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The Talk Show

427: ‘The Shift-2 Crowd’, With Jason Snell

 

00:00:00   Jason, sometimes, well, I'm always happy to have you on the show, but then it's like, who should I have on the show? I want to do a show. There's a lot to talk about. And I think, ah, and then I look and it's like, man, Jason hasn't been on since September. That's a long time. And then I'm doing the show notes where, you know, my little outline here. I'm looking at the topics and I've got it in my head now. I could not have anybody on the show this week but you.

00:00:22   Yeah, I mean, we've got late night TV. We've got old computers.

00:00:26   We've got Apple Sue and Apple Media.

00:00:30   Yeah, we could talk about baseball and keyboards. Everybody loves that. There's so much for us to talk about.

00:00:37   I know, I know. Let's get the baseball out of the way right now. I got a question for you.

00:00:42   What do you think about the home run swing off in the All-Star game?

00:00:46   I think nobody wants to see the third tier of All-Stars grind through extra innings.

00:00:52   And if you get through nine and it's tied, having a swing off is a perfectly reasonable way to handle an exhibition game.

00:01:00   But the people who are like, oh, they should end all the baseball games with one of those.

00:01:04   It's like, folks, there will never be a more dramatic.

00:01:07   That was the we literally saw the best possible outcome.

00:01:11   Those three home runs by Schwarber, well, you'll never, I mean, that was a lot of fun, but you'll never get that again.

00:01:19   That was the best.

00:01:20   It reminds me of, and again, this is sort of like, to me, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

00:01:28   I think it was magic.

00:01:29   But when I was growing up, and again, it sounds so old-timey now in the year 2025, but I didn't grow up in the middle of nowhere.

00:01:36   It was right next to the city of Reading, Pennsylvania.

00:01:39   It's a suburb.

00:01:40   But it really was like, me and my pals went out to play.

00:01:45   And sometimes, usually by the seasons of the pro sports, we'd be playing touch football or tackle football on the grass.

00:01:52   We'd play a lot of baseball.

00:01:54   Just kids on a baseball field, playing baseball, no adults.

00:01:57   And it was totally stereotypical.

00:02:02   My mom had said, just come home when the streetlights come on.

00:02:06   I mean, that really was like the rule.

00:02:08   And we didn't have watches.

00:02:09   Nobody wore a watch.

00:02:10   And it might be a tie.

00:02:13   That's the sort of thing we would make up.

00:02:14   Okay, we've all got to go, but the game is tied.

00:02:17   Let's see who can hit one out of here first.

00:02:21   Yeah, having a good, I think what it points out is that sports should have a pretty good, like, if you want to be, Americans are very much like this, a sport that does not have ties.

00:02:33   I actually think ties are fine.

00:02:34   I would say in baseball, like, I'd say after 12 innings, you should just call it a tie and walk away or 11.

00:02:40   But if you're going to have to break the tie, break it in a way that is fun and doesn't take too long.

00:02:47   So I do, Lauren and I do curling here, the Olympic, the ice, shuffleboard on ice.

00:02:53   Yeah, yes.

00:02:54   Anyway, if we're in our rec league, if you're done at the end, I mean, you can just call it a tie.

00:02:58   Otherwise, both sides throw one stone.

00:03:01   Whoever's closest to the target wins at the end, right?

00:03:03   And I really like that because that's like your touch football on the grass.

00:03:07   It's like, how do we settle this, but we got to go, so let's finish it off.

00:03:11   And baseball, the problem with baseball and the problem with when you do soccer and you do a full extra period is it just goes on.

00:03:19   Baseball could go on infinitely.

00:03:21   There's that meme of we're in the 19th inning.

00:03:23   The sun begins to rise.

00:03:24   The sun swells.

00:03:25   The sun consumes the earth.

00:03:26   Like, you could go on forever.

00:03:28   So I really like the idea of having a quick, fun thing that is not the sport, but we got to leave.

00:03:34   We're done here.

00:03:35   Let's settle this and be done.

00:03:37   I don't go to see that.

00:03:39   I like to see a handful of in-person games a year.

00:03:42   And maybe when I get older and have more time, I'll go to see more.

00:03:47   But I've had over the last 20 years, I think, given that I only go to see maybe on average two and a half in-person major league games a year,

00:03:57   I've been to a surprising number of extra inning games and two that were really long.

00:04:01   One was the first game I ever brought Jonas to when he was, I think, two and a half.

00:04:07   Yeah, I think he was two and a half.

00:04:09   And it got to, and we had seats.

00:04:12   I remember the seats for this game.

00:04:13   We were here in Philly, and we were a seat I really like.

00:04:17   Sort of near the field between first base and right field, down the right field line.

00:04:23   But close enough to see plays at first base, which I always like to see.

00:04:27   I just love how, when you're in person, what looks on TV like, oh, my God, that was close.

00:04:32   It's like, no, it wasn't even that close.

00:04:33   That guy was out.

00:04:34   I love it when you're in person that you can see that.

00:04:36   But we're down there, and I forget how long the game went.

00:04:39   Somebody could look it up.

00:04:40   Some Phillies game in July of, it would be 2006, went to extra innings.

00:04:46   And my wife was there, and Jonas was up, and he was good.

00:04:50   And it was like, I don't know, the 13th or 14th inning, and it's still tied.

00:04:53   And we're like, oh, we better go.

00:04:55   I mean, this is crazy.

00:04:56   This kid's only two and a half years old.

00:04:58   It's, I don't know, midnight, past midnight.

00:05:01   And we left with him.

00:05:03   And I hated leaving.

00:05:03   I've never, first, I think, the only baseball game I've ever left in my life before it was

00:05:08   officially over.

00:05:09   But I was like, I don't know what else to do.

00:05:11   We leave.

00:05:12   He's good.

00:05:12   I'm holding him.

00:05:13   And there's all these other dads holding, like, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, which is a

00:05:17   really hard carry.

00:05:18   But these 11-year-olds are asleep.

00:05:22   They need to be carried home.

00:05:25   And then one time we were there, it was probably about 10 years ago, we were at Yankee Stadium.

00:05:28   And it was, might have been Yankees, Red Sox.

00:05:31   Our friend Paul Kafasis was there, too.

00:05:33   And this game just would not end.

00:05:35   I mean, it was like, it was like 18 innings, something like that.

00:05:39   And they were long innings.

00:05:42   Like, there were men on base all the time, and nobody's scoring.

00:05:45   And you could hear individual fans who were left, and it's, I love baseball, but my God,

00:05:50   end this.

00:05:51   Yeah.

00:05:53   It is.

00:05:53   After a while, like, there becomes a kind of perverse joy in watching, like, pitchers have

00:05:59   to field and stuff, because they don't know what they're doing or position players pitching.

00:06:03   But yeah, there comes, I'm a big believer in the idea that a penalty shootout is not the

00:06:09   best way to solve a soccer match, because that's not the sport.

00:06:12   That's like an add-on to the sport and a swing-off in baseball.

00:06:14   It's not quite the sport.

00:06:16   But at some point, either you need to call it a tie, or you need to say, let's end this

00:06:21   now.

00:06:21   And that's that.

00:06:23   Actually, as a college football fan, I prefer the way they handle college, because they basically

00:06:29   give you the ball really close and say, try to score.

00:06:31   You got one shot.

00:06:32   And then the other team, it's like, try to match them.

00:06:34   And if you can match them, they keep doing it.

00:06:36   But like, it's increasingly hard.

00:06:38   And those games do not.

00:06:39   I went to like a five-overtime game once, and it literally, the guy who was the head coach

00:06:43   on the other team, or maybe it was four overtimes, it was Dick Tomey, who was the coach at Arizona

00:06:47   at the time, and they lost.

00:06:48   And he got to the fourth overtime, and he just went for two at the end, because he didn't

00:06:52   care.

00:06:53   He just wanted it to be over.

00:06:54   And they didn't.

00:06:54   And they didn't get it, and they lost by one.

00:06:56   And in the offseason, he was on the rules committee, and he said, this must stop.

00:07:00   And they changed the rules, so it's literally after you do it once, you got to go for two.

00:07:05   And then after four, it's just a two-point conversion, because end this.

00:07:09   The goal is, I don't mind ties, but if you're not going to have a tie.

00:07:13   You just, it's got to end.

00:07:14   Make, let it be exciting.

00:07:17   It can be a crescendo.

00:07:18   It's the climate.

00:07:19   And then leave.

00:07:20   Everybody get out.

00:07:21   We got to clean up the stadium.

00:07:22   Yeah.

00:07:23   How are you feeling about the Manfred man?

00:07:25   Now, for those of you out there who aren't baseball fans, this is what baseball's been

00:07:29   playing with since COVID.

00:07:30   It was like introduced.

00:07:32   Yeah.

00:07:32   Yada.

00:07:33   There was like some explanation, like yada, yada, yada, COVID restrictions.

00:07:37   Yeah.

00:07:37   Yeah.

00:07:38   It's basically, they didn't want the games.

00:07:39   They didn't, they, I think they felt like the pitching staffs were really overtaxed and

00:07:43   in COVID time, they were, they were having issues with that.

00:07:45   And so they, they introduced what I, I don't know who, who invented it, if it was Craig Calcaterra

00:07:51   or not.

00:07:52   I don't know, but I love it because it's the joke about the Manfred man's earth band,

00:07:56   the old sixties band.

00:07:58   And so the Manfred man is Rob Manfred, the commissioner of baseball saying in extra innings

00:08:01   that we just put a guy out on second base.

00:08:03   He's like a ghost runner.

00:08:04   How'd he get there?

00:08:04   Nobody knows.

00:08:05   Don't ask.

00:08:06   I like it.

00:08:07   I like it because it ends the game faster.

00:08:09   I mean, bottom line, I like it because, because baseball is a low scoring game and you could

00:08:13   go four or five innings where nobody does anything.

00:08:16   And with the Manfred man out there, it's again, it's likely to be over in 10 or 11 and,

00:08:21   and we can all go home.

00:08:22   Let's just, I wish I've had a good day.

00:08:24   Let's go home now.

00:08:25   If I got to be baseball commissioner, I would have the Manfred man start in the like 12th

00:08:31   inning.

00:08:31   I would give, I'd give the teams two innings of real baseball.

00:08:35   You're like, tell me with the, with the overtimes, you're like, you can have a little bit, but

00:08:39   after that it's over.

00:08:41   Stop.

00:08:41   Yeah.

00:08:41   Yeah.

00:08:42   So, but otherwise, I don't know, but how would you, I just make it a tie after 12, maybe

00:08:49   you get the Manfred man in the 11th inning and the 12th inning.

00:08:51   And then it's over.

00:08:52   Just, you both lose.

00:08:53   I do think.

00:08:54   And I do think too, it is a oddly American mindset to be, to have this aversion to, to

00:09:01   ties or draw, whatever you want to call them.

00:09:03   Absolutely.

00:09:04   It really is.

00:09:05   And I don't get it.

00:09:06   And I know in the NFL, it's like if the overtime period ends up with no scores, it becomes a

00:09:12   tie, but that almost never happens.

00:09:14   Well, yeah, but they changed the rules.

00:09:16   Sorry, non-sports fans, but you know, even nerds have to like rule structures and stuff

00:09:20   like that.

00:09:20   And they changed the rules in the NFL to make the overtime shorter and that there's this

00:09:25   ability to match if somebody scores a field goal.

00:09:27   And so now you do see a lot more ties and you see a lot more games that end with like 30

00:09:32   seconds left or two seconds left because even that Superbowl, the 49ers and the, and the

00:09:37   chiefs in the Superbowl a couple of years ago, that overtime was almost over.

00:09:41   I believe when that, when the chiefs won because, and they would have just played another overtime,

00:09:46   right?

00:09:46   Because it's the Superbowl.

00:09:47   But like when the games aren't advancing somebody in a tournament, I, I, I root for the tie in

00:09:52   the NFL.

00:09:53   Honestly, I love it.

00:09:54   I love it when the teams are just, they're flopping around.

00:09:56   They can't score.

00:09:57   It's at some point, if you, if nobody's going to win this game, we need to stop.

00:10:01   I just, just neither of you deserves a win now.

00:10:04   Let's just leave.

00:10:05   Yeah.

00:10:06   I, it still bothers me game theory wise that if you win the toss in NFL and you, you say

00:10:13   when everybody wants the ball because of this rule.

00:10:15   So you get the kickoff and if you score a touchdown, you win and that's it.

00:10:19   And the other team doesn't playoffs, but yeah, but it, yeah, except in that, that alone bothers

00:10:23   me, right?

00:10:24   The playoffs should be the same game you play in a regular season, which is also what bothers

00:10:29   me about the Manford man that they take it out for post-season baseball.

00:10:32   I think college is onto a better track.

00:10:35   I agree.

00:10:35   I think that the regular football where you play four quarters and there's a clock and

00:10:40   the clock is very, very important strategically to the game.

00:10:42   Then that's over.

00:10:44   And I think you should have a coin toss for who decides they want the ball first and then

00:10:50   do something like college where you get the ball on the 40 yard line and then the other

00:10:54   team is guaranteed to get it too.

00:10:55   And you've got to decide, see who matches.

00:10:57   Yeah.

00:10:58   And you've got to decide, do you kick an extra point or do you go for two if you score a

00:11:01   touchdown?

00:11:01   That's right.

00:11:02   Up to you.

00:11:02   Yeah.

00:11:03   I like that a lot.

00:11:04   If I was the NFL commissioner for a day, I'm going to share with you my weird thing

00:11:08   that I would do.

00:11:08   I think the listeners will really appreciate this, boy, more than anything.

00:11:11   But it's a preview of this fall because the NFL, for those who do not know, the NFL is

00:11:16   going to do this asinine thing this fall where they're going to use lasers and cameras to

00:11:22   spot the football on the field.

00:11:23   Oh, I heard about this.

00:11:25   And it's the most fake technological solution because what's going to happen is the play

00:11:30   will be over.

00:11:30   A referee will eyeball where the ball was and then they'll use lasers.

00:11:35   It's like, why are you using lasers?

00:11:37   If you can't measure where it was and somebody's like, about here.

00:11:42   And then the lasers clamp down and they're like, okay, that's where it is then.

00:11:45   Exactly.

00:11:46   It's like you're refining something that isn't refined.

00:11:49   It doesn't make any sense.

00:11:50   It's significant figures kind of thing.

00:11:52   It doesn't make any sense.

00:11:53   So if I was the commissioner for a day, you know, the rule is like you break the plane

00:11:57   of the goal line to score a touchdown.

00:11:58   If I were commissioner for a day, I'd make the rule in football that everything snaps.

00:12:02   It's like snapping in Photoshop.

00:12:03   Everything snaps to the yard line.

00:12:05   And if you don't break the plane of the next yard line, the ball gets put back on the previous

00:12:09   yard line.

00:12:10   And there's no like halfway, one inch, quarter of an inch, third of an inch, because I don't

00:12:13   think human beings on that field can measure like that.

00:12:16   So it would literally be if you're at the two yard line and you gain six in,

00:12:20   inches, you're back at the two yard line because you got to break the plane of the one yard

00:12:24   line to get to the one.

00:12:25   If I was, if I ran the zoo, that's what I do because they don't seem to have the technology

00:12:30   to measure like where the ball is when the clock is stopped.

00:12:35   And I get it because there's a big pile of guys on it and they can't see it.

00:12:38   And that's how all the other sports use cameras to do that.

00:12:40   I don't think it will be hard for technology to solve this problem.

00:12:44   Yeah.

00:12:44   But instead, the NFL says, yeah, we'll just slap a laser in there and that'll impress people.

00:12:50   Do you think this is entirely because of the one game, the playoff game this year with Buffalo

00:12:54   and the Chiefs are playing and it's at the end of the game and Josh Allen is running and

00:12:59   they really gave Buffalo a very bad spot.

00:13:02   Oh, yeah.

00:13:03   I think it's that one play and there's an overhead camera that CBS had that showed it and it's

00:13:09   like, I don't know exactly, you know, if you're talking about inches, who knows exactly where

00:13:14   he got, but when they put the ball like most of a yard behind where he clearly got to, it's

00:13:18   like, what the hell is going on?

00:13:20   That's, that's not right.

00:13:21   And then one bad, one bad play in a big game and all of a sudden they change the rules for

00:13:26   every game.

00:13:26   That's what I was going to say is a lot of times rules change.

00:13:30   Why is it, and this is apparently just changing right now, but why is it that people take

00:13:34   off their shoes to go to the airport to go through the security?

00:13:37   It's because one guy, because Richard Reed in like 2004 tried to have like flammable stuff

00:13:43   in his shoes that he was going to ignite and it didn't work.

00:13:46   And since then everybody has to take their shoes off until maybe this year for like two

00:13:50   decades, everybody had, and it's because there was a single high profile incident.

00:13:54   And so people are like, okay, we have to be seen as doing something.

00:13:57   And I think that's right.

00:13:59   I have a guy who was not really even a serious terrorist.

00:14:02   He was very bad at his job.

00:14:03   He was a real kook and his shoe bombs were just, I don't know, a bunch of stuff glued to

00:14:10   his goopy shoes just leaking out of them.

00:14:12   And it could have done damage, I think, but like the idea is that just a huge overreaction.

00:14:17   So yes, I think you're right.

00:14:18   I think that some high profile thing happens.

00:14:20   This is what, that's why there's the weird overtime rule in the NFL now is because weird,

00:14:25   a weird thing happened.

00:14:26   Somebody won the coin toss, went down, kicked a field goal and won a playoff game.

00:14:30   And they're like, no, we can't allow that anymore.

00:14:32   I think it was also a Bills Chiefs game where, where it was the crazy high scoring game.

00:14:36   And then Josh Allen didn't even get to touch the ball.

00:14:38   And they scored, I don't know.

00:14:39   It was like three touchdowns were scored in the last 20 seconds of the game goes to overtime.

00:14:44   And then the Chiefs score another one and the Bills don't even get to touch the ball or something

00:14:48   like that.

00:14:48   I don't, I can't believe we haven't even talked about keyboards yet.

00:14:51   Which sport?

00:14:52   Here's the sport.

00:14:53   The sport that overtime is the most natural for is basketball.

00:14:57   Nobody ever talks about it because it is a, because it is a, unlike other sports, you score

00:15:04   a hundred points a game, right?

00:15:05   Especially if it goes to overtime.

00:15:07   So you just, all right, we'll play five more minutes and it's, it just works out.

00:15:13   Nobody ever thinks, and every once in a while there's double overtime and like once a year

00:15:17   there might be a triple overtime, but even then it's 15 minutes of basketball.

00:15:20   Yeah, it's, it's, it's fine.

00:15:22   I mean, the problem is the basketball has the best solution to this, which is the Elam ending

00:15:26   where they basically, when you, when you reach a threshold, like when the clock's got five

00:15:31   minutes to go, the Elam ending is like you add a number of points to whoever has the most

00:15:36   point.

00:15:36   So it's, let's say it's 88 to 80 and they're like, oh, five minutes to go.

00:15:41   That high score is 88, add 10 to that first team to 98 wins.

00:15:46   And then the clock gets turned off.

00:15:48   And, and, and apparently they did this in an all-star game one year.

00:15:51   Apparently it can lead to some very exciting outcomes because everybody knows that you have

00:15:56   to get to 98.

