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349: Formative Tech Dystopia

 

00:00:00   - Could you Star Wars tickets everybody?

00:00:02   - Nope.

00:00:02   - What, there's another one?

00:00:03   (laughing)

00:00:05   - That is the most Marco answer I've ever heard.

00:00:06   - Keep making these, you believe that Marco?

00:00:08   I don't know why you'd think they'd stop but they don't.

00:00:10   Is this like the real series

00:00:13   or like an alternate series this time?

00:00:15   - The real one.

00:00:15   - Okay, is it supposed to be good?

00:00:17   - I don't know, I'm on an almost full media blackout

00:00:20   so I don't know.

00:00:21   - Oh is this the last one

00:00:22   or is it just kind of like a BS last one?

00:00:24   Like who's last one, Osteros can tell?

00:00:25   - I mean it's not the last one

00:00:27   but it's the last one in a set of nine

00:00:28   and then it'll start a new story sequence up after that.

00:00:31   - They aren't gonna follow the same characters

00:00:32   you think, you don't think?

00:00:33   - No.

00:00:34   - You think they would invest three,

00:00:35   you know, three movies into building up these new characters

00:00:38   and then just throw them away

00:00:38   and never print money with them again?

00:00:41   That seems unlikely.

00:00:41   - Not these new characters, the old characters.

00:00:44   This is the end of the Skywalker saga

00:00:46   which only says that it's gonna be end of the Skywalker saga.

00:00:49   It doesn't say that some characters of this movie

00:00:51   won't appear in future movies.

00:00:52   - Oh, well so okay, so that doesn't mean anything

00:00:55   that basically is what--

00:00:56   - No, no, it's 'cause the nine movies

00:00:58   have basically been the story of the Skywalker family

00:01:01   and presumably the next movie will not be the story

00:01:04   of someone in the Skywalker family.

00:01:05   There's plenty of other people to tell stories about

00:01:07   but that's the deal.

00:01:08   - Are any of them left who haven't been vaporized

00:01:09   or anything?

00:01:10   - Spoilers!

00:01:11   - They sure are.

00:01:12   (laughing)

00:01:13   - I bet within like three years they put out episode 10,

00:01:17   even if it isn't called that

00:01:18   and it still has like Rey and Finn,

00:01:22   like it has like the same, like some of the same people.

00:01:25   - I think they'll probably restart the numbering

00:01:27   no matter what, even if it's like

00:01:28   about the same cast of young people,

00:01:30   they'll probably restart the numbering.

00:01:31   - Oh, they'll call it episode X.

00:01:33   - Yeah, well, maybe.

00:01:36   I would think they would restart the numbering

00:01:37   but we'll see.

00:01:39   Just because you get to have a number one then,

00:01:40   you know what I mean?

00:01:41   Like you get to, like they hired a bunch of directors

00:01:44   who are gonna be doing new things

00:01:45   and each one of these directors in theory

00:01:47   is getting their own trilogy or some crap

00:01:49   which is never gonna work out.

00:01:50   Like those plans will not actually fall through

00:01:53   but part of the way you get these big name directors

00:01:55   is like you'll get to start your own trilogy,

00:01:58   your own series and they'll all wanna start from one

00:02:00   because there he goes.

00:02:01   But we'll see.

00:02:02   - Star Wars X 10.1, Star Wars X 10.2, et cetera.

00:02:07   - All right, let's start with some follow up.

00:02:11   We have some follow up with regard to PYHOL.

00:02:13   If you recall, PYHOL is the--

00:02:16   - Did you shut yours, Casey?

00:02:17   - I actually did just moments ago shut my PYHOL

00:02:20   because something was broken on the internet

00:02:23   and I thought that might have had something to do with it.

00:02:25   Anyway.

00:02:25   - I made it all of last episode without laughing at this

00:02:27   and making jokes about it but like it's just,

00:02:29   I can't, it's so funny.

00:02:30   - It's so good, it's so good.

00:02:33   Anyways, so PYHOL is this thing where you have your DNS,

00:02:38   you use it as your DNS server and it will just refuse

00:02:41   to acknowledge DNS lookups for things that it believes

00:02:46   to be like advertisements and tracking and things like that.

00:02:49   And we had talked last episode about how I discovered

00:02:52   a shortcut/workflow that would let you quickly

00:02:56   and easily disable PYHOL in case you find something

00:03:00   that isn't working on the internet.

00:03:01   And that doesn't happen that often.

00:03:02   I've only had to do it, I don't know, maybe 10 or 20 times

00:03:05   in the last almost month that I've been running it.

00:03:06   But it does happen.

00:03:08   And I had said on the show last week that,

00:03:10   "Oh, I couldn't really get it to work.

00:03:11   "It was, something was messed up and I didn't know what."

00:03:14   Well, I got a chance to play with it after the fact.

00:03:16   And then coincidentally, the original author, Chris Doley,

00:03:18   emailed me and pointed me to a Reddit thread

00:03:21   wherein he released that shortcut to the world.

00:03:25   So we'll put a link in the show notes

00:03:26   and so you can download it yourself.

00:03:27   It did work, as it turns out.

00:03:30   I think what had gone wrong was that I have a hostname

00:03:35   that points to my house and I was using that

00:03:40   as the hostname for this shortcut, this workflow,

00:03:43   to go issue an API request against.

00:03:46   But I didn't think things through in the two seconds

00:03:49   that I spent playing with it.

00:03:50   And I actually do not have the Pi-hole

00:03:53   admin interface port forwarded.

00:03:54   So it was reaching out to the internet

00:03:57   to get to my own network, but the firewall was stopping it

00:04:01   coming back into my own network,

00:04:03   if that makes any sense at all.

00:04:04   So in summary, what I needed to do

00:04:06   was just use an IP address instead.

00:04:08   Once I did that and once I plugged in the correct API key,

00:04:11   which if you're following along at home,

00:04:13   if you're in the Pi-hole admin interface,

00:04:14   you go to console, settings, API/web interface,

00:04:17   show API token, and that is the token you need

00:04:20   to plug into the shortcut.

00:04:21   And once you put all that magical special sauce together,

00:04:25   the shortcut worked no problem.

00:04:26   And it allows you to quickly and easily disable it

00:04:28   or disable it for 30 seconds or five minutes

00:04:30   or what have you.

00:04:31   So again, we will put a link in the show notes to that.

00:04:33   Additionally, somebody wrote to us, Billy Brauner,

00:04:37   who is apparently putting together a Swift UI app

00:04:39   that is open sourced in order to do a very similar thing.

00:04:43   I have not played with this at all.

00:04:44   I didn't even crack the code open.

00:04:45   I didn't have time, but it's something that we'll also put

00:04:48   in the show notes in case you wanted to look at that.

00:04:50   So those are ways that you can shut your Pi-hole, Marco.

00:04:53   - Thank you.

00:04:54   - All right, we talked last episode about indicating

00:05:00   or progress indicators and how they're all kind of garbage.

00:05:02   And Adam wrote in to point us to a YouTube video,

00:05:05   which again will be in the show notes,

00:05:07   wherein Microsoft kind of had an interesting take on this.

00:05:09   John, would you like to tell us about this?

00:05:12   - I'm trying to show something fancier

00:05:14   than just a bar that fills from left to right.

00:05:16   They're trying to show throughput to give people an idea

00:05:18   of like historically how fast have things been going

00:05:21   and how fast are they going now.

00:05:22   Watch the video.

00:05:24   I mean, it's a noble effort, but if you showed that

00:05:28   to your average computer user, they'd be like,

00:05:31   what is this?

00:05:32   Like it does fill from left to right, so that's still there,

00:05:36   but it's just complicated enough

00:05:38   that they would probably be blinded to the fact

00:05:40   that it is essentially filling from left to right.

00:05:41   And when it fills all the way to the right, it's done,

00:05:43   because it looks like a graph.

00:05:44   It's got numbers on it, the numbers change, it's got a line,

00:05:47   it's got a shaded region, it's like,

00:05:50   I get what they're trying to do,

00:05:53   I don't think they've really cracked it.

00:05:54   That's the problem when you say, you know,

00:05:56   this tool that we have is so crude

00:05:58   and we can't give accurate feedback

00:06:01   about how long things are going to take.

00:06:03   Can we put more information in the same area?

00:06:06   I've mentioned in the last show that like the old Aqua

00:06:10   progress bar from the original Mac OS X

00:06:13   had one second piece of information, which was,

00:06:15   it wasn't even a real piece of information.

00:06:16   It was an animation to let you know things are still

00:06:19   happening, even though this bar isn't moving.

00:06:21   But as I said, last show, that's mostly a lie.

00:06:23   That texture animates pretty much no matter what.

00:06:26   So it's not like that animation is telling you anything

00:06:30   other than your computer hasn't entirely frozen,

00:06:32   which is somewhat reassuring,

00:06:33   but I don't think the solution is to continue to add more

00:06:36   and more information.

00:06:37   That said, it's cool to see stuff like this,

00:06:39   and it would be nice if it was an option for people

00:06:42   who really did want to see lots of numbers change

00:06:44   or run diagnostics or whatever,

00:06:46   but I'm not sure it's the right default choice.

00:06:50   - Moving on, one of you guys put this in the show notes.

00:06:53   I'm embarrassed to admit it wasn't me that spotted this,

00:06:55   and I'm assuming this was Jon, but either way.

00:06:58   New Diagnostic Architecture Overview on Swift.org,

00:07:02   on the Swift programming language blog.

00:07:04   This is a post by Pavel Jaskovic,

00:07:09   that we're in, Pavel goes through and talks about

00:07:11   how error messaging is going to hopefully be

00:07:15   a whole lot better in the future,

00:07:18   thanks to some changes to how they're doing

00:07:21   type discovery and inference and things of that nature.

00:07:23   I feel like I know Swift okay, and a lot of this,

00:07:26   my eyes were rolling around in my head

00:07:28   in opposite directions trying to read through it.

00:07:30   However, if you get to the very end,

00:07:33   it is really, really worth it,

00:07:35   and there's a heading, Examples of Improved Diagnostics.

00:07:40   And again, I am a Swift apologist, I do quite like Swift.

00:07:44   Some of the code on this is just as inscrutable as C++,

00:07:48   which is about as damning a bit of,

00:07:51   what's the opposite of praise,

00:07:52   as damning an insult I can give to it.

00:07:54   But anyways, if you look at these examples

00:07:56   of improved diagnostics, you can see

00:07:58   some actually reasonable looking Swift,

00:08:00   and where it's wrong, and how these error messages

00:08:03   have gotten so much better.

00:08:06   And I am really, really excited for this.

00:08:08   And I think, and this was John I believe

00:08:10   who pointed this out, this is going to be

00:08:13   really, really interesting and important for Swift UI,

00:08:16   because as Marco and I both lamented,

00:08:18   Swift UI's error messaging is so bad

00:08:21   it's borderline insulting, and this really smells to me

00:08:25   like it's going to be getting a lot better.

00:08:27   And in fact, a lot of the examples they use

00:08:29   are for Swift UI.

00:08:31   - You know, I'm hoping they are, but honestly,

00:08:33   like I read through this too, and maybe it's 'cause

00:08:35   I don't know Swift or Swift UI well enough yet,

00:08:37   but I didn't think that the examples they were showing

00:08:41   really indicated that Swift UI's error messaging

00:08:44   is going to get that much better.

00:08:46   It seems like it's going to get a little bit better,

00:08:47   and that's great, it has a long way to go.

00:08:49   But like, in the way that a lot of the error messages

00:08:52   you get now have these like crazy long,

00:08:56   you know, huge type errors, some of which are actually

00:08:58   like parse errors, sort of, but it's really hard

00:09:00   to figure that out, some of which are like,

00:09:02   you know, you're somehow returning a value

00:09:04   somewhere inadvertently, or you're returning

00:09:05   the wrong value somehow inadvertently,

00:09:07   like, I don't think a lot of these,

00:09:09   like, while it's good that they're improving this,

00:09:11   it doesn't look like they're improving it enough

00:09:14   to make the difference between Swift UI error messages

00:09:16   being useful or totally inscrutable.

00:09:20   - I don't know about that, I think this might get,

00:09:23   it gets you to the point that it's at least actionable,

00:09:26   because one of the things that's actually conceded

00:09:29   early on in this post is that a lot of Swift error messaging,

00:09:32   you know, both for Swift UI and not,

00:09:34   it just plain isn't actionable,

00:09:36   and that's just not useful, and so that's what

00:09:39   a lot of this post is about, but I don't know,

00:09:40   John, what are your thoughts on this?

00:09:42   - This is kind of what I was talking about last week,

00:09:44   where it's not just a matter of finding some string

00:09:47   in the Swift compiler and saying, oh, this message is bad,

00:09:49   I'm gonna put a different string in there

00:09:51   to be more clear with the words that I put in.

00:09:53   So you can read this whole article and you can see

00:09:56   how, you know, it's not a question of phrasing,

00:10:01   it's a question of sort of metadata,

00:10:03   and even beyond that is that you have to

00:10:07   do some unexpected things like continue

00:10:09   the compilation process even after you've encountered

00:10:12   what you know to be a fatal error

00:10:13   so that you can produce a better message.

00:10:15   Like you need to have different awareness

00:10:18   and data structures and do some fairly Byzantine things,

00:10:22   like make a guess at a fix and allow the compiler

00:10:25   to continue to try to pinpoint where the actual error is

00:10:27   so you have enough information

00:10:30   to then construct a better message, right?

00:10:33   But even that, as Marco pointed out,

00:10:35   that is, this is all with the type checker,

00:10:37   the type inference engine.

00:10:40   A lot of Swift's errors are inscrutable because of that,

00:10:43   but because of the way SwiftUI is structured

00:10:45   in sort of this domain-specific language,

00:10:47   which is really just fancy word for,

00:10:50   you can make a bunch of specially named functions

00:10:52   with some implicit arguments or return values

00:10:55   or implicit state and then nest them inside each other

00:10:58   so it looks kind of like you're making this cool

00:11:00   sort of language of your own with curly braces

00:11:03   when really it's a series of chained function calls

00:11:05   with some stuff that, some implicit code

00:11:07   that doesn't actually appear visibly.

00:11:09   And because that's what it is

00:11:12   and because we're not accustomed to calling a function

00:11:14   that calls a function that calls a function

00:11:16   that calls a function that calls a function

00:11:17   and then like somewhere in the middle of that chain,

00:11:19   something went wrong,

00:11:20   that's why that even when you have

00:11:22   a much better type checker,

00:11:24   your message may not indicate to you

00:11:27   something useful or explicable

00:11:29   because you're not conceptualizing your code

00:11:31   as this giant nested series of function calls

00:11:34   where in fact that's what it is.

00:11:36   You're thinking of it as like, okay,

00:11:37   like here's this structure,

00:11:39   like you're thinking of it like you're declaring data,

00:11:41   like it's a big JSON structure or something

00:11:43   and you want it to show you where in the JSON

00:11:45   you've done something wrong,

00:11:46   where it's like the compiler doesn't look at it that way.

00:11:49   And so there's still some ways to go

00:11:51   in bridging the divide.

00:11:52   This is a necessary first step to say,

00:11:54   if you just had like normal Swift code

00:11:56   that you would write and not SwiftUI,

00:11:58   there's lots of situations where the type checker

00:12:00   will give you a garbage error

00:12:01   and you don't know what the heck it means.

00:12:02   This helps with that.

00:12:04   And it also happens to help with those same type of errors

00:12:06   that happen in SwiftUI,

00:12:07   but I still feel like the sort of novel structure of SwiftUI

00:12:12   that it's not structured the same way

00:12:14   as your like pre-SwiftUI and I guess pre-Rx or whatever,

00:12:18   like your quote unquote normal imperative Swift code

00:12:21   would be structured.

00:12:23   Because it's different, there's still some more work

00:12:26   that needs to be done to be able to give better messages.

00:12:29   And I think mostly, well, that will probably come down to,

00:12:31   I'm just guessing here, I know nothing about compiler design,

00:12:33   but I imagine that what it will come down to is some way

00:12:35   to better annotate the actual APIs that make up SwiftUI

00:12:40   so that the compiler knows more about

00:12:46   how they're expected to be used and what the semantics are

00:12:49   and how the developer is thinking about it.

00:12:51   As opposed to just like a function

00:12:53   that adds two numbers together

00:12:54   that you call just as a function somewhere

00:12:56   versus something like a function

00:12:59   that is used to generate a list

00:13:01   or a set of switches or something

00:13:03   and then three levels nested down,

00:13:05   you put something that isn't allowed to be nested in there.

00:13:07   It should know like, oh, this type of control

00:13:10   isn't allowed in a list of you switch thingy

00:13:14   and be able to phrase that in some way

00:13:17   other than referencing the type system.

