ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Not only do my kids not know how to use computers, but they all because they don't know how to use computers

00:00:06 ◼   ► They don't know how to fix things on computers. Like they don't even have they've never had to fix anything on a computer

00:00:13 ◼   ► It's like how do you learn how to fix crap on computers?

00:00:15 ◼   ► Like because when we were kids our parents didn't know anything so there was no one to ask

00:00:18 ◼   ► And you had to just figure it out yourself. Yeah, we should have broke everything and figured out how to fix it

00:00:23 ◼   ► That's basically how we how we figured this all out

00:00:26 ◼   ► My son had a problem recently where he was like, "Dad, the computer only types capital

00:00:31 ◼   ► letters."

00:00:33 ◼   ► And so I came over and he was like in a Google document and he's like, "Look, capital letters,

00:00:37 ◼   ► and it's not caps lock because cap lock light on or off, either way, just produces capital

00:00:41 ◼   ► letters."

00:00:42 ◼   ► Right?

00:00:43 ◼   ► And that was it.

00:00:44 ◼   ► That was the extent of his debugging.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Like, he knew cap locks existed and he had tried toggling it on and off and it confirmed

00:00:49 ◼   ► that in one position light is on and one position light is off, but either way, capital letters

00:00:52 ◼   ► come out.

00:00:53 ◼   ► But that was it.

00:00:54 ◼   ► He was out of ideas.

00:00:55 ◼   ► That's not good.

00:00:57 ◼   ► What was it, like a stuck shift key?

00:00:59 ◼   ► So I tried another application, which

00:01:00 ◼   ► is the first thing you try.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Is this just Google Docs or the browser?

00:01:03 ◼   ► Is it everywhere?

00:01:04 ◼   ► So I open TextEdit.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Sure enough, only capital letters in TextEdit, right?

00:01:07 ◼   ► So I'm like, the things you learn

00:01:10 ◼   ► from a lifetime of debugging are things

00:01:11 ◼   ► that could potentially solve this problem.

00:01:13 ◼   ► So log out, right?

00:01:16 ◼   ► We go to log out or switch users.

00:01:18 ◼   ► The master troubleshooting step.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Turn everything off, turn everything back on.

00:01:22 ◼   ► And the login screen, I went to log into my account.

00:01:24 ◼   ► And when you see the little password thing, you see the little arrow that tells you that

00:01:27 ◼   ► it thinks CapLox is on, you know?

00:01:28 ◼   ► Yep.

00:01:29 ◼   ► That puts it in.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:01:31 ◼   ► And so basically it was like the computer thought CapLox was on all the time.

00:01:32 ◼   ► It wasn't.

00:01:33 ◼   ► You could look at the keyboard and it doesn't matter if the light was on or off, but the

00:01:35 ◼   ► computer was totally convinced the CapLox was on or off.

00:01:38 ◼   ► So I unplugged the keyboard and plugged it back in and I fixed it.

00:01:41 ◼   ► And then my son said to me, "How could unplugging the keyboard and plugging it back in fix it?"

00:01:47 ◼   ► And I was like, "If you've ever fixed anything on the computer, this fixes a surprising number

00:01:51 ◼   ► of things.

00:01:52 ◼   ► and back in, unplug and replug, reboot, turn everything off, wait 10 seconds, unplug it

00:01:57 ◼   ► from the wall, wait 10 seconds, all these things have reasons behind them, but like

00:02:00 ◼   ► even if you don't know the reasons behind them, eventually you learn by fixing things

00:02:04 ◼   ► that sometimes you just have to do crap like that. And the only way you learn that is by

00:02:08 ◼   ► actually fixing problems in the real world without understanding why they fix you. Just

00:02:13 ◼   ► like what can I do to make this problem go away? And once it works for you once it's

00:02:16 ◼   ► in your bag of tricks of like just you know that general idea of start the thing over

00:02:21 ◼   ► again. Unplug it and plug it back in. Disconnected and reconnected. And my kids don't even have

00:02:28 ◼   ► that. They don't even have the basics. They don't have any understanding of that because

00:02:32 ◼   ► they never had to fix anything themselves. It's kind of like nightmares of them leaving

00:02:35 ◼   ► the house and living on their own as an adult and having a job and calling me and saying,

00:02:39 ◼   ► "I can't get my TV show. I can't watch my TV show. It's not working." Because, you know,

00:02:44 ◼   ► Netflix is broken or something.

00:02:47 ◼   ► I feel like this might be kinda how,

00:02:49 ◼   ► like whenever anything breaks about our house,

00:02:53 ◼   ► usually, if it's not that critical that it gets fixed,

00:02:57 ◼   ► there isn't water pouring all over everything

00:02:59 ◼   ► and we're not installing a fire hazard outlet in the wall,

00:03:01 ◼   ► but if there's some, we have to hang something

00:03:06 ◼   ► that's kinda heavy duty on the wall somewhere

00:03:09 ◼   ► or we have to fix something that's made of wood,

00:03:13 ◼   ► usually those tasks just accumulate

00:03:16 ◼   ► until my father-in-law comes to visit.

00:03:19 ◼   ► He will basically just go around to the first days here

00:03:21 ◼   ► and just like fix everything around the house

00:03:22 ◼   ► that we've been putting off forever.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And I feel like maybe the way that he thinks about it,

00:03:28 ◼   ► or at least the way he should think about

00:03:30 ◼   ► how we seem to be totally incapable

00:03:33 ◼   ► of fixing these things ourself,

00:03:35 ◼   ► might be the same way that you are thinking about like,

00:03:37 ◼   ► how can your son possibly not know

00:03:39 ◼   ► how to troubleshoot these computer issues himself?

00:03:42 ◼   ► - So I'm gonna show up at his house when he's an adult

00:03:44 ◼   ► and it's like, oh thank God you're here,

00:03:45 ◼   ► we haven't been able to watch TV in six months.

00:03:48 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:03:48 ◼   ► We can't figure out why,

00:03:49 ◼   ► and I'm gonna go up to a television,

00:03:51 ◼   ► unplug it from the wall, plug it back in,

00:03:52 ◼   ► and go, there you go.

00:03:53 ◼   ► That very well might be how this generation plays out.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Oh my word.

00:04:01 ◼   ► I feel the same way though.

00:04:02 ◼   ► I can't think of a specific example

00:04:04 ◼   ► other than my fire hazard plug

00:04:05 ◼   ► that isn't actually a fire hazard,

00:04:07 ◼   ► but there are plenty of things that either my dad,

00:04:10 ◼   ► who is very electrically inclined,

00:04:13 ◼   ► or Aaron's dad who in a prior life was a carpenter,

00:04:17 ◼   ► so he's like woodworking inclined.

00:04:19 ◼   ► There's many things that without them

00:04:21 ◼   ► I would have to either pay someone to do something,

00:04:24 ◼   ► maybe figure it out myself in the spare time

00:04:27 ◼   ► I don't feel like I have, or just live with it forever.

00:04:30 ◼   ► - I don't feel that incapable for home repair things.

00:04:33 ◼   ► My parents do, my father does come and fix everything

00:04:36 ◼   ► exactly like you were saying,

00:04:37 ◼   ► your father-in-law comes to you, Marco.

00:04:39 ◼   ► But it's not because I don't know how to fix it,

00:04:42 ◼   ► it's because I don't want to fix it,

00:04:44 ◼   ► I don't have time to fix it.

00:04:46 ◼   ► And he's gonna do a better job too

00:04:48 ◼   ► because he's fixed it more times than me.

00:04:50 ◼   ► But I do know what to do,

00:04:51 ◼   ► only because I spent an entire lifetime

00:04:53 ◼   ► watching home-improving television shows.

00:04:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:56 ◼   ► - Oh, I spent a lot of time watching,

00:04:58 ◼   ► not as much as you,

00:04:59 ◼   ► but I spent a lot of time watching those shows too.

00:05:00 ◼   ► So all I can do is be the annoying person of like,

00:05:02 ◼   ► are you sure you wanna do it that way?

00:05:04 ◼   ► Like I can be like that guy,

00:05:06 ◼   ► which is the worst possible role to play.

00:05:08 ◼   ► - Nobody likes that guy.

00:05:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause like I know just enough

00:05:11 ◼   ► to be able to criticize and make stupid comments

00:05:13 ◼   ► about something, but not enough to actually do it right

00:05:16 ◼   ► myself or to realize that the way they did it

00:05:18 ◼   ► is actually correct, not my amateur view of what

00:05:22 ◼   ► Holmes on Holmes would think is the right thing to do.

00:05:25 ◼   ► - You gotta keep watching them though.

00:05:27 ◼   ► I still have season passes for those shows.

00:05:29 ◼   ► I still watch them.

00:05:30 ◼   ► So then you're up to date on the latest technologies.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - The latest mold generation technologies?

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Criticizing and making snarky comments,

00:05:38 ◼   ► whatever it is you said, isn't that pretty much

00:05:39 ◼   ► show in a nutshell, just criticizing from afar, not really knowing what we're talking

00:05:44 ◼   ► about.

00:05:45 ◼   ► But I like to think that we at least – I think we know more about what we criticize

00:05:49 ◼   ► on this show than I know about home repairs.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Yes, yes, I would say that's definitely the case.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Because at the very least, all of us do a lot of things related to the things we're

00:05:59 ◼   ► talking about, whereas despite me watching home improvement shows for my entire life,

00:06:02 ◼   ► I've never built a house, not even once.

00:06:06 ◼   ► All right, so we should start as always with some follow-up.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And somebody, I think John, phrased this section as "pouring cold water on Apple USB-C notions."

00:06:16 ◼   ► And so we talked last episode about whether or not the forthcoming iPhone will call it

00:06:21 ◼   ► for the purposes of this conversation, the iPhone 8, whether the phone itself will have

00:06:27 ◼   ► a USB-C port on it.

00:06:29 ◼   ► And there was a Wall Street Journal report that seemed ambiguously to say yes.

00:06:34 ◼   ► And then Ming-Chi Kuo has come out and said, "Well, we believe all three new iPhones, launching

00:06:40 ◼   ► in the second half of 2017, will support fast charging by the adoption of Type-C power delivery

00:06:45 ◼   ► technology while still retaining the Lightning port."

00:06:49 ◼   ► So probably sticking with the Lightning port, which I think I'm in support of, but having

00:06:55 ◼   ► listened to most of the shows that are like ours that cover this sort of thing, I feel

00:06:59 ◼   ► like I'm the only one, which makes me wonder if I'm just the old man of the crowd all the

00:07:04 ◼   ► a sudden. I was hoping this was a reaction to the Wall Street Journal story, which was

00:07:08 ◼   ► weird and ambiguous and had everyone talk about USBC. And then Ming-Chi Kuo just says,

00:07:14 ◼   ► "No, no, no, no, here. I know how to speak in sentences that have meaning that is clear

00:07:18 ◼   ► to the reader. Every single new iPhone coming this year will have a lightning port on the

00:07:24 ◼   ► bottom. Boom, done." And so I'm hoping it is just simply a clarification. I'm hoping

00:07:30 ◼   ► what it's not is like a competing rumor of, you know, without any particular foundation,

00:07:37 ◼   ► but it certainly seemed like that ambiguous story was out there, there was a lot of chatter,

00:07:41 ◼   ► and then this thing came and just shut everybody up and said, "It's the boring thing. Never

00:07:46 ◼   ► mind."

00:07:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, at some point I think Ming-Chi Ku needs to evolve into just the Dao Rim poll,

00:07:52 ◼   ► just "Nope. Yep."

00:07:54 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:56 ◼   ► No, but I think, you know, as we said last show,

00:07:59 ◼   ► we all thought this was fairly unlikely to be the case,

00:08:03 ◼   ► that they would replace the Lightning port with the USB-C port.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I do think it is still worth considering

00:08:09 ◼   ► as a thought experiment.

00:08:10 ◼   ► I do think that if they were to actually get drunk

00:08:13 ◼   ► and do this, I would actually welcome that change.

00:08:17 ◼   ► I think it would be temporary pain,

00:08:19 ◼   ► but long-term it would be great.

00:08:20 ◼   ► And Apple usually errs on that side

00:08:22 ◼   ► of that kind of decision.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Ultimately though, I still think it's very unlikely,

00:08:28 ◼   ► with one little exception, that we keep hearing from people

00:08:32 ◼   ► about the EU regulations about phones

00:08:35 ◼   ► all having the same connector.

00:08:37 ◼   ► And for the last few years, ever since the introduction

00:08:40 ◼   ► of Lightning, basically the EU said all phones have to have

00:08:43 ◼   ► what used to be micro USB.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I have not honestly been following this very closely,

00:08:47 ◼   ► but what I keep hearing from people is that that regulation

00:08:51 ◼   ► is getting more strict now, and that Apple will no longer

00:08:54 ◼   ► be able to get away with just shipping an adapter

00:08:57 ◼   ► that converts Lightning to USB, to micro-USB rather,

00:09:00 ◼   ► or in this case, I assume it's USB-C.

00:09:02 ◼   ► So there's something going on there

00:09:04 ◼   ► where the EU is putting pressure on Apple,

00:09:07 ◼   ► and I don't know if they're gonna be able

00:09:08 ◼   ► to negotiate their way out of it again,

00:09:10 ◼   ► but there might be something there.

00:09:13 ◼   ► There might be a strong reason for Apple to say,

00:09:17 ◼   ► okay, you know what, in addition to all of the other reasons

00:09:20 ◼   ► we have to get rid of lightning and switch to USB-C these days. It would also probably

00:09:25 ◼   ► cause less friction with the EU and any other kind of similar regulatory body around the

00:09:30 ◼   ► world that might get in the way. I wouldn't expect in the next three and a half to seven

00:09:38 ◼   ► years that the US would really care that much about reducing waste in a regulation, but

00:09:44 ◼   ► I imagine other countries that actually have

00:09:48 ◼   ► functioning governments probably all have similar goals.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, that'd be cool.

00:09:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, that'd be awesome, right?

00:09:53 ◼   ► They probably all have similar goals of reducing

00:09:57 ◼   ► electronic waste and standardizing on things

00:09:59 ◼   ► that really matter and stuff like that.

00:10:01 ◼   ► So I think Apple's gonna keep getting pressure

00:10:03 ◼   ► from large markets.

00:10:04 ◼   ► I mean, if China did it, game over.

00:10:07 ◼   ► Imagine if China said, okay, to sell a phone in China

00:10:10 ◼   ► after 2017, it has to have USB-C on the bottom.

00:10:14 ◼   ► But lightning would be gone the next day.

00:10:17 ◼   ► - Well, they can make two different models,

00:10:19 ◼   ► one for that market.

00:10:20 ◼   ► They've made different models with different things

00:10:22 ◼   ► inside them before.

00:10:23 ◼   ► But China could do something like that,

00:10:25 ◼   ► but my understanding of the EU thing

00:10:27 ◼   ► is not like Apple can't sell it.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I think it's more like a guideline or agreement.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And I'm sure there's some kind of carrot and stick thing

00:10:34 ◼   ► where if you follow along with the agreement voluntarily,

00:10:37 ◼   ► you get some boon or whatever.

