0:00:00So how was the trip? Did we talk about this publicly? I don't know that we did. Are we
0:00:03talking about this publicly, whether or not it makes the show?
0:00:05The only thing that made the show was the walkie-talkie bit.
0:00:08Okay.
0:00:09Where John was making fun of me for buying walkie-talkies for a road trip.
0:00:12Yeah, I do want to hear about that, but not this minute. But how was the other parts of
0:00:17the trip, just out of curiosity?
0:00:19No, I ate way too many combos.
0:00:22Did you enjoy all your good roadside coffee, or did you bring a gigantic thermos of good
0:00:27coffee with you?
0:00:28- I brought, oh you're gonna make so much fun of me.
0:00:31Have I mentioned this before?
0:00:32I have a, oh God, I have a monthly subscription
0:00:36to a fancy hipster instant coffee thing from San Francisco.
0:00:41- Why?
0:00:42- I get eight little tubes of instant coffee powder a month,
0:00:46delivered in a little canvas bag,
0:00:49and they cost like a dollar fifty each,
0:00:51it's a subscription, and it's instant coffee.
0:00:55You dump it into water and it makes good coffee.
0:00:57It's basically a really good version of instant coffee,
0:01:00and it turns out instant coffee got popular
0:01:03for very good reasons.
0:01:04It's pretty damn convenient when you're traveling.
0:01:06You know, like on the plane,
0:01:07I got a cup of hot water, please,
0:01:08and I got a hot water cup, and I dumped my coffee into it,
0:01:11and stirred it up, and had my insufferable hipster coffee
0:01:15right there on the plane.
0:01:16It was wonderful.
0:01:18- You would.
0:01:18- I'm so sorry.
0:01:19For anybody who cares, it's Sudden Coffee.
0:01:20That's the name of it.
0:01:22Because it's not instant, it's sudden.
0:01:23Ha ha.
0:01:24(laughing)
0:01:25- It sounds like it surprises you.
0:01:28You go to drink a cup of water
0:01:29and all of a sudden it's brown and bitter.
0:01:30What the hell?
0:01:31(laughing)
0:01:32It's sudden coffee.
0:01:33- Holy shit, it's coffee.
0:01:34- Whoa.
0:01:34(laughing)
0:01:36How did that get there?
0:01:37(laughing)
0:01:38- Where the hell did this come from?
0:01:40- Anyway, it's not cheap but it's pretty good
0:01:41if anybody needs this kind of thing.
0:01:43It's pretty good.
0:01:44- That's pretty much your motto.
0:01:46It's not cheap but it's good.
0:01:47- This is why anybody listening is probably like,
0:01:50of course I have that.
0:01:51This surprises nobody.
0:01:53- This is surprising.
0:01:53This is surprising.
0:01:54- I thought you were gonna say you had like the
0:01:56underscore kit where you have this entire
0:01:58bunch of paraphernalia that you'd take out in the car,
0:02:01including a little table lap desk to set it all up on.
0:02:04And then plug in a kettle into the 12 volt socket
0:02:07in the car and just, you know.
0:02:09- I used to do that kind of like fancy, you know,
0:02:12I brought my air press on a couple of trips.
0:02:14And it was just such a pain.
0:02:16I got like a travel grinder and everything like it.
0:02:18And I just, I found it not worth the hassle.
0:02:22And so instead, for a while I would just drink tea on trips,
0:02:26I'd bring my own fancy tea bags,
0:02:27but I don't like tea that much and coffee's better.
0:02:30And so I found this and I decided,
0:02:33oh, even though it's a subscription which I don't like,
0:02:36I'm like, well, I'll try it, I'll see how it is.
0:02:38And it's been good enough that I've kept it up.
0:02:41Like I use it.
0:02:42I don't always use it regularly.
0:02:44Like sometimes I'll accumulate a couple extras
0:02:47that I haven't used in the last month,
0:02:48but it's fantastic for road trips.
0:02:51Sometimes I'll just tear up one of those tubes and dump it in his mouth. He doesn't care.
0:02:54I actually did that once.
0:02:55[Laughter]
0:02:57Okay, nice to my face!
0:02:58I was on a road trip and I didn't want to stop to get like a cup of hot water.
0:03:02Because there was no good place nearby to do that.
0:03:05So I just kind of slowly ate the crystals.
0:03:07[Laughter]
0:03:08Oh my god.
0:03:09It tasted fine.
0:03:10Just a little strong.
0:03:11That's really sad.
0:03:12Someone draw a comic of that.
0:03:13How come people never draw comics for our show?
0:03:15Someone needs to draw a comic of Sad Marco eating the instant coffee, hipster instant coffee out of the tube.
0:03:20Maybe a little tear, a tear going down his side of his face.
0:03:23Yeah, driving on the Long Island Expressway.
0:03:25That was another reason for a tear.
0:03:27Yeah.
0:03:28Stuck in traffic.
0:03:29All right, let's start with some follow-up.
0:03:31John, tell me about Breath of the Wild on the Wii U.
0:03:35Last week, why were we talking about it?
0:03:36Oh, we were talking about bitness of consoles was one of the Ask ATP questions, and I was
0:03:40talking about how power still makes a difference in the modern era.
0:03:43I'm talking about a game like Breath of the Wild, which is a large open world Zelda game,
0:03:47how you couldn't play it on a less powerful console, and I said the Wii U, and I should
0:03:52have just said the Wii, because obviously, in the grand tradition, I guess two data points
0:03:56makes a tradition, of Zelda games that are initially developed for one console, but take
0:04:01so long to get done that the second console comes out, and then they launch it on both
0:04:06consoles simultaneously.
0:04:08That was the case with Breath of the Wild.
0:04:10It was actually developed for the Wii U, and only later launched on the Switch, and that
0:04:15happened with Twilight Princess for the GameCube and the Wii. Although Twilight Princess, I
0:04:20highly recommend playing it on the GameCube, not on the Wii because the motion controls
0:04:23are not very good. So a surprisingly small number of people sent in that correction,
0:04:30but to the people who did, good job.
0:04:32And to everyone else, Jon is disappointed in you.
0:04:35Yeah, seriously. Pretty big gaffe in the grand scheme of things. Maybe if it was about Apple
0:04:41stuff, we would have gotten more people.
0:04:44Half of the internet wrote in to tell us that the Space Gray keyboard, mouse, and Magic
0:04:48Trackpad are all available separately now, if that's your cup of tea.
0:04:52I am currently fondling touching a Space Gray keyboard, and I have a Space Gray Magic Mouse
0:04:59next to me, and I have a Space Gray Magic Trackpad that I use from time to time.
0:05:03These were all secondhand from friend of the show, underscore David Smith, who did not
0:05:07charge me a premium.
0:05:08However, Apple will charge you a $20 price premium because Apple.
0:05:11Yeah, why is it that the dark ones, I mean technically they can do this with any color.
0:05:17Let's just make fewer of them and then charge more because they're more rare.
0:05:20Sure you can do it all the time, but in general Apple doesn't seem to do that with things
0:05:24that come in colors.
0:05:25Like you can get your phones or your iPads in various colors, gold, rose gold, space
0:05:29gray, sometimes they come in black, but there's no price difference between the colors.
0:05:33And yet somehow in the Mac world, every time something gets a darker color, it's an extra
0:05:37twenty bucks or something.
0:05:39And I don't know, for some reason it bothers me that you can get iOS devices in different
0:05:46colors for the same price, but in the Mac side that's not the case.
0:05:49So anyway, I just hope if you're out there listening to this, you didn't buy a space
0:05:53gray iMac Pro keyboard for $1,500 on eBay, because that would have been a bad move.
0:05:58I kind of feel like my iMac Pro is less special now that these are available to anybody.
0:06:03I'm so sorry.
0:06:04- Yeah, well, listeners of the show
0:06:06would have been well warned
0:06:08because as soon as the iMacros came out,
0:06:11we were surprised that they,
0:06:13wasn't our prediction that they wouldn't sell
0:06:14for a lot on eBay because people would realize
0:06:16Apple's just gonna introduce them
0:06:17and then your things will be worthless.
0:06:18But alas, that's not the way people think.
0:06:21And so some people did buy them and sell them apparently
0:06:24for very high prices on eBay
0:06:25and I hope all those people are sad now.
0:06:28- Snarky John tonight, is everything okay?
0:06:31- And the people who sold them aren't sad.
0:06:32- That's true.
0:06:33Yeah, I guess.
0:06:34Well, they should be because they took advantage of somebody that may feel bad about that,
0:06:38right?
0:06:39Only if Apple should not feel bad they're charging $20 more for no reason.
0:06:42$20 premium is better than like a $1,350 premium.
0:06:48We are sponsored this week by Jamf Now.
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0:08:06That's J-A-M-F dot com slash ATP.
0:08:09Thank you so much to Jamf now for sponsoring our show.
0:08:12(upbeat music)
0:08:15- I would, at this point, plug our live show.
0:08:19That is going to be happening at WWDC on Monday night,
0:08:21but it is sold out.
0:08:22So if you happen to have a ticket and know you won't need it,
0:08:26please get in contact with AltConf and let them know that or tell a friend or do something.
0:08:32But we have no control over attendance. We have no sway over wait lists or anything like
0:08:37that. So thank you to everyone who has purchased a ticket. We hope to see you there. And it
0:08:43should be really exciting.
0:08:44You could win one from a friend in the game of chance.
0:08:46I'm assuming this is a reference I'm not aware of. Anyway. All right. So Marco, you went
0:08:52on a really long road trip recently and you had mentioned briefly in the last episode
0:08:56that you had bought some walkie-talkies to take with you because it was going to be a
0:09:00multi-car caravan. The last I tried to use walkie-talkies, which was just a handful of
0:09:05years ago, they were promised to work for like 34 zillion miles and worked for about
0:09:1134 feet. So tell me about your fans. I'm sure you bought the most heinously expensive walkie-talkies
0:09:17you could find. Tell me how well or not well they worked.
0:09:20- So they were only, I think it was something like
0:09:2260 or 70 dollars for a pair.
0:09:25And then it included all the accessories
0:09:26like the charging base and everything.
0:09:28So I wouldn't say that was that expensive.
0:09:30It's some kind of Cobra, if you look at Amazon,
0:09:33like the Cobra model that is the highest of its group,
0:09:37that's the one I got.
0:09:38It's like something like that for a pair.
0:09:39And it's the one, it has a very useful feature.
0:09:42This is one of the reasons I went to this model,
0:09:44that it has a repeat that back button.
0:09:48So it keeps a buffer over the last few things
0:09:50that were said, and so if you miss what somebody said,
0:09:53you can just hit that and it plays it again,
0:09:55which is really useful.
0:09:56Anyway, John made it fun of me relentlessly
0:09:59for buying walkie talkies for the purpose
0:10:01of communicating between two vehicles on a road trip,
0:10:03because we have cell phones.
0:10:05And that was a really good argument.
0:10:06Cell phones do sound way better.
0:10:09Unfortunately, it takes a little bit of time
0:10:11to create a cell phone connection.
0:10:14You have to pick up the phone, unlock it if it's not unlocked,
0:10:16tap something, find them, you know, connect.
0:10:19Oh, walkie talkie, you literally just push a button
0:10:21and you immediately can say something to them.
0:10:22- I told you, you should have had your phones
0:10:23connected the whole time.
0:10:25- Yes, but we were like listening to music
0:10:26and podcasts and stuff the whole time with our phones.
0:10:28- Yeah, you muted and when you wanna talk, you hit the mute.
0:10:30It's not like you're browsing Twitter on it,
0:10:31bouncing on the dashboard, hit the mute button.
0:10:33Mute, mute, mute, unmute, unmute, unmute.
0:10:35- No, but-- - Yeah, I can't even say it.
0:10:36- But the phone was being used for the media,
0:10:38so that's no good.
0:10:40- Well, what were you, what media, oh, the podcasts?
0:10:42- Yeah, podcasts, music, or navigation directions.
0:10:45We were also using Waze to navigate.
0:10:46- You can do all that at once on your phone.
0:10:48- Nope, you can't play media
0:10:50while you're taking a phone call.
0:10:52Anyway, so, and also, where these really came in handy,
0:10:56besides the incredibly fast ability to just push a button
0:10:59and say something quick like,
0:11:01hey, watch out, don't merge left yet,
0:11:02or something like that, or you don't wanna stop at this exit,
0:11:05really quick stuff, but also,
0:11:08not the entirety of our trip had cell phone coverage.
