0:00:00That's one of the amazing things about the making of Empire Strikes Back book.
0:00:03The digital version has a bunch of audio clips of like people talking about stuff. I'm like,
0:00:07"I'm glad somebody recorded these things," because here they are having actual conversations about
0:00:11making this movie and then people have recollections like, "Oh, I talked to them about
0:00:14this. Guess what? We've got audio too, you know? 15 minutes of audio about this one thing and it's
0:00:18great to hear," even though the quality is terrible because it was the 80s. That's true of many things
0:00:22in the 80s. But not Empire Strikes Back. That was in the 80s and it was great. Yeah, so were me and
0:00:27- I'm being casey.
0:00:29- So young, so young.
0:00:32- I feel like I have spoken to Marco and John
0:00:36both extremely recently and also not in weeks
0:00:39because we saw each other three days ago, is that right?
0:00:42- Something like that.
0:00:43- And yet at the same time, we haven't had the opportunity
0:00:48to really and truly nerd out for a couple of weeks now.
0:00:52- I like how when we tried to talk about computer stuff,
0:00:53we were all together like,
0:00:55everyone else did not wanna hear it.
0:00:57(laughing)
0:00:58It was there, they're just like rolling their eyes
0:01:01and trying to change a subject to anything else.
0:01:03- Yeah, they effectively said with body language,
0:01:06save it for the show.
0:01:07And also happy birthday, John Siracusa.
0:01:10- Hey, hey.
0:01:12- It's a little bit late at this point.
0:01:13It is four days ago now, but happy birthday.
0:01:16You are the answer to, what is the actual phrasing?
0:01:20The answer to life, the universe and everything?
0:01:22- Yeah, pretty much.
0:01:23- Fair enough, all right.
0:01:25Do we have any pre-show banter?
0:01:26We just want to go straight to follow up.
0:01:27- I think that was the pre-show banter.
0:01:29- Fair enough.
0:01:30All right, let's talk about the naked robotic MacBook Pro,
0:01:33Mr. Syracuse.
0:01:34- This is the bestest thing ever.
0:01:38- Was said with not an ounce of sarcasm.
0:01:40- I think it is, I think it is pretty neat.
0:01:42This, if someone had posted this as a joke
0:01:47a couple weeks ago, I think we all would have had
0:01:49a good laugh about it.
0:01:50- Yep.
0:01:51- The first time I saw this, I thought it was a joke.
0:01:53And I was like, it's on April 1st.
0:01:55I guess somebody just has a bad joke timing.
0:01:57>> Yeah, but you know, this is apparently a real thing.
0:02:00This is from OWC, our friends at OWC,
0:02:02Otherworld Computing.
0:02:04This is a product that you can't buy yet, right?
0:02:07They've just sort of announced it and more details to follow.
0:02:11You take your new slim four USB port,
0:02:16a MacBook Pro that we've talked about at length on this show,
0:02:20and you sit it on top of an aluminum rectangle
0:02:24that's the exact size and shape as the bottom of the MacBook Pro, making your very slim
0:02:322016/2017 model MacBook Pro the thickness of a 2012 MacBook Pro.
0:02:39And in the process, it gives you a bunch of extra ports on the side.
0:02:42You get USB Type-A ports, you get Ethernet, you get an SD card slot, you get another USB-C.
0:02:48As far as I can tell, you don't get any additional battery.
0:02:51It does claim also 4TB of internal storage of some type.
0:02:55And additional things to come.
0:02:57They haven't revealed all the things it's going to do.
0:03:00So right away I have some technical questions about this.
0:03:03Oh yes.
0:03:04My first, how does it work?
0:03:05Because I expected it to plug into the USB-C ports on the side.
0:03:09Because you know you can do that.
0:03:10Like the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports.
0:03:12You can plug, for example, a Thunderbolt 3 dock into there and on that dock you can have
0:03:17an SD card port and USB ports and storage and you know you can you can do
0:03:21all that we know you can do it but you have to plug into one of those ports and
0:03:25the pictures they have show both sides of this thing with all four of the
0:03:30Thunderbolt 3 ports on the side of this MacBook Pro completely open so that's
0:03:35mysterious. No I don't think it's mysterious at all I mean I understand
0:03:39what you're saying but I will bet you a gazillion dollars that if you're looking
0:03:44at the images of the two sides. So they're showing the right hand side of it, but it's on the left
0:03:49hand side of the image. And then the left hand side on the right hand side of the image. So the
0:03:53right side of the dock where the SD card is, there's a USB-C port directly under one of the
0:04:01four onboard USB-C ports. It's hard to paint a word picture about this, but anyway, I bet you
0:04:06anything they're going to have one of those little stubby USB-C cables right there. It'll be like,
0:04:12You remember the daughterboard video cards from PCs way back in the day?
0:04:16Yeah.
0:04:16You would go like VGA from your 2D card.
0:04:19Jon doesn't remember.
0:04:20Yeah, you go from VGA from your 2D card to your 3D card, and then VGA from your 3D card out to your monitor.
0:04:27And they would have these little like stubby VGA cables. It was barbaric.
0:04:31So I'm gonna make an even older reference.
0:04:33Back in the Mac days when they had SCSI as their external connector for hard drives and such,
0:04:39and you would buy hard drives that fit exactly underneath the classic Mac shape, so you'd
0:04:43stack them and they would be exactly the size of the base of like a Mac Plus or a 512 or
0:04:50whatever.
0:04:51And since you would stack them, each one would be a different hard drive and you would need
0:04:53to daisy chain them together.
0:04:55In typical Scuzzy Passion, one would have a terminator and then you'd go from one to
0:04:58the other.
0:04:59They made C-shaped brackets.
0:05:00They were not cables at all, but were exact brackets.
0:05:02You know, a single manufacturer would sell them, like Jasmine or whatever, and they would
0:05:06plug into the back and connect one drive to the one right above it exactly matching these
0:05:10gigantic 50-pin SCSI connectors.
0:05:13So not a cable at all, but a very stiff bracket-y type thing.
0:05:17And I can imagine that as well, but they don't show it in the pictures.
0:05:20Correct.
0:05:21That is fair.
0:05:22Well, and also, these pictures should be taken with a huge grain of salt, because they have
0:05:26even stated these are renderings, these are not the final product.
0:05:28And in fact, when I first looked at this page, maybe an hour before that MacRumors article
0:05:33was posted, these exact pictures in this exact spot
0:05:37on the official owcdigital.com/dec on that page,
0:05:42these exact pictures, the two sides were a blank
0:05:44except for one, the one single USB-C in port.
0:05:48All, like the, oh, and the card reader was there,
0:05:50but all the USB-A and the ethernet port you see right there
0:05:53were not there like 12 hours ago.
0:05:54So clearly, like, this is a work in progress.
0:05:58Like, I learned more from the MacRumors post about it
0:06:00than I did from their page.
0:06:02So clearly this is still in the very early phases.
0:06:06They said it will be available in 2017,
0:06:09but I don't think they got more specific than that,
0:06:11nor have they listed a price or anything.
0:06:13But yeah, I mean, it's basically, yeah,
0:06:15it's a docking station that happens to be the same shape
0:06:19as the MacBook Pro, so you can sit it on top of it.
0:06:21But when I first saw these pictures,
0:06:23without seeing the MacRumors article,
0:06:24when I first saw the pictures
0:06:26and got almost no information,
0:06:28I assumed that what they were doing
0:06:30was basically offering a service
0:06:31where you could send your map to them
0:06:32and they would like unscrew the bottom of it
0:06:35and replace, like, and kind of semi-permanently attach
0:06:38this thing and if they were doing that,
0:06:41then they could maybe do something like give a bigger
0:06:42battery and use internal, whatever kind of internal
0:06:47connections that are present, if any.
0:06:49I honestly would be surprised if there are many, if any.
0:06:53- Yeah, I was thinking where were they connected internally
0:06:55but you can do a bigger battery with an external too
0:06:57because remember that USB-C port is also the charging port
0:06:59works like the smartphone iPhone case or whatever.
0:07:03- Exactly, but anyway, that isn't what this is
0:07:06as far as we can tell from the very little information
0:07:08we have, but either way, so basically it sounds like
0:07:11it almost certainly doesn't offer any additional
0:07:13battery power, and that's the only real reason
0:07:15I would see for wanting to have this tremendous
0:07:19additional bulk added permanently to your MacBook.
0:07:22- Well not yet, we don't know, because they say
0:07:24more stuff is coming, and if you look at the stuff
0:07:25that's in there, obviously there has to be more,
0:07:28because the stuff they have in there would not
0:07:29take up all that space.
0:07:30So I guess it could just be filled with air,
0:07:32but if you're gonna put a battery,
0:07:33it's not like there's not room.
0:07:34- They could put an optical drive.
0:07:35No, I actually thought the same thing, believe it or not.
0:07:39They could put a really good keyboard that you can't reach.
0:07:41No, so I, you know, we'll see when this thing
0:07:44actually provides a little more information
0:07:46and when it actually launches,
0:07:47but I don't think the market for this is gonna be very big.
0:07:50I certainly won't use it.
0:07:54No way you could make me use that,
0:07:56because the fact is that the MacBook Pro, as it is,
0:08:01is almost pretty good, and this pushes it so far
0:08:06in the other direction that it's like, okay,
0:08:08you've turned something that's almost pretty good,
0:08:11but has mediocre battery life and a bad keyboard
0:08:14into something that is still having mediocre battery life
0:08:18and a bad keyboard that is just bigger and heavier
0:08:22to add what is really a very small handful
0:08:25of capabilities so far.
0:08:27I don't see why people would want this, honestly,
0:08:31but somebody might, I guess.
0:08:34- Well, remember, Marco, that you cannot possibly
0:08:37do any kind of work on a MacBook Pro
0:08:39unless you have an SD card slot,
0:08:41so if you wanted to do any kind of work on a MacBook Pro,
0:08:45you must have this dock, otherwise it's impossible.
0:08:48- No, and honestly, so in the massive span of time
0:08:53since we've last spoken on this podcast,
0:08:55I did, you know, we traveled upstate for parent Christmas
0:09:00stuff and I had my laptop there and there was one point
0:09:05in which I had brought some, every year we're making
0:09:08Christmas video from the previous Christmases photos
0:09:11and time lapse, Tiff does all the work,
0:09:13she gets all the credit.
0:09:14Anyway, I bring with me on my laptop copies of all the
0:09:17so that way when we get there,
0:09:19after you've shown it to everybody,
0:09:20we can then give everybody their own copy.
0:09:22- On the thumb drives that don't go into your computer?
0:09:24- Yeah, so one of the film members has an iPad,
0:09:27one has a laptop, and one has a thumb drive.
0:09:30So this is like how you put the wolf on the boat,
0:09:32and it's like this crazy thing,
0:09:34it's like how do we--
0:09:35- Don't put the wolf in with the chicken.
0:09:36- Right, it's like how do we get these files
0:09:39to these different things, right?
0:09:41I'm sitting there on the couch with my new MacBook,
0:09:44and first my father-in-law brings down
0:09:47the Lightning card reader adapter with an SD card on it
0:09:51that he uses in his iPad.
0:09:52He's like, "Can you put it on here?"
0:09:54And I look at the Lightning and I look at the SD card
0:09:56and I'm like, "Nope." (laughs)
0:09:59And then I get handed this USB key,
0:10:03like this USB thumb drive thing.
0:10:05No, I guess I gotta get a dongle for that.
0:10:08Like I gotta go upstairs, get the dongle.
0:10:10And it wasn't that I didn't own the dongle,
0:10:13And it wasn't that I didn't even have the dongle
0:10:15like technically with me on the trip,
0:10:17but it was upstairs and I was downstairs
0:10:19and I was on a soft couch and it was Christmas.
0:10:21There's just gonna be so many of these times
0:10:24with these new MacBook Pros where like,
0:10:26even if it's a minor inconvenience,
0:10:29it still makes you regret the limitations
0:10:32of this computer in use, in practice.
0:10:35I bet more often than Apple might have estimated
0:10:39by whatever data they were using to make this decision
0:10:41to omit all the useful stuff from this computer.
0:10:44And there are so many things about it that are nice.
0:10:47Like every year we go to the same place, my in-laws place,
0:10:50and every year I have to plug in my laptop,
0:10:54and every year I had this weird layout
0:10:58where to reach the left side where the charging port was,
0:11:01where MagSafe was, I had to kind of lean the laptop
0:11:03in a strange way overnight when it's charging.
0:11:06And this year I could use the other side,
0:11:07which was really helpful, and there's gonna be times
0:11:09like that where it's nice to have charging on either side.
0:11:11Like, that would be great, right?
0:11:13So, you know, it isn't all bad,
0:11:15and it was also really nice to have this thing be lighter.
0:11:19As I was carrying it around the house,
0:11:20and you know, doing basic stuff,
0:11:23like it was nice having it lighter.
0:11:25So I appreciate those things,
0:11:27and I appreciate some of the progress,
0:11:29but boy, not having the SD card reader,
0:11:32and at least one USB-A port,
0:11:35has already bitten me.
0:11:37Like, more than once, in these like little,
0:11:40tiny like, you know, razor blade cut ways.
0:11:42Like just, ah, I just, it doesn't leave me
0:11:45with a good taste in my mouth about this laptop overall.
0:11:47- So I think this product, however it turns out to be
0:11:50in the market, reveals some interesting things
0:11:53that we've talked about before,
0:11:54but this is like a concrete version of it.
0:11:57The first is this is an extreme case
0:11:59of the naked robotic core thing applied to the Mac,
0:12:01which we talked about before.
0:12:02The idea that if you just provide the core amount
0:12:06of functionality and let people add stuff on top of that
0:12:09that they might want.
0:12:10So with the iPhone it's like we give you the skinniest little metal thing that you want,
0:12:13and if you want extra battery or you want more protection or you know you want a place
0:12:17to put your credit cards or you want a rubbery outside or whatever it is that you want to
0:12:20do to it, everyone else can bring to it whatever they want.
0:12:23You want it to be a different color or a different texture or whatever, you can put that on,
0:12:27but by making the smallest thing possible we let the people who want a really small
0:12:30thing have a really small thing and people who want something different, everyone can
0:12:33apply it.
0:12:34Because if we made a choice and added the big battery, the people who wanted the skinnier
0:12:36ones can have it and so on and so forth.
0:12:38So this thing being the Naked Robotic MacBook Pro, if you want a bunch of ports, you can
0:12:43slap it on the end.
0:12:45And all the past times we've talked about this, it's like, yeah, but if you add it on
0:12:49the outside, because you have to have, you know, phone, motherboard, battery, case, you
0:12:56know, inner case, battery, outer case, like the extra layering, requiring them both to
0:13:01be products in and of themselves, the case is a product and the phone is a product and
0:13:05have their own walls and the combination of all the walls is your total thickness, it
0:13:09makes them bigger than if you said if you just took that amount of battery that's in
0:13:12this battery case and put it inside the phone it wouldn't be as thick.
0:13:15So here we have a great example of that.
0:13:17These ports that they're adding, if Apple had put these inside the MacBook Pro it would
0:13:21be thicker, but it would not be this thick.
