0:00:00I'll go with the zipper one just because I feel like I have a mnemonic for remembering.
0:00:04Yes! Three major zippers, four apple heydays. That's my mnemonic.
0:00:07That's how you're gonna make this work? Jesus.
0:00:10Whatever you need, Josh. That could be the title. Three major zippers,
0:00:14four apple heydays. Too long.
0:00:17So, I don't know where to begin here because in our show notes it reads, "Follow up. Casey was
0:00:26was right about something. I don't know if I should be really excited and really
0:00:31smug about this or really fearful about this. So I have steeled myself, I am bracing myself.
0:00:39Marco, what was I right about?
0:00:41- As you know, we are going to the beach with increasing frequency.
0:00:47- Okay, uh-huh.
0:00:49- Sometimes we go there for long spans, and electric cars are not ideal to leave at the
0:00:54the ferry because of gradual self-discharge basically.
0:00:58- Margo bought a Jeep Wrangler.
0:01:01- Oh my God, that would be amazing.
0:01:02- Now there's no charging available there,
0:01:05so it's, you know, electric is not great.
0:01:07We kinda decided we need to maintain a gas car.
0:01:10Also, normally the only way to get all the way
0:01:13to the beach town that we go to is via ferry.
0:01:17And the ferry's fine, but you know, it's slow,
0:01:19you know, it's not impervious to weather,
0:01:21it runs very infrequently in the off-season.
0:01:24- Marco bought a boat?
0:01:25(laughing)
0:01:27- Now you can save a lot of time
0:01:28and you could be able to go there a lot more easily
0:01:30in the off season by driving all the way there,
0:01:34which requires you to drive across the island itself,
0:01:37which requires a permit for driving on the sand.
0:01:40- Oh my God.
0:01:41- Now there are very, very few of these permits.
0:01:43They're tightly controlled by the National Park Service,
0:01:45they're very hard to get.
0:01:47Now there was an opportunity to get one,
0:01:49but we had to act quickly if we wanted it.
0:01:52Now the only downside is that it requires
0:01:56a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
0:01:57- Oh my God.
0:01:58- All-wheel-drive is not good enough.
0:01:59It needs true four-wheel-drive,
0:02:01and it needs at least 10 inches of ground clearance.
0:02:03- Oh my God.
0:02:04- But it also has to be reasonably compact
0:02:06to actually fit in the beach town once you get there.
0:02:10Now this didn't have to be a very nice, high-end vehicle,
0:02:14just something usable.
0:02:16And of course, if it's gonna be a gas car,
0:02:19I wanted it to be a transmission I could tolerate.
0:02:22So I wanted it to be a manual transmission if possible,
0:02:26'cause I don't think, I couldn't find anything
0:02:28with a, you know, DSG or whatever.
0:02:31- You guys, I'm so happy right now.
0:02:32Carry on.
0:02:33- Now as you know, there are not a lot of options
0:02:36that fit this description.
0:02:37And because we wanted it used and we wanted it quickly,
0:02:42we also didn't have a lot of choices
0:02:44on things like what color it was.
0:02:48- Oh my God!
0:02:48- Oh my God, oh my God, tell me you,
0:02:52tell me a white Wrangler happened to you.
0:02:55- Now certain colors, despite not being my favorites,
0:02:59are more popular than others.
0:03:01- Oh my God, I'm gonna be so sad
0:03:02if that's not where this ends up.
0:03:03- And sometimes these lighter colors
0:03:07happen to be what you find on used listings.
0:03:11- Oh my God.
0:03:12- So, I have some news.
0:03:14- Tell me about your new car.
0:03:17- Never gonna let me hear the end of.
0:03:19- Tell me about your new car, Marco.
0:03:21♫ Never gonna give you up
0:03:23♫ Never gonna let you down
0:03:25- God dammit.
0:03:27You're the worst.
0:03:28All of this to Rick Roll Me, are you serious?
0:03:30- Is it too late for an April Fool's joke?
0:03:32- Yes.
0:03:33(laughing)
0:03:34- It's like a Friday the 13th joke, I guess.
0:03:35- Oh, God, I was so happy.
0:03:37- There was one thing,
0:03:39there was one thing that I was not lying about.
0:03:41You were right about something.
0:03:43- Oh, here we go, all right.
0:03:44- It was Tom Bihn.
0:03:45- Oh.
0:03:46- Tom Bihn backpack and it's really nice.
0:03:48- Who knew?
0:03:49(laughing)
0:03:51- Damn it, Marco.
0:03:52- Yeah, you were right.
0:03:53You were right about something big.
0:03:53Tom Bihn is actually really good.
0:03:56- At some point I was trying to square the idea
0:03:58of you getting a Wrangler.
0:03:58Like, there's no way in hell I got a Wrangler.
0:04:01Even if all that other stuff was true,
0:04:03like, oh, I got a chance to get one of those things
0:04:05and we're gonna drive across the thing
0:04:06instead of taking the ferry and so on and so forth,
0:04:08there's just no way.
0:04:09- No, the truth is almost everything I said
0:04:12would have been a sound thinking process,
0:04:13but there is no way we're ever gonna get
0:04:15one of those sand permits.
0:04:15and we would never have any reason to drive there.
0:04:17- Yeah, and you would have gotten a Land Rover.
0:04:19That's what you would have ended up with.
0:04:20- That's probably--
0:04:21- There'd be nowhere to park it.
0:04:22No, honestly, if I ever would get a sand permit,
0:04:24a Wrangler would probably be what I get.
0:04:27Because you do want some things to be small, inexpensive.
0:04:30- Yeah, but you would have to drive it from home,
0:04:33and you do that once, you'd be like,
0:04:34there's no way I'm getting into that
0:04:36rickety shopping cart again,
0:04:38driving across the belt park wherever you're going.
0:04:41- I was waiting for you to say in your terrible joke
0:04:43that somehow the permit was associated with the car.
0:04:47Like, you had a friend at the beach
0:04:49that was unloading a Wrangler,
0:04:51and the permit is associated with the car.
0:04:53Yeah, yeah, which I understand would have been
0:04:55like a nutso scenario, but that was the only way
0:04:58I could fathom that you would actually end up
0:05:00with a Wrangler.
0:05:01It turns out you're just a big jerk.
0:05:03- Sorry, I knew we were low on topics this week,
0:05:05so I figured I'd start with that.
0:05:07- So starting by trolling me is your new amusement,
0:05:10and I see how it is.
0:05:10- I mean, it's better than just like whining about
0:05:12like, you know, the Mac Pro or Destiny or something, right?
0:05:15- Debatable.
0:05:15- Who would whine about Destiny?
0:05:16Who would do that?
0:05:18Besides, you already kicked that question
0:05:19out of this episode.
0:05:20- Yeah, true. - Thank goodness.
0:05:21You're welcome, everybody.
0:05:22- Next week, watch out.
0:05:23- Oh, God.
0:05:24Okay, so HomePod sales, not looking too good.
0:05:28According to Bloomberg--
0:05:29- You're right, this is better.
0:05:31(laughs)
0:05:31- During the HomePod's first 10 weeks of sales,
0:05:33it eked out 10% of the smart speaker market,
0:05:36compared with 73% for Amazon's Echo devices
0:05:3914% for the Google Home, according to Slice Intelligence.
0:05:42Three weeks after launch, weekly HomePod sales slipped to about 4% of the smart speaker category.
0:05:50On average, the market research firm says.
0:05:53I'd also seen, maybe it was in this article, that Apple retail employees are saying that
0:05:57they'll sell like a couple each day, which I guess maybe shouldn't seem that dramatic
0:06:04to me, but it seemed pretty dramatic to me.
0:06:06So who knew when you have a speaker
0:06:10that is completely reliant on good software
0:06:14and that good software is Siri,
0:06:17well guess what, the software ain't so good
0:06:18and thus the speaker is kind of useless, who knew?
0:06:21- Well it's also about price and features too.
0:06:24- That's true.
0:06:25- There's a lot they can do in the short term
0:06:28that a lot of people are not buying the HomePod
0:06:30because of its price versus its competitors.
0:06:33A lot of people are not buying the HomePod
0:06:35because it lacks features people want,
0:06:38like the stereo pairing or the multi-room audio
0:06:40or whatever else.
0:06:41So I can see over the next year,
0:06:44as Apple presumably improves the features of it
0:06:48via software and maybe drops the price
0:06:50during the holiday season or something like that,
0:06:52I can see it getting a small boost.
0:06:54But ultimately, I do think that the biggest problem it has
0:06:59is still Siri and that's,
0:07:01if Siri ever gets really meaningfully better,
0:07:05It's going to be a long-term thing.
0:07:07It's not going to happen quickly.
0:07:09So I don't know if I buy the premise of this article.
0:07:11Because, well, first of all, Apple's
0:07:13not telling people what its HomePod sales are.
0:07:14So it's all these market research firms
0:07:16trying to come up with things and interviewing Apple Store
0:07:18employees.
0:07:19So it's not concrete numbers.
0:07:21And second of all, because Apple's not
0:07:23giving you numbers, you don't know what Apple expected.
0:07:26It's just kind of saying, from the outside,
0:07:27as far as we can tell, it doesn't
0:07:29look like they're selling a lot of them.
0:07:30And presumably, Apple wanted to sell a lot of them.
0:07:32it's selling less than they want it to. We talked about the product and how it
0:07:37stacks up, right? But given how it stacks up, and I know it's the launch and so it
0:07:42should be bigger numbers, but 10% compared to Google Home's 14%? That's not
0:07:47bad considering how much worse HomePod is than Google Home's product at this point, right? I don't, and I think about the slow start that lots of Apple
0:07:54products have had, you know, from the iPod all the way to obviously the Apple TV's
0:07:58other obvious example. Is Apple super disappointed in this? I mean we hope
0:08:05they're a little disappointed that they couldn't get all their planned features
0:08:08out the door, but in the grand scheme of things if they are really dedicated to
0:08:12this market this is you know I think that this is kind of what they would
0:08:17have expected. Like I don't I don't think you could have put out the HomePod
0:08:20missing some of your announced features knowing that your competitors are on
0:08:23multiple generations ahead of you and not expect to, you know, start off in third place.
0:08:30So I, you know, I'm not too upset about this.
0:08:34Now maybe Apple's upset about it, maybe they had grand visions of, you know, suddenly becoming
0:08:38the market leader.
0:08:40And I think despite how vague market research can be, I think we'd be able to tell if suddenly
0:08:47the HomePod was the dominant smart home cylinder thing that you talk to.
0:08:51And it's not, and I hope Apple expected that,
0:08:55because I certainly did.
0:08:57- Yeah, no argument here.
0:08:59All right, so Cloudflare is on ARM servers.
0:09:04So Cloudflare, that's sort of like Linode
0:09:07or something along those lines, is that right?
0:09:09- No, it's like a really big CDN,
0:09:11and they provide advanced services
0:09:14that are related to being a CDN,
0:09:15so like DDoS protection and stuff like that.
0:09:18- That's right, I feel so--
0:09:19- We talked about them from the DNS thing
0:09:20other episode, right?
0:09:21Mm-hmm.
0:09:22Yes, yes, yes.
0:09:23Sorry, I got my wires crossed.
0:09:24So apparently they're using ARM.
0:09:26I didn't get a chance to read this article before we recorded tonight, so I apologize.
0:09:30I am slacking on my chief summarizer and chief duties.
0:09:33Can one of you give me kind of a quick summary, if you don't mind?
0:09:35I put in the handy quotes.
0:09:38Cloudflare has servers, right?
0:09:40That's how they do all of this CDN and DDoS.
0:09:44They have things out there on the network that serve content and that route traffic
0:09:48and do all sorts of other things, a lot of them, right?
0:09:51And so this is from the Matthew Prince, the Cloudflare COO.
0:09:55He said, "I'd give better than even odds
0:09:57that by Q4 this year, we will no longer spend any money
0:10:00on Intel."
0:10:01He's talking about is they want to buy ARM for all
0:10:04of their servers from now on.
0:10:06And he's talking about the performance for Watt
0:10:07and everything.
0:10:08And he says, "We think we're now at the point
0:10:11where we can go 100% ARM.
0:10:12In our analysis, we found that even if Intel gave us
0:10:14the chips for free, it would still make sense
0:10:16to switch to ARM because the power efficiency is so much better.
0:10:20Now obviously Cloudflare is perhaps a special case because exactly what they're doing with
0:10:24their servers is very narrow and it's the type of like they're not running applications
0:10:30that you know they're not running a bunch of software that they need x86 compatibility
0:10:34for.