0:11:12Because we were going to a very rural place
0:11:14at the end of the trip, the entire last 45 minutes
0:11:18had no coverage, during which we were on the walkie talkies
0:11:21a lot to coordinate things like where we were gonna park
0:11:24this giant truck and what direction it had to face,
0:11:27how we were going to get it that way,
0:11:29what we were gonna do once we got there,
0:11:30how we were gonna do the very first steps to unload it
0:11:33and all the logistics involved.
0:11:34They proved to be invaluable.
0:11:37Everybody involved in this trip was very, very happy
0:11:40that we had these walkie talkies.
0:11:42They were wonderful in ways that a phone
0:11:45either would have been worse or would have not worked at all.
0:11:47So John was totally wrong.
0:11:48And to answer Casey's question, the range,
0:11:53I did a little bit of research obviously when buying these.
0:11:55And it appears-- - You?
0:11:56- Most of them seem to quote a range of
0:12:01somewhere between like 10 and 50 miles.
0:12:04And it doesn't take that much digging
0:12:06to realize that that's actually like,
0:12:08if you're like two people on top of mountaintops
0:12:10with nothing in between you,
0:12:12that's like the most ideal scenario
0:12:14of like nothing obstructing it,
0:12:16no interference from anything.
0:12:18If you use it in a more realistic location,
0:12:23like in a town or on a highway,
0:12:25the mileage basically gets cut to a tenth,
0:12:28so it gets decimated, right?
0:12:30That's what that means?
0:12:31So yeah, so it basically gets--
0:12:33So your 37 mile one is actually more like three miles.
0:12:39And even that is like, if you're in a really dense area
0:12:41like in a city with lots of buildings and everything,
0:12:44it might be more like one mile, or maybe even a half mile,
0:12:48worst case scenario for these bigger ones.
0:12:50And there's a limit on how powerful they can transmit,
0:12:54which I think on most of the bands is two watts.
0:12:56So that's kinda what limits how powerful they can be.
0:13:00But yeah, so it was fun, it was totally worth it.
0:13:02And they're really modern useful things,
0:13:04like the playback feature.
0:13:07and they both can charge via USB,
0:13:10or take AA batteries,
0:13:11or you can put rechargeable batteries in them
0:13:13and charge them through the USB ports.
0:13:15It's great.
0:13:16So John was wrong, the end.
0:13:18- So just for the young people listening,
0:13:20I wanna assure you that it actually is possible
0:13:21to take tandem car trips without either cell phones
0:13:24or walkie-talkies.
0:13:26- Yeah, but it sucks.
0:13:27- It does suck.
0:13:28I would agree with both of you.
0:13:29- It's fun, you have to come up with systems for signaling,
0:13:32and then get frustrated while the people
0:13:33don't follow the systems for signaling.
0:13:35- That's a John statement if I've ever heard
0:13:37- That's not my word.
0:13:38- It is fun though.
0:13:38It's like being a spy.
0:13:40- Something like that.
0:13:41- If I put my right hand out the window,
0:13:43that means pull over.
0:13:45Put my left hand out the window, that means merge.
0:13:48- Aye yai yai.
0:13:49All right, we should get to the actual topics
0:13:52for this evening and something happened on Tuesday
0:13:54and something something education.
0:13:57Moving on, let's finally get to the topic
0:13:59we all wanna get to, which is Apple's Hay Day.
0:14:04Let's talk about this.
0:14:04- There's one in between that you skip,
0:14:06but no, we're gonna talk about the Tuesday thing.
0:14:08We're not gonna go through the event blow by blow
0:14:09'cause there wasn't that much to go through.
0:14:11- I thought this was so funny because last week,
0:14:13we as professional podcasters completely failed to mention
0:14:17our W2C live show and also that there was about to be
0:14:21an Apple event that we all knew about and we're like,
0:14:23ooh, everyone else is doing predictions
0:14:25and at least mentioning this is gonna happen.
0:14:27We completely failed to even mention it.
0:14:29- I don't think we failed to because I knew about it.
0:14:31I just didn't think there was anything worth saying
0:14:33on the last show.
0:14:34I think we talked about it beforehand and like,
0:14:36well, we'll see what they announce.
0:14:38But until, I didn't have high expectations
0:14:41of what they were gonna announce,
0:14:42and so I didn't really feel like it was worth discussing
0:14:45until they announced something.
0:14:46- I mean, I didn't have high expectations either,
0:14:48and they even failed to meet those.
0:14:49I thought it'd be really funny
0:14:51if we just never mentioned it at all,
0:14:53because there was so little really to it,
0:14:57but unfortunately, Jon wants to talk about it,
0:15:01so we're gonna talk about it.
0:15:03Just pretend like we never actually mentioned it,
0:15:05and it's funnier that way.
0:15:06- There wasn't a lot of product announcements,
0:15:08but I think there are things to talk about, though.
0:15:10So my first question is,
0:15:11did you two actually watch the event?
0:15:13- Nope.
0:15:14Not live, but I, 'cause it was actually
0:15:15during the road trip that I was taking,
0:15:17but I downloaded the video and watched it that night.
0:15:20- Casey's poo-pooing this event, he didn't even watch it.
0:15:21How do you know?
0:15:22They could've had seven slides about you.
0:15:24- I have to admit, I also fast-forwarded
0:15:26through some parts of it, 'cause it, you know what?
0:15:29What I didn't like about it overall,
0:15:33it kind of made me feel, I don't know,
0:15:36it was a little bit off-putting.
0:15:37It basically seemed like they were holding an event
0:15:40to almost like yell at the world like,
0:15:44"No, look, we care about education,"
0:15:46but without actually backing it up
0:15:48with what I consider to be enough.
0:15:51And that could take lots of different forms,
0:15:52and you could disagree or agree with that,
0:15:54but I felt like the premise of an education event,
0:15:58that they call the press out and everything,
0:16:01And by the way, if I was an independent journalist
0:16:06who flew out there on my own dime to cover this,
0:16:08I'd be pretty annoyed, honestly.
0:16:10But anyway, and I'm friends with some of these people,
0:16:13and they haven't told me this behind the scenes,
0:16:14I'm just saying if I were one of these people,
0:16:17I would be annoyed that I had spent
0:16:19the time and money to do this.
0:16:20But the impression I got from this event
0:16:22was that it was a lot of cheerleading,
0:16:27it was almost like a pep rally for Apple and for teachers.
0:16:30- It's so accurate, given it was in a school.
0:16:33- Yeah, right?
0:16:34But without enough substance, I thought, to back that up.
0:16:36It was really more like, look at how great we already are
0:16:41at the things that we are already doing.
0:16:43Not so much, here's some new software, new changes,
0:16:47new hardware, whatever it is.
0:16:49There was actually very little of that,
0:16:51at least very little of relevance or of significance.
0:16:54And there was just a lot more like,
0:16:56here's how great we are, here's someone else
0:16:58to come out and tell you how great we've been
0:17:00and how great we're going to keep being.
0:17:02And it was a weird balance.
0:17:04I just felt almost like my attention
0:17:07was taken advantage of.
0:17:11- You're waiting for them to get to the product announcements.
0:17:13- No, and look, I wasn't expecting an iPhone or anything.
0:17:15I knew that it was a focused education event.
0:17:18That's one thing, but if you look at what people
0:17:22would reasonably expect out of a publicized press event
0:17:27regarding Apple and education,
0:17:29I would have expected a lot more than what we actually got.
0:17:33- Some people were tweeting, I forget when it was,
0:17:34like the 20 or 30 minute mark.
0:17:36They were like, we're 20 minutes in
0:17:38and they still haven't said anything about any products yet.
0:17:41There was a long lead in
0:17:42and there was a long lead out as well.
0:17:44So I don't remember the last education event,
0:17:48but another thing people were tweeting about
0:17:49was exactly how long ago the last education event was.
0:17:53Apparently they don't even have these things
0:17:54every two or three years.
0:17:56There are long gaps between the events.
0:17:59Having a dedicated education event.
0:18:00Apple does stuff education-related all the time, but having a dedicated event for it
0:18:04doesn't happen all the time.
0:18:05I think the last time we talked about it, these stats were similar, but to frame this
0:18:11to like why is Apple having an education event?
0:18:14Why are they spending an hour on stage telling you about all the things that Apple does related
0:18:19to education and trying to make them seem, to Marco's point, as good as possible, seem
0:18:25desirable, seem like that Apple is doing great things in education.
0:18:29This is a quote from Bloomberg, a Bloomberg article, link in the show notes.
0:18:33Chromebooks accounted for 60% of laptops, tablet, and other mobile computers shipping
0:18:36to U.S. K-12 schools in the third quarter of 2017.
0:18:40Apple's iPads accounted for 12% of those school devices, which is less than half its market
0:18:44share from 2014.
0:18:45So from 2014 to 2017, their market share has been cut in half, more than cut in half.
0:18:52So not only is Apple not leading in market share in this education category they're addressing
0:19:00here, which is basically United States K-12 schools, not only are Chromebooks eating their
0:19:06lunch there, but it's not as if that's just the status quo.
0:19:09It's like, yeah, well, you know, Apple's never had big market share, but they have the important
0:19:14part.
0:19:15In three years, their small market share has been cut in half.
0:19:19So if I were Apple and I cared anything about education, I would have to be taking a hard
0:19:25look at this and saying, "Should we get out of the education market or should we do something?"
0:19:31Because unlike lots of other markets where we have small market share but it's steady
0:19:35and we reap most of the profits, like the phone market for example, Apple does not dominate
0:19:41the phone market market share-wise.
0:19:42But Apple is probably not crying over that because they make so much money on it and
0:19:48They are seen to have, if not the best phone, then one of the best phones.
0:19:54And I don't think you see a lot of articles anymore saying Apple needs to up its phone
0:19:58market share or they're going to be doomed or Android is eating Apple's lunch in the
0:20:02phone market just because the money talks.
0:20:04You look at where all the money goes, it goes to Apple.
0:20:07And also, if Apple's phone market share had been cut in half in the last three years,
0:20:11I think there'd be a lot of articles about that.
0:20:13So I feel like the context for this event is Apple trying to figure out how to even
0:20:21just stay in the game in education.
0:20:23Forget about it, here's how great we are, but just, is this a market where we can make
0:20:29a difference?
0:20:30Where we can be a player?
0:20:31Where we can be important?
0:20:34And that got me thinking about how the education market is different from the phone market,
0:20:39or the personal computer market, or the TV connected puck market, or the home cylinder
0:20:42that you yell at market or whatever, you know, the fancy computer watch market.
0:20:48Lots of, like, in the modern era, Apple has been all about making tons of money selling
0:20:55relatively high margin expensive products to a minority of a market.
0:20:59The phone market is the best example of that.
0:21:02They make so much money and their market share is so small compared to the aggregate of all
0:21:08their competitors, which is always just lumped together as like Apple and not Apple, basically
0:21:12Android and iOS. But they just make so much money. It's like, well, this is a winning
0:21:16strategy. We don't really care. We're not going to worry that, oh, we need to make a
0:21:22netbook. Remember, the netbook's little cheap laptops to compete with the PC space. We need
0:21:26to make a super cheap iPhone to compete with Android. That's not how Apple plays the game.
0:21:33They want to sell to the best part of the market, best meaning the part that is the
0:21:37most lucrative, the part that allows Apple to make the fanciest products because people
0:21:41will pay the highest price and the highest margins and all that Apple's products look
0:21:45nice and everything like that.
0:21:48And I was thinking about whether that strategy is viable in education because as far as I
0:21:56can tell, Apple continues to essentially pursue that in these past decade or so in education,
0:22:02saying we're not going to have the majority of the education market, but we'll have the
0:22:07quote-unquote best part of the education market, the richest schools will buy Apple stuff.
0:22:13Like I'm trying to figure out what they're thinking.
0:22:16If you can afford us, we give you the best school experience, or it will seem the fanciest
0:22:23if you buy Apple stuff.
0:22:25And for some reason, when it comes to education, that rubs me the wrong way more so than smartphones.
0:22:31Just because education I think of more as a thing that has to be for everybody.
0:22:37Whereas smartphones, there are options, and if you don't have an iPhone, you are not disadvantaged
0:22:44in life versus if you have an Android phone, right?
0:22:46But if you don't have an education or don't have a good education, or your education is
0:22:50not as rich as someone else's, that feels, you know, inequitable to me.
