ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Your OLED screen will last longer if you do not turn it on.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Unlike batteries, which will not.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - Yeah I gotta come up with a better, speaking of batteries,

00:00:08 ◼   ► I gotta come up with a better system for like,

00:00:10 ◼   ► when the power goes out, I have to wander all around

00:00:11 ◼   ► my house dealing with each UPS.

00:00:14 ◼   ► It's just, I wish,

00:00:15 ◼   ► I don't know if the USB connecting thing to your Mac,

00:00:18 ◼   ► that it'll shut itself down.

00:00:19 ◼   ► But I never trust that, I do it myself.

00:00:21 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:00:22 ◼   ► Because I'm always just afraid that it'll be like,

00:00:23 ◼   ► review these terminal windows and then it won't shut it down

00:00:25 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:00:26 ◼   ► So just, - Oh, yeah yeah.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Shut everything down the old fashioned way.

00:00:30 ◼   ► If too many UPSs and then when the power comes back on,

00:00:35 ◼   ► I have to remember that like,

00:00:36 ◼   ► even if I don't want to turn these things back on,

00:00:38 ◼   ► I have to activate that UPS

00:00:39 ◼   ► 'cause there's a router attached to it, right?

00:00:41 ◼   ► And if you don't have that router on,

00:00:42 ◼   ► nothing works in the house and.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Sounds like a lot of work.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Why don't you just get laptops everywhere?

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, right?

00:00:49 ◼   ► Yeah, my laptops are plugged into UPS too.

00:00:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:53 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:54 ◼   ► - Do we want to talk about some gift memberships, John?

00:00:57 ◼   ► Do you want me to do the pitch?

00:00:58 ◼   ► Do you want to do the pitch?

00:00:59 ◼   ► How do you want to handle this?

00:01:00 ◼   ► - I have a moment of pause because I could do it,

00:01:03 ◼   ► but I kind of want to hear what you would do.

00:01:05 ◼   ► This is a form of entertainment.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - All right.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Here we go, kids.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Buckle up.

00:01:10 ◼   ► It's time to talk gift membership.

00:01:12 ◼   ► So our friend, my friend and yours, John Siracusa,

00:01:15 ◼   ► my best worst friend, worst best friend,

00:01:17 ◼   ► I always get it wrong.

00:01:18 ◼   ► I'm sorry, Merlin.

00:01:19 ◼   ► - You got it wrong twice.

00:01:20 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - What's the right one then?

00:01:23 ◼   ► - Worst friend.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's like best friend,

00:01:25 ◼   ► but the word best has been replaced with worst.

00:01:27 ◼   ► - No.

00:01:27 ◼   ► - For humor value.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - No, no, no.

00:01:29 ◼   ► 'Cause that's semi-aggressively negative.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And I thought he was more--

00:01:33 ◼   ► - That's what it is.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I didn't make it up.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - No, but this is the Casey version.

00:01:36 ◼   ► The Casey version is recalling,

00:01:37 ◼   ► I'm trying to make a reference to another show,

00:01:39 ◼   ► but making it nicer.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:01:41 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:01:42 ◼   ► - A little more friendly version.

00:01:43 ◼   ► - We'll chalk it up to niceness and not poor memory.

00:01:46 ◼   ► - It's like ineptitude.

00:01:48 ◼   ► So yeah, my worst best best worst friend,

00:01:50 ◼   ► John Siracusa, copyright 2023 Casey List.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Anyways, he has put in a genuinely large amount of work

00:01:56 ◼   ► and I put in a slightly more than zero amount of work

00:02:01 ◼   ► in making GIF memberships a thing on our website

00:02:04 ◼   ► and our membership system.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So if you have a nerd in your life

00:02:09 ◼   ► that probably is listening to this,

00:02:10 ◼   ► I don't know how this is gonna work,

00:02:11 ◼   ► but hey, if you have a nerd in your life

00:02:13 ◼   ► that might be interested

00:02:14 ◼   ► in our plucky little Apple-related show

00:02:17 ◼   ► and maybe they're a little bit too frugal

00:02:21 ◼   ► or as I would call myself cheap to pay for a membership,

00:02:24 ◼   ► you can pay for a month or even a year of membership,

00:02:26 ◼   ► you can go to ATP.fm/gift.

00:02:29 ◼   ► You can gift this person a membership.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Now we never ever ever tell them

00:02:33 ◼   ► that they've been gifted a membership.

00:02:34 ◼   ► That is on you in part because we're lazy

00:02:38 ◼   ► and didn't have the time to do it,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but mostly because we wanted you to be in control

00:02:41 ◼   ► of how you message that whole thing.

00:02:42 ◼   ► You can print something out,

00:02:44 ◼   ► you can just send them an email,

00:02:44 ◼   ► you can drop a random link in an iMessage conversation.

00:02:47 ◼   ► I wouldn't recommend using Beeper,

00:02:49 ◼   ► but you can give it a shot.

00:02:50 ◼   ► But nevertheless, one way or another,

00:02:52 ◼   ► you can go to ATP.fm/gift to gift someone a membership.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Now, a couple of quick points of order.

00:02:57 ◼   ► You need to create an account with us that is free

00:03:01 ◼   ► for reasons in order to gift a membership.

00:03:03 ◼   ► You can immediately delete that account afterwards

00:03:05 ◼   ► if you so desire, or you could sign up for yourself.

00:03:08 ◼   ► You can stack gift memberships

00:03:10 ◼   ► because Jon did not do the bare minimum of work.

00:03:13 ◼   ► You can stack them, so if you are lucky enough

00:03:15 ◼   ► to receive several gift memberships,

00:03:17 ◼   ► they will stack such that when one runs out,

00:03:19 ◼   ► the next one will begin.

00:03:20 ◼   ► And you may not have to pay for a long time,

00:03:22 ◼   ► which would be super fun.

00:03:23 ◼   ► But yeah, ATP.fm/gift, it is all right there.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Jon has written an FAQ for you to read.

00:03:29 ◼   ► There's all sorts of wonderful and fun stuff

00:03:33 ◼   ► that you can check out, ATP.fm/gift.

00:03:35 ◼   ► The time is running out, we are recording this,

00:03:36 ◼   ► I believe it's the 18th, I don't even know,

00:03:38 ◼   ► I'm all over the place.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Yes, it's Monday the 18th, we record this.

00:03:41 ◼   ► These gifts are ready instantly, so you could be,

00:03:45 ◼   ► if you are the kind to celebrate Christmas,

00:03:47 ◼   ► you could be doing this on Christmas morning if necessary,

00:03:50 ◼   ► and write a very unusual URL on a piece of paper,

00:03:53 ◼   ► put it in an envelope and say, hey, Merry Christmas to you.

00:03:55 ◼   ► So go check out ATP.fm/gift.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Jon, anything to add?

00:03:59 ◼   ► - That was everything I dreamed it would be, Casey.

00:04:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:03 ◼   ► - I'm so happy for us.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - Classic Casey-less promotion.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yes.

00:04:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, the only thing I would add is,

00:04:11 ◼   ► the way it works is if you're listening to this

00:04:13 ◼   ► and you want a gift membership,

00:04:15 ◼   ► just text somebody who you think is gonna give it to you

00:04:18 ◼   ► and say, hey, if you're looking for something

00:04:20 ◼   ► to get me for the holidays, ATP.fm/gift,

00:04:23 ◼   ► you have to deliver the URL to them

00:04:26 ◼   ► and then they buy it for you.

00:04:27 ◼   ► That's how the system works.

00:04:28 ◼   ► They're not gonna be listening to the show.

00:04:29 ◼   ► How would they ever listen to the show?

00:04:30 ◼   ► They don't know about the show.

00:04:32 ◼   ► All they need to know is that this is a fun gift

00:04:34 ◼   ► that you would like, you who's listening now.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Give somebody else the URL, they'll get the hint.

00:04:39 ◼   ► - This is the equivalent of leaving the catalog open

00:04:41 ◼   ► on the table with the thing you want circled and dog-eared.

00:04:44 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:04:45 ◼   ► - And this, I gotta say, as somebody who,

00:04:48 ◼   ► I listen to a lot of podcasts for which I am paying members

00:04:51 ◼   ► or Patreon supporters or whatever.

00:04:52 ◼   ► And so that is one of the, it is a great gift

00:04:55 ◼   ► to give somebody because taking something

00:04:57 ◼   ► that you're already doing in your life

00:04:59 ◼   ► and making it a bit nicer is a fantastic gift,

00:05:03 ◼   ► especially if it's the kind of thing that like,

00:05:05 ◼   ► the person probably would not have spent the money

00:05:08 ◼   ► on it themselves for whatever reason,

00:05:11 ◼   ► but you could make this thing nicer for them.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Like that is always the best kind of gift.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Like you buy somebody like a really good tool

00:05:16 ◼   ► for some hobby they're doing

00:05:17 ◼   ► or you upgrade something for them

00:05:20 ◼   ► that they would really appreciate

00:05:21 ◼   ► that they wouldn't necessarily spend the money on

00:05:23 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:05:24 ◼   ► That's like the category of great gifts in my opinion.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And this is exactly in that category.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Like if for someone who likes the show,

00:05:31 ◼   ► if they're on a member and you buy the membership,

00:05:34 ◼   ► like that just makes the show better for them.

00:05:35 ◼   ► So it's a wonderful thing.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Whenever there's a podcast that I listen to

00:05:39 ◼   ► that has a paid version, I almost always get it.

00:05:42 ◼   ► And I'm always happier with it 'cause I honestly,

00:05:44 ◼   ► I don't like having to skip ads if I don't have to.

00:05:47 ◼   ► I'd rather just have them not be there.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And any kind of bonus stuff that comes along with it

00:05:51 ◼   ► is very helpful.

00:05:52 ◼   ► - Indeed, atp.fm/gift.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Give a gift to you, to your friend, to your loved one.

00:05:58 ◼   ► And by doing it through us, you're giving a gift to us too.

00:06:01 ◼   ► So hey, thanks.

00:06:02 ◼   ► But anyways, yeah, check it out and we appreciate it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► Let's do some followup.

00:06:06 ◼   ► We have a handful of people that have written in

00:06:08 ◼   ► with regard to an Ask ATP last week

00:06:10 ◼   ► about Apple devices and OLED burn-in.

00:06:13 ◼   ► We start with David Jim Curcio.

00:06:16 ◼   ► I hope I got that right.

00:06:17 ◼   ► I actually did have burn-in issues on my iPhone XS.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I had it plugged in and on a stand at work

00:06:23 ◼   ► using it as an always-on display before that was a feature.

00:06:25 ◼   ► And fuzzy versions of the battery, Wi-Fi strength, and clock

00:06:28 ◼   ► became permanent fixtures on my screen.

00:06:30 ◼   ► This is, I think, effectively nightmare fuel

00:06:32 ◼   ► for John Syracuse.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - That's just how burn-in works.

00:06:35 ◼   ► And by the way, the reason they were fuzzy,

00:06:36 ◼   ► we didn't mention this last week,

00:06:38 ◼   ► but in the long list of burn-in mitigation techniques

00:06:41 ◼   ► that OLED screens use are something

00:06:43 ◼   ► that I believe plasma screens also use,

00:06:45 ◼   ► which is like they shift the image a little bit

00:06:47 ◼   ► from side to side so it's not always on at the same place.

00:06:50 ◼   ► I don't know if the XS did this,

00:06:51 ◼   ► but I believe the current ones do it as well.

00:06:52 ◼   ► So I always question the value of that feature.

00:06:57 ◼   ► And by the way, modern TVs, in case you're worried

00:07:00 ◼   ► that you're gonna be losing parts of the picture,

00:07:01 ◼   ► which you did back in the bad old days of plasma,

00:07:03 ◼   ► modern TVs over-parison the pixels.

00:07:05 ◼   ► So even when they pixel-shift it,

00:07:07 ◼   ► you aren't losing any pixels.

00:07:08 ◼   ► They're just shifting the image around

00:07:11 ◼   ► and not lighting up some pixels on one side.

00:07:12 ◼   ► The good modern TVs do that.

00:07:14 ◼   ► - Oh, so the physical panel is actually larger

00:07:17 ◼   ► than the picture by a little bit?

00:07:19 ◼   ► - By a little bit, yeah, too,

00:07:20 ◼   ► because it used to be in the plasma days,

00:07:21 ◼   ► like you do that, they have these various calibration tests

00:07:24 ◼   ► where it'll show you like this,

00:07:25 ◼   ► you should be able to see this rectangle

00:07:27 ◼   ► and it would put a thin rectangular

00:07:28 ◼   ► on the whole screen, right?

00:07:29 ◼   ► And you'd know if you had like the, what do you call it,

00:07:32 ◼   ► the overscan thing on, you'd be like,

00:07:33 ◼   ► oh, I can't see the rectangle, it's screwed up,

00:07:35 ◼   ► so you'd fix the overscan feature.

00:07:36 ◼   ► But the pixel-shift or pixel-orbiter thing,

00:07:39 ◼   ► it would cut off one of the borders.

00:07:40 ◼   ► But then when it shifted to like the left,

00:07:42 ◼   ► you wouldn't see the left border anymore

00:07:43 ◼   ► 'cause it would be like a one-pixel line,

00:07:45 ◼   ► it would be shifted off the edge.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Now I believe all the good OLED TVs

00:07:49 ◼   ► have enough pixels to move it around.

00:07:51 ◼   ► I think they do that on most, like computer monitors,

00:07:54 ◼   ► I don't know if the iPhone does it.

00:07:56 ◼   ► It's a very difficult thing to find out

00:07:57 ◼   ► because they tend not to list it.

00:07:58 ◼   ► They will list the pixel-shift feature

00:08:00 ◼   ► under some branded name, but they won't always say,

00:08:02 ◼   ► oh, and also we over-provisioned by seven pixels

00:08:04 ◼   ► on all edges to handle this.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Pixels are so small now on Redis displays, it's hard to tell,

00:08:09 ◼   ► but on TVs, I think you can actually see this

00:08:11 ◼   ► if you look up real close.

