to USB-C already.
0:36:59Everything, like every accessory,
0:37:02like everything is USB-C except the iPhone.
0:37:05And I know there are reasons,
0:37:10I will assert that those reasons are overruled
0:37:13by the incredible benefit we would have
0:37:16if the iPhone charged with USB-C.
0:37:19So I really, really hope Apple will eventually do this.
0:37:23I don't know if it's gonna happen this year,
0:37:27or next year, or never,
0:37:29but every single year I'm going to hope for it.
0:37:33- Now I completely agree with you,
0:37:35I would love to just simplify my life and go all USB-C.
0:37:39I also agree with you,
0:37:41I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon if at all.
0:37:43I think we are way more likely to get a touch ID sensor
0:37:47on the sleep/wake button or lock button,
0:37:49whatever it's called, than we are USB-C.
0:37:51And I'm not particularly confident
0:37:52about either of those things to be honest,
0:37:54but I am way more confident about touch ID than I am USB-C.
0:37:58But I don't know, we'll see what happens.
0:38:00So John, this is an on year for you, right?
0:38:04So I presume you're looking to upgrade
0:38:06to some sort of iPhone 12?
0:38:08- Yeah, and since my wife has the 11 Pro,
0:38:09I asked her to come down and bring me her phone
0:38:13so I can look at it, check the screen for scratches
0:38:15and stuff to verify Casey's situation.
0:38:18And because she loves me and cares so much about this show,
0:38:20she said, "How long do you need it?"
0:38:22(laughing)
0:38:24And I promised her it would only be a short amount of time.
0:38:26Pokemon Go is a terrible thing, people.
0:38:28Don't get addicted.
0:38:29(laughing)
0:38:30So I looked at her phone and there are definitely
0:38:32more scratches than there are in my XS,
0:38:34but she does not treat her phone like I treat mine.
0:38:37She just throws it into her purse next to her keys.
0:38:40She doesn't care, like just, it is,
0:38:43she does things with her phone.
0:38:44I don't understand how it's still in one piece, right?
0:38:46- I mean, to be fair, nobody should treat their phone
0:38:49the way you treat yours.
0:38:51- I mean, that's another thing I want to get to.
0:38:53So you mentioned people who don't drop our phones.
0:38:55Like I've never broken an iPhone,
0:38:57which maybe I'm getting lucky
0:38:58or maybe I just take care of it,
0:39:00but this phone and many of my other phones
0:39:02have fallen from a height.
0:39:03So for example, this phone, within its lifetime,
0:39:06got knocked off of the mantle over my fireplace
0:39:09because I was dusting and it was on the mantle, right?
0:39:12So it's from a mantle, a pretty high fireplace mantle height
0:39:16onto a hardwood floor, right?
0:39:18And this is the XS, right?
0:39:19And it didn't shatter, right?
0:39:20And it's been knocked off my nightstand
0:39:22who knows how many times when I'm groggy in the morning
0:39:24reaching for it and knock it up,
0:39:25but then it's just falling into carpet,
0:39:26so it's not a big deal.
0:39:27Although sometimes it falls into hardwood
0:39:29depending on which side it falls off.
0:39:31But the point is this thing has hit the ground.
0:39:32It's just got the Apple leather case on it.
0:39:34It's hit the ground from reasonable heights many times
0:39:36as I either grew up for it or don't notice it's there
0:39:38and accidentally knock it over, right?
0:39:40And it hasn't shattered.
0:39:41And this is the XS, right?
0:39:42So this is the one with the ostensibly harder,
0:39:46easier to shatter, but harder to scratch screen.
0:39:49But anyway, I agree with Marco that I think
0:39:52the trade-off of not shattering
0:39:53is the right way to go with this.
0:39:55So the 11 Pro, my wife does not take good care of it,
0:40:00but I had to actually clean the screen
0:40:02to really assess how many scratches there were
0:40:04without me cleaning the screen off.
0:40:06It's really hard to tell.
0:40:07None of my scratches are so big
0:40:08that I would even have noticed them
0:40:10if I hadn't been looking for them.
0:40:11So I don't think that's that big of a deal.
0:40:13But yeah, this is my year for the phone,
0:40:15and I haven't been keeping up with the rumors,
0:40:18mostly because I figure, well, I don't know,
0:40:20I figured everything would be fine.
0:40:22I know all the rumors about the different sizes
0:40:24and all that other stuff,
0:40:25but the thing I had been wondering,
0:40:27and I saw the supposed leaked flat-sided case
0:40:31and everything I asked, but the thing I had been wondering
0:40:32and I could never keep track of,
0:40:33which is like, so if the two sizes,
0:40:36I know there's supposed to be a smaller one,
0:40:38but not as small as the SE, and then a bigger one,
0:40:41but my question was always, okay,
0:40:43but are any of them going to be the same size as my XS,
0:40:48or what is going to be the one
0:40:50that is closest in size to my XS, right?
0:40:53And the reason I asked that is because I felt
0:40:55like the SE was the right size.
0:40:57I felt like the X was a little bit too big,
0:41:00but now that I've had the X size for a while,
0:41:02I'm like, okay, well, I appreciate the bigger screen,
0:41:05and the size isn't so big that it really,
0:41:08that it is too big for me.
0:41:10So when I buy a new phone next time,
0:41:13I don't think I want the small one,
0:41:15because I kind of like having the screen as big as it is.
0:41:17If it went back to the SE, that might be okay,
0:41:19but then somebody, I'm assuming Casey,
0:41:21has put a bunch of the rumored sizes in here,
0:41:23and it seems like my only choice is
0:41:26if I want to get the top-of-the-line phone
0:41:28after the event next week is a phone
0:41:31that is 3/10 of an inch bigger than my current phone.
0:41:35- Right, and that's not a small difference.
0:41:37Like, that puts it, I believe, at the same size
0:41:40as like the XR line, right, the XR on base 11?
0:41:44- I think that's right.
0:41:45I didn't verify that, but I think you're right.
0:41:47- Yeah, and so, like, and that's,
0:41:49and I've handled that.
0:41:50I've never used one, like, for more than a second in a store,
0:41:52but like, you know, when I've handled them in the store,
0:41:54I've had the same feeling of, like, you know, like,
0:41:56again, like, when I use my 10/10S/11 Pro sized phone,
0:42:01the 5.8 inch screen with the notch,
0:42:05I've always thought, like, I can use this,
0:42:08but I wish it were a little bit smaller.
0:42:11And so now, the fact that they're going to make it
0:42:13a little bit bigger, that's what's making me really
0:42:17hope that that smaller phone is a real thing,
0:42:19and that it's compelling in all other ways,
0:42:21because I just am not excited about this phone
0:42:25that is already a bit big for me getting a bit bigger.
0:42:28- Yeah.
0:42:29- Oh, and I have an update related to something
0:42:30just mentioned in the chat room, pouch update.
0:42:33(laughing)
0:42:34You know about my phone pouch, right?
0:42:35Well, so here, this is a side effect of COVID, right?
0:42:39So COVID comes and everyone's in the house all the time,
0:42:41and I'm never going anywhere, especially in the beginning,
0:42:42like, really just never leaving the house, right?
0:42:45And my sort of pattern of placement of stuff of, like,
0:42:49here's where I keep all my things,
0:42:51I have, like, my stuff that I go to work with,
0:42:52and just everything arranged in a particular place,
0:42:54the stuff that I go to work with eventually
0:42:56just got put away, because I realized, well,
0:42:57I'm not going into work anytime soon,
0:42:59so I'm just gonna put that stuff away.
0:43:01So the pouch got put away, too, which is fine,
0:43:03because the pouch, as we know, is only a thing
0:43:05for when I go out of the house, but if I'm never
0:43:07going out of the house, I'm never gonna use the pouch.
0:43:09But eventually, the pouch got put so far away
0:43:12that when I did go out of the house,
0:43:13I'd go without the pouch.
0:43:14I mean, just going on a dog walk or whatever.
0:43:18- Oh, no.
0:43:19- But I basically trained myself out of using the pouch
0:43:21in the external world.
0:43:22Part of it was because I'm like, well,
0:43:24I'm gonna be getting rid of this phone soon anyway,
0:43:25so what do I care, you know what I mean?
0:43:27Like, although now that I've just examined the screen
0:43:29after cleaning it, I realize there are still zero scratches
0:43:31on my XS, so I still think I'm babying it.
0:43:34Like, I would never put it next to a set of keys,
0:43:36for example, but I may, we'll see how this goes.
0:43:39I may be off the pouch lifestyle with my,
0:43:42with this and my future phones.
0:43:43It's hard to tell because we're still in COVID times
0:43:45and I'm still technically not really going anywhere ever.
0:43:48Right, so we'll see, but I think I may be out of the,
0:43:52I still have the pouch and it still fits this phone,
0:43:55but maybe I won't buy a new pouch for my new phone
0:43:57and may be able to see how that goes.
0:43:58- Wow. - You know,
0:43:59since this is a safe space, I can admit to you that after,
0:44:04I think I noticed a scratch or two
0:44:07after one of the beach trips that I took with this phone,
0:44:11and subsequent to that, there was a second beach trip
0:44:14that I took and I actually employed a pouch
0:44:17for the purposes of letting it rest in a beach bag
0:44:20or in a tent or whatever, because I felt like,
0:44:23I don't, I don't know if I would go so far as to say
0:44:25I'd baby my phone, but I don't think,
0:44:28with the exception of having dropped my first 11 Pro
0:44:31on a cement driveway the day I got it,
0:44:33after that, after that, I feel like I didn't do too badly
0:44:36with it and I'm guessing that it was during storage
0:44:40in a beach bag or something like that
0:44:41that it ended up getting scratched up,
0:44:43and so I did employ, just for the purpose of the beach bag,
0:44:47I did employ a pouch and I don't think it made
0:44:49any darn difference because I think the damage
0:44:51had already been done, but here we are.
0:44:53I was living the pouch lifestyle.
0:44:56- The pouch was transferred from me to Casey.
0:44:58- Yeah. (laughing)
0:45:00I don't know which of you has won there.
0:45:02- Yeah, well, me neither.
0:45:03- Well, one of us has a scratch-free phone, so.
0:45:05- Aw.
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0:46:38(upbeat music)
0:46:41- Real-time follow-up, the iPhone 11 is 6.1 inches.
0:46:46The iPhone 11 Pro is either 5.8 inches,
0:46:50which is what Marco and I are talking about,
0:46:52or the big one is 6.5 inches.
0:46:55So it's 5.8 for the 11 Pro, 6.1 for the 11,
0:46:596.5 for the other 11 Pro.
0:47:02The 12 is rumored, the non-Pro 12 is rumored
0:47:05to be 5.4 inches, so that's 4/10 smaller
0:47:09than Marco's phone and my phone.
0:47:11And the big one is rumored to be 6.1 inches,
0:47:15which is 3/10 larger than Marco's and my phone.
0:47:19And then the 12 Pro is going to start at 6.1 inches,
0:47:24again, 3/10 larger, and go as high as 6.7 inches,
0:47:29which I already think that the big phones
0:47:32at 6.5 inches are preposterously large.
0:47:35So I can't imagine a 6.7 inch phone.
0:47:38For me, I think I mostly agree with you, Marco.
0:47:43I would rather go a hint smaller if I could,
0:47:47but I know myself well enough to know
0:47:49that I will almost certainly be completely
0:47:52and utterly unwilling to give up anything.
0:47:54So like if the non-Pro 12 has only two cameras,
0:47:59as you were describing, which I think is
0:48:00a very fair conjecture to make,
0:48:02I don't think I would do it.
0:48:03I think I would just suck it up and get a 6.1 inch phone,
0:48:06which I would really rather not do,
0:48:09but knowing myself well enough,
0:48:10I think I would end up doing exactly that.
0:48:12- I mean, it's not a 6.1 inch phone.
0:48:13Like, those are diagonal screen measurements,
0:48:15and the flat sides should shave a lot off, right?
0:48:18So like, well, what we're really gonna be looking for
0:48:20once we announce these is go to the Apple site
0:48:22and find the thing that gives you the outside dimensions,
0:48:24you know, in millimeters, and then we'll see
0:48:26how much bigger it actually is than an 11 or a 10S
0:48:29or whatever.
0:48:30- Yeah, also a couple other things.
0:48:31Yeah, like, first of all, that's one of the reasons
0:48:33why I'm hoping for a like case shape rethinking,
0:48:37like with the straight sides and everything.
0:48:39If I can use it without a case,
0:48:42then that makes it effectively smaller for me.
0:48:45And so maybe I would then stick with the medium size
0:48:47if it's something that I could use without a case.
0:48:49But also, if you're interested in what the smaller size
0:48:51looks like, a couple of months ago,
0:48:53MacRumors published images of the rumored sizes
0:48:57such that you could, like, whatever phone you have,
0:49:02they have separate downloads, and so you could see,
0:49:04like, all right, show me what the small phone would look like
0:49:08if I'm holding a 10S or an 11 or whatever.
0:49:10And then you can view that image, like at 1X
0:49:13in your camera roll at full screen,
0:49:15and it shows you exactly what size that phone would be
0:49:18on your existing phone.
0:49:20It's actually a really nice estimation tool,
0:49:22and so I've actually had that tab open
0:49:24in my mobile Safari browser for like two months
0:49:27just so I could occasionally look over and edit
0:49:28and be like, hmm, I think I do want the smaller size phone.
0:49:31Like, it is noticeably narrower,
0:49:35which I think would be the limiting factor.
0:49:37Like, it is obviously shorter as well.
0:49:40From top to bottom, it's shorter,
0:49:41but I don't really care so much about that.
0:49:44Like, ever since the notch era, the phones are so tall
0:49:48that I don't necessarily need all that height.
0:49:51Like, I could spare that pretty easily.
0:49:53So it would mainly just be giving up width,
0:49:55which would indeed make it significantly more holdable
0:49:58and would give you a lot more like touch range,
0:50:01you know, holding it and touching it.
0:50:03But my concern with giving up the width would be
0:50:06when you squeeze the keyboard down,
0:50:09it's going to be a transition period for keyboard accuracy.
0:50:13And possibly not a good one. (laughs)
0:50:16- Well, but let's be honest,
0:50:17keyboard accuracy hasn't really existed
0:50:19since ML took over AutoCorrect.
0:50:21So, I mean, it can only go up.
0:50:23- They should just do what they do with the laptop keyboards
0:50:26and just make it so there's one size keyboard
0:50:28and it's the one that fits on their smallest phone
0:50:29and use that software keyboard on all the phones.
0:50:32And they just put dots on the left and the right.
0:50:34- Oh, god, earlier today I typed in Thursdays
0:50:37and it put an apostrophe on it.
0:50:39Thursday apostrophe S.
0:50:41- Thursday's child is full of woe?
0:50:44Come on, chat room, what is Thursday's child full of?
0:50:46- John, why'd he do this?
0:50:47- I got nothing on that one.
0:50:48- These two don't know what I'm talking about.
0:50:49I am relying on a title in the chat room.
0:50:51We'll have some real time follow up soon
0:50:52if someone finds the answer.
0:50:54- Yeah, it's like, who puts apostrophes?
0:50:57I don't want my correct grammar
0:51:00to be AutoCorrected to be incorrect.
0:51:02- You know, the thing of it is, it just occurred to me,
0:51:03I don't know why I just thought of this,
0:51:04but I know that I can turn off AutoCorrect,
0:51:08but it is correct enough,
0:51:11and my fingers are incorrect enough,
0:51:14that I do want AutoCorrect on,
0:51:16but oh my word, if there was a way
0:51:19to turn off the machine learning portions of AutoCorrect,
0:51:23and maybe I'm misattributing this,
0:51:24maybe it's not machine learning at all,
0:51:25maybe something changed in the algorithm,
0:51:27maybe something is different,
0:51:28but my feeling, my recollection,
0:51:31is that AutoCorrect up until two or three years ago
0:51:33was really, really good,
0:51:35and then suddenly, two or three years ago,
0:51:37and everyone assumed it was ML, including me,
0:51:39maybe we're wrong,
0:51:40but suddenly something happened where it got real, real bad,
0:51:45and if I had a switch to just turn off
0:51:47the ML portions of AutoCorrect,
0:51:49I would flick the crap out of that switch,
0:51:52I would turn that on, or I guess off, so fast,
0:51:55because I really feel like it's the ML that's doing it,
0:51:57like it's a bunch of idiots typing T-H-U-R-D,
0:52:01Thursday apostrophe S, I got myself,
0:52:04see I'm the idiot now, right?
