250: We're Doing a Show

0:00:00So John, I'm curious, do you realize how much of a Boston accent you have?

0:00:05I do not have a Boston accent. You don't even know what a Boston accent is.

0:00:08You've watched too many of the stupid, what's his name, Matt Damon's friend.

0:00:13Ben Affleck?

0:00:14Yeah.

0:00:15I know what a Boston accent is, and I know you don't have a standard one, but you do have some of one.

0:00:21And I don't think you know this.

0:00:23I know during this podcast I misspoke and said some word that sounded like it has a

0:00:27Boston accent because I like bailed in the middle of a word and changed to a different

0:00:30thing and it ended up coming out.

0:00:31I recognize that I did that in this episode.

0:00:34Yeah, that was not me doing a Boston accent.

0:00:36That was me totally misspeaking and like trying to rope it back in the middle of a word and

0:00:40this weird sound coming out.

0:00:41Rest assured I do not say that word that way.

0:00:43I heard myself do it too.

0:00:45But no, I have a New York accent for as far as I have any accent.

0:00:47That's why people complain about how you say Mario.

0:00:50That's not a Boston thing.

0:00:51Look, you live there. You can't deny that it's going to have an effect on you.

0:00:56No, it doesn't. I'm not one of those people.

0:00:58I'm not one of those people who picks up the accents from my surrounding.

0:01:01All my kids speak differently than me.

0:01:02You don't pick it up like 100%, but like,

0:01:06you definitely have some slight Boston influence in your speech.

0:01:10I don't think I do.

0:01:12At all. Zero amount.

0:01:13You're so wrong.

0:01:13Zero amount.

0:01:15[Laughter]

0:01:16[Music]

0:01:18I think some sort of weird access issue for the last two days trying to get to Daring

0:01:21Fireball.

0:01:22Like, it's not a DNS thing because I think it's going past the DNS stage, but it's

0:01:27just taking forever to load.

0:01:28Like, I started to load a page before I picked up your call.

0:01:32It's still loading, the progress bar.

0:01:33It still has a white screen in Safari.

0:01:35Is it possible that it's because your computer is slower than, like, my phone from last year?

0:01:40That's not it.

0:01:41I can't love that demanding site, Daring Fireball, with all its widgets and gigas.

0:01:47Giggaw. How old are you? What is a Geegaw? It's a word. Are you sure? How the hell do

0:01:54you spell that? I'm very sure. G-E-E-G-A-W. Geegaw. I think it was officially removed

0:02:01from the dictionary 30 years ago. A showy thing, especially one that is useless or worthless.

0:02:08And also it's usually G-E-W-G-A-W. A goo-gaw. That's what I said. I thought you said Geegaw.

0:02:15- Oh, you're right, I did.

0:02:16All right, well then maybe Geegaw isn't a word.

0:02:18- No, no, no, no.

0:02:20- Is it an alternate spelling?

0:02:21- Yeah, I think so, 'cause I looked up Geegaw

0:02:23and ended up with Goo-Gaw.

0:02:26- Yeah.

0:02:27- Oh, no, well, I guess it's just an autocorrect thing,

0:02:28'cause it's usually Goo-Gaws, apparently it's usually plural.

0:02:33Wow, this is already taking a turn for the unexpected.

0:02:35- It's important to get things like this right.

0:02:36Oh, Merriam-Webster has it.

0:02:38It's a less common variant of Goo-Gaw.

0:02:40- I don't wanna do this first time in a follow-up,

0:02:42'cause I really don't wanna hear any more whining

0:02:43the new MacBook Pros, gentlemen.

0:02:45It'll be quick.

0:02:46It's a quickie.

0:02:47It's a quickie.

0:02:48Okay, yeah, I'm sure that once you bring up a complaint about the MacBook Pro, it's

0:02:51totally going to be a three-second endeavor.

0:02:53It is.

0:02:54Bull.

0:02:55I wanted to put the nose quick in there.

0:02:56It will be quick, I promise.

0:02:58I guarantee that it won't be.

0:03:00Great, I'm already punchy.

0:03:02You having a holiday party?

0:03:04No, I'm not.

0:03:05I should be.

0:03:06That's the problem.

0:03:07Especially given this first item of follow-up, I need a holiday party.

0:03:11Look, until the laptops are fixed, we're going to keep talking about them.

0:03:14Hey, you know what? They're not all bad.

0:03:16That's true.

0:03:17Anyway, alright.

0:03:1860% of them don't have keyboard failures apparently, or fine.

0:03:21Yeah, but they were all bad.

0:03:24I don't know that reference, Jon. Don't care. I'm already punchy, so let's just get it out of the way.

0:03:27We're starting with follow-up, ladies and gentlemen, and apparently Jon thinks that his complaint about a 2016 or '17 MacBook Pro will be,

0:03:34and I'm quoting, very quick, I guarantee it.

0:03:38So look at the timer, look at the elapsed time.

0:03:41Let's go, buckle up kids.

0:03:43What's going on, Jon?

0:03:44- I've got one of these at work, remember?

0:03:45So I use it every day.

0:03:46So I have occasion to have complaints.

0:03:48Anyway, I noticed this today.

0:03:49I very rarely do anything with my laptop at work

0:03:52except keep it closed and plug it in to other devices.

0:03:55But I was in a lot of meetings today

0:03:56and I had the laptop open and the lighting was just right.

0:03:59And it occurred to me that still in 2017,

0:04:03Apple is making keyboards where the keys touch the screen

0:04:06when you close it.

0:04:06And that's been true for years and years and years and years.

0:04:10Has it ever not been true?

0:04:11Has Apple ever made a keyboard where the keys don't touch the screen?

0:04:14Well, guess what?

0:04:14Finger grease is on the keys.

0:04:15And now finger grease is on my screen in the shape of my keyboard.

0:04:20In the long list of things that we want Apple to correct,

0:04:23I believe that it is possible for Apple to make a laptop computer.

0:04:27When you close it, the grease from your fingers on the keys

0:04:30does not come off onto the screen.

0:04:31And you don't get a greasy outline of all the keys

0:04:34in the keyboard on your screen.

0:04:35I believe that's possible.

0:04:36they have very low profile keys,

0:04:38they're all about thinness, that's it.

0:04:40- Well I think they did.

0:04:42I don't know if they still do.

0:04:45On my original PowerBook G4, the aluminum PowerBook G4,

0:04:47that was my first Mac, I had heard about this problem

0:04:51about, and back then when you had the matte screen,

0:04:55it was a lot easier for a permanent imprint to develop

0:04:58'cause you couldn't really wipe off

0:05:00the screen coating very much, like to clean it.

0:05:03And I had heard about this and so I decided as a policy,

0:05:05that I would carry the laptop in the backpack

0:05:08such that the screen lid was not facing my back.

0:05:12It was facing the other way.

0:05:13Carrying it this way every day

0:05:15to and from work and everything,

0:05:16I never had that problem.

0:05:18That computer never developed the imprint

0:05:22of the keyboard on the screen.

0:05:23And my theory was that in a perfect layout

0:05:26of the laptop like on a desk,

0:05:27the screen and keyboard don't actually touch.

0:05:30But if there's any flex that's squeezing the laptop

0:05:33a little bit from the sides, like in a bag,

0:05:36any flex is enough to push the screen

0:05:38against the keyboard inside there,

0:05:40because it's such a tiny little gap.

0:05:42And I imagine over time that gap has only gotten smaller.

0:05:45So it's possible that while sitting on a desk,

0:05:48it doesn't press against it,

0:05:49but that if you have it in a bag

0:05:51or in a certain kind of stand that stands it up,

0:05:53or anything that would possibly apply pressure

0:05:56to the outside of it, like books next to it in a bag,

0:05:59that might compress it just enough

0:06:01to make that contact happen.

0:06:03- Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening,

0:06:04but I'm saying, you know, we got the butterfly keyboard.

0:06:06How many years ago, Casey, we can make a keyboard

0:06:08that like collapses into the case

0:06:09and gets out of flex distance?

0:06:11I don't know, I'm just saying it's an area

0:06:12of potential improvement, not just for this laptop,

0:06:15but you know, we do have very low profile keys.

0:06:18I figure like just that gap should be getting bigger

0:06:20and not smaller because nobody likes greasy keys

0:06:22on their screen.

0:06:23- No, no, you're asking them to make even lower profile keys

0:06:26please for the love of God,

0:06:27do not solve this problem in this way.

0:06:29- The whole, just move the whole keyboard down.

0:06:31You can make high keys but then have them sink into the keyboard magically.

0:06:34I don't know.

0:06:35That one should use laptops.

0:06:36They're bad.

0:06:37They're not bad.

0:06:38Oh my god.

0:06:39The butterfly keyboard was 1995.

0:06:41I'll put links in the show notes.

0:06:43I actually noticed, it was either today or yesterday, that on my beloved MacBook Adorable,

0:06:48which I wouldn't change in any way.

0:06:50I actually would, but don't tell them.

0:06:52Anyway, I noticed that on that machine.

0:06:56I generally hold it, I don't know, by maybe the hinge or I don't even remember and it's

0:07:00It's not sitting next to me, so I can't demonstrate to myself.

0:07:04But I was holding it in such a way that I felt like it was giving a little bit, and

0:07:07I think I was putting a little bit of pressure toward the center of the screen, which is

0:07:10not something I normally do.

0:07:11I don't like to mess with the LCD.

0:07:14But it just so happened that I gripped it in such a way that I noticed that if I put

0:07:20pressure on the center of the LCD, roughly where the Apple logo is, while it's closed,

0:07:27I can feel it like give enough to come into contact with the bottom part of the case.

0:07:31So it's just like you're describing, Jon, where clearly the screen is now impacting

0:07:35the keys.

0:07:36And I don't recall ever having a laptop that did that, and I'm probably wrong and I bet

0:07:40all of them do it, but it was a very uncomfortable, very unnerving feeling that I did not like.

0:07:46And that happened to me in the last 24 hours.

0:07:48I will also note, to go back a step to Marco's strategies to avoid keyboard grease, I knew

0:07:56for a long time several super nerds that used to keep, I don't even think they still come

0:08:02in the in the MacBooks or MacBook Pros anymore, but it used to be when you bought an Apple

0:08:06laptop, you know where this is going, right? So they used to have this sheet of like not

0:08:10foam, but like some sort of foam like material that would be between the display and the

0:08:15keyboard. And I knew a lot of people that would carry that with them and then put it

0:08:20in their device before they close the lid in order to prevent any sort of scraping against

0:08:25the screen and I always thought that was crazy until one day I noticed an outline of a keyboard

0:08:29on my screen and thought well, okay, that's a little bit weird but maybe not so crazy

0:08:33after all.

0:08:34- No, and people still do that and there were third party cloths that would fit it perfectly

0:08:38also that people would do.

0:08:40That was a pretty widespread thing for a while and I think it is still done by about the

0:08:45same number of people that ever did it.

0:08:47But to me that always felt too, it's like John having his phone in a pouch that has

0:08:53is like take it out of this pouch before he uses it.

0:08:56That's like a step too far for me.

0:08:57And with a laptop that's like,

0:08:59having a piece of cloth that I stick between

0:09:02the laptop keyboard and the lib when I close it

0:09:04and then have to open it up and take it off every time,

0:09:07that's like too fiddly for me.

0:09:09I would rather have the imprint of the keyboard

0:09:11than have to do that every single time.

0:09:12- All I hear is that you're too jealous

0:09:14of my incredibly clean phone,

0:09:15but this brings up Apple's actual solution to this problem

0:09:19and the grand tradition of steganography.

0:09:22if they just made their screens touch screens,

0:09:25then the giant amount of finger grease

0:09:27randomly placed all over the screen

0:09:28would mask the shape of the keyboard,

0:09:30which would still be there hidden in the information,

0:09:32but you wouldn't be able to see it.

0:09:34- Especially if they coded it with whatever's coding

0:09:36the 10.5 inch iPad Pro screen, which is so,

0:09:40this is the most fingerprinty iOS device

0:09:42I think I've ever had.

0:09:43I heard they had to change the coding for the Apple Pencil

0:09:46to make that work well and not wear it weirdly,

0:09:48but whatever is different, the 9.7 didn't seem this bad.

0:09:52The 10.5 iPad Pro is, it just is a constant wall

0:09:57of fingerprints, it is hideous.

0:09:58I wish I knew any way to prevent that

0:10:01besides using gloves or using one of Jon's pouches.

0:10:04- Stop touching your screen.

0:10:05(laughing)

0:10:06- I could've used my phone.

0:10:07- Oh, okay.

0:10:08- Just use mind control or keyboard shortcuts.

0:10:11- Yeah, no, speaking of phone cases,

0:10:14I do have some follow up.

0:10:16You are still caseless, but I am no longer caseless.

0:10:19- Oh yeah?

0:10:20- Yeah, so as winter is setting in here on the East Coast,

0:10:24in these places that have winter, unlike you Casey,

0:10:27cold, dry hands that I'm getting on some of these days

0:10:32made me feel a lot less secure

0:10:34about carrying the iPhone X caseless.

0:10:37First, I tried, there's a vendor that I will put

0:10:41in the show notes whose name I have forgotten again,

0:10:45I keep forgetting this name, that it's basically,

0:10:49I think it's one guy in Brooklyn who laser cuts

0:10:53leather stick-on backings from real pieces of leather.

0:10:57They're really nice and they're only 25 bucks,

0:10:59so it's not like a crazy, crazy thing.

0:11:02And I have one on my iPhone 4,

0:11:04and I moved it to the iPhone 4S when I got that,

0:11:06because having a flat piece of leather

0:11:09on the back of the phone only,

0:11:10it does not cover the sides,

0:11:11and it has a cutout for the camera, that's it.

0:11:13But it's just like leather with a hole for the camera,

0:11:15no logos, just blank leather,

0:11:18and it's high quality, so it feels really soft and nice.

0:11:21Having that on the back of the iPhone 4

0:11:23with the glass back felt awesome.

0:11:26It was fantastic, I was so glad to have it.

0:11:29I figured, let me try that again for the iPhone X.

0:11:33And I used it for a few days,

0:11:34and it does indeed feel good most of the time,

0:11:37but the iPhone X, because it doesn't have straight sides,

0:11:40and the 4 also had a little tiny rubber gasket lip

0:11:43that ran around the glass on the back,

0:11:45so it kind of provided a little wall

0:11:48to keep the border of whatever stick-on thing

0:11:52you had on the back there clean and contained.

0:11:54The new phones don't have that.

0:11:55They're so curvy and rounded on the sides

0:11:58that any kind of stick-on thing that only covers the back,

0:12:02if it has any thickness at all,

0:12:03if it's more than just a vinyl sticker kind of thing,

0:12:06if it has any thickness at all,

0:12:08it kind of has to create its own edge,

0:12:11and that edge kept getting peeled up

0:12:12as I would just handle the phone.

0:12:15Clearly, this is not really made for this anymore,

0:12:17And so, as much as I love the feel of that,

0:12:22I decided I need something else that provides grip.

0:12:25Went to the Apple Store and felt all the cases.

0:12:29And I actually, like, they, props to the Apple Store.

0:12:32It used to be impossible to try out a case

0:12:34in the Apple Store.

0:12:35Then the stores had these, like, some stores would have

0:12:37like these tables in the middle somewhere

0:12:40where they would have like a little box or rack

0:12:42full of cases that you could try on,

0:12:45like with an employee's help.

0:12:46And now, they just have an example case on the little post

0:12:50that the boxes for the cases are hanging on,

0:12:55and you can just pick it up and stick it on the phone

0:12:57that you have in your pocket.

0:12:58You can even put it in your pocket and nobody arrests you.

0:13:00And then you can go put it back

0:13:01and decide whether to buy it or not or not.

0:13:03And so, you can actually try out all the cases

0:13:06on your phone, in your hand, and in your pocket

0:13:08to see how they all feel, which is really nice.

0:13:11I gotta give them credit for that.

0:13:12Anyway, I tried the silicone case

0:13:15because that provides the best grip of all the cases.

0:13:18But when it goes in and out of a pocket,

0:13:20I have a serious problem with the amount of friction

0:13:22that it has there.

0:13:23I may eventually go to that anyway,

0:13:25but I'm hoping I don't have to.

0:13:27I tried the black leather case.

0:13:29First I tried the red leather case.

0:13:30I tried colors and everything.

0:13:32The colors seemed way too aggressive to me

0:13:34because they come up around the edge.

0:13:37And so you're not just seeing the color

0:13:39on the back of your phone,

0:13:40you're seeing the color framing everything

0:13:43on your phone all the time.

0:13:44And that to me, it just looked,

0:13:46maybe it was 'cause I had just done it for the first time,

0:13:48but it looked a little garish.

0:13:50I didn't want this bright red,

0:13:53three quarters of a rectangle around my content

0:13:55all the time.

0:13:57So I went with just the Apple Black leather case,

0:14:00the same one I had used for the 6 and 6S.

0:14:03It's fine.

0:14:05I'm not incredibly happy with it, I gotta say,

0:14:07just because it still has the same problem of like,

0:14:10it collects dust around the rim between it

0:14:12and the phone in the front.

0:14:13It does cover up a lot of what makes this phone attractive,

0:14:16like case design-wise.

0:14:19It does smooth out the camera bump completely,

0:14:20which is very nice, 'cause the iPhone X

0:14:22has a very prominent camera bump,

0:14:24even more so than the previous phones,

0:14:26and it really stands up far off a desk

0:14:27and makes it hard to lie flat.

0:14:29So the Apple Other Case does fix that,

0:14:31but ultimately, the one thing I'm kinda dissatisfied with

0:14:34is just that it makes the phone a lot bigger in the hand.

0:14:37And I know, Casey, you didn't,

0:14:39did you ever use yours caseless?

0:14:42I have very, very, very, very briefly,

0:14:45but I am way too scared,

0:14:47especially since I didn't pony up for AppleCare this time,

0:14:50I am way too scared to do it with any sort of regularity.

0:14:53And so it is almost exclusively lived in the weather case.

0:14:57In the leather case.

0:14:59And so I do quite like the leather case.

0:15:02I've used leather cases on and off

0:15:04for most of my history with iPhones.

0:15:07I feel like this one, I am particularly,

0:15:12know if I'm looking for what word I'm looking for frustrated annoyed displeased but one of those

0:15:16negative adjectives because I feel like I'm getting way more pocket lint around the sides

0:15:22than I've ever had before that's probably me being completely bananas but it just seems that way and

0:15:28I think because the phone is a little bit thicker to begin with than the seven which in and of

0:15:34itself fine but then add to your point the leather case on top of that which is not thin and by

0:15:41by comparison to the 7, which I've been handling

0:15:45once or twice a week for various reasons,

0:15:46trying to get old data off my phone or whatever,

0:15:49it feels way thicker than my 7 does.

0:15:52And if you recall, my 7, I did not use a case on

0:15:55for the first time in forever,

0:15:56because I did get AppleCare and ended up breaking the screen.

0:16:00And this, (laughing)

0:16:02AppleCare or not, this one, I just don't trust myself,

0:16:06because I think I will break it without question.

0:16:09So that is many words to say.

0:16:11I have the leather case.

0:16:12I have often used the leather case.

0:16:14And I feel like it's the best option I've seen,

0:16:17but I don't really love it.

0:16:19- Yeah, I was thinking about trying out

0:16:22like one of those dbrand skins that MKBHD likes a lot.

0:16:24I have one of those on my,

0:16:27I tried one of those on my 6 and my 6 Plus

0:16:29back when I was experimenting with those.

0:16:31And they were decent.

0:16:33They were especially good values

0:16:34'cause they were really cheap.

0:16:35It was like 12 bucks for the whole phone

0:16:37or something like that.

0:16:38It's a very good price, very good value,

0:16:40but I don't think they look particularly good.

0:16:42I think they look a little bit cheesy and tacky.

0:16:44And the main problem I had is that it just didn't provide

0:16:48that much more grip than just the Bear phone.

0:16:51So I think what I'm probably gonna do is

0:16:54use the leather case on and off, like when it's cold

0:16:56and my hands are all dry and slippery,

0:16:58but then most of the time when I don't need it

0:17:01for that reason, just use it Bear again,

0:17:03because it's so much more pleasant

0:17:05using it without a case.