00:08:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think it's important to point out too,

00:08:13 ◼   ► like this instance of burning on a XS,

00:08:17 ◼   ► as David said, who wrote it in,

00:08:19 ◼   ► this was kind of creating an always-on situation.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Plugged in and on a stand at work,

00:08:24 ◼   ► using it as an always-on display before there was a feature.

00:08:27 ◼   ► So what this means is, 'cause with the iPhone,

00:08:29 ◼   ► you can tell it to never sleep the screen.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Like that's a setting that you have access to.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Any phone can be left on all the time.

00:08:36 ◼   ► I don't recommend this for lots of reasons,

00:08:38 ◼   ► but this is, again, this is what happened here.

00:08:40 ◼   ► And so this kind of shows like,

00:08:42 ◼   ► when always-on came out as a feature,

00:08:44 ◼   ► some people were like, wait, why can't they have this

00:08:47 ◼   ► like added via software to the older models?

00:08:51 ◼   ► One of the technical reasons why they might not have wanted

00:08:53 ◼   ► to do that or might not have been able to do that

00:08:55 ◼   ► is because they knew when launching the 14 Pro,

00:08:59 ◼   ► they knew this was going to be a feature of it,

00:09:01 ◼   ► and they were able to make decisions with like,

00:09:04 ◼   ► exactly what specs the OLED panel had,

00:09:07 ◼   ► what kind of OLED it was, how it was gonna be driven,

00:09:11 ◼   ► within what range it was gonna be driven.

00:09:13 ◼   ► And they were able to launch this feature knowing

00:09:16 ◼   ► what the hardware was going to be for it,

00:09:18 ◼   ► slash pick the hardware knowing that this feature

00:09:20 ◼   ► was going to be important for them,

00:09:22 ◼   ► so that they could have a panel that could get more use

00:09:26 ◼   ► this way without having burn-in become a problem.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Whereas on the older phones,

00:09:31 ◼   ► that wasn't necessarily possible.

00:09:33 ◼   ► As time goes on, like components change,

00:09:35 ◼   ► types of OLEDs change, and different ones

00:09:37 ◼   ► have different tolerances for this.

00:09:38 ◼   ► So, the modern ones where they actually launched

00:09:41 ◼   ► this feature in mind with these hardware panels

00:09:45 ◼   ► can usually take it a lot better.

00:09:46 ◼   ► - Oh, and I can imagine my point about the pixel orbiting

00:09:49 ◼   ► and my doubt about the feature.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Like, imagine you've got a rectangle

00:09:52 ◼   ► that's your little battery,

00:09:54 ◼   ► pretend that it's always full, it's just a white rectangle,

00:09:56 ◼   ► orbiting it by a few pixels, like shifting it over

00:09:58 ◼   ► and up and left and right by a few pixels,

00:09:59 ◼   ► all that's gonna do is make a slightly less burned-in halo

00:10:04 ◼   ► around the burned-in rectangle, right?

00:10:06 ◼   ► Like, you're not actually stopping burn-in,

00:10:09 ◼   ► you're just trying to spread it around by a tiny little bit.

00:10:12 ◼   ► So, I've never been a fan of that feature.

00:10:14 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't think this helps me.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Like, having a fuzzy burned-in rectangle for my battery

00:10:20 ◼   ► instead of a crisp one, the rectangle is still there.

00:10:23 ◼   ► But you know, people do what they can.

00:10:26 ◼   ► - Jameson Weiss writes, "I am currently using

00:10:28 ◼   ► an iPhone 14 Pro that shows no signs of burn-in,

00:10:31 ◼   ► but my previous phone, an iPhone 11 Pro,

00:10:33 ◼   ► did show noticeable burn-in around the menu bar icons.

00:10:36 ◼   ► I could very faintly but noticeably see the ghosts

00:10:38 ◼   ► of the battery icon and the clock in the Wi-Fi symbol."

00:10:42 ◼   ► Keith writes, "My Apple Watch Series 5 and iPhone 13 Pro Max

00:10:45 ◼   ► both have OLED burn-in, the watch has the complications

00:10:47 ◼   ► burned-in and the phone has the status bar burned-in."

00:10:51 ◼   ► So, it's apparently on the watch as well.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And then an anonymous person writes,

00:10:55 ◼   ► "Apple Store technicians have a diagnostic

00:10:57 ◼   ► that will check and tell us if the device

00:10:59 ◼   ► has developed a display profile.

00:11:01 ◼   ► The display profile helps mitigate

00:11:03 ◼   ► through software OLED burn-in.

00:11:04 ◼   ► When we do repairs such as rear system

00:11:06 ◼   ► or mid system replacement,

00:11:07 ◼   ► we must run an additional diagnostic during repair.

00:11:10 ◼   ► This test involves connecting the customer's original rear

00:11:13 ◼   ► or mid system and the repair device to a Mac,

00:11:15 ◼   ► which then allows us to transfer the display profile.

00:11:17 ◼   ► We do these steps because the display itself

00:11:19 ◼   ► does not have the components to store the display profile.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It is instead stored on the main logic board.

00:11:25 ◼   ► When this display profile test was first introduced,

00:11:27 ◼   ► we originally had to replace the whole device

00:11:29 ◼   ► when it was flagged because we did not have the tools

00:11:31 ◼   ► to perform the display profile transfer.

00:11:34 ◼   ► But now we perform this repair daily.

00:11:36 ◼   ► I personally have seen a display show burn-in

00:11:38 ◼   ► before performing this display profile transfer diagnostic.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Anecdotally, always on display has not led to an increase

00:11:44 ◼   ► in these display profile transfers that I've noticed.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Further instances of noticeable burn-in

00:11:48 ◼   ► have also been very rare."

00:11:50 ◼   ► - This is what I was talking about last week

00:11:51 ◼   ► with burn-in mitigation.

00:11:53 ◼   ► Basically, if you don't drive every single pixel

00:11:55 ◼   ► on the display to the maximum amount,

00:11:57 ◼   ► you have a little bit of headroom.

00:11:58 ◼   ► So, if the displays get worn out

00:12:00 ◼   ► and they're a little bit more dim,

00:12:01 ◼   ► the display can compensate by sending,

00:12:04 ◼   ► essentially, more electricity to that pixel

00:12:06 ◼   ► to make it the same brightness as its neighbors.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Televisions do this through a series of sort of,

00:12:11 ◼   ► again, they have branded names for everything in televisions,

00:12:13 ◼   ► but they do these cycles when the display is turned off.

00:12:17 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how, but they do.

00:12:19 ◼   ► But when your television is turned off,

00:12:21 ◼   ► if you have a modern OLED television,

00:12:22 ◼   ► at some regular interval,

00:12:23 ◼   ► it does some tests to essentially recalibrate itself

00:12:26 ◼   ► to make sure all the pixels are the same brightness,

00:12:29 ◼   ► every single individual sub-pixel, right?

00:12:30 ◼   ► So, if you've worn out the red sub,

00:12:32 ◼   ► one particular red sub-pixel is not as bright as its neighbor,

00:12:35 ◼   ► they can figure that out somehow,

00:12:36 ◼   ► and they will give that red sub-pixel

00:12:38 ◼   ► a little bit more electricity than its neighbor,

00:12:40 ◼   ► basically trying to even it out.

00:12:42 ◼   ► The rthings.com burn-in test

00:12:44 ◼   ► that they've been running for years,

00:12:45 ◼   ► actually ran into this recently

00:12:46 ◼   ► because the test that they were doing

00:12:48 ◼   ► didn't allow certain brands to run

00:12:51 ◼   ► their sort of display update cycle thing,

00:12:54 ◼   ► because they all cycle based on like,

00:12:56 ◼   ► oh, you have to be idle for this amount of time or whatever.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And they were just running the screens

00:13:01 ◼   ► just 24 hours a day or something close to it,

00:13:03 ◼   ► so it never got to run the compensation cycle,

00:13:05 ◼   ► so it looked like the burn-in was awful.

00:13:07 ◼   ► But then once they figured that out,

00:13:09 ◼   ► once they figured out how to detect

00:13:10 ◼   ► when it's running the cycle,

00:13:11 ◼   ► they let it run its cycle and it was a dramatic difference.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And so, what this Apple store technician is telling us

00:13:17 ◼   ► is basically that, but for iPhones,

00:13:20 ◼   ► that the iPhone also can figure out,

00:13:22 ◼   ► oh, you've worn out these pixels,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and now we need to drive them a little bit harder.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And that display profile, I imagine,

00:13:28 ◼   ► it's like a big map of like,

00:13:29 ◼   ► hey, for every single sub-pixel on the display,

00:13:32 ◼   ► does it need a little bit more juice

00:13:34 ◼   ► than its neighbors and how much more?

00:13:36 ◼   ► And the fact that they used to just chuck the whole phone

00:13:38 ◼   ► or eventually recycle it or whatever,

00:13:40 ◼   ► because they couldn't just transfer the profile,

00:13:42 ◼   ► which is just data, right?

00:13:43 ◼   ► It's just they couldn't transfer it.

00:13:44 ◼   ► It's like, well, we have to give you an all new phone

00:13:47 ◼   ► because there's no way I can transfer this stuff.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It's good that they've introduced the ability to transfer it

00:13:52 ◼   ► but yeah, that's part of how you make OLEDs

00:13:56 ◼   ► quote unquote not burn in.

00:13:57 ◼   ► You're still wearing out the pixels.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Every time, it's like vinyl, Casey,

00:14:01 ◼   ► every time you use it, you're wearing it out a little bit.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - Jeez, you're peasy.

00:14:04 ◼   ► - Using it is wearing it out.

00:14:05 ◼   ► There is no way to use it without wearing it out.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Every time your screen is on,

00:14:08 ◼   ► you are degrading the organic compounds

00:14:10 ◼   ► and those OLED pixels.

00:14:11 ◼   ► But if you weren't driving them at the maximum amount,

00:14:14 ◼   ► you've got a little bit of headroom

00:14:15 ◼   ► and the display can figure it out and compensate for it.

00:14:19 ◼   ► - All right, let's talk stolen device protection

00:14:21 ◼   ► in the 17.3 beta.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Russell Quinn writes, "Trusted locations is kind of,"

00:14:25 ◼   ► let me get some context here, I'm sorry.

00:14:27 ◼   ► So one of the things that they've said is

00:14:29 ◼   ► you have an hour delay when you go to do certain operations

00:14:34 ◼   ► like changing your Apple ID password,

00:14:36 ◼   ► except if you're at a trusted location

00:14:39 ◼   ► which is allegedly like work and home.

00:14:42 ◼   ► So Russell Quinn writes, "Trusted locations is kind of flawed

00:14:45 ◼   ► "because most people will have those very addresses,

00:14:47 ◼   ► "home and work, in their contacts app

00:14:48 ◼   ► "right there in the My Card at the top.

00:14:51 ◼   ► "If your phone is swiped in a bar, et cetera,

00:14:52 ◼   ► "there's a reasonable chance

00:14:54 ◼   ► "that you're not that far from home."

00:14:56 ◼   ► Russell is implying then that the thief could go drive

00:15:00 ◼   ► or train or what have you to your house

00:15:02 ◼   ► or your work as quickly as possible.

00:15:03 ◼   ► And hopefully for them,

00:15:05 ◼   ► change your Apple ID password

00:15:09 ◼   ► before you have the chance to lock all of this

00:15:11 ◼   ► using iCloud on another device.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - We didn't have this in here,

00:15:15 ◼   ► but there was some other feedback

00:15:16 ◼   ► from I guess someone who has used the beta

00:15:18 ◼   ► that these locations, these trusted location things

00:15:21 ◼   ► are configurable.

00:15:22 ◼   ► It's not like it demands to be home and work

00:15:24 ◼   ► and it just pulls them from your address book or something.

00:15:27 ◼   ► And I think there either is some kind of lock

00:15:31 ◼   ► on those locations,

00:15:32 ◼   ► or maybe the person was saying there should be.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Lock meaning like if someone gets your phone

00:15:37 ◼   ► that they can't see or change those locations or whatever,

00:15:39 ◼   ► but I'm not quite sure how that'd be possible

00:15:41 ◼   ► once they have your phone and your passcode.

00:15:42 ◼   ► But we'll see how this works out.

00:15:44 ◼   ► For the people who are very paranoid,

00:15:45 ◼   ► I assume what you can do is just say

00:15:47 ◼   ► there are no trusted locations.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I always have to wait an hour.

00:15:49 ◼   ► So then you eliminate this whole issue.

00:15:52 ◼   ► But asking people to make the security

00:15:56 ◼   ► and convenience trade off is always dangerous

00:15:58 ◼   ► 'cause they'll always pick convenience.

00:16:00 ◼   ► You kind of, if you don't sort of default them

00:16:03 ◼   ► to having like at least their home be a safe location,

00:16:06 ◼   ► they're not gonna like add it themselves.

00:16:09 ◼   ► They're like, why would I make my life more difficult?

00:16:11 ◼   ► Or they wouldn't, maybe someone would convince them to do it

00:16:13 ◼   ► but the first time they had to wait an hour,

00:16:17 ◼   ► they would get rid of it as soon as possible.

00:16:18 ◼   ► So, interested to see how this shakes out

00:16:21 ◼   ► when they actually ship this feature

00:16:22 ◼   ► and what the actual effect is

00:16:24 ◼   ► based on the defaults they choose.

00:16:26 ◼   ► - Richard Harris also made an interesting point.

00:16:29 ◼   ► You described a scenario where if my phone

00:16:31 ◼   ► and its passcode have been stolen while I am out,

00:16:33 ◼   ► but I have enabled stolen device protection,

00:16:35 ◼   ► I can use someone else's web browser within an hour

00:16:37 ◼   ► to log into icloud.com and find or wipe my phone.

00:16:40 ◼   ► However, with two-factor on in my iCloud account,

00:16:42 ◼   ► I cannot log into icloud.com from an untrusted browser

00:16:46 ◼   ► without also entering the six digits

00:16:47 ◼   ► that are sent to my trusted device,

00:16:49 ◼   ► which in this case was just stolen.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Since most people should have two-factor enabled

00:16:52 ◼   ► on their iCloud account and most people do not leave

00:16:54 ◼   ► the house carrying their iPad or laptop,

00:16:56 ◼   ► even if they have such devices,

00:16:58 ◼   ► how does the new stolen device protection feature

00:17:00 ◼   ► help in the most frequently cited scenarios?