0:52:05Anyway, the point is,
0:52:06it's a bunch of idiots typing Thursday apostrophe S
0:52:08instead of Thursday S,
0:52:09and then the ML engine picks that up,
0:52:11and then all of a sudden now we're getting it.
0:52:13- Right, it's like no,
0:52:14and I understand,
0:52:16I am probably benefiting from much of what that ML engine
0:52:20is adding to the dictionary,
0:52:22but when it gets it wrong,
0:52:24it's just like I'm being failed,
0:52:26like many other things,
0:52:27I'm being failed by the collective idiocy
0:52:30of the rest of humanity here,
0:52:31like I am right, they are wrong,
0:52:34and they're making my life worse as a result.
0:52:37- Related, please vote.
0:52:38- Yeah, please, for the love of God.
0:52:40- Real time problem on what children are filled with,
0:52:42Monday's child is fair of face,
0:52:44Tuesday's child is full of grace,
0:52:46Wednesday's child is full of woe,
0:52:48but Thursday's child has far to go.
0:52:51- What in the crap are you talking about?
0:52:53- Is this a Destiny thing?
0:52:54- Yeah, seriously,
0:52:55is it either Destiny, Church, or some obscure song?
0:52:57- It is not Destiny or Church.
0:52:59- I think it's sports.
0:53:00- No, it's not sports.
0:53:01- Interesting guesses.
0:53:02I'll put a screenshot, by the way,
0:53:04for you two in the Slack.
0:53:06So like in our,
0:53:07I don't understand this,
0:53:09is this a GPU problem,
0:53:11is this, in our show notes,
0:53:13we have the picture from the invitation for the Apple event,
0:53:15which I swear we'll get to in a second or two,
0:53:17like the invitation that says high comma speed, right,
0:53:21that one, right?
0:53:22That's in our Google Doc,
0:53:23pasted as an image in the Google Doc, right?
0:53:26So I opened another browser window
0:53:28to search for the Thursday's child answer,
0:53:30and I found it,
0:53:31and would you two please look at the screenshot,
0:53:34which contains, in the background is my Google Doc window,
0:53:36and in the foreground is my browser window,
0:53:38what in the hell is that?
0:53:40- So in the Google AdSense boxes,
0:53:43on this unrelated page--
0:53:45- The two Google AdSense boxes.
0:53:47- Yeah, on two Google AdSense medium rectangle units,
0:53:49on the right sidebar of this page,
0:53:52it's showing the high comma speed Apple invitation image,
0:53:57with a little Google Ad choices X and forward arrow
0:54:00on the upper right corner.
0:54:02I guess instead of an ad, or--
0:54:04- I know.
0:54:04- Is this an ad, what happened to you?
0:54:05- Is it because I opened the email,
0:54:07and there was a tiny one pixel image tracker that Apple,
0:54:10'cause I didn't go to the Apple's website.
0:54:12Yes, I did copy and paste the image out of Gmail,
0:54:14but now when I go to a random webpage,
0:54:16I see two copies of the high speed Apple event ad.
0:54:20- What happens if you click on it?
0:54:22Does it go to that ad, or does it go to something else?
0:54:24- All right, so I'll click on it.
0:54:26It goes to apple.com/appleevents,
0:54:29question mark, gigantic tracking crap.
0:54:32- Oh yeah, so it's not a GPU bug,
0:54:35it's just incredibly creepy ad tracking,
0:54:37and your Google owned browser
0:54:38with your Google owned spreadsheet thing.
0:54:40- Oh, if I scroll down more,
0:54:42if I scroll down farther,
0:54:43there's a third Google ad containing, you guessed it.
0:54:46Same exact question.
0:54:48It's unbelievable.
0:54:51- I wanna know what code it is
0:54:52you're writing in the background there, sir.
0:54:54- What code?
0:54:55That's not code, what is that?
0:54:56That is, this is using dispatch work item
0:55:00to delay or cancel tasks.
0:55:02An article by Nathan Rolick,
0:55:05which will now be in the show notes.
0:55:07Thank you, thank you Casey, for spying on my computer.
0:55:11- You're welcome.
0:55:12- Thank you.
0:55:13- All right, so let's move on to the event.
0:55:15It's going to be this upcoming Tuesday.
0:55:18Obviously, and we are expecting iPhones,
0:55:22before we talk anymore about a potential iPhone 12,
0:55:25are we expecting anything else?
0:55:27I know both of you are begging for laptops,
0:55:29but well actually I guess now might be a good time for Jon
0:55:33for you to explore why it is
0:55:34you want a laptop so desperately.
0:55:36- Oh yeah, that's just simple.
0:55:37Like we need another one for the kids,
0:55:38they're all doing like remote schooling stuff.
0:55:41And we just have one laptop
0:55:43and then we have one desktop computer
0:55:45and I like to work in the room with the desktop computer,
0:55:47but the kids don't like me to be in the room
0:55:48when they're working,
0:55:49plus I have to be on calls all day too.
0:55:50So anyway, as soon as we get a laptop,
0:55:53I can kick the kids back out of my room
0:55:55and then they can be in their individual rooms
0:55:56with their individual laptops
0:55:57and I can get to be in front of my computer again.
0:56:00I mean, I'm working on my laptop too,
0:56:02but I also like to be at my computer desk
0:56:03with my real computer there.
0:56:05Anyway, so that's why I needed a laptop.
0:56:07It seems like, I haven't been really keeping up
0:56:09with the rumors here
0:56:10because there are many other things going on in the world
0:56:12that are distracting me and every other sane person,
0:56:15but it seems like we're not getting Macs in this event.
0:56:18And every time, like I said, every time an event comes
0:56:21and my house goes, "Can we get a laptop now?"
0:56:24I'm like, "Oh, seems like maybe not this time."
0:56:26But there's gonna be another Apple event
0:56:27before the end of the year
0:56:28and then they'll announce the first ARM Mac,
0:56:30which will probably be a laptop, but we're not sure.
0:56:32But anyway, probably like before the end of the year.
0:56:35So that is the, I don't even care about the new phone.
0:56:39I don't care.
0:56:39I do want a new phone,
0:56:41but the thing that I want before the end of this year
0:56:44is an ARM Mac that is a laptop.
0:56:47And it seems like, according to the rumors,
0:56:49that's not gonna happen at this event.
0:56:50Obviously there will be iPhones.
0:56:52The other rumor that I vaguely believe
0:56:54is about the headphone situation,
0:56:56because as we'll link in the show note,
0:56:57apparently Apple has stopped selling speakers
0:57:02and earphones ahead of the event, like a third-party one.
0:57:06So anything that's not by Apple or Beats, right?
0:57:09Not being sold in Apple stores anymore.
0:57:11Does that mean an Apple over-ear headphone is coming?
0:57:14Does that mean there's gonna be a new, cheaper HomePod?
0:57:16Does that have anything to do with this event?
0:57:18I don't know, maybe, but it seems like, again,
0:57:20if the vague rumors that I've looked at are to be believed,
0:57:23both of those things are more likely than an ARM Mac,
0:57:27and that's really all I care about.
0:57:29- During this iPhone discussion,
0:57:32I pulled my phone out of its case,
0:57:34to look at it and everything,
0:57:36and it's been sitting here since then,
0:57:38like just out of its case,
0:57:39and it looks like, you ever had a hermit crab growing?
0:57:43- I'm aware of what they are, but I've never had one.
0:57:44- It looks like when your hermit crab is changing shells,
0:57:47and it leaves its first shell,
0:57:49and it just walks around naked for a second
0:57:51until it finds the second shell it's gonna go into,
0:57:54and when you see your hermit crab naked,
0:57:56it's the weirdest thing ever,
0:57:57'cause you're really not supposed to see it that way.
0:57:59That's how it feels looking at an iPhone
0:58:01without a case right now.
0:58:02Like, I see my iPhone 11 Pro sitting there without a case,
0:58:06and it's like, ew, where's the rest of you?
0:58:07Put some clothes on.
0:58:09Wow.
0:58:10Anyway, so.
0:58:11(laughing)
0:58:13I think you're probably right, Jon.
0:58:16It does feel like we haven't heard enough rumors
0:58:20about our Macs being imminent
0:58:23for them to be at this event in all likelihood,
0:58:25but I kinda hope they are anyway.
0:58:28Like, Apple has been significantly better at secrecy
0:58:33in the last couple years than they were before,
0:58:35so they actually might have all this stuff ready,
0:58:38and we just don't know about it yet.
0:58:39- When I first saw this ad, like the event invitation,
0:58:42before I'd read anything about it,
0:58:44when I just saw it in my email box,
0:58:45which usually this doesn't happen.
0:58:47Usually I see about it on Twitter before I get the email,
0:58:48but this time I actually got the email
0:58:49before I had read anything about it,
0:58:50and I was excited because it said hi, comma, speed, right?
0:58:53I'm like, yeah, this makes perfect sense, Apple,
0:58:56because now you're finally gonna reveal
0:58:58all the specs of the A14,
0:58:59which you kinda tried to hide at the, you know,
0:59:01with the iPad, the previous iPad event,
0:59:04and of course you're gonna have the R Max,
0:59:06and they're gonna be super fast,
0:59:07and then I read the rumors,
0:59:08and it was like, no, don't get your hopes up for Max.
0:59:10I'm like, but it's perfect, high speed,
0:59:11it's all the fast things,
0:59:12and yes, the phones will be faster,
0:59:14and yes, this will be the A14's real coming out
0:59:16in terms of performance,
0:59:17but honestly, the real demonstration of high speed things
0:59:21is gonna be the R Max, right?
0:59:23Because they're gonna be so much faster
0:59:24than the Intel chips.
0:59:25Isn't that what the speed is about?
0:59:26It just seems like such a waste of a speed-related tease
0:59:30to only be talking about phones,
0:59:32which I feel like phones in general
0:59:34are a place where, you know,
0:59:35we love that iPhones are fast and everything,
0:59:38but we're at the point now
0:59:40where I don't think people are like,
0:59:41oh my God, my phone is so slow,
0:59:43if you have any kind of recent iPhone.
0:59:45I'm not saying there's no point in more speed,
0:59:46there absolutely is,
0:59:47but phones have always been, Apple's phones,
0:59:51Apple's top of the line phones have always been fast.
0:59:53We are spoiled by fast phones, we expect it,
0:59:55and so if you're gonna brag about speed,
0:59:57brag about it on the platform
0:59:58that has had some speed challenges, let's say,
1:00:01over the last several years due to Intel.
1:00:04- But all the rumors say no, right?
1:00:07- Well, but the rumors could also be,
1:00:09I mean, first of all, they could just be wrong.
1:00:11We've heard many rumors about this fall
1:00:13that have been wrong so far.
1:00:16- I mean, AirTags have been rumored for every event
1:00:18for like two years now.
1:00:19- Exactly.
1:00:20- Do we already have,
1:00:21sometimes I forget if we already have AirTags.
1:00:23Do we already have, oh, they didn't actually ship them,
1:00:25they didn't actually even announce them.
1:00:26It's just a thing that everyone knows that exists
1:00:28and just has never released.
1:00:30- Right, exactly.
1:00:32So yeah, who knows what, you know,
1:00:34when the rumors say this thing is not coming yet,
1:00:37it's really hard to put a lot of faith into that.
1:00:40That being said, the rumors could also be hearing things
1:00:45about supply and delivery timelines
1:00:48that might be different from announcement timelines.
1:00:51Apple could announce our max, you know,
1:00:54at this event next week,
1:00:55and maybe not ship them until November.
1:00:57They could totally say, here's the first two or three max
1:01:01that use Apple Silicon, whatever you're gonna call it,
1:01:04they can show them off, they can get us all excited,
1:01:06and then they can say, shipping next month.
1:01:09That's totally a thing they could do if they want to.
1:01:11- Yeah, to be clear, that's all I need.
1:01:13That's all I need to get the pressure off me
1:01:14in this household to say, this is, they announced it,
1:01:17and ideally we can place an order for it.
1:01:19And if it doesn't ship until next year,
1:01:21say like, well, we already ordered it,
1:01:23it's on its way in December, but you know,
1:01:25I just need it to exist so I can point to it and say,
1:01:27we're getting that, that'll be fine.
1:01:30- Exactly, so they could do our max at this event,
1:01:34and just not have them shipping yet.
1:01:37You know, there is some question about like,
1:01:40how many events are they going to do in one fall?
1:01:42Historically, I believe that's been capped at about two.
1:01:46This would be the second one.
1:01:48Are they really gonna have a third one in another month?
1:01:52Maybe, they could, you know,
1:01:54these are just like online streams,
1:01:57so they're kind of like fancier press release
1:02:00product releases, so in a way,
1:02:03they could do as many of these as they want to.
1:02:05There's some value in like,
1:02:08conserving or diluting press attention in certain ways,
1:02:12so they wouldn't want to do tons of them,
1:02:15or only one for the entire season.
1:02:17- They should do the Netflix approach,
1:02:19where they dump the whole season at once.
1:02:20(laughing)
1:02:21They prerecorded all these in June,
1:02:23and they're just sitting there,
1:02:24and they're releasing them one by one.
1:02:25It's like, oh, just dump the whole season at once.
1:02:27- Just a little binge, right?
1:02:28Here's all the announcements for the rest of the year,
1:02:30and we're going on vacation.
1:02:31- Yeah, exactly.
1:02:32So, you know, we'll see what it actually is,
1:02:36but I'm thinking, I wouldn't rule out
1:02:39the other products besides iPhones,
1:02:40like, 'cause otherwise, you know,
1:02:42look at like what's expected, what's left.
1:02:44It's basically iPhones and our Macs as like,
1:02:50the definite things that we know
1:02:51are gonna happen this fall,
1:02:52'cause they've told us, basically,
1:02:55and then the likely maybe column
1:02:59includes things like the audio products,
1:03:02which again, I think that story
1:03:04about them being dropped out of Apple's retail stores,
1:03:07that's a pretty strong indicator
1:03:09that more Apple audio products are likely to arrive
1:03:13in the very short term, so like,
1:03:15that's probably a real thing.
1:03:18So very likely in the near future,
1:03:20we're gonna have, you know, the Apple over-ear headphones,
1:03:25the second HomePod, the HomePod mini,
1:03:26whatever that's gonna be.
1:03:28It is, by the way, it's interesting
1:03:30that they've dropped all that stuff out of their stores,
1:03:32because the amount of the real estate of Apple stores
1:03:36taken up by those like 300 to $500, you know,
1:03:41Bang & Olufsen speakers and all the weird like,
1:03:44300-ish dollar, you know, Master and Dynamic,
1:03:48hipster-styled, super expensive headphones,
1:03:51those have historically been
1:03:52a pretty significant part of the store,
1:03:55with lots of the real estate,
1:03:57lots of people usually at them
1:03:58using all the broken iPod touches
1:04:00to try to get music to come out of them.
1:04:02Like, so to eliminate those is actually pretty significant,
1:04:05and Apple won't for a while, if ever,
1:04:09have enough audio products themselves
1:04:13to fill up that, the space that that was usually given
1:04:16in the stores, so it's actually interesting to think like,
1:04:19is there anything more to that?