0:17:07- It definitely is, and remind me,

0:17:09you do or do not have AppleCare on that?

0:17:11- I do not.

0:17:12- Oh, you are a brave soul.

0:17:14- No, I mean, and look, I admit it's a risk,

0:17:18but it's also $200 plus the fee to replace it if I drop it,

0:17:23plus there's a limit on how many times you can drop it,

0:17:25and it's like, okay, let me see if I ever actually drop it,

0:17:28and if I start dropping it so much

0:17:30that I think an extra $200 a year is a good deal,

0:17:34then I will change my policy.

0:17:36But again, right now, because I've never

0:17:38dropped and broken a phone, so far,

0:17:40it's not a good policy for me.

0:17:42- Yeah, I don't know.

0:17:43I mean, really the only clear, obvious answer

0:17:47is to just put it in a little baggie

0:17:49every time you're done using it.

0:17:51I mean, why else, why would you do anything else?

0:17:53It's the only logical conclusion.

0:17:54- Keeps the screen clean.

0:17:55- Oh my God.

0:17:56- Don't have to worry about scratching on stuff

0:17:58in my pockets, it's only when I'm outside the house.

0:18:00(laughing)

0:18:02Not when I'm in the house.

0:18:03- See, to me, the screen would even,

0:18:05or the little pouch that Jon has to drop his phone in

0:18:07and out of, that to me would increase the risk

0:18:09of dropping it, because that's one more thing

0:18:11that you have to put it into,

0:18:14and what if you slightly miss the edge of the pouch

0:18:17and it falls off?

0:18:18- Yeah, that could happen.

0:18:20I've never dropped my phone,

0:18:21but if you are prone to dropping,

0:18:23this probably increases your chances of dropping.

0:18:25- Right. - This is one more opportunity

0:18:26to miss something.

0:18:27- Right, and on the way out, too,

0:18:28it's like here's one more thing you have to take

0:18:30the phone out of, maybe if you reach into your pocket,

0:18:32that you pull it out and maybe you forget

0:18:35that it's in there and it accidentally slips

0:18:36out the bottom of the pouch.

0:18:37There's so many conditions where I think

0:18:39that's actually increasing your risk of damage.

0:18:42- It probably is, but like I said, it hasn't happened to me.

0:18:45All of my phone drops are when I'm clumsily trying

0:18:48to get it off of my nightstand and it's not in a pouch.

0:18:51It's totally just because I'm not awake or it's dark

0:18:54or I'm being careless.

0:18:56That's the main place my phone falls is off of my nightstand

0:18:59onto the rug or hardwood floor next to it.

0:19:02So we were ostensibly doing follow-up at some point, right?

0:19:08We got derailed with Marco's case, I suppose.

0:19:10I think we were always ostensibly doing follow-up.

0:19:13My MacBook Pro follow-up was quick.

0:19:16Marco, I think you're right.

0:19:18Are we ever really not in follow-up?

0:19:20Oh, my word.

0:19:21All right, so who added this glove thing?

0:19:24I did, because remember we talked about the Kickstarter for those, like, touch ID fingerprint

0:19:29sticker things that you can stick on your gloves.

0:19:31Who knows if that's even a thing.

0:19:33Well, we got a report that it actually is a thing,

0:19:35of course, in Japan.

0:19:36You can buy them for $7.

0:19:38What do you mean, of course, in Japan?

0:19:39What's that supposed to mean?

0:19:41That's the old '80s or '90s stereotype

0:19:43that Japan is living like 20 years in our future,

0:19:45and everything is awesome there, which is not actually true.

0:19:48But it's the old saw from back when I was a kid when Japan was

0:19:51going to take over the world because they

0:19:52could make better cars than us.

0:19:54All right, good save.

0:19:55Still can.

0:19:57Not California.

0:19:59Oh, god.

0:20:01- You're the worst.

0:20:02Oh wait, is this episode 250?

0:20:04- Yeah, it is.

0:20:05- Yay.

0:20:06- Oh, this is our 250th spectacular.

0:20:08What are we doing?

0:20:09- Yeah, happy whatever this is.

0:20:10- This is it.

0:20:11We're doing a show.

0:20:12(laughing)

0:20:14- Oh my god, this is the most ATP moment

0:20:18of any ATP moment.

0:20:20- We're lucky we remembered it not too far into the show.

0:20:23- I totally, I was not pretending not to remember it.

0:20:26You did mention it like a week or two ago,

0:20:28but I would not have thought.

0:20:30I mean, Marco should think of it,

0:20:31he sees the episode numbers when he does like the,

0:20:34like writes out the files and stuff.

0:20:36- Well, and I thought about it earlier this evening

0:20:38when I recorded the ads,

0:20:40but because I put them in a folder called ATP 250.

0:20:43- There you go. - And I thought,

0:20:44oh, it's this week, and then I promptly forgot

0:20:46as soon as I stopped doing it.

0:20:47(laughing)

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0:22:46(upbeat music)

0:22:49- Aaron Leonard writes, "I agree with most of your points,"

0:22:52oh God, "on the 2016 MacBook Pro 15-inch,

0:22:55but will make one point of exception.

0:22:57I would not want to live without Touch ID

0:22:59that was introduced on this model.

0:23:00I'm a consultant and have to use 1Password constantly.

0:23:03Oh, I remember those days.

0:23:04Throughout the day to access client systems,

0:23:06I have some RSI issues from time to time

0:23:07and using a fingerprint versus constantly typing

0:23:10to have my very long and complex master password

0:23:13is life-changing to my workflow and efficiency.

0:23:15The one feature offset, this one feature offsets

0:23:17much of the criticism that I share

0:23:19regarding the other issues.

0:23:21I think that makes sense.

0:23:22I've never used a computer with Touch ID.

0:23:25If you recall, the most modern laptop I have is my MacBook Adorable.

0:23:29The one I use for work is that piece of garbage that some popular Apple blogger recommended

0:23:34recently that's like 13 years old.

0:23:36Oh, it was Marco!

0:23:37That's right.

0:23:38So anyway, so I have a 2015 MacBook Pro.

0:23:43I have only ever used Touch bars for like 30 seconds at a time in the Apple Store.

0:23:48I don't know what this amazing future is where you can use Touch ID, but it sounds pretty

0:23:53good.

0:23:54But you know what sounds even better?

0:23:56Face ID.

0:23:57I want that in my life.

0:23:58That's exactly why I put this in here.

0:23:59It's like, yes, Touch ID is great, but really what you really want is Face ID.

0:24:04Because then you don't even have to put your finger up and your face is always right there

0:24:07in view of the camera and Touch ID on laptops will be so much better.

0:24:11Or Face ID on laptops will be so much better than Touch ID.

0:24:14And as someone who has touch ID, you know, obviously I don't use it because it's in clamshell

0:24:18most of the time, but even when it's not in clamshell, like when I'm carrying it around

0:24:21for meetings and have to unlock it, because, you know, I like all work laptops, it locks

0:24:24instantly if you glance away from it for two seconds.

0:24:28It is, and I don't know if this is the fault of touch ID, I don't think this is the fault

0:24:31of touch ID, I think it's the fault of all the evil software that enterprises make you

0:24:34put on your computer to make them crappier.

0:24:37But god, you open that thing up, and I put my finger on that touch pad, and it's like

0:24:42a long time before that computer does anything. Why? Probably has something to do with Active

0:24:45Directory or Wi-Fi certificates or God knows what it's doing, but all I know is it's not

0:24:52reading my fingerprint and unlocking the computer. Same thing when I disconnected and connected

0:24:56from my really awesome super duper thunderbolt dock thingy that lets me have one cable that

0:25:01plugs in to power this whole thing of peripherals. That's great. The part that's not great is

0:25:05I plug or unplug that cable. I might as well go for a drink while my computer does something.

0:25:11I don't know what it's doing.

0:25:13Sometimes I get a beach ball, sometimes I don't get a beach ball.

0:25:16Sometimes it remembers my clicks and replays them a minute later, sometimes it doesn't

0:25:19remember my clicks and replays them later.

0:25:21It just, it's like it says to me, "You're not going to use me for a while because I'm

0:25:26doing something."

0:25:27And maybe it's wrong for me to always play in my Active Directory, but I do pretty much

0:25:31always play in my Active Directory because I was not formerly on the Active Directory

0:25:35network with my old computer, and now I am and everything is worse.

0:25:39One thing I've found which probably is not gonna be

0:25:43helping your issues here unfortunately,

0:25:44but when I first got my wonderful but used 2015,

0:25:48it would occasionally fail to wake up from sleep.

0:25:52And I thought this was a High Sierra bug.

0:25:55But it turns out that it's just a 15 inch

0:25:57MacBook Pro 2015 bug that seemed to exist before High Sierra

0:26:01and it has to do apparently with Power Nap.

0:26:05If you disable Power Nap, it completely stops.

0:26:08that this problem just goes away completely.

0:26:11I also notice sometimes that it would seem to be

0:26:15running and warm while in my bag charging.

0:26:18So very obviously a power nap related problem.

0:26:22But I also, as part of the attempts to diagnose this problem,

0:26:27disabled hibernation.

0:26:28Because what every MacBook Pro does since the 2012 model,

0:26:33is the 2012 retina model, not the 2012 non-retina.

0:26:37because back then, when they introduced a radical new design

0:26:40they also updated the previous design

0:26:42with the new components.

0:26:44Anyway, since 2012, Retina, Mappa Pro, and forward,

0:26:47one of the reasons why they now get such better

0:26:49standby battery life is that after a few hours

0:26:52of not being woken up, if they're not plugged in,

0:26:55they go into full hibernation,

0:26:56which PC users have been familiar with for a long time,

0:26:58which basically means they write the contents of RAM

0:27:00to a file on disk and fully turn off.

0:27:02Then when you boot it up it has to like,

0:27:04kind of wake up from that deep hibernation

0:27:06by reading that hyperfile back into RAM

0:27:09and that's why it takes a little bit longer.

0:27:10You might see a little bit different progress bar

0:27:11when it boots up.

0:27:13This is slow and crappy and if you are leaving

0:27:16your computer unplugged from battery for two weeks,

0:27:20it's very helpful.

0:27:21But if you plug it in like every day

0:27:24and you're just leaving it closed for a few hours,

0:27:27then this is very annoying.

0:27:28And so I disabled that, and by the way,

0:27:31once you disable it, you can also delete

0:27:32the hibernation file which can get you back

0:27:35in disk space the amount of RAM you have, which is nice.

0:27:38Look up on every Mac forum since 2012 on how to do this.

0:27:41Since I disabled both Power Nap for the weird bugs

0:27:44and the hibernation with whatever

0:27:47like the pseudo PM set command is to do it,

0:27:49it wakes up way faster from sleep.

0:27:52'Cause what you're describing, John,

0:27:54that's happened to every MacBook Pro for quite a while.

0:27:58I did notice in my time using the touch bar versions,

0:28:02that was always way worse on the touch bars.

0:28:04So whatever it's doing, waking up from sleep or hibernation

0:28:07or whatever it is, something seems to be extra long

0:28:11or delayed or blocking or waiting for something

0:28:14on TouchBar models.

0:28:15That was worse when they first came out.

0:28:17Subsequent software improvements have dropped

0:28:19that delay somewhat, but they still do it.

0:28:21Are you on High Sierra yet?

0:28:23- Just gonna let Subsequent fly by, huh?

0:28:25Okay, I guess it's only bezels.

0:28:27- Subsequent, whatever, yeah, I know.

0:28:29- Yeah, no, I don't think it's hibernation or PowerNap,

0:28:33Although I routinely disable those as well, usually for disk space reasons.

0:28:36I've been doing that ever since the RAM got so big that it started to eat a chunk of it.

0:28:41But come to think of it, maybe I didn't do that on my work Mac.

0:28:43But I'm sure it's not hibernating.

0:28:44This is me.

0:28:45I close it, and then 30 seconds later I open it.

0:28:47It hasn't gone into hibernation at that point.

0:28:50It's not like the screen is inert when it's coming out of hibernation.

0:28:53Some things work, and sometimes I can click and bring an application to the front before

0:28:56the beach ball appears, but then eventually it stops responding.

0:28:59Power nap I haven't looked into.

0:29:00Because again, like, you know, Power Nap should only happen like, "Oh, your computer's been

0:29:03asleep for a while, now it's going to check email or some crap or do local time machine

0:29:06snapshots."

0:29:07And I haven't disabled that and I'm sure my computer is doing that if it would ever go

0:29:12to sleep.

0:29:13I think I have it set never to sleep because it's plugged in in battery power.

0:29:16But maybe there's some other weird interaction where if Power Nap is enabled at all, it does

0:29:19some weird thing and you just wake it up.

0:29:20So I'll try both those things and get back to you.

0:29:22But I don't like having to do this voodoo.

0:29:23I like to just open the computer up and I mean the screen turns on immediately and it

0:29:28It seems like it's ready to go in terms of like the mouse cursor moves.

0:29:36It's like golf is a good walk spoiled.

0:29:38Laptops are a good computer spoiled.

0:29:42Like just desktops, they work fine.

0:29:43You walk up to them, you wiggle the mouse, you hit the keyboard, you're there.

0:29:47You just go and the computer's like, "Yes, I'm here.

0:29:49Use me now."

0:29:50And the laptop's like, "I don't know.

0:29:51I don't know about that."

0:29:52And that's what makes Touch ID worse is because your finger's there and it's like, "Can I

0:29:56lift my finger?

0:29:57And should I put my finger down?

0:29:58Should I wait for the little animation on the touch bar saying Touch ID here?

0:30:01Has it already authenticated me and I'm just waiting?

0:30:03That's often the case.

0:30:04Sometimes it's already authenticated.

0:30:05I give up, I take my finger off and I'm like, "Come on, computer, what are you doing?"

0:30:08And then it unlocks, like based on a finger that was laid on there like 15 seconds ago.

0:30:12I don't like laptops.

0:30:14You know, you're right.

0:30:17When I am in a car in the passenger seat and I need to do a little bit of work, I like

0:30:21bringing my iMac and my inverter.

0:30:25You have nothing to be ashamed of.

0:30:27- Nothing to apologize for, sorry I blew it,

0:30:29oh my God I'm getting too old.

0:30:31- When I'm on an airplane, you know what the best way

0:30:33to use a computer on an airplane is?

0:30:3527 inch iMac, hell yeah.

0:30:38That's where I like to use my desktops.

0:30:40- What I'm learning over time as I get old

0:30:42and more like Jon is that I would rather just not

0:30:46use a computer in a car and just wait

0:30:49to get back to my 27 inch iMac.

0:30:51- Oh my God, listeners, I hope somebody out there

0:30:56is face--I literally just face-palmed. I hope somebody else out there is face-palming as

0:31:01bad as I am because you guys, man, the combined age of the two of you is approximately 134

0:31:07years old.

0:31:08No, no, actually, the real answer, I mean, the thing that both Marco and I think everyone

0:31:11would agree on, iOS devices. Like, they--you don't have problems with iOS devices. Imagine

0:31:15if you took out your iOS device, like your iPad, and hit the power switch and had to

0:31:18wait the amount of time I have to wait to use my laptop. It would be like, "Is this

0:31:20thing broken?" Right? It instantly, like, face ID, touch ID, it's like ready to go,

0:31:26instantly, immediately. None of this whole like, "Let me wake up and do whatever I'm

0:31:30doing and put a beach ball" there's no place to put a beach ball anywhere. If an iOS device

0:31:34does that it seems broken. And it made more sense like, "Well, iOS devices, you can only

0:31:40run one application at a time and they're highly optimized." But at this point iOS devices

0:31:44have faster CPUs than Macs, are multitasking, they're still RAM starved, but they're full

0:31:50fledged machines and it's just something something in the the remember when there

0:31:55was an effort a while back to this was a public marketing effort or just

0:32:00something that people would say behind closed doors or whatever that trying to

0:32:03make the Mac experience like the iOS experience like when you just open it up

0:32:07and it's ready to go actually that was on stage wasn't it didn't Steve Jobs say

0:32:10that at one point like the MacBook Air is like no effort it was based it was a

0:32:14it was a story that that had gotten out of Apple that apparently Steve there

0:32:18There was a famous meeting where Steve walked in

0:32:20and dropped a MacBook Air on the table

0:32:22and had an iPad and turned the iPad on from sleep

0:32:26and just comes on and he's,

0:32:27what's the MacBook Air, like why can't this do that?

0:32:29Something like that. - There you go.

0:32:31Yeah, so who knows if it was real or not,

0:32:32but anyway, I endorse that idea.

0:32:34The iOS devices feel so much better

0:32:37because there's so much crap that it's just unacceptable

0:32:39on an iOS device and on the Mac we're still suffering

0:32:42under the burden of this older behavior

0:32:45that I guess laptop users just live with

0:32:47and just think it's the price of using a laptop,

0:32:49and I don't like it.

0:32:51- Well, the job that a laptop has to do

0:32:55is way more complicated.

0:32:56A lot of that waking up from sleep delay

0:32:58is stuff like checking USB peripherals

0:33:01and stuff like that that iPads don't have to worry about.

0:33:03But a lot of it is just legacy stuff

0:33:04they could get rid of if they really tried.

0:33:07But the Mac is not in a position

0:33:10where it's getting a lot of effort

0:33:11for the most part, it seems.

0:33:13- I thought that Macs hibernated

0:33:15every time they went to sleep.

0:33:17they just kept the memory powered on until the battery had dropped quite a bit or was

0:33:22at a dangerous level or something like that. I thought they always wrote the contents of

0:33:26RAM to disk every single time.

0:33:28I hope that's not true. Again, I routinely disable it on the laptops that are in my house

0:33:34just to save the disk space, but if that's also a benefit, I'll look into it. I'll make

0:33:38sure it's off on my work phone and see how it goes.

0:33:41Last bit of follow-up. Dan Lear writes in, this is with regard to our Thanksgiving list

0:33:45from last episode. Nobody's thankful for the Switch. I'm surprised the Switch didn't make

0:33:49anyone's list, despite how much time you've talked about Zelda, Mario Kart, Stardew Valley,

0:33:53and playing with friends and family, etc. For me, it was both an omission by accident

0:34:00and somewhat deliberately. I still do use my Switch from time to time. I still... Well,

0:34:05so some... I think Jon put this in the show notes and he cut the key piece that which

0:34:09was, I believe Dan had said, basically, is this because it was a fad or because you just

0:34:15don't or you just didn't think of it and for me it's kind of both right like I

0:34:19didn't think of it at the time but even if I had I don't know that I would have

0:34:22said it because I don't use my switch near as much as I did when I first got

0:34:27it and I do still like it and I'm glad I spent the money on it but it's very rare

0:34:32I find myself picking that up in the evenings but I've also been just super

0:34:35super busy for quite a long time now but you know when my my family gets together

0:34:40you know, like well really Aaron's family a couple of my

0:34:43in-laws have

0:34:45Have switches and so we've been you know

0:34:48Generally speaking bringing them with us when we have a family function and we'll play like a couple rounds of Mario Kart or something like that

0:34:53So I am thankful for it. I definitely like it. But that is what is the top four etiquette?

0:34:59That's my number five or tied for number four or is this my like my seventh place tie for number one

0:35:04I saw one of your 17 honorable mentions. That's what it is. Yeah, it's one of my 17 honorable mentions

0:35:08That's right. But what about the two of you guys?

0:35:11- I mean, for me, I should have put the Switch on my list,

0:35:16and I simply forgot about it while making that list,

0:35:18which is funny because I played it like an hour before

0:35:21and played it again the next day. (laughs)

0:35:24So yeah, the Switch has been fantastic for me.

0:35:27And as the audience knows,

0:35:29I am not much of a gamer at all most of the time.

0:35:33I usually get into one game a year, maybe.

0:35:37I'll be into it for like a week or two,

0:35:38and then I'll stop, and then that'll be it.

0:35:41And because Tiff, my wife, is a gamer,

0:35:44we usually have all or some

0:35:47of the current generation game consoles

0:35:50in the house, ready to go.

0:35:51And I hardly ever touch them,

0:35:53because I just don't care that much.