00:10:38 ◼   ► but I'm not convinced that it's the type of thing

00:10:41 ◼   ► where if Apple doesn't do it,

00:10:43 ◼   ► then they can't sell a phone in Europe.

00:10:45 ◼   ► And if it was in China, where China can say,

00:10:47 ◼   ► guess what, you have to do this no matter what,

00:10:48 ◼   ► like actually make a requirement,

00:10:50 ◼   ► I think they would make a different model.

00:10:53 ◼   ► If the conversation had not been won inside Apple

00:10:56 ◼   ► for USB entirely, 'cause making a different model

00:10:58 ◼   ► for China is probably fine.

00:11:00 ◼   ► - And they have done that in the past for other things,

00:11:03 ◼   ► but it seems like, there's arguments on both sides

00:11:07 ◼   ► of whether they should do this or not.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And so if there's a big thing, a big external factor

00:11:12 ◼   ► that tips them one way or the other,

00:11:14 ◼   ► they would probably go that way, right?

00:11:15 ◼   ► And so if there's like a major world market

00:11:18 ◼   ► of buying phones that demands in a pretty strong way

00:11:22 ◼   ► or absolutely requires that they have a standard port

00:11:24 ◼   ► on the bottom instead of their proprietary port,

00:11:27 ◼   ► that would probably be enough to sway the argument

00:11:29 ◼   ► one way or the other if there were no massive downsides

00:11:32 ◼   ► that we aren't thinking of.

00:11:34 ◼   ► If there's some kind of major engineering challenge

00:11:36 ◼   ► of doing it, but on a brand new phone that they have

00:11:41 ◼   ► designed separately from the iPhone 7 and 6, God I hope,

00:11:44 ◼   ► assuming we finally get a new design,

00:11:48 ◼   ► then they could totally do it,

00:11:51 ◼   ► and I don't see any obvious downsides,

00:11:52 ◼   ► we talked about it last week.

00:11:53 ◼   ► Anyway, I still don't think it's likely,

00:11:55 ◼   ► I still think the most likely scenario

00:11:57 ◼   ► is what Ming-Chi Kuo said, where,

00:11:59 ◼   ► yeah, this rumor from the Wall Street Journal

00:12:00 ◼   ► that was horribly written got the facts wrong,

00:12:03 ◼   ► and it's actually just USB-C on the charger end,

00:12:06 ◼   ► that's the way more likely explanation here.

00:12:10 ◼   ► But I still do think it would be better

00:12:13 ◼   ► to go USB-C on both ends, or at least the phone end,

00:12:16 ◼   ► and there might be better reasons for them to do that,

00:12:19 ◼   ► we don't know.

00:12:21 ◼   ► - So the hardware mind virus worked on me

00:12:23 ◼   ► because I was getting all excited about USB-C phones

00:12:25 ◼   ► until I read this cold water story.

00:12:27 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, nevermind.

00:12:29 ◼   ► But really what happened related to this

00:12:31 ◼   ► is my Nintendo Switch did arrive,

00:12:32 ◼   ► which maybe we'll talk about later, and I got a Pro Controller with it.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And this is the first device, besides my Apple TV, which I never plug any USB-C things into,

00:12:42 ◼   ► that I had occasion to see and mess with USB-C connectors with.

00:12:48 ◼   ► When I got my Pro Controller, I had to plug it in to charge it, and there's a little USB-C

00:12:52 ◼   ► connector inside the little switch dock or whatever.

00:12:54 ◼   ► And so I'm holding here the Pro Controller charging cable, and when I took this out of

00:13:00 ◼   ► box and plugged it in, my immediate thought was, "Oh, no way is Apple ever going to use

00:13:05 ◼   ► this thing.

00:13:06 ◼   ► It's huge!"

00:13:07 ◼   ► Like, I know it's not that much bigger than lightning.

00:13:09 ◼   ► It is barely bigger than lightning, but just seeing it in real life, I'm like, "Can you

00:13:13 ◼   ► imagine Apple putting this thing on their phone?"

00:13:15 ◼   ► No, no way in hell.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Like, obviously this is just my gut reaction.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Like I'm not using my brain at that point, but my visceral reaction to this connector

00:13:22 ◼   ► was how massive it was compared to lightning.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I was like if I was inside Apple I would like recoil in horror at the start of the conversation of like remind me

00:13:31 ◼   ► Come over here lightening again. It would take look at this. Look at this is giant. We can't we can't have this on our phones

00:13:35 ◼   ► It's ridiculous. What's next VGA ports? So God, it really is. I know that much bigger

00:13:41 ◼   ► I know I know I'm just like it it cracked me up that that was my reaction

00:13:45 ◼   ► Like it is not that much bigger. Like I have a lighting party here right next to it

00:13:47 ◼   ► I'm hold it up next to it. Like it is bare millimeters, but the fact that it's

00:13:53 ◼   ► Wider and also thicker it just makes it seem so much more massive

00:13:56 ◼   ► And it doesn't help that like I have one of the good old lightning connectors here that in front of me with the very small

00:14:01 ◼   ► Plastic part that's barely bigger than the metal part like it looks so small and dainty

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's almost like that lightning can go inside a USB C port

00:14:08 ◼   ► Well it almost can because of the the gender flip between the connector and the and the wire you know like like and and that's actually

00:14:15 ◼   ► That I suspect I don't know this for sure I haven't looked at that deeply into it, but I suspect the design of USB C

00:14:22 ◼   ► probably permits for there to be less clearance

00:14:25 ◼   ► around the port opening.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Like I bet you can shrink the device thickness

00:14:30 ◼   ► closer around the port size with USB-C

00:14:33 ◼   ► than you could around Lightning,

00:14:34 ◼   ► because Lightning has to have all the pins

00:14:36 ◼   ► and everything on the inside,

00:14:37 ◼   ► as opposed to USB-C, which has just like, you know,

00:14:39 ◼   ► the flat conductors on the inside.

00:14:41 ◼   ► So I would imagine there might be something there

00:14:44 ◼   ► with USB-C.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Also, they have tons of room.

00:14:46 ◼   ► They got rid of the headphone jack

00:14:48 ◼   ► and this other speaker on the bottom is fake.

00:14:50 ◼   ► So they have tons of room on the phone.

00:14:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:53 ◼   ► I mean thickness-wise, obviously,

00:14:54 ◼   ► with their nod at a loss for.

00:14:56 ◼   ► But anyway, it's not that big of a deal,

00:14:58 ◼   ► and I still think it would be cool for them to go USB-C,

00:15:01 ◼   ► but this rumor seems to say they're not,

00:15:02 ◼   ► and so we're back to the default universe of Apple,

00:15:05 ◼   ► where it's lighting for a while longer yet.

00:15:07 ◼   ► - What I do wish for, at least,

00:15:09 ◼   ► since we're probably not gonna get our USB-C

00:15:12 ◼   ► on both ends cable,

00:15:13 ◼   ► does anybody make the USB-C equivalent

00:15:18 ◼   ► of these wonderful Anker, like five-port USB chargers?

00:15:21 ◼   ► All I've seen out there are chargers that have one USB-C port.

00:15:25 ◼   ► I have not seen any that have like five.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Like I would love to standardize on just one cable type

00:15:30 ◼   ► and just like, I'm traveling soon

00:15:33 ◼   ► and I'm packing my travel bag

00:15:35 ◼   ► and I have to have all these different cable types

00:15:37 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, well, I need every combination

00:15:39 ◼   ► of something on one end and something else on the other end.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And I'm like, everything between USB-A,

00:15:43 ◼   ► USB-C, Lightning, micro USB,

00:15:45 ◼   ► like I have all these stupid cable types

00:15:47 ◼   ► and these 50 different chargers, come on.

00:15:49 ◼   ► I mean, anyway, so I hope the USB-C ecosystem blooms soon,

00:15:54 ◼   ► because when it does, that will be even more reason

00:15:58 ◼   ► for Apple to please, for the love of God,

00:15:59 ◼   ► change the iPhone to use USB-C.

00:16:01 ◼   ► - Speaking of VGA, you better hope USB type A connector

00:16:06 ◼   ► doesn't turn out to be the VGA part of our--

00:16:08 ◼   ► - Just hang out forever.

00:16:09 ◼   ► - 'Cause you remember how long VGA held on?

00:16:11 ◼   ► We had so many other standards that,

00:16:13 ◼   ► and it was just like you could not get rid of VGA.

00:16:15 ◼   ► It just stayed stubbornly on the side of PC laptops,

00:16:18 ◼   ► "stubbling on projectors long after multiple better,

00:16:21 ◼   ► "smaller standards existed."

00:16:23 ◼   ► I'm really hoping that USB-A hasn't gained enough momentum

00:16:27 ◼   ► that it will not be dislodged by USB-C

00:16:29 ◼   ► for an extra five to 10 years just because.

00:16:33 ◼   ► That will be sad.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Sometimes transitions are easier

00:16:37 ◼   ► the second time through.

00:16:38 ◼   ► And in this case, the transition from dot connector

00:16:42 ◼   ► to Lightning was very painful,

00:16:44 ◼   ► but a lot of people took that opportunity

00:16:46 ◼   ► to not just go to Lightning for their devices or needs,

00:16:49 ◼   ► but to just go directly to wireless,

00:16:51 ◼   ► to AirPlay and Bluetooth and things like that.

00:16:54 ◼   ► With the VGA in conference room projector situation,

00:16:58 ◼   ► I wonder how many conference rooms actually just went

00:17:02 ◼   ► from VGA to DVI or Lightning,

00:17:05 ◼   ► and how many just switched to other solutions

00:17:07 ◼   ► like AirPlaying to an Apple TV or something like that?

00:17:10 ◼   ► - Spoken for someone who hasn't spent a lot of time

00:17:13 ◼   ► in corporate America.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - No, they don't use AirPlay.

00:17:17 ◼   ► - Well, so AirPlay is not the answer,

00:17:20 ◼   ► but I gotta tell you, so my office is all in

00:17:22 ◼   ► on the Google ecosystem, which at first glance

00:17:25 ◼   ► for an Apple-centric show like ours might sound terrible,

00:17:28 ◼   ► but truth be told, it actually works out really well.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And so in most conference rooms, there's a Chromebox,

00:17:35 ◼   ► and I don't know enough about Chromeboxes

00:17:37 ◼   ► to know if there's something special about them.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Like I've seen the physical cardboard boxes

00:17:42 ◼   ► that the Chromebox comes in,

00:17:43 ◼   ► I think it says like "ChromeBox for Meetings" or something like that on it.

00:17:47 ◼   ► The specific wordage doesn't matter.

00:17:50 ◼   ► But what ends up happening is there's a TV in each of these conference rooms, there's

00:17:53 ◼   ► a Chromebox hooked up to the TV, and the Chromebox shows that room's schedule for the day, and

00:18:01 ◼   ► you just select the current, oftentimes the currently active button, and that will jump

00:18:08 ◼   ► into the Google Hangouts for that meeting.

00:18:11 ◼   ► having used Google Hangouts prior to coming to the company, I had heard like a lot of

00:18:15 ◼   ► mixed things about it and I thought it would be kind of garbage, but it's actually pretty

00:18:19 ◼   ► nice. And what we'll do is if you are trying to present something to the meeting, you just

00:18:26 ◼   ► hop on the Hangout on your laptop and it will thus implicitly go to the TV in the conference

00:18:32 ◼   ► room and it will also be presented to anyone that happens to be remote as well. It works

00:18:36 ◼   ► out surprisingly well. And yes, there's hiccups and coughs and whatnot from time to time,

00:18:41 ◼   ► But it's really solid.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I was very surprised how much I've really gotten

00:18:46 ◼   ► to like Hangouts in this regard.

00:18:48 ◼   ► - When your other choice is WebEx, anything looks good.

00:18:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true too.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Amen, brother.

00:18:53 ◼   ► - Before we get on the topic of conference rooms,

00:18:57 ◼   ► I remember going through this several years back at work

00:19:00 ◼   ► when we were going through a corporate,

00:19:03 ◼   ► I don't know, disturbance,

00:19:06 ◼   ► upsetness about conference room tech,

00:19:09 ◼   ► like everyone was cranky about it,

00:19:10 ◼   ► especially the tech people.

00:19:12 ◼   ► And we tried all those things.

00:19:13 ◼   ► We had a Google box, we tried Google Hangouts,

00:19:16 ◼   ► and, you know, air playing to Apple TVs came up

00:19:20 ◼   ► because if you look at how much money

00:19:22 ◼   ► all the equipment we had that we were installing

00:19:24 ◼   ► to this conference room was costing,

00:19:25 ◼   ► it's like an Apple TV is nothing compared to that.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And this is yet another market

00:19:29 ◼   ► that Apple could have done well in

00:19:31 ◼   ► with either a dedicated product like a Chromecast

00:19:33 ◼   ► or just by making the Apple TV better,

00:19:34 ◼   ► but it was basically a non-starter,

00:19:38 ◼   ► partially because no airplay on PCs and everything.

00:19:41 ◼   ► But we had a lot of Macs

00:19:41 ◼   ► and I don't think that would have stopped it,

00:19:43 ◼   ► mainly because it was so much of a pain

00:19:45 ◼   ► to get Apple TVs onto the corporate network.

00:19:47 ◼   ► You could do it, but you needed a special weird utility

00:19:49 ◼   ► and it wasn't simple

00:19:51 ◼   ► and no one wanted to go through with that.

00:19:52 ◼   ► So now, instead of being able to bring your Mac

00:19:54 ◼   ► into the room and airplay to the projector,

00:19:56 ◼   ► you plug into one of the 800 cables

00:19:59 ◼   ► that's poking out of this giant Hydra.

00:20:00 ◼   ► One of it, yes, is still VGA.

00:20:02 ◼   ► Who knows what they're gonna do

00:20:03 ◼   ► if and when my work ever buys the new laptops

00:20:06 ◼   ► that have the USB-C connectors,

00:20:07 ◼   ► because most of the time the Mac users plug into

00:20:09 ◼   ► HDMI these days.

00:20:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have to mention too, like HDMI,

00:20:12 ◼   ► because, you know, VGA was analog,

00:20:15 ◼   ► and then we finally got DVI, and then HDMI,

00:20:17 ◼   ► which is basically DVI with bonus stuff attached to it,

00:20:20 ◼   ► I feel like it's easier to adapt to the new

00:20:24 ◼   ► digital standards these days.

00:20:25 ◼   ► And HDMI is also pretty well supported now.

00:20:28 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think it's as big,

00:20:31 ◼   ► like as universal as VGA was at its peak,

00:20:33 ◼   ► but I think it's getting there.

00:20:35 ◼   ► and it's gonna be fairly trivial

00:20:38 ◼   ► for almost any new port standard to adapt to HDMI

00:20:42 ◼   ► for the foreseeable future,

00:20:43 ◼   ► 'cause it's just gonna be in such high demand,

00:20:45 ◼   ► every new device that has video out capability

00:20:48 ◼   ► will have some way to translate that to HDMI

00:20:50 ◼   ► for a long time.

00:20:51 ◼   ► So I think that's mostly a moot point these days.

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00:23:21 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:23:25 ◼   ► - Eric Peterman writes in,

00:23:26 ◼   ► "Part of the USB-C spec is two-way power.