1:04:20Like maybe people just stopped buying them
1:04:23because AirPods killed so much of that business,
1:04:26like it's possible like, maybe people just weren't buying,
1:04:29I mean, you know, the move from wired to Bluetooth
1:04:32was a pretty big damaging factor
1:04:34for a lot of those headphones,
1:04:35but you know, they switched to Bluetooth models
1:04:37and everything, but still like,
1:04:37a lot of those headphones probably aren't being bought anymore
1:04:42because AirPods are so good,
1:04:43so I wonder if that has something to do with it as well,
1:04:46and maybe Apple is having to downsize that entire category
1:04:50because like, maybe no one's buying
1:04:53a lot of premium headphones anymore,
1:04:55and on the speaker side, I think a lot of that market,
1:05:01a lot of the like, you know, nice home speaker
1:05:03for your phone to play music to market,
1:05:07I think a lot of that's been lost to voice cylinders,
1:05:09and if people aren't buying the HomePod,
1:05:12they're probably buying Echos and stuff,
1:05:14and that probably takes away a lot of the market
1:05:17for the like, high-end, you know, leather wrapped,
1:05:20B&O, $500 blimp thing, you know, but anyway.
1:05:25So, I think the high-speed thing on the invitation,
1:05:30the speculation that it's probably about 5G iPhones,
1:05:35it's plausible, I don't give a crap about 5G,
1:05:40and I don't think Apple would push it that hard,
1:05:45like as a thing, 'cause I don't think it's that good yet, but--
1:05:48- Yeah, it's a benefit that they aren't in control of.
1:05:51Like yes, they will have 5G, and yes, 5G can be much,
1:05:54much faster, but if they sell the phone based
1:05:56on that benefit, and you get the phone,
1:05:58and you be like, it doesn't seem any faster than me,
1:06:00it's like, oh well, probably because 5G is not either
1:06:03penetrated in your area, or the fast version of 5G
1:06:07isn't near you, or you don't realize to get
1:06:09the super high speeds you really need to be really close
1:06:11to one of those millimeter wave things,
1:06:12like, it seems like a weird benefit to sell.
1:06:15Now, to compare, we can say, well, how did Apple sell LTE?
1:06:18Like when their phones went LTE?
1:06:20I think they did make kind of a big deal about that,
1:06:23but they were so late to that, and LTE had much
1:06:26better penetration than 5G, so I mean, right or wrong,
1:06:29when I saw high speed, like I said, I thought of ARM Max,
1:06:32but I also saw the A14, which is very fast,
1:06:35and was introduced already on the iPad,
1:06:37but in a very vague kind of way, so I can imagine,
1:06:40like the reason I thought this would be a combination event,
1:06:43and one thing we didn't mention is like a revamped Apple TV
1:06:45with an A14 in it, is that if you release ARM Max,
1:06:49the new phones, and an Apple TV, and they all have some variant
1:06:53of the new A14 cores, if not the specific A14 chips
1:06:57inside them, that's a great place for you to just bask
1:07:00in benchmarks and be like, look at all this fast stuff
1:07:03we're giving you.
1:07:03Apple TV is way faster than it was,
1:07:05it's faster than a PlayStation 4, and the new ARM Mac
1:07:08is amazing, and it's super duper fast,
1:07:10and our phones, of course, are fast too,
1:07:11and it's all based on Apple Silicon, and blah, blah, blah,
1:07:14but it just seems like that's not the event
1:07:16that they're planning according to the rumors.
1:07:18- Well, it also seems like the A14 is not that much faster
1:07:21than the A13, the initial benchmarks from the iPad Air
1:07:24that are kind of slowly trickling out,
1:07:27they show that it's fast, it's great in absolute terms,
1:07:31but as a year over year upgrade to the A13,
1:07:34it's not that crazy of an upgrade.
1:07:36- I think it's just because we're spoiled
1:07:38by the previous ones, wasn't it like 20% or something faster?
1:07:41- Yeah. - Like single core performance,
1:07:43like Intel is likely to eke out a couple of percentage
1:07:46every few years. - That's true.
1:07:47- And like we're gonna say, oh, it's only like 15 or 20%
1:07:51faster in single core, like the A14,
1:07:53if those leaked benchmarks are to be leaked, is a beast.
1:07:56Like it is faster in single core performance
1:07:57than any Mac Apple sells currently, right?
1:08:00If those benchmarks, and that's their phone thing.
1:08:02- But by Apple's standards for the A chips,
1:08:05like the year over year upgrade from the A13 to the A14,
1:08:09is, it's nice, it's welcome, but it's not something
1:08:13you'd base an event around, right?
1:08:14So that's why I think there must be something more to it.
1:08:17- Yeah, how can you brag about speed, again, on phones,
1:08:20because the phones are already so fast.
1:08:21- Exactly. - Like, I mean, I guess,
1:08:24what I just said is a thing that Apple could say,
1:08:26but I think they won't.
1:08:27Like, at various times Apple could have said,
1:08:30you know the single core performance of our phones
1:08:33is better than X amount of our Macs.
1:08:34Now they can say it's better than all of our Macs,
1:08:37but you really don't wanna slam your Macs by saying that.
1:08:41Like, the real thing that they could brag about speed,
1:08:44though, is GPU stuff, right?
1:08:45Because GPUs are easy to make faster
1:08:47by just adding more area.
1:08:48And once you're putting an Apple Silicon chip
1:08:51in a thing with a fan, suddenly you have the capacity
1:08:55to just shove those GPU cores in there
1:08:58and to get a chip that is just a monster,
1:09:00that again is like PlayStation 4 caliber power
1:09:05in a thing with a quote-unquote integrated GPU, right?
1:09:10You know, the benchmarks were showing that essentially the,
1:09:14I think this was just the A14 that's in the iPad,
1:09:17which is a fanless enclosure, right?
1:09:19With very strict temperature
1:09:21and battery life constraints, right?
1:09:24That chip, apparently, its GPU power is about equivalent
1:09:27to the base discrete GPU in a MacBook Pro.
1:09:30So imagine you take that chip and you give it a fan
1:09:35and put it in a case with a fan,
1:09:36your integrated GPU could be fast enough to compete
1:09:41with many of the discrete GPUs
1:09:43that are offered in Macs today, right?
1:09:44So I am very bullish, is that the right word?
1:09:47I was getting confused.
1:09:48I am very bullish on the performance of ARM-based Macs.
1:09:53But for the phones and the iPads, like you said,
1:09:55it's like, well, they've always been fast
1:09:56and then now they get faster again, fine,
1:09:58but like, I just, we're reading too much
1:10:02into the high-speed thing.
1:10:03Like, they're gonna introduce things that are faster
1:10:04and that is all the excuses they need.
1:10:06I just, I have stars in my eyes
1:10:09about the potential of ARM-based Macs
1:10:11and even the potential of a really fast ARM-based Apple TV
1:10:15to be, if not a good platform for games
1:10:17due to software mismanagement and so on and so forth,
1:10:20at least be extremely capable hardware
1:10:23attached to my television that could potentially
1:10:25play really good games were they ever to be released.
1:10:28- Yeah, but I just, I can't see them having an invitation
1:10:32that says high-speed at an event where
1:10:37the most likely headliner is the phone.
1:10:40I don't know how they would, like,
1:10:43unless they're believing in 5G way more than we are.
1:10:46- I mean, that's all it takes, is 5G is faster.
1:10:50There you go.
1:10:51Like, again, I think we're reading too much into the title.
1:10:54- Agreed, but like, but the title matters a little bit
1:10:56and like, you know, I don't know why they would call it this
1:11:00if it was anything about the iPhone
1:11:01because the iPhone, yeah, it's gonna get faster,
1:11:03but it's gonna get faster mostly in ways nobody cares about
1:11:06and not like, massively so.
1:11:09Whereas the transition to ARM Max
1:11:12will probably make Max way faster.
1:11:15And so to have this event named high-speed
1:11:18in the fall of 2020 when they've said
1:11:20this is when the first ARM Max will come out,
1:11:23how can this event not contain the first ARM Max?
1:11:26Of course it's gonna contain them.
1:11:27- They said before the end of the year.
1:11:30- Agreed, yes.
1:11:30Anyway, Apple, we've decided you have to ship ARM Max.
1:11:33(laughing)
1:11:35- I gotta tell you, I would love to see a new Apple TV.
1:11:37And I think I've mentioned this a couple times recently,
1:11:40but you know, we have this almost a year old
1:11:424K LG TV downstairs,
1:11:44and I'm still running a 1080 Apple TV on it
1:11:47because when we bought this a year ago, I thought,
1:11:50oh, surely there's gonna be a new Apple TV in 2019.
1:11:53Why wouldn't there be?
1:11:55And obviously there wasn't.
1:11:56And so surely there'll be a new Apple TV in 2020.
1:11:59Why wouldn't there be?
1:12:00I am ready to get a new Apple TV,
1:12:03and I would really rather not,
1:12:06I mean, at this point I'm just gonna continue to wait
1:12:08until they, I guess they cancel it, airport style.
1:12:11But I would love to get a new Apple TV
1:12:13that's 4K to put on my TV downstairs.
1:12:16So I hope I see one.
1:12:17- AirPower, and there were rumors about that coming back.
1:12:20Have you seen the rumors about AirPower coming back?
1:12:22- I saw a couple, yeah.
1:12:23- Like they just started over and they're gonna make
1:12:25another product that does the same thing,
1:12:27but like start over from scratch and make one that works.
1:12:29We'll see if that ever happens.
1:12:31If that, boy, if that beats AirTags out,
1:12:34I don't know what's going on with AirTags.
1:12:35I don't know what the holdup is.
1:12:37- It's just not the right time, John.
1:12:39It's just not the right time.
1:12:41- They keep catching on fire.
1:12:42(laughing)
1:12:43- That might have something to do with it.
1:12:45Oh, yi yi.
1:12:46I'm really looking forward to it.
1:12:48I'm excited.
1:12:49I'm not excited about the potential choice
1:12:52I'm gonna have to make with regards to size
1:12:54as we've already covered,
1:12:55because I feel like I'm going to be forced to go bigger
1:12:59and I really don't want to,
1:13:00but one way or another, I'm excited to see what's on offer.
1:13:04Okay, so do you guys--
1:13:05- I love the idea that you're forced.
1:13:07I'm gonna be forced to buy a new iPhone
1:13:11to replace my one-year-old iPhone,
1:13:12and that will be forced,
1:13:14I'll be forced to get the nice model that's big.
1:13:16- No, you're right to call me out on that.
1:13:18That's a fair point.
1:13:19But no, I am curious, do the two of you guys
1:13:23think we're going to see iPad style a touch ID thing
1:13:28in the side button?
1:13:29Let's start with Marco.
1:13:30- I would say it's possible.
1:13:31I would hope to see it,
1:13:33but it might be a little ambitious,
1:13:35because to get that, well, now that I think about it,
1:13:38'cause I think one of the biggest challenges for that
1:13:41would be the thickness of the case.
1:13:42Obviously, you want that button to be as thick as possible
1:13:45to give you the most surface area possible
1:13:47to see as much of the fingerprint as possible,
1:13:49and phones are not that thick,
1:13:52but they do tend to be thicker than iPads.
1:13:56Are they still?
1:13:58I haven't checked.
1:13:59Are they current phones?
1:14:00- No, I'm pretty sure they're thicker than iPads, though.
1:14:02- Yeah, so if it can fit on an iPad,
1:14:05it might be able to fit on a phone, too.
1:14:07So yeah, maybe.
1:14:08I would love to see that,
1:14:09and I would love to see a hybrid model
1:14:12where it's face ID and touch ID.
1:14:15That would be awesome,
1:14:17and especially if you could pick,
1:14:19tell it, oh, just whatever recognizes me first,
1:14:22let me in, so you don't need both to match,
1:14:24or you don't always need face ID.
1:14:25You can just like, whatever recognizes me.
1:14:26That would be awesome.
1:14:28I would love that,
1:14:30but I don't know if they're quite ready for that yet
1:14:32on the phone.
1:14:33I might need one more year.
1:14:34- Jon?
1:14:35- It seems like something that we would know already
1:14:37through the rumor mills and the leaked cases
1:14:38and stuff like that,
1:14:39and the fact that I haven't heard anything about it
1:14:41makes me think that it's not gonna have it.
1:14:42Like, mostly because, you know,
1:14:43it's like the touch ID on the iPad,
1:14:46what is the iPad, the new iPad Air?
1:14:48- Yep.
1:14:49- Like, that's not a reaction to COVID.
1:14:50That was planned way ahead of time,
1:14:51and even though I don't personally understand
1:14:53the cost trade-off between face ID and that,
1:14:55it seems clear to me that that's why it has touch ID,
1:14:58because they didn't put face ID in,
1:15:00because it's the cheaper model,
1:15:01and once you don't have face ID,
1:15:02but you still wanna have the full screen gesture,
1:15:04blah, blah, blah thing, you need something,
1:15:06and there's where touch ID is.
1:15:06Whereas on the phone,
1:15:08it's not the thickness that I worry about,
1:15:10because again, the phones have been thicker than iPads
1:15:11for a little while now.
1:15:12It's like how much space is there inside the phone
1:15:14for you to put crap, right?
1:15:16And putting the touch ID sensor,
1:15:17it's not big, like, it's not huge,
1:15:19but it's bigger than a power button, right?
1:15:21And so it makes me think that,
1:15:24like, because there's no reason to do it on the phone,
1:15:26that they've been perfectly happy with this design of like,
1:15:29you know, just face ID and it being fine,
1:15:31and because this phone wasn't made in reaction to COVID,
1:15:34'cause it was planned way before this happened,
1:15:36that regardless of what Apple wants to do or plans to do,
1:15:38and certainly regardless of what we all want it to do,
1:15:40because I agree with Marco,
1:15:41I'd love it with a phone with both,
1:15:43seems to me that this phone is not gonna have it,
1:15:45and which is understandable and fine,
1:15:47but for the next phone, hopefully COVID didn't come too late
1:15:50to influence the design of the next one,
1:15:51because now I can imagine making different trade-offs
1:15:53and saying, well, we don't know how long
1:15:55we're gonna be wearing these masks.
1:15:56If you can, let's get touch ID
1:15:59into the iPhone 13 or whatever.
1:16:02- To be fair, the demand for touch ID on a phone
1:16:06existed strongly before COVID also.
1:16:08There's a lot of people who still don't like face ID
1:16:12and are still holding onto the older style phones,
1:16:14and that's one of the reasons I think why the new SE
1:16:16is the older style, because there's a lot of people
1:16:19who just don't want face ID for whatever reason,
1:16:21or it doesn't work well for them,
1:16:23and so touch ID still has quite a fan base,
1:16:27and I think until Apple can offer touch ID
1:16:31on the high-end phones in some form,
1:16:33whether it's like an under-screen thing
1:16:35or a power button thing, whatever it is,
1:16:37some form of touch ID, I think they need to do it
1:16:39in order to capture the rest of that market again
1:16:42and to get them to be upgrading to nice iPhones again.
1:16:45- Who do you know who face ID doesn't work well for?
1:16:47Because I know old people say touch ID doesn't work
1:16:49'cause their fingerprints are all old
1:16:50and ever-changing, apparently, but who has a face
1:16:53that's a problem with face ID?
1:16:55- Well, people who wear face coverings on a regular basis,
1:16:58that's a big one, and that was a big one before this,
1:17:00and it's just a bigger one now, but that's a big one.
1:17:04- Yeah, I mean, I totally agree.
1:17:05They should do both of them.
1:17:06It's just a question of was this the year
1:17:08where they felt like the trade-off in internal space
1:17:11and cost, I suppose, was worth it to get it wedged
1:17:14in there, and given the one device we've seen
1:17:17where they've done this, it's not the high end.
1:17:19It's a trade-off feature, but my finger's a cross for it
1:17:23'cause obviously we all wish it was there.
1:17:25I just feel like I would have seen confirmed rumors of it.
1:17:30This is, again, I'm casually paying attention,
1:17:33but I think casually paying attention to the rumors
1:17:35is a good way to note when exciting things are happening
1:17:38because if it's, maybe the rest of the world isn't excited,
1:17:41isn't as excited about touch ID as the power button
1:17:43as we all are, but that they should be.
1:17:45- Yeah, I would love to see it.
1:17:47I strongly suspect that it won't have made the cut
1:17:51in terms of timing, but I would love to see it,
1:17:53and again, to go back to what we were talking about earlier,
1:17:56I'd love this thing to be USB-C.