0:13:23I mean you can look at it, they have the Ethernet port is stacked up with the USB-C ports above
0:13:27it, like because they can't, they can't add, you know, they can't violate the integrity
0:13:31of the case.
0:13:32entire flat side thickness of the case. and then what they have left to put their ports
0:13:37on is anything they can put below that.
0:13:39they can't combine them.
0:13:40so this does show a very graphic illustration of the highlight of the naked robotic core
0:13:46strategy is that if you do add stuff it will always necessarily be bigger than if it was
0:13:50built in.
0:13:51and the second thing i think is that i don't know if this was just someone making an estimation
0:13:54or if they say it in the copy as a real thing but i believe it.
0:13:57saying this makes your 2016 / 2017 MacBook Pro the same thickness as the
0:14:042012 model but we all look at this and it looks like that that comic
0:14:07illustration of the the power book g5 remember that oh yeah Photoshop it looks
0:14:13like it's just comically thick like it's like the size of a dictionary or a phone
0:14:18book I don't know if kids know what those are it's a really thick book it
0:14:22looks it looks huge and yet this was the thickness of a product that Apple sold
0:14:27Not too long ago 2012 MacBook Pro that people still have in like and often they say I'm sticking with my 2012 MacBook Pro
0:14:33He's got all the ports. I want or whatever this I think illustrates what I always talked about
0:14:37You know that a hypercritical post long ago about people complaining that the iMac was getting too skinny when they took away the optical drive
0:14:44It made it super skinny. It's like who the hell needs a super skinny iMac. What's the point?
0:14:47and I
0:14:49Transferred over the iPhone to say look you have to go thinner year after year because even though from year to year
0:14:54The the sacrifice doesn't make that much of a difference
0:14:57You think oh what so it's a few millimeters thicker multiply that by year after year after year
0:15:01And you will find yourself far from where you started so in 2012 them shaving no millimeter off
0:15:062013 and another millimeter off in 2014 another mill. It seems like what's the point you're just making my thing thinner in a way that
0:15:13I can't even detect and I'm not getting any gains from it, but like you said Marco
0:15:16You appreciate the the lightness
0:15:19Even just compared to your previous model, which wasn't that old
0:15:23Imagine that you know what it would be like if you upgraded from a 2012 model to this and here we have a
0:15:28Rewind button to go back to what it was like in 2012 and now you can't go back now you say no, that's too far
0:15:33I can't go back that far. I don't care how many ports you have. It is too big and it's too heavy
0:15:38I know now that I know what's possible. I I can't go back to that again. So
0:15:43There is something to be said for apples. We're relentless pursuit of thinness
0:15:47I still don't think they've had any sort of inflection point like my the thing I always go back to is the
0:15:52the credit card sized phone that just flutters to the ground and you don't have to worry about it cracking because no one worries about
0:15:57Dropping their credit card on the ground and cracking it because it's so friggin thin. We haven't we haven't got there
0:16:02we're not even close but
0:16:04This this illustration and our general disgust with it this product and our disgust with how thick it is
0:16:09Really hammers home that this thin this thing
0:16:12Even though we complain about it
0:16:15The upsides aren't just academic like once you become accustomed to it being that thin we want it to be that thin and also
0:16:22maybe have an SD card slot, which by the way,
0:16:24they could totally do because there's plenty of room.
0:16:26Or add two millimeters, like we're willing to bargain
0:16:29a millimeter or two, but none of us want to add
0:16:33half an inch to this thing,
0:16:34because we just can't go back to that.
0:16:35- By the way, I can't let this go without pointing out
0:16:38that this ancient, thick 2012 MacBook Pro
0:16:42that they're comparing this to was sold
0:16:44in the form of the 101 until like two months ago.
0:16:47- Yeah, had an optical drive, plenty of room in there.
0:16:50- Yeah, no, but I mean, you're right,
0:16:51I love the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro.
0:16:53The 15 inch Retina, it's so, so nice.
0:16:56It's such an overall awesome machine.
0:16:58But now that I've had this new one for one month,
0:17:01the old one, which I still have in my closet
0:17:03'cause I haven't sold it yet,
0:17:05I look at it and I pick it up every so often
0:17:06and it feels ancient.
0:17:09And it feels like a big, heavy, awkward lunch tray.
0:17:12Even though a month ago, I was like, this is fine.
0:17:15This doesn't need to get any smaller.
0:17:17Like it really is all about what you're accustomed to.
0:17:19And as soon as you get accustomed to this new one,
0:17:21even though the difference in weight and in thickness
0:17:25is not tremendous, it is a savings that is noticeable.
0:17:30And as soon as you start noticing it,
0:17:31it's really hard to ever go back
0:17:33and to have it feel normal.
0:17:35I mean, heck, even the keyboard.
0:17:36I hate the keyboard on the new one,
0:17:38but when I use the keyboard on the old one,
0:17:39I'm like, this is kinda mushy.
0:17:41Like, I'm ruined, I'm completely ruined.
0:17:45I still hate the new one, keyboard-wise,
0:17:47but it's like, and honestly, I think I would hate
0:17:50new keyboard a lot less if they would give me back the gaps above the left and
0:17:54right arrow keys. That has bitten me more than any other thing about this
0:17:59keyboard. Like the key switches I still don't like but I've gotten used to.
0:18:03Escape I have mapped to caps lock and it was a very easy transition. The shaping
0:18:09of those arrow keys and not having the little gaps above left and right the
0:18:12way they have been for years, that keeps messing me up so much because I can no
0:18:17longer orient myself on the arrow keys by feel reliably.
0:18:21And this, as it turns out, this is something I need
0:18:24quite frequently in use.
0:18:26I didn't realize it until I used one of these things
0:18:28for a while, but wow, that is a big change.
0:18:33But yeah, when you go back to the old one,
0:18:35it's like wow, I don't want, even though it is
0:18:38in so many ways better, you use the quote mushy keyboard,
0:18:43and you see the relatively tiny little,
0:18:46quaint little track pad on there,
0:18:47and you're like, wow, this is like using a PowerBook
0:18:49by comparison.
0:18:50The new thing really does feel so much newer
0:18:54and more modern, even though in these fairly large ways
0:18:57it is definitely worse.
0:18:59- This is one of the dangers of using iOS
0:19:01or growing up with iOS.
0:19:02When I watch my son, he's mostly the one
0:19:05who has to do school assignments,
0:19:06like they use Google Docs and he writes school papers
0:19:08and stuff in it, which is a pretty good system
0:19:10in terms of letting teachers and peers comment on
0:19:15and see their work.
0:19:15Anyway, because he's a child of iOS and a child of the post-PC age, watching him try
0:19:22to use a word processor on a Mac just makes me want to tear my hair out because all of
0:19:27his cursor movement he does with the mouse.
0:19:30And I'm like, "See these keys on the keyboard with the arrows on them?
0:19:34I swear to you, they will move the insertion point one character easier than you, finding
0:19:38where the mouse is, steering your –" because he's not good with the mouse either – "steering
0:19:42your cursor over, moving it over two characters."
0:19:44like, "Just use the mouse." You don't even say, like, "Option or Command arrows." "Just
0:19:48plain use the arrow key." Like, it is so much faster. And "Forward Delete" and just, like,
0:19:52these amazing technologies that, like, watching him try to do text editing, because all he's
0:19:56ever used to is the terrible text editing on iOS, where you have to hold your stupid
0:19:59finger down, you get that magnifying glass. That also makes me want to tear my hair out.
0:20:03Even after I show him the arrow keys, it's not like he's like, "Thanks, Dad. That's a
0:20:06revelation. I'm so much more efficient." He's like, "No, I'll go back to the mouse." So
0:20:10painful. I don't know how kids these days. Someday they'll learn about arrow keys.
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0:21:34On pros leaving the Mac,
0:21:36apparently somebody has done a little bit of polling
0:21:38and research about whether or not designers
0:21:43would ever consider, motion designers specifically,
0:21:45whatever that means.
0:21:46Would you ever consider switching to a PC?
0:21:48Yes, 42%, maybe 40%, no, 18%.
0:21:53- I have to listen to just to reinforce the idea
0:21:55I said last show that like professional users
0:21:58whose job is to do like motion graphics,
0:21:59they're not Mac users,
0:22:00they're motion graphic designers, right?
0:22:02This is what they do.
0:22:03I think this means like motion and video, you know, like basically video effects or
0:22:07transitions during the news or whatever.
0:22:09I think that's what this means.
0:22:10This is what this website is about.
0:22:11It's called schoolofmotion.com.
0:22:13So it's entirely a professional website for people who do this for a living.
0:22:17It's not about Macs.
0:22:18It's not about computers.
0:22:19It's not about what tool you use to do for a living.
0:22:20It's like I want to do this for a living and then they talk about the tools that they use.
0:22:23So they want to get the job done.
0:22:26They don't necessarily care about any particular one.
0:22:28So the survey was would you consider switching to PC?
0:22:31So it shows in general the bent of the side.
0:22:33like, "Oh, we mostly use Macs to do this," and we talk about programs that are available
0:22:36on the Mac to do it. Like Motion, I think it's still for sale. Anyway, would you consider
0:22:42switching to UBC? 82% are either yes or maybe. Only 18% say no. Because the bottom line is,
0:22:49it's like, "Well, if that's the way I have to go to do Motion graphics, I will do it."
0:22:54Because they're not going to change their profession because the computer they like
0:22:58doesn't let them do what they do, they're going to change platforms.
0:23:01So you know, and again, like I said on the last show, it doesn't mean that every company
0:23:06that tries to make that transition will be successful.
0:23:08It's very disruptive to have to buy all new hardware and learn new programs and buy new
0:23:12licenses and deal with file formats and legacy data and all that stuff.
0:23:18But in general, if a company doesn't serve a professional market like that, the market
0:23:23will switch very quickly because the market is not sentimental.
0:23:27people may be sentimental, even whole companies can be sentimental, but the market in terms
0:23:31of "I need a bunch of people to do job X for me with computers" is not sentimental,
0:23:35and if you don't do the job, someone else will, and whatever tool gets the job done.
0:23:39[Marty] All right, so the next item in the list scares me deeply.
0:23:44[Joe] Me too.
0:23:45[Marty] It says, it says "Casey and Marco's homework," and I think I can speak for Marco
0:23:50in saying, well, maybe that I don't remember, that might be just me, but I can speak for
0:23:54Marco in saying, "I didn't do my homework."
0:23:56So what was I supposed to have been doing?
0:23:59That could always speak for me, Casey.
0:24:00Right, that part I was confident.
0:24:02It was the remembering part I wasn't as sure about.
0:24:04I also don't remember what the homework was.
0:24:06I felt bad because I was listening back to the show.
0:24:09Well, so people were tweeting at us,
0:24:11like I can't wait to hear Casey and Marco and their homework.
0:24:13And by that point, I had forgotten
0:24:16what I had assigned to you for homework.
0:24:18But I remember doing it, but I did it mostly as a joke
0:24:21because we know that you guys don't do any homework.
0:24:23So when I was listening back to the show, as I do,
0:24:25I was reminded of what the homework was.
0:24:27But listeners, maybe they're new listeners.
0:24:29They somehow thought that you were gonna actually
0:24:31do this homework, A, remember what the homework was.
0:24:33(laughing)
0:24:34And B, come to the show ready to have the homework was--
0:24:38- That's very optimistic.
0:24:39- Yeah, the homework was the idea of trying to say,
0:24:43trying to figure out how you would distinguish
0:24:46between a situation where the world is moving on from PCs
0:24:50and we are just being left behind because we're dinosaurs,
0:24:53or a situation where Apple is foolishly abandoning the Mac
0:24:56market, even though the concept of a PC-style computer
0:25:01has many, many years to go, and Apple is making a mistake.
0:25:04And the idea from the perspective of someone
0:25:06who loves a Mac, those can both look the same from the inside.
0:25:09What might you look for?
0:25:11What might you look for from the inside
0:25:13to try to distinguish those two situations?
0:25:16Is there something-- because they feel the same,
0:25:18and they look the same, but is there some kind of thing
0:25:21could look at to say, "Okay, well, if it was the case that we were being left behind as
0:25:25dinosaurs, we would see this, but if it turns out that Apple's actually making a mistake,
0:25:28we would see that instead. Is there anything we can look for to let us know which of those
0:25:33two things are?" I couldn't think of anything on the show, and so I signed it as homework
0:25:37and you two probably forgot about it, but I don't suppose you have any new interesting
0:25:40thoughts on it now.
0:25:41- Not really. I mean, I don't really care what the difference there is. I want what
0:25:45I want, and if Apple's not going to provide it, I'm going to yell about it.
0:25:48Yeah, no, I mean, that's true. I'm not saying you don't have to yell, I'm just saying, like,
0:25:51I think it's interesting to, because I am interested in whether, it's the most difficult
0:25:56to be objective about something that you care deeply about, but it makes you kind of an
0:26:03enemy of progress if, you know, if the, whatever, the buggy whip sales or whatever, it's like,
0:26:10you know, or as Casey was saying, the stick shift thing where if, you know, are you using
0:26:17your influence to actually stop the future from coming or are you right and that's not
0:26:21actually the future and really Apple's just doing something dumb. And I think it makes
0:26:24a difference because I don't want to use all my power and influence and arguing skills
0:26:30to try to hold back progress, right? So I would like to know if I am, you know, not
0:26:36that I'm not going to be upset about it, but I would like to know if I am actually the
0:26:40enemy of progress here by clinging to the idea of the personal computer, right? And
0:26:45And so I'm interested in being able to determine what the situation is.
0:26:50Now I feel like I'm not particularly strongly on either side of this, so I don't think this
0:26:56is for me personally a situation and maybe Marco doesn't care, but I think it is a thing
0:27:02worth considering for all, not just for silly New York and the Mac things, but for all things
0:27:07of this type, especially as we get older.
0:27:10Very often what you really don't want is for things to be different than you're used to.
0:27:14It's very easy to decide that your desire to not have things change trumps everything
0:27:22else.
0:27:23And that's not, you know, I believe in progress and I constantly want to make sure that I
0:27:29am not slowly shifting to the opposite side of progress because when you see that from
0:27:35the outside, when you see somebody who is an obvious enemy of progress and doesn't realize
0:27:39it, it's a pitiable situation and I never want to be in that situation.
0:27:42- Well, I think it's somewhat useful to look around
0:27:47and to see like, all right, I have these opinions
0:27:51on how the types of work that I do,
0:27:54the types of problems that I need to solve,
0:27:56how these things should or need to be done.
0:27:58Obviously, one of the biggest things you could say is,
0:28:01well, look around at other people who have similar problems.
0:28:04Are they insisting on the same requirements?
0:28:06Are they doing things that way?
0:28:09Or did they move to something else a long time ago
0:28:12and you didn't, and they are now getting along just fine
0:28:15without doing the same kinds of things that you wanna do,
0:28:19but in the new quote progress way.
0:28:23Obviously, it's hard to make this apply to everything,
0:28:26and looking around, it's hard for people
0:28:29to have a lot of good data on what a lot of people
0:28:32are doing, 'cause mostly it's just anecdotal.