00:15:57   Right.

00:15:58   And, and do you take three pointers?

00:15:59   Do you take two pointers?

00:16:00   What do you do?

00:16:02   And it gets, it gets to be very dramatic.

00:16:04   And I kind of love it because I, sometimes I think maybe this is me as a baseball fan.

00:16:07   Sometimes I feel like the clock is the worst thing.

00:16:10   Like watching a clock instead of watching people play sports, but bugs the heck out of me.

00:16:15   That's the problem.

00:16:16   So the problem with basketball that you, you touched on it.

00:16:18   It's not the overtime.

00:16:19   Overtime is natural for basketball.

00:16:21   It's the time, it's the time killing at the end of the game.

00:16:24   The game that it becomes strategic to play the clock rather than to play basketball.

00:16:27   So imagine if there was no clock, then they could just play.

00:16:30   And then, and then, and also then there would always be a winner.

00:16:33   Yeah.

00:16:34   I like it.

00:16:34   Yeah.

00:16:35   And then it gets, it also gets a little more playground deep where playground basketball is

00:16:39   always first to 11 or 21 or something.

00:16:42   Maybe the playground knows what, see, I think that's the answer here is what we've said is

00:16:45   you guys out on the, on the grass playing tackle football on a, on a fall day in Pennsylvania,

00:16:51   you, you knew what, what was up.

00:16:53   You, you guys had the right answer.

00:16:55   Yeah.

00:16:56   All right.

00:16:57   I do actually have keyboard news.

00:16:58   Okay.

00:17:00   I bought, I bought my first new, I bought my first new mechanical keyboard in several years.

00:17:05   I, several years ago I gave up.

00:17:07   I was like, what am I doing?

00:17:09   I keep buying.

00:17:09   I thought you weren't going to do this anymore.

00:17:11   I, I, I figured out that I, every couple of years and then you come on and I talk about

00:17:16   it and then I've, I've spent, I don't know, a hundred, usually a hundred, 200, sometimes

00:17:21   a little more, never too much.

00:17:23   And I buy a new mechanical keyboard and I kind of know what I like and, and I get it

00:17:28   and it's, this is okay.

00:17:31   And then, and there's a couple of days where I'm like, this is novel and it's fun to have

00:17:35   a new keyboard.

00:17:36   And then I go back to my Apple extended keyboard too on my desk and that's it.

00:17:40   And I get it.

00:17:42   And now I don't have a crazy high stack of keyboards, but it does, if you looked at all

00:17:47   of them, because I never throw them out, it's starting to look a little crazy, even though

00:17:51   it's because it's over 10 years, but I actually like this keyboard.

00:17:55   It is the new fee or maybe new fi.

00:17:58   I'm not.

00:17:59   I think it's new fee.

00:17:59   All right.

00:18:00   They spell their name.

00:18:02   And you can't camel case P H Y.

00:18:06   And they make, and I have another one from them from a couple of years ago.

00:18:10   I think they sent it to me actually out of the blue as like a, like a review unit.

00:18:15   I think I have one or two from them that they sent me, but I bought what they call the kick

00:18:20   75 and the kick 75 is, you can't, it doesn't come as a kit that you can change, but it is

00:18:29   some kind of breakthrough that they are, they're claiming it as a breakthrough where the same

00:18:34   keyboard can take either low profile or high profile switches in the same keyboard.

00:18:40   So you could buy both sets and then do all the work of taking out the switches and, and

00:18:47   apparently that the difference between low profile and high profile, and for anybody who's not

00:18:52   a keyboard nerd at all, it just means exactly what you think.

00:18:54   High profile is exactly what you think most mechanical keyboards are and low profile are

00:19:00   more like laptop keys.

00:19:03   They're, they're, they're, the actual plastic key caps are smaller and you press them less

00:19:08   to go in.

00:19:09   So they're sort of like the laptop keys from, and we'll get to this topic in a bit, like

00:19:14   old, like late 1980s, early 1990s PC laptops when they actually were still mechanical keyboards

00:19:21   on laptops.

00:19:22   I don't like low profile.

00:19:24   That's one thing I've tried.

00:19:25   Yeah.

00:19:26   I agree.

00:19:27   I don't see the point.

00:19:27   If I want something like that, I'd probably just use an Apple keyboard.

00:19:31   It's not even mechanical.

00:19:32   So I like high profile.

00:19:33   So I ignored that aspect of the Newfie 75.

00:19:37   I just went high profile, brown, and other things I like about this keyboard.

00:19:42   A, I like their fun colors.

00:19:43   Anybody, I'll put this in the show notes.

00:19:45   You could see it.

00:19:46   It's got like a fun yellow space bar.

00:19:48   It's got a blue.

00:19:48   It's sort of a, sort of like Google colors or I guess we, and it would be a little

00:19:52   which, and Google colors are sort of primary colors, right?

00:19:55   It's like crayon green, crayola yellow, a blue return key.

00:20:00   I like that even though it's sort of a smaller layout, it's not an extended layout.

00:20:07   The arrow keys have a little bit of separation, not like a laptop where they're Tetris totally

00:20:13   into the other keys.

00:20:14   There's a little bit of space there for the arrow upside down T arrow keys, and it has page

00:20:20   page up, page down, and, but not both home and end, which is, I don't get, I don't get why,

00:20:29   and it looks like there's room for it, right?

00:20:31   It just has, I forget which one, home, but page up and page down are the ones that are the ones that are the one.

00:20:36   This is a very similar layout to the keyboard that I've been using the last few years, which

00:20:40   is the Keychron Q1.

00:20:41   It's fairly compact.

00:20:44   It's a 75%.

00:20:45   So it's got a function row, and it's got arrow keys that are separate, and it's got page up,

00:20:50   page down, home, basically.

00:20:51   Yeah, I guess home is somehow deemed more important than end, but I guess so.

00:20:56   I guess I want to pop to the top.

00:20:58   And I don't even know, is that for us Mac users, or is it for the PC users?

00:21:03   And you can assign it anything, so you can do whatever you want.

00:21:06   Yeah.

00:21:06   You know what home and end do for PC users?

00:21:08   Do they not go to the top and the bottom?

00:21:11   No, they move the insertion point to the beginning and end of line.

00:21:15   Or at least they did.

00:21:16   Yeah.

00:21:17   And again, you can configure this, but like a standard, I think, bog standard PC setup,

00:21:23   if your keyboard has home and end and you're typing, home and end move to the beginning and end of line,

00:21:28   like command left arrow and command right arrow as God intended.

00:21:33   Anyway, I like this keyboard.

00:21:35   It has, the keys have a sort of chalky, I mean, I'm not going to try to ASMR it here on the podcast,

00:21:42   but you can go to their website and listen to it.

00:21:44   But sort of a chalky feel instead of a clicky sound.

00:21:49   And I did use it at my desk for three or four days before I went back to my Apple extended keyboard too.

00:21:55   But now this is my kitchen keyboard.

00:21:57   I have a drawer where I'm allowed to keep stuff in the kitchen.

00:22:00   And when I want to type on my phone or sometimes my iPad, instead of using that little cramped 11-inch magic keyboard,

00:22:10   I use this.

00:22:12   And so it is my second favorite keyboard.

00:22:15   Yeah, that's good.

00:22:16   It's, I mean, I, given your familiarity, I don't think you will ever find literally,

00:22:21   I don't think anyone could make a keyboard that you would like better than the Apple extended too.

00:22:27   Because you, because you know it so well that even if somebody could distill exactly what you like about it

00:22:32   and then make something that was just even more of that, I don't, I think you'd be like, that's too much.

00:22:37   Because I think you just have, have settled on this.

00:22:40   The good news is, I know you've got spares, but, and, and by the way, just some follow-up from your,

00:22:46   I think, interview with Mike Hurley that you did on Cortex.

00:22:51   Yes, you totally could get, I mean, he said it, you could totally get your old keyboard fixed.

00:22:55   You could fix that one key and you could, you could move ahead with that.

00:22:59   But I was never quite as fond.

00:23:00   I have here, in fact, I showed it to you the other week.

00:23:03   It's the smaller, it's still huge, but it's the smaller version of your keyboard.

00:23:07   It's the keyboard I got with my Mac SE.

00:23:09   And I like it.

00:23:10   And I, I definitely wrote on that, wrote hundreds of thousands of words on that over the years in the, in the like 90s.

00:23:16   But, oh, wait, that keyboard you showed me was yours from way back when?

00:23:21   No, it's an eBay replacement because I, I got rid of that.

00:23:23   But it's the same, it's the exact same model.

00:23:25   It's the model that you did use, right?

00:23:26   That I, that I did use.

00:23:28   Yeah, exactly.

00:23:28   With a Tinker Boy USB-C to 80B adapter, which is great, which has probably got more electronics brains in it than the Mac SE had in it.

00:23:36   But it's, this is the world we live in.

00:23:38   We're in the 2020s now.

00:23:39   But I, I did, I'm somebody who came back to mechanical keyboards and was like, this is the feeling I like.

00:23:45   But I didn't have, I had broken that.

00:23:48   I had been using just generic Apple keyboards for so long that I can, I have managed to find like brown switches and, and the high profile keys.

00:23:56   And, and Mike Hurley made me this Q1 with these Kiwi switches in it.

00:24:01   And they're really good.

00:24:02   They're like, they come hand, they're like pre-lubricated and everything.

00:24:06   And it's, it's a good setup.

00:24:08   I have two now in two different rooms, but if I had, if I had kept that using that keyboard throughout my career, there is no way you could get me to stop because once you're used to something like that.

00:24:19   And, and I was just talking to Andy and I co about this, which is don't feel bad about it because this is what we do.

00:24:25   These are like the tools of our trade.

00:24:26   This is your, this is your ax.

00:24:28   This is your electric guitar.

00:24:29   This is your screwdriver.

00:24:30   This is your, your, your, your Ram truck, whatever it is as a writer, the keyboards as silly as it seems, it totally matters because that's, that's our tool of our, our, our trade is, is the keyboard.

00:24:41   Yeah.

00:24:42   And the microphones, I guess, I guess the microphones are part of our trade now too, but they're less exciting to me than the keyboards.

00:24:49   Yeah.

00:24:50   Because I mean, I guess some people have the ear of Marco, I think obviously has this.

00:24:56   Sure.

00:24:57   And Mike has opinions.

00:24:58   Yeah.

00:24:59   I don't hear it.

00:25:01   I don't hear my difference when I use a dip.

00:25:03   I had a professional, there was a Thanksgiving.

00:25:07   And if I'm being honest now at Thanksgiving where I'd had, I'd had a few because it was Thanksgiving.

00:25:12   And then I get on Twitter and there's a guy saying, Jason, you sound terrible on your podcast.

00:25:17   You're using the wrong microphone.

00:25:18   And I'm like, who the hell are you?

00:25:19   He says, well, I'm a professional audio engineer.

00:25:21   And I'm like, oh crap.

00:25:23   And he said, get a guess, get a sure SM seven B it's the right microphone for your voice.

00:25:28   And I bought one and this, the, the one I'm talking to you on.

00:25:31   And my travel mic is now in a sure as MV seven, which is basically the USB version of the same

00:25:36   microphone.

00:25:37   And it's okay.

00:25:37   All right.

00:25:38   I'm, I, I'm big enough to admit that I was wrong 12 years ago on Thanksgiving.

00:25:43   I think the difference with keyboards though, is, and it's that you feel right.

00:25:51   And so I guess if I really cared about exactly how I sound, then, you know, that's a feeling

00:25:57   too.

00:25:58   But I think I sound good on all the, you know, I don't have that many mics.

00:26:01   I have this one, a USB travel mic.

00:26:03   Sure.

00:26:03   And you don't get that kind of feedback when you're talking.

00:26:06   I mean, you do get some feedback when you're talking, but it's just not the same as, and

00:26:09   again, for, I talk to people, I mean, my wife is like this.

00:26:13   She's like, stop talking about keyboards.

00:26:15   I don't care.

00:26:15   And, and, and she shouldn't care, but like some of us do, and we don't care.

00:26:20   Look, there are people who care about keyboards or other stuff for purely kind of like academic

00:26:25   just, or just fun reasons.

00:26:26   It's a hobby, but like, seriously, I care about it mostly because I sit here writing a lot

00:26:31   of words on my keyboard and I like it.

00:26:33   I like it when it sounds good and feels good and I get into a flow and I can type 120 words

00:26:38   a minute and that matters to me.

00:26:39   So it's a professional tool.

00:26:41   It can be boring to other people.

00:26:42   That's fine.

00:26:43   Yeah.

00:26:43   And like, it's always good advice to, to don't cheap out on the chair that you buy for your

00:26:49   desk.

00:26:49   If you have a, if you can afford it, if you find a chair that you think is perfect and it costs,

00:26:54   I don't know, 1500, 2000, I don't even know.

00:26:56   I have a chair.

00:26:56   I bought mine for, I think somewhere between 1500 and 2000, like 10, 15 years ago, but it's

00:27:03   money well spent because it's, it's actually your health.

00:27:06   I think your keyboard probably isn't your health so much.

00:27:09   You can get into RSI things, but, but that's more posture.

00:27:12   But, but if you just like the way it feels when you click the buttons on the keyboard and

00:27:18   your job is either writing or programming or anything where you're actually just

00:27:24   fingers on a keyboard and you actually find it pleasant how it sounds and feels, you do

00:27:30   it thousands, tens of thousands of times a day, you know, you click these buttons.

00:27:35   Positive reinforcement.

00:27:35   It really matters.

00:27:36   And yeah, I, I, I came in.

00:27:38   So I've been on my own for almost 11 years now out here in the garage.

00:27:42   And when I started, this was a work from home space.

00:27:45   I set up before I left my, my job at Macworld and I, I was, I kind of cheaped out on some

00:27:51   stuff and I've gradually come to the realization that I've been in here for a decade.

00:27:56   And if, if it's something that matters, that is part of my workspace, I should probably spend

00:28:02   money on it because it's part of my workspace.

00:28:05   So it took me a decade to go from the curtains that I bought on Amazon for $50 and hung so that

00:28:12   I didn't have to stare at our storage area to buy.

00:28:15   I just, this happened like a couple of months ago.

00:28:17   I bought like a corporate room divider that is eight feet tall that makes this feel like

00:28:22   an office and it was, it was like two grand.

00:28:24   It was not cheap, but it's my job and it's my workplace.

00:28:28   And there is, so, so it's one of those things that like, look, if you can't afford it, that's

00:28:31   fine.

00:28:31   It's totally understandable.

00:28:32   But I think a lot of people end up suffering with crappy things to do their jobs because

00:28:39   they're like, no, no, it's fine.

00:28:41   And, and, and sometimes the, the trick is realizing when it's actually not fine and this is your

00:28:47   profession.

00:28:48   And as when I set up my own business, that was one of the first things I learned is,

00:28:52   Oh, it's not, it's a business expense, meaning it's free, but it's a business expense means

00:28:56   this is a tool I used to do my job.

00:28:58   I should probably pay for it.

00:28:59   And that's okay.

00:29:00   I know that I talked about it with Glenn Fleischman, who's now contributed to six colors, which is

00:29:06   some of the, some of the best meet Mac media news that possibly of the year, but that's a

00:29:12   great addition to six colors.

00:29:14   But I think literally on this show many years ago, I think Glenn was on and we talked about

00:29:19   when Glenn was an early Amazon employee and one of the edicts from Bezos was because like

00:29:26   when he started it in a like literal garage with two other guys, they made desks out of

00:29:30   doors and saw horses.

00:29:33   They just took a couple of carpenters or construction, saw horses and abandoned doors, put them

00:29:39   on top and then called them desks.

00:29:40   And then it became like, well, that's how we started Amazon.

00:29:43   So that's what everyone gets.

00:29:44   And it's like, that's the, the idea behind it of we're not going to waste a lot of money

00:29:50   on needless things.

00:29:52   And we're going to be a lean, mean operation, even as we go through extraordinary growth and

00:29:57   seeming success.

00:29:58   I get that, but you're going to have a desk that is incredibly uncomfortable and is unsuited

00:30:05   to be a desk is an ergonomic nightmare and is counterproductive to productivity.

00:30:12   It's a nice idea, but a bad in practice.

00:30:16   When I was in grad school, I got offered a job at Intel, which, wow, that would have been

00:30:22   weird.

00:30:23   It would be like writing for the internal Intel communication.

00:30:25   I dodged a bullet there.

00:30:28   It did.

00:30:28   It did get me a bigger, a better job offer for Mac user.

00:30:31   They put some more money in.

00:30:32   So that was, that was good.

00:30:33   But I interviewed there and they were talking about their corporate culture.

00:30:36   And I want people know Intel of circa 1994, 93, 94, but they were riding high.

00:30:43   They were riding really high.

00:30:44   This was Pentium era.

00:30:45   They were riding high.

00:30:46   And they were like very proud of the fact that they had a really cubicle egalitarian culture.

00:30:52   Everybody had a cubicle and they bragged.

00:30:54   They're like, everybody has a cubicle.

00:30:56   Even Andy Grove has a cubicle.

00:30:57   And I walked by Andy Grove's cubicle.

00:31:00   So Andy Grove was the CEO of Intel, one of the most powerful people in the tech industry

00:31:06   in the nineties.

00:31:07   And, and, and they were like so proud.

00:31:09   Even Andy Grove has a cubicle.

00:31:11   John, Andy Grove's cubicle was a fortress.

00:31:16   It was the size of 15 cubicles that led to a cubicle that was the size of eight cubicles.

00:31:22   That was the outer waiting room reception area that presumably led to something the size of

00:31:29   15 or 20 cubicles.

00:31:30   That was Andy Grove's cubicle.

00:31:33   So I, and, and that moment I had one of those, oh, these are the lies that corporations tell

00:31:37   themselves.

00:31:38   I see.

00:31:38   Right.

00:31:38   I see how this is.

00:31:39   As a 23 year old who was trying to get my first job, I realized that, and I had a power

00:31:46   book with me and I was like, did the lasers come out of the ceiling and blast the power book?

00:31:49   Because it's not an Intel computer, but yeah, that's the, those are the same things.

00:31:53   They're the lies that a lot of corporations have those, have those tenets that don't make sense

00:31:58   anymore, but they still do them because it's a totem.

00:32:00   They think it matters somehow.

00:32:01   That the myth is part of the company's ID.

00:32:03   Yeah.

00:32:04   Yeah.

00:32:04   Oh, I love the idea, the egalitarianism of it, but trust me, Andy Grove is not using

00:32:09   your cubicle.

00:32:10   All right.

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00:34:34   All right.

00:34:35   The keyboard talk parlays right into another topic I wanted to get to.

00:34:39   And which is retro 80s, early 80s computing.

00:34:42   And I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, or if it's one of those things, I forget

00:34:47   what the term is, but it's like recent, it's sort of like recency bias, but something else.

00:34:52   But like when you start shopping for something and you're comparison shopping, all of a sudden

00:34:57   you see those things everywhere.

00:34:58   My wife and I noticed this, I remember 20 some years ago when we needed to shop for baby

00:35:03   strollers.

00:35:04   And we're like, oh my God, look at them all.

00:35:06   And there's different kinds and different brands.