1:17:58Do you think, well, Jon, did you weigh in on that earlier?
1:18:00Do you think that it'll be a USB-C phone?
1:18:02- Again, based on the fact that I haven't heard the rumors
1:18:04and the fact that the only rumor I have heard
1:18:06is lightning forever until there's no more wires at all,
1:18:09which could be as early as next year,
1:18:12I'm not holding my breath for it.
1:18:13Although on all of these issues, touch ID and USB-C,
1:18:16I keep eyeing the Giganto phone, whatever it is,
1:18:19the Pro Max whatever, like the 6.5 inches, or 6.7.
1:18:24If you have a 6.7 inch phone, you don't really have issues
1:18:30about internal space for the touch ID sensor, right?
1:18:33And so maybe that makes it a potential candidate for that,
1:18:35and also USB-C, again, I know it's not a thickness issue,
1:18:38but if you're thinking of a phone that's starting to edge
1:18:42into iPad territory and all the iPads have USB-C,
1:18:45you could make an argument that you could just convert
1:18:47the Monster phone to USB-C, but that would be ridiculous
1:18:49that they would just do it in one phone.
1:18:50But I think I would like it to be coming.
1:18:54I don't want them to go from lightning to nothing.
1:18:56I want them to go to lightning, to USB-C,
1:18:58and then maybe to nothing when it actually is good.
1:19:00So I'm a little bit terrified of them
1:19:02just holding the line of lightning for as long as they can
1:19:05and then switching to a pure wireless,
1:19:07because even though I have a phone
1:19:09that supports wireless charging
1:19:10and we have wireless chargers in the house,
1:19:12I don't use it, I'm an old fuddy-duddy,
1:19:13I plug it into a cable.
1:19:15- Yeah, wireless charging is very polarizing,
1:19:18and it's not a clear win for everybody
1:19:20or for all circumstances.
1:19:22Like, I use a mix of both.
1:19:23I use wired in the car, I use wired when I'm traveling.
1:19:28I'm not gonna bring a weird wireless charger with me
1:19:30if I don't need to, and I also use wired
1:19:32when I need a fast charge, when I need just a faster charge
1:19:36or if I'm using some kind of USB battery pack
1:19:38or something like that, it's very common.
1:19:39And then Tiff, she doesn't like wireless at all.
1:19:42She never uses it.
1:19:43I use it on my nightstand at night.
1:19:46People have different preferences and different needs,
1:19:49and wireless charging is not the same as a cable,
1:19:52and it's not universally better.
1:19:54It's better in a few ways.
1:19:55It's worse in a few significant ways.
1:19:58Like, one of the biggest ways it's worse is efficiency.
1:20:00It's terrible for efficiency,
1:20:03and you just end up wasting a whole bunch more
1:20:05of that electricity as heat.
1:20:06So not only do you charge more slowly, which is a problem,
1:20:10but you also waste a ton of power.
1:20:13If you think about if every iPhone in the world
1:20:16could only charge wirelessly,
1:20:18imagine the global power waste.
1:20:22Compare that to whatever gains that you get
1:20:24by not including the power brick in the box.
1:20:27It's laughable.
1:20:28- That's an interesting point.
1:20:29I use a wireless charger on my nightstand, and I love it.
1:20:33I don't particularly wanna go back
1:20:35to having to plug in at night.
1:20:37I mean, that's the first worldiest, first world problem,
1:20:39right?
1:20:40Well, no, the first worldiest, first world problem is,
1:20:41oh my gosh, I don't want a bigger phone.
1:20:42I have to get one.
1:20:44But the second most first worldy--
1:20:45- You already hit that record.
1:20:47- So I'm going for a trifecta, and I'm on number two now,
1:20:50which is I don't particularly want to have to fumble
1:20:54with a plug at night.
1:20:54It's not that big a deal, no.
1:20:55It's not like an infomercial where I'm stabbing myself
1:20:58with a lightning cable, you know?
1:21:00But it would be nice.
1:21:01I prefer not dealing with it,
1:21:03and it's funny because I think with the exception
1:21:08of when I'm doing development,
1:21:11I don't think I would have a problem
1:21:13with a completely wireless phone, you know,
1:21:16that has no lightning port, no USB-C, no nothing.
1:21:19I could make everything else work.
1:21:21Now, I agree with almost everything you said, Marco.
1:21:24Like, when I travel, I use a cable.
1:21:26When I'm in the car, I use a cable.
1:21:27But with the exception of a couple of things,
1:21:31like CarPlay, come to think of it,
1:21:33but with the exception, I should say,
1:21:35with the primary exception of doing development,
1:21:38I don't think I would really mind
1:21:39having a completely wireless phone.
1:21:41And the last time I tried doing Wi-Fi builds
1:21:44and debug and whatnot in Xcode,
1:21:47it worked, but it was not fun,
1:21:50and it was not consistent because,
1:21:53as with all things at Apple,
1:21:54if Apple engineers don't use it all the time,
1:21:57then it's not gonna be great.
1:21:58And from the looks of it,
1:22:00they are not using wireless debugging very often at all.
1:22:03And so, in that sense, like, in a hypothetical world
1:22:07where you could option a port on your phone,
1:22:11so they have the 12 with the port and 12 with no port,
1:22:16I would absolutely option the port,
1:22:18even if it costs a little more money.
1:22:20- Yeah, I forgot about the development angle,
1:22:22but you're right, like, wireless debugging is terrible.
1:22:26It would significantly slow down on device development.
1:22:30Like, and it's, I mean, if you can imagine, like,
1:22:33how things work with the Apple Watch today,
1:22:36'cause that's all wireless,
1:22:37and trying to build and run onto the Apple Watch
1:22:40and trying to debug stuff is just painful in so many ways.
1:22:45And I have noticed, too, is like,
1:22:47I occasionally do need to use wireless debugging
1:22:50on the phone as well whenever I'm testing CarPlay,
1:22:52'cause my CarPlay rig is wired,
1:22:54so that has to be plugged into the phone
1:22:56as the lightning port,
1:22:58so then I have to use Xcode wirelessly to the phone,
1:23:01and it is noticeably slower, significantly slower,
1:23:05than just doing a straight USB build,
1:23:08and it's less reliable.
1:23:10And that would be a huge step backwards for iOS developers.
1:23:15- But if Apple made them wireless,
1:23:17wouldn't Apple, all of Apple's iOS developers,
1:23:18also now be forced to use this wireless thing
1:23:21all the time, too, and then maybe it'll get better?
1:23:23- Well, no, not necessarily.
1:23:24A lot of Apple development happens
1:23:26on development hardware rigs,
1:23:28where they're not just running
1:23:29on a production phone, necessarily.
1:23:32- The app development?
1:23:33- Yeah, a lot of it's running on development boards
1:23:36or development kits or modified hardware.
1:23:39- I mean, maybe when they're doing the phone app
1:23:41or something, the camera app or something
1:23:44that has to take advantage of the new hardware,
1:23:45but the iOS mail team, I don't imagine
1:23:47they need to work on dev hardware.
1:23:50- You'd be surprised.
1:23:51So my limited understanding about this
1:23:53is that a lot of Apple engineers,
1:23:55now I am not sure, to your point, John,
1:23:56if it's like the Apple engineers that work on mail
1:23:59or the Apple engineers that work on UI kit,
1:24:01but I know that a lot of Apple engineers have,
1:24:04what do they call it?
1:24:05I think they call it DevFused or something like that.
1:24:07They have these special kind of phones
1:24:09where they allow SSH access
1:24:10and all this other crazy stuff that we don't get to do.
1:24:13And I think that that's the phones
1:24:16that Apple will issue for their engineers.
1:24:18And it would not at all surprise me
1:24:21if a DevFused or whatever it's called phone in the future
1:24:24when Marco and me and you
1:24:26are all buying completely wireless phones.
1:24:28It would not surprise me not one bit
1:24:29if a DevFused phone also had a port.
1:24:32- It should have that little port that the Apple Watch has,
1:24:35you know, inside the band.
1:24:36(laughing)
1:24:38- Right, I don't know.
1:24:39But it's funny because we're not for development in CarPlay.
1:24:44I think I would be all in on a completely wireless phone,
1:24:47like, because presumably it would be way more waterproof
1:24:49or be able to stay underwater longer or what have you,
1:24:52which is not a problem I can say I've run into often,
1:24:54but it'd still be nice.
1:24:56- Would it?
1:24:58- I don't think I would have a problem with it
1:24:59with the exception, the big exceptions,
1:25:02of CarPlay and in development.
1:25:05And because of those two things,
1:25:06I would absolutely option a port if I needed to.
1:25:09- I don't see what problems I have
1:25:13that would be solved by a portless iPhone.
1:25:15Like, I don't understand what, like,
1:25:18I can see problems that would be created by such a thing.
1:25:21I don't see what problems are being solved
1:25:23that make that worth it.
1:25:24- That's fair, and I think you're right.
1:25:26- Because you can already achieve amazing water resistance
1:25:30with ports if they're properly designed,
1:25:32as we see with both the current iPhones
1:25:35and with phones from other manufacturers
1:25:36that use USB-C and headphone jacks that are waterproof.
1:25:39Like, this can be done.
1:25:41It's not, the port,
1:25:42I just don't see good reasons to go portless.
1:25:47To go portless on a phone,
1:25:49because wireless charging is not good enough,
1:25:51communication is not good enough,
1:25:53it shuts down so many options,
1:25:54it cuts off all peripherals.
1:25:55Like, it's a weird thing to do as the only option
1:25:58because it seems to have almost no upside,
1:26:02but pretty substantial downsides.
1:26:04- It's a problem that Apple has,
1:26:06because Apple has the problems
1:26:08of all of its customers in aggregate.
1:26:10Us as individual customers might not have
1:26:12this particular problem,
1:26:13but what I'm thinking of is crap getting in the port, right?
1:26:15How many Apple Store visits are people picking lint
1:26:19out of their ports?
1:26:20And now you may say,
1:26:21"Well, you don't need to pick lint out of the port
1:26:22"because you can always do everything wireless."
1:26:24But because the port exists,
1:26:26and people want to use it rightfully,
1:26:27because it's a feature of their phone,
1:26:30when it stops working,
1:26:31they think their phone is broken, and it is in a way,
1:26:34and so needs to come in and get it cleaned out.
1:26:36Now, only Apple knows what are those numbers like.
1:26:38Is this really an epidemic of like,
1:26:4050% of the visits to the Apple Store
1:26:42are belly button lint picking from ports, right?
1:26:44Anecdotally, I know plenty of people
1:26:46whose ports get filled with gunk,
1:26:47and then they stop charging,
1:26:49both on iPads and on iPhones, and so on and so forth.
1:26:51Now, I've never had that problem individually,
1:26:53and it sounds like you two haven't either,
1:26:54but Apple writ large may have that problem.
1:26:57And when I say Apple has the problem,
1:26:58it's not, you know, the problem Apple has is like,
1:27:00"Oh, I don't want to pay to manufacture a little port,
1:27:03"like some sort of cost things."
1:27:04But in this case, it's a problem
1:27:06that may be prevalent in Apple's customer base,
1:27:09and give people lower satisfaction on the phone,
1:27:11and take time in Apple Stores, and so on and so forth.
1:27:12That's the only thing I can think of
1:27:14in terms of, you know, other than the basic simplification,
1:27:17we have to drill one less hole,
1:27:18we have slightly more room inside the case now.
1:27:21Like, those are all very tiny,
1:27:23although real gains for Apple alone.
1:27:25But the potential gain for customers is,
1:27:27don't worry about getting lint
1:27:28in your little phone belly button anymore,
1:27:30'cause there ain't no belly button.
1:27:31- I was gonna say, to your point, John,
1:27:34that when Marco was saying, "What is this solving?"
1:27:37that's when all of the Apple geniuses
1:27:38that listen to us start writing in saying,
1:27:40"You don't even know how often this is a problem."
1:27:43But--
1:27:44- So what if it's a problem?
1:27:45People drop their phones and shatter the screens all the time
1:27:47so the next phone out of a screen?
1:27:49- I mean, but they're trying to work on that too,
1:27:50by making it, you know, I don't know how big of a problem
1:27:52it is, but like, that is the benefit I can think of
1:27:55of not having a port.
1:27:56Now, the question is, okay, but there are also drawbacks.
1:27:59Your phone charges slower, it gets hotter,
1:28:01reduces the battery life because the heat damages the battery,
1:28:04yada yada, are the trade-offs worth it?
1:28:06I don't think that's clear at all,
1:28:07but I can think of at least one benefit in that column,
1:28:10to balance against all the other bad things
1:28:12that we just described.
1:28:14- Oh, sure, yeah, like, there's totally like a, you know,
1:28:16Apple saves money in various ways angle to that, no question.
1:28:21- Excuse me, excuse me, it's not Apple saving money,
1:28:23it's Apple doing good for the environment,
1:28:24thank you very much.
1:28:25- Yeah, with their sealed up, unrepairable device.
1:28:28- Honestly, I don't think that Apple saving that much,
1:28:31I don't think Apple is actually saving that much money there
1:28:33but like, it's, you know, it's the simplification
1:28:36is one fewer thing that can break,
1:28:38and when things break, it's the customers that suffer
1:28:41when their port stops working or their phone stops charging
1:28:43reliably or whatever because lint got in there, right?
1:28:45So I think the main benefit of no ports
1:28:48is a customer benefit.
1:28:49There are ancillary Apple manufacturing pricing,
1:28:52blah, blah, blah benefits, but those are much smaller
1:28:55in the benefit column than the benefit of not having
1:28:58to worry about the port getting gunked up.
1:29:00- So can you imagine, so something I hadn't considered
1:29:03because I have a couple of Qi chargers around the house
1:29:05is that it is unlikely in my mind that Apple would include
1:29:10a Qi charger in this fantasy completely wireless phone.
1:29:13So now, not only have they taken away the charger,
1:29:16which would tick everyone off something fierce,
1:29:18just on principle, but now you need to go buy a 10 to 20
1:29:22to 50 to 100 or whatever, I don't even know,
1:29:24that looks like they're like 10-ish to $15.
1:29:26- I think they would include it.
1:29:27- You think they would include a Qi charger?
1:29:28- Just like they do on the watch.
1:29:29Like they wouldn't have the brick,
1:29:31but it would have the little, you know, thing, something,
1:29:34because they have to give you something
1:29:35to charge it with, right?
1:29:36They're not gonna like, as in a physical thing
1:29:40that you can buy that you plug into something
1:29:42that has power, right?
1:29:43And to be clear, if everyone's listening to this,
1:29:45none of us think this is happening in the Apple event.
1:29:46For whatever reason, we're now speculating
1:29:48off into the future about things.
1:29:49I think it's because we were talking about USB-C,
1:29:51which we also don't think is happening, right?
1:29:53But this is for future phones, don't worry about
1:29:55the iPhone event, they're gonna have wires, it'll be fine.
1:29:58They won't have power bricks, but they're gonna have wires.
1:30:00But I think they would ship it with some kind of solution,
1:30:04and maybe it's an Apple, hell, maybe it's an Apple
1:30:06proprietary solution, that yes, they would still
1:30:07do Qi charging, but there'd be this other Apple
1:30:10manta ray suction cup BS whatever thing
1:30:13that you slap onto the phone in a slightly different way,
1:30:16and maybe it attaches with magnets,
1:30:17so it always goes onto the right spot,
1:30:19and maybe it's really small, you know what I mean?
1:30:21But there's still no actual port there,
1:30:22and it charges faster and doesn't produce as much heat
1:30:24as Qi charging, but there's still no linty belly button.
1:30:27That would totally be an Apple move.
1:30:29Hell, bring back MagSafe.
1:30:30I mean, that had my problems too.
1:30:31But anyway, my mind is open to potential quote-unquote
1:30:36wireless solutions that are essentially a magnetically
1:30:39attached little wire thing that clings to the surface
1:30:42somewhere on the phone and charges it.
1:30:44And having the phone still have Qi charging for the,
1:30:47oh, I stick it in my car and it charges the whole thing,
1:30:49right, because there's room for both of those inside there.
