540: Validation for Shower Jason
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(upbeat music)
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From Relay, this is Upgrade,
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episode 540, recorded December the 2nd, 2024.
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It's brought to you by Delete.me, Smarter World,
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and ExpressVPN.
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I am Jason Snell, your usual host,
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but I'm not doing all the stuff
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that usually is done by Mike Hurley,
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because Mike Hurley is on assignment.
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And so sitting in for Mr. Michael Hurley today
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is our very special guest, Mr. Stephen M. Hackett.
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Oh, I got the initial.
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I wanted to-- It was fancy.
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I wanted to introduce you as I, Stephen M. Hackett,
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but that's a little bit weird.
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Now I'm inspired, sorry,
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I'm gonna make a little baseball tangent here, I apologize.
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The Giants radio broadcasters,
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John Miller, Hall of Famer,
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and Hall of Fame broadcaster, and David Fleming.
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Dave Fleming is introduced by John every time
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as David B. Fleming.
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And it's like it's his dad introducing him,
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and it just makes me laugh.
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So I thought I'd give you the Stephen M.
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Since your middle initial is part of your public persona,
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I thought I'd throw it in there.
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Yeah, I really tried when I first started on the internet
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to make it really real.
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I included it everywhere, but it sort of faded over time.
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But we can't talk about baseball,
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because we have a Snell Talk question.
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Bless you. About baseball.
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I'm giving Kevin credit for this,
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but many, many, many people wrote in about this.
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Kevin said, "What will happen to the Snell family jerseys
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now that Blake Snell is moving on to the hated Dodgers?"
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Okay, do I have to explain what this means to you?
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No, I understand.
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My context of this is listening to Upgrade.
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Okay, so yeah, you know all about it
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from listening to a computer podcast about baseball.
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Yes, Blake Snell, who is not related to me in any way,
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was a Giant for a year.
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He signed a two-year contract
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that was very clearly only going to be a one-year contract.
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And he opted out at the end of the year.
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And during this year,
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we bought a lot of Snell-branded Giants merchandise.
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And now he has signed as a free agent
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with the hated Dodgers.
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This has had, okay,
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so a lot of people have asked about this.
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First off, I don't really care,
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'cause the whole point here,
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I'm not really a Blake Snell fan.
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He's great, he threw a no-hitter for the Giants.
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It's awesome. That's right.
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I know that from listening to the award-winning
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Upgrade program.
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Yeah, indeed, indeed.
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We're a very popular baseball podcast.
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And a very popular podcast
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that's also sometimes about baseball,
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but they're not connected.
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So-- That's a different show.
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He's fine, he's fine.
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He's an interesting pitcher.
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But my prime interest in him is that he has my last name.
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And if he comes to your team,
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there's a whole bunch of Snell-branded stuff
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that you get to buy then.
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So he spent a year on the Giants.
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It allowed me to buy a jersey.
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It allowed me to buy a T-shirt.
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It allowed me to buy a T-shirt for my daughter.
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It allowed me to buy a jersey for my wife.
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We all had a good time,
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because see, our names remain Snell
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and we remain Giants fans.
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So it's fine. It's fine.
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I'm a little bummed out because he is a good pitcher
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that he's on the Dodgers now.
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But at the same time, he's also kind of injury-prone
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and can't throw for very many innings usually.
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So it's a risk for the Dodgers.
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They're paying him a lot of money.
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They're happy to do that.
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So that's fine. That's fine. It's fine.
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What's funny now is that my good friend Greg Noss,
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the Dodger fan,
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he can buy some Snell-branded merchandise and wear that
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and go, "Yay, Snell!"
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And he has to do that now because he's a Dodger fan.
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And that actually kind of delights me.
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So that's good.
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Also, I hear from the grapevine
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that one of his sons works in the baseball industry.
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It wouldn't be amazing
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if he ended up working for the Giants.
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That's all I'm saying.
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I'm not saying that he is,
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but I mean, wouldn't that be great if he did?
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I just would love that you're a loyal Dodger fan
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your whole life, and then you get work in the industry,
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you work where you need to,
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and it's at the Giants that just make me laugh.
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Anyway, thank you to everybody who wrote in,
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and I got it on social media.
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We didn't even mention the other huge Snell news,
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by the way, from last week,
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which was on the TV show "Star Trek Lower Decks."
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I'm a huge "Star Trek" fan, lifelong "Star Trek" fan.
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They go to a planet
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that's got all these people on it
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with a little antenna on their head,
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and these little aliens,
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and they have to hide out for months.
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They have to live there because they get stranded.
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And there's always, when you're undercover,
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there's always that one snoopy character,
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sneaky character who's always looking around for you.
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And on the old "Bewitch" TV show,
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it was Gladys Kravitz, the nosy neighbor,
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who was like, "I think there's witchcraft going on,"
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and everybody else thinks she's crazy,
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but of course there is witchcraft going on.
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It's what the show is about.
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Anyway, that guy, the sneaky Snoop guy
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in that whole episode who is used as a joke
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and a punching bag, his name is Snell.
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Yeah, it was a big Snell week
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around the old Snell household.
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So... - The Snelliverse.
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- Wild, wild.
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Can we talk about the gift of Relay now?
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I think we should do that.
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You are a Relay co-founder,
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so you wanna let people know the magic stuff
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that you and Mike have hatched up for this holiday season?
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- Yeah, let's do it.
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So giverelay.com is where you wanna go.
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You can use the code 2024holiday though,
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if you go through the link in the show notes
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or on the website.
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So what's the deal?
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20% off all annual memberships from now until December 18th.
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So for upgrade, that means you get upgrade plus,
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which is longer ad-free episodes each and every week.
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I love the upgrade plus segments, they're so good.
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But you also get access to the Relay members Discord
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and tons of bonus content,
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like two monthly members only shows,
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a newsletter, some wallpapers, a bunch of cool stuff.
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And yeah, giverelay.com.
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So if you already have a membership
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to like another Relay show and you wanna add upgrade,
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you can do that or you can gift it to somebody else.
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So say you've got maybe a roommate who listens to upgrade,
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y'all do it together and they wanna become a member,
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or maybe you're like me and I think like Jason,
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I think a lot of us who are nerdy
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were kind of hard to shop for.
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Just send that link to your aunt who drew your name
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for the Christmas gift giving family extravaganza
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and they can hook you up.
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Giverelay.com through December 18th, 20% off and let's do it.
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And this week on upgrade plus,
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we're gonna talk about Thanksgiving stuff.
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So that's right.
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And when there's always something,
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there's a whole other segment of the show
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that happens after we say goodbye.
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It's not like connected Steven where we do it before,
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we do it after, it's like an after.
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It's fine, connected just is very interesting
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'cause you talk about like video games and well,
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Mike and Federico talking about video games
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and you cry to yourself, I guess.
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That's right.
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Or just show up 15 minutes late, I don't know.
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Yeah, how that works.
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Yeah, we do connected, we do pro show at the beginning
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and then we pick titles at the end,
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kind of a little bit of both.
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Yeah, a little bit of both, that's true.
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There's the title picking at the end.
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Last week's title was an all time classic.
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In how nonsensical it is and how much Mike laughed
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when he saw it as a title suggestion.
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That was a really good one.
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And I'll also point out that in your list of scenarios
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in which you might give the gift of relay,
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I liked how they got increasingly less likely
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as you went along.
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I was waiting for the like, let's say you're in space
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and okay, what will happen then?
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Anyway, lots of reasons to give the gift of relay
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or have someone give it to you.
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RSS cannot be held back by the bounds of gravity.
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No, or probability, quite frankly, it's not powerful.
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RSS is define gravity.
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Should we do some follow up?
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That was a wicked reference you were making there.
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We were defining gravity for a moment.
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You wanna handle follow up?
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This is weird.
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Yeah, I can do follow up.
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I'll drive through follow up.
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So Apple Watch plus emergency calls.
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So y'all were talking about like going for a run
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and leaving your phone behind,
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something I know that you do quite often.
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And a gradient Doug wrote in,
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"Isn't it the case with the cellular Apple Watch
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"that you can call emergency services
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"even if you don't pay a monthly fee
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"to your cellular provider?"
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So in doing some homework for this,
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I'll tell you it's actually kind of confusing,
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but Apple says that emergency SOS
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requires a cellular connection on the Apple Watch
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or wifi calling with an internet connection
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from a nearby iPhone.
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So I think I know what this is referring to.
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So legally in the US at least,
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I can't speak for other countries,
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but in the US legally,
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if you have a device that has a cellular radio in it,
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it needs to be able to call 911 essentially.
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Even if, I mean, basically even if it's not,
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doesn't have an active plan on it,
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but the real reason that that law is there
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is so if you're in an area like my house,
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honestly, my house is like this,
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where you have Verizon and you come to my house,
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You're not getting a signal at my house.
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My house has no Verizon or T-Mobile,
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it only has AT&T and you have to walk like down the block
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and then the Verizon shows up.
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So if you're in a place or you're just out,
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you're in the woods somewhere,
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but there is one cell tower.
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So it's not, you don't have to go to satellite.
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You don't have to fall back to satellite.
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And this is the difference.
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If you're looking at your phone and it says AT&T,
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you're like, "Oh, I'm on AT&T."
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And then you go out further into the woods
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and it says emergency SOS,
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but it doesn't say satellite.
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And then you go further out into the woods
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and it shows the satellite.
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That interim step, it can see a cell tower.
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It just can't see your cell tower.
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And by law, if you need to call 911,
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the fact that you're not a T-Mobile subscriber
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is not gonna get in the way of saving your life.
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Right, it will roam to AT&T to make the call effectively.
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So what I don't know is,
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so the Apple Watch absolutely has to do that,
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I think, legally.
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You have to be able to make an emergency call
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from a cellular Apple Watch, even if you don't have a plan.
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Here's the thing though.
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I'm not sure whether if you fall
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and you have the automatic fall detection,
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do I need to call for help thing if it calls 911
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in that case or not?
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I don't know.
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'Cause that's a specific feature of fall detection.
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I would hope that it would, but I honestly don't know.
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And the reason I mentioned this in the scenario is,
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not everything is a 911 call.
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I guess, when I fell, I fell and bruised my ribs
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while running a couple of years ago.
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And I didn't call 911, I called my wife and I said,
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"I fell, I bruised my ribs.
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"I think that's all it is.
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"I can walk, I didn't hit my head.
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"I wanted to let you know,
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"but I'm just gonna walk home and go to the ER."
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And that's what I did.
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So that's a call that you wanna be able to make,
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which is why I feel like
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if you're gonna have a cellular Apple Watch,
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you should probably put it on your plan.
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That's not a 911 call,
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but I think it's true that maybe somebody can write in,
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we'll have future follow-up about this.
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Nothing like follow-up about follow-up about,
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that's the best.
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It's finally aged follow-up times two,
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but I don't know whether the fall detection
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triggers it or not.
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Yeah, Apple's documentation is a little confusing there.
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When I experienced the,
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you've been in a car accident and your device is calling 911,
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my phone and watch were with me
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and the watch was going off, right?
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'Cause it's on your person.
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And if the car crash detection,
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it tries to get your attention
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and you basically have to stop it from calling.
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Right, yeah, which I had to do when I fell,
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when I was running, I had to say, no, no, no, please.
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Well, actually it was a moment of like,
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well, I didn't hit my head, so I'm gonna say no to this.
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►
'Cause I'm conscious and I understand what's going on.
00:12:11
◼
►
But yeah, otherwise it triggers.
00:12:14
◼
►
I don't know.
00:12:15
◼
►
These are all weirdly overlapping features
00:12:18
◼
►
and that's even before you get to the satellite stuff.
00:12:21
◼
►
Right, because that's my other question is
00:12:22
◼
►
if you take a big fall with your iPhone
00:12:25
◼
►
when you're in satellite land,
00:12:26
◼
►
does it do an emergency satellite transmission then?
00:12:31
◼
►
I don't know if it does.
00:12:33
◼
►
Oh, you would have to hold it up to the sky
00:12:35
◼
►
so you probably can.
00:12:37
◼
►
It's, yeah, you're right.
00:12:38
◼
►
They all overlap in weird ways,
00:12:40
◼
►
but it's complicated.
00:12:45
◼
►
David Schaub in our chat room
00:12:46
◼
►
is just pasted in an Apple support link
00:12:48
◼
►
with the one word description, complicated.
00:12:51
◼
►
It's complicated is the answer here.
00:12:54
◼
►
Yeah, just like Avril Lavigne said.
00:12:57
◼
►
But it's good to--
00:12:59
◼
►
Come on, you just let that go by?
00:13:01
◼
►
The people on the YouTube version will see me
00:13:05
◼
►
give you a look.
00:13:06
◼
►
I'm just gonna let it go by though.
00:13:10
◼
►
Yeah, anyway, so that's the deal here is yes,
00:13:12
◼
►
if you buy a cellular Apple Watch
00:13:14
◼
►
and don't put a plan on it
00:13:15
◼
►
and you're somewhere and you need help,
00:13:16
◼
►
you will be able to call emergency services,
00:13:19
◼
►
at least in the US and probably in a bunch of other countries
00:13:21
◼
►
that have those rules.
00:13:22
◼
►
But that's it, just emergency services.
00:13:24
◼
►
You can't place an emergency phone call to your mom.
00:13:27
◼
►
That is not allowed.
00:13:28
◼
►
That's that you're getting around.
00:13:30
◼
►
You're gonna make a collect call to my mom?
00:13:32
◼
►
No, you can't call 911.
00:13:34
◼
►
That's all you can do.
00:13:36
◼
►
And at least in the US, that's how it works.
00:13:38
◼
►
But it's a good point that Doug mentions
00:13:42
◼
►
and I think it's worth people knowing
00:13:44
◼
►
that that's what that interim SOS only,
00:13:48
◼
►
emergency only mode means.
00:13:50
◼
►
It's like just because you don't have cell signal
00:13:52
◼
►
doesn't mean you can't call for help if you need help.
00:13:56
◼
►
The answer is just don't fall down.
00:14:00
◼
►
Do what you can.
00:14:01
◼
►
That is my advice.
00:14:02
◼
►
My best advice is don't fall down.
00:14:06
◼
►
We're not doctors, but it seems good.
00:14:08
◼
►
I wanted to see, Ken, check in with you.
00:14:11
◼
►
You wrote this piece and y'all spoke about it.
00:14:13
◼
►
The Mac is the model.
00:14:15
◼
►
How has response been to that?
00:14:16
◼
►
That piece has been in the world now,
00:14:18
◼
►
like I don't know, a couple of weeks, 10 days or something.
00:14:20
◼
►
How has that been?
00:14:22
◼
►
I think it's actually been better than I thought.
00:14:24
◼
►
I think anytime you are in the business of writing about
00:14:28
◼
►
and having opinions about Apple, you know this,
00:14:31
◼
►
criticizing Apple will always get people
00:14:34
◼
►
who will come out of the woodwork to say,
00:14:36
◼
►
but no, Apple is great
00:14:38
◼
►
and everything Apple does is fine, right?
00:14:39
◼
►
Like there are people who really are,
00:14:42
◼
►
they only want people to be cheerleaders for Apple,
00:14:46
◼
►
which I've never really been.
00:14:48
◼
►
I feel like I advocate for the users,
00:14:50
◼
►
not for the company.
00:14:51
◼
►
The company has got a lot of money
00:14:52
◼
►
and it doesn't need my help,
00:14:54
◼
►
but more positive than I thought.
00:14:56
◼
►
I mean, there was definitely some pushback from some people.
00:14:59
◼
►
I think maybe one of the reasons it was muted
00:15:01
◼
►
is that the whole point of how I wrote the article
00:15:03
◼
►
was to say Apple itself has solved this problem.
00:15:05
◼
►
And so Apple has its own solution that it built for the Mac.
00:15:09
◼
►
So that I feel like made it harder to make the argument
00:15:13
◼
►
that it's impossible for Apple to do this
00:15:15
◼
►
because Apple literally did it.
00:15:17
◼
►
That was my whole point.
00:15:19
◼
►
I've definitely heard from people though.
00:15:21
◼
►
And like, I understand the pushback that I've gotten
00:15:24
◼
►
that I expected, but I think is more nuanced
00:15:27
◼
►
is people saying,
00:15:28
◼
►
but I like Apple being in complete control of the platform.
00:15:32
◼
►
Like that's basically the comment that I thought is,
00:15:36
◼
►
I think it's the most interesting is I like it here.
00:15:39
◼
►
I like it in the Wald's garden.
00:15:40
◼
►
I like Apple having all the payment systems.
00:15:43
◼
►
I like all of that.
00:15:45
◼
►
And I understand that.
00:15:46
◼
►
My problem with that is,
00:15:48
◼
►
my argument is that you don't have to change
00:15:51
◼
►
unless you want to,
00:15:52
◼
►
but also that you may not even know
00:15:55
◼
►
some of the things you're missing
00:15:56
◼
►
because Apple has complete control
00:15:58
◼
►
over the entire market, right?
00:16:01
◼
►
There are things, there are apps,
00:16:04
◼
►
there are app experiences,
00:16:06
◼
►
there are website links that can't be made.
00:16:09
◼
►
And so you don't even know what the experience would be.
00:16:11
◼
►
I guess I got a version of that was the,
00:16:13
◼
►
but Android already does this, so why?
00:16:15
◼
►
And my answer there is I'm an iOS user
00:16:19
◼
►
and telling me to leave the platform that I like
00:16:21
◼
►
because I don't like their policy.
00:16:23
◼
►
Like that's, I mean, okay, but that's not my point.
00:16:26
◼
►
My point is that all computing platforms
00:16:29
◼
►
should have some level of the owner of the product
00:16:32
◼
►
being able to install software on it and not the other way.
00:16:35
◼
►
Not having the maker of the product dictate
00:16:38
◼
►
what goes on that computer essentially
00:16:41
◼
►
that can run arbitrary third-party software.
00:16:43
◼
►
Plus there's the issue of,
00:16:45
◼
►
and we know a lot of these people,
00:16:46
◼
►
people who have invested their knowledge and skillset
00:16:49
◼
►
into developing for Apple platforms.
00:16:52
◼
►
And you could say, well, that was their mistake.
00:16:53
◼
►
It's like, okay, but a lot of them came from the Mac,
00:16:57
◼
►
but they're also on iOS.
00:16:59
◼
►
And I would argue they are a large portion
00:17:02
◼
►
of the reason that the iPhone was successful, right?
00:17:04
◼
►
'Cause they're the ones who developed apps in the app store.
00:17:07
◼
►
And they're captives because you can't take your iOS app
00:17:10
◼
►
and run it on Android.
00:17:11
◼
►
You can't, it's not the same skillset.
00:17:13
◼
►
It's not the same language.
00:17:15
◼
►
It's not the same APIs.
00:17:16
◼
►
And so they're kind of trapped.
00:17:18
◼
►
And yeah, it's easy to say, well,
00:17:20
◼
►
just reeducate and become a Java developer
00:17:22
◼
►
and go write Android apps
00:17:23
◼
►
where there's no market for it anyway,
00:17:25
◼
►
or just suck it up and make your money from Apple.
00:17:28
◼
►
They'll take their 15 or 30% and deal with it.
00:17:30
◼
►
But like, my point is those are people saying,
00:17:34
◼
►
yeah, just take what you can get
00:17:35
◼
►
instead of me trying to be a little idealistic here
00:17:37
◼
►
and say, it's wrong, it's wrong.
00:17:39
◼
►
And that was my point.
00:17:40
◼
►
So not as vociferous feedback as I thought I would get,
00:17:44
◼
►
even though that's definitely out there.
00:17:46
◼
►
- I think that also speaks to the overall feelings
00:17:50
◼
►
in the community about the app store, right?
00:17:52
◼
►
Like Apple's just, they've lost so much goodwill
00:17:55
◼
►
over these issues.
00:17:56
◼
►
- And it's their own fault, right?
00:17:58
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah.
00:17:59
◼
►
- It could have been, right?
00:18:00
◼
►
Like they could exert,
00:18:01
◼
►
this is the thing that I think a lot of us feel
00:18:03
◼
►
is they could have exerted an amount of control
00:18:07
◼
►
and skimmed an amount of money out of the app store
00:18:09
◼
►
while addressing more of the issues
00:18:12
◼
►
that really set people off and it would have been fine.
00:18:16
◼
►
This is the whole argument of like,
00:18:17
◼
►
well, why don't they wanna compete?
00:18:20
◼
►
'Cause I think they could compete really strongly.
00:18:22
◼
►
And the answer is, 'cause it's better to just not compete
00:18:24
◼
►
than to even to be a strong competitor
00:18:27
◼
►
who would take the lion's share of the revenue
00:18:29
◼
►
from the market, the lion's share isn't all of it,
00:18:32
◼
►
which is sort of what they wanna do.
00:18:34
◼
►
But that is the point that I thought,
00:18:37
◼
►
the point about like, I don't want it to be complicated.
00:18:40
◼
►
Like I get it, but that is sort of my point
00:18:43
◼
►
about the Mac model is, by default,
00:18:45
◼
►
you can't run unsigned software on the Mac.
00:18:48
◼
►
You have to go through lots of hoops to get there.
00:18:50
◼
►
And an administrator or a user can set it
00:18:54
◼
►
to only run from the Mac app store,
00:18:55
◼
►
which I would assume in any circumstance
00:18:57
◼
►
would probably be the default on any future version of iOS.
00:19:00
◼
►
I don't think it would be particularly different,
00:19:03
◼
►
but it frustrates me, but I understand it
00:19:08
◼
►
when people sort of say, but I don't want it,
00:19:10
◼
►
so it shouldn't happen.
00:19:11
◼
►
Because the point is other people might want it,
00:19:15
◼
►
and I don't love it when people say, well, I'm okay,
00:19:19
◼
►
so it doesn't matter what other people feel.