00:35:09   And there's, and then while we're thinking about this at like month, I don't know, seven

00:35:14   or whatever of the pregnancy, we've got time, but we want to get this stuff done.

00:35:18   I'm walking around the city and I see people pushing baby strollers everywhere.

00:35:23   I'm like, where did all these babies come from?

00:35:24   And I'm like, oh, that's a McLaren.

00:35:26   That's this brand.

00:35:27   That's that brand.

00:35:28   And it's, and I'm like, should I ask that person what they think of this stroller?

00:35:31   Do they look, and I'm like, I'm not going to be a weirdo, but I'm like, do they look happy

00:35:34   with the stroller?

00:35:35   But I saw them everywhere.

00:35:36   And you know what's funny, Jason?

00:35:38   I haven't seen a baby stroller in, in months right now.

00:35:42   Huh?

00:35:43   So I don't know if it's like that with this retro computing, but it seems like I, you, me

00:35:49   and you off, I think before the Commodore thing even came out, we were talking about

00:35:54   it based on your Apple keyboard.

00:35:56   That's actually the name of the keyboard, by the way.

00:35:58   Right.

00:35:59   It's called like the way mine, there was an Apple extended keyboard and mine, which is only

00:36:05   made for a few years, like 1988 and 89.

00:36:08   And then it was replaced by the Apple extended keyboard too.

00:36:12   Yours was the smaller, unextended version of that just called Apple keyboard, which is

00:36:19   classic, the Apple keyboard.

00:36:20   Yeah.

00:36:21   Because we were going back and forth about some of the weird layout decisions that happened

00:36:24   back then, like the arrow keys are all in a row.

00:36:26   And some of that was picked up from the Apple II and the Apple IIc that I've got behind me

00:36:32   is like that too.

00:36:33   And there's just like weird, because keyboard layouts have sort of settled down now, but

00:36:37   back in the day it was, it was a bit of the wild West.

00:36:39   And so we were talking about weird things on keyboards and how I was talking about how I

00:36:45   learned, I had this conversation with my wife, actually.

00:36:48   She, she looked at me like I was crazy because her keyboard at work has the number pad.

00:36:53   And I said, I hate the number pad.

00:36:54   I don't want a number pad.

00:36:55   And she's like, why?

00:36:56   And I realized it's because my Commodore pet that I had as a kid.

00:37:00   And then the Apple II didn't have a number pad.

00:37:02   And I learned to type in programs in basic, which had lots of numbers, entirely using the

00:37:07   one, one to nine, zero at the top row of the keyboard to the point that I can, I can type

00:37:12   numbers in completely without looking into the keyboard.

00:37:15   And it, and it feels perfectly comfortable for me.

00:37:18   I don't need, and that led us onto a whole thing about how the number pads numbers are

00:37:22   inverted from the touchstone on a phone.

00:37:24   And what's that about?

00:37:25   And like, it was this whole, like things that seemed fine at the time.

00:37:29   And I mentioned the Commodore pet and I said, and I think that was when we had that moment

00:37:33   of the, the two, the quote mark is shift two, which I have since come to find because we've

00:37:40   been talking about retro computing in public is actually quite common on European keyboards

00:37:45   where they need extra keys for accented characters.

00:37:49   The quote mark ends up at shift two.

00:37:51   And my first computer keyboard was the Commodore pet, not the little teeny tiny metal one, but

00:37:57   the one that was like a real keyboard, but it, it didn't, it was shift two for quote.

00:38:01   And, and there's an emulator that you linked me to a C64 emulator.

00:38:05   And I typed in your Kmart sucks thing.

00:38:08   And I had a moment where I pressed shift two and it all came back to me, John.

00:38:12   It was like, it was 1982 again, where I was like, Oh, shift two to quote.

00:38:16   That is, that is what it is.

00:38:18   And it's just, it's fascinating.

00:38:20   We talk about keyboards, but like in those early days, they were, there were distinct

00:38:24   subcultures, but also like the rules were just all over the place.

00:38:28   Like depending on what device you had, if you had an Atari or a C64 or an Apple or a TRS-80,

00:38:36   like anything goes.

00:38:37   And so it was a great time.

00:38:39   The reason why I think it's so fun to hear from people, even if they're very angry with

00:38:42   us about that period is because it's been so long that it was just two of something, Mac

00:38:49   or PC, Android or iPhone.

00:38:52   And back then it was before the IBM PC crushed everybody.

00:38:57   Basically, it was Apple, Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, and the, and the variants of that TRS-80.

00:39:06   There were so many, there were so many different computers that, that were all different and

00:39:12   weird.

00:39:12   And there wasn't a, a, a, an us versus them.

00:39:15   Like, in fact, that was the thing that came up over the last couple of weeks is it turns

00:39:20   out, and I didn't, you and I didn't know this because we were Apple II people, right?

00:39:23   It turns out that yes, the Commodore people hated Apple II people and the Atari people hated

00:39:29   Apple II people.

00:39:30   But what I did not know is that the Commodore people and the Atari people really, really hated

00:39:36   each other.

00:39:37   Because they were fighting over that, that, uh, the ground of being the underdog.

00:39:42   And they're like, no, we, it's us, no, it's us.

00:39:45   And I had no idea because again, I was not even paying attention because I had an Apple

00:39:49   II.

00:39:49   So I, I just, and also the other thing I'll throw in before I stopped talking is I was

00:39:56   amazed because I, I love my Apple IIe, but I had an Apple IIe as a home computer.

00:40:01   And it turns out that the brilliant thing that Apple did, because like in California, Apple

00:40:07   gave a computer to every school in California, in California, everybody got an Apple II.

00:40:11   You hear the, the Commodore and Atari people talk and they hated the Apple II because it

00:40:17   was the computer they had to use at school.

00:40:19   And I thought, oh yeah, if it's the computer, that's your homework, then using an Apple II

00:40:24   starts to be like, you're taking your medicine.

00:40:26   And, and then the computer that you mess around with and play games on at home is the fun thing.

00:40:32   And I totally see that.

00:40:33   I wasted so much time playing games on my Apple II that I don't feel that way at all.

00:40:37   But I get why you would think that if all you were ever able to do was like program in

00:40:42   Pascal or play Oregon Trail.

00:40:44   Yeah.

00:40:47   And I think, I do think that was part of it too.

00:40:50   And there's, there's all sorts of technical things people are talking about where the Commodore

00:40:53   64 had some kind of built-in sprite engine.

00:40:56   It had sprites very early.

00:40:58   And it made game programming easier or made certain type of games look better than the

00:41:04   Apple II.

00:41:04   And I think it plays into that.

00:41:06   And I think it's sort of, but that the Apple II, I think almost everybody's fighting over

00:41:15   all this stuff.

00:41:15   Yeah.

00:41:16   But I think, I think for things other than games.

00:41:21   And I don't, I think the Apple II was the heyday of Apple gaming, right?

00:41:24   It's not like the Apple II, it's not, it's not like the Mac at all, like the Mac is to PC

00:41:29   gaming for the last 30 years.

00:41:31   I don't know.

00:41:32   Or maybe forever.

00:41:33   Right.

00:41:34   But the Apple II platform was so much better for everything else, for actual quote unquote

00:41:41   work, right?

00:41:42   VisiCalc was, I think, invented on the Apple II, right?

00:41:45   Like it was like the first spreadsheet.

00:41:46   I think so.

00:41:48   And it was, it was expensive and it was powerful.

00:41:50   And I mean, and then, and like Apple II was good for games, but I think you could also say

00:41:56   that the Apple II was like kind of overpowered for games because that wasn't really what it

00:42:01   was made for, even though I played a lot of games.

00:42:04   I also wrote all my papers in high school and my freshman year in college on it.

00:42:08   So, and, and whereas the C64, you know, it was probably on your TV at home and very conducive

00:42:14   to playing games.

00:42:15   And it totally makes sense.

00:42:17   What was the, the, it was like a three in one, like a suite that for the Apple II with a word

00:42:23   processor, a spreadsheet.

00:42:24   That was Apple works.

00:42:26   Apple works.

00:42:27   Like it was called, I thought it was called that.

00:42:28   Before it was on the Mac.

00:42:29   I've got it on this Apple IIc that is behind me right now.

00:42:32   I, I, you can do it.

00:42:34   I did a fantasy baseball league when I was a senior in high school or maybe when, maybe

00:42:39   summer after high school.

00:42:40   Anyway.

00:42:41   And that was, we bought the USA today, which had the stats every week on Wednesday.

00:42:45   And I had a spreadsheet on my Apple II that was in, it was Apple works.

00:42:50   And that's how we compiled all the scoring for the fantasy baseball league was using.

00:42:55   And I think about it now and I can't even picture what that spreadsheet looked like because it

00:42:58   must've been so primitive.

00:43:00   But yeah, it was a, it was a whole thing and you could do that.

00:43:03   Yeah.

00:43:03   But I think that specific point of the keyboard layouts really amplifies the sort of anything

00:43:11   goes nature of the era.

00:43:13   And even on the Mac into the very early nineties, the first keyboard I owned with my Mac LC that

00:43:22   I got in 1991.

00:43:22   I forget the name of that one because I hated the keyboard, but it had the escape key.

00:43:28   A, I had the four at the, instead of an upside down T, the arrow keys were four in a row up,

00:43:34   then down, then left and right.

00:43:36   So left and right made sense to each other, but up and down had no spatial relationship to

00:43:41   up and down this.

00:43:42   And, but to the, they were to the right of the space bar, but then in between them in the

00:43:47   space bar was the escape key or, or maybe it was back to, but some of the keyboards had the back

00:43:53   tick there and some had escape there because they didn't, it was a smaller compact keyboard.

00:43:58   So they didn't have a row above the numbers.

00:44:01   So the one, two, three, four is a zero was up there above QWERTY.

00:44:05   And then to the left of it might've been back tick, but then the way that escape goes above that

00:44:10   where there was no row above that.

00:44:11   So they just put it next to the space bar.

00:44:13   Yes.

00:44:13   And it's, this is 1990.

00:44:15   I had the back tick next to the space bar on my Apple keyboard.

00:44:18   On the left though.

00:44:19   Yeah.

00:44:20   On the left.

00:44:20   And then the escape key is, is up.

00:44:21   Yeah.

00:44:22   No, it's anything goes well.

00:44:23   You were, you were saying, I think this was a bit of inadvertent genius on your part.

00:44:28   You said that the Commodore felt vaguely Soviet to you.

00:44:33   Yes.

00:44:34   Yeah.

00:44:34   And, and I, I was doing at the same time I was reading up on the history of Commodore.

00:44:39   Cause again, my first computer was a Commodore, but it was the pet.

00:44:41   Which was an all in one and didn't have graphics mode, which made it really kind of unsuitable

00:44:47   for, for most games.

00:44:49   It had a weird shifted character set that you could use to make graphics, but they were not

00:44:54   graphics in, in, in a normal sense.

00:44:56   But it was like box drawing characters.

00:44:58   Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:44:59   Exactly.

00:45:00   And, and playing card suits and things like that.

00:45:02   You could draw lines and stuff, but it wasn't the same.

00:45:05   Exactly.

00:45:06   So Jack Tramiel, who was the founder of Commodore, he started Commodore as an importer to Toronto

00:45:15   because, because, because he was in Toronto importer of Czechoslovakian typewriters.

00:45:23   And they had unusual type key layouts, as you might expect.

00:45:27   And it seems to me that as Commodore became a computer company, Jack Tramiel had a comfort

00:45:36   level with those kinds of keyboard layouts.

00:45:39   And then hearing from the Europeans about how that actually is a shift for shift to, for a

00:45:46   quote mark, makes sense to them, I think Jack Tramiel, with his whole company founded on Eastern

00:45:52   European keyboards, just sort of was okay with it.

00:45:55   And, and it also speaks to the fact that Commodore, one of the reasons, like somebody got really

00:45:59   upset when I joked about the Vic 20, when, cause I said they sold a million of them.

00:46:03   And he was like, how dare you?

00:46:04   They sold two and a half million.

00:46:05   I'm like, dude, I was, I was, I was being nice and, and, and sort of light, lightly making

00:46:11   a joke about it.

00:46:11   Point is it was so affordable.

00:46:13   One of the reasons I think those Commodores were so affordable is they didn't do stuff

00:46:18   like make a different version for a different country with a different keyboard layout.

00:46:22   They just, there was one.

00:46:23   So like in the U S that shift to quote shift two was so bizarre, but I think Jack Tramiel

00:46:30   was like, I'm only doing one and I'm going to go with the Czechoslovakian keyboards that

00:46:35   brought me here.

00:46:36   Yeah.

00:46:36   Because I think they had in, you had to type shift two to get a double quote mark.

00:46:40   I forget where a single quote was.

00:46:42   It was on, it was like shift shift seven or something.

00:46:44   I don't know, but there are six, I don't know.

00:46:46   It was on another key.

00:46:48   So the double and single quotes were on totally different keys on the number row, but there

00:46:52   was a standalone key for the British pound.

00:46:54   Yep.

00:46:56   Yep.

00:46:56   I mean, again, and that, that's, that's what it's funny if you're an American, right?

00:47:01   It's not funny if you live in the UK.

00:47:03   It's well, of course, our keyboards have always had a sterling.

00:47:07   And again, if you are using a keyboard with a language that has all of those extra characters,

00:47:11   like somebody from Germany sent me a picture and it's, they've got the S at, which is the

00:47:14   double S and they've got a bunch of louded characters.

00:47:16   It's like, it totally makes sense that you would do that instead of what we have to do,

00:47:20   which is option E, option U E to get an E with an loud over it or whatever.

00:47:25   But, but for an American, it was like nothing else that existed.

00:47:31   It was a very different kind of keyboard.

00:47:33   And I think it goes to the Commodore ethos, not just at the Czechoslovakian keyboards imported

00:47:37   to Toronto, but to the idea that they weren't going to make a bunch of variants of this thing.

00:47:42   They're going to sell a VIC-20 for 300 bucks.

00:47:44   It's going to, they're going to make one and they're going to sell it everywhere in the world.

00:47:48   And that's just how it's going to be.

00:47:49   Maybe the variant is, does the composite output do NTSC or PAL or CCAM or whatever,

00:47:55   but literally the keyboard was not on the radar because they're saving money everywhere they can.

00:48:00   And, and then that's the truth of it is Apple stuff was way more expensive.

00:48:04   Even back then, Apple stuff was more expensive.

00:48:07   Apple had a bigger profit margin.

00:48:08   And that is a part of Apple that's been there since the very beginning.

00:48:11   Yep.

00:48:12   And it is interesting too, to, to, to take it out of nostalgia and tie it back into

00:48:17   the current computing.

00:48:20   It, it's kind of interesting.

00:48:22   I think it's almost like inflation adjusted.

00:48:24   It's almost exactly the relationship, the relationship between the Commodore 64 and the Apple 2e is almost exactly the relationship between Meta's Quest headsets and the Vision Pro.

00:48:39   And, and Drang, Drang was the smart one who figured out that yes, when the Commodore 64 debuted in 1982,

00:48:46   it retailed for $600.

00:48:47   And I just, you know, I'm used to, I'm so used to when I look up, what did that cost when it came out?

00:48:54   And because I write about Apple, and I've written about Apple professionally for 22 years, in the era I've been writing about Apple, when a computer comes out and it costs $999, and it doesn't get updated for three years, like the Retina MacBook Pro a couple years ago, guess how much it costs three years later when everything's cheaper?

00:49:12   Yeah.

00:49:13   $999.

00:49:14   And I've, that's, that's not the way the rest of the industry works.

00:49:17   And I just thought, huh, I don't remember this Commodore 64 being that expensive.

00:49:22   I wonder why they sold it at Kmart.

00:49:23   But I was like, well, I double checked, chat GPT.

00:49:26   I double checked.

00:49:26   It was $600 a night when it debuted.

00:49:28   $600 it is.

00:49:30   And Dr. Drang pointed out on Mastodon that it quickly got reduced in price, and it was like $200 by like 1983 and into 84 when he bought one.

00:49:40   They cleared the VIC-20 out, and it kept going down.

00:49:43   Yeah, it's like the VIC-20 was like Commodore's version of Apple selling a two-year-old iPhone at a lower price.

00:49:49   And then within a year or two, they were like, ah, get rid of that.

00:49:52   This 64 is a hit.

00:49:53   Let's get everybody to buy one.

00:49:55   They're making the same one everywhere in the world, like you said.

00:49:59   They don't even have a different keyboard anywhere else.

00:50:01   So they've got some economies of scale.

00:50:04   And $200-ish without a monitor, but you can hook it up to your TV, so you didn't need a monitor, sounds exactly like about what I remember probably pitching my parents on.

00:50:15   Because as much as, and I've told this story before, but I'll repeat it here, I didn't have a computer in my house at the time.

00:50:20   I had an Atari 2600 for games, but my parents would not buy me a computer because, and I have to say, in hindsight, possibly not wrong out of the fear that if they did, that I would never leave the house.

00:50:33   Even though my other friends were arguing to their parents, I want to get a $1,000 computer, and they're like, all you're going to do is play games.

00:50:41   You're not going to do anything on it.

00:50:42   I'm not spending all that money on it.

00:50:43   You're never going to use it.

00:50:44   It's going to gather dust.

00:50:45   And my parents were like, we are not buying you a computer, John.

00:50:48   You're never going to leave the house.

00:50:50   Go outside.

00:50:51   Meet your friends.

00:50:52   And like I told you earlier, play touch football or pick up baseball and stuff like that.

00:50:56   I don't know that I never would have left the house, but I certainly would have left the house less.

00:51:00   Yeah, I definitely did leave the house, but not as much as I would have if I didn't have a computer at home.

00:51:07   So while if I had somehow, at the age of 10, become independently wealthy and could have bought myself a computer, I 100% would have bought an Apple IIe.

00:51:14   Sure.

00:51:15   If my parents said, fine, we'll buy you a Commodore 64, I would have said, yes, let's go get it right now.

00:51:20   Yeah, of course.

00:51:21   Of course.

00:51:21   And that is, I mean, leaving aside the, I mean, I think that the thing that we aren't talking about as much, and as a kid, you're maybe less aware of, is there definitely is a means story here.

00:51:34   Which is, the kids, the kids with Apple IIs, like my dad was an orthodontist, like he got, I had, I had, I had a computer and then I had a different computer.

00:51:42   And the 64 and the VIC-20, more people could afford, they were more affordable and they use your TV instead of having to also buy a monitor on top of that.

00:51:52   So like, there are so many reasons that that's why I tried to say nice things about the VIC-20 is like the VIC-20 was, was accessible in a way that the Apples weren't.

00:52:01   And that's, and that's really great.

00:52:03   So that's all, I mean, that's all good.

00:52:05   They were all amazing and good and fun and I would have taken any of them and I'm interested in hindsight in all of them.

00:52:11   It's a great, it's a great era.

00:52:13   It was a magical era because it was all new and there were no rules and there was no dominant force.

00:52:17   Yes.

00:52:18   And then IBM PC came in and just ground everybody into dust.

00:52:21   Even though one of the things I find curious about this sort of trip down memory lane and everybody fighting or very, very, it's a very fun argument of everybody arguing for the one that they like the most.

00:52:33   Not one person in the whole thread has chimed in and said, what was the best was the IBM PC.

