The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Tell me something about cooking.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Tell me what you've got, like an oven that my wife,

00:00:07 ◼   ► I think, is gonna at some point kidnap you

00:00:09 ◼   ► and have you come out here and install

00:00:12 ◼   ► some kind of high-capacity outdoor grill type thing.

00:00:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, I kind of, I mean,

00:00:18 ◼   ► I've always loved cooking to some degree and loved food,

00:00:22 ◼   ► but only during the pandemic did I really have time

00:00:25 ◼   ► to start to drill down and start working

00:00:28 ◼   ► on a handful of things that I had always wanted

00:00:30 ◼   ► to actually learn to do-do, you know,

00:00:33 ◼   ► not like wing it once in a while.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - Right.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - And one of those was pizza.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And so I got one of these Ooni pizza ovens,

00:00:41 ◼   ► which is, the one I have is a gas,

00:00:44 ◼   ► they make the combo wood gas ones too,

00:00:46 ◼   ► but the one I have is a gas pizza oven.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And it, you know, it's great.

00:00:52 ◼   ► It's actually extremely usable.

00:00:55 ◼   ► It has a really nice kind of wide opening

00:00:59 ◼   ► you can slide things in and out of.

00:01:01 ◼   ► It takes a little bit of practice.

00:01:02 ◼   ► You know, my first pizzas were burnt on one side,

00:01:05 ◼   ► several of them calzoned themselves unintentionally.

00:01:07 ◼   ► You know, you go through the whole learning process.

00:01:10 ◼   ► But you really need like a continuous set of time

00:01:13 ◼   ► to experiment with that stuff.

00:01:15 ◼   ► 'Cause pizza is very much like software.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Like, you know, you go through 1.0 of your dough

00:01:20 ◼   ► and then you go like, no, no, that's not right, right?

00:01:22 ◼   ► And you're, you know, a few percent here, a few percent there,

00:01:26 ◼   ► you know, another 1.2 of your dough.

00:01:30 ◼   ► And you just, but you have to have contiguous time.

00:01:33 ◼   ► And I was stuck in the house

00:01:34 ◼   ► and like, I would get done with work and was like,

00:01:36 ◼   ► hey, we're not going anywhere, doing anything.

00:01:37 ◼   ► So I'm gonna fire up the oven and play a little bit,

00:01:41 ◼   ► you know, and so I learned to do that better.

00:01:44 ◼   ► And then along with that is bread, you know,

00:01:46 ◼   ► so they kind of go side by side.

00:01:47 ◼   ► - In the same oven.

00:01:50 ◼   ► - You know what, I do some flat breads in the oven,

00:01:52 ◼   ► but the uni gets to like 800, 900 degrees,

00:01:56 ◼   ► which is not bread temperature.

00:01:58 ◼   ► You need about 500 degrees for most breads.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Then you need that temperature on the uni

00:02:02 ◼   ► because the stone needs to get ultra hot

00:02:06 ◼   ► to bake the bottom of your crust

00:02:07 ◼   ► so that you don't have a burnt top and raw dough.

00:02:10 ◼   ► But with bread, you need roughly 500 degrees

00:02:14 ◼   ► and an enclosed environment with a lot of steam

00:02:17 ◼   ► to promote that spring.

00:02:19 ◼   ► So that bit of the bread that you love,

00:02:22 ◼   ► that's the fluffy inside with a lot of holes and aeration

00:02:25 ◼   ► and all of that, that spring, that loft to your bread,

00:02:27 ◼   ► that comes from steam.

00:02:29 ◼   ► And most European ovens have steam built in,

00:02:33 ◼   ► or not most, I should say,

00:02:34 ◼   ► but let's say it's much more common

00:02:36 ◼   ► and you'll have steam built in.

00:02:38 ◼   ► So you'd be able to fire up your oven, say,

00:02:40 ◼   ► hey oven, I'm making bread.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Could you put a little steam in here for me?

00:02:43 ◼   ► And it keeps it nice and humid in there

00:02:45 ◼   ► and you get a nice spring on your bread.

00:02:47 ◼   ► But in America, most of our ovens do not have steam at all.

00:02:52 ◼   ► So you have to create an artificial steam environment

00:02:56 ◼   ► by enclosing either, you know,

00:02:58 ◼   ► you pour boiling water in a skillet down below in your oven

00:03:02 ◼   ► and you trap it in there, or you use a Dutch oven,

00:03:05 ◼   ► which is, you know, a pot with a lid to try and trap steam,

00:03:08 ◼   ► the steam coming naturally from the water in your bread,

00:03:11 ◼   ► to cook it and to spring it.

00:03:13 ◼   ► And so like, they're really two different operations,

00:03:15 ◼   ► but all of the base preparations, all flour, yeast and water.

00:03:19 ◼   ► So you start learning a lot about how yeast and flour

00:03:24 ◼   ► and water interact with one another and salt to some degree,

00:03:27 ◼   ► and getting an idea of how all that stuff works

00:03:30 ◼   ► and they feed into one another.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So if you start doing pizza,

00:03:33 ◼   ► it's a very short hop to making bread and vice versa,

00:03:36 ◼   ► you know, because pizza is bread.

00:03:38 ◼   ► It just happens to have some garnishes.

00:03:42 ◼   ► - So, and this Ooni oven is something you can,

00:03:45 ◼   ► you cook with it right on your kitchen countertop,

00:03:48 ◼   ► or you have to cook this outside?

00:03:50 ◼   ► - No, Ooni's an outdoor oven.

00:03:51 ◼   ► I mean, if you wanted to do an inside,

00:03:54 ◼   ► I'd say you're probably risking death.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I mean, it's a--

00:03:59 ◼   ► - That's well, it makes sense though.

00:04:00 ◼   ► It's eight or 900 degrees.

00:04:02 ◼   ► I mean, that makes sense.

00:04:02 ◼   ► - It is, and it's propane, so you don't, you know,

00:04:04 ◼   ► you really don't want to do that.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Now they make a wood burning version of it,

00:04:08 ◼   ► and one that does both as well.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And there are other ones out there, there are other brands.

00:04:13 ◼   ► The Rock Box is a very popular one

00:04:15 ◼   ► made by a company called Gosney.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And the Gosney Dome is a brand new one they have coming out

00:04:20 ◼   ► or is already out, but already sold out.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And so there are a handful of these,

00:04:24 ◼   ► the entire sort of enthusiast,

00:04:27 ◼   ► home enthusiast pizza oven market

00:04:29 ◼   ► exploded during the pandemic, right?