00:19:21
◼
►
Like that's not a great impulse.
00:19:23
◼
►
- Yeah, if they open it up, it's just an option, right?
00:19:26
◼
►
You're not, like with the Mac, right?
00:19:29
◼
►
Again, going back to the Mac as the model,
00:19:31
◼
►
if you wanna live just within the Mac app store, you can.
00:19:36
◼
►
Now, it's not a perfect analogy
00:19:38
◼
►
because there's a lot of software on the Mac
00:19:42
◼
►
that's not available in the Mac app store.
00:19:44
◼
►
But again, you have the option.
00:19:46
◼
►
For other, yeah, for lots of reasons, actually.
00:19:50
◼
►
But yeah, I just, I love the piece.
00:19:52
◼
►
I really thought about it a lot
00:19:54
◼
►
and just wanted to kinda see how it was.
00:19:58
◼
►
'Cause sometimes it feels like these sorts of topics
00:20:00
◼
►
are potentially spicy.
00:20:02
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, it was, I mean, I had that moment
00:20:05
◼
►
where I was thinking about it and I got frustrated.
00:20:07
◼
►
I was like, I gotta write this sometime.
00:20:08
◼
►
And then when I was writing it, I'm like, well,
00:20:10
◼
►
I believe this.
00:20:12
◼
►
I believe that it's sort of fundamentally
00:20:14
◼
►
that if we buy $1,000 plus computing devices,
00:20:17
◼
►
we should be able to put software on them.
00:20:19
◼
►
And that if you're somebody
00:20:20
◼
►
who has a skillset writing software,
00:20:23
◼
►
you shouldn't be at the whims
00:20:25
◼
►
and under the complete control of the platform owner.
00:20:27
◼
►
It just feels wrong.
00:20:29
◼
►
And I know that that's a weird, squishy, emotional
00:20:32
◼
►
and moral argument.
00:20:33
◼
►
But I do really legitimately believe it,
00:20:36
◼
►
that it just, it feels wrong.
00:20:38
◼
►
Like not, leaving the business model stuff aside,
00:20:41
◼
►
it just feels wrong for that to be the case.
00:20:44
◼
►
That this is, I don't believe that computers
00:20:47
◼
►
and phones and iPads are computers
00:20:49
◼
►
should be entirely closed platforms
00:20:52
◼
►
that are dictated by the company that makes the OS.
00:20:55
◼
►
I just, I think that that is wrong.
00:20:58
◼
►
And of course, what's gonna happen
00:21:00
◼
►
is Apple's not gonna say, "You're right, Jason."
00:21:03
◼
►
"I apologize, we'll change our business model."
00:21:05
◼
►
What's gonna happen is,
00:21:07
◼
►
what is already starting to happen in the EU,
00:21:09
◼
►
which is regulators will say,
00:21:11
◼
►
"No, you can't do it this way."
00:21:13
◼
►
And the good news here, I guess, in a way,
00:21:16
◼
►
is that Apple has already built this other model
00:21:19
◼
►
and they have already used it.
00:21:21
◼
►
Now the bad news is, I mentioned,
00:21:23
◼
►
I mentioned notarization in the piece
00:21:26
◼
►
and mentioned that there was one example of Apple
00:21:28
◼
►
using kind of notarization as a weapon in the EU.
00:21:31
◼
►
And the very week I wrote that,
00:21:33
◼
►
there were then some new cases
00:21:35
◼
►
where Apple used notarization as a weapon in the EU.
00:21:38
◼
►
And I mean, I'm not a European lawyer again,
00:21:41
◼
►
but it feels to me like they are not gonna be able
00:21:45
◼
►
to make that work.
00:21:46
◼
►
Because what they basically said is,
00:21:47
◼
►
"We've created a new open system called notarization.
00:21:49
◼
►
"And while it involves us approving everything,
00:21:51
◼
►
"we're not gonna use it for evil."
00:21:53
◼
►
And then immediately they said,
00:21:55
◼
►
"Oh, but we don't like this app,
00:21:56
◼
►
"so it won't be notarized by us."
00:21:58
◼
►
Which is de facto app store outside the app store.
00:22:01
◼
►
I can't see how the European Commission
00:22:04
◼
►
will ever allow that kind of behavior.
00:22:07
◼
►
It seems to be in complete opposition to the whole idea.
00:22:11
◼
►
So we'll see.
00:22:12
◼
►
But what really bothers me is, it tarnishes the Mac model.
00:22:15
◼
►
Because what it suggests is that that second ring
00:22:19
◼
►
of software, which is checked by Apple and signed by Apple,
00:22:22
◼
►
is going to be used as the first ring,
00:22:24
◼
►
as an approval system for apps that Apple doesn't like.
00:22:29
◼
►
Not to protect users,
00:22:31
◼
►
but because Apple has just decided they don't want it.
00:22:33
◼
►
And the example that I've given a couple of times is,
00:22:35
◼
►
if Apple, if third-party apps could run outside
00:22:38
◼
►
of the app store, we'd have macOS running on iPad.
00:22:42
◼
►
Because all the emulators would appear,
00:22:44
◼
►
and you'd be able to run Linux,
00:22:45
◼
►
and you'd be able to run Windows,
00:22:47
◼
►
and presumably at that point you'd be able to run macOS.
00:22:49
◼
►
- Yeah, macOS is just right there.
00:22:51
◼
►
- Since it's literally the same hardware,
00:22:54
◼
►
you would be able to do that.
00:22:56
◼
►
And I'm pretty sure that's why you can't,
00:22:58
◼
►
is 'cause Apple doesn't want to do that.
00:23:01
◼
►
And Apple wants either the option to do it themselves,
00:23:03
◼
►
or to have nobody do it.
00:23:04
◼
►
Like, I think that that's the motivator,
00:23:06
◼
►
but I really don't like the idea that,
00:23:09
◼
►
even in a system that was open, like in the EU,
00:23:12
◼
►
where there's theoretically this other pathway,
00:23:14
◼
►
if you tried to submit VMware or Parallels for iPad
00:23:19
◼
►
to notarize, to get into a marketplace in the EU,
00:23:24
◼
►
I feel like Apple would just refuse to notarize it,
00:23:27
◼
►
and that's not great, right?
00:23:29
◼
►
Like, that's completely contrary.
00:23:30
◼
►
So, I don't know.
00:23:32
◼
►
I think in the end that at least a large portion of this
00:23:35
◼
►
is going to come to pass,
00:23:36
◼
►
because I just don't think regulators,
00:23:40
◼
►
in many parts of the world at least, will do it.
00:23:43
◼
►
And the only question is, will the regulators,
00:23:46
◼
►
will it be enough of a fragmentation
00:23:48
◼
►
that Apple just says, "Okay, we give up.
00:23:50
◼
►
"We don't want to have two completely different models
00:23:52
◼
►
"for what we do worldwide.
00:23:54
◼
►
"We're gonna just build this single model."
00:23:56
◼
►
But I don't know.
00:23:57
◼
►
I'm not gonna get my hopes up.
00:23:59
◼
►
- No, me neither.
00:24:00
◼
►
You know what I can get my hopes up about, though?
00:24:03
◼
►
- Oh, that's a great segue.
00:24:04
◼
►
Is it the upgradees?
00:24:07
◼
►
It is the 11th annual upgradees.
00:24:09
◼
►
Tell people how they can nominate.
00:24:10
◼
►
- All right, well, so the way this works is,
00:24:12
◼
►
you send in your suggestions, and they are votes,
00:24:14
◼
►
but they're also suggestions
00:24:15
◼
►
for things that Mike and I can look at.
00:24:17
◼
►
And then Mike will compile the results
00:24:19
◼
►
using a fancy shortcut that's really just a Python script
00:24:23
◼
►
that I wrapped in a shortcut to make Mike feel better.
00:24:26
◼
►
And 'cause Mike's resistance, you know this,
00:24:29
◼
►
Mike's resistance to technical things is fascinating, right?
00:24:31
◼
►
Like, yeah, I pushed him on this, and I was like,
00:24:33
◼
►
"Oh, you could do a shortcut.
00:24:34
◼
►
"Oh, there's a Python script."
00:24:35
◼
►
And he's like, "No, no."
00:24:36
◼
►
And I finally, I wrapped a Python script
00:24:38
◼
►
inside the shortcut and sent it to him,
00:24:41
◼
►
and then he saw it running, and he was like,
00:24:44
◼
►
"Oh, okay, yes."
00:24:45
◼
►
And now he loves it.
00:24:46
◼
►
It's the best thing ever.
00:24:46
◼
►
But anyway, so he will compile,
00:24:49
◼
►
but we want your suggestions.
00:24:50
◼
►
It will guide us.
00:24:51
◼
►
We make the final decision.
00:24:52
◼
►
Sometimes we go with what the upgradeans want.
00:24:55
◼
►
Sometimes we use that and keep it under advisement.
00:24:57
◼
►
Sometimes it breaks ties.
00:24:58
◼
►
And sometimes it makes us go out and do our own research
00:25:01
◼
►
about these apps that we've never heard of.
00:25:03
◼
►
And why is everybody raving about this app
00:25:06
◼
►
that I've never heard of?
00:25:07
◼
►
And we go check it out, and it's awesome.
00:25:09
◼
►
So that's great too.
00:25:09
◼
►
Lots of great reasons to do it.
00:25:11
◼
►
You don't have to fill out every form
00:25:13
◼
►
or every item in the form if you don't want to.
00:25:14
◼
►
It's fine, but we wanna hear from you,
00:25:16
◼
►
and we wanna know what you liked this year, basically,
00:25:18
◼
►
and what you are liking.
00:25:20
◼
►
So go to upgradees.com.
00:25:23
◼
►
Sorry, upgradees.vote will be where you can vote,
00:25:26
◼
►
and upgradees.com will show you all of the previous winners.
00:25:29
◼
►
And you've got a few more days.
00:25:31
◼
►
You've got 11 more days, so a little more than a week.
00:25:33
◼
►
But again, don't leave it to the last minute.
00:25:35
◼
►
Upgradees.vote.
00:25:37
◼
►
And the official upgradees program will be,
00:25:41
◼
►
we're gonna record it and release it on December 30th,
00:25:43
◼
►
right at the end of the year.
00:25:44
◼
►
That'll be our big happy new year celebration.
00:25:47
◼
►
It's our favorite stuff.
00:25:48
◼
►
Nice to go out on a positive note, I think.
00:25:50
◼
►
- It is, yeah. - I like it.
00:25:52
◼
►
- And Connected has won two favorite podcast awards,
00:25:55
◼
►
one away from Lifetime Achievement,
00:25:58
◼
►
just putting that out there.
00:25:59
◼
►
- Even though one of the hosts is on upgrade,
00:26:01
◼
►
somehow that happened.
00:26:02
◼
►
He recuses himself, sort of,
00:26:03
◼
►
but I like Connected and Upgrade.
00:26:08
◼
►
Upgrade never gets votes, by the way.
00:26:10
◼
►
People should vote for Upgrade as favorite podcast,
00:26:12
◼
►
'cause you're listening to Upgrade right now.
00:26:13
◼
►
Come on, people.
00:26:15
◼
►
I always like it when Upgrade is third
00:26:16
◼
►
on the list of favorite podcasts.
00:26:18
◼
►
It's just like seeing,
00:26:20
◼
►
I've been seeing all of these overcast shares
00:26:22
◼
►
of people's podcasts listening,
00:26:24
◼
►
and the ones that make me laugh.
00:26:26
◼
►
So many of them are like ATP,
00:26:29
◼
►
and then maybe the talk show,
00:26:30
◼
►
and I'm like, "Is Upgrade in there?"
00:26:31
◼
►
And they're like, "Upgrade's in there.
00:26:32
◼
►
It's not up at the top for most of them."
00:26:34
◼
►
But it's like, it's in there.
00:26:36
◼
►
- It's in there. - And we appreciate that.
00:26:37
◼
►
I don't need to be number one here.
00:26:39
◼
►
- It's fine. - It's fine.
00:26:40
◼
►
- ATP's got home court advantage.
00:26:42
◼
►
- They really, I mean. - With Evercast, really.
00:26:44
◼
►
- That is, it's a podcast by the person
00:26:47
◼
►
who makes the podcast app.
00:26:48
◼
►
That is about as good as you can.
00:26:49
◼
►
Talk about your advantages.
00:26:50
◼
►
Apple would kill for that advantage.
00:26:52
◼
►
- Yeah, vertical integration, I think is what they call it.
00:26:54
◼
►
- I think that might be it.
00:26:56
◼
►
This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by DeleteMe.
00:27:00
◼
►
We've talked before about how much of your personal data
00:27:02
◼
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could be out there on the internet for people to see,
00:27:05
◼
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like Stephen Smith's initial,
00:27:07
◼
►
and how uncomfortable that can make you feel.
00:27:09
◼
►
Now, Mike tells me, this is Mike Hurley.
00:27:13
◼
►
Remember him?
00:27:13
◼
►
He loves DeleteMe. - I do.
00:27:15
◼
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- It gives him an extra layer of comfort
00:27:16
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for his online privacy.
00:27:17
◼
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He knows that DeleteMe is in his corner.
00:27:20
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►
They're making sure to take care of removing his data
00:27:22
◼
►
from the places he doesn't want it to be.
00:27:24
◼
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He even set up a gift subscription of DeleteMe
00:27:27
◼
►
for his wife recently.
00:27:28
◼
►
Oh, now that, give the gift of DeleteMe, I love it.
00:27:31
◼
►
She is also equally excited to see how her reports turn out
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to give her more control of her data.
00:27:36
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That's right, it is a secondhand and thirdhand endorsement
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of DeleteMe by Mike and Adina.
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What more could you ask?
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Look, data brokers can make a profit off your data.
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Your data is a commodity.
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This is how huge portions of the economy are run.
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It's really gross, but it's true.
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People on the web can buy private details,
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which can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts,
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harassment, unwanted spam calls,
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but you can protect your data by using DeleteMe.
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Sign up and provide DeleteMe
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with exactly what information you want deleted,
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and their experts will take it from there,
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'cause you don't know how to do this stuff, but they do.
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This is all they do.
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They will send you regular, personalized privacy reports
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showing what info they found,
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where they found it, and what they want removed.
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This isn't just a one-time service.
00:28:18
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They are always working for you,
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checking around on the internet and in databases
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here and there for you and your information,
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and removing it from all the places you don't want it to be.
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They do the hard work of wiping
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all that personal information from the places
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that the data brokers can get it,
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and the bad people can get it.
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Take control of your data.
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Keep your private life private.
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Sign up for DeleteMe, and there is a special discount,
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you knew there would be, for our listeners
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and their loved ones, like Mike's wife, Adina.
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Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan
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That's the only way to get 20% off,
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J-O-I-N-D-E-L-E-T-E-M-E.com/upgrade20.
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I'm not gonna spell upgrade.
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You can do that for yourself.
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Enter code UPGRADE20 at checkout,
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00:29:10
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Thank you to DeleteMe for supporting Upgrade,
00:29:15
◼
►
It's rumor roundup time, Steven.
00:29:20
◼
►
Yeah, there we go.
00:29:22
◼
►
You're in the spirit.
00:29:23
◼
►
You got a new horse.
00:29:26
◼
►
It's a nice-- Do I?
00:29:28
◼
►
Nice little brown horse.
00:29:29
◼
►
I got a mustache, so that counts for something.
00:29:32
◼
►
That's right, you're basically a cowboy already.
00:29:35
◼
►
That's right.
00:29:36
◼
►
Yes, that's true.
00:29:37
◼
►
♪ I am titanium ♪
00:29:42
◼
►
No, well, are you?
00:29:43
◼
►
I'm not. That's the question, Jason.
00:29:44
◼
►
Oh, the iPhone 17.
00:29:46
◼
►
Might it be losing titanium?
00:29:50
◼
►
It could be.
00:29:51
◼
►
So there's been this back and forth in the rumors,
00:29:54
◼
►
which are really my favorite,
00:29:55
◼
►
is when rumor people are fighting each other.
00:29:58
◼
►
It's like in Anchorman, you know?
00:30:03
◼
►
And then Mark Gurman comes in with a trident,
00:30:05
◼
►
kills everybody.
00:30:06
◼
►
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:07
◼
►
It really went off the rails quickly.
00:30:12
◼
►
So yeah, so the question is the iPhone 17 Pro
00:30:14
◼
►
and 17 Pro Max, will they feature titanium,
00:30:17
◼
►
just like the 15 and 16 Pro line?
00:30:21
◼
►
And I think it's really interesting.
00:30:22
◼
►
I love the titanium.
00:30:24
◼
►
I think, obviously, weighing less is good.
00:30:27
◼
►
I like that it's not as smudgy like the stainless steel was.
00:30:31
◼
►
But I just wonder, do people care about this?
00:30:33
◼
►
I don't think they do.
00:30:37
◼
►
It's a good question.
00:30:38
◼
►
So I got a couple titanium thoughts here.
00:30:41
◼
►
Welcome to our new segment.
00:30:42
◼
►
I like to call it titanium thoughts.
00:30:44
◼
►
Titanium thoughts.
00:30:45
◼
►
I got a titanium phone.
00:30:47
◼
►
I treated myself to it, or not a titanium phone,
00:30:50
◼
►
titanium watch.
00:30:51
◼
►
So the higher, the more expensive watch.
00:30:54
◼
►
'Cause I was like, you know what?
00:30:56
◼
►
Birthdays and anniversaries and stuff,
00:30:58
◼
►
and I buy presents for Lauren, and sometimes it's jewelry,
00:31:01
◼
►
and I don't really wear jewelry to speak of,
00:31:05
◼
►
at least not at the level where I'm, you know,
00:31:08
◼
►
buy an earring, buy earrings by a ring, buy a necklace.
00:31:13
◼
►
It's nice, but I'm not into that.
00:31:16
◼
►
And I thought, well, what is the equivalent?
00:31:17
◼
►
What could I ask for?
00:31:18
◼
►
And it was, I thought, oh, you know,
00:31:20
◼
►
I'm gonna treat myself to a nicer Apple Watch.
00:31:22
◼
►
And I got the black titanium Apple Watch.
00:31:25
◼
►
Now I have the Series 10,
00:31:28
◼
►
and it's the black aluminum Series 10.
00:31:30
◼
►
And Steven, I could not tell the difference,
00:31:33
◼
►
if you asked me, between aluminum and titanium.
00:31:38
◼
►
It's all mental.
00:31:39
◼
►
I mean, it was really nice, but this one is really nice too.
00:31:44
◼
►
And this is the thing about the iPhone.
00:31:47
◼
►
Like, I like the idea of a lighter frame.
00:31:49
◼
►
I like the idea of a lighter phone, lighter watch,
00:31:53
◼
►
all this, like, great.
00:31:54
◼
►
And maybe somebody out there can say, oh yes,
00:31:57
◼
►
but you don't understand.
00:32:00
◼
►
It was like, the stainless steel was heavy is the problem.
00:32:02
◼
►
Not that, not that, aluminum and titanium
00:32:05
◼
►
are both pretty light.
00:32:05
◼
►
Stainless steel was very heavy.
00:32:07
◼
►
So if they go to aluminum instead of titanium,
00:32:08
◼
►
I don't think it'll make that much of a difference.
00:32:11
◼
►
I do think that Apple brilliantly used titanium
00:32:16
◼
►
for at least two years as a major differentiator
00:32:20
◼
►
on products that didn't change very much, right?
00:32:22
◼
►
I mean, like, I see all those ads.
00:32:24
◼
►
There's like the AT&T ad where the AT&T lady is like,
00:32:29
◼
►
it's the new iPhone with titanium.
00:32:31
◼
►
And I think, who cares, right?
00:32:33
◼
►
But I think it was pretty effective as a,
00:32:36
◼
►
as just, it's different and doesn't it sound cool.
00:32:39
◼
►
And so, I mean, fine, but in some ways
00:32:43
◼
►
they were really saying not heavy, like stainless.
00:32:46
◼
►
And so, you know, I don't know.
00:32:48
◼
►
I don't know, what do you think?
00:32:50
◼
►
I think the visual sort of material difference
00:32:53
◼
►
maybe makes more of a difference in other markets
00:32:56
◼
►
than the US, right?
00:32:57
◼
►
We talked about this a lot.
00:32:59
◼
►
When the phone changes shape or design,
00:33:02
◼
►
they'll have kind of a big year in China
00:33:03
◼
►
and some other markets because that's valued more highly
00:33:06
◼
►
than it is here, which I find really interesting.
00:33:09
◼
►
But I think speaking about the American market,
00:33:12
◼
►
I agree with you, the way, like,
00:33:14
◼
►
moving from stainless steel was the big change.
00:33:18
◼
►
And it is remarkable if you pick up a stainless steel phone,
00:33:22
◼
►
like it really does feel heavier.
00:33:24
◼
►
But most people, you know, slapping their phones in cases
00:33:28
◼
►
so that they never see those rails.
00:33:30
◼
►
They don't really care about the smudginess maybe
00:33:32
◼
►
the way some of us do.
00:33:34
◼
►
And so, you know, I think if they were to go to aluminum
00:33:39
◼
►
on the pro phones, like, I don't think it's that,
00:33:41
◼
►
I don't think it's that big of a deal.
00:33:46
◼
►
You know, I think people would, it would be a cycle, right?
00:33:51
◼
►
And then they would just still sell a bajillion phones.
00:33:53
◼
►
- Yeah, I think, especially if there are other design
00:33:56
◼
►
changes, they'll use those to sell them.
00:33:58
◼
►
And if it's aluminum and they'll just say it's lighter,
00:34:00
◼
►
and I don't think there are gonna be a lot of people
00:34:01
◼
►
who feel like, I'm so betrayed that there's no titanium.
00:34:04
◼
►
Right? - Right.
00:34:06
◼
►
- I mean, there'll probably be like a handful
00:34:08
◼
►
of super titanium fans who are like, how dare you?
