0:00:00- So where's my new MacBook Pro, man?
0:00:02- Looks like we're not gonna get it this year.
0:00:04If we haven't gotten it yet,
0:00:05they just did this iMac update.
0:00:07- Yeah, I feel like I've been hearing from various sources
0:00:11that it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming,
0:00:13any second, any second, any second, any second,
0:00:15but I don't know.
0:00:16- Yeah, the 15-inch MacBook Pro is,
0:00:20it's such the workhorse of the industry.
0:00:23It gets so little attention, relatively speaking,
0:00:25like in media coverage and people like us talking about,
0:00:29well, not us, but most other podcasts talking about it,
0:00:34talking about laptops and everything.
0:00:35Everyone's talking about the new MacBook
0:00:37or new MacBook Airs or whatever.
0:00:38But when I go to conferences and events
0:00:42or I go to somebody's office
0:00:44and I see other developers working,
0:00:46by far the most common machine in use
0:00:49is the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
0:00:51- Completely agree.
0:00:51- Like it really is like the quiet workhorse
0:00:54of the entire industry.
0:00:56- Yeah, basically if you're doing something
0:00:57that requires any more horsepower
0:01:00than a MacBook Air can give you,
0:01:02then immediately jump directly to 15-inch MacBook Pro.
0:01:06Do not pass Go, do not pass 13-inch, do not collect $200.
0:01:10That's a reference, John.
0:01:11(electronic beeping)
0:01:13- Last week, I brought up,
0:01:15and we all talked about the thing
0:01:18where the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus CPUs
0:01:21were being manufactured by two different companies,
0:01:22Samsung and TSMC, and some early benchmarks at the time
0:01:25showing that the TSMC one got significantly better battery life than the Samsung one.
0:01:30It was something on the order of like 15 to 20 percent better battery life under certain
0:01:34CPU stressing benchmarks.
0:01:37And this briefly became a thing and Apple kind of squashed it by issuing a PR statement
0:01:43to a bunch of websites that basically said, it was the most Apple-y statement ever, it
0:01:51It basically said nothing about whether it was true or not,
0:01:56but it sounded like a denial.
0:01:58And the reality of what they said is that,
0:02:02yes, there is a difference,
0:02:04but they say it's within 2% to 3%,
0:02:07not 15% to 20%, under their testing,
0:02:10and that the testing that revealed this larger difference
0:02:13was considered invalid or unimportant
0:02:16because it only showed basically maxing out the CPU.
0:02:21And so if you are doing things that max out the CPU,
0:02:25then there is a noticeable difference.
0:02:28If you are not maxing out the CPU,
0:02:29and most people are not maxing it out most of the time,
0:02:32then the difference still exists but is smaller.
0:02:36- I haven't seen enough really honest-to-goodness data
0:02:39to make me feel strongly one way or the other.
0:02:42Jon, what's your take on all this?
0:02:44- I'm still kind of interested
0:02:45and where the difference comes from.
0:02:47I don't know enough about the Geekbench thing.
0:02:49And of course, Apple statement is not very specific.
0:02:51They think that they, they poopooed the,
0:02:54that benchmark by saying that it spends
0:02:56an unrealistic amount of time
0:02:58at the highest CPU performance state.
0:03:00Now, do they mean CPU as in the whole system on a chip?
0:03:02Do they mean just the CPU part of the system on a chip?
0:03:06I don't know if Geekbench is exercising the GPU
0:03:08at the same time.
0:03:09Like what could account for the large difference?
0:03:13If it's only two to 3% of regular tests,
0:03:15is that just because, you know, in regular usage,
0:03:18you aren't maxing the CPU all the time?
0:03:20Some people brought up games,
0:03:23like what if I'm playing a game
0:03:24that is close to maxing the CPU
0:03:25the entire time I'm playing?
0:03:26Then does it come back into the 20 or 30% range
0:03:29or does that not matter because the game stresses the GPU
0:03:33and it turns out the one with the good, you know,
0:03:35there's just not enough details here.
0:03:37What I was trying to think of was like,
0:03:38maybe one is better, uses less energy coming from
0:03:42going into a low power state or, you know, spinning parts of the chip up or down and the other one,
0:03:47you know, is better at sustained high CPU usage. But if you were to throttle on, off, on, off,
0:03:55it would get worse for, I don't know. It's mysterious. All we have is Apple's word to go on.
0:04:00I don't think anyone has done any real world test yet. You would think if it was 20 to 30%
0:04:05in real world, we would know about it. Not from someone running a benchmark, but from actual
0:04:09people saying, boy, my iPhone 6s is terrible.
0:04:13And someone else saying my iPhone 6s is great.
0:04:15And I mean, people are saying that anyway,
0:04:16but they probably all have the same CPU.
0:04:20Anyway, it's mysterious.
0:04:21Apple is not going to really give us any information on it.
0:04:25As Apple says in the statement,
0:04:26every chip we ship meets Apple's highest standards,
0:04:29blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:04:29Like I said, they're gonna make,
0:04:32I think it is literally true that in Apple's testing,
0:04:36the worst chip, like the bad one or whatever,
0:04:38in the Geek Bench Test passes Apple's criteria.
0:04:41It still means that perhaps the other ones
0:04:44exceed Apple's criteria, and if you get one of those,
0:04:46you're kinda lucky, and so it is still kind of like
0:04:48a lottery, but without more information,
0:04:50and I'm not sure how we're gonna get more information,
0:04:52without more information, I don't even know if you're lucky
0:04:54unless you spend all day running that benchmark.
0:04:57How lucky are you if you get the quote-unquote good one?
0:05:00- That's the thing, like their statement really,
0:05:03it wasn't actually, like everyone was kinda treating it
0:05:05as confirmation that this is wrong.
0:05:08But in fact, it was confirmation that it's right,
0:05:11that there is a difference,
0:05:13but you probably won't notice it in average use.
0:05:16- And it wasn't techy, they didn't go into the details.
0:05:18So they're just, it's essentially,
0:05:20it's first, the fact that they made a statement at all
0:05:23is interesting, but second, what their statement said is,
0:05:27"We feel we are covered.
0:05:28We feel everything we've said is true.
0:05:30Even though there's a difference,
0:05:32we think the difference is small
0:05:33in real-world usage, the end."
0:05:35So you're right, it's basically just a confirmation of the thing, but they're not going to go into super techy detail and
0:05:39Bottom line as long as the iPhone 6s gets okay battery life compared to what the 6 got which it probably does because everyone's 6s
0:05:47Are like a year old right who gets a 6s most people aren't gonna get a success a month after they get a 6
0:05:52It's everything seems to be fine. Yeah, so it's a non-story, but from a technical perspective. I'm still very interested in
0:06:00How exactly this synthetic benchmark?
0:06:03found this, you know, this weakness in this one CPU.
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0:08:19Thanks a lot.
0:08:21- So big week for Marco.
0:08:23You released Overcast 2.
0:08:25- I did, yeah.
0:08:26I even stopped saying the point O in my marketing materials
0:08:29because I thought it sounded better without it.
0:08:32- So delightfully appley of you.
0:08:34- Like when I leave the cents off menus at fancy restaurants
0:08:36or basically all restaurants now.
0:08:38- They don't even give you a dollar sign, it's just like 12.
0:08:40- Yeah, exactly.
0:08:41Experimentation is proven that that makes people
0:08:45more willing to buy overpriced meals.
0:08:47- Well, it looks fancier if you give it like a nice
0:08:50serif font and you just have the description of the item
0:08:53with as much white space around it as possible,
0:08:55as many words on there as possible that you can't understand, and just off to the right
0:08:58somewhere it says like, twelve.
0:08:59Yeah, it just says "peanut butter and jelly sandwich space space space thirty-four."
0:09:04And you're like, "Alright, whatever."
0:09:06Oh goodness, alright.
0:09:08Well, we'll talk about overpriced things here in a minute, but why don't we start
0:09:13with one of the marquee features of Overcast 2.
0:09:17You finally got streaming working.
0:09:19I did, yeah.
0:09:20I mean, you know, there's not that much to say about it, I don't think.
0:09:24I talked here before about all the different times
0:09:27I tried to get it working in the past.
0:09:29And I just tried so many different approaches
0:09:32and I tried the correct approach multiple times
0:09:35before actually getting my side of it right.
0:09:39This is using Apple's low level audio file stream API
0:09:43and it's incredibly low level and incredibly unforgiving
0:09:47and also pretty sparsely documented.
0:09:51So the core audio style of their documentation
0:09:56is to be really conservative with the words.
0:10:00And so if there's like some minute little detail,
0:10:04you have to kind of read it like a lawyer
0:10:06to really understand like, oh, what is this exactly?
0:10:11This says audio sample, what kind of audio sample is that?
0:10:13Or what kind of time stamp is this?
0:10:14What time space is this in?
0:10:16Things like that, it's really tricky to get right.
0:10:18But I got it right eventually.
0:10:20(laughs)
0:10:21and with one exception,
0:10:23which I did not uncover in any of my testing
0:10:25and my beta did not uncover it either,
0:10:28and that is it doesn't play AAC files
0:10:33where the header is at the end of the file.
0:10:35So this is, I'll go over it quickly why it does this
0:10:40and why this is gonna be tricky to fix,
0:10:41but basically the API is a streaming API,
0:10:46so like I give it bytes and I tell it,
0:10:49okay, I'm at this point in the file,
0:10:51here are the bytes from that point,
0:10:52and I just stream it in, and then it tells me,
0:10:55okay, we got the header, we got the properties,
0:10:57we got anything you need to know,
0:10:58and now we're ready to give you samples.
0:11:00So here's the audio samples.
0:11:02And then as you come through, as you page through the bytes,
0:11:05it gives you the samples for it.
0:11:07The problem is that that requires the header data
0:11:10about the file, which tells you really important things
0:11:12like the sample rate of the audio,
0:11:14how many channels is it, mono or stereo.
0:11:17You can't really decode the audio properly
0:11:20until you have those basics.
0:11:22With MP3, it's fine.
0:11:23With MP3, it puts everything important
0:11:26to the beginning of the file
0:11:27and also the beginning of every header,
0:11:29of every little chunk of the file.
0:11:30So with MP3, you can basically decode an MP3
0:11:34starting from anywhere in the file.
0:11:37You just kind of skim ahead for a certain byte pattern
0:11:39and there's a frame and then you can just start.
0:11:40It's amazing.
0:11:41MP3 is so simple.
0:11:43If you wanna have embedded metadata or chapters,
0:11:46All of that is shoved up front in the ID3v2 block
0:11:49on an MP3.
0:11:50So you can just read the first couple kilobytes
0:11:53or couple hundred kilobytes if there's artwork in there.
0:11:55MP3 is amazing.
0:11:57It's a great format and the patents all expire
0:11:59in a couple of years.
0:12:00Most of them already have.
0:12:01So the last of the patents expire in a couple of years.
0:12:06MP3 is great.
0:12:07Unfortunately, about, I think last time I checked it,
0:12:11it was something like three to five percent
0:12:13of podcasts that Overcast has indexed.
0:12:16So whatever I know about in the whole directory,
0:12:19about three to 5% of episodes use AAC format,
0:12:23or M4A or MOV, it's all the same format.
0:12:25The QuickTime MOV/M4A format is less ideal
0:12:30than MP3 on the reading side.
0:12:35It is this incredibly architecture astronaut design format
0:12:39where you can contain anything and you can embed anything
0:12:42and you can have all these arbitrary tracks
0:12:43It's a much more versatile format than MP3
0:12:47'cause it's like this kind of grand container format,
0:12:50but it's really hard to read in a way,
0:12:54without having the whole file.
0:12:55You read it and it gives you this tree structure of atoms,
0:12:58and within each atom is more atoms and more structures,
0:13:02and the biggest problem is,
0:13:04well first of all, the chapters are a disaster.
0:13:06Chapters are interspersed throughout the entire file,
0:13:09so you can't easily stream them.
0:13:11And the other problem is that it is possible
0:13:14to write all the audio data up front
0:13:18and then to write the headers at the end.
0:13:21So without reading the end of the file,
0:13:24you don't know things like what format the audio is in
0:13:27so you can't decode it, which means you can't stream that.
0:13:30So if you've ever seen on like a file export dialog,
0:13:34if you've ever seen those little check boxes
0:13:35that say something along the lines of optimize for internet
0:13:38or make it streamable or fast start, something like that.
0:13:43What those do is they tell the encoder
0:13:46to write that header up front.
0:13:49Don't wait till all the data's written
0:13:50and then write it at the end.
0:13:51Write the header up front, or at least go back
0:13:54and rewrite it up front after you're done
0:13:56so that it's not sitting at the end of the file
0:13:58so then people can stream it.
0:14:00- There's not reliable support for byte range support
0:14:02for byte range requests
0:14:04so you can grab the end of the file?
0:14:06- That's a separate issue.
0:14:07I can grab the end of the file,
0:14:09but the audio file stream API
0:14:11is not compatible with this at all.
0:14:13So I actually do byte ranges for seeking,
0:14:17but the way I do it is I read the beginning of the file
0:14:20every time to get the headers,
0:14:23and then once I've gotten the headers
0:14:24and the audio data starts, then I jump ahead
0:14:26and send a second byte range request
0:14:28for the part I actually need if it's further ahead.
0:14:30So the problem is this audio file stream API
0:14:35literally just does not support this at all.
0:14:37Like this layout of having the header at the end,
0:14:40even if I jump ahead, get it,
0:14:41and then give it back to this API,
0:14:42even if I have the whole file on disk,
0:14:44that API does not support that.
0:14:46So my options to fix this problem,
0:14:49and I'll get back to byte ranges in a minute,
0:14:51my options to fix this problem are either
0:14:54to just, well, not support those files,
0:14:55which is not a great idea.
0:14:57I've already heard from a few people
0:14:58who listen to some shows like that
0:15:00that are very unhappy and that's understandable.
0:15:03Or I can run those through a different API entirely.
0:15:07The old API, I was using the ext audio file API.
0:15:12That supports them, but that doesn't support streaming.
0:15:15So I can have these two different code paths
0:15:17of this pretty major part of the player
0:15:19where I'm running it for certain files, not others.
0:15:22And by the way, I don't even know which one
0:15:23I need to call yet until I have a big chunk of the file.
0:15:27Or I can do my third option,
0:15:29which is what I'm probably going to end up doing,
0:15:31which is actually fix the file on disk and then play it,
0:15:36which is not a great option.
0:15:40- Aren't you downloading it then?
0:15:42- Yeah, I mean, I will probably end up
0:15:44just not streaming these because it would be a lot harder
0:15:48if I make it, 'cause then if I stream it,
0:15:49then I have to actually go one level deeper in the API
0:15:53and decode the format myself for both of these
0:15:57and then feed raw data into a converter.
0:16:00It's very, I would really rather not go into that level
0:16:02if I don't need to.
0:16:03- I'm surprised you're not going for the server-side solution
0:16:06where these problematic files get downloaded once
0:16:09to your server and then you put in the metadata for them
0:16:11and then you encounter one.
0:16:13In the wild, you just ask the server for the chapter info
0:16:15which you already fetched, you know what I mean?
0:16:17- Well, this isn't just chapters.
0:16:18This is actually like playback.
0:16:20I can't even play the files that are arranged this way.
0:16:22- So you can't give it some, like, you know,
0:16:24if you download, what I'm saying is download it once
0:16:25on your server, get all the information you need
0:16:27about the file, whether it's chapters or how to play it
0:16:29or whatever, then when you encounter that file,
0:16:31rather than reading the information about how to play it,
0:16:34just ask the server for information about how to play it,
0:16:36and it will tell you,
0:16:37and you don't have to bother reading the end.
0:16:39- Well, first of all, anything involving
0:16:41like a server cache of the file has other problems.
0:16:43So, you know, mostly it's, if I have one,
0:16:47if I do one approach, which is to cache the file myself
0:16:50and re-serve it from my servers to the app,
0:16:53podcast publishers don't like that,
0:16:55and I wouldn't like that.
0:16:56- Yeah, no, you're not gonna serve the file,
0:16:57just the metadata.
0:16:58So then the question is, what happens if the metadata I'm serving is out of date because
0:17:02the file has changed?
0:17:04Then that's a problem.
0:17:05I could e-tag it and everything, but then what if I don't have the data I need?
0:17:10It's a problem.
0:17:11I'm going to have to come up with some kind of crazy fix.
0:17:13It's probably going to end up doing a temporary hack just to get these files playing again
0:17:17in the next few weeks, and then a longer term I'll probably have to go to that lower level
0:17:21API.
0:17:22But I really don't want to do that.
0:17:24I think the server side is going to end up coming back.