00:13:19   'Cause that's like Swift's tool for everything.

00:13:21   It's like, if your types all add up, everything's great.

00:13:24   And if they don't, we will tell you what you did wrong

00:13:27   in terms of the types.

00:13:29   But, and that goes a long way if you have well-chosen types,

00:13:33   but sometimes they're like invisible types

00:13:35   or types that you didn't declare

00:13:37   that you don't know the names of that get referenced

00:13:39   when in reality it's trying to tell you something simpler

00:13:42   that if someone's looking at the code,

00:13:43   like, oh, you can't put that type of control

00:13:44   in this container or if you do,

00:13:45   you have to have one of these things over there.

00:13:47   So still some ways to go, but progress is being made.

00:13:52   And I do think it's an interesting blog post.

00:13:54   It seems like it's a little,

00:13:56   might seem like it's a little over your head,

00:13:57   but if you just read it slowly and kind of understand

00:13:59   what they're saying and don't get too bogged down

00:14:01   into like the, you know, weird generics

00:14:04   and templated code they have in the examples,

00:14:06   I think it does make sense.

00:14:07   - So somebody pointed out to me, forgive me,

00:14:09   I don't recall who it was,

00:14:10   that the folks at NS Hipster have put together

00:14:15   an unbelievably great website.

00:14:18   And I am overjoyed that this exists

00:14:21   and that I didn't have to do it myself.

00:14:23   The name of this website is No Overview Available.

00:14:26   And it's at nooverviewavailable.com.

00:14:28   And it is subtitled,

00:14:30   A Survey of Apple Developer Documentation.

00:14:33   And so the NS Hipster folks have put together

00:14:36   a list of all the Apple frameworks.

00:14:38   So these are all the top level Apple code groupings,

00:14:43   I guess you could say.

00:14:44   I mean, it's, you know, like address book stuff

00:14:46   and audio stuff and things of that nature.

00:14:48   And there's a lot of them.

00:14:49   So it goes through all of these

00:14:50   and they have written some code to parse

00:14:53   how much of the documentation

00:14:55   for all of these different frameworks is actually available.

00:14:59   And, you know, the name of the website comes from,

00:15:02   oftentimes you will see the phrase,

00:15:03   "No Overview Available" in Apple documentation

00:15:05   if they just haven't done it yet.

00:15:06   And I gotta tell you, scrolling through this,

00:15:08   not good times.

00:15:09   Lot of orange, lot of red, not a lot of green.

00:15:13   And I actually did intend to count up

00:15:15   and get numbers in front of me

00:15:17   with regard to how many are green,

00:15:19   how many are orange and how many are red.

00:15:21   If somebody wants to take the time to do that,

00:15:22   please let me know on Twitter or via email.

00:15:26   Again, apologies, I didn't get to do it myself.

00:15:28   But just scrolling through this will give you a hint

00:15:30   that this does not look good.

00:15:31   And one of my favorites was looking down

00:15:34   at audio toolbox mark alarm, which is at 48.9%.

00:15:38   - Yeah, all of the audio frameworks

00:15:40   have pretty poor showings here, which is not news to me.

00:15:44   (laughs)

00:15:45   - I have some questions about the methodology here, though.

00:15:48   They were trying to look,

00:15:49   they were looking up the symbols in the libraries

00:15:51   and finding out how many of those symbols have documentation.

00:15:53   Is that what the methodology is?

00:15:55   - I think, I didn't go parsing through the source

00:15:57   to figure out exactly what's going on here.

00:16:00   - That's what I, I mean, this is the thing,

00:16:03   like, that's all they can really do, I suppose,

00:16:06   because without documentation, there's no way to know

00:16:09   which symbols are meant to be public.

00:16:11   I know Apple has like the, what are they,

00:16:13   underscore, reserve for private, stuff like that.

00:16:14   But in general, I don't think it's safe to assume

00:16:17   that every symbol in the library

00:16:18   is supposed to have public documentation.

00:16:20   But that's the only tool they have.

00:16:21   So I think that might be making things look worse

00:16:23   than they actually are.

00:16:24   And the second thing is, maybe I've been in,

00:16:27   you know, corporate America too long,

00:16:29   but I scroll through this list

00:16:30   and I think it looks pretty good.

00:16:32   There's a lot of green and orange in there.

00:16:34   Like the state of documentation of code,

00:16:36   every place I've ever worked would not meet these standards.

00:16:39   I mean, obviously, I haven't worked at Apple,

00:16:41   and these are supposed to be public facing APIs.

00:16:43   - Exactly, yep.

00:16:44   - But I still think it looks pretty good.

00:16:46   I still, like, they expected this thing to come out.

00:16:49   That's a lot of green, a lot of green.

00:16:51   - Stop it, this does not fit my,

00:16:54   this does not fit my narrative

00:16:55   so you are booted off the podcast.

00:16:57   - I'm not saying it.

00:16:58   It's just, I mean, think of any place

00:17:00   you've ever worked, Casey.

00:17:01   Have you had this much documentation

00:17:02   for your public APIs? - Oh, God, no.

00:17:04   Absolutely not.

00:17:04   However, I was not vending a public API

00:17:08   for hundreds of thousands of developers.

00:17:11   - I have vented a public API and we haven't done this well.

00:17:13   But anyway, yeah. - John, come on, man.

00:17:15   - Obviously, all that matters is what your framework is.

00:17:18   You don't care that they have 100% coverage

00:17:21   and whatever, like, intense UI or something like that.

00:17:26   If you're using audio frameworks and they're in the red,

00:17:30   that's your whole life.

00:17:31   In fact, if you're using one particular subset

00:17:34   of one library and there's no docs, that's worse.

00:17:36   You could have, everything could be green

00:17:38   except for your one little corner of the library

00:17:40   and you still paid Apple for not having the docs.

00:17:42   So yes, the bar should be higher for Apple

00:17:44   because they have a lot of money

00:17:46   and in theory, documentation is parallelizable

00:17:50   and can be done with less investment

00:17:55   in long-term mental energy than something

00:18:00   like designing the frameworks to begin with.

00:18:03   One would hope.

00:18:04   - You know, it'd be one thing if this was, like,

00:18:06   all the new stuff they happened to release in iOS 13

00:18:09   and they haven't quite had enough time to get to it yet

00:18:11   and they'll get to it in the next six months.

00:18:13   But no, that isn't it.

00:18:14   - Well, I think that's inexcusable, too.

00:18:16   I take your point and I do agree with you,

00:18:18   but that is also inexcusable.

00:18:19   - But yeah, but that isn't even it.

00:18:21   It's even worse than that.

00:18:22   A lot of these frameworks are like five or 10 years old

00:18:25   and they haven't been documented over that entire time

00:18:27   and it seems like they're,

00:18:29   I think what bothers me about it is that,

00:18:32   not only what Jon said about,

00:18:33   it's not like they're so constrained

00:18:35   with all their resources that they can't hire people

00:18:38   to do this or task people to do this.

00:18:41   This is something that can be easily outsourced

00:18:43   or tasked to other teams and everything.

00:18:45   You don't need difficult engineering scaling problems

00:18:48   to solve this.

00:18:49   You just need the will and some resources,

00:18:51   which they have the resources.

00:18:53   I guess they don't have the will.

00:18:54   But I think what bothers me is, like,

00:18:56   enough about Apple's message to developers

00:19:00   over the last few months has been crappy.

00:19:01   This is just kind of insult upon injury.

00:19:03   Like, it's bad enough that all the platforms

00:19:06   that are shipping to customers right now

00:19:07   are causing so many problems for developers and customers

00:19:11   because they're still so lucky

00:19:12   and it was such a rough beta season.

00:19:14   And doing the early public beta really was a jerk move

00:19:18   by Apple to both their customers and their developers.

00:19:21   Launching Catalina without notifying any developers

00:19:24   ahead of time when that was gonna happen

00:19:25   was really a jerk move to all Mac developers too.

00:19:28   Like, this has been like not a great season

00:19:30   to be a developer in Apple's world right now.

00:19:33   And to add an insult upon injury is like,

00:19:34   yeah, you know what, none of this stuff seems documented

00:19:36   and it also seems like based on how long

00:19:39   some of these things go without being documented,

00:19:40   it seems like Apple thinks this is fine.

00:19:43   They don't care.

00:19:43   Apple thinks this is good enough.

00:19:46   And that, I think, is what I hope that websites like this

00:19:50   will help convince them differently on.

00:19:52   - Well, but that's the thing is that

00:19:54   I don't know that Apple thinks

00:19:55   this is good enough internally,

00:19:56   but I agree with you that because there is nothing

00:20:00   spoken about externally, this is all we have to go on.

00:20:04   And so by Apple releasing iOS 13 and all these new APIs

00:20:09   and to your point, leaving alone all the APIs

00:20:12   from many, many versions ago

00:20:14   and not having proper documentation about it,

00:20:16   that is them saying that this is good enough.

00:20:18   I do agree with you, but I'm waiting

00:20:20   for all the internal Apple people to be like,

00:20:21   well, guys, come on, we don't think this is good enough.

00:20:23   But, but, but, but, but.

00:20:24   - Well, yeah, I mean, look, go up the chain then, right?

00:20:26   Like someone at Apple thinks this is good enough.

00:20:29   You can keep going.

00:20:30   It's like, okay, maybe you, individual engineer,

00:20:32   are unhappy with this, great.

00:20:33   How does your boss feel about it?

00:20:35   Are they unhappy with it?

00:20:36   Okay, how does their boss feel about it?

00:20:37   Eventually you hit Tim Cook, right?

00:20:39   It's somebody's problem.

00:20:41   Somebody needs to care about this kind of stuff.

00:20:43   And if you or your boss care but can't get things done,

00:20:48   okay, why?

00:20:50   Why can't this be improved?

00:20:51   Go level up.

00:20:52   What, you know, go to that next person.

00:20:54   Why can't this be improved?

00:20:56   Like the company has seemingly infinite money.

00:21:01   I know it's hard to hire for certain things.

00:21:03   I know it's hard to scale certain things.

00:21:05   But this is one of those things that's actually

00:21:07   a lot easier to hire for and scale

00:21:09   than a lot of other engineering challenges, right?

00:21:11   This really is way closer to like,

00:21:14   you know what, you can just choose to allocate

00:21:16   resources to this and get it done.

00:21:17   Like that's, not everything in the company works that way,

00:21:20   but this is one of the things that works a lot more

00:21:22   that way than everything else.

00:21:23   So the fact is, they don't think it's important.

00:21:27   Someone somewhere up the chain has decided

00:21:30   this doesn't matter.

00:21:32   And so that's why I hope things like this website

00:21:35   can kind of help push that on the people

00:21:38   who might be hearing and reading about this kind of stuff.

00:21:41   - If done well, hiring more people to document libraries

00:21:46   can actually be a funnel into helping

00:21:49   with your engineering scalability problems.

00:21:52   It's not to say that most people want to start

00:21:54   by doing documentation to become, you know, programmers.

00:21:58   But some people who start in documentation

00:22:02   never really thinking that they're gonna be a programmer

00:22:05   will end up realizing that they have an aptitude for it.

00:22:07   And that's like kind of a farm team

00:22:10   for your larger engineering org.

00:22:12   And again, that's not to say that there's 100% overlap

00:22:15   between those skillsets.

00:22:16   People can be very good at documentation,

00:22:17   not very good at coding and vice versa.

00:22:19   But I think there will be at least some people

00:22:21   who start off documenting.

00:22:24   And if your documentation team is respected and paid well,

00:22:28   and expected to either know or understand

00:22:33   the fundamentals of API design,

00:22:36   they can find themselves in a position where guess what?

00:22:38   After a year or two in this job,

00:22:40   you know an awful lot about Apple's APIs.

00:22:43   And if you didn't know how to program before

00:22:45   or in this particular language before,

00:22:47   you probably almost know how to do it now.

00:22:48   And so you're perfectly positioned to transition

00:22:51   from documentation into the larger engineering org.

00:22:54   And vice versa, again, if you pay the documentation people

00:22:57   well and respect their position

00:22:58   and have a path for advancement,

00:23:00   you can see people going in the opposite direction.

00:23:02   Lots of the early Apple employees are justifiably famous,

00:23:07   not because they wrote Quickdraw or created Switcher

00:23:10   or whatever, all the engineering feats

00:23:12   of the original Mac team and stuff,

00:23:14   but because they wrote amazing documentation

00:23:17   for the Apple II or for the Macintosh.

00:23:19   And they weren't looked down upon.

00:23:21   It's like, well, you didn't write the code.

00:23:22   All you did was write the documentation.

00:23:24   Yeah, but the documentation was amazing.

00:23:25   And amazing documentation was part of the reason,

00:23:28   part of the way the good qualities of Apple's products

00:23:32   were communicated to developers to let them know,

00:23:35   you want to develop for this platform.

00:23:37   Isn't it cool?

00:23:38   And here, let me explain it to you.

00:23:40   Explain our thinking behind it.

00:23:42   Explain how things work.

00:23:43   Explain how it works together

00:23:44   so you appreciate the beauty of whatever system we've made.

00:23:47   That was an essential part of both the Apple II

00:23:49   and the early Macintosh in terms of gaining market share.

00:23:52   Not that iOS is in that position now,

00:23:54   but it's always a good thing to have.

00:23:57   - Well, and also, I feel like at this point,

00:24:00   when not only APIs are broadening and changing

00:24:04   at a crazy pace right now,

00:24:07   they introduced an entirely new programming language

00:24:10   five years ago, whenever that was.

00:24:12   Everything converted over to that.

00:24:14   That language has changed in that time.

00:24:16   Some of the original old sample code doesn't work anymore.

00:24:20   A lot of APIs and things don't have sample code

00:24:22   in the new language.

00:24:23   And now they're trying to also change

00:24:25   the entire UI framework.

00:24:27   This is a time when we desperately need great documentation,

00:24:33   great sample code, great tutorials.

00:24:36   We need Apple writing their own code

00:24:39   against these new APIs and sharing it with us.

00:24:42   We need there to never be anything we run into

00:24:45   that says no overview available in the new frameworks

00:24:49   and new languages we're supposed to be using now.

00:24:51   This is an incredibly critical time

00:24:53   that they're trying to really move things forward

00:24:56   in some pretty big ways,

00:24:57   and there seems to be no guidance

00:25:00   on how to use any of this new stuff.

00:25:03   Are they ever gonna document any of this stuff?

00:25:04   Are they ever gonna have good documentation

00:25:06   for SwiftUI, for instance?

00:25:07   I don't know, but right now they don't,

00:25:09   and they're asking us all to learn it.

00:25:11   And I don't know what they expect us to do exactly.

00:25:13   - So one way to highlight the problems

00:25:15   with this methodology is to look at something

00:25:17   like the kernel, where they have 28,000 symbols,

00:25:21   only 2,000 of which are documented,

00:25:23   but there's probably almost nothing in the kernel

00:25:25   that you're supposed to call directly.

00:25:26   Like Apple has been really tightening down

00:25:28   the public interface to the kernel.

00:25:30   Kernel extensions themselves are so incredibly locked down.

00:25:34   Now they're basically frowned upon, period,

00:25:37   and they have the whole userspace driver thing, right?

00:25:39   So it's always, you know, the kernel line on this graph

00:25:42   is always gonna be a tiny little dot.

00:25:43   There's actually a one with zero as well,

00:25:45   and I'm not sure about that one.

00:25:46   I owe USB hosts.

00:25:47   But anyway, this is all to say that, like,

00:25:50   third parties doing this is all well and good,

00:25:52   but one way Apple can address this problem,

00:25:56   start addressing this problem,

00:25:57   is by coming up with their own metrics,

00:25:59   because they know, in theory,

00:26:01   which APIs are supposed to be public and which aren't.

00:26:04   I mean, they certainly know, because I'm sure the tools

00:26:06   that they run against your app store submissions know,

00:26:07   because if you call a private one,

00:26:09   they're gonna reject your app, right?

00:26:10   So at the very least, they know, like,

00:26:12   okay, this kernel percentage is way off.

00:26:14   We, you know, it says 8%, but they don't realize

00:26:17   that almost all those symbols are private.

00:26:19   For all we know, the kernel has 100% documentation,

00:26:21   but Apple knows, right?

00:26:22   So they should put on every one of their frameworks

00:26:24   and every one of their pages a little bar like this.

00:26:26   It says what percent is documented,

00:26:28   because if they can see it internally

00:26:29   and they're willing to show it to the world,

00:26:31   that will hopefully motivate/shame them

00:26:34   into making those metrics go up, you know,

00:26:36   make it part of people's goals, put it on, you know,

00:26:38   however you need to motivate the organization,

00:26:41   but especially if you're willing to put a public face in it

00:26:43   so that every time someone goes to a particular library,

00:26:46   they see this library, this framework is X percent documented

00:26:49   like maybe with a date on it, the last time that, you know,

00:26:52   so you can historically see a graph of percentage,

00:26:55   and then you have actionable data from Apple itself

00:26:57   to say, hey, this library has been 42% documented

00:27:01   for the past five years, what the hell, right?