00:34:11
◼
►
I only buy things made of titanium.
00:34:13
◼
►
But otherwise, I think an aluminum frame is fine.
00:34:17
◼
►
I think it's funny, 'cause this is a style issue too, right?
00:34:20
◼
►
It's like Apple felt like aluminum was light,
00:34:22
◼
►
but you know, kind of boring and that the stainless,
00:34:25
◼
►
it was like, no stainless, it's surgical stainless steel.
00:34:28
◼
►
It's beautiful and heavy and weighty.
00:34:30
◼
►
And that was like a selling point.
00:34:32
◼
►
And then they're like, it's too heavy.
00:34:34
◼
►
Titanium is better.
00:34:36
◼
►
And they put that on there as really, yeah, like you said,
00:34:38
◼
►
it's a cycle, it's fashion, it's,
00:34:40
◼
►
there's no one right answer.
00:34:43
◼
►
So they keep kind of moving around as they need to,
00:34:47
◼
►
or as they feel they need to.
00:34:49
◼
►
And I think that's okay.
00:34:50
◼
►
- Yeah, I think people buy the Profones for the cameras.
00:34:55
◼
►
Like that's why people upgrade.
00:34:56
◼
►
Maybe the screen, but I think mostly the cameras.
00:34:59
◼
►
And as much as I like titanium and I really like this phone
00:35:04
◼
►
and the phone right before it,
00:35:05
◼
►
like it wouldn't be a big deal to me
00:35:06
◼
►
if they went to aluminum and it would make the colors
00:35:11
◼
►
our conversation even more awkward, you know?
00:35:14
◼
►
But that's fine.
00:35:16
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
00:35:18
◼
►
I feel like they can make colors on anything now,
00:35:20
◼
►
but certainly on aluminum, we know that they can
00:35:22
◼
►
and they're good at it.
00:35:23
◼
►
And it's, you know, it's affordable and light
00:35:26
◼
►
and it's a great material, right?
00:35:28
◼
►
So they should do whatever they need to do.
00:35:30
◼
►
I think it's interesting to say, to wonder,
00:35:34
◼
►
what do the people who designed the iPhone
00:35:37
◼
►
and the materials used in it think about the style choices?
00:35:42
◼
►
Because like if they had their druthers
00:35:44
◼
►
and they didn't care about selling titanium or stainless,
00:35:48
◼
►
would they always use aluminum?
00:35:50
◼
►
And were those directives sort of, let's shake it up?
00:35:53
◼
►
Or were they bottom up where they're like,
00:35:55
◼
►
we want to try titanium.
00:35:57
◼
►
And the execs are like, yeah, let's do it.
00:35:58
◼
►
We can market that.
00:35:59
◼
►
I don't know.
00:36:01
◼
►
I would like to believe that it's the engineers
00:36:03
◼
►
sort of saying, why don't we try a different material?
00:36:05
◼
►
But I do wonder if it's actually, you know,
00:36:08
◼
►
them being kind of prodded by people to say,
00:36:10
◼
►
well, why don't we try this other thing?
00:36:11
◼
►
Why don't we try another material?
00:36:13
◼
►
Because, you know, the fact is,
00:36:14
◼
►
it's not just a utilitarian block.
00:36:16
◼
►
It is a device that needs to be marketed
00:36:20
◼
►
and it has a fashion element to it.
00:36:21
◼
►
And that's part of the design too.
00:36:23
◼
►
Is it the designers who say, you know,
00:36:25
◼
►
let's do titanium this year?
00:36:26
◼
►
And the engineers are like, okay, we can do that.
00:36:29
◼
►
I don't know what the push and pull is there.
00:36:32
◼
►
And if the engineers had their druthers,
00:36:33
◼
►
they would just always use aluminum or whatever.
00:36:35
◼
►
I honestly don't know.
00:36:37
◼
►
- Yeah, well, and this year, notably,
00:36:39
◼
►
they are using aluminum inside the phone.
00:36:42
◼
►
- For that better heat dissipation.
00:36:44
◼
►
That was an issue with the 15 Pro.
00:36:46
◼
►
So yeah, it's super interesting.
00:36:48
◼
►
I'm sure there's always that tension
00:36:49
◼
►
between people making the devices
00:36:52
◼
►
and the people selling the devices.
00:36:54
◼
►
It's also interesting that the Apple Watch, right,
00:36:56
◼
►
stainless steel at the beginning was the nice material
00:36:59
◼
►
once they got rid of the gold.
00:37:00
◼
►
Like we don't talk about that one.
00:37:01
◼
►
And then they moved to titanium
00:37:04
◼
►
and now it's aluminum and titanium.
00:37:06
◼
►
I think the steel is still available on the Hermes watch,
00:37:09
◼
►
but you know, they've moved away from steel there.
00:37:13
◼
►
And I can tell you on the Apple Watch,
00:37:14
◼
►
it made a huge weight difference
00:37:15
◼
►
'cause I wore a stainless steel watch for years
00:37:18
◼
►
and then went to the titanium
00:37:20
◼
►
whenever that was the series, six or seven or whatever.
00:37:22
◼
►
- Yeah, Lauren had a, her first Apple Watch was stainless.
00:37:25
◼
►
And again, it was sort of me being nice,
00:37:27
◼
►
but then she went to the aluminum and was like,
00:37:29
◼
►
oh, it's so much lighter.
00:37:30
◼
►
I like, it was stainless was nice and all,
00:37:32
◼
►
but like the aluminum one is,
00:37:34
◼
►
I think that's Apple's problem is that the truth is
00:37:38
◼
►
that on the Apple Watch, the aluminum is the best.
00:37:41
◼
►
It's just the best 'cause it's so light.
00:37:43
◼
►
- I think the only little like niggle I have with that
00:37:47
◼
►
is that the aluminum gets the ion glass
00:37:50
◼
►
and you get sapphire with the nicer metal
00:37:53
◼
►
and the sapphire displays do hold up better.
00:37:55
◼
►
- I agree, but they could,
00:37:59
◼
►
like there's nothing stopping them from making aluminum
00:38:01
◼
►
on all the Apple Watch models with the nicer glass, right?
00:38:04
◼
►
Or the higher end model of aluminum
00:38:05
◼
►
comes with the nicer glass.
00:38:07
◼
►
They've decided to differentiate based on metal,
00:38:09
◼
►
but I guess what I'm saying is they could just all be
00:38:12
◼
►
aluminum and it probably would be fine,
00:38:14
◼
►
except the reason I bought a titanium Apple Watch
00:38:17
◼
►
is like I wanted to treat myself and get something nicer.
00:38:19
◼
►
And it was nice, but aluminum is nice.
00:38:22
◼
►
And I'm not sure there's much difference in between them,
00:38:24
◼
►
at least for me, there isn't.
00:38:26
◼
►
So we'll see how my series 10 holds up.
00:38:29
◼
►
It's doing great so far.
00:38:31
◼
►
I'm liking it.
00:38:33
◼
►
I went like three years without an Apple Watch update.
00:38:35
◼
►
And so for me, it's so much thinner
00:38:39
◼
►
and I actually, I can see how much thinner it is.
00:38:42
◼
►
Just it's not bulging above my wrist
00:38:45
◼
►
like the old sensor did.
00:38:47
◼
►
It's really nice.
00:38:47
◼
►
And I got the black aluminum, so it's all shiny.
00:38:50
◼
►
And so the shininess matches the shininess of the glass.
00:38:54
◼
►
And it's a really good look.
00:38:55
◼
►
So I'm liking it.
00:38:57
◼
►
I got this watch at in Memphis.
00:39:00
◼
►
You did, you lost it on my couch.
00:39:02
◼
►
I did, I did.
00:39:04
◼
►
Good times, good times.
00:39:05
◼
►
It was good times.
00:39:07
◼
►
All right, I wanted to talk.
00:39:09
◼
►
It was Thanksgiving last week.
00:39:10
◼
►
And what happens, I think for a lot of our listeners
00:39:15
◼
►
and for us is when you visit with family,
00:39:19
◼
►
you also do troubleshooting for family.
00:39:23
◼
►
I have a troubleshooting story that I wanna tell
00:39:26
◼
►
and then I'm curious if you've got any too.
00:39:28
◼
►
My father-in-law sent me an email last week.
00:39:31
◼
►
It was like, "Jason, when you're down here,
00:39:32
◼
►
"if you don't mind taking time away from your vacation,
00:39:36
◼
►
"I have some technical questions for you."
00:39:38
◼
►
Like, of course I will help you with your thing.
00:39:41
◼
►
So Friday, I'm thinking, well, today's the day
00:39:43
◼
►
we're gonna do the technical things.
00:39:44
◼
►
I'm literally sitting at the kitchen table.
00:39:46
◼
►
We just got there.
00:39:47
◼
►
I'm drinking some tea.
00:39:48
◼
►
And Elliot walks in and says,
00:39:52
◼
►
he's just gotten back, this is what it is, I'm drinking tea.
00:39:54
◼
►
He's just gotten back from a bike ride.
00:39:56
◼
►
He walks in, he's still got his yellow bike jacket on,
00:40:00
◼
►
like visibility jacket.
00:40:01
◼
►
And I'm thinking, oh, he's gonna take off his stuff
00:40:04
◼
►
and maybe take a shower or do whatever he needs to do
00:40:06
◼
►
and then maybe we'll do the troubleshooting.
00:40:08
◼
►
He immediately walks up to me and says,
00:40:10
◼
►
"Jason, do you have time now to do the troubleshooting?"
00:40:12
◼
►
I'm like, "Well, first off, you gotta know my father-in-law.
00:40:15
◼
►
"This is exactly like him,"
00:40:16
◼
►
which is like, he's got a list in his head.
00:40:18
◼
►
And he waited on Thanksgiving.
00:40:20
◼
►
And he's like, "I'm not gonna ask him on Thanksgiving.
00:40:21
◼
►
"We agreed, we talk about it on Friday."
00:40:23
◼
►
But literally the first second he sees me on Friday,
00:40:26
◼
►
he's like, "Jason."
00:40:29
◼
►
- So there are three things.
00:40:33
◼
►
And I just wanna say them 'cause I think it's fascinating.
00:40:35
◼
►
It's fascinating to see, we set people up
00:40:37
◼
►
and then we walk away and then we're gone for a long time.
00:40:39
◼
►
And then you come back and you're like, what?
00:40:41
◼
►
It's that community, Jif, where Troy brings the pizza in
00:40:45
◼
►
and everything's on fire.
00:40:46
◼
►
You're like, I was just here, what is happening?
00:40:49
◼
►
- Yeah, what did you do?
00:40:51
◼
►
So one of these, I put them in our show notes.
00:40:55
◼
►
What do you think, the first one, what is my first item?
00:40:59
◼
►
Do you see it?
00:41:03
◼
►
It's all, I'll tell you what it is, you can guess.
00:41:05
◼
►
Two password.
00:41:07
◼
►
Any idea? - Okay, two password.
00:41:09
◼
►
Does that mean two factor?
00:41:11
◼
►
- No, oh, if only it did.
00:41:13
◼
►
If only it did.
00:41:14
◼
►
Two password means that my father-in-law's complaint was
00:41:18
◼
►
I used to be able to auto-fill passwords
00:41:23
◼
►
and click on open site in 1Password
00:41:26
◼
►
and it would auto-fill the password and now it doesn't.
00:41:28
◼
►
Can you fix this?
00:41:30
◼
►
And what I discovered when I went to his applications folder
00:41:33
◼
►
is that his applications folder contained 1Password 7
00:41:38
◼
►
and 1Password.
00:41:40
◼
►
They were both open in the doc.
00:41:41
◼
►
So two versions of 1Password were open simultaneously.
00:41:45
◼
►
And there were like five 1Password.zip backup files
00:41:49
◼
►
of the app in that folder too.
00:41:51
◼
►
And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too many 1Passwords.
00:41:56
◼
►
So I, and he said something about like, yeah,
00:42:01
◼
►
but on my, I use the, he's basically,
00:42:04
◼
►
he's using his 1Password cloud password on his Mac,
00:42:08
◼
►
but he's using his old vault password on his iPhone.
00:42:13
◼
►
And he felt like they, I don't know what the rationale is
00:42:16
◼
►
here, so I deleted all the old 1Passwords,
00:42:19
◼
►
making sure that the whole vault was synced in the cloud
00:42:23
◼
►
and all that for the actual current version of 1Password.
00:42:27
◼
►
He handed me his phone,
00:42:29
◼
►
he had two versions of 1Password on his phone too,
00:42:31
◼
►
so we deleted 1Password 7.
00:42:33
◼
►
You opened up 1Password 8,
00:42:35
◼
►
I made sure auto-fill was on in all the places.
00:42:38
◼
►
His behavior is fascinating.
00:42:39
◼
►
I didn't understand this, but this is a thing you can do.
00:42:42
◼
►
He goes to secure sites by opening that site
00:42:47
◼
►
in 1Password and clicking open.
00:42:50
◼
►
And then it opens the browser and auto-fills the password,
00:42:55
◼
►
which I find bizarre, but it's supported.
00:42:58
◼
►
It's a thing you can do in 1Password.
00:43:01
◼
►
So 2Password, he had too many 1Passwords.
00:43:06
◼
►
It's so much, and his password, oh, the other thing,
00:43:08
◼
►
his password is incredibly detailed, as you might expect,
00:43:11
◼
►
'cause you don't wanna steal the logins of a retired person.
00:43:14
◼
►
I mean, he's got his financial stuff and all that, I get it.
00:43:16
◼
►
So he's put it under a very difficult password.
00:43:19
◼
►
And we get to the phone and I'm like,
00:43:20
◼
►
well, it won't be so bad on the phone.
00:43:21
◼
►
You won't have to pack it in on a software keyboard
00:43:23
◼
►
because you use Face ID.
00:43:25
◼
►
And he doesn't use Face ID.
00:43:27
◼
►
And I said, why don't you use Face ID?
00:43:28
◼
►
And he says, I just, I don't wanna do it.
00:43:29
◼
►
I like having a password.
00:43:31
◼
►
Okay, I mean, you're the one,
00:43:36
◼
►
you're the one closer to the end of your life
00:43:38
◼
►
who is spending a minute typing in
00:43:40
◼
►
a very complicated password every time you wanna open
00:43:42
◼
►
one password on your phone.
00:43:44
◼
►
It's your choice, it's your choice.
00:43:46
◼
►
I'm gonna let that one go.
00:43:47
◼
►
Anyway, 2Passwords.
00:43:49
◼
►
- 2Password.
00:43:50
◼
►
- He also said, I have this thing where when I'm clicking
00:43:54
◼
►
on menu items or things in the interface
00:43:56
◼
►
that it doesn't click.
00:43:57
◼
►
I said, well, what does it do?
00:43:59
◼
►
He says, well, it will bring up,
00:44:01
◼
►
usually it will bring up like a menu or something,
00:44:04
◼
►
but it doesn't click.
00:44:06
◼
►
I'm thinking, well, that's the Alt+Click,
00:44:08
◼
►
that's Control+Click or Right+Click.
00:44:09
◼
►
And he's using an Apple mouse.
00:44:11
◼
►
And I investigated and here's the best I can guess.
00:44:15
◼
►
I don't know this for certain,
00:44:16
◼
►
but here's the best I can guess.
00:44:18
◼
►
And this is this whole computer mystery solver thing
00:44:23
◼
►
that I think a lot of technical people have to do.
00:44:25
◼
►
And some of it is really intuition.
00:44:27
◼
►
It is that we've seen so many things.
00:44:29
◼
►
It's like my story about the guy at the Apple store
00:44:31
◼
►
who when I was completely distraught about my Mac studio,
00:44:34
◼
►
he was like, I think I know what this is.
00:44:36
◼
►
And within like 10 minutes we had solved it
00:44:38
◼
►
because he'd seen it a million times
00:44:40
◼
►
and he could see the pattern.
00:44:42
◼
►
Whereas I couldn't see the pattern
00:44:43
◼
►
'cause it had not really happened to me before.
00:44:46
◼
►
So I showed him the mouse setting
00:44:49
◼
►
where you can actually say,
00:44:51
◼
►
don't use the right side of the mouse as an Alt+Click.
00:44:56
◼
►
But I asked him and he does seem to use a right click
00:44:59
◼
►
from time to time.
00:45:00
◼
►
So in the end, much to my surprise,
00:45:02
◼
►
my solution to his mouse click problem was behavioral.
00:45:06
◼
►
I said, I think what's happening is
00:45:09
◼
►
as you're using the mouse slowly,
00:45:12
◼
►
your hand is creeping to the right
00:45:14
◼
►
and the mouse is getting a little tilted.
00:45:17
◼
►
And then when you click,
00:45:18
◼
►
you're clicking with your index finger or whatever
00:45:21
◼
►
that you think is gonna be a left click,
00:45:23
◼
►
but you're actually over on the other side
00:45:25
◼
►
and it's a right click,
00:45:26
◼
►
or maybe it's right in the middle
00:45:27
◼
►
and it's not registering at all.
00:45:29
◼
►
And so when you have this thing again,
00:45:31
◼
►
look at your hand and maybe reposition
00:45:35
◼
►
and maybe that will solve it.
00:45:36
◼
►
I don't know a hundred percent,
00:45:37
◼
►
but I think that's what's going on.
00:45:39
◼
►
And I told him, if this continues to be a problem,
00:45:42
◼
►
turn off the right click in the mouse settings
00:45:46
◼
►
and just use Control+Click
00:45:47
◼
►
when you need to bring up a menu.
00:45:49
◼
►
So we'll see what happens with that.
00:45:50
◼
►
But I was fascinated.
00:45:51
◼
►
I'm like, I think you're just holding it wrong.
00:45:54
◼
►
That's literally what it is,
00:45:55
◼
►
is you're just not paying attention.
00:45:57
◼
►
And I'm not a mouse user, so I really don't know,
00:46:00
◼
►
but that's my best guess is that his finger
00:46:01
◼
►
is just kind of going rightward until he's right,
00:46:05
◼
►
he's left clicking on the right side.
00:46:07
◼
►
I don't know.
00:46:09
◼
►
Yeah, as Kyle points out in Discord,
00:46:11
◼
►
kudos that he's using a password manager at all.
00:46:15
◼
►
He's already really ahead of the curve.
00:46:18
◼
►
Yeah, he asked me about that at one point
00:46:20
◼
►
and I said, you should use one password.
00:46:22
◼
►
And one thing I will give my father-in-law
00:46:24
◼
►
great credit for is if I basically say,
00:46:27
◼
►
here's a thing and you have to pay for it,
00:46:28
◼
►
but it solves your problem,
00:46:29
◼
►
he's like, I have already bought it now.
00:46:32
◼
►
He's instantly bought it.
00:46:33
◼
►
He has no fear of that, if I say,
00:46:36
◼
►
this will solve your problem.
00:46:38
◼
►
He's like, great, where do I buy it?
00:46:40
◼
►
And he's been using it faithfully, like I said,
00:46:42
◼
►
apparently two at a time, but faithfully.
00:46:45
◼
►
So yeah, also I should say the dynamic in this house
00:46:49
◼
►
is hilarious 'cause my mother-in-law has a MacBook Air
00:46:51
◼
►
and my father-in-law has an iMac, it's an Intel iMac.
00:46:56
◼
►
And on a desk, it's a beautiful desk,
00:47:01
◼
►
I think it's an uplift, like bamboo top,
00:47:04
◼
►
it's gorgeous, it's great.
00:47:05
◼
►
Long and it's got the printer on it,
00:47:09
◼
►
it's got a bunch of papers on it, but it's an iMac.
00:47:11
◼
►
So he's a desktop user, that's how he wants to use it.
00:47:14
◼
►
And she does not want to use a desktop at all,
00:47:17
◼
►
she wants to use a laptop.
00:47:18
◼
►
I think it's just an interesting split between them.
00:47:21
◼
►
Anyway, the last one is spam in his email.
00:47:30
◼
►
That one can be tricky.
00:47:31
◼
►
- So this one, what I found is that he was saying,
00:47:36
◼
►
I get these emails and I block the sender,
00:47:39
◼
►
but they keep sending me email.
00:47:41
◼
►
And I said, okay, there's a few things going on here.
00:47:43
◼
►
I said, first off, if it's truly spam,
00:47:46
◼
►
blocking the sender will do nothing
00:47:48
◼
►
'cause they will send from another randomized email address.
00:47:50
◼
►
So we'll never, blocking sender is not the solution.
00:47:53
◼
►
You block a sender if it's like a person who's bad.
00:47:56
◼
►
So I said, first thing you gotta do
00:47:57
◼
►
is you gotta send it to junk, send it to your junk mail.
00:48:01
◼
►
And Apple Mail junk filtering was on,
00:48:04
◼
►
but he wasn't training it and he was still getting this stuff
00:48:10
◼
►
so I said, okay, step one, send it to junk mail.
00:48:12
◼
►
Step two, if it feels like it's a legitimate mailing list
00:48:16
◼
►
that you just don't wanna be on,
00:48:19
◼
►
Apple Mail puts a unsubscribe button at the top,
00:48:22
◼
►
just click the unsubscribe button.
00:48:23
◼
►
He says, well, what if it's a spammer?
00:48:25
◼
►
I said, well, the worst thing that happens
00:48:27
◼
►
is that they see that you're alive
00:48:28
◼
►
and they send you more spam,
00:48:32
◼
►
but most spammers don't really do the unsubscribe thing.
00:48:36
◼
►
But if it's a company that you've had some dealing with
00:48:38
◼
►
in the past and never wanna hear from again,
00:48:40
◼
►
just click unsubscribe.
00:48:41
◼
►
But otherwise, add them to junk
00:48:43
◼
►
that trains the junk interface
00:48:45
◼
►
and your life will be better for it.