00:17:03 ◼   ► I don't have a good answer for this

00:17:04 ◼   ► other than if you have like say 1Password

00:17:07 ◼   ► or something like that, you could potentially log into

00:17:10 ◼   ► your 1Password account on the web.

00:17:11 ◼   ► However, that also requires a very, very large

00:17:15 ◼   ► grid looking thing, which I certainly do not have memorized

00:17:18 ◼   ► and would also be stored in a 1Password on a trusted device,

00:17:22 ◼   ► which presumably has just been stolen.

00:17:24 ◼   ► So I don't have a good answer for this.

00:17:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, that's why we were talking about

00:17:28 ◼   ► whether one hour is the right amount of time

00:17:30 ◼   ► because there are solutions to this, okay?

00:17:31 ◼   ► So obviously if you're within an hour of your house

00:17:34 ◼   ► and you can get back at your house,

00:17:35 ◼   ► and if you're like us and have more than one Apple device,

00:17:37 ◼   ► like you don't need your phone,

00:17:38 ◼   ► you can use a Mac that is a trusted device

00:17:40 ◼   ► or other ways to get into it.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Also, there are backup codes.

00:17:44 ◼   ► I don't know if a backup code will be sufficient on its own

00:17:47 ◼   ► because I haven't actually tried this,

00:17:48 ◼   ► but there is a thing that exists

00:17:49 ◼   ► where you can get backup codes to sort of recover

00:17:51 ◼   ► if all else fails, and you should have those printed out

00:17:54 ◼   ► and stored in a physically secure location

00:17:56 ◼   ► that hopefully you can get to within an hour.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And then the final thing is, again,

00:18:00 ◼   ► if you can actually get home,

00:18:02 ◼   ► you can sign in from one of your Macs

00:18:06 ◼   ► that is already able to sign into iCloud

00:18:08 ◼   ► without going through the 2Factor stuff

00:18:09 ◼   ► because it's always signed in, because, you know.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Yeah, so again, I'm interested to see

00:18:13 ◼   ► how Apple pitches this.

00:18:15 ◼   ► The idea is that if your phone is stolen

00:18:18 ◼   ► and that hour timer starts,

00:18:20 ◼   ► hopefully you can do something within that hour

00:18:23 ◼   ► to get yourself in.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Obviously, you can't do anything

00:18:25 ◼   ► if you don't have a phone and you're alone.

00:18:27 ◼   ► You have to find somebody else

00:18:28 ◼   ► who's gonna let you use their web browser or whatever,

00:18:30 ◼   ► but if they do, depending on how nerdy you are,

00:18:32 ◼   ► there are various scenarios you can imagine,

00:18:34 ◼   ► like, you know, using some sort of a web VPN interface

00:18:39 ◼   ► to get into your house and remotely control a computer

00:18:41 ◼   ► that's already signed into your iCloud account,

00:18:42 ◼   ► yada, yada, yada.

00:18:44 ◼   ► Backup code seems like the most regular person friendly,

00:18:48 ◼   ► but even that's tough.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Like, what you'd do is you'd have those codes printed out.

00:18:52 ◼   ► You'd have them in your wallet somewhere.

00:18:54 ◼   ► You would not label them.

00:18:55 ◼   ► That's a little security tip.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Don't say, "These are my Apple ID backup codes."

00:18:59 ◼   ► Just put them on a piece of paper.

00:19:00 ◼   ► You know what they are.

00:19:01 ◼   ► Bury them in some pocket of your wallet

00:19:02 ◼   ► that you don't frequently use.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Make sure it's waterproof

00:19:05 ◼   ► and the ink is not gonna smear or whatever,

00:19:07 ◼   ► and then worst case scenario,

00:19:08 ◼   ► you can, you know, find a browser and log in.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Again, I don't know if the backup code

00:19:12 ◼   ► all by itself is sufficient.

00:19:13 ◼   ► It might also require a two-factor.

00:19:16 ◼   ► So that's, you know, one hour is what I think

00:19:18 ◼   ► the time is in 17.3 beta.

00:19:22 ◼   ► Having that time be configurable

00:19:24 ◼   ► might be interesting for people who care,

00:19:26 ◼   ► but again, when you ask people to choose

00:19:28 ◼   ► between security and convenience,

00:19:29 ◼   ► maybe things don't come out the way you want.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So we'll see how it goes.

00:19:32 ◼   ► Again, this is beta.

00:19:33 ◼   ► Hasn't yet shipped.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - All right, Mathos Wollard writes,

00:19:38 ◼   ► "One thing to note in the EU's

00:19:40 ◼   ► "removable battery legislation

00:19:41 ◼   ► "is that they explicitly carve out exceptions

00:19:43 ◼   ► "for devices that have a high level of water resistance."

00:19:47 ◼   ► So maybe batteries don't have to be

00:19:49 ◼   ► so easily removable, question mark?

00:19:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think any of this stuff is finalized.

00:19:53 ◼   ► I do wonder if Apple isn't currently

00:19:56 ◼   ► at that high level of resistance,

00:19:57 ◼   ► if they wouldn't make sure they're at the water resistance,

00:20:00 ◼   ► just so they don't have to do the battery thing.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Again, we'll see how,

00:20:04 ◼   ► we'll see what actually comes out of this

00:20:06 ◼   ► as a law or guideline or whatever when they're done.

00:20:10 ◼   ► - Skeen Harshley writes,

00:20:12 ◼   ► that is a great name, my word.

00:20:14 ◼   ► It is absolutely correct, or I'm sorry,

00:20:16 ◼   ► John, sorry, I'm sorry,

00:20:17 ◼   ► he says absolutely correct about Vext,

00:20:19 ◼   ► and the best part is someone ported it to iOS as Vext Plus.

00:20:22 ◼   ► This was John's beloved Palm OS game,

00:20:25 ◼   ► and apparently you can get it on your iOS device.

00:20:27 ◼   ► So that's cool.

00:20:27 ◼   ► - I immediately snagged that,

00:20:29 ◼   ► although one thing I noticed,

00:20:30 ◼   ► this is the part of any kind of retro type gaming thing.

00:20:35 ◼   ► I got it on my iPhone,

00:20:36 ◼   ► I'm like, hey, it's the same level as I remember,

00:20:38 ◼   ► and it looks a little different

00:20:39 ◼   ► on your iPhone or whatever,

00:20:40 ◼   ► and then I realized, oh, it feels totally different

00:20:42 ◼   ► when I'm swiping the blocks with my finger

00:20:44 ◼   ► than using a stylus.

00:20:45 ◼   ► And not only that sounds dumb, right,

00:20:47 ◼   ► but it's just like, what is my memory of playing Vext?

00:20:49 ◼   ► Apparently, a big part of my memory of playing Vext

00:20:51 ◼   ► is pushing little blocks with the stylus.

00:20:54 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:54 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:20:55 ◼   ► - I mean, I gotta say,

00:20:56 ◼   ► like having playing with my Palm pilot,

00:20:58 ◼   ► like having played Hearts and stuff on it now

00:21:01 ◼   ► in my meal board game.

00:21:02 ◼   ► - Not a Palm pilot.

00:21:03 ◼   ► - Whatever.

00:21:04 ◼   ► My Palm OS device that was--

00:21:06 ◼   ► - On my Nintendo.

00:21:08 ◼   ► - It was released after the Pilot 1000

00:21:10 ◼   ► and Pilot 5000 models, but not that much after.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Anyway, so a big part of the feel of what,

00:21:18 ◼   ► like what gives me the nostalgia and the feel of it

00:21:21 ◼   ► is the feel of having that stylus

00:21:23 ◼   ► and tapping those little things on the screen.

00:21:24 ◼   ► It's something that we don't have anymore, really.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Like you kind of have it with the Apple Pencil on the iPad,

00:21:32 ◼   ► but not really, like it's--

00:21:33 ◼   ► - The screen doesn't squish.

00:21:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a very different feeling.

00:21:36 ◼   ► And what we have now is generally better

00:21:39 ◼   ► for almost every way.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Like it's generally much better now,

00:21:43 ◼   ► and I'm not saying we should go back to this,

00:21:45 ◼   ► and if you try an old resistive, you know,

00:21:48 ◼   ► squished screen like this,

00:21:50 ◼   ► you will almost certainly think it's worse.

00:21:51 ◼   ► But it is different, and so if you play these same games

00:21:55 ◼   ► on a touchscreen or with a mouse, they are different,

00:21:58 ◼   ► and it doesn't feel the same.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So if what you're looking for is the nostalgia

00:22:02 ◼   ► of how it used to feel to use a, excuse me, Palm OS device,

00:22:07 ◼   ► not a Palm Pilot, John, if you're looking for that feel,

00:22:10 ◼   ► you're not gonna get it right with like any kind

00:22:14 ◼   ► of emulation with a touch screen or a mouse pointer.

00:22:17 ◼   ► - And it was kind of, you know,

00:22:18 ◼   ► so the idea of direct manipulation,

00:22:20 ◼   ► I've talked about this in many past shows,

00:22:21 ◼   ► but like moving a block, in VEX basically,

00:22:24 ◼   ► you have these little blocks,

00:22:25 ◼   ► and they're actually very small on the screen.

00:22:27 ◼   ► They're much smaller than they would be,

00:22:28 ◼   ► like to be good touch targets.

00:22:30 ◼   ► - Moving that block with the stylus on a Palm device

00:22:34 ◼   ► feels like direct manipulation.

00:22:36 ◼   ► You feel like, especially since the screen squishes,

00:22:37 ◼   ► you feel like you're shoving the block off

00:22:39 ◼   ► because there's gravity on the screen.

00:22:40 ◼   ► So if you shove the block off of another block,

00:22:42 ◼   ► it just falls down, right?

00:22:43 ◼   ► You feel like you're directly manipulating the block

00:22:45 ◼   ► with your little prod, right?

00:22:47 ◼   ► When you play on the iOS version, which is a faithful port,

00:22:51 ◼   ► first of all, your finger entirely covers the block

00:22:55 ◼   ► and maybe a little bit of some of its neighbors

00:22:57 ◼   ► because the blocks are, again, not, they're not 44 points.

00:22:59 ◼   ► They're much smaller than that, right?

00:23:01 ◼   ► You can't really see what you're doing.

00:23:02 ◼   ► And when you slide with your finger,

00:23:04 ◼   ► yeah, it pushes the block over,

00:23:05 ◼   ► but by the time you lift your finger up

00:23:07 ◼   ► so you can see the screen again,

00:23:08 ◼   ► the block has already basically fallen.

00:23:09 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like you're directly manipulating.

00:23:12 ◼   ► It feels almost like you're swiping on the screen

00:23:14 ◼   ► in the vague area of the block,

00:23:16 ◼   ► and then a block goes down.

00:23:17 ◼   ► It is much less satisfying, but I would still say,

00:23:20 ◼   ► I mean, no one's gonna buy a Palm on eBay

00:23:23 ◼   ► so they can play this game.

00:23:24 ◼   ► So definitely check out the game.

00:23:25 ◼   ► I think it's free.

00:23:26 ◼   ► I don't know, I buy iOS apps without thinking about it.

00:23:29 ◼   ► It's either free or extremely cheap,

00:23:31 ◼   ► but check it out because it is a fun puzzle game.

00:23:34 ◼   ► It is very much like every puzzle game you've ever seen.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Like, oh, it's a little bit like Tetris,

00:23:38 ◼   ► a little bit like Bejeweled,

00:23:39 ◼   ► but it's not exactly like any of them,

00:23:41 ◼   ► and the levels are very clever

00:23:42 ◼   ► and they do a good job of teaching you the mechanics.

00:23:45 ◼   ► You should check it out

00:23:46 ◼   ► and go through the first 10 levels or something.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Have some fun.

00:23:48 ◼   ► - By the way, I tried installing it on my Palm 5X

00:23:50 ◼   ► and it crashed.

00:23:51 ◼   ► So I have to figure out,

00:23:52 ◼   ► maybe I had like the wrong version or maybe I had,

00:23:54 ◼   ► like I think I might have had too new of a version

00:23:57 ◼   ► 'cause with the Palm devices,

00:23:59 ◼   ► like you went from these super simple 160 by 160 monochrome

00:24:04 ◼   ► and then gray scale screens over the following years,

00:24:07 ◼   ► you went to higher resolution screens,

00:24:09 ◼   ► much faster processors, color screens,

00:24:12 ◼   ► and various different OS and networking upgrades

00:24:15 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:24:16 ◼   ► And so a lot of the like kind of high-end Palm OS games

00:24:21 ◼   ► were really made for those later systems

00:24:23 ◼   ► and they don't necessarily work on my Palm 5X running OS,

00:24:27 ◼   ► whatever it is.

00:24:29 ◼   ► So I gotta maybe find an old version.

00:24:31 ◼   ► - Let's talk about Apple's required reasons thing

00:24:35 ◼   ► for certain APIs.

00:24:36 ◼   ► This blew up, I wanna say two, three months ago.

00:24:40 ◼   ► They decided that for certain APIs,

00:24:41 ◼   ► a lot of which I think made sense,

00:24:43 ◼   ► but some of which, particularly user defaults,

00:24:45 ◼   ► was quite surprising.

00:24:47 ◼   ► User defaults is the thing that most app developers use

00:24:50 ◼   ► to store like preferences for their app or apps

00:24:53 ◼   ► and things of that nature.

00:24:54 ◼   ► And they were saying, you know,

00:24:55 ◼   ► it was very, very scary what Apple was not really threatening

00:24:59 ◼   ► but saying they were gonna do that, you know,

00:25:01 ◼   ► oh, you're gonna have to provide reasons

00:25:02 ◼   ► for using user defaults and it's gonna be big and scary.