00:04:32 ◼   ► For a lot of the same, I mean, you know,

00:04:33 ◼   ► I'm very basic in that regard.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Like a lot of the same reasons, people are like,

00:04:36 ◼   ► "Oh man, I want to make pizza at home.

00:04:38 ◼   ► You know, I always wanted to,

00:04:40 ◼   ► I always wanted to have those tasty pizzas.

00:04:41 ◼   ► How do I do that?"

00:04:43 ◼   ► And pretty much every oven sold out.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And I'll tell you, like early in the pandemic,

00:04:46 ◼   ► May to June, July 2020,

00:04:50 ◼   ► it was impossible to find even flour.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know.

00:04:53 ◼   ► It was crazy, the flour situation.

00:04:56 ◼   ► I mean, it's, 'cause I have a couple of other pals

00:04:58 ◼   ► who were pizza makers and you know, it was such a big deal.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had to buy 50 pound bags

00:05:04 ◼   ► from a restaurant supply stores, yeah.

00:05:06 ◼   ► - Even going into the grocery store

00:05:08 ◼   ► and just looking at the flour aisle, like,

00:05:09 ◼   ► "Hey, I heard flour is short."

00:05:11 ◼   ► And you look and they're just have like,

00:05:12 ◼   ► it's not just like empty shelves.

00:05:14 ◼   ► They have like apologies taped up.

00:05:15 ◼   ► They had like apologies taped up.

00:05:17 ◼   ► No, we don't have any flour, sorry.

00:05:19 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:05:20 ◼   ► So, you know, that whole market exploded.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Most of these ovens are not meant for in-home use.

00:05:26 ◼   ► You got to put them outside.

00:05:27 ◼   ► So they're like a barbecue.

00:05:28 ◼   ► You know, I have mine next to my barbecue

00:05:30 ◼   ► just on a little, you know, cheap Costco table.

00:05:33 ◼   ► It works fine.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And you fire it up with propane.

00:05:37 ◼   ► It takes about 15 to 20 minutes,

00:05:39 ◼   ► maybe 30 minutes to get up to temp.

00:05:41 ◼   ► And then once you have it up to temp,

00:05:43 ◼   ► you pull out your dough

00:05:44 ◼   ► and your pizza's done in 90 seconds, right?

00:05:46 ◼   ► It's a very, I call this like a,

00:05:48 ◼   ► I call the process violent, right?

00:05:51 ◼   ► Because you've got flame and you've got toppings

00:05:54 ◼   ► and you've got dough and it's a dance, right?

00:05:56 ◼   ► It's a sort of ballet that you're doing with violence.

00:06:00 ◼   ► You know, the flame is in your face.

00:06:01 ◼   ► It's hot.

00:06:02 ◼   ► Your pizza's burning.

00:06:03 ◼   ► You're trying to turn it.

00:06:04 ◼   ► It's a little floppy.

00:06:05 ◼   ► You don't have the technique quite down.

00:06:07 ◼   ► It actually is quite, you know, you look at,

00:06:10 ◼   ► I'll tell you, there is nothing, I mean,

00:06:13 ◼   ► on Instagram and YouTube and all this stuff,

00:06:15 ◼   ► I'm sure at some point scrolling through Instagram,

00:06:18 ◼   ► everybody has seen some sort of pizzaola,

00:06:22 ◼   ► a pizza guy in a pizza place,

00:06:24 ◼   ► throwing pizzas in and out of an oven, right?

00:06:26 ◼   ► Like at some restaurant somewhere.

00:06:27 ◼   ► You go to the explore page.

00:06:28 ◼   ► At some point you're gonna come across it.

00:06:29 ◼   ► It's popular content, right?

00:06:31 ◼   ► People love pizza.

00:06:32 ◼   ► But there is nothing that will give you an appreciation

00:06:35 ◼   ► for how amazing the muscle memory and skillset

00:06:38 ◼   ► of these people that do it day in, day out for decades

00:06:41 ◼   ► than trying to do it literally once yourself.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Because the amount of frustration and anger

00:06:47 ◼   ► and sort of like fear that it, you're like,

00:06:50 ◼   ► oh my God, I spent so long.

00:06:51 ◼   ► I got this dough ready.

00:06:52 ◼   ► I had to start the dough yesterday.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And how my toppings, I sauteed all these toppings in advance

00:06:57 ◼   ► and I made this sauce.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And now I'm gonna throw this pizza in the oven

00:07:01 ◼   ► and it's gonna turn into a brinkeled mess

00:07:03 ◼   ► and melt all of the stone, you know?

00:07:06 ◼   ► And like, it takes a while.

00:07:08 ◼   ► I like it though.

00:07:08 ◼   ► It's a challenge and it's fun.

00:07:10 ◼   ► And the cool thing is, is that once you could be

00:07:12 ◼   ► on the initial kind of wave of,

00:07:14 ◼   ► hey, I can get a pizza off of a peel and into this oven

00:07:18 ◼   ► and like sort of start to turn it

00:07:19 ◼   ► to try and cook it evenly,

00:07:21 ◼   ► most of your failures are edible,

00:07:23 ◼   ► extremely edible and tasty, you know?

00:07:25 ◼   ► So it's always a nice bonus.

00:07:27 ◼   ► - I wish I had developed a habit like that

00:07:29 ◼   ► or a hobby like that, but I didn't.

00:07:32 ◼   ► I got better.

00:07:33 ◼   ► - I told you this, I got better at cooking steak,

00:07:34 ◼   ► at grilling steak.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:07:37 ◼   ► - But nothing.

00:07:38 ◼   ► - What was your process there?

00:07:39 ◼   ► - It's charcoal grill and just getting my seasoning down

00:07:44 ◼   ► and getting really, really good at the temperatures

00:07:48 ◼   ► that me and Amy and Jonas all like,

00:07:51 ◼   ► which are all slightly different.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Amy goes really, goes very rare.

00:07:55 ◼   ► I'm a true medium rare and Jonas likes sort of

00:07:58 ◼   ► a medium rare plus.

00:08:00 ◼   ► And-- - Okay.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Like a slightly thicker rind,

00:08:04 ◼   ► like eating into that pink in the center.