00:27:03   But we don't have any of that,

00:27:04   so all we've got is third-party websites like this,

00:27:07   which are a start, but really,

00:27:08   Apple should be doing this internally

00:27:10   and should be brave enough, courage,

00:27:12   to put this on their docs and show it to the outside world.

00:27:15   - Agreed, and real-time follow-up,

00:27:17   there is in the GitHub repo a brief about the methodology.

00:27:21   I'll read a portion of it.

00:27:22   This project uses a scraper to crawl

00:27:23   and download API symbol documentation

00:27:24   from Apple's official documentation website.

00:27:26   An API symbol is any page navigable from and within

00:27:30   developer.apple.com/documentation that has a declaration,

00:27:33   i.e. articles and sample code are not counted.

00:27:35   An API symbol is undocumented if an HTML element

00:27:38   matches a selector, no documentation,

00:27:40   the class, no documentation.

00:27:42   So that's the methodology.

00:27:43   It is clearly not flawless nor foolproof,

00:27:46   but as a reasonably consistent first step,

00:27:50   I don't think it's unreasonable.

00:27:52   - They can post their test coverage too on the pages.

00:27:54   That'd be scary.

00:27:54   - Oh, that would be amazing.

00:27:56   Well, that's the thing though.

00:27:57   I used to work at a government contractor

00:27:59   many, many moons ago, and we were using the Rational Suite,

00:28:03   which was awful in a million different ways,

00:28:07   but it made sense given the context.

00:28:08   And what that meant was I couldn't check in code

00:28:11   unless I specifically in the tools associated it

00:28:14   with a issue number or ticket or what have you

00:28:17   that that change was for.

00:28:19   And they could have,

00:28:21   although I don't recall this being the case,

00:28:22   they could have gone to the level of not allowing me

00:28:25   to check in code unless there's code coverage

00:28:28   on that new code.

00:28:29   And I could have not been able to check in code

00:28:32   if I didn't have documentation coverage

00:28:35   against that new code.

00:28:35   Like the big businesses where they take this stuff

00:28:39   this seriously, this is a solvable problem,

00:28:42   which is exactly what you two have been saying.

00:28:43   Like if Apple really did care about this,

00:28:45   this would get solved.

00:28:47   But the problem is whether or not the rank and file care,

00:28:50   I could not agree with you more, Marco,

00:28:51   someone somewhere does not care enough

00:28:53   to make this a priority.

00:28:54   And that's just one more reason why,

00:28:57   again, to quote you, Marco,

00:28:58   this season of being an Apple developer

00:28:59   has really just not been fun.

00:29:01   (upbeat music)

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00:31:13   - It is October as we record it is the 21st of October

00:31:20   and we have yet to hear about the October event

00:31:21   that I guess isn't happening.

00:31:24   What's going on here?

00:31:25   - All the rumors say we're getting a 16 inch MacBook Pro

00:31:28   with a hardware escape key and scissor switch keyboard.

00:31:31   Any day now, yeah, I put this item in here

00:31:34   and there was a one word item but Casey exactly picked up

00:31:37   on what I was getting at.

00:31:38   The one word says just October.

00:31:40   It's the 21st.

00:31:41   This episode will come out on the 23rd or whatever.

00:31:44   I know Apple doesn't like to give a lot of notice

00:31:47   and they can have an event in early November

00:31:49   but I really do hope before the end of the year,

00:31:52   obviously A, they put it with the Mac Pro configurator

00:31:54   but B, 16 inch MacBook Pro with a new keyboard.

00:31:58   If you don't wanna have an event Apple

00:32:01   and you just wanna do a private press thing,

00:32:03   whatever, we just want the machine.

00:32:04   - I originally thought like weeks ago

00:32:06   when we were trying to predict this,

00:32:07   I thought well, you know, would they really introduce

00:32:09   like a brand new laptop without demoing it

00:32:12   like in a public way?

00:32:13   That leaked alleged image is in 10.15.1 beta, right?

00:32:19   Whatever it is.

00:32:21   It was all over the rumor sites a few years ago.

00:32:23   It's one of those like rendered icons

00:32:25   that like you see where the system has to show

00:32:29   an icon for a certain Apple device

00:32:31   and it has like these stock icon images

00:32:34   of every Apple device, every model and everything.

00:32:37   It shows in things like the about window

00:32:38   or in like connecting to network share, stuff like that.

00:32:41   There's this image resource that claims

00:32:45   to be the MacBook Pro 16 inch and by various conventions

00:32:48   and by looking at it next to the other one,

00:32:50   it does seem like that's very likely.

00:32:52   So it appears that we have Apple's official rendering

00:32:55   of this device from the front

00:32:57   and there was this helpful little animated GIF

00:33:02   on the MacRumors post in the comment section.

00:33:05   I'll put it in the show notes

00:33:06   by user Stanley.OK that shows you can very quickly

00:33:10   see them compared like the old 15 inch and the new 15 inch.

00:33:14   And you can tell that the 16 inch one

00:33:17   is clearly a bigger screen, smaller bezels

00:33:20   proportionally to the screen and you can tell

00:33:22   there's a very, very, very slight difference

00:33:25   on the keyboard at the top where it does appear

00:33:29   as though there is a hardware escape key

00:33:31   to the left of the touch bar

00:33:32   and a separated power button to the right of the touch bar.

00:33:35   But what's interesting is how little else appears different.

00:33:40   They appear to be very, very similar

00:33:44   and so I'm not sure Apple's really going to want

00:33:47   to very loudly announce this is a brand new laptop.

00:33:51   And there's all the complicated reasons

00:33:53   with the keyboard issues they've had,

00:33:55   they might actually try to downplay this a little bit.

00:33:57   They might actually just be like,

00:33:59   here's our new 16 inch MacBook Pro

00:34:02   and not much else about it might be changed

00:34:06   besides the screen proportion

00:34:08   and that it now has a scissor switch keyboard.

00:34:10   It wouldn't surprise me if it has like all the same ports.

00:34:14   It looks like from this image,

00:34:16   it looks like things like the trackpad area

00:34:19   which many people thought was too large

00:34:20   and it got in the way of your thumbs

00:34:22   and would cause accidental input.

00:34:24   That appears to be unchanged by this image.

00:34:26   The spacing between the keys which I've always said

00:34:31   because it got smaller on the butterfly keyboard generation,

00:34:34   it actually made it harder to feel where the key caps ended

00:34:37   and therefore I think that's part of what made me

00:34:40   less accurate of a typist on these new keyboards.

00:34:42   That appears to be unchanged as well.

00:34:45   The distance that the keys appear to be raised up

00:34:48   from the like bed they sit on

00:34:51   also appears unchanged in this image.

00:34:53   So granted this is not a super high resolution image

00:34:56   of the keyboard itself and it's also a marketing image

00:34:58   and everything so you know, it's sanitized

00:35:00   probably in certain ways but this doesn't look like

00:35:03   it's that different of a laptop from the 15 inch

00:35:06   that we've had for three years.

00:35:08   And so therefore I'm guessing that,

00:35:12   you know combine that with all the you know,

00:35:15   embarrassing and legally problematic keyboard problems

00:35:18   Apple has had, they might just downplay it.

00:35:21   They might just be like hey, here's the new update.

00:35:23   You know, have a few briefings here and there

00:35:26   and you know, do a big press release.

00:35:28   Some YouTubers have them do like some rendering tests

00:35:30   or whatever and that might be it.

00:35:32   Because you know, they might just want to like

00:35:35   get this out there and quietly start solving

00:35:38   the keyboard problem and if not much else has changed

00:35:42   there actually isn't that much more for them

00:35:44   to have an event about.

00:35:45   And we kept thinking you know, beyond the 16 inch

00:35:48   MacBook Pro, we've been trying to figure out for a while

00:35:51   in the rumor mill like okay well if they had an event

00:35:53   what else would be in the event?

00:35:55   Is it just this new laptop?

00:35:56   That seems like they wouldn't have a whole event

00:35:58   just for that especially if it's you know,

00:36:00   not a huge revision.

00:36:01   So okay, what else is there?

00:36:04   iPad Pros have been pretty definitively ruled out

00:36:06   by the rumor mill for like you know, not this fall.

00:36:09   Other laptops also ruled out probably not this fall.

00:36:13   So we're basically left with like the possible AirPods

00:36:17   with the squishy tips and the possible noise cancellation

00:36:19   that we talked about last week and the alleged like

00:36:23   tile tracker thing that uses the ultra wideband chip

00:36:26   and maybe a HomePod update.

00:36:28   Like it seems like there's not quite enough there.

00:36:32   And if you think back to this past spring, Apple in the span

00:36:36   of a week had I think four product releases all done

00:36:39   by press releases like one each day.

00:36:41   They had like the new iPad Mini and the newish iPad Air

00:36:46   at the time and then they had I believe that was when,

00:36:49   was that when new AirPods came out?

00:36:51   I forget when that, anyway.

00:36:52   So like this past spring they had like a few days in a row

00:36:55   where they had press releases for just a few product releases

00:36:57   and that was it.

00:36:58   They might just be doing the same thing this fall.

00:37:00   Like they might just have you know, press release for this.

00:37:03   Maybe a couple days or a week later they might have,

00:37:05   hey here's you know, AirPods with in-ear tips.

00:37:08   These might not be major event worthy things.

00:37:11   - You know like many of their icons they have in the OS,

00:37:15   I'm assuming these aren't actually photos

00:37:17   but are just renders.

00:37:18   And they're not even like, a lot of things

00:37:19   in Apple's websites are renders but the icons tend

00:37:22   to be renders that aren't even meant to be photo realistic.

00:37:25   They're a little bit iconic if that makes sense.

00:37:27   Like a little bit painterly.

00:37:29   So it wouldn't actually surprise me if like 3D models

00:37:32   they just copied and pasted the keyboard.

00:37:34   Like that's why they look the same height.

00:37:36   In other words I'm not willing to believe that the,

00:37:39   you know all the rumors say that these have more travel

00:37:42   distance but they don't stick up anymore because this

00:37:45   is a rendering and they wouldn't bother with that.

00:37:47   But they did apparently bother with separating.

00:37:48   - I would bet against that John.

00:37:50   I would bet, 'cause the reason why.

00:37:51   - I mean this, there was a rumor that they have more travel

00:37:53   than they have twice the travel of the previous ones.

00:37:56   Right, it was like one millimeter keyboard versus .5.

00:37:59   - Yeah, they call this one millimeter keyboard

00:38:01   and I think the butterfly has about .5 millimeters of travel

00:38:06   but, and this is allegedly a scissor mechanism

00:38:08   and everything, I was hoping for more,

00:38:11   it's hard to tell whether you have inverted T arrows or not.

00:38:14   You can't really tell from this.

00:38:15   - I don't think that's changed but like I think--

00:38:17   - Basically it looks like almost nothing else has changed.

00:38:19   And I think a lot of our perception of Apple is resting

00:38:24   on this laptop release.

00:38:26   Like they're gonna communicate a whole lot to us with this.

00:38:29   And what they might be communicating to us is we're gonna do

00:38:32   the least amount of change possible to alleviate the issue

00:38:36   that's hurting them, you know not us.

00:38:39   Like you know users have had lots of issues with this

00:38:43   generation of laptops.

00:38:44   Many people want a no touch bar option.

00:38:48   Many people are not happy with the track pad size.

00:38:50   Many people are not happy with the ports being so limited.

00:38:54   Many people aren't happy with losing the SD card.

00:38:56   Like there's so many things, so many things on this laptop

00:38:59   have really polarized and angered and lost people

00:39:03   or cost them a lot of money or made things worse for them.

00:39:06   And Apple so far to date has changed almost nothing

00:39:11   about them since their introduction in 2016.

00:39:14   Almost nothing has been changed.

00:39:16   Apple has seemed to be doing the bare minimum possible

00:39:20   for these last few years to just eke out a little bit more

00:39:24   out of this.

00:39:25   And like you know as a Mac person obviously like this has

00:39:27   bothered the crap out of me.

00:39:28   Everyone listening to this show knows that.

00:39:30   Like this has bothered the crap because this generation

00:39:33   of laptop has just felt punitive.

00:39:35   It has just felt like Apple hates us.

00:39:37   They hate Macs, they hate us, they hate these laptops

00:39:40   and they hate everything that we like about them.

00:39:42   Like that's how it has seemed to their customers.

00:39:45   And they have just done like little band-aid

00:39:47   after little band-aid after little band-aid

00:39:48   over and over again to like just get the least change

00:39:51   possible with this.

00:39:52   And you know and I said last year like when you compare

00:39:55   this to what's going on with the iPad line.

00:39:58   Like look at the iPad Pro.

00:39:59   The iPad Pro is fantastic.

00:40:01   Like every time they touch that it gets so much better.

00:40:05   And it seemed like they're just like showering iPad Pro

00:40:09   users with like awesome advances all the time.

00:40:11   You know it's like a gift.

00:40:14   Every year or every 18 months whatever it's like a gift.

00:40:16   Look how much better the iPad Pro is.

00:40:18   And on the Mac side it's like we hate you.

00:40:20   Stop using these.

00:40:22   Why we, that's how it feels.

00:40:24   Like to be a Mac laptop owner for the last four years.

00:40:28   That's how it feels.

00:40:29   It feels like they hate us honestly.

00:40:31   It feels like they don't like these machines.

00:40:33   They don't want to be using them.

00:40:34   They don't want us to be using them.

00:40:36   They hate everything good about them.

00:40:37   They hate that they're versatile computers.

00:40:39   Honestly it feels like they hate these machines right.

00:40:42   It matters so much what direction they've chosen to take

00:40:46   with the new 16 inch.

00:40:47   This is going to be the first totally new hardware design

00:40:50   since 2016.

00:40:52   What have they done?

00:40:53   Have they only changed the keyboard to a scissor mechanism?

00:40:58   Which will only fix a couple of issues with it.

00:41:02   Or have they taken a more holistic approach

00:41:05   to actually fixing a lot of the other problems

00:41:07   people have with it.

00:41:08   So is it only to fix the problem that was costing them

00:41:11   a lot of money and causing lawsuits?

00:41:13   Or are they actually making a product

00:41:16   that their customers are going to love?

00:41:17   That's the big question.

00:41:19   That's why so much is riding on this.

00:41:22   - I hope you feel better but I was just talking

00:41:24   about the keyboard.

00:41:25   You said that the keyboard, the keys didn't look like

00:41:27   they were any higher in the picture.

00:41:29   And I was saying it's just a render.

00:41:31   Even though the keys and the keyboard don't look like

00:41:33   they're any higher, there will be twice as much travel.

00:41:36   I agree with you on everything else though.

00:41:37   I totally believe that the trackpad's going to be

00:41:39   the same size.

00:41:40   The key layout's going to be the same thing

00:41:43   as it was before with a slave to symmetry

00:41:45   with annoying arrow keys.

00:41:46   I agree that all the ports are going to be the same.

00:41:49   That much, as I said I think several shows ago,

00:41:54   all I want is a new keyboard and one more port

00:41:56   and we're going to get one of those things.

00:41:58   It's going to be the keyboard.

00:41:59   Yeah, part of it also looking at these images

00:42:02   is kind of the design corner they've painted themselves into

00:42:05   in that aside from better key layout and more ports,

00:42:09   they have to make some different decisions about

00:42:11   just the overall design if they want to do anything else

00:42:15   interesting with these laptops.

00:42:17   Even something as simple as the long, long overdue

00:42:20   face ID on a Mac.

00:42:21   In theory, given the size of the bezels

00:42:25   and the rumored face ID hardware that's not going to

00:42:28   require a notch on the next iPhone,

00:42:30   they could sneak those into a laptop style form factor maybe

00:42:34   or maybe put them someplace else.

00:42:36   There are things you can do to innovate in laptop design

00:42:40   to incorporate more features than Apple has wanted to

00:42:42   and based on these drawings and based on what we all

00:42:45   expected, this is not that laptop.

00:42:47   It's almost like they took how many years?

00:42:49   Three, three years, three and a half years?

00:42:53   Took like three and a half years to apply a bandaid.

00:42:55   We don't want to call it that because there have been

00:42:57   so many bandaids between all the different revisions

00:43:00   to that keyboard but this looks a lot like

00:43:02   that previous keyboard.

00:43:05   Imagine if this laptop came out after the first

00:43:07   bad butterfly keyboard.

00:43:09   It would be like, well, they didn't have time to redesign

00:43:11   the whole laptop.

00:43:11   All they could do is replace the keyboard

00:43:13   and that required a bit of a redesign so here it is.