00:25:05 ◼   ► And since every freaking app uses user defaults,

00:25:08 ◼   ► it seemed a bit silly.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So apparently Apple's updated its required reasons thing

00:25:14 ◼   ► for using certain APIs and user defaults has new reasons.

00:25:17 ◼   ► It has three of them with very odd code names.

00:25:20 ◼   ► The first one, declare this reason to,

00:25:22 ◼   ► or I guess this is why you would use it,

00:25:23 ◼   ► declare this reason to access user defaults

00:25:25 ◼   ► to read and write information that is only available,

00:25:27 ◼   ► accessible, excuse me, to the apps, app extensions

00:25:30 ◼   ► and app clips that are members of the same app group

00:25:32 ◼   ► as the app itself.

00:25:33 ◼   ► So in other words, stuff that you write

00:25:35 ◼   ► that only you and your apps can touch.

00:25:39 ◼   ► The next one, declare this reason

00:25:41 ◼   ► if your third party SDK is providing a wrapper function

00:25:44 ◼   ► around the user defaults APIs for the app to use

00:25:47 ◼   ► and you only access user defaults APIs

00:25:49 ◼   ► when the app calls your wrapper function.

00:25:51 ◼   ► This reason may only be declared by third party SDKs.

00:25:54 ◼   ► This reason may not be declared if your third party SDK

00:25:56 ◼   ► was created primarily to wrap the required reason APIs.

00:26:00 ◼   ► So jump in, fellas, if I've got this wrong,

00:26:02 ◼   ► but I guess if I were to vend a framework

00:26:05 ◼   ► or a facade in front of user defaults,

00:26:07 ◼   ► then I could claim this to explain

00:26:09 ◼   ► why I'm using user defaults.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Is that about what this sounds like to you?

00:26:12 ◼   ► - I believe it's saying you can't, Jing,

00:26:14 ◼   ► you can't claim this.

00:26:15 ◼   ► So the way I interpret this is if you make a library

00:26:19 ◼   ► that happens to allow user defaults access

00:26:22 ◼   ► as kind of some other kind of--

00:26:25 ◼   ► - I see.

00:26:26 ◼   ► - Ancillary function than yes.

00:26:27 ◼   ► - Like if the SDK had its own settings, for example.

00:26:30 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:26:31 ◼   ► - It has some persistent state that's part of the SDK

00:26:33 ◼   ► that it stores and it wants to store them

00:26:34 ◼   ► in your app's user defaults

00:26:37 ◼   ► because it's running within your app.

00:26:38 ◼   ► - Right, but if you happen to make Swift defaults

00:26:41 ◼   ► as your library name and it's really just a thin wrapper

00:26:44 ◼   ► around user defaults without much other purpose,

00:26:46 ◼   ► I think they're saying you can't use this code for that.

00:26:48 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I'm not sure about that,

00:26:50 ◼   ► but what they say is if your SDK was created primarily

00:26:52 ◼   ► to wrap required reason APIs,

00:26:55 ◼   ► not necessarily this API user defaults,

00:26:57 ◼   ► but you can't use it as like API laundering.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Like essentially you make an SDK and it's like,

00:27:03 ◼   ► call through this SDK and we'll get a name of your API,

00:27:05 ◼   ► any other required reason APIs.

00:27:07 ◼   ► It's interesting, I mean, the first one that Casey read

00:27:10 ◼   ► was the one that I was complaining about

00:27:11 ◼   ► back before I realized this doesn't apply to Mac apps yet.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Was that, hey, app groups, it's an Apple concept.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Everyone uses it.

00:27:18 ◼   ► It's having a shared user default in my app groups

00:27:21 ◼   ► is a huge use case.

00:27:22 ◼   ► So finally they addressed that, so that's great.

00:27:25 ◼   ► The third party one I really didn't expect them to do,

00:27:27 ◼   ► but I guess it's been so long

00:27:29 ◼   ► and they've gotten so much feedback that they realize

00:27:31 ◼   ► a lot of people are in this situation

00:27:32 ◼   ► and they use a third party SDK.

00:27:33 ◼   ► That SDK has some setting somewhere that it persists

00:27:37 ◼   ► and it's gonna persist them in your app's user defaults.

00:27:40 ◼   ► 'Cause that's like where else would it put them?

00:27:42 ◼   ► So they have to allow that.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And I think this bottom part is,

00:27:46 ◼   ► I guess preventing it from being an API laundering thing.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Maybe it's like a third party SDK

00:27:53 ◼   ► for just wrapping user defaults.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I don't see why that would be banned,

00:27:57 ◼   ► but reading this language,

00:27:58 ◼   ► it makes it seem like it would be.

00:27:59 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, well, it's only exists,

00:28:01 ◼   ► it's a library, a convenience library around user defaults.

00:28:04 ◼   ► But what are you using it for?

00:28:06 ◼   ► To read and write your own apps user defaults.

00:28:08 ◼   ► Like that's not laundering anything.

00:28:09 ◼   ► You could have done that yourself.

00:28:11 ◼   ► You're just using a library for it.

00:28:12 ◼   ► That's why I think the part where it says

00:28:14 ◼   ► create a parameter to wrap required reason APIs.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Not specifically the user defaults API,

00:28:20 ◼   ► but any of the other APIs that are on the list

00:28:22 ◼   ► that you have to have reasons for.

00:28:23 ◼   ► We're just listing the ones for user defaults

00:28:24 ◼   ► because it was the most egregious one

00:28:26 ◼   ► in the original list of APIs

00:28:29 ◼   ► because everybody's app uses it.

00:28:31 ◼   ► And it was so restrictive

00:28:32 ◼   ► that you just couldn't do basic app things.

00:28:34 ◼   ► So they're addressing that here.

00:28:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and when this first was announced,

00:28:38 ◼   ► I believe in the late summer, early fall,

00:28:41 ◼   ► when we did talk about it,

00:28:43 ◼   ► and I believe I said the same point then,

00:28:45 ◼   ► so I'll be quick this time,

00:28:46 ◼   ► but we don't usually know the level of trickery

00:28:51 ◼   ► and scamminess that apps try to pull off

00:28:55 ◼   ► to try to track people and do creepy stuff.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And so whenever we see stuff like this from Apple,

00:29:01 ◼   ► some kind of weird new privacy or security requirement

00:29:04 ◼   ► that it seems like it shouldn't be necessary

00:29:07 ◼   ► or it seems like unnecessarily persnickety,

00:29:10 ◼   ► generally the reason is this has been abused

00:29:14 ◼   ► or is being abused for some kind of creepy thing

00:29:17 ◼   ► and we just don't necessarily know about it

00:29:18 ◼   ► or can't quite figure out how could this be abused.

00:29:22 ◼   ► So in this case, I'm sure they added these things carefully

00:29:27 ◼   ► with their inscrutable numbers.

00:29:29 ◼   ► Why are these numbered the way they are?

00:29:31 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:29:32 ◼   ► But whatever the reason is

00:29:34 ◼   ► behind this obtuse requirement they're creating here,

00:29:38 ◼   ► it is probably because it was actively

00:29:40 ◼   ► being exploited in the wild.

00:29:42 ◼   ► So every single word of this,

00:29:44 ◼   ► like every little clause, every condition, every exclusion,

00:29:49 ◼   ► I guarantee you it was because

00:29:51 ◼   ► somebody was being tricky with this stuff.

00:29:54 ◼   ► - And then finally, declare this reason

00:29:56 ◼   ► to access user defaults and read the blah, blah, blah key

00:29:58 ◼   ► to retrieve the managed app configuration set by MDM,

00:30:01 ◼   ► mobile device management,

00:30:03 ◼   ► or to set the yada, yada, yada key

00:30:05 ◼   ► to store feedback information to be queried over MDM

00:30:08 ◼   ► as described in the Apple mobile device

00:30:10 ◼   ► management protocol reference documentation.

00:30:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so these reasons,

00:30:13 ◼   ► I mean, again, we're just focusing on user defaults.

00:30:15 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes to all the new reasons,

00:30:17 ◼   ► but there are a ton of them.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And it's been a while since we talked about this,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but this just shows how thorough Apple has been

00:30:23 ◼   ► in making sure that all the use cases

00:30:26 ◼   ► that they got feedback about are addressed.

00:30:29 ◼   ► So just plain old user defaults.

00:30:31 ◼   ► There's the one thing that I thought of,

00:30:33 ◼   ► which is just obvious, app groups, right?

00:30:35 ◼   ► Then there's a third party SDK thing,

00:30:36 ◼   ► which we didn't even discuss last time.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Then there's the MDM thing,

00:30:38 ◼   ► which we definitely didn't discuss this time,

00:30:40 ◼   ► but you can just see, you can say,

00:30:41 ◼   ► oh, you look at that,

00:30:42 ◼   ► oh, I see how that could affect people.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Oh, I see how that could, you know,

00:30:45 ◼   ► how many people have their own apps

00:30:48 ◼   ► that they distribute over MDM to their corporate devices

00:30:51 ◼   ► that are owned by their company?

00:30:52 ◼   ► And they're like, well, our thing doesn't work anymore

00:30:54 ◼   ► because we access user defaults

00:30:56 ◼   ► and we do it through the MDM thing.

00:30:57 ◼   ► And no one who doesn't have an MDM distributed app

00:31:00 ◼   ► is thinking of that, but so many apps out there do that.

00:31:02 ◼   ► So this, Apple took a long time to come up with this list,

00:31:06 ◼   ► but it seems like they've addressed a lot of stuff.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Now I'm sure there's still stuff that they missed,

00:31:09 ◼   ► but this is a much bigger expansion

00:31:12 ◼   ► than I thought they would have.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Again, look at the full list.

00:31:14 ◼   ► This is just user defaults, but like I expected,

00:31:17 ◼   ► maybe, maybe they'd allow app groups,

00:31:19 ◼   ► but they added much more above and beyond that.

00:31:21 ◼   ► So I hope this is now at the level where,

00:31:25 ◼   ► let's say 98% of the apps fit within it.

00:31:27 ◼   ► It's still, I don't think they've changed anything

00:31:30 ◼   ► about the strictness of it.

00:31:31 ◼   ► I think there's some kind of timeline of like,

00:31:32 ◼   ► well, it'll be advisory for a while,

00:31:34 ◼   ► but then eventually they'll require it.

00:31:36 ◼   ► But Apple's usually pretty good about not coming up

00:31:39 ◼   ► with a new set of requirements and making it mandatory

00:31:41 ◼   ► on day one and just destroying their entire Apple ecosystem.

00:31:44 ◼   ► They'll do it slowly and hopefully get to the point

00:31:48 ◼   ► where everybody's on board.

00:31:49 ◼   ► And again, crossing my fingers,

00:31:51 ◼   ► this still does not apply to Mac apps.

00:31:52 ◼   ► I hope it never does.

00:31:53 ◼   ► Please, Apple, leave the Mac alone.

00:31:55 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:31:57 ◼   ► - Also, real-time follow-up from who?

00:31:59 ◼   ► Someone in the chat, I've already lost where it was.

00:32:03 ◼   ► MTZ Federico pointed out that if you don't have an iPhone

00:32:08 ◼   ► or other Apple device to use Find My,

00:32:10 ◼   ► you can use Find Devices on iCloud.com.

00:32:12 ◼   ► When you sign in, you might be asked

00:32:15 ◼   ► to enter a verification code sent to a trusted device.

00:32:17 ◼   ► If you lost your only trusted device

00:32:19 ◼   ► or otherwise can't get the code,

00:32:20 ◼   ► select the Find Devices button instead of entering a code.

00:32:23 ◼   ► I don't really know what that means

00:32:24 ◼   ► and I don't have the ability to research it right this second

00:32:26 ◼   ► but apparently they have a plan for you

00:32:29 ◼   ► if you are in that situation.

00:32:30 ◼   ► And this does not seem to indicate

00:32:33 ◼   ► that you need a backup code.

00:32:34 ◼   ► So I'm not really sure what the situation is here

00:32:36 ◼   ► but it's apparently been at least considered.

00:32:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, these are all things we never wanna find out.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And unlike restoring from your backups,

00:32:43 ◼   ► you can't, it's not easy to safely rehearse this.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Like I wouldn't, like if you rehearse it

00:32:47 ◼   ► and you find a problem with your system, guess what?

00:32:49 ◼   ► You just intentionally lock yourself

00:32:50 ◼   ► out of your own Apple ID forever.

00:32:52 ◼   ► So don't maybe test this to the limit.

00:32:56 ◼   ► But I guess, you know, it's up to Apple

00:32:58 ◼   ► to try to communicate this to people and say,

00:32:59 ◼   ► "Here's what you need to do to be safe."

00:33:01 ◼   ► Right now, it's not entirely clear.

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00:35:19 ◼   ► - A lot of stuff happened today.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Generally speaking, this is a little inside baseball,

00:35:25 ◼   ► but generally speaking, the morning that we record ATP,

00:35:27 ◼   ► I like to go somewhere else to work.

00:35:29 ◼   ► You know, oftentimes it's, you know,

00:35:31 ◼   ► the grocery store that I like Wegmans

00:35:32 ◼   ► or maybe it'll be a library or something.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And I'll sit there and I'll read through all the links

00:35:36 ◼   ► and make sure and watch all the videos,

00:35:37 ◼   ► make sure I know what the heck it is

00:35:39 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk about that night.

00:35:40 ◼   ► And I typically do that, you know,

00:35:41 ◼   ► from like eight in the morning until roughly lunchtime.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And then at that point I consider myself

00:35:46 ◼   ► having done the research and job well done.

00:35:48 ◼   ► Pat on the back for me.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Well, all sorts of broke stuff broke today.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And so I'm shooting from the hip a little bit at this point,

00:35:55 ◼   ► but here we go.

00:35:56 ◼   ► And let's start with what happened at something like

00:35:59 ◼   ► nine o'clock in the morning, Eastern time.

00:36:01 ◼   ► It was broken, I think specifically to 9to5 Mac

00:36:05 ◼   ► or at least in part to 9to5 Mac,

00:36:07 ◼   ► but 9to5 Mac wrote that Apple is pausing sales

00:36:12 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2

00:36:15 ◼   ► in the United States due to a patent dispute.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And there had been rumblings about this in the past.