00:08:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the other thing that we were doing

00:08:08 ◼   ► for the pandemic was we were buying our steaks

00:08:12 ◼   ► from our favorite steakhouses,

00:08:15 ◼   ► a couple of them here in Philly,

00:08:16 ◼   ► just to help support them.

00:08:18 ◼   ► At first, that was what we were thinking,

00:08:19 ◼   ► like, let's just, you know, they're selling like,

00:08:22 ◼   ► you know, steaks to cook at home.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Right, like kits or whatever.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - But then we figured out that they were actually

00:08:28 ◼   ► the best steaks we could buy.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Like, we, you know, the places where I thought

00:08:32 ◼   ► I was buying good butcher steaks,

00:08:35 ◼   ► I was like, you know what, the steakhouses actually

00:08:37 ◼   ► are really great butchers, like, fantastic.

00:08:41 ◼   ► And maybe, maybe because, you know,

00:08:43 ◼   ► the two places we were buying them from were regulars at,

00:08:47 ◼   ► maybe we were getting like choice cuts, I don't know.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But Amy and Jonas both agreed,

00:08:52 ◼   ► and they're not easy with compliments to me on anything.

00:08:55 ◼   ► They both agreed that I, that my steaks were comparable

00:08:59 ◼   ► to the steakhouse.

00:09:00 ◼   ► And I was like, that's pretty good.

00:09:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I would argue, obviously,

00:09:06 ◼   ► all sensitivity to non-meat eaters,

00:09:08 ◼   ► but I would say if you can cook, you know,

00:09:10 ◼   ► if you can sear a good piece of meat

00:09:13 ◼   ► and manage to cook a piece of chicken that's not dry at home,

00:09:16 ◼   ► you've got 90% of what you would go to a restaurant for.

00:09:20 ◼   ► And I mean like, you know, a really good steak,

00:09:22 ◼   ► a really good piece of chicken.

00:09:24 ◼   ► People spend years trying to get that right, you know?

00:09:28 ◼   ► And you go out to restaurants,

00:09:29 ◼   ► and once you do cook a really good steak at home,

00:09:32 ◼   ► as I'm sure you've found out,

00:09:34 ◼   ► you start to really judge the steaks

00:09:37 ◼   ► that you eat at restaurants.

00:09:38 ◼   ► - Well, you know what the other thing is?

00:09:40 ◼   ► I don't remember if you know this.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I know longtime listeners of the show will remember this.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Ben Thompson finds it endlessly,

00:09:46 ◼   ► endlessly hilarious.

00:09:49 ◼   ► It was like two years ago, maybe it was three years ago,

00:09:52 ◼   ► I forget when, two or three years ago,

00:09:54 ◼   ► Amy somehow misordered charcoal from Walmart.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And we got like, instead of--

00:10:02 ◼   ► - You got an enormous amount of it, right?

00:10:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, instead of like 36 pounds of charcoal,

00:10:06 ◼   ► we got like 36 18-pound bags of charcoal.

00:10:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:10 ◼   ► Like truly, truly a like, you know,

00:10:15 ◼   ► like if you were running a small-sized supermarket,

00:10:20 ◼   ► it would be plenty of charcoal

00:10:21 ◼   ► to carry you through the weekend selling to customers.

00:10:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:25 ◼   ► But, and so I, you know, she made an Instagram post about it

00:10:30 ◼   ► and it was funny and it's hilarious.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And we have a big basement and we just still have it.

00:10:34 ◼   ► We're actually getting low.

00:10:35 ◼   ► I think we're down to like eight bags.

00:10:38 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:10:39 ◼   ► - But here's the thing that's not funny about it,

00:10:41 ◼   ► is that one of the things about having all that charcoal

00:10:44 ◼   ► is I just got real generous about how much charcoal

00:10:47 ◼   ► I'd put on the grill before lighting it,

00:10:49 ◼   ► and I found out that I was definitely not using

00:10:51 ◼   ► anywhere near enough charcoal before.

00:10:53 ◼   ► You know, like they, and you would think,

00:10:56 ◼   ► you would think the bag of charcoal,

00:10:58 ◼   ► and it's just like Kingston regular.

00:10:59 ◼   ► It's not like any kind of like deluxe charcoal.

00:11:01 ◼   ► It's just good old Kingston red, white, and blue charcoal.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And you would think, you know, like with toothpaste,

00:11:09 ◼   ► the commercials for toothpaste make it seem like

00:11:11 ◼   ► you should put about a half a tube of toothpaste

00:11:12 ◼   ► on your toothbrush before you brush.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - Of course, right.

00:11:16 ◼   ► - They do like a curly QS, like goes over,

00:11:19 ◼   ► and then over the top again, and then back over.

00:11:22 ◼   ► 'Cause you know, use all the toothpaste at once.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - Photogenic, yeah.

00:11:25 ◼   ► - You would think the charcoal people would tell you

00:11:27 ◼   ► to use a lot of charcoal, but they just tell you

00:11:30 ◼   ► like enough to cover the grill,

00:11:32 ◼   ► and then put it in a pile and light it.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I found that you want more than that.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Not a lot more, but like one and a half times

00:11:40 ◼   ► what I was using, and it gets the grill hotter,

00:11:44 ◼   ► it keeps it hotter, and the difference between

00:11:48 ◼   ► grilling a steak at like 400 degrees versus 500 plus degrees

00:11:53 ◼   ► makes all the difference in the world.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Less time, better char, it all works out.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Anyway, that was my cooking adventure,

00:12:03 ◼   ► just getting better at grilling the one thing

00:12:05 ◼   ► I was okay at grilling before.

00:12:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, look, there's a pleasure,

00:12:10 ◼   ► there's a genuine pleasure in getting better at cooking

00:12:13 ◼   ► that I love, and my adventure has gone beyond pizzas

00:12:17 ◼   ► and bread and into a wide variety of dishes,

00:12:20 ◼   ► sort of worldwide dishes, dishes from outside of the US

00:12:25 ◼   ► that I'd always wanted to learn to cook

00:12:27 ◼   ► because I loved eating them, but I felt intimidated

00:12:30 ◼   ► by either the spice or my technique or whatever.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And so I started delving deeper into Indian cooking,

00:12:37 ◼   ► into a variety of Asian cuisines, whether it be Thai

00:12:41 ◼   ► or like just one Chinese or other types of cooking

00:12:46 ◼   ► that for many people around the world, obviously,

00:12:51 ◼   ► is just home cooking, but for me and for many people

00:12:55 ◼   ► in the US requires specialty spices

00:12:57 ◼   ► that you may not have in your cabinet.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And so you feel like every dish, for a while,

00:13:01 ◼   ► you feel like every dish is such a cliff,

00:13:05 ◼   ► it's such a hill to climb because you're like,

00:13:07 ◼   ► I don't have this, I don't have that,

00:13:08 ◼   ► I don't have this, I don't have that.