0:35:56The Switch has changed that.

0:35:58It's really good.

0:36:00And this isn't about a console, this is about the games.

0:36:02And Nintendo was in such a bad place with the Wii U,

0:36:06they were in such a rush to get this out

0:36:09that they didn't have time to mess it up

0:36:10with getting too far up their own butts

0:36:12about what they were gonna do

0:36:13about some gimmicky hardware thing.

0:36:15They just made really great games

0:36:16for a really convenient system,

0:36:18and there's no other gimmicks about it, and it's great.

0:36:20It's just so, so great.

0:36:23And in particular, like, you know,

0:36:26Tiff and Adam really enjoyed Zelda together.

0:36:29I really enjoyed Mario Kart and Sonic Mania.

0:36:33We all have been really enjoying Stardew Valley.

0:36:36And there's so many more games.

0:36:38Like, I've bought games on it that I haven't even run yet.

0:36:41Just because I heard they were so great,

0:36:43I bought them thinking I'd play them

0:36:44and I haven't even had time,

0:36:45I haven't been too busy playing all the other great games.

0:36:47Like, there's a surplus of amazing games for it

0:36:51that we haven't even had a chance to play all of yet.

0:36:53That's how many great games there are.

0:36:55And so, to have all this in a mid-priced system

0:36:59that's very practical to have in your life,

0:37:02because it can be both portable and stationary,

0:37:04although honestly I don't like the portable version of it

0:37:06the screen's too small and the controllers are too skinny and they give my--

0:37:09You have problems with the portable thing, you don't say?

0:37:13Yeah, and the input device is surprising.

0:37:19Marco the jokes right themselves, my friend.

0:37:21I know. I also, I honestly, I do wish I had an HDMI port.

0:37:25Oh god. Good grief.

0:37:29I need to start a holiday party.

0:37:34But just playing it as a home console for me,

0:37:38it's just great, it's such a great system

0:37:41with such great games.

0:37:43The Switch, I am happier with the Switch

0:37:46than any video game or video game system

0:37:50at least in the last decade.

0:37:52- Did you like your Sega consoles more?

0:37:54- Yeah, but those were more than,

0:37:56my one Sega console, my Genesis. (laughs)

0:37:59But that was a long time ago when the Genesis was current,

0:38:02was in like 1993. So...

0:38:04- Yeah, totally. No, no, I'm not trying to mess with you.

0:38:07I'm saying, you know, to the best that you can remember

0:38:09how you felt when you were 11,

0:38:11do you feel like the Genesis provided you more joy

0:38:14than the Switch does?

0:38:15And obviously that's a tough question

0:38:16'cause you're a very different person now,

0:38:17but if you had to choose only one, you know,

0:38:22in their current time,

0:38:23so I'm not asking you to choose the Genesis

0:38:25over the Switch today, you know,

0:38:26what do you think you would do?

0:38:29I need another year with the Switch to really know.

0:38:32It's a little too early.

0:38:33So far, I think they're probably pretty close to each other

0:38:36in that way.

0:38:38It's just so damn good.

0:38:40And honestly, I've had an Xbox, like the first one,

0:38:43I was gonna say an Xbox One, but that's something else now.

0:38:46So I had the first Xbox, which I got pre-modded

0:38:49with a mod chip so I could rip games onto the hard drive

0:38:52and install XBMC, which is now Plex, basically.

0:38:55Stuff like that.

0:38:57That's kind of where it all started.

0:38:59And so I had that, I had a Wii,

0:39:04the first Wii, not the stupid you, sorry, John.

0:39:06I had the PS3 and 4 and a 360.

0:39:11And I had a lot of fun with some of those.

0:39:14But none of them were as good as the Switch,

0:39:16just game library-wise.

0:39:18So I'm very much enjoying this.

0:39:21And anybody who used to have fun with games,

0:39:25it has maybe fallen out of it like I did, give the Switch a try. It's really fun.

0:39:30Jon?

0:39:31Well, I totally forgot about the Switch, but if I had remembered it, I wouldn't have

0:39:35listed the Switch for actually for a lot of the same reasons Marco mentioned, because

0:39:39I never used it in Portal mode, if I can help it, because it's not ergonomically, it

0:39:43just doesn't fit me ergonomically. I never take the little Joy-Cons off of it, I just

0:39:47leave it on there. I only use the Pro Controller with it, I only hook it up to the TV. And

0:39:53In that way, as a console, I don't think it's a...

0:39:56It's not my favorite...

0:39:58I wouldn't have listed it as a thing that I'm thankful for, because I think the Pro

0:40:02Controller is not as good as the GameCube controller, or maybe not even as good as the

0:40:07Wii U Pro Controller.

0:40:09And the fact that it's this weird portable thing that I have to put into a dock and hook

0:40:13up to my TV, and it just doesn't...

0:40:15It's compromised by the fact that it needs to be portable.

0:40:17I wish it was more powerful, blah, blah, blah.

0:40:19All my typical complaints about Nintendo consoles.

0:40:21So if I listed something, what I would have listed is the games.

0:40:24And specifically I would have listed Zelda, which for me is head and shoulders.

0:40:27Like the other games are great, like I love them, but Zelda is the most important Nintendo

0:40:31franchise for me.

0:40:33And this was a very significant Zelda game breaking with the past in lots of very interesting

0:40:37ways.

0:40:38And I just thought it was an amazing game.

0:40:40Probably still not my favorite Zelda, but a lot of people ask me that.

0:40:42You know, as much as I love it and it does so many things so much better than every other

0:40:47Zelda has ever done them, it falls down in a couple areas.

0:40:49But that's what I would have listed.

0:40:50I will have said Breath of the Wild as the thing that I should have been thankful for.

0:40:54It just slipped my mind.

0:40:56It's funny to me that you guys are lamenting the portability of it because, holy smokes,

0:41:04some of the—almost all of the fun I've had with the Switch is because I've been

0:41:10in some sort of group setting.

0:41:12Some of the most fun times I've had with the Switch has been the handful of times that

0:41:15we played Mario Kart together at work and we'd all gather around a few tables or some

0:41:20something, and sit there and play Mario Kart against each other. And it's like, you know,

0:41:25all the great parts about a LAN party back in the day, where you can shout and yell at

0:41:29your friends and, you know, and call them terrible names and whatnot, because they're

0:41:36sitting right next to you. And you can do all of that without having to—and here I'm

0:41:40telling you how old I am—without having to lug like a 50-pound CRT to your friend's

0:41:44house. You know, so I'm not trying to say you're wrong. I'm really honestly not. I'm

0:41:50I'm just saying I'm surprised that you guys don't really favor the portability at all,

0:41:57because that is, like I said to you about my family, and certainly at work from time

0:42:01to time, that is—and even at WWDC, I organized on Beacon, I think it was.

0:42:06I organized a little get-together for playing Mario Kart.

0:42:10And to me, those are such fun times, and they really define the Switch to me in a way that

0:42:17no other console I've had has really worked.

0:42:20And everyone's allowed their own experience,

0:42:22I'm just super surprised.

0:42:24- I mean, I would love the portability

0:42:25to work out better and more often for me.

0:42:28And I occasionally will, I'll take it to like,

0:42:30if I know I'm gonna be sitting in a doctor's office

0:42:32waiting room for a little while, I'll take it sometimes.

0:42:34But it's just, using the Joy-Cons

0:42:37is just very uncomfortable for me.

0:42:39They're clearly made for much smaller hands.

0:42:41It's probably made for children and teenagers

0:42:43to be able to comfortably use.

0:42:45and I just, I can't, it hurts my hands to use it

0:42:48for more than a few minutes.

0:42:50Because I'm also accustomed to playing on a giant,

0:42:53nice OLED TV, with speakers and everything,

0:42:58sitting on the couch with the Pro Controller,

0:43:00the portable experience, the screen is noticeably crappier.

0:43:05I don't get my wonderful OLED black levels.

0:43:07It's a very, very small screen for old people like me

0:43:10and Jon, and people with broken eyes like you.

0:43:13Like it's a really small screen compared to

0:43:15most modern TVs and so to me it just doesn't work as well

0:43:19in portable mode and I'm probably the only person

0:43:24in the world, like normally Nintendo's portable consoles,

0:43:28they eventually get like mini versions or new versions.

0:43:31I'm the only person I think in the world wanting

0:43:33the Switch XL to actually basically get really fat.

0:43:36(laughs)

0:43:37Like I want a Switch that doesn't have detachable controllers

0:43:41that basically has controller wings

0:43:44that are approximately the shape of a pro controller.

0:43:46And the whole thing gets bigger to accommodate a screen

0:43:50closer to maybe an iPad mini size.

0:43:53Like that's what I would like.

0:43:54I don't think they're going to make that

0:43:55because no one else wants that except me and maybe Jon.

0:43:59But ultimately the portability,

0:44:01it's too small to be comfortable for me.

0:44:04- I don't want it to be thicker,

0:44:05I want it to be a GameCube.

0:44:08I want it to be a non-portable console without a screen on it that's like four times as powerful.

0:44:15But again, that's not what people want.

0:44:16The main appeal of the Switch, to be clear, for most people is exactly what you said,

0:44:20Casey.

0:44:21Hey, it's the same game, portable and on your TV, and it works great in both places.

0:44:24That is the main appeal.

0:44:25But Marco and I just happen to be oddballs both in the camp where we want to play it

0:44:29sitting on our couches and that's that.

0:44:30And we're happy with it there.

0:44:31Like it's not like I have, you know, my complaint is that it's not powerful enough and it's

0:44:35compromised by that.

0:44:36I enjoy the games.

0:44:38Breath of the Wild was an amazing game, especially given the power of the console.

0:44:43We are sponsored this week by Eero.

0:44:46Finally, Wi-Fi that works.

0:44:48Go to Eero.com and use promo code ATP at checkout to make overnight shipping free to the US

0:44:53and Canada.

0:44:54Wi-Fi has always had two problems for most people.

0:44:57One, it doesn't reach your whole house.

0:44:58There's always weak zones or dead zones or it doesn't reach the back room.

0:45:02And two, it's usually really hard to set up,

0:45:04especially for non-technical people.

0:45:06Eero solves both of these problems.

0:45:09So number one, they know, as we do,

0:45:11that no matter how many antennas you stick on top

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0:45:15your entire house perfectly.

0:45:17You need multiple access points.

0:45:19You need to be broadcasting that signal

0:45:20from multiple different little boxes around your house,

0:45:22not just one somewhere, like in the basement

0:45:24or in the middle somewhere.

0:45:26Eero solves that problem perfectly

0:45:27by having multiple radios.

0:45:29So they have two different models.

0:45:30they have the standard Eero base station.

0:45:33And this is now the second generation one

0:45:34that has a much faster radio, much faster throughput,

0:45:37and they also now have these little beacons

0:45:39that you can plug in at different points around the house

0:45:42to help broadcast more WiFi signal.

0:45:44The beacons are these little flush things,

0:45:46they sit flush against the wall just in an outlet.

0:45:48It looks kinda like a big nightlight,

0:45:50and in fact they even built in a nightlight

0:45:51just to help you make it a little more useful.

0:45:53And you can plug 'em in anywhere.

0:45:55Everything is now faster, longer range, better performance.

0:45:58So they solved the coverage problem

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0:46:01And then they also solve the ease of use problem,

0:46:04also better than anything else I've ever seen.

0:46:06This is one area, you know, if you're a nerd

0:46:08and you've used multiple access point Wi-Fi systems before,

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0:46:16And it's so easy, I can easily recommend it

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0:46:21you might have if you need to help them

0:46:23with their Wi-Fi this year.

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0:46:27and the performance is wonderful,

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0:46:32The new beacons are small, discreet,

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0:46:39Go to Eero.com, that's E-E-R-O.com,

0:46:42and use promo code ATP at checkout

0:46:44to get free overnight shipping to the US and Canada.

0:46:47Thank you so much to Eero for sponsoring our show.

0:46:49(upbeat music)

0:46:52- So we should move on to Ask ATP,

0:46:54and conveniently we have a Switch related question.

0:46:57Star Susumi writes,

0:46:58Have you guys played Super Mario Odyssey?

0:47:01How do you think about it?

0:47:02What do you think of it?

0:47:03And I have not, and that's in no small part

0:47:06because I haven't really touched my Switch

0:47:07very much recently, but let's start with Marco.

0:47:09Marco, have you played Super Mario Odyssey?

0:47:11- Not yet, I'm still spending all my Switch time

0:47:14in Stardew Valley, and behind that I also have

0:47:16the Mario Rabbids game, and I still have to finish

0:47:20the last few zones of Sonic Mania,

0:47:22and there's so many games, I can't keep up.

0:47:26But I'm also, I'm a little bit concerned

0:47:28that it might not like Mario Odyssey

0:47:29because people are saying it's almost like a cross

0:47:32between Mario 64 and Zelda.

0:47:35- That is not true.

0:47:36- Okay, 'cause I didn't,

0:47:38I never liked the way the Mario series went 3D very much.

0:47:41Like it was really cool at the time,

0:47:43like for Mario 64, but like,

0:47:45I always liked the 2D ones a lot better.

0:47:47And Zelda's not really my kind of game,

0:47:48like the kind of big adventure RPG kind of thing.

0:47:51So Jon, should I be playing Mario Odyssey?

0:47:53- If you don't like 3D Marios,

0:47:55Super Mario Odyssey is a 3D Mario.

0:47:57I like 3D Mario, so I like Super Mario Odyssey, and in the pantheon of 3D Marios, I don't

0:48:02know where I'd put it.

0:48:04I really liked Galaxy as well.

0:48:06Galaxy was very different and had, I think, more of a twist on the typical Mario formula,

0:48:12even if it was more constrained by being on little planets and doing stuff.

0:48:16And Mario Odyssey is a little bit more of a return to conventions of, well, it's just

0:48:21regular 3D Mario with a little bit more open world,

0:48:24but Mario Odyssey is so unashamedly wacky.

0:48:28In some ways, I feel like it's sillier than I want it to be.

0:48:32Like, I take Mario more seriously than this game does.

0:48:35But in other ways, it's highlighted to me

0:48:37exactly how much more I like some of the other franchises.

0:48:40Like, Zelda is my number one,

0:48:42and I think even Metroid has been elevated

0:48:44to potentially the other franchise

0:48:45that I'm more excited about.

0:48:47But as far as Mario games go,

0:48:50if you like 3D Mario games, you'll like this.

0:48:51For Marco, maybe something that will keep him interested in

0:48:54is they do have tons of nostalgic pandering

0:48:58to the people who are fans of 2D Mario,

0:49:01but I don't, if you really don't like 3D Mario,

0:49:03I'm not sure that'll be enough to keep you interesting.

0:49:05But I would say just like, honestly, play it,

0:49:07like, and let, you know, let Adam play it and just watch.

0:49:12Like, it's just such a fun game.

0:49:13It's so unashamed to say,

0:49:16there is no rhyme or reason why this is here.

0:49:18It's just because it's fun.

0:49:19And there's lots of fun things to do and explore and play with.

0:49:23And you can kind of go at your own pace.

0:49:24And it's very, very gentle.

0:49:26And it's not particularly punishing,

0:49:28except for a couple of checkpoints

0:49:29that are a little farther back than I would want them to be.

0:49:33So I say you should definitely get it,

0:49:35because I think your family as a whole will have fun with it.

0:49:37Whether you will spend more than a little time with it,

0:49:39I don't know.

0:49:40All right.

0:49:41MZ writes, do you use robotic vacuum cleaners?

0:49:44If yes, what brands and use cases work for you?

0:49:47And if not, why?

0:49:48I have never owned a Roomba or anything like it.

0:49:51I would guess that if I were to get one,

0:49:53I would get a Roomba because marketing.

0:49:56But I've never used one and have never

0:49:59really felt a need for it.

0:50:01- I have experience with Roombas here and there,

0:50:03but not a lot of experience, and none of it that was

0:50:07so compelling that I thought I must have one of these.

0:50:10I don't know if they've gotten better

0:50:13meaningfully since then, but the limitations

0:50:15they had back then were basically like,

0:50:18You know, they couldn't, they wouldn't really get

0:50:20everywhere, they wouldn't really be able to go

0:50:21on all surfaces and rugs and everything.

0:50:24They would occasionally get stuck and complain

0:50:25in some kind of happy song.

0:50:27I know at least the newer ones will like go back

0:50:29to their base and charge themselves, which is nice.

0:50:32But it just seems like a lot of trouble and noise

0:50:36and expense and hassle and one more electronic thing

0:50:40to manage to solve a problem part way.

0:50:43And it's like, well, you still have to vacuum.

0:50:46if it can't do the whole house effectively.

0:50:49So I'm not, maybe these things are better

0:50:52than I remember them, or maybe they've gotten better,

0:50:54but my limited experience with them is not compelling.

0:50:58- I've never had one, and I've never thought

0:51:00about buying one, just because it just doesn't seem

0:51:02like it can do the job.

0:51:03I mean, you can see how big they are,

0:51:04like these little pucks.

0:51:06I've got more crap in my house than fits in there.

0:51:08I see how much is in the clear bagless container

0:51:12of my thing when I actually vacuum the entire

0:51:14first floor of the house, that's not gonna fit in a Roomba. Roomba can't empty itself,

0:51:18and so yeah, it just seems like, I mean it looks like a fun novelty, and if you have

0:51:21them just sort of let you go longer between actually vacuuming, I can see that. Or if

0:51:27you have a house where you don't have pets that are going to attack it and/or feel attacked

0:51:31by it, which is another factor in having an autonomous thing wandering around your house,

0:51:35but nope, never tried it. I put this question in there just because I thought maybe Marco

0:51:38might have it now that he's got all his little like uh, light switch clappers and all his

0:51:41other home automation stuff, but I guess clappers still, yeah, you're still resisting the, uh,

0:51:47the, the robot invasion of our homes.

0:51:49[Clapper Music]

0:51:56All right. And finally, this is for Marco. Eric New writes, "What fraction of total audio

0:52:00gets cut by Marco for the finished podcast?" So I will say to set you up, Marco, that we record at

0:52:06about nine o'clock in the evening our time and typically end between 11 45 and midnight and and

0:52:13we are recording pretty much that entire time now that may or may not be us acting like we're

0:52:18recording if that makes any sense like we may be kind of a little more casual and not really expect

0:52:22some of that to go on the show but you know i give marco an mp3 each and every week that's roughly

0:52:28two and a half to three hours long and you know the released episodes are anywhere from an hour

0:52:34hour and a half to like two hours usually.

0:52:38- Eh, it's more like 145 to 215.

0:52:41- Yeah, but that's the simple answer.

0:52:43So Marco, what's the real answer?

0:52:45- I mean, it's, you know, basically if you figure out

0:52:46from what you said, like, you know, we do usually record

0:52:48for about two and a half hours.

0:52:50The finished episode has six minutes of ads,

0:52:54plus the theme song, which is about a minute long.

0:52:56So you figure I have about seven minutes of added content

0:52:59that isn't part of the live recording.

0:53:01And a two and a half hour show, so that's about

0:53:03two hours and 37 minutes of total content before cutting,

0:53:07and then the show is about 1.45 to 2.15,

0:53:10so you figure I'm cutting maybe 20 minutes.

0:53:12Now, that's not like an even 20 or 30 minutes

0:53:16throughout the show that I'm cutting.

0:53:18It's mostly like cutting the first two or three minutes

0:53:20of the call, where we're just setting up,

0:53:23hey, is Jon here, is Casey here,

0:53:25setting up this crap that nobody ever wants to hear about.

0:53:28And then after we have decided we're done recording,

0:53:31talking about, oh, let's pick some titles,

0:53:34and then maybe tell the live listeners,

0:53:35oh, next week we're gonna be recording on Tuesday

0:53:38instead of Wednesday.

0:53:39So like, you know, bookkeeping at the end of the show

0:53:41or just kind of like, you know,

0:53:43kind of like casual talking at the end,

0:53:44but it's not good enough to be in the show.

0:53:46That's what most of the cutting actually is,

0:53:48is the beginning and the end.

0:53:50And don't worry, you're not missing much.

0:53:52I cut it because it isn't very interesting.