00:23:30 ◼   ► Devices choose what charges what

00:23:32 ◼   ► based on the order of plugging them in."

00:23:34 ◼   ► So a Mac could charge the Switch.

00:23:38 ◼   ► So this is with regard to-- - That's a terrible way

00:23:39 ◼   ► to do it. - It really is.

00:23:40 ◼   ► This is with regard to the rumor,

00:23:43 ◼   ► or maybe, I guess it wasn't a rumor,

00:23:45 ◼   ► but somebody had plugged a Switch

00:23:47 ◼   ► into one of the new MacBook Pros,

00:23:49 ◼   ► and they said, "Oh, this is weird.

00:23:51 ◼   ► the Switch is charging the MacBook Pro

00:23:53 ◼   ► rather than what you would expect, which is the reverse.

00:23:56 ◼   ► And this is what Eric's talking about.

00:23:58 ◼   ► So I had heard separately from a not reliable source

00:24:01 ◼   ► that that was actually a firmware issue with the Switch,

00:24:04 ◼   ► but this indicates that it's all about

00:24:05 ◼   ► who plugs into what when, which is kind of bananas.

00:24:09 ◼   ► - The fact that it wouldn't be deterministic,

00:24:11 ◼   ► imagine in real life, anybody using these devices

00:24:17 ◼   ► who isn't intricately familiar with the USB-C spec,

00:24:20 ◼   ► You know, "Oh, I accidentally plugged this in backwards and depleted the device that

00:24:25 ◼   ► I was trying to charge."

00:24:26 ◼   ► Plug your phone into your laptop and it drains your phone into your laptop.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Yeah!

00:24:30 ◼   ► Why would you design a spec that way?

00:24:32 ◼   ► So weird.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:24:34 ◼   ► I haven't looked this up, but I think it's actually a reasonable way for things to work

00:24:37 ◼   ► in the absence of anything else dictating.

00:24:39 ◼   ► And I would imagine if you plug a phone into an Apple, you know, an iPhone into an Apple

00:24:44 ◼   ► laptop, they have already, they already have a system through some resistor values, some

00:24:48 ◼   ► other crap to ensure that it never goes in the opposite direction.

00:24:51 ◼   ► But if you have two devices that are basically from their perspective, I don't know, I'm

00:24:55 ◼   ► making up terminology, but if like two host devices like the laptop and the switch, that's

00:24:59 ◼   ► as reasonable way as any.

00:25:01 ◼   ► If they both expect to be the thing charging but they're plugged into each other, there

00:25:03 ◼   ► has to be some kind of negotiation as a plug water sounds fine.

00:25:06 ◼   ► But I would hope that for the common case where it's like one really big one and one

00:25:10 ◼   ► really small one, like I would hope that the phone doesn't have the power to charge anything.

00:25:14 ◼   ► I mean, I suppose it does.

00:25:15 ◼   ► It powers like audio peripherals, but it's not charging them, right?

00:25:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Barely.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:21 ◼   ► All right.

00:25:22 ◼   ► Daniel Klein writes in USBC vs. Lightning, "Isn't the middle part of USBC a lot more

00:25:27 ◼   ► breakable than the solid Lightning connector?"

00:25:30 ◼   ► And he continues, "More important than springs."

00:25:33 ◼   ► I'm not entirely sure what he's referring to there.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I think the little springy bits, you know, so this is my concern about USBC before seeing

00:25:41 ◼   ► them.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And even when you see it, you can kind of, you know, look into the female connector on

00:25:45 ◼   ► USB-C and you see the little circuit boardy thing with the contacts sticking out and in

00:25:50 ◼   ► theory you can stick your fingernail in there and just crack that thing down and your port

00:25:52 ◼   ► is dead.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I don't have enough real world experience plugging and unplugging USB-C to say how fragile

00:26:00 ◼   ► that thing is and how likely it is to either get stuff jammed around it or break.

00:26:03 ◼   ► These are all question marks.

00:26:06 ◼   ► I would imagine that it is probably sturdier than you think because it's wedged up in there

00:26:13 ◼   ► and unless you actually stick something in there to get at it, it's not someplace where

00:26:17 ◼   ► it can get bumped or hit or anything.

00:26:19 ◼   ► And when the connector is around it, it's very secure because it's completely surrounded

00:26:22 ◼   ► by the thing.

00:26:23 ◼   ► So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, give Apple the benefit of the doubt

00:26:26 ◼   ► or whoever designed this connector that it is okay.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And what this question made me think about and some other people who asked similar questions

00:26:34 ◼   ► about the springy bits and the contacts, and maybe think about what I was saying last show

00:26:39 ◼   ► about how it is better to have the springy bits in the cable because if they fatigue

00:26:43 ◼   ► and start making bad contacts you just throw out the cable and get a new cable whereas

00:26:46 ◼   ► if the springy bits fatigue inside your iPhone what can you do?

00:26:50 ◼   ► There's not much you can do about it.

00:26:52 ◼   ► But that was in the context of the hardware virus where the springy bits get less springy

00:26:56 ◼   ► and don't contact well with the contacts and start arcing and make a little burny spot

00:27:00 ◼   ► and that burny spot doesn't connect with the other one and it spreads from thing to thing.

00:27:05 ◼   ► Seems to me that that could still happen no matter where the springy bits are because

00:27:07 ◼   ► if it starts arcing because the springy bits in your cable are bad, it's going to leave

00:27:11 ◼   ► that little scorch mark on the stationary part inside the female USB-C connector. You

00:27:17 ◼   ► won't see it, you won't see the little stripey thing, but it'll be there. Which means that

00:27:21 ◼   ► even after you throw out the cable, now one of your contacts inside your USB-C connector

00:27:25 ◼   ► inside the female end is a little bit scorchy. And so when you stick your brand spanking

00:27:29 ◼   ► new cable that you bought in there, it's going to have poor contact with the scorch bar.

00:27:33 ◼   ► So like, that it could still happen is what I'm saying. Now I guess this all depends on

00:27:37 ◼   ► on how resilient the springy bits are, maybe it's the design of the springy bits that's

00:27:41 ◼   ► different.

00:27:42 ◼   ► They certainly look different if you look inside the connectors than they do inside

00:27:46 ◼   ► Lightning so I don't know.

00:27:48 ◼   ► Again it's very difficult to eyeball these things based on the few people you know and

00:27:52 ◼   ► your guesstimation by looking at connectors.

00:27:55 ◼   ► Only the companies that make the products have actual numbers and they don't seem to

00:27:58 ◼   ► be sharing them.

00:27:59 ◼   ► But I imagine if there is a large reliability difference between Lightning and USB-C, we

00:28:04 ◼   ► as a society will learn that together over the next few years because even though we won't have

00:28:08 ◼   ► the data, eventually it'll be clear. Is there some sort of widespread problem with this and not a

00:28:13 ◼   ► widespread problem with that? Or is there problems with both of them? You know, like I imagine it'll

00:28:18 ◼   ► be a battle wash, but we'll see. Jeff Spivak writes, "More naked robotic MacBook Pros," and

00:28:24 ◼   ► and there's a link to Yenko Design,

00:28:28 ◼   ► which has a super case for your MacBook.

00:28:31 ◼   ► What the deuce is going on here?

00:28:35 ◼   ► - It's just like the MacBook Pro.

00:28:36 ◼   ► This isn't a MacBook Pro, this is a MacBook.

00:28:37 ◼   ► But hey, these laptops that Apple makes

00:28:40 ◼   ► have USB-C and/or Thunderbolt 3 ports on them,

00:28:44 ◼   ► but don't have any other ports that people wanted.

00:28:46 ◼   ► No SD card slot, no big honking USB-A slot or whatever.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Maybe you want more battery on it.

00:28:51 ◼   ► And these sort of cases for your laptops

00:28:53 ◼   ► that plug into the USB-C and/or Thunderbolt 3 port,

00:28:56 ◼   ► and add a bunch of other ports,

00:28:58 ◼   ► just like one of those adapters or docks

00:28:59 ◼   ► that they sell that are external,

00:29:00 ◼   ► and maybe also adds a battery.

00:29:02 ◼   ► And so here you go,

00:29:03 ◼   ► a knicker robotic core of your MacBook.

00:29:05 ◼   ► You want it to be thicker and a little bit heavier

00:29:06 ◼   ► and have an SD card slot on a USB-A thing,

00:29:08 ◼   ► and another USB-C passthrough and a micro USB,

00:29:12 ◼   ► I can't even tell what the hell this thing has on it.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Anyway, you want a bunch more ports

00:29:15 ◼   ► and you want it to look like an ugly PC laptop

00:29:16 ◼   ► with a bunch of plastic crap?

00:29:18 ◼   ► Look at this.

00:29:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:29:19 ◼   ► - Way to sell it, John.

00:29:21 ◼   ► - It doesn't look good, but what I'm saying is like,

00:29:23 ◼   ► This is 100% the naked robotic core as applied to Max.

00:29:27 ◼   ► We made it as small and as thin as possible.

00:29:29 ◼   ► If you want something different, you can add it.

00:29:31 ◼   ► Like the tech is there.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Like all those breakout docs and adapters,

00:29:36 ◼   ► the tech is there.

00:29:37 ◼   ► You could put an ethernet port in this thing, right?

00:29:39 ◼   ► Go ahead.

00:29:40 ◼   ► And it's kind of amazing that this,

00:29:42 ◼   ► you add this thing to it

00:29:43 ◼   ► and it makes your laptop like seven times thicker.

00:29:45 ◼   ► But it really does on one side have USB-A

00:29:48 ◼   ► in an SD card slot,

00:29:49 ◼   ► on the other side have another USB-A, USB-C,

00:29:51 ◼   ► a micro USB or whatever the hell,

00:29:53 ◼   ► or maybe it's just another USB-C, I can't tell.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Like suddenly your MacBook One is MacBook way more than one.

00:29:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, this thing is something else.

00:30:03 ◼   ► I do commend the effort of things like this

00:30:08 ◼   ► to make these laptops more useful,

00:30:10 ◼   ► but I think they are destined to have the same problem,

00:30:13 ◼   ► the same thing I always complain about

00:30:14 ◼   ► with battery backpacks on phones,

00:30:18 ◼   ► that all of the casing and electronics overhead

00:30:23 ◼   ► of having to have the separate standalone device

00:30:26 ◼   ► with its own plastic on both sides

00:30:28 ◼   ► and its own metal shielding and different parts

00:30:31 ◼   ► and charging components and discharging components

00:30:33 ◼   ► and everything else, the additional bulk

00:30:36 ◼   ► of having to bolt this on as an external thing

00:30:40 ◼   ► makes the entire package end up being so much bigger

00:30:44 ◼   ► and heavier than if you had a laptop

00:30:46 ◼   ► that just had these things in the first place

00:30:48 ◼   ► built in that it just doesn't seem compelling to me.

00:30:52 ◼   ► - And so the alternative in Apple's universe,

00:30:55 ◼   ► assuming Apple doesn't actually make a machine

00:30:56 ◼   ► that has the ports that you want on it,

00:30:58 ◼   ► like because Apple does make these things

00:31:00 ◼   ► with a very capable port on it

00:31:02 ◼   ► that is capable of supporting all this,

00:31:03 ◼   ► like the reason these are gonna exist

00:31:04 ◼   ► is because there is a capable,

00:31:05 ◼   ► the Apple alternative is a whole mess of adapters and wires.

00:31:09 ◼   ► And we look at this and we say,

00:31:09 ◼   ► "Wasn't it ugly, is it inconvenient,

00:31:11 ◼   ► it makes it thicker, it makes it heavier?"

00:31:13 ◼   ► Is it uglier and more inconvenient

00:31:16 ◼   ► than a whole mess of adapters or an external breakout box dock.

00:31:20 ◼   ► I mean, it really depends on the environment you're using it.

00:31:22 ◼   ► I wouldn't want to be-- I would be more happy carrying this

00:31:25 ◼   ► from conference room to conference room,

00:31:27 ◼   ► attending a series of meetings, no matter how ugly it is,

00:31:29 ◼   ► because it's self-contained.

00:31:30 ◼   ► And I don't have to have-- like, put down my laptop,

00:31:34 ◼   ► then dump on the table a handful of adapters or a breakout box

00:31:37 ◼   ► or this big hydra of cables.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Like, that is worse in many ways for a machine

00:31:41 ◼   ► that is supposed to be portable.

00:31:42 ◼   ► So yes, it is technically possible to plug

00:31:44 ◼   ► in a bunch of wires.

00:31:45 ◼   ► It kind of reminds me of those old iMac ads

00:31:48 ◼   ► where they would show the PC with a million wires

00:31:49 ◼   ► poking out of the back of it,

00:31:50 ◼   ► and show the iMac and how clean it was,

00:31:52 ◼   ► and you didn't need all this stuff,

00:31:53 ◼   ► it just had one power cable, right?

00:31:55 ◼   ► And then the mouse and keyboard.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - That is like every MacBook One that people use

00:31:58 ◼   ► to get anything beyond the basics done on.

00:32:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, and arguably they're using the wrong computer

00:32:03 ◼   ► for that, but even, I recall seeing,

00:32:05 ◼   ► if you ever see a picture of a real person,

00:32:08 ◼   ► not just a marketing shop,

00:32:09 ◼   ► but someone who bought a Mac Pro and uses it for work,

00:32:11 ◼   ► bought a trash can and uses it for work,

00:32:13 ◼   ► has a million wires coming out of it,

00:32:14 ◼   ► And it looks for all the world like those ugly PCs.

00:32:17 ◼   ► I'm not saying this is the wrong solution,

00:32:18 ◼   ► but it's kind of like how they always show like lamps

00:32:21 ◼   ► in product shots without wires coming from them

00:32:24 ◼   ► or like appliances or like there's never any wires.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Like, wait, how does that lamp get power?

00:32:27 ◼   ► They erase the wires because wires are ugly.

00:32:30 ◼   ► They don't want you to see them.

00:32:31 ◼   ► When they're showing a picture, like, you know,

00:32:33 ◼   ► here is Samsung's fancy new TV.

00:32:35 ◼   ► They don't show the wires coming out of it

00:32:37 ◼   ► because that's ugly.

00:32:38 ◼   ► You know, even when they show the back of it,

00:32:39 ◼   ► they don't show the wires

00:32:40 ◼   ► 'cause they want to show you all the ports.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Wires are ugly and inconvenient and make your products look worse and are generally annoying

00:32:46 ◼   ► to wrangle.

00:32:47 ◼   ► And so as ugly as this weird little sleeve thing is, I hope the signal it's sending to

00:32:51 ◼   ► Apple is, "Hey Apple, if you made a laptop that made a different set of compromises,

00:32:57 ◼   ► you may be able to..."

00:32:58 ◼   ► I feel like it should be Apple's job to make sure that no one ever wants to buy this thing.

00:33:01 ◼   ► And maybe they don't want to buy it just because it's ugly, but say they had just an SD card

00:33:05 ◼   ► slot as we've discussed on the Macbook Pro 13 inch.

00:33:09 ◼   ► Would that satisfy everybody?