0:17:27you obviously can do solutions that involve downloading it but if you actually want to stream
0:17:31it someone's got to download it and get all the info about it right and then it's just a question
0:17:36of you know like you can always fall once you have the download path in there you can always fall
0:17:40back to that so you're like well if i couldn't get the information or this is a rare podcast that no
0:17:44one has looked at or whatever or the information is out of date because the file has changed or
0:17:47whatever then you fall back to downloading but i can't think of another way that you can successfully
0:17:52stream something. I mean, I guess you're saying the lower level API, you can just do the jump
0:17:57ahead to the end, get the header and jump back thing and just have a little delay?
0:18:00Yeah, and that's, and of course that's if it supports byte ranges, which, and that's
0:18:04a separate thing, so as I'm developing this, I've learned a lot of things about what servers
0:18:08support and don't support. I also love the if range header. It's awesome. Whoever designed
0:18:13that is awesome. The problem with byte range support is that podcast CDNs only support
0:18:20it fairly loosely. So some of them support it every time, some of them never support
0:18:25it, and some of them, like Libsyn, which powers most of Overcast's most popular podcast,
0:18:32Libsyn supports it sometimes. So the way Libsyn works, as far as I can tell, is that they
0:18:39are the front end to multiple backend CDNs. And when you request a Libsyn URL, you're
0:18:45redirected to just a random backend CDN, as far as I can tell. And you don't get the
0:18:50the same one every request.
0:18:51So you can make a request for a file
0:18:54that supports byte ranges, then make a second request
0:18:56and it won't support them.
0:18:58So you never know when calling a libsyn URL
0:19:01whether the request you make will support byte ranges
0:19:04even regardless of whether the previous one
0:19:07to the exact same host did or not.
0:19:09If I build the UI and everything assuming
0:19:11that byte ranges will always be there,
0:19:13I basically, I can't assume that basically.
0:19:15So I have to also, like in a case like this,
0:19:18I have to cover the case where I have to download the entire file first before I can even start
0:19:24playing it, because that might be the only way to get it from the server.
0:19:27So how did you not encounter this until after Overcast 2 was released? You just never downloaded
0:19:31one of these podcasts for testing? Yeah, I mean, I honestly didn't download
0:19:36a lot of M4A podcasts, or AAC, whatever you want to call it, the format, because all the
0:19:41podcasts I listened to are MP3 format. And so I went and found some that I was using
0:19:47for testing for things like AAC chapters and everything,
0:19:51the enhanced AAC stuff, but none of those
0:19:54happened to be encoded in this way
0:19:56with the header at the end.
0:19:57So I didn't test the entire catalog.
0:20:01Maybe I should have written some kind of script to do that.
0:20:03That would have been wise, but I didn't.
0:20:05So now I have a bunch of test cases,
0:20:08but basically it's gonna be a lot of work
0:20:11to support what is a very small percentage of downloads.
0:20:16But that's the job.
0:20:19Well, since you've got all this server-side data,
0:20:21you could actually use-- in the interim,
0:20:23use the social engineering solution
0:20:24where you find the most popular podcasts that
0:20:28are like this, take their files, rewrite them losslessly
0:20:31if possible, and send them an email and say,
0:20:33hey, your files don't play on my player
0:20:35because you didn't optimize for streaming.
0:20:37Here's versions of your files that do.
0:20:39Could you swap them in for the old ones?
0:20:42You're not even asking them to re-encode.
0:20:44You're not even telling them that going forward,
0:20:46you're basically doing all the work for them.
0:20:47I don't know how many it is, but maybe if you do that
0:20:49with three podcasts, does that cover 90%
0:20:51of your problematic files?
0:20:53- Well, if you're gonna go a social route,
0:20:55the easier social route is that all the people
0:20:57who are encountering these podcasts are yelling at me
0:21:00on Twitter and copying the people who publish them.
0:21:03And some of the people who publish them have already said,
0:21:05oh, I didn't realize that.
0:21:07I've now converted the files with this different
0:21:08checkbox option that doesn't do that.
0:21:10- Yeah, they'll probably do it going forward
0:21:11if people complain, but anyway, if you did it for them,
0:21:15there would be even less work,
0:21:16'cause it would be like,
0:21:17here's your stuff on the platter,
0:21:18and I don't think, you can't do it for everybody,
0:21:19but if, I don't know what the stats look like,
0:21:21but if there's a real big peak of like,
0:21:24these three podcasts account for 90% of the problems
0:21:26'cause they're popular,
0:21:28that would also give you some breathing room.
0:21:29- Yeah, I mean, it's really been a very small number
0:21:33that I've heard about, so I'm not that concerned.
0:21:37I really do think the right solution is just gonna be
0:21:40to make the thing in the app
0:21:41that just downloads the whole file,
0:21:43and then rewrites it to be correct
0:21:46and then feeds it into the parser.
0:21:47'Cause then I have way fewer code paths,
0:21:50then I only have the one parsing code path,
0:21:51I can stay with that high level API
0:21:53and not do a whole bunch more work.
0:21:55And then just those files won't stream.
0:21:59They have to download all the way.
0:22:01But that's kind of how they work already.
0:22:04That's how Overcast worked constantly until last week.
0:22:08And because it's such a very small number of these,
0:22:12I think that's an acceptable trade-off,
0:22:15but I don't know, I could change my mind, we'll see.
0:22:16- So is it as far as 2.0 bugs as far as you know,
0:22:19any other minor things?
0:22:21- I broke the entire watch app, that was fun.
0:22:23- And you didn't realize it?
0:22:24Oh, good thing nobody uses that, huh?
0:22:26- I don't even use it.
0:22:27It's kind of embarrassing, but I don't use my watch app.
0:22:29I hardly ever touch it.
0:22:31The main reason that it broke is even more embarrassing.
0:22:35Relatively late in the process,
0:22:38I changed my artwork downloader
0:22:40use a different URL session API because the old URL connection API was deprecated. I forgot
0:22:46to check the box in Xcode for that one category file that said to include it in the linker
0:22:53in the watchkit binary. So I had a missing symbol. When that function was called, it
0:22:59would just throw an exception and crash. And the reason I didn't catch this is because
0:23:04I wasn't using the simulator to test this. I was using my actual watch. And my actual
0:23:08watch turns out has been very buggy recently. And one of the ways it's been buggy is that
0:23:15I thought it was installing the new versions, like the newest build. Whenever I put a test
0:23:20flight build or a dev build onto my phone of Overcast, I assumed that it was working
0:23:25the way it always has worked before, which is that it was also copying over the watch
0:23:29binary at the same time, or, you know, a few seconds later. Turns out it wasn't, and the
0:23:34And the overcast build on my watch was like a month old and was before this change.
0:23:39And so I was testing it on my watch and I thought it was fine.
0:23:42Additionally, none of the beta testers caught it.
0:23:46Possibly for similar reasons of test flight being buggy, possibly because none of them
0:23:49used the watch app.
0:23:50I don't know.
0:23:51Doesn't matter.
0:23:52Nobody caught it.
0:23:53I didn't catch it.
0:23:54No one else did.
0:23:55App review didn't catch it either, which means app review didn't even try the watch app because
0:23:58it literally wouldn't launch.
0:23:59I have a fix in for that and for a playlist editing bug
0:24:03where the very first time you would create a playlist,
0:24:06it wouldn't save any of your settings,
0:24:07which was really embarrassing.
0:24:09I don't know why I didn't catch that, but it didn't.
0:24:10Now it's fixed.
0:24:11And a couple other little things.
0:24:13But really that was it.
0:24:14It was very minor besides the WatchKit app.
0:24:16- It's kind of surprising the App Reviewer
0:24:17didn't even launch the Watch app.
0:24:18What kind of things can you sneak through
0:24:20now that you know this?
0:24:21- Yeah, I was also surprised by that.
0:24:23Probably not worth pushing the boundaries on that,
0:24:25but that's interesting.
0:24:27- Well, the number one thing you sneak through
0:24:30when you realize you have a loophole in App Review
0:24:32is some sort of tethering back door.
0:24:34Isn't that the rules?
0:24:35- Yeah. - I thought that's
0:24:36how this worked.
0:24:37- That is standard protocol.
0:24:38Either a tethering back door or an NES emulator.
0:24:41- Right, right, one or the other.
0:24:42To go back to streaming just for a minute,
0:24:45I had a couple of minor questions
0:24:47I wanted to ask you about that.
0:24:49I feel like you've probably already answered this,
0:24:51but what was the hardest part?
0:24:53I mean, it sounds like the hardest part is yet to come,
0:24:54which is figuring out this AAC stuff,
0:24:56but is there anything else that was really hard
0:24:59that's worth noting?
0:25:01And this kind of works its way into the follow-on question,
0:25:05which is what are you most proud of,
0:25:07specifically within streaming?
0:25:09- The hardest part was really just getting
0:25:12all these pieces to work together,
0:25:14'cause there's a whole bunch of weird conditions,
0:25:17weird concurrency, potential pitfalls,
0:25:20a lot of different states
0:25:23that all the different pieces can be in.
0:25:25when you start downloading the file.
0:25:27I mentioned I have this initial request
0:25:29and then I can do a range request.
0:25:31So which state are all those different requests in?
0:25:33Once you have that data, as I'm passing it to the decoder,
0:25:38what happens when I run against the end
0:25:40of what I've downloaded and I have to send the decoder
0:25:42a partial block or do I wait till I have a whole block?
0:25:45And then what data is the decoder in?
0:25:46Has it found the header yet?
0:25:48Do I have what's necessary to decode yet?
0:25:51Has it reached end of file?
0:25:52What happens when all these other things reach end of file?
0:25:53Do I actually play to the very last sample or do I cut it off somewhere because I messed
0:26:00up a buffer somewhere?
0:26:02All these little things, that's the hard part.
0:26:05In addition to the aforementioned hard part which was just figuring out how the heck to
0:26:11use this API, which is this low level C API, which like most of Core Audio is extremely
0:26:18unforgiving and gives relatively unhelpful error codes.
0:26:23So it was just really, really tough just getting all that stuff right.
0:26:28What lessons did you learn while you were doing this?
0:26:31Use AVPlayer.
0:26:33Fair enough.
0:26:35My biggest lesson is don't do this if you're starting from scratch.
0:26:38However, I am very happy I did it because now I have, you know, the whole reason I had
0:26:42to do this for Quick Review, anybody who wasn't familiar, the whole reason I had to do all
0:26:45this craziness and not just use AVPlayer is that AVPlayer, as far as I'm aware, and
0:26:52I've checked into this numerous times
0:26:54and tried numerous different approaches,
0:26:55but AVPlayer, as far as I know, cannot do smart speed.
0:27:00So in order to do smart speed,
0:27:01I had to write this whole audio engine
0:27:03at a lower level than that.
0:27:05And I didn't wanna just have a version that does smart speed
0:27:10and a version that can stream
0:27:12so that you can only have smart speed
0:27:13while you're streaming.
0:27:14I didn't wanna do that.
0:27:15I wanted to have every feature available
0:27:17whether you were streaming or not.
0:27:18It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it.
0:27:22I assume I can fix this annoying little AAC limitation.
0:27:25I think it was very much worth it.
0:27:28Because now, even people who don't,
0:27:31who never thought they would use streaming,
0:27:33which I count myself among those,
0:27:35it is really nice to have.
0:27:36Even if you set it to automatically download everything
0:27:39when it comes out, you will still, at some point,
0:27:42run through a situation where, oh, something just came out,
0:27:45I wanna listen to it right now.
0:27:47and you can just tap it and it just starts playing immediately.
0:27:50You don't have to wait for it to download.
0:27:52And that's really nice.
0:27:53And this was holding up a bunch of other possible features,
0:27:57things like making inbound sharing links better.
0:27:59Like now, I haven't done this yet,
0:28:01but I can make it so that if you tap an Overcast share
0:28:04link in something, I can pop up a little player
0:28:06in the Overcast app and have you preview that or play
0:28:09that right there.
0:28:11Or just simpler things, like when notifications
0:28:13come in for new episodes, I can have a play button on them
0:28:16instead of just dismiss and wait for it to download.
0:28:18You know, the simple stuff like that,
0:28:20it's just really nice to have all these options.
0:28:22So now I have the foundation that lets me actually do it.
0:28:26- What lessons did you learn while doing all this,
0:28:28other than testing the watch app and AV player?
0:28:30Anything else?
0:28:32- You learn to play one of each kind of podcast
0:28:35that you know exists out in the wild, right?
0:28:36So one MP3, one AAC with the headers at the end,
0:28:39one AAC with the headers at the beginning,
0:28:41one high bitrate, one low bitrate, you know, just--
0:28:44I mean, basically what I learned there was,
0:28:46I was already doing that, but what I learned there was,
0:28:49there's another type that I forgot about
0:28:51that I should have been included in the list. (laughs)
0:28:54- It's funny to me that you have yet to mention
0:28:56that you learned that unit testing may not be so terrible,
0:28:58but I know that's a tree that it's not worth barking up.
0:29:01Any other interesting stories about the development?
0:29:06'Cause it's been about a year, right?
0:29:07What version of the streaming engine are we on, four or five?
0:29:11- Three or four.
0:29:13- Okay, so it was about a year.
0:29:15Any other interesting stories worth sharing
0:29:17before we talk about businessy things?
0:29:19- Not really.
0:29:20I mean, it was, you know, I did a few other things.
0:29:23I converted a lot, a lot of things
0:29:25that were previously firing notifications
0:29:28to tell various other parts of the app to update.
0:29:31And now I'm doing all those, I'm doing a lot of those
0:29:35as KVO, using Facebook's KVO controller
0:29:38instead of all this notification hell.
0:29:40So that was actually a nice thing.
0:29:41I'm also, I've serialized database access
0:29:45onto the main thread, which is crazy sounding
0:29:48to some people, and I know this is very technical
0:29:50and very boring, so I'll go over it very quickly
0:29:52for people who don't wanna hear it.
0:29:53Basically, my previous version was using a version
0:29:56of my FC model layer that had a background queue
0:29:59for database access, and there was a number of challenges
0:30:02with this and potential bugs when things were happening
0:30:05in a background queue, and then the UI tries to update them,
0:30:08and then what version of it does it get,
0:30:10and does it update at the right time?
0:30:14Does anything accidentally get called
0:30:15in the background thread?
0:30:17It's a touching UI kit, which you can't do.
0:30:19So there's all sorts of these little possible bugs,
0:30:21some of which became real bugs.
0:30:22And the new version serializes all database operations
0:30:26on the main thread.
0:30:28You're typically told not to do this for a lot of things
0:30:30because that is performance problematic.
0:30:34Like if you have a big database operation
0:30:36that's using the database for a couple of seconds,
0:30:39the UI can't update.
0:30:41In practice, if you have an operation that's that long,
0:30:44the UI gets blocked anyway if you have it
0:30:47on a background queue because at some point
0:30:49the UI calls into the database queue
0:30:52and the operation is ahead of it in the queue
0:30:54that's blocking it all up.
0:30:55So I found in practice any large operations
0:30:58that were large enough to take a noticeable amount of time
0:31:00on the database would block the UI anyway
0:31:03even if it was on the background thread
0:31:05'cause something in the UI would call
0:31:06into the database and have to wait.
0:31:09- You don't have a, you know,
0:31:10readers aren't blocked by writers kind of isolation,
0:31:13or a separate queue for read and write, you know?
0:31:15- You know, I don't have that.
0:31:18I could add that at some point to FC model.
0:31:22In practice, I really haven't needed it.
0:31:24You know, in practice, having everything on the main thread
0:31:26is both way simpler.
0:31:29You know, it's, as I mentioned, all the possible bugs
0:31:31that you get from having it on some other thread,
0:31:33all those bugs are gone.
0:31:35And also, it hasn't really been slower.
0:31:37In fact, many things about it are faster.
0:31:39So I have found no downside to this
0:31:43in the kind of, in the ways that I actually use the database
0:31:46which is, you know, every, I'm never doing like a table scan
0:31:50or whatever SQLite calls a table scan.
0:31:52I'm never doing that in the UI.
0:31:54Everything that I'm querying is always indexed
0:31:57and the data set really isn't that big relatively speaking.
0:31:59So yeah, that's fine.
0:32:01- All right, one final question
0:32:05before we talk about something else that's awesome.
0:32:07What's next on the roadmap?
0:32:09Anything you're willing to share?
0:32:11One benefit that we, well, air quote benefit
0:32:14that we get being on the ATP emails
0:32:17is that we also get about a 10th of your Overcast
0:32:21support requests that somehow end up in the ATP inbox.
0:32:25And I've seen a handful of people very perturbed
0:32:28about the lack of authenticated feeds in Overcast.
0:32:32Do you plan on doing that or is there anything else
0:32:34you'd like to talk about with regard to your roadmap?
0:32:37So right now, I crawl ATP once for all subscribers to it.
0:32:42And then I collect that data
0:32:45and then I distribute it to the people.