0:28:34Well, I look around and I see the other people
0:28:36in my office are doing this, or my parents are doing this,
0:28:39or my kids are doing this, or whatever.
0:28:41you could look at, or you have a few friends you can look at,
0:28:44but most people have a pretty small sample group
0:28:46they can draw from for that kind of analysis.
0:28:49But I think sometimes that's enough.
0:28:51I think if you can look around and you can see,
0:28:55am I the last person doing this this way?
0:28:57Then that's probably a sign
0:29:00that you are on the wrong side of things.
0:29:02But if there's still, if what you are defending
0:29:06is still done by what seems like the majority of people
0:29:11who do that kind of thing, then you might still be wrong.
0:29:15Like you might be at the very beginning of a wave
0:29:17and just everyone else hasn't realized it yet either,
0:29:20but chances are you're probably at least a little bit right.
0:29:23Chances are that you're probably on the right side of that,
0:29:26at least for now.
0:29:27It might be something that's really forward looking
0:29:29that everyone's missing, but that doesn't happen very often.
0:29:33Everyone thinks it happens a lot,
0:29:34but it doesn't happen very often in reality.
0:29:37- I was actually having an interesting conversation
0:29:40with a friend of mine earlier tonight
0:29:42about whether or not, well, he said to me something
0:29:47I thought was very interesting.
0:29:50And he said, the Mac, or not the Mac, excuse me,
0:29:53desktop OSs are a solved problem.
0:29:56And I think he was being a little bit,
0:29:59I don't know if dramatic's the right word,
0:30:00but he was kind of playing up his point of view
0:30:02little bit, right, to make a point. But he was saying, you know, desktop OSes are a solved
0:30:07problem. And at first I was like, what? No. God, no. What are you talking about? But as
0:30:14I thought about it, I still disagree with him. And again, I think he was just making
0:30:18the point to kind of play devil's advocate. But I understand where he's coming from in
0:30:23that if you look at what do we want from a desktop OS? And he asked me that actually.
0:30:31and what I said to him was,
0:30:32I just want it not to be ignored, man.
0:30:34Like, I just want progress.
0:30:36But if you look at it, there's been progress.
0:30:39Like, Siri doesn't really do anything for me on the desktop,
0:30:43but that's progress, that's a big deal.
0:30:45And that's just a single data point,
0:30:47but it's an example of things that are happening.
0:30:50Everyone has been moaning lately
0:30:53about how Messages hasn't been touched on Sierra.
0:30:56That's just not right.
0:30:57Like, the rich previews, or however you phrase it,
0:31:00where for example, you paste a link to a tweet
0:31:04and you see the tweet in the messages window.
0:31:08Like granted, I wish I had sticker support in Sierra.
0:31:11Like I totally do.
0:31:13I don't know that I would use it that often,
0:31:14but I just wish I had the support for it, right?
0:31:16But even something as arguably silly
0:31:21as rich previews and messages
0:31:23makes a world of difference and that's progress.
0:31:26And so to me, I think just not even necessarily
0:31:30bringing iOS into macOS, but just having that continued incremental improvement, that's
0:31:36all I really want from a desktop OS right now.
0:31:39And to that end, my friend was kind of right that in a large way, it's kind of a solved
0:31:45problem.
0:31:46Now, in the next breath, I'll tell you, well, is it really a solved problem?
0:31:47Look at the touch bar.
0:31:48This is a brand new paradigm that just came out.
0:31:50We don't really know what we're doing with that.
0:31:51So obviously, this is a very shaky argument.
0:31:54But when you compare that to iOS, where there's plenty of work left to be done, certainly
0:32:01iOS is in many ways the more interesting platform.
0:32:05Now I'm not necessarily saying interesting to me.
0:32:07I'm not saying interesting to everyone, because personally, I still like the Mac.
0:32:11I still prefer the Mac.
0:32:12We went over this either last episode or the episode before.
0:32:16But there's a lot more progress to be made.
0:32:18And I look at people like Ben Brooks, I look at Vitici, and I look at Mike Hurley, and
0:32:22And I see them doing everything in their jobs, or nearly everything, on iOS devices, and
0:32:29I come to kind of what Jon was saying a minute ago.
0:32:32Am I the one that's telling everyone to get off their, get off my lawn?
0:32:35Like am I the one that's really holding on to the past?
0:32:39And I'm not saying that is the case, but I am definitely wondering.
0:32:42And to more directly answer Jon's question, how do we know which one of these it is?
0:32:47I'm not sure.
0:32:48But right now I can tell you that it seems to me like there are some pretty direct ways
0:32:57to accomplish things on the Mac.
0:33:01And I can't think of a great example off the top of my head, but you can accomplish a lot
0:33:05of things on the Mac directly, where in iOS you need to like daisy-chain seven different
0:33:10apps to make the same operation happen.
0:33:14And that doesn't mean that iOS is wrong, but to me, as long as that's still the case, as
0:33:19long as you still have to write a custom workflow to get something to happen in the workflow
0:33:23app, which by the way, is truly mind-boggling amazing, but as long as that's how you get
0:33:27things done, like that is the official way to get things done on iOS, I don't think that
0:33:33the Mac is dead quite yet.
0:33:35And I'm not even talking about writing code or anything like that, I'm just talking about
0:33:39general things that professionals do.
0:33:42You can define professionals, professional podcasters, as professional project managers,
0:33:46as CMOs, whatever Ben Brooks' title is, I don't even remember anymore.
0:33:50But if they're jumping through hoops in order to get their work done, even if they don't
0:33:54necessarily feel like it's jumping through hoops, it's still daisy-chaining a bunch of
0:33:58different steps together.
0:33:59As long as that's still a thing, I don't think the Mac is dead.
0:34:01But when that stops being a thing, or it becomes even easier to kind of daisy-chain all these
0:34:06things and you're out writing custom workflows because apps are supporting it, then I start
0:34:10to wonder, "Ugh, maybe I'm the old man here after all."
0:34:14- Well, this is why I think it's important
0:34:16to really make these observational comparisons,
0:34:20which I guess are called observations,
0:34:22on people who do the same kind of work that you do, right?
0:34:26Like, people you mentioned are podcasters and writers,
0:34:30and the podcasters all still use Macs to podcast with,
0:34:35not all podcasters, but the ones you mentioned,
0:34:38and a writer can get away with using iOS only or primarily
0:34:43a lot more easily than a programmer can today.
0:34:46So I think once people, you and I, the three of us,
0:34:52are all programmers, once a whole bunch of programmers
0:34:56dump their PCs and Macs and do all of their work on iOS,
0:35:01then I think we have to start looking, okay,
0:35:04there's a thing here, we should consider this,
0:35:06we should pay attention to this,
0:35:08and maybe we are wrong at that point.
0:35:09But until that happens, which might never come,
0:35:13again, I wanna be very careful here in how I phrase this.
0:35:16Like, you said, like, the Mac is dead,
0:35:20and the Mac isn't dead until this happens.
0:35:22And a lot of people, you know, you phrase these things
0:35:25in a way that presents them as an inevitable future.
0:35:28But I do wanna be clear here that when I talk about this,
0:35:31I'm not necessarily considering this an inevitable future.
0:35:36the future, I mean, obviously OS's eventually do die
0:35:40and fall out of favor and fall out of use and maintenance,
0:35:43but I am still not yet convinced
0:35:46that the PC style operating system is destined
0:35:49to be sidelined and killed in favor
0:35:53of the mobile style operating system
0:35:55within the foreseeable future.
0:35:57Like, eventually on an infinite time scale it might happen,
0:35:59but I don't see this as the obvious foretold future
0:36:04that is certain to happen.
0:36:06But anyway, I think you really have to just look at
0:36:09people who do the kind of work you do.
0:36:11And most of the people who are talking about
0:36:14going iOS only or iOS being the inevitable future,
0:36:18most of these people are writers and analysts
0:36:22and executives, and that's fine,
0:36:25and there's a lot of people who that will be fine for,
0:36:28but if you start talking to people who do different
0:36:30kinds of things with their computers,
0:36:32including things that we all, that all three of us do,
0:36:35then you start very quickly to hit limits of like,
0:36:37oh well you kinda can't do that on iOS yet.
0:36:40Or that's really difficult and clunky to do on iOS.
0:36:43I don't think you can look at a bunch of people
0:36:45who professionally write as their main job
0:36:49and say like, well, they're all using an iPad,
0:36:52so therefore I should be using an iPad.
0:36:54You should be more concerned if people
0:36:57who do the kinds of things you do,
0:36:59like programming, if they switch.
0:37:01and that's when you should pay attention.
0:37:03- I largely agree with you, but I don't think it's fair
0:37:07to classify Federico Mike and Ben Brooks
0:37:10always simply writers.
0:37:11I mean, I think they're doing--
0:37:12- I didn't say simply.
0:37:13That's important.
0:37:16- Okay, well--
0:37:16- It's a job that is very amenable to iOS primary
0:37:21or iOS only work, and there are a lot of jobs
0:37:24for which that's the case,
0:37:25but there's a lot where it isn't also.
0:37:28- Yeah, I guess my point is that I don't wanna paint
0:37:31the image because I can hear Mike Hurley and Federico screaming at us from the future.
0:37:36It's not that all they do is write. They're doing sometimes relatively intense spreadsheet
0:37:43work. I mean, look at the quarterly earnings reports that Federico farts out in the span
0:37:48of like four seconds because of all the workflows that he's built. And Mike and Steven Hackett
0:37:54are, you know, billing or invoicing advertisers and doing all sorts of like traditional business-y
0:38:00things. So I don't, I agree with you that it is mostly writer-like things on the surface,
0:38:08but there's a lot more to it when you start digging in. But that doesn't negate your point
0:38:12that these people, with the exception perhaps of Federico actually, these people are not
0:38:16developers. They're not writing code, well except Federico, on their devices.
0:38:20I mean Federico's an outlier in a lot of ways.
0:38:23- Yeah, I agree, I agree.
0:38:25But yeah, it's not the sort of thing that the three of us do
0:38:28but I don't want to discount it in summary
0:38:30as legitimate work that is more than just
0:38:34writing prose on a piece of paper, that's all.
0:38:36- Oh yeah, no, and I never said legitimate or simple.
0:38:38Like I'm not saying these,
0:38:40I'm not characterizing it this way.
0:38:42It's just different software needs
0:38:44and different things you need from your computing devices
0:38:46and different levels of flexibility and access
0:38:50to things like files and inter-program communication
0:38:54and the integration of lots of things
0:38:56within the same data set like what you need with programming
0:38:59and like, you know, there are certain strengths
0:39:01and weaknesses to both OS styles,
0:39:04but again, you know, I think when people
0:39:07who do the kinds of things you do are switching in mass,
0:39:10that's when to pay attention.
0:39:11Before that happens and unless that happens,
0:39:15I don't think you need to be worried too much
0:39:18that you are the dinosaur holding back progress.
0:39:20Also, it's quite impressive that Jon thinks
0:39:22that we can hold back progress.
0:39:24- Well, no, I'm just saying, like,
0:39:25what are you spending your time doing?
0:39:26'Cause like I said, if you see somebody yelling against it,
0:39:28even if they don't actually do anything,
0:39:31it's not, it seems like they're wasting their time
0:39:34and it's a sad situation where they don't realize
0:39:36that the world is passing them by.
0:39:38One more item on this that I think about
0:39:40is sort of the second level version of checking yourself,
0:39:44which is more focused on Apple, the company,
0:39:48and less focused on whether what the future of computing is.
0:39:55And that is the question of whether it's important for Apple to be in the personal computer market.
0:40:04So even if you see everything that Marco said, like, OK, well, people doing these types of
0:40:08jobs still need a PC or whatever.
0:40:10Is it the best thing for the company called Apple?
0:40:14Does it need to be in the PC market?
0:40:16And that's where we talk about, "Oh, well they need the Macs to develop for iOS.
0:40:19What if they have a development environment on iPads?
0:40:21Well, it's not the same, blah, blah, blah.
0:40:22Could you develop iOS applications on PCs?"
0:40:25That's the next question is, even if you stipulate PCs aren't going away anytime soon, should
0:40:30Apple continue to sell PCs?
0:40:32Is the Mac only hanging around for old time's sake and tradition and affection, but it would
0:40:41be better for the company to allow all the people who develop for iOS to do so on a platform
0:40:48that someone else maintains and really in us arguing for Apple to say in the market
0:40:54really we're just trying to like you know I mean we've made the argument times that
0:40:57like that every every other alternative is worse so we would be sad but from the perspective
0:41:02of Apple the company they may say yes every we agree every alternative is worse than the
0:41:07But the Mac is no longer worth the money for us to invest in and rather than letting a limp along with us never updating
0:41:13Our stuff and you being all mad about it
0:41:15Why don't we just get out of that business the same way we get out of printers and Wi-Fi hubs and whatever the hell else?
0:41:20They're not in and won't that be refreshing we can finally concentrate on the thing we do best
0:41:25Which is the iPhone with some ancillary iOS type things and blah blah blah blah blah
0:41:30I I think you know obviously I disagree with that or whatever
0:41:33But that's, I still keep it in mind as the second possibility.
0:41:38The first being that, you know, we're on the wrong side of history.
0:41:41And the second is we're on the right side of history, but just because we love Apple
0:41:45and just because it's the best, it would actually be better for the company Apple
0:41:49to get out of this business so it could concentrate on the other stuff, which again,
0:41:53I don't buy, but I still entertain that as a thought experiment that I revisit to make
0:41:58sure that it's not the case, because that can sneak up on you too, where you're like,
0:42:01You feel so strongly that you're right that like look everybody who is editing video is doing it on a big powerful personal computer
0:42:06First of all, we just can't go away. I'm a video editor. I need to edit video
0:42:09I look at all the other people who are adding video and no one's doing on an iPad clearly the PC is a thing and
0:42:14Then to make the leap therefore Apple needs to make a new Mac Pro
0:42:17Does Apple need to make a Mac Pro or do you just need to switch to Windows and be sad like, you know?
0:42:21Because again pros will use whatever they have to use to get the job done and the more like an appliance
0:42:27This is what's talking about when Marco was talking about like getting the surface studio
0:42:30The more you use a computer like an appliance to get your job done as a professional the less tied you are
0:42:37Effectively if not emotionally two of the particular platform are using so if you're just gonna be in Lightroom all day and the surface studio
0:42:43Is the best you know?
0:42:45Dedicated Lightroom appliance you go into the office sit down in front and all you do is Lightroom Lightroom Lightroom all day long
0:42:49Maybe that is better than any solution Apple has to offer and maybe Apple staying in that business is just some sentimental thing that you
0:42:56you care about, but realistically speaking,
0:42:58we would all be much happier if Apple got out of it
0:43:00and stopped making that line of computers entirely,
0:43:02and you just sat down in front of your server studio
0:43:03and gave that business to Microsoft,
0:43:05some company that is actually interested in pursuing it.
0:43:08- Yeah, well, as soon as Apple starts being managed
0:43:10by the numbers that way, they're going to find themselves,
0:43:13I think, in a very boring and slowly declining place,
0:43:18whether the numbers suggest so or not.