00:43:15   But instead, we got to wait three years

00:43:17   for what is essentially, we haven't changed our philosophy

00:43:20   of this product.

00:43:21   We haven't changed the product design.

00:43:22   We've just changed the component part.

00:43:24   So the screen is better and bigger, a little bit bigger

00:43:27   and the keyboard isn't crappy anymore.

00:43:29   But every other sort of design decision about this laptop

00:43:33   remains the same, at least as far as we can tell

00:43:35   in this picture.

00:43:36   Now, that said, as a laptop hater, I hate all laptops,

00:43:40   not just the Apple ones, one thing that you can do

00:43:44   in a laptop design, even if you don't sort of change

00:43:46   any of the things that we've discussed,

00:43:49   that can have a big effect on how people feel

00:43:51   about the laptop is all the stuff that's hidden

00:43:53   on the inside.

00:43:54   So in particular, cooling and packaging,

00:43:58   like if you can figure out how to sort of iMac Pro

00:44:01   this thing, like, oh, it's the same size and shape case

00:44:04   as it was before, but compare the sort of experience

00:44:08   of using a 5K iMac and the experience of using an iMac Pro.

00:44:11   Outside, they look the same except one is darker.

00:44:14   But you love the iMac Pro because it's quiet and it cools,

00:44:18   the parts and the parts inside are faster.

00:44:21   If you could do that with this one,

00:44:22   where externally it looks more or less the same,

00:44:24   it's also the flat laptop, they all kind of look the same,

00:44:27   the screen is bigger, but boy, this one never overheats

00:44:30   or this one doesn't throttle down under speed

00:44:32   or this one I never hear the fan spin up.

00:44:35   That is a significant sort of quality of life improvement,

00:44:39   even if you're gonna continue to be stingy with ports

00:44:41   and have a bad keyboard layout, yada, yada, yada.

00:44:44   Can't tell that from render.

00:44:46   And you know, it might just be wishful thinking

00:44:48   because there's a lot less room to work in a laptop

00:44:50   than otherwise, but I think the iMac Pro shows

00:44:53   that it is possible if we get lucky

00:44:57   and if Apple is inspired to take an existing form factor

00:45:00   and basically make a better computer inside

00:45:03   more or less the same design.

00:45:04   And this case actually is bigger.

00:45:06   Like if you hold the next video,

00:45:07   it's not just the screen that's bigger,

00:45:09   the actual thing that holds the battery and the CPU

00:45:12   and all that stuff also looks a little bit bigger,

00:45:15   so maybe there is more room to do cooling.

00:45:16   So if you want to get your hopes up,

00:45:19   don't get your hopes up about ports,

00:45:20   don't get your hopes up about key layout,

00:45:22   don't get your hopes up about face ID, that's for sure.

00:45:25   But maybe best case scenario,

00:45:27   you can get your hopes up about cooling and NVH,

00:45:30   as they say in the auto industry.

00:45:31   (laughing)

00:45:34   - I don't know.

00:45:35   Something I've been thinking about a little bit lately

00:45:37   is what is Apple's kind of long-term plan

00:45:41   with their computers?

00:45:43   Because if you look at both the iMac line

00:45:45   and the MacBook Pro line, as you guys have mentioned,

00:45:49   they're all getting a bit long in the tooth design-wise.

00:45:51   And I can't decide if I think that's a problem or not.

00:45:57   Because I exchanged just a couple of tweets

00:45:59   with Steve Trout and Smith,

00:46:00   and he was saying in so many words,

00:46:03   and I'm probably painting it unfairly,

00:46:05   but what I heard him say, whether or not he actually said it,

00:46:08   was Apple's laptop line is boring

00:46:12   and they're not trying anymore.

00:46:14   And I can't decide if he's right

00:46:16   and they should be trying new and clever things,

00:46:18   or if it's that they have realized what they believe

00:46:23   to be the naked robotic core of computing

00:46:26   and they just don't feel like there's anything else to do.

00:46:29   If you look at a computer, it's generally speaking,

00:46:31   it's a mouse, a keyboard, and a screen.

00:46:33   And be that an iMac or be that a MacBook Pro,

00:46:36   they may have reached what is almost peak,

00:46:41   keyboard, monitor, and mouse.

00:46:43   And am I okay with that?

00:46:45   And so I wanted to go back and forth with Steve about it,

00:46:48   and I guess I could have privately,

00:46:50   but I didn't want all the drive-bys on Twitter.

00:46:53   But a lot of the stuff like the Surface line,

00:46:56   Steve had cited as something that's really exciting to him.

00:46:59   And I don't know, I just,

00:47:01   I don't find myself getting really excited

00:47:03   about new and different takes on keyboard, mouse, and monitor

00:47:08   and maybe I'm old, maybe I'm boring, maybe both,

00:47:12   but I don't think I necessarily want like a grand revamp

00:47:17   of a MacBook Pro or an iMac.

00:47:19   Like I'm okay with the design.

00:47:21   Yeah, I'd like smaller bezels.

00:47:22   Yes, I'd like Face ID.

00:47:24   But I don't know, am I being crazy?

00:47:27   Is it silly to kind of be okay

00:47:29   with the general gist of what we've got?

00:47:32   - No, that's not crazy at all.

00:47:33   The reason why we are pretty much okay with our iMacs

00:47:37   looking the same for a pretty long time

00:47:39   is because it's fine.

00:47:40   They actually work really well this way.

00:47:43   And they don't look as modern and cool as they might

00:47:47   with things like smaller bezels, as you said.

00:47:49   But like it's not like a problem that's really a big deal

00:47:52   to us, like I look at an iMac every single day

00:47:56   and I notice the bezel almost never.

00:47:58   And I look at the big chin on the bottom almost never

00:48:04   because there's a giant bright glowing screen

00:48:06   in the middle that's taking all of my attention.

00:48:09   I don't need to look at the case of my iMac very often.

00:48:13   I don't see it, I don't handle it or touch it

00:48:16   or move it very often.

00:48:18   Although I move them more than most people do.

00:48:20   - That's a fact.

00:48:21   - But like you know, so it's not a thing

00:48:24   that's really a critical part of the experience

00:48:26   of owning this computer.

00:48:27   Like the way the iMac looks is fine.

00:48:30   It's totally ignorable and asking them to redesign the iMac

00:48:34   is kind of like asking them to redesign

00:48:36   like the power brick of a laptop.

00:48:38   It's like yeah, you know it's a thing,

00:48:39   it's a part of using it but like it's not a huge deal.

00:48:42   - Well I agree that it's in a good place

00:48:44   compared to laptops but the iMac,

00:48:47   not the case so much but the stand.

00:48:49   The stand is ripe for improvement

00:48:51   and Apple has been known to do some interesting innovations

00:48:55   in the stand area.

00:48:56   If it was height adjustable and could rotate,

00:48:59   that would be a better iMac.

00:49:01   And again, I'm not comparing it to laptops

00:49:03   which are in much worse place.

00:49:04   The iMac is fine and it's been fine for seven years

00:49:07   and I don't think it's desperately dying to be redesigned

00:49:09   but if you wanted to redesign it,

00:49:11   if you made it adjustable height,

00:49:13   adjustable angle and rotatable,

00:49:16   no one's gonna frown at that iMac.

00:49:17   That would be awesome.

00:49:18   Keep all the good things about it

00:49:19   and make the one part of it even better.

00:49:21   So there is definitely room for improvement on the iMac.

00:49:24   It's just that the current one,

00:49:26   especially the iMac Pro is really good.

00:49:28   So no one is dying for that change to happen

00:49:31   but I do think about it.

00:49:32   - That's true although the problem is now we do know

00:49:35   that if they did that, they would charge

00:49:36   an extra $1000 for it.

00:49:37   (laughing)

00:49:38   - They're gonna make it, don't make the iMac one

00:49:40   out of unobtainium or whatever the hell.

00:49:42   (laughing)

00:49:44   - No but like-- - XDR.

00:49:45   - So yeah, so like the iMac is obviously like,

00:49:49   you know, it's fine.

00:49:50   It's a design that doesn't get in the way.

00:49:53   Whereas like the laptops have so many problems.

00:49:57   There are so many shortcomings and incredibly polarizing

00:50:01   or unreliable things or limiting things.

00:50:05   That's why people who think that laptop innovation is over

00:50:10   aren't looking at it enough or aren't trying very hard

00:50:12   to think about like, you know, how could this be better

00:50:16   or how could this be brought forward?

00:50:18   Like there are so many ways that laptops can get better.

00:50:22   Look at what the entire rest of the industry is doing.

00:50:25   Apple doesn't make the best laptops anymore.

00:50:27   They simply don't.

00:50:28   If you look at the PC world, especially like what Microsoft

00:50:30   is doing, again, like we made fun of them a long time ago

00:50:33   when their like weird laptops and Surface things sucked

00:50:36   but they don't anymore.

00:50:36   Now they're pretty good and people like them a lot

00:50:38   and they sell a pretty good number of them now

00:50:40   and they are objectively good by many people's measures

00:50:44   and many people's experiences.

00:50:47   You know, I'm not saying that Apple needs to make

00:50:49   as many crazy bets as Microsoft does

00:50:51   but I would like them to try.

00:50:55   I would like them to not have stopped trying.

00:50:57   The impression I've gotten since the touch bar introduction

00:51:01   in 2016 is like that was their big try

00:51:04   and then they just stopped.

00:51:06   And that wasn't that big or that good of a try.

00:51:09   We haven't seen yet what this new thing is.

00:51:12   I sure hope John is right that this image

00:51:14   is not incredibly detailed or accurate

00:51:17   but I fear that it is.

00:51:19   I fear that this is literally all they have for us.

00:51:22   - I think it's accurate.

00:51:23   You just can't see the sides so you could continue

00:51:25   to fantasize that there's more ports there.

00:51:27   But proportion wise and everything else about it,

00:51:29   I think the trackpad will be the size they show.

00:51:31   I think the overall laptop will be the size

00:51:32   and I think the key layout will be the way they show it.

00:51:35   I just think there'll be twice as much travel

00:51:37   and there'll be scissors switches

00:51:38   and maybe the screen will be a little bit brighter.

00:51:40   I think what they need in the laptop line

00:51:42   is they need their Mac Pro moment.

00:51:44   They need to make one model of their laptops

00:51:46   that has more ports and is more versatile.

00:51:49   I don't know what the equivalent of the Mac Pro is

00:51:52   but the Mac Pro as compared to the iMac Pro,

00:51:55   first of all they're starting off with the iMac Pro

00:51:56   which is itself a great computer.

00:51:58   But the Mac Pro is like, how can I,

00:52:01   we talked about this so many times

00:52:03   before the computer came out,

00:52:05   what can we use to justify the Mac Pro

00:52:07   and the iMac Pro exists?

00:52:09   And they have plenty of answers.

00:52:10   There's ridiculous things the Mac Pro does

00:52:12   that the iMac can't even imagine,

00:52:14   in terms of expandability and yes also cost

00:52:17   and stuff like that.

00:52:17   There's no equivalent to that in the laptop line.

00:52:20   If they just innovated in that direction,

00:52:24   I feel like they could be their laptop halo car

00:52:26   where they could try a ridiculous expensive laptop

00:52:29   that is hugely versatile in the same way

00:52:31   that the Mac Pro is hugely versatile.

00:52:33   Hell, make it hugely expensive.

00:52:35   Probably can't literally make it huge

00:52:37   because that's not a good quality in a laptop

00:52:39   but you could make it a little bit bigger.

00:52:41   And experimenting with that very expensive,

00:52:43   very versatile, very powerful laptop,

00:52:46   again there are lots of examples of this in the PC world,

00:52:48   gaming laptops and other like,

00:52:50   laptops made for versatility and performance

00:52:52   that seem weird and obscene but I guarantee you

00:52:55   that if there's a market for the Mac Pro at all,

00:52:57   there's a market for a, let's call it a MacBook Pro.

00:53:01   Maybe they'll have to come up with a new name.

00:53:03   And by doing that, it would be an interesting test bed

00:53:06   to see like if they start driving people up market

00:53:08   and like no one buys the regular MacBook Pro,

00:53:11   they all buy the MacBook Pro XDR

00:53:13   or whatever the hell thing they call it,

00:53:16   it would show them, hey, maybe if we put an SD card slot

00:53:18   in our supposed MacBook Pro,

00:53:20   I don't know what the market is asking for.

00:53:22   Is it a key layout?

00:53:23   Is it ditching the touch bar for something else?

00:53:26   But it's clear that there's a lot of dissatisfaction

00:53:28   with the current sort of design trend

00:53:30   and all the way up and down the line,

00:53:32   even though one of them's called the MacBook Air

00:53:34   and they used to have a thing called the MacBook

00:53:36   and the MacBook Pros and like,

00:53:37   even though they have this differentiation in price

00:53:41   and in like the chips they use in them,

00:53:43   in general, the design makes very similar decisions,

00:53:46   you know, right down to my original complaint

00:53:48   when they went to loan them

00:53:50   is they use the same freaking keyboard

00:53:51   no matter how big the laptop is.

00:53:52   The same keyboard, the same key layout,

00:53:54   pretty much the same compliment of ports

00:53:56   who just decrease the number as the prices go down.

00:53:59   It's getting very samey

00:54:00   and there's not a lot of differentiation.

00:54:02   So if they had a Mac Pro moment and went and said,

00:54:05   "We've heard you, we're gonna make

00:54:07   "a versatile laptop for pros,"

00:54:09   I don't know how they would phrase this,

00:54:11   I think they could learn a lot from that.

00:54:12   Maybe they'd learned that we're wrong

00:54:14   and really nobody wants that laptop

00:54:16   except for people on Nerdy Tech Podcasts, fine,

00:54:19   but you know, I don't know,

00:54:22   maybe we're still living in a tech nerd bubble

00:54:24   but I don't hear lots of people who are super duper

00:54:26   in love with their MacBook Pros over the past few years.

00:54:29   - Yeah, and this, actually I don't, hilarious idea.

00:54:33   So I realize this might be the last episode of this show

00:54:38   that gets recorded and released

00:54:40   before this new laptop is unveiled.

00:54:42   And I thought, when this happens to iPhones,

00:54:45   we usually have an exit interview.

00:54:47   - Oh God, no, please never.

00:54:49   - And I realized we don't need to do an exit interview

00:54:51   for this current generation of MacBook Pros.

00:54:53   The entire last three years of our show

00:54:55   have been the exit interview for these MacBook Pros.

00:54:58   - Exit interview slash funeral.

00:55:00   - Oh God, I hope, I hope this is it.

00:55:05   I hope this is the end of this horrible era.

00:55:07   You know, not to make a political analogy

00:55:10   but you kind of feel like,

00:55:11   boy I made a lot of mistakes over the last few years.

00:55:13   Let's hope the world is coming out of things.

00:55:15   And this is just part of that for me.

00:55:18   I just want to end this era

00:55:20   and be able to look back on it

00:55:21   and make jokes without them being so painful

00:55:23   because it's still our present day.

00:55:25   - Yeah, and honestly, we said like,

00:55:26   oh, they're just fixing the thing that's painful to Apple.

00:55:28   Just fixing the keyboard is a lot.

00:55:30   - Oh yeah.

00:55:31   - That is, that's gonna really, really help

00:55:34   in ways that it might make you feel better

00:55:36   about the fact that the ports haven't changed.

00:55:38   'Cause you're like, well, the ports annoy me

00:55:41   but I've already got my dongles.

00:55:42   The screen is bigger and nicer.

00:55:44   And every time I type on a key, it makes the key,

00:55:46   it makes the character that it's supposed to make.

00:55:48   And that will go a long way

00:55:50   to making everybody a lot less better.

00:55:52   I say as someone who has just recently

00:55:54   tried to pull down a Bluetooth keyboard from the attic

00:55:57   because my space bar on my work laptop is going wonky

00:56:00   and I don't want to be without it

00:56:02   long enough to get it replaced.

00:56:03   So I am using a second keyboard on my MacBook Pro.

00:56:06   - You know, it's only a small percentage of customers, John.

00:56:08   - God, it's killing me.

00:56:08   Like, this--

00:56:09   - It's a small percentage, it's just everybody we know.

00:56:11   (laughing)

00:56:13   - I just feel like I can,

00:56:15   and now I know why people pry the keycaps off

00:56:17   because I so want to pry it.

00:56:18   Because you just feel it, you're like, there's a crumb.

00:56:20   I can feel it under my thumb.

00:56:22   Get out!

00:56:24   The key doesn't go down all the way.

00:56:25   And the worst part is, if I bang it,

00:56:28   every four bangs on the space bar with my thumb,

00:56:31   it'll make a space.

00:56:32   So it's just enough to make, like, you can't,

00:56:34   I can use it, I don't have to copy and paste the space.