0:32:46So okay, suppose you have a password feed.
0:32:49Do I crawl it once and then re-serve that to other people?
0:32:54That's obviously not great for security
0:32:56and kind of defeats the purpose of password feeds
0:32:59and could be like a piracy avenue.
0:33:02So I don't wanna do that.
0:33:03Do I crawl the feed separately for every user
0:33:07that's subscribed to it with their username and password,
0:33:09that is like the most semantically correct way to do it.
0:33:12But that's also incredibly wasteful and resource heavy
0:33:16on my crawling servers.
0:33:17Suppose a really popular podcast
0:33:20went with password protected feeds.
0:33:22And then I had 60,000 people in my podcast app
0:33:26trying to download this one thing
0:33:27with 60,000 different passwords,
0:33:29then that adds 60,000 crawling feeds I have to do
0:33:32to every interval that I'm refreshing the feed,
0:33:36that's both a burden on me and a burden on the other server.
0:33:39So I don't know of anybody who does server-side crawling
0:33:43and supports password feeds.
0:33:45But I could be wrong.
0:33:46I mean, you could do it, but I think at scale,
0:33:49it starts to become problematic.
0:33:51And so that's why I've been hesitant to do it.
0:33:53It's also just among all the different feature requests
0:33:56I get, it has been pretty low on the priority list
0:33:59simply because not that many people request it.
0:34:01And I think most podcasts these days
0:34:03that are gonna do the password model
0:34:05Generally speaking, I think that's fairly outdated
0:34:08in that many of them are switching
0:34:10to just having their own apps to play them back in.
0:34:13And there's various reasons why I don't love that approach,
0:34:15but that's the reality of the market.
0:34:17So I don't have immediate plans to do this,
0:34:21but I could do it in the future, I don't know.
0:34:24- Fair enough, any other interesting things
0:34:26planned for Overcast 3?
0:34:29- I'm not even thinking about 3 yet.
0:34:31No, I mean, honestly, I don't have any remaining
0:34:33like massive ideas.
0:34:34I have a bunch of small ideas I want to do,
0:34:36little things I want to do,
0:34:37a bunch of things that would be worthy of like 2.1, 2.2,
0:34:41like that kind of update.
0:34:42But I currently have nothing,
0:34:44no concept of what 3.0 would be
0:34:47or when it would come out, if ever.
0:34:49I can take the 2.x line going for a long time.
0:34:53- Fair enough.
0:34:54All right, why don't you tell us
0:34:54about something that's awesome.
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0:36:14"Hey, I need to update my website.
0:36:16"You know about computers.
0:36:17"What should I do?
0:36:18"How should I do it?"
0:36:19And I said, "Just here, look."
0:36:20I wrote down Squarespace form.
0:36:21He hadn't heard of it
0:36:22because he doesn't listen to podcasts, apparently, ever.
0:36:24I wrote down Squarespace form.
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0:36:55- All right, the business model changed for Overcast 2.
0:36:59What once was not free is now free.
0:37:02- Yeah, basically.
0:37:04So before the model was a free app
0:37:07with an in-app purchase for five bucks one time
0:37:09to unlock all the features.
0:37:11So it was like there were limits,
0:37:12certain features were not available,
0:37:13and you could pay once to unlock them all.
0:37:17And it worked fine.
0:37:18It wasn't amazing, but it was fine.
0:37:20The problem was that, of course, as these things go,
0:37:24it's a one-time purchase, and so revenue,
0:37:28Average revenue per month was going down,
0:37:30as these things tend to do.
0:37:32And I had this major new update,
0:37:34and I had so many people asking me,
0:37:36is it gonna be a paid upgrade?
0:37:38There were people on both sides of that.
0:37:40You know, like, about half the people who asked
0:37:43were hoping the answer was yes,
0:37:45and about half of them were hoping the answer was no,
0:37:46'cause they wanted to give me more money
0:37:48to make sure the app survived.
0:37:51Not 'cause they like it a lot.
0:37:51So I had so many people who wanted the free update,
0:37:55so many people who wanted to give me more money,
0:37:57And I evaluated all these different options,
0:37:58and the other problem was that,
0:38:00you know, by having the app that has limits,
0:38:02about 20% of the users actually paid to unlock it.
0:38:05And as far as in-app purchase rates go,
0:38:07that's incredibly good.
0:38:08Like, that's a great conversion rate.
0:38:10Most people with like a free thing, with a paid conversion,
0:38:13they would love a conversion rate of 20%.
0:38:16So I have no complaints about the conversion rate there.
0:38:19However, that still meant that 80% of the users
0:38:22were getting this limited, terrible version of the app.
0:38:26and I wasn't using that version.
0:38:28I wouldn't use that version, even for a day.
0:38:31It was annoying to even have these different code paths
0:38:34to test them, and I knew that 80% of my users
0:38:39were using a terrible version of the app.
0:38:41So I switched to a voluntary patronage model.
0:38:46So basically, and this is not actually that new.
0:38:49It's very, very similar to what I did with Instapaper,
0:38:53about halfway through its ownership.
0:38:55So you basically, the entire app is free.
0:38:59Instapaper was paid, but that was a different story.
0:39:01The entire app is now free, all features are unlocked,
0:39:05and you pay if you want to to support ongoing development.
0:39:09And you pay a dollar a month if you wanna do that.
0:39:12And so far, that's working.
0:39:14I haven't matched my previous income yet.
0:39:17And I don't expect to for a while,
0:39:19but I've gotten something like 40% there already,
0:39:23I mean, after less than a week.
0:39:25And the feature as it is right now is incredibly,
0:39:29to a fault, unintrusive, like it's buried.
0:39:32It doesn't, like if you just launch the app
0:39:34and use it normally, you never even see it.
0:39:37It's only in the settings screen.
0:39:38If you go to the settings screen, then you will see it.
0:39:41Otherwise you don't see it at all.
0:39:43And over time, like that's mostly 'cause I just haven't
0:39:46gotten around to making things that like promote it more.
0:39:49Like you know, I was thinking maybe at the very bottom
0:39:51of the podcast list screen, putting like a little thing
0:39:54saying we're supported by Pay.
0:39:55If you aren't a monthly patron,
0:39:57putting a little thing there, saying here,
0:39:58this is what we do.
0:39:59Or when I add more features,
0:40:01I can put a little welcome thing up saying,
0:40:04here's what's new, and here's how you can join it
0:40:06if you want to support this.
0:40:07So there's stuff like that I can do,
0:40:08but I haven't done it yet.
0:40:10So having done a really invisible update,
0:40:14and to already be about 40% towards my previous revenue
0:40:16after less than a week, I consider that a success.
0:40:20That is a faster uptake rate than I would have expected.
0:40:23So I'm very happy with that so far.
0:40:26- Good.
0:40:27Why free?
0:40:28I mean, don't you wanna make money, man?
0:40:31I mean, I heard what you just said about
0:40:33how you've got a pretty good uptake on this,
0:40:36but you said you haven't quite reached
0:40:39your old monthly revenue,
0:40:41and that seemed to be working okay,
0:40:43so why mess with the system?
0:40:45- You know, part of it, as I said,
0:40:47was the reasons of satisfying,
0:40:49now everybody gets the good app, right?
0:40:52so all my customers now are using the best features.
0:40:54And you know, to me that's important,
0:40:56like things like Smart Speed and Voice Boost,
0:40:59this is why my entire custom audio engine exists.
0:41:03This is why I had to write all that.
0:41:04This is why I can't just use AV Player.
0:41:06And it's a big reason that differentiates Overcast
0:41:09from the built-in podcast app.
0:41:11So when you're telling people like,
0:41:12you know, you should use this app, well why?
0:41:15The big, and you know, I have other competitors too
0:41:17and that's fine, but the biggest competitor by a long shot
0:41:21is the built-in Apple podcast app by a mile.
0:41:25And that comes in, it comes with every phone,
0:41:28it comes pre-installed.
0:41:30As far as, I don't even think you can delete it,
0:41:31I think it's always there.
0:41:33So the question is like, how do I make anybody use my app
0:41:38instead of the built-in Apple podcast app?
0:41:40And a lot of the features that I locked behind that paywall
0:41:43before, Apple gives those away for free.
0:41:46So that really, it was not very competitive with Apple's app
0:41:50And so before I had the scheme where the app was free
0:41:53for some of the app and then you pay to get everything.
0:41:57So it was always free for most people and pay for some.
0:42:02And now it is still free for most people and pay for some.
0:42:07But I've just changed what they're paying for and why.
0:42:12And the result of that is a much simpler app
0:42:17that's much better for everybody.
0:42:20So that's why I think it's a win,
0:42:21because it's still, it was always free for most people,
0:42:26and I make money somewhere in there,
0:42:28and now it still is that.
0:42:29It is still free for most people,
0:42:31and I make money somewhere in there.
0:42:32Again, I've just changed the specifics of how that's done,
0:42:37but it's still making money, it's still profitable,
0:42:40and over the long term, it's probably gonna be
0:42:42just as profitable, if not more so,
0:42:44because, as I mentioned,
0:42:46This is not my first paid app.
0:42:48I've seen this train before.
0:42:50That's not a saying.
0:42:51Now it is.
0:42:52(laughing)
0:42:53I've seen this train before.
0:42:55I know how this goes.
0:42:58After my first year where I did this big thing
0:43:01and I keep giving free updates,
0:43:03average monthly revenue goes down
0:43:05because I start to reach saturation
0:43:06among my existing audience
0:43:08of like the people who bought it last year
0:43:10when I launched it, over time,
0:43:13I'm not making any more money from those people
0:43:15and I'm still giving all these new features
0:43:16for free if I do a paid upgrade that has other problems, people generally hate those. Over
0:43:22time if I would have stuck with the old model, that was a downward slope of the revenue.
0:43:27It was slow, I was still doing okay, but the trend line was clearly slowly going down.
0:43:34And that happens to every paid app that I've ever seen. So with this, first of all with
0:43:39this I think the trend line will slowly go up. So that's a huge improvement right there.
0:43:45And it also kind of levels it out a lot more.
0:43:47You know, it's more predictable income,
0:43:49and it gives people a way to give me more money
0:43:54if they want to.
0:43:55And so it really does solve a lot of problems.
0:43:58And I don't think it's any,
0:44:01I don't think it's that crazy.
0:44:02You know, when you look at it as,
0:44:04how I described it a minute ago,
0:44:05it's just like, it was free for most people,
0:44:08and some people pay before, and now it still is.
0:44:10Just those things, like just what you pay for is different.
0:44:13If you look at it that way, I don't think it's that crazy.
0:44:16- Well yeah, but that's all fine for Marco, right?
0:44:18- Oh God, this.
0:44:19Yeah, you know, this was all Twitter
0:44:24and blog drama this morning.
0:44:25I don't wanna get really into it on the show,
0:44:26but the short version is that anytime I do anything,
0:44:31I hear from people saying, "Well, that's fine for you,"
0:44:34copying the old "That's fine for Merlin" joke,
0:44:36like, "Well, that's fine for Marco, but I can't do that
0:44:40"because I don't have X," whether it's, you know,
0:44:42of any Twitter followers as I do,
0:44:44or the brand recognition that I do,
0:44:46or whatever the case may be, the PR that I get
0:44:49when I do things, always these arguments of,
0:44:54well, everything I do is unique and invalid
0:44:59to apply to anybody else.
0:45:02And that's just not true.
0:45:04And the fact is people are gonna convince themselves
0:45:07of that no matter what I say, so it doesn't really matter,
0:45:08it's not really worth arguing,
0:45:10but the short version is the path I took.
0:45:13The result that I'm at now of where my career is now,
0:45:18what my audience, what people expect of me,
0:45:21what people want to see from me,
0:45:23yeah, that's hard to replicate in five minutes,
0:45:25but I've been building it for like 10 years.
0:45:28And the ways I have built it over 10 years
0:45:31are generally accessible to other people.
0:45:34If you also blog for 10 years and podcast for five years
0:45:39and make a bunch of apps along the way,
0:45:42then you have a better chance of getting
0:45:46the kind of launch attention that I can get, et cetera.
0:45:50But also, that launch attention is fleeting.
0:45:54It's one time, that's it.
0:45:56Launch attention alone does not carry things.
0:45:58If it did, everything I did would succeed.
0:46:01But in fact, most of the things I do don't succeed.
0:46:05That's why I stopped doing them.
0:46:07You know, like the magazine did not succeed.
0:46:10The launch was, I think a couple data for the launch
0:46:14was the most subscribers it ever had.
0:46:17And then it just went down from there.
0:46:18The magazine did not succeed.
0:46:19Bugshot did not succeed.
0:46:21Nursing Clock, of course, was kind of a joke
0:46:22but that didn't succeed.
0:46:24Even, I was having trouble keeping Instapaper afloat
0:46:26when I sold it.
0:46:27That's one of the reasons I sold it.
0:46:28Because it was just not doing that well anymore.
0:46:30You know, the fact is the things I do
0:46:33don't succeed by default.
0:46:35I am afforded the luxury of a stronger launch
0:46:38than many people can get, but the value of that launch,
0:46:42as I said, is temporary.
0:46:44Look at our friends who made Vesper, right?
0:46:49John Gruber, Brent Simmons, Dave Whiskas.
0:46:51These people had massive audiences,
0:46:54especially John Gruber, these massive audiences,
0:46:56and yet Vesper hasn't taken over the world.
0:46:59Obviously, the size of your audience is really,
0:47:02it helps, but it's not all you need,
0:47:05and it's not a guarantee.
0:47:06So the people who really need to hear this won't hear it,
0:47:09so it doesn't really matter what I say,
0:47:11but I don't know, if there's anything to take away
0:47:13from this, it is that almost nothing that I've done
0:47:17is unique, and there is a road to take here
0:47:21to increase your chances of success,
0:47:23but it might take you 10 years and a lot of work,
0:47:26'cause that's what it took me.
0:47:28- Yeah, one of the things you've mentioned in the past
0:47:30was wanting to get your app, I think you mentioned it
0:47:34your blog post, your pragmatic pricing blog post that we'll put in the show notes.
0:47:38Wanting to get your app into the hands of as many people as possible, like you're
0:47:42going for market share over profit, like rather than selling a $99
0:47:46artisanal handcrafted podcast app to 17 people, you want
0:47:50your app to be in the hands of the most people possible as a hedge against
0:47:54what did you say, big money? Was that what you called it? Coming in?
0:47:58Like, you didn't want podcasts to become like proprietary
0:48:02your Facebook eyes, they're owned and controlled by a single company, so you
0:48:05wanted to get your application out there to the broadest audience possible. And
0:48:11that is in line with your original pricing model, which was free with an app
0:48:15purchase because you reduced the barrier to someone tapping the little button in
0:48:19the store and getting it on their device. And now again, same thing, you know, if you
0:48:24want it on your device you can tap a button, you don't have to give any money,
0:48:27only now it's a better app when you download it, so there's more chance that
0:48:30people will tap the button. So that all works but one of the complaints from people about your new
0:48:38pricing model has been revolving around what effect your new pricing model may have on the
0:48:45other podcast clients that are for sale now. I guess not including apples because like they
0:48:51don't care what you do and maybe not including the big guys that can afford to give away their
0:48:57I don't know if there's any other big guys like that,
0:48:59but basically other smallish independent podcast clients.
0:49:04Do you think your new pricing model will have any effect
0:49:08on the fortunes of those clients?
0:49:12- I don't think it has any more effect than it did before,
0:49:15which is I don't think it has any more effect
0:49:18than what the Apple client has.
0:49:20All of us are at a severe disadvantage
0:49:21because the Apple client is built in and pre-installed
0:49:25and free and has most features
0:49:28that most people need built in.
0:49:30- And it's reel to reel so the audio quality is better.
0:49:33Has that warm sound you just can't get from vinyl, Casey.
0:49:36Hi guys.
0:49:36(laughing)
0:49:38- And also, when you do a search in the app store
0:49:43for podcasts or podcasts, it shows this giant banner up top
0:49:47for the built-in podcast app.
0:49:50To promote that, to basically divert your attention
0:49:53back to that to dissuade you
0:49:54from getting another podcast app
0:49:56if you actually search the App Store.
0:49:58- And you can't even delete that app off your phone,
0:50:00so it's not as if you need to download it from the store.
0:50:03Like, you have it.
0:50:04- Yeah, so there's a reason why, I mean,
0:50:06by most estimates, I think the Apple Podcast App
0:50:09has something like 60 to 90% market share,
0:50:12depending on who you ask.
0:50:13I mean, it's a massive, massive player,
0:50:15and that market share number, as far as I know,
0:50:17is not going down.
0:50:19So that's a huge disadvantage for anybody
0:50:23in the market.
0:50:24So mine being mostly free in the sense that
0:50:29I still am asking people for money,
0:50:30but just now you can get all the features for free.