0:22:56And so I'm watching this presentation and I'm trying to figure out, is Apple changing
0:23:01course here? Are they saying, "We're going to figure out how to let more students get
0:23:11access to our products," or are we still concentrating on providing the best products
0:23:17for the few students who are lucky enough to go to a school that can afford them? And
0:23:23the presentation, as I read it, as someone who is not—I'm not involved in the education
0:23:28system but I do have kids in school, seemed to me that they were not changing their strategy,
0:23:34that everything they presented was beautifully polished, sort of very sort of high-end, nice
0:23:40to look at applications, hardware and software that a few schools are lucky enough to have,
0:23:48but that the pricing was the same as it's ever been, and that nothing they announced
0:23:55is going to help them compete with the things that are currently eating their lunch in the
0:23:59market, not just on price, but from what I understand from people in education, a lot
0:24:05of the features for the stuff that Google offers are better than the feature that Apple
0:24:10offers.
0:24:11That's why part of the announcements are, yeah, we have a product, a new iPad, but we
0:24:15also have a bunch of new software that's playing catch-up to our competitors to say, oh, here's
0:24:19an easier way to manage a bunch of iPads, using an easier way for a teacher to manage
0:24:22a bunch of students doing things.
0:24:24But even that, even the catch-up software, I saw a lot of complaints saying, "Okay,
0:24:28but you still haven't caught up entirely to the functionality offered by Google in
0:24:32terms of integrating into other school system things and providing a broader set of functionality,"
0:24:36which may not be pretty and fancy and have the Apple Pencil support and high-end video
0:24:43production capabilities so kids can make cool videos about gravity and stuff, but practically
0:24:47speaking, when it comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic and the basics of functioning
0:24:52in a school and having a lot of students and a lot of devices and managing it all.
0:24:58But still, Apple's offerings aren't even the best and they're certainly not the cheapest.
0:25:03So I'm kind of confused/concerned about Apple's approach to education because it seems to
0:25:10me that if they really want to make a difference in this market, they need to pursue a different
0:25:14strategy because I don't think it's appropriate to pursue a strategy like they do in the consumer
0:25:20market in education.
0:25:22I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that.
0:25:23I would love to hear from people in education
0:25:26who have worked with Apple and Google stuff
0:25:28about how they perceive these competitors.
0:25:32Did people watch the education event,
0:25:34people who are actually teachers or school administrators
0:25:38and think that Apple had done something
0:25:40that's gonna change the game
0:25:42or did it just seem like more of the same?
0:25:45- I thought Joe Saplinsky had a few good tweets about this
0:25:48and I'll probably forget to put them in the show notes,
0:25:50But Joe used to be a, I think he was an English teacher,
0:25:55if I'm not mistaken, apologies if I have that wrong.
0:25:57But now he's an app developer and designer and slash rockstar.
0:26:01But in any case, you know, his take about it was, you know,
0:26:05look, Apple doesn't really play the cheap game,
0:26:10just like you were saying, Jon.
0:26:11You know, it's not Apple's card that they play.
0:26:14So are we really surprised that this is the way
0:26:16this event turned out?
0:26:18And, you know, he and I went back and forth a little bit in a happy way, or at least I
0:26:22thought I was happy, maybe he was annoyed at me.
0:26:24But yeah, we went back and forth a little bit.
0:26:26And the thing that, you know, I've not worked in education, but Aaron was a teacher, a high
0:26:31school teacher for a long time.
0:26:32And in fact, I think I've mentioned this a few times on the show, a few years ago, actually
0:26:36many years ago now, there was national news about like a stampede that happened because
0:26:42iBooks were being sold for 50 bucks a pop at the Richmond International Raceway.
0:26:46And they were old, like high school iBooks that were being retired, and so they were
0:26:50selling them obscenely cheaply.
0:26:52And people like got trampled trying to buy these cheap iBooks.
0:26:55Well, that happened because of the county in which we live.
0:26:58It was our county that was selling all those.
0:27:01And so Erin, when she was teaching, the kids all got issued Dells when they were—when
0:27:05she was teaching.
0:27:06Dude.
0:27:07It was just a—yeah, you're getting a Dell.
0:27:09It was just a couple years before that they were getting these iBooks, et cetera.
0:27:14So having spoken to Erin about this, I mean, again, I'm still a little bit removed from
0:27:20the actual decision-making, as was she, but it seemed pretty clear to me that even in
0:27:27a relatively affluent area like we're in, I mean, we're no like, you know, Greenwich
0:27:34County, Connecticut or anything like that, but we're not, you know, broke around these
0:27:38parts.
0:27:39And even here, it's all about cost.
0:27:42just a hundred percent about cost. And so yeah, I think you're right, John, that maybe the apples play
0:27:47is, "Hey, if you happen to live in a really rich area, or if you go to like a very well-to-do private
0:27:51school or something like that, then yeah, we have all sorts of sweet answers for you. We have a sweet
0:27:55solution for you." But I don't know of any like quote-unquote "regular school system" that is going
0:28:04to look at anything more than initial purchase price. Maybe, maybe total cost of ownership.
0:28:12Maybe. But generally speaking it's going to be purchase price. And the other thing I've
0:28:15gleaned from Bradley Chambers and Fraser Spears and a few others is that apparently the management
0:28:21stuff that Google has is way better than what Apple has. It's not even in the ballpark.
0:28:27Now to be fair you can supplement what Apple does with like Jamf or other other third-party tools,
0:28:31But it's just it seems to be a lot more work and a lot more money to use the Apple suite
0:28:36Is that worth it? Maybe they certainly painted from what I've gleaned from not having watched the event
0:28:42He certainly painted a pretty compelling pictures to all the things you can do with iPads in the classroom and so on and so forth
0:28:47But I I just don't see how that's a realistic play
0:28:52For almost any general school system in the world and if you're gonna spend three hundred thirty dollars on
0:28:59You know, per kid on an iPad.
0:29:02I don't, I gotta imagine an aggregate
0:29:04that adds up to a not insignificant amount of money.
0:29:07And the first place I would put that is teacher salaries,
0:29:10because at least in America,
0:29:11salaries are just hilariously just devastatingly small.
0:29:15And it's absurd how little teachers get paid here.
0:29:18- I guess the other point that is less and less mentioned,
0:29:22I feel like, in the modern Apple era,
0:29:24which is general skepticism about whether
0:29:28the addition of technology actually improves education.
0:29:31To your point, Casey, about maybe you actually paid teachers more, that would improve education
0:29:35more than buying all the kids a laptop.
0:29:36Like, there is a technology angle that Apple can speak to, which is they have a very important,
0:29:41profitable platform that if things keep going well will be a viable place for children to
0:29:48make their living.
0:29:50And so teaching coding skills, and just more broadly, teaching coding skills, which is
0:29:53the thing that Apple's familiar with because they have a developer, you know, they have
0:29:56developers, they have developer relations, they have developer tools, they are well equipped
0:30:00to make an education-focused version of teaching people how—computer skills, which I think
0:30:05is a viable thing to learn in school, right? And Apple has expertise there, so welcome
0:30:09Apple to the education. You're teaching about something you know. But beyond that, I feel
0:30:14like when I was a kid, there was much more skepticism about whether having kids make
0:30:18a multimedia presentation about gravity, like in that they have this cute video of kids,
0:30:23you know, doing this project and making slow-mo videos on all their iOS devices and cutting
0:30:26it together and making animations and doing all that.
0:30:30Looks fun, seems expensive, and especially like these, you know, incredibly high production
0:30:34values that these, for the things they do in these little promotional videos.
0:30:39But does that actually improve education?
0:30:42Like there's enrichment and there is getting kids engaged with technology and there is
0:30:46having the advantage to do something a little bit different every once in a while.
0:30:50But I think the vision presented by Apple of that like all kids are doing creative multimedia
0:30:55digital things all the time is not representative of like the broader effort to educate.
0:31:03Like those are the most fun parts and you can make learning fun with the addition of
0:31:07technology but you can make learning fun with the addition of you know just sitting in a
0:31:12circle and talking to each other and you know or just going on a field trip.
0:31:17Like there is—it just seems to me that Apple seems uninterested in what will actually make
0:31:26education better and more interested in how can we make education better with our products.
0:31:36And I'm not entirely sure their products make education better in a way that is worth
0:31:43the money spent on.
0:31:45Not all those people's like, oh,
0:31:46schools shouldn't have computers or anything like that.
0:31:48It just seems to me that like,
0:31:51that learning is not linked to the technology involved.
0:31:55Right?
0:31:56That you can learn all the same things
0:31:59in exciting, engaging ways
0:32:01without having computers involved at all.
0:32:06Unless of course you're learning about computers,
0:32:07which again, that's the angle that Apple has expertise on.
0:32:09And they're wise to lean on it,
0:32:11like learning to code and the Swift playground
0:32:13and all that stuff.
0:32:14learning about computers. Computers may help you. Typewriters may help you. Slates may
0:32:19help you. Pencils and lined paper may help you. But in the end, the learning part, it
0:32:24seems much more—there are so many other much bigger factors, starting with just like
0:32:30temperature control and safety all the way up to class size and teachers that are not
0:32:36stressed out and are not underpaid and overworked and just curriculum that suits the students,
0:32:43learning strategies, special help for the kids who need it. There's so many more things
0:32:48that are more important to me than whether my kids have the latest iPad or Android devices
0:32:54or whatever. And I'm not saying that it's Apple's job to solve education. The problem
0:33:00is just that I didn't even see a faint in that direction, a nod or an understanding
0:33:05to the fact that the most important thing in the classroom has nothing to do with the
0:33:10just there because they're there to sell you the technology and that's what I found.
0:33:14That and my concern about the fact that their strategy doesn't seem to be changing made
0:33:18me think that Apple is on the wrong track with its education strategy and that if they
0:33:25continue to pursue it, they're not going to turn around their market share slide.
0:33:31And also, like again, having two kids in school, it didn't make me think, "Boy, I wish my
0:33:36kids had access to iPads and Apple laptops."
0:33:40It just didn't, you know, like I don't have any desire for that at all for my kids.
0:33:44I want my kids to, you know, learn and enjoy school and learn the, you know, the things
0:33:51that they're supposed to learn, the social skills, like to have a good school experience.
0:33:55I have no desires whatsoever about the technology they're using.
0:33:58I don't care if they use any technology unless they're interested in technology or unless
0:34:02they're taking a course in technology.
0:34:03And even then, I don't care if they teach the kids Pascal, teach them C++, teach them
0:34:07Scheme.
0:34:08I don't care if they're learning Swift or iOS program or anything like that.
0:34:13So I don't know.
0:34:14Maybe I'm overly grumpy about this.
0:34:16[laughs]
0:34:17-No, I mean, I think you bring up a lot of really good points because, you know, I think
0:34:22maybe one of the reasons this event kind of rubbed me the wrong way is similar to what
0:34:25you were just saying about how it seems like Apple more just wants to like yell at us about
0:34:32why they don't have to change much of anything, why their existing stuff can just be shoved
0:34:37right in there and be a perfect fit.
0:34:39And I think that over time, the compellingness
0:34:44or the fit of what they're trying to put
0:34:47into this category versus what these customers
0:34:50actually need and want is diverging.
0:34:53It's not getting closer over time,
0:34:55it's getting worse over time.
0:34:56Like, the way I see it from both reading
0:34:59and listening to school workers who are also writers
0:35:04in tech or podcasters, also from friends and family I know
0:35:08who work in education, some of them teachers,
0:35:10some of them administrators.
0:35:12It seems like what schools ultimately want
0:35:15is inexpensive, durable laptops,
0:35:18and enterprise-style management tools and services
0:35:22to back them, to make it easier to manage.
0:35:25Apple seems to me like they're losing this
0:35:27on three pretty major fronts.
0:35:30Price is obviously a big one.
0:35:32They are losing on price, not by as much as some people think if you look at iPads as
0:35:38being the solution, if you look at laptops as being the solution, that they lose big.
0:35:42They also seem to be losing with, you know, just kind of, this is kind of the wrong product,
0:35:46I think.
0:35:47And we have this argument a lot in our regular tech beat of is the iPad a good enough computer
0:35:52for various people for various things.
0:35:55And ultimately, I think while you could make some really nice marketing videos about how
0:36:00how cool it would be if kids used iPads
0:36:02to rediscover things like music and robots and stuff.
0:36:07That's not what most kids need most of the time
0:36:09in most classes.
0:36:10What they mostly need is laptops.