0:10:35And to them what's the most important as they say in this other quote is how many cores
0:10:40per watt can we possibly get because in a CDN or DDoS type of environment or whatever
0:10:44You want lots and lots of hardware out there, and you want them to be as small and as efficient
0:10:52as possible because part of their money—I mean, the reason they say, you know, if Intel
0:10:55gave us chips for free, it would still make sense to switch.
0:10:58Electricity costs money.
0:10:59It costs a surprising amount of money when you've got tons and tons and tons of servers,
0:11:03and space and data centers cost a lot of money, and so on and so forth.
0:11:07So perhaps they are the ideal case, but this is an example, a very timely example given
0:11:12we just talked about Apple potentially switching to ARM, of ARM on the server still trying
0:11:18to get a foothold. It's been a thing for many years now, the push for ARM on the server,
0:11:23mostly from people selling ARM chips. But maybe it's finally getting a little bit of
0:11:28traction. We'll see. But if it's going to start somewhere, starting someplace like this
0:11:32seems like a safe bet.
0:11:33Yeah. I had no idea that this was a thing. So that's pretty cool. Oh, real-time follow-up.
0:11:40Which backpack did you end up getting, Marco?
0:11:43I was so grumpy about your troll
0:11:45that I didn't actually ask you which backpack it was.
0:11:47- Oh, I feel bad.
0:11:48- It's called the Wrangler.
0:11:50- Yes, it's white and it's, yeah.
0:11:51(laughing)
0:11:53- Whatever.
0:11:54- Anyway, I got the Synapse 25.
0:11:57- That's what I figured.
0:11:58- I can talk about it a little bit if you want.
0:11:59- Sure.
0:12:00- The only thing is I haven't traveled with it yet.
0:12:02'Cause it just arrived yesterday,
0:12:03I've been playing with it, packing it,
0:12:04configuring it, stuff like that.
0:12:06But I haven't actually traveled with it.
0:12:08So far, what I like about,
0:12:10so in my great backpack odyssey of spring 2018,
0:12:15I have tried a few different ones.
0:12:18The one that I've been using for the last couple of months
0:12:21is the Peak Design Everyday 20 liter.
0:12:24And the Peak Design is a really, really nice backpack
0:12:28in a number of ways.
0:12:29It is far better looking.
0:12:31It is like a much more like fashionable backpack.
0:12:34If you want to like look cool every day
0:12:36with the way you're going,
0:12:37you want to travel in style,
0:12:39the Peak Design is by far the better choice.
0:12:42It also has a few nice advantages,
0:12:44like the Peak Design can stand up on its own.
0:12:47The Tom Bin, I guess maybe you could load it
0:12:50in a way that it would do that, but I haven't yet.
0:12:52So it's just, you set it down and it flops over.
0:12:55But the Peak Design can stand up, it's really nice,
0:12:56it has really good handles, it has handles on the sides.
0:12:59So you can carry it sideways if you need to do that
0:13:02for some reason, I found that kind of useful.
0:13:05So the Peak Design is good in a number of ways.
0:13:07What I didn't like about the Peak design
0:13:09and what made me ultimately start looking around again
0:13:13is the, first of all, there really is not very much space.
0:13:17And all the reviews said the 30 liter version
0:13:19was really bulky and big looking.
0:13:22And so good reviews, like our friend Chase Reeves
0:13:25does really great bag reviews on YouTube.
0:13:27And he said, and I saw a number of other things
0:13:31and some photos that said basically nobody
0:13:33should get the Peak 30 liter
0:13:34'cause it's just too big visually,
0:13:37and just looks weird on people.
0:13:39So that's kinda what scared me away from it,
0:13:41but the 20 liter really does not hold very much.
0:13:45It's very hard to put things in it,
0:13:47and one of the big problems with the Peak 20 liter,
0:13:49well, with the Peak in general,
0:13:51all of the compartments in it
0:13:54intrude into the space of the main compartment.
0:13:58So even like the laptop thing on the back,
0:14:00like when you put a laptop in it,
0:14:02it pushes into the main compartment,
0:14:05which has a number of problems.
0:14:06Number one, you lose space in the main compartment,
0:14:07but number two, if the main compartment is full,
0:14:10it's really hard to put a laptop in,
0:14:12or it's really hard to have those side pockets close,
0:14:15things like that.
0:14:15So you're constantly intruding into that center space,
0:14:18which is already not really big enough.
0:14:20And then the side pocket, basically the Peak Design
0:14:24has very little exterior organization.
0:14:27It has all the organization interior.
0:14:29So there's three major zippers to it,
0:14:31and everything else is inside sub-pockets of those
0:14:35or something like that.
0:14:36So it's all these sub-areas.
0:14:38So to get to the side pockets,
0:14:40you have to actually open two different zippers.
0:14:42Like first to open the main flap
0:14:43and then second to actually get into the side pocket.
0:14:46The side pockets I did not find very useful
0:14:48because they're very skinny.
0:14:50All the little pen slots and wire slots and stuff
0:14:53are super tall and skinny or super tiny
0:14:57and it's very hard to actually use that space.
0:14:59And then when you close it up,
0:15:02like you can't close those very well if the center is full.
0:15:06And if you open it and the center is full,
0:15:07your center stuff can fall out
0:15:08when you're just trying to get to stuff in the side pocket.
0:15:10So the Peak has a lot of great things going for it.
0:15:13Ultimately, it is not very good when it's filled up a lot.
0:15:16And like if you're carrying around a small amount of stuff,
0:15:18it's great for, you know, they call it the everyday,
0:15:21and I think that's a really good summary of it.
0:15:23It's really good for like taking to work or something.
0:15:26I would not say it's amazing for travel
0:15:29because it just doesn't hold enough
0:15:31and a lot of the organization inside is really clumsy.
0:15:35It's also just heavy.
0:15:37I weighed them with a little luggage weighing thing.
0:15:40The peak empty is four pounds.
0:15:43- Wow.
0:15:44- And by comparison, the Tom Bihn Synapse 25 is 2.2 pounds
0:15:48including the 15 inch MacBook Pro cash pocket inside.
0:15:52So 2.2 versus four.
0:15:55that's almost an entire MacBook One difference.
0:15:59So that's, the Peak, it's made of this very thick,
0:16:03heavy-duty material, it's really made to be
0:16:04like a camera and gear bag.
0:16:07- Which one, the Peak?
0:16:08- The Peak, yeah.
0:16:08- Okay.
0:16:09- So all surfaces are padded.
0:16:11You know how certain bags, they have padding
0:16:13around the laptop compartment, but then if you
0:16:16put the laptop in a different compartment
0:16:18and there's no padding, you usually slide it in
0:16:19and it could hit the ground really hard,
0:16:21so you don't want that.
0:16:22So the Peak, the whole bag is padded,
0:16:24and I think that's one of the reasons
0:16:24it's so much heavier, but the Tom Bihn,
0:16:27the bag is just like thin fabric,
0:16:29it's strong but it's thin,
0:16:31and if you want something padded,
0:16:33you have to buy some kind of insert
0:16:35like the 50 nukes laptop cache that I got with it.
0:16:37Anyway, instead of, in the peak,
0:16:39all the organization is internal,
0:16:42with the Tom Bihn, all of the organization is external.
0:16:46You have many different pockets accessible from the outside.
0:16:49You don't have to unzip one thing
0:16:52and then go into another pocket on the inside.
0:16:55Now you can, if you want to, have all these sub-bags
0:16:58that you put into their pockets,
0:17:00and they have this whole system for how you can attach them,
0:17:02these O-rings and everything.
0:17:03I'm not sure I'm gonna get into that, I don't know yet.
0:17:06But what I like about the Tom Bihn is that
0:17:10it seems you can more easily access stuff.
0:17:14There's fewer steps, there's fewer pockets and sub-pockets.
0:17:19it's more easily accessed to all your stuff.
0:17:23And it's also just way lighter and it holds way more.
0:17:28I cannot believe how much more it holds.
0:17:31I can't say much more than that
0:17:33until I actually travel with the Tom Bihn.
0:17:34I did travel with the Peak a couple times
0:17:36so I kinda knew what wasn't so good about it.
0:17:39But the Tom Bihn so far, I think I'm going to like it.
0:17:42It does seem like, it would I think be overkill
0:17:45for an everyday carry to work bag,
0:17:49But for travel, especially if you wanna do traveling light
0:17:54and maybe just taking the backpack as your only bag
0:17:56or as one of only two small bags,
0:18:00then it's pretty, I think it's gonna be a lot more useful.
0:18:02So ask me again after a few more trips this summer
0:18:05and then I'll give a final verdict on it.
0:18:07But so far, it does seem really nice.
0:18:09It's also a lot cheaper, if that matters.
0:18:11It's like $100 cheaper.
0:18:12But it just seems really nice so far.
0:18:15- Feels like you're creeping up
0:18:16on my big ugly yellow bean backpack
0:18:18because the previous one, the Peak Design one,
0:18:20is very sleek and very stylish, trying to be understated.
0:18:23- Oh yeah, the Peak is like a work of art.
0:18:26It really is very stylish, very nice.
0:18:28And parts of it, even the zipper pulls are,
0:18:32the entire zipper pull is fabric,
0:18:34and it's kind of like this rubberized, tough fabric.
0:18:38Just using the Peak feels really nice.
0:18:40It's a very nicely constructed bag.
0:18:44Everything has a great look and feel and style,
0:18:47but it just really, parts of it are very clumsy.
0:18:50Oh, also one big thing to mention with the Peak.
0:18:52The 15 inch Retina Map Approve in 2015
0:18:55barely fits in the laptop compartment.
0:18:58And I absolutely cannot recommend this bag
0:19:01if you carry anything else
0:19:04that would go in a laptop compartment besides a laptop.
0:19:06So for instance, an iPad.
0:19:08It technically has two different segments
0:19:10of the laptop compartment, but it's so tight
0:19:13that even getting an iPad in and out is really hard,
0:19:17especially if you have one of these silicone covers on it.
0:19:20It's really, really hard.
0:19:23So I cannot recommend the Peak
0:19:25if you carry a laptop and an iPad.
0:19:27But otherwise, I really do like it.
0:19:30I like a lot about it,
0:19:32but I think for my actual needs,
0:19:35where it's mostly a travel bag,
0:19:37and I do need to hold a lot when I do travel,
0:19:39I think the TomBin's gonna work out better.
0:19:41- So if you're able to tolerate this backpack,
0:19:44you are very close to tolerating the LOB1,
0:19:46'cause this has a lot of pockets,
0:19:48a lot of zippers, a lot of straps.
0:19:50It is not particularly sleek.
0:19:51So, and the LOB1, just to be clear,
0:19:54holds way more than this
0:19:55and has like 10 times as many pockets.
0:19:56And it's 80 bucks.
0:19:58- Yeah, the other thing is,
0:19:59I don't want it to be too massive
0:20:02because I also usually want this to fit
0:20:05under the seat in an airplane.
0:20:07- Yeah, mine fits under the seat.
0:20:08- Okay, well, yeah.
0:20:09So the peak, the 20 liter peak does fit very well.
0:20:14I don't think the 30 would, or at least it would be,
0:20:17maybe not on the planes, it'd have the big computer box
0:20:20under the seat, you know.
0:20:22- Oh yeah, the box under the seat, that's terrible.
0:20:24- Yeah. - You can always get
0:20:25a different seat.
0:20:26(laughing)
0:20:28- I use a Tom Bihn Cadet, which is similar,
0:20:32except it's a messenger bag, which is terrible
0:20:35if you're going to, it's terrible if you're going
0:20:38carrying it for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, then I would use something
0:20:41like a Synapse. But I only have it on my body for, you know, a half an hour at a time at
0:20:47most, generally speaking, and I tend to prefer messenger bags for those sorts of uses, and
0:20:53I love my Cadet. I've had it for like three years now. It looks brand new. It fits my—I
0:20:59mean, my everyday carry for work is my 15-inch MacBook Pro that I use begrudgingly and use
0:21:05sought out. It has my MacBook One in it, both in their own individual caches. I used to carry my
0:21:13iPad with me when I still used iPads and then, you know, other miscellaneous cables and goodies
0:21:18and things of that nature. So I love my cadet. I cannot say enough good things about it. I'll link
0:21:22my review in the show notes. Tom Bihn's stuff is great. The people there are super nice. I adore
0:21:29their stuff. And even if, you know, if you prefer a backpack, get the Synapse. If you prefer a
0:21:33get your messenger bag, get the cadet or something else.