0:50:32It's a valid question that like,
0:50:34am I killing these smaller apps?
0:50:36I don't think I am.
0:50:37I don't think I'm, I think I am,
0:50:41first of all I'm competing,
0:50:42and this is something that they can do if they want to.
0:50:45By most estimates that I've been able to piece together
0:50:50from like rank data,
0:50:51I think they're all making more money than me doing what they're doing. So they've been
0:50:55out grossing me, I think, for the whole, for the year, or at least coming very close, or
0:51:00being very close. So I think they're doing fine. You know, when you have this giant built-in
0:51:06app that is, you know, built into the phone, free, very full-featured, look at like the
0:51:12iOS Notes app is another good example of this. Or any of the built, you know, the iOS Weather
0:51:16app, any of the built-in iOS apps, calculator, I mean all this, reminders, all this stuff.
0:51:21There are markets for all of those apps in the App Store,
0:51:24for third-party versions of those,
0:51:26and they're often very healthy markets
0:51:28with many different competitors.
0:51:30And even if Apple's app takes the 80% or whatever,
0:51:34that still leaves a lot of people.
0:51:37And I had this problem with Instapaper with ReadingList,
0:51:39and as far as I could tell, ReadingList never really
0:51:42had much of an effect on Instapaper either way.
0:51:44It didn't seem like a negative or a positive.
0:51:46Because the thing is, when you're making an app,
0:51:50The, especially something as complex as a podcast app,
0:51:54the sum of all your little decisions along the way,
0:51:57which is tons of little tiny design decisions,
0:51:59the sum of all those decisions is what makes the app
0:52:03fit people or not fit people,
0:52:04whether it kind of matches with the way you think
0:52:07about things or whether it conflicts
0:52:09with the way you think about things.
0:52:10Whether it's a design you like or you don't like.
0:52:12Before you even get to features or price,
0:52:14those are all considerations.
0:52:16And because people have different preferences
0:52:18what they want, how they want it to look,
0:52:20how they want it to work,
0:52:21what features they need and don't need,
0:52:23that creates tons of market potential for other apps
0:52:27in every category, even categories that Apple
0:52:29already has a built-in thing up front for.
0:52:31The fact that I come into this category
0:52:34and I give my app away for free,
0:52:36I don't think, I think it's the same calculus,
0:52:38I think it's the same situation
0:52:40that the apps have always been in before.
0:52:42Like, apps that provide something that people want
0:52:45that do things a little differently than the built-in one
0:52:48now than mine, those will find audiences the same way mine did. They will find audiences
0:52:54regardless of how much my app costs.
0:52:56All right, so next question. If it turns out that changing your pricing in this way did
0:53:04reduce the sales of the competing applications to a degree that maybe one out of two of them
0:53:09drop off or whatever, how does that fit in with your goals of trying to make sure big
0:53:16money doesn't come into podcasting. Is it not affected at all? Is it negative? Is it
0:53:20positive? And how would you feel about it?
0:53:22Well, I would feel pretty bad if I actually like killed someone else's app, but I have
0:53:28seen very little evidence to suggest that that kind of thing has ever happened in iOS
0:53:32or any software market for that matter. That's not really how things tend to go. Usually
0:53:39apps die or become unsuccessful or non-economical
0:53:44to continue because they themselves just kind of
0:53:47didn't do that well maintaining their own app
0:53:50or keeping their own users around.
0:53:51I had the same, when I had Instapaper,
0:53:55I learned this pretty well too that I was always
0:53:57worried about my competition, I was always worried.
0:53:59I talked about this at XOXO, I was always worried
0:54:02about what if somebody comes in tomorrow
0:54:05and takes all my users away?
0:54:07And that never happened.
0:54:08Lots of new competitors came around,
0:54:10some of them very big, some of them completely free.
0:54:13In fact, most of them completely free.
0:54:15Some of them are from big companies, some of them Apple.
0:54:18And it never seemed to make any difference whatsoever
0:54:21because people had chosen me for lots of reasons
0:54:26and my app was kind of mine to screw up,
0:54:29or it was mine to neglect or whatever the case may be.
0:54:33So if a podcast app goes away, if it shuts down,
0:54:38which Instacast did this past, I don't know,
0:54:41six months ago maybe, Instacast did,
0:54:43but I talked to the creator of that in the past,
0:54:45and I think he was having trouble for a while keeping it up,
0:54:49so I don't think I had anything to do with that really.
0:54:51If an app goes away, yes, I would feel bad
0:54:54if it was my fault, but I would have a really hard time
0:54:58believing that it was really my fault.
0:55:01Furthermore, if being free up front for this past year,
0:55:07If that was really a big deal, my market share would be bigger.
0:55:12But it isn't.
0:55:13Like, Pocket Casts is the greatest counter example of this.
0:55:16Pocket Casts has way more users than I do.
0:55:19Way more.
0:55:21They make way more money than I do.
0:55:23By a large amount.
0:55:25They are on both platforms.
0:55:26They have a staff to maintain it.
0:55:28Like, Pocket Casts is, by all objective measures, kicking my butt.
0:55:33And they're paid up front.
0:55:34And they've been paid upfront the entire time
0:55:36that I've been free.
0:55:37And the reason why people choose Pocket Casts
0:55:42is not because that, oh, this is four or five dollars
0:55:46or whatever they charge, I don't even know what they charge,
0:55:47whatever it is, it's not because of that,
0:55:50it's because they just like it better
0:55:52or it does things that mine doesn't do
0:55:54or it serves platforms that I don't serve.
0:55:56It's for other reasons.
0:55:58So I think people are putting way more emphasis
0:56:03on this pricing model, then I think it's warranted.
0:56:08- So for the big picture thing though,
0:56:10ignoring whether you are the cause of it or not,
0:56:15is it better for keeping podcasts
0:56:19from being Facebook eyes or whatever?
0:56:22Do you want to see lots of third party clients
0:56:27out there for podcasts or do you not really care
0:56:29as long as the overall market share
0:56:32between the big money and the little guys is the same,
0:56:37even if the little guys share is divvied up
0:56:40between five people, seven people, 12 people, two people.
0:56:44You don't really care.
0:56:45- My goal here is diversity in the ecosystem.
0:56:49So from that point of view,
0:56:50a large number of smaller clients is better.
0:56:54However, we've had a large number
0:56:57of small clients for years,
0:56:59and we haven't made meaningful inroads
0:57:01into getting significant market share overall
0:57:05for the independent category.
0:57:06The winners have always been Apple's podcast app,
0:57:09and then Down, and Stitcher,
0:57:11and then things like iHeart and TuneIn
0:57:14that are kind of not quite podcast players.
0:57:17Now you have things like Spotify,
0:57:19they're getting into podcasts,
0:57:20and that's only going to continue.
0:57:22Diversity is important,
0:57:24but you also need some big players
0:57:27that can be big enough to attract people away
0:57:30from those other ones.
0:57:31And that's what I'm trying to be.
0:57:33Stitcher, I think by most measures,
0:57:35had something like 5% of the entire podcast player market.
0:57:38That's a lot.
0:57:39I'm trying to reach that kind of level.
0:57:40I know I'm not gonna have like 50% or more.
0:57:43That's crazy talk.
0:57:45I would love to reach 5%.
0:57:46And I'm nowhere near it, but I'd love to get there.
0:57:49- Isn't Apple kind of a good guy in this scenario?
0:57:51Because even though they're big
0:57:52and have all this money and everything,
0:57:54their sort of vague disinterest in podcasts
0:57:56means that their player just reads RSS feeds, right?
0:57:59They're not trying to open up peg walls.
0:58:01They're not trying to grab copyright or insert
0:58:04their own ads into people's podcasts.
0:58:05They seem pretty sort of benign, kind of doddering.
0:58:10It's the built-in app.
0:58:11It works OK.
0:58:12It works better now than it used to.
0:58:14But it's a straight up podcast app, right?
0:58:16There's not even any weird iTunes DRM shenanigans
0:58:20in there, right?
0:58:21Oh, correct.
0:58:22But I don't like the podcast.
0:58:24I don't like theirs.
0:58:26All right, right.
0:58:26So the app isn't good.
0:58:27But I'm saying, in terms of the openness versus closeness,
0:58:29Like you can totally see how like Stitcher in your scenario,
0:58:33like something like Stitcher is more the enemy
0:58:35in terms of they want, you know,
0:58:39I don't know if they want control of it.
0:58:40Anyway, their view of the podcast world
0:58:42is like through the lens of Stitcher, right?
0:58:45It is a different kind of deal than,
0:58:47well, people just put up RSS feeds
0:58:48and this is just a client app that crawls them
0:58:50and it lets people listen to things.
0:58:52Like that's what you're trying to preserve essentially,
0:58:54what we have now, which is,
0:58:55hey, so you wanna put up a podcast?
0:58:57It's just an RSS feed with a bunch of attachments.
0:58:59Anybody can do it.
0:59:00If you wanna get listed in the big popular directories
0:59:03like iTunes or I don't know what else is out there,
0:59:05there's no barrier to that entry.
0:59:07Apple is not like the gatekeeper.
0:59:09They don't like charge you money
0:59:10or require that Apple ads be put in front of your stuff
0:59:13or whatever.
0:59:14It's all pretty open and straightforward.
0:59:16Kind of like blogging used to be in kind of,
0:59:18well, we'll talk about medium in a little bit,
0:59:20but anyway, like blogging was in the old days
0:59:23where it's very open.
0:59:24And it seemed to me that what you're trying to guard against
0:59:27is a new world where it's like,
0:59:29well, if you wanna have a podcast,
0:59:31you have to go through Stitcher
0:59:32and Stitcher gets X percentage of your profit
0:59:34and kind of like the App Store.
0:59:35And they're the gatekeeper for everything involved.
0:59:39And they reserve the right to insert their own ads
0:59:42into your things and to resell your content.
0:59:44I don't know, like I'm making up,
0:59:45I have no idea what Stitcher's deal is.
0:59:46But the idea that, or like Facebook,
0:59:49like where also you want your articles
0:59:51to be shown on Facebook,
0:59:52Facebook controls what gets into Facebook,
0:59:54Facebook can copy your stuff and republish it,
0:59:57and Facebook Instant Articles are a thing
1:00:00that you have to write to,
1:00:01it's not like they just pull your stuff, anyway.
1:00:02Or like Apple News, like that's, am I correct
1:00:05in trying to get a handle on what it is
1:00:06that you're, the doomsday scenario that doesn't yet exist,
1:00:09but that you're trying to avoid?
1:00:10- Yeah, so, you know, to go back to Stitcher for a second,
1:00:14the thing I don't like about Stitcher is that
1:00:17they have their own proprietary directory,
1:00:20and so it's not a general purpose podcast player,
1:00:23can only play their podcasts. And if you agree to be one of their podcasts, they call your
1:00:30feed, they get updates, they download your episodes and re-host them themselves so you
1:00:35don't see the download numbers. They insert their own ads between them, which is weird
1:00:42and conflicting possibly with the ads that you might have. They transcode your audio
1:00:47quality to be terrible. And last time I checked, they actually required you to promote Stitcher
1:00:51on Beyond Your Shows, which would be why you always hear podcasters saying, "Find us
1:00:55on iTunes and Stitcher," because they have to.
1:00:58And we decided with this show, early on, when we got a couple emails saying, "Why aren't
1:01:03you on Stitcher? I can't listen to you," we decided early on that based on the apparent
1:01:08volume being fairly low, that we didn't think it was worth being on Stitcher, because
1:01:15we weren't very happy with those terms. And so we decided, "No, it's not worth it.
1:01:20we don't want to do that. And the only reason we had the option to say no is because Ditchers
1:01:27Market Share was only like 5% or whatever. If they got any bigger than that, it would
1:01:33be really hard to say no. So imagine what if they had 15%, 20%. That becomes real numbers.
1:01:41And so imagine like big publishers like Gimlet or Slate or Radiotopia, like big publishers.
1:01:49If some player is in the market like that and they start dictating terms like that,
1:01:54they basically have to agree to them.
1:01:57They don't have the luxury to say no to something that's controlling possibly 15-20% of the
1:02:02market.
1:02:03That's a huge, huge problem.
1:02:05A player doesn't have to get to a majority stake, 50%, they don't have to get that big
1:02:11to be able to dictate terms.
1:02:15I don't want to reach that point.
1:02:16We've come dangerously close a few times.
1:02:18I really don't want to reach that point in this medium.
1:02:21It's even worse, you know, Facebook is way worse,
1:02:23obviously, because they have,
1:02:25I think most publishers would tell you that
1:02:27more than 50% of traffic comes from Facebook.
1:02:31Like, it's crazy how much traffic Facebook drives.
1:02:34So, you know, we at least in this medium,
1:02:36we have the freedom that we don't have
1:02:38those middlemen who can dictate so many terms to us yet.
1:02:41However, Apple is one.
1:02:44And, granted, a podcast app, you know,
1:02:45Most podcast apps you can subscribe to any URL,
1:02:48no matter where, you know, any URL that's an RSS feed,
1:02:50you can subscribe to it and the app will play it.
1:02:53But Apple still, Apple runs the iTunes podcast directory,
1:02:57and that directory is the center of all knowledge
1:03:00of podcasts for a vast majority of podcast players,
1:03:05Apple's and otherwise, and Apple has rules.
1:03:07Like I think they disallow like adult stuff
1:03:09and stuff like that, but anyway, right now,
1:03:12Apple is pretty hands-off with their directory.
1:03:14Right now, they have this giant market share
1:03:17in both the directory side and in the player app side.
1:03:21But they've mostly been hands off, as you said.
1:03:24They've mostly kind of ignored it.
1:03:26But what happens if they don't?
1:03:28You know, like what happens if they start
1:03:30using that power they have and making changes?
1:03:33They probably won't because podcasting,
1:03:35you know, the reason why they haven't really
1:03:37touched it much so far, as far as I can tell,
1:03:40is because it just was never that important to them
1:03:43relative to everything else they do.
1:03:44There's this giant company with these giant products,
1:03:46these giant initiatives.
1:03:47Podcasting was always so small
1:03:49that it wasn't really worth them
1:03:50messing around with, really.
1:03:52But podcasting is growing.
1:03:53And Apple is getting, I don't know,
1:03:56possibly a little bit desperate
1:03:57in relevance on the music side.
1:03:59So that might change.
1:04:02Not only do I wanna make sure that nobody else comes in
1:04:05and gets enough market shares to be able to dictate terms
1:04:07to every podcast publisher,
1:04:09but I also would like to eat away at Apple Share
1:04:11bit because I'm not comfortable with anybody having that much power over a market even
1:04:17when it is Apple and they've been pretty good about it so far.
1:04:20The other side of this is suppose you want to do online video. Online video is just YouTube
1:04:26these days. Like you might as well just say YouTube because that's what online video means
1:04:30to most people, YouTube. It is so dominated by one company and also that company is constantly
1:04:37messing with the terms and constantly changing the way it works. They are really not a great
1:04:42owner of that entire medium because they have shown over and over again that they're willing
1:04:47to change things around for their own benefit and to be opaque and to make changes that
1:04:51might not be in your own best interest as a publisher and things like that. But if you
1:04:54try to publish video really anywhere except YouTube, it's very hard to get any viewership.
1:05:01So I don't want podcasts to ever reach that point.
1:05:05Right now, they're vulnerable to that
1:05:08with Apple's market share.
1:05:09But only, you know, Apple is not the kind of company
1:05:12that would do that generally.
1:05:13But you know, things change, people change,
1:05:16companies change, anything could happen.
1:05:17So ideally, I would like to diversify the market so much
1:05:21that not only does nobody get the power to dictate terms,
1:05:25but that Apple doesn't have that power either.
1:05:28- You don't have to post your video to Facebook,
1:05:30or to YouTube to get your viewership,
1:05:31just posted to Facebook. Yeah, there's that issue as well. Maybe it's a duopoly.
1:05:38Choose your poison. Exactly. The two giants fight each other over who has
1:05:43monopolies. Yeah, I think we're all thus far protected by a podcast being such a
1:05:49drop in the bucket, but yeah, I don't know, like, I mean, every time I see these
1:05:53stories about, you know, new podcast initiatives, the whole serial thing, and
1:05:58Even the you know what the that front of yours whether the gimlet media or something like that
1:06:03Anyway, anytime those stories go in you know when podcasts get rediscovered by the mass media briefly for yeah
1:06:11I'm the two or three year cycle that it's on
1:06:13people get excited about it being a thing, but then it's kind of like then it quiets down and
1:06:20I'm not sure if it ever crosses the threshold into a
1:06:26Matt a real mass media. Yeah, I'm not sure if even crosses the threshold into like reading like as in books
1:06:31Or you know paper books or ebooks, which I still think it's just a massively larger business than podcasts will ever be
1:06:37So it could be that this ecosystem is never interesting enough for Apple to wake up and try to rest control of it
1:06:46But if they did, yeah
1:06:48I don't know what the hedge is against it
1:06:49The head is the head you and your little MySQL database with a bunch of podcasts in it
1:06:54Is that it? Is that all we've got? Is it just, you know, I don't or stitcher that's not you know, oh god
1:06:59No, I mean like ideally the hedge is lots of other people who has who has a directory because even you have your own directory
1:07:06Right. That's what yeah, I have my own
1:07:08But I I will still search iTunes as a fallback to you know to get stuff that I if I can't find anything, right?