00:36:19 ◼   ► I don't think we ever talked about it on the show,

00:36:22 ◼   ► but in short, there is a company whose name

00:36:25 ◼   ► I don't have in front of me,

00:36:26 ◼   ► but I believe begins with an M,

00:36:27 ◼   ► that has patents on how to do blood oxygen detection.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And they have claimed that Apple

00:36:34 ◼   ► is infringing on those patents.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And I guess it's going through the courts

00:36:38 ◼   ► and that's not going as quick as this company wants.

00:36:40 ◼   ► So they appealed to some other organization,

00:36:44 ◼   ► the International Trade Commission, there you go,

00:36:46 ◼   ► that has said, okay, yeah, we agree with you,

00:36:49 ◼   ► other companies, so we're gonna tell Apple

00:36:51 ◼   ► they have to pause sales of the devices

00:36:54 ◼   ► that infringe on these patents,

00:36:56 ◼   ► which is basically the Series 9 and Ultra 2.

00:36:58 ◼   ► For now, as we sit here on Monday the 18th,

00:37:01 ◼   ► they can still sell them through other retailers,

00:37:04 ◼   ► so like Amazon and Best Buy, for example.

00:37:06 ◼   ► They can still sell these devices,

00:37:09 ◼   ► but it is possible that around Christmas time,

00:37:12 ◼   ► they will also not be able to sell these devices.

00:37:14 ◼   ► So it's a big mess and I'm surprised it's gotten this far.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I don't even know what to make of this.

00:37:20 ◼   ► - I mean, this is why we really haven't covered it

00:37:23 ◼   ► on the show yet as far as I am concerned,

00:37:25 ◼   ► is like there's weird patent claims

00:37:28 ◼   ► against companies all the time.

00:37:29 ◼   ► And then they settle and then it goes nowhere and it's fine.

00:37:32 ◼   ► Like someone pays some money and the lawyers make most of it

00:37:35 ◼   ► and it's in, like all use of patents,

00:37:38 ◼   ► it's just a tax on everybody

00:37:40 ◼   ► and it doesn't really protect anybody from anything.

00:37:42 ◼   ► And the lawyers make out with all the money, the end.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Congratulations, that's the US patent system.

00:37:48 ◼   ► So a lot of good there, promoting innovation.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Good job, everyone.

00:37:52 ◼   ► So normally these cases, they breeze through the news

00:37:55 ◼   ► and they don't go anywhere because they get settled out

00:37:57 ◼   ► and you never hear about them again.

00:37:59 ◼   ► So when this stuff started with Massimo as the company,

00:38:03 ◼   ► when it started them making claims against the Apple Watch,

00:38:05 ◼   ► I think they've been making claims against the Apple Watch

00:38:07 ◼   ► for years now.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Again, we just thought, at least I just thought,

00:38:10 ◼   ► well, it's gonna fizzle out and get settled or something.

00:38:13 ◼   ► Like that's what's going to happen and that's it.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And so to have us be at the point now

00:38:19 ◼   ► where Apple has announced that like,

00:38:23 ◼   ► possibly as early as next week,

00:38:25 ◼   ► they might have to stop selling

00:38:27 ◼   ► their two flagship models of Apple Watch,

00:38:29 ◼   ► leaving only the Apple Watch SE in the current lineup,

00:38:34 ◼   ► that's substantially different news than we usually hear.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Like that's a big deal.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I'm guessing it won't actually get that far

00:38:42 ◼   ► or if it does get that far,

00:38:44 ◼   ► it will be a fairly brief shutdown of sales.

00:38:48 ◼   ► You gotta figure like Apple is pulling out all the stops

00:38:51 ◼   ► to try to get this resolved in some way.

00:38:54 ◼   ► But you also know that Apple is,

00:38:58 ◼   ► I don't think Apple is super willing to give

00:39:01 ◼   ► on threats of patent litigation like this.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Like I don't think they're gonna just say,

00:39:06 ◼   ► all right, Massimo, here's a whole bunch of money,

00:39:08 ◼   ► we're gonna license your patents

00:39:10 ◼   ► and give you whatever you want.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Like I don't see it ending that way necessarily.

00:39:14 ◼   ► What's probably going to happen is they're going to try

00:39:18 ◼   ► to get around it with some kind of technicality

00:39:21 ◼   ► and then there will be more lawsuits

00:39:22 ◼   ► and it'll prolong stuff and it'll just kick the can

00:39:25 ◼   ► down the road further.

00:39:26 ◼   ► That kind of thing can be successful for years.

00:39:30 ◼   ► So that's probably what's going to happen here.

00:39:32 ◼   ► But in the meantime, if they actually go through with this,

00:39:35 ◼   ► 'cause all they said so far is basically

00:39:37 ◼   ► that they think they'll have to go through with this.

00:39:40 ◼   ► If they actually have to go through with this

00:39:42 ◼   ► and actually have to stop selling most Apple watches

00:39:46 ◼   ► in the US for a while, whatever that,

00:39:49 ◼   ► and look, it could be a week.

00:39:51 ◼   ► I'm guessing if it happens at all,

00:39:52 ◼   ► it's going to be very brief.

00:39:54 ◼   ► It would surprise me if it was more than a week.

00:39:57 ◼   ► But we'll see what happens.

00:40:00 ◼   ► Stranger stuff has happened, I guess, in tech.

00:40:02 ◼   ► But it will kind of be interesting as tech enthusiasts

00:40:06 ◼   ► and as a tech podcast, it will be interesting

00:40:09 ◼   ► to see if it does happen because this kind of thing

00:40:11 ◼   ► pretty much never happens in our world.

00:40:13 ◼   ► It doesn't make it up to the level of being visible

00:40:16 ◼   ► to consumers like this.

00:40:17 ◼   ► So this could be interesting.

00:40:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Apple released a statement about this

00:40:22 ◼   ► and you can see the glimmer of Apple's potential strategy

00:40:26 ◼   ► because you would think Apple's statement about this

00:40:28 ◼   ► would be all about how, usually Apple statements are,

00:40:32 ◼   ► here's the thing we're doing.

00:40:33 ◼   ► So first of all, this one's weird because it says,

00:40:36 ◼   ► here's a thing that we might have to do in the future

00:40:39 ◼   ► if everything continues the way it's going,

00:40:41 ◼   ► which is weird, right?

00:40:42 ◼   ► But the very first sentence of the statement

00:40:46 ◼   ► kind of hints at what they're going for.

00:40:48 ◼   ► It says, this is from Apple's statement, first sentence,

00:40:51 ◼   ► a presidential review period is in progress

00:40:53 ◼   ► regarding an order from the International Trade Commission,

00:40:56 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:40:57 ◼   ► So it starts by saying, hey, there's a thing

00:41:00 ◼   ► that's under review by the president.

00:41:03 ◼   ► And if nothing changes and if their review period

00:41:07 ◼   ► goes through and we have to do all this stuff,

00:41:08 ◼   ► we're gonna do these things, right?

00:41:10 ◼   ► It's like, you know, Apple says,

00:41:12 ◼   ► Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply

00:41:15 ◼   ► should the ruling stand, right?

00:41:18 ◼   ► So what does that even mean?

00:41:19 ◼   ► I mean, I guess you could like,

00:41:20 ◼   ► well, get ready to stop selling stuff.

00:41:22 ◼   ► I guess there may be there's something they need to do,

00:41:24 ◼   ► but why issue a statement about, just so you guys know,

00:41:28 ◼   ► there is a presidential review period

00:41:30 ◼   ► and unless things go our way,

00:41:33 ◼   ► unless someone changes their mind,

00:41:36 ◼   ► we're gonna have stop selling Apple watches.

00:41:37 ◼   ► Convenient for Apple, by the way,

00:41:38 ◼   ► that they have to stop selling them essentially

00:41:40 ◼   ► on December 24th and 25th.

00:41:41 ◼   ► So they get all their holiday sales,

00:41:42 ◼   ► but they don't really get any post-holiday sales.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And of course, you know, Amazon and Best Buy and stuff

00:41:47 ◼   ► can sell through their inventory or whatever.

00:41:49 ◼   ► So the interpretation of the statement is basically,

00:41:52 ◼   ► Apple announcing to the world/president saying,

00:41:57 ◼   ► you wouldn't want us to stop selling Apple watches, would you?

00:42:00 ◼   ► 'Cause it's kind of a popular product

00:42:02 ◼   ► and we're kind of a popular company.

00:42:04 ◼   ► And if you don't do something, Mr. President,

00:42:06 ◼   ► we're gonna have to stop selling Apple watches.

00:42:08 ◼   ► Doesn't that sound terrible for you?

00:42:10 ◼   ► So just, we're putting out this public statement.

00:42:14 ◼   ► I mean, everybody involved knows this, right?

00:42:17 ◼   ► But Apple puts out a public statement that says to the world

00:42:20 ◼   ► and you know, we're talking about it on this podcast,

00:42:22 ◼   ► something that everyone involved in this, you know, issue,

00:42:26 ◼   ► the review board, the two companies,

00:42:28 ◼   ► everyone already knows that,

00:42:29 ◼   ► but Apple is kind of putting it out in the world

00:42:31 ◼   ► to put pressure on the president to, you know,

00:42:34 ◼   ► overturn this or to, you know, whatever,

00:42:36 ◼   ► they have the ability to this review period of saying,

00:42:38 ◼   ► 'cause either you let it stand

00:42:40 ◼   ► or you like counteracted in some way.

00:42:42 ◼   ► And I think Apple's hoping that the president will say,

00:42:44 ◼   ► oh, don't stop Apple from selling Apple watch.

00:42:46 ◼   ► They're a big, important company

00:42:47 ◼   ► and they make a lot of money.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how the system works.

00:42:50 ◼   ► I don't pay too much attention to patent law.

00:42:52 ◼   ► I'm not a lawyer.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I hate patents with a passion.

00:42:55 ◼   ► I'm not sure that gambit is going to work,

00:42:57 ◼   ► especially because Apple put out the statement.

00:43:00 ◼   ► If Apple wanted to do this,

00:43:01 ◼   ► they should be working back channels,

00:43:02 ◼   ► not running to the press because that never helps.

00:43:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:06 ◼   ► - I mean, you can assume they probably

00:43:07 ◼   ► have tried that already.

00:43:09 ◼   ► - Right, this is like the last ditch thing of like saying,

00:43:11 ◼   ► hey world, we're gonna have to stop selling Apple watches

00:43:13 ◼   ► for dumb patent reasons.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And this kind of is related to yesterday's last episode

00:43:18 ◼   ► where we were saying that Apple is a US company

00:43:20 ◼   ► and they are subject to US laws.

00:43:22 ◼   ► And sometimes there are those laws that they don't like,

00:43:25 ◼   ► like laws about handing things over to the government,

00:43:27 ◼   ► or in this case, patent laws.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Apple patents everything because as a big company,

00:43:31 ◼   ► they have to.

00:43:32 ◼   ► The system we have is you have to participate in it.

00:43:36 ◼   ► You don't get to be the size of Apple

00:43:37 ◼   ► if you don't patent everything under the sun.

00:43:39 ◼   ► A lot of the times you're patenting all this bogus stuff

00:43:42 ◼   ► and so you can use it as defense against other people

00:43:44 ◼   ► using their bogus patents against you.

00:43:45 ◼   ► And this war of mutually assured destruction,

00:43:48 ◼   ► which is totally pointless and stifles innovation

00:43:50 ◼   ► and the only people it makes happy are lawyers.

00:43:53 ◼   ► It's terrible, but it is the system

00:43:54 ◼   ► that we currently have.

00:43:55 ◼   ► And Apple sure as hell participates in that system.

00:43:58 ◼   ► It's kind of a bummer for Apple.

00:44:00 ◼   ► In this case, it seems like they don't have enough patents

00:44:02 ◼   ► to retaliate against Massimo

00:44:04 ◼   ► and Massimo's playing hardball

00:44:05 ◼   ► and it's not being bought off at the price

00:44:07 ◼   ► Apple thinks is reasonable.

00:44:09 ◼   ► So it's a game of chicken now.

00:44:10 ◼   ► It's like, do you, people and the government of the US,

00:44:14 ◼   ► really want Apple to stop selling

00:44:16 ◼   ► its two flagship Apple watches indefinitely

00:44:19 ◼   ► because of some company you've never heard of

00:44:20 ◼   ► with some super dumb patent?

00:44:22 ◼   ► You don't want that to happen, do you?

00:44:23 ◼   ► And Apple is not currently lobbying for reforming patent law

00:44:27 ◼   ► and I'm not sure if they even would

00:44:28 ◼   ► because again, Apple participates so much in this system

00:44:30 ◼   ► that it's hard to know whether they like it or not,

00:44:33 ◼   ► but they have to participate in the system.

00:44:35 ◼   ► It would be great if they lobbied for reform

00:44:38 ◼   ► on software patents and reform on patents in general,

00:44:40 ◼   ► but that is an uphill battle

00:44:42 ◼   ► with lots of forces going in the other direction.

00:44:44 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like Apple has much appetite for that.

00:44:46 ◼   ► So here we are, they're just out there saying,

00:44:49 ◼   ► I know we have a stupid system

00:44:51 ◼   ► and we tried to settle our way out of this.

00:44:53 ◼   ► Now we're doing, making a last ditch sort of plea

00:44:58 ◼   ► to anyone who can overturn this and say,

00:45:01 ◼   ► how about just let's not do it in this case?

00:45:04 ◼   ► I don't know how that's gonna work.

00:45:06 ◼   ► One thing I think is for pretty sure,

00:45:08 ◼   ► Apple will not stop selling its flagship Apple watches

00:45:11 ◼   ► for very long.

00:45:12 ◼   ► I mean, worst case scenario, Apple just buys the company.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Like Apple can solve this problem with money.

00:45:17 ◼   ► They just don't want to.

00:45:19 ◼   ► They don't want, whatever Amasama wants,

00:45:20 ◼   ► they don't wanna pay it.

00:45:21 ◼   ► But believe me, Apple can pay it.