0:53:54So, you know, the release version of the show

0:53:57contains almost everything that we actually say

0:54:00that is actually part of the show as we hear it live.

0:54:05- Almost everything that's in the show is in the show,

0:54:08is what he's trying to say.

0:54:09(laughing)

0:54:10- Exactly. - Yeah.

0:54:11And if it's a show where Jon talks a lot,

0:54:13a lot less is cut.

0:54:14If it's a show where I talk a lot, a lot more is cut.

0:54:17- Yeah, you can always fix it in the post, right?

0:54:19- And I do.

0:54:21- Moving on.

0:54:22So there's a little bit of a kerfuffle earlier this week.

0:54:24We're recording this on Wednesday evening,

0:54:26and there has just been released.

0:54:30a patch for a rather unique bug that has sprung up in High Sierra.

0:54:37And I never actually tried it, but my understanding is if you go into System Preferences, and

0:54:44I think into Security, and then you click the lock and hit Enter, and then enter the

0:54:50username root and an empty password and try that, and you might have to do the stance

0:54:55a little bit, but eventually you will get to the point that suddenly you have set the

0:55:01root password on that High Sierra installed for Macintosh.

0:55:06And that is a problem, because if you're not familiar, root is basically the god account

0:55:11on any Unix-based system.

0:55:14And so if you can finagle root access to a computer, well a Mac I should say, then you

0:55:23You basically can do anything you want.

0:55:26And this is a bit of an issue.

0:55:28And there are a little bit, you know, I think most people have a little bit of a problem

0:55:33with the way in which it was publicized, which was via a tweet, which is not terribly responsible.

0:55:38But we don't know what happened before then.

0:55:39Maybe it was responsibly disclosed.

0:55:41Somebody then eventually had discovered that about two weeks ago, this was posted in Apple's

0:55:47own developer forums, which is kind of amusing.

0:55:51And Patrick Wardle has done a deep dive into why they think this happened, but that's kind

0:55:58of the setup.

0:55:59Jon, I presume you particularly have many thoughts on this, so do you want to kind of

0:56:03fill in some of the blanks here?

0:56:04By the time you hear this, this will have all been solved for everybody because, you

0:56:09know, there was about, what, like a day, day and a half between when this was widely publicized

0:56:16on Twitter and when Apple put out the fix for it.

0:56:21And not only has Apple put out the fix, like if you have High Sierra and you go to software

0:56:24update you can get the fix, but they will start, they say starting later today in their

0:56:28message which means they probably already have done this.

0:56:31They're going to forcibly push this fix out to everybody running High Sierra.

0:56:34You won't have to run software update, you won't have to check for updates, you won't

0:56:37have to click a button, it will just go out on, and you don't need to reboot either, it

0:56:41will just go out onto your computer.

0:56:44And that's a mechanism Apple has used a couple times in the past.

0:56:46I think the only one that I could remember and I think the one that Jason Snell could

0:56:51remember as well is the NTP bug with the time server thing that they also pushed out.

0:56:57But I'm assuming it's either the same exact or very similar to the mechanism they have

0:57:02for pushing out updates to malware, which they also do without you having to do anything

0:57:07behind the scenes without any other updates.

0:57:10Like they'll push the malware updates.

0:57:11And I have no idea when those are happening because who would know?

0:57:13I guess you could just diff the malware definition file and see when it changes.

0:57:17But anyway, if you're listening to this now and you're using a Mac with High Sierra and

0:57:22you're connected to the network, this problem should be solved for you.

0:57:25Unless of course the fix causes problems, which for some people it has.

0:57:28Apparently it's possible for the fix itself, which was rolled out in a day, to cause problems

0:57:33with doing file sharing.

0:57:35And there's a fix for the fix, which Apple also has a tech note for that you can run

0:57:38some other command and that will fix their fix.

0:57:41Which is why usually fixes don't come out 24 hours after a problem was discovered.

0:57:47The root cause stuff is interesting.

0:57:48It's difficult.

0:57:50The thing that Patrick Wardwell wrote up, because he doesn't have the source code to

0:57:54all parts of the operating system, so he's disassembling it, which is a heroic effort

0:57:58to disassemble, often without any symbols, to try to figure out what the heck is going

0:58:01on.

0:58:02Has he updated that thread?

0:58:04I don't know.

0:58:05But anyway, what it looked like when I read this post earlier today was that the programmer

0:58:10Making the classic mistake of getting confused about what the return value means from a function,

0:58:16there's multiple schools of thought and multiple cultures on what return values mean in terms of

0:58:22what indicates success or failure. The sort of Unix system call kind of way is zero indicate

0:58:28success and anything that's not zero indicate some form of failure, but there are also whole

0:58:32other SWASP, whole other APIs in other domains where a true value or one or a Boolean or something

0:58:39Something like that indicates success and a false value or zero or undefined or whatever

0:58:46means failure.

0:58:47And those conventions are opposite of each other and it can be very easy when you're

0:58:50programming to get confused about which is which, especially if you're in some kind of

0:58:55domain of like your own code that you wrote where you're not sure what convention it's

0:58:58following or whatever.

0:59:00And if you get that return value wrong then you may proceed as if something has failed

0:59:03when it succeeded or vice versa.

0:59:06you can read the root cause.

0:59:07It's a series of things that stem from that,

0:59:11where Macs come by default with the root account disabled,

0:59:16and this thing accidentally enables it,

0:59:17and it enables it and sets the password

0:59:19to whatever you wrote in the text box,

0:59:20which is an empty string.

0:59:21And then from that point on,

0:59:22if you try to log in again with the empty string,

0:59:24it succeeds the second time,

0:59:25because the first time it enabled both enabled the account

0:59:27and set it to empty string.

0:59:29It's just typical with these type of bugs,

0:59:32lots of things have to go wrong for it to fall down.

0:59:35but I'm assuming the fix was fairly straightforward,

0:59:38but apparently not,

0:59:38'cause it borked everyone's file sharing, who knows?

0:59:41Maybe it had to do with applying the fix without restarting,

0:59:43which is not something that normally happens

0:59:45with security updates.

0:59:47Or maybe it does, I don't know.

0:59:49I don't keep track of like when you get a security update

0:59:50and a software update, does it require restart all the time?

0:59:53- Not all the time.

0:59:54- Yeah, maybe not for all of them.

0:59:55I guess it depends on what it's patching,

0:59:56if it can just patch a daemon and then kill it

0:59:58and it'll auto restart itself.

1:00:01Anyway, this is a bad one.

1:00:02This is pretty much as bad as a local exploit can get.

1:00:06And it was a local exploit that was remotable

1:00:08because if you have screen sharing enabled,

1:00:12the local exploit suddenly becomes a remote

1:00:14because the exploit itself is that it allows you to log in

1:00:17as root with no password if the root account is disabled.

1:00:21I also believe that the fix they push out

1:00:24disables the root account again.

1:00:26And maybe they had to do that

1:00:28just because they're afraid everyone enabled it.

1:00:30By the way, the workaround for this was,

1:00:31Oh, enable the root account and actually set a legit password?

1:00:35Which is why I thought I'm totally invulnerable, not the least of which because I'm running

1:00:37El Capitan.

1:00:38But anyway, I always enable the root account on all my Macs, and I always set a password

1:00:43on it, you know, because I use the root account to do UNICCE stuff.

1:00:46So even though Macs ship with the root account disabled, one of the first things I do is

1:00:49enable it and set a password and do all that stuff.

1:00:53So I thought I didn't have to worry about it, but I actually checked my wife's computer,

1:00:56and for whatever reason, I guess it's because when we got it as a new computer, I never

1:00:59did any of the UNICCE stuff over on it.

1:01:01did have the root account disabled.

1:01:02Anyway, this update, the fix, will re-disable the root account.

1:01:06So if you don't want the root account disabled, re-enable it, set a strong password on it,

1:01:11and you'll be back.

1:01:12So yeah, this is a bad one.

1:01:15And because this is a fairly terrible error and a one-day, 24-hour turnaround time on

1:01:23the fix and all sorts of other things, lots of people are attaching various levels of

1:01:27significance to this.

1:01:28There's a lot of threads going around revisiting, you know, Apple's quality control.

1:01:33Is it going downhill?

1:01:35This never would have happened if Steve was alive, blah, blah, blah.

1:01:37I guess we can talk about that in a little bit, but the one thing that's brought to mind

1:01:42immediately and I didn't spend much time Googling this, so maybe I'm misremembering it, but

1:01:46almost this exact same bug was on the Mac back in the days when Steve was running the

1:01:52show.

1:01:53And I believe it was like on the lock screen, like on your laptop or your desktop, where

1:01:57You get the screen lock and it says enter your password to unlock the screen.

1:02:02And all you need to do is type a whole bunch of characters in the password field until

1:02:07it overflows some buffer and causes the screensaver to crash and unlock the screen for you.

1:02:11And I think you could even hold down the return key and it would still do the same thing.

1:02:16I forget.

1:02:17I may be misremembering, maybe people can tell me if I'm misremembering.

1:02:19But that's the thing with security.

1:02:21It doesn't matter how silly the mistake is, silly the programming mistake is.

1:02:27If it's in just the wrong place, your whole security edifice falls down.

1:02:33So I actually don't think this security error is indicative of any larger problem.

1:02:41It is just one more, like this specific one, I think it is just one more pebble on the

1:02:47pile and what we should be doing is counting the pebbles, not saying this one pebble.

1:02:50Because this one pebble exists, it means therefore this is the world's biggest problem.

1:02:54The real problem is how many pebbles are there and is the pile getting smaller or bigger

1:02:57over time.

1:02:58That's what people need to talk about.

1:02:59And I suppose this pebble is a little bit bigger than normal, but it was also fixed

1:03:03much quicker than normal and it's kind of understandable.

1:03:05I don't know.

1:03:07Anyway, the question that most piqued my interest that I saw come up about this, I forget if

1:03:12it was in a Slack or on Twitter or whatever, but I want to ask you two to see what you

1:03:15think is, someone was asking, "Is this a fireable offense?

1:03:20And if so, who should be fired?"

1:03:21- I don't, I mean, if it was put there intentionally, sure.

1:03:26If it was like, you know, the NSA paid some engineer

1:03:28to go inject a weakness, sure.

1:03:31But that was probably not what happened here,

1:03:34like the nature of this bug, from little we know about it,

1:03:38from mostly from that disassembly,

1:03:39it doesn't seem like it's that kind of bug.

1:03:42Unless it was intentionally done, I would say no,

1:03:47this is not a fireable offense.

1:03:50This is software, people make mistakes all the time.

1:03:54This really honestly could have been

1:03:56a single line of code mistake.

1:03:59And if that's all it was,

1:04:02then it's just part of doing the job.

1:04:04And for the record, Jon, I'm with you.

1:04:06People look at me to amplify a lot of Apple rage these days

1:04:12because I do that sometimes,

1:04:13but I don't think this is alone in isolation.

1:04:18I'm not freaked out about this.

1:04:19yeah, it's a bad security bug, it got fixed,

1:04:22that's what's supposed to happen.

1:04:24Any OS, even iOS, where Apple puts all their resources,

1:04:28you know, any OS has occasional security bugs

1:04:31of this magnitude, and if it's being properly cared for,

1:04:35they get fixed, simple as that.

1:04:38That's the nature of very, very complex modern software.

1:04:43You're gonna have problems.

1:04:44As long as they get fixed, everything's working

1:04:47as it always does.

1:04:49So this particular bug, I don't think is a sign

1:04:52of anything big.

1:04:53I think it was handled as well as it could have been handled

1:04:55although it is a little worrying how long ago

1:04:57people were talking about it on the forums

1:04:59and nobody seemed to notice.

1:05:00But security bugs like that,

1:05:03who knows if the right people saw that either.

1:05:07People report random bugs all the time

1:05:10and random odd behavior on forums all the time

1:05:13but people also report so much garbage on forums

1:05:15that nobody can keep up with everything that's posted.

1:05:17And who knows, if somebody's describing,

1:05:20like on the forums, if you read the posts

1:05:22that were allegedly describing this problem,

1:05:23if you're some Apple employee who's just skimming

1:05:26through these posts, you don't know what the conditions

1:05:28were on that person's machine.

1:05:30Maybe something weird was going on with their software

1:05:32and some other way.

1:05:33Maybe it wasn't your bug necessarily.

1:05:34So it's hard to know when you're skimming

1:05:36through forum posts what people are actually talking about.

1:05:40And if this is a real issue that you need to worry about,

1:05:42if it's your bug, or if it's just some weird thing

1:05:44that they did or that they're recalling badly

1:05:47or describing badly, you know, so like,

1:05:50I don't see anything about this bug

1:05:52that is cause for massive concern

1:05:54on any kind of real scale.

1:05:56I see lots of other ways for concern for Apple,

1:05:58but this is not one of those things.

1:06:00And to go back to the actual question you asked,

1:06:02once again, to summarize, no, this would not be,

1:06:04as long as this was done unintentionally,

1:06:05this is not a fireable offense,

1:06:06this is just developing software.

1:06:09- Yeah, yeah, I agree, I don't think this is fireable

1:06:11unless it was a deliberate backdoor,

1:06:12and I don't think that it was.

1:06:16And I've seen some people that are really up in arms

1:06:20about the fact that on Apple's own dev forums,

1:06:23this was reported and nobody noticed.

1:06:25I was cracking wise about it earlier,

1:06:28but the reality of the situation is, like, look at radar.

1:06:31So as much as I also crack wise and lament radar,

1:06:34that is a never-ending just tidal wave of new information

1:06:41that Apple as a company needs to sort through.

1:06:45And if you look at radar, which has a fairly high, in my opinion, cost of entry in terms

1:06:52of like, who's really going to file a radar?

1:06:54Not any normal schmo.

1:06:56It's going to be a super nerd developer who actually is silly enough to spend the time

1:07:00doing it.

1:07:01So think about this insert, just insurmountable wave of information coming off radar, which

1:07:07is Apple's internal bug, well, internal slash external bug reporting tool, and then amplify

1:07:12that by several orders of magnitude, and that's a forum. So there is no way that anyone, I can't

1:07:20imagine anyone's cruising the forums looking for reports of security vulnerabilities. That's just

1:07:24not a thing. So as much as I joke about how it was reported on Apple's own forums and they should

1:07:30have noticed, no, they shouldn't have. And they've turned around a fix as quickly as possible. I wish

1:07:35they QA'd the fix a little better, because up until a few minutes ago when one of you mentioned

1:07:39I didn't even realize the fix needed a fix, but you know, they're trying to do right by everyone

1:07:44and trying to get this right as quickly as possible. And I think to my eyes, and maybe

1:07:52it's easy for me to say this because I'm hugely biased as a developer, but I feel like, yes,

1:07:56the root cause of this was a developer making an oops, but this to me is more, I'm more alarmed by

1:08:02the QA process than I am the developer that made the oops, because this seems like the

1:08:09sort of thing that I feel like it should have been caught in quality assurance, and clearly

1:08:15it wasn't. And that's the thing that scares me a little bit. But somewhere, I guess they

1:08:21made a statement to several outlets, including iMore, and I don't have it in front of me,

1:08:25but they basically said that they're going to provide a write-up of what happened. Is

1:08:29Is that right?

1:08:30Do you know what I'm talking about?

1:08:32They said they were gonna do basically a post-mortem

1:08:33and talk about it, if I'm not mistaken.

1:08:36- I have the Apple statement in the notes,

1:08:37but it doesn't say anything about that.

1:08:39- We are auditing our development process

1:08:41to help prevent this from happening ever again.

1:08:43I could've sworn they said

1:08:44they were gonna talk about it publicly, but I guess not.

1:08:46- I think they just did.

1:08:47(laughs)

1:08:48- Yeah, fair enough.

1:08:49- That's probably the extent

1:08:50that we were going to hear about it.

1:08:51But honestly, again, unless it was intentional sabotage,

1:08:56I don't think the cause for this

1:08:58is going to be very interesting.

1:09:00It's just, yeah, somebody messed up.

1:09:01It could, like, you know, like the go-to fail bug

1:09:04from a couple years back, that was most likely

1:09:07a random copy and paste, or like, you know, a bad merge.

1:09:10Like, it's possible that somebody, you know,

1:09:13maliciously put that there to, you know,

1:09:15for NSA purposes, to make it look like an accidental bug.

1:09:19That's possible, but that's a lot less likely

1:09:22than just somebody messed up.

1:09:24Because it's software, people mess up all the time.

1:09:27That's why you have to have systems in place

1:09:29to be able to update things and patch things.

1:09:32Because you know it's gonna happen.

1:09:33And no matter how many tests Casey writes for you,

1:09:36it's still gonna be, you're still gonna have bugs.

1:09:39(laughing)

1:09:41- Well done.

1:09:43- Well done.

1:09:44- So I asked about the firing thing

1:09:46just because it was a sentiment that I saw

1:09:49for a lot of people discussing.

1:09:50And it seemed to me that a lot of the discussion

1:09:53centered around people arguing about who should be fired.

1:09:56"Oh, the programmer who made the mistake should be fired."

1:09:58And "No, the quality assurance should be fired."

1:09:59"No, actually neither one of those people should be fired.

1:10:01It should be their manager."

1:10:02"No, it should be Tim Cook."

1:10:03Like, you know, who is ultimately responsible and how do we make people accountable?

1:10:08And it was, you know, kind of a test/strick question for you two, but you both got what

1:10:12I think is the right answer.

1:10:14But you both write software, so I think that's why.

1:10:16But like, when people are angry about something, like, you don't have to be particularly technically

1:10:22savvy or into the details of computers or a program or anything to understand how bad

1:10:26this bug is, you know, because it's just, it seems like one of those bugs that if we

1:10:29saw it in a movie, we'd be like, that's ridiculous.

1:10:32That's so fake.

1:10:33Couldn't they come up with a better looking bug?

1:10:36It's just comically, you know, just like, just hit return a second time and now you're

1:10:40in.

1:10:41It's almost as bad as when Windows 98 would have a login password up on screen, you could

1:10:45just hit cancel and just proceed with the login.

1:10:48Yeah, there's something that showed the old video of the Windows 95 one where you could

1:10:51hit the question mark to get the help screen and eventually navigate your way to like a,

1:10:55to the open save dialog box and just open my computer

1:10:57with like a right click.

1:10:58(laughing)

1:11:00There's lots of things like,

1:11:00at least that one was a little bit complicated,

1:11:02but yeah, this one is ridiculous.

1:11:03But for all situations, again,

1:11:05excluding intentional sabotage,

1:11:07which is I think the only reason that anybody anywhere

1:11:10in Apple should be fired for this is intentional sabotage.

1:11:14- Or gross negligence.

1:11:16- I think intentional, basically what I want to see

1:11:18in this specific bug of like what it looks like

1:11:20from the disassembly of the code,

1:11:21it's not gross negligence.

1:11:22It's a common, looks like a common mistake, easy to get.

1:11:27Even the QA people shouldn't be fired.

1:11:29Craig Federighi shouldn't be fired.

1:11:31No one should be fired for this.

1:11:32And the reason no one should be fired for this

1:11:33is like, it's not just about software.

1:11:34I mean, it's something you experience in software

1:11:36just because software is a realm

1:11:38where even the very best practitioners

1:11:40make mistakes all the time.

1:11:41That is the nature of the work, right?

1:11:43Which is often the source of ridicule,

1:11:44but if you're an actual programmer, you understand why.

1:11:46But put programming aside, in any sort of group effort,

1:11:51Any environment where someone would be fired for an honest mistake like this, regardless

1:11:55of the impact, is not an environment that—it's not a safe environment for people to grow

1:12:01and improve their skills.

1:12:04It is a hostile organization.

1:12:06You should never want to work for some place that would fire you because you made an honest

1:12:10mistake in a book.

1:12:11That's not your fault, and it's not like the quality assurance people's fault.

1:12:15Now if you make a series of these errors, eventually, yes, executives should be fired

1:12:19or changed or whatever, but an individual contributor in any part of the organization

1:12:24who makes an honest mistake shouldn't be fired for that honest mistake just because that

1:12:28one happened to be in just the wrong place. That's not an environment that makes people

1:12:32feel safe to learn and grow. And it's the organization's job to make sure people in

1:12:37roles that are suited to their skills and that they're supported and that they have

1:12:42the correct training and knowledge to get up to the next level, do the next thing. That's

1:12:46That's the organization problem, that's not the individual's problem.