00:52:39   Nobody, not one person because it really didn't, for as dominant as it became, it had absolutely no mind share anywhere amongst kids.

00:52:51   Yeah.

00:52:51   I didn't see, John, I don't think I saw Windows until my freshman year in college.

00:52:59   Yeah.

00:52:59   Same here.

00:53:00   There was a woman in my dorm who had a, a, a, a Radio Shack, a Tandy computer.

00:53:06   It was Tandy at that point, but it was running like Windows one or something.

00:53:09   And I was like, what is that?

00:53:11   Cause it was like the weird tie.

00:53:12   It was before three, one even.

00:53:13   Yeah.

00:53:14   And I just, it was not on the, and I went to, I went to college with an Apple two.

00:53:19   I got a Mac by the end of my sophomore year in college.

00:53:22   I was all in on the Mac, but I didn't even see them.

00:53:26   I mean, I'm sure we had them.

00:53:27   Our computer lab was Apple twos.

00:53:29   Like I, in high school, like I just, I, I just, they were not, they were, I think they

00:53:36   were in offices and I think that Microsoft's plan was to get clones out there and then to

00:53:40   sell them into homes.

00:53:41   But there was a, there was a lull in there where that was not a, a device for the, for, for the

00:53:47   home.

00:53:47   Yeah.

00:53:47   I remember because I didn't, I might've remembered the same thing even if I had a computer, but

00:53:52   because I didn't, I remember which of my friends owned which computers.

00:53:57   I remember my friend Ethan had a Commodore 64.

00:53:59   My friend Joey had the Apple two E and so I liked going to Joey's house and Joey was

00:54:05   the one, cause our computer lab at school was full of Apple two E's and Apple two C's.

00:54:10   He was the one who smuggled in all the games.

00:54:12   Sure.

00:54:13   Yeah.

00:54:14   We're going to play Choplifter over here in the corner.

00:54:16   We're going to play Ultima, Ultima three over here.

00:54:18   Oh, Karate, Karateka.

00:54:19   Karateka.

00:54:20   Yeah.

00:54:20   Oh man.

00:54:21   Yeah.

00:54:21   Yeah.

00:54:22   My, my, um, Dr. J versus Larry Bird.

00:54:24   One-on-one.

00:54:25   Yeah.

00:54:26   That was a great one.

00:54:26   One-on-one.

00:54:27   That was a great one.

00:54:27   Yeah.

00:54:28   My friend, it's funny.

00:54:29   You're absolutely right.

00:54:30   My friend, my friend Crispin had an Apple two plus my friend Thor.

00:54:33   These are real names, by the way.

00:54:35   My friend Thor had a TRS 80.

00:54:37   So he had stuff, he had games.

00:54:39   They were, TRS 80 was felt, it was really primitive, but he had these weird games that I'd never

00:54:43   seen before.

00:54:44   And it was just kind of amazing.

00:54:45   And then I remember he did get an Apple two at some point and we went over there and we're

00:54:48   playing Karateka, but like you could remember, yeah, you go, go to a different house.

00:54:52   There's different software.

00:54:53   You could, there's different games you can play over there.

00:54:56   I remember the only kid I knew had a PC in the house was my friend Mark and he, Mark had

00:55:01   lived in England.

00:55:02   He'd, he'd been in first grade with us and then he went away for a few years cause his dad's

00:55:06   job put him in England for a couple of years.

00:55:09   He came back and all of a sudden he's saying the word bloody all the time.

00:55:12   But he, his dad was like a, some kind of mechanical engineer or civil engineer of some sort.

00:55:18   Like he worked on, I don't know, like dams or something like structural integrity of things.

00:55:22   Probably something Drang would, would be familiar with and had a PC in the house for work purposes.

00:55:28   And I remember one time Mark and me were writing something like a story, like a, I don't know,

00:55:35   some kind of the type of story teenage boys would write.

00:55:38   Not dirty, but, but juvenile.

00:55:40   And even Mark didn't like it.

00:55:43   He was like, yeah, this sucks, but it was better than writing it by hand or using a typewriter.

00:55:48   So we used it.

00:55:49   But even Mark thought the computer in his house sucked.

00:55:51   It was the only computer anybody I knew thought sucked.

00:55:55   It was no fun.

00:55:56   It wasn't made to be fun.

00:55:57   It was, it was for word processing and other sensible office things.

00:56:00   Yeah.

00:56:01   That was an era really, if these platforms weren't established and as a kid, if you didn't know

00:56:07   somebody like I, there was a guy I knew who wasn't a close friend, but he was kind of a

00:56:11   friend.

00:56:12   And he lived across the street from my elementary school.

00:56:14   And I remember at lunch one time we went over to his house because he was literally across

00:56:19   the street.

00:56:19   And I don't think we were supposed to leave the campus, but we did it because he was across

00:56:22   the street.

00:56:23   And, and it was like entering a parallel universe because he had a Mattel and television.

00:56:28   Ah, and I had an Atari 2600 and some of my friends had the 2600 and this was the, the competing

00:56:36   console of the era.

00:56:37   And it, I mean, it really was like, I, I couldn't understand what I was seeing because it was like

00:56:44   the Atari, but totally different.

00:56:47   What a, and you feel like you just fell through a, through the rabbit hole.

00:56:51   Just like it's a, and that is a thing now we really are the old man talking about the

00:56:56   past, but that was one of the really genuinely delightful things of being about being on the

00:57:00   very beginning of something like that is that it was just a mess.

00:57:03   It was chaotic.

00:57:03   You'd stumble, you'd step into somewhere and be like, Whoa, what is that?

00:57:07   And have no idea.

00:57:08   And it couldn't last forever.

00:57:10   And it did get, by the time, again, by the time I got out of college, like there were only

00:57:14   two computers, but in those early days, any, you would turn around and be like, what?

00:57:19   Huh?

00:57:20   I remember they got a, a Timex Sinclair, which was like a little, I want to say $50 computer.

00:57:25   It was, it was nothing.

00:57:27   It had no memory.

00:57:28   It had no power or anything.

00:57:29   A membrane keyboard.

00:57:31   But I remember somebody brought one into the school and everybody was just like, what is

00:57:37   that?

00:57:37   Cause we didn't understand it.

00:57:38   It was like not a computer we had seen before.

00:57:41   Yeah.

00:57:41   And the other thing is if you're young enough and you're still bearing with this episode,

00:57:45   but hopefully you're fascinated.

00:57:47   But the other thing I cannot emphasize enough, it was, it wasn't just that they were different

00:57:52   platforms, but there was no way to get one to talk to the other.

00:57:57   None.

00:57:57   Really?

00:57:57   None.

00:57:58   Like there was no way to, to take something on a floppy disk from one computer and get it

00:58:04   onto another.

00:58:05   You could, you could use a modem or like a serial cable to send text or something.

00:58:11   Yeah.

00:58:12   But, but that was it.

00:58:13   And, and, and basically you couldn't.

00:58:16   Any kind of file you had saved was impossible to get read on another computer.

00:58:22   Cause you just couldn't get it to read the disc or in some of the cases with those early

00:58:26   PCs, the tape, cause some of them, because floppy disk drives were so expensive that they'd

00:58:31   use a cassette tape using the same tapes that you'd listen to music on would be just have

00:58:38   ones and zeros stored on them.

00:58:39   I think they used to sell more expensive tapes.

00:58:41   They were like data integrity tapes or something.

00:58:43   And maybe they were slightly higher quality tapes, but yeah, not the most, but you, there

00:58:49   was no way to take a tape from one computer and play it on another.

00:58:52   So you couldn't exchange files.

00:58:53   The programs were, if the same game was available on both platforms, it's because an entirely

00:59:01   different programming team had implemented the game from scratch.

00:59:04   There was no possible way to recompile a game or to use some kind of library to port a game

00:59:11   because there was, you had to be so close.

00:59:13   We're talking, Commodore 64 was a 64 cause it had 64 kilobytes of RAM.

00:59:18   And it was not a lot of space in there.

00:59:22   So it was, everything.

00:59:23   Shahid Ahmad, he used to do a podcast, I think with Mike Hurley about games.

00:59:28   He worked at PlayStation for a long time, but like when he got into the business, that

00:59:33   was his, that was one of his jobs is he was a whiz kid and they would give him games from

00:59:38   one platform and say, make this game for the other platform.

00:59:42   And literally that was it.

00:59:44   And he just had to remake the game and ideally it would behave exactly the same, but it didn't

00:59:51   not quite.

00:59:52   No.

00:59:52   Yeah.

00:59:53   The only thing that was in common was like basic and even basic wasn't quite the same,

00:59:56   but you could, you know, learning a basic program, you could get away with it more or less across

01:00:01   all the different platforms.

01:00:02   For the most part.

01:00:02   And sometimes if you bought like a magazine that would give you the basic program to type

01:00:06   in by hand, which is probably how you became such a good typist.

01:00:09   They might have like a note that would say, you know, on the Commodore, you have to do this.

01:00:14   There might be like some kind of remark, like on an Apple, here's the difference in the program.

01:00:20   But yeah, it was, it was crazy times of completely different and just dozens of them.

01:00:25   Ultimately, I heard of one this week.

01:00:28   Somebody sent me, I swear to God, I put it in the show notes.

01:00:30   I'd never heard of this computer before ever.

01:00:32   Oh, the Tomy Tudor.

01:00:33   Yeah.

01:00:34   The Tomy, Tomy Tudor.

01:00:35   I remember Tomy cause they made little handheld electronic games, toys.

01:00:39   The Tomy Tudor was a low cost PC.

01:00:42   Good times.

01:00:44   I mean, literally a toy company and just say like, yeah, we're going to, we'll, we'll all

01:00:50   to make a computer.

01:00:51   Okay.

01:00:52   Sure.

01:00:53   Yep.

01:00:53   Why not?

01:00:54   All right.

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01:03:54   All right, I think we're up to the current events or are we okay back in the present

01:03:59   day, John, I got a new iPhone here with some software on it.

01:04:04   How much you want to pay me to show it to you?

01:04:06   What a sordid when is that I've been asking around and nobody's giving me the answer.

01:04:14   When is the previous time that Apple has sued or made a legal fuss out of somebody in the

01:04:19   media?

01:04:20   So what happened for anybody who's not paying attention is Apple filed a lawsuit a week ago

01:04:24   or a week plus against somebody who I'd never heard of who's not really well known and doesn't

01:04:30   seem to have a big footprint.

01:04:31   Michael Racka, Miati, Ramassati and John Prosser of Front Page Tech, a YouTuber who's I've linked

01:04:42   to him before and he had a series of three videos showing recreations of what he what was then called

01:04:50   iOS 19 now iOS 26 what we now call liquid glass including one video that showed the not just the

01:04:58   liquid glass but like the updated camera UI which putting the liquid glass aside is a major overhaul

01:05:06   right just sort of blueprint wise of how is the camera app organized where instead of all these

01:05:11   options at the bottom of modes to script switch through iOS 26 camera app just has photo and video

01:05:18   and you just start from there regular video regular photo and then once you're in photo then this sort

01:05:24   of sub modes it's sort of a hierarchy of modes and I think it's I think that's pretty clever but he

01:05:30   showed that in a recreation and like two weeks ago Apple filed a lawsuit yeah when's the last time you

01:05:38   can remember somebody getting sued I mean the the two events that come to mind are Gizmodo finding

01:05:47   iPhone 4 in a bar and think secret yeah so do you remember so think secret was a website that was an

01:06:00   Apple rumor website and Apple sued it in what 2005 I think yeah and said that it was violating trade

01:06:11   secrets and that was actually there was a settlement a couple years later think secret basically agreed

01:06:17   to cease publication it was a it was one guy it was a guy Nicholas Nicholas Ciarelli yes but he went

01:06:23   by Nick Diplume on the internet which is always hilarious so basically they just sued him out of existence

01:06:29   essentially yeah and and what they're trying to do with I mean with Prosser is basically say we want

01:06:36   you to be barred from ever reporting about things about Apple secrets ever again now Prosser to be

01:06:42   fair seems to have pivoted away from being a rumor guy and trying to do other stuff with his channel he

01:06:48   sort of used the rumors to get some notice and he's trying to kind of paddle away from that possibly

01:06:54   in part because he doesn't have very good sources most of the time if this is what he has to do

01:06:59   allegedly to get sources then it would be a good time to pivot or it would have been a good time to

01:07:05   pivot before this happened it sounds like this sort of maybe fell in his lap a little bit but I don't

01:07:10   know I mean when I was in grad school they made us take a journalism law class because they didn't want

01:07:17   to create journalists who would who would break the law and be sued and for us to know our rights and one of the

01:07:22   things that they hammered home about was along with libel and things like that right one of them was

01:07:27   about inducing somebody to commit a crime in order to get you information that was the the bright line

01:07:35   that was drawn is like if somebody comes to you and says I got the Pentagon papers here you say thank

01:07:39   you very much but if you call a call you go to somebody's house and knock on the door and say hey

01:07:44   I got I got I got ten thousand dollars if you bring me the Pentagon papers out of the Pentagon

01:07:48   you can't do that that that you're you're you're you're asking you're paying them to commit a crime

01:07:55   and that's not that's a bright line so what is alleged in this lawsuit is that John Prosser

01:08:03   said I'll pay you to break into your friend's phone and show me what's there now John Prosser

01:08:09   says that that isn't quite right and we don't really know and there are a lot of hazy things

01:08:14   here about just how involved was this guy who left his phone behind did he did he really leave it

01:08:19   behind did did he know what was going on or was he I mean he got fired by Apple I would argue that

01:08:25   means that something happened that Apple was like we don't there is zero you weren't just a victim here

01:08:29   you're part of the problem even if they're not suing him but but regardless

01:08:34   the bottom line is that there is somebody who is a content creator about Apple content who is being

01:08:40   sued by Apple for revealing secrets and I think I keep coming back to that bright line I keep coming back

01:08:47   to the the allegation that he said he would compensate this guy for unlocking his friend's phone and showing

01:08:54   him what iOS 26 looks like yeah it's really it's it's and I've dug into it I've I've become somewhat

01:09:03   obsessed you have nearly Nancy Drew in this thing yeah very much so and it is I mean there's while

01:09:10   this whole Epstein thing has reignited in national affairs me calling this sorted is is a sort of

01:09:19   small print lowercase s sorted compared to Helvetica black thousand point type sorted of the Epstein mess

01:09:30   this there's no physical harm or sex trafficking involved in this this is really just pure Apple

01:09:37   rumor ugliness and somebody losing a job at Apple but it is sort of sorted where especially that the

01:09:46   the story Apple outlines which I believe is I haven't seen anything that contradicts it and I've learned

01:09:53   other stuff it's basically true though that this guy I keep I even have a text type typenators shortcut

01:09:59   for his name Ram Ramachadi Ramasadi yeah Ramasadi was a friend of this guy Ethan Lipnick who is the

01:10:08   engineer at Apple who had a work phone with iOS 19 now iOS 26 on it and was close enough friends with him

01:10:16   that he'd stayed at his house and Apple alleges that he and Prosser conspired to wait for him to be

01:10:23   Lipnick to be out of the house and he'd somehow gleaned his passcode to the phone this is the part where I'm

01:10:29   like how do you do that if you're an Apple employee with a work phone that you know has a secret OS not just

01:10:38   like an app but like the whole OS and that the app it's not like going from iOS 17 to 18 where

01:10:44   it kind of looks the same like you could walk around using it and people wouldn't see it but when it has

01:10:50   like a very visually you know like it right down to entering your passcode right and who knows if the

01:10:56   beta in January had the liquid glass on the passcode entry screen who knows I don't know but you know like

01:11:03   right now today with like the beta it's like you could see on the lock screen whoa that doesn't look

01:11:08   like iOS or the iOS I know right so how do you get the passcode you know like somebody could stay at my

01:11:16   house and I do not believe that staying at my house would help them glean the passcode to my iPhone

01:11:21   so I put that aside you know but somehow he the story according to Apple is that he had gotten this

01:11:27   Lipnick's passcode waited till he was out of the house but had left this phone behind unlocked the phone

01:11:32   and then over FaceTime showed iOS 19 to Prosser and Prosser recorded the FaceTime

01:11:38   and then used that recording of the demo of the software to commission

01:11:44   UI artists and there's this whole subculture in the

01:11:49   Apple rumors world of mostly young

01:11:52   men boys teenage boys who get into making these things being able to you know here's what it looks like make let's not

01:12:00   we can't show this video because we won't want to get this guy in trouble

01:12:03   ironically since ironically but but let's recreate

01:12:07   recreate it and the recreations were spot on in hindsight right a lot of people after the WWDC keynote in June had to give Prosser credit whoa that stuff you showed was I mean you'd have to really like pixel peep to find things that were wrong it was like yeah he kind of showed it and conversely you could see why maybe Apple was pissed yeah right and if not for Prosser this one leak there were

01:12:12   A lot of people after the WWDC keynote in June had to give Prosser credit. Whoa, that stuff you showed was, I mean, you'd have to really like pixel peep to find things that were wrong. It was like, yeah, he kind of showed it. And conversely, you could see why maybe Apple was pissed.

01:12:28   Yeah. And if not for Prosser, this one leak, there were like, for example, the, what do you call them? The apex predator of the Apple rumors game, Mark Gurman had reported verbally on in Bloomberg on there is a new UI theme and it is based on the look of vision OS.

01:12:54   It's called solarium and light through glass. Yeah. Yeah. Light through glass. And Gurman's, those descriptions of it also check out in hindsight, but didn't, don't, don't have anywhere near the punch of here. Look at this. This is what it is going to look at. Screenshots in this game matter way more than a description.

01:13:17   So you could see why Apple pursued it, but that leads me to me. The thing that has me looking into it is that in Apple's legal filing, which Mac rumors first reported, I think last Friday night, something like that late at night. And apparently by all accounts, John Prosser found out about it when Mac rumors published the story.

01:13:39   Wow. Like, I do believe, I think he's since gotten in touch or Apple has gotten in touch with him. But the first that Prosser found out about it was when Mac rumors published the story. But in the legal filing, Apple included a screenshot. Like, how did Apple find out about this whole thing going on?

01:13:58   And according to Apple, an anonymous email came to Apple. Who had Apple? I don't know. And they included a screenshot of the email. The from is blacked out, even though it was anonymous. So I presume it was somebody using ProtonMail or something. I don't, I don't know what some anonymous email service.

01:14:17   I used to know there were more of them. I haven't heard of one in a while, but I'm sure there's a bunch out there. An anonymous email to Apple subject iOS 19 leaker information dash Ethan Lipnick. And then it says, I am not sure who to contact, but as a courtesy to the iOS team at Apple, I wanted to share information that I have about an employee who leaked pre-release design details.

01:14:41   The iOS 19 information shared by John Prosser is sourced from Ethan Lipnick. Two URLs to the first two of the three videos Prosser put. There was a FaceTime call between Prosser and Lipnick or a friend of Lipnick's, which we now know is Ramakadi, where the iOS 19 interface was dead, blah, blah, blah. He has details on the lock screen, home screen, app animations. The call was a few months ago. Prosser has video from it and shows, and that shows the iOS 19 interface.

01:15:09   Then it names a bunch of other people in the Mac media, some of them like 9to5Mac and somebody from Mac Rumors. I figured out who all the names are. If anybody wants to, you can look at my Mastodon account.