00:45:24 ◼   ► Whatever the amount is, Apple can pay it

00:45:26 ◼   ► and will eventually pay it if this goes on long enough.

00:45:28 ◼   ► So Amasama is betting that they can just drag this out

00:45:33 ◼   ► to get a little bit more money.

00:45:34 ◼   ► But in the end, Apple's not gonna spend a year

00:45:35 ◼   ► not selling its two flagship Apple watches.

00:45:37 ◼   ► They're gonna pay whatever it takes to make this go away

00:45:39 ◼   ► eventually, but they're gonna try everything else first.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And this is one of those things.

00:45:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the racket of patents.

00:45:48 ◼   ► It's just extortion.

00:45:49 ◼   ► I mean, that's like, that's again, promoting innovation

00:45:52 ◼   ► with patents, what you're really doing is creating

00:45:55 ◼   ► legal methods of extortion.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And that's, again, it's one of the many reasons.

00:46:00 ◼   ► - And it makes it so that only the richest companies

00:46:02 ◼   ► can even participate because it's impossible,

00:46:04 ◼   ► as we've discussed in the past shows,

00:46:05 ◼   ► it's impossible to make any technology product

00:46:07 ◼   ► without infringing tons and tons of patents

00:46:09 ◼   ► that you can't afford to license.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Like that is not, the purpose of the patents

00:46:12 ◼   ► is supposed to be for whatever the quote is

00:46:15 ◼   ► from the relevant law of the encouragement

00:46:17 ◼   ► of the whatever arts or whatever.

00:46:18 ◼   ► And it does the exact opposite.

00:46:19 ◼   ► It makes it so the only way that you as a small company

00:46:23 ◼   ► can have a tech product is if you get lucky and hide.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Because, and the big companies violate so many patents,

00:46:29 ◼   ► but they also acquire tons of patents to retaliate against

00:46:33 ◼   ► anyone and then you have patent trolls who are like,

00:46:34 ◼   ► ha, we don't make anything, so you can't retaliate

00:46:36 ◼   ► against us and it's just, it is the worst system.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And here we have, hopefully this will motivate

00:46:42 ◼   ► some patent reform or maybe give Apple an appetite for it

00:46:44 ◼   ► because again, Apple participates so heavily in the system

00:46:47 ◼   ► that I can imagine within Apple,

00:46:49 ◼   ► there are sections of the company that think,

00:46:50 ◼   ► oh patents are great, we just,

00:46:51 ◼   ► our patents are super important.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Remember when Steve Jobs was up there with the iPhone?

00:46:54 ◼   ► Oh boy, have we patented it, right?

00:46:56 ◼   ► They always sound great when you're on the side

00:46:57 ◼   ► of like using your patents to beat down other people.

00:47:00 ◼   ► It's not so great when it goes the other direction.

00:47:02 ◼   ► - And look at how well that worked for them.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Like it didn't even work that well for them

00:47:05 ◼   ► in the end of the day. - No, it doesn't work.

00:47:06 ◼   ► It'll never work, it's because everything is stupid

00:47:08 ◼   ► and everyone, all the big companies acquire tons

00:47:10 ◼   ► of these really dumb patents and they make it like,

00:47:12 ◼   ► Apple licensed the one click patent, do you remember that?

00:47:15 ◼   ► Amazon, for kids who don't know, Amazon.com,

00:47:19 ◼   ► the place that used to sell books online

00:47:20 ◼   ► and now sells everything, patented the ability

00:47:22 ◼   ► to buy something with a single click.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Which if that sounds dumb to you, welcome to patents.

00:47:27 ◼   ► And I believe Apple licensed it for like the iTunes store

00:47:30 ◼   ► or whatever, right, because that's the way it works.

00:47:32 ◼   ► It's like, how many dumb patents do you have?

00:47:34 ◼   ► How many dumb patents, that's why patent cross-licensing

00:47:37 ◼   ► agreements happen, I think Apple did a big cross-licensing

00:47:39 ◼   ► agreement with Microsoft, it's like look,

00:47:40 ◼   ► we have tons of dumb patents and so do you.

00:47:42 ◼   ► How about we just agree that I can use all your patents

00:47:45 ◼   ► and you can use all mine.

00:47:46 ◼   ► So at least we can ignore each other and just worry

00:47:49 ◼   ► about the other people who are constantly suing us

00:47:51 ◼   ► for patents and stuff.

00:47:53 ◼   ► And we don't have time for an entire show

00:47:55 ◼   ► about why patents are dumb, I'm sure people disagree with us.

00:47:58 ◼   ► See many past episodes where this has been discussed

00:48:00 ◼   ► including a couple on my old Hypercritical podcast.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Our position has not changed since then.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And especially, I think the entire Apple ecosystem

00:48:08 ◼   ► got a taste of it with the, what was the round

00:48:11 ◼   ► that came through and swiped a bunch of developers we know,

00:48:14 ◼   ► some stupid thing about audio playing or something.

00:48:15 ◼   ► - Oh, that was a different one, that was something like,

00:48:18 ◼   ► was something like home audio, something like that.

00:48:20 ◼   ► The EFF struck that one down, I think.

00:48:23 ◼   ► No, LODSYS was, it was some kind of,

00:48:25 ◼   ► I think it was an in-app purchase thing.

00:48:27 ◼   ► I forget what the details were, thank God it actually

00:48:30 ◼   ► never hit me, but it hit a bunch of people close to me.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Like a whole bunch of people you all know.

00:48:35 ◼   ► - And the small developers had to pay for it

00:48:38 ◼   ► and it really is like extortion because they come to you

00:48:40 ◼   ► and they say, look, we can destroy your company with this.

00:48:43 ◼   ► So pay us all the money you can afford to pay us.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Because they wanna get money, they don't wanna destroy

00:48:47 ◼   ► the company 'cause they destroyed the company

00:48:48 ◼   ► and they get nothing.

00:48:49 ◼   ► So they basically say, how much can you afford to pay us?

00:48:52 ◼   ► Like how much money do you have in your wallet?

00:48:54 ◼   ► Just give us all of that, right?

00:48:55 ◼   ► And so for smaller developers who don't have a lot

00:48:57 ◼   ► of their money, they'll say, okay, well, just tell us

00:48:59 ◼   ► how much is in your bank account and we won't charge you

00:49:01 ◼   ► any more than that.

00:49:02 ◼   ► That's the shakedown of these things.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Like for the big company, obviously they can't do it

00:49:06 ◼   ► with Apple 'cause Apple has billions of dollars.

00:49:08 ◼   ► They're not gonna get all of that, right?

00:49:09 ◼   ► But for the small developers, it's not like there's

00:49:11 ◼   ► a flat fee, like everyone has to pay $2 million.

00:49:13 ◼   ► No, 'cause they know no small developers can pay that.

00:49:15 ◼   ► But if you're a small individual developer,

00:49:17 ◼   ► they still want your money.

00:49:18 ◼   ► So like, can you pay us 30,000?

00:49:20 ◼   ► Can you know, and people would do it just to make,

00:49:22 ◼   ► but you can't afford to fight it.

00:49:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause the alternative is like, all right,

00:49:25 ◼   ► then you can try to hire a lawyer for $100,000.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Like that's, again, it's extortion.

00:49:30 ◼   ► It's just the mob, but legal.

00:49:32 ◼   ► Like it's exactly like, you know, hey, it'd be a shame

00:49:34 ◼   ► if that building burned down, it pays for protection money.

00:49:36 ◼   ► It's that, it's just that, but legal.

00:49:39 ◼   ► Like that's why, I mean, the patent, it's so,

00:49:41 ◼   ► now we're getting all mad, but like,

00:49:42 ◼   ► that is so dysfunctional in practice.

00:49:45 ◼   ► It's one of those wonderful stories that we tell people.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Oh yeah, well, you can be an individual inventor

00:49:51 ◼   ► in your garage and come up with a great million dollar idea

00:49:54 ◼   ► and patent it, and the reality is so far from that.

00:49:57 ◼   ► That is not how it works at all.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Like the only people who have patents

00:50:02 ◼   ► are fools and (beep) holes.

00:50:05 ◼   ► That's it, because to get a patent,

00:50:07 ◼   ► if you are an individual, to get a patent

00:50:09 ◼   ► that is actually like properly written, properly filed,

00:50:12 ◼   ► and has any chance of at all maybe being enforceable,

00:50:16 ◼   ► it costs tens of thousands of dollars

00:50:19 ◼   ► just to file a patent like that.

00:50:20 ◼   ► So how many individual inventors in their garage

00:50:23 ◼   ► are gonna have tens of thousands of dollars

00:50:25 ◼   ► to pay a lawyer and file everything

00:50:27 ◼   ► and get it all written up and get it done?

00:50:28 ◼   ► And then once you actually,

00:50:30 ◼   ► if you actually get that patent granted to you,

00:50:34 ◼   ► that doesn't prevent everyone from using it.

00:50:36 ◼   ► That just gives you a tool that you can use

00:50:38 ◼   ► to sue people who use it.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Guess what, that takes more money.

00:50:42 ◼   ► So the only people who can actually get a patent

00:50:46 ◼   ► and then afford to try to enforce it against somebody

00:50:50 ◼   ► are people with tons of money already,

00:50:52 ◼   ► and chances are it won't really stop a big company

00:50:57 ◼   ► from stealing the idea and using it,

00:50:58 ◼   ► because big companies, guess what they have?

00:51:00 ◼   ► More money and more lawyers and more time than you.

00:51:03 ◼   ► And I know this is kind of making the case for Massimo,

00:51:06 ◼   ► but that's the reality.

00:51:07 ◼   ► So if you are a small inventor

00:51:09 ◼   ► and you think a patent's gonna protect you, it won't.

00:51:12 ◼   ► It just will cost you tons of money,

00:51:14 ◼   ► and then at the end of the day, it still won't protect you.

00:51:16 ◼   ► So that's the fool side of it.

00:51:19 ◼   ► And then there's the asshole side of it.

00:51:20 ◼   ► It's people who actually intend to deploy this thing

00:51:25 ◼   ► against unsuspecting people, 'cause here's the thing.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Patents are allegedly required to be novel

00:51:33 ◼   ► and to be not some kind of solution

00:51:36 ◼   ► that a layperson would have just kind of come up with

00:51:38 ◼   ► on their own in the field.

00:51:39 ◼   ► So this is the argument against many software patents,

00:51:42 ◼   ► is like many people end up allegedly violating patents

00:51:47 ◼   ► accidentally, because the thing that is patented

00:51:51 ◼   ► just became kind of common sense

00:51:53 ◼   ► to anybody who was in that field.

00:51:54 ◼   ► So if you're writing an app and you have a certain problem

00:51:57 ◼   ► you're trying to solve with some algorithm

00:51:59 ◼   ► or some technique, you might just come up with that

00:52:01 ◼   ► on your own.

00:52:02 ◼   ► The reality is that's how most invention works,

00:52:04 ◼   ► and simultaneous invention's a real thing,

00:52:06 ◼   ► kind of destroys the whole myth the patent system

00:52:07 ◼   ► is based on, but anyway,

00:52:09 ◼   ► so I'm gonna hold that aside for the moment.

00:52:12 ◼   ► Most patent infringement in most of tech

00:52:16 ◼   ► is done accidentally and unknowingly,

00:52:18 ◼   ► because so much has been patented by people

00:52:22 ◼   ► who are just opportunistic thieves and vultures

00:52:25 ◼   ► who want to be parasites on the world

00:52:27 ◼   ► and want to shake people down for money

00:52:29 ◼   ► because they think, well, I'm gonna stake out my claim

00:52:32 ◼   ► and get these patents and these things,

00:52:33 ◼   ► and then everyone has to pay me when they do them.

00:52:36 ◼   ► There are many ways to go through this life,

00:52:39 ◼   ► and I try very, very hard to be the total opposite

00:52:42 ◼   ► of that kind of (bleep)

00:52:43 ◼   ► and I hope most of you out there make the same choice.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Anyway, so the patent system doesn't work

00:52:49 ◼   ► the way anyone thinks it does.

00:52:50 ◼   ► The only people who benefit are lawyers and giant companies,

00:52:53 ◼   ► and here's a patent fight that is between two giant companies

00:52:58 ◼   ► who are both trying to extract as much money

00:53:00 ◼   ► out of the other as possible.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And these views that I hold on patents

00:53:04 ◼   ► and that John holds on patents are not super rare views

00:53:07 ◼   ► in the tech business especially.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Most of the tech business doesn't like patents.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And so there is no way that Apple is going to be amenable

00:53:16 ◼   ► to any solution that requires them to pay Massimo

00:53:20 ◼   ► for every Apple watch they make,

00:53:22 ◼   ► which is probably what Massimo is asking them to do,

00:53:24 ◼   ► and probably a lot, because Apple doesn't want

00:53:27 ◼   ► to be stuck with that forever.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Patents last a very long time.

00:53:30 ◼   ► I believe it's something like 20 or 30 years,

00:53:32 ◼   ► depending on whatever it's in.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Patents last a long time.

00:53:34 ◼   ► So Apple does not want to be paying this company

00:53:37 ◼   ► for every single Apple watch they make some dollar amount

00:53:40 ◼   ► for an idea that Apple thinks they don't deserve

00:53:43 ◼   ► to have exclusivity on.

00:53:44 ◼   ► Apple is very, very principled.

00:53:46 ◼   ► We know that.

00:53:47 ◼   ► We saw how hard they fought against Epic,

00:53:51 ◼   ► which maybe we'll get to that in a little bit,

00:53:53 ◼   ► but we saw the principled stand they take

00:53:57 ◼   ► about protecting what they believe is theirs

00:54:00 ◼   ► in the app store and the taxes they charge to developers

00:54:02 ◼   ► in the app store and the gatekeeper fees they charge.

00:54:06 ◼   ► They feel so strongly that, a lot of times to Apple,

00:54:10 ◼   ► they're a very opinionated company,

00:54:13 ◼   ► a very principled company,

00:54:14 ◼   ► and usually that is a very good thing.

00:54:16 ◼   ► You know with stuff like this,

00:54:18 ◼   ► they're not gonna just say fine,

00:54:19 ◼   ► we'll give you five bucks per Apple watch or whatever.