00:13:09 ◼   ► You're going to the store endlessly

00:13:11 ◼   ► for the first couple months, right?

00:13:13 ◼   ► But then after a while, like right now,

00:13:15 ◼   ► I can walk into my kitchen and cook up a stir fry

00:13:18 ◼   ► with like a nice like tingly mouth numbing sauce

00:13:20 ◼   ► and all of the flavors that I love to eat out

00:13:23 ◼   ► at like a nice Chinese restaurant.

00:13:25 ◼   ► And I have all that stuff on hand.

00:13:26 ◼   ► So like once you stock, and obviously,

00:13:29 ◼   ► people like different kinds of cooking.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And so for different kinds of cooking,

00:13:32 ◼   ► you'll have different kinds of spices.

00:13:34 ◼   ► But the kinds of things that I'm interested in

00:13:35 ◼   ► and that I love to eat, I can actually now go

00:13:38 ◼   ► into the kitchen and not, I'm nobody's master chef,

00:13:41 ◼   ► obviously, and my dishes are whatever they are.

00:13:44 ◼   ► But I can confidently go, hey, I know what mix of spices

00:13:47 ◼   ► belongs in this kind of dish.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And I know that I have them on hand.

00:13:51 ◼   ► And I know that the rough techniques,

00:13:53 ◼   ► like the chopping and filleting and other basic techniques

00:13:58 ◼   ► that they drill into chefs at French culinary schools

00:14:02 ◼   ► and kitchens and all that stuff.

00:14:03 ◼   ► I'm nowhere near any of that, obviously.

00:14:05 ◼   ► But you just sort of have to do the time.

00:14:07 ◼   ► You have to chop 100 onions or 1000 onions

00:14:12 ◼   ► before chopping onions feels like, oh, I got this.

00:14:15 ◼   ► I can dice it, I can chop it, I can rough chop it,

00:14:18 ◼   ► I can slice it.

00:14:20 ◼   ► What do you need out of this onion?

00:14:21 ◼   ► I can do this for you.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And that part of it is extremely calming for me.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Like I find it relaxing and calming.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And there's a joy in that at the end of it,

00:14:30 ◼   ► I get to serve it to people.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And like that to me is like the big awesome part.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Like you go out to your grill, you sear up that steak

00:14:37 ◼   ► and you come back in and Jonas and Amy

00:14:39 ◼   ► have a delicious steak.

00:14:40 ◼   ► And like you're the hero, man.

00:14:41 ◼   ► You got that steak done.

00:14:42 ◼   ► You found joy in perfecting your technique

00:14:46 ◼   ► and they get nourishment and enjoyment out of it.

00:14:48 ◼   ► That's why I think cooking is such a like a powerful,

00:14:51 ◼   ► more than a hobby, but a powerful sort of therapeutic thing

00:14:56 ◼   ► to do at home.

00:14:57 ◼   ► I like it a lot.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - The other thing we did,

00:14:59 ◼   ► and I have to give credit to Amy for the idea,

00:15:01 ◼   ► but it worked out great.

00:15:02 ◼   ► It was we learned to cook prime rib at home, which we--

00:15:05 ◼   ► - Oh, nice, that's hard.

00:15:06 ◼   ► Now I know you and I both enjoyed the prime rib

00:15:10 ◼   ► or the house of prime rib in San Francisco.

00:15:13 ◼   ► And Amy loves prime rib.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And it's our favorite form of like a steak type product.

00:15:19 ◼   ► And we had just always,

00:15:21 ◼   ► we have a good prime rib place here in Philly

00:15:24 ◼   ► and we're regulars there.

00:15:25 ◼   ► And we'd always just thought,

00:15:27 ◼   ► and she's the chef of the family,

00:15:30 ◼   ► but she'd always just heard that you need like

00:15:32 ◼   ► a special oven to do it right, blah, blah, blah.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Her grandmother on her dad's side

00:15:38 ◼   ► was in a restaurant family growing up.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And they had special prime rib ovens at the restaurant.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And she just thought, well, there's no point,

00:15:47 ◼   ► you know, if you have good taste in prime rib, you're not,

00:15:49 ◼   ► but we're like, let's try it.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - If you can't do it the right way.

00:15:52 ◼   ► - A, you know, we got the expensive stuff

00:15:54 ◼   ► from Snake River Farms,

00:15:56 ◼   ► which is very expensive for like meat shipped to your house

00:16:00 ◼   ► in a pandemic, but like not really expensive

00:16:03 ◼   ► compared to like going to a prime rib place,

00:16:06 ◼   ► you know, like the house of prime rib.

00:16:09 ◼   ► No, it came out great every time.

00:16:10 ◼   ► And the secret, it's the same thing with grilling steaks.

00:16:12 ◼   ► The whole secret is you need a thermometer in the meat.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And you cannot eyeball it.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Do not try to eyeball it.

00:16:19 ◼   ► It's impossible, you have no idea.

00:16:20 ◼   ► You just put the thermometer in, get an exact reading,

00:16:23 ◼   ► cook it to the temperature you want, season it the hell up

00:16:26 ◼   ► with salt and pepper before you put it in,

00:16:28 ◼   ► start with a good piece of meat and it's delicious.

00:16:30 ◼   ► And the best thing about,

00:16:31 ◼   ► we would do the prime rib on like holidays in the pandemic.

00:16:36 ◼   ► So like Mother's Day or Easter or something like that.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Leftovers forever and just delicious.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Just like in feeling like, well,

00:16:45 ◼   ► I don't know if this is good to eat prime rib

00:16:47 ◼   ► five nights in a row, but it's really good leftover.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - Right.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

00:16:53 ◼   ► I haven't actually tried prime rib.

00:16:55 ◼   ► - It's much easier than I was led to believe.

00:16:57 ◼   ► And to me that the whole secret is,

00:16:59 ◼   ► yeah, you just need a thermometer.