00:56:38   Oh, it's the worst.

00:56:39   And then I took out my ancient Bluetooth Apple keyboard

00:56:42   with the, it takes the AA batteries.

00:56:45   And those keys have so much travel.

00:56:49   - Yep.

00:56:49   - It's like, I feel like I'm--

00:56:50   - It feels like a Model M by comparison.

00:56:52   - Yeah, I think they're supposed to,

00:56:54   basically I think they're the same key mechanisms

00:56:56   as the one that I'm using on my Mac Pro right now.

00:56:58   Like I have the Apple Extended.

00:56:59   I think they're the same key mechanisms,

00:57:01   but I guess the Bluetooth one isn't sort of like broken in

00:57:04   and it feels so much stiffer.

00:57:06   And it makes me realize, like Casey, I think,

00:57:09   I actually have come around to liking

00:57:12   the butterfly key mechanism, limited travel and all,

00:57:15   in the context of a laptop.

00:57:16   - I thought we were friends.

00:57:17   - Maybe not that extreme.

00:57:18   Like I could use a little bit more travel.

00:57:19   I still hate the key layout

00:57:21   and I still hate the reliability, right?

00:57:22   But I don't mind the lower travel clicky keys

00:57:26   in a laptop context.

00:57:28   I probably wouldn't want to use it on a desktop,

00:57:29   but I don't mind it.

00:57:30   So like I'm all primed to really like the key mechanism

00:57:35   in this new laptop, even as I continue

00:57:37   to dislike the key layout.

00:57:38   - Yeah, generally speaking,

00:57:41   I really do like my MacBook Adorable.

00:57:44   It annoys me from time to time.

00:57:46   There are a few simple ways it could be

00:57:49   an almost perfect computer.

00:57:51   I don't think I have nearly the hatred

00:57:53   that either of you do for the modern Apple laptops,

00:57:57   but I've never owned a Touch Bar laptop.

00:58:00   I've never had the occasion to.

00:58:01   I've never really used one

00:58:02   for more than a few minutes at a time.

00:58:04   And I haven't yet been really catastrophically burned

00:58:09   by the keyboard.

00:58:10   I've only been annoyed by it,

00:58:12   but I don't debate that--

00:58:14   - You've had failures all the time.

00:58:16   - But it's always fixed--

00:58:17   - Things are fixed by compressed air though.

00:58:18   - Exactly.

00:58:19   I don't get access to his dad's air compressor

00:58:21   or something 'cause my little canned air

00:58:23   is not doing the job on this space bar.

00:58:24   And by the way, the MacBook Air, the one I actually own,

00:58:27   that one does two spaces.

00:58:29   For the longest time when I was like helping my kids

00:58:31   like proofread their little essays for school,

00:58:32   I'm like, why are you putting two spaces

00:58:33   in the middle of sentences?

00:58:34   They're like, the keyboard just does that.

00:58:36   I tried it and they're right.

00:58:38   They're right, the keyboard does just do that.

00:58:39   So I guess it's better than not being able to make a space.

00:58:41   But yeah, when they write all their papers up

00:58:43   in Google Docs on the quote unquote homework laptop,

00:58:47   sometimes they get double spaces between words

00:58:49   just because they hit the space bar once and two come out.

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01:00:00   (upbeat music)

01:00:02   - There's some new Google stuff, I guess.

01:00:06   Cool? - Great.

01:00:07   - Do I care?

01:00:08   - Do any of us use any of these products?

01:00:10   - So I thought there was,

01:00:11   I watch most of the Google thing as I usually do.

01:00:14   And I put a picture in our notes document here.

01:00:18   We'll link to the TechCrunch story this picture comes from.

01:00:20   It's a Google PR picture they gave out to everybody.

01:00:23   And it got me thinking, we've talked about Microsoft

01:00:26   and their various hardware products

01:00:28   in a couple of recent shows and here's Google.

01:00:29   Their announcement was like they have a new,

01:00:32   it's about their new phones.

01:00:33   They have a bunch of AirPod ripoff things.

01:00:36   They're little wireless earbuds that come in a little case.

01:00:40   They've got a bunch of HomePod looking things

01:00:43   or sort of fabric colored cylinders that are, you know,

01:00:46   augmenting their existing Google Home line.

01:00:48   They've combined their Wi-Fi routers

01:00:50   into the Google Home thing.

01:00:52   So the thing that you talk to is also your router,

01:00:54   which is a smart idea that Apple should have done

01:00:57   if they didn't get out of the Wi-Fi router business.

01:00:59   We talked about it a lot when we were discussing them

01:01:01   getting out of the business.

01:01:01   Like, hey, you want to have things in the house

01:01:04   to listen to you.

01:01:05   That's a great place to put your router.

01:01:07   And of course they have the Google Stadia controller,

01:01:10   you know, streaming gaming thing.

01:01:12   And they have this little product shop

01:01:13   that shows everything together.

01:01:15   And if you look at Amazon, Google, and Apple,

01:01:19   three big tech companies,

01:01:21   all of them can make a picture like this.

01:01:25   Pretty much.

01:01:27   I mean, Amazon doesn't have a laptop,

01:01:28   but they do have, still have those Fire tablets, right?

01:01:32   Do they still make those tablets?

01:01:32   I forget.

01:01:33   - Yeah, they cost like nothing.

01:01:34   They're like 30 bucks now.

01:01:36   - Anyway, and I guess Amazon did have the phone

01:01:39   but didn't have it, but like cylinders that you can talk to

01:01:42   and fun colors covered with fabric, wifi routers,

01:01:46   Amazon's got Eero now, right?

01:01:47   Earbuds, Amazon even has like a ring that you can talk to,

01:01:51   like a literal ring for your fingers.

01:01:53   Phone, tablets, gaming controller things,

01:01:57   TV connected boxes.

01:01:59   Like it seems like those, not that that's table stakes,

01:02:03   but like every large tech company,

01:02:05   there aren't many of them,

01:02:06   but the big three or four big temp companies

01:02:08   are all looking at what the other tech companies are doing

01:02:10   and like, we should make earbuds.

01:02:12   We should have a voice assistant.

01:02:13   We should have cylinders that are in your house.

01:02:15   We should have a home automation.

01:02:17   We should have a thing that plays music.

01:02:18   We should have a streaming service.

01:02:20   And then you have the competition,

01:02:22   similarity in services that they all make.

01:02:24   And in particular, this image from Google,

01:02:27   all of them seem to be taking the aesthetic from Apple,

01:02:30   which is not new.

01:02:31   Apple has sort of led in design.

01:02:33   Whatever Apple decides they're going to do,

01:02:35   you'll see lots of competitors copying,

01:02:38   which at many times like, well, what do you expect?

01:02:41   That's obviously the way things should be,

01:02:43   but it's only like that in hindsight.

01:02:45   It was not obvious that cell phones

01:02:47   should look like the iPhone until the iPhone came.

01:02:49   Cell phones looked nothing like the iPhone before.

01:02:50   Even complete screen iPhones,

01:02:52   like Nokia had like phones that were all screen.

01:02:55   They did not look and work like the iPhone,

01:02:57   but after the iPhone,

01:02:58   every freaking phone looks like an iPhone, right?

01:03:01   And down to the aesthetic.

01:03:02   Laptops being aluminum and glass

01:03:06   and sort of an unfinished aluminum appearance,

01:03:07   swept across the industry.

01:03:09   And now I'm not sure if Apple was in the lead here

01:03:11   or following, but there's a similar trend for cylinders.

01:03:14   Obviously Amazon being the leader in the having cylinders

01:03:17   that you talk to in your house,

01:03:18   but the design aesthetic of sort of rounded

01:03:20   marshmallow fabric covered things,

01:03:22   whoever did that first, that is now everywhere.

01:03:26   Amazon cylinders are fabric covered.

01:03:28   Google's are practically a little miniature

01:03:30   HomePod marshmallows.

01:03:32   And they have the Google Home Mini

01:03:33   because they want them to look nice.

01:03:35   They don't want them to look too techie,

01:03:36   but they also don't want them to look like furniture,

01:03:37   like they're not made of shag carpet.

01:03:40   There is a sameness, a similar,

01:03:42   and then the AirPods, a great example.

01:03:44   There were wireless earbuds before the AirPods

01:03:46   and there were gonna be wireless earbuds after them,

01:03:48   but there's no way you can look at this Google thing

01:03:50   and say, oh, that's their AirPod competitor.

01:03:52   Isn't it obvious that you'd have a little case

01:03:55   with the lid that popped?

01:03:55   No, that's not obvious.

01:03:56   Look at all the ones that came out before AirPods.

01:03:58   They didn't work or look like that.

01:03:59   Even if they had a little charging case,

01:04:01   it wasn't exactly like that.

01:04:03   But in a post AirPod world,

01:04:05   they all have to be exactly like that.

01:04:07   Now, I'm not saying all this to say,

01:04:09   oh, look, everyone copies Apple,

01:04:10   although, again, I feel like they do really set

01:04:12   the direction for the industry.

01:04:14   But what it made me think was these three other companies

01:04:18   that I'm talking about,

01:04:19   and by the way, I'm gonna give Microsoft a break here

01:04:20   because Microsoft actually has its own aesthetic.

01:04:23   I think it's not as nice an aesthetic,

01:04:26   but they have their own thing.

01:04:28   Their surface--

01:04:29   - I think it's like cubicle wall.

01:04:31   - I mean, there's a little bit of sameness.

01:04:34   Like if you look at Microsoft's keyboards,

01:04:36   that is inspired by Apple's keyboards very much,

01:04:39   but they do have their own sort of design aesthetic

01:04:41   for their big Surface Pro thing

01:04:43   and for their Surface things with the kickstands.

01:04:45   They have a little bit of their own thing.

01:04:47   They're influenced by the fashion

01:04:48   of the rest of the industry,

01:04:49   but they are the most innovative

01:04:51   and the most original, I feel like.

01:04:53   So they definitely deserve credit for that.

01:04:54   But here's where, you know,

01:04:58   the episode where we're bashing an Apple,

01:04:59   but it's like, this is not a thing to bash an Apple about,

01:05:01   but it's a thing that I think about.

01:05:03   All those other companies have some other big thing

01:05:08   that they do that they're known for.

01:05:10   Google is Google search.

01:05:12   Like when you say Google, people think of search.

01:05:16   It's a verb meaning to search.

01:05:19   Amazon is a store where you buy stuff online.

01:05:22   If you say Amazon or amazon.com,

01:05:24   you're like, oh, that's where I order stuff.

01:05:25   Physical goods come to my house.

01:05:28   Microsoft is Windows and Office.

01:05:30   If you say Microsoft, people think of the Microsoft PC,

01:05:32   Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word.

01:05:36   That's what those companies were built around.

01:05:38   All of those companies can arrange a little hardware picture

01:05:42   of fabric covered marshmallows and AirPods

01:05:45   and all this other stuff like this,

01:05:47   but that's not their main business.

01:05:50   Google is a search company that also makes practically

01:05:53   everything that Apple makes.

01:05:55   Amazon is an online store that also makes practically

01:05:58   everything that Apple makes.

01:05:59   And Microsoft is this huge software behemoth

01:06:02   that also happens to make everything Apple makes.

01:06:05   Apple makes all this stuff and that's their one big thing.

01:06:10   They don't have a Google search.

01:06:12   They don't have an Amazon store.

01:06:13   They don't have a Microsoft.

01:06:15   They have the iPhone, the Mac, and to a lesser extent,

01:06:18   the HomePod, the Apple TV, the AirPods.

01:06:22   That is Apple's thing.

01:06:25   And in many ways, that's part of why the expectations

01:06:29   for all the stuff that Apple does are higher,

01:06:31   I mean, partially because we're big Apple fans

01:06:34   and we're in that ecosystem and that's the stuff we buy

01:06:36   and prefer because of their software and everything,

01:06:38   but also because if Apple doesn't do all that stuff better

01:06:43   than everyone else, that's the whole ballgame.

01:06:46   As much as they try to expand down to services

01:06:48   and Apple has a thing that you can pay for news

01:06:50   and they have a thing where you can pay for TV services

01:06:52   and they're trying to change that,

01:06:54   it's going to be very difficult for Apple ever

01:06:56   to not be the company that makes hardware,

01:06:59   software, synergize, gadgets, and is expected

01:07:03   to lead the industry in those things.

01:07:05   And for the most part, I feel like they do.

01:07:07   They made the iPhone first.

01:07:08   They made the AirPods.

01:07:10   They are the leaders in this realm,

01:07:14   which is why I think it's so important for Apple

01:07:16   to keep the pedal to the metal

01:07:19   when it comes to those innovations.

01:07:20   And yes, to be working on the next big thing,

01:07:22   whether it be AR or a car they're going to make

01:07:24   or whatever the hell it is,

01:07:25   because they don't have sort of their bread and butter

01:07:28   to fall back on.

01:07:29   Apple did get into Maps and they're doing an impressive job,

01:07:32   but there's like, Apple is not challenging Google

01:07:34   for search.

01:07:35   They're not challenging Amazon for retail stores.

01:07:37   And iWork is not challenging office and exchange

01:07:41   for that software world.

01:07:43   Arguably, they're kind of challenging Windows still

01:07:45   in the sort of desktop PC space,

01:07:47   but that space matters less and less.

01:07:49   So anyway, that's just what I was thinking about.

01:07:52   That, you know, when other companies have events like this,

01:07:55   it's almost like they're saying,

01:07:57   we are Google and also Apple,

01:07:59   we can do everything you can do.

01:08:01   Almost as good, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

01:08:03   But like, this isn't even our main business.

01:08:05   We're Google, man.

01:08:06   We're Amazon, we're Microsoft.

01:08:07   And also we do everything you do,

01:08:09   but backwards and in heels.

01:08:11   (laughing)

01:08:13   - What's Fred Astaire and who?

01:08:15   - Ginger Rogers. - Ginger Rogers, okay.

01:08:18   Everything you can do, I can do better.

01:08:20   I hear you.

01:08:20   I never thought of it that way, actually, Jon,

01:08:22   but you make an excellent point.

01:08:23   And I don't know.

01:08:26   - Any time that the three of us are negative about Apple,

01:08:30   we always get at least a handful of people

01:08:32   complaining about our complaining.

01:08:34   And I think sometimes that's fair.

01:08:35   Sometimes I think the three of us

01:08:36   can get wrapped around the axle about certain issues

01:08:39   at keyboards and it can be--

01:08:41   - They're not fixed yet.

01:08:42   Once they fix them, we'll stop complaining.

01:08:44   - Fair.

01:08:45   - The beatings will continue until keyboards improve.

01:08:47   (laughing)

01:08:49   - Yep, oh gosh.

01:08:51   But anyways, I don't know.

01:08:54   There's nothing so perfect that it cannot be complained about

01:08:56   and it's true.

01:08:58   And beyond that, I do think that all in all,

01:09:01   I am really pleased with the Apple stuff that's in my life.

01:09:08   There are things about the Apple stuff in my life

01:09:10   that really annoys me, especially when I consider

01:09:13   my work life rather than my personal life.

01:09:16   The lack of documentation is frustrating

01:09:18   to the point of being obnoxious.

01:09:21   The beta season was difficult.

01:09:24   If I was a developer for the Mac,

01:09:26   the Catalina release just dropping out of the blue

01:09:29   would be infuriating.

01:09:30   But especially now that I've taken the arguably

01:09:35   shouldn't be necessary nuclear step of having blown away

01:09:38   to my two computers and set them up from scratch,

01:09:43   I've actually been really pleased.

01:09:44   Like I used Sidecar for the first time

01:09:47   for an extended period of time last week

01:09:50   and it worked really, really well.

01:09:53   And Catalina on my MacBook, which granted,

01:09:55   I haven't been pushing that hard,

01:09:57   but Catalina has been fine for the most part.

01:10:00   There's things that annoy me.

01:10:01   I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's been fine.

01:10:03   And my iMac, now that it seems to be working,

01:10:06   at least for the next 10 minutes,

01:10:08   it is reminding me how great a computer this is.

01:10:11   I mean, I cannot remember the last time I bought a computer.

01:10:14   And again, I bought this in January of 2016.

01:10:16   That is almost four years ago now.

01:10:19   And for any normal human whose name is not John Syracuse,

01:10:22   four years for a single computer is a long time,

01:10:25   especially for an all-in-one computer

01:10:27   where the only thing I can change is the RAM.

01:10:30   And this thing has been working really, really well.

01:10:33   It's had its bumps for sure,

01:10:34   but it's been working really, really well.

01:10:35   And I can't say that I really long for more speed.

01:10:40   I'm sure I would like more speed,

01:10:41   but I don't feel like I'm constrained by this iMac

01:10:45   that's nearly four years old.