1:07:13Well, so who else has their own directory at all? Microsoft has one
1:07:17I don't know how big it is, but they do have one
1:07:20There's a kind of like one or two others around I know Google
1:07:24I've heard many very, very strong rumblings that Google is working on a major podcast
1:07:30initiative. I don't know anything about it, but I know they're working on a major
1:07:34podcast initiative.
1:07:35I bet it involves ads.
1:07:37Almost certainly.
1:07:38I don't know anything about it, but hmm.
1:07:40Right. And, you know, and again, like this, how much power do you want Google to have
1:07:45over this medium? The more diverse we can get it to be, the less they can dictate terms.
1:07:51So this is not going to stay still.
1:07:55Podcasts are becoming big.
1:07:56They're getting lots of attention.
1:07:58We have to be very defensive and skeptical about how this is going to go in the future.
1:08:04We have to like, I think it's really worth fighting for this.
1:08:09Because we lost video long ago, right at the start, we lost text mostly now these days.
1:08:16I don't want to lose podcasting to these big, private,
1:08:20centralized, proprietary things.
1:08:22- You know, it's probably protecting podcasts right now
1:08:24as the incompetence of car makers,
1:08:25because I feel like that's still kind of the linchpin.
1:08:28Like when we were kids, radio dominated
1:08:30because cars had radios in them.
1:08:31Like I think in the home, the advent of television
1:08:35replaced radio for a lot of things,
1:08:36although people still had radios at work
1:08:38or whatever to listen to.
1:08:39But for, you know, terrestrial radio
1:08:43has been all screwed up or whatever,
1:08:45and the replacement of, you know,
1:08:46podcasts are the replacement, they're independent,
1:08:48you can get what you want, they're free,
1:08:51they're all internet powered,
1:08:52and once our cars can all play podcasts
1:08:55using their ubiquitous internet connections
1:08:57and their apps and their Apple CarPlay,
1:08:59that's been such a mess, like it's clearly not there yet.
1:09:01If you could snap your fingers and say,
1:09:03starting now, every car you buy anywhere in the world
1:09:06can play any podcast.
1:09:07And it's like, wow, podcasts have really made it now,
1:09:11because then people who have never heard of podcasts,
1:09:13They just grow up in a world where you go into a car and you somehow search for, you
1:09:17know, This American Life, and it plays it whenever you want, and you don't know how
1:09:21it happens.
1:09:22In the same way that you grow up in a car and you press the little preset button and
1:09:26the radio station comes on and you listen to music, right?
1:09:29That is the final form, if you will, of podcasts, and that it is the true replacement for radio
1:09:34only.
1:09:35It's on demand and it's diversified and whatever.
1:09:37But you can get that if Facebook owns podcasts or Google owns podcasts.
1:09:42In fact, it may come faster if one company owns podcasts or whatever.
1:09:47I'm trying to envision a world in which A, carmakers get their acts together to actually,
1:09:52you know, sort of, I don't know, it's not like agreeing on a standard, but like, if
1:09:56you get everyone in a room and say, "We all agree, right?
1:09:58Podcasts are just an RSS feed and that's where they come from and no one is going to support
1:10:02any particular company."
1:10:04But if one of those companies got big, if it was Google or Apple or Microsoft or even
1:10:08and a Stitcher gets big or something and somehow--
1:10:11kind of like XM Radio and Sirius got their claws
1:10:14into the auto industry for a while there,
1:10:16where it used to be you could get radio in your thing
1:10:19and then you get satellite radio.
1:10:20And it was one of two companies, and then they merged.
1:10:22They merged, right, those two?
1:10:24One bought the other one out.
1:10:26Luckily, satellite radio is terrible.
1:10:27So don't have to worry too much about that.
1:10:29Technology-wise, there are limitations there
1:10:31that aren't going to go big.
1:10:34But the final iteration of cars is,
1:10:37hey, if cars had internet connection,
1:10:39then cars could listen to music and they could listen to,
1:10:42music is already proprietaryized, whatever the word is.
1:10:46It's Spotify, it's Apple Music, it's RDO,
1:10:49it's all these other things.
1:10:51So there's no hope of that being like,
1:10:52oh, if we just add support for this protocol,
1:10:55anyone can publish, that's already proprietary.
1:10:57Podcasts have a chance, have a chance, a slim chance
1:11:00of remaining in this sort of neutral open state
1:11:04long enough for cars to get their app back together,
1:11:07such that all cars have some crappy podcast player in them.
1:11:11And once the ball starts rolling on that, if it gets going,
1:11:14it could end up being like the web,
1:11:17I guess is the best example of like the web got out the door
1:11:19before anyone could really get control of it.
1:11:20Microsoft tried and basically failed,
1:11:22but you can make something with a web browser now
1:11:25and it can browse the web.
1:11:27The web browser engines are open source.
1:11:29You can make one of them.
1:11:30It can load a webpage that's not owned and controlled
1:11:32by a single company.
1:11:33Podcasts have a chance at that, but right now,
1:11:36I think the expectation is that if a person buys a new car,
1:11:38that car cannot play a podcast,
1:11:39except perhaps through a Bluetooth integration
1:11:42with their iPhone using an application.
1:11:43I think that is still too complicated for most people.
1:11:46Most people just wanna go into a car
1:11:48and have a preset button that's their favorite podcast
1:11:51and press play and it start playing the next episode
1:11:53or something like that.
1:11:55- The example of satellite radio, I think,
1:11:57was the best counter example to this,
1:11:59which is that satellite radio, you're right,
1:12:02It came in, it got great integration into cars
1:12:06where now almost every car that you buy,
1:12:10in the US at least, has an option for satellite radio.
1:12:13Many of them, it's even bundled into other packages
1:12:16that you might get anyway.
1:12:18So it's very common.
1:12:20- But you had to pay for it, which is a real killer.
1:12:22Like obviously podcast integration wouldn't be like,
1:12:24oh you have to pay X dollars a month.
1:12:27- Right, but either way, the hardware was there
1:12:29and it still hasn't caught on.
1:12:31And I think what will protect podcasts in the car from that kind of like big integration
1:12:38deal kind of world is the same thing that has made satellite radio even less relevant
1:12:43today than it was before, which is, I always say, don't bet against the smartphone.
1:12:50The smartphone is what is killing satellite radio finally.
1:12:53I mean satellite radio has been like kind of half dead for a long time, I mean forever,
1:12:57but it's, the smartphone will kill it for good.
1:13:01The fact is, internet connected cars,
1:13:04I think this is probably like a half step.
1:13:08- Well, through your phone, obviously.
1:13:10I'm not saying you're gonna pay,
1:13:11but that would be a payment thing too.
1:13:13You're gonna pay for your cell access
1:13:14and then you're gonna have your phone with you
1:13:15when you're in your car, but I feel like it's not there.
1:13:18As someone who owns probably the lowest end possible car
1:13:20you can get that does connect to your phone
1:13:22and play audio, it works,
1:13:24but it is not the type of thing that I would say,
1:13:28just get this car and it will just,
1:13:29you won't have to do anything
1:13:31and it'll just figure it out and it's really slow.
1:13:33Sometimes the Bluetooth doesn't connect.
1:13:35This ties into Gruber's new theory
1:13:37that Bluetooth is the worst thing ever
1:13:39and preventing the future of the internet
1:13:41of things or whatever.
1:13:42But honestly, sometimes it just doesn't connect
1:13:44to Bluetooth audio.
1:13:45Sometimes it takes a long time.
1:13:46You can't tell if it's working.
1:13:47Sometimes you gotta toggle Bluetooth on and off.
1:13:49When it does work, there's enough of a delay
1:13:51that you're not quite sure whether it's working,
1:13:52so you have to decide whether you sit there
1:13:53and wait for the audio to switch over,
1:13:55whether you start driving and hope that it will.
1:13:57Like, it's not as seamless.
1:13:59It's still, I feel like it's still a nerd experience,
1:14:01but you're right that that's the way it has to go.
1:14:03No one's going to pay a separate monthly fee for their,
1:14:06although boy, don't tell Verizon,
1:14:08but they would love that they could charge it.
1:14:09Anyway, no one really wants to pay a separate monthly fee
1:14:12for their car to have internet access.
1:14:14And if you're gonna have your phone with you anyway,
1:14:17we really just need, you know, good car,
1:14:20I mean, getting back, I guess like CarPlay and all,
1:14:22you know, good smartphone car integration.
1:14:25Once that becomes, I think we're all,
1:14:28Do you think we're there with audio for iPod car integration?
1:14:32We kind of had that nice period where it was like,
1:14:34car said 30-pin connectors in them or a USB type thing,
1:14:37and you would have iPod integration.
1:14:38I felt like that worked pretty reliably,
1:14:40but that was obviously a pre-wireless technology.
1:14:44I mean, I think we are really pretty much there now
1:14:48for Bluetooth audio, which is even better.
1:14:51Bluetooth is so much better.
1:14:52And BMWs.
1:14:55Even other cars, like if I get rental cars, I try it.
1:14:57I know other people who try it.
1:14:58Usually Bluetooth audio is not perfect,
1:15:03but most of the time pretty good.
1:15:05- Yeah, the audio is fine, it's just the connection.
1:15:07'Cause I have Bluetooth audio,
1:15:08that's what I'm talking about with the integration.
1:15:11You need more sophisticated integration for podcasts
1:15:13if you wanna actually put up an onscreen display
1:15:15that gives you more than just metadata
1:15:17as if it's a music track, like you'd like to be able to,
1:15:20I don't know.
1:15:20- But that's all you need.
1:15:21I mean, when you're playing it in a car,
1:15:23that's all I need.
1:15:25One of the reasons why I haven't explored options
1:15:29like making a BMW app for it,
1:15:32one of the reasons why is because
1:15:34the Bluetooth integration is just good enough.
1:15:36And it's really, really convenient
1:15:40that you just get in the car
1:15:42and the phone can stay in your pocket,
1:15:44you just get in the car and a few seconds later
1:15:47it starts playing your podcast
1:15:48right where you left off on your phone.
1:15:50- Much more than a few seconds in crappy cars
1:15:52and sometimes never because it inexplicably doesn't connect.
1:15:54Like I'm saying is that I think that's not that's not there yet for regular people
1:15:58Like it's not it's not the type of thing where you can just assure somebody do you have do you have a smartphone period?
1:16:04When you buy a new car any car
1:16:06You will be able to listen to podcasts in the car and there's nothing you'll need to do and no manual you need to read
1:16:12And no futzing you'll need to do and no caveats about remember don't start driving until the audio plays because it may not be connected to
1:16:17Bluetooth and you better take care of that before you start moving
1:16:19Otherwise, you'll be trying to use your touchscreen while you're moving. You're gonna run over a kid
1:16:24You know John maybe it's just time for you to buy a nicer car
1:16:26I'm saying like most people are buying cars like this and most people buying cars don't have any Bluetooth integration at this point
1:16:33So it's I think it's starting to get really true. I don't know a lot of very very cheap cars
1:16:38like my brother-in-law just got a
1:16:40Brand new Civic and admittedly there are cheaper cars in the Civic
1:16:44but I think the Civic is kind of a decent barometer for what a
1:16:48reasonably priced cars these days and his has what I would call comfort access it has, you know, the proximity key I
1:16:54Believe it as Bluetooth. It has a humongous touchscreen on it, which I don't think is navigation. Those are those are options
1:17:01Those are all options
1:17:02Sure, but I mean, I don't know a lot of people that buy a truly stripped car
1:17:08I mean you didn't buy a truly stripped car, right? You didn't get the best
1:17:11Package my first car didn't have a passenger side mirror. I'm talking about today
1:17:17roll up windows.
1:17:19- I'm surprised it was legal to not have a window,
1:17:21like a mirror, like that's crazy.
1:17:23- He's very old, Marc.
1:17:25- The car is really, the car was really small
1:17:27and honestly like, once you get used to it not being there,
1:17:31I don't know, it wasn't, what I didn't like about it
1:17:34obviously was the asymmetry, like it's upsetting
1:17:36that this doesn't have the right, anyway, it was fine.
1:17:40It also had the cool like a little joystick
1:17:43to control the mirrors, like instead of power mirrors
1:17:45the little-- everything was manual.
1:17:47Nice.
1:17:48Anyway, this is all getting off track of the podcasting, though.
1:17:52But anyway, I feel like that is the--
1:17:54with this podcast stuff, we're like, oh, these stories
1:17:56in the paper and podcasts are big,
1:17:58and there's lots of money involved,
1:17:59and there's VCs, and there's cereal, and blah, blah, blah.
1:18:02I feel like we're not over the hump yet with podcasts.
1:18:06And to give an example, we got over the hump with digital
1:18:08music.
1:18:09iPods are everywhere.
1:18:11iPods swept away.
1:18:13Digital music swept away, digital music on plastic disks was swept away by digital music
1:18:18on little tiny hard drives and eventually flash chips and stuff.
1:18:22So that revolution happened.
1:18:24The podcast supplanting talk radio for most people, I feel like has not happened.
1:18:31Talk radio, as terrible as it is, I think is still the dominant form of people listening
1:18:37to other people talking.
1:18:38Yeah, but I do think podcasting is replacing it.
1:18:42You know, it's not happening rapidly, but it is happening.
1:18:45I mean, if you look at most like podcast,
1:18:48you know, growth graphs or whatever
1:18:50over the last few years,
1:18:51it doesn't appear to be accelerating rapidly.
1:18:55It's just going up slowly and steadily
1:18:57the way it always has.
1:18:58And I think that's going to continue.
1:19:01You know, it is slowly, steadily getting more popular.
1:19:05It is not really ever going down.
1:19:08And so over time, it will replace talk radio
1:19:10for most people.
1:19:11It'll take a while.
1:19:12I mean, a lot of people still read newspapers, right?
1:19:15I mean, but that's not a growth industry, you know?
1:19:19So I think we have, I think we are really in the early days
1:19:24of a transition that is definitely happening.
1:19:26- All right, well, we should move on
1:19:28to your intentional destruction
1:19:30of the open blogging platform on the internet.
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1:21:47- So you don't like the open blogging platform
1:21:50you decided to post your, which one do you,
1:21:53one of the ones about the new version of Overcast on Medium.
1:21:56- Yes.
1:21:57- A proprietary platform,
1:21:58only controlled by a single company.
1:22:00- I cross-posted.
1:22:01- Does that make it better?
1:22:03- Little bit.
1:22:03- Eh.
1:22:04Why did you decide to do that?
1:22:07- Yeah, so my latest post on my site,
1:22:10I posted on my site,
1:22:11and also I posted a copy of it on Medium.
1:22:14Medium is really big now.
1:22:16I wanted to understand it.
1:22:18And there's only so much understanding you can do
1:22:21of a blogging platform, really.
1:22:24It's a glorified social blogging platform.
1:22:26There's only so much of understanding you can really have
1:22:29without actually blogging on it at least once.
1:22:32So this company is so big, I think it's unwise
1:22:36to be unfamiliar with it, especially as,
1:22:40you know, they aren't the biggest company on the web,
1:22:42but they are incredibly influential and incredibly popular
1:22:46among people like in our circles, among like the tech people,
1:22:50the early adopters, the kind of tech media space.
1:22:54It is disproportionately popular among that crowd.
1:22:57So I wanted to understand it.
1:22:59- Why is that, do you think?
1:23:00- Why is it popular with that crowd?
1:23:02- So having used it for one post,
1:23:04which is not a lot of experience,
1:23:06but it's a lot more than you have, right?
1:23:08So having used it for one post,
1:23:10I can say that the editor is fine.
1:23:14Everyone says it's amazing, it's fine.
1:23:16It doesn't support markdown, which is unfortunate,
1:23:18but it's fine.
1:23:19It was nice having social feedback right there,
1:23:24like people doing the highlights,
1:23:26people doing the little recommend or like.
1:23:29I'm still not clear whether it's recommend or like,
1:23:31if those are two different things, I don't even know.
1:23:33But getting all the feedback right there
1:23:36to see all the different people you know
1:23:39who would heart recommend like it or whatever,
1:23:43and then you see the little highlights and everything.
1:23:46Yes, a few of the comments were kind of interesting.