00:33:10 ◼   ► I don't know, 'cause it doesn't have micro USB

00:33:13 ◼   ► and USB-A ports or whatever,

00:33:15 ◼   ► but it would satisfy slightly more people

00:33:19 ◼   ► and what would the cost be.

00:33:19 ◼   ► So it's very difficult knowing what the right compromise is

00:33:22 ◼   ► for the complement of ports.

00:33:24 ◼   ► I do like the idea that things like this are possible.

00:33:26 ◼   ► I don't like the idea that people would be driven

00:33:29 ◼   ► to buy them because they're,

00:33:31 ◼   ► when we say they're not of Apple quality for the most part.

00:33:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean this, what you said,

00:33:37 ◼   ► if Apple were to allow us to make a different set

00:33:39 ◼   ► compromises, if you had to boil down all of my complaints

00:33:44 ◼   ► about Apple's hardware lineup from the last five years

00:33:46 ◼   ► or so, that's it.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Like, I wish Apple would allow me the choice

00:33:52 ◼   ► of different compromises.

00:33:54 ◼   ► Because for the most part, they tend to enforce

00:33:58 ◼   ► the same compromises on their entire product line,

00:34:01 ◼   ► on every member of the family.

00:34:02 ◼   ► So for instance, like, you know, all the laptops

00:34:05 ◼   ► are now thin and lights, which sacrifice ports

00:34:07 ◼   ► and now keyboard usability and trackpad usability,

00:34:11 ◼   ► like they set up for these things in the name of thinness.

00:34:14 ◼   ► And for a lot of people, that's great.

00:34:15 ◼   ► It's great to have that as an option in the lineup,

00:34:17 ◼   ► but I just wish it wasn't now the only option in the lineup.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And I think products like this just show

00:34:24 ◼   ► that there is still substantial demand,

00:34:26 ◼   ► even though any given one of these types of things

00:34:31 ◼   ► is not gonna sell very well, I don't think.

00:34:33 ◼   ► But I think it says something

00:34:35 ◼   ► that this is not the first thing we've seen like this,

00:34:37 ◼   ► And there's also the whole, beyond just the whole

00:34:42 ◼   ► new bottom case thing like this

00:34:44 ◼   ► that you kind of sit the laptop in,

00:34:45 ◼   ► there's also the entire ecosystem

00:34:47 ◼   ► of all these different USB-C hubs that,

00:34:49 ◼   ► almost every MacBook One owner has one of these hubs,

00:34:52 ◼   ► at least one, if not seven from different Kickstarters

00:34:54 ◼   ► and everything.

00:34:55 ◼   ► This really says, I wish Apple would look at these results

00:35:01 ◼   ► and realize it would be better for a lot of customers

00:35:07 ◼   ► to just have different choices,

00:35:10 ◼   ► not just to be able to pick your given screen size

00:35:14 ◼   ► of the same compromised ultra-thin laptop.

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00:37:40 ◼   ► - All right, so we're gonna start tonight with--

00:37:47 ◼   ► - We're starting tonight?

00:37:49 ◼   ► - Sort of.

00:37:51 ◼   ► with a couple, maybe all three of us, iPad grumps talking about Windows, or windowing,

00:37:57 ◼   ► I guess I should say, on iOS. And Steven Trouton Smith, who is probably the best iOS hacker,

00:38:07 ◼   ► and I don't know, I hate using that term unironically, but I don't know what else to call him.

00:38:12 ◼   ► I don't think he would take offense.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Yeah, and I don't mean it in a disparaging way. Anyways, he has been putting together

00:38:20 ◼   ► over the last week or so, basically a windowing system for iOS, I guess specifically for iPad,

00:38:26 ◼   ► and it is absolutely bananas how impressive it looks and how fluid he's gotten it to look.

00:38:33 ◼   ► And there are several tweets about, well there's many tweets about it, we'll put one or two in the

00:38:39 ◼   ► show notes, but what's of interest to us I guess is he tweeted "Phone call from app review,

00:38:48 ◼   ► Side-by-side windows, fine.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Resizable windows, fine.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Overlapping windows, scream emoji.

00:38:55 ◼   ► So apparently App Review does not like the idea

00:39:00 ◼   ► of having two windows or views on top of each other

00:39:05 ◼   ► and this relates to one of my favorite iPad apps,

00:39:10 ◼   ► not necessarily in terms of how much I've used it,

00:39:13 ◼   ► but just I think it's an unbelievably clever idea,

00:39:15 ◼   ► which is Panix Status Board app,

00:39:19 ◼   ► which if you're not familiar is basically

00:39:21 ◼   ► you can arrange a series of widgets on the iPad screen

00:39:25 ◼   ► and use your iPad as a status board.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Or if you want to, you could plug it into a TV

00:39:29 ◼   ► and use a whole TV as a status board powered by an iPad.

00:39:33 ◼   ► And it's very similar to this.

00:39:34 ◼   ► And so Cable Sasser of Panix says,

00:39:36 ◼   ► "Still in our blog CMS

00:39:37 ◼   ► "is a never posted goodbye status board post.

00:39:40 ◼   ► "From the time Apple said widgets are okay,

00:39:42 ◼   ► but we can't have more than one widget." And this post included an illustration that may have helped

00:39:49 ◼   ► change their minds, and it's an illustration of this humongous TV with a little teeny tiny widget

00:39:54 ◼   ► on it trying to make the point of, "You know, this is kind of ridiculous." So, I don't know,

00:40:00 ◼   ► there's kind of a lot to unpack here, but before anything else, I am so unbelievably stunned and

00:40:07 ◼   ► impressed by what Steven Trouton Smith has done with this iPad. I was going to call it

00:40:12 ◼   ► a mock-up, but I mean, it's working. It's real.

00:40:14 ◼   ► - It's a tech demo.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a much better term for it. It's so freaking cool.

00:40:19 ◼   ► - He basically made Finder, like a really simple version of Finder, with like Finder

00:40:25 ◼   ► windows and being able to browse files and preview them and everything. It's pretty impressive.

00:40:29 ◼   ► - It's kind of like the Mac OS X Finder anyway, not the real Finder.

00:40:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the point of it is not to be

00:40:35 ◼   ► like a useful application, the point of it is,

00:40:37 ◼   ► I think, to show off like, here's a really easy,

00:40:42 ◼   ► obvious way that you could do windowing on iPads,

00:40:45 ◼   ► and let's see how it actually behaves and works.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Like, is it useful, is it easy to do, is it confusing,

00:40:51 ◼   ► or does it just kinda work?

00:40:53 ◼   ► And so far, I think it just kinda works.

00:40:56 ◼   ► - You left off the last few tweets here,

00:40:58 ◼   ► which I think are important in both Steve and Cable's thing.

00:41:01 ◼   ► So Steve continues after his scared face emoji or screaming face.

00:41:04 ◼   ► I didn't know the sorry, Casey.

00:41:06 ◼   ► I didn't know the correct name for that emoji and Chrome couldn't handle it.

00:41:08 ◼   ► So I couldn't actually paste it.

00:41:09 ◼   ► If only we had a resource on this show, somebody who was really an emoji expert.

00:41:14 ◼   ► He handled it.

00:41:15 ◼   ► He he read right over scared face and he replaced it with the correct,

00:41:18 ◼   ► which I assume is the correct one because we'll just defer to him.

00:41:21 ◼   ► He's fluent in emoji. Right.

00:41:23 ◼   ► So this was about a purview saying the side by side

00:41:26 ◼   ► when overlapping windows is no good, right?

00:41:28 ◼   ► So he's saying, effectively, this is merely an informal heads up that if it were to be

00:41:33 ◼   ► submitted to the App Store with overlapping windows, it would be rejected.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Remember, he's not submitting an application to the App Store.

00:41:37 ◼   ► He's just doing like tech demos on Twitter.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And he gets a phone call from Avri saying, by the way, if you were to submit that, no.

00:41:44 ◼   ► All right.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And so the final bit here is this is why the iPad can't have nice things.

00:41:49 ◼   ► You're stuck waiting for Apple to innovate, which is exactly the point of all this.

00:41:53 ◼   ► It's like, who knows if this is a good idea?

00:41:55 ◼   ► Maybe this is a terrible idea.

00:41:56 ◼   ► But if Apple is going to not just enforce a set of guidelines in terms of quality and viruses and advertising and, you know, adult content and all sorts of other things that the App Store does, but to at the at this level to say, you know, you can do whatever you want if you're making a game and UI kit will let you make a bunch of gooeys.

00:42:16 ◼   ► But in the in-between place where you try to make your own gooey, we're going to say no to that.

00:42:20 ◼   ► And it's like, Apple, you don't know.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Like, it's a third party application.

00:42:25 ◼   ► Maybe it's a terrible idea when everyone will hate it.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Maybe it's a great idea and you'll end up stealing it

00:42:29 ◼   ► like pull to refresh.

00:42:30 ◼   ► You have to allow application developers

00:42:33 ◼   ► to do things like this with the devices that you're making.

00:42:36 ◼   ► Like this is not a ridiculous notion, right?

00:42:40 ◼   ► And maybe if it was more ridiculous, it would be allowed

00:42:42 ◼   ► because again, games can like,

00:42:43 ◼   ► look, my whole screen is a big OpenGL view.

00:42:45 ◼   ► I can do whatever the hell you want.

00:42:46 ◼   ► And Apple's not gonna be like,

00:42:47 ◼   ► oh, your menu system in this racing game

00:42:49 ◼   ► looks a little bit weird.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Like they don't care, it's fine.

00:42:52 ◼   ► But this looks too much like a regular UI

00:42:54 ◼   ► and this is not like the image that Apple wants

00:42:56 ◼   ► for their thing.

00:42:57 ◼   ► And I feel like this starts to cross a line

00:42:59 ◼   ► of you're not ensuring quality in the app store,

00:43:02 ◼   ► you are constraining, you're constraining innovation,

00:43:06 ◼   ► like legitimate innovation.

00:43:07 ◼   ► He's not trolling with this,

00:43:09 ◼   ► he's trying out an interface idea.

00:43:11 ◼   ► An interface idea that is just as valid

00:43:13 ◼   ► as half the other people's terrible uses of UI kit

00:43:15 ◼   ► that end up being terrible interfaces.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Maybe those would be terrible too, who knows?

00:43:18 ◼   ► But why is this not allowed?

00:43:20 ◼   ► But so many other like sketching applications

00:43:22 ◼   ► that have like drag off palettes that you can float,

00:43:24 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's okay, because the background is your painting or your sketch

00:43:27 ◼   ► that you're doing, and that's not a window.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And then the things that are floating on top of it are windows, but they can't overlap

00:43:32 ◼   ► with each other.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

00:43:34 ◼   ► And so we are forced to wait for Apple to slowly but perhaps surely, perhaps not decide

00:43:42 ◼   ► what it's going to do with this whole window.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Picture in picture is fine, and Apple will do that and make an official API for it.

00:43:47 ◼   ► Can we have any other floating windows on top of other windows?

00:43:50 ◼   ► one or two and apps all out but don't try to solve the whole problem in a

00:43:55 ◼   ► general-purpose way because only Apple's allowed to do that so you're so it the

00:43:59 ◼   ► users of the iPad the users of iOS are stuck waiting for Apple to figure out

00:44:03 ◼   ► what to do it is impossible for third parties to innovate on iOS devices

00:44:07 ◼   ► because Apple simply won't let them and that is terrible because most of the

00:44:11 ◼   ► awesome innovations on the Mac and many of them on iOS came from third-party

00:44:15 ◼   ► developers that did something it became popular Apple saw it and said oh that's

00:44:19 ◼   ► a good idea. We should build that into the US or incorporate a similar mechanism or,

00:44:23 ◼   ► you know, buy Superclock and put a clock in the menu bar. I mean, come on. Come on, Apple.

00:44:27 ◼   ► This is super disappointing, especially since they're proactively dickish about it. Call

00:44:31 ◼   ► him and saying, "You better not submit that to the App developers. We'll reject it just

00:44:35 ◼   ► so you know."

00:44:36 ◼   ► Well, hold on, though. Was that—I don't think that was out of the blue, and I might

00:44:39 ◼   ► have this wrong, but my interpretation, which may be my own fabrication, was that he had

00:44:44 ◼   ► submitted it for like test flight or something and so as part of that he got

00:44:50 ◼   ► like a little mini review and it was then that it was brought to Apple's

00:44:53 ◼   ► attention and then that they called him and were like oh no that's not gonna

00:44:57 ◼   ► work but either way like but whether even if he had officially submitted it

00:45:01 ◼   ► the bottom line is that they are they're saying you are not allowed to innovate

00:45:04 ◼   ► in this way which I think is ridiculous let the app die on its own if it's a

00:45:07 ◼   ► terrible idea right it's not it you know it's not malware well so there's there's

00:45:13 ◼   ► - There's been this rule, and I just checked,

00:45:14 ◼   ► it's still there, there's been this app review rule

00:45:17 ◼   ► since I think the first publication of app review rules

00:45:20 ◼   ► back whenever that was, like 2009, 2010.

00:45:23 ◼   ► And it's rule number 258, apps that create

00:45:27 ◼   ► alternate desktop or home screen environments

00:45:30 ◼   ► or simulate multi-app widget experiences will be rejected.

00:45:34 ◼   ► - I know, like Launch Center Pro had that problem

00:45:36 ◼   ► a while back too, I think that rule is bogus too.

00:45:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so too, but I think it's worth questioning

00:45:42 ◼   ► why that rule is there.

00:45:44 ◼   ► And it might just be some like, you know,

00:45:46 ◼   ► crazy Steve Jobs control freak holdover,

00:45:49 ◼   ► but there also might be good reasons for it.

00:45:51 ◼   ► So it might be, for instance, like,

00:45:53 ◼   ► they don't want like another app to basically like

00:45:57 ◼   ► start like its own entire app ecosystem within itself.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Like, although you can kind of argue

00:46:02 ◼   ► that's kind of what like WhatsApp does and everything,

00:46:04 ◼   ► but, and Snapchat.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Anyway, Facebook, geez.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Anyway, but I think there's probably,

00:46:13 ◼   ► like this rule is probably not helping innovation overall.

00:46:17 ◼   ► This is probably holding things back.

00:46:18 ◼   ► Now, that being said, you know,

00:46:21 ◼   ► for any kind of like windowing system like this

00:46:25 ◼   ► to get anywhere, the way to do it on iOS

00:46:27 ◼   ► is for Apple to do it.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Like, it's never gonna get anywhere,

00:46:31 ◼   ► you know, in the market like this.

00:46:33 ◼   ► - Well, I disagree.

00:46:34 ◼   ► If it was actually a good idea and it was implemented

00:46:36 ◼   ► in a popular or soon to be popular widely used

00:46:39 ◼   ► creative application.

00:46:39 ◼   ► Like for example, if Adobe Illustrator came

00:46:41 ◼   ► and it had tear off palettes that you could overlap

00:46:43 ◼   ► and rearrange just like the desktop one, right?

00:46:46 ◼   ► There'll be disallowed

00:46:46 ◼   ► under these stupid overlapping rule things

00:46:48 ◼   ► 'cause you can overlap two palettes with each other.