1:30:52- By the way, for the record, if Apple does go to a
1:30:54portless phone at some point in the future,
1:30:56there is no way they include the cable in the box.
1:31:01Whatever your wireless charging solution,
1:31:03there is no way. - That's what I was saying.
1:31:05- That's what I was saying. - No way.
1:31:06- I mean, they do it with the watch.
1:31:08Like I said, the reason they do it with the watch
1:31:10is because the watch thing is proprietary, right?
1:31:13- Yes. - I mean, you can actually
1:31:14kind of charge it on Qi chargers and scrap like that,
1:31:16'cause whatever, inductance doesn't care.
1:31:18But-- - I've never gotten that
1:31:19to work, I've tried it a few times.
1:31:20- I think it depends on the particular thing.
1:31:22But if it is a proprietary Apple faster,
1:31:26more localized heat generation charging thing or whatever,
1:31:30they would absolutely include it in the box
1:31:32for exactly the same reason they include it for the watch,
1:31:34'cause where else are you gonna get
1:31:35your first one of those cables,
1:31:36'cause they don't exist when you buy your first thing?
1:31:38- I don't know, I'm with Marco,
1:31:39I think they would just say, well, it's Qi charging,
1:31:41go get one. - Or you can buy
1:31:42the Apple fast charger for $29.
1:31:44- Exactly. - And actually,
1:31:46like as I said last show,
1:31:48about the whatever it was about the power bricks,
1:31:50if they wanna make the pricing of these phones a la carte
1:31:53and just subtract the price of all the accessories
1:31:54from the phone price, that's good.
1:31:56That's fine for everybody, no one objects to that.
1:32:01But it's not the way things go.
1:32:04So they keep the price the same,
1:32:06but remove stuff from the box.
1:32:07- Yeah, exactly.
1:32:08Record profits again somehow this year.
1:32:11- And even less e-waste.
1:32:14- Actually, I'm curious, do you think,
1:32:16so in the last year or two,
1:32:20there's been a noticeable push on Apple's end
1:32:25for much more aggressive sales.
1:32:29And you see this in a lot of different ways.
1:32:30Like if you're on an email list that they have,
1:32:34they've been pushing increasingly aggressively
1:32:36for you to upgrade constantly to every new product.
1:32:39They especially push on iPhones.
1:32:41If you know any business reps in any of the retail stores,
1:32:46they've been pushing way more heavily through them
1:32:49over the last year or two.
1:32:50Ever since the Apple card last fall,
1:32:55they've been pushing a ton of like,
1:32:59buy through this card thing,
1:33:01they've been pushing through the upgrade program,
1:33:02buy through this.
1:33:03They changed every price of everything on the website
1:33:07recently to put the new per month lease price first
1:33:12instead of the actual cash buying price
1:33:14of everything they sell basically,
1:33:16which I think is, honestly,
1:33:17I think that's kind of sleazy and gross.
1:33:19But they've been pushing so hard
1:33:22on the more aggressive sales angle recently.
1:33:27Do you think they're gonna do anything differently
1:33:29this year in that area?
1:33:30Do you think, is there gonna be any more of a push
1:33:34this year given that we're in such a weird time
1:33:37and maybe sales might be suppressed
1:33:38because of the global conditions?
1:33:41Is anything gonna be different this year, you think,
1:33:42on the sales or business side?
1:33:46- Well, you just mentioned all the stuff
1:33:47they're already doing.
1:33:48So I think they will continue to do that.
1:33:51But I can't, I'm not, you know,
1:33:53they already have the up-to-date thing,
1:33:54they already show you all the prices per month.
1:33:57That stuff already exists.
1:33:58They will absolutely do that for the new phones.
1:33:59So what is one step beyond that?
1:34:01Like, what's the next step up in,
1:34:04what's it gonna take to get you into this new phone today?
1:34:06I don't know what the next step is.
1:34:08I feel like they've already done all those things,
1:34:11already done all the obvious straightforward things
1:34:13to make the phone seem more affordable to people.
1:34:17- Do you think they would ever tie in
1:34:18with the Apple One bundle of something like,
1:34:21you know, you pay, kind of like what the new Xbox has.
1:34:24Like, you pay whatever this price is,
1:34:27and you're basically buying a services
1:34:30and iPhone bundle together.
1:34:32- I mean, there's no reason they can't do that,
1:34:34but historically what they've done is the opposite,
1:34:36which is you buy a new Apple thing
1:34:37that we really want you to buy,
1:34:38and you get a free year of whatever service
1:34:40we're currently pushing.
1:34:41- Right, yeah.
1:34:43- So, I mean, yeah, I think that kind of deal
1:34:45makes perfect sense, although at a certain point
1:34:47when you start bundling things together,
1:34:49there's a point of diminishing returns where you're like,
1:34:52which of the seven things do I want,
1:34:54and can I get them at a bundle?
1:34:55Apple One is already kind of complicated enough,
1:34:57so like, it seems to me that they'd much rather
1:35:00have you subscribe to one of their services,
1:35:02and that's why, you know, buy a free Apple thing
1:35:05and get a year of Apple TV+,
1:35:07like it's the obvious biggest example.
1:35:09That's the lever they've been using here,
1:35:11not in the opposite direction.
1:35:12I feel like the iPhone doesn't need anything
1:35:14to pull it along.
1:35:15Obviously COVID times may change that,
1:35:17but who knows?
1:35:18Like, there are lots of interesting things you can do
1:35:21in terms of marketing and advertising,
1:35:22but I really feel like they have most of the big bases
1:35:26already covered, and I think they're fine
1:35:31with the current crop of come-ons, but who knows?
1:35:34- I mostly agree with that.
1:35:35I wouldn't be surprised if there is eventually
1:35:37a merging of the Apple One and iPhone upgrade program,
1:35:42but we'll see what happens.
1:35:44One final question I have for you guys,
1:35:47then we should try to squeeze in some Ask ATP.
1:35:49Do you think that this will be for, say,
1:35:52the iPhone upgrade program,
1:35:54or for people who are upgrading every year,
1:35:56do you think that this will be the shortest amount of time
1:36:00that we will have a phone?
1:36:02Because this is going on in mid-October,
1:36:04presumably won't ship until next,
1:36:07maybe next week at the earliest,
1:36:09but probably the week after that,
1:36:10or maybe even the end of October, early November.
1:36:12Is this going to be the shortest amount of time
1:36:15that annual iPhone upgraders will have a particular phone?
1:36:19Do you think next year we'll be back
1:36:20on the September schedule?
1:36:22- I think that it may just shift everything,
1:36:24because it's not like the conditions
1:36:25that cause this delay go away,
1:36:27or we suddenly get a time to catch up, right?
1:36:30And I think that the main, the sort of target,
1:36:34the sort of unavoidable target for the phone
1:36:37around this time of year is you really can't
1:36:39miss the holidays, right?
1:36:40So September is like, "I didn't miss the holidays, I'm fine."
1:36:43October, you still kind of haven't missed the holidays,
1:36:45and if this pushed this thing out to October,
1:36:48that might've also pushed the next phone out to October,
1:36:50so October could become the new September,
1:36:52until they can slowly shift it back.
1:36:53That seems like a reasonable assumption to me,
1:36:56because October, you still got the holidays, right?
1:36:58I still feel like that is fine,
1:37:00and if the schedule has to be shifted for a year or two,
1:37:03and they could slowly ratchet it back to get to September,
1:37:06if they really care about that,
1:37:07I think that's a more likely outcome than,
1:37:11like, I don't know, I know what you're saying,
1:37:13like, "Oh, you get this phone in November,
1:37:14"and the next phone comes out in September,
1:37:16"and it didn't have a long life at the top of the heap."
1:37:18But that really depends on stuff in the world
1:37:21that we can't really predict at this point,
1:37:23how the planet recovers from its current situation.
1:37:27- What about you, Marco?
1:37:28- I think they're gonna get back to September
1:37:30as quickly as they can, so if it's not this one,
1:37:33it'll be slowly over the next few phones,
1:37:36they'll shift their way back,
1:37:36but I have a feeling it'll be this one.
1:37:38I have a feeling, like, next fall,
1:37:40they're gonna be back on schedule,
1:37:41'cause, like, they don't care when they release the last one.
1:37:44Most people don't buy phones every year, only us idiots,
1:37:47so most people wouldn't care
1:37:49how soon they release the next one, really,
1:37:51and if it's 11 months away instead of 12 months away,
1:37:55like, most people aren't even gonna remember the difference.
1:37:58So it's more a question of whether they can do it,
1:38:01and I bet they can.
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1:40:00Thank you so much to Linode for hosting all my servers
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1:40:04- All right, Jon, we have three minutes
1:40:11for you to cover the House Judiciary Committee
1:40:13antitrust report on Amazon,
1:40:15and Facebook, and Apple, and Google.
1:40:17The clock is ticking, go.
1:40:18- I gotta be in more than three minutes, but not too long.
1:40:21So we talked about this when the people,
1:40:23when all the tech CEOs were in front of Congress
1:40:26and answering their questions,
1:40:27and how bad some of their questions were,
1:40:28and so on and so forth.
1:40:29So now they released this 450-page report,
1:40:32PDF link in the show notes.
1:40:33Interestingly, the old PDF link 404'd today,
1:40:35and I had to find it elsewhere, but it's up still there.
1:40:39The result of this report,
1:40:41the summary would be basically that
1:40:44the people who wrote this report think
1:40:45these big tech companies have a lot of power,
1:40:48probably too much power, and they sometimes abuse it
1:40:51to make things worse for people.
1:40:52Like, that's the summary.
1:40:54Does this mean that there are going to be
1:40:58a bunch of new laws in the United States
1:40:59that constrain these companies?
1:41:01If the people who wrote this report have their way, it will,
1:41:04but the people who wrote this report currently
1:41:06do not have their way in anything, right?
1:41:08So that is the executive summary,
1:41:10that in general, this is mostly bad news
1:41:13for the big tech companies, because it means that
1:41:16a lot of people, at least one party
1:41:18in our crappy two-party system,
1:41:21think these companies have too much power.
1:41:24I encourage people to look at it,
1:41:25because you can read the first page or two
1:41:27and kind of get the gist of it.
1:41:28One little part that I took out
1:41:30that I thought was interesting was,
1:41:32all right, so there's two aspects of this.
1:41:34One is, like, we need some new laws to address these issues,
1:41:39because obviously our current laws don't address it at all.
1:41:40A lot of these things that people are doing are legal,
1:41:42but they're bad for the economy and bad for customers
1:41:45and bad for everything, so we should make some new laws,
1:41:47which fine, that makes sense.
1:41:48They're the legislature, that's what they do, right?
1:41:51But the other aspect was relevant to the discussion
1:41:53we had earlier about, like, well, current antitrust law,
1:41:58who is a monopoly, and Apple's argument
1:42:00that it does not have majority market share
1:42:02in any markets that it competes in
1:42:03or doesn't have dominant market share.
1:42:05One section of this document says,
1:42:06I'll read from the thing here,
1:42:09"The subcommittee should examine the creation
1:42:11"of a statutory presumption that a market share of 30%
1:42:14"or more constitutes a rebuttable presumption
1:42:16"of dominance by a seller."
1:42:18My translation of this is basically saying,
1:42:19look, right now, with the Sherman antitrust law,
1:42:23if we try to use the Sherman Act on, say, Apple,
1:42:26Apple's gonna say, pfft, we have, like, 40% market share.
1:42:29According to the Sherman Act,
1:42:30we're not a dominant monopoly, so you can't say anything.
1:42:33And what they're saying is, we should consider changing
1:42:37the existing Sherman Antitrust Act to say,
1:42:40even if you have a smaller market share,
1:42:42that doesn't mean you're automatically not subject
1:42:47to the constraints of our existing antitrust laws.
1:42:49That is my interpretation of this paragraph.
1:42:51It is written in a complicated way,
1:42:52and I'm not sure if I'm reading it right,
1:42:54but I feel like that two-pronged approach of,
1:42:56one, we need new laws, 'cause there are new companies
1:42:58doing new things that were totally unforeseen at the time.
1:43:01The Sherman Antitrust Act was written long ago.
1:43:03And two, maybe we should also consider revisiting
1:43:06the constraints that I kind of outlined,
1:43:08like sort of the stuff that was forged in the fire
1:43:11of the Microsoft antitrust file that's saying,
1:43:13do you have a monopoly?
1:43:14It's like, well, Microsoft just owns the entire PC industry.
1:43:17It was an easy, slam-dunk case.
1:43:18Like, yes, of course they have a monopoly,
1:43:20but Apple's big defense is, we're not like Microsoft.
1:43:23And now Congress is saying, even with our existing laws,
1:43:25even when we pass no new laws,
1:43:27maybe we should examine the creation
1:43:30of a statutory presumption.
1:43:32Like, we should look at that.
1:43:33Do you really need to have, like, 95% market share
1:43:36to be considered a monopoly,
1:43:37according to current antitrust laws?
1:43:38Maybe not.
1:43:39So this shows me that a large number of Democrats
1:43:44in Congress really, really think that these companies
1:43:47need to be taken down a notch.
1:43:49Will they be successful?
1:43:51Will this happen?
1:43:52In general, making any new laws or, you know,
1:43:56that constrain the richest companies in the world
1:43:59usually requires many, many more people to die.
1:44:01I mean, look how long it took to get laws
1:44:04to constrain, like, tobacco companies, right?
1:44:07It's just, it is not easy, not easy to get,
1:44:11in our current system of government,
1:44:13to get new laws constraining the richest,
1:44:15most powerful companies in the world,
1:44:16because there's so much working against it
1:44:18in our terrible broken system of government, right?
1:44:20But this report was an entirely one-sided declaration
1:44:25that, boy, if a bunch of people have their way,
1:44:30tech companies, you will be newly constrained
1:44:33in some potentially minor way in the future.
1:44:36That's it, that's my summary.
1:44:38- That actually wasn't bad.
1:44:40All right, Ask ATP, Andy writes,
1:44:42"What's the deal with disk images?
1:44:44"Why were they introduced, and more importantly,
1:44:46"why do they still exist?
1:44:47"I know people who've gotten Macs
1:44:48"and just booted apps like Steam
1:44:50"directly from their disk image
1:44:51"until they asked me to help them out.
1:44:52"What's going on with that, John?"
1:44:55- So disk images originally existed
1:44:57because Mac file system could support more kinds of,
1:45:02you know, metadata, resource forks, stuff like that,
1:45:05than could exist on other systems.
1:45:07So if you wanted to take a bunch of Mac stuff,
1:45:10say an application that itself has, you know,
1:45:13finder attributes and resource forks
1:45:15and type and creator codes and all sorts of crap like that,
1:45:18and you wanted to transport that safely
1:45:19across any other system, you would have to package it up
1:45:23in a way to essentially flatten it, right?
1:45:25And one of the ways that you can do that
1:45:27is if you have a disk image system,
1:45:29which is basically a little file on disk
1:45:30that you can open and will be mounted
1:45:32as if it is a Mac volume,
1:45:34that disk image can be a flat file,
1:45:37but within it, once it mounts it as a disk image in the OS,
1:45:40the OS sees the entire rich file system, right?
1:45:43I don't think that's why disk images were created,
1:45:45but that's one of the reasons they still hang around, right?
1:45:47Second thing is, disk images are just plain cool.
1:45:50You can take a file and use it as a disk.
1:45:52You can make an image of an existing disk
1:45:54and save it as a file, and you're like,
1:45:55it's a cool thing to be able to do.
1:45:58I remember showing people disk images back in the DOS days,
1:46:00and it would blow their little minds,
1:46:01'cause it is just--
1:46:03- Why the little minds, John?
1:46:04Come on. - Very little minds.
1:46:05Their drives were named single letters, right?
1:46:07Okay, and still are.
1:46:08Anyway. (laughs)
1:46:10Right, I can name my hard drive whatever I want with spaces.
1:46:12Look, it's got a cute cartoon icon.