1:12:48So in any group of people, if you're in an environment where you're like, "We're going

1:12:51to be the best because if anybody makes any mistake, they're going to immediately be fired,"

1:12:54your team, you will fire everyone on your team and you will only have the worst, meanest

1:12:58employees who are only good at carefully not making mistakes and you will have crap people.

1:13:02So I don't think it entered anyone's mind at Apple that someone was going to get fired

1:13:07over this, even in the worst moments of anger, again, unless it was sabotage and unless it

1:13:12was like, "This is the fifth one of these."

1:13:15And even then, like if it's the fifth one, like you should have rotated the person out

1:13:17of that position after the first or second one instead of leaving them there.

1:13:21So then maybe some manager should get fired.

1:13:23But this is not a long series of these terrible security errors or anything like that.

1:13:31So no, I don't think anyone should be fired for this.

1:13:33And yeah, I skipped over the developer forum thing.

1:13:38That's kind of a fun one because Apple's developer forums, if you don't hang out there, you might

1:13:44most likely hit the developer forums when you do a Google search for something and you

1:13:48find all the other poor souls posting to the developer forums for the exact same problem

1:13:52that you have.

1:13:54But my understanding of the developer forums, which may be outdated but I think it's still

1:13:57current, is that it's a place for Apple's customers to go and talk to each other about

1:14:03their stuff.

1:14:04It's not the genius bar on the web.

1:14:06Like it's not a place where you go to ask Apple for help, although Apple people are

1:14:08sometimes there and may sometimes be helpful.

1:14:11It's not like a support channel for you to get your thing fixed by Apple.

1:14:15It's for Apple's customers to talk to each other.

1:14:18So it's not like, someone from Apple, it's not their job to read every single post there.

1:14:25And what it also means is that, my impression is a lot of the people who are posting there

1:14:29are people who are not that into computers as a hobby.

1:14:33They just want their damn computer to work.

1:14:35And they end up going to Google and trying to say, "I can't get my computer to work.

1:14:37Where is someplace I can talk about this?"

1:14:39And they end up landing at the Apple developer forums.

1:14:41You can go there from the Apple website, find your way there, or whatever.

1:14:45It's a venue for people of all kinds to talk about their computers.

1:14:49It is not a super nerd hangout, right?

1:14:51Which means that you get a lot of people with very basic problems and other people trying

1:14:55to help them who may not know all the intricate details.

1:14:58And I have to admit, if I had read that thread and saw someone suggesting, "Here's what you

1:15:03can do to fix it."

1:15:04You know, someone was locked out of their computer.

1:15:05"I'm locked myself out of my computer.

1:15:08How do I get in and fix it?"

1:15:09And like, you'd see a whole bunch of people suggesting things and like one of them would

1:15:11be like the correct solution of like, if you really have forgotten your password, you can

1:15:14reset it in single user mode and blah, blah, blah.

1:15:16But there'll be a bunch of other people suggesting other things.

1:15:19And if I had read that thing of like, Oh, just go here, this thing at the lock icon,

1:15:23type root and hit return.

1:15:24You get written.

1:15:25I would have thought that's not going to work.

1:15:27Like it may be it worked for you because you have some weird, but like it just, it's obviously

1:15:30someone who's confused and they're trying to be helpful, but I would honestly, I wouldn't

1:15:33take it seriously because there's so much crap.

1:15:35many people other like you know they're not they're just being nice people like here's

1:15:39something try this have you tried that this worked for me once right and I if I had read

1:15:44that I would never in a million years have thought that's actually legit like that will

1:15:48actually work I wouldn't even have tried it I wouldn't even thought about trying it and

1:15:52I bet if an Apple employee read it they'd be like haha yeah if only that worked like

1:15:56you just have written it returned with no password yeah nice try turns out in this one

1:16:00case that actually did work and that's terrifying slightly. And the real scary thing is the

1:16:06person who wrote that up, Gruber just posted a thing about it because the thread continued

1:16:10from there saying, "Where did you hear about this?" He's like, "Oh, I heard it in some

1:16:13other forum." So who knows how long this exploit has been out there in whatever dark corners

1:16:17of the internet that people have known that you could do this in High Sierra. And it's

1:16:23only because certainly weeks later, but possibly even longer, who knows, maybe this has been

1:16:27there since the original release of High Sierra. Maybe it's been there since the betas and

1:16:30people have known about it. Only because it got Twitter publicity like a day or two ago

1:16:35did Apple rush to fix it. And, you know, I don't really blame Apple for that because

1:16:40like I said, if I had read this in the forums, I wouldn't have believed either. It just

1:16:43sounds ridiculous.

1:16:45Yeah. And to add to your discrediting of needing to take forum seriously, whenever I search

1:16:55for a problem with my Apple products or software. I almost always come across a forum link or

1:17:02two to Apple support forums. And I don't think I can come up with any better example

1:17:08of a worse ratio of usefulness to times I see the page that is non-zero. Like, it is

1:17:18is the results are usually so useless and terrible

1:17:22because it is just random, semi-lost, under-informed people

1:17:27trying to help each other without any help from Apple.

1:17:31I think Yahoo Answers has a higher hit rate for me

1:17:34than Apple support forums.

1:17:35- Oh, that's not fair.

1:17:37It's not as bad as Yahoo Answers.

1:17:38- No, it really is. - I've come up with

1:17:39Apple support forum things,

1:17:40and here's what I get from Apple support forums.

1:17:42One, I find out if my problem is common

1:17:45because if there are a million repeated threads

1:17:47people having the same exact problem, I am reassured in some way, right? They're like,

1:17:51"Okay, now I know. If I don't find any matches in the Apple support forums, I'm like, "Oh,

1:17:55I probably have bad hardware," or something like that, right? But if a million people

1:17:58say that they have this problem, that tells me something. And two, I get to see the weeks

1:18:03or months of people suggesting basically everything under the sun. Have you tried resetting your

1:18:07PRAM? Have you tried resetting your desktop? Have you tried hopping on one foot, right?

1:18:11Every solution that has ever worked for any problem gets suggested for all problems.

1:18:16right. And people reply, "I tried that and it didn't help me. I tried that and it didn't

1:18:19help me." And very often there is one that says, "I did that and it finally worked!"

1:18:24And at least that gives me, it lets me eliminate stuff that I know won't work, because I see

1:18:27everyone keep trying this and they're not working. And then if something does work for

1:18:31one person, sometimes I can back-solve to figure out what really solved their problem,

1:18:35because obviously that thing didn't, because someone would be like, "Well, I did that exact

1:18:37same thing and I didn't solve it." Like, it is super noisy. But here's the thing that

1:18:41has over yahoo answers fewer trolls right and much more specifically relevant to my needs

1:18:50so i think there is the signal to noise is not great but there is value to be had there

1:18:56now granted if you find yourself in the apple support forums you are probably desperate like

1:19:01you're probably that's kind of the bottom of the barrel but i thank all those people who spend all

1:19:06that time talking back to it and forth to each other to try to solve problems because every once

1:19:09in a while, just looking at the shape that they've traced around this problem of all

1:19:14the things they've tried, I can find my way to a solution that actually works for me.

1:19:19So user Raxelbrof in the chat said, "Apple support forums. The problem you are experiencing

1:19:24doesn't exist/that's the way it's supposed to work/here's a copy-pasted solution that

1:19:29indicates I didn't read your problem." That is a fantastic summary.

1:19:34That is true. And Apple people do occasionally post there.

1:19:38One more thing before we leave this topic about what Apple could do to fix this.

1:19:43In the grand scheme of things, any solution that takes the form "program better" or "let's

1:19:52be smarter" or "let's write fewer bugs" is not a solution.

1:19:56Because if you do a postmortem in any sort of bug or problem, it's like, in the future

1:20:02we should be better programmers, then we won't make mistakes like this.

1:20:05That's not a solution.

1:20:07Much to Marko's chagrin, the solution to all these things involves process and testing

1:20:11and quality assurance and systems.

1:20:13And you can't have too many of those because then you paralyze your entire organization

1:20:17with a spiderweb of bureaucracy, but you've got to have a certain amount.

1:20:20And bugs like this where there's, not that I'm saying this is a GUI bug, but there is

1:20:26a, the way this is exploited is through GUI, even if the problem was actually in a library

1:20:31somewhere, very often go through, you know, don't get tested well because the underlying

1:20:37libraries are tested to show they do everything they want, but this glue code that calls into

1:20:40the libraries and checks the return value. That code path may only be exercised by someone

1:20:45using the GUI, and writing good tests that automate the use of the GUI, there are tons

1:20:50of tools that do it, but it is the hardest kind of testing to do. And I'm sure Apple

1:20:54does a ton of it. Like, they have to. They have to do a ton of it. But if there's going

1:20:57to be one area of testing that is very difficult to be comprehensive in and to keep up to date

1:21:02And to not even have a good concept of like coverage for,

1:21:06it's GUI testing.

1:21:08And I'm not saying they don't have to do it,

1:21:12but like what would have fixed this problem

1:21:15if they had an automated fuzz testing on this exact sort

1:21:19of flow of like you click the lock icon

1:21:21in any system preference and you try to get in.

1:21:24If they had something that was fuzz testing that flow,

1:21:26one of the things in the fuzz test

1:21:27would have been root empty password.

1:21:28And hopefully the fuzz test would have done

1:21:30that multiple times or something like that,

1:21:31or any other sort of like triggers on the code path

1:21:33to make sure you're along the right lines

1:21:35and to do preconditions and post-condition,

1:21:37root account is disabled,

1:21:38fuzz test login, root account is still disabled.

1:21:41Like there's so many tests you can see

1:21:43that would have caught this.

1:21:44And again, if the post-mortem says,

1:21:45I know exactly the tests we can write right now,

1:21:46they'll prevent this exact bug from ever happening again.

1:21:49That doesn't solve the problem either.

1:21:50You gotta go much deeper than that and to say,

1:21:52how do we prevent problems of this kind from happening?

1:21:55I would imagine that the,

1:21:57because the functional surface area

1:21:59of the Mac operating system is so incredibly vast.

1:22:02If you were to put a percentage number

1:22:03on how many code paths are executed

1:22:07as part of the surely massive amount of automated testing

1:22:11that Apple does in the Mac operating system,

1:22:13the percentage would be terrifyingly small,

1:22:15especially when compared to the incredible coverage numbers

1:22:17that people who get to write like faceless libraries do.

1:22:20Like what does the coverage estimate look like

1:22:22on a small, tight, well-maintained,

1:22:25really important library,

1:22:26especially involving the kernel or security?

1:22:29You can test that thing to death.

1:22:30Like you can just put it in a little black box

1:22:33and torture it for like the file system.

1:22:35The amount of testing they did on APFS,

1:22:37I'm sure was astronomical,

1:22:39where you could just have that thing grinding hour and hour,

1:22:42day after day, random IOs,

1:22:44just and then like stop it every 300 hours

1:22:47to see if the file system is hosed in any way

1:22:49and like put auditing and tracing

1:22:51in every single step of the process

1:22:52and just run that for months and months and years and years.

1:22:55That's how you update a billion phones

1:22:56without anybody noticing

1:22:57you change their file system, right?

1:23:00Doing that same kind of testing for the entirety of an operating system, especially exercising

1:23:05the GUI, the GUI that changes a lot, is really, really hard.

1:23:09And I think that's, you know, what's going to – the actual solution to this, if you

1:23:14keep like, not 5y-ing it, but 17y-ing it, is more money.

1:23:19More time and more money into macOS.

1:23:21Because any solution you come up with about like, let's change our procedures in some

1:23:24subtle way, it's not as if they're not doing the testing because they're lazy or don't

1:23:28feel like it.

1:23:30All these things tape people, and people cost money, and it's time.

1:23:34And so I hope that the outcome of this is to dedicate more resources towards automated

1:23:42and manual testing of the Mac operating system, because that's the only way you're going to

1:23:46catch more bugs.

1:23:47You're not going to write fewer bugs by everyone suddenly becoming a better programmer.

1:23:53You just have to catch more bugs, and I hope that's a solution here.

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1:25:48(upbeat music)

1:25:50I think also the general bugginess in many ways

1:25:55of High Sierra, which was ostensibly a bug fixing release, or a refinement release of

1:26:00the OS, I think more clearly than ever shows that the annual release cycle that Apple has

1:26:09pushed for all their platforms for the last few years, that this is as inappropriate as

1:26:15ever for Mac OS. That the annual release cycle makes tons of sense for iOS where it's in

1:26:21hyper-competitive space and it's moving quickly

1:26:23and it's still a relatively younger,

1:26:25although not by much now, operating system.

1:26:28But on Mac OS, it seems like the faster they go on Mac OS,

1:26:33the worse the quality problems get.

1:26:36And no one on the Mac is clamoring

1:26:38for this to be updated every year.

1:26:40Like, no one.

1:26:41On the Mac, if anything, people are like,

1:26:43"Please stop touching this because you keep breaking it."

1:26:47So I really, I hope that at some,

1:26:50You know, I know what I ask for with the Mac

1:26:53is often unrealistic and unlikely to happen

1:26:56with modern day Apple.

1:26:59But I really think the annual release cycle,

1:27:01if it even makes sense for iOS, which it probably does,

1:27:04it definitely does not make sense for Mac OS.

1:27:06And also, it's making Mac OS worse.

1:27:09The Mac is so deprioritized in the company now,

1:27:13and I'm not even gonna argue right now

1:27:17whether that should or shouldn't be the case.

1:27:18if not for this episode.

1:27:20But it is so deprioritized and seemingly de-resourced

1:27:24in the company these days that by having it on

1:27:28a very aggressive release cycle to keep up, I guess,

1:27:32with marketing features for everything else they're doing,

1:27:34you're dooming it to being more buggy over time.

1:27:37You're dooming it to having rush jobs done.

1:27:40Even this ostensibly bug fix release of High Sierra,

1:27:44they did major changes.

1:27:45Like the new Windows Server is a huge thing.

1:27:48I think my LCD font rendering disabling checkbox

1:27:51is still broken, even in 10 dot whatever dot one.

1:27:54I am hoping they fix it in dot two,

1:27:56but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

1:27:58Like, there's so much about High Sierra that has been broken,

1:28:02and Sierra honestly wasn't that much better before that.

1:28:06It wasn't that long before that that we had Discovery Day.

1:28:08What was that, was that LCAP or whatever came after that?

1:28:11It was somebody, yeah, I don't know.

1:28:12I lost track of all these mountains.

1:28:13But you can't have a very aggressive

1:28:16software release schedule,

1:28:18and also have it be like a low priority

1:28:20that you're gonna not give it a whole lot of staff and time

1:28:23to develop things well on it.

1:28:25The amount of resources that Apple is devoting to Mac OS

1:28:30can't keep up with a one-year release cycle

1:28:32and maintain quality.

1:28:33They have to either dramatically increase

1:28:35the priority of Mac OS and the company,

1:28:37which I think is very unlikely,

1:28:38or slow it down and only do it every two years

1:28:42like they used to.

1:28:43Because what they are doing right now

1:28:45resulting in more bad software.

1:28:49I was just thinking that if they actually did go to a two-year schedule, they'd be like,

1:28:51"They don't even care enough about the Mac to update it every year," which is, you know,

1:28:55it's double-edged sword and I kind of understand why they do yearly one.

1:28:57I continue to believe that they can successfully do yearly releases if they scope them right

1:29:02and, you know, and like I said, I feel like they do have to put more resources towards

1:29:06it.

1:29:08But if they went to two years, I'd be fine.

1:29:10And in the past, they weren't at two years.

1:29:12They were accidentally at 18 months in this bumpy schedule.

1:29:15Whenever they got around to it, they kind of spread out.

1:29:17I did a graph in one of my old reviews of the time between releases, but this year cadence

1:29:22has been their decision.

1:29:25They're going to meet the yearly schedule and their tool for meeting the yearly schedule

1:29:28to adjust scope, and I think they have been adjusting scope, pushing things out of releases,

1:29:32but I think there's always the temptation to put things in releases that are just barely

1:29:37like, "Do you think it's ready to be in the release, or do we have to boot it out?"

1:29:41You have to make that decision months ahead of time, and you have to kind of make a call,

1:29:44and human nature is to say, "I think the team can make it if they work really hard, and

1:29:49I think it's going to be in, so let's leave the new Windows Server in."

1:29:53It only crashes on a few GPUs, and I'm sure they'll have that worked out by the time it

1:29:56releases.

1:29:57And it turns out they don't have it worked out by the time it releases, and it's like,

1:30:00"Maybe we should have kicked that out."

1:30:02But on the other hand, you can say, "Look, if you keep kicking it out like this, it'll

1:30:06never be so ready to go that you feel like you have to do it, and if you never updated

1:30:10you're going to be in an HFS+ situation.

1:30:11So at some point, you have to actually ship.

1:30:13And the only way to find all the real bugs

1:30:15is to put it out into the real world.

1:30:16And that's the nature of software and management.

1:30:19That's the job Apple has before it.

1:30:21But I do think that High Sierra does not

1:30:24live up to its billing as a Snow Leopard type release,

1:30:29even though Snow Leopard had more bugs

1:30:31than people think it did.

1:30:32Their memories are fuzzy on that.

1:30:33But it doesn't live up to the memories

1:30:35of Snow Leopard type release,

1:30:36where it is a refinement of Sierra

1:30:39that just makes everything better and faster.

1:30:42It was a refinement of Sierra

1:30:43and it did make things better and faster,

1:30:45but the small number of things they changed,

1:30:48like they had some bugs of their own

1:30:52and lots of longstanding bugs didn't get fixed.

1:30:54It's just tech debt, that's what it boils down to.

1:30:55Like this is the thing a lot of people are pointing out

1:30:57in all their complaints about bugs.

1:30:58And that's why I pointed the pile of pebbles

1:31:00and the pile of pebbles getting bigger.

1:31:02You have to pay down your tech debt.

1:31:04You have to address it and say,

1:31:07that bug that Marco's been having for two releases about his Bluetooth randomly disconnecting.

1:31:12I know it's a pain in the ass to figure it out and it's unreproducible and he's not filing bug

1:31:17reports, but you just got to figure that out because if you don't, it will just linger there

1:31:20forever. And it will linger there forever alongside the new bug that you added as part of whatever new

1:31:25feature you added and the pile of pebbles gets bigger. You got to at least keep the pile of

1:31:29pebbles at a manageable size. We're not saying you have to drive it down to zero, it's software,

1:31:34You're never going to drive down to zero.

1:31:35But if you allow them to accumulate and that pile gets bigger every release, people become

1:31:39disillusioned.

1:31:40Because there's always new bugs and your old ones never get fixed and it's like, "Why are

1:31:43you even releasing new operating systems?"

1:31:45That's when people say, "Let's go to every two years," or whatever.

1:31:47So I think it is possible to do an every year release, but if it is easier for Apple to

1:31:53go to every two year release, then they should do that.

1:31:57The way I look at it is, imagine on a smaller scale, imagine me as a single developer.

1:32:03of all year, I didn't really touch Overcast.

1:32:06I was doing other things, I was too busy

1:32:08to work on Overcast.

1:32:09And every summer, I gave myself one week

1:32:12to make a new big point version of it.

1:32:15(laughs)

1:32:16And then I could release it, fix bugs for two days,

1:32:19and then I wouldn't be able to work on it anymore

1:32:20until the next summer.

1:32:22Of course the quality would go down.

1:32:23Of course I'd have to rush to get things in there,

1:32:26and everything I did would be half-baked,

1:32:28so I wouldn't have time to fully bake it.

1:32:30I wouldn't have enough time afterwards to fix bugs.

1:32:32bugs would just sit around forever until the next year

1:32:35when I couldn't fix the old bugs,

1:32:37I'd have to make new features for the new marketing push.

1:32:40That's, I think, a pretty good scale model

1:32:43of how OS X feels, or excuse me, Mac OS,

1:32:46how Mac OS feels.