01:10:47   And my iPad Pro, as much as iOS does annoy me

01:10:50   from time to time when I'm trying to use it

01:10:53   for quote-unquote real work,

01:10:55   by and large, this is a phenomenal computer.

01:10:58   And oh my goodness, I do not have enough good things to say

01:11:01   about my poor shadow, the Dye 11 Pro.

01:11:04   My iPhone is so phenomenally good.

01:11:06   And yes, the software does let it down,

01:11:08   especially lately, kind of often.

01:11:10   But by and large, the things that these devices

01:11:13   allow me to do, what was the phrase,

01:11:16   like bicycles for the mind or whatever?

01:11:18   The thing that these devices allow me to do

01:11:20   really is incredible.

01:11:21   And yes, the three of us, myself included,

01:11:24   can get a little wrapped around the axle

01:11:25   about things that upset us,

01:11:27   but it's because we love them so darn much.

01:11:30   And it's so frustrating to see what we perceive

01:11:33   to be fixable problems not fixed.

01:11:35   But it is worth remembering for all of us,

01:11:37   myself very much included,

01:11:39   how unbelievably cool and amazing these devices are.

01:11:42   And it's a miracle that any of them work

01:11:44   the way that they do, even half as well as they do.

01:11:48   - Yeah, and as I pointed out,

01:11:49   I was emphasizing how important it is

01:11:51   for Apple to be the best.

01:11:52   But I started that whole segment off

01:11:53   by saying how everyone else does what Apple does,

01:11:57   down to the design details and the overall aesthetic.

01:12:00   Like, I feel like Apple is still leading

01:12:01   in many of these areas.

01:12:03   It's just that it occurred to me,

01:12:05   they have to lead in those areas,

01:12:06   'cause that is their bread and butter.

01:12:08   If they're not the best at that,

01:12:10   then why do they even exist?

01:12:11   So I think they are the best at many of those things.

01:12:14   And some other company didn't come up with the Mac

01:12:18   and the iPhone and the iPad, right?

01:12:20   It was an iOS in general.

01:12:22   And Cocoa and Objective-C and all the stuff

01:12:24   that came from Next that is now attributed to Apple

01:12:26   and yada, yada, yada.

01:12:28   So it's like, they are leading those areas

01:12:31   in the same way that Microsoft may have Bing,

01:12:33   but Google is Google, you know what I mean?

01:12:36   It's just that it's so much more important for them.

01:12:39   And again, coming up with a hard discussion

01:12:40   about the laptops, as they may think laptops are de-emphasized

01:12:45   and not as important in the larger scheme of things,

01:12:48   but it's one of the things that they're known for.

01:12:51   It's part of their equivalent of Google search

01:12:53   or Amazon store.

01:12:54   They need to execute well.

01:12:55   I feel like they've realized that in the desktop Mac space

01:12:59   and have sort of regrouped there

01:13:00   and are coming out with computers that are better

01:13:03   than the ones that are before.

01:13:04   And as Marco pointed out,

01:13:05   they're doing really well in the iPad space.

01:13:08   And as I think we all talked about in the show,

01:13:11   every year the iPhones are really good.

01:13:13   Like they're really good iPhones, right?

01:13:15   It's just those darn laptops,

01:13:16   which are a small part of their business,

01:13:18   but it's a part of their business that we all use

01:13:20   and so we complain about it a lot.

01:13:22   - It's funny, like when you brought up this topic

01:13:24   about how all these tech giants basically all kind of

01:13:27   do everything now, or at least all the same,

01:13:30   they all kind of do the same things.

01:13:32   I actually didn't think of any Apple complaints

01:13:34   for this one moment.

01:13:35   Instead, like this has been kind of a thing

01:13:38   I've been meaning to talk about for a while of like,

01:13:41   yeah, it seems like Google and Amazon and Microsoft

01:13:44   and Apple and occasionally Facebook

01:13:47   are all doing a lot of the same things.

01:13:50   But I see that not necessarily as like a,

01:13:54   hey, Apple should be better.

01:13:55   I see it as a tremendous waste of collective industry effort

01:14:00   and resources and talent.

01:14:02   - It's called competition, Marco.

01:14:04   You want to designate a winner?

01:14:06   - What it is, I think is like,

01:14:09   it seems like in the last, I don't know,

01:14:11   five to 10 years maybe,

01:14:14   I don't know if this is maybe like a new thing

01:14:17   or if I just didn't see it before

01:14:19   or if the names were different before,

01:14:21   but like it seems like every tech company

01:14:24   has to have everything now.

01:14:26   They all have to have a complete ecosystem.

01:14:28   And part of it, I guess, is like the threat

01:14:31   that like if they don't do their own complete ecosystem,

01:14:33   then dominant player X is gonna be able to lock them out

01:14:38   of the market or something.

01:14:39   And I get that. - So you get Google Maps

01:14:41   and Apple Maps, like yeah,

01:14:43   'cause if you don't have your own thing,

01:14:45   then you are at the mercy of the company

01:14:47   that does do that thing.

01:14:48   - Right, and see also the entire reason Android exists.

01:14:51   Like it's literally 'cause like Google didn't want

01:14:54   their services locked out of a world that had Apple

01:14:58   and at the time theoretically Microsoft

01:15:00   controlling all of mobile, right?

01:15:02   And like, or Blackberry, whatever, you know.

01:15:04   So like it seems like the tech companies now

01:15:07   all have to have everything

01:15:08   because everything is so damn locked down and proprietary

01:15:13   and everything is a locked down ecosystem.

01:15:18   From the voice assistants to the platforms

01:15:21   to the services behind them all,

01:15:23   you know, all these things,

01:15:24   everything is so proprietary and locked down.

01:15:27   And so it does create this need and this incentive

01:15:31   for like every tech giant to almost defensively

01:15:35   create their own versions of everything, right?

01:15:38   And I feel like it's so much of a mediocre waste of,

01:15:43   so much of tech's immense resources and the talents

01:15:52   and the engineering time and the design time

01:15:54   of all these big companies.

01:15:56   Like we're all just churning and we're all just like,

01:15:59   you know, grinding our gears against these wasteful efforts

01:16:03   to fight one walled garden against another

01:16:06   in massive ways with massive resources behind it.

01:16:09   What if we were solving better problems?

01:16:13   Like what if we weren't all trying to make

01:16:16   the same three product categories or whatever?

01:16:21   - It's more than three.

01:16:22   - Yeah, you're right I guess.

01:16:23   But like I don't know, part of this just feels

01:16:25   incredibly wasteful and just of like

01:16:29   the world's resources in a way, you know?

01:16:32   - Well it was worse back when it was just one company.

01:16:36   When Microsoft was dominant to the degree

01:16:38   that like younger people probably don't have a visceral sense

01:16:43   of exactly how dominant Microsoft was in the day.

01:16:45   Imagine if everything you said was true

01:16:47   but there was literally only one company.

01:16:49   There was like one company and then like a tiny little NAT

01:16:53   that some weird nerds liked.

01:16:55   And even smaller NAT on that NAT.

01:16:57   That was like the Mac and like Amiga or whatever they were.

01:17:00   And Linux, like just Microsoft was so dominant.

01:17:03   Now today we have, I named three companies,

01:17:05   like we have these big tech companies

01:17:06   and yeah they are all doing the same things

01:17:08   and are all sort of competing with each other

01:17:10   but I often think, you know, thank God for Google.

01:17:14   'Cause if it was just Apple or just Microsoft

01:17:16   or just Google, they would still all be doing

01:17:19   the same things 'cause they're sort of financial synergies

01:17:21   to make that happen.

01:17:22   Like they would find their way to all the same stuff.

01:17:24   They'd all be selling media, they'd all have services,

01:17:26   they'd all have search and maps and assistants

01:17:29   and phones and laptops, right?

01:17:31   But if it was just one company,

01:17:32   that's what it felt like in the Microsoft time

01:17:33   that you had like no choice.

01:17:35   Like you could use the Mac which was weird

01:17:36   and you weren't allowed to use at work

01:17:38   and didn't have any software.

01:17:40   Or you could join the real world and use Microsoft

01:17:42   which is what everybody used.

01:17:43   And like in most sort of sci-fi dystopias

01:17:47   or like bad Black Mirror episodes or whatever,

01:17:49   that's always the way it is.

01:17:50   There's always like one company,

01:17:51   whether it's like MomCo or whatever from Futurama

01:17:54   or just like the big company that controls everything.

01:17:56   And there's just one of them.

01:17:58   Like very rarely are there three or four massively power,

01:18:02   you know, sort of equally large financially successful,

01:18:05   powerful companies competing.

01:18:06   It's always like, oh, dystopias,

01:18:08   all of your appliances from this company

01:18:10   and all your computers are from this company

01:18:12   and your car is from this company and you work at the,

01:18:14   like that's worse, right?

01:18:18   The duplication of effort, I kind of understand that.

01:18:20   Like we've talked about this,

01:18:21   I think speaking of Apple Maps,

01:18:23   back when we were talking about Apple Maps,

01:18:24   like the brief moment in time where it looked like,

01:18:27   you know, Apple was, you know, Microsoft was fading.

01:18:31   So that dark time was ending.

01:18:33   Apple was rising and we all liked that

01:18:36   'cause we liked Apple.

01:18:38   And there was these other companies that did their things.

01:18:40   You know, it's the Amazon that sold your stuff

01:18:42   and you had Google that had search.

01:18:43   You remember the brief moment, it's like, yeah,

01:18:44   it'll be like Apple will make like the hardware in the OS

01:18:48   and it'll tie in with Google services, like Google Maps,

01:18:51   'cause their search and maps are really good

01:18:52   and we'll get the best of everybody.

01:18:54   - Yeah. - You know,

01:18:55   Eric Schmidt is on Apple's board

01:18:56   and we'll all work together and that's not the way.

01:19:00   That's not the way competition works.

01:19:02   Like the sort of synergy where each company would be like,

01:19:04   you stay in your lane and I stay in my lane

01:19:06   and we'll work together.

01:19:09   You know, you'll have this section in the market

01:19:10   and we'll have that section

01:19:11   and we'll make a combination product

01:19:13   that's the best of all possible worlds.

01:19:15   That's not the way things work

01:19:17   and probably not the way they should work.

01:19:19   But we had a glimpse of that and it seemed like,

01:19:21   boy, these companies would just sort of stay pigeonholed

01:19:24   into the things that they seem to be good at right now.

01:19:27   But realistically, we wouldn't want that to happen either.

01:19:30   We do want every company trying to be all things

01:19:32   to all people because some of them will do

01:19:36   this kind of product better than other ones

01:19:37   and we need them all to exist and keep trying

01:19:39   so that we have some kind of choice.

01:19:40   Now, Marco's larger point about Walt Gardens

01:19:43   is the real problem is that you can't really mix

01:19:44   and match that easily, but you can mix and match

01:19:47   a little bit.

01:19:48   Like, I think we're probably the worst it's ever been

01:19:52   in terms of mixing and matching,

01:19:53   but I have Google cylinders in the house that I talk to,

01:19:57   but I'm otherwise totally in on the Apple thing,

01:20:00   but I have Google stuff attached to my TV,

01:20:01   but I also have a TiVo attached to my TV,

01:20:03   but I also have Apple TV attached to my television.

01:20:06   There are, and they all use the same internet connection

01:20:09   and the same web browser engine thanks to Apple

01:20:13   across many of the platforms.

01:20:14   So it's not a complete dystopia,

01:20:17   but to the extent that these ecosystems try to

01:20:21   completely wall us off from each other,

01:20:24   I think consumers rebel against that.

01:20:25   And that's why I subscribe to Hulu and Apple TV Plus

01:20:29   and also Netflix.

01:20:30   And those are all like deadly competitors

01:20:32   in the video streaming market,

01:20:33   but there's nothing stopping me from having all of them.

01:20:35   Anything that did stop me from having all of them

01:20:38   would be frowned upon by consumers and wouldn't do well.

01:20:42   Like if you bought a Sony television

01:20:44   and you couldn't watch Netflix,

01:20:46   or even if you bought a Sony television

01:20:47   and you couldn't watch Hulu,

01:20:48   or you couldn't watch Apple TV Plus, that's not gonna fly.

01:20:51   Sony as a television maker needs to make sure

01:20:53   that you can see all of those things on it.

01:20:55   In fact, they build in half those things

01:20:56   inside the television set,

01:20:57   let alone like the boxes that connect to it.

01:20:59   So I'm for the most part optimistic

01:21:02   coming from the dark time of Microsoft,

01:21:04   which is sort of my formative tech dystopia is Microsoft.

01:21:09   Now and forever will be.

01:21:11   Maybe kids today, their formative tech dystopia

01:21:13   is like the closed ecosystem of Apple or something.

01:21:17   Or I mean, I suppose Facebook is all of our tech dystopia,

01:21:20   but I'm mostly just sectioning them off

01:21:23   in the sort of pit of despair that is social media,

01:21:27   along with Twitter.

01:21:28   - Yeah, I mean we can all agree that of all these companies,

01:21:30   Facebook is definitely the worst.

01:21:32   - Yes, obviously, sure.

01:21:33   Easy answer.

01:21:35   But yeah, and Facebook doesn't make,

01:21:38   I mean, doesn't make any of these products successfully.

01:21:41   Do they make cylinders that you talk to?

01:21:42   I think they have some weird thing that you talk to,

01:21:44   but I think people are wisely staying away from that.

01:21:46   - I believe it's like a camera you put in your underwear,

01:21:48   something like that.

01:21:49   You can trust them, don't worry.

01:21:50   - That sounds right, yeah.

01:21:52   - Right, it's a surveillance camera for your bathroom.

01:21:54   Didn't they make a phone at some point?

01:21:56   - Well, they only put their software on a phone.

01:21:59   Nobody wanted it.

01:22:00   - Yeah, and I don't know if they make earbuds,

01:22:02   but I'm assuming they would track you and film video

01:22:04   and send advertisements to you.

01:22:06   Anyway, they seem incapable of fielding

01:22:11   the same suite of things.

01:22:12   They're content to merely control

01:22:14   the political direction of the world and all of our lives.

01:22:17   - Boy, that got intense.

01:22:20   All right, let's do some Ask ATP and lighten things up.

01:22:22   Tom Zosh writes, "When considering Mac processor options

01:22:26   for a new Mac purchase, how can I tell

01:22:28   if I would benefit most from higher single core

01:22:30   or multi-core performance?"

01:22:31   John, what do you think about that?

01:22:33   - I put this question there 'cause it sounds like

01:22:35   if you're a tech nerd, experienced computer user,

01:22:38   listening to this show, you're like,

01:22:39   "Well, what a dumb question."

01:22:41   Of course, you can tell if your app's been

01:22:43   over multiple cores if the app uses multiple cores,

01:22:46   but it's not a dumb question.

01:22:47   It's not like a thing you sense mentally.

01:22:49   You just know which application.

01:22:52   There's an answer, and the answer is out of the box on a Mac

01:22:55   is if you open Activity Monitor and bring up

01:22:57   the CPU graph thingy that shows a bunch of little bar graphs

01:23:01   for your CPU usage, and then do a thing

01:23:04   that takes a long time in the application

01:23:06   that you're interested in, and if you see all the bars

01:23:08   go up while you're waiting for the thing

01:23:10   that takes a long time, that application uses all your cores.

01:23:14   So if you get something with more cores,

01:23:16   there's a very high chance that if you add

01:23:18   a couple more cores, it will take less time

01:23:20   and it will use them.

01:23:21   Not a guarantee because it is possible

01:23:22   a badly written program could use like

01:23:25   a certain number of your cores, but not all of them.

01:23:26   Games are a lot like that.

01:23:27   Sometimes if you add more cores,

01:23:28   games don't take advantage of them, so beware.

01:23:31   But that's the tool you need.

01:23:32   You wanna use Activity Monitor,

01:23:33   you wanna look at the CPU graph,

01:23:34   and you wanna look at those little bars.

01:23:36   If only one of the bars goes up all the way

01:23:38   and the rest of the bars stay down,

01:23:40   getting more cores won't help that program.

01:23:42   So that's how you tell.

01:23:44   - And it's also, I mean, there's a lot of complexities

01:23:46   to this in reality, but, you know,

01:23:48   so John's advice is good if it is mostly multi-core.

01:23:52   And the good news is, if it's mostly single-core,

01:23:55   single-core performance across Apple's entire Mac lineup

01:24:00   doesn't vary as much as you think it might.

01:24:02   - It's almost as good as their phone.

01:24:03   - Yeah. (laughs)

01:24:06   - Wow.

01:24:06   - Brutal. - It'll never get old

01:24:08   until they come out with our Macs.

01:24:09   I'm gonna just put that in every show.