0:36:13And so what Apple is trying to sell the schools on is,
0:36:16no, look, yes, our laptops are way too expensive
0:36:19for what you're looking for,
0:36:21so instead, although they still sell a lot of them anyway,
0:36:23but instead, you should be looking at the iPad.
0:36:26That's why we don't need to make our laptops any cheaper,
0:36:27'cause the future is the iPad.
0:36:29and you can just bolt on all of these clunky,
0:36:32expensive accessories that raise the price even further
0:36:35because you're not gonna use that iPad at $329 or $299.
0:36:40You're gonna have to add a case of some kind to protect it
0:36:43because it's way too fragile to just give to kids naked.
0:36:45You can't even give to adults naked.
0:36:47So you gotta get some kind of case.
0:36:49It's probably gonna want some kind of keyboard
0:36:51for a lot of things it needs
0:36:52or for standardized test requirements or things like that.
0:36:55So that's why they have this Logitech case
0:36:56that has this special keyboard and everything.
0:36:58And so you have to add on all these accessories.
0:37:01Now they want you to buy a pencil or the Logitech Crayon,
0:37:03which is interesting, they want you to add on
0:37:05even more stuff to it to make it into what you want.
0:37:08All that drives up the price and the complexity
0:37:10and the clunkiness of the solution.
0:37:12So it's very possible, and I think likely,
0:37:15that they're actually selling schools the wrong product.
0:37:17What schools actually want is inexpensive, durable laptops.
0:37:21And then the third problem, which I don't see them
0:37:24probably ever fixing, is that if you talk to an administrator
0:37:28to an administrator or a teacher who runs the Google G Suite stuff or to an IT manager
0:37:35who runs the fleets of these things, the G Suite management tools are really good. It
0:37:42is an entire enterprise management platform and all these web services with Google Docs
0:37:49and all this stuff that's really good. Apple, I don't think, is ever going to do well in
0:37:56in that kind of environment.
0:37:58That's not in their DNA to make enterprise
0:38:00fleet management things very, very well,
0:38:02or to make cloud document platforms very well.
0:38:05They try, but not very hard,
0:38:07and it's never very competitive.
0:38:09And when you compare, like, I wanted to,
0:38:12I laughed so hard, they made a quick little remark
0:38:15about how when the iPad, how it supports multiple users
0:38:19only in a school environment, and the presenter said,
0:38:23you can change users in under a minute.
0:38:26(laughing)
0:38:27- Wow.
0:38:28- I was like, imagine if it took a minute
0:38:30to switch users on a PC or a Mac?
0:38:33- It wasn't even change users,
0:38:34it was you could log out and be ready
0:38:36for someone else to log in.
0:38:37Like they were just, they were touting the log out time.
0:38:39I think the log in time could potentially be worse,
0:38:41'cause it does, what it does under the cover
0:38:42is it's not like, it's not like they're using
0:38:45the multi-user features of the underlying operating system,
0:38:47it's just like a single user iPad
0:38:49that they swap in and out by shuffling stuff around.
0:38:51It's not like multiple accounts on the Mac.
0:38:53- They're like tearing down the entire user space,
0:38:55tearing down all of Springboard,
0:38:56swapping in various like directories and files
0:38:59and then bringing the whole thing back up.
0:39:00It's basically, it's even more complex than a reboot,
0:39:04what they're doing.
0:39:05(laughs)
0:39:06'Cause these devices are not made for this at all.
0:39:09Like, you know, if you want that kind of thing,
0:39:11you need networked PCs and Macs.
0:39:13Like, iPads are so not made for multi-user
0:39:16and they're not willing to change iOS
0:39:18in major ways to fix that.
0:39:19They're only willing to do like,
0:39:20this kind of like minor lip service stuff.
0:39:22So if you look at Apple Education, their history,
0:39:26they were always kind of like the fancy, expensive ones
0:39:30that you'd have a few of in the schools.
0:39:32I think very, I was in school long before
0:39:34any kind of one-to-one program,
0:39:35so maybe that's different now.
0:39:36But Apple did well when it was Macs only,
0:39:41when they weren't trying to split
0:39:42their consumer computing ideal
0:39:45into these two very different platforms of Mac and iPad.
0:39:48so when there's just one platform for them to focus on,
0:39:51and in a world where that platform
0:39:53could basically be an island.
0:39:55It was like, here is a really nice desktop
0:39:57that you can use to edit videos
0:39:59and do desktop publishing on.
0:40:00They were really good at that.
0:40:02But today, you have large fleets of these
0:40:07always-networked, strongly web services-based
0:40:10application platforms and enterprise management tools.
0:40:14And Apple just doesn't do that nearly as well
0:40:17or nearly as competitively as Google and Microsoft
0:40:21and other PC vendors that have tools for schools and stuff.
0:40:26I don't see that really ever changing.
0:40:28Apple is not that good at web services,
0:40:30they're not that good at enterprise management tools.
0:40:33In all the other areas of their business,
0:40:35they're actually pulling away from that.
0:40:37And I also even question, back in the olden days,
0:40:43there was always that thing,
0:40:45no one gets fired for buying IBM.
0:40:47If you're an IT administrator at a school,
0:40:52and you are tasked with making this kind of decision
0:40:55of do you invest heavily in the Apple platform
0:40:58or in G Suite, would you trust knowing today's Apple,
0:41:03knowing how they do services,
0:41:05how they maintain applications over time,
0:41:10would you trust building your school out
0:41:12on like class kit and the classroom or school work,
0:41:15whatever it's called, like all that stuff,
0:41:17would you trust that to actually be not only bug free
0:41:20when it ships not today,
0:41:22when it ships sometime in the future,
0:41:23would you trust that to be stable enough?
0:41:25And more importantly, would you trust that to be maintained
0:41:29and supported over a reasonable amount of time?
0:41:32I think that's a huge risk for an IT administrator to take.
0:41:35I think that's way too high of a risk.
0:41:37Knowing the way Apple does things these days
0:41:39and knowing how seemingly stable and already well-developed
0:41:44and well-established the competing platforms are
0:41:47in these regards, I don't see this being
0:41:50a really good decision for an IT administrator
0:41:52pretty much anywhere.
0:41:53- That gets me back to my earlier point.
0:41:56Like this is enterprise software for schools.
0:41:59Like enterprise software, and my old definition
0:42:01is like software where the person you have to sell it to
0:42:03is not the person who has to use it.
0:42:04And there's two angles in that.
0:42:06The one we already talked about,
0:42:07which is like management of large devices in a world where you can actually conceive
0:42:12of one-to-one programs where every student gets one device. Like that was not even a
0:42:15twinkle in anyone's eye when I was in school. It was like you had a computer lab with like
0:42:18six computers in it for the whole school. And they're all Apple IIs, by the way, not
0:42:22Macs. But that enterprise management thing, like some of the people who watch this event
0:42:27I could see on Twitter were from that camp saying, "Okay, Apple, I have a problem. My
0:42:31problem is I have lots of students, I have lots of devices, and dealing with them is
0:42:35You've got to keep track of them all.
0:42:37You've got to keep them all up to date.
0:42:38You've got to manage them all.
0:42:39Tell me, Appa, how you're going to make my job as an enterprise school administrator
0:42:43easy.
0:42:44That is enterprise software in both the good and bad senses, and I tend to look at the
0:42:48bad sense.
0:42:49The bad sense is, say Apple or Google or anybody makes these school administrators' lives easier
0:42:56and gives them an easy way to manage large fleets of devices.
0:42:59I as a parent and as a general citizen interested in the education of the country thinks, "Okay,
0:43:05But does every student having devices make their education better?
0:43:10I don't care how easy it is for you, school administrator, to manage the devices.
0:43:15I understand that's how they sell it to you.
0:43:16I understand that's why you're choosing, because you want something that can do all the things
0:43:19you want it to hook into your back-end system that keeps track of all your students.
0:43:24But I'm not that interested in how easy it is for you to do your job.
0:43:27The whole point of the school is education.
0:43:30Is it better for the kids for everyone to have these devices?
0:43:35Does the device that the kids get, is there a difference to them or is there no difference?
0:43:39Like, do the kids care if they have a Chromebook or the Apple stuff?
0:43:42Does it make a difference to their education?
0:43:44Like, at all?
0:43:45Do they, you know, so that's my question.
0:43:47And the second thing is that I worry about is like, the other constituency that is not
0:43:54the students that Apple appeals to, just in general, but in education is, regardless of
0:44:02of how hard it is to manage the devices, right? I feel like there is still, and maybe this
0:44:09has actually increased in the recent decade, some cachet for a school to say, "All our
0:44:16kids have iPads or have MacBook Airs," going back a little bit in time, or have Apple devices
0:44:22that if someone was touring a school, thinking of buying a house in the neighborhood and
0:44:29this is the neighborhood school your kid would go to, or if it's a private school or whatever,
0:44:32and you have Apple hardware everywhere,
0:44:34that makes the school seem better,
0:44:36because Apple, thanks to its marketing
0:44:38and the general high quality of its products
0:44:40in the consumer realm, is seen as a premium brand
0:44:42and as like, it's fancy, right?
0:44:46And so the parents go, "Ooh, all the kids here have iPads."
0:44:48Again, do the parents actually think,
0:44:51if they sat down and think about,
0:44:52"Well, are iPads going to make
0:44:54my child's school experience better
0:44:57than having one more teacher
0:44:59and making the class sizes smaller?
0:45:00Are iPads gonna make my kids' educational experience better
0:45:04than if they had Chromebooks?
0:45:06They're not even thinking that.
0:45:08They're just thinking, all the kids in this school,
0:45:10every school has an iBook, right?
0:45:11That's why people are making that stampede
0:45:13for the $50 iBooks, because Apple, you know,
0:45:15makes fancy, nice devices
0:45:16that most people usually can't afford.
0:45:18And if you can suddenly get them for 50 bucks,
0:45:20it's like, there's a rush on that
0:45:22because there is a perceived value,
0:45:25a perceived coolness, cache, marketing value, whatever,
0:45:28like, status for Apple devices.
0:45:30So if you can get them cheap, all of a sudden,
0:45:32people wanna get them, 'cause they want a piece of that.
0:45:34And that bothers me in education too,
0:45:36because I don't wanna pick schools
0:45:37based on how fancy the hardware is.
0:45:40It's like picking schools based on like,
0:45:41you know, mahogany railings on the stairs.
0:45:45I mean, there is something to be said for schools
0:45:47that look fancy and feel nice and everything,
0:45:49but as far as education goes, like,
0:45:52do the kids care that the railings are mahogany?
0:45:54Like, beyond a minimum level of school upkeep
0:45:57and temperature control and safety and not pumping carbon monoxide into the building
0:46:02because the furnace is old.
0:46:03Obviously they can get bad, but once you get into the competent realm, I'm much less interested
0:46:09in that stuff than I am about all the other much more important aspects of the school.
0:46:16Even if Apple was massive...
0:46:18Take Google.
0:46:19Google seems to be very successful at appealing to people who are enterprise administrators,
0:46:22but I continue to wonder.
0:46:24In a school where the enterprise administrator is kind of like in a workplace where the enterprise
0:46:27administrators, their job is awesome and they love their vendor. Do their end users love
0:46:32the product? Do the teachers love the product? Do the students love the product? Does it
0:46:35actually make their education better? I don't know. I have a real crisis of faith about
0:46:39technology and education, I guess. So it feels to me, having not actually watched this particular
0:46:46event, but based on all of the recaps that I've read, it feels to me like this was,
0:46:53and I forget which one of you said I think it was Marco, this was a pep rally for Apple,
0:46:58but it was Apple trying to say, "Hey, you should consider us despite us." In other words,
0:47:07you know, there's so many things that we don't do the way you want us to do it,
0:47:11but you know what? There's some other stuff that's really cool. And I guess there's a couple of ways
0:47:18to look at that, right? Like you could look at that as Apple is obnoxious and follow themselves
0:47:22and oh, of course, we all we're so fancy and look at us and our fancy iPads and our AR and blah,
0:47:28but I don't really take it that way at all. I took it as, Hey, look, we aspire, we genuinely aspire
0:47:35to make a, a, a engaging, interesting, enlightening and, and diverse in terms of experienced
0:47:46educational like
0:47:48Not event, but you know we want education to be interesting basically and and here's a way that we are several ways that we are
0:47:56enabling that in making education interesting and
0:47:59making the education part a
0:48:02Relatively
0:48:05Frictionless now the penalty is that the poor school administrator is going to pay for that tenfold
0:48:10But for the teacher and the student if you believe what apples if you buy what Apple selling literally and figuratively then it's
0:48:18reasonably frictionless, right
0:48:20So you should consider this because we are like the aspirational version of education that all of us really want aren't we?