00:17:01 ◼   ► And we've got some kind of oven that has like a thing

00:17:04 ◼   ► that you can plug, it's like connected to the oven.

00:17:07 ◼   ► So it looks like a speaker cable.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Like you plug it into the oven inside

00:17:12 ◼   ► with something that looks like a headphone jack.

00:17:15 ◼   ► And then the other end is just a typical meat thermometer

00:17:19 ◼   ► thing, you stick it in the prime rib and you set it

00:17:22 ◼   ► at whatever temperature they tell you to,

00:17:23 ◼   ► which is pretty low, low and slow, but not crazy slow.

00:17:27 ◼   ► It's not like you have to cook it all day.

00:17:28 ◼   ► But it was a fun sort of holiday thing.

00:17:31 ◼   ► Like early afternoon I'd help her out.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I'd be like her little sous chef,

00:17:36 ◼   ► helping her out lifting stuff.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.

00:17:40 ◼   ► And then like two hours later, delicious prime rib.

00:17:43 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:17:44 ◼   ► - Anyway, that leads me directly,

00:17:45 ◼   ► what a great segue to my first sponsor.

00:17:48 ◼   ► HelloFresh.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Hey, we got you hungry for cooking at home.

00:17:51 ◼   ► HelloFresh.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I swear to God, I didn't really set this up.

00:17:55 ◼   ► I actually, because it wasn't gonna be the first sponsor,

00:17:58 ◼   ► but I just ran through the sponsors.

00:17:59 ◼   ► I was like, you know what, this is a good segue.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Anyway, HelloFresh gets you fresh pre-measured ingredients

00:18:04 ◼   ► and mouth-watering seasonal recipes

00:18:06 ◼   ► delivered right to your door.

00:18:08 ◼   ► You can skip trips to the grocery store

00:18:10 ◼   ► and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy,

00:18:12 ◼   ► fun and affordable.

00:18:14 ◼   ► That's why it's America's number one meal kit.

00:18:16 ◼   ► HelloFresh cuts out stressful meal planning

00:18:22 ◼   ► and grocery store trips so you can enjoy cooking.

00:18:25 ◼   ► The meal planning part is so great

00:18:26 ◼   ► 'cause they just, every week,

00:18:28 ◼   ► they have meals to choose from.

00:18:29 ◼   ► You can go through, you look at the ones

00:18:32 ◼   ► that appeal to you, that you think or you know

00:18:34 ◼   ► would appeal to your family.

00:18:36 ◼   ► You order those and then they show up in a nice box

00:18:40 ◼   ► with some dry ice to keep everything fresh.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Everything you need in the right portions

00:18:45 ◼   ► so you don't have extra stuff.

00:18:47 ◼   ► And a lot of them, they have some

00:18:49 ◼   ► that are just 15 to 20-minute dinners

00:18:51 ◼   ► that really are 15 to 20-minute dinners.

00:18:54 ◼   ► It's not like, oh, you can make this in 15 minutes

00:18:56 ◼   ► and 45 minutes later you still haven't started cooking it.

00:18:59 ◼   ► No, it's really, when they say 15 to 20,

00:19:01 ◼   ► it's 15 to 20 minutes.

00:19:03 ◼   ► They've even got stuff like breakfast on the go now.

00:19:06 ◼   ► A lot more options than they did when they first started.

00:19:09 ◼   ► They have over 50 menu and market items each week,

00:19:12 ◼   ► including ready-to-eat salad, sandwiches and soups too.

00:19:15 ◼   ► So there's something for everyone

00:19:17 ◼   ► with recipes designed and tested by professional chefs,

00:19:20 ◼   ► nutritional experts to ensure deliciousness

00:19:23 ◼   ► and simplicity.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Great instructions.

00:19:27 ◼   ► The recipes really do tell you everything to do.

00:19:30 ◼   ► The produce is exquisite.

00:19:31 ◼   ► It's exactly like the sort of produce,

00:19:33 ◼   ► like if you went to the grocery store yourself

00:19:35 ◼   ► and you were picking out the nicest-looking tomato

00:19:38 ◼   ► or the nicest-looking green pepper.

00:19:40 ◼   ► It's what shows up every time in the box.

00:19:43 ◼   ► It's delivered from the farm to your front door

00:19:45 ◼   ► in under a week and it's contact-free.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So if you're still concerned about COVID and stuff like that

00:19:51 ◼   ► you don't have to worry, it all comes sealed up.

00:19:54 ◼   ► It's really great.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And they're saying, HelloFresh is saying

00:19:58 ◼   ► that it can be up to 28% cheaper

00:20:00 ◼   ► than shopping at your local grocery store.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And it's 72% cheaper than a restaurant meal

00:20:04 ◼   ► without sacrificing the quality.

00:20:06 ◼   ► And their source for that is the Zagat Dining Survey.

00:20:09 ◼   ► So where do you go?

00:20:14 ◼   ► Go to hellofresh.com/talkshow14.

00:20:19 ◼   ► That's hellofresh.com/talkshow14.

00:20:24 ◼   ► And the promo code talkshow14,

00:20:30 ◼   ► what's the deal with the 14?

00:20:32 ◼   ► Gets you up to 14 free meals plus free shipping.

00:20:36 ◼   ► That's amazing.

00:20:38 ◼   ► So use that code talkshow14 and that URL,

00:20:41 ◼   ► hellofresh.com/talkshow14,

00:20:44 ◼   ► get up to 14 free meals plus free shipping.

00:20:48 ◼   ► My thanks to them.

00:20:49 ◼   ► We use them here and they're great

00:20:51 ◼   ► and we always feel very happy with them.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Real topics.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Let's start nice and easy.

00:21:00 ◼   ► How about the Apple MagSafe battery pack finally shipped?

00:21:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, that shipped.

00:21:07 ◼   ► - I have been obsessed with iPhone battery packs

00:21:11 ◼   ► for I guess ever since they were invented.

00:21:14 ◼   ► I own, I think if I went through my office

00:21:17 ◼   ► and all the boxes in the basement

00:21:19 ◼   ► that I've packed up from previous things,

00:21:22 ◼   ► I'm afraid to guess how many battery packs

00:21:26 ◼   ► I've bought over the years.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Yet I don't really live a lifestyle

00:21:31 ◼   ► where I frequently need one.