1:46:14Anyway. (laughs)
1:46:16So yeah, so disk images are a useful thing to have
1:46:19just because it's useful sometimes
1:46:20to be able to make a fake little volume out of a file.
1:46:23I do it sometimes even today,
1:46:25like if I need a case-sensitive file system somewhere
1:46:28to do something, for example, at work
1:46:29where we have files that differ only in case,
1:46:31and it drives me nuts.
1:46:32If I wanna do that on my Mac,
1:46:34I need to make a case-sensitive volume,
1:46:35but I'm not gonna partition my thing or,
1:46:38yeah, I guess with APFS it's much easier,
1:46:39but back in the pre-APFS days,
1:46:42you'd make a little disk image,
1:46:43and you could make it any size you want,
1:46:45and it can be sparse, so it doesn't take up
1:46:46all that space and yada yada.
1:46:47Disk images are just a cool thing to have.
1:46:49Now, as for why they still exist today
1:46:51in a world where our Mac applications
1:46:53shouldn't have any crap that can't live on the internet,
1:46:56why don't we just use zip files?
1:46:57Well, a lot of applications do just use zip files,
1:46:59but there are still things that disk images can do
1:47:02that say a zip file can't.
1:47:03For example, mount as a volume,
1:47:05open a window that has the stupid little arrow
1:47:07in the background that says drag this application
1:47:09over to this alias, or symlink usually,
1:47:11to your application folder.
1:47:13How many apps have you gotten that do that, right?
1:47:15If you just unzip it, it sits there in your downloads folder
1:47:18and then everyone just runs it out of the downloads folder,
1:47:20then everyone's gotta write custom code that says,
1:47:21hey, it looks like you're running this application
1:47:23out of your downloads folder.
1:47:24Do you want me to move it into applications?
1:47:26None of these are a perfect system.
1:47:27The Mac App Store is better where you just hit the button
1:47:29and you get the app and it goes in the right place.
1:47:32But both of them fulfill a role.
1:47:34And so that Disk Image Convention today,
1:47:37yes, it technically does preserve all Mac-specific
1:47:39data, yada, yada, yada,
1:47:40but you probably don't need to do that anymore.
1:47:42But it does let you do the little thing
1:47:44where you can instruct people to drag the icon
1:47:46into the application folder, which I grant,
1:47:48most people don't even understand what's happening there
1:47:50and it's confusing and you're still left
1:47:51with the disk image that you have to unmap.
1:47:53It's a bad system, we all know it is.
1:47:55But I think that's one of the reasons
1:47:56they still hang around, right?
1:47:57So to sum up, disk images are cool and should always exist.
1:48:01People needed to use them for software distribution
1:48:03back in the day.
1:48:04People don't need to use them now,
1:48:06but they still have some features that people like.
1:48:08- Is a zip file or a tarball a disk image?
1:48:11- No, not at all, because when you sort of unpack it,
1:48:14you get files out of it.
1:48:15When you open a disk image, it mounts a volume.
1:48:18Your computer thinks it has a new volume attached to it,
1:48:21just like any other volume and all the other tools
1:48:23you can use for volumes, including ejecting them
1:48:25and running file system check on them.
1:48:27And the volumes can have different file systems
1:48:29than the file system on your Mac, totally unrelated,
1:48:32not even remotely close.
1:48:34- What about a WAD file?
1:48:34Do you know what that is, Jon?
1:48:35Because there aren't very many games on,
1:48:37there aren't many games on Macs.
1:48:38- I know what a WAD file is.
1:48:39I don't know, aren't WAD files just zip files, though?
1:48:42- I don't think they're literally zip files,
1:48:44but they're effectively the same as far as I'm aware.
1:48:45- I think they actually might have predated zip files,
1:48:48'cause that was what Doom used for its resources, right?
1:48:50- Mm-hmm. - Yep.
1:48:51I don't know if they're predated zip,
1:48:53but I think they are effectively the same.
1:48:54It didn't predate zip, but there are a lot of file formats
1:48:57that are really just either zip or tar under the covers.
1:49:00What the hell is a XIP, though?
1:49:02I would love to know what that format is.
1:49:04Is that really a totally made-up Apple thing?
1:49:06- Oh, yeah, the Xcode zip?
1:49:07- Yeah, I thought that that was like
1:49:08a cryptographically secure zip file or something like that.
1:49:12I probably have that wrong for the record,
1:49:14but that was my impression, was that it's effectively
1:49:16a zip file that's got some certs and cryptographic magic
1:49:21that I don't understand sprinkled on top of it.
1:49:23All we know is that it takes forever to decompress.
1:49:26- Yep. - Yes. (laughs)
1:49:27- The chat room is saying it's a signed zip,
1:49:28which is, I think, a better summary
1:49:30of what I was trying and fumbling to say.
1:49:31- Although I imagine that it takes forever to zip,
1:49:33not just because of the format,
1:49:34but also because Xcode itself contains a hodgillion files.
1:49:37- And also because you probably have Dropbox running,
1:49:39which is using 100% of your CPU while it's unzipping.
1:49:41- No, oh, come on, rookie mistake.
1:49:44(laughing)
1:49:45Never try to expand on one of those Xcode XIP zip files
1:49:50with Dropbox running, silly.
1:49:52- Small brain after all.
1:49:53- That should be the real benchmark
1:49:55of any new pro Mac hardware, is like,
1:49:56okay, this is all well and good.
1:49:58You can have five 8K streams of video,
1:50:00but how long does it take to decompress Xcode?
1:50:02(laughing)
1:50:05- All right, Ian Oimatiau writes,
1:50:07as users are starting to make their phones
1:50:10last three to four years between upgrades,
1:50:11do you think it's possible or reasonable
1:50:13for the useful lifespan of a phone to reach 10 years?
1:50:16It feels like official software support
1:50:18is artificially holding older phones back.
1:50:21I don't know, I think I take a little bit of issue
1:50:23with artificially holding older phones back.
1:50:25I don't think that's particularly fair.
1:50:28I think 10 years is aggressive,
1:50:30but on an infinite time scale, you never know.
1:50:32But I do think that it seems as though
1:50:38iPhones anyway are lasting longer.
1:50:41And look at the Apple Watch, the Series 3.
1:50:44Bless its heart, it's still going.
1:50:48So I do think that things are definitely getting,
1:50:51or having increased longevity.
1:50:5310 years I don't think we'll see for a while,
1:50:55but I mean the point is still,
1:50:57other than the artificial thing,
1:50:58I think the point is still fair.
1:50:59Marco, what do you think?
1:51:01- I also, I don't think any vendor
1:51:03is artificially slowing old phones down.
1:51:06I think the software moves forward,
1:51:08and the OS's move forward because they're able
1:51:11to assume things about how modern phones
1:51:14have more processing power and more RAM and stuff like that.
1:51:17So the OS's will always move forward
1:51:19and will always be slower on really old hardware.
1:51:22But the fact that the OS has run at all
1:51:25on the old hardware, I think that letting that happen
1:51:29for a certain period back in your hardware lineup
1:51:32is the only obligation the platform makers have
1:51:35to old hardware.
1:51:37And that being said, you could think about,
1:51:40could a phone last 10 years?
1:51:42And I think to get to that point,
1:51:44you would need two things to happen.
1:51:45Number one, you would need a dramatic slowdown
1:51:48in the advancement of phone hardware.
1:51:50Now we see on the PC side, Mac side,
1:51:53that has happened over the last decade or two.
1:51:56And a 10 year old Mac, as John knows,
1:52:00can still be usable.
1:52:02It's not, it might not be the best modern performer
1:52:06by the time it gets there, but it is possible
1:52:08because phones will get to a point
1:52:11where they are advancing much more slowly
1:52:14as they have been for these last 12 years.
1:52:18I don't think we're quite there yet,
1:52:19but you can see the shape of the curve,
1:52:23it is flattening, it is getting less steep.
1:52:26Phones are accelerating in performance
1:52:29more slowly than they used to be.
1:52:30So that I think has to happen to make this even possible.
1:52:34And the second thing, from a practical standpoint,
1:52:37is that the batteries have to be much more easily replaceable
1:52:41or they have to last much longer on their own.
1:52:43Because the main problem we have that limits phone
1:52:46and watch and laptop lifespan these days
1:52:50is the chemical useful lifespan of lithium ion batteries.
1:52:53They degrade over time.
1:52:55No matter how much or little you use them,
1:52:57there's a certain inevitable amount of degradation
1:53:00that happens just chemically to them that they lose capacity.
1:53:03And if you actually are using them,
1:53:05if you're like discharging and recharging them every day,
1:53:08like you do with phones and watches at least,
1:53:10maybe not all laptops, depending on whether you use it
1:53:13to plug them most of the time, but like phones and watches,
1:53:15you're discharging to some degree,
1:53:17to some significant degree, and then recharging every day.
1:53:20No battery can stand up to that for more than a few years
1:53:23without having pretty significant capacity loss,
1:53:25eventually to the point where the device is no longer useful.
1:53:28And to reach 10 years, you would have to
1:53:32either have dramatically better and longer lasting batteries,
1:53:36which I don't think we really know how to make yet
1:53:37in this category, and/or you'd have to the batteries
1:53:42be easily replaceable outside of warranty
1:53:45by any repair shop or end user,
1:53:48not just having Apple do it for whatever price they want.
1:53:51And that, I don't think, is very likely either.
1:53:55- Yeah, battery, I feel like, is the main constraint.
1:53:56The only thing I would add is that you mentioned
1:53:59I don't think manufacturers are slowing down
1:54:01old phones intentionally.
1:54:02The one instance where Apple was slowing down
1:54:03old phones intentionally was because of, ta-da, the battery.
1:54:07As in, they had to, you know, it would overload the battery
1:54:11and the phone would switch off,
1:54:12so the choice was to run at a slower speed
1:54:14and draw less power, right?
1:54:16The battery is the real constraint here,
1:54:18both the changing of it and the technology.
1:54:20The good news is that there is a potential
1:54:22for new, longer lasting battery technology.
1:54:25The bad news is that the time horizon
1:54:28is not particularly good.
1:54:29It always has, you know, five to 10 years in the future.
1:54:33You know, it'll probably come to, like, you know,
1:54:35the solid metal batteries or whatever,
1:54:36probably come to vehicles before it comes to phones.
1:54:39But who knows, but that's what you really need.
1:54:42And as for the phones, you know, Apple support for OSs,
1:54:46I saw a chart, I wish I could remember it,
1:54:47I couldn't find the link.
1:54:48I saw a chart recently showing OS support
1:54:50versus phone hardware age on Android,
1:54:53and it is dismal compared to the iPhone.
1:54:55Apple supports hardware so much farther back in time
1:54:58with its most recent OS than Android tends to.
1:55:02So I think Apple's doing about as well as you can expect,
1:55:06given the fact that all their batteries are internal,
1:55:08are not particularly easy to replace, and are lithium ion.
1:55:12- Finally, Luke Schulman writes,
1:55:13"We are expecting our first child in January, 2021.
1:55:16We don't currently have a quote unquote real camera.
1:55:19With the newest capabilities of phone cameras,
1:55:20would you recommend buying a quote unquote real camera?
1:55:23What attributes would you prioritize?"
1:55:25You know, I was just thinking today
1:55:27that I haven't used my Micro Four Thirds camera,
1:55:30which is a small quote unquote real camera.
1:55:33I haven't used that in a little while,
1:55:35and I kind of miss it.
1:55:36I kind of miss, in the same way that,
1:55:39what did you guys call it, a tea ceremony playing vinyl?
1:55:43I feel like to some degree,
1:55:45there's a little bit of a tea ceremony now for my Olympus,
1:55:49my Micro Four Thirds camera.
1:55:50Up until the iPhone 11 Pro,
1:55:55I don't personally feel like any of my iPhones
1:55:59took good enough pictures to be comparable to that phone.
1:56:03And I still don't get the really good bokeh
1:56:05off of the iPhone, even with portrait mode.
1:56:08Like it's oftentimes, it feels synthetic even to me,
1:56:11and I don't have the world's most discerning eye.
1:56:13But there's things about,
1:56:16and I'm comparing only one data point, which is my Olympus.
1:56:19And so this math may be different for other cameras.
1:56:23But like the iPhone's HDR mode,
1:56:25so you can capture a very bright sky at the same time
1:56:29you're capturing a normally exposed person.
1:56:34That works much better on my iPhone
1:56:37than it does on my Olympus.
1:56:39And video is much better on my iPhone
1:56:42than it is on my Olympus.
1:56:43And my iPhone is always on me.
1:56:46So in a lot of ways, I would say,
1:56:48no, you shouldn't buy a real camera.
1:56:51But I will tell you, even with my Micro Four Thirds camera,
1:56:54which is way less fancy than the cameras
1:56:56that the two of you gentlemen have,
1:56:58when I get a good shot, it is a good, good shot.
1:57:02And I don't feel like there's been many pictures
1:57:07on my iPhone, even the 11 Pro that I love so much.
1:57:10There haven't been that many that have been like,
1:57:12wow, that was a great shot.
1:57:14I've gotten a zillion shots that are very good,
1:57:17but not to the same level.
1:57:20But the thing of it is, is that the real camera's bigger,
1:57:25it's slower, it's heavier, it's got its own battery,
1:57:28I need to worry about charging.
1:57:29It doesn't automatically geotag all the pictures.
1:57:32There are many disadvantages to it,
1:57:34but I personally still think it is worth it.
1:57:38And whenever we're doing something
1:57:40that's even remotely unusual,
1:57:42which for the last seven months has been never,
1:57:45but when we're going to my parents' house,
1:57:48when we're going on a vacation,
1:57:50I will still bring the big camera out a lot.
1:57:53And I am always glad that I did,
1:57:55because I will always find at least a handful of shots
1:57:58that I think to myself, this may have been taken differently
1:58:01with the iPhone, maybe the sky wouldn't be blown out
1:58:05on the iPhone, but I've zoomed three times further
1:58:08than my iPhone can zoom, or the background blur
1:58:11that bokeh in the background is so much cleaner
1:58:14and crisper than it is, or I guess not crisp,
1:58:15but you know what I mean, it's so much less synthetic
1:58:18than it would have been on the iPhone.
1:58:19And so that is many words to say
1:58:22that I still think it is worth it,
1:58:24but it is a much, much tougher call now
1:58:28than I think it has ever been before.
1:58:30And even one phone ago, I didn't have a XS,
1:58:35but I did have a X, with my X, I would have been like,
1:58:37"Absolutely get a real camera."
1:58:39Now, eh, I'm not so sure.
1:58:41Jon, let's start with you, 'cause I think
1:58:43even though you are extremely opinionated,
1:58:44I think you might have actually softer opinions about this,
1:58:47and let's have Marco round us out.
1:58:48- Oh, easy answer.
1:58:49I mean, this is another one of our perennial questions
1:58:51that we get all the time.
1:58:52Absolutely get a real camera.
1:58:53Like, your kids are not gonna be this age,
1:58:55they're only gonna be this age one time.
1:58:56You will never regret spending more money
1:58:58to get even a tiny bit better pictures.
1:59:00I regret getting-- - That is well-done.
1:59:03- I had a real camera, because camera phones
1:59:05weren't much of a thing for my kids.
1:59:06I regret not getting a better camera,
1:59:08because they were just two and a half, inexpensive.
1:59:09We got a good camera, but not the best.
1:59:12I look back at those pictures now, and I say,
1:59:13"You should have spent $3,000 to get
1:59:16"whatever the best SLR camera you could have gotten was,
1:59:19"but you didn't."
1:59:21I feel like, for memories like that,
1:59:23especially your young child, where this will be the time
1:59:25you have the absolute most motivation to deal with
1:59:28all the dad-sized case you said,
1:59:29"Oh, it's big, it's bulky, it's expensive."
1:59:31When it's your first child coming,
1:59:32you will find yourself, find the motivation
1:59:35to carry around the big, heavy camera.
1:59:37If possible, you will find the ability
1:59:39to dig out that much money from your savings
1:59:41to pay for the thing, just like you're paying
1:59:42for all the other baby stuff
1:59:43when the new baby's coming, right?