00:46:50 ◼   ► But if it was popular on that application

00:46:53 ◼   ► and people liked it on their big iPad Pro,

00:46:56 ◼   ► every competitor application

00:46:59 ◼   ► would be scrambling to implement that.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Any new competitor in the market would say,

00:47:02 ◼   ► "If I want to make a professional vector drawing application

00:47:04 ◼   ► on the 12-inch iPad Pro, I need to have these floating overlapping palettes because the

00:47:09 ◼   ► market leader has them and everybody loves them. And if I don't have them, you know what I mean?

00:47:12 ◼   ► Like, let the idea live and die on its own. I agree that if you're going to say, "Okay,

00:47:17 ◼   ► well, individual applications get a window, only Apple can do that, period." And that's fine. But

00:47:21 ◼   ► just to see if bearing out the idea of like, is it ridiculous to have people poking their fingers

00:47:25 ◼   ► at window widgets? Is this a dumb idea? Does it not work in a touch interface? Like, the only way

00:47:30 ◼   ► you will know is by trying. You can think about it. You can do the mental exercise and be like,

00:47:33 ◼   ► "Oh, I don't want to drag around a window with a title bar. How would I arrange them? How does it work?"

00:47:37 ◼   ► You have to try. I feel like it's... this is the role of third-party developers.

00:47:41 ◼   ► If someone wants to muck with that and see if it's useful,

00:47:43 ◼   ► I think you can get a result that says either

00:47:46 ◼   ► "This is useful" and maybe it would be even more useful if applied broadly by Apple,

00:47:51 ◼   ► but even just within the confines of an application, just like the floating palettes that are in a lot of applications now, where there's one

00:47:56 ◼   ► floating thing that you can tear off and move around, that I think is proving its own utility because you don't know where it has to be.

00:48:01 ◼   ► And if it's always stuck to the side, it's kind of difficult.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Let the person move it around so it's out of their way when they're drawing,

00:48:06 ◼   ► but it lets them sort of configure their tool set and, you know,

00:48:08 ◼   ► push it off to the side where they want it.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Like, I think that is an idea that is showing its value merely when confined to

00:48:15 ◼   ► third-party applications.

00:48:16 ◼   ► And this is just taking to the next step and maybe it's a step too far and it's a

00:48:19 ◼   ► terrible idea, but Apple, you just got to let people try it.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Have you seen a panel kit, which is apparently an open source framework to do

00:48:27 ◼   ► these kind of like snap to the side

00:48:30 ◼   ► and like sticky popover panels sort of things.

00:48:33 ◼   ► There's a really good animated GIF

00:48:36 ◼   ► that's on the readme for this thing,

00:48:39 ◼   ► and we'll put a link in the show notes.

00:48:40 ◼   ► But it's not exactly apples to apples

00:48:43 ◼   ► what Steve Trout and Smith was doing,

00:48:45 ◼   ► but it's very much of a similar spirit.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And it looks really, like I haven't looked at the code,

00:48:50 ◼   ► but just the demonstration looks really good.

00:48:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think that the more productive

00:48:56 ◼   ► conversation to have on this kind of thing is not like

00:48:59 ◼   ► how we can get Apple to let it through App Review

00:49:01 ◼   ► because let's face it, they won't.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Or if they suddenly have a change of heart

00:49:04 ◼   ► on an ancient rule like this, it won't be because of us.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But I think it's worth all these things,

00:49:11 ◼   ► Panel Kit and Steve Trout and Smith,

00:49:14 ◼   ► you know, his thing, whatever.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Does it even have an official name?

00:49:17 ◼   ► I don't even know. - I don't think so.

00:49:19 ◼   ► - You know, I think it's worth talking about,

00:49:22 ◼   ► and I think this is probably why he made it,

00:49:24 ◼   ► it's worth talking about like, does this work?

00:49:26 ◼   ► iOS and do you think there's a future of windowed apps in some form like this on

00:49:32 ◼   ► on iPads? I don't know. So yeah on that topic like because I brought this up

00:49:39 ◼   ► several shows back when what was it we were talking about that had the floating

00:49:42 ◼   ► thing is when we originally talked about picture-in-picture and there was some

00:49:46 ◼   ► application that also had a floating thing on top of it. Oh I don't know you

00:49:50 ◼   ► got all the references. It was a thing that we took, come on chat room, Marco will cut this out as we

00:49:55 ◼   ► discover it. What was it?

00:49:59 ◼   ► Floating iPad keyboard. See? See?

00:50:03 ◼   ► Oh, that thing. Okay, you're right. Yeah, it was a floating keyboard

00:50:07 ◼   ► that I'm pretty sure Steve Trouton-Smith also found. Yes, a secret

00:50:11 ◼   ► a hidden API, a private API to put a keyboard that wasn't just the bottom of your screen

00:50:15 ◼   ► that slid up from the bottom, but rather was a floating keyboard that was much smaller that you could move wherever

00:50:19 ◼   ► you wanted on the screen. And that made me say, "This is kind of like a window."

00:50:23 ◼   ► And we have another example of that, which is picture in picture.

00:50:25 ◼   ► There's another kind of window, basically a little square that's on the screen

00:50:28 ◼   ► that you can move wherever you want it, more or less, within constraints,

00:50:31 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which is different than the traditional iOS

00:50:34 ◼   ► experience, which is a panel comes in from a side or goes out from whatever,

00:50:37 ◼   ► but you can't move it around, right?

00:50:39 ◼   ► And that, that was me initiating the larger discussion about Windows

00:50:43 ◼   ► with a lowercase w on iOS spawned by this, you know, hidden keyboard type thing.

00:50:48 ◼   ► And we also talked about some existing iOS applications, like drawing applications

00:50:52 ◼   ► that also have floating palettes, usually only one of them, and it floats over the background,

00:50:56 ◼   ► which is your drawing. But that is a thing that a lot of people are trying. And what

00:51:01 ◼   ► I was trying to pitch them was that if you want to keep taking the iPad even more and

00:51:05 ◼   ► more pro, in addition to making the screen bigger, and especially when you do make the

00:51:10 ◼   ► screen bigger, you want to make better use of that screen. And one proven way to let

00:51:14 ◼   ► people make use of a larger screen is to give them different regions of it to do things,

00:51:19 ◼   ► more than just splitting it up into halves or thirds or whatever, but even within an

00:51:22 ◼   ► application to be able to move things around to arrange things the way they want them.

00:51:25 ◼   ► Now, the thing I'm going to add to this conversation here is based on things that have been discussed

00:51:33 ◼   ► on other podcasts starring Mike Hurley, but also on, well, in Cortex, that's also him,

00:51:38 ◼   ► and CGP Grey, talking about their multi-iPad type things. And for all the people out there

00:51:42 ◼   ► who use multi-iPads at the same time.

00:51:43 ◼   ► It's multi-Pads, come on.

00:51:45 ◼   ► or phones and iPads, which is just as common,

00:51:48 ◼   ► where you got the iPad but your phone next to it

00:51:49 ◼   ► or whatever, very often this is presented

00:51:53 ◼   ► as a way to, basically to multitask,

00:51:57 ◼   ► like to say, my smaller iPad over here has this thing on it,

00:52:00 ◼   ► my bigger iPad has this, my phone has this.

00:52:02 ◼   ► So on my phone I have messages available,

00:52:04 ◼   ► on my little iPad I have like Slack,

00:52:06 ◼   ► and on my big iPad I have the thing that I'm doing, right?

00:52:10 ◼   ► CGP Grey often refers to it the same way

00:52:11 ◼   ► that people have multiple pieces of paper

00:52:12 ◼   ► around their desk at the same time,

00:52:14 ◼   ► you have this pile of paper over here,

00:52:15 ◼   ► and the main thing you're working on,

00:52:16 ◼   ► then you're referring to your notebook for notes,

00:52:17 ◼   ► and you have a book open over here.

00:52:18 ◼   ► - I think it's more like having multiple desks.

00:52:21 ◼   ► I have this desk over here,

00:52:22 ◼   ► and then I have my left-hand desk and my right-hand desk.

00:52:24 ◼   ► Each hand has its own desk.

00:52:25 ◼   ► - No, it is like, again, if you were writing a paper

00:52:28 ◼   ► referring to another thing and had a book open, right,

00:52:30 ◼   ► for referring to your notes

00:52:31 ◼   ► and had a reference book open, right, you would do that.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Now, every time I hear them discuss this,

00:52:36 ◼   ► and I'm not caught up on Cortex,

00:52:38 ◼   ► so forgive me if this comes up sometime in 2015,

00:52:40 ◼   ► but every time I hear this discussed in the distant past

00:52:42 ◼   ► where I'm living in Cortex right now,

00:52:45 ◼   ► I keep waiting for one of these two knuckleheads

00:52:47 ◼   ► to realize that what they're talking about

00:52:50 ◼   ► is called Windows.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Why do you think we made Windows on personal computers?

00:52:54 ◼   ► It was like a desktop, like a literal,

00:52:56 ◼   ► like not a literal desktop,

00:52:57 ◼   ► but the other meaning of literal, which is figurative,

00:53:00 ◼   ► desktop, a metaphorical desktop, right?

00:53:03 ◼   ► Like it's the top of your desk.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Like it's not even a distant,

00:53:06 ◼   ► it's not even a distant thing,

00:53:07 ◼   ► like they were talking about the top.

00:53:08 ◼   ► And then on that desk would be different documents,

00:53:12 ◼   ► each of which will be represented by a window

00:53:14 ◼   ► that you could move around.

00:53:15 ◼   ► The only difference is that it was all within one piece of glass.

00:53:19 ◼   ► So you would take the windows/documents and arrange them how you wanted with the thing

00:53:23 ◼   ► you're writing in the middle and the notes you're referring to on the left and an open

00:53:26 ◼   ► reference book on the right.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Only middle, left, and right would all be on the screen.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And so it's maddening to hear people talk about, "Oh, I have my big iPad and my little

00:53:34 ◼   ► iPad."

00:53:35 ◼   ► Those are just windows, but they're physical now.

00:53:37 ◼   ► In some respects, it's better to have physical windows.

00:53:40 ◼   ► There are advantages to physical windows, but imagine if your whole desk was a freaking

00:53:43 ◼   ► giant retina screen and you could arrange these windows we'll call them and you'd have your little

00:53:48 ◼   ► phone and you're they're just differently sized windows guys you're just reinventing windows and

00:53:53 ◼   ► meet space they're just mean space windows and like it's so painful to me to see and and i know

00:53:59 ◼   ► they'll say like i don't want that i don't want windows window you know window arrangement sucks

00:54:04 ◼   ► arranging my two ipads on my desk is great and there is i'm not going to say there is something

00:54:09 ◼   ► can do that because dealing with physical devices is better than dealing with windows.

00:54:13 ◼   ► There are compromises to having them all be virtual on a 2D device, but there are also

00:54:17 ◼   ► advantages, really, really big advantages. And people with long experience with using

00:54:21 ◼   ► very large screens with lots of windows on them, hello, that's me, can tell you that

00:54:26 ◼   ► there are also advantages to that approach. And so I'm not saying one precludes the other

00:54:31 ◼   ► and you have to stop the other one. I'm just saying they are siblings. They are solving

00:54:35 ◼   ► the same problem in almost exactly the same way with only slightly different compromises.

00:54:40 ◼   ► And if they're going to say that the multi-device thing is the way they prefer versus the other

00:54:44 ◼   ► one, that's fine. But to never mention the other one, never realize that what they're

00:54:46 ◼   ► essentially doing is exactly the same as having a really big screen with multiple windows,

00:54:50 ◼   ► and that there are advantages to having a really big screen with multiple windows in

00:54:54 ◼   ► that virtual things are easier to deal with and manipulate than real things. Like you

00:54:58 ◼   ► can't switch spaces, you can't swipe your four fingers to the left and suddenly a new

00:55:03 ◼   ► desk slides in with a new set of iOS devices on it like Casey does with his spaces, right?

00:55:06 ◼   ► You can't minimize or window shade or snap them to edges or resize them because you can't make

00:55:12 ◼   ► your iPad mini into a different orientation or a different size. There are trade-offs to be sure,

00:55:18 ◼   ► and I'm not saying one is dominant over the other, but as a strong, strong proponent of the

00:55:22 ◼   ► virtual pieces of paper as a better approach for me personally than the physical pieces of paper

00:55:29 ◼   ► or the virtual screens, aka windows, instead of the physical screens, aka iOS devices,

00:55:34 ◼   ► I think this has to be in the mix. And that's why when I see Steve Trout and Smith's, like,

00:55:40 ◼   ► "Let's make some windows on iOS devices," I say, "Yes, yes, finally." Because if Apple ever does

00:55:45 ◼   ► make a 27-inch iPad, an approach that I think would appeal to a lot of people is to be able to

00:55:51 ◼   ► have different overlapping resizable things so that you're not... Who wants to split a 27-inch

00:55:57 ◼   ► screen into thirds or halves or quarters or like I know everyone loves tiling

00:56:02 ◼   ► window managers on Linux or whatever but there's a reason they have not taken the

00:56:05 ◼   ► world by storm right not that overlapping windows is the greatest either they have

00:56:08 ◼   ► anti-patterns too and people do like to zoom everything for full screen but

00:56:11 ◼   ► I feel like this is an avenue that has to be pursued it may not be the ultimate

00:56:15 ◼   ► answer and it may be some hybrid of panels and

00:56:17 ◼   ► snapping actually is the best compromise for most people

00:56:20 ◼   ► but you have to pursue it because it has proven utility we all sit in front of

00:56:24 ◼   ► of Macs all day and somehow, somehow we managed to get work done in this chaos of overlapping

00:56:29 ◼   ► windows where we can never tell what the hell's going on and we're the janitor.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Like somehow we do it, right?

00:56:35 ◼   ► So I desperately want to see this avenue pursued in every way by third-party application developers,

00:56:42 ◼   ► by Apple experimenting, and yes, by Apple doing things in the OS and releasing larger

00:56:46 ◼   ► iOS devices.

00:56:48 ◼   ► And for all you multi-iOS device users, I kind of say more power to you because you

00:56:54 ◼   ► you are kind of like the steampunk of multiple windows,

00:56:58 ◼   ► because they're steampunk windows, basically.

00:57:00 ◼   ► They're steam-powered,

00:57:01 ◼   ► they're physical manifestations of windows,

00:57:04 ◼   ► and they're ugly and dirty and grimy,

00:57:05 ◼   ► and they're made of brass, but you like 'em, so go for it.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Add some beard oil.

00:57:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:57:12 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:57:13 ◼   ► - Jon, I love you.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - That was incredible. - Oh, my word.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I feel like this episode's done, we're done.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Good night, everybody, that's it, it's over.

00:57:21 ◼   ► - Do you guys get what I was saying with the multiple windows?

00:57:23 ◼   ► - I don't know where you guys fall on multi-devices

00:57:25 ◼   ► versus multiple windows, and I know you're not as gung-ho

00:57:27 ◼   ► on multiple windows as I am, but like--

00:57:28 ◼   ► - No, multiple devices is a terrible solution

00:57:31 ◼   ► to this problem.

00:57:32 ◼   ► It is, you know, in some contexts,

00:57:35 ◼   ► if you're trying to do certain things as an iOS power user,

00:57:38 ◼   ► sometimes it's the only solution to the problem.