1:32:47It feels like most people are not able to,

1:32:52or allowed to, or allocated to work on it most of the time,

1:32:55and what time they get on it seems to be limited

1:32:58to marketing features and not fixing bugs.

1:33:02And I think your Pebble pile analogy is great

1:33:06and I think it's pretty clear that we're going

1:33:09in the direction of accumulating more of those

1:33:11Pebbles over time, not fewer.

1:33:12Like the pile is just getting bigger over time

1:33:14and that technical debt is not being paid off

1:33:17at a fast enough rate.

1:33:19The saddest part about this is that nobody

1:33:22is really asking for this.

1:33:23Like Mac users don't need a new OS every year.

1:33:28We really don't.

1:33:29Like I'm still on Sierra because High Sierra's so buggy

1:33:32I'm a little scared to switch to it.

1:33:34I only have it on the laptop, but not my main computer.

1:33:37Part of the reason is like, why?

1:33:39Why should I switch to it?

1:33:40The sales pitch for High Sierra seems to get worse every day.

1:33:43Why should I upgrade exactly?

1:33:45Why is Apple forcing this upgrade down my throat

1:33:47with these notifications that pre-download it

1:33:48to my system and everything?

1:33:49Like Apple's pushing really, really hard

1:33:52to force people to update to High Sierra

1:33:55when it's still in a really buggy state,

1:33:56which that alone shows pretty bad judgment on Apple's part,

1:33:59what's in it for me as a user?

1:34:02Not much.

1:34:03The only thing I gain from it is,

1:34:06you know, certain things work better

1:34:07when all your stuff is on the new OS.

1:34:09Things like certain handoff features

1:34:11or iCloud syncing features, AirDrop,

1:34:13you know, calendar sync doesn't actually work anymore for me,

1:34:16thanks a lot.

1:34:17For the most part, the main reason,

1:34:19the main motivating reason I have to upgrade

1:34:20to High Sierra right now is it's the newest OS.

1:34:24And my other stuff is starting to slowly break

1:34:26because my computer is not on the newest OS.

1:34:28That's it.

1:34:29There's nothing about High Sierra that I actually want,

1:34:32because what it comes with is all these bugs

1:34:34and all these half-baked incomplete features,

1:34:37like my loss of my LCD font smoothing thing,

1:34:39and that might get fixed in the next version,

1:34:41but it might not.

1:34:42As a Mac user, all this stuff there changing radically,

1:34:46and all these costs we are paying and all these big bugs

1:34:50and new subsystems being rewritten in ways

1:34:53that are almost as good as the old ones but broken,

1:34:55Like, I didn't ask for that.

1:34:58I do want Mac OS to move forward,

1:35:00and I want, I really hope that the Mac OS

1:35:03still has a roadmap ahead of it.

1:35:07But I don't want it to be done sloppily,

1:35:09badly, and rushed out.

1:35:11I'd rather it be done slowly and right,

1:35:14and to have fewer awesome things in each release,

1:35:17if that's even possible,

1:35:19than to have it be done half-assed and rushed,

1:35:22and then have really buggy software come out every year

1:35:24and have my system break for four months

1:35:27every year in the fall.

1:35:28- I think the most attractive aspect of the two year plan

1:35:32is the part that people probably don't think about as much.

1:35:35But what that would mean is,

1:35:37imagine like High Sierra didn't come out

1:35:39and we were still on Sierra, right?

1:35:40What that would mean is that Sierra point releases

1:35:43would continue for another year.

1:35:45It would be, you know, 10, 12, six, 10, 12, seven,

1:35:4810, 12, eight, 10, 12, nine,

1:35:50and all those point releases, all those patch level releases

1:35:53You know they're not replacing the Windows Server in one of those, right?

1:35:57They're probably not changing the file system, but who the hell knows they did it on 10.2

1:36:01or whatever on iOS, right?

1:36:03But the nature of those point releases tends to prevent Apple from doing any big changes.

1:36:07So what is everybody doing in those releases?

1:36:09You know what they're doing in all those point releases?

1:36:12As that number gets bigger and bigger and even goes into double digits as it has in

1:36:15the past, they're fixing little bugs.

1:36:17That's all they're doing.

1:36:18Like, that's all they have.

1:36:19Like, there's usually security fixes and bug fixes.

1:36:22And the bigger that number gets, the sort of, we all assume, the more stable and more

1:36:27mature that operating system gets.

1:36:29That kind of also makes the big release harder.

1:36:31Like when, I think it was like Tiger or something, it was like 10.4.11 or something.

1:36:35When you get, yeah, someone already said that in the chat room.

1:36:39When you get up that high, the challenge for the 10.5.0 release, for the next major version

1:36:44release, for the next like newly named cat or California place release, is so much higher.

1:36:50It's like we have enjoyed this period of peace and stability

1:36:53like we've we're up into we're up into the double digits on the last number in our versions and

1:36:59Everything is good and like every little like that team that is doing those point releases

1:37:03You know, I don't even know it's a separate team or whatever

1:37:05But those people like they're running out of bugs to fix like they're knocking things down

1:37:08They're like, you know, oh you having some obscure problem with your Bluetooth

1:37:11The entire team is gonna spend the next two months just looking at that problem because we have no other bugs to fix, right?

1:37:16We're not on the glory team doing the next version

1:37:19And you hope those are synchronized with what's happening in the future or ice lease, but inevitably when the point zero comes out

1:37:24It's always less stable than the other one because that's the one that has the big substance replaced

1:37:28And I'm all for big substance subsystem replacements

1:37:31I love it, which is why I just want them to add more money and time and developers and still do it that way but

1:37:36If we did go to the two-year schedule

1:37:39I think we would have at least one year of peace and prosperity

1:37:42Where you know the chicken in every pot and people's bugs are getting fixed and just you know

1:37:47the point releases come out and we just blindly install them, knowing that there's just one

1:37:51more bug fixed and one more performance improvement and everything gets great.

1:37:55And so I could do with a run of double digit at the end of the version numbers to see what

1:38:03that's like again, because those are good times.

1:38:05I don't disagree about the two-year schedule thing, but I don't understand why two years

1:38:13or a lengthening of major releases has to be the answer. Like, I feel like just different choices,

1:38:21even on the same cadence, would be okay. And I don't think it's fair for us to conjecture

1:38:26about what is or is not important to Apple internally. But certainly, from the perspective

1:38:31of an outsider like me, it seems like Apple doesn't value bug-free software either the same

1:38:41way that they did or as much as any of us would like them to. And I feel like this is

1:38:48starting to gain a little traction. I feel like I'm noticing friends and family rolling their eyes

1:38:55and saying, "Oh, well, that's Apple." And this is more than just, "Oh, screw you, autocorrect."

1:38:59And this is more than just hating on Siri, which I'm becoming more and more interested in as time

1:39:04goes on because I really feel like Siri is a dumpster fire. And I don't even have an Alexa

1:39:09that it compared to. Just using Siri has been more and more frustrating over time. But anyway,

1:39:14I feel like my family is starting to get frustrated with things that are problems,

1:39:22that are software problems that are coming out of Apple. And I feel like, from an outsider's

1:39:30perspective, it appears as though the institutional value is way heavier on New Shiny. And I think you

1:39:37guys are both saying this, is way heavier on new shiny than it is on boring but useful stability.

1:39:45And in the same ways, you know, we said last week, you know, Jenkins is not sexy, you know,

1:39:50bug-free software to most developers, especially younger ones, is not terribly sexy. But to us old

1:39:57people, and now I'll call myself old, bug-free software, or as close as you can get of course,

1:40:02is super sexy, and I want a lot more of that in my life. I want to write it better, and I want to

1:40:07consume it. And it just feels like Apple hasn't cared about stability as much as they appeared to

1:40:19in the past. Now, why is that? It could be any number of things. Maybe it's that they're spread

1:40:24thin, not necessarily in terms of people, but there's just a lot more going on in all of these

1:40:31OS's. Like there's a lot more stuff. Like take a silly example like Handoff. Like Handoff is a

1:40:37thing where you can have a device nearby and your two devices will talk to each other, I think via

1:40:43iCloud, and say and my phone will say "Oh I'm looking at such and such URL" and then my Mac will

1:40:48say "Hey I see your phone is physically nearby and it's looking at such and such URL. Would you like

1:40:52to open that here?" Like that in and of itself does not seem that inherently complex and in many ways

1:41:00is very, very useful, but that's adding a complexity that none of us had—Apple, us,

1:41:08anyone—a few years ago.

1:41:10And I don't know, I just feel like as the OSs have been getting more and more and more

1:41:17involved and more and more and more complex, there has not appeared to have been a commensurate

1:41:23interest or increase in interest in stability and quality assurance.

1:41:28And it's getting to the point that just a week or two ago, I wish I remember what I

1:41:33was doing or what happened.

1:41:35But I thought for a fleeting moment, like, I can't put up with this anymore.

1:41:40And I want to say it was something on my phone, and I really, really, really wish I remember

1:41:43what it was.

1:41:44And for a fleeting moment, just for a second, I thought, I can't put up with this anymore.

1:41:48This shit never works.

1:41:51Let me tell you what you might have been thinking of, because this is exactly the last time

1:41:54I had this thought.

1:41:55My wife's been unlocking her computer with her Series 3 watch because she's got a high

1:41:59Sierra, she's got a 5K Mac, she's got a Series 3 Apple watch and doing the watch unlock thing,

1:42:04and she liked it until it stopped working.

1:42:07And why did it stop working?

1:42:08Pfft, beats the hell out of me.

1:42:09HDMI CEC?

1:42:10Might as well be, might as well be, because that's the type of thing, like, so that feature

1:42:15was introduced a while ago and it was tweaked for a high Sierra, right?

1:42:18And this is an example of the complexity of the case he was talking about.

1:42:20It's a complicated thing.

1:42:21It is multiple operating systems, multiple devices, multiple wireless radios, and all

1:42:25sorts of crap.

1:42:27It is ferociously complicated, a complication that never existed in the old world where

1:42:30there was one computer that wasn't even networked, let alone your watch and people walking around

1:42:36and radios bouncing and trying to judge distances and an authentication system.

1:42:40So much opportunity for things to go wrong.

1:42:43But it's a feature they chose to introduce.

1:42:46And I can understand it being buggy when they first put it out, but if this is going to

1:42:50to be a feature that you have, like you say,

1:42:52or that you were going to ship this feature,

1:42:56you have to be committed to keep working on it

1:43:00until it works basically all the time.

1:43:02Because otherwise, why have the feature?

1:43:04Because features that don't work all the time,

1:43:05people give up on.

1:43:06Like, Casey, whatever feature you were trying to think of.

1:43:08You're just like, I give up.

1:43:09Like, it is not--

1:43:11they're very difficult to debug.

1:43:13You're not sure what to do.

1:43:14You don't know why it isn't working.

1:43:17And at a certain point you're like,

1:43:18well, just forget it then.

1:43:20Because if it doesn't work all the time,

1:43:21I don't want to be sitting there

1:43:23and wondering why it's not working,

1:43:24but it gives me the message that watches it in range,

1:43:29or try again, or whatever.

1:43:30It's like, I'm sitting right here like I always do.

1:43:31What's the problem?

1:43:32Maybe I reboot both things.

1:43:33And it's like, no, I'm not gonna reboot.

1:43:35I'm doing stuff.

1:43:36I don't want to reboot the computer.

1:43:37I don't want to reboot my watch.

1:43:38I don't want to sign out of iCloud.

1:43:40And you just give up on it.

1:43:41That feature might as well not exist, right?

1:43:44It is either gonna work enough that it is usable

1:43:47or it's not going to.

1:43:48And that bar is not met by a lot of things.

1:43:51Maybe Siri is one of those things for a lot of people.

1:43:53It's like, I talk to Siri sometimes,

1:43:54but she annoys me and doesn't give me answers.

1:43:57And so I just don't talk to her anymore.

1:43:59Or I only have her set timers or whatever,

1:44:02do some sort of limited thing.

1:44:04And that's the kind of failure,

1:44:06you mentioned stability before and valuing,

1:44:07like bug-free software and everything.

1:44:08That's the kind of failure that doesn't show up

1:44:10in easy metrics.

1:44:11I think Apple software, and I've mentioned this before,

1:44:13is much better about crashing and leaking memory

1:44:15than it has been in a long time,

1:44:17because those are easy things to measure.

1:44:19But these other kind of bugs that are just kind of like

1:44:21frustrating, nothing crashes, no data loss,

1:44:24but sometimes it doesn't work for inexplicable reasons

1:44:27and it makes you abandon the feature,

1:44:29that's really difficult for it to show up

1:44:31in Apple's metrics, you know,

1:44:33'cause Apple is not as obsessive as some other,

1:44:37as every iOS app is about tracking every single thing

1:44:39that you do as a user.

1:44:40Like it's not tracking your every motion

1:44:41and recording your screen and reporting it back to Apple.

1:44:44They are sending back crash reports and stuff like that,

1:44:46but occasionally they'll ask you for system reports for bug things, but if people give

1:44:50up on a feature and don't end up using it, Apple probably has limited reasons, limited

1:44:55knowledge of that, or if they do know about it, they don't know what the cause is.

1:44:58And I would love to tell Apple, "Hey, Apple, we're about to give up on ever trying to unlock

1:45:02a computer with a watch because it suddenly stopped working and I have no idea why."

1:45:06And that's a failure that probably doesn't even show up on customer stat because you're

1:45:10like, "Well, I couldn't unlock my watch before and for a day or two it worked and it was

1:45:14cool, but now it doesn't. Oh, well, I'm back to the status quo, but I think it's a pretty

1:45:17massive failure to say, look, if you're going to have that feature, you got to make it work

1:45:20all the time. Just like typing your password in the text box works all the time, right?

1:45:25The watch has to be like that too, or just don't have that feature or have a way to debug

1:45:29it or figure something out. But that that's one of my major sources of frustration.

1:45:32David

1:45:32Coincidentally, Watch & Lock has been reasonably bulletproof for me, but I don't debate anything

1:45:40you just said.

1:45:41Like, if that happens to be your bugbear, then yeah, you're absolutely right.

1:45:44As you were talking, I thought of a couple of examples of when this was infuriating to

1:45:48me.

1:45:51The first example—I'm trying to figure out how much depth I want to get into here—the

1:45:55first example was I went for a run on Thanksgiving morning, and I did that in part because it

1:46:00It was a day that I would normally go for a run if I hadn't just recorded ATP.

1:46:06But beyond that, I wanted the neat little badge that you get if you do 5K walk, run,

1:46:11push, etc.

1:46:13And when I did my 5K run, I never got my badge.

1:46:18And it turned out, after talking to a lot of people, some inside Apple, some not, it

1:46:23turned out what had happened was I had set my watch and phone to be localized to Australia.

1:46:30And the reason I did that is because I want to be able to have day-to-day/month-to-month/year-to-year

1:46:37like it should be and still have everything else be the same, like dollar, for example.

1:46:42Now unfortunately I get metric in a lot of places, and I'm not here to debate metric

1:46:46versus imperial, which is weird because that's one of my favorite pastimes, but nevertheless

1:46:52I had my phone and watch set to metric, excuse me, set to Australia.

1:46:56And so, understandably, it makes sense that I didn't get an American Thanksgiving thing

1:47:04on a phone and watch that were set to Australia.

1:47:07Now, I still disagree with it, but I understand it.

1:47:11Like if I'm standing in America, the thing has a—both of these devices have a friggin'

1:47:16GPS on them.

1:47:17They know where I'm standing.

1:47:18They know where I did that run.

1:47:21I can go into my health app right now and see the route I took that run on.

1:47:26So to me, this is a stupid decision, but I can understand it.

1:47:31Nevertheless, I finally figure out, okay, that's why.

1:47:35And then I set my devices to America because I hear it's getting great again.

1:47:41Can't see it, but that's what I'm told.

1:47:43And, and so I, and so I set it to America.

1:47:47It stings.

1:47:49I sent it to America and the 2017 badge shows up reasonably quickly.

1:47:56But the 2016 badge, which I had also earned from a walk, is nowhere to be found.

1:48:03And I learned that if you just wait, it should magically appear.

1:48:08And guess what happened?

1:48:10I just waited and then friggin' magic happened and it magically appeared.

1:48:15like, iCloud is a thing. Why is this s*** not in iCloud? Like, why is this a thing?

1:48:23The Apple Watch is the Nintendo Switch of Apple's devices. Like, super important data

1:48:27that people care about. Like, not actually real-world important, but like important to

1:48:32people. Kind of like, you know, you're saving Zelda, right? In the grand scheme of things,

1:48:36it's not important. Like, you're not going to die from it, right? But to people who have

1:48:40sunk, you know, a hundred hours into Zelda, it is super important. So those stupid badges

1:48:44on the Apple Watch for your achievements.

1:48:45In the grand scheme of things,

1:48:47nothing's gonna happen to you if they're gone.

1:48:48- Agreed, agreed.

1:48:49- But people are so angry if they go away.

1:48:51And so how does Apple protect what is perhaps

1:48:53the second most valuable piece of information they store?

1:48:56First being their actual data,

1:48:57but the second most valuable one

1:48:58being their stupid achievement badges?

1:49:00Oh, we're not gonna back that up.

1:49:01Oh yeah, there's a million things you can do

1:49:03to lose all that information.

1:49:04No, no, we don't care about that at all.

1:49:05Same thing with Nintendo Switch.

1:49:06We're like, no, you can't back up your data.

1:49:08No, we won't store it in the cloud.

1:49:10And if your Switch dies, yeah, you lose all your saves.

1:49:12It's such a dumb decision.

1:49:13(laughing)

1:49:14And I think it stems from just, I mean, Nintendo was so excusable.

1:49:17Nintendo has a history of doing stupid things.

1:49:19But Apple, I don't think they understand exactly how seriously people take those badges.

1:49:24And how angry, how unreasonably angry people are when they lose their badges.

1:49:30That was me.

1:49:31I spent half an hour running, well, ostensibly because I want to get healthier, but also

1:49:36because I wanted that friggin' badge.

1:49:37Yeah, you won credit, dammit.

1:49:39You worked hard for that.

1:49:40I wanted my treat.

1:49:41Max got his treat.

1:49:42I want my treat.

1:49:43So, anyway, the point is that it's a stupid thing, just like Jon said.

1:49:49And I don't know, maybe those achievements are synced via iCloud, but why did it take

1:49:54like 24 or 48 hours for that junk to magically come from the cloud onto my device?

1:50:00I don't think it actually is synced.

1:50:02I think it's all on-device.

1:50:05I think, like Nintendo, they are getting better about it.

1:50:08Nintendo has actually said they are working their way towards sane cloud backups, which

1:50:11which it should have had from day one.

1:50:13I think Apple will eventually work on this, but judging by how long it's taken them to

1:50:18not deliver the iCloud message sync that they advertise for iOS 11, and again, another source

1:50:23of like, not just people caring about the contents of it, but just, you know, baseline

1:50:27functionality that people expect that on all your devices, you see all your conversations

1:50:31that you've had anywhere, a thing that has never been true about iMessage, that they

1:50:35promised to make it true, your achievements, your silly achievements on your Apple Watch,

1:50:41They should be as bulletproof as your family photos.

1:50:44They should be everywhere.

1:50:45You should be able to throw your watch into the ocean and get a new Apple Watch, put it

1:50:48on and all your achievements from all your past Apple Watches should be there to show

1:50:50that yes, you had a 28-day streak of meeting your goals in 2015.

1:50:55Like why shouldn't it be?

1:50:57It's such a small amount of data and Apple should know how incredibly important it is

1:51:01beyond all reason to the people who do them.

1:51:03Like that's the whole point of them.

1:51:04That's why they're giving them these shiny little 3D things.

1:51:06It's a silly token that we know will, you know, it's like free to play gaming.

1:51:11Like they're exploiting human, you know, foibles to make you exercise more.

1:51:17And them being carefree with not like not preserving them with the same vigor that they

1:51:22preserve your family photos just shows a disconnect, like a misunderstanding of how, like in one

1:51:28hand they know how humans work, so they're going to make the system.

1:51:30On the other hand, they don't understand how important it is for them to keep this stuff

1:51:35in sync.