01:15:22   Just because, literally because of the kerning in the font that they used.

01:15:26   That they included this screenshot and they just blacked out the names, but I knew that it was Ariel. I know, I mean, I'm cursed, like it's, I know Ariel. So I just sized type to match the Ariel in the screenshot and then typed surrounding words in the commas and then tried various names.

01:15:43   And it wasn't just me guessing. It's also me asking around to various people in the Mac media who were like, oh, well, I heard the one name is so-and-so and it's, that doesn't fit. And then somebody else says it's so-and-so. And ooh, and I was like, oh, that seems like it's too long for the box. And then I type it in and ooh, that fits exactly.

01:16:02   So there's a couple other names thrown under the bus in the Mac media, which is a little weird.

01:16:07   Yeah, it makes me wonder. So it says Prosser has been sharing clips from the recorded FaceTime call with Apple leakers. And it makes me wonder, like, that's really interesting, right? Because this is sort of, that video clip is damning evidence.

01:16:22   I wonder if what Prosser was doing is like trying to prime the pump with these websites to show, basically to show his work, to say, look, this is legit. I have video from a, from an, an internal Apple phone about this. I'll show it to you. And you'll see that this, you don't have to speculate about how I know what I know. I'm not lying here. I have video. And because on one level, it seems very weird to show it to your competition.

01:16:47   But on another level, if you're trying to convince them that you're legitimate. And, but this is, it seems to me, this is also the pathway that tipped off whoever this tip, this tipster is about the same video, because, because that this email does not get sent. If somebody doesn't say, and this is what the filing says is somebody watched this video and said, hey, that's Lipnick's apartment.

01:17:11   Yeah, somebody recognized it, because it was just this Ramacotti holding the phone up to like a MacBook camera or something to show the interface, you know, his iPhone or whatever.

01:17:23   Yeah, whatever. But from one device to another, and it showed and somebody recognized his apartment. So says Apple. And the other thing I've found out is that somebody else who was saw the video, saw while he, this Ramacotti was scrolling through the phone, saw Lipnick's name.

01:17:41   saw his name, saw his name, in the phone. Oh, no. And knew Lipnick and thought this doesn't seem like something he would condone. Right. And it's an end started spread. Anyway, the op sex surrounding this original FaceTime recording was not good. Not, not good. It really, I keep saying to other people that had to, it really makes the whole signal gate thing with the Trump national security people look like it was on the up and up and well organized and thought through.

01:18:11   Oh, so what? We invited a guy from the Atlantic into the chat. Well, this, the way this video is circulated within the little subsphere of the Apple media that deals with anonymous leaks of upcoming features from within Apple was really bad.

01:18:28   I mean, this is, this is not, not my, not my direct part of the business, but why do you, why do you share that video? I mean, I'm trying to theorize you shared, established that it's real, but like that, that's like, that's like a dead secret from a, a, a key source. Like, why would you, why would you reveal it? And this is why you wouldn't is because they, they figured out who it was from. And then the part that's also really fascinating is somebody called them on it, right? Somebody named names and said, this is the, I'm going to,

01:18:58   I'm going to let you know that, that who this dude is, who is behind this, or, or as Apple's investigation clearly saw these dudes who are behind this. It's not just Lipnick. It's, it's his friend Ramasadi. Who's, who's, who's maybe doing this. And then if Ramasadi says, John Prosser offered me money, then they're like, oh, great. That that's inducement. Then we can sue him too. And what a, what a, I mean, look, why does Apple do this? One reason is just to remind everybody what the, what the law is and what the rules are.

01:19:28   I've definitely, I mean, you know, more people inside Apple than I do, but I've heard from people inside Apple who are like, this is routine. Like you have devices, you have multiple devices and some of your devices are on shipping and some of your devices are on way out.

01:19:41   And that it's not unreasonable for Lipnick to have an iPhone running unannounced software at his house. That's not unreasonable at all. However, I do think that a lot of Apple employees are having that moment of, okay, do I trust my friends? Do they know my passcode? Do I want my passcode on these secret devices to be different? Do I want to put them in a drawer or lock them away?

01:20:04   Somebody said to me, was it Mike Hurley? Maybe he said on upgrade. He said, selling a lot of safes in Cupertino this week. I think that part of the reason Apple does stuff like this is to say there are severe consequences. Like when they fired that guy and it came out in public, like last year, severe consequences.

01:20:20   If you don't take care of your stuff, it doesn't mean you can't take the stuff home. It means you need to know that like your friends, if they know your passcode, you can't trust them. You need to be much more diligent about this. And I do think it's also a reminder to people in the media about, about that bright line, about the difference between what somebody was asking me, like Mark Gurman, does he pay for sources? I can guarantee you he doesn't because Bloomberg would not allow it.

01:20:48   That's just, it wouldn't be allowed. Somebody, the Pentagon papers walk into your office, you take it, you say yes, and you publish them. But this is a reminder that anything goes is not legal.

01:21:00   Yeah. And I would even say further with just your point on Gurman, which is that even if somebody wanted to push back and say, well, sure, even maybe, maybe Bloomberg's rules forbid it, but how do you know he's not doing it behind the organization's back?

01:21:15   And my counter that you can't disprove a negative. Sure. You can't, I can't prove that he doesn't. But Gurman's remarkable, truly remarkable longevity in the Apple rumors game, I would say is the best proof that he's not paying for sources. Because if he was one, you just can't keep a stack of, of lies like that.

01:21:40   Yeah. Also, also, he, he's got really good security. Like he's not showing people videos of his leakers. He's got it buttoned up tight. And also now he's got such a reputation that people are coming to him and sending things to his signal account, presumably, and stuff like that as well.

01:21:55   But like, what I think number one is he, he, they Bloomberg would fire his ass if they found out, like he'd be out on his ear because that would be against all of their policies. And they have lots of them.

01:22:06   Yeah. I would, I would wager enormous sum of money that Mark Gurman has never paid for any information.

01:22:12   And some people will argue, oh, well, it doesn't matter. He's releasing secrets. But it does, how it happens matters. If, if, if information comes across the transom and especially if you can verify it and publish it, like it's not a game that I'm in, but like it's a legitimate game.

01:22:26   There is a line that you can cross though, where you're, you're actively approaching people. And in this case, it's not even actively approaching an Apple employee and trying to offer them money to reveal secrets. It's, it's actively, if this allegation is true, to be clear, he actively approached somebody who's not an Apple employee and offered to pay them to break into a friend's phone to reveal secrets that the friend had.

01:22:51   Right. That's, that is inducement, not just to commit a leak from Apple secrets, but to commit a crime because you're breaking into somebody else's phone, phone security.

01:23:01   Right. Even if it's not paying for it, I think, and again, I didn't take the college course in journalistic ethics, but there is a difference too, between somebody coming up to you, say, I have the Pentagon papers. Would you like to see them versus I know how to get the, I know how to get the Pentagon papers.

01:23:17   I could get in, I know the combination to the locked door where they're stored.

01:23:21   Right.

01:23:21   Do you think I should go steal them?

01:23:24   It's a, it's a less bright line, but it's still an issue is if you, is that inducement. That was the thing that we were always told is, are you in, are you causing this to happen?

01:23:32   Right.

01:23:33   Are you trying to convince people to do this thing, to break the, to break the law or break the rules of their employment versus did they decide to do this and are passing it to you and you're the conduit?

01:23:44   And it may seem like a, like a, an arbitrary difference, but at least the way I was taught that that's kind of the difference is if it ends up in my lap and it's newsworthy, I will print it.

01:23:55   But if it, but, you know, that's not the same as trying to bribe somebody to give you secrets.

01:24:01   Yeah.

01:24:01   It's just my, my self taught and self learned gleaned code of journalistic ethics would be way.

01:24:08   I'm not really, I don't want rumors of Apple stuff anyway, but, but you know, something like that.

01:24:14   But if it was something maybe so big that I would want interest in it and somebody said, I know how to get it.

01:24:20   I would say, if you had it, I would be interested, but I'm not going to tell you what to do.

01:24:25   I mean, I would literally say words like that.

01:24:27   And I mean that too.

01:24:29   Like I, it's not just me like worrying that I'm being taped or that our chat or whatever it is, is being recorded or screenshotted.

01:24:37   That's literally also my feeling.

01:24:39   Like I'm not going to tell you to do it.

01:24:41   And if somebody told me I could steal it from my roommate, I think I would, honest to God, I would say, I don't, I don't think you should do that.

01:24:50   Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's, you're, you're basically saying I can commit a crime and get this stuff for you.

01:24:55   And it's no, no, do not, do not do that for me.

01:24:57   I don't need that.

01:24:58   No, it's, it's a, it's a very weird story that, that pushes a lot of buttons.

01:25:02   I mean, I was thinking about this.

01:25:04   What is the, the other thing that would stop me is what is the public interest here?

01:25:08   And the truth is, I think for all of this stuff, there's not a lot of public interest.

01:25:13   I think that that would be one of Apple's arguments is, is, I mean, you mentioned Epstein earlier.

01:25:19   And I've seen people say, well, we want to know.

01:25:22   It's like the public having an interest is not the public interest, right?

01:25:27   Like they are not the same.

01:25:29   And people want, of course, we want to know what hardware Apple's going to do for the next year.

01:25:34   And Mark Gurman provides a lot of that, right?

01:25:35   And that's entertaining and interesting and gives us stuff to talk about on podcasts and all of that.

01:25:40   But is there a actual clear public interest in it?

01:25:45   And I think, no, I think it's all, I think it's mostly about entertainment more than anything else.

01:25:49   Because we all want to know the end of the story.

01:25:51   We peek at the back of the book.

01:25:52   We want to know what happens next.

01:25:53   And Apple wants to control that.

01:25:56   And sometimes they can, but mostly they can't.

01:25:58   And we get it from on Sunday morning from Mark Gurman instead.

01:26:01   Fair enough.

01:26:02   But this goes back a long way.

01:26:03   I remember I used to work at the same company that did Mac Week, which was back in the day,

01:26:08   called Mac Leak by a lot of people.

01:26:10   And everything leaked from Cupertino into Mac Week.

01:26:13   And when you talk to Mac Week people about why they leaked this stuff, they had an answer.

01:26:17   They had patter.

01:26:18   They would say, well, our audience is volume buyers of Apple products.

01:26:22   And they need to do their planning for the future.

01:26:24   And when they know what's coming, they can plan their budgets and all of that.

01:26:28   And even at the time, as a 24-year-old just out of grad school, I thought that was BS.

01:26:34   I mean, it is the thinnest of tissue paper over the fact that people want to know what Apple's

01:26:40   going to do in the future and Apple won't tell them.

01:26:41   So I want to find, it's gossip.

01:26:43   And it's fun.

01:26:44   And don't get me wrong, I am very grateful to have Mark Gurman Talking Points to talk about

01:26:49   on my podcast every week.

01:26:51   I really am.

01:26:51   And it's fun to think about a folding phone in a year and a thin phone this fall.

01:26:57   And it would be more fun maybe if it was a surprise.

01:27:00   But that's just not how it is.

01:27:02   But I do keep coming back to the fact that I don't think there's a legitimate argument

01:27:08   that it's in the public interest to know.

01:27:11   I think it's just that we're curious.

01:27:13   Right.

01:27:13   As opposed to, oh, something totally uncontroversial.

01:27:19   Let's just say like ICE detention centers.

01:27:22   Like I just linked yesterday to a Human Rights Watch report on the absolutely deplorable, I

01:27:30   mean, cruel and unusual, in my opinion, conditions within an ICE detention center.

01:27:35   And if some of the sourcing for that, it seems like Human Rights Watch talked to a lot of

01:27:40   actual people who were detained in the centers.

01:27:43   But if somebody who worked for ICE broke a nondisclosure agreement they signed to be a guard in the detention

01:27:51   center and broke it to talk to them.

01:27:54   Well, that is, by definition, to me, in the public interest.

01:27:58   I agree.

01:27:58   This is whichever side.

01:28:00   Even if you're like if you're of the political mindset that if you're in the country undocumented, you deserve what you get.

01:28:07   I mean, it still is without to me, without question of of at the core of journalism to report on what is going on.

01:28:16   And this this is what the country your government is doing right now.

01:28:19   Well, I'll give you an even better example that is Apple related, which is it's illegal for the people in the UK to talk about what that secret snooping provision is.

01:28:29   And yet it came out.

01:28:31   And it's very clear.

01:28:32   It's very clear that there are people in the UK, probably in the UK government, who saw that there was this thing that they were trying to do where they were going to get Apple.

01:28:41   They were going to force Apple to backdoor everything everywhere in the world if the UK wanted it.

01:28:46   And and because it's all secret, they're not supposed to ever even talk about it existing.

01:28:50   And somebody talked to the Guardian and a few other places and it got out and then it became a whole thing.

01:28:57   And that is a great example of something that is in the public interest because your government is doing something and they don't want you to know about it.

01:29:04   But a but, you know, it's technically illegal for the people who spoke off the record to the journalists to break the story, not just breaking the gag agreement or whatever it is.

01:29:15   The Secrets Act, not just breaking your employment agreement, but actually breaking the law to do it.

01:29:20   Speaking of UK, we should also say we are both Americans.

01:29:23   So this is this is for the shift to crowd up there in the United States.

01:29:28   We have the First Amendment.

01:29:29   We don't have an official Secrets Act or anything like that.

01:29:31   The the part of this here is it's very, very difficult so far for the government to say you can't talk about that thing.

01:29:40   And so it's a much higher standard here than it is in other places.

01:29:44   So some of what we talked about with journalistic rules and what is inducement and all of that may seem very different in other countries.

01:29:50   But here in the US, like when we see stories about trials in Australia or Canada or the UK where they can't report on who was the accused or they can't report on what's going on in court.

01:30:02   Like that, it's completely foreign to us because it's just not the government can't say you can't report on that.

01:30:08   It's not allowed.

01:30:09   And so, yeah, it is.

01:30:11   I just I'm not saying that I that I wish there weren't Apple rumors because I do kind of love them.

01:30:17   But I just I want to say that when we're talking about like this, this stuff.

01:30:20   I don't think there's a public interest for it.

01:30:24   I think it really is all in all in fun and curiosity.

01:30:28   And and I mean, and case manufacturers need to know the shape of the iPhone.

01:30:33   All right.

01:30:33   That's fair.

01:30:33   They need to know that so that they can do their maybe they can make their cases.

01:30:36   But like somebody violating an agreement, somebody breaking into their friend's phone.

01:30:41   What are we doing here?

01:30:42   I agree.

01:30:44   And German certainly spans the divide.

01:30:47   I guess Prosser has, too.

01:30:48   I think Prosser has in the past had videos about hardware, but hardware and software are different.

01:30:54   And the leaks come from and I think this is why, for example, we know, I mean, quote unquote, no.

01:31:01   But I mean, I would I would bet really good money that there is going to be a remarkably thin iPhone added to the lineup this year.

01:31:09   And it's already now in July of 2025, seemingly very clear that it's probably going to be a foldable phone that that it builds on this super thin ability because a foldable when unfolded is super thin.

01:31:25   Otherwise, when folded would be super thick.

01:31:28   Obviously, whatever technology is allowing and engineering advances are allowing Apple to build the super thin phone this year is similar to minus the hinge.

01:31:37   What's going to let them build a foldable next year?

01:31:39   It's a really smart two step planning process on their part.

01:31:43   But that, you know, a large parts of that just leak from this.

01:31:46   Clearly, we know leak from the supply chain.

01:31:49   I mean, that's Ming-Chi Kuo's whole domain.

01:31:51   Exactly.

01:31:52   Software is different.

01:31:54   Yeah, it's closer to home.

01:31:56   It leaks from Cupertino.

01:31:57   And that's why they hate it.

01:31:59   That's why they hate it more than more than the hardware.

01:32:01   The hardware.

01:32:02   Look, they would like the hardware not to leak.

01:32:04   But the Asian supply chain is so huge and there are so many parts.

01:32:09   And I mean, I made a joke a moment ago about the case manufacturers, but it's not a joke.

01:32:13   Like part of doing business in that environment is things like saying, I need to know the shape of the iPhone so I can make my cases.

01:32:20   And like there's it's transactional and it's all happening in China far away from Cupertino and there's cultural differences.

01:32:28   And like there's no way to plug those leaks.

01:32:31   But a leak about software is it is a much more tightly controlled circle.

01:32:37   Everybody's an Apple employee.

01:32:39   Most of them are in Cupertino.

01:32:42   I feel like it's the true betrayal.

01:32:44   I think that that's what Apple feels about a software leak from inside.

01:32:48   It is the truest of betrayals that I think they're almost over the fact that everything is going to leak from the supply chain.

01:32:54   But the software stuff is what they can keep close to the chest.

01:32:57   They can surprise people with it.

01:32:58   And then this happens.

01:33:00   And I think that's why one of the reasons they react the way they do is this is like the ultimate betrayal to have the software leak.

01:33:08   And I think it happens extremely rarely, right?

01:33:13   They're just literally literally there were, to my knowledge, two leaks of what we now call liquid glass.

01:33:23   Prosser had the visual goods and showed them, recreated them to show them.

01:33:28   And German described them verbally.

01:33:30   So German, I suspect, again, I don't want to get in the weeds on it, but I suspect German never saw it.

01:33:38   I think German spoke to someone who saw it and the person described it to German.

01:33:42   Described it to him, yeah.

01:33:42   Right.

01:33:43   But the nature of the blue.

01:33:43   You can read, you can tell in German's writing when he's sort of trying to grasp what he was told in a way that doesn't reveal his source.

01:33:52   But he didn't see it himself.

01:33:54   And he tries.

01:33:55   I mean, he's really good at what he does, but that is a very difficult task to try and re-describe something described to you.

01:34:03   Right.

01:34:04   Very much so.

01:34:05   But, you know, in hindsight, if you look back at his reporting from the six months prior to WWDC, did a good job.

01:34:11   He got it.

01:34:11   But that's it.

01:34:12   And then it's possible that German had multiple sources describing it to him.

01:34:16   Maybe it's more than one.

01:34:17   But only went to one person who reports the rumors.

01:34:20   And I suspect it wasn't many people.

01:34:22   I just.

01:34:23   I think he has confirmers, too.

01:34:24   I suspect he's got confirmers.

01:34:26   Yeah.

01:34:27   Who.

01:34:27   Yes.

01:34:27   Yeah.

01:34:28   He'll be like, I heard this.

01:34:29   Is this right?

01:34:29   And they'll be like, yeah, that's right.

01:34:30   And then he'll go with it.

01:34:32   But but it's not a leak as much as it is like, is this person accurate?

01:34:36   And yeah, that person knows what they're talking about.

01:34:38   But, you know, when you talk about like multiple nines, if if ninety nine point nine nine go to two nines of Apple engineers don't leak details.

01:34:49   Apple has enough software engineers.

01:34:51   Maybe that's too many nines.

01:34:53   Maybe, you know, just say one nine ninety nine.

01:34:55   One in a one in a thousand leak.

01:34:58   Yeah, that's probably more of one in a thousand leaks.

01:35:00   I don't know, but maybe there weren't a thousand engineers who had access to iOS 26 before it came out.

01:35:06   But it's very small percentage.

01:35:08   Right.