0:21:35You can't go wrong with Tom Bennett's great stuff.
0:21:38- And definitely I would strongly recommend anybody
0:21:39who's looking at these kind of things,
0:21:41check out Chase Reeves' video reviews on YouTube.
0:21:43He is incredibly well versed.
0:21:46He travels a lot, first of all, and he has tons of bags.
0:21:50I don't know, I mean, at this point,
0:21:52like if I was a bag manufacturer,
0:21:53I would be sending him the bags to review.
0:21:54I don't know if that's the situation,
0:21:55but he has tons of great bag reviews,
0:21:58mostly of backpacks, and he really takes the whole
0:22:02out of everything and I think has a really good point of view on them. So definitely
0:22:06check out Chase Reeves on YouTube.
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0:24:23our show.
0:24:27You have a Facebook group's problem, apparently. Can you tell me about this?
0:24:32Yeah, I tweeted about this a couple weeks ago. The gist is, you know, I've never been
0:24:37a fan of Facebook. We discussed a couple weeks ago how I really don't like Facebook, but
0:24:43but I really do like Instagram,
0:24:45and it's owned by Facebook, and so it's kind of awkward.
0:24:48Anyway, I would love to delete my Facebook account entirely.
0:24:52I've never actively used it.
0:24:55It's only a source of spam and stuff I don't care about
0:25:00and drama for me, so I just wanna escape Facebook.
0:25:05The only thing keeping me there
0:25:07is these two private groups,
0:25:09one for the local parents of our school,
0:25:12And then the second one is the beach town
0:25:15has a local community group.
0:25:18And they're both private, you gotta apply to get in,
0:25:20so no kind of public scraping of them,
0:25:23whatever actually work, at least in a simplistic way.
0:25:27Maybe I could scrape something together
0:25:28with using my login cookie or whatever, who knows.
0:25:30But I wanna just delete my account
0:25:31and just be done with Facebook entirely.
0:25:34And so my question was, first of all,
0:25:37do I need to retain membership in these groups?
0:25:41And then second of all, could I attempt,
0:25:45you know, the local parents one is very unimportant to me.
0:25:49The beach one is actually pretty important
0:25:51because it's a small community there
0:25:54and it's a lot of old people
0:25:56who live there year round at least
0:25:58and so I like to keep up with what's going on in the town
0:26:00and they can check on everyone's houses
0:26:02to make sure it's not flooded and everything else
0:26:04and it's just a nice little community.
0:26:06So I was wondering, could I plausibly start
0:26:10another community to replace it and maybe get some
0:26:13or many of those people to move to it.
0:26:15And what I came to, so I asked Twitter this,
0:26:20like you know, basically I asked like,
0:26:21have you ever, has anybody tried to move a community
0:26:24like this off of Facebook or to start another one
0:26:26somewhere else?
0:26:27If so, like how did it go and where do you,
0:26:29where are you supposed to do that?
0:26:31- That was the plot of The Secret of NIMH, wasn't it?
0:26:33- I think so, yeah.
0:26:34(laughing)
0:26:36- Didn't go well, spoiler alert.
0:26:38- Yeah, anyways, so I, you know, my first thought
0:26:43was maybe a Slack group, but I don't know how older people
0:26:47appreciate or don't appreciate or understand Slack.
0:26:50And I don't know how regular average people,
0:26:53like who aren't like nerds, I don't know how popular
0:26:56Slack is or how amenable people would be to it.
0:26:59I didn't wanna just go to some other like, you know,
0:27:03crappy social network.
0:27:05Like a bunch of people recommended things like Nextdoor,
0:27:08which I, what I hear from Merlin about Nextdoor
0:27:12makes me not want to attempt that.
0:27:14- Well, that's my first question for you on this topic is,
0:27:18how much, speaking of Nextdoor,
0:27:20how much like Nextdoor is the Facebook group?
0:27:22Is the Facebook group, as it exists now,
0:27:24just like, forget about moving it,
0:27:25but just like as it exists now,
0:27:26if you had to characterize it, what is it most like?
0:27:28Because yeah, there's the mechanism,
0:27:30yeah, people type words into boxes in Facebook,
0:27:32but what does it seem like?
0:27:33What do people talk about?
0:27:34Does it seem like a next door community?
0:27:36Does it seem like a Slack channel?
0:27:37Does it seem like a web bulletin board?
0:27:39What's the best analogy?
0:27:41- It's pretty low traffic, first of all.
0:27:44There's only one or two posts a day.
0:27:46And it's usually people posting photos
0:27:50of what's going on in town,
0:27:52which I think is interesting, 'cause over the winter,
0:27:54a lot of construction happens, and I like to watch,
0:27:56like, oh, look, there's a new store, we're getting built,
0:27:57or oh, they tore down that thing, stuff like that.
0:28:00So that's kind of fun.
0:28:01and it's also like local political summaries of like,
0:28:05oh, there was a board meeting of the village or whatever,
0:28:09and here's the notes from the meeting,
0:28:11or here's this issue people are talking about,
0:28:12requesting public comment, stuff like that.
0:28:15It's not, you know, if I'm honest, it isn't that important,
0:28:19but I kinda like it, and I also feel like it'll be useful
0:28:23to be a part of some kind of community like this
0:28:25as we spend more time there, because, you know,
0:28:27one thing you can do in the summertime, it's like,
0:28:29oh, I have to get rid of this old fridge.
0:28:31want it, come pick it up for free, stuff like that.
0:28:33Or like, anybody have any recommendations for where
0:28:35to get prescriptions when we're out here?
0:28:37Stuff like that, I feel like being a part of a community
0:28:40like that is useful in ways like that, especially when it's
0:28:43a fairly small and hard to access community, I guess.
0:28:47It helps to have connections to people like this.
0:28:50So I went through basically all people's replies,
0:28:54looking at all the services people were recommending,
0:28:57and I just, it just was, it was totally unproductive.
0:29:02There was basically no consensus
0:29:04except either using Nextdoor,
0:29:07but nobody even had done it.
0:29:09Like everyone was saying like, "Oh, just use that."
0:29:10But the people who had said they'd actually tried to do it,
0:29:14almost all of them said it just didn't work,
0:29:17like that nobody moved over,
0:29:18or they couldn't get it to work,
0:29:20or everyone moved back, or the people complained,
0:29:22they couldn't understand it, whatever else.
0:29:24Even, you know, and that was for everything people tried,
0:29:26for things like Slack, for things like,
0:29:27I think Discord can be used in this way,
0:29:29but I don't understand Discord yet, so I don't even know.
0:29:32Or like, you know, somebody starts
0:29:34setting up a forum somewhere.
0:29:37I don't know, so there were a bunch of options.
0:29:39None of them were very good.
0:29:42And so here I am basically back at square one,
0:29:45which was the situation that most of the responders were in
0:29:47who had tried it.
0:29:49Basically like, yeah, you know what,
0:29:51I tried and nobody wanted to move.
0:29:53And so my current theory is I wanna find out
0:29:57how much I actually need to be a part of these communities.
0:30:02I think the right answer's ultimately gonna be
0:30:05I just don't need these.
0:30:06You know, 'cause one thing is I found,
0:30:09the other day I found basically the Instagram community
0:30:13for this place, and I thought,
0:30:15"Well, that's actually much more pleasant.
0:30:16"There's way more photos."
0:30:18And I can see kinda what's going on,
0:30:20and there's nobody complaining to the mayor
0:30:22about stupid stuff that doesn't matter.
0:30:24So I kinda felt like maybe Instagram was enough.
0:30:28It's certainly nicer, and I'm there anyway,
0:30:31so I might as well enjoy this part of Instagram
0:30:33instead of just dogs and watches.
0:30:35So I guess maybe I could just have Instagram satisfy
0:30:40like the photo fix and just stop the community interaction,
0:30:45or I could, this summer, stick a bunch of papers
0:30:49on the telephone poles and try to start my own Slack group.
0:30:52and I don't know how that would be received
0:30:54if anybody would actually join it,
0:30:56if that would matter, I have no idea.
0:30:58I think the conclusion I'm coming to is that
0:31:01the Facebook groups are probably not able
0:31:04to be easily moved, but are also either low value
0:31:08or low traffic enough that I might just go without them
0:31:12and that might just be fine.
0:31:14- I think you have a pretty reasonable
0:31:17long-term solution here.
0:31:18I think you're right that you're not gonna be able
0:31:20to move these people, right?
0:31:21I also think you should not go to Nextdoor because I think that is all, from what I've
0:31:26heard, it's all of the worst things about the Facebook group and it involves moving
0:31:30people.
0:31:31But what you can do, I think eventually pretty successfully, is start a new community.
0:31:38Don't try to move anybody.
0:31:40Start a new community, wait for the old people to die, aggregate the young people so that
0:31:45eventually the Facebook community just dwindles.
0:31:49You're not going to convince them to come over.
0:31:51Don't stick anything on any polls.
0:31:52Just get two or three people who are similarly inclined
0:31:57to go on whatever you wanna use
0:31:59with those two or three people, right?
0:32:01And those two or three people probably will still be
0:32:03on the Facebook group, but just slowly over the years,
0:32:06many, many years, start moving the traffic there.
0:32:08Start to build a critical mass
0:32:09until people on the Facebook group start hearing
0:32:11about things that were discussed on the Slack
0:32:13or on the whatever else other thing you have.
0:32:15That's the way you win in the end.
0:32:18And in the meantime, you can do what we do in our households,
0:32:22which is have one designated person in the pair
0:32:26be the person who uses Facebook.
0:32:27(laughing)
0:32:28And so you have to use it, but Tiff could use it.
0:32:30So I don't use Facebook, but my wife uses it
0:32:33to look at things, and sometimes she tells me
0:32:34what's happening there.
0:32:35- Well, the sad part is, I used to be in that situation,
0:32:39then Tiff got fed up with Facebook
0:32:40and deleted her account like three or four years ago.
0:32:42- Ah, yeah.
0:32:43- And so now I'm that person.
0:32:45- So you're that person, yep.
0:32:46- Yes.
0:32:47- Well, I mean, like I said, start the parallel thing.
0:32:50It's the advantage you have of coming into a neighborhood
0:32:54as the new person in the neighborhood.
0:32:56Hopefully you're younger than a lot of the people
0:32:58that are there and there will be turnover.
0:33:00And so you can, if you start a new community
0:33:03and start it small, you can build it up over the years.
0:33:06- Yeah, that's probably the right answer.
0:33:09But, and the reason I wanted to bring this up on the show
0:33:12is because A, it's relevant 'cause Facebook is horrible,
0:33:14and B, I think a lot of people are in situations like this.
0:33:17I think a lot of people are in a situation of like,
0:33:21I want to stop using slash delete my account on Facebook,
0:33:24but I quote, "have to be there for something that's there."
0:33:29Whether it's like my grandparents,
0:33:32'cause that's the only place they post,
0:33:33or some group they have to be a part of
0:33:35for family or work or something.
0:33:38I heard from so many people who this was the case for.
0:33:42And so I feel like maybe I could come up
0:33:44with some kind of solution or set a good example
0:33:47that could maybe help more people than just me on this,
0:33:49but I do think you're probably right that
0:33:52I think the best solution, not only for me,
0:33:53but probably for a lot of people who find themselves
0:33:55in this situation is to just abandon those Facebook groups
0:33:58and just take the hit of whatever you're missing.
0:34:01Because honestly, I'm probably not gonna be missing
0:34:02that much, honestly.
0:34:04I wasn't a part of these groups six months ago
0:34:06and I was fine, so maybe it isn't that bad, I don't know.
0:34:10- Yeah, the big advantage you have is that it's not like
0:34:12This is the only place where you can talk to your grandparents.
0:34:14These aren't your families, aren't you know, you don't have any reason, like you're not
0:34:18abandoning anybody, right?
0:34:20So you are just going off and doing your own thing.
0:34:21It's much more difficult when like this is the only thing my whole family knows how to
0:34:25use.
0:34:26So if I want to know what's going on in their life at all, I have to go to Facebook to find
0:34:30out.
0:34:31They're never going to move.
0:34:32I'm never even going to ask them to move.
0:34:33That's just not how this is ever going to work.
0:34:34But I can't abandon them and go, "See you, grandma.
0:34:37We're starting our own group over here.
0:34:39Join us when you can."
0:34:40she will never join, you'll just never hear about your grandmother again. So take advantage
0:34:44of the fact that you don't have those kind of ties to the group and just start your own
0:34:47much better, cooler group.