00:48:48
◼
►
So I just thought it was really interesting
00:48:50
◼
►
that he had decided block sender
00:48:52
◼
►
was the right way to deal with spammers and is not.
00:48:56
◼
►
And then he said, of course, but I still get him,
00:48:58
◼
►
what do I do when I'm on my iPhone?
00:48:59
◼
►
I'm like, well, here's the thing,
00:49:01
◼
►
Apple's decided that spam doesn't happen on the iPhone
00:49:04
◼
►
so there's no junk mail interface at all.
00:49:08
◼
►
And he's not using Gmail or iCloud mail,
00:49:10
◼
►
he's using mail from his internet provider, Cox.
00:49:12
◼
►
So- Okay, that's what I was gonna ask.
00:49:15
◼
►
I was gonna say like, you just can't, sorry, can't be done.
00:49:19
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, I use Gmail for everything
00:49:22
◼
►
and I can just drag it in the junk folder
00:49:23
◼
►
and then it learns and I actually have,
00:49:26
◼
►
well, I don't even use mail, I use MimeStream,
00:49:28
◼
►
but I don't have any like client side filtering.
00:49:30
◼
►
I just let it all happen at the server level.
00:49:32
◼
►
I have Gmail and I have sandbox, a former sponsor.
00:49:35
◼
►
And so I use MimeStream
00:49:37
◼
►
and they are doing all of that filtering for me,
00:49:40
◼
►
which is great, right?
00:49:42
◼
►
But if you are, and that also means that on my phone,
00:49:46
◼
►
it's also filtered,
00:49:47
◼
►
even though I'm using Apple mail on my phone,
00:49:49
◼
►
it doesn't matter because the spam filtering
00:49:51
◼
►
is happening regardless.
00:49:53
◼
►
And I will, most of my training that I do
00:49:55
◼
►
is that I get on all these garbage mailing lists,
00:49:58
◼
►
I think because I'm press
00:50:00
◼
►
and I'm circulating in some press list and,
00:50:03
◼
►
or podcasts, you get this, I'm sure.
00:50:05
◼
►
It's the, "Hello, podcast,
00:50:07
◼
►
"I can make you a more successful podcast.
00:50:09
◼
►
"Please get in touch."
00:50:10
◼
►
And those all go in the same black hole
00:50:12
◼
►
and I never hear from these people.
00:50:13
◼
►
Yep, goodbye.
00:50:17
◼
►
Yeah, it's a nightmare.
00:50:18
◼
►
So do you have any recent troubleshooting things going?
00:50:22
◼
►
Oh, I should mention,
00:50:23
◼
►
you are the, in addition to being the co-host of Connected,
00:50:25
◼
►
co-host of MacPowerUsers,
00:50:27
◼
►
and you have a troubleshooting episode coming up.
00:50:31
◼
►
Is that true?
00:50:33
◼
►
Sunday's episode will be about this.
00:50:36
◼
►
In hindsight, probably should have done it
00:50:37
◼
►
before Thanksgiving in America, but we missed that.
00:50:40
◼
►
Still got it before the big holidays in December,
00:50:42
◼
►
so that's good, right?
00:50:43
◼
►
There's a lot of holidays in December,
00:50:44
◼
►
so there'll be a lot of family,
00:50:46
◼
►
whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah or anything else.
00:50:49
◼
►
So you're gonna be able to get people before the,
00:50:51
◼
►
the more extended, I would say,
00:50:52
◼
►
Thanksgiving is sometimes so fast.
00:50:54
◼
►
I was in Orange County and I didn't get to see
00:50:56
◼
►
your MPU co-host, David Sparks,
00:50:58
◼
►
'cause I literally had no time.
00:51:00
◼
►
That was not the, sort of two days of intense family time,
00:51:03
◼
►
and then that was it.
00:51:04
◼
►
Christmas often is, you really do have that time,
00:51:07
◼
►
unless your father-in-law is such a go-getter
00:51:09
◼
►
that he's like, "Jason, now, let's do it."
00:51:12
◼
►
You may need to relax.
00:51:14
◼
►
So I think it's still good to have,
00:51:15
◼
►
this is a good time to do the troubleshooting episode.
00:51:18
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, so Sunday we're talking about,
00:51:21
◼
►
iCloud and iPhone storage space, backups, printing,
00:51:24
◼
►
bad Wi-Fi, that sort of thing.
00:51:26
◼
►
What I noticed over Thanksgiving,
00:51:30
◼
►
and really just kind of in general is like,
00:51:33
◼
►
I have family members who wanna, who ask me about AI,
00:51:37
◼
►
because they either have heard the buzzwords,
00:51:40
◼
►
or they've seen the Apple commercials
00:51:42
◼
►
with Apple Intelligence, which as we have all talked about,
00:51:44
◼
►
not a great ad because that stuff's not really out yet.
00:51:48
◼
►
And that I think is gonna be something
00:51:51
◼
►
that a lot of people like us,
00:51:53
◼
►
upgrade-ians, we're gonna face that in the holiday season
00:51:56
◼
►
of our aunt and uncles and whoever
00:51:59
◼
►
asking us about these things.
00:52:00
◼
►
And some people have some pretty wild ideas
00:52:03
◼
►
about what is possible or what's coming.
00:52:06
◼
►
And it could be difficult to have nuance
00:52:10
◼
►
in some of those conversations.
00:52:12
◼
►
Like when I sort of realized that this was happening
00:52:14
◼
►
was a extended family member who is kind of a tech bro,
00:52:20
◼
►
like he works at a start-up. I'm sorry.
00:52:22
◼
►
He has a startup and he wears a vest
00:52:24
◼
►
and drives a Tesla.
00:52:28
◼
►
Typical. Typical.
00:52:29
◼
►
Asking, he was very excited about AI
00:52:35
◼
►
and wanted to know what things I thought
00:52:37
◼
►
it would revolutionize.
00:52:38
◼
►
And my answer was like, I think for most people,
00:52:41
◼
►
like some of the writing tools may be interesting.
00:52:43
◼
►
And then my big thing is like,
00:52:45
◼
►
I don't think society is ready for anyone in the world
00:52:49
◼
►
to make AI-generated images.
00:52:51
◼
►
And Apple has sort of had a softball with it
00:52:56
◼
►
because their styles are very cartoony,
00:52:59
◼
►
you're very hand-drawn,
00:53:00
◼
►
you're not making photo-realistic stuff with Apple's tools.
00:53:03
◼
►
I think that that is them trying to avoid these issues
00:53:07
◼
►
while still having the feature.
00:53:09
◼
►
But you can go ask any number of things
00:53:12
◼
►
to make a lifelike image of anybody
00:53:15
◼
►
and they're pretty good at this point.
00:53:17
◼
►
And I don't think we're ready for that.
00:53:18
◼
►
I don't think people are ready for that.
00:53:20
◼
►
And he was like, "Ah, yeah, no,
00:53:22
◼
►
but it's gonna like cure diseases or whatever."
00:53:25
◼
►
I'm like, "Yeah, that may also be true,
00:53:27
◼
►
but I'm more worried about my family members on Facebook
00:53:31
◼
►
seeing an image that's just not true, not accurate."
00:53:33
◼
►
And I've already seen it.
00:53:34
◼
►
Like I've seen it unfold already on social media.
00:53:37
◼
►
And I think we gotta all be prepared
00:53:40
◼
►
to answer those questions.
00:53:41
◼
►
Yeah. I mean, how do, yeah.
00:53:42
◼
►
It's like, how do we talk to your kids
00:53:45
◼
►
about the birds and the bees?
00:53:46
◼
►
How do we talk to your uncle about AI features
00:53:49
◼
►
and that tech bro cousin in your family about AI?
00:53:54
◼
►
I mean, my stock line about AI all along has been
00:53:57
◼
►
it's over-hyped and also could be huge, right?
00:53:59
◼
►
Like I think it's both.
00:54:00
◼
►
And I think we don't entirely know
00:54:02
◼
►
exactly what parts are gonna be huge.
00:54:04
◼
►
And I think it's interesting to see the stories
00:54:07
◼
►
that suggest that they are running into problems,
00:54:11
◼
►
building better models.
00:54:13
◼
►
And the hype train is so hard
00:54:15
◼
►
that it's actually really hard to tell
00:54:16
◼
►
whether that's the backlash speaking.
00:54:19
◼
►
Certainly if you're in an AI company
00:54:21
◼
►
and you're running into problems, you would deny it, right?
00:54:24
◼
►
You would be like, "No, no, no, I need my stock options.
00:54:27
◼
►
No, we're great. We're great. Our company is great."
00:54:29
◼
►
So it's actually kind of hard to tell,
00:54:31
◼
►
but it is possible that there's gonna be a correction
00:54:34
◼
►
where people realize that right now we're in the,
00:54:37
◼
►
what doesn't it do phase,
00:54:38
◼
►
where it's like AI is the solution to all of life's problems
00:54:42
◼
►
and you know what? It's not.
00:54:44
◼
►
I think I can give you 100% guarantee that it's not,
00:54:46
◼
►
that all of the things that people claim AI can do
00:54:49
◼
►
will not be things AI can do.
00:54:53
◼
►
Some of them may, right?
00:54:54
◼
►
I think some of them will, but not all of them.
00:54:57
◼
►
And that's gonna lead to some bumps
00:54:59
◼
►
where some companies that are driven by AI
00:55:02
◼
►
are gonna be like, "Oh yeah, we can't do that."
00:55:05
◼
►
And some of them are gonna go out of business.
00:55:08
◼
►
They're gonna spend a lot of money now
00:55:09
◼
►
assuming there's gonna be a big payoff
00:55:11
◼
►
and they're gonna discover that there isn't a big payoff
00:55:12
◼
►
and there'll be a consolidation.
00:55:14
◼
►
I actually wonder if that will ultimately be a validation
00:55:16
◼
►
to Apple's, like Apple didn't do it on purpose.
00:55:19
◼
►
It wasn't their strategy to get behind on AI.
00:55:21
◼
►
They were caught flat-footed,
00:55:22
◼
►
but it may be a benefit to them
00:55:24
◼
►
because they may be late enough to the party
00:55:26
◼
►
that they can choose useful investments better
00:55:30
◼
►
than some companies have done.
00:55:32
◼
►
I don't know.
00:55:33
◼
►
- Yeah, that's interesting.
00:55:34
◼
►
I hadn't thought about it through that lens,
00:55:36
◼
►
but yeah, that could definitely be how it-
00:55:38
◼
►
- They may luck out basically.
00:55:40
◼
►
They're like, "Oh, well, our small models running on devices
00:55:45
◼
►
that don't cost us a lot in terms of these huge data centers
00:55:49
◼
►
and we're focusing on summarization and writing tools
00:55:52
◼
►
and some automation, like user automation,
00:55:55
◼
►
I think is a potentially huge place
00:55:56
◼
►
where this stuff could be successful.
00:55:58
◼
►
That's why I'm excited about the app intents
00:56:01
◼
►
and the personal contexts and being able to,
00:56:03
◼
►
I love user automation, but even at the shortcuts level,
00:56:06
◼
►
it's way too complicated for people.
00:56:08
◼
►
And if people could say, "Hey, assistant,
00:56:11
◼
►
I'd like to do this thing,"
00:56:14
◼
►
and have it know that you could grab from this app
00:56:16
◼
►
and take it here and transform it in this way
00:56:18
◼
►
and then put it into this app and all of that
00:56:19
◼
►
without you actually having to think like a programmer,
00:56:22
◼
►
I think that's awesome.
00:56:24
◼
►
But we'll see.
00:56:26
◼
►
I mean, Apple is behind on this stuff,
00:56:28
◼
►
but maybe they'll dodge a bullet.
00:56:31
◼
►
I don't know.
00:56:32
◼
►
Related to this, my spider sense went off
00:56:37
◼
►
while listening to Connected last week.
00:56:39
◼
►
I'm in the shower 'cause I listen to podcasts
00:56:43
◼
►
in the shower when I'm walking the dog, don't be creepy.
00:56:45
◼
►
It's just how it is.
00:56:46
◼
►
I have two places that I can really reliably listen
00:56:48
◼
►
to podcasts when I'm not driving back and forth to LA,
00:56:51
◼
►
in which case, wow, we listen to a lot of podcasts.
00:56:54
◼
►
But for this, I'm listening to Connected
00:56:58
◼
►
in the shower yesterday,
00:56:59
◼
►
and you're talking about your Apple Watch battery issues.
00:57:02
◼
►
And you say, "Well, I think it might be the fast charging."
00:57:05
◼
►
I think maybe, which I immediately thought it could be that.
00:57:09
◼
►
So to back up, you and your wife both simultaneously
00:57:13
◼
►
started having battery issues with your Apple Watches,
00:57:16
◼
►
which is deeply suspicious, right?
00:57:18
◼
►
That it's like, it's gotta be something
00:57:20
◼
►
that's happening on both devices.
00:57:21
◼
►
And all of the things we can isolate are,
00:57:24
◼
►
there was probably a software update at some point
00:57:27
◼
►
that hit both of your devices, right?
00:57:29
◼
►
Okay, you changed the chargers.
00:57:33
◼
►
And although that doesn't seem like it would
00:57:35
◼
►
make any difference, and I don't think you're suggesting
00:57:38
◼
►
that maybe fast charging an Apple Watch battery
00:57:40
◼
►
just nukes it, right?
00:57:41
◼
►
It makes it worse.
00:57:42
◼
►
- Right, yeah.
00:57:43
◼
►
- But I do wonder if Apple's charging algorithm
00:57:47
◼
►
on the Apple Watch, its charging firmware,
00:57:49
◼
►
might handle charging from the fast charger different,
00:57:54
◼
►
and might taper it at the top differently,
00:57:58
◼
►
and might even display the battery status differently.
00:58:02
◼
►
And I wonder if it's one of those things
00:58:04
◼
►
where you're using the fast charger, it charges fast,
00:58:07
◼
►
but it doesn't charge as completely,
00:58:09
◼
►
and you end up with a little less battery,
00:58:11
◼
►
you think it's full, but it's not.
00:58:13
◼
►
I had that thought, but the thing that made me literally
00:58:17
◼
►
stick my hand out of the shower, pick up my phone,
00:58:19
◼
►
and send you a text from the shower, which I did,
00:58:24
◼
►
because I didn't wanna forget it,
00:58:25
◼
►
'cause then the conversation's gonna go on,
00:58:27
◼
►
and I'm gonna miss it, and I'm gonna forget it,
00:58:30
◼
►
was you changed your Wi-Fi,
00:58:32
◼
►
and you went to two Wi-Fi, Ubiquiti Wi-Fi base stations.
00:58:37
◼
►
And I just, it was, again, it's probably not it,
00:58:39
◼
►
but it was doing that pattern recognition thing
00:58:42
◼
►
that happens when you're a technology person,
00:58:44
◼
►
and you're trying to troubleshoot, which was,
00:58:46
◼
►
is it possible that even though the Wi-Fi is perfectly fine
00:58:50
◼
►
for your laptops and your phones,
00:58:53
◼
►
if it's just weak enough in the places
00:58:55
◼
►
where you wear your watch,
00:58:57
◼
►
that it has to ramp up the Wi-Fi power
00:59:00
◼
►
in order to get on your Wi-Fi network,
00:59:03
◼
►
or it doesn't see one of them, and it sees the faraway one,
00:59:07
◼
►
and it's expending enough power
00:59:10
◼
►
that it's pulling more from your battery,
00:59:12
◼
►
and it's invisible to you, because you're still on the Wi-Fi.
00:59:16
◼
►
A little like how if you're in a bad cell reception area,
00:59:19
◼
►
your phone will get hot,
00:59:20
◼
►
because it has to really crank up the power
00:59:22
◼
►
in order to get anything on the receiving end.
00:59:26
◼
►
So that was enough of an idea that you didn't mention
00:59:28
◼
►
that I, so sorry, I sent you a text from the shower.
00:59:31
◼
►
Yeah, no, it was good,
00:59:32
◼
►
and some connected listeners had also said,
00:59:35
◼
►
like, hey, this happened. (laughs)
00:59:38
◼
►
When you swapped out your Wi-Fi.
00:59:39
◼
►
When you swapped from eero to UniFi,
00:59:43
◼
►
and it was not only that the battery life was bad,
00:59:46
◼
►
but also our watches would drop,
00:59:49
◼
►
basically drop off the network,
00:59:51
◼
►
so they would be disconnected from our phones.
00:59:54
◼
►
And I think that also was like cycling
00:59:56
◼
►
into the battery thing, like, oh, I don't know what to do.
00:59:58
◼
►
Sure. My phone is gone.
01:00:00
◼
►
And I spent some time this weekend doing some looking
01:00:04
◼
►
around, some searching, and came across a couple posts,
01:00:08
◼
►
none of them super recent,
01:00:10
◼
►
but people having similar issues with UniFi.
01:00:14
◼
►
And so I made a couple of changes to the network,
01:00:18
◼
►
just, and honestly, Jason, some of them I don't understand.
01:00:21
◼
►
It's like, oh, change this sort of handoff
01:00:25
◼
►
to this other kind of handoff.
01:00:26
◼
►
It's network voodoo.
01:00:27
◼
►
And I had a Ubiquiti router for a while.
01:00:29
◼
►
It's the only Ubiquiti product I've had,
01:00:30
◼
►
but it was one of those things where I'm like,
01:00:32
◼
►
I don't know what any of this stuff means.
01:00:34
◼
►
I'll just check some boxes.
01:00:36
◼
►
But that's one of the things you can do is like,
01:00:39
◼
►
if I check this box, what happens?
01:00:40
◼
►
If I, you know, it's a one level above,
01:00:42
◼
►
turn it off and back on again.
01:00:44
◼
►
By the way, I should mention my father-in-law.
01:00:45
◼
►
He did have another problem later in the day
01:00:47
◼
►
where he's like, Jason, I clicked open to open this email
01:00:50
◼
►
and it opened with a blank nothing.
01:00:51
◼
►
And I did command Q.
01:00:53
◼
►
I was like, well, let's quit and relaunch mail.
01:00:54
◼
►
And I did command Q and nothing happened.
01:00:56
◼
►
And I thought, let's restart your Mac.
01:00:59
◼
►
And then it all was fine after that.
01:01:01
◼
►
It's like, you gotta go through the steps.
01:01:02
◼
►
You gotta go through tier one troubleshooting,
01:01:04
◼
►
which is, did you try to turn it off and back on again
01:01:07
◼
►
and then get there?
01:01:08
◼
►
But like for networking, I mean,
01:01:10
◼
►
that's what you, even if you don't know anything,
01:01:12
◼
►
that's what you do is like,
01:01:13
◼
►
maybe DHCP leases should be longer.
01:01:16
◼
►
Maybe they should be shorter.
01:01:18
◼
►
Maybe this weird repeater thing should be on if it's off.
01:01:23
◼
►
I don't know.
01:01:26
◼
►
So I changed a couple of settings.
01:01:28
◼
►
And then last night came across a more recent thread
01:01:33
◼
►
that people were having issues with this
01:01:35
◼
►
if six gigahertz was turned on.
01:01:38
◼
►
'Cause then like the phones on 6E, Wi-Fi 6E,
01:01:41
◼
►
which the Apple Watch doesn't support.
01:01:43
◼
►
Oh, interesting.
01:01:45
◼
►
And so I turned that off
01:01:47
◼
►
and I'm still getting gigabit speed.
01:01:48
◼
►
Like five gigahertz will give you gigabit Wi-Fi speed.
01:01:52
◼
►
And so I'm not really losing any speed
01:01:54
◼
►
from going down.
01:01:56
◼
►
And then someone else also recommended
01:01:59
◼
►
forget the Wi-Fi network on your phone
01:02:01
◼
►
and like rejoin it.
01:02:02
◼
►
'Cause I used the same SSID and password as I had before
01:02:07
◼
►
'cause I don't wanna run around
01:02:08
◼
►
and like rejoin the new Wi-Fi network
01:02:10
◼
►
to a bunch of devices. Absolutely.
01:02:12
◼
►
And so I've done all of those things
01:02:14
◼
►
and so far it's been okay,
01:02:15
◼
►
but it's only been like 12 hours.
01:02:17
◼
►
So we'll see.
01:02:20
◼
►
I do think my wife's like small size series eight,
01:02:25
◼
►
like when a small watch gets down to 88% battery
01:02:31
◼
►
or whatever, like you start to feel it
01:02:32
◼
►
more than the ultra. Sure, for sure.
01:02:34
◼
►
And so I think she may end up getting an upgrade anyways,
01:02:37
◼
►
but yeah, I need to continue to chip away at this.
01:02:41
◼
►
I'm pretty convinced that it's something with the Wi-Fi now.
01:02:44
◼
►
Ooh, oh, what a validation for shower Jason.
01:02:48
◼
►
Yes, I think shower Jason was right.
01:02:50
◼
►
And as we're thinking of the people,
01:02:52
◼
►
and someone even emailed me with some suggestions,
01:02:54
◼
►
which is very kind, thank you.
01:02:56
◼
►
I've emailed back and forth with somebody now
01:02:58
◼
►
about this for a little bit.
01:02:59
◼
►
So we'll see. We'll see.
01:03:02
◼
►
We will see how this goes.
01:03:03
◼
►
And I don't, it's fixable, I'm sure.
01:03:07
◼
►
I think maybe Mary's watch
01:03:10
◼
►
was probably right on the edge, right?
01:03:11
◼
►
Where we're still getting it done,
01:03:12
◼
►
but just a little phantom battery drain is enough
01:03:15
◼
►
to make it suddenly, right?
01:03:16
◼
►
'Cause you hit the wall where it's like,
01:03:17
◼
►
well, if I can't wear it all day,
01:03:19
◼
►
because I'm sitting at home in the evening
01:03:21
◼
►
and it's 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.,
01:03:22
◼
►
and it's telling me I'm at 10% and I'm gonna die,
01:03:25
◼
►
that's when you notice, right?