01:35:08   You and I know a lot of people who work at Apple.

01:35:11   And they and that means conversely, there are people at Apple who know people in the press, who talk to people in the media.

01:35:22   And it would seem really scary, except you know what?

01:35:27   The people I know who work at Apple are super diligent about this stuff.

01:35:31   They take great pride in it.

01:35:32   And I don't want to mess things up for them because I'm not trying to get things out of them.

01:35:37   I they will.

01:35:38   The people I talk to at Apple are often really great at providing understanding of what's going on.

01:35:44   That's what I really love.

01:35:46   And it's stuff that Apple PR would never approve, but it benefits Apple because it benefits my understanding of what's going on.

01:35:54   It's a really nice kind of relationship that I can have with some of these people.

01:35:57   But they they care a lot about following the rules and not revealing secrets.

01:36:03   And I get lots of texts after products are announced, not before, after they're announced.

01:36:08   Same here.

01:36:09   And that's and that's all good.

01:36:11   So so when you say it's important to say when it's ninety nine point nine, like it really is.

01:36:16   These people are really diligent.

01:36:17   And and and some people are are maybe bad.

01:36:21   And I think there are also some people who are sloppy.

01:36:24   And I don't know whether Lipnick was bad or just super lazy and sloppy about it and chose bad friends or whatever.

01:36:31   But it is it is a shame either way.

01:36:33   Yeah.

01:36:33   Well, that's the other thing is the the closing paragraph of the anonymous tipster email is I am sure that Apple has the resources to further investigate.

01:36:45   Lipnick has leaked iOS information to so and so and so and others in the past.

01:36:51   And so and so is one of the writers, one of the publications everybody's heard about in the Mac media.

01:36:57   Yeah.

01:36:58   Yeah.

01:36:59   And that's my good feeling about him getting fired.

01:37:02   It was like, yeah, he got fired for reasons other than that.

01:37:04   His friend unlocked his phone, folks.

01:37:06   Yes.

01:37:06   And I've I have confirmed that to some degree that he that he had.

01:37:13   But but and I think it's sort of and the other thing is my understanding is that young Mr.

01:37:19   Lipnick is literally like, I think, like 23 years old, maybe only 22.

01:37:23   He's very young and early in his career and comes out of this little pocket subculture of younger men who are obsessed with cleaning the software secrets of upcoming Apple products.

01:37:37   And so I think he got the job and was already in the sort of social circle.

01:37:43   And it's like, finally, I can be a leaker.

01:37:44   Yeah.

01:37:45   It's like a bank robber.

01:37:46   It's like a bank robber who gets a job at the bank.

01:37:49   Fellas, I'm in.

01:37:54   I got it.

01:37:55   I got you.

01:37:55   You're not going to believe it.

01:37:56   But they gave me a job.

01:37:57   But, you know, I don't think, though, but apparently and I think it's true that did not involve showing for recording an entire video of it.

01:38:06   I think it was.

01:38:07   Yeah.

01:38:07   I think the usual style.

01:38:09   And if you think about the way these things usually come out, it's usually dribs and drabs and not screenshots.

01:38:16   And it's, hey, I heard they're going.

01:38:18   Somebody will report at Mac rumors that, according to a source familiar with the situation, a messages app is going to add text effects this coming year or something like that.

01:38:29   That's the way things come out.

01:38:31   Not here's here's a recreation of how the text effects are going to look.

01:38:35   That's the way things tend to leak.

01:38:37   I'm not saying that that's a leak from this guy.

01:38:40   I'm just saying that's how it happens.

01:38:42   And then I think somehow it got out of control.

01:38:45   Yeah, that's that's always the story.

01:38:48   Right.

01:38:48   I do think one last thing I want to ask you about, though.

01:38:51   But here's the other thing is I have I can't help but wonder if the nature of John Prosser being a sort of independent creator on YouTube, more like what me and you do in terms of not in terms of content, but in terms of.

01:39:10   The nature of the organization around it that Apple decided to name him in the lawsuit when they didn't with one of the last public things with a guy named is I wrote about this back in February.

01:39:25   A guy named Andrew.

01:39:26   Yeah.

01:39:27   Journal or wherever.

01:39:28   Yeah.

01:39:28   Yeah, he leaked to Aaron Tilly, who was then at the Wall Street Journal, but then Tilly was in the round of layoffs.

01:39:35   The Journal did, which I don't believe it was related to this.

01:39:39   It was because the Journal laid off its per company beat reporters like Aaron Tilly was the Apple beat reporter for the Journal.

01:39:49   And at some point in the last year, they decided we don't need one a reporter for Apple and one for Tesla and one for Microsoft.

01:39:55   And anyway, Tilly's at the information where he was before he was at the Journal.

01:40:02   But Apple, and there's this guy, Andrew Aud, who's named in Aud, A-U-D-E, and he issued a public apology on X, which I think he had some help with from Apple to write the apology.

01:40:15   I spent nearly eight years as a software engineer at Apple.

01:40:18   During that time, I was given access to sensitive internal Apple information, including what were then unreleased products and features.

01:40:24   But instead of keeping this information secret, I made the mistake of sharing this information with journalists who covered the company.

01:40:30   I did not realize it at the time, but this turned out to be a profound and expensive mistake.

01:40:34   Hundreds of professional relationships I had spent years building were ruined, and my otherwise successful career as a software engineer was derailed, and it will likely be very difficult to rebuild it.

01:40:45   Leaking was not worth it.

01:40:46   I sincerely apologize to my former colleagues who not only worked tirelessly on projects for Apple, but worked hard to keep them secret.

01:40:52   They deserved better.

01:40:53   That's a good statement.

01:40:55   I think he probably means certainly the part about it not being worth it and having derailed his career.

01:41:03   But it's very curious, though, that him issuing that apology resulted in Apple saying, let's just dismiss the lawsuit and the lawsuit was over.

01:41:13   They did not name Aaron Tilly or the Wall Street Journal.

01:41:16   And, you know, and maybe the difference is just that Tilly, of course, as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, much like Bloomberg, never paid the guy, never offered to pay him or induced him.

01:41:28   And maybe that's the difference.

01:41:30   And it quite possibly may be.

01:41:32   And Prosser did, and that's the difference.

01:41:34   But I can't help but also somewhat suspect that it's allowed.

01:41:38   Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?

01:41:39   The Wall Street Journal isn't Apple's size.

01:41:42   They're not a $3 trillion company.

01:41:43   But at a certain level, a company has the same quality legal representation.

01:41:48   Yes, lawyers will be immediately involved if something like that happens.

01:41:53   Right.

01:41:53   And John Prosser is some guy on the Internet somewhere, according to this, in like upstate Pennsylvania near the New York border out in the middle of nowhere on a wide spot on the road, apparently, that he lives in.

01:42:04   Yeah.

01:42:04   East Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania.

01:42:06   I mean, it is.

01:42:07   You're from Pennsylvania.

01:42:08   My mom grew up in Pennsylvania.

01:42:09   I've had lots of relatives in Pennsylvania.

01:42:12   I had to look up where this is, and it's not near anywhere.

01:42:14   And I don't know if that's where he lives or not.

01:42:16   But seriously, like, it's just a guy on the Internet.

01:42:20   And yeah, of course, it's easier to sue a random guy on the Internet.

01:42:24   Of course, it was easier to sue Nick Diplume and think secret than it would be to sue the Wall Street Journal.

01:42:30   Who, it turns out, was a college student at the time.

01:42:32   Who exactly was a college kid.

01:42:34   Also, though, yeah, I think also allegations of offers of compensation, this was an easy call for them to make in that case.

01:42:44   And I do wonder what the result is going to be, because John Prosser could fight this.

01:42:49   He could say, that is absolutely not true.

01:42:52   Ramisadi is making it up.

01:42:54   He offered it to me.

01:42:55   He intimated that maybe this would be something that would be successful for him over time, but I didn't offer him any money.

01:43:00   And I'm perfectly within my rights to receive this stuff.

01:43:04   He offered, I accepted, that's it.

01:43:06   But to do that, he's going to have to get lawyers and take it to court.

01:43:09   And that's the sad truth of something like this, is you've got Apple and a guy at the wide spot in the road in Pennsylvania.

01:43:16   Right.

01:43:17   And that is like being steamrolled.

01:43:19   I don't see any scenario here.

01:43:22   I feel like John Prosser will be lucky to apologize and say he won't cover Apple leaks anymore and keep his channel.

01:43:32   That's the lucky scenario.

01:43:33   The unlucky scenario is that John Prosser disappears from the internet.

01:43:36   Yeah, maybe.

01:43:37   I don't know.

01:43:38   I don't know.

01:43:40   It's a tough one.

01:43:41   And again, leaving aside...

01:43:43   I score it like you do.

01:43:44   Leaving aside his, again, his shtick, which I don't like, but like whatever, if it works for some people, it does.

01:43:51   One of the biggest corporations in the world versus just a random guy in a field in Pennsylvania, that's brutal.

01:43:57   Like in law, in law, in lawfare, that is a real mismatch.

01:44:02   And I feel for him.

01:44:03   And if any of us screwed up like that, if the allegations are true, I mean, it would be easy for Apple.

01:44:12   I mean, that's the sad truth about our system is like any of us, if somebody really wanted to make our lives miserable, they could do it.

01:44:20   And that's scary.

01:44:22   But this is what we do.

01:44:24   And so that's just how it is.

01:44:25   But Elon Musk has made a sort of side career out of it.

01:44:28   Yeah.

01:44:29   Of just suing people.

01:44:30   Yeah.

01:44:31   Suing people.

01:44:32   Who are not his, don't have easy access to grade A white shoe law firms.

01:44:38   Yeah.

01:44:38   The other thing, I will admit, I'm not going to say I'm friends with Jon Prosser.

01:44:43   I've communicated with him and chatted with him.

01:44:45   I know him.

01:44:46   And I'm not saying this to defend him.

01:44:48   I'm just saying that all we know now is Apple's side of the story, which comes from their investigation into their employee, which I suspect gave them a lot because it was a work phone.

01:44:58   So probably there's not much in there in terms of what was revealed that they don't know.

01:45:03   But also that Rama Cotty had already cooperated with Apple.

01:45:11   Well, there's criminal charges here.

01:45:15   And I wonder if that is like, you need to cooperate with us because you could be in trouble like criminally.

01:45:20   This guy who I've never heard of and everything I've heard since only makes him look even worse with regard to unrelated incidents in the past.

01:45:33   But it's the good version of his story.

01:45:36   The one that he got to tell Apple involves him betraying a friend whose house he was at.

01:45:41   So looking at using fine my to find out when his friend was far away so he could be betrayed.

01:45:46   Yeah.

01:45:46   So I'm just saying in Prosser's favor in terms of Prosser saying, oh, this is not true there.

01:45:51   I forget exactly what he tweeted publicly about it.

01:45:54   But I'm willing to give some credence to Prosser on this in so far as that the other person involved is not reliable or trustworthy.

01:46:03   Doesn't seem super trustworthy at all.

01:46:04   Yeah, because he betrayed a friend and that's his best framing of it.

01:46:07   Yeah.

01:46:08   Oh, and by the way, before I go to a commercial break, what's the passcode on your phone again, Jason?

01:46:14   It's a 1-2-3-4.

01:46:16   What was Kanye's?

01:46:18   Remember when Kanye unlocked his phone back into Trump 1.0?

01:46:22   I think it was like 4 zeros.

01:46:23   Oh, yeah, in the White House.

01:46:23   Yeah, it was like 1-1-1-1 or 0-0-0-0-0.

01:46:27   Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:46:27   It wasn't even six of them.

01:46:29   It wasn't even six of them.

01:46:30   It was four of them.

01:46:31   No, no.

01:46:31   Well, I mean, why?

01:46:32   At that point, look, seriously, is there somebody who uses 0-0-0-0-8-2 as their passcode?

01:46:41   I don't know.

01:46:42   I don't know, but that was pretty funny.

01:46:45   And in the Oval Office, we're the finest photographers in the world, still photographers in the world.

01:46:52   Anyway, quite the segue to our third and final sponsor break, our good friends at Squarespace.

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01:49:27   We are recording on Tuesday, the 22nd.

01:49:32   The show should be out again a day or two.

01:49:35   It's probably a race against time.

01:49:37   I was guessing that the public beta would come out tomorrow, but maybe later in the week.

01:49:44   Yeah, it feels like this is probably the week, though, unless there's a showstopper.

01:49:48   Because as we recorded it, it's six hours after the developer beta 4 came out.

01:49:53   And it feels if this is, if they have their way, it'll be out by the end of the week.

01:49:57   Yeah.

01:49:58   Yeah, again, I think it would require an heretofore unknown showstopping bug.

01:50:03   And six, seven hours after it came out, it doesn't seem like that's happened yet.

01:50:07   Those showstoppers are often like, oh, if you've got an iPhone 13 mini, it locks up when you install it.

01:50:15   And it's, oh, nobody at Apple was still using an iPhone 13 mini or whatever the configuration is.

01:50:20   Right.

01:50:20   My son has, he got it, he wanted it for Christmas two years ago.

01:50:25   He's got the Hermes Apple Watch Series 9.

01:50:29   And he's an idiot who's been running the developer betas on his phone, iPad, and watch since the day of the keynote.

01:50:41   And I think it was beta 2, watchOS 26 beta 2 crippled certain Apple Watches.

01:50:48   And there might be other ones, but the Hermes models were the, and you can kind of understand why that's sort of a niche that maybe wouldn't get caught before the beta was released.

01:50:58   This is actually kind of a funny story.

01:51:00   He, the, the, the bug manifests itself as the watch getting overheated and wouldn't charge because it got too hot.

01:51:10   But you, after beta 3 came out, he couldn't get beta 3 to install because the phone would be dead with no battery.

01:51:18   And when he'd put it on a charger, even just charging it, it would overheat and stop charging.

01:51:22   And you can't install a watchOS release unless you have 50% charge.

01:51:28   So what do you do?

01:51:30   He was, he's recently, he's 21, but hadn't learned to drive because he was under the impression as a 16, 17 year old that by the time he was out of college,

01:51:39   robot cars would be driving us everywhere.

01:51:41   And he's now learned that that didn't happen on the timeframe he was anticipating.

01:51:47   I think that's much like Stanley Kubrick anticipating truly intelligent computers by the year 2001.

01:51:54   So he's learned to drive.

01:51:57   He's an excellent driver.

01:51:58   I think, I think waiting until you're 21 to 20, or I forget, I guess he started learning at 20 and got his license at 21 is much more soothing as a parent

01:52:08   than teaching a 16 year old.

01:52:10   I recommend it if you could discourage your kid.

01:52:13   My parents loved that I learned to drive at college and they didn't have to deal with it at all.

01:52:18   I was, I, I personally am the worst.

01:52:21   I learned, I got, I went to get my test the day I turned 16 and the day I turned 16.

01:52:28   And I of course thought I was so smart.

01:52:30   I didn't even look.

01:52:31   I was like, there's no, I'm so, I'm so good at taking tests.

01:52:34   I'm not studying for this.

01:52:35   I went, I got my dad to drive me over there and I took the written test to get the permit, failed it terribly.

01:52:41   I'm like, who the hell knows how many 25 feet or 30 feet from a hydrant?

01:52:45   Who knows?

01:52:46   Yeah.

01:52:47   Drivers.

01:52:47   Yeah.

01:52:48   So I did, I had to take that test twice, but I got my license.

01:52:52   But as a 16 year old with my license, instantly I was like, the day I got the license, I passed the test.

01:52:59   I was like, can I take the car by myself?

01:53:01   And I forget if it was my dad or my mom, or maybe both.

01:53:04   I forget.

01:53:05   We're like, okay, be careful.

01:53:06   And I immediately took it down to farm country, a couple miles away from where I was on a little two lane road and just put the pedal to the metal to see how fast the car could actually go.

01:53:18   And it was a Plymouth horizon from the eighties or late eighties.

01:53:24   And the speedometer only went to 85, but the needle got way past 85.

01:53:28   But I literally had just gotten my license that day.

01:53:31   What an idiot.

01:53:32   I mean, if my son did that, I'd strangle him.

01:53:34   But anyway, what my son was doing, he realized that the air conditioning in the car, if he mounted the watch in front of it, would cool it down and keep it and it would get a charge.

01:53:45   But he couldn't get the, he didn't have Wi-Fi and then he'd come in.

01:53:47   And I was like, what are you doing?

01:53:49   You're not going to do this in the car.

01:53:52   Just put it in the freezer and we'll snake a USB cable into the freezer in the refrigerator.

01:53:58   And he said, oh, I don't think that would work.

01:54:00   I was like, sure it'll work.

01:54:01   And it did.

01:54:02   Except it turns out, I don't know what temperature a freezer is typically at, but obviously it's under 32 degrees.

01:54:08   Watches don't like to charge at those temperatures.

01:54:11   Oh, no.

01:54:13   So we switched to the refrigerator and we just kept it.

01:54:15   We kept it in the refrigerator, not the freezer.

01:54:17   And it all was just perfect.

01:54:19   It just charged fully.

01:54:20   And the wife, it turns out we get a pretty good Wi-Fi, a good enough signal of Wi-Fi in our fridge, in our refrigerator.

01:54:27   The overheating gets to fight it out with the fridge and you end up at a pretty good temperature.

01:54:31   Yeah.

01:54:31   And then Beta 3 fixed this terrible overheating bug in Beta 2.

01:54:35   That's amazing.

01:54:36   Pretty good story.

01:54:37   I like that.

01:54:38   I can't believe he didn't come to me.

01:54:39   I'm worried that I'm too distant to a father or something.

01:54:44   But you know what it really is?

01:54:45   It's that he is like me and he wanted to solve it himself.

01:54:48   Yeah.

01:54:48   Yeah.

01:54:48   Yeah.

01:54:49   My son does that same thing.

01:54:50   I don't want to bother you.

01:54:51   I just thought I could figure it out myself.

01:54:53   Yeah.

01:54:53   Hilarious mistakes.

01:54:54   Yeah.

01:54:56   I like the independence, but it's like, ah, come on.

01:54:59   I know this one.

01:54:59   I had that answer in one second and you're like, spend a month worrying about it.

01:55:04   It seems I don't think it's going to abate.

01:55:08   It seems like I almost dug into writing about it at length after Beta 3.

01:55:13   Maybe I'll do it this week now that Beta 4 is out.

01:55:16   But with Beta 3, the debate was, hey, how come Apple is zigzagging all over the place

01:55:22   from Beta 1 to Beta 2 to Beta 3 over how liquid glass looks?

01:55:26   Is it clear?

01:55:27   Is it frosted?

01:55:28   Can you read through it or can you not read through it?

01:55:31   But if you can read through it, which seems to aim the legibility of the UI elements,

01:55:35   the coolness of the effect is downplayed.

01:55:37   And if you make it look cooler, all of a sudden you can't read anything.

01:55:41   So what are they going to do?

01:55:42   And there's a...

01:55:45   German wrote this.

01:55:46   And again, this is one of those little things where I just don't think German gets it.

01:55:49   Where German is...

01:55:50   I think it's kind of sad that Apple is reacting to people on Twitter and toning this down after

01:55:55   Beta 3.

01:55:55   I really...

01:55:56   I think Apple is aware.