00:21:33 ◼   ► It is a hoarder mentality.

00:21:35 ◼   ► - It's like safety blankets.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Well, and I guess also that I've never found one

00:21:40 ◼   ► I truly love.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Like I've never found a perfect one.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Years ago, Mophie had one that opened up

00:21:46 ◼   ► a little bit like a book.

00:21:48 ◼   ► It had like an aluminum case and inside was like,

00:21:52 ◼   ► inside that cover you'd flip out

00:21:55 ◼   ► was a built-in three or four inch lightning cable,

00:22:00 ◼   ► which was one of my, it was probably my favorite of all time

00:22:03 ◼   ► because then you didn't ever have to worry

00:22:06 ◼   ► about having the cable to charge your phone

00:22:09 ◼   ► from the battery pack.

00:22:11 ◼   ► If you had the battery pack with you

00:22:13 ◼   ► and the battery pack had some level of charge in it,

00:22:16 ◼   ► you'd have built-in cable and you could plug it in

00:22:20 ◼   ► and it was relatively small.

00:22:22 ◼   ► My taste in battery chargers is ones

00:22:24 ◼   ► that just give you enough,

00:22:26 ◼   ► the worst case scenario for me is even like WWDC

00:22:31 ◼   ► or something like that where I'm on my phone all day,

00:22:33 ◼   ► I need a little bit at the end of the day.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I don't need some kind of 10,000 milliamp hour

00:22:40 ◼   ► mega battery pack for taking camping or something like that.

00:22:44 ◼   ► But they're never satisfying.

00:22:48 ◼   ► So now Apple's got their MagSafe battery pack

00:22:51 ◼   ► that finally shipped.

00:22:53 ◼   ► It's weird timing, right?

00:22:57 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like--

00:22:59 ◼   ► - You mean in the middle of the cycle?

00:23:00 ◼   ► - Well, or like the end of the cycle.

00:23:01 ◼   ► - Like after the iPhone 12 or end of the iPhone cycle?

00:23:04 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:05 ◼   ► I mean, you have to maybe, look, if they're introducing L,

00:23:08 ◼   ► that means they're making no significant changes

00:23:10 ◼   ► to MagSafe, obviously for the next model of iPhone.

00:23:14 ◼   ► So you can infer that, that seems pretty straightforward.

00:23:17 ◼   ► So my guess is because of the modularity of MagSafe

00:23:20 ◼   ► and probably whatever supply chain,

00:23:23 ◼   ► look, you gotta assume that for an accessory,

00:23:26 ◼   ► for a new iPhone, they wanted to ship it day in and day.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And so if they didn't, they ran into some sort of problem.

00:23:31 ◼   ► If this was not an intentional,

00:23:33 ◼   ► let's wait nine months and ship this.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - I think though that they've always had

00:23:38 ◼   ► a weird relationship with the battery packs,

00:23:40 ◼   ► because, or the battery cases, right?

00:23:43 ◼   ► The Apple branded ones.

00:23:44 ◼   ► Because they never ship them day and date.

00:23:47 ◼   ► There's never been one that shipped as a day one peripheral.

00:23:50 ◼   ► Like the earliest they've ever shipped

00:23:52 ◼   ► is like two months after the iPhone.

00:23:55 ◼   ► And they never make a big deal out of it.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And I think it's just the obvious optics of,

00:24:02 ◼   ► oh, if Apple is selling you a battery case,

00:24:04 ◼   ► that means even Apple thinks the iPhone

00:24:06 ◼   ► doesn't have a big enough battery.

00:24:09 ◼   ► Right? And they want to sort of avoid that.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - Oh, I see.

00:24:13 ◼   ► So they're just putting some air in there.

00:24:15 ◼   ► So that they don't have to go like,

00:24:17 ◼   ► hey, here's your new iPhone.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Oh, and here's the thing that makes it usable.

00:24:20 ◼   ► You have to buy this too.

00:24:21 ◼   ► - Right.

00:24:22 ◼   ► 'Cause don't you think that--

00:24:23 ◼   ► - Although they already do that with chargers,

00:24:24 ◼   ► but let's not talk about that.

00:24:26 ◼   ► But yeah, yeah.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I think you're absolutely reasonable assumption there.

00:24:31 ◼   ► I would buy into that.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - It was exactly the case with the infamous iPhone

00:24:36 ◼   ► 4 bumper cases, right?

00:24:39 ◼   ► Where the iPhone 4 comes out and six weeks after it ships,

00:24:44 ◼   ► there's this scandal that if you hold the phone wrong,

00:24:48 ◼   ► it doesn't make phone calls or loses its attenuation.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And they had to hold an emergency press conference.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And Steve Jobs had to fly back from vacation

00:24:58 ◼   ► in Hawaii to do it.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And it's still, it's the most unusual Apple event ever.

00:25:04 ◼   ► I mean, at least in modern Apple history.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And they were like, you know what?

00:25:10 ◼   ► We'll just give everybody one of these bumper cases

00:25:13 ◼   ► we're making 'cause the bumper case solved

00:25:15 ◼   ► the attenuation issue 'cause it would keep your skin,

00:25:17 ◼   ► no matter what you did then,

00:25:18 ◼   ► you wouldn't connect the two parts of the antenna

00:25:20 ◼   ► that would cause the problem.

00:25:22 ◼   ► But then the result was Apple says you need a case

00:25:25 ◼   ► to use the iPhone 4,

00:25:27 ◼   ► which wasn't what they were saying at all.

00:25:29 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, yeah.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Yeah, interesting.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I mean, there's definitely the allegory there for sure.

00:25:38 ◼   ► This one is pretty late though.

00:25:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is, right.

00:25:42 ◼   ► - Like, I think you're absolutely right

00:25:45 ◼   ► if you're referring to it in the frame of reference

00:25:46 ◼   ► of say three months out, right?

00:25:48 ◼   ► Or two or three months out.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Something happened here

00:25:51 ◼   ► and maybe it's just supply chain, COVID,

00:25:53 ◼   ► you know, all that stuff, I don't know.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I do feel that this is probably the best that they've done.

00:26:01 ◼   ► You know, the best job that they've done with this,

00:26:05 ◼   ► with a battery pack for a while.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I mean, I was never the kind of person

00:26:09 ◼   ► who crapped on the original design

00:26:12 ◼   ► that they came out with for their battery pack.

00:26:15 ◼   ► - The humpback design.