0:43:20That is a very, very fast way to become Microsoft
0:43:22with under Steve Ballmer.
0:43:23I'm telling, like that's, you know,
0:43:25There was this wonderful Steve Jobs video
0:43:29that floated around on Reddit a couple weeks ago
0:43:31about how it takes like five years to realize
0:43:34when the bit flips and you start making computers
0:43:38just to make money and not to make better computers
0:43:40or something like that.
0:43:41I'm probably butchering it.
0:43:42- He also said he would milk the Mac for all it's worth
0:43:44and move on to the next big thing.
0:43:45And guess what?
0:43:46The Mac is not like an analogy.
0:43:48He was talking about specifically the Mac.
0:43:50The Mac we're talking about now.
0:43:51Milk it for all it's worth and move on to the next thing.
0:43:52And it's clear he thought the next thing
0:43:54the iPhone and the iPad and it's pretty clear the next thing is the iPhone and iPad, but
0:43:58we're still making Macs. So in some ways it would be like pursuing your passion, not continuing
0:44:02to make the Mac just because you've always made it. If the company itself is enthusiastic
0:44:06about iOS devices only, then continuing to make Macs in a disappointing way. You know,
0:44:12it's not as if like, oh, well, you're just going to go if you're going to go by the numbers,
0:44:15you're like, oh, I should go where the big business is. But maybe the passion is just
0:44:18not in it anymore for the Macs. Maybe they see it as a declining business they're not
0:44:21interested in and isn't it better for all of us to divorce this dysfunctional relationship,
0:44:27stop making the Mac, force everybody to go to Windows or whatever, which will force more
0:44:31money into that market that will hopefully motivate Microsoft to make the Surface Studio
0:44:35better.
0:44:36Again, I'm not recommending any of this.
0:44:37These are all thought experiments and all things that I revisit.
0:44:40I revisit and mostly reject, but if you never revisit them, they'll sneak up on you.
0:44:45Well, but here's the problem with this thinking.
0:44:48So you start running the company by the numbers
0:44:50and you think, well, it'll be fine,
0:44:52we'll let the Mac languish or we'll kill it
0:44:55because it's not where we wanna go or whatever,
0:44:58whatever the reason, doesn't matter.
0:45:00- But it's not by the numbers
0:45:00'cause they're not passionate about it.
0:45:01It's the past and they're passionate about the future.
0:45:04So they're running it by their passion.
0:45:05They're not being a slave to the past.
0:45:07They're saying what we're interested in is, I don't know,
0:45:09maybe they're interested in AR or whatever,
0:45:11but maybe they're not interested in the Mac anymore.
0:45:13So I would say it's the opposite of running it by the numbers
0:45:15because the numbers would tell you,
0:45:16why throw away $22 billion business, right?
0:45:18That's free money, why are you throwing that away?
0:45:20You say, we're throwing it away
0:45:22so we can concentrate more fully
0:45:23on the thing that we really believe is the future,
0:45:25which is the opposite of Steve Ballmer.
0:45:26Steve Ballmer would keep the Mac going forever
0:45:29and just do exactly what the customers wanted
0:45:30forever and ever as the rest of the world moves on.
0:45:33You know what I mean?
0:45:34I feel like that's more of the Steve Ballmer way.
0:45:35- You're right, Apple would definitely not
0:45:36keep selling the same products forever.
0:45:38- No, I mean, like in terms of like,
0:45:40of trying to do what that market wants exactly.
0:45:43Like they would be giving us Big Macs with lots of ports and, you know, constantly revising
0:45:47them and just sat like making them satisfied in the way that like, you know, IBM mainframe
0:45:52customers are satisfied.
0:45:53The IBM will continue to make mainframes for its mainframe customers and give them exactly
0:45:57what they want.
0:45:58All the while, the whole rest of the world is moving on from mainframes.
0:46:01But they don't know.
0:46:02They're like, "It's fine.
0:46:03They keep making us better and better mainframes and we love mainframes."
0:46:05And they wake up one day and the entire world has moved on.
0:46:08They're like, "Wait, there's only like 10 of us left?"
0:46:11But we were so happy for all these years,
0:46:12and we were happy to give IBM all this money,
0:46:14and they kept making these awesome mainframes from us,
0:46:16and the world has moved on past you, right?
0:46:18So I feel like that's more of a Ballmer thing.
0:46:21- Fair, but everything you're saying about the Mac,
0:46:26what happens when they apply
0:46:28that exact same logic to the iPhone?
0:46:31- Well, they can.
0:46:33I mean, if they're no longer passionate about the iPhone
0:46:36and they think the next big thing is something else,
0:46:38then they should, like, it's exactly the same thing
0:46:40Steve Jobs saying like milk the Mac for all it's worth move on to the next big thing.
0:46:44Eventually it's milk the iPhone for all it's worth move on to the next big thing because
0:46:47if you don't someone else will. Like someone else will eat your lunch if you don't eat
0:46:50you know cannibalizing your business. Apple is the one who cannibalized its own iPod sales.
0:46:55Apple didn't cannibalize iPod sales. The sales curve for iPods would look like the same big
0:46:59hump with spikes on it for the holidays. It would look exactly the same but someone else
0:47:03would have replaced it. Whether it's Samsung or Microsoft or whoever would have won that
0:47:07war, if Apple didn't cannibalize the iPod, someone else would. So it's not like Apple
0:47:10banked the company on the iPod and said it's going to be iPod forever. Remember when people
0:47:14were saying the iPod is going to dwarf the Mac and now Apple is just an iPod company
0:47:18and the Apple store was the iPod store? Apple is the one who cannibalized the iPod. It turns
0:47:22out the iPod arc was obviously shorter than we think the iPhone arc is going to be. The
0:47:26iPhone arc could last our whole lives for all we know, or longer. But that's the challenge
0:47:32of the innovator's dilemma and all that other crap. That's the challenge of business. And
0:47:36The Mac in all of these graphs is this aberration that never goes up and never goes down, but
0:47:40just keeps on trucking.
0:47:42And I think there, you know, again, I'm not playing devil's advocate.
0:47:45I'm just saying these are things that are worth thinking about.
0:47:48I don't find them convincing.
0:47:49If I had to make the argument, I would say Apple needs to continue making the Mac and
0:47:52should do a much better job at it because the time has not come.
0:47:55Because I mostly am on the same page as Marco.
0:47:59Other people who are doing these tasks are not currently using anything that's not like
0:48:04a PC.
0:48:05PCs to do them. Like, they're not using Surface tablets, they're not using, at this point
0:48:09they're still not using the Surface Studio, they're using PCs, whether they're Windows
0:48:13PCs or Unix workstations running Maya or Macs, they're just not using iPads to do these jobs,
0:48:20right? And that's, I think that is, you know, Marko didn't do his homework, but he came
0:48:24up with a pretty reasonable last minute scribbling while the teachers come around and collecting
0:48:29the papers. It's how I got through school. Yeah, I think that is a thing to look for.
0:48:34You have to be careful because if you're just looking at the people who are like hanging
0:48:37out in the same circles as you, then it's all like sort of self-selecting.
0:48:39It's like, well, all my friends still use PCs, but maybe every kid graduating school
0:48:44is doing, you know, like for example, digital video.
0:48:46Like if every kid graduating film school is shooting digital video and editing digital
0:48:50video and you're like, well, all my friends are still shooting on film, so film is never
0:48:53going to die.
0:48:54You're being blind.
0:48:55You're missing it, right?
0:48:56But I think in this case, for the jobs that we're talking about, certainly programming,
0:48:59because I think we have a good view on that, not just for iOS and Mac programming, but
0:49:03in all realms that serious programming is still done in PC style devices. Video editing
0:49:09for the most part is still done in PC style devices, but you gotta watch the kids. Watch
0:49:12the kids coming into film school. Are they editing their film school project on an iPad
0:49:18or on a Surface Studio or on anything like that? That's sort of like the leading indicator
0:49:23and that's the thing to watch for. I think right now the answer is that PC style computers
0:49:27are still the thing to do. My big fear is that Apple decides that it's not worth them
0:49:31being in the business. I don't particularly have a fear that in the near future the PC
0:49:36style of computing is going to go away. I have a fear that the Apple personal computer,
0:49:41meaning the Mac, is going to go away because Apple doesn't care about it or neglects it
0:49:45to the point. And that's the worst case scenario where you still have to use a PC, but you
0:49:49no longer get to choose the Mac because it's no longer any good for you.
0:49:53That's when I switched to Linux.
0:49:55(sighs)
0:49:56- Gotta help us all.
0:49:57Quick side note about that though, Jon.
0:50:00I had some coworkers at the last gig
0:50:02that did use Surface tablets to do their work,
0:50:06like to write code, to do their work,
0:50:09to do, that was their computer.
0:50:10There were only a couple of them,
0:50:11and I think by and large,
0:50:12they kind of regretted their decision,
0:50:14but in that sense, it is happening.
0:50:17That is a thing that happens from time to time.
0:50:18- Well, I think we call that,
0:50:19I keep putting the Surface into it,
0:50:21but I'm thinking more of like using the touch interface
0:50:23to the Surface device, even more of the Surface Studio,
0:50:25where you are touching the screen.
0:50:27In many respects, the Surface Books and all that stuff,
0:50:30they're just a convertible laptop.
0:50:31Like it's muddled by the fact that Windows
0:50:34is this unified platform.
0:50:36But yeah, I have people at work who do programming stuff
0:50:38on Surface too, but it's just a laptop at that point.
0:50:41It's like a weird laptop with a bendy hinge,
0:50:44and it's running Windows, and they're running terminal stuff
0:50:46and they have a keyboard, and they have a trackpad
0:50:48pointing device, and yeah, they also have a pen,
0:50:50and yeah, it can kind of be a tablet,
0:50:51But essentially they're using a laptop.
0:50:53Like they have Windows with title bars and scroll bars.
0:50:57Like it's confusing because of the way Microsoft has done
0:51:01its unified OS strategy,
0:51:03but I would still totally classify those as PC style
0:51:06because it is very distinct from the iOS style.
0:51:08Even when I see my daughter,
0:51:10she's got like a keyboard, Logitech keyboard thing
0:51:12for her iPad.
0:51:13Even when she does form of laptop with her,
0:51:16that's Wonder Twins for you.
0:51:17You guys missed that show.
0:51:18Anyway, when she makes a little laptop out of her iPad and her keyboard, it's still not
0:51:26a laptop.
0:51:27Yes, it looks like one.
0:51:28Yes, there's a kind of a vertical-ish screen and a horizontal-ish keyboard, but there's
0:51:32no pointer on her screen.
0:51:34She's not using a trackpad.
0:51:35There are no windows.
0:51:36There are no scroll bars and scroll thumbs.
0:51:37There's no menu bar along the top.
0:51:39It is not a PC computing experience.
0:51:45We live in a strange time.
0:51:46We live in a strange transitional time,
0:51:47but some things defy categorization,
0:51:50but I think the salient points,
0:51:52like what makes it a PC,
0:51:54and what makes it a PC style computing environment,
0:51:57are pretty clear.
0:51:58For me, obviously it's all about Windows,
0:51:59because what the hell,
0:52:01imagine if the 28 inch Surface Studio did not have Windows,
0:52:06like everything was full screen or split screen
0:52:09like it does in the iPad.
0:52:10We would say this is the biggest waste
0:52:12of a 28 inch screen in the world,
0:52:14unless you're only ever in one app
0:52:16doing Lightroom all the time, then fine,
0:52:17but for a general purpose computing device,
0:52:19getting back to Marco's idea that you can do
0:52:21more than one thing at a time,
0:52:22a general purpose computing device
0:52:25that can only show apps in full screen
0:52:26on a 20-inch display is just a very wrong-headed idea,
0:52:30and I would say that's not PC computing,
0:52:32that's more like iOS.
0:52:33- Here's a question.
0:52:34In what product is Apple really stepping on the gas
0:52:40and really firing on all cylinders?
0:52:42- AirPods.
0:52:43I know it's not a valid answer in this context,
0:52:46but I cannot stop talking about how much I love my AirPods.
0:52:50- I would say the iPhone.
0:52:51I mean, I know, I think at last show,
0:52:53I recently listened to it, so it's fresh in my mind,
0:52:55and Marco said like, "Oh, the new iPhone 7,
0:52:58"internally the changes aren't that big."
0:52:59Like, look at the graphs, man.
0:53:00Like, every part of this,
0:53:02every part of this that can be better,
0:53:04computing-wise and capacity-wise,
0:53:06is better by leaps and bounds,
0:53:08by like '90s-era PC leaps and bounds.
0:53:11Like, it's not, the CPU is not just a little bit faster.
0:53:14The GPU is not just a little bit faster.
0:53:16The flash capacity is like the max is, you know,
0:53:19isn't it double like you can only get 128 last year,
0:53:20now you can get 256s.
0:53:22It's fantastically better internal.
0:53:25The only thing that's not better about it by,
0:53:30oh, they're not standing on the gas,
0:53:31it's like, oh, the case is the same shape.
0:53:33And even there, they changed the surface
0:53:35in such a way that Marco was saying
0:53:37is his favorite product of last year,
0:53:39because it made such a difference in day-to-day use.
0:53:43So I still think iPhone is pedal to the metal,
0:53:46and AirPods are part of that,
0:53:47are part of their weird headphone thing,
0:53:49which by the way has bitten me.
0:53:51I don't have a USB-C laptop,
0:53:52but I've been bitten by the headphones thing
0:53:54like five times recently,
0:53:57where I thought I had everything I needed
0:53:59and was gonna plug a headphone in and realized,
0:54:02even on the plane coming back,
0:54:03I brought the adapter for me
0:54:04to use my noise-canceling headphones,
0:54:05but then my daughter wanted to use some headphones too
0:54:08and plug in, it's like, oh, well, I only have one adapter.
0:54:10(laughing)
0:54:11Like you always think you have everything you need,
0:54:13but here just use, oh, nevermind.
0:54:15Or gone on a car trip and before,
0:54:18and we're gonna plug, in my wife's old car,
0:54:21she just had AUX in with like a headphone port,
0:54:23and I brought my iPod with me, or my phone with me,
0:54:25and we can listen to like the podcast
0:54:27that I'm in the middle of,
0:54:28and we get in the car and start driving away,
0:54:30and I grab the little AUX cord from the center console
0:54:32and pick it up and go, no.
0:54:33There's no place I can plug that into my phone.
0:54:36And of course I'm not carrying the adapter around with me.
0:54:39So yeah, the struggle is real as they say.
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0:56:43(upbeat music)
0:56:46- All right, final bit of follow-up, speaking of cars.
0:56:49- Still a follow-up.
0:56:51- No, we're almost done.
0:56:52Well, this is one of those episodes
0:56:53where follow-up isn't exactly follow-up,
0:56:55which is probably most episodes.
0:56:56Anyway, Sam O'Balsamid, who is co-host
0:57:00of the Wheel Bearings podcast, which,
0:57:02if you ever wanted neutral, but with people
0:57:04who actually knew what they were talking about,
0:57:06you should look up Wheel Bearings.