1:51:36Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more.

1:51:38The other example I had, and this one could very well be 100% on my shoulders, but thinking

1:51:46like a consumer and not thinking like a developer, it sure doesn't feel like it is.

1:51:51And the problem I'm having, and I'm the only one I think that I've heard complaining about

1:51:56this, so maybe it is me, but the problem I'm having is I'm getting to the point that I

1:52:01feel like I am f***ing incapable of typing on my phone anymore.

1:52:05I just can't do it successfully. I cannot get a friggin sentence out on my phone without

1:52:10having a thousand typos. And it's driving me insane. And half the time it's autocorrect

1:52:17doing something increasingly bananas as time goes on, which is why I think maybe it's this

1:52:22weirdo machine learning stuff. But...

1:52:25Yeah, that's not going well.

1:52:26Yeah, it's really not. And I understand the thought process. It makes sense. It's a clever

1:52:31But I don't think the execution is is is going well at all. But uh, and again, I don't know if it's just me

1:52:37Maybe I just have fatter fingers than I've ever had despite all this wonderful running

1:52:41I'm doing maybe I'm exercising my fingers as I'm running so they're getting fatter and fatter with muscle. Who knows but

1:52:46Whatever it is, whatever it is

1:52:49I feel like I cannot type on my phone anymore without a billion typos and it's getting to the point that you know

1:52:56Once we got SMS on the Mac, which is a great example of something that made my life

1:53:01Demonstrably better. I mean that genuinely once I could send not only iMessages but SMS from my Mac. It was

1:53:08amazing

1:53:10And the reason it was amazing was because I could talk to my all of my in-laws none of whom have iPhones

1:53:17I could talk to them and send them text messages from my Mac on a full-size keyboard and

1:53:21It was magic and it always worked and to be honest to this day. It's still almost always works

1:53:27So that is an example of a feature that I think is very complex

1:53:30Because the only thing that can send this SMS as far as I'm aware is my phone and it's but it's very complex

1:53:35But it works and it's almost bulletproof

1:53:37So anyway, it's gotten to the point with my iPhone that if I have to type more than like a one or two line text message

1:53:43I'm going searching for the nearest Mac so I can type it with a physical keyboard because I know at least then I'll be able

1:53:49do it without ripping my hair out. And I apologize if it's just me, but it's a very clear example of

1:53:54a time when I thought about throwing my phone out the window, or I really for a fleeting moment

1:53:59thought to myself, "So how bad are those pixels these days anyway?" And like that's a problem.

1:54:06I'm a super fan. Like part of my living is talking about how much I love Apple. And I'm thinking to

1:54:13myself, "Oh God, maybe I should just, maybe I should put this aside." And you know what,

1:54:18what the healthy thing to do would probably be for me to try a Pixel and realize that

1:54:22I'm just being a big baby and that really, really life is considerably worse on the other

1:54:28side. Unless it isn't. But who knows. I don't know, am I crazy on this? Like, do you feel

1:54:34the same way I do? It's funny that you mention SMS on the Mac, because I have one person

1:54:41that I talk to that doesn't have an iPhone that I have to send SMS to, and I always do

1:54:46it from my phone because I could never remember if you could do it from the Mac. And every

1:54:50time I went to go check, I'm usually at work, like when I need to send SMSes to this person,

1:54:54every time I went to check at my Mac, I would bring up messages on my Mac at work, and I

1:54:58would find it signed out, and I would enter my correct password to sign in, and it would

1:55:02just say, "Nope, sorry, I couldn't sign you in. Sorry, error failed, couldn't sign in

1:55:08to iMessage." And the only fix to this is for me to restart my Mac. Once I actually

1:55:14reset my PRAM, but then I realized it was probably just the restarting of it that did

1:55:18it. That's how desperate I was. But anyway, this is another one of those things of like,

1:55:21"Hey, does iMessage work on your Mac?" Yeah, most of the time. Most of the time, like,

1:55:24I send and receive messages in the Messages application on my Mac at work back and forth

1:55:28to my wife. You know, it's nice to type on the big keyboard just like Casey, right? Here

1:55:31I am doing Messages. But every time I think, "Oh, I should try SMS from here too," and

1:55:36I bring up Messages and it just gets a little -- the thing pops up and says -- and wants

1:55:39me to sign in and has like, "You can skip this process." Anyway, like, I realize, "Oh,

1:55:43I am permanently signed out again.

1:55:45Something having to do probably with hardware IDs and VPNs

1:55:49and the fact that it's on wifi and ethernet

1:55:51at the same time when it's plugged into the dock.

1:55:53And I don't, I'm like all sorts of guessing

1:55:55about what could possibly be causing iMessage

1:55:57to be confused.

1:55:58But anyway, I restart, I log back in,

1:56:01usually restarting fixes it.

1:56:02And then I get a notifications on every single one

1:56:04of my devices that says,

1:56:05"You just signed in with your Apple ID to iMessage

1:56:07on blah, blah, blah."

1:56:08You know that message you get?

1:56:09Like I get that on all my devices,

1:56:11which makes you think it has re-provisioned a new private and public key for that one

1:56:15computer. That's the type of thing that, like, you know, messages. It's a thing. It's there.

1:56:20It works. I'm not abandoning it because the utility is still too high, but it bothers

1:56:24me that it's not as reliable as AIM on ADM was for like a decade.

1:56:28Well, in your defense, SMS relay is like its own dance that you have to go through on each

1:56:35computer in iPad and whatever iOS device that you want to do it on. So like I actually wrote

1:56:41to post in late 2014, which we'll link in the show notes, as to the song and dance you

1:56:46need to get through in order to turn this on.

1:56:48And this is just for SMS.

1:56:49This is not iMessage.

1:56:50This is just SMS.

1:56:51Is it just proxy through your phone?

1:56:52It's not actually…

1:56:53Correct.

1:56:54Oh, that sucks.

1:56:55Oh, why?

1:56:56Well, maybe that's…

1:56:57Well, this is the answer that I can never get to because I always permanently sign that

1:56:58up messages.

1:56:59But I'm good to know that this must have been what I was forgetting about this, is

1:57:03that it actually does…

1:57:04Yeah.

1:57:05That's a bummer.

1:57:06You should read my blog, Jon.

1:57:07It's pretty good.

1:57:08I think I did.

1:57:09I'm looking at this thing and I remember your horribly blurred out screenshots.

1:57:10screenshots which you should never ever do. I was looking at this right now and gagging

1:57:14actually it's funny you say that I was just looking at it and going oh but anyway. I've

1:57:18said this before as a thing that people don't appreciate it over doing Mac OS reviews for

1:57:23so long that I didn't have blurred out screenshots and you know how hard that is it's really

1:57:27hard. Oh I don't doubt it. It's really hard because personal information is everywhere.

1:57:32Anyway but yeah but the point I'm driving at is you know in some of these things like

1:57:36I forget how complex they are and how reasonably bulletproof they are.

1:57:41In SMS, like this is Happy Casey, right?

1:57:43Like SMS Relay is an example of that.

1:57:45It has to send my SMSs to my phone because as far as I understand, my phone is the only

1:57:50thing that can actually issue an SMS to my carrier.

1:57:54And this stuff works.

1:57:55I use it all day every day and it works great.

1:57:58It is almost flawless.

1:58:00But if I actually want to send an SMS from the friggin' device that it's sending them,

1:58:05If I want to type a text message on my iPhone, it only gets through without typos maybe one

1:58:12time out of three.

1:58:13And it's driving me insane.

1:58:14I don't know if you can blame the autocorrect for that.

1:58:17Aside from the silly "can't type the letter i" thing, I know they have had some wonkiness

1:58:20with it, but you're sure it's just not a new size of the phone because the time is

1:58:24differently sized?

1:58:25You know, it very well may be.

1:58:26It could be…

1:58:27And all your thumb reflexes are off?

1:58:28It could be, but I feel like…

1:58:31What it feels like, and again, this is maybe all in my head, but it feels like the way

1:58:39the accuracy checks on key presses either got less forgiving or, I don't know, something

1:58:48happened like two or three, maybe even four versions of iOS ago.

1:58:52And I used to type really accurately, like around the time of the 6, and it was like

1:59:00the 6s or something like that where everything took a turn and all of a sudden I just could

1:59:05not type anymore and it's just been getting worse and worse and you would think like between

1:59:09the 6s and my 7 it would get better and yes I agree with you that when I go to the 10

1:59:14maybe that it would have a moment you know I would have to retrain myself a little bit

1:59:19and I think that that's some of it but I feel like just the way the way it detects my keypress

1:59:26It used, even if I was wrong, it understood what I was doing in like the 5S6 era, and

1:59:33now it's either less forgiving or it's just changed the way things work, and I have not

1:59:39been able to retrain my brain.

1:59:41I've been able to retrain my brain on the home button, but I can't retrain my brain

1:59:44on the keyboard.

1:59:45You need to turn to my mom and just start pressing that microphone button and talking

1:59:48to your phone.

1:59:49The transcription is really good.

1:59:50That's the only way she types into these things.

1:59:53She talks to it in a very stilted, artificial sounding voice.

1:59:56I don't know.

1:59:57Well, thanks to our three sponsors this week.

2:00:00Hover, Away, and Eero, and we will talk to you next week.

2:00:04[MUSIC]

2:00:14Oh it was accidental.

2:00:16John didn't do any research.

2:00:19Margo and Casey wouldn't let him.

2:00:22Cause it was accidental.

2:00:24It was accidental.

2:00:27And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.

2:00:32And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them.

2:00:37[Music]

2:01:07episode 250 is when it all took a turn. What a great episode 250 spectacular that was.

2:01:13Can we talk about anything that makes us happy? When I'm getting fired up about things, then...

2:01:19You know it's bad. Yeah, something is not good.

2:01:22Yeah, our after show is only one thing. Casey on Cars.

2:01:26Oh, yeah, that's a thing. That turns out that I completed my video, so if you haven't watched it,

2:01:33I put a link, I will put a link in the show notes. I have released Casey on Cars episode 1

2:01:39Which is on the Alpha Romeo and the response has been

2:01:44exceedingly positive which I am super thankful for

2:01:48However, I think that I'm still only within my own audience

2:01:53So

2:01:55There was a comment that came through

2:01:57I'll have to see if I can find it really really quickly, but I may not be able to but there was a comment

2:02:03that somebody wrote in that seemed clear to me that it was someone outside of my audience

2:02:11and they were like, "Oh, this is garbage. Like, oh, here we go. BMW is a copy of an

2:02:18Alfa already 40 years." I think this person is not a native English speaker. "And you

2:02:25Apple headphones just show how much you know about quality." Okay.

2:02:29You Apple headphones? Oh, AirPods?

2:02:31So basically because I thought an Apple product, much less AirPods, were sufficient for this

2:02:38video, obviously I don't know what I'm doing. And again, obviously we've talked this to

2:02:42death, we don't need to go back into it. I understand the foibles, or many of the foibles

2:02:45of the video, but if you hadn't heard me talk this to death, that is the sort of comment

2:02:52that an obnoxious YouTuber would write, and thus I think that particular individual may

2:02:57may have come from outside my audience, but everyone else, even like the pretty critical

2:03:02ones from, I could tell it was somebody who knew who I was, right? It would say, "Oh,

2:03:06you know, this really does have crappy audio and you got to fix that." But you know, whatever.

2:03:11That to me sounded like it was my audience, whereas this one did not. So anyway, as we

2:03:16sit here tonight, it's over 10,000 views, which is super good for several reasons. One

2:03:20of which is you can start monetizing once your channel gets 10,000 views, which is excellent.

2:03:25So I am in automated review last I looked anyway with YouTube, so hopefully they will

2:03:30let me monetize soon.

2:03:32And I don't know if I'll ever make any real money off of this, but it would be nice to

2:03:35make more than zero.

2:03:37And we'll see what happens.

2:03:38Once you click that monetization button, you'll find out that there's a brief clip of distant

2:03:41music, copyrighted music in the background, and you'll immediately be demonetized by a

2:03:45machine and there'll be one strike against your account.

2:03:46And then you'll have the real YouTube experience, which by the way, I have had.

2:03:49I think I already have one strike because of copyright stuff.

2:03:53Nice.

2:03:54Yeah, my channel is still under review as I write this.

2:03:56But, uh, but yeah, so the response is, has been really, really, really positive,

2:04:01and I'm really, really, really appreciative of it.

2:04:03And the general response has been, "Oh, this wasn't near as bad as I expected."

2:04:09In fact, I think Marco had said that to me privately somewhere.

2:04:12Yeah, I think I chose more gentle words, but yes, that is, that was my opinion of,

2:04:16like, I was expecting it to be way worse because it was your very first video of this type,

2:04:20and you don't have a history of making videos like this.

2:04:23So I thought, I was really thinking it was gonna be

2:04:27a lot more painful.

2:04:29And it wasn't painful at all.

2:04:30There was some audio that was bad,

2:04:32but you already warned us about that.

2:04:34(laughs)

2:04:35And the fact is, the bad audio,

2:04:37it does detract from those scenes,

2:04:39but you still can watch them and enjoy what you're saying.

2:04:42It doesn't totally ruin it, it's noticeable.

2:04:46But the video overall, it was great because

2:04:49you actually nailed the writing and the commentary.

2:04:52- Well, that's very kind of you.

2:04:53- And that's what we're watching for.

2:04:54You know, like that's, you know, you had said

2:04:57in our last talk about this on our last After Show,

2:05:01you had said like, you know, you think you had something

2:05:04here with the story and everything,

2:05:06and I didn't know like whether that would come across

2:05:09in the video because it takes a certain degree of skill

2:05:12and sensibility of doing videos to have what you're saying,

2:05:16or what you're trying to say come across.

2:05:19But it did, you did it.

2:05:21It worked and it was really good.

2:05:24As I said to you, I think privately

2:05:26and in my tweet mini review about it,

2:05:29yeah, there are some things that could be better about it,

2:05:31but for a first video, it's incredibly good.

2:05:34It's way better than I would have guessed.

2:05:37It's way better than my first video was by a mile.

2:05:41And yeah, I think you have something here.

2:05:44And whether it reaches other people or not

2:05:46or whether one random YouTuber says something bad about it,

2:05:50you don't need to care about that.

2:05:52- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:05:53- What you need to care about now

2:05:54is making this a thing you do, if that's what you want.

2:05:58And you might decide it's not for you,

2:06:00that it's too much work or whatever, I hope you don't,

2:06:02because it turns out I think you're good at this

2:06:04and I think you can be even better with more experience.

2:06:06And if this is a thing you wanna keep doing,

2:06:10I will reiterate what I said last time,

2:06:12which is find a reason to keep doing it.

2:06:14Find other cars to review.

2:06:16Review your cars that you already,

2:06:18you have like seven cars in your garage.

2:06:19review your dad's cars, go to Cars and Coffee

2:06:22and talk about cars there and talk about why

2:06:24you are excited to see certain ones

2:06:26and why they are interesting.

2:06:28Because anybody who's ever hung around you in real life

2:06:31knows that you are basically always hosting a car show.

2:06:33(laughing)

2:06:35No matter where you are, no matter what you're doing,

2:06:37no matter who you're with, you will point out a car

2:06:40on the road and be like, oh, that's one of those.

2:06:41And you'll explain, and you are enthusiastic about it,

2:06:44which is step one, and then step two is you will explain

2:06:46why that's interesting or what's cool about that car.

2:06:49you have the ability, if you want to record yourself

2:06:52on video talking about a car, you can do that

2:06:55in lots of different ways and times in your life

2:06:58for lots of different kinds of cars

2:07:01that have a pretty wide diversity

2:07:03of what makes them interesting.

2:07:05And you don't have to do only new cars,

2:07:08you don't have to do only high-end cars,

2:07:10you don't have to do only European sports cars.

2:07:13(laughing)

2:07:15You can review the used minivan

2:07:18that your friends might have or something.

2:07:20You can review any car you come across,

2:07:23any car you might have access to for a few days.

2:07:26Whatever you need, you can do that,

2:07:28and I think you should.

2:07:30And your job right now is not to have this one video

2:07:33get tons of views and then eventually

2:07:37hundreds of cents of income.

2:07:39(laughing)

2:07:40That is not your job for this.

2:07:43The job of this video is A,

2:07:45to get you starting making videos

2:07:48and B, to start your YouTube channel.

2:07:51But it isn't meant to get big yet.

2:07:57Getting big takes time, getting an audience takes time,

2:08:00getting an audience worth monetizing takes time.

2:08:03Newsflash, you're gonna make not much from this video.

2:08:06- Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh I know.

2:08:07- Even if you get approved for monetization tomorrow,

2:08:10you know, it has already had most of the views

2:08:12it is likely to have, because that's how YouTube works.

2:08:15- Yep.

2:08:15- That's how most things on the internet work.

2:08:18And YouTube rates, you know it's funny,

2:08:21when podcasters see the view counts on YouTube videos,

2:08:26we're just like, oh my God, we have to get on YouTube.

2:08:30When YouTubers hear about the CPMs we charge

2:08:32for podcast ads, they run to us,

2:08:35oh my God, we have to get a podcast.

2:08:36(laughing)

2:08:39Because YouTube views are worth so little.

2:08:41They do have lots of them, but they're worth nothing.

2:08:45(laughing)

2:08:46So, you know, this is not going to be

2:08:48a money-making venture for you,

2:08:50probably for a long time, if ever,

2:08:53but your job right now is to have a creative project

2:08:58that might eventually become a money-making venture,

2:09:01but you should only keep doing it

2:09:03if you enjoy the creative project part of it,

2:09:05because that's all it might ever be,

2:09:07and if it is a money-making venture,

2:09:09it's not gonna be a life-changing amount of money

2:09:12for a long time.

2:09:13It might be like,

2:09:15I mean, I don't even know what to expect with,

2:09:17'cause I don't know what kind of numbers you might expect,

2:09:20but to be a meaningful amount of money

2:09:24to have a meaningful effect on your life

2:09:25and whether you can go indie full-time,

2:09:27which you totally should, and things like that,

2:09:29is you need to be making thousands of dollars a month

2:09:31from this.

2:09:32- Yeah, yeah, definitely.

2:09:33- And I think thousands a month is unlikely for a while,

2:09:36especially if you're gonna only release one video a year.

2:09:39(laughing)

2:09:40I think tens to hundreds a month

2:09:43is where you're probably gonna start if you keep it up.

2:09:47And then if over time you build up a bigger audience,

2:09:50then you can start talking about real money, basically.

2:09:54But that's a long way into the future.

2:09:56Right now you need to focus on,

2:09:58is this a thing you wanna keep doing?

2:10:00And if it is, keep doing it.

2:10:03Start making more car videos.

2:10:05And they don't have to be big productions like this.

2:10:07They can be small ones.

2:10:08It can literally be you walking around cars and coffee,

2:10:10which you do every weekend anyway.

2:10:13can literally be that and give a 45 second overview,

2:10:17or a two minute overview of one or two cars that are there

2:10:22that are interesting, and tell us why.

2:10:24- Yeah, yeah, I totally hear you.

2:10:26And my intention is to do Erin's car next,

2:10:30and I'm starting to contemplate,

2:10:33what do I have to say about Erin's car?

2:10:35And for those that maybe fast forward this section,

2:10:38usually she has a almost brand new 2017 Volvo XC90,

2:10:42which is a big, slow, well, reasonably slow SUV.

2:10:45- It's probably faster than Jon's computer.

2:10:48- Everything is.

2:10:49I mean, our phones are.

2:10:50But anyway, I think the idea is to do that next

2:10:55for several reasons.

2:10:56One, I have access to it.

2:10:58Two, it's kind of a polar opposite of the Alfa Romeo.

2:11:03And three, I'm telling myself I wanna try

2:11:08to get that done by the end of the year.

2:11:10I don't think I'll succeed, but I'm going to try.

2:11:13We also have some other big things happening

2:11:15at the end of the year, so that'll really

2:11:16throw a wrench in things.

2:11:17- Yeah, newsflash, you're getting nothing done

2:11:19by the end of the year.

2:11:20- I know.

2:11:21- Don't worry about that.

2:11:22- But I'm setting a goal of myself.