01:03:27
◼
►
If it goes from being 30% when you go to bed
01:03:30
◼
►
to 20% when you go to bed, it doesn't matter.
01:03:32
◼
►
But when suddenly you start getting the alerts,
01:03:35
◼
►
and so it's just enough phantom battery drain
01:03:37
◼
►
somewhere in the process to tick her watch over
01:03:39
◼
►
into panic mode, but you could also get her a new watch.
01:03:42
◼
►
That'd be nice.
01:03:46
◼
►
I usually upgrade her every three years anyways.
01:03:48
◼
►
So it's about time.
01:03:50
◼
►
But we'll see.
01:03:52
◼
►
I'm hopeful that turning off six gigahertz
01:03:55
◼
►
is enough for now.
01:03:56
◼
►
And if you're listening and you have UniFi stuff
01:04:00
◼
►
and you've had issues like this, please reach out
01:04:02
◼
►
because I would like to get this solved.
01:04:04
◼
►
I believe it's fixable.
01:04:07
◼
►
The fact that there's really not a lot online about it
01:04:09
◼
►
suggests that this is not a widespread thing.
01:04:11
◼
►
And I reached out to some friends with UniFi stuff.
01:04:15
◼
►
They're like, no, we haven't seen this.
01:04:16
◼
►
And so I think it's probably something maybe unique
01:04:20
◼
►
to my setup, but we will see.
01:04:24
◼
►
But this is some of the fun stuff.
01:04:26
◼
►
Yeah, it's super annoying that my watch just disappears
01:04:28
◼
►
from my phone and my activity rings are empty for the day.
01:04:32
◼
►
That's not great.
01:04:33
◼
►
But part of it, a little part of me,
01:04:36
◼
►
I'm also having fun with it.
01:04:37
◼
►
It's a mystery to be solved.
01:04:39
◼
►
Because the kids are still being able to stream Netflix.
01:04:41
◼
►
It's not like it's broken my network.
01:04:44
◼
►
It's really just affecting me and Mary
01:04:46
◼
►
and she didn't even notice until Siri didn't work.
01:04:49
◼
►
She's a big Siri on the watch person.
01:04:52
◼
►
But I feel like there's a fix out there.
01:04:56
◼
►
What Siri's watch does she have again?
01:04:59
◼
►
She is on the Series 8, the little one.
01:05:02
◼
►
So she doesn't have the Siri on the watch at all?
01:05:07
◼
►
Right, but I mean, just hitting the button
01:05:10
◼
►
and talking to Siri and it's really going through the phone.
01:05:12
◼
►
So having gone from the, I think, seven to the 10,
01:05:15
◼
►
'cause I think it's the nine and the 10
01:05:17
◼
►
that have the onboard Siri and the ultras.
01:05:19
◼
►
She's gonna love that upgrade, right?
01:05:22
◼
►
Because that's the thing that I use.
01:05:24
◼
►
I use it mostly for reminders and timers and stuff.
01:05:27
◼
►
But man, having the model running on the device
01:05:30
◼
►
instead of having to go back to the phone, it's so great.
01:05:34
◼
►
It's so great.
01:05:36
◼
►
It's much more responsive.
01:05:38
◼
►
I used to just get so frustrated with Siri on the watch
01:05:40
◼
►
because it would spin and spin and spin and spin
01:05:42
◼
►
and then say, "I give up."
01:05:44
◼
►
And now it never does that.
01:05:45
◼
►
Because the hardware is improved to the point
01:05:47
◼
►
where you can run that stuff on the device.
01:05:50
◼
►
So she'll love that.
01:05:52
◼
►
I hadn't even thought about that.
01:05:53
◼
►
But yeah, that plus the battery may be enough for me to.
01:05:57
◼
►
Yeah, feels good.
01:05:58
◼
►
Maybe I can find a Cyber Monday deal.
01:06:00
◼
►
Thanks, Unifi.
01:06:02
◼
►
Thanks, Unifi.
01:06:03
◼
►
Cost him even bringing families together.
01:06:06
◼
►
Even more money.
01:06:09
◼
►
This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Smarter World.
01:06:12
◼
►
If you're in a podcast that delve into how tech
01:06:14
◼
►
shapes our lives, which, I mean, you're here, aren't you?
01:06:19
◼
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This ad read is for you.
01:06:20
◼
►
I am here, Jason.
01:06:21
◼
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Let me tell you.
01:06:23
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Let's sit down here.
01:06:24
◼
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I'm gonna turn my cap around.
01:06:25
◼
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Turn this chair around backward.
01:06:28
◼
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We're gonna wrap a little.
01:06:29
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Okay, tell me.
01:06:30
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Let's start with a couple of questions.
01:06:31
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How do you control a robotic arm with your voice?
01:06:35
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Which technology allows cars to communicate in real time
01:06:39
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as they drive?
01:06:41
◼
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What's inside the smart plug that reduces home fires
01:06:43
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and save lives?
01:06:44
◼
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If you're curious about the answers,
01:06:46
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you wanna listen to the Smarter World podcast.
01:06:48
◼
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They speak to some of the world's biggest brands
01:06:52
◼
►
and most exciting startups about how they're using
01:06:54
◼
►
technology to change the world around us.
01:06:56
◼
►
Host Kyle Fox recently spoke to Honeywell
01:06:58
◼
►
about how smart energy is changing the buildings we work in.
01:07:02
◼
►
My old building used to like leave the lights on
01:07:04
◼
►
all the time and leave the AC on half the time.
01:07:06
◼
►
And I thought, this is really bad.
01:07:09
◼
►
Like they need a better system.
01:07:10
◼
►
So this is cool.
01:07:11
◼
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Applied EV shared how they're working to bring autonomous
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◼
►
driving vehicles to delivery fleets and commercial vehicles.
01:07:18
◼
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And another episode, Damon Motors explained
01:07:20
◼
►
how they're redefining the riding experience
01:07:22
◼
►
with their electric motorbike.
01:07:23
◼
►
Ooh, I have a friend who's into electric motorcycles.
01:07:27
◼
►
That's cool.
01:07:28
◼
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The podcast features guests discussing technology topics
01:07:31
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from drones to software-defined vehicles
01:07:32
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to smart home innovations.
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They explore the stories behind the tech we use every day.
01:07:36
◼
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You can listen to these conversations by searching
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◼
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for Smarter World wherever you listen to podcasts.
01:07:41
◼
►
That's the Smarter World podcast search for it now.
01:07:43
◼
►
Thank you to Smarter World for the support of Upgrade
01:07:47
◼
►
and all of Steven's podcast network.
01:07:53
◼
►
Steven, I wrote a thing that I say for you for this podcast,
01:07:58
◼
►
which is indecision at the intersection of the Mac studio
01:08:01
◼
►
and the Mac mini, which is my article where I get lots
01:08:05
◼
►
and lots and lots and lots of advice from people I know
01:08:11
◼
►
about what kind of computer I should buy,
01:08:13
◼
►
because I'm feeling the Mac mini sweats, right?
01:08:16
◼
►
Like the, oh, that Mac mini pro chip, so impressive.
01:08:20
◼
►
Do I want that?
01:08:21
◼
►
I have a Mac studio M1 max, which is really, really good.
01:08:25
◼
►
I ran benchmark tests against the pro and I was like,
01:08:28
◼
►
well, it's way faster at CPU, but actually,
01:08:30
◼
►
'cause it has so many fewer GPU cores than my M1,
01:08:34
◼
►
it's only like a 7% GPU boost, which is impressive
01:08:38
◼
►
going from a max to a pro.
01:08:39
◼
►
But like, if I'm gonna get a new computer after three years,
01:08:42
◼
►
I want like a really impressive jump.
01:08:44
◼
►
And that was enough to get me off of the Mac mini train,
01:08:48
◼
►
I think, even though it's so cute, because I thought,
01:08:51
◼
►
it's just, it's not enough of a benefit for me,
01:08:54
◼
►
even though it's sorely tempting.
01:08:55
◼
►
But it's just like, okay, maybe I'll just wait and see,
01:08:59
◼
►
they'll probably be the high end of the Mac mini
01:09:01
◼
►
and the low end of the Mac studio, usually crossover,
01:09:04
◼
►
and you get the max chip in the Mac studio,
01:09:06
◼
►
even the base model is gonna be way more impressive
01:09:09
◼
►
than the high end Mac mini, and presumably will blow
01:09:14
◼
►
my existing Mac studio out of the water.
01:09:17
◼
►
And this was great until some of my friends,
01:09:19
◼
►
and I use that term somewhat pejoratively here,
01:09:22
◼
►
said, Jason, you have a laptop
01:09:26
◼
►
that you travel with sometimes,
01:09:27
◼
►
you have a desk in your garage,
01:09:29
◼
►
and you have a desk in the back of the house
01:09:30
◼
►
that you use a lot in the winter,
01:09:32
◼
►
because you don't wanna heat your garage
01:09:35
◼
►
and it's a separate space heater.
01:09:37
◼
►
All of this is true.
01:09:38
◼
►
And they say, you should just get a MacBook Pro,
01:09:41
◼
►
you can get an M4 Max MacBook Pro today,
01:09:45
◼
►
you don't even need to wait for the Mac studio.
01:09:47
◼
►
And the best part is, Macs are good at syncing data,
01:09:51
◼
►
but they're not great at syncing data.
01:09:53
◼
►
There's a lot of data that doesn't sync,
01:09:56
◼
►
that you're like, oh, suddenly this app,
01:09:59
◼
►
I think it was Hazel the other day,
01:10:01
◼
►
where it's like, oh, Hazel doesn't know what to do on this,
01:10:04
◼
►
and the Python version was different,
01:10:06
◼
►
and this thing wasn't installed
01:10:08
◼
►
when I went from one room to another.
01:10:11
◼
►
And my friends, again, so-called friends were like,
01:10:14
◼
►
if you have a MacBook Pro,
01:10:15
◼
►
you literally carry your computer from room A to room B,
01:10:19
◼
►
and everything is the same,
01:10:21
◼
►
because it's literally the same computer.
01:10:22
◼
►
And you know what you can also do then?
01:10:24
◼
►
When you go visit your mom in Phoenix,
01:10:27
◼
►
it's also the same, 'cause it's the same computer.
01:10:30
◼
►
And are you getting it yet?
01:10:32
◼
►
It's not three different computers in three different places,
01:10:34
◼
►
it's one computer.
01:10:35
◼
►
- It's one computer. - You move between places.
01:10:38
◼
►
And so I come to you, also with this,
01:10:42
◼
►
I wanted to just share a link.
01:10:43
◼
►
There is an absolutely bananas article
01:10:47
◼
►
on 9to5Mac last week,
01:10:50
◼
►
that was how I turned the M4 Mac mini
01:10:52
◼
►
into a travel computer, it's hilarious.
01:10:54
◼
►
I really admire the moxie of the 9to5Mac writer,
01:11:00
◼
►
Fernando Silva, because it's like,
01:11:03
◼
►
I've got a backpack, I got a little portable display,
01:11:06
◼
►
I got a Mac mini, I got a keyboard,
01:11:08
◼
►
and I can travel with my computer.
01:11:10
◼
►
And then he's like, of course you could also buy a laptop.
01:11:12
◼
►
I'm like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you could do that, you could.
01:11:15
◼
►
- You know whose fault this story is?
01:11:17
◼
►
This travel M4 Mac mini,
01:11:20
◼
►
we're gonna get back to you in a second,
01:11:22
◼
►
but this travel M4 Mac mini situation,
01:11:24
◼
►
it's Federico Vittucci's fault,
01:11:26
◼
►
because he cut a MacBook Air in half
01:11:28
◼
►
and stuck an iPad on top of it.
01:11:30
◼
►
And suddenly everybody's hacking their hardware.
01:11:32
◼
►
- It was the original sin of this whole thing, was that.
01:11:35
◼
►
- It was, you know, Sigmund has got an Apple TV.
01:11:39
◼
►
Do you know, we talked about it on Connected, I think,
01:11:42
◼
►
he doesn't even have the screen anymore.
01:11:44
◼
►
- No, he threw it away.
01:11:45
◼
►
- So he just has half a MacBook Air in his drawer.
01:11:48
◼
►
- What are you doing, man?
01:11:50
◼
►
Back to you, though.
01:11:51
◼
►
- Thank you.
01:11:52
◼
►
- And I think last time I was on upgrade,
01:11:54
◼
►
I also had some sort of, I was judging something.
01:11:58
◼
►
- Yeah, you bring the Mac therapy.
01:12:01
◼
►
- Wisdom, yeah.
01:12:02
◼
►
- Thank you.
01:12:03
◼
►
- So for years, I had a desktop Mac and a laptop.
01:12:09
◼
►
And so I did this, right?
01:12:11
◼
►
Like I kind of have my desktop be my main computer.
01:12:14
◼
►
And then I took my notebook with me
01:12:15
◼
►
when I went to go work somewhere else.
01:12:16
◼
►
And I did the data juggling thing.
01:12:18
◼
►
And you're right, documents, photos, calendar stuff,
01:12:21
◼
►
that's really easy to sync.
01:12:23
◼
►
It's all sort of the other stuff that we as nerds
01:12:26
◼
►
have a lot of extra stuff.
01:12:28
◼
►
That's where you're really kind of like rebuilding it
01:12:31
◼
►
on both systems.
01:12:33
◼
►
- Yeah, it's all the stuff that's in like your library files
01:12:36
◼
►
and that the apps have not, or the system,
01:12:39
◼
►
have just not moved, which they have to engineer themselves,
01:12:44
◼
►
like move to a system where that stuff ends up
01:12:47
◼
►
living in a synced place.
01:12:49
◼
►
And so they all get out of sync.
01:12:51
◼
►
It just, it happens.
01:12:53
◼
►
- Yeah, it can actually be kind of frustrating.
01:12:55
◼
►
It's like, oh, why isn't this thing working?
01:12:59
◼
►
Hazel's a great example of this for me.
01:13:01
◼
►
'Cause I use Hazel and it's like,
01:13:02
◼
►
oh, why is this PDF still just sitting on my desktop?
01:13:04
◼
►
Why hasn't it moved?
01:13:05
◼
►
It's like, oh, because I want a different computer.
01:13:09
◼
►
- And Hazel has a sync system,
01:13:10
◼
►
but you have to turn it on
01:13:13
◼
►
and make sure you turn it on in the right place
01:13:14
◼
►
and say, now this, and then go to the other computer
01:13:17
◼
►
and say, now use that and also do it here.
01:13:19
◼
►
And if you do that, it does work, but you have to do it.
01:13:23
◼
►
- Yeah, same with Alfred, which is my launcher of choice.
01:13:25
◼
►
And if Alfred's not the same whenever I use a computer,
01:13:28
◼
►
I use my brain, does it work?
01:13:30
◼
►
But you have to go in and you put a folder on Dropbox
01:13:33
◼
►
and then it syncs it.
01:13:34
◼
►
And we all know how reliable that can be over time.
01:13:38
◼
►
But so that was my life for really,
01:13:42
◼
►
for like seven, probably seven or eight years,
01:13:45
◼
►
my first seven or eight years being independent, I did this.
01:13:48
◼
►
And then with the M2 generation,
01:13:51
◼
►
I bought a pretty nice M2 Pro MacBook Pro
01:13:55
◼
►
and made the decision, like I'm gonna have one computer.
01:13:57
◼
►
And when I'm at my desk, it's hooked up to my studio display
01:14:00
◼
►
and my sound equipment, everything else.
01:14:01
◼
►
I use a Thunderbolt dock for that.
01:14:03
◼
►
But then I can just eject time machine.
01:14:07
◼
►
I can unplug a single cable
01:14:09
◼
►
and my one computer goes with me.
01:14:12
◼
►
Now there are downsides to that, right?
01:14:14
◼
►
The laptop's more expensive.
01:14:15
◼
►
If your car gets broken into and someone snatches your bag
01:14:19
◼
►
and your one computer was in it, that's a problem, right?
01:14:22
◼
►
Or if you spill ice tea into it
01:14:24
◼
►
and you know, and so I still have,
01:14:27
◼
►
like I have an M1 MacBook Air
01:14:28
◼
►
that's my beta machine in the summer.
01:14:30
◼
►
And that's sort of my escape patch.
01:14:32
◼
►
Like if something happened to this laptop,
01:14:34
◼
►
I could still record a podcast by getting,
01:14:37
◼
►
you know, some stuff installed on it.
01:14:38
◼
►
So, you know, there's nothing saying
01:14:41
◼
►
you wouldn't have the redundancy
01:14:44
◼
►
or sort of the safety net of that.
01:14:46
◼
►
But I have really come to enjoy having
01:14:51
◼
►
just the one Mac with everything on it
01:14:53
◼
►
and my setup being the same everywhere.
01:14:57
◼
►
And I think in your case,
01:14:58
◼
►
where you are kind of bouncing back and forth
01:15:00
◼
►
between the garage and the bedroom, Studio B back there,
01:15:05
◼
►
I think there's real benefit to it.
01:15:06
◼
►
And I think the 14-inch M4 Macs would smoke your studio.
01:15:14
◼
►
- And give you that.
01:15:16
◼
►
And I understand like you're a small laptop person.
01:15:18
◼
►
You know, the 14-inch is a little bulky and I get that.
01:15:21
◼
►
But I think the benefits outweigh that, at least for me.
01:15:23
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm coming around.
01:15:25
◼
►
I'm still not there yet, right?
01:15:27
◼
►
'Cause I have been a MacBook Air person for so long.
01:15:29
◼
►
But the truth is, my MacBook Air-ness was very much
01:15:33
◼
►
based on the fact that I used to be a commuter
01:15:36
◼
►
and brought my laptop back and forth.
01:15:38
◼
►
'Cause you talk about, you know,
01:15:40
◼
►
having your same computer everywhere.
01:15:42
◼
►
It was in my backpack.
01:15:42
◼
►
It was a MacBook Air on my back.
01:15:44
◼
►
So I wanted to be as light as possible,
01:15:45
◼
►
but I docked it at work and then used it at home.
01:15:48
◼
►
It was great.
01:15:49
◼
►
And when I started this, I started with a Mac.
01:15:52
◼
►
I eventually bought that Retina iMac when it came out.
01:15:54
◼
►
But when I started doing this work-from-home thing,
01:15:57
◼
►
it was with a docked MacBook Air on a monitor.
01:16:01
◼
►
And it was great.
01:16:02
◼
►
So I'm open to it because my laptop,
01:16:05
◼
►
like I don't use the laptop around the house very much
01:16:07
◼
►
at all because I use the iPad.
01:16:10
◼
►
Like on the couch and stuff, it's never the laptop.
01:16:14
◼
►
It's always the iPad for that stuff.
01:16:16
◼
►
And even in the backyard, most of the time I'm writing,
01:16:19
◼
►
I'm actually writing on the iPad with the keyboard.
01:16:21
◼
►
I'm not writing with the MacBook Air.
01:16:23
◼
►
So my MacBook Air use is really limited
01:16:26
◼
►
to the back of the house as the Studio B driver.
01:16:30
◼
►
And when I go visit my mom or do any other kind
01:16:34
◼
►
of like business travel where I need to record podcasts
01:16:36
◼
►
and stuff like that, because I'm not as far gone
01:16:38
◼
►
as Federico, who has completely forsaken the Mac.
01:16:40
◼
►
It's not gonna be me.
01:16:41
◼
►
I'm not gonna go that far.
01:16:42
◼
►
For now, he'll be back.
01:16:44
◼
►
He always comes back.
01:16:45
◼
►
Yeah, he'll boomerang around.
01:16:47
◼
►
He bounces around.
01:16:49
◼
►
He's just traveling the world and seeing the sights
01:16:53
◼
►
and you can't pin him down.
01:16:56
◼
►
That's why we love him.
01:16:58
◼
►
So I am seriously considering it,
01:16:59
◼
►
which I kind of can't believe.
01:17:01
◼
►
The other thing is I write these articles.
01:17:03
◼
►
I write these reviews of these MacBook Pros.
01:17:06
◼
►
And I always go out of my way to talk about the display
01:17:10
◼
►
because it is the best display Apple has ever made, period.
01:17:14
◼
►
Yeah, full stop.
01:17:16
◼
►
It is spectacularly good, bright colors.
01:17:20
◼
►
It's just incredible.
01:17:22
◼
►
And having one of those when I travel,
01:17:26
◼
►
well, you know, that would be nice.
01:17:28
◼
►
That would be really nice.
01:17:29
◼
►
And it's very rare that I'm using a laptop
01:17:31
◼
►
in cramped conditions where I am going to say,
01:17:35
◼
►
oh man, I really wish I had the MacBook Air
01:17:37
◼
►
instead of the MacBook Pro.
01:17:38
◼
►
It's not that much.
01:17:39
◼
►
I mean, it's not the 11-inch Air, right?
01:17:41
◼
►
That's the other thing is Apple is never gonna make,
01:17:43
◼
►
I think, personally, I think,
01:17:44
◼
►
never gonna make a Mac laptop smaller than the 13-inch Air.
01:17:48
◼
►
I don't think they're gonna ever make a,
01:17:50
◼
►
I would love it if they made an 11-inch Sub Air or whatever,
01:17:53
◼
►
but I don't think they will.
01:17:55
◼
►
And even if they did, I don't think I'd want it
01:17:57
◼
►
because it would probably be so compromised at that point.
01:18:00
◼
►
So I am coming around to the idea
01:18:03
◼
►
that maybe a 14-inch M4 Max MacBook Pro
01:18:10
◼
►
might be in my future replacing all of my other Macs.
01:18:14
◼
►
And as for the fear of like, having a disaster
01:18:19
◼
►
where you have to send your computer in
01:18:21
◼
►
and you don't have access to a Mac for a while,
01:18:23
◼
►
I have my server, it's an M2 Mini.