0:48:26you should really look at us despite the fact that we're way too expensive and way too difficult to work with and
0:48:32That's how I took the event again not having seen it. I took it as look we're here, you know knock knock knock
0:48:40"Knock, we're here and we do cool stuff
0:48:43"and if you really wanna get your kids engaged,
0:48:46"maybe try us 'cause no kid today wants a laptop anymore.
0:48:51"I mean, maybe that's what they need."
0:48:52I mean, I know you said that earlier, Mark,
0:48:53although I challenge, I'm not entirely sure why.
0:48:56I mean, my gut says, "Yeah, of course they need laptops,"
0:48:58but then I ask myself, "Well, why?"
0:49:01And other than a keyboard, I don't have a good answer.
0:49:03And I'm not here to have that argument
0:49:05at this particular moment.
0:49:06It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things,
0:49:08but certainly-- - Everyone says iPads
0:49:09like everyone's gonna be doing tablets in the future and because my kid loves tablets
0:49:13and doesn't know what a laptop is and it's like, "Okay, wait till your kid is a little
0:49:16bit older." And then like, you know, how many kids get to the end of high school without
0:49:19having or wanting a laptop?
0:49:21Yeah, yeah. And I agree with you. But all I'm saying is there's the obnoxious Apple
0:49:26hubris way of looking at this, which is we are so much better than everyone else because
0:49:31look at how cool we are. And then there's the more humble, "Hey man, we're cool too,
0:49:36Like, check us out. We're worth at least considering. And that's how I took the event.
0:49:41But in the end of the day, it all comes--well, not all, but generally speaking, and this is what
0:49:46Saplinsky and I were kind of going back and forth about,
0:49:48in general, it all comes down to money, and it's just too damn expensive.
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0:51:26(upbeat music)
0:51:29- Now, we haven't really talked about
0:51:32the actual product announcement that happened
0:51:35during this event.
0:51:36- Product. - So we should,
0:51:38yeah, the product. (laughing)
0:51:40Which, I mean, to be fair, I don't think anyone
0:51:43should have really expected more than this.
0:51:45I think we were all, myself included,
0:51:47aspirationally hoping for more than just a new iPad,
0:51:50but realistically, this is what the tea leaves were showing.
0:51:53So Marco, tell us about this new iPad.
0:51:57- So it is updated guts for the actually interesting one
0:52:02that they released last year without an event at all.
0:52:06So last spring, about a year ago,
0:52:08they released the inexpensive 9.7-inch iPad for $329,
0:52:12built with old parts, basically, to make it cheaper.
0:52:16(laughing)
0:52:17And it's kinda like the way the iPhone SE
0:52:20is kinda like built with old parts on the iPhone end
0:52:22to make that cheaper, it's basically the iPad SE.
0:52:26They basically kinda remade the iPad Air 1
0:52:30with modern guts, so it doesn't have some of the niceties.
0:52:33And then, so this, the news now is that they have now
0:52:37updated that model, and by the way, I think that model
0:52:39is almost single-handedly responsible
0:52:42for the turnaround in iPad sales.
0:52:45I think the numbers show from the analysts and stuff
0:52:47that iPad sales went up starting with this model
0:52:50because it turns out when you drop the price
0:52:54of the entry level model to a lineup,
0:52:56a lot more people wanna buy it.
0:52:57so they could learn a lot from the laptop line.
0:53:00Anyway.
0:53:01- Whoever's point it was before, kids do love iPads.
0:53:03- Oh yeah.
0:53:04- Like very young kids all the way up.
0:53:05So there was always an appetite, a desire for iPads,
0:53:09but you're not gonna buy a $600 iPad for a toddler,
0:53:12so you buy a $300 one,
0:53:15starts to get into the realm of possibility.
0:53:17- Yeah, exactly.
0:53:17So anyway, so they introduced this lower price point
0:53:21for the entry level iPad last year,
0:53:23and it sold very well,
0:53:24and then now they've updated it with newer components.
0:53:28It is now roughly the guts of an iPhone 7
0:53:31in most important ways.
0:53:34Just in like an iPad size case with an iPad size screen.
0:53:40It is not the nicest screen.
0:53:41It's basically like an iPad Air 1 kind of screen,
0:53:45so it doesn't have the close lamination
0:53:47of the screen to the glass.
0:53:48There's like a small visible gap.
0:53:50Although, I mean, it's not that big.
0:53:52- Oh, on that topic, I would love to know
0:53:54if someone knows that that increases repairability,
0:53:56'cause that's all I could think of.
0:53:57It's like, why don't they use laminate screen?
0:53:58Maybe it's because if students drop it,
0:54:00they can replace the top glass
0:54:01without replacing the screen,
0:54:02or maybe I'm wrong about that.
0:54:03So if someone at the Genius Bar let us know.
0:54:06- That's an interesting thought.
0:54:07I mean, I figured it was just for cost,
0:54:08and for segmentation, 'cause see,
0:54:10I think one of the issues I have with this,
0:54:11so anyway, if you go down the specs,
0:54:13there's not a lot of differences
0:54:16between this and the 10.5 inch iPad Pro.
0:54:19There are some, and they might be big for you,
0:54:22But it's actually not hugely different.
0:54:26And it's half the price of the iPad Pro.
0:54:29So there are some differences,
0:54:31and again, they may matter to you.
0:54:34As our friend Federico Fattucci pointed out,
0:54:37the new cheap iPad does not have the promotion,
0:54:40120 hertz refresh rate,
0:54:42does not have the P3 wide color, True Tone,
0:54:45a smart connector for the keyboard,
0:54:47and then the camera is not as good.
0:54:49It does not have image stabilization,
0:54:51not shoot 4K video and it only has first generation touch ID.
0:54:55It does now support the Apple Pencil, which is interesting.
0:54:58I don't know how much that's going to matter in practice, at least not for schools.
0:55:05I can't imagine…
0:55:06>> It's a good question.
0:55:07Apple pushing that so hard, by the way, like the pencil support.
0:55:10Every one of the slides, the whole visual theme of the show was things drawn with the
0:55:14Apple Pencil.
0:55:15Every slide, every, like, it was very consistent, beautiful drawings, as always with Apple,
0:55:19beautiful presentation.
0:55:21They were leaning heavily on the Pencil.
0:55:22But the Pencil, of course, is a hundred extra dollars.
0:55:25That's big, you know, that's why people talk about the iPads.
0:55:27You have the iPad, then you got 50 to $100 for a case, $100 for the Pencil, and the crayon
0:55:32was half the price, but it doesn't do pressure,
0:55:35it just does tilt and touch.
0:55:38- The Logitech Crayon is interesting.
0:55:39It's like, if they would sell that separately
0:55:42and if it would work with regular iPads, it doesn't.
0:55:45So it only works with this one.
0:55:48It doesn't work with the iPad Pros.
0:55:50And it is only sold through the education channel.
0:55:53So like you can't just go on Apple.com and order one.
0:55:56Which is unfortunate because it's like Logitech's device
0:56:01that is really an Apple Pencil inside,
0:56:04that has the same benefits as the Apple Pencil,
0:56:05except for it does not have pressure sensitivity.
0:56:08But I know a lot of people who would buy that,
0:56:10and it's like a little bit more ergonomic,
0:56:12it has a button, like it's actually kind of better
0:56:15in some ways, I mean, you know,
0:56:17it doesn't look as nice and everything,
0:56:18but honestly, I would probably have bought one of those
0:56:20if it worked on the iPad Pro.
0:56:21- But people can't use it for art
0:56:23without the pressure sensitivity though.
0:56:24Like I continue to think that the Apple Pencil,
0:56:26I mean, the Apple Pencil is great and all,
0:56:27but I think it's just too expensive.
0:56:29Like maybe for the Pro models, it's like who cares,
0:56:31but I really wish there was a pencil for less than $100.
0:56:36- Yeah, and it really does have a few
0:56:38pretty annoying design flaws.
0:56:40Mike made the case on connected this past week
0:56:44that we all made fun of it how you can charge it
0:56:46by sticking it up the butt of the iPad
0:56:48and it looks really funny,
0:56:49but he made the case that that's actually a good thing
0:56:53in practice, and that's fine.
0:56:55I think the Apple Pencil has lots of design problems.
0:56:57It has the issue of there's nothing to grip on it,
0:57:01It is a little bit too big and a little bit too heavy.
0:57:05The battery life is not good enough
0:57:07and because there is no power switch,
0:57:09the battery is constantly draining itself
0:57:12if you're carrying it in a bag and it's in motion
0:57:14or using the iPad without using the pencil.
0:57:16And of course there's nowhere to put it on the iPad
0:57:18or around the iPad.
0:57:20There's lots of problems that the pencil has.
0:57:22The Logitech Crayon solves some of those
0:57:24and it's kind of a shame that you have to rely on,
0:57:27that Apple doesn't stoop down to the level
0:57:31making something ergonomic with a button on it,
0:57:33even though that would actually make it a better product
0:57:35in some ways, but anyway.
0:57:36Going back to this iPad, this iPad's a really good deal.
0:57:40Like, you're getting a lot for this,
0:57:43and if anything, I think it really highlights
0:57:47how incredibly expensive the iPad Pro is
0:57:50for what you're getting there.
0:57:51Like, to get a decently equipped one of these,
0:57:53which we'll get to in a little while,
0:57:55you know, you're looking at 400 bucks,
0:57:57you know, once you throw in some accessories, maybe more,
0:57:59with the iPad Pro, you're looking at about 800.
0:58:01And it's really, you're getting, for double the price,
0:58:06you're getting a nicer and slightly larger screen,
0:58:11the smart connector, which gives you the opportunity
0:58:15to spend another $200 on the keyboard,
0:58:17and a little bit better camera,
0:58:18which a lot of people don't use
0:58:19or don't care about on the iPad.
0:58:21So it's like, the difference that you're getting is,
0:58:24and it's not, I don't think it's a twice the price difference
0:58:28to go from this to the iPad Pro.
0:58:31And again, this is only gonna be for a few months
0:58:33because presumably in June, they're probably going
0:58:35to update the iPad Pro to make it even better.
0:58:38But I do think this kind of illustrates
0:58:41quite how expensive the iPad Pro is
0:58:45compared to how expensive it needs to be.
0:58:48'Cause this shows what they can do at 329.
0:58:51- This iPad feels a little bit chintzy to me, though.
0:58:54I understand it's gotta be a cut-down model.
0:58:56It makes sense to have it in the product line.
0:58:58think they should have a cheap iPad, setting aside education, just for regular people,
0:59:03right?
0:59:04But some of the cheaping out, like I've complained about this before, I really wish Apple would
0:59:09make less expensive products that were not merely old parts or old, like a purpose-built
0:59:19product to hit a much lower price point.
0:59:23In this case, the one that really burns me is Touch ID, it doesn't have second-gen Touch
0:59:27ID because that just feels like you're being it's like come on like I
0:59:31understand I understand I don't need p3 color gamut I don't need promotion like
0:59:35true tone yeah maybe smart connector okay maybe that's like a feature that
0:59:39schools don't want or whatever camera sure by all means cheap out but the
0:59:42touch ID you unlock it like it just it just it's like everything like we can't
0:59:47have we can't have any nice things it's like it is if Apple was selling cheaper
0:59:51imagine Apple sold lots of Macs if they were selling cheaper Macs with USB 2 in
0:59:55them still, right? And it would be like, "Come on, at a certain point USB 2.0, isn't it more
0:59:59expensive for you than USB 3.0?" Like, just, I know it's not quite the same thing, but
1:00:04--
1:00:05The USB-C cable that comes with all the MacBook Pros is a USB 2.0 cable.
1:00:07Yeah, I just feel like you have to make the product not feel like you're getting second
1:00:14class in everything. I feel like -- and this is a thing that Steve Jobs used to do, and
1:00:18my impression from the outside is that basically through sheer force of will, because it's
1:00:22it's what he wanted, is periodically it would update the whole line and it would expunge
1:00:27some lesser thing from the entire line top to bottom. Even the cheapest one wouldn't
1:00:31have things that Steve Jobs no longer likes. He'd love to refresh the whole line and say
1:00:35"It's all gone." In the Tim Cook era, refreshing the whole line pretty much never happens.