00:54:21 ◼   ► They're not gonna say that,

00:54:22 ◼   ► because they are probably so mad

00:54:25 ◼   ► that this company even thinks they deserve five bucks

00:54:28 ◼   ► from each Apple watch,

00:54:30 ◼   ► because Apple probably thinks they invented this stuff

00:54:33 ◼   ► or this stuff is common sense

00:54:34 ◼   ► or it shouldn't have been patented or whatever,

00:54:37 ◼   ► because again, that's how patents work.

00:54:39 ◼   ► They're all BS.

00:54:40 ◼   ► So I don't see Apple being necessarily willing

00:54:44 ◼   ► to solve this problem with money

00:54:46 ◼   ► if the solution with money involves

00:54:48 ◼   ► we'll give you five bucks for every Apple watch we sell

00:54:50 ◼   ► for the next 15 years.

00:54:51 ◼   ► - No, they would never do that.

00:54:52 ◼   ► They would just buy the company at that point.

00:54:54 ◼   ► - Maybe, but then what does the company want them to pay?

00:54:58 ◼   ► Because Apple probably hates this company

00:55:01 ◼   ► and they would rather probably bury this company

00:55:04 ◼   ► in lawsuits for years than to actually buy them.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Because again, they're a principled company.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - I'm saying buy the company jokingly

00:55:13 ◼   ► because they wouldn't actually sell an Apple

00:55:14 ◼   ► and offer to buy them.

00:55:15 ◼   ► But what I'm saying is that money can solve this problem

00:55:17 ◼   ► in many ways. - Oh, it can.

00:55:18 ◼   ► - There's no way they would sign up

00:55:20 ◼   ► for that protection racket where they'd pay that.

00:55:23 ◼   ► If they license the patent,

00:55:25 ◼   ► they would do it the way they license all their patents,

00:55:27 ◼   ► which is like, we just want to be done with you.

00:55:28 ◼   ► We never want to see you again.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Kind of like what they did with Arm,

00:55:31 ◼   ► not that it's adversarial,

00:55:32 ◼   ► but like getting the architecture license.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Whatever that license is,

00:55:36 ◼   ► it seems like they can now can do what they want with Arm

00:55:39 ◼   ► without worrying about that anymore.

00:55:41 ◼   ► Same thing with the cross-license patent agreements.

00:55:43 ◼   ► They just want this to be over and go away.

00:55:45 ◼   ► And whatever reason, Massimo is playing hard ball

00:55:47 ◼   ► and they haven't agreed on a price.

00:55:49 ◼   ► But I feel like they have to,

00:55:50 ◼   ► because there's no way they're gonna stop selling

00:55:52 ◼   ► the Apple watch, right?

00:55:53 ◼   ► They're gonna figure it out.

00:55:54 ◼   ► I mean, not for a long time.

00:55:55 ◼   ► I mean, maybe they'll do it for a week or a month

00:55:57 ◼   ► or whatever to put political pressure on,

00:55:59 ◼   ► but they're not gonna forego an entire year worth

00:56:01 ◼   ► of Apple watch ultra sales.

00:56:03 ◼   ► - So what do you think about patents, gentlemen?

00:56:06 ◼   ► - Not a fan.

00:56:07 ◼   ► - Not a big fan.

00:56:10 ◼   ► All right, I think we have time to keep on keeping on.

00:56:12 ◼   ► So let's talk about the next breaking piece of news

00:56:15 ◼   ► from earlier today.

00:56:16 ◼   ► Adobe is giving up on their 20 billion

00:56:20 ◼   ► with a b-b-b-b dollar acquisition of Figma.

00:56:23 ◼   ► The two of them have decided that there is no chance

00:56:26 ◼   ► this is gonna get through regulators in the UK and the US.

00:56:29 ◼   ► So the heck with it, we're gonna part ways.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Oh, and apparently Adobe owes Figma

00:56:33 ◼   ► a billion dollars in termination fees.

00:56:36 ◼   ► Whoopsie-doopsies.

00:56:37 ◼   ► I can't say this is terribly surprising to me.

00:56:40 ◼   ► And I honestly don't know a whole bunch about either company

00:56:43 ◼   ► 'cause I've never really used Adobe stuff

00:56:45 ◼   ► and I've never had the occasion to use Figma.

00:56:46 ◼   ► - You've never used Adobe stuff?

00:56:48 ◼   ► - Not really, not in any regularity.

00:56:50 ◼   ► I never touched Photoshop with any--

00:56:52 ◼   ► - What about Acrobat back in your PC days?

00:56:54 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, well that's fair.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I didn't think about that.

00:56:56 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

00:56:57 ◼   ► But anyways, yeah, so apparently they're breaking up

00:56:59 ◼   ► and a billion dollars to Figma.

00:57:02 ◼   ► You know, you may pass go and you may collect a billion dollars.

00:57:05 ◼   ► - It seems so weird that they had such a big breakup fee

00:57:07 ◼   ► in what would always look like a risky thing

00:57:10 ◼   ► 'cause Adobe, despite Casey not using it,

00:57:12 ◼   ► is a pretty well-known company

00:57:13 ◼   ► with a couple of products you might've heard of

00:57:15 ◼   ► like Photoshop.

00:57:15 ◼   ► They are the big dog in the markets

00:57:18 ◼   ► that they participate in.

00:57:20 ◼   ► Adobe has gobbled up a bunch of its competitors in the past,

00:57:23 ◼   ► either gobbled up or defeated or both its competitors

00:57:26 ◼   ► being the bigger and bigger dog.

00:57:28 ◼   ► And Figma was the first company in a long time

00:57:31 ◼   ► to start giving Adobe a run for its money.

00:57:33 ◼   ► So Adobe trying to acquire them,

00:57:36 ◼   ► you have to, everyone involved has to know,

00:57:38 ◼   ► boy, this might be tough to get past regulators

00:57:40 ◼   ► because in general, if a company like Adobe

00:57:43 ◼   ► started out as being an important company in their market

00:57:48 ◼   ► and just grew and grew and ate their competitors

00:57:51 ◼   ► and grew and ate and defeated their competitors

00:57:52 ◼   ► and grew and ate and defeated their competitors

00:57:54 ◼   ► and then wants to buy some,

00:57:55 ◼   ► the one company that has challenged them in ages

00:57:59 ◼   ► for 20 billion, you're gonna look askance at that and say,

00:58:02 ◼   ► this probably doesn't seem like it would make

00:58:04 ◼   ► for a healthier market.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And so they put a $1 billion breakup fee in there.

00:58:09 ◼   ► And as Daniel Jock had pointed out earlier today,

00:58:11 ◼   ► like I think Figma has like a thousand employees.

00:58:14 ◼   ► So that $1 billion breakup fee,

00:58:17 ◼   ► in theory you could give a million dollars

00:58:18 ◼   ► to every Figma employee,

00:58:20 ◼   ► which of course is not what's going to happen, right?

00:58:22 ◼   ► Because that's not how capitalism works.

00:58:23 ◼   ► But like- - Can you imagine though,

00:58:25 ◼   ► that would be unreal.

00:58:26 ◼   ► I know it will never happen.

00:58:28 ◼   ► I'm not arguing it will never happen.

00:58:29 ◼   ► But can you imagine if any one of these,

00:58:32 ◼   ► what did you say, a thousand people,

00:58:33 ◼   ► rank and file employees? - Yeah, those employees, yeah.

00:58:35 ◼   ► - Can you imagine if just,

00:58:36 ◼   ► they snapped their fingers Thanos style,

00:58:38 ◼   ► but then all of a sudden everyone's a billionaire,

00:58:40 ◼   ► excuse me, a millionaire, that would be unreal.

00:58:43 ◼   ► What a cool story that would be.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Unfortunately, it will never happen.

00:58:46 ◼   ► - I mean, I think they all stood to make a lot more

00:58:48 ◼   ► in their Adobe stock or whatever they're gonna get

00:58:50 ◼   ► as part of the deal.

00:58:50 ◼   ► So this is, obviously, yeah, all this money is gonna go.

00:58:53 ◼   ► A few people are gonna make a lot of money

00:58:55 ◼   ► with this breakup fee,

00:58:56 ◼   ► and most of the employees are gonna make nothing,

00:58:57 ◼   ► I would assume.

00:58:58 ◼   ► 'Cause that's the way capitalism works.

00:59:00 ◼   ► But yeah, that's a big breakup fee for a deal

00:59:03 ◼   ► that if you had to place odds on,

00:59:05 ◼   ► it would be difficult to know which side to bet.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I'm glad they went against not knowing the details,

00:59:10 ◼   ► but my general inclination is competition is good

00:59:14 ◼   ► and the market that Adobe's in needs more competition,

00:59:17 ◼   ► not less, and I have used Adobe and I have used Figma.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And I do see how they compete with each other.

00:59:23 ◼   ► They also are slightly complimentary

00:59:24 ◼   ► because they come at things in a different way.

00:59:26 ◼   ► And the places where Adobe's strong

00:59:28 ◼   ► is not where Figma is strong.

00:59:30 ◼   ► But the whole point is people were using Figma

00:59:32 ◼   ► instead of the equivalent or non-equivalent,

00:59:36 ◼   ► non-existing Adobe tools.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And that's why the market was shifting a little bit.

00:59:40 ◼   ► It was like, hey, Figma has something that Adobe doesn't.

00:59:42 ◼   ► It's competition.

00:59:43 ◼   ► They weren't making a Photoshop replacement

00:59:45 ◼   ► that was better than Photoshop.

00:59:46 ◼   ► They were coming at it from a different angle,

00:59:48 ◼   ► really focusing on collaboration

00:59:50 ◼   ► and focusing on the use cases that for the modern world

00:59:53 ◼   ► that were, you know, lots of Adobe products

00:59:55 ◼   ► were created before the web existed.

00:59:56 ◼   ► So that really colors their lineage and their feature set.

01:00:00 ◼   ► And Figma is totally focused on a world

01:00:03 ◼   ► where we're all connected and collaborating on things.

01:00:06 ◼   ► So yeah, my instinctual inclination

01:00:09 ◼   ► and when any of these huge mergers come is

01:00:11 ◼   ► let's not do that.

01:00:12 ◼   ► Well, let's just let them go on their own.

01:00:14 ◼   ► And Figma is not, I think Figma can exist on its own.

01:00:18 ◼   ► People are like, well, who's gonna buy Figma now?

01:00:21 ◼   ► I don't like the idea that the only reason a company exists

01:00:23 ◼   ► is to get bought by a larger company.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I know that's a big thing

01:00:26 ◼   ► and there's some disinheming, hawing about this.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Like, oh, if they don't let this deal come through,

01:00:29 ◼   ► how are startups gonna get funded?

01:00:31 ◼   ► Because the only way startups get funded

01:00:32 ◼   ► is they assume they'll eventually get bought

01:00:34 ◼   ► by the bigger company.

01:00:35 ◼   ► It's like, that's not healthy.

01:00:36 ◼   ► If the whole purpose of making a startup

01:00:38 ◼   ► is to be eventually be acquired by the bigger company,

01:00:40 ◼   ► all you do is feeding people and ideas

01:00:42 ◼   ► into the bigger company

01:00:43 ◼   ► that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

01:00:45 ◼   ► You can actually make a competing company

01:00:47 ◼   ► that makes a profit and pays employees

01:00:51 ◼   ► and makes a product and improves it.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like, lots of the companies that are around today

01:00:54 ◼   ► started that way.

01:00:56 ◼   ► If they weren't, like every single company

01:00:58 ◼   ► that we talk about on the show would all be owned

01:00:59 ◼   ► by IBM or something and there'd just be one company

01:01:01 ◼   ► that's called IBM and it owns the former Microsoft

01:01:03 ◼   ► and it owns the former Apple and it owns the former Atari

01:01:05 ◼   ► and it owns the former everybody

01:01:06 ◼   ► 'cause they just buy everything.

01:01:07 ◼   ► Like, hey, what's wrong with that?

01:01:09 ◼   ► - I feel like that's the current environment.

01:01:10 ◼   ► - I bet they would make really great products.

01:01:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, which is like the,

01:01:14 ◼   ► like whatever the big companies are that exist now,

01:01:16 ◼   ► it's like, well, no other companies can exist

01:01:18 ◼   ► except for these ones.

01:01:20 ◼   ► And from now on, the only thing you can do

01:01:22 ◼   ► is make a startup that you hope will be acquired

01:01:24 ◼   ► by one of them.

01:01:25 ◼   ► I think the last big one that appeared,

01:01:26 ◼   ► I assume we would say like Facebook and Google

01:01:28 ◼   ► were the last two big ones to appear.

01:01:29 ◼   ► And now it's like, this is it, this is the set.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And your company's just gonna get acquired

01:01:34 ◼   ► by the stupid abbreviations they have for it.

01:01:38 ◼   ► I forget what it is, like Famp or whatever,

01:01:39 ◼   ► it was like Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe,

01:01:44 ◼   ► like just like these big companies

01:01:47 ◼   ► in each of their markets that are so dominant,

01:01:49 ◼   ► they stop them from buying everybody, right?

01:01:51 ◼   ► And if Figma can't make it on its own,

01:01:52 ◼   ► it's like, oh, we invested so much money,

01:01:55 ◼   ► the only reason we've been able to make this good product

01:01:56 ◼   ► is 'cause we're not viable as a standalone business,

01:01:59 ◼   ► our only purpose is to be acquired.

01:02:01 ◼   ► Well, that's a bad business plan, don't do that.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Being acquired, fine, maybe that can happen.

01:02:05 ◼   ► That's a fine way to exit for certain companies.

01:02:07 ◼   ► But if you grow to the size of Figma

01:02:08 ◼   ► where the biggest company wants to buy you for 20 billion,

01:02:11 ◼   ► you probably have a viable business on your own.

01:02:13 ◼   ► At least I hope you do.

01:02:14 ◼   ► You've got 1,000 employees,

01:02:15 ◼   ► someone wants to buy you for 20 billion,

01:02:17 ◼   ► you can't make money?