01:55:58   One thing you and I know, people within Apple, while they don't comment on it, all the way up

01:56:02   to the very highest levels of the company, the type of people who previous years might have

01:56:09   been on my WWDC talk show, are very well aware of what people on blogs and social media are

01:56:15   saying about Apple products.

01:56:16   They just don't talk about it.

01:56:18   Yeah.

01:56:19   They read everything.

01:56:19   That's what we always said at Macworld is they read everything.

01:56:22   They may not acknowledge that they read anything, but they read everything.

01:56:25   Because if you take one step too far, you will hear about it immediately.

01:56:29   Yes.

01:56:30   I believe Phil Schiller has used those words to me exactly.

01:56:33   That we read everything.

01:56:35   Or I read everything.

01:56:36   Yeah.

01:56:37   Oh, yeah.

01:56:37   And I mean, the PR people I know who have since left Apple, they would say that that

01:56:40   was like first thing you do when you wake up in the morning before you even take your shower

01:56:43   and go into the office is you read everything that was written about Apple.

01:56:47   Right.

01:56:47   First thing.

01:56:48   Right.

01:56:48   Because you can't...

01:56:49   You get into...

01:56:49   The moment you show up in the office, they figure that you will know.

01:56:53   Right.

01:56:53   And they will start asking you questions about...

01:56:55   I imagine that probably was Phil.

01:56:57   Right.

01:56:57   Right.

01:56:58   Immediately, you see what Gruber wrote.

01:57:00   Yeah, yeah.

01:57:00   And you're like, I don't even know.

01:57:01   So now it's like I wake up early, read what Gruber wrote.

01:57:04   Right.

01:57:06   I don't...

01:57:07   I think it's like an Occam's Razor situation.

01:57:09   You don't...

01:57:10   Before you get to, oh, Apple's reacting to what the commentary on Twitter or Threads or Blue

01:57:17   Sky are saying about Liquid Glass, it's inside the company.

01:57:21   They're just looking at their own betas and they're using it.

01:57:25   Now everybody within Apple is using it.

01:57:27   And they're the ones who see, oh, well, I can't read this.

01:57:30   I can't read what's playing in music on my Mac right now.

01:57:34   That's a problem.

01:57:35   When you can't read the name of the song that's playing in the music app, that's a bug.

01:57:41   Yeah, it needs to be fixed one way or another.

01:57:44   And I don't...

01:57:46   I mean, I'm sure somebody has done very close analysis, but I have been looking at it and

01:57:50   it feels to me like every beta, they are tweaking a bunch of stuff involving opacity

01:57:57   and blur and blur and not what...

01:58:00   Because some people are like, the glass does this.

01:58:03   Yes.

01:58:04   It's super not true.

01:58:05   The glass doesn't do a thing.

01:58:07   It is dynamically changing the contents of the background and how they move through.

01:58:17   It is dynamically changing the foreground elements.

01:58:21   It will change...

01:58:23   Dan Morin found this out.

01:58:25   It's like literally when you...

01:58:26   In beta 3, when you scroll under something under something else, if you keep on going, it

01:58:32   doesn't react.

01:58:33   And if you...

01:58:34   But if you slow it down below a certain point, it does react.

01:58:37   Yeah.

01:58:38   Because it's trying...

01:58:39   So there...

01:58:40   And I think this points to a level of brittleness in this design, that they are trying to do some

01:58:45   incredibly complicated things to get this design to work, that maybe that means the design

01:58:51   doesn't work.

01:58:52   I'm not opposed to this.

01:58:54   I think it looks really cool.

01:58:55   But like the legibility thing, I can see them sweating it.

01:58:59   Like in the Mac menu bar, I feel like they're doing some things where dynamically, if the

01:59:04   contrast isn't good enough, the stuff on the desktop gets a little bit darker.

01:59:09   They're like trying to use the dodge and burn tools like dynamically to get the...

01:59:14   And implement it, that actually could be brilliant.

01:59:16   Because what you really want is it to look as cool as possible, but always be legible.

01:59:19   But they haven't figured it out yet.

01:59:22   Yeah.

01:59:23   It's...

01:59:23   If there's one thing I knew, and I think it always has to be this way, and we know, I keep

01:59:29   bringing it up, but it's a lot like iOS 7.

01:59:33   And with iOS 7, they...

01:59:36   I forget exactly what month it was where the...

01:59:38   All right, we're going to get rid of Scott Forstall.

01:59:41   We're going to put design of software under Johnny Ive 2.

01:59:44   I think it was like November, December of that year.

01:59:48   It might have been even December.

01:59:49   And Johnny Ive took over software like at the end of the iOS 6 year in like December and

01:59:59   was like, we're going to ship an all new design by next September.

02:00:03   But we're going to end it with the goal.

02:00:04   I mean, obviously, if it had not come together, they weren't going to announce it.

02:00:08   But it got...

02:00:09   It was announced at WWDC.

02:00:10   And that summer, all sorts of things, yin and yang, back and forth.

02:00:16   The thinness...

02:00:17   Some of the fonts were incredibly super...

02:00:20   The super thinnest weight of Helvetica, Noia, like male for some reason in beta 1 from WWDC.

02:00:26   Somebody had decided male is going to use this incredibly thin variant of the font.

02:00:34   And they changed all sorts of things, like each beta to beta.

02:00:37   It wasn't just like, oh, they're tuning it in.

02:00:39   It's like, oh, we'll try this.

02:00:40   We'll try that.

02:00:41   This is a lot like that.

02:00:42   It's obviously, you know, and that's because they only had six months before WWDC to even

02:00:48   start the project.

02:00:49   Because before that, before they pulled...

02:00:51   Tim Cook pulled the trigger on, okay, we get it.

02:00:55   Nobody likes working with Scott Forstall.

02:00:57   I'll make a decision.

02:00:58   If he hadn't, Forstall was forging ahead with an iOS 7 that was going to be like iOS 5 and

02:01:05   6 with the 3D texture and that sort of look.

02:01:08   This wasn't triggered.

02:01:11   Liquid glass wasn't triggered by something, a personnel change like that.

02:01:15   So who knows how long they've been working on it.

02:01:17   But at a certain point, there's aspects of this that feel like, boy, this could use a whole

02:01:22   nother year to bake.

02:01:24   But it's the forcing function of we need to announce it and say it's going to ship in September

02:01:30   that makes you get it together.

02:01:32   But I kind of feel, and you mentioned this, the thing about liquid glass, and I keep seeing

02:01:36   people suggest, why don't they just give people a slider in settings that would go less to more

02:01:45   in terms of how clear everything is.

02:01:47   Like at the left edge would be more frosted and therefore less transparent and more legible

02:01:54   for anything printed on top of the glass in the UI and go all the way to the right and everything

02:01:59   is super clear and looks cooler and more liquidy.

02:02:03   But that is totally misunderstanding how complex this is.

02:02:08   It's not one slider or one access and it's not two.

02:02:12   It is so many variants that to me, that's the problem is that it's like a Jenga game.

02:02:20   And you want to, oh, I see it in music.

02:02:23   Yeah, you can't read the album and the title is because the albums are underneath.

02:02:26   So we'll pull out that Jenga piece and then everything falls apart.

02:02:30   Yeah.

02:02:30   And I think I actually just, I've been, as we've been talking, I've been playing around

02:02:34   with iPadOS, the dev beta four.

02:02:37   And it feels to me like there's still bugs, right?

02:02:40   It's a dev beta and the public beta is going to have them too.

02:02:42   So one of the things that happened in this cycle is people are like, oh, well, that's it.

02:02:46   That's the final.

02:02:46   That's what Apple wants us to be.

02:02:48   And it's, you know what, there's what you design and then there's the implementation

02:02:52   and they can really vary.

02:02:53   And they're working toward a ship date that is September, not toward a ship date that was

02:02:59   June or that is July.

02:03:01   But when I scroll now, like weird, like stuff gets, as I'm scrolling up in music, like stuff

02:03:08   comes in almost grayed out and then it fades into color, which means that the player is

02:03:16   readable and then it fades into illegibility.

02:03:19   And that can't be right.

02:03:20   Like that, that can't be what it's supposed to do.

02:03:23   That's a mistake.

02:03:24   And, and yes, it is frustrating because you would want all of these mistakes ideally to

02:03:29   have already been dealt with before the end of July.

02:03:32   But I appreciate that they're working.

02:03:34   Again, this is that thing is they're trying to make this so that it's always legible because

02:03:38   we have powerful computers that are compositing all this stuff and they should be able to

02:03:44   calculate, actually calculate legibility and vary the UI elements.

02:03:48   The problem is that the content behind them is random.

02:03:51   The content in front is random and things can move.

02:03:55   And so how do you, like what Dan Morin found was in Safari, you'd scroll.

02:04:00   And I think you saw this too.

02:04:01   A bunch of us saw it.

02:04:02   You'd scroll.

02:04:03   And as you're scrolling through a webpage, all the text in your toolbar turns white and then

02:04:09   it turns black and then it turns white again.

02:04:11   And it's all half a second after the content is scrolled by that it's adjusting to.

02:04:15   And that was in beta one.

02:04:16   It's okay.

02:04:17   They're trying to make it that smart.

02:04:19   I think the challenge is, like you said, it is a Jenga kind of thing where you might

02:04:24   build this up to be so complicated that it's kind of a mess.

02:04:27   And what you really need is to come up with some more upfront rules about this stuff instead

02:04:34   of it being, because legibility should not be an option.

02:04:37   If you can't make it legible, you've got to try something different.

02:04:40   And like music right now, the sidebar is frosted and the player is not.

02:04:45   And the player is not legible and the sidebar is perfectly legible.

02:04:49   And I think it all looks cool, but at the end of the day, it has to be cool and usable.

02:04:56   And they're still struggling with it.

02:04:58   What I see here is that they're not willing to give it up yet.

02:05:01   They're still trying to solve the problem.

02:05:02   And I suspect that if they can't solve the problem by the end of the summer, everything's

02:05:06   going to get frosted.

02:05:06   Yeah, that's a good way to put it, where liquid glass itself is so many variables.

02:05:12   And I know from talking to a couple of developers that some of the stuff that they talked about

02:05:15   at WWDC in their sessions about it, I think involving shaders in particular, aren't, or maybe

02:05:21   in beta four, they're out because that's today.

02:05:23   But as of beta three, weren't even available to third party developers.

02:05:27   And that the shaders is a big part of both the coolness and the control over legibility,

02:05:35   usability, whether it's text or icons or whatever.

02:05:38   But that they weren't even in, not that they don't exist.

02:05:41   I think Apple software has access to them, but that the APIs aren't available to third

02:05:45   party.

02:05:45   And again, beta, it's all, this is why developers, this is why so many developers who have podcasts

02:05:51   all said the same thing at WWDC.

02:05:53   I am super excited about this.

02:05:55   It looks really cool.

02:05:55   And I'm really, really angry.

02:05:57   And my summer is ruined.

02:05:58   My summer is ruined.

02:06:00   Because I'm going to be working nonstop in a month, the month or the season of the year

02:06:06   when maybe ideally people would most like to take vacations and not be working.

02:06:11   Yeah.

02:06:11   You really should be a developer in Australia, I think.

02:06:14   Yeah.

02:06:15   Because then this is your, in New Zealand, this is your winter and you can, you can do

02:06:19   it down there.

02:06:19   Yeah.

02:06:19   I see the frustration, but I also share your belief that it's like what we say about

02:06:25   the Vision Pro in a way too, which is at some point you got to ship.

02:06:28   And I know I've seen that with all redesigns and things like that.

02:06:32   I mean, at some point, maybe they could have held this for a year, but I do feel like even

02:06:36   in a year from now, there would be all of these issues where you've got to put it out there

02:06:40   and then everybody can see it.

02:06:42   And then that is going to force a whole bunch of acceptance and change.

02:06:46   You could argue it internally forever and never get an answer.

02:06:49   And then you ship it.

02:06:50   And the answer often can become fairly clear, like, oh, that person's argument was right.

02:06:55   And I was wrong because we've now seen it in reality.

02:06:58   And so that's what the beta period is for.

02:07:00   Maybe Apple's too aggressive with it.

02:07:01   Maybe we could make all those arguments.

02:07:04   But I think anything like this, you got to get it out there and then start making changes

02:07:09   because there's no, it's a fallacy to believe that you could ship something perfect without

02:07:13   any, without it meeting reality.

02:07:15   And then the moment it ships, it's perfect and nobody ever needs to see it again.

02:07:18   That's just not, I'm not trying to excuse some of the issues with liquid glass.

02:07:21   I'm just saying that I kind of feel like you need to put it out there and then work through

02:07:24   it.

02:07:25   Yeah.

02:07:25   It is exciting.

02:07:26   It does make for an exciting summer, especially for us as observers and commentators and not

02:07:31   developers.

02:07:31   Don't get me wrong.

02:07:34   I still have to take screenshots and then they put out a new beta that changes the whole interface

02:07:38   and I have to take a new set of screenshots because all the, all the interface changed.

02:07:42   Yeah.

02:07:43   I think a really good app to play with is Apple news because the news articles have all sorts

02:07:50   of photos in them.

02:07:52   And that you see these things like you're talking about, like the way that like the toolbar at

02:07:57   the top will turn dark because it's on top, like a dark mode look because it's on top of

02:08:02   a photograph and it needs to kind of reverse, but it doesn't happen as you scroll past it.

02:08:07   It, unless you slow down, it's a really good example of that because you have this wide

02:08:13   variety of content that scrolls through and they're not, it's sort of a top and bottom thing that

02:08:18   Safari doesn't have.

02:08:20   And the thing slides, it's just an interesting app to play with, with this.

02:08:24   And I can definitely see that beta four, I could just see it right here.

02:08:27   It's very different from beta three, but they're all different and it's not related to public

02:08:32   commentary.

02:08:33   Although that's just another chit on the pile of reasons.

02:08:37   It is just a lot to do between June and September.

02:08:42   And as much as Apple can play with everybody who's going to just use iOS 26 and all the

02:08:50   other 26 is on their existing devices when they upgrade and they hold those, Hey, we, your

02:08:57   badge turned red.

02:08:59   You have a software update or we're going to install it tonight while you sleep.

02:09:02   They hold that usually till November and like the dot one releases.

02:09:06   So it's probably 26.1 or two, two even in November, December, where people's devices are set to

02:09:14   automatic will upgrade.

02:09:16   But it, September is a very important deadline because of the iPhone and the iPhones are going

02:09:22   to come in September.

02:09:23   And when you buy a new iPhone in September, it's going to come with this.

02:09:26   Yeah, exactly.

02:09:28   It, you won't have the choice.

02:09:30   Everybody else, I think this is a function of iOS seven being so dramatically different

02:09:34   is that a lot of people are really afraid of doing software updates now.

02:09:36   And Apple, now we know Apple actually has a switch where when they roll out iOS in the

02:09:43   fall for updates, the first wave is people who manually update.

02:09:48   It won't actually push an update to everybody.

02:09:50   And then Apple can push a switch, flip a switch later that then will notify people and say, Hey,

02:09:55   there's been an update.

02:09:56   Would you like it?

02:09:58   And so then they get another wave.

02:09:59   So they have this kind of a thing, but you're right.

02:10:02   If you buy a new phone, that's it.

02:10:03   You, you get it and it needs to be, and it's going to ship on those devices and it needs

02:10:08   to be, even if it's going to progress and get better and they're going to fix things and

02:10:12   all that, it's got to be presentable because the last thing you want is some sort of narrative.

02:10:16   Like you shouldn't buy a new iPhone yet because the new OS isn't any good.

02:10:19   Yeah.

02:10:19   Yeah.

02:10:20   And I also like your guess that if push comes to serve and whatever the deadline in late

02:10:26   August is for, this is the version that is going to go on the first batch of iPhones out

02:10:32   of the factory, dialing up frosting or whatever you want to call it for, okay.

02:10:38   But that doesn't mean that that's not going to go back to getting tweaked in developer beta

02:10:42   one of iOS 26.1 point one.

02:10:46   Yeah.

02:10:46   I, I, I would not be surprised at all if that's how it goes, if that there's a late beta where

02:10:51   they, and there's all these stories that are like, Oh, Apple's gotten rid of the clear glass

02:10:54   and they've all gone to frosted glass and all that.

02:10:56   But that's really just to tie it because they couldn't solve the problem in 26.0.

02:11:01   And then the first beta it ships and the first beta of the next cycle ships and it's all turned

02:11:06   back on and people are like, what, what is happening?

02:11:08   And the answer is because they're not, unless they give up, but, but they could very

02:11:12   easily do a safe call.

02:11:14   Right.

02:11:14   If you, if you're still working the problem, but you don't have a solution yet, the safe

02:11:18   call is frost it all over and kick the can down the road and then keep working on it.

02:11:23   I think, I don't think that's unreasonable unless, unless they decide that it, that it's

02:11:28   a bridge too far and they just can't do it.

02:11:29   It doesn't sound very, I mean, Apple is doing Apple right now, which is no, no, we can solve

02:11:33   this.

02:11:33   We can, we, there's a way for us to get things as cool as they need to be, but also be legible.

02:11:38   And we just haven't gotten it not nailed down yet.

02:11:41   And I wish them luck.

02:11:42   I hope they're right.

02:11:43   Cause I would like my devices to be as cool as possible while remaining usable.

02:11:48   But what I don't want is them to be so cool that I can't use them.

02:11:51   So that's the trick.

02:11:53   And as much as liquid glass has way more than two variables and certainly not one slider,

02:11:58   trust me, as much as at a superficial level, you might think ultimately it really is a two

02:12:04   access access decision, coolness and usability.

02:12:09   Yeah.

02:12:09   And right in the middle is the calculus, the maximum of both.

02:12:15   You don't want to maximize one over the other.

02:12:17   And you could argue, some people are going to argue for one extreme over the other, that

02:12:22   it should be purely functional and coolness shouldn't even enter into it.

02:12:25   And everything should look like Mac OS nine from 1998.

02:12:30   Well, I mean, accessibility settings are not a, are not a failure.

02:12:34   Like I think that there will always be accessibility settings you can turn on that will drop a lot

02:12:40   of the animation and drop a lot of the opacity issues.

02:12:43   And you'll end up with something that is not nearly as cool, but as super functional.

02:12:47   And the fact that they put those in a few, a few check boxes, I think it's great.

02:12:51   I may turn some of those on myself, but like out of the box, it should be usable.

02:12:56   That's the, that's the thing is if everybody goes to the accessibility settings, you didn't

02:13:02   do it right.

02:13:02   Like you want out of the box it to be cool, but most people to be like, I like this and

02:13:07   I want to use it like that.

02:13:08   And the people, I think it's very important to people who are bugged, have a place to go

02:13:13   and say, just, I don't just turn that off.

02:13:15   I don't want to see it.

02:13:16   That's fine.

02:13:16   Do you remember Ray gun magazine?

02:13:19   Yes.

02:13:21   David Carson was the, the unreadable magazine.

02:13:24   Yes.

02:13:25   I will put a link in the show notes and I've sure I will hunt down a link that includes

02:13:31   like PDFs of Ray gun magazine.

02:13:33   David Carson was the graphic designer behind it.

02:13:36   And it, it clearly was a magazine.

02:13:40   It had good writing and they paid really good writers to write for it.