0:34:49And then you'll take to the streets, snapping at each other in groups.
0:34:54Mark hasn't seen that movie.
0:34:56But Tiff has.
0:34:57Probably true.
0:35:00We are sponsored this week by the Tech Meme Ride Home podcast. Subscribe in your podcast
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0:35:14So techmeme.com has been around forever.
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0:36:52(upbeat music)
0:36:55- So this topic has been in the show notes
0:36:57for I feel like a couple of months.
0:36:59John's Mongoose Californian?
0:37:00- Yeah, actually it's been a couple of years.
0:37:02- Didn't I talk about that?
0:37:03- We did eventually.
0:37:03- Yes.
0:37:04- But that did take--
0:37:05- We got to that one eventually.
0:37:06- Even I remember that and it took a couple of years.
0:37:08(laughing)
0:37:09This showed up a couple of months ago
0:37:11and pretty much every episode for probably the last
0:37:15eight to 15 episodes has had us on the verge
0:37:20of doing this topic and then we just run out of time.
0:37:23So tonight's the night.
0:37:25And Kyle Geeter writes in to say,
0:37:27"When I hear you guys,
0:37:28along with some of my other favorite podcasters, Jason Snell, Mike Hurley, Stephen Hackett,
0:37:31Federico Faticci, talk about your many experiences over several years using Apple's various devices
0:37:36and OS's.
0:37:37It makes me feel like I missed out on the time when Apple was on the cutting edge, a
0:37:41time when their products are pretty much universally regarded as being new and full of innovation,
0:37:45something they seem to be lacking lately.
0:37:47Don't get me wrong, I love Apple's ecosystem in its current state and perfections and all,
0:37:51but I find myself agreeing with you when you're discussing everything that is currently lacking.
0:37:55That's not to say that all their products are stale, but you get what I mean.
0:37:59My question, or ask, rather, is if you guys, Jon specifically, can explain what that time
0:38:05was like.
0:38:06I'd love to hear a firsthand account of what using a new Apple product was like when it
0:38:09genuinely had new features that no other product had.
0:38:11I've watched some Steve Jobs documentaries and ended up watching the dramatic movies
0:38:15Jobs and Steve Jobs pretty frequently because I find the idea of old Apple, or Steve Jobs'
0:38:21Apple, very fascinating.
0:38:22I wish I had migrated to it earlier so I could have been a part of it."
0:38:28I don't have a clear answer for this, and I bet you Jon will, but he's going to be disgusted
0:38:36by what Marco and I have to say, so we're going to start and then Jon will clean up
0:38:39our mess.
0:38:40And since I have the floor, I'll go ahead and start.
0:38:42And I was thinking about this earlier as I was washing dishes, and I have two answers,
0:38:48and I'm not sure which I prefer.
0:38:52The answer that speaks to me the most is, a few years after the Intel transition, I
0:38:58want to say probably the late aughts or early 2010s, which actually was quite a few years
0:39:04after the Intel transition if I remember correctly, when the laptops were getting really frickin'
0:39:11good.
0:39:12And when you started to see regular people understanding the fact that if you want a
0:39:17good laptop, you're buying a Mac. They're reliable, they're reasonably rugged, and they
0:39:24pretty much just work. And at that point in time, they really did just work. And we've
0:39:32talked a lot on this show about whether we're just getting old and curmudgeonly, which we
0:39:35are, whether things are actually worse with software on Apple platforms, which it is,
0:39:41or a combination of the both, which it is. But nonetheless, I remember, and maybe it's
0:39:46rose-colored glasses, but I remember a time when my computer always just worked. I never
0:39:52had to take compressed air to it, which by the way, don't tell Marco, but I need to take
0:39:55compressed air to my MacBook One again.
0:39:57I'm shocked.
0:39:58I've never had—I know you are—I've never had to worry about things just randomly breaking
0:40:02or not working anymore. It was just—it was great. And as a PC—well, PC as in, like,
0:40:09personal computer user, it was awesome. And this was, again, probably—if I were to try
0:40:14to pin it down even more, right around the time that SSDs were starting to be affordable.
0:40:19So most computers did not have them, but those who were willing to part with a lot of money
0:40:25to get them could. And so I want to say this is roughly 2012, maybe, actually. And I just
0:40:32feel like that was the heyday of Apple laptops. And I think things have taken some turns from
0:40:39here. And even though I don't think it's so bad that if I was buying a new 15-inch, I
0:40:43would actually buy an old 15-inch High Marco, but I definitely agree that there are problems
0:40:48in the current lineup.
0:40:50The other answer I had is perhaps a couple of years ago when the iPad Pro was announced,
0:40:58and the 12-inch iPad Pro.
0:41:00And even though that didn't really do anything for me, if I am willing to concede that the
0:41:05Mac is a relic of a bygone era, or soon to be bygone era, and the iPad is the future,
0:41:12I think the iPad Pro probably was the inflection point at which it became clear that the iPad
0:41:20was a real computer, and as much as I snark about it, it's not a toy anymore.
0:41:25Not specifically because of the iPad Pro, but I think that moment in time was about
0:41:29when that happened, which is a combination of iOS 10, iOS 11, it doesn't matter really,
0:41:35but you know, multitasking got a lot better, the software got a lot better, the device
0:41:40was far more capable, it was bigger, everything about it just seemed like a
0:41:44confluence of good events, and I know that the iPad lovers of the world, like
0:41:48the Mike Hurleys and the Federicos and the Jason Snell's, could not have been
0:41:51happier. And so that actually was just in the last couple of years. The
0:41:58Intel, you know, pinnacle of the Mac laptop was a few years ago, and I would
0:42:05I would choose probably one of those as my answer.
0:42:09- So I actually feel a little more positive
0:42:12than you do about this.
0:42:14The idea of trying to nail down like,
0:42:17when was Apple's heyday?
0:42:19It's hard because, first of all,
0:42:22you do have the rose-colored glasses issue,
0:42:25which is hard for us to really think past objectively.
0:42:28It matters a lot what's important to you
0:42:31and what stage of your own life you were at
0:42:34certain things came out or whether you missed certain things
0:42:36'cause you came too late or 'cause you're young,
0:42:40which I'm sure Jon's gonna tell us about.
0:42:41(laughing)
0:42:42So, you know, there's a lot of,
0:42:43and also, you know, parts of this are tied up
0:42:45in things like just kind of missing Steve
0:42:49because he was a big personality that we all really liked
0:42:52and, you know, Apple's not gonna recapture that without him.
0:42:56So, it's hard, it's hard to try to think
0:43:00about this objectively.
0:43:02Getting around the rose-colored glasses thing,
0:43:04I think it's also hard to look back and to remember
0:43:09there actually were product flaws and software flaws
0:43:13and missteps and iPod Hi-Fis.
0:43:17There were these things during the times that I think of
0:43:21as really great times in Apple's past.
0:43:24So it's really hard to nail down one time and say,
0:43:26this was significantly better than today.
0:43:30Obviously the implication with the question,
0:43:32when it was Apple's heyday is that it's not today.
0:43:34What I think my answer is for when the heyday was
0:43:39was probably right around 2012 or so.
0:43:43- Okay, that's what I was thinking, somewhere around there.
0:43:45- And I know this is like right after Steve died,
0:43:49so his influence was still very strong,
0:43:50so this kinda sounds like it was partly
0:43:53like a Steve versus Tim thing,
0:43:54and I don't mean that specifically.
0:43:56I do think there's some elements of that,
0:43:58but I don't think that's like the,
0:44:01like the only problem or even the biggest difference.
0:44:05If you look back, like, you know,
0:44:07when I wrote my best laptop ever post,
0:44:09you know, praising the 2015 laptop
0:44:10in a thinly veiled attempt to insult the 2016 laptop,
0:44:14I realized, like, you know, the 2015 MacBook Pro,
0:44:17Retina MacBook Pro, which was actually the 2012
0:44:19Retina MacBook Pro just after a few updates,
0:44:21really is such an amazing computer.
0:44:23I can't point to any time before that computer
0:44:27and say, "I'd rather be back then than now."
0:44:30or like the Macs back then were better.
0:44:33Like no, they weren't.
0:44:34That computer, which I'm still using, is,
0:44:38to me, that is like the pinnacle of
0:44:41what I love most about Apple design.
0:44:43And yeah, it isn't like totally perfect.
0:44:45There have been problems with screen delamination
0:44:47for some people, and the ones with dedicated GPUs
0:44:50often had GPU failures, well that was a problem
0:44:52with pretty much every MacBook Pro generation.
0:44:55So, you know, it's not perfect,
0:44:58but it's really damn good,
0:45:01and I think it's better than everything
0:45:02that came before it.
0:45:03And I can't say, you know what,
0:45:04obviously I have a lot of problems with modern laptops,
0:45:06so I can't say that about the current generation.
0:45:08The current ones, I cannot say either
0:45:10that they are really good,
0:45:11or that they are better than the ones
0:45:12that came before them.
0:45:14But I think that's actually a fairly recent thing.
0:45:17Most of the rest of the Mac lineup
0:45:19has been pretty great in the meantime.
0:45:22You know, it isn't always updated
0:45:23as much as I want it to be.
0:45:25And the Mac Mini, I know some people
0:45:27look at the Mac Mini these days and say,
0:45:28"Oh, they haven't updated it forever."
0:45:29Yeah, they never updated the Mac Mini very often.
0:45:30It's always been a last priority, even under Steve,
0:45:33even when it first came out.
0:45:34It's always been a very low priority,
0:45:36and it's always been very overpriced for what it is
0:45:39and very rarely updated.
0:45:40And yeah, so anyway, the iMac, the MacBook Pro
0:45:45up through 2015, the MacBook Air,
0:45:48which got that amazing update in 2010
0:45:51that made the best computer possibly ever
0:45:54for most average people.
0:45:56they had some really good years fairly recently
0:46:00and some really good products.
0:46:02Look at the iPhone line as it's matured,
0:46:05the iPad line as it's matured.
0:46:07They've made some amazing products
0:46:09across almost all their product lines
0:46:12up until either the present day or pretty recently.
0:46:16The crappy laptops only came out in 2016.
0:46:18That wasn't that long ago.
0:46:19It feels longer by the day,
0:46:20but a lot of bad decisions were made by the world in 2016,
0:46:25And Apple was not immune to that.
0:46:26But maybe there's hope in some of these areas, I hope.
0:46:31God, I hope.
0:46:32But so the premise of this question is that Apple
0:46:35is currently in a really, in like a bad state
0:46:39and that their heyday was maybe a long time ago.
0:46:43And I do think Apple has some problems today,
0:46:45which I could talk about every week.
0:46:46But I don't think that their best times were that long ago.
0:46:51Their best times, I think, were only a few years ago
0:46:54and included years that were under Tim Cook,
0:46:57and included years where Johnny Ive was designing things,
0:47:00and you know, so like, I don't think
0:47:03this is like a massive problem
0:47:05that we have to look back very far
0:47:07to get what we think is the heyday,
0:47:09and I also wouldn't say that today
0:47:11isn't the heyday for everything.
0:47:13I think the iPhone is great today, you know?
0:47:16The iPad is great today.
0:47:18- That's a good point.
0:47:19- And the iMac, the iMac Pro is amazing.
0:47:22And even the 5K iMac before that in 2014 was also amazing.
0:47:27So there are parts of Apple
0:47:31that are still doing amazing work.
0:47:33And I would say almost all of Apple
0:47:34was doing amazing work not that long ago, if not today.
0:47:38So I don't think it's that far in the past.
0:47:41I don't think it's like this thing
0:47:43that can never be achieved again
0:47:44or cannot be maintained.
0:47:47I think they had to do some course correction
0:47:48in a few areas, some big, some small.
0:47:50There's evidence that they maybe have
0:47:54or are beginning that process,
0:47:56and some of the bigger ones like the Mac Pro
0:47:57and stuff like that, and Siri maybe, I hope.
0:48:00And so I think we're actually gonna be okay eventually,
0:48:05I hope.
0:48:06- All right, Jon, tell us the real answer.
0:48:09- Marker will like this because there's four.
0:48:12Here are my top four heydays of Apple Computer.
0:48:14Yeah, there's been four-- - How many times?
0:48:16- Four heydays for Apple Computer.
0:48:17I guess we can count--
0:48:18- Do you have any honorable mentions?
0:48:19- Yeah, there's no honorable mentions, there's only four.
0:48:21- How many number fours do you have?
0:48:22- Just the one.
0:48:23Actually, I'm not gonna even rank them.