0:57:07It's pretty good. (laughing)
0:57:08Anyway, he writes in to say,
0:57:10"The 2016-2017 model year accords do indeed support
0:57:13"both CarPlay and Android Auto, as do most new Hondas.
0:57:17"The only Hondas that are still waiting
0:57:18"for Android Auto and CarPlay update
0:57:19"are the Fit and the HRV."
0:57:21I'm not sure what that is.
0:57:22I know the CRV, but not the HRV.
0:57:23- You don't know what the HRV is?
0:57:25Be glad it's terrible, but.
0:57:27- Anyway, "The 2018 Odyssey is debuting
0:57:30in a couple of weeks at the Detroit Auto Show. So that makes me think that Tina's car does
0:57:35indeed have CarPlay, does it not?
0:57:39So here's the question. I've never used CarPlay. I've seen pictures of it online, and I think
0:57:45I've even seen screenshots of Marco's CarPlay stuff, and I've seen Marco's disembodied CarPlay
0:57:51testing whatchapoos and things, right? But I don't know how CarPlay works. Do I have
0:57:56to download an app onto my phone called CarPlay?
0:57:59No.
0:58:00- You think if I just plug a phone into my wife's car
0:58:03with a wire, because we don't have the wireless version,
0:58:05that something will happen on the screen
0:58:07to indicate you are in CarPlay now?
0:58:10- Apparently if you just plug it in,
0:58:12there'll be one of those alerts, like a computer,
0:58:15where it says, "Do you trust this car?"
0:58:16Or something like that, and then magic happens.
0:58:19Now, I've not witnessed this myself,
0:58:20this is just real-time follow-up,
0:58:21but that's what I'm being told.
0:58:23- Do I trust this car?
0:58:25- Yeah, last time Tina was saying
0:58:26there was only uncertain trim levels.
0:58:28Bottom line is this is like the Schrodinger's cat of CarPlay support.
0:58:31Until I actually try it, her car both has CarPlay support and doesn't have CarPlay support.
0:58:37But seriously, it had not occurred to me to think like, do I have to download an app,
0:58:42and once I download the app do I do a thing, or is it just plugging it in?
0:58:45And I think basically we've never actually plugged any of our iPhones into her car because
0:58:50it's all been Bluetooth, so it could be that that's totally right as soon as I plug it
0:58:53in.
0:58:54Oh, Jon.
0:58:55How do you not know this already?
0:58:56That would be the first thing I tried.
0:58:58- I've driven that car onto and off of the driveway
0:59:01like twice, that's how far I've driven that car.
0:59:03- Why don't you just go outside right now
0:59:05and give it a shot?
0:59:06I'm kind of not kidding.
0:59:08I'm really not kidding.
0:59:09- It won't take too long.
0:59:10- Why don't you just go give it, it won't take too long,
0:59:11it'll take just a minute.
0:59:13- All right, I'll be back, hang on.
0:59:16- So literally as I'm saying this,
0:59:18Tina is sending me a text saying that it is not a thing.
0:59:22Hold on.
0:59:25- I'm looking up the HRV, it looks basically
0:59:28like the Honda X1.
0:59:30- Oh, okay.
0:59:31Oh, standard on Accord EX, EXL, and Touring.
0:59:35- Right, but I think she doesn't have the EX,
0:59:36so I think it's optional for her trim.
0:59:38Is it just not there, or was it optional?
0:59:40'Cause that's what we don't know.
0:59:41- That I don't know.
0:59:43What is it, Honda USA?
0:59:45I hate that whenever you go to like Honda or Audi
0:59:48or whatever, it's the corporate,
0:59:49this is the most American thing I think I've ever said.
0:59:51But why does it not go,
0:59:53Why does it not go directly to America?
0:59:56- It's just like in the country list dropdowns,
0:59:58why are we not the first sign listed?
0:59:59Like I know alphabetically we're not.
1:00:00- Exactly, this is barbaric.
1:00:02- Do I really have to scroll through like,
1:00:03how likely is it that I'm actually from like,
1:00:05you know, any of these other places?
1:00:07Like just put the US on top for all the stupid,
1:00:09arrogant Americans and put everything else below it.
1:00:12- I am fully behind this.
1:00:15Tina's saying there was no option.
1:00:17It's, she does not have an EX, it's a sports special.
1:00:20It was not an option.
1:00:21there's basically no options, period, anyway.
1:00:23- Well, I guess Jon went outside in the cold
1:00:25in the winter for no reason.
1:00:27Oh well.
1:00:28I'm sure he won't be mad.
1:00:29(laughing)
1:00:31- I'm now getting yelled at by Tina
1:00:33that nobody wants to believe her.
1:00:35I did believe you, Tina.
1:00:36- We just wanted to send Jon outside.
1:00:37- Oh, that too.
1:00:38This is basically every conversation
1:00:39I've had with Aron ever.
1:00:41Aron tells me this is not a thing,
1:00:43or this is a thing.
1:00:44No, you've gotta be wrong.
1:00:46Oh, turns out you're right.
1:00:47(laughing)
1:00:48every conversation I've ever had with Aaron.
1:00:51- Yeah, I believe we have words for this.
1:00:53One of the more charitable ones
1:00:54is probably mansplaining.
1:00:56- Oh, the magic of technology.
1:00:58(laughing)
1:00:59- All right, John.
1:01:00- Here's what happened.
1:01:02So I go to the car and I get all my stuff
1:01:04and my cables and everything and I plug,
1:01:07you know, the car turned on, I plug the thing in,
1:01:10I wait to see something pop up on my phone screen,
1:01:13nothing ever pops up, wait a couple seconds,
1:01:16and I hear you two talking about what I'm doing right now.
1:01:20Like talking about going to the car configurator,
1:01:23the Honda website and stuff like that.
1:01:25Because-- - Is it just Tina's phone
1:01:26popped on Bluetooth? - Right, so Tina,
1:01:29my wife is listening to the phone upstairs on Bluetooth
1:01:31and the car is paired with her phone.
1:01:33And so it start, for a second I'm like,
1:01:36what in the world is going on?
1:01:38- That is so amazing. - That's awesome.
1:01:39Ah, the magic of Bluetooth.
1:01:41Anyway, my result of the short experiment
1:01:43was that plugging in the phone does nothing.
1:01:45I was not prompted to do anything.
1:01:47I couldn't find anything in any of the menus that mentioned CarPlay or anything about CarPlay.
1:01:51I could connect my phone by Bluetooth, but that's not how CarPlay works.
1:01:53It's not a Bluetooth audio thing.
1:01:56So inconclusive results, but at the very least, merely plugging my phone in did nothing.
1:02:02While you were gone, I'm pretty sure we found out that your wife was right the whole time,
1:02:05and you didn't even need to go outside.
1:02:08See, that's...
1:02:09There you go.
1:02:11Sam guy on the car podcast who knows something supposedly.
1:02:15Your wife knows better.
1:02:16I'm sure we'll get some feedback on this one.
1:02:18Amazingly sometimes we don't know what we're talking about.
1:02:22Really?
1:02:23And this is why we used to do a car show kids.
1:02:27People love when you don't know what you're talking about and you do a car podcast.
1:02:30People really like that.
1:02:32They think it's the best.
1:02:33I reject this characterization.
1:02:34I know a lot about cars.
1:02:35I know a lot about what I was talking about.
1:02:37You two keep saying that about yourselves, but I reject that.
1:02:40Oh, God.
1:02:42This episode is turning to be quite good.
1:02:46I love how we just have no structure this week.
1:02:48We did follow-up.
1:02:50All those items were legit follow-up.
1:02:52Mmm.
1:02:54[laughter]
1:02:55One of them was even homework.
1:02:57Man, they went long. Sometimes follow-up goes long,
1:02:59but that tends to happen after lots of stuff builds up
1:03:02if we haven't recorded for a while.
1:03:04The problematic part we have here is
1:03:07as we transition to topics, go look what's lurking there.
1:03:10The very first item, who put that in there?
1:03:13Is that going to be Casey?
1:03:14Did you put that in there?
1:03:15Yes.
1:03:16I don't think I want to talk about it, though.
1:03:17Right.
1:03:18It's just like, it's the same thing we've been talking about for the past month on the
1:03:19show.
1:03:20I don't feel like, is it, like, I read parts of that article.
1:03:23It's gone.
1:03:24It's gone.
1:03:25Yeah, you deleted it, but, um.
1:03:26Oh, God.
1:03:27Here we go.
1:03:28Is there anything in that article that is not something that we've already talked about?
1:03:31That's my only question.
1:03:32Yeah, probably not.
1:03:33So the article in question, hopefully we'll cut this from the show, but the article in
1:03:36question is, uh, yeah, Chuck Von Rosspatch, uh, I've probably
1:03:40pronounced that wrong, I apologize, but anyway, his Apple 2016 year in review, which, TLDR,
1:03:47some things suck, some things don't, but...
1:03:49It's a great post.
1:03:50It is good.
1:03:51Yeah, I mean, it's good.
1:03:52It's totally good.
1:03:53You know, he's expressing, in a much more succinct way, his position on the same issues
1:03:59that we had talked about.
1:04:00Yeah, "susinct" is not necessarily the word I would use.
1:04:01Well, it's more succinct than, like, hours and hours of audio, but, like, you know, we're
1:04:05We're both, we're all Mac fans, and we're all kind of experiencing some dissatisfaction
1:04:10with the treatment of the Mac, and we've talked about it at length, and this was his take
1:04:13on it.
1:04:14And it was good, and it was articulate, and it was an expression of his opinion and his
1:04:17desires and his hopes and dreams, and it was a good post.
1:04:20But for the purposes of discussion on the show, I'm wondering if it is bringing any
1:04:23new angle that we haven't already given our opinions on umpteen times.
1:04:28Yeah, and since we'll be asked about it, um, god, who was it that wrote this?
1:04:33Hold on one second.
1:04:35- Chris Adamson?
1:04:36- Chris Adamson, yes.
1:04:37Chris Adamson's post.
1:04:38Yeah.
1:04:39- Also very good, although I honestly,
1:04:43I don't know if the Mac Pro was the best choice there,
1:04:45but we're seeing now from a lot of people
1:04:47saying similar things.
1:04:48This is not a coincidence, this is not an accident,
1:04:50this is not a trend or people being wrong.
1:04:54This is like legitimately, Apple is causing concern
1:04:58in many of its customers and many of its best,
1:05:01biggest fans and longest time customers.
1:05:03And so, I think if I can summarize in a very quick way,
1:05:08or at least try to put a cap on this for now,
1:05:112017 is gonna be a very important year
1:05:14for Apple to prove a lot of big things
1:05:17to the market and to its customers.
1:05:20Right now, there's a lot of things
1:05:23where the answer from Apple so far
1:05:27is either silence or just wait.
1:05:30Wait 'til we see what we have next,
1:05:33or something like that.
1:05:342017, a lot of this stuff is coming due.
1:05:37Like if 2017 passes through the whole year
1:05:40and there isn't a major new iPhone design
1:05:44and there isn't some answer to the Mac Pro
1:05:48and there isn't maybe better quarterly earnings,
1:05:51these are some pretty big things.
1:05:54There have been bad signs on these fronts
1:05:56for the last year or so, but everyone's like,
1:05:59oh, next year or soon or this is gonna be out soon
1:06:02or this is gonna be fixed soon,
1:06:03or the next iPhone's gonna be great,
1:06:04or those quarterly earnings were an anomaly.
1:06:07All those promises are gonna be due this year.
1:06:09And a year from now,
1:06:12when we're presumably still having this podcast
1:06:14and still doing follow-up,
1:06:15we will see, were all of our concerns unfounded?
1:06:19How well are all these complaints gonna age?
1:06:24Are we all wrong?
1:06:25Is Apple about to release over the course of the next year
1:06:29amazing things that are gonna blow our minds
1:06:31and we're going to feel good about the Mac again,
1:06:35and we're gonna feel good about Apple's prospects again,
1:06:37and we're gonna feel good about the iPhone design again,
1:06:39all this stuff, and their number's gonna go up,
1:06:41and everyone on the market's gonna be happy.
1:06:43Is that really gonna happen this year?
1:06:44It might, we don't know yet.
1:06:46We'll find out, and I really hope things go better,
1:06:48because frankly, if they don't,
1:06:51I'm gonna have to find other stuff to talk about,
1:06:52because I'm tired of being sad all the time
1:06:54about all the stuff I love.
1:06:56- Wargrove in the chat room had a good turn of phrase,
1:06:59which I'm going to slightly improve.
1:07:012017 year of Mac OS on the desktop.
1:07:04Nice.
1:07:06Pretty good, huh?
1:07:07Nice.
1:07:08Ooh.
1:07:09So I know Marco wanted to put a capper on this,
1:07:12but unfortunately the next item in the topic list
1:07:14is the one tiny sliver of new angle on this, yes,
1:07:18very old entire topic that I happened to--
1:07:22that happened to occur to me and that I tweeted earlier today.
1:07:24It was in response to Michael Sise.
1:07:26He's had a series of articles on this whole same thing,
1:07:29like so many other Mac bloggers,
1:07:30and he's an old time Mac user,
1:07:32and he's feeling all the same things.
1:07:34And one of his posts was on finding an alternative
1:07:37to what he calls Mac OS X.
1:07:40But he's not on board with their naming, I guess.
1:07:43And he links to Wesley Moore's post about this,
1:07:48about trying to find,
1:07:49I'm looking into different Linux distributions and stuff.
1:07:52People are looking for alternatives for Mac OS X.
1:07:56They're not looking for an escape patch,
1:07:58but like at the very least,
1:08:00trying to see what else is out there.
1:08:01Like before I was happy using the Mac
1:08:04and I wasn't even looking at all terms,
1:08:05but now I'm starting to consider like,
1:08:06hey, what else is out there?
1:08:07How's Windows doing?
1:08:09Is Linux any good?
1:08:10Let me try a few different distributions, stuff like that.
1:08:13And then Gruber also talked about it anyway.
1:08:15So this Michael's slide post,
1:08:18what I tweeted, I used the little quote tweet feature,
1:08:20which I actually am starting to like
1:08:22because it gives me room to actually write something
1:08:24while also including their tweet.
1:08:25- Welcome to like two years ago, Jon.
1:08:27I know, I mean, my client has supported it,
1:08:30the iOS version of Twitter, it's great,
1:08:31it's totally up to date, but I'm still,
1:08:33my habits are based on the old ways.
1:08:35- Talk about like not knowing when to move on.
1:08:38- No, I use it, but like my normal Twitter way
1:08:42would be to like, I write a tweet
1:08:44and then paste the last 20 characters,
1:08:46be the shortened URL, right?
1:08:48But by quoting, you get some characters back.
1:08:50Anyway, what I tweeted was, "The last time Mac users
1:08:53"were seriously passing around articles like this,"
1:08:55articles like the one about finding alternatives,
1:08:57was during the transition from macOS to Mac OS X.