00:26:16 ◼   ► - The humpback, yeah.

00:26:17 ◼   ► I actually thought, I was like, look,

00:26:19 ◼   ► it's, in many ways, it's refreshingly honest.

00:26:23 ◼   ► It's like, look, we're putting a battery on here.

00:26:25 ◼   ► We're not gonna put empty air in here

00:26:28 ◼   ► just so you don't know it's a battery or whatever.

00:26:31 ◼   ► You know, and like, I, as someone who did from day one,

00:26:36 ◼   ► immediately need this, right?

00:26:38 ◼   ► 'Cause I travel a ton for work, right?

00:26:40 ◼   ► I mean, or did at one point.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And travel a lot for work around the world

00:26:45 ◼   ► where I did not know where my next outlet would be.

00:26:48 ◼   ► You know, oh, here's an outlet in the airport.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Just kidding, it doesn't work, right?

00:26:51 ◼   ► Here's an outlet on the airplane, psych, right?

00:26:53 ◼   ► So I definitely would never travel without battery backups.

00:26:57 ◼   ► And even though I would always keep a battery backup

00:27:00 ◼   ► of some sort that could say,

00:27:02 ◼   ► at least partially charge a laptop

00:27:04 ◼   ► or charge my phone several times over,

00:27:06 ◼   ► for ease of use running through an airport

00:27:09 ◼   ► or walking around a city or whatever,

00:27:10 ◼   ► I didn't want the dongle.

00:27:12 ◼   ► So I loved the Mophie clip-on cases

00:27:14 ◼   ► that were just essentially an iPhone case,

00:27:16 ◼   ► clamshell style.

00:27:18 ◼   ► And then you would clip them on

00:27:20 ◼   ► and they would charge your phone

00:27:21 ◼   ► and they had a little indicator in the back

00:27:23 ◼   ► that showed you how much juice was left in your Mophie

00:27:25 ◼   ► and all of that.

00:27:26 ◼   ► But those Mophies were like 60% air or 45% air

00:27:31 ◼   ► or something like that,

00:27:32 ◼   ► because they just conformed to this idea that,

00:27:34 ◼   ► hey, you want this smooth shell back and all of that stuff.

00:27:38 ◼   ► So when the humpback thing came out,

00:27:40 ◼   ► I was like, hey, look, they deleted the air,

00:27:41 ◼   ► which I thought was very Apple and kind of funny.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And I didn't mind it.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people hate it, right?

00:27:46 ◼   ► Which is fine.

00:27:47 ◼   ► You know, it's a taste thing at that point.

00:27:49 ◼   ► It's not really a functionality thing.

00:27:51 ◼   ► But I think this design, this modular design,

00:27:54 ◼   ► I have actually, so I obviously don't have the battery pack.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Apple didn't send me like any advanced units or anything,

00:28:00 ◼   ► but I do have the Anker version of this.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And Anker has had one for a few months now.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And it's this sort of modular,

00:28:09 ◼   ► I don't believe that they're actually MagSafe certified,

00:28:12 ◼   ► but it is a MagSafe, you know,

00:28:14 ◼   ► magnet array in the back of it

00:28:16 ◼   ► that clips it to the back of your iPhone

00:28:19 ◼   ► or to the back of a case attached to the iPhone,

00:28:21 ◼   ► which I find as the best option.

00:28:23 ◼   ► And I love it.

00:28:25 ◼   ► It's exactly as you said,

00:28:27 ◼   ► this kind of thing where it gives you just enough

00:28:30 ◼   ► to get to where you need to go.

00:28:32 ◼   ► So it is not like,

00:28:34 ◼   ► hey, I'm gonna charge my iPhone three times over

00:28:35 ◼   ► with this thing, right?

00:28:36 ◼   ► It barely charges an iPhone 12 once, barely, you know?

00:28:41 ◼   ► And especially if you're using it

00:28:42 ◼   ► or if it's hot or whatever,

00:28:44 ◼   ► it's gonna struggle to keep up,

00:28:46 ◼   ► but it's just enough to sort of get you over the hump,

00:28:50 ◼   ► you know, that next half mile to where you need to go.

00:28:53 ◼   ► And I think it's absolutely fantastic to have it

00:28:55 ◼   ► in this modular design

00:28:58 ◼   ► where you can easily pop it off and back on,

00:29:00 ◼   ► depending on your use case,

00:29:01 ◼   ► if you need to furiously text something out, you know,

00:29:04 ◼   ► or put a big chunk of text in

00:29:06 ◼   ► and you don't want the lump on the back,

00:29:07 ◼   ► you can just take it off, right?

00:29:09 ◼   ► And then type it out and then pop it back on, you know?

00:29:12 ◼   ► And I think that's really, really great.

00:29:14 ◼   ► And you have the option to use it on a cord,

00:29:16 ◼   ► which charges it very quickly, you know,

00:29:18 ◼   ► because it's over USB-C.

00:29:19 ◼   ► So I actually like,

00:29:20 ◼   ► I think it's a pretty nice little arrangement.

00:29:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just bought the Anker and I have,

00:29:24 ◼   ► so I'm in the same situation as you.

00:29:26 ◼   ► I have the Anker.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I have ordered apples,

00:29:28 ◼   ► but it's not coming until sometime later this week.

00:29:31 ◼   ► I think I got like a shipping notification yesterday,

00:29:34 ◼   ► but, or like overnight, you know, while I was sleeping.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I completely agree.

00:29:44 ◼   ► And the nice thing about it compared to the cases

00:29:47 ◼   ► is that the big problem with the cases is,

00:29:49 ◼   ► okay, I think they were like 100 bucks too,

00:29:52 ◼   ► maybe even more.

00:29:53 ◼   ► I know Apple's battery pack is not as 100 bucks.

00:29:57 ◼   ► And the big problem with the cases is

00:29:59 ◼   ► if you get a new iPhone, then it doesn't fit anymore.

00:30:02 ◼   ► And you've got this case,

00:30:04 ◼   ► you've got this $100 battery pack case that doesn't fit.

00:30:07 ◼   ► And whereas this, you know,

00:30:11 ◼   ► I think it's pretty safe to assume

00:30:13 ◼   ► that Apple isn't going to change MagSafe

00:30:15 ◼   ► for a couple of years.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And even if they do,

00:30:18 ◼   ► maybe it would only be to make it a little bit faster

00:30:22 ◼   ► if they can, and it would be backwards compatible,

00:30:25 ◼   ► one would hope, you know,

00:30:26 ◼   ► with the charger stands and stuff like that.