1:23:49So it was nice to have that level of incident feedback.
1:23:53It was like the way Twitter provided incident feedback
1:23:57when you tweet things.
1:23:58It was like that, but different and more of it,
1:24:00and directly on the blog post.
1:24:02- Or like Tumblr at the little bottom,
1:24:04where it's like who, re whatever.
1:24:07Tumblr has a similar thing, right?
1:24:08It doesn't have the inline ones in the right margin,
1:24:10but you could post something on Tumblr
1:24:12and immediately see a bunch of little people's
1:24:13avatar icons appear on the bottom.
1:24:15- Exactly, exactly.
1:24:16So very similar to Tumblr, but focused on actual blog.
1:24:20Like on Tumblr, you can use Tumblr
1:24:23for a 12 paragraph blog post,
1:24:25but very few people will read it.
1:24:28'cause that's not really the mode you're in.
1:24:29When you're browsing Tumblr, you're in like a skimming mode
1:24:32'cause all the rest of the content is skimmable stuff.
1:24:35So nobody wants to stop and read some giant long post.
1:24:38Whereas Medium, that's the whole point of the service,
1:24:41is to read people's text.
1:24:43That is the whole point.
1:24:45And so it's normal to go there and see something
1:24:48that is 12 paragraphs long.
1:24:50So I decided, yeah, I wanted to try it.
1:24:53I wanted to see what it was like.
1:24:55And the feedback and the community aspects of it
1:24:59do seem pretty nice.
1:25:00In the past, I've been critical of Medium
1:25:03because I've said, which I still agree with,
1:25:06that you are not writing for yourself,
1:25:09you're writing for Medium.
1:25:11You know, in the same way, like,
1:25:12when you give Twitter a whole bunch of your content there,
1:25:15you know, you're really doing Twitter a big favor.
1:25:17Yourself, you know, you're kind of,
1:25:19it's of mixed value, right?
1:25:20So the reason why you might wanna publish on Medium
1:25:24Now, I said this before, is that if your goal,
1:25:29if your primary goal is not to become a writer,
1:25:34necessarily, or to develop your own audience,
1:25:38but to spread a message, to spread some idea,
1:25:41to spread some, like, a post.
1:25:45If your main job isn't writing,
1:25:48and you're writing it for some other reason,
1:25:50like to make an argument or to promote something,
1:25:52or whatever the case may be, it is really good for that.
1:25:56And so I kinda wanted to try it from that point of view.
1:25:59I'm writing this post that is, it is an idea,
1:26:03it is kind of to promote overcast,
1:26:05or at least that's an ancillary benefit of it.
1:26:08My site has been pretty slow recently.
1:26:12That's totally my fault, of course.
1:26:14So the idea of taking any attention away from my site,
1:26:19there wasn't that much attention on my site to begin with,
1:26:22So it wasn't that big of an expense to try it.
1:26:25It also wasn't exclusive.
1:26:26They don't require it to be exclusive.
1:26:28So I got to have all those benefits
1:26:30of all that attention there
1:26:32while not taking away from my site.
1:26:34- Why does Medium get you more attention
1:26:37than you posting it on your own site?
1:26:38Those are just two URLs on the web.
1:26:40Why is it that when posting it to your site
1:26:42and posting it to Medium,
1:26:42why do more people see it on Medium?
1:26:45- That is a very good and very relevant question.
1:26:48And I don't know the overall answer to that.
1:26:51but certainly you can kind of tell on the web today,
1:26:55it is pretty hard to get good traffic to a blog post.
1:26:59It is much easier to get good traffic
1:27:02in social environments.
1:27:04And the fact is, you gotta go where the readers are.
1:27:08You know, if you want something to spread like that,
1:27:10you have to go where the people actually are,
1:27:12where the consumers are.
1:27:13And for the kind of things that I was writing,
1:27:16Medium has a whole lot of those.
1:27:19- Yeah, but I mean like physically, mechanically speaking,
1:27:23how are the people there?
1:27:24How does anyone find your post on Medium
1:27:26other than seeing you link to it from your blog?
1:27:28Like I don't understand,
1:27:29obviously I don't use the service, so I don't understand.
1:27:31- Well, there's like social recommendations
1:27:33and there's like top voted in this time period
1:27:36or among your friends or whatever.
1:27:37- So it's kind of like tech meme or whatever you think.
1:27:40People are browsing the front page of Medium.
1:27:41I know there is a follower thing
1:27:43'cause I always get emails saying people followed me
1:27:44on Medium and I feel bad
1:27:45because I don't think I've ever written anything there.
1:27:48But anyway, so you have an account
1:27:49you have followers and presumably if I ever posted something to Medium my 17 followers
1:27:52on Medium would see that I posted it, but are people I guess like using it kind of like
1:27:57Reddit where you go to the front page of Medium and look at the top things top voted by people
1:28:03you follow or something?
1:28:04I suppose. I mean I haven't been using it enough to know. I mean none of us are doing
1:28:09that obviously right? I mean whenever I see a lot of Medium posts you're right but when
1:28:12I see them I see them in tweets basically. That's where I see links to Medium. And in
1:28:18context from my perspective that could just as easily have been a link to Marco.org and
1:28:21I would have seen it just as much but maybe other people are using Medium differently
1:28:25and they're going to it like they go to Reddit pages and just or like Techmeme or anything
1:28:29like that and just going to the what the hell is the front page of Medium? Let me go look.
1:28:32It's like some like editorial collections of stuff I think. So in recent years every
1:28:37time I write a post on my site these days I also tweet about it and the main reason
1:28:43I do that is because the fact is way more people are reading Twitter than subscribe
1:28:50to my RSS feed and checking my RSS feed regularly. And also Twitter provides feedback mechanisms
1:28:57and ways for people to spread it with retweets and links and re-blogs or whatever. So there's
1:29:03all these values that Twitter brings me in my publishing. Medium is another one of these
1:29:10venues where there is a lot of activity happening there.
1:29:14There's a lot of people reading it.
1:29:16There's a lot of people recommending and sharing stuff
1:29:18there to other people there.
1:29:20And so the idea of cross-posting major posts there
1:29:24doesn't sound that crazy to me anymore
1:29:25because now, as I said, I don't think Medium is a good idea
1:29:30if you have, like John Gruber should not be publishing
1:29:35his main articles on Medium because he has already
1:29:37a giant audience for his site and that is his business.
1:29:40that is his main business.
1:29:42My site is no longer my main business,
1:29:44it never really was, but the ads on my site
1:29:47are decreasingly necessary for my business.
1:29:52Meanwhile, the ideas that I'm talking about,
1:29:55the things I'm linking to, the things I'm promoting,
1:29:58my apps, my own brand, all these things,
1:30:00are becoming more important to me over time
1:30:03relative to how many people go to my blog.
1:30:08And if the people who use Medium are gonna be reading
1:30:12my stuff in Medium, the alternative I think is not
1:30:17that they would come to my site and read it necessarily,
1:30:20I think the alternative is more likely
1:30:22that they just wouldn't read it.
1:30:23So I can still, like I don't really see the harm
1:30:26in people who have the kind of goals I have,
1:30:29which is not to develop a giant following on my site only,
1:30:33but to maintain my site and to write things
1:30:36on something I own, but to also go to where the people are.
1:30:39Because the things I'm writing have more value to me
1:30:43the more people read them.
1:30:45- I guess I'm the Marco in this scenario,
1:30:47because I'm also not trying to,
1:30:49my site is not a business that does not have ads on it,
1:30:52it never has, it has no readers,
1:30:54but I would still never put anything there on Medium.
1:30:56And maybe it's because I also don't care
1:30:59if people actually find it and read it.
1:31:01I just feel like, why would I give them
1:31:03something that I wrote, unless they paid me,
1:31:05unless I'm like freelance writing,
1:31:06it's like, hey, well, if someone wants to pay me
1:31:08to write something for their site,
1:31:09that's the same deal that I would do with any other site.
1:31:11Sure, if I'm in the mood to do freelance writing
1:31:14and someone, I pitch someone an idea or they pitch me,
1:31:17hey, would you wanna write this?
1:31:18I'll either say yes or no.
1:31:19But outside of the realm of freelance writing,
1:31:21if I just had an idea and wanted to write it,
1:31:24I would put it on my blog that nobody reads
1:31:26and I would never put it on Medium for free.
1:31:28But I guess, I mean, I don't have anything to promote.
1:31:30I mean, you do have something to promote there.
1:31:31Like I'm also, I guess I'm not concerned
1:31:33with trying to get my message out,
1:31:35but I think that's the main difference.
1:31:37Like, I don't think it matters whether it's my, you know,
1:31:40it's not a business at all for me,
1:31:42but that doesn't weigh in on my decision.
1:31:44I guess it just has to go down to,
1:31:46do you care about getting this
1:31:48to the widest number of people?
1:31:49It's the same reason I don't post links
1:31:50to my stuff to Facebook.
1:31:52I bet that would get more people to read it,
1:31:53but that's just not what I do.
1:31:55- Yeah, but you don't want Facebook people.
1:31:57- Well, you know, I wouldn't see their feedback anyway,
1:31:59'cause my site doesn't have any comments.
1:32:01(laughing)
1:32:02No, so basically I think there's a spectrum of what is right to do and what feels right
1:32:08for you to do. Cross-posting significant posts to Medium I think is somewhere along the spectrum,
1:32:16but further along it of course, than linking to everything you write from Twitter. They're
1:32:22both ways to go where the people are and to try to build value for yourself somehow. In
1:32:28the case of linking from Twitter, that's better for you because you're pointing them
1:32:31them to your site, but--
1:32:34- And you're not giving someone else your words either.
1:32:36You're not saying, because I don't know what the deal is
1:32:37when you put it on Medium, but I'm sure they have
1:32:39some rights to it once you paste it into that text box.
1:32:41- Sure, I mean, they have to at least have the rights
1:32:43to display it and move it around and copy it
1:32:45and stuff like that, so--
1:32:46- Show ads against it, God knows what they're doing.
1:32:48- Right, so the question is what are your needs
1:32:51for what you're writing, what are you going for?
1:32:54If you're going for maximum spread,
1:32:56I would say it is wise to cross-post things there.
1:33:00If you're going for building up your own site,
1:33:03then it probably isn't, but it depends.
1:33:07It might be a way to help you get started
1:33:08to bring people possibly maybe to your site,
1:33:11although I don't think a lot of people would,
1:33:12but who knows, but it is a tool that's on the spectrum,
1:33:15and I wanted to understand it better,
1:33:17and that's why I did it.
1:33:18And I don't know if I'll do it again.
1:33:20It is annoying to have two different versions
1:33:22of what you write and have to--
1:33:23- It's probably gonna mess with your Google juice.
1:33:25- Yeah. - 'Cause now Google
1:33:26might view it as duplicate content,
1:33:28or maybe it thinks the medium one is the original
1:33:29and yours is the duplicate and downgrades your site
1:33:31'cause it's like you're copy paste duplicating
1:33:35someone else's content even though you're the same person.
1:33:37- Right, so again, I don't know if I'm gonna keep doing it.
1:33:40I might keep doing it for major posts,
1:33:42like things where I really want this
1:33:44to have maximum audience because again,
1:33:45it's a tool to do that.
1:33:47I am happy I did this with this post
1:33:49because it really did help me understand Medium
1:33:52a lot better, I understand why somebody like me
1:33:55would even want to use it.
1:33:56So I call it a success.
1:33:59- So what was, you wanna share numbers like percentage wise
1:34:02like you know, did it get twice what your market.org thing,
1:34:0510% what your market.org thing got?
1:34:07Like what was the spread of hits on?
1:34:09- Hold on, I don't even know if it tells me
1:34:12how many hits I got.
1:34:14I know I have about 400 recommendations
1:34:18and 15 balloons, comments, I don't know what.
1:34:23- Wow.
1:34:25So they don't even tell you your hits
1:34:26So you don't even know how much it spread your,
1:34:29I mean, for all you know,
1:34:30that means you've got 400 people to read it.
1:34:33- Yeah, I don't know.
1:34:34But I mean, 400 recommendations, that's a lot, I think.
1:34:39Like, that's--
1:34:40- Wow.
1:34:42- No, like, to have, like, basically a like action
1:34:44on something, to get 400 likes on something is a lot.
1:34:48- I mean, it would be a lot if it was faves on Twitter,
1:34:50but it's not a lot for Taylor Swift.
1:34:52- Well, I'm not Taylor Swift.
1:34:54- I don't know what the ratio is
1:34:55Readers to two likers on medium, you know, it may be a different it's a different social space that either
1:35:00I think I have a good handle on what the ratio is on Twitter, but on medium
1:35:04I really don't know and I read a lot
1:35:05I said even though I don't write anything I meet him I read a lot of medium posts and every time I read one
1:35:09I'm like what made this person write this on medium and why are these comments in the margin?
1:35:13Well, okay. So, you know next time you write a post in about three years
1:35:18Nice cross posted there try it never I'll never join you
1:35:24It is, I think, useful to understand it
1:35:27if you're in the business of writing on the web.
1:35:29You don't necessarily have to constantly post
1:35:32everything there or switch to it,
1:35:33but I think it is worth understanding.
1:35:36- I don't know, the problem I have with it is,
1:35:40like Jon, I've read a bunch of things on Medium,
1:35:42and I cannot remember a time that I've paid
1:35:46any real attention to who wrote it.
1:35:48So if the exercise was just to understand Medium,
1:35:52then sure, call it a success.
1:35:53If the exercise was to get your thoughts out anonymously, then it's probably a success.
1:36:01Granted, in this case, the particular post you made was heavily about your own experience,
1:36:06and most people know who you are in this context.
1:36:09So I guess maybe this is an instance of "that's fine for Marco," but I feel like for a normal
1:36:17person, it would certainly propagate content better than just putting it on your own website.
1:36:21And I include myself in that, but I don't think anyone would remember a Medium post
1:36:25I put up that wasn't about me as being written by me. I just, I don't feel like there's that
1:36:33ownership in the, in the brand sense that there is on your own website, or even your own,
1:36:40like Tumblr account, because at least on a Tumblr account, you're, you've presumably styled your,
1:36:48your site, your blog in such a way that it is in some way unique. And yes, I know that
1:36:52there's a lot of cookie cutter Tumblr themes, but it stands to—it seemed to me that a
1:36:58lot of Tumblr, if not most Tumblr sites, are visually unique, whereas every Medium post
1:37:02just looks like a Medium post.
1:37:03Jared Ranerelle I would say it's similar in that regard to
1:37:07Twitter and Tumblr. Like, you know, you have your little username and your avatar, but
1:37:12you know, when you read tweets, like if you see something that was retweeted from somebody
1:37:15else, you know, how much are you really seeing their name and, you know, it's like, it's
1:37:21very similar to those things in that regard. So it is nothing like having your own site,
1:37:25but it isn't, you know, there are things that we already have that are like this, you
1:37:29know, and we can see like kind of how that works on Tumblr and Twitter where like, you
1:37:34know, if you see somebody's name come up more than a couple times, you'll probably
1:37:39remember it and be like, "Oh yeah, that person, you know, I've been seeing their
1:37:42stuff a lot, maybe I'll go follow them. It's very similar in those regards. Not like blogging,
1:37:48but it's, again, I think it's worth understanding. Whether you choose to use it or not is certainly
1:37:53up for debate, and I don't even know if I'm going to keep using it, but I'm glad I understand
1:37:58a little bit better now.
1:37:59So Marko has to release all these applications to make the internet angry, and that means
1:38:03we didn't even have time to talk about the new iMacs.
1:38:05We could have an iMac after show. That's about how exciting they are. Thanks a lot to our
1:38:09our three sponsors this week, Casper, Squarespace, and Lynda.com, and we will see you next week.
1:38:16Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin
1:38:21Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:38:26John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:38:32Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:38:37And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:38:42And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
1:38:52So that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:38:56N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A
1:39:04It's accidental (it's accidental)
1:39:07♪ They didn't mean to ♪
1:39:10♪ Accidental ♪
1:39:11♪ Accidental ♪
1:39:12♪ Tech podcast ♪
1:39:14♪ So long ♪
1:39:16- I think they're exciting because I'm angry about things.
1:39:20(laughing)
1:39:20- Oh, no, suddenly. - You are angry?
1:39:22You're angry about, we're all angry about it.
1:39:24We're all angry about the 5400 RPM drive,
1:39:26even though none of us are gonna buy that model.
1:39:27- Oh, that is worse than 16 gigs.
1:39:29That is, that is so bad.
1:39:31- I don't know what's going on there.
1:39:34I don't understand how this,
1:39:36Like, the old Apple would never do that
1:39:39just because putting SSDs in all of them
1:39:41would let you charge more money,
1:39:43but the low-end one is like $1,000,
1:39:46but it's a ripoff at $1,000.