1:09:00And as I tweeted to someone else who had replied,
1:09:05someone replied, "Oh, I can't wait for the million replies
1:09:08that are gonna say, and now it's the transition
1:09:09from macOS to iOS, ha ha ha."
1:09:11Which yes, there were many of those replies,
1:09:13but my commentary, follow up to this was,
1:09:18analysis intentionally omitted.
1:09:21A, because it's Twitter and you don't have room to do that.
1:09:24And B, I like to just let this tweet lie
1:09:27because it is like a Rorschach test.
1:09:30The last time I saw articles about this
1:09:31was the transition from macOS to macOS 10.
1:09:32Half the people are gonna see that and say,
1:09:34"Yeah, and weren't those dummies wrong
1:09:36"because macOS 10 was awesome
1:09:37"and all the people clinging to macOS
1:09:39"were a bunch of chumps."
1:09:40And the other half of the people are gonna say,
1:09:42"Yeah, that's around the last time the Mac almost died
1:09:44"and we came through it by the skin of our teeth
1:09:46"by struggling mightily to get this next based OS
1:09:50"up into ship shape so that it's satisfying to Mac users."
1:09:52And then yet another group of people are gonna say,
1:09:55yes, but a lot of people actually did leave the Mac then,
1:09:57it's just that they were replaced by Unix nerds
1:09:59and it all evened out or actually was a net win.
1:10:01And so many different views on how the Mac OS X
1:10:04transition went, you know, I'm fairly intimately familiar
1:10:07with the Mac OS X transition,
1:10:08so I know what I think about it,
1:10:10but so many different people had different ideas
1:10:12of like what it was like.
1:10:13You guys didn't experience this,
1:10:14you didn't experience the incredible turmoil.
1:10:17Much worse, I'm gonna say much worse
1:10:19than the current turmoil phrasing,
1:10:20much much worse of a dying practically a dying company certainly a dying OS like
1:10:27this is you know the in your parlance the windows 95 you know no memory
1:10:32protection no preemptive multitasking like trying to get from that world into
1:10:37a modern OS while trying to preserve something anything that was good about
1:10:40the Mac it totally felt like Apple as a company could be dying which is not a
1:10:45thing that we are currently worried about right now at all right and
1:10:48And certainly that the Mac could be dying along with the company because even if they survive,
1:10:52what comes out the other side of this thing will not be a Mac. It'll be some stupid Unix thing
1:10:57with a terminal that won't be a Mac at all and everything is terrible. In the end, you know,
1:11:04I think we successfully navigated that transition, but all of the participants, all the players were
1:11:10there. There wasn't that much podcasting going on, but I can tell you that there were many,
1:11:14many people who are from the old school Mac world complaining just like we've
1:11:21been complaining on this podcast through every channel available to them. Again,
1:11:26Twitter didn't exist either, but like Usenet, lots of arguing on Usenet. I
1:11:29remember arguing with some person named Guy English, which totally sounds
1:11:32like a made-up name, on Usenet about the merits of classic Mac OS versus
1:11:36Next. I don't know who that guy was. On, you know, on the nascent web and on our
1:11:42blogs and in person and in Mac user groups and the pages of magazines and
1:11:46letters to editors about how the Mac was going. And the reason I reference that is
1:11:53not because I think we're in the same situation again, I think that was a way
1:11:55more dire situation which gives me some comfort because it's like I came through
1:11:59that and we're nowhere near as bad as that is. But just to say that no one was
1:12:05seriously circulating "check out these alternatives to Mac OS X" in the circles
1:12:11among diehard Mac users.
1:12:13Obviously there's always articles about like, hey, if you're thinking of using this, look
1:12:16at this alternative, blah, blah, blah.
1:12:17But within our sort of blogging and tweeting circles of all these people who have been
1:12:23using Macs for years and love it, I hadn't seen an article like this in ages, let alone
1:12:28a series of them.
1:12:30To find one, I have to go back to the last time our little community was in turmoil,
1:12:36and that was when people were like, oh, if they're going to do this to the Mac, I might
1:12:39as well use Windows or I might as well try Linux or I'm gonna leave the Mac and
1:12:44go to you know there was you know no one said they're gonna leave the Mac and go
1:12:47to Palm OS because that wasn't you know anyway it gives me some historical
1:12:51perspective but it also highlights the fact that even though the current
1:12:54situation is not as bad as it was then is at least of the same type that these
1:13:01kinds of articles are are in circulation and are of interest to everybody even if
1:13:08you don't feel that way, even if you just want to read it so you can sneer at the people
1:13:12who are, you know, claiming that the sky is falling or whatever. The fact is the articles
1:13:17are being passed around and people are reading them, people are thinking about it, and that
1:13:20hasn't happened in a long time. How long ago was the M
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1:15:31[Music]
1:15:35Since clearly the Mac is doomed and the future is not even iOS, it's voice, tell us about
1:15:40your Google Home.
1:15:41My Google Home, yeah, so I got a Google Home as a gift for my wife/gift for the family.
1:15:51It's complicated by the fact that our photos are, you know, I signed up for Google Photos
1:15:57using my one terabyte of Google.
1:15:58Wait, can we back up for a second?
1:16:00I heard from your wife that you got this Google Home
1:16:04as a gift-- - I'm getting to that.
1:16:06- As a gift to her and then paired it to your phone?
1:16:09- I'm about to, and it's not paired to the phone,
1:16:12I'm about to explain this, so.
1:16:13- Did it say Homer on it, is that?
1:16:15- It's obviously for the whole family
1:16:18because it just sits in a room,
1:16:19it's not like one of us has it on their desk
1:16:20or something, right?
1:16:21But one of the things that it can do for you
1:16:24is you can ask it to display your photos on your TV,
1:16:27So show me pictures of whoever on my Chromecast,
1:16:30and it will do that.
1:16:31I don't have Chromecast yet, but I plan to get one.
1:16:32They're like 30 bucks or whatever.
1:16:33It's not a big deal.
1:16:34And I do have HDMI ports available on the side of my TV.
1:16:37So I'm gonna do that.
1:16:39But all of our Google Photos are associated
1:16:42with my Google account, not hers.
1:16:44Even though she has the photo library
1:16:48on her 5K iMac under her account.
1:16:51So she owns that.
1:16:52But I mean, and this is actually a feature.
1:16:54I like the fact that we can do this.
1:16:55I had one terabyte of Google storage
1:16:57that I use for other things.
1:16:58And so when it came time to look into Google Photos,
1:17:01I said, I can run the Google Photos thing
1:17:04on your account on your 5K iMac,
1:17:06but use it to upload all of your photos
1:17:08from the family photo library
1:17:10up to my Google account storage,
1:17:12because I'm the one with one terabyte of storage.
1:17:15And so I have all the Google Photos,
1:17:17and you could only associate the Google Home
1:17:20with one Google account.
1:17:22I do, it's the first thing I searched by Googling,
1:17:25because I saw how you set up like,
1:17:27"Okay, now how do I add another account?"
1:17:28Because you know in all the Google web properties,
1:17:29you can be signed into mobile accounts
1:17:31and switch among them and have, you know,
1:17:32like I thought surely that's the thing,
1:17:34but I immediately found out that Google Home
1:17:36currently is limited to being connected
1:17:37to one Google account.
1:17:38So it is connected to my Google account.
1:17:40And the reason it's connected to my Google account
1:17:42is because I'm the one with all the photos.
1:17:45And that's one of the few things
1:17:46that this thing can do for me.
1:17:47So that's limitation number one about this.
1:17:51Limitation number two is,
1:17:53I mean, it's a big number two.
1:17:55We'll link in the show notes this article Dan Morin wrote
1:17:57about these devices 'cause he's been an avid Amazon.
1:18:00- I look forward to the summary of this
1:18:02like on the book jacket.
1:18:02Like John Siracusa calls Google home,
1:18:04dot, dot, dot, a big number two.
1:18:06- Yeah, well, the number two thing is that basically
1:18:10Amazon Echo has a big lead and it does way more stuff.
1:18:13It just does, especially in terms of home automation
1:18:15as other things, it's been out longer,
1:18:18it has more integrations.
1:18:19And so if you're looking for something
1:18:23you can take out of the box and hook up a bunch of,
1:18:2550 different things too and make your own actions.
1:18:27It feels like this is not that thing.
1:18:29Someone asked me on Twitter,
1:18:31if you had to do it over again,
1:18:32would you still buy the Google Home?
1:18:34And I'm like, how do you even know I have a Google Home?
1:18:35And what are you talking about doing it over again?
1:18:36I just got the Google Home.
1:18:38Like, I don't know.
1:18:39But the reason I got it,
1:18:41and I think we've talked about this before
1:18:42when I said I was interested to get it.
1:18:43The reason I got it is because I believe in the promise.
1:18:46I believe in the promise of Google Home as a product.
1:18:48The actuality of Google Home as a product
1:18:49is that it's nicer looking than the Echo
1:18:52In some ways, it's better in terms of,
1:18:55I think maybe the speaker is a little bit better
1:18:57and it's smaller and it's a little bit more polished,
1:19:01I think, but I'm totally buying it
1:19:03because I believe that Google will eventually be better
1:19:07at all the things that I care about,
1:19:09which is understanding what I'm saying
1:19:10and finding me useful information and answers.
1:19:13And I do use Google Calendar.
1:19:14We all use Google Calendar.
1:19:15I use Google for my email.
1:19:16We have all our photos on Google.
1:19:18In theory, this has access to more of our stuff
1:19:20than the Amazon Echo would.
1:19:22And I subscribe to Google Play because I subscribe to Google Play family thing to get YouTube
1:19:25Red or whatever.
1:19:26So I can say things like, you know, I hate Ok Google but that's what it is instead of
1:19:31Alexa.
1:19:32I wish you could make that configure.
1:19:33But I could say, "Ok Google, play some Christmas music."
1:19:34And guess what?
1:19:35It plays Christmas music because it has access to, you know, their streaming music service.
1:19:39Whereas if you ask Amazon Echo to do the same thing, you could set something up to do it
1:19:43or you can try to get it to play audio on another Bluetooth connected device and it
1:19:47will play the audio that's on that device or whatever.
1:19:49But anyway.
1:19:50So far, mostly the children have been asking it to say things in foreign languages and
1:19:56do unit conversions.
1:19:57I did use it to set timers, but it is really limited.
1:20:03One of the very first things I asked it to do was remind me in two hours to check on
1:20:07the roast.
1:20:08This was like on Christmas Day, right?
1:20:11And it said, "I can't set up a reminder for you.
1:20:13Sorry about that."
1:20:14Something like that.
1:20:15I'm like, "You can't set up reminders?
1:20:17You don't need to do – this doesn't need to be a network integration.
1:20:19do it right it can do timers set a timer for two hours for the roast okay I've
1:20:26set a timer for two hours for the roast right but remind me in two hours it
1:20:29knows that I want a reminder but I guess it classifies them in the same way that
1:20:33Apple classifies reminders versus timers and it has no way to create a reminder
1:20:37in the world of Google yet right so again I Google this and sit on a million
1:20:42people saying yes it can't set reminders yet maybe it will be able to in the
1:20:45future. So I really hope that they get cranking on the integrations and the
1:20:51functionality. I am very impressed with its ability to understand my children's
1:20:55poor diction as they yell over each other to try to get it to do things,
1:20:59right? I'm impressed with its ability to understand me talking from other rooms
1:21:03and mumbling and how responsive it is to asking you to set timers. It takes me
1:21:08longer to figure out when I can start talking to Siri than it does to complete
1:21:13the action on the Google Home, right?
1:21:15Because that is an internal frustration to have the fanciest, fastest iPhone.
1:21:19And half the time I'm like, "Is it okay for me to talk?
1:21:22Do I have to wait for the boop boop?"
1:21:23And then I start talking, then it goes boop boop, and then it doesn't understand me, and
1:21:26I can't reset it, and I have to start all over.
1:21:29I just want to be able to talk into the air.
1:21:30You mentioned, Casey, before Siri and the Mac.
1:21:33This is, I think, one of the things that both the Amazon Echo and the Google Home do so
1:21:38much better than Siri and the Mac.
1:21:39If Siri and the Mac really wants to be worth a damn,
1:21:41it should be like those two devices where I can just say,
1:21:45okay Mac, what's the weather like tomorrow?
1:21:47No preamble, no pressing a key,
1:21:50no making sure the Mac is ready before I talk,
1:21:52just freaking say it.
1:21:53'Cause if this little tiny $100 cylinder can do it,
1:21:56this huge multi-thousand dollar computer
1:21:59should be able to do that too.
1:22:00Let alone the fact that there's no, hey Siri,
1:22:02it's like, oh, you can hook up his Apple script
1:22:03to make it so it recognizes when you say hey, no.
1:22:05Like if the cylinders can do it,
1:22:07a Mac has to be able to do it too.
1:22:09Because as Marco well knows, that is the killer feature,
1:22:13to be able to just rattle it off in the air
1:22:15with no setup and no preamble
1:22:17and no making sure everybody is ready
1:22:19and it just friggin' does it.
1:22:20And that's awesome, right?
1:22:22I mean, that I think the most important feature
1:22:24of all these cylinders is really good microphones
1:22:27that can understand you from far away with background noise
1:22:30and incredible responsiveness.
1:22:31And iPhones don't have that
1:22:33and Macs don't have that and it's a damn shame.
1:22:35So anyway, Google Home, it shows promise.
1:22:39For the things that it can do, it's very responsive.
1:22:42I intentionally bought it because I believe in the promise of Google doing this type of
1:22:48stuff really well.
1:22:49And the things that it does do, it does do really well.
1:22:51You can phrase your, even like Google search, you can phrase your unit conversions or questions
1:22:55about the weather or follow-up questions in a fairly natural way, and it pretty much nails
1:22:59it.
1:23:00It just needs more features, so I'm patiently waiting for them to appear.
1:23:04- Yeah, I gotta say, I mean, I have yet to see
1:23:06the Google Home, but having had now quite a bit
1:23:10of experience with the Amazon Echo,
1:23:13these like home cylinders with voice stuff
1:23:15that connect to simple things like timers
1:23:17and weather and music services and home automation,
1:23:21this is a real deal.
1:23:22This category is really great, it's really fun,
1:23:26and there is this pretty significant land grab
1:23:30going on right now, mostly being won by Amazon.
1:23:33I am honestly kind of concerned that Apple's not playing in this space yet.
1:23:36And, you know, we've heard rumblings that they're working on it.
1:23:38I really hope they get here soon because this is the time to get into this business.
1:23:43So over Christmas we got my in-laws an Echo.
1:23:46It was kind of funny, like, for the last, you know, five or six Christmases, we've
1:23:52gotten people various Apple things, you know, like Apple TVs here and there and occasionally
1:23:58iPads for like big gifts sometimes.
1:24:02This year, nobody got anything by Apple.
1:24:05This year was, Apple had nothing to do
1:24:07with our holiday fun this year.
1:24:09They were just, we were all using iPhones basically,
1:24:12but there was no new stuff from Apple this year for us.
1:24:16Granted, I know the AirPods are a big deal for a lot of people
1:24:18but that wasn't, anyway, that wasn't for our holiday season.