02:13:44   But if you can imagine a magazine that was spearheaded and run ultimately by,

02:13:51   an avant-garde nineties grungy or a graphic designer, Ray gun was it literally unreadable

02:13:57   at times, all at the best, hard to read.

02:14:03   And I was a budding graphic designer and me and my best friend at the time, it was a graphic

02:14:10   design and major and an illustrator.

02:14:12   We bought every issue and we poured over it.

02:14:14   And the difference was he simply adored it and thought it was the best magazine that existed.

02:14:21   And it was, and I admired it for what they were doing.

02:14:26   And it was cool to look at, but as a also simultaneously budding writer, I remember thinking,

02:14:32   I don't care.

02:14:33   I'm a college student.

02:14:34   I don't have a lot of money.

02:14:35   I would not write for this magazine because it would bother me for my writing to be unreadable.

02:14:42   And it was at times unreadable.

02:14:44   Yeah.

02:14:45   There are people who, you know, but the same sort of people like my former roommate and

02:14:50   friend who loved Ray gun exactly as it was and wouldn't have changed a goddamn thing who

02:14:55   want liquid glass to be like that.

02:14:58   Just, just go all in on looking cool and legibility be damned.

02:15:04   I know that's the back button.

02:15:05   That's not right for Apple with the market that it has.

02:15:10   There's a reason the, the, the wall street journal didn't, didn't hire David Carson to

02:15:13   redesign the, the newspaper.

02:15:16   You gotta be, you, and that's a tough balance to walk that they want to be, they want to be

02:15:20   cool, but they're also have so many users that they have to, and our smartphones are so important

02:15:26   to our lives that you've got to, you've got to have the ability for it to be functional

02:15:30   again, without resorting to having literally everybody.

02:15:33   You don't want all the tick tocks on day one to be, here's how you fix it.

02:15:37   So you can use your iPhone.

02:15:38   Here's an amazing thing.

02:15:40   You go to accessibility and turn on reduce transparency.

02:15:43   And then this amazing thing happens.

02:15:45   Like that is you lost.

02:15:46   If you, if you do that.

02:15:47   I think I'll, I'll tweak that slightly.

02:15:50   I think it's inevitable that that tick tock's going to be inundated with those videos, no matter

02:15:54   what Apple does, but what you don't want is for most people or tens of millions of people

02:16:00   to be like, give me those tick tocks.

02:16:02   The tick tocks are going to be there, but you don't want them to be so viral because people

02:16:07   think, Oh my God, I just bought this goddamn new iPhone air and I can't read.

02:16:11   I guess I'm throwing myself on the algorithm here.

02:16:14   If you see all those tick tocks, it's because everybody wants to learn that.

02:16:19   Right.

02:16:20   If people will do those tick tocks, but if nobody cares, then Apple will have done okay.

02:16:24   But if everybody is the cool thing to do is to turn off all the liquid glass features in

02:16:30   accessibility, then they will have done a bad job.

02:16:32   They've still got time to do it.

02:16:33   I think, look, I, I think it does look cool.

02:16:36   I think they need to deal with some of this stuff.

02:16:38   If they back it off because of legibility, that's the right thing to do.

02:16:41   But I, I, I mean, I like the impulse, honestly, as a grumpy Mac user, my big issue is I think

02:16:48   there's a great cycle for the Mac in terms of functionality, but it's so clear that the

02:16:52   Mac is an afterthought when it comes to this design.

02:16:55   If you look at Mac toolbars, they're so bad.

02:16:59   They're like, they're like, they're just like gray on gray with little drop shadows.

02:17:06   Like they, they, they don't have texture that it just looks so bad and that's a shame, but

02:17:11   it's usable.

02:17:12   I mean, I, I've been using it and loving it and the new functional features of the Mac of

02:17:16   the Tahoe stuff with a spotlight and the, and the clipboard history and the changes to shortcuts

02:17:23   and automations and the stuff that's going on in the menu bar.

02:17:26   I think there's some really exciting things in Tahoe.

02:17:28   I just, I am a little bummed out that I was hoping that this would be a, maybe they have

02:17:34   better ideas about how the Mac should be that haven't been implemented yet, but I fear that

02:17:39   they just, I mean that they did the whole liquid glass and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, liquid

02:17:43   glass, iPhone, we got it.

02:17:45   iPad, we'll make some changes here.

02:17:46   And then like on the sketch pad, they had the Mac and they had like a question mark and

02:17:50   maybe one thing down and they're like, we'll get to it.

02:17:52   We'll get to it.

02:17:52   And that's where we are because as good as it feels on the iPhone and as okay as it feels

02:17:57   on the iPad, it just on the Mac, it's just a, I don't even, I mean, other than the unification

02:18:02   of it, it's just, it's not unusable.

02:18:05   It's just not good.

02:18:07   It's just, it's just there.

02:18:08   I mean, there's so many Mac toolbars.

02:18:11   The Mac toolbar is the most other than the menu bar on the dock, which they did things too,

02:18:15   but like every Mac app has toolbars almost.

02:18:18   Right.

02:18:19   And the toolbars in Tahoe are just awful and I don't understand it, but that's where

02:18:25   we are.

02:18:25   It's hard not to think that the, and again, there's people's opinions on Alan Dye and his

02:18:32   whole team are span a very wide gamut.

02:18:36   And without delving into that, I think it's almost undeniable.

02:18:41   I think it's beyond argument that they're not really Mac diehards at heart.

02:18:49   That it, you know, and it's, and if they were, they wouldn't have done lots of the stuff

02:18:55   we see in these for, even in betas, even if you're like, oh, it's just the first beta.

02:18:59   It's no, it's like whoever decided this clearly isn't, isn't immersed in the Mac the way that

02:19:06   I am and they're not spending time in it the way that some of us are.

02:19:09   The toolbar is not in vogue in Apple, in Apple apps, especially ones that came over from iOS.

02:19:17   It's not in vogue.

02:19:18   However, it's everywhere.

02:19:20   It's in Safari and finder.

02:19:22   It's in like third party apps everywhere.

02:19:24   And I look at it, even in beta four, I look at it and think, is the person in charge of

02:19:32   the toolbar on Mac OS Tahoe still working on it and hasn't passed it on to be implemented

02:19:38   because it just, it feels completely untouched, not considered.

02:19:44   It is like literally there's no contrast between the buttons and the background except for they

02:19:51   put in this.

02:19:52   I mean, forgive me, John, but I try to be really open about design because I'm like, I'm not a

02:19:58   super design focus person.

02:20:00   I care about it, but this is like the kind of drop shadow that I would put on it in college

02:20:06   in Photoshop or in page maker.

02:20:08   It's just, well, how do we deal with the fact that our buttons and our toolbar are exactly

02:20:13   the same?

02:20:13   The answer is I know.

02:20:14   I'll just stick a drop shadow on it and it'll be fine.

02:20:17   And it is not fine.

02:20:19   It is really crappy.

02:20:20   And I think it's partially because they didn't understand how important the toolbar is.

02:20:25   In fact, now I'm ranting here, but I'll just say, have you ever recently gone to edit toolbar

02:20:31   in the Finder?

02:20:33   Because over the last few years, Apple has added a whole bunch of really interesting

02:20:37   things to the Finder, like quick actions, which let you run shortcuts and all of these

02:20:41   things.

02:20:41   Can you put a shortcut or even a quick action button on the Finder toolbar?

02:20:47   The answer is no.

02:20:48   However, can you put a burn button on so that you can burn a CD-ROM from the Finder?

02:20:53   The answer is yes.

02:20:55   It feels very much like their whole portions of the Finder, which again, to your point, these

02:21:00   are not people who are thinking like a Mac user.

02:21:02   The Finder is super important to the Mac.

02:21:04   And yet, parts of the Finder feel like they have not been thought about in a decade.

02:21:11   And that's what I mean when I say the Mac, like they're adding cool new stuff to the Mac.

02:21:17   But like this design, I don't think they're thinking of how Mac users use the Mac.

02:21:21   I just don't think they are.

02:21:22   And the other thing that to me belies a, I don't even know what you're thinking.

02:21:26   And again, and it's not a question of taste.

02:21:29   I just don't think you get it, is the way that the toolbar buttons look like they float

02:21:33   and another layer in front or on top of the window, which doesn't make any sense.

02:21:39   It's not logical.

02:21:40   No.

02:21:40   And the drop shadow makes it worse.

02:21:42   Right.

02:21:43   Exactly.

02:21:43   Because the drop shadow only serves to emphasize that it's a layer in front.

02:21:47   Right.

02:21:48   The sidebar was really bad in the first beta and the second beta, but in the third and fourth

02:21:54   beta is actually, the sidebar is floating.

02:21:56   It's a pane of glass that's floating.

02:21:57   Right.

02:21:58   And it, it, it, it, somebody did some work there to make it better.

02:22:01   And it is better.

02:22:02   Right.

02:22:02   But the toolbar is, I, what's the metaphor there?

02:22:06   I mean, we're, we're turning into, both turning into John Syracuse now, but like, I ask you

02:22:10   from a design standpoint, this is supposed to represent something.

02:22:13   Is this, are these glass buttons sitting on a, because there's no texture, there's no indication

02:22:19   that this is glass.

02:22:20   It's literally like a flat piece of paper cut out and the drop shadow implies slightly

02:22:27   suspended above another flat piece of paper.

02:22:29   I don't know what the metaphor is.

02:22:31   I don't know what they're getting at.

02:22:32   It doesn't show off the graphical prowess of liquid glass as a concept.

02:22:36   It's just not designed basically.

02:22:38   And that's my frustration with it is that the Mac is so clearly just not a priority.

02:22:42   And so they've slapped something in there that they can call liquid glass, but like whole

02:22:45   portions of it seem to be not just badly considered, but not considered.

02:22:50   There's a sort of, whatever the design is, and the style could be anything.

02:22:55   You could, in theory, you could just go back to the platinum theme from Mac OS 9, or you could

02:23:01   go back to Aqua from the first versions of Mac OS 10, or pick any of the themes from the intervening

02:23:07   eras, or invent a new theme, or whatever.

02:23:11   But whatever the theme is, and we can quibble about the appeal of the theme, but the theme should

02:23:19   reinforce the concepts of the design.

02:23:22   And like at a basic level on the Mac, which is unique, it's different from the other platforms.

02:23:27   Yes.

02:23:28   Certainly iOS is like just one nature.

02:23:31   The menu bar represents the app has one menu bar.

02:23:37   And there's an app, whatever the active app is, the app that gets the menu bar.

02:23:42   So the menu bar is the app, the toolbar, which Apple has largely shifted to over, I would

02:23:49   say close to 20 years, maybe 15 years.

02:23:53   I sort of de-emphasize the menu bar and doing things by going to the menu bar for menu commands

02:23:58   and putting more things in the toolbar on the Mac.

02:24:02   But it represents what's in this window from the app.

02:24:06   And so you could have two documents and just two.

02:24:11   And there's a toolbar for both of them.

02:24:14   And the toolbar for this document is that window.

02:24:17   And the toolbar for the other one is that window.

02:24:19   And it means this toolbar has commands that affect this window.

02:24:24   So clicking something in the toolbar isn't going to affect the contents of the other window.

02:24:28   Whereas a command in the menu bar might affect both, like show...

02:24:35   Compare documents in BVEdit is a great example of that, right?

02:24:38   It's going to sweep up all the documents and put them together in a diff.

02:24:41   Right.

02:24:41   Or something in the view menu might affect all windows or something like that.

02:24:45   All windows, because it's a global...

02:24:47   Yeah, exactly.

02:24:48   And it sounds like such a picky thing.

02:24:51   But if the toolbar buttons look like they're in a layer above and apart from the window,

02:24:57   they're still there.

02:24:59   They move around with the window as you move the window around.

02:25:02   But it doesn't reinforce the concept.

02:25:05   And so it doesn't help you learn it.

02:25:08   It doesn't help you understand it.

02:25:09   And if you do understand it, it just looks and feels weird.

02:25:12   And I don't think it's ever not going to look and feel weird.

02:25:14   No, you mentioned Aqua.

02:25:16   And it's something that I thought about a lot.

02:25:18   And I'm not quite sure what I think about it.

02:25:19   But I was asking myself, what did I expect Liquid Glass as envisioned?

02:25:25   What would the Mac version of Liquid Glass be?

02:25:28   Because I think a lot of the problems here are they had a vision for Liquid Glass for these

02:25:32   glass devices and the Mac isn't quite that.

02:25:34   And so they're trying to adapt it.

02:25:36   And I would argue they don't seem to be trying too hard, honestly.

02:25:39   They're just like, let's just get it to be good enough.

02:25:43   And I keep coming back to Aqua because I think about Aqua was that it was kind of like they were

02:25:48   glass, raised glass buttons on the window.

02:25:52   And I thought, I think that's kind of what I expected it to be.

02:25:57   It's almost like out of the window would come these kind of bumps of glass with the toolbar

02:26:03   under them.

02:26:04   And instead, they're non-textured with the drop shadow.

02:26:07   I'm like, I don't even know what I'm looking at here.

02:26:09   And it's weird because maybe they don't want to go back in that direction.

02:26:15   But I actually think that the closest we've gotten to Liquid Glass on the Mac is Aqua.

02:26:19   Yeah.

02:26:20   And of course, me and you feel like the Mac should be treated separately or differently

02:26:30   or whatever.

02:26:30   And it's not that I don't think it needed to be updated at all, but I almost feel like

02:26:34   Liquid Glass on the Mac should be complementary to Liquid Glass on iOS and maybe the other platforms

02:26:42   that can sort of share a one-thing-at-a-time aesthetic.

02:26:46   But on the Mac, it's not that it would look out of place or be different, but it would

02:26:50   just be not the same, but complementary.

02:26:52   And your idea of, what if it was a lot more like Aqua, but with styling along the lines,

02:26:58   use, of course, use San Francisco as the font.

02:27:01   And instead of the all sorts of blue, no pin, get rid of the pinstripes.

02:27:05   Yeah, it's just clear glass, not blue.

02:27:07   Yeah.

02:27:07   But it's still like you've got some reflective aspect of it and you're looking at a window

02:27:12   that's made of glass.

02:27:13   But because of the way that Mac windows are constructed in most cases, especially like

02:27:16   something like the Finder, you can't see.

02:27:19   Yeah, it's weird because on one level, it's like, I know that the Mac is not going to get

02:27:24   special treatment.

02:27:25   I know that the priority, absolutely the priority should be the iPhone.

02:27:28   But if you were going to do this, this is, think of it this way.

02:27:32   This is the first time Apple has ever attempted a global redesign across all of its operating

02:27:39   systems.

02:27:40   The iOS 7 didn't redesign the Mac to look like iOS 7.

02:27:44   And over time, I think some of the issues that they've had with importing things from

02:27:48   iPad and iPhone to Mac have been they're importing stuff from a completely different design sensibility.

02:27:54   And it can be a problem.

02:27:56   Some of it is that they're different devices, but some of it is just it's coming from a different

02:27:59   design.

02:28:00   And so what a great opportunity this is, the 2026 OS updates with redesign for the first

02:28:07   time for Apple to say, yes, this is what Apple products look like.

02:28:11   And if you're going to do that and you're going to half-ass the Mac, you've missed an opportunity.

02:28:18   I mean, that's the bottom line.

02:28:19   I know the iPhone is more important, but this is your opportunity to get the Mac to define

02:28:26   what a Mac looks like in the context of your product line.

02:28:30   And if you let it go, it's going to be this kind of mishmash of old design and undesigned.

02:28:36   And I do feel like that's it's really weird, too.

02:28:38   I am.

02:28:39   This is the most ambivalent about an OS design or an OS release.

02:28:42   I've been in a while, but it's not ambivalence.

02:28:44   It's I think they totally have fumbled the design.

02:28:48   And I think that it's the best set of productivity features they put in Mac OS in 10 years.

02:28:52   Yeah.

02:28:53   I think both of those things are true.

02:28:54   And so it's very frustrating because it's like, we got clipboard history and also the toolbar

02:28:58   windows look like crap.

02:28:59   And it's like, that's Tahoe.

02:29:01   I agree.

02:29:05   Well, here we are, two hours, 30 plus minutes.

02:29:08   Short show.

02:29:08   And we covered everything, though.

02:29:10   It's shorter if you don't talk about sports and keyboards, though.

02:29:12   Oh, but we covered the whole agenda.

02:29:14   I know.

02:29:15   We got to do it.

02:29:17   You know, I really did.

02:29:17   Whether they want it or not.

02:29:18   Yeah.

02:29:19   I had a lot of fun talking to your pal, Mike Hurley, on his Cortex show.

02:29:25   That was a great interview.

02:29:27   It really was.

02:29:28   I found it inspirational.

02:29:29   I told Mike, you got to do that to me sometime.

02:29:31   That would be like, you got to do that because he did a great job.

02:29:34   And I thought he really led you in some interesting places.

02:29:36   It was really fun to listen to.

02:29:37   I totally did.

02:29:38   I've done a lot more of other people's podcasts in the last six months than I've done in a

02:29:41   long time.

02:29:42   And no offense to anybody else.

02:29:44   I've enjoyed it all.

02:29:45   But boy, that was my favorite because that was the one I listened to.

02:29:48   And I told Mike, I was like, I never listened to a complete podcast I'm on because I just

02:29:52   don't like listening to myself.

02:29:53   I really don't.

02:29:55   And I listened to that whole thing.

02:29:56   I was like, hey, that was pretty good.

02:29:58   Yeah.

02:29:59   Yeah, it was good.

02:30:00   I mean, it's fun to hear about other people's processes, too.

02:30:04   And I don't know.

02:30:05   I mean, I have known some things about your process between our talking and me doing things

02:30:11   and you sending me screenshots of your movable type interface and sharing some stuff.

02:30:15   Some of the some of the things I mentioned that I've never released publicly, I have shared

02:30:18   with you.

02:30:18   Yes, it's true.

02:30:19   It's true.

02:30:20   I have seen some of that stuff.

02:30:21   So anyway, I thought I'd get some of that out before Mike's interview.

02:30:25   But it's like somebody on Mastodon said, don't ever bet against Mike getting something out

02:30:29   before you.

02:30:30   And I was like, yeah, and that goes like triple for me.

02:30:32   I will thank my sponsors for the episode.

02:30:35   Let's see if I can remember them.

02:30:36   I can't.

02:30:37   I'll go backwards.

02:30:38   Squarespace.

02:30:39   And before that, Factor, where you can get some food to eat.

02:30:43   And then the new one, Sentry.

02:30:44   So go check them out.

02:30:46   And Jason, of course, is at SixColors.com and The Incomparable and Upgrade on Relay with

02:30:54   the aforementioned Mike Hurley, which I did not listen to the latest yet because I knew

02:30:59   you were going to talk about the same stuff I wanted to talk to you about.

02:31:01   But now I'm going to go listen.

02:31:02   Yeah, exactly.

02:31:02   Exactly.

02:31:03   Thank you, Jason.

02:31:04   Just know that I referred to that guy, Ramisati, as a what a bad friend.

02:31:09   That's the title of that episode.

02:31:11   I think that says it all.

02:31:12   With friends like these.

02:31:14   Anyway, thank you, John.

02:31:16   Thanks for having me.