1:00:41You get new things at the top, but the middle and bottom is just like, it's like hand-me-downs
1:00:47and secondhand stuff and just hanging out down there with yesterday's technology. You
1:00:51We never get the clean sweep that you go through that says, "We have a whole new line of products
1:00:54from super low price to super high price, and all of them," we talked about this before,
1:00:58"look like a family and are brought up to some minimum standard."
1:01:02So that second-gen Touch ID should be everywhere by now.
1:01:06You should not have first-gen Touch ID.
1:01:07It should be a relic of the past, but it's like, "Can we save an extra $1.50?"
1:01:11Yes, we can keep shipping the old one.
1:01:13No, don't keep shipping the old one.
1:01:17the lowest end Apple product, I feel like has to be brought along with all the other
1:01:22tech at some minimum level. I don't know. The product annoys me a little bit. I do agree
1:01:29that it's great that it's there. It's much better than not having it at all, but I'm
1:01:33not going to like it.
1:01:34Tim Cook has no minimum standard. That's like if you look at, you know, you said like raise
1:01:39everything to a minimum standard. He has no minimum. He will sell the oldest, lowest end
1:01:46parts forever as long as there's still money to be made there.
1:01:52I think if Apple was truly a premium company, if they really wanted that quality, and honestly,
1:01:57and I don't say this often, if Steve was still there, I do not think they would be selling
1:02:02anything today with a spinning disk or a non-retina screen.
1:02:06- Yeah, as a product guy, as Steve so much was, and I attribute it to him because he
1:02:12just had the last say in so many things. Once you have the new thing, you don't want anyone
1:02:17to have the old thing anymore. Obviously price is a factor and you can't just make everyone
1:02:21retina overnight, but once you see a retina screen, God, can you look at a non-retina
1:02:25screen anymore? And as soon as that's feasible price-wise, you want to put that in everything.
1:02:30Same thing with second-gen Touch ID. First-gen Touch ID, yeah, it's our first cut at it,
1:02:34but once we get the second-gen one and the price comes down, once it gets close enough,
1:02:37it's time to refresh the whole line and forget about first-gen Touch ID. You're never going
1:02:40to see that in an Apple product again, everything is second gen. Just because you feel like
1:02:46you want everyone to have your new thing. And yet, Tim does not seem to have that instinct.
1:02:51He feels no kind of, I'm not going to say embarrassment, it's not shame or embarrassment,
1:02:57it's too much. It's more like just when you make a new thing, you want everyone to see
1:03:02the best thing that you have to offer. And again, obviously price comes into it. Everyone
1:03:05can't get a P3 screen, everyone can't get ProMotion, right? But there's the trickle-down
1:03:09effect.
1:03:10And a product person would be like, "Boy, I can't wait until it's financially feasible
1:03:13for me to offer P3 displays on all our products.
1:03:16When is that going to happen?
1:03:17Give me a timeline.
1:03:18Five years from now or whatever, let's go for that because that will be a milestone.
1:03:22Like we will have raised the bar on all of our products."
1:03:24And Tim Cook is like, "I don't care if that ever happens.
1:03:26Keep shipping the TN display on the MacBook Air with giant pixels and terrible color reproduction
1:03:31as long as people buy it."
1:03:32And that's not…
1:03:33I don't like that.
1:03:34This is a good time to bring up another point that we had in the notes here, which is that
1:03:38Apple's still selling the iPad Mini 4 for $70 more
1:03:43than this new iPad.
1:03:45It has an A8. (laughs)
1:03:47- As opposed to an A10.
1:03:48(laughing)
1:03:51- And yep, still selling it.
1:03:53No end in sight and also no replacement in sight
1:03:56for that product, even though I think people would buy it.
1:03:59But--
1:04:00- It's got an A8, no Apple Pencil support,
1:04:01and a smaller display and it's $70 more.
1:04:03This is another, this is an article from The Verge,
1:04:05by the way, and this is another example
1:04:07of Apple's product lines not being coherent.
1:04:10Lay out all the iPads before me and explain to me
1:04:13what the progression is through your line,
1:04:15or what the use cases are.
1:04:17And then you get to the iPad mini before you,
1:04:18be like, "Mm, this is like for people
1:04:21who want something smaller,
1:04:23but want it to be two generations
1:04:24behind our least expensive one and have no pencil support,
1:04:27and I don't know."
1:04:28Like, I mean, maybe they were in an in-between period,
1:04:30but we used to say that in the beginning,
1:04:31like, "Oh, this line is in a transition," right?
1:04:33But now I feel like we have enough time to say,
1:04:36all the lines are constantly in transition. They never get to their destination. They
1:04:40never get to the point where there is a line that makes sense and that has good products
1:04:45at all price points. It's always just this long tail of the residue of yesteryear falling
1:04:51off the product line, or not falling off as the case may be.
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1:07:11All right, let's move on and do some Ask ATP, shall we?
1:07:18Let's start with Chris O'Riebo, who asks, "Which Apple product, when purchased from
1:07:22Apple, including refurbished and clearance, provides the most value or functionality per
1:07:26dollar?"
1:07:27biggest bang for your buck? I don't have a good answer for this. I do. I do. Okay, good. Well,
1:07:36we will get to you momentarily. My first, which is not good, is whatever the best iPhone is you can
1:07:46buy. Because given all of the things that you can do with your phone and how amazing your phone
1:07:51will be, get the best one you can. It'll be great bang for your buck. My second answer, which is
1:07:56probably the better of the two is AirPods. They are expensive, but they provide—assuming
1:08:00they fit in your ears—they provide me endless amounts of joy. I cannot speak highly enough
1:08:06of the AirPods. So let's go to John, who will hopefully have a very quick answer, and
1:08:12then Marco, you can take us home.
1:08:13>> John
1:08:17The AirPods is a good one, but I still feel like the OnePlus 1SX is too much. My answer
1:08:18is the iPhone 8. I think the most expensive iPhone is too much. Like the iPhone 10, it's
1:08:22It's not worth the price premium, but the iPhone 8 is a fantastic phone.
1:08:28If the iPhone X didn't exist, the iPhone 8 would be a worthy top-end phone.
1:08:33And because the iPhone X does exist, it can be less expensive.
1:08:36And yeah, the iPhone 8 is still expensive, but it's a really great phone.
1:08:40And I feel like it gets overlooked.
1:08:42And the iPhone is Apple's best product.
1:08:44They put their best stuff into it.
1:08:46It has the highest success rate.
1:08:48So I feel like that's the most bang for the buck, even though it is a hell of a lot of
1:08:51the box is also a hell of a lot of bang.
1:08:54- That's a really good pick, I will give you that.
1:08:57Alright, so I kind of have multiple picks,
1:08:59it depends on what category you're looking at.
1:09:00I thought about stuff like AirPods,
1:09:02but I wanted to just focus on computers, phones, and iPads.
1:09:06So I'm not gonna say, well you know this one
1:09:08lightning cable is the best bang for the buck
1:09:10in the whole store.
1:09:12- None of Apple's cables are the best bang for your buck.
1:09:13- I know, actually I thought about that and looked,
1:09:15I'm like no, there's nothing in these categories anyway.
1:09:18And I also, I wanted to enforce some minimum standards
1:09:22of making things usable.
1:09:24And so iOS devices, I decided needed to have
1:09:28at least 64 gigs of storage.
1:09:30And for anything I picked that was an iPad,
1:09:33it had to include a smart cover.
1:09:35So that's 40 bucks to the iPad prices.
1:09:38For the Mac, I thought at least a 256 gig SSD
1:09:42or a one terabyte Fusion drive.
1:09:46And if it's a USB-C model that I was considering,
1:09:48I added a $100 allowance for adapters and hubs.
1:09:52Because I truly, and I don't mean to go off
1:09:53on the laptops again.
1:09:55- There we go.
1:09:56- I truly don't believe that the modern USB-C only laptops
1:10:00are useful without having, you know,
1:10:0350 to $100 worth of adapters and hubs for them.
1:10:06In the same way that an iPad is not useful
1:10:08without some kind of cover or case.
1:10:10Anyway, so, in the iPhone category,
1:10:13which I think is my overall category probably,
1:10:16because iPhones are just so damn useful
1:10:18so damn good.
1:10:19I actually picked the iPhone 7 128 Jet Black.
1:10:23This goes for 650 new or 590 currently refurbished
1:10:27from Apple.com.
1:10:28You know, it looks like the iPhone SE 128, that's 450.
1:10:31That's only new, there's no refurbished for that.
1:10:33So 450 for the iPhone SE or 590 for an iPhone 7 refurb.
1:10:38That is such a good phone.
1:10:40I like it better than the 8 because one of the,
1:10:42you know, the great advantage of the Jet Black
1:10:44is you don't really need a case
1:10:45'cause there's so much grip on it
1:10:46and I think it looks better, honestly.
1:10:48than the 8 does and it's still a really solid modern internal phone that's literally the
1:10:53CPU that just put in this new iPad we were just talking about. So the iPhone 7 128 JetBlack
1:10:59new or refurb I think is the best buy right now in the iPhone lineup and possibly the
1:11:03entire Apple lineup. I will also say in the iPad lineup that new iPad, the new 9.7 iPad
1:11:09128 gigs with Smart Cover is 470. That's a really good deal. You can also get last year's
1:11:16version of it with Smart Cover refurbished for $350.
1:11:20That's an excellent deal.
1:11:21And you can get the cellular version of last year's model
1:11:25of that 9.7 in 128 for $450 refurbished.
1:11:29That's, a cellular iPad, I really enjoy a cellular iPad
1:11:33because if you're talking about like what's gonna be,
1:11:36how can I make this thing the most useful to me,
1:11:38adding cellular really helps a lot.
1:11:40This is one of the reasons why I wish they'd added
1:11:41it to the laptops because it really makes this like
1:11:44a truly portable work device.
1:11:46It's just like a giant phone then,
1:11:48and it's really very nice to have that sometimes.
1:11:51In the laptop category, if you are limiting yourself
1:11:56to the only modern 2016 forward MacBooks,
1:12:01the 13-inch MacBook Escape with 256 giga SSD
1:12:06is 1600 new or 1370 refurb,
1:12:10both of those include that $100 allowance
1:12:12and hubs.
1:12:13If you don't need retina, the 13 inch MacBook Air
1:12:17is still sold.
1:12:18256 gives you 1200 new or 980 refurb.
1:12:21- I can't pay 900 dollars for anything with that screen
1:12:25on it.
1:12:26- I know, and that's why I had this as like a huge caveat.
1:12:29If you don't need or care about retina,
1:12:31that's a really great buy.
1:12:33- It's not the retina, it's the viewing angles
1:12:35and color reproduction.
1:12:36I just think it's a bad screen.
1:12:38- Well, I think if you don't care about retina,
1:12:40you're probably not gonna care about that either.
1:12:41either. Oh, and for desktop, you know, 4K iMac I think, 8, 1 terabyte Fusion, 4K iMac
1:12:47is 1400 new, 1270 refurb, that's the way to go on that. However, I think the best Mac
1:12:52value is, to nobody's surprise, the 2015, 15 inch MacBook Pro base model.
1:13:00- Oh, here we go.
1:13:01- It's 2000 new or it's 1700 refurb. For 1700 refurb, you get a hell of a computer. You
1:13:10You get 16 gigs of RAM, which none of the other ones
1:13:12offer at these prices, 256 of course, quad core processor,
1:13:16and then you have all the ports you need,
1:13:18you have a keyboard and trackpad
1:13:19that are non-controversial and reliable,
1:13:21you don't need any dongles or anything.
1:13:23That is still, I think, the best overall value
1:13:26in the Mac lineup.
1:13:28So, overall, iPhone 7, Jet Black,
1:13:33and the 2015 15-inch base model.
1:13:36- I've got that iPhone, and I think the 8 is a better deal.
1:13:40Maybe it's because I just checked my battery health and it's at 87% and I felt worse about
1:13:43my phone.
1:13:44[laughter]
1:13:45Womp womp.
1:13:47Alright, cool.
1:13:49Anson Jablinski writes, "Hey, what did Marco play in marching band, or what musical experience
1:13:54does each of the hosts have, if any?"
1:13:56So Marco, what did you play in marching band?
1:13:58I was in the percussion section.
1:14:00So I started out as a freshman on Crash Symbols, right at the bottom of the totem pole there.
1:14:05And then sophomore year I was on snare drum.
1:14:08Junior and senior year I was on quads.
1:14:10- Fair enough.