00:57:40 ◼   ► But, you know, I think, and granted, you know,

00:57:42 ◼   ► to be fair to the multi-pad lifestyle people,

00:57:45 ◼   ► I don't think this is the only reason they do that.

00:57:48 ◼   ► It's not just to have two different applications

00:57:50 ◼   ► running at the same time.

00:57:51 ◼   ► There's other reasons why they would have multiple devices.

00:57:55 ◼   ► Same reason that many of us have multiple Macs,

00:57:57 ◼   ► like to have a big one and a small one

00:57:59 ◼   ► for travel versus home, stuff like that.

00:58:01 ◼   ► So all those things aside, and honestly,

00:58:04 ◼   ► I think running two apps side by side

00:58:06 ◼   ► on two different iPads is probably a fairly uncommon use

00:58:10 ◼   ► of multiple devices from the people who have them.

00:58:13 ◼   ► But if you can picture a future version of iPad multitasking

00:58:20 ◼   ► where you could just resize the apps,

00:58:24 ◼   ► not just with the split view that we have now,

00:58:26 ◼   ► where you can have at most two apps on screen,

00:58:30 ◼   ► if you don't count picture-in-picture video playback

00:58:32 ◼   ► as one of them, you have at most two apps on screen,

00:58:34 ◼   ► and they can only be arranged left and right

00:58:38 ◼   ► in just different split sizes

00:58:40 ◼   ► that are like three different preset sizes

00:58:42 ◼   ► that they can possibly be.

00:58:43 ◼   ► That's very limited.

00:58:45 ◼   ► It's a lot better than having no multi-window environment

00:58:49 ◼   ► on the iPad like we had before iOS,

00:58:51 ◼   ► what was it, nine out of that?

00:58:52 ◼   ► It's a lot better than that,

00:58:53 ◼   ► but it's not nearly as powerful

00:58:56 ◼   ► as having a more freeform system

00:58:58 ◼   ► like overlapping windows or just more,

00:59:01 ◼   ► even if it has to only be tiling windows

00:59:03 ◼   ► and so they can't ever overlap.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Even if that's the case,

00:59:07 ◼   ► iPad screens are a lot bigger than phones

00:59:09 ◼   ► and any universal app is made to scale

00:59:11 ◼   ► from an iPhone 5S all the way up to an iPad 12.9,

00:59:16 ◼   ► why can't you have like six windows on screen?

00:59:19 ◼   ► Like have it be like a three by two grid on the 12.9 inch.

00:59:23 ◼   ► Each one would be about the size of a moderately sized

00:59:26 ◼   ► iPhone, why couldn't you do something like that?

00:59:29 ◼   ► Like have six apps open at once,

00:59:30 ◼   ► or have four apps open at once

00:59:32 ◼   ► where they're all small rectangles,

00:59:33 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:59:35 ◼   ► I feel like there's so many more places

00:59:37 ◼   ► iPad multitasking can go,

00:59:39 ◼   ► and granted there's a few fundamentals

00:59:41 ◼   ► that really need to be built first,

00:59:43 ◼   ► before that makes a lot of sense,

00:59:44 ◼   ► things like drag and drop and some kind of more coherent

00:59:48 ◼   ► file system access in some form,

00:59:52 ◼   ► but ultimately multiple applications being open at once

00:59:57 ◼   ► and not just two of them is the direction this has to go

01:00:01 ◼   ► for these devices to become more productivity powerhouses.

01:00:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think, you know, John and, or John,

01:00:10 ◼   ► I think that Mike and CGP Grey would both say that

01:00:13 ◼   ► that this is a terrible solution.

01:00:15 ◼   ► Like, I think one of you said that a minute ago,

01:00:18 ◼   ► but it's important since they're not here

01:00:19 ◼   ► to defend themselves to stress that

01:00:21 ◼   ► I don't think that they love the solution,

01:00:23 ◼   ► it's just that they do love iOS

01:00:24 ◼   ► and they're hamstrung by the things that iOS lets you do.

01:00:28 ◼   ► And I feel similarly, I mean, I do love my iPad,

01:00:31 ◼   ► but I've been really, really strongly kicking around

01:00:34 ◼   ► the idea of getting a MacBook adorable,

01:00:37 ◼   ► expressly because I want something that's effectively

01:00:39 ◼   ► as portable as an iPad or as close as I can get to that,

01:00:42 ◼   ► But that doesn't make me feel hamstrung every time I use it.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And to me, the best answer to that question

01:00:49 ◼   ► is a MacBook Adorable.

01:00:50 ◼   ► For them, I don't think they feel near

01:00:52 ◼   ► as hamstrung in general.

01:00:54 ◼   ► The problem is simply that they can only do

01:00:56 ◼   ► with so many things at once.

01:00:57 ◼   ► And so for them, it does make sense

01:01:01 ◼   ► to live the multi-pad lifestyle.

01:01:03 ◼   ► I think it's a little bit kooky,

01:01:04 ◼   ► but just because I think that doesn't mean

01:01:06 ◼   ► that it wouldn't work for them, and clearly it does.

01:01:09 ◼   ► - The most common multi-device thing I would imagine

01:01:11 ◼   ► is a personal computer style device and your phone.

01:01:15 ◼   ► Because like I said, there are definite advantages

01:01:17 ◼   ► to steampunk windows.

01:01:19 ◼   ► And one of them is you compartmentalize the thing.

01:01:24 ◼   ► So very often it's text messaging,

01:01:25 ◼   ► whatever your text messaging services of choice.

01:01:27 ◼   ► Text messaging on your phone

01:01:29 ◼   ► while doing other things on your computer.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And your computer may have messages on it

01:01:34 ◼   ► or maybe it doesn't have whatever app you're using

01:01:35 ◼   ► or maybe you choose not to get messages.

01:01:37 ◼   ► But that division of labor, you're sitting somewhere,

01:01:40 ◼   ► sitting in a coffee shop, typing something on your computer,

01:01:43 ◼   ► and you get a text message,

01:01:44 ◼   ► and you look at it on your phone,

01:01:45 ◼   ► that steampunk window,

01:01:47 ◼   ► it's physically in a different location.

01:01:49 ◼   ► You're in a portable scenario

01:01:51 ◼   ► where you can have a gigantic 30-inch drafting board,

01:01:54 ◼   ► Surface Book Pro, you can't have that.

01:01:56 ◼   ► You're on the go.

01:01:58 ◼   ► It is a different sight line, a different focal distance.

01:02:01 ◼   ► It is a physical device that you're used

01:02:02 ◼   ► to texting people from.

01:02:04 ◼   ► All your past texts and the apps that you love are on there.

01:02:06 ◼   ► using that as a steampunk window to do your texting

01:02:11 ◼   ► is perfectly valid and probably is an advantage

01:02:13 ◼   ► over trying to cram your messages window

01:02:15 ◼   ► onto your 12-inch MacBook screen

01:02:19 ◼   ► next to the thing that you were trying to write

01:02:21 ◼   ► in your distraction-free writing environment, right?

01:02:23 ◼   ► So like, I get it.

01:02:25 ◼   ► I get why there are,

01:02:26 ◼   ► I do it myself sometimes when I'm at work.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Sometimes at work, I will send and receive text messages

01:02:31 ◼   ► on my phone, even though I could be getting them

01:02:33 ◼   ► on my Mac screen, just because it is

01:02:35 ◼   ► nice compartmentalization of work versus personal, you know, texting over who's going to pick

01:02:39 ◼   ► up what kid from what activity or whatever, you know what I mean?

01:02:41 ◼   ► Like, it makes sense to me to do that.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Starts to make less sense when you're in an environment where you have a big desk and

01:02:47 ◼   ► a RAID on your desk, you have a series of iOS devices of different sizes, because then

01:02:51 ◼   ► I feel like you're compromising in ways in, you know, who is this, Casey is saying like

01:02:56 ◼   ► they're using iOS because they want to, and I understand that, and they have to do this

01:03:00 ◼   ► because they're limited in their multitasking and they more than anyone would like richer

01:03:03 ◼   ► multitasking.

01:03:04 ◼   ► So I'm not slamming them or saying,

01:03:06 ◼   ► you should just use Windows because you can't.

01:03:07 ◼   ► You can't use it on iOS.

01:03:08 ◼   ► And if you want to use iOS devices,

01:03:10 ◼   ► we're stuck waiting for Apple to innovate there.

01:03:12 ◼   ► It's just frustrating to me that we seem to be,

01:03:15 ◼   ► users are organically creeping up on that solution

01:03:19 ◼   ► and that the solution is much bigger iOS devices

01:03:23 ◼   ► suitable for a desktop environment

01:03:25 ◼   ► that supports something like Windows

01:03:26 ◼   ► that gives the users more flexibility

01:03:28 ◼   ► in how they arrange their space.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Everybody does it.

01:03:31 ◼   ► This is one of my big things

01:03:31 ◼   ► with the whole Spatial Fondorant.

01:03:33 ◼   ► everybody arranges their workspace,

01:03:35 ◼   ► especially if it's a job you're doing all the time,

01:03:37 ◼   ► whether it is a carpenter arranging their tools

01:03:40 ◼   ► or an artist arranging their palettes and their paints

01:03:43 ◼   ► and their brushes and their easel,

01:03:45 ◼   ► and having everything, or a chef setting aside

01:03:48 ◼   ► all the ingredients that they're gonna use in their thing.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Everybody arranges their workspace.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Efficient workers do arrange their workspace.

01:03:55 ◼   ► We all do it on our computers now.

01:03:56 ◼   ► We all have different arrangements

01:03:57 ◼   ► and different amounts of things,

01:03:59 ◼   ► and whether you use spaces or not,

01:04:00 ◼   ► or tiling window manager or not,

01:04:01 ◼   ► or maximize everything and flip through them

01:04:03 ◼   ► with your fingers or Alt-Tab through things or click--

01:04:06 ◼   ► that's a thing that we're going to do no matter what.

01:04:09 ◼   ► We do it with Windows.

01:04:10 ◼   ► We do it with our Steampunk windows.

01:04:12 ◼   ► We do it in the physical world.

01:04:13 ◼   ► And I think no matter what our interface to work is,

01:04:18 ◼   ► it has to allow us to do that in some way.

01:04:20 ◼   ► And so Mike and CGP Grey and everyone else who's

01:04:23 ◼   ► living the multi-pad lifestyle, they're

01:04:25 ◼   ► doing it the only way that is available to them

01:04:27 ◼   ► with the tools that they like.

01:04:29 ◼   ► But I think we have to acknowledge

01:04:31 ◼   ► the other approach is fairly well proven at this point for a certain set of users.

01:04:37 ◼   ► It is disproven for a certain set of users as well, because we all know that novice users,

01:04:40 ◼   ► the reason why they love iOS is because it doesn't let them have to deal with this crap,

01:04:43 ◼   ► they don't get all confused by a bunch of windows, right?

01:04:45 ◼   ► But for a certain set of users, you know, if you were to tell someone that they had

01:04:49 ◼   ► to, you know, do 3D animation for Pixar, but they weren't allowed to use Windows, they

01:04:54 ◼   ► just had to use everything full screen or a split screen, they would have a much harder

01:04:58 ◼   ► time getting their job done, I would imagine.

01:05:01 ◼   ► Also, I mean, one other side benefit,

01:05:03 ◼   ► if Apple were to do windowing on iPads,

01:05:06 ◼   ► it would also solve a tremendous problem

01:05:09 ◼   ► of the iPad app ecosystem, where iOS apps

01:05:12 ◼   ► are often not very well optimized for the iPad

01:05:14 ◼   ► or aren't optimized for it at all.

01:05:16 ◼   ► And sometimes they're really big apps like Instagram,

01:05:19 ◼   ► which famously still does not have an iPad app,

01:05:22 ◼   ► and also shut down the API that allowed other iPad apps

01:05:25 ◼   ► to exist for them.

01:05:28 ◼   ► Imagine if instead of having the dumb,

01:05:31 ◼   ► giant letterboxed iPhone simulator version on iPad,

01:05:36 ◼   ► what if you launched a non-iPad optimized app

01:05:40 ◼   ► and it just launched in an iPhone-sized window?

01:05:43 ◼   ► And you could drag it around and you could have other apps

01:05:46 ◼   ► that you could shrink down to that size

01:05:48 ◼   ► and tile around your screen if you wanted to.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Almost every iPad app that is the universal app

01:05:55 ◼   ► with its phone version can, again,

01:05:57 ◼   ► it can scale to all these different sizes.

01:05:59 ◼   ► You could solve problems like this very, very well.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Also things like when Apple does make larger iPads,

01:06:05 ◼   ► there's still a lot of iPad apps

01:06:07 ◼   ► that aren't optimized for the 12.9.

01:06:09 ◼   ► What if when you launch one of these things on a 12.9,

01:06:12 ◼   ► it just launched in an 9.7 sized window,

01:06:15 ◼   ► and it was just one of many windows on your screen?

01:06:18 ◼   ► There are lots of benefits to this,

01:06:20 ◼   ► and granted, there's a lot of UI challenges

01:06:22 ◼   ► and a lot of probably technical challenges of things like

01:06:25 ◼   ► how do you manage memory for all these different apps

01:06:27 ◼   ► that could be appearing to be running all at once

01:06:31 ◼   ► and be in the foreground all at once.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Lots of API challenges with things like touch handling

01:06:35 ◼   ► and what kind of gets the attention and what doesn't.

01:06:37 ◼   ► And there's some weirdness already with multitasking

01:06:40 ◼   ► of if you have a keyboard connected

01:06:43 ◼   ► and you have two different apps open right now

01:06:46 ◼   ► during multitasking and you hit a shortcut key

01:06:49 ◼   ► on the keyboard, which app gets it?

01:06:52 ◼   ► And right now I think it's just like whatever app

01:06:53 ◼   ► you tapped last or something, but there's no active state on the title bar to indicate

01:06:58 ◼   ► which one that is. So you just have to know or guess or try it. So like, if they were

01:07:03 ◼   ► to go in a direction like this that brought full blown windowing in some form or full

01:07:08 ◼   ► blown multitasking like this to iOS, there is a lot of work to be done. It's not a small

01:07:13 ◼   ► task. This is not something they could do in likely one release. This is like a massive

01:07:19 ◼   ► of undertaking, and they've already done some of it,

01:07:23 ◼   ► but doing a more freeform system like what we're describing

01:07:26 ◼   ► would require a lot more of it.

01:07:28 ◼   ► But I think the result would be pretty great

01:07:31 ◼   ► and incredibly powerful and would really revive

01:07:34 ◼   ► the iPad for productivity use, which it does seem

01:07:37 ◼   ► like Apple needs something to do that.

01:07:40 ◼   ► That would be great, and that would also,

01:07:42 ◼   ► if we do it the way I was saying,

01:07:43 ◼   ► where like non-optimized apps would just launch

01:07:46 ◼   ► in old device-sized windows, that could also solve

01:07:49 ◼   ► this major market and software ecosystem problem

01:07:53 ◼   ► that the iPad also faces.

01:07:54 ◼   ► So this would be a really great solution

01:07:56 ◼   ► in a number of ways.