01:02:18 ◼   ► You can't figure out how to be

01:02:19 ◼   ► a profitable standalone company?

01:02:20 ◼   ► You have to be acquired or is it because your investors

01:02:22 ◼   ► are like, well, the only way we get our big payday

01:02:23 ◼   ► is if you get acquired?

01:02:25 ◼   ► Ugh, it's more distasteful side effects

01:02:29 ◼   ► of our economic system.

01:02:30 ◼   ► So I don't, again, I'm not being gleeful saying,

01:02:32 ◼   ► because they get these Figma employees,

01:02:34 ◼   ► you know, they're working within the system we have

01:02:36 ◼   ► and part of the system we have is one of the big payoffs

01:02:39 ◼   ► you might get from working at this company

01:02:41 ◼   ► is you might get acquired

01:02:41 ◼   ► and you might make out like a bandit, right?

01:02:44 ◼   ► And I just don't begrudge them that.

01:02:45 ◼   ► I think they deserve that

01:02:47 ◼   ► as much as anyone deserves anything,

01:02:48 ◼   ► but it's another example of working within a system

01:02:50 ◼   ► that I think is bad.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And we all have to work within it

01:02:53 ◼   ► because it's a system that we have,

01:02:54 ◼   ► but I really wish we would work to change that system.

01:02:57 ◼   ► And part of the system, like it or not,

01:03:00 ◼   ► are regulators that sometimes say

01:03:01 ◼   ► that a big company can't buy some other company.

01:03:04 ◼   ► And in this case, it was the UK and the EU

01:03:06 ◼   ► instead of the US, but you know,

01:03:08 ◼   ► that's also part of the system.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It's also part of the risk of being an employee

01:03:12 ◼   ► and hoping you're gonna get bought out by a bigger company.

01:03:15 ◼   ► That merger may be stopped by regulators.

01:03:18 ◼   ► And in this case, I'm not sad that it was stopped.

01:03:20 ◼   ► - All right, and then the last piece of breaking news

01:03:24 ◼   ► from earlier today is that data from test flight servers

01:03:29 ◼   ► from 2012 to 2015.

01:03:30 ◼   ► So this is before Apple certainly took ownership.

01:03:35 ◼   ► I think it was before Apple even said

01:03:37 ◼   ► they were going to buy test flight,

01:03:39 ◼   ► or it was before all that happened, I believe.

01:03:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, test flight used to be a separate company,

01:03:44 ◼   ► like a little startup.

01:03:44 ◼   ► It was much more limited and much harder to use,

01:03:48 ◼   ► but it was pretty useful at the time.

01:03:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, definitely very well put.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Anyways, there's a bunch of data

01:03:54 ◼   ► that maybe has been leaked.

01:03:56 ◼   ► I'm not sure that leak is really

01:03:58 ◼   ► the right classification here.

01:03:59 ◼   ► And maybe we'll figure about that in a second.

01:04:01 ◼   ► Uncover might be a better word for it, thank you.

01:04:03 ◼   ► But anyways, a bunch of data, like terabytes worth of data,

01:04:05 ◼   ► has been exposed or uncovered, like Marco had said,

01:04:10 ◼   ► from test flight servers back in the 2012 to 2015 era.

01:04:14 ◼   ► And so we're not entirely sure how this came to be.

01:04:17 ◼   ► We're not even entirely sure if this was recent,

01:04:19 ◼   ► but certainly it's become a bit of a brouhaha

01:04:21 ◼   ► over the last 24 hours.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Yeah, a lot of old builds,

01:04:26 ◼   ► a lot of old data coming to light.

01:04:28 ◼   ► It appears that this may relate to Amazon S3 buckets

01:04:33 ◼   ► that were not properly protected.

01:04:35 ◼   ► Maybe?

01:04:36 ◼   ► - That's the fourth hard problem in computer science,

01:04:39 ◼   ► is properly protecting S3 buckets, right?

01:04:41 ◼   ► - Right.

01:04:42 ◼   ► - I think the deal with this,

01:04:44 ◼   ► again, this story just broke this morning.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I think the deal with this is that this data dump

01:04:47 ◼   ► has existed for like a decade

01:04:48 ◼   ► and people are just rediscovering it

01:04:50 ◼   ► because people have short memories.

01:04:52 ◼   ► And it's like, it's in archive.org, right?

01:04:54 ◼   ► Regardless of when this leaked, how old the leak it is,

01:04:57 ◼   ► how much we forgot about it

01:04:59 ◼   ► and are rediscovering it 10 years later

01:05:00 ◼   ► because we all have short memories.

01:05:02 ◼   ► It's not great.

01:05:04 ◼   ► It's out there, right?

01:05:05 ◼   ► It's not the source code for these things.

01:05:06 ◼   ► It's binary.

01:05:07 ◼   ► So what you upload to TestFlight is a build of your app

01:05:12 ◼   ► that you're testing on people's devices.

01:05:13 ◼   ► It's not the final one probably

01:05:15 ◼   ► that you're gonna send to the app store.

01:05:15 ◼   ► Maybe it might be if they decide that build works,

01:05:19 ◼   ► but it's all the in-between builds that you send.

01:05:21 ◼   ► And so they're binaries, or maybe in some cases,

01:05:23 ◼   ► bit code if Apple Watch was around back then.

01:05:27 ◼   ► For tons of stuff.

01:05:28 ◼   ► And people are sort of digging through this giant archive

01:05:31 ◼   ► of binaries, trying to see if there's anything useful.

01:05:34 ◼   ► The link we'll put in the show notes is from Eurogamer.

01:05:36 ◼   ► It's because it's like,

01:05:37 ◼   ► look at these prototypes of games that never shipped

01:05:39 ◼   ► 'cause they developed them, they put them out on TestFlight.

01:05:42 ◼   ► They decided they're never gonna ship them.

01:05:43 ◼   ► So if you wanna find some weird unreleased game,

01:05:46 ◼   ► including some unreleased flappy bird variant,

01:05:48 ◼   ► because that's what people at Eurogamer

01:05:51 ◼   ► are excited about, I guess, you could dig through this.

01:05:53 ◼   ► But this is the difficulty of,

01:05:57 ◼   ► leaving stuff unprotected on the internet,

01:05:58 ◼   ► and then when it makes its way into archive.org,

01:06:01 ◼   ► apparently it's hard to get rid of it.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Even 10 years later, if this really is a leak from,

01:06:04 ◼   ► or people say it's not a leak, they just crawled it.

01:06:08 ◼   ► But either way, TestFlight didn't intend

01:06:11 ◼   ► for this to be in archive.org,

01:06:13 ◼   ► and yet it is in archive.org,

01:06:15 ◼   ► because archive.org crawled the TestFlight site

01:06:18 ◼   ► and followed links and eventually found all this stuff

01:06:20 ◼   ► and slurped it all up, and now it's there.

01:06:22 ◼   ► It would be great if Apple/TestFlight could say,

01:06:25 ◼   ► "Hey, archive.org, can you remove all that?

01:06:28 ◼   ► "Because we don't own all that intellectual property

01:06:31 ◼   ► "and neither do you,

01:06:32 ◼   ► "so it probably shouldn't be in archive.org."

01:06:33 ◼   ► 'Cause it's basically, it's builds of,

01:06:35 ◼   ► did you use TestFlight in that year range?

01:06:37 ◼   ► Did you upload an app?

01:06:38 ◼   ► Your app's probably in this data dump, right?

01:06:42 ◼   ► And you probably don't want it there.

01:06:43 ◼   ► I mean, maybe it's irrelevant, maybe you don't care,

01:06:45 ◼   ► maybe it's a build of an app that's long dead

01:06:47 ◼   ► or it's useless to everybody

01:06:48 ◼   ► 'cause it only runs on all the OSs or whatever.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It's weird, but it's also a cautionary tale.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Check your S3 bucket permissions.

01:06:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:06:58 ◼   ► And it just sounds dumb, but like,

01:07:00 ◼   ► Amazon doesn't make this that easy

01:07:03 ◼   ► and they've worked on it over the years

01:07:04 ◼   ► to try to make it more obvious when you screw this up.

01:07:08 ◼   ► There are whole companies, part of their product

01:07:10 ◼   ► is they will go over your stuff in AWS

01:07:12 ◼   ► and make sure you haven't done something boneheaded

01:07:14 ◼   ► and yet it happens all the time.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Someone has an S3 bucket, which for people to know,

01:07:20 ◼   ► it's just a place on the internet where you can store files,

01:07:22 ◼   ► there's lots of imitators.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And they accidentally make it accessible to everybody.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And it's like, how would they not notice this?

01:07:29 ◼   ► You don't notice it

01:07:30 ◼   ► because you can't really get anything out of it

01:07:33 ◼   ► unless you sort of know the file name.

01:07:34 ◼   ► So it's security through obscurity,

01:07:36 ◼   ► especially if they don't allow it,

01:07:37 ◼   ► like essentially directory listing to use web parlance.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Like you can set the permission so,

01:07:42 ◼   ► oh, nobody can iterate over the contents.

01:07:44 ◼   ► You can't list what's here.

01:07:45 ◼   ► But if you know the file name,

01:07:47 ◼   ► you can make a request for it and you'll get it.

01:07:49 ◼   ► And the file names are really big and obscure.

01:07:51 ◼   ► And it's like, well, you wouldn't notice

01:07:54 ◼   ► that it's publicly accessible

01:07:55 ◼   ► because no one would be making those requests.

01:07:56 ◼   ► But if you have a crawler,

01:07:57 ◼   ► especially if that crawler is seeded with like,

01:07:59 ◼   ► it knows that you use like the app ID as the file name

01:08:02 ◼   ► and it has a bunch of app IDs from elsewhere,

01:08:04 ◼   ► then the crawler can just go through

01:08:06 ◼   ► and try all those app IDs.

01:08:08 ◼   ► The whole point is your S3 bucket

01:08:10 ◼   ► shouldn't be publicly accessible.

01:08:11 ◼   ► Random person on the internet

01:08:15 ◼   ► should not be able to pull a file from it

01:08:16 ◼   ► if it's not supposed to be publicly accessible.

01:08:18 ◼   ► There should be some authentication

01:08:20 ◼   ► or you have to be allowed to get that file like

01:08:22 ◼   ► because you're the developer of the file

01:08:24 ◼   ► and that's how you can get it.

01:08:25 ◼   ► But doing that can be a little bit annoying.

01:08:27 ◼   ► And especially with the efficiencies of S3

01:08:29 ◼   ► where you really don't want them to go through your server

01:08:31 ◼   ► or to bounce off your server,

01:08:32 ◼   ► you want them to go directly to S3

01:08:33 ◼   ► because that's one of the wonderful things about S3

01:08:35 ◼   ► is that it's available everywhere

01:08:36 ◼   ► and it's close by and blah, blah, blah.

01:08:39 ◼   ► People take a shortcut and they say,

01:08:42 ◼   ► well, no one's gonna guess this URL anyway.

01:08:44 ◼   ► We'll just make the bucket publicly accessible.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Or they accidentally make it publicly accessible.

01:08:47 ◼   ► But again, they never realize it's publicly accessible

01:08:49 ◼   ► because it seems like you can't get anything from it

01:08:51 ◼   ► without knowing how to get to it.

01:08:52 ◼   ► But especially automated computer crawlers,

01:08:55 ◼   ► they'll just follow links.

01:08:56 ◼   ► They don't know which ones they're quote unquote

01:08:57 ◼   ► supposed to or not supposed to follow.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So if they find an in, they'll just go and crawl and scrape

01:09:02 ◼   ► and pull everything out of there

01:09:03 ◼   ► and it ends up in archive.org.

01:09:05 ◼   ► - I mean, in all fairness,

01:09:07 ◼   ► if you set up a new S3 bucket today,

01:09:10 ◼   ► they make you jump through many hoops

01:09:13 ◼   ► to make it publicly accessible.

01:09:15 ◼   ► Amazon has learned, wow, people mess this up a lot.

01:09:19 ◼   ► So they, like you have to,

01:09:22 ◼   ► it is now so complicated and convoluted

01:09:25 ◼   ► to make any part of an S3 bucket publicly accessible.

01:09:28 ◼   ► So it's better now.

01:09:30 ◼   ► - People are motivated to do it

01:09:32 ◼   ► because they're like, my app's not working.

01:09:33 ◼   ► I keep getting an error on S3.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And they're like, they just bash AWS

01:09:36 ◼   ► until this error stops.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Like, oh, done, now the error's not,

01:09:38 ◼   ► I'm not sure what I did,

01:09:39 ◼   ► but now I'm not getting any more errors pulling from S3.

01:09:41 ◼   ► So I guess everything's fine.

01:09:42 ◼   ► And then, you know, fast forward 10 years

01:09:44 ◼   ► and someone has scraped everything out of their bucket

01:09:46 ◼   ► and it's in archive.org.

01:09:49 ◼   ► - As mentioned earlier,

01:09:50 ◼   ► we are supported exclusively this episode by ATP members.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Please consider becoming a member today at ATP.fm/join.

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01:11:47 ◼   ► and back to the show.

01:11:48 ◼   ► - All right, let's do some Ask ATP,

01:11:54 ◼   ► and Tom Bullock writes, "What's the best way in 2023

01:11:56 ◼   ► to run an old version of OS X, for example, Tiger?"

01:12:00 ◼   ► I don't know, to be honest with you.

01:12:03 ◼   ► I know that Apple has a bit of sample code,

01:12:07 ◼   ► and I think eRambo might have put something together

01:12:09 ◼   ► where you can like use whatever the hypervisor is.

01:12:13 ◼   ► - Virtualization framework.

01:12:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and you can very, very cheaply

01:12:17 ◼   ► and reasonably easily create and run a virtual machine.

01:12:22 ◼   ► I dabbled with this briefly like six months or a year ago,

01:12:25 ◼   ► and it was pretty good.

01:12:26 ◼   ► I would assume that the right answer is something

01:12:29 ◼   ► like VMware Fusion or Parallels, but I honestly don't know.

01:12:33 ◼   ► I think, Jon, you might be the best person