1:14:11I have never played anything
1:14:12with any sort of efficacy whatsoever,
1:14:14except I play a mean stereo.
1:14:16Nevermind.
1:14:19John.
1:14:19- I played keyboards as a kid.
1:14:22We had like electric keyboards in the house.
1:14:23I noodled around in those.
1:14:24I did actually take piano lessons
1:14:26for some short period of time,
1:14:28but I could play songs that I wanted to play,
1:14:32like from the radio and stuff on keyboards.
1:14:35And in college, I picked up a guitar
1:14:37because everybody on my floor in my dorm, my freshman dorm, had guitars, and so it was
1:14:42impossible not to pick up a guitar. All of those instruments I'm pretty much terrible
1:14:46at. And I could never sight-read music, but I could kind of non-sight-read it briefly
1:14:52for certain instruments.
1:14:54Moving on, The Italian Stallion, who is apparently not John Siracusa, asks, "Backpack recommendations?
1:15:00That would fit a 15-inch MacBook Pro." I know you just said backpack, but if you don't
1:15:05to have a backpack. I really love my Tom Bihn Cadet, which I'll put a link in the show notes
1:15:11to my review of that. I've also heard but have not tried myself that the Tom Bihn Synapse
1:15:16is excellent, and that is a backpack, but that's probably not useful. So does one of
1:15:22you have a backpack recommendation that you enjoy?
1:15:24- I have, so to me, backpacks are kind of like the way most people think of to-do apps
1:15:30and like, you know, task managers.
1:15:33I'm always about 80% satisfied with the backpack I have,
1:15:37and I'm frequently trying new ones as a result.
1:15:39(laughs)
1:15:40And so I have tried some really nice ones, actually.
1:15:44You know, some of these are wonderful.
1:15:46I have the Waterfield Designs Stad laptop backpack.
1:15:51They make a bunch of good stuff,
1:15:53and that's very good, holds a 15 inch just fine.
1:15:57I have a really nice Briggs & Riley backpack.
1:16:02That was something like 200 bucks,
1:16:04and I forget exactly which model it is,
1:16:07one of the Active series.
1:16:08That's pretty nice too.
1:16:10I recently got a Peak Design Everyday backpack,
1:16:14and that's also really nice.
1:16:16Ultimately, all of these are very good.
1:16:21None of them are perfect.
1:16:22I have not yet tried Tom Bihn.
1:16:24I believe the Synapse 25 would be the one to get.
1:16:26I was looking at that.
1:16:28I would love to see it sometime.
1:16:30I might end up trying it anyway,
1:16:32but all of these have pluses and minuses,
1:16:36and it depends a lot on what you're doing.
1:16:39If you're using it for every day carrying it to work,
1:16:42that's a very different type of needs
1:16:45from if you're using it to bring it on planes
1:16:48and travel with it or to also have
1:16:50a weekend worth of clothing and stuff in it.
1:16:52These are very different needs.
1:16:54The Waterfield one is beautiful, very stylish, trendy,
1:16:58looks nice.
1:16:59The Briggs & Morale one I found has a lot of pluses to it,
1:17:04but ultimately I didn't care for the layout
1:17:09of the interior space.
1:17:11A lot of things are hard to reach, hard to access.
1:17:14There's a lot of seemingly wasted space
1:17:15with weird padding areas and stuff
1:17:17that I don't think need to be there
1:17:19or should be arranged differently.
1:17:21The Peak Design Everyday Backpack is my current one.
1:17:24I've got it recently.
1:17:26And it also is very nice with a few flaws.
1:17:30It really does not hold very much.
1:17:32I got the smaller one of the two
1:17:33and I'm kind of thinking maybe the bigger one
1:17:35might have been the better bet.
1:17:37It's fine in that way, but it holds plenty
1:17:42if you want it to be like a laptop bag going to work.
1:17:45I would say though for a 15 inch MacBook Pro,
1:17:48it just barely fits in the Peak Design.
1:17:50Like the laptop pocket is very tight.
1:17:52It's squeezing my laptop such that
1:17:54I'm getting keyboard imprints on the screen.
1:17:56So I don't love that.
1:17:58I honestly would not recommend it for daily use
1:18:01if only for that.
1:18:02Whereas the Waterfield Stad I think is better for that.
1:18:07But at these prices, I expect perfection
1:18:12to pay $300-ish for a backpack,
1:18:15and I haven't found that yet.
1:18:17So I'm all ears if anybody has something else they like.
1:18:19but ultimately I think that it's the kind of category
1:18:22where what's perfect for one person
1:18:24is gonna be totally wrong for another person
1:18:26and it's all gonna be personal preference
1:18:28and you just gotta try it out and see for yourself.
1:18:30- Yeah, yeah.
1:18:32- So the closest I've got to a backpack that I really like
1:18:35is actually it's not sold anymore but there's an equivalent.
1:18:38Is this L.L. Bean backpack.
1:18:40I don't know what that model of mine is
1:18:41but the closest one they have is now called
1:18:43the Quad backpack and it's so close.
1:18:45I like backpacks, first of all that are cheap,
1:18:47this is like 80 bucks,
1:18:49that have tons of little pockets everywhere on them.
1:18:51So you can put all those dongles that we need
1:18:53in this dongle lifestyle that we have now.
1:18:55It's got an inside pocket that will fit any,
1:18:58fit a 15 inch laptop and it also an iPad inside a case
1:19:02inside that same pocket.
1:19:03And then it's got tons of other interior space
1:19:05and all sorts of little pockets.
1:19:06And it's kind of, it's not fashionable.
1:19:08It's not made of nice materials.
1:19:10It's just kind of like durable,
1:19:11kind of like camping type equipment, right?
1:19:13It's not, there's no leather anywhere on this thing, right?
1:19:16So if you want to look good, forget about it.
1:19:18The one thing that annoys me about this backpack that you should be warned about is that it
1:19:22has tons of weird straps everywhere.
1:19:24Like, "Oh, if you're stuffing it filled with camping stuff, you need the strap that goes
1:19:27around your waist and the straps, the two straps on the side that hold the backpack
1:19:31together."
1:19:32And I considered cutting them off, but it's actually kind of hard to cut them off because
1:19:34it's pretty durable.
1:19:35So, but I have found a way to tuck the straps that I'm not using into some of the pockets
1:19:40so they're mostly out of the way.
1:19:41It's still an annoyance.
1:19:42If it didn't have those straps, I think it would be close to perfect for me because that's
1:19:46That's what I want. I want to be cheap, durable, light, and have tons of pockets and zippers
1:19:50and not fall apart. So far, this L.L. Bean backpack has fit the bill.
1:19:55I will say too, for the Peak Design Everyday Backpack, it really excels at hiding all of
1:20:00the extra straps and stuff that can be used in a pinch. Every strap that it has, has some
1:20:05kind of pocket that it belongs in when it's not being used. And so it's totally invisible
1:20:11and out of the way.
1:20:12It is very well designed for expansion of that,
1:20:16but yeah, ultimately, I wish it was a little bigger.
1:20:19So I might have to try the bigger version of it,
1:20:21and I also wish that laptop compartment wasn't so crushing,
1:20:24but hopefully this summer I'll move to a 13-inch newer one,
1:20:27and that should probably solve that problem for me.
1:20:30Do you guys do packing cubes when you travel?
1:20:34- No. - Not in the traditional sense.
1:20:36I do have that Go pack that I talk about all the time
1:20:38is sort of ish like a packing cube that's just basically got all my dongles and things
1:20:44of that nature in it.
1:20:45But what you're talking about I think is, you know, packing like clothes and other things
1:20:49of that nature in packing cubes.
1:20:51And this appeals to me from an organizational standpoint.
1:20:55I feel like this is something that I would really like, but I've never done it.
1:20:59And it doesn't seem like I don't really get why people would do this, even though it sounds
1:21:05like it would be something I would like.
1:21:06You know what I mean?
1:21:07Are you asking because you haven't or because you're trying it now or what brings this up?
1:21:12So I recently started. A lot of our friends travel a lot, way more than I do, and I kept hearing from people like,
1:21:19"Oh, you got to try packing cubes," or just generally like the style of traveling or packing where you have like sub bags in your bags.
1:21:27You know, all packing cubes are are just like, you know, rectangular solid sub bags that you put in your bags.
1:21:34That's basically it. And so,
1:21:37I was usually of the style of using the bag's pockets
1:21:41as dividers and compartments,
1:21:46but the packing cube and sub-bag lifestyle
1:21:49seems to want to have just like large, open compartments
1:21:54in the bags, and then you have your own sub-bag things
1:21:57that you put in there that are separate from that
1:22:01to be your separation organization.
1:22:03And so I recently tried, I wanted to,
1:22:06when I got my cool Peak Design Everyday backpack,
1:22:08I decided to also try the packing cube lifestyle
1:22:11for a couple of these trips I've taken recently.
1:22:13And I gotta say, I see the benefit.
1:22:15It's pretty cool.
1:22:16Like, Tiff made fun of me relentlessly,
1:22:17but then she wanted some as soon as she saw how they worked.
1:22:20Because what's nice about them is that
1:22:23there's a few benefits.
1:22:24Number one, like, it is actually nicer
1:22:26to organize things that way in a bag.
1:22:29And if you get the compression cubes,
1:22:31which have like slightly compressing zippers
1:22:33around the perimeter, it actually does help
1:22:35you can press your clothes slightly in a controlled way
1:22:37that doesn't like, you know,
1:22:38excessively wrinkle them or anything.
1:22:40But a really nice thing about the packing cubes is that
1:22:42if, when you arrive at a hotel,
1:22:45you can just take the packing cubes right out of your bag
1:22:47and just place them like in the drawers,
1:22:49if you use the drawers in a hotel.
1:22:51You just put them in the drawers and open them up
1:22:52and then you have like, oh, here's my sock rectangle,
1:22:55you know, here's my shirt rectangle.
1:22:57And it's like, it's actually really nice.
1:23:01And so I think I've been converted.
1:23:03I wanna do a little more traveling with them.
1:23:04I've done two trips so far with them,
1:23:07but I think I'm being converted to the sub-bag
1:23:10and packing cube lifestyle.
1:23:13- So you said you have one for socks and one for shirts?
1:23:16What did you end up doing?
1:23:18- So I got a variety of sizes.
1:23:21If you're looking at the Eagle Creek ones,
1:23:23I would say the small and medium sizes are the ones to get.
1:23:26The rest of the sizes I have not yet found much of a use for.
1:23:30So small, medium, and compression, if possible.
1:23:32And they're not cheap.
1:23:34They end up being like 25 bucks each, something like that.
1:23:37But they do seem pretty well made.
1:23:39I have the tech line that has slightly higher tech fabric
1:23:42and it's a little bit lighter.
1:23:43I haven't quite worked with the whole system yet,
1:23:45but I have one of them will basically put
1:23:47all my underwear and socks in.
1:23:49And this depends on how much you need to bring.
1:23:51And I've only, again, used this for two trips so far,
1:23:53so take all this with a grain of salt.
1:23:54But all underwear and socks will go in one,
1:23:56and then all t-shirts will go in another.
1:23:58And then if I have extra pants, I'll put those in one.
1:24:02And that's about it.
1:24:03They have some that you can fold dress shirts into.
1:24:06I haven't tried that yet.
1:24:07It's just kind of nice and then it makes it easier to pack.
1:24:12It makes it more organized in the bag to get stuff
1:24:16or if you have to move stuff around in the bag,
1:24:17if you have to rearrange stuff.
1:24:18It's surprisingly nice.
1:24:20I thought they were pointless,
1:24:21but now I get it and I'm sold.
1:24:24- You know, I've tried a new thought technology
1:24:28with regard to packing,
1:24:29which is rolling rather than folding.
1:24:31- Oh, the rolling people.
1:24:32- Oh yeah, you roll the stuff into the packing cubes.
1:24:34That helps a lot.
1:24:36- I feel like it's probably a placebo,
1:24:39but I really feel like I can get considerably more stuff
1:24:43into my bag when it's rolled,
1:24:44and it's more likely to come out less wrinkled.
1:24:48It is still a wrinkled disaster,
1:24:49but it is less so than when I fold.
1:24:53And so I have been converted to the rolling lifestyle.
1:24:57Like I said, that's a new thought technology in my world
1:24:59that I have embraced.
1:25:00But yeah, the packing cube is still beyond me.
1:25:03Jon, why do you scoff at rolling?
1:25:05You're not a fan?
1:25:07There's a couple of reasons.
1:25:10I'm not into rolling and I'm not into the packing things.