01:07:57 ◼   ► The only question is, would they ever do it?

01:08:00 ◼   ► Would it be worth devoting their resources to,

01:08:02 ◼   ► and would they then just be recreating the Mac poorly,

01:08:06 ◼   ► like the old Lisp joke, or Unix, or whatever,

01:08:09 ◼   ► proper replies to everything?

01:08:10 ◼   ► - They should be recreating the Mac better.

01:08:12 ◼   ► They should be learning from the Mac

01:08:14 ◼   ► and making it better, faster,

01:08:16 ◼   ► like the six million dollar man type of thing.

01:08:19 ◼   ► should like trying to slowly convert the Mac into a thing like into a thing that

01:08:24 ◼   ► is better than Mac is difficult but iOS you know is a relatively clean slate they

01:08:29 ◼   ► they can reconsider everything they can only bring over the things that are good

01:08:32 ◼   ► they can make different compromises they can skew it in a particular direction

01:08:35 ◼   ► they can make they can try to make it so users who can't deal with lots of

01:08:40 ◼   ► windows don't have to like make get shave off the sharp corners because

01:08:46 ◼   ► You've seen, everyone's seen someone struggle to manage Windows on a personal computer.

01:08:50 ◼   ► You know, the lowercase w again, whether it's on the Mac or on the PC.

01:08:54 ◼   ► Even on the PC where everything is full screen and people are all tabbing, there's still

01:08:58 ◼   ► some confusion about floating things and layering and dialog boxes that appear and where did

01:09:02 ◼   ► it go and mission, you know, mission control and formerly Expose and all that was supposed

01:09:06 ◼   ► to help with that.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And all those are great things.

01:09:08 ◼   ► Those are all things to learn from.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Finding the right compromise for iOS devices where most of the time it works the way most

01:09:14 ◼   ► people want it to, but that the more advanced users have the ability to get the productivity

01:09:20 ◼   ► advantages that these people are currently getting with multiple physical devices, that's

01:09:26 ◼   ► the balance that Apple should strike.

01:09:28 ◼   ► And I think it's great to do that on iOS, where you are not constrained by even making

01:09:33 ◼   ► something like Steven's thing here, where it looks like a Mac window.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Who says the title bars are the right thing?

01:09:37 ◼   ► Who says that the window should have window windows?

01:09:39 ◼   ► What about scroll bars?

01:09:40 ◼   ► Like, you can rethink everything.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And I'm thinking, broadly speaking, like you were saying, applications running simultaneously

01:09:47 ◼   ► as we get more and more RAM becomes much more viable.

01:09:50 ◼   ► And figuring out what that means as screens get bigger, letting people divide up the screen

01:09:55 ◼   ► space the way they want to divide it up among the applications that they want to run.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And then eventually gets in, you know, you can decide if space is the right approach

01:10:02 ◼   ► to this thing.

01:10:03 ◼   ► What about preserving the arrangement?

01:10:04 ◼   ► Because sometimes you do side-by-side windows, but then you go off and do something else.

01:10:07 ◼   ► How do you get back into that side-by-side arrangement?

01:10:09 ◼   ► or maybe you want to go back to just one application

01:10:11 ◼   ► and not be in a side-by-side arrangement,

01:10:14 ◼   ► there are so many things that are still undetermined.

01:10:17 ◼   ► And it's young and they haven't made a lot of decisions yet.

01:10:19 ◼   ► So I think it's fine.

01:10:20 ◼   ► But as Marco pointed out,

01:10:21 ◼   ► they already painted themselves into weird corners

01:10:23 ◼   ► where like, oh, we allowed multiple things on a screen

01:10:26 ◼   ► and we allowed keyboard shortcuts,

01:10:27 ◼   ► but we never thought of a way to indicate

01:10:30 ◼   ► which one has the focus.

01:10:32 ◼   ► So already we're in a weird situation.

01:10:34 ◼   ► Like they should think more of those through

01:10:36 ◼   ► before they take the next step.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Maybe they are, maybe they're like,

01:10:38 ◼   ► We don't want you to do this because we have this awesome idea that's going to be out in

01:10:40 ◼   ► five years and we don't want you stomping on it, but I think it's silly.

01:10:44 ◼   ► I think you should let third-party developers go nuts and figure out what works and maybe

01:10:49 ◼   ► you get some good ideas from them.

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01:13:00 ◼   ► - Speaking of iPad woes, Apple, God, we're gonna get

01:13:05 ◼   ► so much anger from the iPad people, I'm so sorry everyone.

01:13:09 ◼   ► - We shouldn't, we all said good things about the iPad.

01:13:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the good thing is like the Cortex hosts

01:13:13 ◼   ► have now moved on from talking about the multi-pad lifestyle

01:13:17 ◼   ► and now they're both just slowly becoming programmers

01:13:19 ◼   ► but they're both in denial of that fact.

01:13:21 ◼   ► They both just kinda keep inching more and more towards

01:13:23 ◼   ► like, guys, you're actually just becoming programmers

01:13:26 ◼   ► and it's okay and that's good.

01:13:28 ◼   ► It turns out there's a way to automate our computing tasks.

01:13:34 ◼   ► You just write these little things, you could call them, I don't know, programs.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it reminds me of some, what did I say, somewhere in some business snark website thing

01:13:44 ◼   ► talking about specifications for software projects, like if you write up the requirements,

01:13:50 ◼   ► and you'd write up the requirements, and typically the requirements are like, "I want to do

01:13:53 ◼   ► blah blah blah," and it's like, that's too vague, I don't know exactly what you want,

01:13:56 ◼   ► So you go back and forth about the requirements.

01:13:58 ◼   ► How do you want it to work?

01:13:59 ◼   ► How do you really want it to work?

01:14:00 ◼   ► Do you want it to work like this, work like that?

01:14:02 ◼   ► And eventually the business person getting frustrated

01:14:04 ◼   ► and it's like, look, just I'm gonna tell you

01:14:07 ◼   ► exactly how I want it to work with no ambiguity.

01:14:10 ◼   ► And it's like, if you do that,

01:14:12 ◼   ► what you've done is write a program.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:14:15 ◼   ► - Eventually, to specify it, that's what programmers do.

01:14:19 ◼   ► People just wanna specify it and like,

01:14:20 ◼   ► and yada, yada, you start all the details.

01:14:22 ◼   ► In the computer, you can't yada, yada.

01:14:23 ◼   ► You have to say, no, how exactly do you want it to work?

01:14:25 ◼   ► All right, I'm gonna tell you exactly how you want it to work in every kid in every condition

01:14:29 ◼   ► Here's what you should do blah blah blah. It's like that's program. That's called programming you

01:14:33 ◼   ► Are you you want to be a programmer now? So go ahead. All right, you can you can very quickly find yourself

01:14:38 ◼   ► Becoming a programmer with accidental programming podcast becoming a programmer without knowing it because eventually you'd be like

01:14:44 ◼   ► Getting down to a level of detail where you telling it I'm gonna tell you but every possible eventuality what you should do

01:14:50 ◼   ► That's programming

01:14:53 ◼   ► - I think kudos, no just does what you tell it.

01:14:55 ◼   ► - Well I love how, I think Mike in particular

01:14:58 ◼   ► is in a special denial place here of like,

01:15:02 ◼   ► he makes fun of, well not making fun of,

01:15:04 ◼   ► but he talks about the way developers use the terminal

01:15:09 ◼   ► and just geeks use the terminal as this kind of like

01:15:12 ◼   ► crazy opaque thing that is this incredibly geeky obscure,

01:15:17 ◼   ► and then they're talking about using workflow

01:15:21 ◼   ► against web APIs to automate certain heads.

01:15:23 ◼   ► Like, it's the same thing.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Like, it's just different, it's a different era

01:15:27 ◼   ► of the exact same thing.

01:15:28 ◼   ► Like, the same kind of learning curve, really.

01:15:31 ◼   ► The same kind of, you know, similar kind of capabilities.

01:15:34 ◼   ► As usual, the old people like us think the old way

01:15:36 ◼   ► was better, but, you know,

01:15:37 ◼   ► it's really the same kinds of things.

01:15:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, although I think Mike,

01:15:41 ◼   ► I, my understanding of what Mike is doing

01:15:44 ◼   ► is that he's largely cribbing what others

01:15:48 ◼   ► like Federico or CGP Grey have done

01:15:49 ◼   ► and modifying them a little bit.

01:15:51 ◼   ► but to build on what you were saying.

01:15:53 ◼   ► So on the surface, you know, it sounds like,

01:15:54 ◼   ► oh, Mike's not really a programmer at all,

01:15:56 ◼   ► but really that's how all programmers work

01:15:58 ◼   ► is they take something that gets you 80% of the way there

01:16:00 ◼   ► and fix what you need in order to get the rest of the way.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And so I agree with you.

01:16:05 ◼   ► And Federico to me is the king of this

01:16:07 ◼   ► because he's writing like ridiculous Python scripts

01:16:10 ◼   ► and these like hyper-involved workflows

01:16:12 ◼   ► with like potentially even recursion within them.

01:16:15 ◼   ► And it's just, he is a developer.

01:16:17 ◼   ► We actually, Federico and I in a happy way had this fight,

01:16:20 ◼   ► like, I don't know, two or three months ago

01:16:21 ◼   ► where I said to him, "Dude, you are a developer

01:16:23 ◼   ► "at this point, don't even try to pretend you're not."

01:16:25 ◼   ► And he didn't wanna hear it, not in a jerky way,

01:16:28 ◼   ► he just was like, "Oh, I'm not a developer,

01:16:30 ◼   ► "I don't know how to do the stuff you guys do."

01:16:31 ◼   ► I'm like, "You're doing it, it's not even a question,

01:16:34 ◼   ► "it's already happening."

01:16:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, in the same way that our friend Dr. Drang is,

01:16:38 ◼   ► like Dr. Drang posts on leadincrew.com,

01:16:41 ◼   ► and he's not a programmer by trade,

01:16:44 ◼   ► but he writes tons of scripts, most of which are in Python,

01:16:48 ◼   ► to do all sorts of things for his work.

01:16:50 ◼   ► And so while he probably does not consider himself

01:16:54 ◼   ► a programmer, he uses programming,

01:16:57 ◼   ► he knows a programming language,

01:16:59 ◼   ► and he uses it to get tasks done for his work.

01:17:02 ◼   ► And there's lots of room for that type of person.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Just like, look, I mean, Microsoft Office has forever

01:17:09 ◼   ► had its macro language, right?

01:17:11 ◼   ► That's the same thing, that's just Visual Basic.

01:17:13 ◼   ► It's the same, that's also programming.

01:17:15 ◼   ► My first job was programming VBA

01:17:17 ◼   ► in a giant Excel spreadsheet for some company

01:17:19 ◼   ► to save them a bunch of time.

01:17:21 ◼   ► That's a lot of what programming in the real world

01:17:23 ◼   ► actually is, is people doing little custom

01:17:25 ◼   ► or one-off things.

01:17:26 ◼   ► That is programming.

01:17:28 ◼   ► There's kind of this continuum of power users.

01:17:30 ◼   ► The first thing you learn as a power user

01:17:33 ◼   ► is you might learn a keyboard shortcut

01:17:35 ◼   ► for some common stuff.

01:17:36 ◼   ► You're like, "Oh my god, this is great."

01:17:38 ◼   ► And then eventually you might learn

01:17:39 ◼   ► some kind of automation of something.

01:17:43 ◼   ► First you kind of figure out,

01:17:44 ◼   ► how do you do manual work faster?

01:17:46 ◼   ► That's the keyboard shortcut approach.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Then you start figuring out like,

01:17:50 ◼   ► how do I actually use the computer's immense speed

01:17:53 ◼   ► and power to do things faster than I could do them manually?

01:17:57 ◼   ► And that's when you start getting into like

01:17:58 ◼   ► the basic things like batch operations in Pro Apps.

01:18:02 ◼   ► On the Mac you have things like Automator,

01:18:05 ◼   ► and on the iPad you have things like Workflow.

01:18:07 ◼   ► And then eventually I feel like the next step after that

01:18:10 ◼   ► is like, no you're actually just writing code of some sort.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Whether it's just a simple thing like a shell script,

01:18:16 ◼   ► or a JavaScript thing, or whether it's actually

01:18:19 ◼   ► a Ruby or Python, what we'd call a real language script

01:18:24 ◼   ► or app to do something custom.

01:18:27 ◼   ► These are all just points on the power user curve.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Being a programmer is not like some special boundary

01:18:35 ◼   ► that you have to go to college to know how to do.

01:18:38 ◼   ► No, it's just the next step on that curve

01:18:41 ◼   ► after you've used tools like Workflow or Automator

01:18:44 ◼   ► and you kind of want a little bit more customization

01:18:46 ◼   ► or a little bit more power.

01:18:48 ◼   ► And then you get into these things

01:18:49 ◼   ► that really are programming,

01:18:51 ◼   ► you just might not realize it

01:18:52 ◼   ► until after you've been doing it for a while.

01:18:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, Mike and Viticci would both be

01:18:57 ◼   ► making HyperCard stacks 30 years ago.

01:18:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:00 ◼   ► You guys don't remember that era, but--

01:19:01 ◼   ► - I used HyperCard.

01:19:02 ◼   ► - Yep, same here.

01:19:03 ◼   ► - There used to be many more,

01:19:05 ◼   ► back before Apple and most of the rest of the industry

01:19:08 ◼   ► gave up on the idea of trying to make programming

01:19:10 ◼   ► easy enough for people who didn't want

01:19:12 ◼   ► to be into programming, there were many, many attempts,

01:19:14 ◼   ► AppleScript is one of them, to try to make programming more accessible to the masses

01:19:20 ◼   ► with something that is farther along that curve that actually is a real programming

01:19:23 ◼   ► language but is a language that looks friendly or whatever.

01:19:28 ◼   ► And lots of people made HyperCard stacks.

01:19:29 ◼   ► And it's another accidental programmer thing where, sure, people made HyperCard stacks,

01:19:33 ◼   ► and most people it wasn't easy enough for them to tackle.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Many people who didn't consider themselves programmers were, like, they weren't intimidated

01:19:40 ◼   ► by HyperCard and like, "Oh, I'll go through these tutorials.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Oh, I can make a button.

01:19:44 ◼   ► Oh, I click a button and it makes a beeping noise."

01:19:47 ◼   ► And for someone, trying to make a button on a Mac

01:19:50 ◼   ► of that era was much harder if you were using

01:19:53 ◼   ► the Mac toolbox than it was in HyperCard.

01:19:55 ◼   ► And so they could be successful pretty quickly.

01:19:57 ◼   ► And for the people who were into that,

01:20:01 ◼   ► who were like, they never thought of themselves

01:20:03 ◼   ► as programmers, but it turns out if you introduce them to it,

01:20:06 ◼   ► fast forward three months and they're writing

01:20:07 ◼   ► this incredibly complicated HyperCard stack

01:20:09 ◼   ► using HyperTalk like a real programmer,

01:20:12 ◼   ► and they have suddenly found themselves,

01:20:13 ◼   ► it's not everybody who does it,

01:20:14 ◼   ► it's not like it turns people into programmers.

01:20:16 ◼   ► It reveals programmers that were always there, right?