0:48:24I'm just gonna do them chronological,
0:48:26and at the end, I think we can try to decide.
0:48:28Well, I can try to decide,
0:48:29'cause you don't know three of them.
0:48:30(laughing)
0:48:32Two of them, all right.
0:48:33- Finally, how can you possibly think
0:48:35that western Pennsylvania is not the Midwest?
0:48:38- It's state borders, man.
0:48:40There's lots of places that are a lot like the Midwest,
0:48:41but they're like in China,
0:48:42and they're not part of the Midwest.
0:48:44Yeah, so the four, or as I'm,
0:48:47I'll do them chronologically, and you can vote for your favorite.
0:48:51The one I'm not going to talk too much about is Apple II.
0:48:54That's an obvious one.
0:48:55That's Apple, the tech company from nowhere, the big tech company, IPO, the company that's
0:49:00making personal computers, computers for the rest of us.
0:49:03That was a big thing.
0:49:05It only doesn't seem big in hindsight because of the much bigger things that would come
0:49:09after it.
0:49:10That's true of a lot of these earlier eras, but at the time the Apple II was very big.
0:49:14So the IBM PC came along and kind of cut short their reign.
0:49:17But for a long time, in the go-go '80s, '70s and '80s,
0:49:23Apple and the Apple II were a big story and a big deal.
0:49:26And if you are getting back to how old you are at the time
0:49:30or what point you were in your life,
0:49:32if you are just getting into the technology scene when
0:49:35the Apple II came on board, it can be the most important event
0:49:39in your life.
0:49:40It was a very important event for the entire industry.
0:49:43So that's the first heyday.
0:49:45The second heyday starts with the advent of the Mac,
0:49:49which was not a particularly successfully launched product.
0:49:53And then Jobs was booted out shortly after, right?
0:49:56So this is like, this is actually Jobs' exit.
0:49:59He does this great thing with the Mac.
0:50:00Mac is a super important product for the world and for Apple.
0:50:06For kids that it was the iPhone of its day
0:50:09because computers didn't look or work like the Mac
0:50:13before the Mac, like computers that regular people bought,
0:50:16like just run-of-the-mill parts of computers.
0:50:18The IBM PC existed, but it did not look or work like the Mac.
0:50:21And after the Mac, all computers looked and worked
0:50:23like the Mac.
0:50:24They all had mice, they all had a graphical interface,
0:50:25so on and so forth.
0:50:26So the Mac was super important.
0:50:27And the reason I think this is a heyday, not because,
0:50:29oh great, so you made the one Mac with not enough RAM
0:50:31that nobody bought 'cause it was too expensive.
0:50:33That's not what made this the heyday.
0:50:34The heyday is actually the dawn of the Mac.
0:50:37And then after Steve Jobs left,
0:50:39the error that everyone complains about,
0:50:41the Scully error, essentially,
0:50:43When Apple produced a bunch of computers
0:50:46with like the Snow White design language,
0:50:47the Mac SE, the SE 30, the 2Ci, 2X, 2FX,
0:50:52that whole era of sort of platinum,
0:50:56pinstriped Snow White Macs,
0:50:59the dawn of desktop publishing,
0:51:01the dawn of color on the Mac,
0:51:03that was perhaps the, you know,
0:51:08strongest run of Mac models one after the other from the perspective of someone who
0:51:16understood what made the Mac good.
0:51:19To everyone else they're like, "Mac, whatever, everything's about MS-DOS and IBM and eventually
0:51:25Windows.
0:51:26Who cares about the Mac?
0:51:27It's just a silly toy."
0:51:28Right?
0:51:29But that's kind of what made it special.
0:51:30I mean, to get back to what the experience was like, you had a secret.
0:51:34You and a bunch of other people understood, A, that Apple was special, maybe you understood
0:51:39that from the Apple II heyday, and B, that the Mac was head and shoulders above anything
0:51:46else that it was there.
0:51:47And you had a long time to be living in everyone else's future.
0:51:51It's as if the iPhone came out and nobody copied it for years, but they just derided
0:51:56it.
0:51:57They kept making Nokia candy bar phones where you typed with the number pad and stuff like
0:52:00that.
0:52:01They didn't immediately copy it, right?
0:52:02But instead, they gave you several years where they made fun of you for using the phone that
0:52:07you had, that your whole phone is a screen, you don't even have a keyboard, I don't know
0:52:10how you can text people.
0:52:11That didn't happen.
0:52:12That happened for like a month and a half, right?
0:52:13And then everyone's like, "Oh yeah, no, that.
0:52:15We need to do that."
0:52:18And so there was a long time there where Apple was putting out great, amazing Macintosh computers
0:52:23solely for this narrow audience of people who understood how great they were.
0:52:29And we got to see all the computing revolutions.
0:52:30Yes, the GUI revolution, but also desktop publishing revolution and even things having
0:52:34to do with color graphics, high resolution graphics, lots of things that were available
0:52:40in a personal computer that was widely sold for the first time and would only much later
0:52:45be copied.
0:52:46So that's the second error, which is that they often derided the Mac, you know, Scully,
0:52:50Jobs is gone and Scully is making all these computers that cost way too much money and
0:52:53they did cost way too much money, but they were great.
0:52:57The third era is the return of Steve Jobs,
0:52:59the iMac and the iPod.
0:53:01And I think we're getting to the things
0:53:02that you'd remember now.
0:53:03You've got the iMac obviously is the big,
0:53:06Jobs comes back, the next, he comes back with next,
0:53:09but that's not the era I'm talking about.
0:53:10It's not like the Mac OS X era.
0:53:12He's working on Mac OS X.
0:53:13They've got to figure out the whole OS thing.
0:53:15They have the false start with Rhapsody
0:53:18and Mac OS X server, which is not what you think it was.
0:53:21But in the meantime, when he came back,
0:53:24what they first did was the iMac,
0:53:26the, you know, Johnny Ives big coming out party
0:53:28that made all of our irons and vacuum cleaners teal
0:53:33for a decade and the iPod.
0:53:35And the Macs at this point are running classic macOS.
0:53:39They're not running Mac OS X.
0:53:41The iPod has like a monochrome screen and a wheel that moves
0:53:45and it has Mac only and it's FireWire.
0:53:48But this little section here that extends a little bit
0:53:50farther into the Mac OS X era where every time Apple came
0:53:54with anything, you never knew what the hell it would be.
0:53:57The iMac was like, "What is this?
0:53:59A weird teal computer?"
0:54:00And then after that, the iMacs would come in different colors.
0:54:02They're going to make them in all sorts of colors.
0:54:03And the iPod, it's kind of a curiosity, but then it starts to gain a little momentum.
0:54:06Then they got those toilet seat iBooks, and then you got the G4 Cube, and the tower computers
0:54:11are weird looking.
0:54:13Every time they went up on stage, there was the expectation that Apple could do anything.
0:54:17You don't know what to expect.
0:54:19You are ready to be bowled over every single time.
0:54:22that is the sort of the defining period of the of the Steve Jobs keynote where
0:54:26We would all gather and it was like we're just waiting for like, you know candy to rain from the sky
0:54:32So I don't know but every time we go to one of these things something amazing happens
0:54:35Whether it's just I mean in a way the bar was lower because back then
0:54:40The audience would be blown away by just the audacity of the industrial design
0:54:45You can't do that anymore, right if they came out with it with the toilet seat I booked now
0:54:48It'd be like there's an ugly computer
0:54:50I don't know why they made that.
0:54:51Like we're so used to the fact that you can make
0:54:54computers in colors and make them have fancy design
0:54:56to all stuff, but back then it was mind blowing.
0:54:59Every single time, even if it was like a flop like the Cube,
0:55:02the Cube keynote was insane.
0:55:03Everyone loved that.
0:55:04Everyone was like, could not believe he's pulling
0:55:06this little core out of the thing up on the stage.
0:55:08And it was like, wow, it almost doesn't even matter
0:55:11that it wasn't particularly successful in the market
0:55:13because we got the benefit of like the amazing reveal
0:55:17and the, I don't know, it's sort of like,
0:55:20making people expand the notion of what the possibility space is.
0:55:25That every time they put something else, it pushes some corner of the possibility space out again.
0:55:30Like, I didn't even think you could put anything over there, but now they've pushed the envelope out over there,
0:55:33and now who knows, maybe this product was a double, but who knows what else they can put in there.
0:55:36It made room for the next product, the next product, the next product.
0:55:40And then the final heyday of Apple is the iPhone error,
0:55:45which I don't know where you want to cap that, but it starts with the iPhone,
0:55:48iPhone and it extends at least through like probably the 6 and 6s where they finally made
0:55:56the big phone.
0:55:57But that run from the original iPhone redefining this entire category, you know, the 3GS but
0:56:05the 4, the 4s and then the 5 and then I guess the big phone with the 6, that run right there
0:56:11of Apple, once again redefining a whole product category, and also, by the way, redefining
0:56:20a product category that would become the most important product category in all of technology,
0:56:24despite the fact that they don't dominate at market share, but saying, "We define
0:56:28this category, and it's not just like, 'Oh, we make some cool Macs and iPods, and
0:56:33it's kind of cool, and the iPod gets big a little bit, but then it sort of dies down
0:56:36or whatever, it was huge numbers, gigantic numbers.
0:56:41If you graph any of these other errors I talked about,
0:56:45graph Apple II sales, graph Apple's original IPO,
0:56:48graph Macs or the iMac and the iPod, it's nothing.
0:56:51It doesn't even show up on the graph
0:56:52until the iPhone comes.
0:56:53And it's not like we're all about,
0:56:54oh, how much money Apple makes, who cares?
0:56:56We don't run Apple, it's not our money.
0:56:58But it is like the dawning of the modern Apple
0:57:03as like the biggest and this incredibly important
0:57:06technology company that everybody knows about.
0:57:10It is no longer the secret that we had
0:57:11back in the Scully era.
0:57:13And it's no longer like a bunch of
0:57:15crazed technology fans just waiting to see
0:57:19what Jobs has hidden under a black cloth
0:57:22on a stage or whatever.
0:57:23This is the iPhone age is where everybody cares
0:57:25what Apple does and everyone has to care.
0:57:27Yeah, and then if you wanna cap that
0:57:31because you think they've lost their way in some areas
0:57:33or because the iPhone is tapering off or whatever,
0:57:35I'll allow that, but I would actually, honestly,
0:57:37extend the iPhone error probably all the way up to today.
0:57:40Despite the fact that we complain about the Macs,
0:57:41the fourth heyday of Apple is not about the Mac,
0:57:44it's about the iPhone and iPad and other stuff.
0:57:47So those are the four heydays of Apple.
0:57:49What do you think is, if you had to pick one,
0:57:52'cause it's kind of cheating to pick four,
0:57:54even though I'm following the rules of top four,
0:57:56unlike some people, if we had to pick one,
0:57:59what would you guys vote for?
0:58:01- Got it, so we're talking Apple II, Mac.
0:58:05- The Mac and the Scully era.
0:58:07You know what I'm talking about when I say those?
0:58:08Like the Snow White design language
0:58:10is the ones that are platinum
0:58:11and they have lots of pinstripes on them.
0:58:13The whole line of ones, the all-in-ones.
0:58:14- I think so. - Oh yeah.
0:58:15- Mac II, the Mac II FX, the Mac II CI, the SE, the SE30.
0:58:19Portrait displays, desktop publishing,
0:58:21the Laser Rider, all that.
0:58:22- Right, and then your third option was what?
0:58:25Was around-- - The third one
0:58:26is the iMac/iPod era where everything was teal
0:58:28and candy-colored and you got the toilet seat,
0:58:30iBooks and the BlueMight Power Mac G3 and the Cube and all the different color iMacs
0:58:37and the iPod mixed in there, the various lines of iPods.
0:58:40Steven: And the fourth one is basically iPhone really coming into its own.
0:58:44Rob: iPhone, yeah, just iPhone period. It's like the Mac ones, from the dawning of the
0:58:48first iPhone and the whole line of finds, just took Apple from a company. Those three
0:58:53heydays before that were like Apple heydays.
0:58:56The iPhone is like worldwide heyday.
0:58:58Like everybody, you know, they come to the size
0:59:03that they are today.
0:59:04They become a much more important company to everybody.
0:59:07- Well, for me, you just answered the question
0:59:09because what I was going to say is exactly that,
0:59:12that the three prior heydays,
0:59:15'cause I picked the last one
0:59:16if I had to pick one of those four,
0:59:17the three prior heydays, there is an argument,
0:59:21I guess it's how do you define heyday, right?