1:25:14The rolling, well, it's both the same reason, I guess.
1:25:18And I feel like all of my items of clothing have a natural size that they want to be folded
1:25:23at.
1:25:24And that size is not rolled, and it probably doesn't match any of the packing things.
1:25:29Like I need to fold things at the size that they want it to be folded.
1:25:33They speak to me.
1:25:34Like how big should I be?
1:25:35And if I try to fold my shirts bigger or smaller, maybe it's because I'm a limited folder.
1:25:40Maybe I have a limited repertoire of folding skills.
1:25:42Like I'm not good at folding laundry.
1:25:43I fold things the way I fold them and I let the garment tell me how it wants to be folded.
1:25:48And the other thing is with my let the garment speak to me and tell me how to fold, combined
1:25:52with my fairly obsessive overpacking, I can pack any of my suitcases easily to the point
1:26:00where they exceed the weight limit that airlines have.
1:26:02So I don't need any compression thing to help me get more into the bag.
1:26:06If anything, I have to intentionally pack less efficiently so I don't go over the weight
1:26:09limit and have to pull things out of my bag to get it on the plane.
1:26:13Because the weight limits are like, what, 50 pounds, 40, 50 pounds?
1:26:16Well, it's not a weight limit so much as there's a fee if you go over it.
1:26:19Yeah.
1:26:20Anyway, I don't want to have that fee and I don't want to go over the limit.
1:26:22And sometimes it actually is a limit and they'll make you have another – check another bag
1:26:25or something.
1:26:27So I am always on the ragged edge of that limit with no packing cubes and no rolling
1:26:32and folding my clothes the way they naturally want to be folded.
1:26:35So I feel like this is not a problem I have in my life and I'm not looking for ways
1:26:38to jam more stuff into my suitcase and I'm definitely not looking for ways to make me
1:26:42have to learn how to fold my clothes in a different way than the one and only way I
1:26:45know how to fold them.
1:26:46Well, it is really nice if – like if you're checking a bag, then yeah, you're right.
1:26:49the weight limit is usually a bigger problem.
1:26:51But it's really nice if you are kind of on the border
1:26:54between needing to check it
1:26:55and being able to fit it in a carry-on.
1:26:57And I love just traveling with a carry-on if possible.
1:26:59- Oh, yeah. - It's so nice
1:27:00to just bypass the baggage claim
1:27:02and just walk around it, just leave.
1:27:04And you're just done.
1:27:05You have everything you need with you.
1:27:07You can just walk out and you're done.
1:27:08Like, that's wonderful.
1:27:09So where this stuff helps is not in cramming 75 pounds
1:27:14worth of stuff into a very large check bag,
1:27:17but in fitting into a carry-on where otherwise
1:27:20you might not have fit into a carry-on.
1:27:22- Or of your underscore, not even having a carry-on,
1:27:25but just having a backpack for an entire week,
1:27:28which just still blows my mind, 'cause like I said,
1:27:30I'm a massive over-packer and he apparently
1:27:33needs no human sustenance of any kind.
1:27:35I can just-- (laughing)
1:27:37- It is very satisfying to be packed very lightly on a trip
1:27:42and to need very little and to use everything you have.
1:27:44I actually, I tried, one of the trips I just took
1:27:47was this trip where I was helping my family member move.
1:27:51And because I was gonna be taking space
1:27:53in a very full moving convoy of trucks,
1:27:57I didn't wanna have a large bag myself.
1:27:59I figured that was wasteful and I wanna leave
1:28:01as much space as possible for his stuff.
1:28:03- You've got a whole moving truck.
1:28:04You're afraid you aren't gonna have room?
1:28:05You have a moving truck.
1:28:06- Oh, you haven't seen this stuff.
1:28:08But it was full.
1:28:10And so I brought, for this trip,
1:28:12I brought only my Peak Design Everyday Backpack.
1:28:15and I shoved everything I needed for three days,
1:28:18or four days, whatever it was, into this backpack.
1:28:22It was glorious.
1:28:23Like, there was no space left over,
1:28:25and I had to do some pretty crazy stuff,
1:28:26and I only had one pair of pants.
1:28:28But it was glorious to have everything fit
1:28:32in like one backpack, including my computer,
1:28:36these two walkie-talkies, some accessories for driving,
1:28:39like I brought like my cell phone suction cup
1:28:40piece of garbage, like I brought a whole bunch of like,
1:28:43you know, stuff that would be necessary for the trip.
1:28:46- Coffee tubes.
1:28:46- Yeah, I brought my tubes of instant coffee,
1:28:49my tubes of Southern Coffee.
1:28:50(laughing)
1:28:52- So now does all your items of clothing smell like coffee?
1:28:54'Cause they're all wedged into this bag
1:28:56with the coffee tubes?
1:28:57- No, the tubes are sealed.
1:28:58- All right, I don't know.
1:28:59- No. - You said they were canvas.
1:29:00I thought maybe they'd be--
1:29:01- No, no, there are plastic tubes
1:29:02that come in a pretty canvas bag.
1:29:04- Mm, all right.
1:29:05- Yeah, and it is very satisfying.
1:29:08I would love, like, to travel to WVDC,
1:29:10I would love to travel with just like
1:29:12one of the smallest roller bag size,
1:29:15you know, that the pilots usually have.
1:29:17I have one of those, it's glorious.
1:29:19I love being able to fit into that.
1:29:20The only reason I don't for WWDC is that we bring
1:29:24like a whole podcast studio, so I have all this gear.
1:29:27But like on trips where I don't have that,
1:29:29I love packing the smallest possible.
1:29:31- Should I ask Skynyrskur, maybe he can fit
1:29:33the podcasting studio in one of his inside jacket pockets.
1:29:35(laughing)
1:29:36- Probably.
1:29:37(laughing)
1:29:38- No, I really wanna just emphasize
1:29:42what you guys are saying about Underscore's packing, because we for a long time would fly out together.
1:29:46I would drive up to Dulles, which is which is reasonably close to his house,
1:29:50and we would take the same flight and try to sit next to each other and whatnot. And I would be rolling in with like
1:29:55my laptop bag, which is bursting at the seams, and in a carry-on bag, which was bursting at the seams. And
1:30:01that pain in my rear end rolls in with like a lightly stuffed backpack.
1:30:06It's not even, I shouldn't even say "stop," like a lightly packed backpack. And that is all he has.
1:30:11That's his computer. That's his toiletries his luggage everything is in this backpack for a week. It's inhuman
1:30:19I've asked him about this every year. I asked about this and every year
1:30:23He's just he's kind of shrugs and smirks and basically says I don't need a lot
1:30:26It's so it's both delightful and infuriating all at the same time because I'm like John
1:30:32I pack way too much and over the years. I have gotten that beaten out of me like over time
1:30:37I've gotten better about not packing everything in the world and I still pack way too much
1:30:42What you just described is half of what I pack because he were like you have a laptop bag and a roller bag
1:30:47I have a full-size suitcase like the biggest the highest weight limit suitcase you can get and then my backpack. I
1:30:53mean I
1:30:56Adore my away suitcase and they happen to be sponsoring this episode and they carry on I mean, it's a wonderful wonderful suitcase
1:31:02I would say that even if we weren't compensated to say that but it is not you know
1:31:07cavernous it's it's it's it's carry-on I mean which makes sense and I can get you
1:31:13know like a little last year I got my entire week's worth of luggage my
1:31:17toiletry kit my my go pack and a pair of running shoes in there and I was very
1:31:21proud of myself because for me that was a heck of an accomplishment and
1:31:24underscore I think he was wearing you know sneakers for the for the week so he
1:31:29didn't have to have a second pair of shoes but he had like running clothes he
1:31:33He probably brought a damn kettle for his coffee for all I know in this backpack.
1:31:38It's like Santa's freaking bag that he has.
1:31:41It's incredible.
1:31:42So thanks to our sponsors this week, Away, Aftershocks, and Jamf Now.
1:31:48And we'll talk to you next week.
1:31:49Now the show is over.
1:31:52They didn't even mean to begin.
1:31:55Cause it was accidental.
1:31:57Oh it was accidental.
1:31:59John didn't even know.
1:32:01John didn't do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn't let him
1:32:07'Cause it was accidental, it was accidental
1:32:12And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM
1:32:17And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:32:22M A R C O A R M
1:32:32N T Marko R M S I R
1:32:35A C U S A Syracuse
1:32:39It's accidental They didn't mean to
1:32:45Accidental Tech broadcast so long
1:32:52- By the way, for people wondering about
1:32:53the inside jacket pocket thing,
1:32:55Underscore is the first person I saw
1:32:56who had a MacBook One, the little 12 inch MacBook
1:33:00with one USB-C port, literally inside his jacket pocket.
1:33:04(laughing)
1:33:04- This is not a joke.
1:33:05- Like, opens up his jacket and takes out a laptop.
1:33:07- Yeah, his wife custom made a pocket,
1:33:09she sewed it on the inside of his jacket,
1:33:11that would fit exactly that laptop.
1:33:13And it was amazing.
1:33:15To see somebody, especially Underscore,
1:33:17as you mentioned, he's so frustratingly organized
1:33:21all the time, he's so together.
1:33:24(laughs)
1:33:25And everything he does, he makes it look effortless.
1:33:29It's just no big deal.
1:33:31- So true.
1:33:32- It's so true.
1:33:33- He has all the grace in the world.
1:33:35And so we were standing in line at the last WBC
1:33:38in San Francisco, we were outside the whatever center
1:33:43that we had to walk all the way over to get there.
1:33:46And he just whips this out, we were like,
1:33:49"Oh, we should check that sometime."
1:33:51He goes, he's like, "Oh, I'll check it right now."
1:33:53And he whips out this laptop out of his jacket.
1:33:55We're like, "Whoa! How did you do that?
1:33:58"Where did that come from?"
1:33:59- It was so, I think it's--
1:34:00- We've been walking with him,
1:34:01standing in line with him, it's like, you know.
1:34:03- Yeah, we had no idea.
1:34:04And it was like a fleece.
1:34:06It was not like a big winter coat.
1:34:07It was like a light fleece.
1:34:09- Oh, man.
1:34:10I love that guy, but there's certain times
1:34:12that I wanna strangle him in the best possible way,
1:34:15and that's one of them, because I'm, it's really,
1:34:17you know what it is about Underscore is that
1:34:18He very, very well reflects to me my own failings,
1:34:23but he's like the nicest human being in the world,
1:34:28so you can't be upset at him,
1:34:30'cause he's the nicest guy ever.
1:34:31- Yeah, did I ever say,
1:34:34my favorite compliment I ever received was,
1:34:36I had sent John Gruber some of my home roasted coffee.
1:34:39He said, "I almost wanna say,
1:34:41"fuck you, this is so good."
1:34:42(laughing)
1:34:43And that's kinda how,
1:34:44it's like when Underscore does something awesome,
1:34:46and I'm like, it's almost like,
1:34:48He's such a nice guy, like you can't get mad at him, but you're just like, "Damn it! Why, like, why can I not?
1:34:53Why have I either not thought of that or not gotten it together to do that?"
1:34:56[laughs]
1:34:57So true. So true.
1:34:59Just comfort yourself by thinking that, just try to picture in your head, underscore, like, being frustrated at something and getting angry.
1:35:07I don't think I've ever seen him even mildly, like, disturbed.
1:35:13like he's never been particularly angry about anything in my experience having known him
1:35:18for several years now. I've never seen him angry, never seen him particularly upset.
1:35:23Sometimes he'll kind of do the exasperated laugh of, "Oh, well, that ends the breaks."
1:35:26But he's like the least phased person I've ever seen. And I am somewhat skeptical that
1:35:35he has ever raised his voice for any reason ever.
1:35:37I believe he has, and I picture that to make me feel better about myself.
1:35:44The best part of all is, he's going to be listening to this at some absurd hour tomorrow
1:35:47morning because he typically bootlegs all this, and he is going to be so deeply embarrassed
1:35:51by this entire conversation, which isn't actually something I should be proud of, but
1:35:55it is making me laugh a little bit. Maybe that's his one flaw. That's the one.
1:36:00His one flaw? Excessive modesty? Wow.
1:36:03(laughing)
1:36:05- It's like the BS job interview responses,
1:36:08what's your biggest weakness?
1:36:10Well sometimes that works too hard.
1:36:11- That works too hard.
1:36:12(laughing)
1:36:14- Oh God, that's incredible.
1:36:16(beeping)