01:20:19 ◼   ► And they just, you know what happens

01:20:21 ◼   ► with someone who is like just naturally wants to do this?

01:20:24 ◼   ► They start off with the beeping button,

01:20:26 ◼   ► and you just step away for like a couple weeks,

01:20:29 ◼   ► and you come back, and it's like, what have you done?

01:20:31 ◼   ► And like they have made this entire world for themselves,

01:20:33 ◼   ► and they have no formal location,

01:20:35 ◼   ► they don't know what a subroutine is,

01:20:36 ◼   ► they don't know any theory about data structures,

01:20:38 ◼   ► there like deriving from first principles the basics of programming in hypertalk and you know

01:20:44 ◼   ► doing incredible i saw it all the time doing incredible things and it's like someone who runs

01:20:48 ◼   ► the general store and makes a hypercard stack to do their inventory and it's like you may not know

01:20:52 ◼   ► it but you are now a programmer and this is the thing you could have done as a profession even

01:20:57 ◼   ► though you have no formal education in it and really still don't quite know what you're doing

01:21:00 ◼   ► in the formal sense but you are you are rediscovering the rudiments of programming

01:21:05 ◼   ► with no instruction from anyone else,

01:21:07 ◼   ► and really by having a box in front of you

01:21:09 ◼   ► and knowing some basic things.

01:21:10 ◼   ► And that is a beautiful thing to see.

01:21:13 ◼   ► And I love hearing stories of like places

01:21:14 ◼   ► that are still running HyperCard stacks

01:21:16 ◼   ► and like their Mac SEs,

01:21:17 ◼   ► just because like they run their entire business on it

01:21:20 ◼   ► and somebody wrote it years ago.

01:21:22 ◼   ► I guess that's not, I guess it's more heartwarming

01:21:23 ◼   ► 'cause I know it, it's not quite as heartwarming

01:21:25 ◼   ► for people who are still running their payroll

01:21:26 ◼   ► on COBOL or whatever,

01:21:27 ◼   ► but I think why NuCate took care of a lot of those.

01:21:30 ◼   ► But either way, like that,

01:21:32 ◼   ► for people who are listening

01:21:33 ◼   ► who think they will never be programmers,

01:21:35 ◼   ► That's possible, you may never be it.

01:21:38 ◼   ► But there's a reason people call it the programming bug.

01:21:42 ◼   ► You get bitten by it and you just find it.

01:21:43 ◼   ► This happens to all of us here on this podcast, I'm sure, and everyone else who's into computers.

01:21:47 ◼   ► At some point, you get exposed to something and it just sinks its teeth into you.

01:21:54 ◼   ► And you lose track of time, you lose track of the years, and you realize this is just

01:21:58 ◼   ► this whole world that you bury yourself into.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Some people are exposed to the exact same thing.

01:22:02 ◼   ► They're like, "Meh, not for me."

01:22:04 ◼   ► the distinction between those people has nothing to do with education or even

01:22:08 ◼   ► desire. It is just like how their brains work. If is programming addicting to you?

01:22:13 ◼   ► You will know that pretty quickly and you look at someone like Vitichi, guess

01:22:16 ◼   ► what? Programming is addicted to him. Like he would not be doing these things if he

01:22:20 ◼   ► it like he's bitten so hard by this. Like he's mad with the power of being able

01:22:26 ◼   ► to tell the computer to do what he wants it to do in a series of sophisticated

01:22:30 ◼   ► ways. Breaking down the problem into smaller pieces is recombining them, right?

01:22:33 ◼   ► "He's bitten by it so hard."

01:22:36 ◼   ► Just because he's not writing C doesn't mean that he is not,

01:22:39 ◼   ► A, bitten by the programmer bug,

01:22:40 ◼   ► and B, become a programmer.

01:22:42 ◼   ► - And I feel like that's the whole beauty of computers,

01:22:45 ◼   ► is when you break that barrier between,

01:22:48 ◼   ► like when I was saying on my curve about

01:22:50 ◼   ► when you're just doing manual things faster

01:22:52 ◼   ► versus when you have the computer start working for you

01:22:55 ◼   ► and way faster than you ever could manually,

01:22:58 ◼   ► the whole beauty of computers

01:23:00 ◼   ► is the ability to cross that line,

01:23:02 ◼   ► the ability to do that, like the famous Steve Jobs quote

01:23:05 ◼   ► about the computer is a bicycle for the mind.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Like, it's not because you know all the shortcut keys

01:23:11 ◼   ► to do things repetitively over and over again.

01:23:13 ◼   ► It's because you can just like put in some,

01:23:16 ◼   ► just the right kind of input and this computer

01:23:18 ◼   ► can just skyrocket past you executing that code

01:23:22 ◼   ► way, way, way faster and more reliable

01:23:25 ◼   ► and more consistently than you ever could.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Or doing things that you could never do

01:23:28 ◼   ► in a practical amount of time.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And it's just like, one of the reasons why

01:23:35 ◼   ► I get frustrated when things like iOS move

01:23:39 ◼   ► or start in directions where things are really locked down

01:23:42 ◼   ► and it's hard to do that kind of stuff,

01:23:43 ◼   ► is because I feel like that's kind of missing

01:23:46 ◼   ► or kind of like blowing the whole advantage

01:23:50 ◼   ► that computers have given us as a society.

01:23:52 ◼   ► Like the whole point of computers is

01:23:56 ◼   ► to enable humans to have these kind of information-based tasks done in ways and at speeds and volumes

01:24:08 ◼   ► that we could never do on our own, like through manual calculations or anything else. And

01:24:14 ◼   ► for any computer platform to be truly empowering to its users, it has to allow that in some

01:24:20 ◼   ► way and hopefully in a reasonably easy and capable way. And efforts to do that on iOS

01:24:27 ◼   ► are really, really held back by just the limitations of iOS. And things like Workflow and Pythonista,

01:24:34 ◼   ► like, these things have existed and do exist and are good for people, but there's so much

01:24:41 ◼   ► further to go to make them even just match the level of power and sophistication that

01:24:49 ◼   ► regular people can achieve on Windows or a Mac,

01:24:53 ◼   ► let alone on future things that we might think of

01:24:56 ◼   ► of even better ways to do these things.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And so that's kind of like,

01:24:59 ◼   ► it kind of hurts me philosophically

01:25:03 ◼   ► whenever it appears the computing platform

01:25:05 ◼   ► is going in the opposite direction.

01:25:07 ◼   ► - And what most of these people are doing, by the way,

01:25:10 ◼   ► like in the continuum is that you can use tools

01:25:13 ◼   ► made by other people, which is why the App Store is great,

01:25:15 ◼   ► like gives regular people access to tools

01:25:17 ◼   ► other people have made for doing common tasks.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Hey, so you've, you know, you're taking the inventory

01:25:22 ◼   ► of all the books that are on your shelves.

01:25:23 ◼   ► There's an app that you can just point your phone at

01:25:25 ◼   ► and then we'll look up, you know, so on and so forth.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Like it's a tool to do a job better, right?

01:25:29 ◼   ► The next step along that is I don't see any tool

01:25:32 ◼   ► that does the thing that I want it to do.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I'm going to make my own tool.

01:25:35 ◼   ► So it's not just that they're automating repetitive tasks,

01:25:37 ◼   ► but that they're building a tool for them

01:25:38 ◼   ► to do whatever real world tasks they're doing,

01:25:40 ◼   ► whether it's managing their business or doing their hobby,

01:25:43 ◼   ► keeping track of their model trains

01:25:45 ◼   ► or controlling their model trains or whatever.

01:25:47 ◼   ► like they don't see the thing that they want in the world

01:25:50 ◼   ► and they realize they can make this thing

01:25:52 ◼   ► do what they want it to do it.

01:25:53 ◼   ► So they build a tool for themselves.

01:25:55 ◼   ► And it doesn't mean they have to suddenly

01:25:56 ◼   ► become an app developer and sell that thing or whatever.

01:25:58 ◼   ► It's just like the people who use a file maker database

01:26:00 ◼   ► to manage their retail store or something

01:26:03 ◼   ► where they sell cameras.

01:26:04 ◼   ► They don't consider, they're making a tool

01:26:06 ◼   ► to accomplish some other task.

01:26:08 ◼   ► That's just another point on the line.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Using other people's tools versus saying

01:26:12 ◼   ► no one else makes this tool or the tools they make

01:26:15 ◼   ► aren't to my liking and I can make my own tool to do it.

01:26:17 ◼   ► But he is essentially making his own tools for his workflow

01:26:20 ◼   ► because there's no existing thing

01:26:21 ◼   ► that integrates all the different pieces

01:26:23 ◼   ► the way he wants them to do

01:26:24 ◼   ► and he has specific needs about it.

01:26:25 ◼   ► So, you know, it's not, you know,

01:26:27 ◼   ► in some cases he is automating something

01:26:29 ◼   ► you would have to do manually,

01:26:30 ◼   ► but other cases like he's,

01:26:31 ◼   ► it's not application development,

01:26:32 ◼   ► but it's tool building and we all do that.

01:26:34 ◼   ► It's smart little monkeys that use a stick to, you know,

01:26:37 ◼   ► hit something instead of our hands

01:26:38 ◼   ► because the stick is better, right?

01:26:40 ◼   ► You know, it's all, you know,

01:26:43 ◼   ► A bicycle for the mind has more poetry than a wooden stick for the mind.

01:26:47 ◼   ► A monkey with a stick.

01:26:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:49 ◼   ► Or the monkey with the bone from 2001.

01:26:51 ◼   ► But that's basically what it boils down to.

01:26:53 ◼   ► And taking away the ability to – or not taking it away, but making the barrier to

01:27:00 ◼   ► making your old tools, meaning like either you get to use tools other people made, giant,

01:27:05 ◼   ► giant gap, Xcode.

01:27:07 ◼   ► That gap is too big.

01:27:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:09 ◼   ► It's too big for most people to cross.

01:27:11 ◼   ► And apps like Workflow show that there is, or even Automator or simple scripting languages

01:27:17 ◼   ► or anything like that, or HyperCard, all that stuff.

01:27:20 ◼   ► Even though most of the experiments failed in what they thought the goal would be, like,

01:27:23 ◼   ► "Everyone's going to be a programmer."

01:27:24 ◼   ► Nope, that's not going to happen, right?

01:27:26 ◼   ► But you do need something on that middle tier for the people who are never going to graduate

01:27:30 ◼   ► all the way up to being a full-fledged programmer and using Xcode, but they don't need to.

01:27:34 ◼   ► They just need something in the middle that can let them make the tools to make their

01:27:40 ◼   ► life better even though their goal in life is not to be an application developer and

01:27:44 ◼   ► they never need to make something in S code and submit it to the App Store.

01:27:48 ◼   ► So Apple and education.

01:27:51 ◼   ► Bringing this back around.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Slight sidetrack.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Yeah, after that 45-minute sidetrack.

01:27:57 ◼   ► Was that the topic?

01:27:58 ◼   ► Believe it or not.

01:27:59 ◼   ► Because then we got into saying how people with iPads are going to be mad at us and we

01:28:02 ◼   ► just get buried back in iPads again.

01:28:04 ◼   ► That's right, they're all secret programmers, all right.

01:28:06 ◼   ► That's right.

01:28:07 ◼   ► Apple in Education, there's a New York Times article that says, well the headline is "Apple's

01:28:12 ◼   ► Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms."

01:28:14 ◼   ► And I didn't get a chance to read the article, but my understanding is basically that there

01:28:19 ◼   ► are fewer devices being shipped to schools from Apple.

01:28:24 ◼   ► It seems like Microsoft is slightly on the up, and Google, thanks to Chromebooks, is

01:28:29 ◼   ► way on the up, which is great, I guess, for Google and kind of a bummer for Apple since

01:28:34 ◼   ► this used to be their stronghold.

01:28:36 ◼   ► and I think I can speak for Marco in saying,

01:28:38 ◼   ► my only exposure to a Mac or to an Apple II was at school.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Like, I didn't have any friends that had one.

01:28:44 ◼   ► It was always at school that I was exposed to it,

01:28:46 ◼   ► and that seems to be changing now.

01:28:48 ◼   ► It seems to be all Chromebooks, but I don't know.

01:28:50 ◼   ► - Well, my experience was slightly different in that

01:28:54 ◼   ► my first exposure to Apple computers was indeed at school,

01:28:58 ◼   ► but it was to the Apple II in the early '90s.

01:29:02 ◼   ► - The heyday of the Apple II.

01:29:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, my school was so poor

01:29:05 ◼   ► that the only computers they had were like ancient

01:29:08 ◼   ► hand-me-down Apple IIs, most of which were not even

01:29:11 ◼   ► like the later models, they were like the old

01:29:14 ◼   ► green and black one, before color and things like memory.

01:29:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:29:21 ◼   ► It was pretty basic, but I loved them,

01:29:24 ◼   ► because they were the only computers I'd ever used

01:29:26 ◼   ► up to that point, and they were amazing,

01:29:28 ◼   ► even in like 1992, whenever that was.

01:29:32 ◼   ► And then after that, a few years later,

01:29:35 ◼   ► I went to a different school and they had just PCs.

01:29:38 ◼   ► Because at that point, that was like '93-ish and '94.

01:29:43 ◼   ► By that point, Macs, I think, were too expensive

01:29:46 ◼   ► for most schools at that point.

01:29:47 ◼   ► And I think like most schools, there was like,

01:29:50 ◼   ► we had like, there was one Mac in one of the computer labs

01:29:54 ◼   ► that you weren't allowed to use,

01:29:56 ◼   ► unless you were in some kind of like graphic design class

01:29:58 ◼   ► that they could use it.

01:29:59 ◼   ► But otherwise, it was all PCs for the same reason

01:30:02 ◼   ► that we're probably about to talk about, which is cost.

01:30:04 ◼   ► Because when you're in schools,

01:30:05 ◼   ► cost is a really, really big factor.

01:30:08 ◼   ► - So I mean this article, the news in this article

01:30:13 ◼   ► and the graphs in this article,

01:30:15 ◼   ► it's not a surprise to Apple.

01:30:16 ◼   ► Apple knows all these things.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Apple knows how much it's selling.

01:30:19 ◼   ► Apple knows how much its competitors are selling.

01:30:21 ◼   ► And the graph they show is only from 2012 to 2016,

01:30:24 ◼   ► so it's not a long span, but they show it basically

01:30:25 ◼   ► because Google comes out of nowhere,

01:30:27 ◼   ► basically like zero market share sometime in 2010 or 11.

01:30:31 ◼   ► and flies past both Apple and Microsoft,

01:30:34 ◼   ► who are more or less flat,

01:30:36 ◼   ► flies past them around 2014,

01:30:39 ◼   ► and now is at like four times their sales volume

01:30:42 ◼   ► in terms of units, right?

01:30:44 ◼   ► So that's in a very short period of time,

01:30:46 ◼   ► Google comes out of nowhere

01:30:47 ◼   ► and becomes the dominant player in the market.

01:30:49 ◼   ► And the fact that Apple knows that this happened

01:30:52 ◼   ► because they keep track of their own stuff,

01:30:54 ◼   ► but seemingly has not had a strong response to it.