01:24:12   - But yeah, so like, if you actually look at things

01:24:14   like Geekbench and look at like single-core benchmarks,

01:24:17   there are a few complicating factors here,

01:24:19   like, you know, how long can something

01:24:21   boost at maximum speed and everything.

01:24:22   But for the most part, single-core performance

01:24:25   within a certain generation, like year-wise,

01:24:29   of Intel's processors doesn't change

01:24:32   that much between the products.

01:24:33   Like, yeah, there are differences,

01:24:34   but they're smaller than you think.

01:24:35   They're smaller than the initial

01:24:37   advertised clock speeds would suggest.

01:24:40   There actually is not, I've said this before,

01:24:42   there is not as much variation between the processor options

01:24:46   that you have, like, as upgrades,

01:24:48   or like, you know, as built-to-order customizations,

01:24:50   for a certain product line, as you might think.

01:24:53   You might have, like a, you know, for a given laptop, say,

01:24:56   there might be a $300 option that'll get you a processor

01:25:00   that has a higher clock speed than the one

01:25:02   that comes stock on that model.

01:25:05   But that usually is not a great use of that money.

01:25:07   Usually, if you actually look at the benchmarks,

01:25:10   because of things like Turbo Boost

01:25:11   and thermal limits and everything,

01:25:13   it actually doesn't usually perform

01:25:15   as much better as you would think.

01:25:16   Usually, for that $300-ish upgrade,

01:25:19   if you're getting something like 10% more performance,

01:25:21   maybe at most, it often is not very big.

01:25:24   And so, if you're trying to figure out

01:25:26   that kind of processor choice,

01:25:29   usually you can just stick with the base processor.

01:25:32   In most of the Mac families,

01:25:35   if you just stick with the base that it comes with,

01:25:37   or maybe do one small upgrade

01:25:39   to maybe go from like the i5 to the i7,

01:25:43   you know, you will get some value out of that,

01:25:45   but if you're trying to figure out, like,

01:25:47   where to allocate those funds to best spend them,

01:25:50   spend them on like a larger SSD.

01:25:52   And you'll notice that more than you'll notice,

01:25:54   like the extra 5% or 10% on the processor.

01:25:57   - Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly.

01:25:59   Kenny Long writes, "I'm buying a new car

01:26:02   and was looking forward to finally getting CarPlay,

01:26:04   but learned that most all models are not wireless.

01:26:07   Is plugging in every time as annoying as it sounds

01:26:09   any worthwhile workarounds?"

01:26:10   Let me start by saying worthwhile workarounds,

01:26:12   none that I'm aware of and I don't expect there to ever be.

01:26:15   With regard to plugging in,

01:26:17   is plugging in every time as annoying as it sounds?

01:26:19   Kinda.

01:26:20   In my experience, and I typically,

01:26:23   most of my car trips are five miles or less,

01:26:25   and I live in a sane place,

01:26:27   so five miles or less means like, you know,

01:26:28   10 minutes or less.

01:26:30   And because of that,

01:26:32   I almost never plug in my phone to the car.

01:26:35   I usually use Bluetooth to listen to like Overcast

01:26:37   or something like that.

01:26:38   The occasions that would cause me to plug in

01:26:40   are if I'm in the middle of a text message conversation

01:26:43   and want to continue it,

01:26:44   I will do that verbally using the assistant.

01:26:47   I almost said her name.

01:26:49   And I will do that.

01:26:50   That is much easier to do via CarPlay.

01:26:52   If I'm going somewhere I don't know where I'm going,

01:26:54   I will typically, I mean, my car does have navigation

01:26:57   as does Aaron's, they both have CarPlay.

01:26:59   I could plug in the address in the onboard navigation,

01:27:03   but I typically find it just easier to use

01:27:06   either Apple or Google or Waze on CarPlay.

01:27:10   But generally speaking,

01:27:11   I don't plug in unless I feel like I need it.

01:27:13   And so I don't find it particularly egregious

01:27:16   or difficult at all.

01:27:18   I personally would not buy a car without CarPlay

01:27:21   because I do feel like it's future-proofing,

01:27:23   as I've said many times on the show,

01:27:24   it's future-proofing that car

01:27:25   because the car's navigation system

01:27:27   is unlikely to get any better anytime soon.

01:27:29   That is one of the advantages of owning a Tesla

01:27:32   is that your software always gets better.

01:27:34   Of course, I can't ask Marco about CarPlay

01:27:37   because one of the big disadvantages of Tesla

01:27:39   is that they refuse to acknowledge

01:27:40   that CarPlay or Android Auto exist.

01:27:42   I've understood that wireless CarPlay is amazing

01:27:47   and I have not experienced it myself.

01:27:49   The combination of wireless CarPlay and Qi charging

01:27:52   sounds like just bliss on wheels,

01:27:54   but again, that is not something

01:27:56   I have experienced personally.

01:27:58   Although I believe the Audi e-tron

01:28:00   has both wireless charging and wireless CarPlay,

01:28:03   if I'm not mistaken.

01:28:04   So Marco, if you wanna buy an actually good electric car,

01:28:07   you could consider that for your next ride.

01:28:08   - Actually, Tiff's car has wireless CarPlay, rather.

01:28:12   - Oh, that's right, I forgot about that.

01:28:13   Yes, you're right.

01:28:14   - I have used it zero times.

01:28:15   And I'm pretty sure she has used it zero times.

01:28:18   - But how often do you drive her car, though?

01:28:19   - Almost never.

01:28:21   - Well, okay, see, there you go.

01:28:22   And John, you are on the same buying strategy for cars

01:28:26   as you are computers, so I know this is irrelevant.

01:28:29   - Except that I don't buy a computer

01:28:30   that costs as much as a car.

01:28:32   Well, I don't know how that works with a car.

01:28:33   - You're about to.

01:28:34   - I don't buy a car that costs as much as a house, Marco.

01:28:36   - Yeah, there you go.

01:28:39   So yeah, that's my two cents

01:28:40   and I hope that's helpful, Kenny.

01:28:42   - Speaking of, before we get to that one,

01:28:44   speaking of Tiff's car, you know they don't make that anymore

01:28:46   I don't know what she's gonna do when her lease is up.

01:28:48   - Oh, is that right?

01:28:49   - Yeah, I was looking at, we were trying to figure out,

01:28:51   'cause we were looking at some kind of compact

01:28:54   electric option for her to replace it anyway, so that's fine.

01:28:57   But I was looking at the site and I was surprised.

01:28:59   Are the GTs just gone?

01:29:00   - Nope, no more GT model for 2020.

01:29:03   - What happened?

01:29:04   - Not enough people bought them.

01:29:06   I mean, I don't see them, I see them hardly anywhere.

01:29:08   When I do see them--

01:29:09   - I see them around.

01:29:10   - I do like a triple take, I'm like, what is that weird,

01:29:12   oh, that's Tiff's BMW, like I do not see,

01:29:15   I see tons of BMWs that do not see a lot of them also.

01:29:17   I'm assuming she doesn't sell well, but yeah,

01:29:19   not in the three or the five GT, I think they're all gone

01:29:23   in BMW's model lineup from now on, so yeah.

01:29:26   If you need any further encouragement

01:29:27   to find some electric option for her, there you have it.

01:29:29   She can't even get the same car again,

01:29:30   unless you guys used.

01:29:32   - But I mean, that might as well just buy out her lease.

01:29:34   But yeah, we actually have to make a decision on that,

01:29:36   like this month, it's kind of coming up quickly.

01:29:38   - Oh, really?

01:29:39   - Yeah, the lease is up in December,

01:29:41   so anything that needs to be ordered,

01:29:42   we need to get on that pretty quickly.

01:29:44   - You could survive with this single car,

01:29:45   I think it'll be okay.

01:29:46   - That's one of the options we're looking at, actually.

01:29:49   - All right, and then finally, Marco,

01:29:51   you and I can just sign off and go to sleep now.

01:29:53   Tobogranite would like to know things about Destiny.

01:29:58   I don't even know what this means.

01:29:59   Since Syracuse is not likely to ever do

01:30:00   the Destiny podcast I'd so love,

01:30:02   this is Tobogranite speaking, not me.

01:30:04   Any thoughts on Shadowkeep, whatever that means,

01:30:07   and what it means for the kind of game

01:30:08   that Destiny is likely to become, Jon?

01:30:10   - This is actually very interesting,

01:30:12   and there could be a full podcast

01:30:13   that even people who don't know or care anything

01:30:15   about Destiny would be interested in,

01:30:17   because the way games are financed and sold

01:30:21   continues to change.

01:30:24   We know, all three of us know about the whole mobile games

01:30:27   and free to play and all those exploitive mechanics,

01:30:29   sort of the dark side of that,

01:30:30   and I think we mostly know about the good side

01:30:32   of mobile games that we've all come to love

01:30:34   and how those are sold and marketed

01:30:36   and what the economic model of those look like.

01:30:38   But in another section of the gaming industry,

01:30:42   in the world of sort of AAA, as they're called,

01:30:44   AAA console and PC games,

01:30:47   the way they're sold and funded

01:30:51   and how the ongoing development of those funded,

01:30:54   it has been changing.

01:30:55   There's some weird stuff out there

01:30:56   that's sort of innovated in this area,

01:30:57   like World of Warcraft,

01:30:58   which is like a 15-year-old game at this point

01:31:00   that charges people a subscription fee

01:31:02   that sort of gets you to adopt it as a lifestyle,

01:31:05   and as you know from talking to me all these years,

01:31:08   Destiny is also kind of one of those games,

01:31:10   but it's not a subscription model.

01:31:12   I don't pay a monthly fee to play Destiny.

01:31:14   I just, in theory, buy a game,

01:31:16   and so Destiny came from a world

01:31:17   where you'd buy a game for $60 and then play it,

01:31:20   but they would wanna keep selling you content.

01:31:23   You probably know it as DLC, downloadable content,

01:31:26   from back in the day when you're getting a horse armor

01:31:28   and stuff like that,

01:31:28   but the current model that so many games follow

01:31:31   is sort of either you buy a game upfront or not,

01:31:35   but then continue to pay

01:31:36   for sort of regularly scheduled content drops,

01:31:39   which is such a sort of clinical phrase,

01:31:41   but basically you'll keep playing the same game,

01:31:44   and they have all sorts of mechanics

01:31:46   that give you new things to play in the game

01:31:49   and new things to accomplish,

01:31:50   and you pay for them, but it's not a subscription.

01:31:53   The new model is mostly,

01:31:55   if you want to sit out this quote-unquote season,

01:31:57   they actually call them seasons, don't play the season.

01:32:00   Maybe you're playing some other game.

01:32:01   Maybe you're not into it anymore,

01:32:02   but if you come back to it,

01:32:03   we wanna make it so that you don't feel

01:32:05   like you've been left behind hopelessly.

01:32:07   That was a problem Destiny had in many years

01:32:09   is that if you weren't playing the game like a lifestyle,

01:32:12   like it's your job, right,

01:32:13   all your friends would get ahead of where you are,

01:32:15   and you'd wanna get back into it,

01:32:17   but you'd be so far behind them,

01:32:18   and you couldn't catch up,

01:32:19   and then you couldn't play the new content

01:32:20   because you had to sort of be leveled

01:32:22   and have all these items to play the new content,

01:32:25   and you're like, "Well, that's not fair.

01:32:26   "They should make it so anyone could jump in at any time,"

01:32:27   but if you do that, it disincentivizes people to play,

01:32:30   because you're like, "Well, if my friend

01:32:31   "who hasn't played for six months can just jump right in

01:32:33   "and be exactly where I was,

01:32:34   "I don't feel like I have accomplished anything

01:32:36   "in those six months.

01:32:37   "I haven't earned these cool items

01:32:38   "or got to experience this cool content."

01:32:40   So it's a long way of saying that Shadowkeep

01:32:42   and what Bungie's doing with Destiny, twofold.

01:32:45   One, they got out of what apparently

01:32:47   was not a very constructive relationship

01:32:49   with their previous publisher Activision,

01:32:51   and now they're on their own,

01:32:53   which is good in that they get to sort of

01:32:55   call their own shots without having to talk

01:32:56   to some money people who make them make bad decisions

01:32:58   about their game, but bad in that there's no money person

01:33:02   dropping money on their heads to make the game.

01:33:03   It's all on them.

01:33:04   So they have to figure out a way to thread this needle.

01:33:08   Make a game where you feel like your time investing

01:33:12   is letting you accomplish something,

01:33:14   where you spend the time and you get the good item

01:33:18   and you level up, but also make it so that if you sit out

01:33:22   a season or your friends sit out a season,

01:33:24   that they can come back very quickly,

01:33:27   but you don't also feel cheated

01:33:28   by them sort of cutting in line or whatever,

01:33:30   and it's very difficult balance,

01:33:32   and they're working on that.

01:33:33   And how much do I charge for each of these seasons,

01:33:35   and what do you get in the season,

01:33:36   and can you play for free?

01:33:38   Like Destiny is free to download and play right now,

01:33:40   but if you wanna get the good content,

01:33:43   you have to pay something for it.

01:33:44   And anyway, and avoiding pay-to-win mechanics,

01:33:47   which is a whole big thing.

01:33:48   Nobody likes a game where you can pay money

01:33:50   and get a better item that lets you play the game better.

01:33:53   So you can only charge people for essentially

01:33:55   cosmetic items or things that don't actually

01:33:57   affect the gameplay, and that's a difficult line to tread.

01:34:01   Anyway, the final thing that I think is interesting

01:34:03   in Shadowkeep is that the model Destiny had been following,

01:34:06   which is, pay us money, we'll give you content,

01:34:09   the game will expand, so on and so forth,

01:34:12   can't continue like that forever,

01:34:14   because what they would do is you'd get the game,

01:34:17   then you'd get an expansion,

01:34:18   then you get a second expansion,

01:34:19   then you get a third expansion,

01:34:20   then you get a fourth expansion.

01:34:21   Eventually the game is A, huge,

01:34:23   as in like hundreds of gigabytes on your hard drive,

01:34:26   and B, it becomes too overwhelmingly large.

01:34:30   Like you can't add content forever to the same game,

01:34:33   I suppose unless you're World of Warcraft,

01:34:35   without it becoming overwhelming

01:34:37   to both new players and existing players.

01:34:39   So with Shadowkeep, I think they finally said,

01:34:41   we're going to put content out in a season,

01:34:44   and when the season is over,

01:34:46   some of that content will leave with the season,

01:34:48   whether it be destinations or items

01:34:50   that you can't get again or whatever,

01:34:52   and that I think will keep a more manageable game size.

01:34:55   Now Bungie is just beginning this new phase

01:34:59   of their development, but I mean,

01:35:01   you guys make fun of me for being into and playing Destiny,

01:35:04   but I have to say that kind of like following a sports team,

01:35:08   part of the fun of being into Destiny is like the meta game,

01:35:13   like the people who get into like sports teams

01:35:15   and learn about like the trades and who's the manager

01:35:17   and what position people are in and the salary negotiations

01:35:21   and who they pick in the draft.

01:35:22   To many people, that is as much fun as the sports part,

01:35:25   some to other people, it's even more fun.

01:35:27   And in the world of Destiny,

01:35:29   figuring out what Bungie is doing to design their game

01:35:34   around the desires of their players

01:35:35   and the need to make money

01:35:37   and how they schedule their content drops

01:35:38   and how things come out when and how that works financially

01:35:41   is to me at least as interesting as the game itself.

01:35:44   And I like the game as well.

01:35:45   So I'm enjoying that aspect as always,

01:35:48   I am enjoying that ongoing, I'm not gonna say struggle,

01:35:52   but ongoing communication between Bungie and its players

01:35:56   and the software they put out

01:35:58   to try to make a symbiotic relationship

01:36:01   where they give them, we give them money

01:36:03   and they give us fun in a cycle

01:36:05   that makes everybody feel good.

01:36:07   Historically, that cycle has not been a smooth circle

01:36:10   and has had jagged bumps all over it,

01:36:12   but I do enjoy the process

01:36:14   and I think it's fascinating from like a software perspective

01:36:16   from a technology perspective, from a business perspective

01:36:19   and from a gaming perspective.

01:36:21   Thanks to our sponsors this week, Linode and DoorDash

01:36:25   and we will see you next week.

01:36:27   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:36:32   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:36:35   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:36:37   ♪ Oh it was accidental ♪

01:36:40   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:36:42   ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:36:45   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:36:48   ♪ Oh it was accidental ♪

01:36:51   ♪ And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM ♪

01:36:56   ♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪

01:36:59   ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

01:37:04   ♪ So that's Casey, Liz, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

01:37:10   ♪ Auntie, Marco, R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:37:15   ♪ USA, Syracuse, it's accidental ♪

01:37:19   ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:37:20   ♪ They didn't mean to accidental ♪

01:37:24   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:37:25   ♪ Tech, podcast, so long ♪

01:37:28   - So Marco, in the show, you mentioned

01:37:34   that you have to replace Tif's Subaru Outback,

01:37:37   the BMW 3GT, and you had mentioned

01:37:42   that you were going to consider smaller electric cars.