1:24:21Anyway, all the fun was playing with the Echo
1:24:25and all the home automation,
1:24:27I got a handful of the Belkin BMO outlets
1:24:30and everything that you can switch with them.
1:24:32And it's just like, this stuff,
1:24:34this is where all the action's happening right now
1:24:36in like cool, fun, new technology.
1:24:38And yeah, it isn't like, you know, a massive business.
1:24:43There's not a lot of profit to be made here.
1:24:44I mean, Amazon's already selling the Echo for under 200 bucks
1:24:47and the Dots are like 40 bucks.
1:24:50And what's the Google Home, like 150 or something?
1:24:52- I got it on sale.
1:24:53It was one of the reasons I bought it.
1:24:54I got it for like 110 or 120.
1:24:56- Yeah, so like, you know, this is,
1:24:57it's obviously gonna be like a low margin business
1:24:59for probably forever.
1:25:00And that's gonna be difficult for Apple
1:25:03'cause I can't see Apple coming in at under 250 probably.
1:25:08I mean look, the Apple TV is in a similar boat
1:25:10where all the competitors are really cheap
1:25:12and Apple TV is still very expensive compared to them.
1:25:15So anyway, I worry about Apple and this business
1:25:17because it's so cool, it's so much fun.
1:25:21These devices are really, really awesome
1:25:23but in order to be good, they require two things
1:25:27Apple's not very good at, service consistency
1:25:29and integrations with a whole bunch of other stuff.
1:25:31I don't say that as a joke.
1:25:33Siri, for all of its benefits and faults,
1:25:38one thing it really isn't, even people who love Siri,
1:25:41I think they would usually agree,
1:25:43one thing it really isn't is consistent.
1:25:45And the Echo is so incredibly rock solid.
1:25:50So anyway, between Google and Amazon,
1:25:52I really haven't read a single review of the Google Home
1:25:56that makes me think anybody should buy over the Echo.
1:25:59I honestly, like I, all the reviews seem to say like,
1:26:02yeah, it's kind of the same thing, but worse.
1:26:04Like I, what am I missing here?
1:26:07- I mean, it is, I feel like it is better at,
1:26:10all the same things that Google is good at,
1:26:11that you can type things into Google search box
1:26:13in lots of different ways
1:26:14and it more or less figures out what you mean.
1:26:15Like in the same way that, you know,
1:26:18the difference between, we know when Google does that thing
1:26:20where it puts like, it's like,
1:26:21here are a bunch of search results and here are a bunch
1:26:23of ads, but by the way, I'm pretty sure I know
1:26:25you're getting at and here's a box at the top that shows like exactly what you're interested
1:26:29like the score of a game or like the answer to the trivia question you were asking or whatever
1:26:34before it even gets to the search results that type of stuff is more or less exposed in a spoken way
1:26:39as opposed to like you know like what was it when dan morin and his review was talking about
1:26:43doing the language translation uh the echo or elixir rather can do that as well but it displays
1:26:49the results on your on your phone in the ios app it doesn't speak them back to you um so it's it's
1:26:55It's like, it's basically all the things
1:26:56that Google is good at.
1:26:57If you're interested in controlling stuff in your home,
1:27:00Echo has way more integrations.
1:27:02If you're interested in buying things,
1:27:03like forget it, that's Amazon's bread and butter.
1:27:05You wanna buy things by talking, Amazon's got you covered.
1:27:08I don't even know if you can do that at all on Google.
1:27:09- Tell you what, by the way,
1:27:10that sounds like a stupid thing until you do it.
1:27:13- Oh, I'm sure you love it.
1:27:15(laughing)
1:27:16- Once you've given in to the Amazon way of life
1:27:21and you start ordering everything from Amazon,
1:27:24you can do things like say, name of thing,
1:27:27reorder a fridge filter.
1:27:29And it will go through your order history
1:27:31and it will query it for the fridge filter
1:27:34and it'll say, do you want me to add this thing?
1:27:37It'll read out the name and it'll say,
1:27:38here's how much it costs and here's,
1:27:40it has four star reviews or whatever else
1:27:42and it'll say, do you wanna buy it now?
1:27:44And you can add it to your cart and just do it later.
1:27:46You can add it to your shopping list
1:27:48or you can just have it say yes
1:27:49and place the order right then.
1:27:52you can literally get rid of your like,
1:27:54I ran out of this thing,
1:27:55or I need another one of these things.
1:27:57You can eliminate those problems
1:27:58without ever touching a computer.
1:28:00Oh, my fridge filter needs to be replaced.
1:28:01All right, get a new fridge filter.
1:28:02Two days later it just shows up.
1:28:04It's kind of amazing.
1:28:05I also, before we got this,
1:28:07thought that was a ridiculous concept.
1:28:09But once you do it once,
1:28:11and you kind of break the seal almost,
1:28:15you break hearts,
1:28:17once you do it once, you're just like,
1:28:18oh my God, this is kind of awesome.
1:28:21Why have I not been doing this?
1:28:23- I think we're kind of in an Apple Google situation,
1:28:26like in the early days of the iPhone,
1:28:27where it was like, oh, we have this nice sort of symbiosis
1:28:30where Apple's gonna do this awesome hardware in the OS
1:28:33and Google will do the cloud services,
1:28:35like the maps and stuff,
1:28:36and it's a marriage made in heaven, and then they split.
1:28:39It seems like they're already split
1:28:40because there are things that Amazon does better,
1:28:42but there are also things that Google does better.
1:28:44Like basically any kind of search or intelligence
1:28:48or figuring out what you mean,
1:28:50Amazon can do all those things mostly because they have integrations with Google or Google like services
1:28:54But they don't do them themselves whereas buying things Amazon is totally like
1:28:58It's all integrated with your Amazon account
1:29:00It knows your order history can do all stuff like that
1:29:02It it's too you would you would want a home automation thing that can do all of these things
1:29:07Right and the same way of like I don't know as I'm probably has this because they have every service under the Sun
1:29:12But Google has all my photos in Amazon doesn't have any my photos
1:29:15I can't ask the echo to show photos of my son on the television, you know show photos of my son in 2015 on my Chromecast
1:29:22I can't ask Amazon to do that
1:29:23I mean I could maybe make a little skill or a program or a little app in there a little thing that make it do
1:29:28But like but Google's got my stuff and in the same way Apple if they ever come up with one Apple's got a lot of
1:29:33My stuff too. They've got also got my photos and you know
1:29:36They have my reminders because I use reminders on my phone and they have my iMessages
1:29:39but they don't have my calendar because Google has that and
1:29:42So, you know in some respects
1:29:45the best would be a
1:29:47Cylinder that you talk to that doesn't have a horse in that race
1:29:52But integrates with all of them sort of the cylinder equivalent of the omnivorous box
1:29:55But of course that doesn't exist so instead we're we have to choose silos
1:29:58The Apple silo has nothing except for a sort of cranky Siri that you can't really talk to and by the way if they ever
1:30:03Did make a cylinder can you imagine that they made it respond to?
1:30:06Ahoy telephone, which I'm not gonna say every device in your home would go off
1:30:11and then maybe the cylinder would bloop later.
1:30:13Like, they should just give these things
1:30:14different names or whatever.
1:30:16- Well, this is like, it actually is not
1:30:18an easy problem to solve.
1:30:20Like, when the Amazon set of products first came out,
1:30:24if you had more than one, which they're so cheap,
1:30:28and you kind of always want one nearby,
1:30:30so I think a lot of people have or will have more than one,
1:30:34which again, puts a problem on Apple's strategy
1:30:37of probably a nicer, more expensive one.
1:30:40Anyway, so when you have more than one,
1:30:42if both of them are within earshot
1:30:45when you say the trigger word,
1:30:47originally they would just kind of
1:30:48both operate independently.
1:30:50Eventually in a software update,
1:30:51which by the way I never even had to know about,
1:30:53they just update themselves and don't even tell you,
1:30:55they just update, it's amazing.
1:30:56But in software update, eventually they added a thing
1:30:58where you can give them both the same trigger word
1:31:00and now whichever one heard you best
1:31:03will handle the command.
1:31:04I believe they're also wanting to work on things
1:31:09like multi-room audio, similar to what Sonos does.
1:31:12I think Google Home talked about something like that,
1:31:14either they're doing it or they're going to do it.
1:31:16Like, this is actually, it's going to ramp up quickly
1:31:19into a category where like the minimum bar to entry
1:31:22is actually, you know, non-trivial.
1:31:25That's why I kind of, like for Apple's sake,
1:31:27if they're going to play in this business at all,
1:31:29I hope they get here soon, because there's a lot to do,
1:31:32and the competitors are gonna keep raising that bar,
1:31:35and Apple's just gonna be playing catch-up
1:31:36if they really don't get here very, very soon.
1:31:39- I feel like Amazon, even though they are the leader now,
1:31:42is at quite a disadvantage, because both Google and Apple
1:31:45have more of people's stuff than Amazon.
1:31:46The only thing Amazon has for most people
1:31:49is their purchase history and their purchases,
1:31:51which is great for Amazon, because if they're trying
1:31:53to find a way for you to order things by talking
1:31:54and make money, that's fine.
1:31:56But most people don't have all their family photos on there.
1:32:00Most people don't have big video collections up on Amazon.
1:32:03Most people don't have their calendars on Amazon,
1:32:05or their reminders or their shopping list,
1:32:07which even though it has these features,
1:32:08like in other words, to win, like you said,
1:32:10you have to have, it's an ecosystem play
1:32:12and Apple has its ecosystem and Google has its,
1:32:15and you can argue about whose is better or whatever,
1:32:17but Amazon's is the least full featured of all of them.
1:32:20Like, and Google, you know,
1:32:23you have to actually integrate with them for you to win.
1:32:24It doesn't help that Google like,
1:32:25"Oh, Google has a calendar.
1:32:26"If I can't do anything with the calendar,"
1:32:28which you can, you can ask it about your day
1:32:30and stuff like that.
1:32:31Or Google has maps data and traffic data.
1:32:33Like you need the integrations,
1:32:34but it's easier to make those integrations
1:32:37if Google actually gives a damn about this product
1:32:39'cause that's Google's other weaknesses historically.
1:32:40They're like, oh, we'll try this,
1:32:41but maybe we're not that interested, whatever, right?
1:32:44But it's easier for Google to do those integrations
1:32:46than it is for Amazon to get people to use Amazon for email,
1:32:50Amazon for calendars, Amazon for photo storage.
1:32:52Like even if they offer these services,
1:32:53even if they make all these services,
1:32:55even if they make world-class versions of these servers
1:32:56to match both Apple and Google's services,
1:32:58then you have to get people to switch to them.
1:33:00So there is a big disadvantage for them to ever be in the ballpark if this becomes an
1:33:07ecosystem wide play.
1:33:09I guess their ace in the hole is like, we don't have to have that ecosystem.
1:33:12We will try to be as omnivorous as possible and give people a way to make those integrations.
1:33:18So hey, buy the Amazon Echo.
1:33:19If you have your reminders on Apple, we can integrate with them.
1:33:22If you have your calendar on Google, we can integrate with them.
1:33:24Like that's their out, but it's certainly easier for Apple and Google to integrate with
1:33:28their own stuff.
1:33:30It's just, you know, they're playing catch up.
1:33:32And like in that article, the link in the show notes that we're reviewing them, it's
1:33:35like, oh, Google, Amazon integrates with all of these.
1:33:38Amazon integrates with all these home automation devices, and Google just integrates with these
1:33:42three.
1:33:43But every single other one that was listed has announced support for Google Home, right?
1:33:46So it's not like Google is behind, but it's not like they're like Apple where they do
1:33:50a single sign-on thing and then wait six months and say the same three pathetic companies
1:33:54are the only ones we got for single sign-on.
1:33:56Oops.
1:33:57Like everybody has announced for Google Home.
1:33:58That doesn't mean anything.
1:33:59of people announced for HomeKit too.
1:34:00- I know, but it's the question of whether
1:34:03Google follows through on that.
1:34:04And Google actually released a product.
1:34:08They announced a product and they released it
1:34:10and it works, which is way more than Apple has done.
1:34:12So Apple is clearly in last place.
1:34:15And I have some faith that Google Home
1:34:17will have a more illustrious career in life
1:34:20than did all the other like Google TV and weird stuff.
1:34:25And just think about the Chromecast,
1:34:26which seemed like this little tardy thing
1:34:27that had no future.
1:34:29but tons of people have Chromecast and love them.
1:34:31And even though it's a very small, simple thing,
1:34:34now you get Chromecast and Google Home.
1:34:36Now you have two pieces and they kind of fit together.
1:34:38And that Chromecast was already valuable,
1:34:40suddenly becomes more valuable because you have Google Home.
1:34:42This is like ecosystem 101.
1:34:44So I do have some faith that Google understands
1:34:49that they can be an R player here while Apple snoozes
1:34:53and while Amazon takes all of Marco's money
1:34:57every time he speaks.
1:34:58(laughs)
1:34:59$14 at a time for a fridge filter.
1:35:01And the option, by the way, the Dan Moran option is,
1:35:05these things are like 100 and something bucks.
1:35:06There's no reason you can't have both of them.
1:35:08They don't take up that much room.
1:35:09Dan Moran's got two of them in his,
1:35:10I think he's got like three of them in his house.
1:35:11There's no reason you can't have all of them and say,
1:35:13allow me to buy me toilet paper
1:35:15and Google translate this phrase for me
1:35:16or Google what's on my calendar today, right?
1:35:19It's confusing to talking to multiple assistants,
1:35:20but it's not that bad.
1:35:21Like, it's not like you're making a $3,000 investment
1:35:24in a computing platform.
1:35:25You're just buying a little cylinder
1:35:27plugging it into the wall somewhere.
1:35:28So I'm actually considering that as well
1:35:31to get both of them because they don't conflict, it's fine.
1:35:35- How much the ecosystem matters
1:35:39to which one succeeds or fails
1:35:40or which ones succeed or fail,
1:35:42I think also depends on what people
1:35:44want these cylinders to do.
1:35:45Like what is the role this is playing for you?
1:35:48And you know, like your thing about like,
1:35:51you asked the Google thing to show you pictures
1:35:54from your Google photo stream of something on your TV.
1:35:57I would never do that.
1:35:58You were doing that.
1:35:59And so, obviously, people are gonna have different needs
1:36:02for this kind of thing.
1:36:03But I think certain roles are gonna come out ahead.
1:36:06One of the things, there was a rumor that came out
1:36:10a couple of weeks ago about how maybe the next Echo
1:36:13might be a tablet kind of thing
1:36:14that's really made to be a kitchen appliance, really.
1:36:18'Cause they found that so many people
1:36:20put the Echo in their kitchens.
1:36:21and turns out people really like using it
1:36:24in the kitchen while cooking.
1:36:25So it'd be nice to maybe have something like
1:36:27a screen showing your timers,
1:36:30'cause timers are a really popular thing,
1:36:32as opposed to just like some kind of audio thing
1:36:36we have now, or a screen to show a recipe
1:36:38that you're cooking or whatever else.
1:36:40So Amazon is finding their uses in the kitchen.