2:11:24I'd like to spend the next week or two

2:11:25coming up with kind of the, maybe literally,

2:11:27the storyboards, 'cause that's one of the regrets

2:11:29I have with Yael Formeo is I never spent enough time

2:11:32really thinking about, until it was all over,

2:11:34really thinking about what I wanted to say,

2:11:36so I just kind of filmed everything

2:11:39hoped I could make heads or tails of it after the fact.

2:11:41Obviously I think I did an okay job, but it would have been better if it was more deliberate.

2:11:45But anyway, I want to review Aaron's car and see what I can make of that and see if I can

2:11:52make something interesting out of that.

2:11:55Alpha Romeo is rare and interesting to begin with.

2:11:57And if I drove up to you or to Underscore and borrowed a Model S, that's interesting

2:12:03just because it's a Tesla.

2:12:05I'm hopeful that I can still be interesting with a more run-of-the-mill car.

2:12:12And granted, you know, a brand new Volvo SUV is not strictly run-of-the-mill, but compared

2:12:17to a $80,000 Alfa Romeo, it's considerably more run-of-the-mill, right?

2:12:23This is like me, like, you know, going to borrow like a 75D and like, "Oh, this is now

2:12:28the consumer level, you know, accessible car for everyone."

2:12:31You know what I mean.

2:12:32You know what I mean.

2:12:33But yes, your point is fair.

2:12:35point is there. So anyway, so we'll see what happens. I hope to stick with it. One of the--I'd

2:12:42like to hear Jon's thoughts, although I'm scared to--I'd like to hear Jon's thoughts

2:12:45in just a moment, but I thought it would be interesting to note that a couple of the things

2:12:50that I expected, or that I found most unexpected, really, were that the little portions I put

2:12:59in of Declan and Arryn seemed to resonate almost more than anything else, which is not

2:13:04a bad thing, it's a good thing, but what occurred to me only because a whole ton of people said

2:13:09it to me was nobody else really pays attention to what their families think or how these

2:13:16cars work for like regular stuff or anything other than one driver. And I was just, you

2:13:23know, telling the story of this is what I did. You know, I put a car seat in it. I drove

2:13:27my family around in it. And I didn't really think of it as like a formal statement about

2:13:31what they thought. But it seemed like a lot of people hung on to the fact that I was talking

2:13:38about more than just, you know, me, the meathead, petrolhead, whatever, that, you know, more

2:13:43power, more power. And the other thing that I thought was interesting was part of the

2:13:48reason I put it on the lift, which was actually at my dad's house, a part of the reason I

2:13:52put it on the on the lift was because that's something that most car reviewers don't do,

2:13:57Savage Geese does it, generally speaking, but most car reviewers don't do that. And since I have

2:14:01access to it, I thought, okay, I'll do that. And I didn't get as much of a response off of that as I

2:14:07expected, which is fine. And I was actually talking to a friend about this. And the friend had said,

2:14:14you know, if you were looking for content to cut, the lift might have been the first place to look,

2:14:20because you talk about how there's really nothing that's interesting to see under the car. And then

2:14:25And then you talk for a couple minutes about all the stuff that's under the car.

2:14:28And so it's either pick a story and maybe you should have just cut it.

2:14:34And during the editing process, I wasn't planning on talking about this, but something that

2:14:37just occurred to me, during the editing process I was trying real hard to get it closer to

2:14:41ten minutes.

2:14:42I landed it at about thirteen and a half.

2:14:43And it started after my first cut at about fifteen and change.

2:14:47And I was able to get it down some.

2:14:48I don't know if you knew this Marco, but it turns out when people talk at 1x that's like

2:14:53really friggin' slow. So I would try to make a point that I felt like was two sentences,

2:15:01and I would look at it in Final Cut Pro, and it looked like it was 30 seconds of talking

2:15:05or something like that. It was just insane how much time it took for me to talk. Ah man,

2:15:10that was tough.

2:15:11So try to get a three-page marketing brief into a two-minute sponsor read.

2:15:16Yeah, exactly. So it was weird in that sense. But I really enjoyed the process, and I do

2:15:22plan to do more of them. And by saying this publicly, I know I'm not going to get this

2:15:27thing done by the end of the year, and at that point we'll have a new kid, which means

2:15:30everything stops for like six months. But I'm hopeful that I will be able to find the

2:15:35time, since I'm going to be taking some time off work, when the new baby is asleep for,

2:15:40you know, ten minutes at a time, I hope to find the time to be able to put together something

2:15:44about Aaron's car, and that'll be a good next step.

2:15:47I will throw in one more thing here.

2:15:50You mentioned that people commented and liked

2:15:54Aaron and Declan's role in the video,

2:15:55and that you put a car seat in it.

2:15:57And I think, first of all,

2:15:58I don't watch YouTube for cars,

2:16:02so I don't know if this is a common thing,

2:16:03but I have a feeling you're probably the only reviewer

2:16:05who put a car seat in this car, in your review.

2:16:07(laughing)

2:16:08- It's the only one I've seen.

2:16:09That doesn't mean it's the only one,

2:16:10but it's the only one I've seen.

2:16:11- Right, and so secondly,

2:16:12and I was just assuming this was maybe

2:16:16because I know your family,

2:16:17But I thought, like the parts of Aaron Declan,

2:16:19especially the look of displeasure that Aaron gives you,

2:16:23I laughed my ass off at that point.

2:16:27Those humanize the video, because you need a human,

2:16:33like this is one of the things

2:16:34that made Top Gear so successful.

2:16:36You need a human element.

2:16:38You can't just talk about specs and just hear engine noises

2:16:42and just show the car over and over again.

2:16:45People care about other people.

2:16:47That's what makes videos interesting.

2:16:49That's what makes podcasts interesting.

2:16:51Like, people will come for the content,

2:16:55but they will stay for the people.

2:16:57And the people and the personalities

2:16:59and the humanity in it are what builds

2:17:02and keeps an audience.

2:17:05And so that's not something you should ever shy away from.

2:17:09If anything, you should try to figure out

2:17:10how to add more of that.

2:17:12Like, part of the reason why the writing of this video

2:17:14was so good is because it was a lot about you

2:17:17and your humanity about your identity with cars

2:17:21and the stick shift and everything else.

2:17:23That was a major part of your theme in this video

2:17:26and that's interesting because you're a person

2:17:29and people like other people and their stories

2:17:31and their emotions and their personalities.

2:17:34That's an element that you should have

2:17:36in all of your videos and you should definitely

2:17:39not try to minimize or cut out those segments.

2:17:42If anything, you should have more of those,

2:17:44at least if Erin doesn't kill you first.

2:17:46(laughing)

2:17:47- Well, I was doing a real disservice to Erin

2:17:49because there were only a couple times

2:17:52I filmed with her in the car,

2:17:53and the only thing that I thought was particularly useful

2:17:55or interesting was this kinda snarky comment from her.

2:17:59And for anyone that's met her,

2:18:01it is clear that that is not,

2:18:03well, I don't think anyway.

2:18:05(laughing)

2:18:06It's not her normal, she's not normally snarky.

2:18:08She's usually super nice and super effusive.

2:18:11And it was just so funny to me because this was just like, "Ugh, really?"

2:18:16And so I just thought it was hysterical.

2:18:18So I apologize publicly to Erin for kind of not putting her best foot forward, but I thought

2:18:22the moment was worth it because it was so funny.

2:18:25And yeah, I agree.

2:18:27Like I didn't realize that playing the family hand, which I was doing just kind of because

2:18:32it's part of it, was going to play so well.

2:18:35And so, you know, if possible, I'll probably play it a little harder, further, whatever

2:18:39whatever the analogy is I'm looking for,

2:18:41the turn of phrase I'm looking for,

2:18:42I'll probably do more of it next time.

2:18:44But all right, Jon, lay it on me, where did I go wrong?

2:18:48- Well, I marketed his video,

2:18:49I told him everything that was wrong with it

2:18:50and then he never made another video,

2:18:51so I don't know if I wanna do that too.

2:18:52(laughing)

2:18:55- Spoiler, that's not why.

2:18:57- Well, anyway, I could go on like that about yours,

2:19:00but I think in the interest of time,

2:19:02well, one thing, I think the--

2:19:03- That's where I went wrong,

2:19:04is I didn't have an interest in time.

2:19:06- No, in the interest of time,

2:19:07I'm just gonna give you a couple of the highlights,

2:19:09I do think that because the YouTube comment section was mostly populated by friends and

2:19:13people familiar with the show and the background and everything, I think there was less terrible

2:19:19people there.

2:19:20Oh, totally.

2:19:21And I think actually the wisdom of crowds of all the people kind of got – they hit

2:19:26most of the major things in aggregate, right?

2:19:31So anyway, the three I would highlight is in no particular order.

2:19:37Did you write down the script for this at a time?

2:19:39- No, I had started storyboarding,

2:19:42and I mean that literally.

2:19:43I think I put it on an Instagram story,

2:19:45so there's nothing I can link to,

2:19:46but I did draw little boxes and storyboarded it a bit

2:19:50on one of the last days I had the car,

2:19:54but in retrospect, I think if I were to do this again

2:19:57with a borrowed car like this,

2:19:59I think I really need to take one or two days off of work

2:20:03spend one day like thinking about in storyboarding what I want to film and spend the next day actually executing on it because

2:20:11What I did this time was was like I said earlier basically just film everything I could and hope that I can you know

2:20:18piece something together afterwards and there were a few places where

2:20:22Even though the video as it's posted right now does have a bit of a story arc

2:20:27I had to like bring certain pieces forward or back and make them slightly

2:20:33awkward because the video I had I

2:20:37Needed to use it to fit so as an example

2:20:39I started talking about the transmission if memory serves a little earlier than I intended because that was the moment

2:20:46When I had gotten in the car and I knew enough to know that I wanted to have Jason Camisa of Motor Trend

2:20:52Shut his car door in his video and then have me shut the car door to be the transition back to my video

2:20:59but because that arc didn't play exactly

2:21:03When I wanted it to it ended up making the story arc a little bit awkward. Well, what was it to say about the

2:21:10Scripts was every not so much about the video which I got to a second

2:21:14But the script part as you noted like it's you take a surprising amount of times to say things, right?

2:21:18And so when you write for television or movies you can't

2:21:21write naturalistically, you have to compress meaning and compress everything down, because

2:21:28you don't have enough time for people to speak the way they normally speak, unless you're

2:21:33making a specific genre of movie where that's the whole shtick is that people actually are

2:21:38naturalistic, but it takes just so long. You have to—everyone has to say everything that

2:21:42is essentially like, "I took what a normal person would say and boiled it down, and these

2:21:47three paragraphs become one extremely well-crafted sentence that conveys all of the plot points,

2:21:54all of the character notes, all of the foreshadowing, and all of the nuance in this one line. And

2:22:00it's a pain to write like that because that's not how we talk. So I would suggest try, I

2:22:06mean maybe this won't work for your process, but at least try to see if this is a thing

2:22:10that works for you to actually script it ahead of time. And when you script it, you can't

2:22:15even write it like a blog post. You have to write it like a video. What I'm getting is

2:22:17that writing your video is different than writing for your blog and is way different

2:22:20than speaking. I think that will let you get things tighter. If you want to use inspiration

2:22:24for someone whose process you probably are familiar with listening to podcasts, just

2:22:27think of Gray and all the time he spends wordsmithing his narrations for his videos and how tight

2:22:31they are. You know, because he's just getting rid of needless words, compressing the idea

2:22:36down, finding a way to get in and out, and he does talk quickly too. Second thing is,

2:22:41As many people pointed out in the comments, I know you are more enthusiastic about cars

2:22:45than the person I see in this video talking about cars.

2:22:47Many people said that, they're right.

2:22:49I mean, the thing is, you're more enthusiastic on this podcast about cars, right?

2:22:53So that's just, you know, being on camera or whatever.

2:22:55I don't know what the solution is there.

2:22:56I have no idea how to do it.

2:22:57But as a viewer, that definitely comes across.

2:23:00I'm like, "Casey cares more about cars than this."

2:23:02Not that you seem nervous because you didn't.

2:23:03You seem relaxed, but like maybe too relaxed.

2:23:06You need to get worked up.

2:23:07Coffee?

2:23:08coffee. Third thing is you need way more footage, which I know sounds terrible because I'm watching

2:23:14this video and I'm like, "Oh, God, this must have been so much work." I'm looking and I'm

2:23:17like, "Oh, I watch it and I can see how many hours you're putting into it." And yet, what

2:23:21I think when I'm watching it also is you need so much more footage. And you can tell that

2:23:26if you ever do like a graph out, like just pick, you know, go to a crappy DiMero video

2:23:32or a Harrison video or any car video

2:23:35that your favorite thing is,

2:23:36every time they're talking about anything,

2:23:40they never talk for more than three words

2:23:42before cutting to another angle of the car.

2:23:44And it's not always like,

2:23:45"How can I show what I'm talking?

2:23:46"I'm talking about the gear shift.

2:23:47"What am I gonna show except for the gear shift?"

2:23:49You have to cut to something.

2:23:50When you're talking about,

2:23:51there's many scenes with you standing in front of the car

2:23:54and just talking,

2:23:55you have to cut to 900 different things during that.

2:23:57Driving on the road in the sunset,

2:23:59driving in the rain, pulling out of the drive,

2:24:01And you don't think about it, but go watch another video

2:24:04and see how many times they cut to,

2:24:07sometimes a completely unrelated thing.

2:24:08And why does that work?

2:24:09Because when I watched this video,

2:24:12it felt a lot like I was listening to you on a podcast

2:24:14where you were a little sleepy.

2:24:15'Cause I know what you sound like on podcasts.

2:24:16You sound like this when you talk about cars.

2:24:18But on podcasts, there's nothing to look at

2:24:19unless you're staring at Marco's ever-changing chapter art,

2:24:22which hasn't changed that often, so don't stare too much.

2:24:25- Well, except when I embedded a video in the theme song

2:24:27that nobody noticed.

2:24:28- I noticed it, a lot of people noticed it.

2:24:30- No one else noticed it.

2:24:31No, they tweeted about it, didn't they?

2:24:32Everyone was excited by it.

2:24:34- No, they really didn't.

2:24:35- Oh well.

2:24:36- Wait, what did you do?

2:24:37- The reason I look for it is 'cause someone else

2:24:39mentioned it, maybe it was someone in a Slack mentioned it

2:24:41and I went and dug it out 'cause I didn't notice it.

2:24:43I don't look at the chapter already, but someone said,

2:24:45"Hey, did you, I like what you did with that, you know,

2:24:48"the video and the whatever chapter."

2:24:49And then I went and looked at it because somebody said it.

2:24:51It might have been someone in Slack.

2:24:53But anyway, when you're watching a video

2:24:55and listening to you talk, your eyes are like,

2:24:57"Come on, feed me too.

2:24:58"What do you got for me?

2:24:59"What do you got for me?"

2:25:00And it's not that you're not attractive

2:25:02standing in front of a car, but they need to be fed.

2:25:04And so if you have to cut to completely unrelated footage

2:25:08of the car driving down a road and going around a curve

2:25:11and going past the high and going past low

2:25:13and a drone flying over the car

2:25:14and pulling into the driveway,

2:25:15that has nothing to do with what you're saying,

2:25:17but the eyes need to be fed.

2:25:19And you don't think about it, but like I said,

2:25:21go pick your favorite car video and pick a section

2:25:23where they're just talking about something

2:25:24and they don't have any actual appropriate footage.

2:25:27They don't have anything more to show you

2:25:29and watch how many times they cut to just unrelated footage

2:25:31of the car driving.

2:25:32And when I watch those videos, I'm like,

2:25:34this is a pleasant thing for my eyes to do

2:25:35because while I'm listening to your words,

2:25:37I'm also looking at,

2:25:37oh, I haven't seen the car from that angle.

2:25:39Oh, look at that.

2:25:40Oh, that's a pretty tree.

2:25:41Like your brain needs to be fed in a way

2:25:43that you don't need for podcasts or whatever,

2:25:45because it's all sort of going on in your head,

2:25:46or maybe you're doing dishes or whatever.

2:25:48I think those are the major things.

2:25:52Much more footage and much more cutting, more enthusiasm,

2:25:55and write like you write for TV or movies,

2:25:58not like you talk in real life.

2:26:00- Yeah, I think that's all completely fair.

2:26:02And one of my goals for the next video,

2:26:06be it Erin's car or something else entirely,

2:26:08is I need to do better about B-roll of outside the car.

2:26:13I need to do better inside the car too,

2:26:15but particularly I think I need way more, to your point,

2:26:19the car driving down the road.

2:26:20And that's a little scary, right?

2:26:21Because I don't have any roads that I can think of

2:26:24where I can set up an expensive camera

2:26:27GoPro or something like that and be a hundred percent confident that it's not gonna get knocked over or walk or whatever

2:26:32It's just a huge amount of work like the amount of yeah

2:26:34You shot for this is already a huge amount of work and there still wasn't enough

2:26:37It's that's what I'm saying

2:26:38Like it takes so much effort to make like one second of you know

2:26:42One minute of podcasting you just talk for a minute to make one minute of video

2:26:44You have to shoot video for what seems like hours unless until you become good at it

2:26:48And I don't know the solution but like that's you know

2:26:51That's what it like make the video half the length and shoot seven times as much footage

2:26:56- And that's also why a lot of times

2:26:59video involves multiple people.

2:27:01It's really hard to shoot good video by yourself.

2:27:05It's possible, there are ways to work around that,

2:27:07but it's way harder and often times requires

2:27:10way more either leaps of faith or fancy equipment

2:27:13or something to achieve certain effects or outcomes

2:27:16that normally would just take multiple people to do.

2:27:19So you can do it, but the example of leaving a camera

2:27:23while you drive past on a tripod,

2:27:25Like, yeah, the better solution there

2:27:27is to have another person at that camera

2:27:29and even if it's on a tripod, have them running the camera

2:27:33so that you can just drive by.

2:27:34Or have them drive in the car or drive past you

2:27:37and you run the camera.

2:27:38There's a reason why video tends to take a lot of people

2:27:41to do at a professional level.

2:27:43And yeah, and I would just echo,

2:27:44most of the times that I totally agree with,

2:27:47having a lot of footage to cut to was a huge issue for me

2:27:51when I did my crappy laptop video.

2:27:54I didn't have enough footage to cut to.

2:27:56And I kept trying to shoot more and I just didn't really,

2:27:58I just couldn't get enough, I wasn't--

2:28:00- Laptops are less dynamic than a car.

2:28:02- Yeah.

2:28:03- 'Cause what the car things shoot to is,

2:28:05they just shoot to pictures of the car driving.

2:28:07And I find, like when I was so much more conscious of it

2:28:09after watching Casey's video,

2:28:11that I was like scrutinizing all these other,

2:28:12'cause I do watch a lot of car reviews on YouTube.

2:28:14Like how do they do it?

2:28:15Let me look at it.

2:28:16And the thing is, they just show me the car.

2:28:18And I'm like, every time they show me the car,

2:28:20I'm looking at it because it's a moving picture.

2:28:22Like in the magazine, the same way I look

2:28:24every single picture of like the interior of the car in the magazine and look at the

2:28:27picture of the wheel and I'm always you know pinching to zoom on my paper magazine and

2:28:31it doesn't get any bigger and being frustrated you know like I'm staring at those photos

2:28:35I want to see as much I'm not there at the car you know I don't that the whole point

2:28:39of this video review is I don't have this car I don't even see this car in real life

2:28:41I only see it in the video so I want to see it as many different ways as possible and

2:28:45I have no objection to listening to a personal story unrelated to what I'm seeing on the

2:28:49screen but also seeing this car from a bunch of angles and how it looks and how it sounds

2:28:54and how it feels and what it's the sound of the blinkers inside.

2:28:57What does the parking brake sound like when you pull it up?

2:28:59What is it?

2:29:00You know, all these sorts of things that like you could shoot and you're like, but I don't

2:29:03have any place in the video where I talk about that.

2:29:05It's like, don't worry, just put it in there somewhere.

2:29:07I mean, you try to make it fit, but like you need to feed your eyeballs.

2:29:11That's what needs to happen.

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