01:37:47   Tell me more about this.

01:37:49   - I mean, it's a little early.

01:37:50   First of all, why are they stopping making the GT?

01:37:53   The 5GT was a monster, but the 3GT is a really good car.

01:37:58   - It's weird looking and nobody buys it.

01:38:00   I mean, I think that's the answer.

01:38:01   They're not making manuals,

01:38:02   they're not making the 3GT anymore.

01:38:04   - Yeah, I guess, honestly, at this rate,

01:38:06   we're lucky if any automaker is still making sedans.

01:38:11   It seems like even that is an endangered species.

01:38:15   - Ford's not making sedans anymore.

01:38:17   I think GM's not making sedans.

01:38:19   I forget, I think all the American car makers

01:38:21   have said they're not making sedans.

01:38:22   I forget, but yeah, very few sedans.

01:38:24   I bet there'll be a 3GT-like replacement

01:38:30   by the time BMW goes all electric,

01:38:32   which I think is currently scheduled

01:38:33   for 2025 or something like that.

01:38:35   - Yeah, all I want is just make your existing car lineups,

01:38:40   just give electric options.

01:38:44   I would love an electric 2 Series.

01:38:47   - I don't want some weirdo, like the i3 is fine,

01:38:49   it's weird, we might get one, I don't know.

01:38:51   There's currently a pretty compelling

01:38:52   lease special on it, so we'll see.

01:38:53   But I don't know, I don't want some weirdo new model.

01:38:58   I just want, in John's terminology,

01:39:01   we want a car-shaped car, just electric.

01:39:04   - Audi makes those.

01:39:04   - And there are very few of them.

01:39:06   No, they don't, they really don't.

01:39:08   They make SUV-shaped cars.

01:39:09   - The e-tron are exactly like the other Audis,

01:39:12   but with ugly grills on them.

01:39:13   - I guess that's true.

01:39:14   - But it's only the SUV right now, right?

01:39:17   - Well, that's all anyone makes.

01:39:19   It all makes it hands, what are you talking about?

01:39:21   - And all the other ones, of all the compelling options,

01:39:25   you basically have the Chevy Bolt,

01:39:28   which is a fairly compelling option.

01:39:31   We haven't actually tested a different one yet, but--

01:39:33   - I have.

01:39:34   - Really, what'd you think of it?

01:39:35   - Yeah, my parents have one.

01:39:37   - Oh yeah, I forgot, I think I knew that

01:39:38   and I forgot about it.

01:39:39   'Cause it's kind of like a crossover

01:39:42   SUV kind of thing also, right?

01:39:43   Ew, it's weird.

01:39:45   - It's a tall, ugly car, I think that's the category.

01:39:48   - Yeah, I don't think it's--

01:39:50   - It's a tuck, tall, ugly car.

01:39:51   (laughing)

01:39:52   - I don't think it's ugly, but it is not attractive

01:39:55   and it is a tall car.

01:39:56   It is, as much as I like to snark on the GT,

01:40:00   it is kind of outback-ish in the sense that the car is tall,

01:40:04   but it's not very high off the ground like an SUV is.

01:40:07   It's still low, but it's kind of tall.

01:40:09   It's very odd to describe, but I will say driving it,

01:40:12   surprisingly good.

01:40:14   I was really going into this expecting to hate that thing

01:40:18   and it is actually, well for me,

01:40:21   who is not used to a Tesla,

01:40:22   like I've driven Teslas many more times

01:40:25   than one would expect having never owned one,

01:40:27   but I am not used to a Tesla in the same way

01:40:31   that you or some of our other friends may be.

01:40:33   And the Bolt is actually surprisingly, surprisingly good.

01:40:37   I was really, really impressed by it.

01:40:40   - If you went i3, you would not get the range extended

01:40:43   or whatever they call it one.

01:40:44   You would get the straight electric one.

01:40:46   - Yeah, 'cause we don't really need the range extender

01:40:50   and I would not want it just for complexity

01:40:54   and long-term service risk needs.

01:40:57   Having a simpler mechanical thing, especially for BMW,

01:41:01   is probably for the best.

01:41:03   But yeah, most of the options that we were looking at

01:41:07   aren't incredibly competitive.

01:41:11   Our friend has a Kia Soul EV,

01:41:13   which is a surprisingly good value in practice,

01:41:16   but they are currently not in production.

01:41:18   They're like between model arrows

01:41:20   and they're like, they're currently, you can't buy 'em.

01:41:23   But that would be a contender.

01:41:26   The i3 looks good.

01:41:29   For the i3, I like that it has a very small garage footprint.

01:41:32   It's a weirdly tall car,

01:41:34   but it's also very narrow and short.

01:41:36   And so it actually would be kinda nice.

01:41:40   But all these have major problems.

01:41:42   - We got the e-Golf, which is exactly what you asked for.

01:41:44   It's just a carbon electric.

01:41:45   - Yes, but they don't make it.

01:41:47   - Yeah, it's very hard to find and also--

01:41:49   - Well, I think they're out of production now,

01:41:51   if I'm not mistaken.

01:41:52   I could have that wrong,

01:41:52   but I don't think they're making them anymore.

01:41:56   However, that is absolutely,

01:41:58   as much as I am obviously biased about this,

01:42:00   given what you're describing about a car-shaped car,

01:42:03   without question, the e-Golf is the right answer.

01:42:05   - It's not a car-shaped, it's golf-shaped.

01:42:07   - Yeah, oh.

01:42:09   - I walked right into it, I walked right into it.

01:42:10   - But here's the problem with the e-Golf, right?

01:42:13   So it has, among these cars,

01:42:15   there's kinda like two range classes.

01:42:17   There's like the ones that are around 100, 120 mile range,

01:42:22   which are kinda like the old generation

01:42:25   electric entry-level cars.

01:42:26   And there's ones that are like 200 and up, right?

01:42:28   So the Chevy Bolt is like 238 officially in the new one.

01:42:33   The e-Golf is the old range.

01:42:35   It is 125 miles.

01:42:36   It's also zero to 60 in about eight and a half seconds.

01:42:40   So a little sluggish there.

01:42:42   We don't want like a step down from her 340 GT in speed,

01:42:48   at least much of one.

01:42:48   And that seemed like it'd be kind of a step down in both.

01:42:52   The Model 3 is a very interesting option here.

01:42:57   It's just one of the most expensive options.

01:42:59   But it does really kind of destroy the other ones

01:43:02   in lots of different ways.

01:43:03   I can see, not even being an existing Tesla fan,

01:43:06   I can see why the Model 3 is selling so well.

01:43:09   Because when you compare it to other cars

01:43:12   that are other entry-level, or sorry,

01:43:16   mid-range electric cars,

01:43:18   it really does compete very well against them,

01:43:22   at least on paper.

01:43:24   - 'Cause there are no other mid-range sedans.

01:43:26   They're all little SUVs.

01:43:28   - Yes!

01:43:28   - The Model Y is the actual Tesla competitor

01:43:32   to the whole rest of the car industry,

01:43:33   'cause the whole rest of the car industry

01:43:35   makes big and small SUVs.

01:43:36   - Yeah, but it's, yeah.

01:43:38   And also, other things,

01:43:40   most of these don't have things that we want,

01:43:44   like sunroofs or all-wheel drive.

01:43:48   There's just little things that you think,

01:43:50   if you're just looking at drivetrain first,

01:43:53   you might miss some of this stuff or not realize it.

01:43:55   And then you start digging in, like, wait a minute,

01:43:58   only two of these even have a sunroof option.

01:44:00   And not including the Model 3, by the way.

01:44:03   Model 3, although, is the only one

01:44:04   that I can find that has all-wheel drive.

01:44:07   It also has the longest range, it's the fastest.

01:44:09   We can't find a good option yet,

01:44:14   but we do have to do a lot of test driving still,

01:44:16   which we just have been delaying,

01:44:17   'cause we're not that motivated.

01:44:19   But I'm really disappointed

01:44:23   in how relatively few

01:44:26   pure electric car options we still have.

01:44:29   I was assuming years ago,

01:44:32   I was assuming that by now,

01:44:33   especially somebody like BMW, who's still tech-forward

01:44:37   and was pretty early to having an electric option at all,

01:44:42   I would expect now to be able to go

01:44:44   and buy just an electric 3-series,

01:44:47   which you can't do still.

01:44:49   They recently added the plug-in hybrids

01:44:52   to some of their model lines, but it's very, very few.

01:44:55   And a plug-in hybrid is not an electric car.

01:44:58   It's kind of a half-assed solution,

01:44:59   but that's not what we're looking for.

01:45:01   I just, I thought there'd be more options by now.

01:45:04   I love that the Honda E thing, that looks so cool,

01:45:09   not being released in the US.

01:45:11   Like, there's so many, like,

01:45:13   so many of these options are almost really cool

01:45:15   or almost good and just can't get 'em,

01:45:18   or they fall over in some critical way.

01:45:21   I don't know, what am I missing?

01:45:22   - E-Tron's not four-wheel drive, I thought it was.

01:45:24   - It is, I believe.

01:45:25   - It's not a car.

01:45:26   - Yeah, it's not--

01:45:27   - It's a tall wagon, it's not as bad as an SUV.

01:45:30   It's more like--

01:45:31   - It is very good looking in person.

01:45:32   I've seen one once, and it was very good looking,

01:45:34   but I am not nearly as offended by non-sedans

01:45:37   as the two of you are.

01:45:38   - Yeah, you should actually,

01:45:39   you should see if there's, like, lurking within TIFF,

01:45:42   some, like there apparently was in E-Tron,

01:45:45   some sort of latent SUV love,

01:45:48   which apparently this is a thing that lurks in people,

01:45:50   and they don't want to admit it,

01:45:52   but suddenly you put them up in a big high chair in the sky,

01:45:54   and they're like, "Ooh."

01:45:56   So, like, you should try the Jaguar I-PACE,

01:45:58   and you'll be like, "Wow, I'm sitting so high,

01:46:00   "and like, maybe she'll love it."

01:46:01   Like, Erin seems to like her car,

01:46:03   and it's a monster, right?

01:46:04   So, you never know.

01:46:06   - Yeah, you think you know someone.

01:46:08   - Right, exactly, like, you just,

01:46:09   you could be unintentionally shaming TIFF

01:46:12   into not liking giant SUVs

01:46:13   like the whole rest of the world does.

01:46:15   Well, the whole rest of the US, sorry.

01:46:17   - What we should probably do

01:46:18   is probably just go test drive a Chevy Bull.

01:46:20   That's probably gonna be the right answer, but--

01:46:22   - You should test drive the I-PACE and the E-Tron as well.

01:46:25   - I agree.

01:46:26   - Well, but like, one thing we also wanted

01:46:28   was something small.

01:46:29   Like, we want the, 'cause we have, my car is big.

01:46:33   Like, we already have a big car for when we need a big car.

01:46:36   For the second car, we want something small.

01:46:37   - I think those are both smaller than your car, though.

01:46:39   - And why does it matter if it's electric?

01:46:41   Like, the whole point of getting a small car

01:46:43   in the olden days was because it was more fuel efficient.

01:46:45   Why does it matter if it's electric?

01:46:46   - It's more unwieldy, and it takes up room in the garage,

01:46:48   and my ding's mark was good car.

01:46:50   (laughing)

01:46:52   - The correct answer to your question, by the way,

01:46:54   which you're not gonna like,

01:46:55   but it is the correct answer to your question,

01:46:56   except it's not available yet, is the Polestar 2,

01:46:59   which is Volvo's sedan-shaped sedan that is all electric.

01:47:03   I don't know if it's all-wheel drive, actually,

01:47:05   but it has the equivalent of 490 foot-pounds of torque.

01:47:09   It has the equivalent of 300-plus miles of range,

01:47:12   or so they say, zero to 60 in 4.7 seconds.

01:47:15   Like, in so many ways, I think this is exactly

01:47:18   the right solution for you,

01:47:19   if you don't wanna just get another Tesla.

01:47:21   - Does it have a sunroof?

01:47:22   - I don't know.

01:47:23   That's a fine question, actually.

01:47:24   - It's a good feature.

01:47:25   - It looks nice, it does look a little bit big,

01:47:28   but it does look nice, I'll tell you that.

01:47:30   - But I think, like all those cars,

01:47:31   I think the I-Pace and the E-Tron

01:47:33   are both smaller than the Model S.

01:47:35   Like, not by a lot, but smaller.

01:47:38   And I think the Polestar 2,

01:47:39   nah, I don't like the dimensions.

01:47:41   Oh, the Polestar 2 is that one.

01:47:42   - What about the Polestar 1?

01:47:42   Where's this?

01:47:43   This looks pretty nice.

01:47:44   - Yeah, the Polestar 2 is the one that's like,

01:47:46   you can tell it's sitting on top of its battery pack.

01:47:48   I think it looks ungainly.

01:47:49   The Polestar 1 is the nicer-looking one,

01:47:51   but it's not practical, I think.

01:47:52   - It also doesn't seem to exist.

01:47:54   Do any of these cars exist?

01:47:55   I just, why?

01:47:56   We've known about electric cars for quite some time.

01:47:59   Why don't we have any?

01:48:02   - Go test drive a Taycan, or, sorry, Taycan.

01:48:05   The pronunciation is coming down on that.

01:48:07   - Is that how you're supposed to pronounce that?

01:48:08   - Yeah, they want you to say Taycan, I think.

01:48:11   It's definitely Ty, the second syllable

01:48:13   I'm pretty sure is con.

01:48:14   - It's way too expensive and bloated

01:48:17   and not what I'm looking for.

01:48:18   - First deliveries of the Polestar 2, July 2020.

01:48:22   - What about the 1?

01:48:23   Is that a thing?

01:48:24   - That's not a thing.

01:48:25   - No, it's hybrid anyway, you don't want that.

01:48:27   - Oh, it's hybrid, what the?

01:48:29   - Polestar 1 was like, is it before the Polestar 2?

01:48:32   Polestar 1 is like their sort of

01:48:34   flagship, fancy, impractical car,

01:48:38   and it was made in the hybrid era, not in the electric era.

01:48:42   But it looks good.

01:48:43   - Does look good, definitely looks good.

01:48:45   - I want the Honda thing.

01:48:47   Where's the Honda thing?

01:48:48   Bring that to the US.

01:48:49   - What you want does not exist.

01:48:51   And I can think of--

01:48:51   - I think that there will be a small Honda EV,

01:48:54   but Honda is not tech forward.

01:48:57   So don't hold your breath for,

01:48:58   I mean, talk about, like, it's kind of amazing

01:49:01   that Honda has done that at all.

01:49:03   You know, Honda was barely putting turbochargers

01:49:06   in its cars, so, you know.

01:49:09   But it will come eventually, but for this round,

01:49:11   I think you're gonna have to get something else.

01:49:14   You know, a test drive doesn't mean buying.

01:49:16   You should test drive them all anyway.

01:49:18   Again, you might release those latent SUV love jeans.

01:49:22   You should ask Erin about her experience

01:49:25   of living with an SUV shamer for all those years

01:49:27   and finally breaking through

01:49:28   and getting to be her bad SUV self.

01:49:31   - I never really shamed her that much for SUVs.

01:49:33   I really didn't.

01:49:34   - Well, I'm trying to get more garage space, not less.

01:49:36   - I understand the struggle for garage space.

01:49:38   I more than anyone understand what's really at stake here

01:49:41   is Marco wants to park in the dead center

01:49:42   of his gigantic garage, so there's nothing around his cars,

01:49:44   and he can swing them open with impunity

01:49:46   and not even hit his rack-mounted networking gear

01:49:49   with his door.

01:49:50   - Which is ridiculous, 'cause you could just summon

01:49:52   your stupid Tesla and then it'll unleash itself.

01:49:55   You don't even have to worry about it.

01:49:56   - Probably ultimate luxury of being able

01:49:57   to swing your doors open in your garage

01:49:59   to park dead center in a two-car garage.

01:50:01   That's what he's looking for.

01:50:03   - Whenever either me or Tiff go away for a weekend

01:50:06   and leave the other person here.

01:50:08   - You park in the middle.

01:50:09   - Yeah, we always park like a jerk

01:50:11   and take a picture and send it to the other person.

01:50:13   Like a car parked diagonally inside the garage.

01:50:16   - Just like that Seinfeld episode, wide luxurious lanes.

01:50:19   - Exactly.

01:50:20   - You have to do it.

01:50:21   That's the rules of being married with a two-car garage.

01:50:23   That is what has to happen.

01:50:25   (laughing)

01:50:27   [BLANK_AUDIO]