1:39:48- No, it's 1,500.
1:39:49- No, no, the lowest, lowest end, the smallest one.
1:39:51- Oh, non-retina?
1:39:53- Let me see, I just had the page up.
1:39:55- The low-end retina's 1,500, but it's,
1:39:57I mean, first of all, let's do the preschool method.
1:40:00We're gonna start by saying something nice.
1:40:03I like that much more of the lineup now is Retina.
1:40:07Like by throwing in this mid-range iMac
1:40:09and by getting rid of some of the non-retinas,
1:40:12I'm very happy to see Retina spreading
1:40:14very deeply into the lineup.
1:40:15I'm very, very happy about that.
1:40:17It has nice CPUs.
1:40:21Not the best possible ones, but nice ones.
1:40:23And it looks pretty.
1:40:26Okay, now for the bad.
1:40:27- Yeah, the 1500 one also, I see what you're saying.
1:40:31- So yeah, I was talking about the bottom of the line one
1:40:34has the 5400 RPM drive, but so does the very first
1:40:38Retina one, the 4K21.
1:40:40- Right, so I mean the very bottom of the line one,
1:40:42that's the one that has like the MacBook Air internals.
1:40:44And that is not new, like we've had one like that
1:40:47for about a couple of years now, I think,
1:40:49or a year, something like that.
1:40:52That's fine, you know, if you want a super, super cheap
1:40:54Apple desktop, the cheap iMac is very slow, but it works.
1:40:58- But is it fine because the Air at least has an SSD?
1:41:01I feel like this is such a fundamental change
1:41:03to the experience of using a Mac
1:41:04that an Air is gonna stomp all over this thing
1:41:07in subjective performance.
1:41:09- That's the thing.
1:41:10So that's what I just, and they also, by the way,
1:41:14they made Fusion Drive a little bit worse,
1:41:16whereas now the one terabyte Fusion Drive
1:41:19went from having 128 megs of flash caching to 24 gigs,
1:41:24I mean, 128 gigs to 24 gigs.
1:41:26That one I almost kind of give them more of a path on.
1:41:29It's chintzy and it reeks of bean counting,
1:41:31but it's conceivable that they know that 24 gigs
1:41:36is enough to keep the working set.
1:41:38You know what I mean?
1:41:38I don't know what the working set is for the average person
1:41:41in terms of keeping the stuff on the fast storage.
1:41:4424 gigs is hard for me to believe that that would be viable,
1:41:47but I can believe that 128 might be overkill
1:41:49for most people for the working set of what they do.
1:41:51And maybe they have more intelligent shuttling of things
1:41:54from the fast storage to the slow storage.
1:41:57I'm not sure how much that would affect things,
1:41:58but just having no SSD and a really slow 2.5 inch drive,
1:42:03it's like going back in time.
1:42:04It's like using, I have one of those on my desk right now.
1:42:07The non-unibody aluminum MacBook Pro
1:42:10has only a spinning disc in it.
1:42:12And it is just super painful to use.
1:42:15It's like, you think it's broken.
1:42:16It takes so long for things to happen.
1:42:18- Yep, that's my personal machine.
1:42:20This old high-res anti-glare MacBook Pro
1:42:23with a 720 gig platter drive in it.
1:42:26- But you know what?
1:42:27I bet your platter drive is at least 700, 200 RPM.
1:42:29- You know, I don't recall offhand,
1:42:30but you're probably right.
1:42:31(laughing)
1:42:32But it is so impossibly slow
1:42:35that genuinely I have wondered numerous times,
1:42:39just like you said, is this broken?
1:42:40Because there's no way it's trying to accomplish something.
1:42:43However, on the plus side,
1:42:45I don't need any sort of monitoring tools in my menu bar
1:42:47'cause I can just put my ear close to the drive
1:42:50and hear it go,
1:42:51(mimics machine clicking)
1:42:53Endlessly.
1:42:54- You don't need monitoring tools in your menu bar, period.
1:42:56You just have to know it. - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
1:42:58- All right, I mean, that's kind of silly
1:42:59because we're not gonna buy that machine,
1:43:01but it's like, we're thinking of it from the perspective,
1:43:04just like the 16 gig phones,
1:43:05even though we're not going to buy them,
1:43:06that potentially, if we just send a friend or relative
1:43:10into an Apple store to buy a computer
1:43:11and they buy the cheapest one,
1:43:12they end up with a machine that we think is,
1:43:15it's like not even, like you should,
1:43:16if that's the only one you can afford,
1:43:17you should not buy a Mac.
1:43:18You should buy a PC or an iPad or something else.
1:43:22- Or a different Mac.
1:43:24- Yeah, well, you know, but again,
1:43:25if that's the only one you can afford
1:43:27is the bottom of the bottom of the line, not RAN to iMac,
1:43:29it's just not a good machine with that drive in it.
1:43:31And the bottom, you know, the bottom line 4K iMac,
1:43:34it's not a good machine with that drive in it.
1:43:36And I don't know if people,
1:43:39like people shouldn't have to be tech savvy enough to know
1:43:42there's lots of good Macs you can buy at every price point,
1:43:44but just make sure like in the olden days,
1:43:45just make sure you get more RAM
1:43:48because that will really affect your experience.
1:43:49And now it's just make sure that you at the very least
1:43:51get the Fusion drive, which won't be as good as an SSD,
1:43:54but it'll be worlds better than like the slowest hard drive
1:43:58made in the last decade they're putting inside these things.
1:44:01- And this is also gonna have a strategy tax for them
1:44:04in the sense that like, you know,
1:44:06we've heard rumblings here and there
1:44:07that they're working on possibly a new file system
1:44:10and that such file system would be based on SSDs,
1:44:15that it would only run on SSDs
1:44:16because if you know that all of the computers
1:44:20that a file system will run on will have an SSD,
1:44:23you can make certain assumptions,
1:44:24you can design it a certain way
1:44:25to take advantage of the properties of SSDs.
1:44:27The longer they keep selling computers
1:44:29with spinning platter hard drives,
1:44:31the longer they either can't ship that
1:44:33or have to restrict it to only certain models
1:44:35of their computers and therefore only a subset
1:44:37of their users get whatever benefits it brings.
1:44:40And there's the same thing with the iPhone lineup,
1:44:44like shipping those A5 chips for so long,
1:44:47that holds back developers,
1:44:49including Apple developing its own platform.
1:44:51Stuff like that.
1:44:52So it's that kind of move where the nickel and diming
1:44:56of the low end of their supply chain
1:44:59is actually going to impede the progress
1:45:01of Apple's software teams and to impede the progress
1:45:04that all of us can make in the software moving forward.
1:45:07- Yeah, I even wonder, at this point,
1:45:09are we just like, oh, they're trying to save money
1:45:10by giving me this cheap drive.
1:45:11Is a 5400 RPM 2.5 inch drive actually cheaper
1:45:15than the equivalent flash at the volumes Apple buys flash?
1:45:18Is it a supply issue that they want to save that flash
1:45:21for the other more profitable computers?
1:45:22It's just, it's really getting to be the situation
1:45:25where like at a certain point,
1:45:26it'll be like antique and retro,
1:45:27like who is still buying spinning hard drives?
1:45:31Like every, you would think that the first company
1:45:33that would go SSD everywhere would be Apple,
1:45:35but no, they're dragging their feet, you know,
1:45:38they're just holding on to the past.
1:45:41that isn't how Apple works anymore.
1:45:42You know, with Steve, Steve did a few moves like that,
1:45:45where he would like, you know, cut off this old crazy thing,
1:45:48we're only doing the new thing.
1:45:49- USB everywhere on the iMac, right?
1:45:51- Right, yeah, you know, like Steve,
1:45:53Steve did moves with that sometimes,
1:45:54but I try to keep some perspective in, you know,
1:45:56thinking maybe this is just a crazy part of Tim Cook's Apple.
1:45:59The fact is, when Steve Jobs was running the place,
1:46:02they also had like very stingy low-end configurations
1:46:06on a lot of their computers, and, you know,
1:46:07but you're right, things like RAM.
1:46:09But I feel like with Tim it's been made worse.
1:46:12Like so neither was perfect in this regard.
1:46:15And maybe Steve would have done the same thing
1:46:16given the same situations.
1:46:18But it does seem like they are off on this,
1:46:21with a balance that needs to be struck
1:46:24between like the low end that they offer
1:46:27and making a healthy profit on the high end stuff.
1:46:29I feel like they're off on that.
1:46:30And the 16 gig phone is one of these examples.
1:46:33And the, you know, a lot of the like base configurations
1:46:37or something like computers.
1:46:38This is like the greatest example I've seen recently.
1:46:40Like here is a new, by all accounts,
1:46:43the non-retina one is a low-end product.
1:46:45Okay, the retina 4K is a mid-range product.
1:46:50Maybe even a high-end.
1:46:51I mean, to most of the world,
1:46:54a $1,500 computer is high-end.
1:46:57Let's put this into perspective here.
1:46:59This is a high-end product for most people's standards.
1:47:02- And it looks high-end.
1:47:03I like all that as far as credit.
1:47:05It looks like a fancy computer.
1:47:08does not look like a bargain bin,
1:47:10like just slapped together thing.
1:47:12It looks like you're buying something expensive
1:47:13and when you get, I feel like the experience of using it
1:47:16is so far out of whack with everything that you view
1:47:18and touch on the computer.
1:47:20- Yeah, so it's, you have this product
1:47:22and you know, Apple's brand is supposed to be about
1:47:26premium quality and about making great
1:47:28or at least good products.
1:47:30And there is no way a computer sold in 2015
1:47:35with a 5400 RPM hard drive is even a good product,
1:47:39let alone a great one.
1:47:40And so again, customer set could be a problem here.
1:47:43Like, I just, I don't see how that, you know,
1:47:47obviously, I guarantee you, just like 16 gig phones,
1:47:51this is not about profit margins on that model.
1:47:55This is about creating upsells to the next model
1:47:58to raise average selling price.
1:47:59- Does it work for an upsell if people don't know, though?
1:48:01Like, I don't even know if it works as an upsell
1:48:03because that would mean that some people involved
1:48:06in the sales process would have to be aware
1:48:08of the huge performance cliff represented
1:48:11by the 5400 RPM drive.
1:48:13It is super esoteric, where people don't even know
1:48:15that you're using solid state storage and disks,
1:48:17let alone the RPM of the disk, nobody knows those numbers.
1:48:19So unless the salespeople are saying,
1:48:22by the way, you don't know this,
1:48:24but this number here means this computer is crap
1:48:26and you should buy the other one.
1:48:27But that's not a sales tactic
1:48:28that I've ever seen used in an Apple store.
1:48:30That kind of like, let me tell you why this machine is crap
1:48:32you should buy the other one. Apple is mostly, in my experience, been like, these are all
1:48:36great products. Pick whichever one you want. If you have questions, I can answer them.
1:48:39So I don't know. The 16 gig model, I feel like even people don't know what a gigabyte
1:48:43is that I think people are used to buying smartphones with a single number associated
1:48:47with them, especially Apple phones. And that number is like the amount of stuff that the
1:48:52phone holds. And so I think there's more of an argument for being used as an upsell there.
1:48:56But on computers, the RPM of the spinning disk, I don't know.
1:49:00Yeah, I completely agree. And it wasn't until—I don't remember which machine it was—but it wasn't
1:49:05until I finally started using an SSD myself years ago now. Maybe it was in my previous work computer
1:49:11before it just got upgraded. But anyway, it wasn't until I had one myself that I realized,
1:49:16"Oh my God, what everyone is saying, it's not true. It's even better than what they said."
1:49:22Because I just had never experienced it before. And it's—admittedly, I should have listened to
1:49:27all these people like you and Marco that were saying, "Oh my god, SSD is the only way to
1:49:30go." But until you really use a computer that is your own, that has an SSD, you don't understand
1:49:38the difference it makes. And so I can absolutely imagine me back then not having used an SSD
1:49:45thinking, "Ah, it's just, it's not worth it. It's not that big a deal." And so I feel like
1:49:50some amount of forced guidance or, you know, compelling people to get this better machine
1:49:58is what it's going to take in order to move them away from these platter drives.
1:50:04And the way you do that is you don't off the platter drive in the first place.
1:50:06Well, see, but the customer SAP won't be affected if the people who buy this computer have never
1:50:10had an SSD, because maybe they just think this is how slow computers are.
1:50:13Like if they've never had the faster experience on a Mac and they buy this one, it's probably
1:50:18about the same speed as their previous Mac
1:50:19or probably faster than their previous Mac
1:50:21with a spinning disk.
1:50:22So those people, their customer sat will be fine.
1:50:23I bought this new computer, it's fancy,
1:50:25the screen looks really nice,
1:50:27it's better than my old computer
1:50:28in a bunch of different ways, and it's faster.
1:50:31So they don't know what they're missing, right?
1:50:33So maybe their customer sat will be protected.
1:50:36I just feel like Apple is not giving
1:50:37the best possible experience that they could be giving
1:50:40to their customers.
1:50:41- Right, well the customer sat will be good,
1:50:43it won't be great, and we all like to think
1:50:46that Apple aims for great.
1:50:48- What they should have, if they wanted to actually offer
1:50:52the best product they could at this price point,
1:50:54they would have thrown in that stupid 24 gigs
1:50:57and made it a Fusion Drive for what I can best estimate
1:51:01a total cost of maybe 20 bucks to them.
1:51:03- Yeah, just add 20 bucks to the price at that point.
1:51:06Like, you know, take zero profit margin
1:51:08on the 24 gigs of flash, but add 20 bucks to the price.
1:51:11- Right, but instead they charge $100 for that option.
1:51:14If you want two terabytes, that's $300.
1:51:19Now, a two terabyte, two and a half inch drive at retail
1:51:22is about 100 bucks.
1:51:24So they're charging 300 for something that's gonna cost them
1:51:27about 100 plus the 24.
1:51:29And they've always done stuff like this,
1:51:32like overcharging for some of the options,
1:51:34but I don't know, I felt like a few years ago
1:51:36they've started to get better at it.
1:51:37Like the RAM started to become a lot less outrageous
1:51:40and stuff.
1:51:40- Yeah, storage is the new RAM.
1:51:42It used to be that RAM was the thing that Apple overcharged Ridiculous Amount for, and
1:51:46then they got reasonable-ish RAM prices, but now it's like storage prices have no relation
1:51:51to reality.
1:51:52>> MATT: As usual, the options are not priced well, but it's...
1:51:54>> JONATHAN But I don't mind that.
1:51:56Like, I feel like to get to move on to off of the low-end thing, like, I'm thinking of
1:52:00getting one of these to replace my wife's Thunderbolt display and MacBook Air setup.
1:52:05>> MATT You got to replace your Mac Pro?
1:52:06>> JONATHAN No.
1:52:07I'm still holding...
1:52:08He's the dream alive.
1:52:10The Mac Pro, Thunderbolt 3, external retina display,
1:52:14it could conceivably happen.
1:52:16Anyway, extending that aside for now,
1:52:18the big one looks good.
1:52:20And I'm, you know, again, I'll pay whatever, you know,
1:52:22I'll check the stupid $700 one terabyte flash up.
1:52:26Like I understand, it's an expensive product,
1:52:29it's the high end, you're paying through the nose
1:52:31for the premium stuff, but it looks
1:52:32and acts like a premium product.
1:52:33I have faith that their one terabyte flash drive
1:52:36will be fast.
1:52:37I have faith that the screen will look really good
1:52:40'cause Marco you said you really like your screen
1:52:41and this one is supposedly even better.
1:52:44- Yeah, they did a wide color gamut.
1:52:46That's one thing I really do kind of regret not having.
1:52:49I mean, I--
1:52:50- I know how you can fix that.
1:52:51- No, I'm not gonna do it.
1:52:52I'm not gonna get one.
1:52:53- Yes, you are.
1:52:54- I'm really not.
1:52:55(laughing)
1:52:56- All right, all right, all right, just now.
1:52:58(laughing)
1:53:00How long does this take before Marco has one of these?
1:53:03Well, Tiff might just need one for photography,
1:53:04but if I'm getting one, I might as well, anyway.
1:53:06(laughing)
1:53:07- Yeah, but I will get one for you.
1:53:09- Yeah, but yeah, so this does look
1:53:11like a really nice computer.
1:53:12It's kind of disappointing that it doesn't have the USB-C,
1:53:15and my open questions as I post it on Twitter are,
1:53:18what's the deal with the GPU?
1:53:20Is it still like thermal throttled inside there?
1:53:22'Cause what, I'm not deciding that really
1:53:25whether we should get one or not.
1:53:27It's basically, should I bother getting the high-end one
1:53:29or is it pointless because the high-end one
1:53:31is just gonna make more noise and more heat
1:53:34without any real big boost in performance?