0:59:23I don't mean that to be silly, but to me the heyday of a company or Apple specifically
0:59:29is the moment at which everyone, be it the "fanboys and girls" or "sheeple" or whatever,
0:59:38when everyone thinks that Apple can do no wrong.
0:59:43And so back when the Mac was new, and I was only slightly paying attention at that point,
0:59:49I actually know what the Mac was new in 82, right?
0:59:52Or do I have that timeline? It doesn't matter. So 84. Thank you. Okay, so I was two so I was not paying attention
0:59:58I was new in 82. Yeah, so was I so anyway point being I
1:00:02Was aware of the Mac versus PC Wars when I was a kid
1:00:06This is you know, I would guess late 80s early 90s
1:00:09But I never thought that Macs were that particularly superior it with the hindsight of adulthood
1:00:16I can see that I was wrong. But at the time I didn't I wasn't impressed and
1:00:19And to me, the heyday is when, even if you for some reason choose not to use an Apple
1:00:26product, even if you choose to use an Android product, you can look at an iPhone and say,
1:00:30"Yeah, I can see why people would dig this."
1:00:33Or look at a Mac, "I can see why people would dig this."
1:00:37And thus, because to me, the heyday is about achievement in the mind, in the hive mind
1:00:44of popular culture, to me that leads me to the iPhone, your final option as being the
1:00:52actual heyday. But that's all based on how I'm defining "heyday," and it's completely
1:00:57reasonable for either of you to disagree with that definition. So before you argue with
1:01:01me on that, Marco, what would you pick of those four?
1:01:04I think I would also pick the iPhone, in part, just selfishly because I was there for that
1:01:09one. You know, like when, like the one and two I was, you know, a child and using a PC
1:01:16for. Number three with all the candy colored computers, that was like right before I started
1:01:21really getting into, you know, looking at Macs and eventually getting my own Mac in
1:01:252004. That was all like, you know, late 90s, early 2000s and, you know, by the time I bought
1:01:32a Mac, they were all metal again. So, it was, you know, I missed that whole era. But also,
1:01:39You know, the Mac was, I was not a big fan of classic Mac OS
1:01:44when I used it like three times ever.
1:01:46So I can't say that really enthralled me
1:01:48when I would see it like as a kid.
1:01:50I think Mac OS X is really,
1:01:53Mac OS X is the Mac that I know.
1:01:56And I know that kills people like John
1:01:58who have been around here for much longer.
1:02:00- At this point Mac OS X has been around longer for classic,
1:02:02longer than classic you realize.
1:02:04- Okay, I guess that makes sense, yeah.
1:02:06- I think it just barely crossed over,
1:02:08- Like 16 years?
1:02:10- Anyway, so like to me, the Apple I know
1:02:13is the Apple that made OS X and metal laptops.
1:02:16Like that's all I've ever known.
1:02:18So, just by default, number four would win.
1:02:23That being said, like I do have some, I guess,
1:02:28slight hesitation or ambivalence about the iPhone
1:02:31coming out because what I love so much, the Mac,
1:02:35has undoubtedly been really de-prioritized
1:02:39because of the iPhone.
1:02:42So like in some way, even though I love using the iPhone,
1:02:44and my entire career now is writing apps for the iPhone
1:02:47and then talking about them--
1:02:48- You did this to the Mac, Marco.
1:02:50- Yeah, it's like-- - Stupid Instapaper.
1:02:52(laughing)
1:02:53- Like, it is kind of like, I have mixed feelings about it
1:02:56because most of my statement about Apple's heyday
1:02:59had a lot more to do about the hardware than the software,
1:03:01but in reality, the software is just as much
1:03:04part of the story and no question the advent of having Apple's attention being split between
1:03:12two different major OS's and one of them being way more popular and profitable than the other
1:03:18one, no question that split, which started with the iPhone, has done serious damage to
1:03:26the Mac. It is really, in many areas software wise, the Mac is really behind, really in
1:03:33and disrepair in certain areas.
1:03:36Again, it seems like this might be turning around
1:03:38based on rumblings and rumors and statements,
1:03:40and we'll see if that actually turns into actions,
1:03:42hopefully over the next couple years.
1:03:44But I do have some ambivalence over the fact
1:03:46that the iPhone killed my Mac, basically,
1:03:48as much as I like the iPhone.
1:03:51- iPhone bought your Mac.
1:03:52- That's true.
1:03:53(laughing)
1:03:55- So if I had to pick one of these errors,
1:03:58so first, if I was picking personally,
1:04:01I would pick the Mac, the introduction of the Mac,
1:04:04but that's just for personal reasons.
1:04:05That's like what, you know, the age I was at the time,
1:04:07what I was into, so on and so forth,
1:04:09but I recognize that that is,
1:04:11the only way I could argue for that is,
1:04:13it wouldn't be Apple's heyday,
1:04:14it's because we're using the word heyday.
1:04:16If we fast forward 200 years,
1:04:18I can retroactively argue why the introduction of the Mac
1:04:21was, you know, super important, even more important
1:04:23than the iPhone in some specific aspects,
1:04:26but heyday, it was not Apple's heyday, right?
1:04:28But for me, that is the era of Apple
1:04:31that has the most emotional resonance,
1:04:32mostly because of the age I was
1:04:33and the fact that I was getting into computers at that time.
1:04:36You know, how I idolized all the people who made it
1:04:38and read all about it and all that stuff, right?
1:04:40But if I have to pick the Hay Day out of these things
1:04:42from a less personal perspective,
1:04:45I would actually pick, surprisingly,
1:04:48and mostly based on Kyle's question
1:04:51and what I think he wants out of Hay Day,
1:04:53I would pick the iMac/iPod era
1:04:56because I feel like that was the most exciting time
1:05:01to be into Apple.
1:05:05And it culminated with the iPhone.
1:05:07The iPhone marks the end of that error, right?
1:05:09So this iMac, iPod error, like I said,
1:05:12it was the dawn of the Steve note.
1:05:15We would go to Macworld Expo,
1:05:16which was still a thing then, and WWDC,
1:05:19and it was a transitional period.
1:05:22Steve Jobs is back.
1:05:23We're not sure how things are gonna go down,
1:05:24and it got kicked off with the iMac,
1:05:26which was a big surprise.
1:05:27And then from that point up until the iPhone,
1:05:30every time we sat down there to hear what Apple had to say,
1:05:33nobody knew what it was gonna be.
1:05:35It could be anything.
1:05:37And every time it was something that nobody expected
1:05:39because again, the possibility space had been so small
1:05:42and every keynote just kicked that possibility space
1:05:45out bigger and bigger and bigger.
1:05:46And it was just, you know, keynote after keynote
1:05:49of just surprising, exciting stuff.
1:05:52and it built to the iPhone, the most surprising,
1:05:56the most exciting and the most successful
1:05:59of all the stuff they produce.
1:06:00And everything in there,
1:06:01like I just think back through those keynotes.
1:06:03I wasn't in my formative years then, right?
1:06:05But so I don't think it's like rose colored grasses
1:06:09of like the rock music you listen to
1:06:11in high school or whatever.
1:06:12This was, if you wanted to know what it was like
1:06:15to be an Apple fan at a time when Apple
1:06:18was doing the most stuff to make Apple fans' eyes
1:06:23have the little emoji hearts over them.
1:06:25(laughing)
1:06:26It was this era, this was the heyday.
1:06:29And I would say it wasn't Apple's best products.
1:06:31There was lots of not so great stuff mixed in there,
1:06:33not just the cube, like a lot of the stuff,
1:06:35the computers, yeah, they look neat,
1:06:38but were they good computers?
1:06:39Even some of the iMacs were like, eh, not quite.
1:06:41The move to the aluminum glass era,
1:06:44like you said, Casey, 2011 MacBook Air stomps all over
1:06:47everything during this heyday, but if you just wanted to be super excited about what
1:06:51the heck Apple's going to do next and have it climax in the most important technology
1:06:56product of our lifetime, this was the error.
1:06:59That was a good discussion. Thanks, Kyle, for that question. I really dig it.
1:07:07You know when you said, "Oh, John's going to tell us that and be disappointed because
1:07:10we're so young and everything"? What kills me every time we talk about this is that you
1:07:13guys both just missed this error, right? And looking back on it, like I said, you look
1:07:17back on it and it's like, "That doesn't look that good. The computers now are better."
1:07:19And they were. The computers were better when you came on board, but you just missed this
1:07:24like super exciting time when like every keynote was just like Christmas morning and you had
1:07:30no idea what was going to happen.
1:07:32I remember vividly that even when the iPod came out, I don't know why I wasn't that impressed
1:07:42by it. And obviously it didn't work with PCs for the first—
1:07:46This was $400 and it was FireWire and it was Mac only.
1:07:49And this screen was monochrome.
1:07:51- Leaving aside the Mac only part,
1:07:53like once it was available to be used with the PC,
1:07:56even at first, I guess it was the price,
1:07:58'cause at this point in my life,
1:07:59I was considerably more price sensitive than I am now.
1:08:02But for whatever reason, I remember not being impressed.
1:08:06And then all of a sudden, and it looks like it was 2005,
1:08:10all of a sudden the iPod Nano happened.
1:08:13the very, very first iPod Nano.
1:08:17And that was the first Apple product
1:08:19that I really and truly coveted,
1:08:21and I wanted one badly.
1:08:23And I eventually got one, and I loved it.
1:08:26- That was a great example of having a keynote where,
1:08:29you know, like at that point it was clear
1:08:31Apple was making iPods.
1:08:32Like iPods were going to be successful.
1:08:34It was like, well, Apple's gonna be the iPod company,
1:08:36and they're not even the Mac company anymore.
1:08:37Ha ha ha, uncomfortable laugh.
1:08:39But we had seen the big white iPods,
1:08:43and we'd seen the mini, which were candy colored
1:08:46and seemed not to be worth the price
1:08:49from people who were measuring specs and everything
1:08:51and yet sold like crazy,
1:08:52as an indication of where this market was actually going.
1:08:55And the Nano is a great example of like we,
1:08:58oh, so they're gonna announce the iPods,
1:08:59whatever one of these will be like.
1:09:00And no one was thinking, hey, guess what?
1:09:03You see what they look like now?
1:09:05The iPods you're looking at now,
1:09:06take them and cut them into like seven pieces.
1:09:09And that little skinny sliver that you've had,
1:09:11that's gonna be the next iPod.
1:09:13I was like, "Yeah, right, yeah, maybe that's like the cover of the next iPod."
1:09:16He's like, "No, that's the whole thing."
1:09:17It just seemed impossible, right?
1:09:19Because it was in his change pocket, right?
1:09:21I was just about to ask, this was the one that was in the change pocket, wasn't it?
1:09:24Right, right.
1:09:25It was like, "You have got to be kidding me."
1:09:27Every keynote was like that.
1:09:28Every time they pulled something out, there was the reaction, "You've got to be kidding
1:09:31me."
1:09:32It doesn't happen anymore because we all know so much about the tech that's available, we're
1:09:35following so closely that we know two years ahead of time that Apple's going to use an
1:09:39OLED screen in its phone and it's gonna be like it's it was I guess mostly
1:09:45because people weren't paying enough attention people were just learning to
1:09:47start paying attention that we were all just surprised there was and the rumor
1:09:51scene was completely bonkers like because anything was possible the rumors
1:09:56that were happening then were just as outlandish as the things that came out
1:09:59and like massively wrong and not found it in any information and just would you
1:10:04know amuse us to no end because nobody knew anything and like when things did
1:10:08leak like we weren't sure whether to believe them or not. So it was a hell of a time to
1:10:15be an Apple fan.
1:10:16Yeah, I got to say that iPod Nano reveal was I think one of the best Apple reveals of all
1:10:23time. Like it might have even been the best like short little moment because like with
1:10:27the iPhone, Steve like really built up to it slowly, you know.
1:10:31Although are you going to fault them for building up? Are you going to build up to something
1:10:34building up to the iPhone? It's a good thing to build up.
1:10:36- That's true, but if you're just talking about
1:10:38the moment of the reveal, I think,
1:10:41you know, the original MacBook Air coming out of the envelope
1:10:44was good, that was very good.
1:10:46I think that first iPod Nano coming out of its change pocket,
1:10:48I think that wins, though.
1:10:49I can't think of anything that was a more shocking,
1:10:52initial view of something than that.
1:10:55- Yeah.
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1:12:53- All right, let's do some Ask ATP.