1:59:45And then, in later years, you will never regret
1:59:48having a even slightly better than phone camera camera
1:59:52for, it doesn't mean you're not gonna take pictures
1:59:54with your phone, 'cause you totally will,
1:59:56but I think there is no question,
1:59:58the sort of the, this is the loss aversion model, right?
2:00:01What will you regret more, lugging around a big camera
2:00:04and not using it as much as you, quote unquote,
2:00:06thought you would, or having phone quality only pictures
2:00:10of your baby?
2:00:11- Yeah, yeah, I know I need to give you a chance, Marco,
2:00:14but one thing that I used to convince myself
2:00:16to get my first Olympus camera was that I thought of it
2:00:20kind of like an insurance policy, insofar as
2:00:24I don't wanna regret not having had the best camera,
2:00:29or maybe not the best, but a really good camera
2:00:32for this time, like you said, John,
2:00:33that you can never get back.
2:00:35And so I think that's a really good point
2:00:36that I didn't consider, and it's something
2:00:38that should be considered, you know,
2:00:40that there's no way to go back in time
2:00:43and get better photos, so you might as well
2:00:45get a good camera now.
2:00:46Marco, I apologize, it's your turn.
2:00:49- I think for the first time ever,
2:00:52I might take the other side of this.
2:00:54- What?
2:00:55- Says somebody who has pictures of his child
2:00:56with a Canon 5D, which look amazing
2:00:59and would not be possible with current phones,
2:01:01let alone phones that were back when Adam was a baby.
2:01:04- So it's a tough call because it's so much
2:01:09more complicated now.
2:01:10Every year that goes by, this decision gets more complicated
2:01:14because phones get better, and they keep getting better
2:01:18and better at more and more things.
2:01:20The iceberg that SLRs or mirrorless,
2:01:25other cameras basically, they're standing on this iceberg
2:01:28and it just keeps shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.
2:01:31And full size or other cameras are still better
2:01:36than phone cameras and will always be better
2:01:40than phone cameras in certain ways.
2:01:43And those ways are significant.
2:01:47They're always gonna have way more resolution,
2:01:50way better optics, way better low light noise performance.
2:01:55Big cameras are always going to be able
2:01:58to capture better pictures in ideal circumstances
2:02:03when you have them with you, when you have good light,
2:02:06when you have good glass, when you have the settings right.
2:02:10When everything is right, the big cameras
2:02:13will always be able to capture amazing shots
2:02:16that phone optics simply can't do
2:02:18'cause they're so much smaller and cheaper.
2:02:20There is a lot of value to the pictures
2:02:23that big cameras can capture that you are just not
2:02:26going to get out of a phone camera no matter what.
2:02:29But you will take so many more pictures with your phone,
2:02:34so many more, and you'll take video with your phone,
2:02:37and you'll be largely looking at many of these pictures
2:02:42on phones where the difference in quality is not that big,
2:02:47or not that noticeable. (laughs)
2:02:49You start seeing these differences
2:02:50when you're talking about large-scale viewing,
2:02:53viewing on computer monitors or printing.
2:02:56That's when you start noticing
2:02:56quality differences much more.
2:02:58But viewing the phone sizes, even the quality advantages
2:03:01of big camera photos are getting less and less noticeable
2:03:05compared to well-done phone photos.
2:03:07And the phone can now succeed so much better
2:03:11in areas where the big cameras struggle
2:03:14or where the big cameras can work if you're a pro,
2:03:18but you have a high chance of making an error.
2:03:20So like what Casey was saying about exposure problems
2:03:23of when you have a bright area,
2:03:25you can capture high dynamic range
2:03:28general imaging with big cameras.
2:03:31It's just harder, and you're more likely to do it wrong,
2:03:34and it might require post-processing
2:03:35that you will probably never do.
2:03:37So there's that whole issue. (laughs)
2:03:40There's the ways in which the big cameras
2:03:42are so much worse.
2:03:43The workflow is such a big one.
2:03:46As Casey mentioned, the big camera photos
2:03:49are not gonna be automatically geotagged.
2:03:51You gotta remember to set the clock right on the camera,
2:03:53otherwise they're gonna even have the wrong timestamps.
2:03:55You have to somehow import them from the camera
2:03:58to whatever your photo collection is,
2:04:00whether it's the Apple photo roll
2:04:02or whatever else you might do.
2:04:04That process is gonna be heavy and clunky and error-prone.
2:04:09It's so much harder to work with them,
2:04:11even beyond the physical side, which is itself not trivial,
2:04:15because no matter how small of a camera you get,
2:04:19it's not gonna be pocketable,
2:04:21and you're not gonna have it with you most of the time.
2:04:24So you have all these, there's so many issues
2:04:26that make standalone cameras so much harder
2:04:30to use in practice, and you just get such amazing output
2:04:35from modern phones.
2:04:38It's just increasingly hard to justify a standalone camera.
2:04:43So what I would say is,
2:04:45if you're the kind of person who loves gear,
2:04:50and you just want a reason to buy some cool gear,
2:04:53and you're gonna actually therefore be motivated
2:04:55to use it when you get it, by all means, get a cool camera.
2:04:59Having your kid is a great time to scratch that itch
2:05:04of I want good camera gear.
2:05:06If you're into it for the gear's sake, go for it.
2:05:10But if you just are thinking like I should have this
2:05:14because I quote should, I think phones are just
2:05:19at about the threshold now where they are good enough
2:05:24at the things that the big cameras are really good at,
2:05:27and they're better than the big cameras
2:05:30in many common situations.
2:05:32Casey mentioned video, I agree.
2:05:35Even though my big cameras are capable
2:05:37of shooting better video in professional hands,
2:05:41in professional settings, I don't have professional hands,
2:05:45and I'm usually not in professional settings.
2:05:47And so in the settings I'm usually in,
2:05:49with the hands I have, I grab the phone in my pocket
2:05:52and I shoot video and it looks incredible,
2:05:54and it looks better than what I could have done
2:05:57in those same situations with my big Sony camera.
2:06:00That dynamic of the phone actually doing better
2:06:04in the situation I'm actually in
2:06:06than the big camera could do, that keeps broadening
2:06:09to accommodate more and more use cases.
2:06:12One of the biggest ones now is in low light.
2:06:15That if you want a photo in low light,
2:06:17if you have a giant full frame sensor
2:06:20on a nice big Sony sensor, full frame sensor,
2:06:24a nice big wide open lens, you can do really well
2:06:27in low light and get an amazing amount of detail
2:06:30with not nearly as much noise as you think you would get.
2:06:33But if you go a step below that and you need to
2:06:36shoot a picture in a dark restaurant of your family,
2:06:39an iPhone 11 will do a better job of that
2:06:41than almost any big camera because it's combining
2:06:44its crappy optics with amazing software
2:06:47that the big cameras never will have,
2:06:48or at least they seem to have shown no interest
2:06:51in ever adding.
2:06:52Even an area like that where the area of low light,
2:06:55you would think this would be an area
2:06:57where the big cameras would outshine them
2:06:59just 'cause they have just simple physics
2:07:01tremendously in their favor with the amount of light
2:07:03they can capture.
2:07:05And it turns out, in a lot of cases,
2:07:06no, the iPhone does better in practice
2:07:08because of its software.
2:07:09In another example, the, oh god,
2:07:12what's the super resolution, the sweater mode called?
2:07:15Deep learning or something like that?
2:07:16- Oh, yeah, I completely forgot 'cause I think
2:07:18I have that off, but I know what you're thinking of.
2:07:20- Oh, you have it off?
2:07:20Turn it on, it's great.
2:07:21- No, but I thought it took away something else.
2:07:23- It takes away the thing where it would capture
2:07:25the outside of a frame using the wide angle camera
2:07:29when you weren't using wide angle
2:07:30and then you could like crop out.
2:07:31- But I used that-- - Deep Fusion!
2:07:33- Thank you, Ash Kosh in the chat.
2:07:35Deep Fusion is a real thing.
2:07:38I wasn't sure it would be much of a gain
2:07:41when they announced it.
2:07:42Again, another area that big cameras usually excel
2:07:45is just sheer resolution.
2:07:47Like if you wanna zoom in and start pixel peeping
2:07:49and you can see that you're capturing way more detail
2:07:53usually with a big camera than you are with a phone camera.
2:07:57Until Deep Fusion.
2:08:00And Deep Fusion closed that gap significantly.
2:08:03The gap is still there.
2:08:04Big cameras will still capture way more detail
2:08:07in ideal circumstances than an iPhone,
2:08:10but the gap is a lot smaller.
2:08:13And so at some point, as these gaps get smaller or go away,
2:08:17every time that happens, you have to ask yourself
2:08:20like is the big camera still worth it?
2:08:22And I have never used a big camera less
2:08:27than in the last two years.
2:08:30It's to the point now where I've mentally decided
2:08:32I'm just not gonna buy any more of these.
2:08:35Because our phones are just so good,
2:08:38we're just never using the big cameras.
2:08:40All of their downsides, how incredibly clunky they are
2:08:43at certain things, don't make the upsides
2:08:47worth it to us anymore.
2:08:49So Jon's argument is--
2:08:51- The correct one.
2:08:52- It's totally worth considering like the kind of
2:08:56you only have one shot at this kind of angle.
2:08:58No pun intended.
2:08:59Where like you only have a certain amount of time
2:09:01where your kid's gonna be super young
2:09:02and you're gonna wanna capture as much of that
2:09:04as you possibly can.
2:09:05And so if you want the camera for that purpose, go for it.
2:09:08But if you're looking at it like a little more pragmatically
2:09:12and analytically, if you're not super excited
2:09:15to have a big camera and to use it as its own thing,
2:09:19as a gear thing or if you aren't like
2:09:23super photographically inclined,
2:09:25I don't think it's worth it anymore.
2:09:28And it's really weird to finally admit that,
2:09:30but I think I'm at that point now.
2:09:32- I think you have two factors working here.
2:09:33One, your kid is getting older and when kids get older,
2:09:35you take fewer pictures of them, that's a real thing.
2:09:37And two, I think it's a false dichotomy
2:09:39'cause of course Luke is gonna have a phone too.
2:09:41Like it's not an either or.
2:09:43We're saying, do you want a big camera in addition,
2:09:45of course, to the smartphone that you already have?
2:09:48You're still gonna have a smartphone for all the things
2:09:50that it's better at and for all the times
2:09:51when you don't have the big phone.
2:09:52We're just saying on top of that, like Casey's scenario,
2:09:55in the situations where you want the big camera,
2:09:57the day of the child's birth, first birthday,
2:10:00vacation, stuff like that, in context where you will
2:10:04be motivated to have a better camera,
2:10:06would you recommend buying a real camera?
2:10:08Absolutely, I would recommend it because you don't lose out
2:10:11on any of the things Marco said.
2:10:13It's just a question of how much you're gonna use
2:10:14the big camera and I think, A, because Luke is writing us
2:10:17to ask this question and B, because when people have babies,
2:10:20they were all very highly motivated to take lots
2:10:22of pictures of them, that is the prime time
2:10:25when no matter how little you care about real photography
2:10:28and big cameras, you will be the most motivated
2:10:31to lug the big camera more than you would.
2:10:33I imagine it fading just like Marco's scenario
2:10:36where now the kids get older, you don't take
2:10:37as many pictures of them.
2:10:38That continues to happen the whole time
2:10:39and then the trade-offs become like, well,
2:10:41I don't really need the big camera but I would say,
2:10:43even today, even though Marco, you are not using
2:10:45your big camera that much, Tiff still uses
2:10:47to take pictures of birds, right?
2:10:49So, you know, it's still good.
2:10:52She just did an Instagram like three times this week.
2:10:55- That's true but that was a very rare thing.
2:10:58- I'm saying is it worth it to have a real camera?
2:11:01Yes, you should have a real camera in your house,
2:11:04certainly when you're having a baby but even just
2:11:07for the rest of your life with the camera,
2:11:09it's good to have one around.
2:11:10You're not gonna use it as much as you did
2:11:12when the baby was an infant, certainly.
2:11:14You're not gonna use it as much as when you go on vacation
2:11:16but it is definitely a thing worth having.
2:11:18The second part is what attributes would you prioritize?
2:11:21Given the trade-offs that you just described,
2:11:23the attributes I would prioritize, the one attribute
2:11:26I would prioritize is essentially sensor size.
2:11:29All other things being equal, the one thing
2:11:31that a big camera's gonna have up on the iPhone
2:11:35is it's not gonna be video, right?
2:11:38It probably still is low light performance just in general
2:11:40but like sensor size, 'cause everything else
2:11:43flows from that, right?
2:11:44Obviously, you don't get a camera that's too big
2:11:45that you're not gonna use it, right?
2:11:47And don't buy one that's super duper expensive
2:11:48but if you have to pick one thing to prioritize, pick that.
2:11:50Pick the biggest sensor size that comes in a form factor
2:11:53that you think appeals to you and get that camera
2:11:56because that's what the big phone has,
2:11:59the big cameras have.
2:12:00They can gather more light through better lenses,
2:12:03they go to a bigger sensor.
2:12:04If you get an expensive camera with a relatively tiny sensor
2:12:09that might not actually be better than your phone camera
2:12:12in many scenarios.
2:12:14Whereas in lots of scenarios where the phone excels,
2:12:16it's thanks to software, so on and so forth
2:12:18but there's nothing that phone can do
2:12:20to get real depth of field whereas the camera
2:12:22with a big sensor and a wide open lens will get you that.
2:12:25Now I still think in low light performance,
2:12:27the phones can do amazing things
2:12:29but what they're basically doing is hiding incredible amounts
2:12:32of sensor noise that will not be as noisy on your camera
2:12:36with a big sensor but if you get a little pocketable,
2:12:40sort of integrated, quote unquote, big camera,
2:12:43it's not a phone but it also is not an interchangeable lens
2:12:45camera with a tiny sensor, that will literally have worse
2:12:48low light performance than your phone,
2:12:49even ignoring any software processing.
2:12:51So if you're gonna get a big camera,
2:12:53which you totally should, prioritize sensor size.
2:12:56- Yeah, I will say, to answer the second half
2:12:58of this question of what attributes would I prioritize,
2:13:01I agree with Jon that if you're gonna go through
2:13:04all the downsides of something not being your phone camera,
2:13:08you want it to be amazing.
2:13:09There's no room for anything in between.
2:13:13I would say you can skip anything smaller
2:13:15than micro four thirds or APS-C.
2:13:18I would even say if you're asking this question
2:13:20and you're a listener of our show,
2:13:21you should strongly consider full frame.
2:13:24There are many good full frame options these days
2:13:27that didn't exist back when we were buying cameras.
2:13:30- Including a new one that's not much bigger
2:13:33than my APS-C camera but is full frame, which is--
2:13:36- Yeah, a new Sony-- - The Sony A7C.
2:13:39- A7C, I think, yeah.
2:13:40Yeah, and I have not been paying attention
2:13:44to this market at all but that even made splashes that I saw
2:13:48'cause it was so small and compelling.
2:13:50- Because it's not, yeah, it's not that big.
2:13:53The mirrorless is really, and if you want
2:13:55specific model recommendations, the current line
2:13:57of the A6600, that's an amazing compromise
2:14:00between image quality and amazingly good autofocus,
2:14:03way better than an iPhone in terms of tracking people
2:14:05and keeping them in focus, which is important
2:14:07once your kid starts running around a little bit.
2:14:09That's a great sort of compromise but if you can afford
2:14:12to go up to the full frame version, either the A7C
2:14:14or the big, real A7R and all that stuff,
2:14:18all those are great cameras.
2:14:19But all those sensor sizes are bigger than Micro Four Thirds
2:14:22and I would agree with Margo, just forget about anything
2:14:25with the sensor size that's not hilariously bigger
2:14:28than your phone.
2:14:28- Yeah, exactly.
2:14:30Yeah, so if you're gonna do this at all, really do it.
2:14:33Go all out.
2:14:34But there are certainly a lot of reasons
2:14:36why you might not wanna do it.
2:14:37- And also, one quick final note, lensrentals.com,
2:14:41not a sponsor but I've used them several times in the past.