1:53:36Or should I get the lowest-end GPU
1:53:38I just resign myself to the fact that this is never
1:53:41gonna be remotely good for gaming,
1:53:43and just get the one that makes the least amount of noise.
1:53:45So I'm waiting for some people to either buy this
1:53:48and tear it apart or test it and do all,
1:53:50I wanna see gaming benchmarks, I wanna see noise levels,
1:53:53stuff like that, and I wanna wait for the first bunch
1:53:55of suckers to get the first ones off the assembly line.
1:53:57And then eventually, probably, I'll order one of these.
1:54:00- Yeah, I mean, it's, and I will say, I mean, yeah,
1:54:03like the wide gamut display is, that's a great improvement,
1:54:06That's the kind of improvement that they didn't need to do.
1:54:10The market was really not demanding it in a significant quantity, but I'm really glad
1:54:13they did do it because long term that is better for everybody if that filters through the
1:54:17line up.
1:54:18So that is great.
1:54:19I'm very happy, again, that they went retina.
1:54:20I'm very happy that the big one finally got sky lake, although it doesn't have the
1:54:25cool USB 3 Thunderbolt thing with USB-C. It doesn't have that, so that's unfortunate,
1:54:31but maybe we'll get there in the spring.
1:54:34Who knows?
1:54:35Also the price is a little bit lower.
1:54:36When you deck it out with the options,
1:54:39previously if you maxed out all the options,
1:54:42it was $4,400, now maxed out it was $4,100.
1:54:46So somewhere the options are getting a little bit cheaper.
1:54:48So overall, decent machine.
1:54:51If I was buying a new Mac today,
1:54:53I would get a well configured 5K 27 inch, of course, again.
1:54:58'Cause I've been using mine now for a year
1:55:01and absolutely love it.
1:55:03And the fact that I'm not really itching
1:55:05to find an excuse to upgrade should tell you,
1:55:08you know, in one way how good this thing is.
1:55:11It is incredible.
1:55:13And I mean, the screen on mine is the best screen
1:55:17I have ever seen.
1:55:18And they made the new ones even better.
1:55:20So I'm very, very happy about this.
1:55:22I'm happy they keep pushing the line forward.
1:55:24The high end is great, the low end is a shame.
1:55:28- Yeah, and I don't mind, like the missing USB-C,
1:55:31like it's kind of a shame,
1:55:32like you recognize when you're buying. If you're buying a Mac now you realize you're buying in the
1:55:36middle of Apple transitioning its line to a USB-C. It's going to be a while. If retina's any judge it
1:55:42could be a really long while. So just like what are you going to do? I'm going to wait for the
1:55:46next iMac that has USB-C. Well then you're not going to computer for six months to a year. So
1:55:50like I know I'm going to be okay with that mostly because whatever like I don't see any
1:55:58big need for USB-C for the thing that's replacing
1:56:02this ancient MacBook Air, it'll still be a huge upgrade.
1:56:05- Yeah.
1:56:06- So the mouse and keyboard are next, I guess.
1:56:08We can quickly hit those.
1:56:10- I am happy that, so, okay,
1:56:13let me say something nice first. (laughs)
1:56:16I'm happy that they're doing stuff like this.
1:56:18Like, I'm happy that the Mac, and in particular,
1:56:22the desktop Macs are still important enough
1:56:24for Apple to put significant work into,
1:56:27because not only are they obviously mostly
1:56:30an iOS device company these days,
1:56:32but also among the Mac line,
1:56:34the laptops tend to get the most attention
1:56:36because they sell most of the laptops.
1:56:37I mean, I heard, I think Jason Stellanupgrade said
1:56:39that they sell 75% of the computers they sell are laptops,
1:56:43and the desktop isn't even all iMac.
1:56:44That's gonna be some Mac Pros, some Mac Minis.
1:56:46So the fact that they're putting effort
1:56:49into things like making awesome new iMacs,
1:56:52but also things like new keyboard or mouse designs
1:56:55and the previous ones worked fine.
1:56:57Even though I don't like the direction
1:56:59they took with the keyboard yet,
1:57:00I mean I haven't tried one yet.
1:57:02From what I hear though, it's very MacBook One-like.
1:57:05So I'm not crazy about that, but I wouldn't use it anyway
1:57:09'cause it isn't a split natural keyboard
1:57:10and I always use the split ergo keyboard.
1:57:13So it doesn't matter for me.
1:57:15So I just like that they're still doing this.
1:57:17I feel like maybe this is Phil Schiller.
1:57:19Like I feel like of all the top execs,
1:57:21I think he seems to like the Mac the most.
1:57:24it seems to be like kinda his baby in that way.
1:57:27Like he always seems to care a lot about the Mac things.
1:57:30He always like gives more public statements
1:57:33about the Macs than any other exec.
1:57:35Like maybe that's just his job to present them,
1:57:37I don't know, but it does seem like he cares a lot
1:57:39and that's comforting to know that like he's so high up
1:57:41and seems to really care about the Mac.
1:57:43So I'm just, I'm happy that the Mac,
1:57:46and in particular desktop Macs,
1:57:49are getting meaningful updates and meaningful attention.
1:57:52Even when I don't always agree
1:57:53with the direction they're going,
1:57:54at least happy they're getting updates.
1:57:57- Yeah, I agree.
1:57:58I was sad to see that the Magic Mouse didn't seem to get,
1:58:02it doesn't aesthetically look that different.
1:58:06I know it's taller, or excuse me, not taller,
1:58:08but I guess longer is a better way of phrasing it.
1:58:11I'm happy to see the batteries go away.
1:58:13I am one of the suckers that bought
1:58:15the Apple battery charger because I hated
1:58:16throwing away double A's all the time.
1:58:18- Not even I bought that.
1:58:20You know, other battery chargers exist.
1:58:22- Yeah, they do, yeah, and they're better.
1:58:24Well, it was a gift.
1:58:25So, yeah.
1:58:26I had a friend who claimed his Hanson CD was a gift in middle school.
1:58:31Mm-hmm.
1:58:32Well, I mean, I believe it was a gift.
1:58:34I probably would have bought it anyway because the only thing I ever use it for is my Magic
1:58:37Mouse.
1:58:38But anyway, the point is I still think that ergonomically this has a way to go.
1:58:44I wish it was more bulbous, but you know, you can't win them all.
1:58:48But I like that it's got rechargeable batteries.
1:58:51I like that it's charging via lightning.
1:58:54I think that's smart.
1:58:55I think any excuse, as many have said, to get another lightning cable in the house,
1:58:59you can never have enough.
1:59:00We probably have 20 or 30 at this.
1:59:02Nah, maybe not that many.
1:59:03We have a ton.
1:59:04And there's still not enough.
1:59:06But I don't know, it would be neat if they did something a little different with it.
1:59:10I'm not sure what.
1:59:12Maybe somehow, some way supporting Force Touch.
1:59:15I don't know enough about how this is all held together in a hardware perspective that
1:59:19maybe that's a ridiculously complicated and stupid idea.
1:59:22But I would have liked something more than just a slight rev.
1:59:26Like even the keyboards, that wasn't revolutionary what they did, but it was more than just a
1:59:32basic rev.
1:59:34And I'm sad that the Magic Mouse only got the basic rev.
1:59:38And I fear that my mouse using days are running out and eventually, due to Force Touch, I'm
1:59:45going to have to get a trackpad.
1:59:47And I know that a lot of people are completely in love with their Magic Trackpad.
1:59:52I personally don't care for trackpads unless I have to.
1:59:56I will use the one on my Mac, you know, the onboard one if I am in a pinch and it's not
2:00:01reasonable for me to set up a mouse.
2:00:03But I prefer a mouse if at all possible.
2:00:07And I prefer a multi-touch mouse specifically.
2:00:11The other thing I really do like is the pairing by way of the USB connection.
2:00:15I think that's extremely smart.
2:00:17It's another one of those really great Apple moves where it's like, "Oh yeah, if you're
2:00:20going to plug it in anyway, why the crap wouldn't you do that?"
2:00:23But I don't know if I would have thought of it if I was designing all this.
2:00:27So I'm kind of excited about the new keyboard and the new mouse.
2:00:32More the keyboard than the mouse, I suspect, because I have one of the old, old, old Bluetooth
2:00:37keyboards that takes three batteries, which is completely barbaric, obviously.
2:00:43So I'd love to see, I'd love to get my hands on a keyboard and a mouse, but geez, they're
2:00:47expensive.
2:00:48How much are they?
2:00:49>> Well, they come with your computer if you buy a new computer, right?
2:00:52>> Well, they come with your new desktop computer.
2:00:55But I don't typically buy desktop computers as we've talked about.
2:00:58>> Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the different keyboard, it's 100 bucks.
2:01:01Trackpad is 130.
2:01:02Mouse is 80.
2:01:03Standalone.
2:01:04>> Do you have a choice of a real keyboard?
2:01:07Let's see.
2:01:08Yeah, you do.
2:01:09Still, Apple keyboard with numeric keypad.
2:01:11So you can pick the extended one still.
2:01:13I mean, that's why I'm not interested in this keyboard.
2:01:15I like, well, like the keyboard, like the mouse seems to,
2:01:19and the trackpad for that matter,
2:01:21it's a refinement of what Apple seems to think
2:01:24is the platonic ideal of these devices.
2:01:26So in case you were disappointed
2:01:27that the mouse didn't make more of an evolution,
2:01:29Apple has decided for the next several years
2:01:32that this piece of sushi is the mouse
2:01:35and all they're doing is refining it.
2:01:36And Apple has decided for the next several years
2:01:39that this aluminum keyboard,
2:01:40that's the way a keyboard should look
2:01:42and they're just refining it.
2:01:43How can they refine it barely?
2:01:44Can we pull the edges even more?
2:01:46Can we make keys a little bit bigger?
2:01:48Can we make them more stable?
2:01:49Maybe we'll tweak the layout,
2:01:50but bottom line is, like they want it to just disappear.
2:01:53They want it to be very simple.
2:01:54It's beautiful to look at,
2:01:56but I don't like the key layout.
2:01:57I need, I want my inverted T arrow keys.
2:01:59I want page up, page down, home and end where I want them.
2:02:02I would like a space between the numbers
2:02:04and the function keys,
2:02:06but that would make the keyboard bigger.
2:02:08Even though it would be easier to feel your way
2:02:10to the difference between the numbers and the functions,
2:02:12I would like the key in the lower left corner to not be FN, not be the FN key, right?
2:02:20Because that's where control is by default if you don't swap it with caps lock.
2:02:24These are all things you can do on a full-size real keyboard that you can't do on Apple's
2:02:28super aggressively minified keyboard.
2:02:31But I guess this is the way to go.
2:02:33I feel like desk real estate, it's good to conserve desk real estate, but one of the
2:02:39luxuries of a desktop computer is you don't have to fit it on an airline tray table.
2:02:45You can make the keyboard a little bit bigger, you can give it a little bit of breathing
2:02:48room, would it kill you to put some space between the function keys and the number keys?
2:02:51Or is that extra 5mm going to impinge on the giant desk where you have your gigantic iMac?
2:02:56I don't know.
2:02:57Anyway, this is, I disagree with their design direction for their keyboards, especially
2:03:01since they don't seem to even offer an extended version, except for the old one.
2:03:06I assume that when you pick that extended version you get the old one that I'm sitting
2:03:08in front of right now, which I like, but I would like the new key mechanism, I would
2:03:13like the new larger keycaps, you know, I would like San Francisco font on my keycaps.
2:03:17And by the way, who said this, I think this was on the Dalrymple site, the MacBook One
2:03:22keyboard has half a millimeter of key travel, the old aluminum keyboards that I'm sitting
2:03:27in front of now have the old desktop ones, have 2.1 millimeters key travel, and the new
2:03:32one has 1 millimeter, so it's right in the middle, it's 0.52 and 1 millimeter.
2:03:36So it's not going to feel like the MacBook One, but it's also half the depth of the
2:03:40old keyboard.
2:03:41So I'll have to try that to see how I like it again, and maybe not that I'm going to
2:03:45be using this thing anyway.
2:03:47The consensus so far from reviewers seems to be that it feels more like the MacBook
2:03:51One keyboard than like the old one.
2:03:53And it might be because of the stability of the keys a little bit too, that not as much
2:03:58tilting involved, and also the reduced travel, I don't know.
2:04:00The Magic Trackpad I think is the only one of these accessory revisions that I think
2:04:04is a clean win all around because the Magic Trackpad, there's not much to it except for
2:04:09a place where you slide your fingers around, so they made the place bigger, which is what
2:04:15I was hoping for in terms of, you know, you have all the space in your desktop, why not
2:04:19make it bigger?
2:04:20It's also, it seems to be more proportioned like the screen, which is kind of nicer in
2:04:24terms of, not that it's a one-to-one mapping, but anyway, if you're gonna make it, if you
2:04:28have to decide what shape your trackpad should be, making it the shape of the screens that
2:04:32sell is a good idea.
2:04:34And it's white, which I like, I'm assuming it won't get all disgusting with your fingers
2:04:38because I'm assuming it's glass up there and everything.
2:04:40It doesn't have the little feet, which were super clever, but obviously don't work in
2:04:44this force touch age, so I actually do have a Magic Trackpad, I probably used one on eBay
2:04:49for OS X reviews so I had something to do gestures on.
2:04:52And so I guess at 130 bucks I'm not buying one of these on a whim, it's super expensive,
2:04:57But that is my favorite new accessory out of the group by far.
2:05:01Oh, and then finally the fact that the lightning charging port on the mouse is on the bottom.
2:05:09I saw a couple people trying to think of reasons for this.
2:05:13Like don't hurt yourself.
2:05:15It's because if you put it someplace else it'll be ugly.
2:05:17Like that's it.
2:05:18Yeah, oh yeah, that's totally it.
2:05:19Done and done.
2:05:20And I also don't think it's a big deal because the charge lasts so long and you charge it
2:05:26so infrequently, it is a little bit awkward.
2:05:28It's kind of one of those,
2:05:29it's the same as the compromises
2:05:30that Apple has made in the past.
2:05:31It fits right in with the,
2:05:33let's put the ports in the back of the iMac
2:05:35so they're not in your face,
2:05:36but now it's harder to kind of get at them
2:05:38or the, you know, like things
2:05:40that make your product look good,
2:05:42but as soon as you go and try to use it,
2:05:44part of the functionality, the infrequent part,
2:05:46like you're not plugging and unplugging things all the time,
2:05:47but when you do do it, it becomes awkward.
2:05:49So this mouse looks good all the time.
2:05:52When you do have to plug in,
2:05:53I guess you leave it on its back like a turtle at night, you know, and then
2:05:58It just lays there in the back and you won't flip it over. Why aren't you flipping it over Casey anyway?
2:06:04I'm flubbing that quote. You're not gonna get that reference anyway, so to throw it in
2:06:06But that's gonna look weird
2:06:08It's going to look weird to have your thing charging overnight with the wire sticking out of it at an awkward angle
2:06:15It'll look weirder than it would if the thing plugged in where the cord is on a regular old-style corded mouse
2:06:20Because then it would just sit on your desk the cord would be there you unplug it and be fine
2:06:23But the whole rest of the time you're using the mouse
2:06:26Johnny I've would be restless at night knowing that this is
2:06:28gaping lightning port poking out of his beautiful piece of sushi somewhere that people can see
2:06:32Right and it would be if they did it right and put it on the front edge where every other mouse has its cord coming
2:06:38In you wouldn't even see it in use like when it would be facing away from you would be facing the wall
2:06:42People walking towards you and at your desk your beautiful glass desk at the reception area
2:06:47they would see the lightning port hole and it would fill with lint. I don't know. But yeah, that's
2:06:52You don't I don't think you need to think hard about it
2:06:56That's why it's on the bottom because it's less ugly that way and I mean in the end
2:06:59I think that is a reasonable I think it's a more reasonable compromise than putting every single port on the back of the iMac
2:07:05Let's put it that way. Yeah. Well, and you know if you're going for maximum functionality
2:07:09You're probably not using this mouse to begin with
2:07:11I mean I like it but no one else seems to
2:07:13Casey is using it for maximum functionality because it's the only swipey mouse. It's the only like high quality multi gesture multi finger gesture mouse
2:07:21So that's the functionality the reason he's using this thing. Well, that's mostly true
2:07:24That is why I'm using it, but I'm told that Mike's beloved MX whatever Mouse
2:07:30That is giving him tremendous RSI issues
2:07:33That I guess has physical buttons
2:07:37You can press that will mimic a lot of gestures that I do
2:07:41But that to me that seems kind of a hack and kind of kludgy and I'm not that interested in it
2:07:46But strictly speaking I could accomplish the things I want to accomplish with other mice with more buttons
2:07:53Buttons are always the answer aren't they?
2:07:56[BEEP]