1:12:54Colin McKellar writes, could the Apple CPU in Max,
1:12:58the potential forthcoming ARM CPU or whatever.
1:13:02Is it possible that that might not be ARM or x86, but an Apple-designed architecture?
1:13:07If Apple's switching architectures anyway, why not move to one they create or control?
1:13:11It's not like they would ever use a non-Apple ARM chip and a Mac.
1:13:14In short, how feasible is it to create your own chip architecture, and what are the disadvantages
1:13:18or advantages from using an existing architecture?
1:13:22This is an interesting question.
1:13:24I don't really know what Apple would have to gain.
1:13:29Like, yes, it would all be custom-made directly for Apple, but, like, chip architectures,
1:13:36it's by design, the interface, the programming interface to a CPU is, I want to say simple
1:13:44but somebody's going to weigh it, well, actually me, but it's a bunch of fundamental building
1:13:50blocks that you can build into very impressive things. And I don't feel like this is an unsolved
1:13:56problem. I don't know what they would have to gain really by doing this. But maybe I'm
1:14:01missing something. So Marco, thoughts on this?
1:14:03- Yeah, I think you basically covered it. I don't think, you know, creating a new architecture
1:14:07is a significant upgrade in the amount of work they would be spending on their own ship
1:14:13design. Like, there aren't that many ship architectures in the world. And there's even
1:14:19fewer that are actually in widespread use for general purpose computers. I really don't
1:14:25think that they would have nearly enough to gain. You know, they already control a lot
1:14:30about their chip design and they license the architecture from ARM. And ARM designs it
1:14:36and I'm sure Apple influences it pretty heavily these days, but it's still being like,
1:14:42that's mainly being outsourced and pooled with lots of other companies that are all
1:14:47using ARM or making ARM chips or whatever else.
1:14:49And then also, on the software side,
1:14:52there's a lot of just software that can compile to ARM
1:14:54that they take advantage of, they can only be running on
1:14:59the same number of architectures
1:15:00that the rest of the world's really running on
1:15:02'cause lots of stuff in the world now
1:15:03is split between x86 and ARM.
1:15:05Adding a whole other additional instruction set
1:15:08for just Macs, I don't see that flying in today's world.
1:15:13I think that would be a really tough sell
1:15:14for a lot of people.
1:15:15Also, I just don't see it being worth the work for Apple.
1:15:20I wonder if there's patent issues too.
1:15:22I mean, probably, right?
1:15:23- There's always patent issues.
1:15:24- Right, like Arm is the one who would be facing
1:15:28any patent issues with their instruction set,
1:15:29not, well, maybe not Apple directly,
1:15:31but it would probably become Apple's problem at some point,
1:15:33but if Apple started their own whole thing,
1:15:37they would have to dodge a whole bunch of patents
1:15:39and file a bunch of their own in this area
1:15:41and have problems with those,
1:15:42and using someone else's instruction set
1:15:45helps them probably avoid quite a lot of that as well.
1:15:47So there's lots of reasons for them not to do this,
1:15:50and I don't think there's enough good reasons
1:15:52for them to do it.
1:15:53- So making your own instruction set,
1:15:55like Casey kind of played it down as if like,
1:15:57I don't see why they would do that,
1:15:59but there is a bunch of important advantages
1:16:03to being able to define the instruction set.
1:16:06And it's the reason we're not using
1:16:08the same instruction set now that we were in,
1:16:10you know, the 60s or whatever,
1:16:12before there were instruction sets,
1:16:13before they were widely shared instructions. What is it? The IBM... Oh god, someone in the chat room
1:16:20looks up for me so I can correct myself later. System 360 something? Anyway, in the modern era,
1:16:29instruction sets, the advantage you get for defining one is you get to learn from the
1:16:33mistakes of everybody who made an instruction set before you. And more importantly, much more
1:16:38importantly, you get to tailor your instruction set to the nature of the hardware and software
1:16:45of the day. So a lot of the older instruction sets are tailored to hardware designs that are
1:16:52no longer relevant. Like CPUs are not designed the same way, and the problems they're asked to solve
1:16:59are not the same either. Like for example, instruction sets that don't have any SIMD
1:17:03capability were created in error before sort of large scale multimedia processing operations,
1:17:09right? They didn't need an instruction set like that. If you make a new instruction set,
1:17:12or you append an existing one, you have the opportunity to say, "Today, one of the problems
1:17:17we have is dealing with lots of data that might be audio or video or sound or things where we can
1:17:22do lots of operations in parallel on big chunks of data, and the old instruction sets don't work
1:17:29with that so we can define a new one that fits that and fits like you know modern CPUs and we
1:17:34have more transistors and we can put more cache than we used to so on and so forth right. IBM
1:17:39system 360. I knew there was a slash in there system slash 360. I think it was the first
1:17:46computer with like a common instruction set so they were gonna make a line of computers that
1:17:49all use the same instruction set instead of making a new instruction set for every computer
1:17:52which was a thing to do back then. Anyway, so the question is, has enough changed in the industry
1:18:01or in the hardware world that Apple would gain some advantage from making a new instruction set?
1:18:06Now ARM, in the grand scheme of things, is not new, but it's not super old. If anything, you know,
1:18:12it's a modern-ish RISC architecture, but ARM has warts and it has extensions for SIMD stuff.
1:18:20If Apple, knowing what it knows now, could design a new instruction set for iPhones or Macs, they
1:18:27can make one that's better than ARM. It wouldn't have as many warts. It would be a better fit for
1:18:30their compiler technology, for the hardware that they know that's out there. It would be better.
1:18:34But it wouldn't be that much better. On the flip side of this is what we talked about all last show.
1:18:39If Apple wants to have any chance of maintaining or eventually regaining the current situation
1:18:48where you can run all the legacy x86 binaries
1:18:53from like, you know, into fast virtualization for Windows
1:18:59and for Unix and all those things,
1:19:01like the client side and the server side
1:19:03and cross-platform is all unified in x86.
1:19:06If they ever wanna get that again,
1:19:07they can't have their own instruction set.
1:19:10If they make their own ARM chips
1:19:11and that somehow the whole rest of the industry,
1:19:13as we talked about before, also goes ARM,
1:19:15then yay, we're back into our golden age again,
1:19:17where everything is ARM everywhere.
1:19:19And it's not because they're all using Apple chips,
1:19:21but it's because they're all using ARM.
1:19:22And ARM is an instruction set
1:19:23that Apple doesn't own and control.
1:19:25And so servers are free to use it,
1:19:27and we have this nice ecosystem.
1:19:29If I were Apple, I would never give up that possibility.
1:19:32Even if it didn't look like it was gonna be likely,
1:19:33I wouldn't give up the possibility.
1:19:35So it's either Apple tries to define a new instruction set
1:19:38and then sells it to the whole rest of the industry,
1:19:39not likely, or they really, really need to pick one
1:19:43that there's at least some slim chance
1:19:44that the whole rest of the industry will eventually use.
1:19:46They should not and will not go their own way on a CPU architecture for phones or Macs.
1:19:53Fair enough.
1:19:54Scott Norris writes, "Do you think Apple will upgrade the cooling design for the 2018
1:19:58iMac lineup using ideas for the iMac Pro for longevity or perhaps better GPU options?"
1:20:05I don't think that's unreasonable, but I don't know that they would put that much cooling
1:20:10in a machine that they don't feel like needs that much cooling.
1:20:13So I would be slightly surprised, but I don't know.
1:20:17Jon, what do you think?
1:20:18I think they totally should, because this is a very well worded question here.
1:20:22Using ideas from the iMac Pro, they can't just take, "Oh, let's just take the iMac Pro
1:20:26with the exact cooling design," because it's probably expensive and, like you said, you
1:20:29don't need to remove that much heat from the lower powered chips.
1:20:32But the ideas, whatever they did to the iMac Pro, a machine that dissipates more heat but
1:20:39is quieter than the 5K iMac, yes, please, bring those ideas.
1:20:42Because if you can make the iMac Pro that quiet, use slightly less money, and you have
1:20:50slightly less power to dissipate, use those ideas in the 5K iMac and make it be less of
1:20:55a hair dryer.
1:20:56They should totally do that.
1:20:58Will they do it?
1:21:01Maybe in a couple of years.
1:21:03I don't see them—because the iMac Pro is so big and important and expensive and seems—even
1:21:09though it looks the same from the outside, when you look at it on the insides, it seems
1:21:12like a different planet, like it was made by a different set of people than the 5k iMac
1:21:18entirely even though it looks so similar on the outside.
1:21:21So I'm not particularly optimistic about suddenly now that the iMac Pro is at the very next
1:21:255k iMac it's going to look like the iMac Pro on the inside.
1:21:27But I hope in a few years there is a trickle down of those ideas and that cooling and that
1:21:35airflow and heat management solution because Apple has proven they can do it.
1:21:39They just need to do it slightly cheaper in a slightly easier situation.
1:21:43Yeah, I would love for them to do it.
1:21:45I think they absolutely should.
1:21:46I agree with everything you just said.
1:21:47The only problem is that the iMac Pro cooling solution won't fit in the regular iMac unless
1:21:55they eliminate options for spinning disk hard drives.
1:21:58We could also eliminate the fusion drive options.
1:22:00And so it would significantly drive up the cost of low-end iMac configurations for people
1:22:06who need a lot of space.
1:22:07Now, I'm of the opinion that they should probably be doing that anyway.
1:22:11I think that the time has passed where Apple should have stopped selling spinning disks
1:22:20in the same way that I don't think they should be still selling anything with non-retina
1:22:24screens.
1:22:25Even fusion drives are not very good and not very fast and very inconsistent.
1:22:29They even like, remember a few years ago when they cheaped out and made the SSD portion
1:22:34of the fusion drives even smaller than it was before.
1:22:38Like, the fusion drive is a bad hack.
1:22:41There was a time for it when flash storage was smaller
1:22:44and more expensive than it is today.
1:22:47I think that time has passed,
1:22:48and while they wouldn't be able to offer, say,
1:22:52a terabyte or two terabytes as cheaply as they could today,
1:22:56I think this is the kind of situation where
1:22:59it's worth taking a temporary higher price
1:23:02on larger storage tiers like that,
1:23:04especially now as people need less storage
1:23:07because of various cloud services
1:23:09and the lack of large music libraries anymore.
1:23:12This is a good time to do that,
1:23:14even though things would be temporarily more expensive
1:23:16because it would allow all of the iMacs
1:23:19to then have this awesome cooling design,
1:23:22and I think they would benefit significantly from that.
1:23:24You'd probably have longer component lifespans.
1:23:26You'd definitely have less noise.
1:23:28The iMac Pro is a fantastic thermal design,
1:23:31at least as we know it so far.
1:23:33and we don't know if it has any kind of massive flaw
1:23:34that'll happen three years in,
1:23:35but so far it appears to be a great thermal design.
1:23:39So the sooner that can get into all iMacs,
1:23:43I think the better.
1:23:43And the only thing holding that back
1:23:45is probably cost of doing a redesign
1:23:49and then the three and a half inch drive that's in there.
1:23:52The other problem is if Apple decides
1:23:54to remove the three and a half inch drive from the iMac,
1:23:57they might decide to just make it thinner,
1:24:01which nobody wants except probably Apple.
1:24:05They might decide to just make it thinner
1:24:06instead of spending that newfound space
1:24:09on additional cooling capacity.
1:24:12I hope that's not what they do.
1:24:14I especially hope they don't also then force that
1:24:16onto the iMac Pro somehow and then make it
1:24:18just louder and worse or make it lower power
1:24:20and make it throttle its CPUs at even lower speeds.
1:24:23Both of those would be terrible
1:24:24because nobody's asking for that.
1:24:25But as for Kansai, this is Apple.
1:24:29This is especially today Apple and heyday arguments aside,
1:24:33we all know they love making things thinner
1:24:35that nobody was really asking for.
1:24:36So they might just do that instead.
1:24:38I hope they don't.
1:24:39- Oh, the iMac is gonna get thinner.
1:24:41It's just a question of when.
1:24:42- Eh, probably right.
1:24:44(laughing)
1:24:45Nick Alexander writes, "A legitimate question
1:24:48"that's not trying to stir any bad blood.
1:24:49"Do you think Steve Jobs' Apple would have treated
1:24:51"the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini generally the same way
1:24:54"that Tim Cook's Apple have?
1:24:55"If so, what do you think the Jobs
1:24:57would have done differently.
1:25:00I have no interest in doing the,
1:25:04"Oh, if Steve were alive" thing.