2:14:44You can not only rent lenses but entire cameras from them.
2:14:48And so before Declan was born, I thought I wanted
2:14:51the Olympus camera that I ended up getting,
2:14:53it's in the show notes, but I wasn't sure.
2:14:55I wanted to try it and so I rented the camera body
2:14:59that I thought I wanted and the lens I thought I wanted
2:15:02and I used them together for about a week,
2:15:05like a month or two before Declan was born
2:15:06and I spent some time with it and thought,
2:15:08yeah, okay, I like this, this is gonna work for me.
2:15:10And then I bought the camera and lens that I had tried.
2:15:14Well, not literally the same ones, although you could,
2:15:17but I went to Amazon or B&H or wherever
2:15:19and then I got that same setup.
2:15:21And I was, even though it cost me like 100 or $150 more
2:15:24to rent for a week, I was so glad I did it
2:15:28because that convinced me that it was something
2:15:30I was going to want to use and that it wasn't
2:15:32some really clunky user interface or something like that
2:15:35that would just drive me nuts for the next several years.
2:15:37- Yeah, I too have used lens rentals
2:15:38and they've been wonderful.
2:15:40Anyway, thanks to our actual sponsors this week.
2:15:43Hover, Linode and Mint Mobile.
2:15:46And thank you to our members who support us directly.
2:15:48You can join yourself and get all the cool member benefits
2:15:51at atp.fm/join.
2:15:53Thanks everybody and we will talk to you next week.
2:15:56♪ Now the show is over ♪
2:16:01♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪
2:16:03♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪
2:16:06♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪
2:16:09♪ John didn't do any research ♪
2:16:11♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪
2:16:14♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪
2:16:16♪ Accidental ♪
2:16:17♪ It was accidental ♪
2:16:18♪ Accidental ♪
2:16:19♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪
2:16:24♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪
2:16:27♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪
2:16:32♪ So that's Casey, Liz, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪
2:16:38♪ N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪
2:16:41♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪
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2:16:56♪ So long ♪
2:16:58- I'm finding links to Sony cameras.
2:17:01(laughs)
2:17:02- Now you got John shopping for cameras again.
2:17:04- Yep. - No, I just--
2:17:05- John, just a second.
2:17:06It's fine, John, stop.
2:17:07- We can talk about the A7C actually.
2:17:10- So yeah, so what is the deal with the A7C?
2:17:12Like what is--
2:17:13- So, Sony has been frustrating me lately in that they,
2:17:18for all these new cameras they come out with,
2:17:19there's always some annoying caveat,
2:17:21and you're like, that caveat didn't have to be there
2:17:25on these phones, and it's kind of annoying.
2:17:28Cameras.
2:17:29I'm gonna bring up the 7C again.
2:17:31So the 7C body looks a lot like the body
2:17:34on the 6100, 6400, 6600, like my model of camera, right?
2:17:39That's more or less the same size and shape body,
2:17:42which is fairly small and compact,
2:17:43but it's interchangeable lens camera.
2:17:45And the 7C, when you first look at it,
2:17:47it's like, wow, they fit a full-frame sensor
2:17:49in that same package, but it's not the same package.
2:17:52It is actually, it's a little bit beefier.
2:17:54It's a little bit thicker, it's a little bit wider,
2:17:57it's just, it's a little bit bigger, right?
2:18:00And it uses the full-frame lenses,
2:18:02so that makes it feel bigger too.
2:18:04The annoying compromises is like,
2:18:06they can't seem to get the software situation
2:18:08sorted out across their line.
2:18:10So like, they have a new interface
2:18:11that's not as terrible as the old,
2:18:13like two-dimensional menu interface.
2:18:15Like they have a new touchscreen-based interface,
2:18:16but it's not evenly spread across their line.
2:18:18I forget which models have it and which don't.
2:18:20But that's annoying,
2:18:21like you just wish they had it on everything.
2:18:23And those type of compromises are, you know,
2:18:26every one of the cameras has one of those little things.
2:18:30So no one of these current crop of Sony cameras
2:18:32will look at it and say, "That's the one."
2:18:34It's got all the features, it's got all the newest stuff,
2:18:36it's got all the newest ports, it's USB-C,
2:18:37it has the touchscreen, it has the joystick on the back.
2:18:40You know, it has amazing battery life, it doesn't overheat.
2:18:43You know, none of them have all of that,
2:18:45which is frustrating.
2:18:46But the 7C is super duper close, right?
2:18:49The 7C has almost everything I could hope for.
2:18:51My only reservation for it is,
2:18:54it's kind of like the iPhone 10.
2:18:55It's like, can I handle one that's just a little bit bigger?
2:18:59And am I gonna die with these full-frame lenses,
2:19:02like they're so much bigger than my current ones?
2:19:05Or is that what I just need to step up to?
2:19:07Because I've been, I really wanted the 6600 for a long time,
2:19:10assuming we actually went on vacation this year to the ocean
2:19:14and I had to take pictures of kids in the surf again.
2:19:16I lust after Sony's sort of best in the industry,
2:19:20like software autofocus and object tracking,
2:19:23which for whatever reason,
2:19:25hasn't been something that Apple has really either touted
2:19:27or jumped on top of.
2:19:28But if you're trying to catch action of things moving around
2:19:33and keep them in focus, Sony's got the best system.
2:19:36It's the fastest, it understands how to do pet eye tracking
2:19:39now in addition to human eye tracking.
2:19:41It's really phenomenal.
2:19:42It combined with the ability to take many, many pictures.
2:19:45So the 6600, which is just my camera
2:19:48with essentially improved software and in-body stabilization,
2:19:51that may be my next purchase instead of the 7C thing.
2:19:56'Cause I feel like the 7C,
2:19:58I'm not sure if I'm ready to graduate to that size,
2:20:02essentially, and sort of,
2:20:04I think it invalidates all of my lenses too,
2:20:06because none of my lenses are full frame lenses.
2:20:08So I don't know, I can't really decide,
2:20:11but I'm glad Sony's making progress
2:20:13and I'm glad that this camera existed,
2:20:15but I was like 900% more excited about it
2:20:18than I was after I watched all the reviews.
2:20:20- Wait, I'm sorry, this does or does not have the new UI.
2:20:23So let me rephrase, other than size,
2:20:27what are the drawbacks?
2:20:29- I forget which the, other than size,
2:20:31which this had, I think it might not have the new software.
2:20:34I think it might lack the joystick on the back.
2:20:36I don't remember the detail, so I don't want to commit to it
2:20:38'cause I just saw a bunch of preliminary reviews,
2:20:40but mainly the thing that battery that's keeping me
2:20:42is like, I would deal with those things
2:20:43that I've described, even if they're all true,
2:20:45is I'm worried about the size.
2:20:47The good thing is that one of the things
2:20:48that doesn't screw up is in its battery life.
2:20:49Like apparently the battery life is phenomenal.
2:20:52And most of Sony's recent cameras,
2:20:53they've really repented from the bad battery life.
2:20:56Now they just put massive batteries in everything.
2:20:58So the number of shots is insane.
2:21:00So yeah, it's really just the size keeping.
2:21:03Oh, I know the other one.
2:21:04This sounds stupid, but it came,
2:21:06I noted it before I watched any review.
2:21:08And then I watched all the reviews
2:21:09and everybody complained about it.
2:21:10So I'm like, good, it's not just me.
2:21:12The little eyepiece thingy,
2:21:13where you stick your eyeball on the back of it.
2:21:16All of these cameras, all the 66XX series
2:21:21have like a rubber hood that's over the little place
2:21:23where you put your eye and the 7C doesn't.
2:21:26Nor does it have a place for you to attach one.
2:21:28It's just this little stump
2:21:30that you just shove your eye up against.
2:21:32It's like, what happened to the hood?
2:21:33The hood is awesome.
2:21:34Why would you get rid of that?
2:21:35And maybe they did it to make it feel smaller.
2:21:38Like the hood is actually removable.
2:21:39You can take it off if you don't want it, right?
2:21:41Why would they not just put it there?
2:21:42And if you don't want it, just take it off.
2:21:45That annoys me, that and the size
2:21:47are probably the two biggest physical barriers
2:21:49to me getting this phone.
2:21:50It's like, how about I want the little eyepiece hood?
2:21:52'Cause it's rubbery and comfortable
2:21:53and I shove it up against my glasses basically.
2:21:56'Cause they've got the, what is it called Marco?
2:21:58The name of the thing where you adjust it
2:21:59so if you have a vision you can, yeah, whatever.
2:22:02The diopter dial.
2:22:04I shove this thing up against either my bare eyeball
2:22:07or against my glasses.
2:22:08And I don't wanna do either one of those things
2:22:10with a hard piece of plastic.
2:22:11I wanna do it with a soft piece of rubber.
2:22:13So, I mean, this is the first version of this camera
2:22:16and they'll have complaints or whatever,
2:22:17but they fixed so many other things.
2:22:18So like they fixed like the card slot,
2:22:20they fixed the little floppy doors on them.
2:22:21It's USB-C, like everything about it
2:22:23is like they updated all the things,
2:22:25but they made a couple of sort of unforced errors
2:22:28in the design.
2:22:29And the handle is a little bit more shallow,
2:22:31and it's a bigger camera.
2:22:32So it's like shallower handle and a bigger camera
2:22:35and it's heavier.
2:22:36I say this now, we'll see how long I hold out
2:22:41against full frame because that is obviously
2:22:43the next step I need to jump to, but we'll see.
2:22:45It does have all the cool tracking and sensing.
2:22:48The sensor is exactly the same resolution
2:22:51in terms of megapixels as my current camera,
2:22:53but obviously physically bigger.
2:22:55So the low light performance, I haven't seen
2:22:58the final reviews of the actual photos taken up,
2:23:00but the low light performance has gotta be good
2:23:01because it's the same number of pixels,
2:23:03but a way bigger physical sensor than my camera.
2:23:06- Yeah, and it's just Sony's sensor progress
2:23:08over the years is just remarkable.
2:23:11Their sensors are world leading in low light performance
2:23:14and every year they get better,
2:23:16or every generation they get better.
2:23:17So that is non-trivial and it is probably better
2:23:21than low light.
2:23:22My concern for you with going full frame
2:23:25is your love of long range zoom lenses.
2:23:29That is just an area that is just either non-existent
2:23:33or garbage on full frame.
2:23:36You have to either--
2:23:37- Or it weighs a thousand pounds.
2:23:39- Right, and costs $2,000.
2:23:40To get a good full frame zoom lens, it's very large
2:23:47and doesn't have that much reach usually.
2:23:51Usually has less overall reach than what you're getting
2:23:53out of a consumer grade or even prosumer, I guess,
2:23:58super zoom lens for a crop sensor camera.
2:24:03But the full frame--
2:24:04- Yeah, that's one of the things that annoys me about this
2:24:06is that the megapixels are, it's only 24 megapixels.
2:24:08So the reason you can get away with a zoom
2:24:11that doesn't have much reach if you have 41 megapixels
2:24:13is to just crop it yourself.
2:24:15But if it doesn't and it's just 24 megapixels
2:24:18and I can't get a long zoom, I can't even crop into it
2:24:20'cause I just don't have the resolution.
2:24:22- Again, megapixels are all about how you use them.
2:24:25But it would be hard for me to justify buying a new
2:24:29standalone camera today that was only 24 megapixels.
2:24:31Just because the sensors go so much higher.
2:24:34You can get easily up to like in the 40s
2:24:38with full frame sensors that aren't even that crazy
2:24:41up the market, at least in the 30s.
2:24:44I know there's trade-offs there and everything too.
2:24:48One advantage to 24 is that the photos will be smaller
2:24:52for your post-processing workflow.
2:24:55And there's also to consider things like the actual
2:25:00resolvable resolution of the lenses
2:25:03that you're gonna be using might not be 24 megapixels.
2:25:07It might be lower depending on what lens you're using.
2:25:10The path to full frame happiness is primes.
2:25:16Like prime lenses, not zooms.
2:25:19Zooms exist for full frame, but they're so big
2:25:22and so heavy and so expensive that really the path
2:25:25to happiness is to get some small, fast primes.
2:25:30My favorite by far, my favorite lens in the Sony lineup
2:25:34is that 35 millimeter F2.8 prime with a little inward
2:25:37facing hood thing 'cause it's so small and so good.
2:25:41And they have tons of great primes in the Sony FE line.
2:25:45I love the 55 1.8 as well.
2:25:47They've added even more since I've been really looking.
2:25:50But that 35 millimeter 2.8 is so good
2:25:54because it's just so tiny.
2:25:55Overall, I love a camera that has a small prime lens on it
2:26:00because it's just so much easier to handle
2:26:02and so much easier to get in and out of a bag
2:26:05and it's so much smaller and lighter
2:26:07that you end up using it way more.
2:26:08And if you can get shockingly good optical performance
2:26:12out of that at the same time, even better.
2:26:15That's why one of my favorite types of camera to use
2:26:18is the small, boutique-y, fixed lens
2:26:23but still full frame, roughly 28 to 35 millimeter lens
2:26:27camera and that would be things like the Sony RX1 series
2:26:32or the Leica Q series.
2:26:34But yeah, ultimately though, I can't recommend
2:26:37specific models 'cause I just haven't been
2:26:39paying attention at all.
2:26:40I know Canon's new mirrorless thing
2:26:41is getting a lot of rave reviews.
2:26:43Nikon has one now, this is all much more recent
2:26:47than when I stopped paying attention.
2:26:50- Yeah, the one I'm still waiting for,
2:26:51you know how Sony's very confusing naming.
2:26:53So the A7R is the one, maybe the R is for resolution
2:26:57but it always has the most megapixels, right?
2:26:59And then they have the A7S, which I think
2:27:02is the video focused one.
2:27:04- Yeah, usually, yeah.
2:27:05- And then they just have the plain old A7
2:27:08with a Roman numeral after it.
2:27:10And that's usually, it's like the same body as the R
2:27:14but the sensor doesn't have as many megapixels
2:27:16but it's still full frame in the big body.
2:27:18And anyway, I may be screwing up these names
2:27:21but the bottom line is that that model that I just described
2:27:24that basically what used to be the A7 III or whatever,
2:27:27the new one of those is the last one that hasn't come out.
2:27:29The 7C is out of left field 'cause this is a model
2:27:31they had never had before but they did the new,
2:27:34they've got the 6600 which is the tiny little one,
2:27:37they did the A7R, they did the A7S,
2:27:40there's Roman numerals there that I'm dropping
2:27:42but the plain old 7 one which is the body of the R
2:27:45and the S but not video focused but not as many pixels
2:27:48as the other one, they haven't released that camera yet
2:27:50as far as I know.
2:27:51So that's the last shoe to drop to say,
2:27:53okay, what number of megapixels do they choose for that?
2:27:57'Cause it is the bigger bulkier body
2:27:59but the thing about the 41 megapixel is
2:28:02like your hard drive spaces, you're just gonna be weeping
2:28:04from the size of those photos, right?
2:28:06And so I feel like 24 isn't exciting to me
2:28:09because I already have something close to that resolution,
2:28:11if not exactly, I forget if my thing is 21 or whatever.
2:28:16But 41 is probably too much, so somewhere in the middle
2:28:18may be the sweet spot for a full frame thing
2:28:20but then do I want the big case?
2:28:22And I have looked at the other ones as well,
2:28:23the new canons and the icons but I'm pretty firmly
2:28:26in the Sony campus, they have so many models
2:28:29that are sort of orbiting around the sweet spot for me
2:28:32in terms of size and resolution and features,
2:28:34it's just, I haven't wanted to choose one.
2:28:37I would have bought a new camera this year
2:28:40if it wasn't for COVID, I would have probably bought
2:28:42the 6600, right, and taken it and used it
2:28:44but COVID kind of squashed those plans.
2:28:46So I've got a year reprieve next year,
2:28:48if the world goes back to normal
2:28:49and I can go on my normal vacation,
2:28:50I will probably buy a new camera,
2:28:52it's just a question of which one it will be.
2:28:54(beeping)