01:18:25
◼
►
Like, I can do my job on an M2 Mini.
01:18:28
◼
►
It's fine. - Oh yeah, yeah.
01:18:29
◼
►
- Right, if it comes to that, I will repurpose,
01:18:32
◼
►
I'll move the server and the hard drive
01:18:34
◼
►
and all those things to one of my desks
01:18:36
◼
►
and just use it there and it'll be fine, right?
01:18:38
◼
►
I have no fear of that.
01:18:41
◼
►
- Yeah, don't let Dan Moore near it with an iPhone.
01:18:43
◼
►
We know how that ends.
01:18:45
◼
►
- Wow. - You know, too soon.
01:18:47
◼
►
- I saw a picture, I was building some calendars last week.
01:18:50
◼
►
- Interesting. - Yeah, right?
01:18:52
◼
►
I've got the last page of the last Stephen Hackett calendar
01:18:55
◼
►
up on my wall right now.
01:18:58
◼
►
We've reached December.
01:19:00
◼
►
- That's the James Thompson photo, right?
01:19:02
◼
►
- Yeah, of the icon garden.
01:19:03
◼
►
It's great, including the hand,
01:19:05
◼
►
which I'm imagining is you waving goodbye to calendars.
01:19:08
◼
►
But we do this every year, we take pictures for the year
01:19:13
◼
►
and then make those the calendar for the next year.
01:19:15
◼
►
And so I was going through all the pictures.
01:19:17
◼
►
And one of the pictures in there is me taking a selfie
01:19:20
◼
►
of Miro at WWDC and it's like, oh, there's Casey
01:19:23
◼
►
and there's David and oh, there's Dan and his laptop
01:19:27
◼
►
just before the bad thing happened.
01:19:31
◼
►
- It's like the last known photo of somebody
01:19:34
◼
►
before they disappear.
01:19:35
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, it's like, wait, little did Dan know
01:19:37
◼
►
that he would drop his iPhone right on his screen
01:19:40
◼
►
and destroy it mid keynote, mid keynote, amazing.
01:19:44
◼
►
- That's a real bummer.
01:19:45
◼
►
I think the M4 Max 14 inch is the way to go.
01:19:48
◼
►
I mean, that's what I'm gonna do.
01:19:50
◼
►
I'm gonna do it at the end of the year, I think.
01:19:52
◼
►
And you can spec it up where it really can be
01:19:56
◼
►
your one computer.
01:19:59
◼
►
- Yeah, I know you gotta get all your files on there, right?
01:20:01
◼
►
You gotta get the entirety of relay on that drive.
01:20:04
◼
►
So you gotta get the big drive.
01:20:05
◼
►
- I tell you what, once you buy one laptop with eight terabytes
01:20:08
◼
►
you can't go back.
01:20:09
◼
►
- This is the thing with my Mac studio is I used to have
01:20:11
◼
►
an iMac with a one terabyte drive and I got the Mac studio
01:20:14
◼
►
with two terabytes and this could be like a little maxim.
01:20:17
◼
►
We could come up with a way to like make this
01:20:20
◼
►
a thing people refer to in the future.
01:20:22
◼
►
But it's like, basically once you go to a higher
01:20:25
◼
►
storage tier, you can't go back, right?
01:20:28
◼
►
You just can't.
01:20:29
◼
►
I'm never gonna go back to one terabyte again
01:20:31
◼
►
because I'm now at two terabytes and everything is expanded
01:20:35
◼
►
to fill the space, I'm never going back.
01:20:38
◼
►
- Exactly, it's like the mythical man month,
01:20:40
◼
►
but for files.
01:20:41
◼
►
- But for SSDs, yep.
01:20:43
◼
►
- That sounds right.
01:20:44
◼
►
- The subliminal storage doctrine.
01:20:49
◼
►
- There is some sort of thing about that.
01:20:51
◼
►
Like work will take a body a lot of time.
01:20:54
◼
►
- Expand to fill the space, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20:56
◼
►
- Yeah, that does happen with storage.
01:20:59
◼
►
But yeah, I think it's the way to go.
01:21:00
◼
►
And yeah, it's a bit more weight when you're fine
01:21:04
◼
►
to see your mom or when you're going somewhere,
01:21:06
◼
►
but it's not that big.
01:21:08
◼
►
And I think one thing about the screen that is worth,
01:21:12
◼
►
I mean, I think the MacBook Pro is the way to go
01:21:14
◼
►
for the power.
01:21:15
◼
►
But for me, I'm sitting in front of a studio display
01:21:18
◼
►
almost all the time, not the laptops open to the left.
01:21:21
◼
►
But again, I'm not getting the benefit of that screen
01:21:26
◼
►
most of the time.
01:21:27
◼
►
And that's kind of a bummer, but the power is what I'm after
01:21:32
◼
►
and the capacity is what I'm after
01:21:33
◼
►
and the screen's kind of a bonus.
01:21:35
◼
►
And when I do use it just as a laptop, it's incredible.
01:21:38
◼
►
So if you're gonna use it in clamshell mode or something,
01:21:42
◼
►
yeah, you don't get that benefit all the time,
01:21:44
◼
►
but when you really need it,
01:21:46
◼
►
that's when it'll be there for you.
01:21:47
◼
►
- Right, yeah.
01:21:48
◼
►
Right, well, thank you for the sage advice.
01:21:52
◼
►
I appreciate it.
01:21:52
◼
►
- Yeah, and I will say, 'cause I think I heard you say this,
01:21:54
◼
►
like clamshell mode works great with Apple Silicon Macs.
01:21:58
◼
►
It's so much better than it used to be.
01:22:00
◼
►
I used it for a while in the Intel days
01:22:05
◼
►
and it was just like-
01:22:06
◼
►
- It was really bad then.
01:22:07
◼
►
- Really bad.
01:22:08
◼
►
And like Apple fixed that with Apple Silicon.
01:22:10
◼
►
So if you're out there and you're like,
01:22:11
◼
►
"Oh, I wish I could use clamshell mode
01:22:13
◼
►
and maybe I'm on a small desk and laptops just in the way."
01:22:16
◼
►
Like, it's really good now.
01:22:19
◼
►
Like I said, I use it in the back of the house.
01:22:20
◼
►
And I mean, and as a veteran of somebody
01:22:22
◼
►
who would frequently pull my laptop out of my backpack
01:22:25
◼
►
when I got home to find that it was blazing hot
01:22:27
◼
►
because although it had been closed and gone to sleep,
01:22:30
◼
►
it decided it wouldn't sleep.
01:22:31
◼
►
That was the Intel Mac laptop experience in a nutshell.
01:22:34
◼
►
- It really was.
01:22:35
◼
►
- It's not like that now.
01:22:36
◼
►
It's not like that at all.
01:22:38
◼
►
- Yeah, I think someone when they did Apple Silicon,
01:22:42
◼
►
they're like, "Hey, look, this has been a problem.
01:22:45
◼
►
Let's fix it now."
01:22:46
◼
►
- Most of our desktop users are using laptops
01:22:48
◼
►
attached to a monitor probably, right?
01:22:52
◼
►
- I don't know.
01:22:52
◼
►
I mean, what percentage of people who use laptops
01:22:53
◼
►
ever attach it to a monitor?
01:22:55
◼
►
But I wonder if that number is larger
01:22:57
◼
►
than the number of people who are using a desktop Mac
01:22:59
◼
►
attached to a monitor.
01:23:00
◼
►
Really, maybe.
01:23:03
◼
►
Maybe the same, maybe more, I don't know.
01:23:05
◼
►
But I have a random Mac complaint to share with you.
01:23:11
◼
►
- Just before we take our last break,
01:23:12
◼
►
I wanted to share this with you.
01:23:14
◼
►
I had this flash, which was, I use Launch Bar.
01:23:19
◼
►
And I have a chat GPT account and I use chat GPT some.
01:23:23
◼
►
And I was actually hearing you guys talk about,
01:23:27
◼
►
Mike uses chat GPT for search a lot.
01:23:28
◼
►
And I thought, how can I, I use it occasionally
01:23:31
◼
►
and I find it interesting.
01:23:32
◼
►
I don't find the results great, but I find it okay.
01:23:35
◼
►
And interesting and sometimes useful.
01:23:39
◼
►
Sometimes really bad, but sometimes useful.
01:23:41
◼
►
And I thought, what I really wanna do
01:23:43
◼
►
is use it from inside Launch Bar, right?
01:23:47
◼
►
What I really wanna do is say, do my Launch Bar shortcut
01:23:51
◼
►
and then do a GPT shortcut and then type a query
01:23:54
◼
►
and then get the response.
01:23:55
◼
►
But what I really, and I could do that on the web.
01:23:57
◼
►
I could build that for the web.
01:23:59
◼
►
But what I really wanna do is use the chat GPT Mac app,
01:24:02
◼
►
because it's nice that it's a Mac app
01:24:04
◼
►
that is not stuck in a web browser and I can open it
01:24:07
◼
►
and I can see my whole history and it's just,
01:24:09
◼
►
it feels better.
01:24:10
◼
►
But the problem is it's basically a web wrapper
01:24:12
◼
►
and it doesn't have, as far as I can tell,
01:24:15
◼
►
any connectivity to other Mac things.
01:24:17
◼
►
And it's frustrating.
01:24:19
◼
►
I want it to be like a URL scheme, right?
01:24:24
◼
►
Something where I can just pass a URL to the chat GPT app
01:24:27
◼
►
that says, do this query and it'll open.
01:24:30
◼
►
I don't even need it to come back to Launch Bar.
01:24:32
◼
►
I just want it to open in the chat GPT app
01:24:34
◼
►
and have done the query.
01:24:35
◼
►
Right, just pass it through and then the app open
01:24:39
◼
►
or you tab over to it or something and it's ready for you.
01:24:41
◼
►
And it's ready, right.
01:24:43
◼
►
I wanna eliminate a step here
01:24:44
◼
►
because I have Launch Bar in my muscle memory
01:24:46
◼
►
and GPT will bind to a shortcut,
01:24:49
◼
►
but I don't really want that
01:24:50
◼
►
'cause I don't use it enough for that.
01:24:52
◼
►
But I would like to sort of like bind it to Launch Bar
01:24:55
◼
►
and have Launch Bar pass it to chat GPT, but the app is bad.
01:24:58
◼
►
And I actually asked chat GPT how to do this.
01:25:03
◼
►
And it generated, first off,
01:25:04
◼
►
it told me to go someplace in Launch Bar that doesn't exist.
01:25:07
◼
►
It's like, go to this tab
01:25:09
◼
►
and then press the new automation button.
01:25:12
◼
►
And it's like, that doesn't exist.
01:25:13
◼
►
Okay, great.
01:25:15
◼
►
And then it wrote an AppleScript for me.
01:25:18
◼
►
And I know this has happened a few times
01:25:20
◼
►
where I've seen it that chat GPT
01:25:24
◼
►
is actually pretty good at writing AppleScript
01:25:25
◼
►
'cause there's so much AppleScript documentation
01:25:27
◼
►
and examples out there on the internet.
01:25:28
◼
►
And I know that they're old, but there's so much of it.
01:25:31
◼
►
It's actually a great way to do AppleScript
01:25:34
◼
►
is just because nobody needs to learn AppleScript today.
01:25:38
◼
►
You should never learn it if you don't know it.
01:25:40
◼
►
But there's stuff AppleScript can do
01:25:41
◼
►
that nothing else can do on the Mac.
01:25:43
◼
►
And chat GPT will write it for you.
01:25:45
◼
►
So you can do it that way.
01:25:46
◼
►
Be careful, be careful 'cause it could decide
01:25:48
◼
►
to kill all humans and write an AppleScript that's bad.
01:25:52
◼
►
But generally it works really well.
01:25:54
◼
►
So it's AppleScript is super hacky though,
01:25:57
◼
►
because it knows that it can't control the chat GPT app.
01:25:59
◼
►
So it basically says, take the query from Launch Bar
01:26:02
◼
►
and type it, switch to chat GPT and type it in.
01:26:06
◼
►
It's like, well, I could use keyboard maestro
01:26:08
◼
►
at that point, right?
01:26:09
◼
►
That is not the point here.
01:26:10
◼
►
And I may end up using keyboard maestro to do this.
01:26:13
◼
►
I don't know.
01:26:14
◼
►
But my plea to chat GPT and everybody over there is
01:26:19
◼
►
put a URL scheme in your Mac app and document it.
01:26:23
◼
►
'Cause that's all I really need is I need a way to say
01:26:25
◼
►
chat GPT colon slash slash search and topic equals, right?
01:26:30
◼
►
That's all I need is document a URL scheme.
01:26:34
◼
►
I don't need an AppleScript dictionary
01:26:36
◼
►
or anything like that.
01:26:37
◼
►
Let's not even go there,
01:26:38
◼
►
but just something where I can pass that through.
01:26:41
◼
►
'Cause that would be nice.
01:26:43
◼
►
Yeah, I have the Mac app installed.
01:26:45
◼
►
It's not great.
01:26:47
◼
►
It runs in the menu bar and the dock.
01:26:53
◼
►
And it's one of those where you can like hide the dock app,
01:26:55
◼
►
but that doesn't really work the way that I expect it to
01:26:57
◼
►
in a way that I can't quite put my finger on even.
01:27:00
◼
►
Like it's just kind of weird.
01:27:01
◼
►
I do have it bound to a keyboard shortcut.
01:27:05
◼
►
I'm doing option space.
01:27:07
◼
►
And I have it.
01:27:09
◼
►
So the default positions are bottom left, center, and right.
01:27:13
◼
►
It's like, no, I want it in the top right.
01:27:15
◼
►
Like that's kind of in my brain where it should be.
01:27:17
◼
►
And I can drag the window up there
01:27:19
◼
►
and set it to open the last position,
01:27:22
◼
►
but it doesn't really remember.
01:27:23
◼
►
Like it's just, it's kind of a weird app.
01:27:26
◼
►
I'm not actually sure.
01:27:28
◼
►
I was trying to dig around as I was talking.
01:27:31
◼
►
If it's native or if it's an electron,
01:27:35
◼
►
but it's got some weirdness to it.
01:27:36
◼
►
- I think it's just a web wrapper.
01:27:38
◼
►
And look, I am very glad that there's a Mac app.
01:27:40
◼
►
I love that they said, you know what?
01:27:42
◼
►
ChatGPT is so useful.
01:27:43
◼
►
We want to integrate it into desktop computers.
01:27:46
◼
►
And they did the Mac version
01:27:47
◼
►
and now they have a Windows version too.
01:27:49
◼
►
Like I like that about it
01:27:50
◼
►
because if you are a believer in ChatGPT
01:27:52
◼
►
and ChatGPT people should be, right?
01:27:55
◼
►
That it's their product,
01:27:57
◼
►
then you should believe that integrating it
01:27:59
◼
►
with the desktop computers
01:28:01
◼
►
is one of the things that you should do.
01:28:03
◼
►
So I'm grateful that it's there because I don't,
01:28:06
◼
►
I mean, like I said, I could open this up in a web browser,
01:28:09
◼
►
but I'd rather not.
01:28:10
◼
►
I just wish that it was a little more integrated.
01:28:13
◼
►
And like the bare minimum to me is,
01:28:15
◼
►
accept a URL that's passed from elsewhere in the system.
01:28:20
◼
►
Because that will,
01:28:21
◼
►
then you can put it on a Stream Deck button,
01:28:23
◼
►
you can keyboard maestro it, you can AppleScript it,
01:28:25
◼
►
you can use it in Launch Bar.
01:28:26
◼
►
Like it opens up the entire platform
01:28:29
◼
►
to just pass things to ChatGPT.
01:28:31
◼
►
If they want to do more, you know, great.
01:28:34
◼
►
If they want to return, you know,
01:28:37
◼
►
the result back to some other app, fine.
01:28:39
◼
►
But like, it's not necessary.
01:28:41
◼
►
I just would like a little bit.
01:28:43
◼
►
And I realized I could probably build like an API thing
01:28:46
◼
►
that uses the API,
01:28:47
◼
►
like how Federico did with one of his shortcuts.
01:28:50
◼
►
Like I could probably do that where I built a whole thing
01:28:52
◼
►
that passes the query to the ChatGPT API
01:28:54
◼
►
and gets the results back and displays it.
01:28:56
◼
►
Again, it's kind of too much.
01:28:58
◼
►
I'd rather not.
01:28:59
◼
►
All I really want to do is pass the query on
01:29:01
◼
►
to where it should live, which is in the Mac app.
01:29:03
◼
►
And it doesn't do that.
01:29:05
◼
►
But I like, I don't know how you're using it.
01:29:08
◼
►
I pay for it because I want to explore it.
01:29:11
◼
►
And I think that it's good.
01:29:13
◼
►
Like I said, sometimes, I mean,
01:29:16
◼
►
other than for computer programming,
01:29:17
◼
►
where honestly it's great
01:29:18
◼
►
because it knows way more than I do about it.
01:29:20
◼
►
And it gets me code that is usable or at least fixable.
01:29:24
◼
►
And some of the search is good.
01:29:26
◼
►
Some of it is bad.
01:29:27
◼
►
Like it's not perfect,
01:29:29
◼
►
but I don't want to make perfect the enemy of the good.
01:29:32
◼
►
It is often very good.
01:29:34
◼
►
And I like to explore with it.
01:29:36
◼
►
Are you using it?
01:29:37
◼
►
I mean, you're paying for it.
01:29:38
◼
►
So I hope you're using it.
01:29:40
◼
►
- Yeah, it's, I'm using it really with search.
01:29:45
◼
►
And to close the loop a second ago,
01:29:47
◼
►
it looks like it's built in Swift actually.
01:29:50
◼
►
But it's just a wrapper.
01:29:52
◼
►
- Let's get on it.
01:29:53
◼
►
Like something, a shortcut support would work.
01:29:57
◼
►
URL would work.
01:29:58
◼
►
Just let us automate it a little bit, please.
01:30:00
◼
►
- They use revenue cats in here.
01:30:02
◼
►
That's cool.
01:30:04
◼
►
Yeah, it, yeah.
01:30:05
◼
►
So when search came about,
01:30:07
◼
►
that's like, you know, I'm going to give this a real shot.
01:30:09
◼
►
Mike's spoken really highly about it.
01:30:10
◼
►
Other people have spoken highly about the search.
01:30:13
◼
►
And I've been using it in some show prep
01:30:16
◼
►
and some other stuff, right?
01:30:17
◼
►
Like again, just trying to find things.
01:30:18
◼
►
I'm not, it's not doing my work for me.
01:30:21
◼
►
And of course you want to always check its sources.
01:30:25
◼
►
And that is one nice thing in the search.
01:30:27
◼
►
It like puts the, it puts the sources just right in line.
01:30:32
◼
►
You click on them and see, see what they're saying.
01:30:34
◼
►
And that is, is really actually pretty compelling.
01:30:39
◼
►
I think the search is, is good.
01:30:43
◼
►
I think there are clearly still places where you bump into
01:30:48
◼
►
sort of limitations of their data sets or kind of the,
01:30:54
◼
►
like sometimes you have to think the way
01:30:56
◼
►
that it wants you to think.
01:30:58
◼
►
I'm trying to remember,
01:30:59
◼
►
I was trying to just go through my history
01:31:00
◼
►
and I can't find the example now,
01:31:01
◼
►
but there was something that I tried searching for
01:31:04
◼
►
and I had to like tweak it.
01:31:07
◼
►
And then it kind of ended up going down the road.
01:31:08
◼
►
I wanted it to,
01:31:10
◼
►
but it is definitely not something that is like baked
01:31:13
◼
►
into my workflows at this point.
01:31:14
◼
►
It's, it's still very much experimental.
01:31:16
◼
►
That's sort of why I want to integrate it with LaunchBar
01:31:19
◼
►
to see if like, if maybe there's a way for me to do that.
01:31:21
◼
►
Like I built a LaunchBar thing that actually uses a shortcut
01:31:24
◼
►
but it's six color search.
01:31:25
◼
►
So I can do command space six, you know, S I X space.
01:31:30
◼
►
And it gives me an end text entry and I can type something.
01:31:33
◼
►
And it runs that in the six colors search shortcut
01:31:37
◼
►
that I built, which uses the WordPress search API
01:31:41
◼
►
and searches my WordPress install and passes back results
01:31:46
◼
►
that the shortcut displays.
01:31:48
◼
►
And when I click on one, it puts the URL on the clipboard
01:31:52
◼
►
so that I can link to my stuff while I'm writing.
01:31:55
◼
►
And it's like, it's not super smooth, but it's smoother
01:31:58
◼
►
than going to the web browser, opening a browser window,
01:32:01
◼
►
typing in a query site colon six colors.com.
01:32:03
◼
►
Like it's a little bit better.
01:32:05
◼
►
And I like that.
01:32:07
◼
►
So I, that was my thought is like,
01:32:08
◼
►
if I can add another feature into LaunchBar
01:32:13
◼
►
that is chat GPT integration,
01:32:14
◼
►
then it will let my impulse to do command space
01:32:17
◼
►
for everything flow some of that stuff, that direction.
01:32:21
◼
►
And I I'm with you about search.
01:32:23
◼
►
Like again, none of this is perfect, but I don't know.
01:32:27
◼
►
As a content creator on the internet,
01:32:31
◼
►
I don't mind the idea that if somebody asks
01:32:36
◼
►
for a question about Apple stuff, that there's a summary
01:32:40
◼
►
and then there are a bunch of footnotes that say,
01:32:46
◼
►
you can read more about this at this place,
01:32:48
◼
►
as you know, read at the verge and during fireball
01:32:51
◼
►
and a five, 12 pixels and at six colors.
01:32:52
◼
►
Like I'm okay with that.