1:25:05So if one of you has a different angle on this,
1:25:08then I'm happy to hear it,
1:25:09but I respectfully abstain from this one.
1:25:12- So I added this one because I thought it was interesting
1:25:14not to just bash on Tim Cook
1:25:16and wish for Steve to be here again,
1:25:18but I thought there was some constructive commentary
1:25:22to be had here.
1:25:23Basically, we could ask ourselves a lot of questions like,
1:25:27what would Steve do? How would things be different if Steve was still here? Or would Steve have
1:25:33done the things that Tim Cook's Apple has done? There's a number of sides to this, some
1:25:40of which are constructive, some of which are just useless speculation. What we have to
1:25:45really consider here is that this is a completely different time and a fairly different company
1:25:53from when Steve was alive.
1:25:55He passed away in 2011.
1:25:57That was a good amount of time ago now.
1:26:00Since then, the company has gotten substantially larger.
1:26:04It has more product lines.
1:26:05It has significant maturation of the existing product lines
1:26:10that were there when he was there.
1:26:13So the iPhone, even though he was there
1:26:16for the launch of the iPhone,
1:26:17the iPhone today is very different from it was.
1:26:21He passed away right after the iPhone 4S was unveiled,
1:26:24to give you some idea of how far we've come.
1:26:27So it's hard to say what this person would have done
1:26:32who led a company that was much smaller than it is today
1:26:35in a very different time seven years ago.
1:26:38In general themes, we can speculate.
1:26:41We can say things like, you know,
1:26:43Steve did seem to really like computers a lot.
1:26:46And Tim seems to have bigger picture ambitions
1:26:48that don't prioritize computers.
1:26:52But ultimately, Steve do lots of things too.
1:26:56Steve ship bad products too.
1:26:58I do really miss Steve for a lot of reasons.
1:27:02I really, really miss Steve and I bet Apple does too.
1:27:05But it's hard to say what he would have done
1:27:08because what we saw from him and the company that he saw
1:27:12was so different from the one today
1:27:13and the environment and the competitive landscape
1:27:16and all the product lines today.
1:27:18So I think Steve Jobs probably would have treated the Mac Mini just as badly because
1:27:21he didn't really care about the computer either.
1:27:23He did treat the Mac Mini just as badly.
1:27:24That's what I'm saying.
1:27:25So that's not, you don't need to expect that one.
1:27:27Yeah, the Mac Pro, you know, I think he had a pretty decent record with the Mac Pro.
1:27:31Yeah, well, I think the best way to characterize how Steve would have done things differently
1:27:36is that we wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have had so many situations where things were
1:27:40in limbo because Steve was very decisive, right?
1:27:44And so if he had decided that the iPhone and the iPad are the future and the Mac was the
1:27:51past, he would have not hesitated to can the Mac.
1:27:56Like if that was the thing that he wanted to do, right?
1:27:58On the other hand, if he decided that because he's a computer guy and because of the time
1:28:02that he grew up and he just, you know, he loves computers as evidenced by his entire
1:28:06career that he just loves computers, that he was never going to let them go, he would
1:28:09not have let the Mac Pro languish like that because he would have been so lucky that we're
1:28:12We're doing Macs or we're not doing them.
1:28:14Are we doing them or are we not doing them?
1:28:15I'm the one who decides and I decide we're doing them,
1:28:17so don't leave that thing out there
1:28:19for all those years, right?
1:28:20- He used a Mac Pro.
1:28:21- Yeah. - Like that's like,
1:28:22I don't think Tim Cook has ever sat
1:28:24in front of a Mac Pro once.
1:28:25I don't think Tim Cook really gives two craps
1:28:28about Macs or computers.
1:28:29He's a businessman first.
1:28:31He's not a product person at all.
1:28:33Whereas Steve loved computers.
1:28:35He lived and breathed computers even more than I do.
1:28:39And that's like, this is like my frustration so often
1:28:42like I want Apple to care as much about computers as I do and a lot of times it seems like they
1:28:46don't. But like with Steve I never had that concern.
1:28:50So and the important thing to remember is like with the Mac Mini, right? It's not
1:28:53as if you know that Steve gave 100% attention to every product like yeah he'd let the
1:28:59Mac Mini be mostly language, right? And so how can you say he'd love computers if he's
1:29:03not constantly updating the Mac Mini or if the Mac Mini is such a bad deal and like you
1:29:06You know, like, how can you say that?
1:29:09It's going back to the case for the true Mac Pro successor
1:29:13car guy's analogy.
1:29:14Steve Jobs was a car guy when he was a computer guy, right?
1:29:16And computer guys, mostly, you know,
1:29:19they have something that they like,
1:29:20whether it's like big American muscle cars
1:29:22or sleek, fast sports cars.
1:29:24There are far fewer car enthusiasts
1:29:29who are really, really into sort of low powered,
1:29:34inexpensive cars part of being into cars is about you know speed right car
1:29:40You know someone nice. This is the slowest car ever made isn't that great no?
1:29:43Speed is part of car and motorsports right so of course Steve Jobs the computer guy
1:29:49Love the big fast computers love to have all that you know computing horsepower up there
1:29:55It was less enthused about making a really inexpensive headless Mac where you could use your own crappy
1:30:00Logitech keyboard or your own crappy PC monitor with it like that wasn't his thing. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't beautiful
1:30:07It was like a product that you make some people like maybe it's neat
1:30:09Isn't it kind of cool that it's small or whatever, but he was never enthusiastic about it, right?
1:30:13But he was enthusiastic about computers and in the same way that you can imagine the CEO of a car company
1:30:20You know
1:30:22Even something like Toyota like, you know, they make all these Camry's and you know, all the Corollas and everything, right?
1:30:28But if you are the CEO of Toyota and you're going to like, you know
1:30:32Hang out with the workers and see what they're up to you want to go to see the team making the LFA
1:30:37Yeah, you're gonna visit the Camry line and check out the corrals and everything like that
1:30:40But if you're you know, really into cars and you're the CEO of Toyota
1:30:44You're gonna you want to go talk to the LFA people you want to say like how's the LFA coming?
1:30:49I know this is like not important to our bottom line and shareholders care about how many cameras we sold
1:30:52But I want to see how the LFA is coming right and Steve Jobs always seem to be the same way
1:30:56So I feel like he would have been more decisive and
1:30:58And that would have worked, you know
1:31:01like I said
1:31:02he's one of two ways he
1:31:03Decisively cut off the Mac when he felt like it was time because he was ruthless in that way even though he loved computers
1:31:09But up until that point he would have supported
1:31:12Ridiculous overpowered computers that were he would have made that jellyfish hundred percent the Mac Pro jellyfish
1:31:19He would have made that he made he made the cube. He made all those beard IMAX
1:31:22He would have commissioned the jellyfish and he would have been like this is awesome
1:31:25It's got tentacles and it's amazing.
1:31:27Each one has a CPU in it and it probably would have flopped, but he did love some computers.
1:31:31All right, thanks to our sponsors this week, Away, Squarespace, and Techmeme Ride Home.
1:31:37And we will see you next week.
1:31:39Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin.
1:31:46Cause it was accidental.
1:31:48Oh it was accidental.
1:31:50John didn't do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental,
1:31:57it was accidental.
1:32:01And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm.
1:32:06And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
1:32:17Kasey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, N-T-Marco, R-Men, S-I-R-A-C, U-S-A-C, R-A-C-U-S-A, it's accidental.
1:32:32They didn't mean to, accidental. Tech podcast so long.
1:32:42I do want to, since we don't have anything else to talk about in the after show, I do
1:32:45I do want to very briefly address topics that have come up
1:32:48that people keep asking us to talk about
1:32:50that we haven't mentioned.
1:32:52One of them is Apple hiring that dude
1:32:54and the other one is Mark Zuckerberg being a (bleep)
1:32:57and I just don't, everything Apple does,
1:33:01we also didn't cover the red iPhone.
1:33:03Everything Apple does doesn't warrant mentioning, honestly.
1:33:07It does a lot of stuff these days that's really boring,
1:33:10that is not newsworthy and so we can't mention everything
1:33:13and some of the stuff just gets cut.
1:33:15And as for Zuckerberg's testimony to Congress
1:33:18and everything else, it's all just a duck and pony show.
1:33:21He's gonna keep doing what he's doing,
1:33:22no one's gonna do anything,
1:33:23no one's gonna leave Facebook except me
1:33:25and maybe two people in my group.
1:33:26So it's like, big companies do boring stuff all the time,
1:33:30and Zuckerberg is gonna be a turd all the time.
1:33:33(laughs)
1:33:34There's just nothing's gonna change either of those things.
1:33:36- I can always talk about Apple things though.
1:33:38The person they hired,
1:33:39the reason I think this didn't come up in the show,
1:33:43like what was it, the AI person from Google or whatever,
1:33:46oh this one hire is gonna make Siri better.
1:33:48Like that's not how these things work.
1:33:50- Yeah, exactly. - Like not how it works.
1:33:51- Like the only, the times that happens
1:33:54is very notable because it's rare.
1:33:55Like getting, hiring Steve Jobs,
1:33:58that was a big deal for Apple in 1997, right?
1:34:00That's one case where you could say,
1:34:02this one guy's gonna turn the company around?
1:34:03Yeah, actually he did.
1:34:05But it's hard to think, like it's not saying
1:34:07that they're not gonna help
1:34:08and it's not a good move or anything,
1:34:09but we don't know this person,
1:34:12We don't know. It's so hard to tell when you're like someone who works at that level in a
1:34:16corporation. It's so hard to tell exactly what their skill set is. Right. Like what
1:34:21are they bringing to the table. Were they just in the right place at the right time
1:34:25and had the minimum necessary skills to take advantage of a success that was going to happen
1:34:31with or without them. Or did that success happen only because they were there. Right.
1:34:36And we don't know because we know these people are not like you know have like a you know
1:34:39tech executive trading cards. I don't, I never heard this person's name. I don't even remember
1:34:43it anymore. So when there's some big hire like that, I say, "Oh, good. Good for Apple.
1:34:48Looks like they're, they know they need to work on Siri." And then I just don't pay attention
1:34:51for a couple of years and we'll see. And if a couple of years it turns around, I'd be
1:34:54like, "See, you thought that guy wasn't going to do it, but he did it. Great. Fine. Show
1:34:58me." But I'm always like, "Show me the results. That's all I care about." Even with Steve
1:35:01Jobs. "Show me the results." I didn't think he was going to succeed either, famously,
1:35:06Because history had shown that he had flamed out spectacularly every time he tried to do
1:35:10something and he was a mess.
1:35:11But he figured it out.
1:35:12So I always just think, "Show me the results."
1:35:15And then the Facebook stuff, yeah, I can't be bothered.
1:35:19Like our entire government is so depressing.
1:35:21Nothing is going to happen from that Facebook thing.
1:35:23Facebook is depressing.
1:35:24I try not to pay attention to it.
1:35:26Yeah, it's the best you could do.
1:35:27Anything else?
1:35:28Oh, and the red phones, I do like the fact that they're giving redbacks with black fronts
1:35:33because that's the thing that I always wish they did.
1:35:35I love that I started the segment with, "Here's things we're not going to talk about on the
1:35:37show," and then we're talking about them on the show.
1:35:39Yeah, it's two seconds.
1:35:40It's a quickie.
1:35:41That's the tech everyone has on it.
1:35:42It's like everyone who likes the black fronts of the phones.
1:35:45And I kind of like—my kids have a lot of like, mostly iPod touches and stuff that have
1:35:48colored backs, but white fronts.
1:35:50They do look kind of cool.
1:35:51They look kind of like the red ones look Christmasy, like the white and the red, and we have a
1:35:56blue and the white front.
1:35:58It's not ugly, but I like the black fronts better for contrast reasons.
1:36:03And having always to have the white front with the colorful backs and the black front
1:36:07only with the boring backs, that streak went on too long.
1:36:10So that and the supposed FCC picture of the gold backed iPhone X, did you see that one?
1:36:17Yeah.
1:36:18Yep.
1:36:19Same thing, black front, gold back, I think that looks super cool.
1:36:20It's like a bumblebee.
1:36:21And the red back, black front product, red iPhone 8, I think it also looks cool.
1:36:28Yeah.
1:36:29I just wish it was like, it's just so like,
1:36:31shameless that they wait until the slow mid-cycle time
1:36:36and then they update the phones.
1:36:38And they didn't even update the flagship phone
1:36:40that costs more money and the people really want.
1:36:43You know, it's just like, it's just so, bleh.
1:36:46(beeping)