1:36:44Google might find their uses in the living room.
1:36:46Each one could find their own audience,
1:36:48Or it might turn out that the things
1:36:51that Google's optimizing for,
1:36:52people actually just want to use their phones
1:36:54to do those things, and no one's really gonna want
1:36:56their cylinders to do that, and so Google might be
1:36:58making a bad bet on that, and maybe people really want
1:37:01just a kitchen cylinder that plays music
1:37:03out of these things most of the time.
1:37:05Maybe Amazon will win there, who knows?
1:37:07I don't think it's a safe assumption to say that
1:37:10the ecosystems that each of these companies have now
1:37:13are a sure thing to guarantee their success
1:37:15in this new area, because we might find
1:37:17with this new area, that people will use it differently
1:37:19than what we initially expect.
1:37:21- Yeah, like what I was saying, it's a question
1:37:23of whether it's easier to add integrations
1:37:25or whether it's easier to add those ecosystems.
1:37:27'Cause it's like having ownership of people's calendars
1:37:30and their messages and their purchases,
1:37:32like those are things like purchases, for example,
1:37:34there's no way Apple and Google can get that.
1:37:37They can't like, oh, we're gonna start
1:37:38a competing retail business,
1:37:39so we'll have a list of people's purchases too.
1:37:41Nope, you won't.
1:37:41And in the same way, Amazon can't say,
1:37:44we're gonna start an email service
1:37:45and it's gonna be as big as Gmail.
1:37:46nope, it won't.
1:37:47And we're gonna have a calendaring service
1:37:49and it'll be as integrated into the iPhone
1:37:50as Apple's calendar or with Android as cool as you won't.
1:37:53Like, so the lines are kind of drawn along there.
1:37:57And those things are not esoteric,
1:37:59like photos, calendar, email address, messages, purchases.
1:38:04Those are fundamental.
1:38:07Those are fundamentally owned.
1:38:08It's kind of like they have those squares
1:38:09in the monopoly board, right?
1:38:11And they're not going away.
1:38:13It's just a question of how they're gonna be
1:38:16divvy that between them. And the extras about the integrations, like with the Chromecast,
1:38:23the example I gave of putting photos on my TV, this is the thing I do now, but I do it
1:38:26the long, annoying manual way, which is always annoying. I use Apple TV to do it, I pull
1:38:30up the photo library, half of the thumbnails don't show up, it's a terrible experience,
1:38:33but like, it's a thing I want to do. And relatives are over, let's look at pictures. I have them
1:38:37usually sorted into albums, or smart albums, or something like that. Let me see the picture
1:38:42of my wife's trip, Mediterranean Cruise.
1:38:44I have all those set up.
1:38:45I already have the album.
1:38:47Apple TV, because I'd use my photos in Apple Things,
1:38:49has that stuff, and I just wanna see them.
1:38:53And I have to use that terrible remote
1:38:55and use a bunch of applications
1:38:58to make sure her computer is on and awake,
1:39:00and blah, blah, blah.
1:39:01Whereas, if I could use a little Chromecast
1:39:03that I don't have to think about in a little cylinder,
1:39:05I don't have to think about it and just sit down
1:39:06and say, "Show Mediterranean Cruise photos,"
1:39:09and it knows from the GPS tags
1:39:11the heck I'm talking about because it's Google and it's really smart and I didn't even have
1:39:14to make an album, that's a better experience. But you can only do that if you know where to get the
1:39:20photos from. And most people are not going to be sort of the self-hackers of like, "Well, my photos
1:39:24are on a FreeNAS thing in the basement and I wrote a Linux server that pulls the thing." No one's
1:39:29going to do that. You can with the Amazon Echo, you can do those integrations. And in the beginning,
1:39:33it's impressive to create these Rube Goldberg machines. But I still feel like,
1:39:40especially in the silo world that we're in, ownership of data dictates what kind of things
1:39:47you can use it for. Like I said, in the same way that you cannot tell Google's thing to order your
1:39:51new fridge things, Amazon owns that. There's nothing Google can really do about that. Amazon's
1:39:55not going to be keen on letting Google integrate with its purchases in that way. So if that's one
1:40:00of the things that you want to do, and I think it is a useful thing to do, the only choice you have
1:40:05is the Amazon. That's why I think we may be trapped, not trapped, but like fated to
1:40:12be talking to multiple semi-intelligent assistants, referring to them by name in
1:40:17the same way that we go to multiple websites to do things. I go to Amazon
1:40:21when I'm shopping, but I go to, you know, Gmail when I want to do my mail. I say
1:40:26"I'll order me fridge filters" and I say "*BEEP* Google, do I have any appointments
1:40:32tomorrow afternoon because Google has my calendar and Alexa has my purchases. and
1:40:36again if these little cylinders like they're cheap now they're only going to
1:40:40get cheaper if they're mostly network based stuff combined with really good
1:40:43microphones and a tiny little low power CPU that's always listening and stuff I
1:40:47think that is aside from any sort of global cooperation between these giant
1:40:53companies which is not gonna happen talking to different things in our house
1:40:58seems to me the most likely outcome of all this.
1:41:01So I think we're all doomed to have multiple
1:41:04increasingly non-cylindrical cylinders.
1:41:07Like eventually there'll just be a bunch of tiny
1:41:08little things that are dotted all over our house
1:41:10and having multiple ones in them won't be a big deal.
1:41:13- Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week,
1:41:15Casper, Betterment, and Squarespace.
1:41:18And we will see you next week.
1:41:20(upbeat music)
1:41:22♪ Now the show is over ♪
1:41:24♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪
1:41:27'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:41:33John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:41:37'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:41:43And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:41:48And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:41:53C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, so that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:42:01N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A
1:42:09It's accidental (It's accidental)
1:42:12They didn't mean to, accidental (Accidental)
1:42:17Tech podcast, so long
1:42:22(upbeat music)
1:42:23We all saw each other earlier this week actually.
1:42:28And Marco, this was your first probably
1:42:32multi-hundred mile trip in the Tesla, is that right?
1:42:35- That is right, it's the longest trip I've taken yet
1:42:37and the first trip that required a supercharger
1:42:40in the middle.
1:42:41- So, how'd it go?
1:42:43- Before I bought the Tesla, the prediction I had
1:42:48was that this was gonna be a car that's really nice
1:42:51and everyday use, to never have to go to a gas station,
1:42:54and it's just gonna be a bit of a pain in the butt
1:42:56when I go on long car trips,
1:42:57'cause I'm gonna have these forced half hour
1:43:00supercharger brakes every three to four hours,
1:43:05and it's gonna be a pain in everything else.
1:43:07But I figure that'll be like,
1:43:08I will tolerate that inconvenience
1:43:10for the awesomeness of the car in all other circumstances.
1:43:14So this is the first trip where you actually had to realize
1:43:16what it was like to rely on the supercharger network
1:43:19for your range because every other,
1:43:21I've gone to superchargers like twice in the past,
1:43:23but it was kind of optional.
1:43:24Like one time it was 'cause it was just pouring rain
1:43:26and I was like, oh, I just need a break anyway.
1:43:28I'm passing one, so let me just take a break here.
1:43:30Go to a coffee shop or whatever.
1:43:32Any other time it was more, again, like, you know,
1:43:35similar, like not really necessary.
1:43:36Just stop for a few minutes.
1:43:38Anyway, this was the first time
1:43:39where I had to really stop for like 30 minutes.
1:43:42You know, we pull up, we find them.
1:43:43It was the Delaware rest stop on 95
1:43:46that, you know, everybody goes to.
1:43:49and there was like 12 spots and half of them were open,
1:43:52so it was fine, you know, pull up, plug in.
1:43:54And we went in, we all went to the bathroom,
1:43:57and we all got a quick little lunch
1:43:59from the crappy food places they have
1:44:01in this wonderful Delaware rest stop.
1:44:02The food's the worst, but it's fine.
1:44:04Just don't go to the Baja Fresh
1:44:06because you think, oh, a Baja Fresh, that should be good,
1:44:09'cause real Baja Fresh stores are good,
1:44:11but this is a Baja Fresh Express.
1:44:13And what that means is that it's a terrible,
1:44:16terrible pile of garbage that has the Baja Fresh sign
1:44:19above it, but that is not a real Baja Fresh.
1:44:23You never, ever get that.
1:44:25So, you know, we had lunch and everything,
1:44:26and before I knew it, we were just doing a basic rest stop.
1:44:30Before I knew it, my car was at like 98%,
1:44:33and I was trying to rush out of there,
1:44:35so I didn't hit 100 and start getting charged 40 cents
1:44:37a minute for sitting there taking up a spot unnecessarily.
1:44:40(laughs)
1:44:41- Now, what were you at when you pulled in, just ballpark?
1:44:44- Oh, I forget, somewhere around like 30 or something,
1:44:47I don't know, something like that.
1:44:49It was amazing, like, you know, charge up,
1:44:52and so we were stopping anyway,
1:44:54and if we were like one of those hardcore
1:44:58long-distance drivers that like,
1:45:00the total time it takes you to get where you're going
1:45:03is very important to you,
1:45:04and you don't like to stop at all,
1:45:07then this is not the car for you.
1:45:08But if you stop anyway, just like for basic comfort
1:45:12to take a break. It's quite something else. On the way home, I had an even cooler experience.
1:45:18I was really, I was a little bit sick and I was really tired. I could really, really
1:45:23just use a break from driving. Like I was just very, I was unreasonably tired just because
1:45:27of the, because I was just, I was sick and you know, anyway. Tiff and Adam went into
1:45:32Starbucks to get some coffee and to give Adam a sandwich. I sat in the car, left the heat
1:45:39on and left the heated seat on and just took a nap.
1:45:44I leaned the seat back, I took like a 20 minute nap.
1:45:48So here I was, I'm like, this is kind of amazing.
1:45:50So my car is filling up with the fuel it needs for free while I sit in a heated, nicely heated
1:45:58car with a nicely heated seat in the winter and take a nap.
1:46:03I think this is like the best car for long road trip comfort I've ever seen.
1:46:10Like again, I thought this was going to be some kind of big hassle on long trips, but
1:46:15it's only a hassle if you want to get there in the smallest amount of time possible.
1:46:19But if you are more leisurely like we always have been, and you like to stop for lunch,
1:46:24or stop and take a break every so often, if that's your style of driving, this is the
1:46:29the best, like it is so much the best
1:46:33because it allows you to not only fill up for free
1:46:37and it forces you to take these breaks at certain intervals
1:46:39but like the process of filling up for free
1:46:42is way nicer than stopping at a gas station.
1:46:45Oh my god, so actually I really quite enjoyed it
1:46:48and it was wonderful and I look forward
1:46:50to future long trips where I have to use them.
1:46:52- That's awesome, that's somewhat surprising
1:46:55but super cool.
1:46:57- Sounds like Tiff's new car is gonna have you
1:46:59fewer miles on it than her old one.
1:47:01(laughing)
1:47:03- Truth.
1:47:04- That'll be our beach house car.
1:47:06- Yeah, that's the next bit of electric car anxiety
1:47:09that you have to get over just by doing it
1:47:11because you're like, oh, it'll be sitting there
1:47:12and it'll be discharging and it shouldn't let it sit there
1:47:14for a week, I bet that's not a problem either.
1:47:15You gotta try it.
1:47:16- Well, I remember I did the experiment.
1:47:18I left my car unplugged here when we went there
1:47:20to kind of try that and it ended up,
1:47:22I think it loses like one or two percent a day
1:47:24so it isn't that big of a deal.
1:47:25But no, the bigger problem is I don't wanna
1:47:27fill my trunk with sand.
1:47:28Oh, jeez. Look, are you going to use your car or is it just a piece of art that you
1:47:35look at? There are two things that are not allowed in my trunk, sand and glitter. You
1:47:39can vacuum the sand up, I promise you. Yeah, you know what, I was told that about the glitter
1:47:43in my trunk when we had a glitter heavy... No, glitter, but you can't get it out. Yeah,
1:47:47exactly, yeah. But sand comes up? But sand you can. Do you have a trunk liner? I don't
1:47:51think I've ever seen your trunk. What does that mean? It's covered in carpet, I don't
1:47:55That's a no.
1:47:56Right, so you can usually buy a little rubber thing that goes in there.
1:48:03It's mostly for if some groceries bang together and spill and get sticky stuff or whatever.
1:48:08Basically you don't ruin the carpet in your car.
1:48:09But also, if it gets filled with sand, you can take that whole rubber thing out, turn
1:48:13it upside down, dump all the sand back in, and put it in.
1:48:15But even if you do it right on the carpet, I promise you, you can vacuum sand out of
1:48:19carpeting in a car.
1:48:20It will be fine.
1:48:21And finally, sand in your car is a badge of honor if you are a beach person, which I know
1:48:25that you are not, but we're converting you, right?
1:48:28I am a beach town person.
1:48:31I like the beach town, I like the beach environment, I like the beach mindset even, but I still
1:48:38do not like sand.
1:48:39That sand is, ugh, sand is a problem.
1:48:42And I still, I don't see how glitter can be such the scourge of humanity that it is, and
1:48:49Like, glitter ruined my 328.
1:48:51Like, when I had that car, like, I got,
1:48:53there was a, that Christmas, we brought my car upstate
1:48:58and it was a year where the wrapping paper
1:49:01that was in use that year contained glitter
1:49:03and the ribbon all contained glitter.
1:49:04And so my entire car filled with glitter,
1:49:07it never, I could not get it all out of that car.
1:49:11I eventually had to turn the car in
1:49:12for the end of the lease, it was still there.
1:49:14I turned in a glittery trunk.
1:49:15I was not actually fined for that.
1:49:17But they should have fined me for that.
1:49:19Even I would have fined me for that.
1:49:21- You need to nip that in the bud.
1:49:22Like I'm familiar with this phenomenon.
1:49:23Wrapping paper with glitter on the outside of it,
1:49:25just say no, that cannot enter your house.
1:49:28If someone else brings you a present with that on it,
1:49:30you have to like isolate it like it's radioactive.
1:49:33But by all means, when you're wrapping your own presents,
1:49:35do not choose that paper with glitter on it.
1:49:37That is a terrible mistake
1:49:39that should just never be allowed to happen.
1:49:40Setting aside cars, forget about cars,
1:49:42but just in your own home,
1:49:44that cannot be allowed to exist.
1:49:46Well, that caused a rule to be enacted,
1:49:49that no more glitter in my car ever,
1:49:51and no glitter in any part of the house I care about,
1:49:54which is basically the office and my car.
1:49:56(laughs)
1:49:57- But sand is not like that, I promise you.
1:49:59- But sand is just dull glitter.
1:50:00Like how is that not--
1:50:01- No, it is not, it's very small rocks.
1:50:04- How does that not work the same way?
1:50:06- And what else floats in water?
1:50:08- That's probably a reference that I'm not getting.
1:50:12- It is.
1:50:13- I can tell when you use your reference voice.
1:50:15Yeah, you do have a reference voice.
1:50:17Everybody else will get that.
1:50:19I could have tried to do the accent.
1:50:21Oh my goodness.
1:50:23[BLANK_AUDIO]