01:32:55
◼
►
If the best practice for this is going to be show your work
01:32:59
◼
►
so that you can trust these sources,
01:33:01
◼
►
we're just summarizing these sources,
01:33:02
◼
►
but you need to get more information
01:33:04
◼
►
because some percentage of people
01:33:06
◼
►
are never going to go past that.
01:33:07
◼
►
But a lot of people are going to be like,
01:33:08
◼
►
I don't trust this thing.
01:33:09
◼
►
This is not enough.
01:33:10
◼
►
I want to read the details.
01:33:12
◼
►
I'm okay with that.
01:33:13
◼
►
That's okay with me.
01:33:14
◼
►
Hiding that stuff is what bothers me.
01:33:16
◼
►
So I love that the chat GPT search shows its sources, right?
01:33:21
◼
►
Like that is, 'cause it also lets you look at a source
01:33:23
◼
►
and go, come on, I don't trust that source.
01:33:26
◼
►
And that's good too.
01:33:27
◼
►
That's fine.
01:33:29
◼
►
Yeah, and in that way,
01:33:31
◼
►
it's not that different than a Google search, right?
01:33:34
◼
►
Like you search something on Google is like,
01:33:36
◼
►
okay, I've come across this website before.
01:33:38
◼
►
Like I don't need to read it or go down that road.
01:33:43
◼
►
And if anything, it's definitely like,
01:33:49
◼
►
I'm definitely on the side of the argument now of like,
01:33:51
◼
►
oh, Google is in trouble.
01:33:54
◼
►
Like they need to figure this out.
01:33:56
◼
►
And I think most people now are,
01:33:59
◼
►
everybody's getting like the AR results
01:34:00
◼
►
at the top of their searches.
01:34:03
◼
►
And in my sort of like kind of limited testing,
01:34:08
◼
►
what chat GPT does with its search
01:34:11
◼
►
is more compelling than what Jim and I is doing.
01:34:14
◼
►
And I think more useful and that is pretty interesting.
01:34:18
◼
►
- Bad for Google.
01:34:20
◼
►
- And bad for Google.
01:34:21
◼
►
- That's why Google is so spooked by this.
01:34:23
◼
►
Right, that's why is because they can see
01:34:25
◼
►
that this could completely overthrow them
01:34:28
◼
►
if they can't do it right.
01:34:29
◼
►
Somebody else becomes the way you find things
01:34:31
◼
►
on the internet if it's not.
01:34:32
◼
►
I mean, they're doing a thing like the Apple thing,
01:34:34
◼
►
which is if our bread and butter is gonna be replaced,
01:34:38
◼
►
we have to be the one to replace it.
01:34:40
◼
►
And that's why Apple spent lots of money
01:34:42
◼
►
on all sorts of things like the Vision Pro,
01:34:44
◼
►
because they're like,
01:34:45
◼
►
what could be the next thing that replaces the iPhone?
01:34:47
◼
►
And let us be one of the players in that,
01:34:51
◼
►
otherwise our business is gone.
01:34:53
◼
►
And Google, I think the AI stuff is absolutely 100% that,
01:34:56
◼
►
which is this could be an existential threat to Google.
01:35:00
◼
►
And so like, if AI is gonna replace Google search,
01:35:04
◼
►
we need to be the AI search.
01:35:06
◼
►
And right now they're not,
01:35:07
◼
►
but they're trying real hard, that's why.
01:35:09
◼
►
- Well, I'm curious to see how your usage unfolds.
01:35:13
◼
►
And for me, I looked at it a little bit
01:35:17
◼
►
like can I pipe this through Alfred?
01:35:18
◼
►
I was like, you know what?
01:35:19
◼
►
The option space is fine.
01:35:20
◼
►
I got, you know, and like the app pops up quickly
01:35:24
◼
►
and the one thing I appreciate about it
01:35:27
◼
►
is when you use the keyboard shortcut,
01:35:29
◼
►
it opens and it moves the cursor into the text box,
01:35:34
◼
►
which is not a given, not all apps do that correctly.
01:35:37
◼
►
And so it's one keyboard shortcut
01:35:38
◼
►
and then I'm typing pretty quickly.
01:35:40
◼
►
And that gets me close enough,
01:35:42
◼
►
but I understand wanting to get it a little bit,
01:35:44
◼
►
you know, closer to the metal, if you will.
01:35:46
◼
►
- Yeah, sure.
01:35:48
◼
►
Well, we'll see.
01:35:48
◼
►
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(mimics music)
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Oh, is there breaking news?
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- Oh, breaking news, breaking news, yes.
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Apple worked on the Vision Pro since at least 2008.
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- What does it mean?
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- So, old news.
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Here's the story.
01:38:25
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Harry McCracken, who used to be the editor-in-chief
01:38:28
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of PCWorld, he was my counterpart at PCWorld.
01:38:30
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He was posting about finding his old blog
01:38:36
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that has disappeared from PCWorld's website
01:38:38
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in one of the very many kind of CMS changes
01:38:42
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that have happened over time there
01:38:45
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using the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive.
01:38:47
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And it totally worked and he found it.
01:38:49
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And I thought, well, let's see if I can find our old blogs
01:38:51
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from that same period 'cause at MacWorld,
01:38:54
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we underwent that same issue.
01:38:55
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And I found the MacUser blog,
01:38:57
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which is where Dan Morin did most of his writing
01:39:00
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for a period of time when we were doing,
01:39:02
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it was literally a movable type blog, of course it was.
01:39:05
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- Of course it was.
01:39:06
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- Back in the day.
01:39:07
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Back in the day.
01:39:09
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And one of the things that,
01:39:11
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and Dan went poking around in his columns
01:39:13
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and he found something and he wrote about it
01:39:16
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in his MacWorld column.
01:39:17
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So there's a nine to five Mac story that literally is,
01:39:21
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hey, look at what Dan wrote about on MacWorld,
01:39:23
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which is very strange.
01:39:25
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But we found this, we have this for podcasts too,
01:39:27
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where we say things on podcasts and they're like,
01:39:28
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hey, look at this thing that Mike heard on Upgrade.
01:39:31
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And there's a whole story about it.
01:39:33
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Look, the content, filling the content void
01:39:36
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is a real thing.
01:39:38
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- I mean, we do it on like five, 12 and six colors.
01:39:41
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It is a little bit weird to see it on nine to five,
01:39:43
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I think is what you're saying.
01:39:44
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- Well, and we, I feel like we write links where we say,
01:39:47
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hey, you should check out this article because,
01:39:49
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but nine to five will often just be like,
01:39:52
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well, we're just writing an article about news that broke
01:39:55
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and it's just our dumb podcast.
01:39:57
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It just is weird.
01:39:58
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So this is a post from a MacUser contributor from 2008
01:40:04
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that is headlined patent filing suggests Apple quote iPod,
01:40:09
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E-Y-E-P-O-D from November 7, 2008.
01:40:14
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And it's a patent and it's linking to somebody's patent
01:40:18
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website probably maybe Patently Apple
01:40:19
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or something like that.
01:40:21
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Maybe it's a USPTO site.
01:40:22
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I don't know what the link is
01:40:23
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'cause this is just a screenshot Dan took,
01:40:25
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but the drawing of it, it's like the Vision Pro.
01:40:30
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I mean, it's a Vision Pro.
01:40:34
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- It's wild.
01:40:35
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So it's old news and it came a long way,
01:40:38
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but at some point in 2008, somebody at Apple was like,
01:40:42
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hey, I have a patent on mounting displays in a thing
01:40:47
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that you wear on your face.
01:40:49
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And one of the people credited is Tony Fidel,
01:40:52
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actually the guy who created the iPod.
01:40:54
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- Yeah, wow.
01:40:56
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Look at this thing.
01:40:59
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- Years in the making.
01:41:00
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The Vision Pro. - Years in the making.
01:41:03
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- To put 2008 into some context for people,
01:41:06
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that's the year the MacBook Pro went unibody
01:41:10
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for the first time.
01:41:12
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It's the year the MacBook Air was introduced.
01:41:14
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I mean, it's a long time ago.
01:41:16
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- It's the year the App Store happened.
01:41:20
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- Yeah, yeah.
01:41:24
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- Absolutely wild.
01:41:25
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- Yeah, anyway, just some fun old news,
01:41:28
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but I love that and I love that the chain of events
01:41:30
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was hairy to me, to Dan, to Macworld, to 9to5Mac.
01:41:35
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- The internet's a wonderful place.
01:41:37
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- All right, should we do some Ask Upgrade?
01:41:40
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- Let's do it.
01:41:41
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- Oh, double lasers, it's great.
01:41:44
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Stephen, what's this first Ask Upgrade question?
01:41:48
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What's going on here?
01:41:49
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- This is from somebody named Casey List.
01:41:52
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That name sounds made up.
01:41:53
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Casey wrote, "You've discussed that you don't typically
01:41:57
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use MagSafe while traveling,
01:42:00
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and often do some sort of arithmetic
01:42:03
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to figure out if it'll be necessary.
01:42:06
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I couldn't agree more, I'm in the same boat.
01:42:08
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Would you trade the MagSafe connector for another USB-C port
01:42:13
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or slightly different take?
01:42:15
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Would you be sad if MagSafe went away again?"
01:42:18
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Casey says they don't think they would make the trade,
01:42:23
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even though Casey seems to use USB-C and not MagSafe.
01:42:28
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I'm a little confused by Casey's opinion,
01:42:31
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but what do you think?
01:42:32
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- I would be sad if it went away,
01:42:37
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because I think having the option
01:42:38
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of having a dedicated power plug that isn't,
01:42:41
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I mean, first off, let's just say,
01:42:43
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I think it's unlikely that Apple would remove MagSafe
01:42:46
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and replace it with another port.
01:42:47
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I think they would do what they've done before,
01:42:49
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which is just remove it,
01:42:50
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tell you to use your other ports for it.
01:42:52
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And the beauty of this is it can't be anything but power.
01:42:56
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And that means that if you're full up, you can use it.
01:42:59
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I love having a dedicated power spot,
01:43:01
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and the magnetic thing is big, right?
01:43:02
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Like there are lots of people who rely on,
01:43:05
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and when it was gone,
01:43:06
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were you buying like weird third-party things
01:43:09
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in order to get that breakaway thing
01:43:10
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where it's not gonna pull your laptop off a table
01:43:13
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while it's charging because it'll pop off.
01:43:15
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And I think it's really good, and I want it to continue.
01:43:18
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And I do, like I said last week,
01:43:20
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I do travel with it some, right?
01:43:23
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But it's not required, and if I'm trying to travel
01:43:26
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really light, but still bring the laptop,
01:43:29
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I might not use it, but also sometimes I do travel with it.
01:43:33
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And I'll tell you this, the way Lauren uses her MacBook Air,
01:43:38
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and she's using the M1 right now,
01:43:39
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the moment that she gets, maybe when I buy that MacBook Pro,
01:43:42
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my hand-me-down M2 MacBook Air,
01:43:45
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she will use that MagSafe cable a lot,
01:43:50
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because I know we've got USB-C chargers around the house,
01:43:54
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and we use them for iPads and stuff too,
01:43:56
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but her laptop doesn't really have a home.
01:44:00
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Sometimes it's on the couch, sometimes it's on a table,
01:44:03
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but like back when she had a MagSafe laptop,
01:44:06
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it was great because you could just lay it somewhere
01:44:08
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and know that it would charge,
01:44:09
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but also not get yanked and pull the laptop somewhere.
01:44:14
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And I feel like we'll go back to that
01:44:16
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when she goes to the M2, and that will be an upgrade.
01:44:18
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So I love it.
01:44:20
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I mean, USB-C charging is so great that they could kill it,
01:44:23
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and it would be okay, but I think that the real challenge
01:44:26
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is trading a port for MagSafe would be,
01:44:30
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like that would be okay, but I don't think Apple,
01:44:34
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I feel like Apple's just never gonna do that.
01:44:36
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Like the whole point of MagSafe being on the laptop
01:44:40
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is we wanna maximize your data ports
01:44:43
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because you actually need to use data ports.
01:44:46
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- And MagSafe on the Mac, there is some nuance here.
01:44:49
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So like if you wanna fast charge the 16 inch,
01:44:53
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that requires the 140 watt Apple charger,
01:44:58
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and USB-C power delivery won't go that fast
01:45:04
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on the MacBook Pro.
01:45:05
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And so there are some cases where MagSafe would be faster.
01:45:09
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I really like MagSafe, I'm glad that it's back.
01:45:14
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Now at my desk, I'm using a Thunderbolt dock,
01:45:17
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so I just have one cable going to my MacBook Pro,
01:45:20
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but in my bag, I have the MagSafe adapter.
01:45:22
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I like it a lot and it totally works for me.
01:45:27
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I would be sad if it went away again.
01:45:29
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- Something you said there really struck me,
01:45:31
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which is, here's the thing about USB charging.
01:45:33
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I don't trust it.
01:45:36
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I don't trust it.
01:45:37
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If like, I've got USB-C adapters that have got
01:45:39
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like the good port and the bad port,
01:45:42
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and like, but if you're just on the other end,
01:45:43
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you don't know if it's plugged into the good port
01:45:45
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or the bad port, maybe you could check,
01:45:47
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but like we've got one that's on behind our couch
01:45:49
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and then the cable snakes over the couch.
01:45:52
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So like I would have to get up and go behind the couch
01:45:54
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and look and see whether it's plugged into the good port
01:45:57
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or not, you're not gonna do that,
01:45:58
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you're just gonna plug it in.
01:45:59
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MagSafe, I know it matters what adapter is plugged
01:46:03
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into the MagSafe, but I would say that in general,
01:46:05
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I know what I'm getting from MagSafe and USB-C,
01:46:11
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I don't really know.
01:46:12
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I mean, some of those adapters are weird
01:46:14
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and I know you're plugging into USB-C on the other end,
01:46:17
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right, so it could still be an issue,
01:46:20
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but I feel more like this is a dedicated power plug
01:46:23
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that's gonna do what I trust.
01:46:24
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I don't know, maybe that's an illusion
01:46:26
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since they're all coming from USB-C sources anyway,
01:46:29
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but I feel like having it be dedicated is a good thing.
01:46:31
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Maybe, and I think magnetic, again,
01:46:34
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magnetic decoupling is good.
01:46:36
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Like it's really good that it's safe,
01:46:38
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that it lets you pop that thing off
01:46:40
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whenever there's any tension
01:46:41
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instead of pulling your laptop onto the floor.
01:46:44
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It's good, and making the cable release
01:46:48
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without the cable undergoing tension
01:46:50
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that makes your cable bad.
01:46:52
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It's all good.
01:46:53
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- A question from Steven in Memphis.
01:46:57
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- Interesting. - Jason,
01:46:58
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do you keep the boxes of your Apple products
01:47:01
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current or past?
01:47:03
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- That's a good question.
01:47:04
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I think this maybe came up because over the holiday,
01:47:07
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I was in my in-law's garage and discovered a G5 iMac box.
01:47:12
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That was empty. - Yep, that's exactly
01:47:15
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what I thought of.
01:47:16
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- And I'm like, what is this even doing here?
01:47:18
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And it's like, I shook it, and I was like,
01:47:21
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there's a really light, there's no Mac in here now.
01:47:24
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'Cause they got rid of it, but they kept the box,
01:47:27
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which they probably don't need to have a box for a computer
01:47:29
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they don't have anymore and haven't had for many, many,
01:47:32
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They also, also visible in their stack of boxes
01:47:36
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high up in the rafters of their garage,
01:47:38
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was their Intel iMac box for the one
01:47:41
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that I was troubleshooting.
01:47:42
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So they save all these.
01:47:44
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My answer is mostly no.
01:47:46
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I don't live in a house with a lot of storage.
01:47:48
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And so keeping a big box around is not ideal.
01:47:52
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I think I do have like at least one of my studio display
01:47:56
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boxes and it's huge, but I think I might still have that.
01:48:00
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I keep some of them, like I have the Vision Pro box,
01:48:03
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but again, it's a first-generation Apple product.
01:48:07
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I feel like I'm gonna hold onto that box
01:48:08
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because I'm gonna hold onto that product forever.
01:48:11
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But in general, no, I have so many products going in and out.
01:48:14
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I have to hold onto all the boxes
01:48:16
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of all the Apple owners, right?
01:48:17
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So that's already taking up a lot of space
01:48:18
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'cause I've got the box they came in,
01:48:20
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the air bill to ship them back,
01:48:21
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and the boxes for all of those products.
01:48:23
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And that takes up a lot of space on my shelves
01:48:25
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in my garage already.
01:48:27
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And I just don't have a lot of storage.
01:48:29
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Even using the garage as storage like we do,
01:48:32
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I don't have a lot of storage for boxes.
01:48:34
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So generally, no is the answer.
01:48:39
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Other than that, I will try to keep it around for a while
01:48:42
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in case it's a product that's currently in use
01:48:44
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and it might go to somebody else.
01:48:46
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But I don't do a lot of reselling of products either
01:48:50
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because this is my job
01:48:52
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and so I tend to keep old products around,
01:48:54
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whereas I know you sell them
01:48:55
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and then buy them back 15 years later.
01:48:57
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- That's right.
01:48:58
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That's my plan. - You can find that sweet spot
01:48:59
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that are not so rare as to be valuable,
01:49:02
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but are also outmoded and you buy them right then.
01:49:04
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That's the trick.
01:49:06
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Before I talk about my box usage,
01:49:08
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it's a little too late
01:49:09
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►
'cause people have already sent y'all email probably,
01:49:11
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►
but in this support document,
01:49:14
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►
maybe Jason can put in the show notes,
01:49:16
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►
the 2023, so what was that?
01:49:20
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►
The M3 Mac 16 inch MacBook Pro,
01:49:23
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►
apparently can fast charge
01:49:25
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►
if you have 140 watt USB-C power adapter
01:49:28
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►
and the 240 watt USB-C charge cable,
01:49:32
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►
two meter for MacBook Pro 16 inch.
01:49:34
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►
- Special cable.
01:49:36
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- And so, yes, I guess there are some specific cases
01:49:41
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►
or one case that it can.
01:49:43
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►
- This is exactly what I mean about MagSafe,
01:49:45
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►
which is the two options for that fast charging
01:49:48
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►
on the 16 inch MacBook Pro
01:49:50
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►
are the 140 watt power adapter with a special USB-C cable
01:49:54
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►
or the MagSafe cable, right?
01:49:56
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►
Like again, it's like you might,
01:49:58
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►
if you get the wrong cable,
01:49:59
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►
you're not gonna get your full charge,
01:50:01
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►
but the MagSafe cable is gonna get you your full charge
01:50:03
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►
and that's a reason to use MagSafe for charging
01:50:05
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'cause you can rely on it.
01:50:06
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It's like, that's what it's for.
01:50:07
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►
It's all it's for, use it.
01:50:09
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- Yeah, yeah.
01:50:11
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Yeah, so I think our greater point still stands.
01:50:13
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- All right, and I will say,
01:50:14
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I do try to keep vintage boxes.
01:50:15
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So like I've got the iPod,
01:50:17
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original iPod box around here somewhere.
01:50:18
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I mean, I've tried to keep some of that stuff,
01:50:20
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but I can't keep all of it.
01:50:21
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So a lot of that stuff just goes away.
01:50:24
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- Yeah, I keep boxes for current stuff up in the attic.
01:50:28
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I actually have like a big duffel bag
01:50:30
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►
that has like current, you know, laptop, iPad,
01:50:32
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►
iPhone boxes in it.
01:50:34
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►
And that's really about it.
01:50:38
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►
I, even though I've got a Mac collection,
01:50:41
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►
I really don't collect like the boxes or the packaging.
01:50:46
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►
There's some stuff that I wish I had,
01:50:47
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►
like I wish I'd had, you know, an old iPod box
01:50:50
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►
or like some of the stuff is really interesting,
01:50:53
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►
but I have never, it's never really like stuck for me
01:50:57
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►
from a collection standpoint.
01:50:59
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►
So I really don't have a lot.
01:51:01
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►
And once I sell something, you know, the box goes with it.
01:51:03
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►
So, or like it, you know,
01:51:05
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►
gets passed along to a family member or something.
01:51:08
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►
I'm like, here's your new old phone
01:51:09
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►
and here's the box that came in.
01:51:10
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►
- Yeah, that is ideal,
01:51:12
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►
is if you've got the box that it came in.
01:51:15
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►
But yeah, I save more than I used to.
01:51:20
◼
►
I'll put it that way.
01:51:21
◼
►
I used to not at all, 'cause there was no room.
01:51:24
◼
►
That was back when this garage was a garage
01:51:26
◼
►
and there was some storage in it.
01:51:28
◼
►
But now we've got like,
01:51:28
◼
►
there's a big set of metal shelves that we've got
01:51:32
◼
►
from like Home Depot and it's got a bunch of stuff on it.
01:51:36
◼
►
And then I've got a couple other racks of stuff,
01:51:38
◼
►
including old computers and stuff.
01:51:40
◼
►
So we've got a little more storage,
01:51:41
◼
►
but still it's not enough.
01:51:43
◼
►
So, you know, there's a limit to what you can do.
01:51:46
◼
►
I have friends and you probably know this.
01:51:49
◼
►
You probably know people who do this.
01:51:51
◼
►
Dan Frakes, my old colleague at Macworld.
01:51:55
◼
►
Dan Frakes is an inveterate seller of his old hardware.
01:52:00
◼
►
So he keeps all the boxes and everything in them pristine
01:52:05
◼
►
because he'll use like a computer for a year
01:52:07
◼
►
and then he'll sell it.
01:52:08
◼
►
Usually he'll like sell it on, I don't even know where,
01:52:11
◼
►
Craigslist, eBay, I don't even know what he does.
01:52:13
◼
►
But this was always his method.
01:52:15
◼
►
And so he would sell it in box with all the stuff,
01:52:18
◼
►
freshly wiped, all of that.
01:52:20
◼
►
And I always admired it, but I also thought like,
01:52:23
◼
►
I ain't doing that.
01:52:25
◼
►
Like, there's no way I'm gonna.
01:52:27
◼
►
And I didn't have the room to do that either.
01:52:29
◼
►
But I always did admire that,
01:52:30
◼
►
that he always kept every box perfectly pristine.
01:52:33
◼
►
And then, which I do with my Apple loaners,
01:52:35
◼
►
but like for a computer I'm gonna use for,
01:52:38
◼
►
especially once I started handing them down
01:52:39
◼
►
to other members of the family,
01:52:41
◼
►
I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.
01:52:42
◼
►
It's not gonna happen.
01:52:44
◼
►
- Yeah, I think that's fair.
01:52:45
◼
►
David asks, I was curious since Jason has both an Oculus
01:52:49
◼
►
and a vision pro, how are movies on the two?
01:52:53
◼
►
I'm interested in watching quote big screen movies
01:52:55
◼
►
and a $299 Oculus sounds interesting.
01:52:59
◼
►
I did the trial at the Apple store for the vision pro
01:53:01
◼
►
and it was great, but currently too expensive.
01:53:04
◼
►
- So I did convert a bunch of 3D DVDs, 3D Blu-rays to,
01:53:09
◼
►
using just really like I had to use a windows,
01:53:13
◼
►
I think it was a windows or DOS, I don't know.
01:53:15
◼
►
A really bad software.
01:53:16
◼
►
- It wasn't DOS, I'm sure it wasn't DOS.
01:53:19
◼
►
- But it was like kind of command liney.
01:53:21
◼
►
Anyway, really bad windows software in order to do this,
01:53:24
◼
►
but I did manage to do it.
01:53:26
◼
►
So I could watch those on the Oculus
01:53:29
◼
►
before I had the vision pro.
01:53:30
◼
►
'Cause it was like, oh, 3D content, this is cool.
01:53:33
◼
►
And it's okay.
01:53:35
◼
►
There's a good app that puts you in a movie theater
01:53:38
◼
►
that looks really good.
01:53:38
◼
►
It's got dynamic lighting on the seats and stuff.
01:53:40
◼
►
So when it's a bright scene, the seats light up
01:53:42
◼
►
and when it's dark, they don't.
01:53:43
◼
►
It's really, really very good.
01:53:45
◼
►
It's called Skybox.
01:53:49
◼
►
The vision pro is better.
01:53:50
◼
►
The vision pro is really nice,
01:53:52
◼
►
but the vision pro also costs 3,500 bucks.
01:53:54
◼
►
So, I mean, that's kind of my answer is,
01:53:58
◼
►
if you're curious about watching movies on a big screen
01:54:02
◼
►
in VR, the Oculus will do it.
01:54:07
◼
►
What I would say is, it's not,
01:54:10
◼
►
I don't think it's good enough to watch any,
01:54:13
◼
►
like if you've got a nice TV, you should watch it on the TV.
01:54:17
◼
►
But the 3D stuff was great and you can't watch that
01:54:22
◼
►
in 3D anywhere else other than a headset at this point.
01:54:25
◼
►
Now, I don't know, last time I,
01:54:27
◼
►
because of the vision pro now, I am not gonna do that
01:54:30
◼
►
'cause I have a vision pro,
01:54:31
◼
►
but I hope they've got a store now somewhere
01:54:34
◼
►
where you can buy or rent 3D stuff in a meta's ecosystem,
01:54:38
◼
►
'cause they really should.
01:54:40
◼
►
That was my complaint back before vision pro
01:54:42
◼
►
was that they really should let me watch 3D stuff
01:54:47
◼
►
and rent movies and buy movies in 3D and they didn't.
01:54:50
◼
►
So if they've got that, that would be great.
01:54:53
◼
►
But, and also, yes, the Quest 3 has a better screen
01:54:58
◼
►
than the Quest 3S.
01:54:59
◼
►
So, you go up a little bit,
01:55:01
◼
►
you're gonna get a better screen.
01:55:02
◼
►
But I also have the Quest 2,
01:55:04
◼
►
which has the same screen as the 3S and it was fine.
01:55:06
◼
►
Like it was fine, but really it was fine for 3D content
01:55:10
◼
►
that I couldn't watch anywhere else.
01:55:12
◼
►
Anything else I would rather watch on TV.
01:55:14
◼
►
With vision pro, sometimes there is kind of like,
01:55:17
◼
►
I'm gonna watch this on vision pro as a treat
01:55:19
◼
►
because it is of a high enough quality
01:55:22
◼
►
that it's kind of nice to have that big screen
01:55:24
◼
►
when I'm watching a movie by myself, which doesn't happen.
01:55:28
◼
►
I was saying Moana 2 opened this weekend.
01:55:30
◼
►
And I thought, I've watched half of Moana, the original,
01:55:33
◼
►
because I never saw it.
01:55:35
◼
►
And I started watching it in 3D on the vision pro
01:55:37
◼
►
and then I got distracted by something
01:55:38
◼
►
and I haven't watched the rest of it.
01:55:40
◼
►
But that was a good example where, again, it's a 3D movie,
01:55:42
◼
►
it's in Disney plus, it looks great on the vision pro.
01:55:46
◼
►
So my answer is, see if somebody is selling those movies
01:55:51
◼
►
or letting you rent them on Oculus, gotta be right.
01:55:55
◼
►
Somebody's gotta be doing that now.
01:55:57
◼
►
And then, it's fine, but I wouldn't personally choose it
01:56:02
◼
►
over my TV for 2D content, but for 3D it's fun.
01:56:07
◼
►
It's a lot of fun.
01:56:10
◼
►
I mean, I think the entertainment is a huge use case
01:56:12
◼
►
and that does put the vision pro at a slight disadvantage
01:56:16
◼
►
just due to the price.
01:56:17
◼
►
- Yeah, it looks good, but it doesn't look 10 times
01:56:20
◼
►
as good, right?
01:56:21
◼
►
That's the problem. - Right, yeah, exactly.
01:56:23
◼
►
And lastly, RM wrote in, "Has Jason seen this?
01:56:28
◼
►
"Page turned buttons are not totally dead."
01:56:31
◼
►
Can you describe this product that RM linked to?
01:56:34
◼
►
Because I've looked at this webpage a lot
01:56:37
◼
►
over the last couple of days and I'm still just--
01:56:39
◼
►
- Just thinking about the Roman Empire, yeah.
01:56:41
◼
►
Just gobsmacked.
01:56:42
◼
►
- Okay, so my initial description,
01:56:45
◼
►
let me know how I do here, is this looks like something
01:56:48
◼
►
Federica would buy.
01:56:50
◼
►
- Yeah, I think so.
01:56:53
◼
►
- It is, the Soul Reader, it is a pair of glasses
01:56:59
◼
►
that contain an e-reader inside them.
01:57:06
◼
►
- They're glasses that are completely covered in the front.
01:57:09
◼
►
So when you put these on, you can't see anything,
01:57:14
◼
►
So yeah, it's basically like, what if a Kindle on your face?
01:57:20
◼
►
- Yeah, what if a Kindle was on your face?
01:57:26
◼
►
- Distraction-free reading.
01:57:29
◼
►
So I mean, I admire the idea and I'm sure there's a use case.
01:57:37
◼
►
I'm sure there's somebody who is trying to read in bed
01:57:40
◼
►
and doesn't want to bother their partner and this is great.
01:57:43
◼
►
You just put on the glasses.
01:57:44
◼
►
This is like Federico playing video games, right?
01:57:45
◼
►
You put on the glasses and you can read all you like
01:57:48
◼
►
and it's not a problem.
01:57:50
◼
►
Although it doesn't look like it's really great resolution.
01:57:53
◼
►
But anyway, it looks real blocky.
01:57:56
◼
►
So look, one of the things I love,
01:57:59
◼
►
and this is when I was reviewing all the weird Android
01:58:04
◼
►
devices like those books, e-readers,
01:58:08
◼
►
I love the fact that we live in an era
01:58:10
◼
►
where there's off the shelf mobile operating system stuff
01:58:13
◼
►
and there's off the shelf parts that some manufacturer
01:58:16
◼
►
in China can just sort of put it in a blender
01:58:20
◼
►
and come out with whatever and say, is this a thing?
01:58:23
◼
►
And you know what, nine times out of 10,
01:58:25
◼
►
maybe 99 times out of a hundred, it's not a thing.
01:58:27
◼
►
But every so often it's a thing or it's a thing
01:58:31
◼
►
for a very narrow audience.
01:58:33
◼
►
Like the books e-readers, that books Palma
01:58:35
◼
►
is a great example.
01:58:36
◼
►
I know you forgot that you had yours.
01:58:37
◼
►
- I did, yeah.
01:58:38
◼
►
- It's a great example of a product that
01:58:42
◼
►
a big mainstream company is never gonna make,
01:58:46
◼
►
but that a small company can take the take phone parts
01:58:50
◼
►
and an E Ink screen and kind of like put it together
01:58:53
◼
►
and make something that will appeal to a narrow audience
01:58:57
◼
►
that is big enough for them,
01:58:59
◼
►
but would never be big enough for Amazon, right?
01:59:02
◼
►
Or Kobo or whatever.
01:59:04
◼
►
I love that.
01:59:05
◼
►
I love that we live in an era where there can be
01:59:07
◼
►
small companies that can leverage the existence of Android
01:59:11
◼
►
and the existence of apps for Android
01:59:13
◼
►
and can do just, and the existence of parts
01:59:15
◼
►
for these devices that are used by,
01:59:19
◼
►
they're commodities at this point
01:59:21
◼
►
and build products out of them
01:59:23
◼
►
that will target a very specific nation.
01:59:25
◼
►
Like I said, most of them aren't a thing.
01:59:29
◼
►
And I suspect that maybe the sole reader is not a thing,
01:59:33
◼
►
but if it is, if it can find enough of a following
01:59:38
◼
►
for it to be viable, then great.
01:59:40
◼
►
I think the Bux Palma is a great example
01:59:42
◼
►
where I reviewed it and then three months later,
01:59:44
◼
►
six months later, The Verge wrote about it
01:59:47
◼
►
and I've seen it in other places
01:59:48
◼
►
and people are kind of like--
01:59:50
◼
►
- It went viral.
01:59:51
◼
►
- There's just enough there, just enough there
01:59:55
◼
►
for people to say, enough people say
01:59:58
◼
►
that that's interesting to me.
02:00:00
◼
►
And so I love that we live in this era,
02:00:03
◼
►
but I look at this and I think that ain't it.
02:00:06
◼
►
So if it's for you, I also wanted to mention,
02:00:08
◼
►
'cause I talk about page turn buttons a lot
02:00:11
◼
►
when it comes to e-readers, right?
02:00:13
◼
►
'Cause I like them, I think they're good.
02:00:15
◼
►
I think they should be on devices.
02:00:16
◼
►
You don't have to use them,
02:00:17
◼
►
but it's nice that they're there
02:00:18
◼
►
and that Amazon has decided that they're bad
02:00:21
◼
►
and nobody should have them anymore.
02:00:23
◼
►
And I got a bunch of people wrote to me,
02:00:26
◼
►
including one person who wrote to me and cross posted it
02:00:29
◼
►
to multiple social media services,
02:00:31
◼
►
which is like, don't do that.
02:00:33
◼
►
Cross posting promo is one thing,
02:00:35
◼
►
cross posting to reach someone,
02:00:38
◼
►
I literally answered the same question
02:00:40
◼
►
on two different services
02:00:41
◼
►
and then I realized it was the same guy.
02:00:43
◼
►
It's like, don't do that.
02:00:44
◼
►
Don't do that.
02:00:45
◼
►
But I got a lot of people who said,
02:00:47
◼
►
"Hey, but Jason, here's your solution."
02:00:49
◼
►
And they sent me a link to a thing
02:00:51
◼
►
that is absolutely not my solution.
02:00:52
◼
►
So I'm just gonna mention here,
02:00:53
◼
►
speaking of weird reading things,
02:00:55
◼
►
which is there are devices out there
02:00:57
◼
►
that are basically like a remote finger.
02:01:00
◼
►
You clip them to your Kindle and it hovers.
02:01:05
◼
►
So you clip it to the side
02:01:06
◼
►
and the end of it hovers over the screen,
02:01:09
◼
►
like right on the side of the screen,
02:01:10
◼
►
ideally not blocking your view,
02:01:12
◼
►
although you may have to,
02:01:12
◼
►
and it's awkward 'cause this is like back
02:01:14
◼
►
when we had clip on book lights for the Kindle,
02:01:16
◼
►
it's awkward, it's a thing clipped to the side
02:01:17
◼
►
of your Kindle or Kobo or whatever.
02:01:19
◼
►
And it's got a remote control.
02:01:23
◼
►
And when you click the remote control,
02:01:24
◼
►
the little finger goes boop and touches the screen
02:01:27
◼
►
and advances the screen for the next page.
02:01:30
◼
►
This is not what I'm talking about.
02:01:33
◼
►
I don't need a remote finger.
02:01:36
◼
►
I have a real finger.
02:01:37
◼
►
My problem is that I don't wanna use the finger.
02:01:40
◼
►
Now, I will say, if e-readers,
02:01:44
◼
►
and this is the problem with this product.
02:01:45
◼
►
So this product, I have friends who use this product.
02:01:48
◼
►
I have a friend who uses this product
02:01:49
◼
►
because she's got some medical issues.
02:01:52
◼
►
She doesn't wanna hold the e-reader.
02:01:54
◼
►
She's got a little stand that she can put the e-reader on,
02:01:57
◼
►
and then she can get under the covers in bed,
02:01:59
◼
►
and she's got the little remote,
02:02:00
◼
►
and she can go click on the remote,
02:02:02
◼
►
and it advances the page.
02:02:03
◼
►
And she doesn't have to touch the device
02:02:05
◼
►
or hold it or anything.
02:02:07
◼
►
But I will say, all of these device manufacturers
02:02:12
◼
►
should just support Bluetooth remotes, right?
02:02:14
◼
►
They should support Bluetooth remotes.
02:02:16
◼
►
There's no reason that a remote finger clip on thingy
02:02:20
◼
►
should exist.
02:02:22
◼
►
You should just be able to pair a Bluetooth remote
02:02:24
◼
►
and then click forward or backward or whatever.
02:02:26
◼
►
But none of them do, which is madness.
02:02:30
◼
►
I think that, actually, I think the books ones do,
02:02:32
◼
►
because they support Android,
02:02:33
◼
►
so they could support like a keyboard.
02:02:35
◼
►
So if you made a remote that was just right arrow,
02:02:37
◼
►
left arrow, Bluetooth profile of a keyboard,
02:02:40
◼
►
I think it would work, but mostly not.
02:02:43
◼
►
So it's not what I want,
02:02:46
◼
►
because what I want is to hold it in my hand
02:02:48
◼
►
and then just sort of squeeze with my finger or my thumb
02:02:51
◼
►
and have it advance the page,
02:02:52
◼
►
'cause it feels really natural.
02:02:54
◼
►
But again, it's a weird product, but I'm glad it exists.
02:02:58
◼
►
Like we live in an era where somebody has hacked a way
02:03:00
◼
►
to get a remote control on a Kindle,
02:03:03
◼
►
even though I don't want it,
02:03:05
◼
►
my friends use it and that's great.
02:03:07
◼
►
But it's not what I want.
02:03:08
◼
►
What I want is a button I can push.
02:03:10
◼
►
And a clip on finger is not a button.
02:03:13
◼
►
I can't believe I used that sentence, but there it is.
02:03:16
◼
►
- No, and neither are e-ink glasses.
02:03:20
◼
►
- Either e-ink glasses, which I think come with a button
02:03:23
◼
►
or they've got a gesture.
02:03:24
◼
►
I don't even know how they work.
02:03:25
◼
►
- It looks like it comes with a thing you put in your hand.
02:03:28
◼
►
- Yeah, like a little controller that you use.
02:03:31
◼
►
Yeah, well, that's nice.
02:03:33
◼
►
That's nice.
02:03:34
◼
►
I don't know, I would be creeped out
02:03:35
◼
►
by not being able to see anything but the book in my face,
02:03:38
◼
►
but I don't know, it's good.
02:03:41
◼
►
- Here we go, handheld remote.
02:03:42
◼
►
It's got a case.
02:03:44
◼
►
- A proprietary charging cable, which is always fun.
02:03:47
◼
►
- Oh, great.
02:03:48
◼
►
- It's what you want.
02:03:49
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah.
02:03:51
◼
►
They made that decision.
02:03:52
◼
►
- With little concern, their website boasts
02:03:54
◼
►
that 500 something books were downloaded in 2024.
02:04:00
◼
►
- That's not very many.
02:04:01
◼
►
- That's not a lot of books.
02:04:02
◼
►
- Minutes read, 325,000, pages turned, 377,000.
02:04:07
◼
►
Not a big market.
02:04:08
◼
►
- It's very much like this is a real product.
02:04:10
◼
►
Yes, it's real.
02:04:11
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- It's real.
02:04:12
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- So that's good.
02:04:13
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►
It's like when I was doing upgrade
02:04:16
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and we were talking about the keyboard
02:04:18
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►
that is also a track pad, which was that Apple patent
02:04:20
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►
and people wrote in and said,
02:04:22
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"Oh, there's a real product that does that."
02:04:24
◼
►
- Yeah, I think you should email these people
02:04:27
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►
and get a press unit.
02:04:28
◼
►
- Oh man, no, I do not want it.
02:04:31
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►
I do not want it.
02:04:32
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►
- Okay, okay, well, the link will be in the show notes.
02:04:34
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►
Go check it out.
02:04:35
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►
If you work for Soul Reader
02:04:38
◼
►
and you've heard us talk about this, reach out to Jason.
02:04:41
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►
He wants to review this.
02:04:44
◼
►
- Steven, thank you for being here.
02:04:47
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►
- Thanks for having me.
02:04:48
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►
It's always so much fun to be in upgrade.
02:04:51
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►
We say this every time,
02:04:53
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►
you and I don't get to talk tech very much on the shows
02:04:56
◼
►
and here we are.
02:04:59
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►
Thank you for having me.
02:05:00
◼
►
- Yeah, I appreciate you filling in for Mike
02:05:02
◼
►
who got to take his very nice Thanksgiving trip
02:05:05
◼
►
that he'd likes to take.
02:05:07
◼
►
- But we'll talk about Thanksgiving more in Upgrade Plus,
02:05:12
◼
►
which you can get by being a member
02:05:15
◼
►
or going to giverelay.com and giving yourself
02:05:17
◼
►
or somebody else a gift, the gift,
02:05:19
◼
►
the greatest gift of all, a podcast.
02:05:22
◼
►
Send us your feedback,
02:05:24
◼
►
follow up and questions at upgradefeedback.com.
02:05:27
◼
►
Remember upgradees.vote.
02:05:29
◼
►
If you want to send us your votes for the upgradees,
02:05:31
◼
►
that'll really help us.
02:05:32
◼
►
I write lots of things at sixcolors.com,
02:05:35
◼
►
except for last week where I wrote very little,
02:05:37
◼
►
but that's okay.
02:05:38
◼
►
It was a weird week.
02:05:39
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►
My podcasts are here at Relay
02:05:40
◼
►
and over at the incomparable.com.
02:05:43
◼
►
And Steven, tell people where they can find your stuff.
02:05:46
◼
►
- Yeah, so I'm here on Relay.
02:05:48
◼
►
I co-host Connected and Mac Power Users,
02:05:50
◼
►
come out on Wednesday and Sunday respectively.
02:05:53
◼
►
And I write over at 512pixels.net.
02:05:55
◼
►
We exist in social media.
02:05:57
◼
►
You can find us.
02:05:59
◼
►
Search for Steven Hackett or with a PH or ISMH.
02:06:02
◼
►
You can find me, JSNEL is usually what it is.
02:06:04
◼
►
Although in some places I might be something else
02:06:07
◼
►
like Snel Zone.
02:06:08
◼
►
I mean, find us, we're there,
02:06:11
◼
►
but we're not gonna give you a list of names
02:06:13
◼
►
'cause it's too many now.
02:06:15
◼
►
It's just too many.
02:06:16
◼
►
Clips of the show are available on TikTok,
02:06:18
◼
►
Instagram and YouTube.
02:06:19
◼
►
We are @upgraderelay.
02:06:20
◼
►
The full show also gets posted at YouTube.
02:06:22
◼
►
If you are a YouTube focused person,
02:06:25
◼
►
focused human and prefer podcasts on YouTube
02:06:28
◼
►
to podcast apps of choice, we're there for you.
02:06:32
◼
►
And thank you again to our members
02:06:35
◼
►
who support us with Upgrade Plus and to our sponsors.
02:06:38
◼
►
Once again, they were,
02:06:39
◼
►
Mike's so good at this.
02:06:42
◼
►
They were DeleteMe, SmarterWorld and ExpressVPN.
02:06:45
◼
►
That's who they were.
02:06:46
◼
►
And you heard me.
02:06:47
◼
►
If you're not an Upgrade Plus member,
02:06:48
◼
►
you heard me read those sponsor reads
02:06:50
◼
►
and I hope you enjoyed it.
02:06:52
◼
►
And if you're an Upgrade Plus member,
02:06:54
◼
►
you're probably not missing anything.
02:06:57
◼
►
- What is happening?
02:06:58
◼
►
- I don't know.
02:06:59
◼
►
Thanks everybody for listening.
02:07:00
◼
►
Thank you, Steven, for being here
02:07:01
◼
►
and we will see you next week.
02:07:03
◼
►
And Mike will be back then.
02:07:05
◼
►
Say goodbye, Steven Hackett.
02:07:07
◼
►
- Bye y'all.
02:07:07
◼
►
(upbeat music)
02:07:10
◼
►
(upbeat music)
02:07:13
◼
►
(upbeat music)