00:30:28 ◼   ► - And even if they do, even if they delete the magnets

00:30:31 ◼   ► or really change them dramatically,

00:30:33 ◼   ► you have the option to still use this as a plug-in battery.

00:30:36 ◼   ► - Right. - You don't in other ones.

00:30:39 ◼   ► - Right, well, and I don't think Apple's

00:30:40 ◼   ► works that way either.

00:30:41 ◼   ► So I kind of feel like the Anker one that's 50 bucks

00:30:45 ◼   ► is thicker.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I don't have them side by side,

00:30:50 ◼   ► and Apple conspicuously doesn't have

00:30:53 ◼   ► like tech spec dimensions of theirs,

00:30:55 ◼   ► but you can tell from the picture how big it is.

00:30:58 ◼   ► - Right.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - It's sort of defined by the shape of the iPhone 12 mini,

00:31:03 ◼   ► just like the wallet attachment.

00:31:08 ◼   ► - Can't be bigger than the mini.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, like the little credit card wallet

00:31:12 ◼   ► that they shipped last year.

00:31:14 ◼   ► - Right, it kind of floats on an iPhone 12 or 12 Max.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Right, but it's exactly the dimensions of a 12 mini.

00:31:21 ◼   ► It is perfectly tailored to both the width

00:31:26 ◼   ► and like the corner, even the corner radius.

00:31:29 ◼   ► That's the thing that makes me feel like for 50 bucks,

00:31:34 ◼   ► this Anker is probably the way to go,

00:31:36 ◼   ► because like you said, then all you need is a USB-C

00:31:39 ◼   ► to lightning cable, and you can charge your iPhone from it

00:31:44 ◼   ► at double the speed, 10 watts, just like you would

00:31:48 ◼   ► a non-magnetic battery pack.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And I think you're exactly right,

00:31:52 ◼   ► that the Anker One is MagSafe compatible,

00:31:56 ◼   ► but not MagSafe certified.

00:31:59 ◼   ► And so therefore it works great with all the MagSafe iPhones

00:32:04 ◼   ► and connects very securely to MagSafe iPhone cases.

00:32:09 ◼   ► Like if your phone is in a regular case,

00:32:11 ◼   ► and then you want to plug this Anker thing in,

00:32:13 ◼   ► it actually seems to stick better in my experience

00:32:16 ◼   ► when I put one of these cases on.

00:32:18 ◼   ► It's like there's more--

00:32:19 ◼   ► - Definitely sticks better on the case.

00:32:20 ◼   ► I think the case magnet is closer to the surface of the case

00:32:24 ◼   ► than the magnet in the back of the iPhone

00:32:26 ◼   ► because of the glass back.

00:32:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think--

00:32:27 ◼   ► - And so you end up with like more adherence

00:32:29 ◼   ► and better registration.

00:32:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that, you know,

00:32:33 ◼   ► and I'm not normally a case person,

00:32:34 ◼   ► but that's another thing that every year

00:32:36 ◼   ► I end up spending $200 on various iPhone cases

00:32:40 ◼   ► to try them out, even though I know,

00:32:43 ◼   ► I don't really have an active YouTube channel.

00:32:45 ◼   ► I don't review iPhone cases,

00:32:47 ◼   ► but I buy them thinking, well,

00:32:49 ◼   ► I should buy like two or three of these

00:32:50 ◼   ► and find one I really like,

00:32:51 ◼   ► and then tell everybody which iPhone case I like the best,

00:32:55 ◼   ► and then I never get around to it.

00:32:56 ◼   ► And all of a sudden it's September

00:32:57 ◼   ► and there's new iPhones that are out

00:32:58 ◼   ► and none of my cases fit anymore.

00:33:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I buy like two a year,

00:33:06 ◼   ► approximately one to two a year cases.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And I usually buy them just because I like the grip

00:33:12 ◼   ► a little bit better, right?

00:33:13 ◼   ► Just a little bit of grip.

00:33:14 ◼   ► I don't buy anything extravagant,

00:33:16 ◼   ► just the regular iPhone, you know,

00:33:17 ◼   ► the Apple rubber cases typically.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And I buy them seasonally for the color, right?

00:33:24 ◼   ► Like I'll buy a bright one for spring and summer

00:33:26 ◼   ► and I'll buy kind of like a, you know,

00:33:28 ◼   ► more folly one or whatever.

00:33:29 ◼   ► - And I like them too when I'm going on a vacation

00:33:33 ◼   ► for two reasons.

00:33:34 ◼   ► I like to use a case,

00:33:35 ◼   ► even though I'm not normally a case person.

00:33:37 ◼   ► One is the grip and on vacation I'm taking more photos.

00:33:41 ◼   ► And there's a reason why, you know, cameras often,

00:33:44 ◼   ► you know, like professional cameras often have like,

00:33:47 ◼   ► if not leathers, like some kind of rubber type thing

00:33:50 ◼   ► on the part you're supposed to grip.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Like you don't want your camera

00:33:52 ◼   ► to slip out of your hand, right?

00:33:55 ◼   ► So making it more grippy as a camera is useful.

00:33:58 ◼   ► And then number two, I've picked up more scratches

00:34:02 ◼   ► on my phones without a case,

00:34:03 ◼   ► like when I'm away from home than when I'm home,

00:34:07 ◼   ► even though 95% of the time in a normal non-pandemic year,

00:34:12 ◼   ► I'm at home and I think it's just like the,

00:34:15 ◼   ► I'm out of my usual patterns

00:34:17 ◼   ► and I'm putting my phone down on surfaces

00:34:19 ◼   ► I don't usually put it down on.

00:34:21 ◼   ► And you know what I mean?

00:34:23 ◼   ► Like when I'm home, I do the exact same thing every day.

00:34:25 ◼   ► And so I never put my phone face down

00:34:27 ◼   ► on anything that might scratch the glass.

00:34:29 ◼   ► And then I'm away from home, I'm out of my element

00:34:31 ◼   ► and next thing you know,

00:34:32 ◼   ► how'd I get this big scratch on my glass?

00:34:35 ◼   ► What'd I do?

00:34:36 ◼   ► And you know what, I typically will,

00:34:39 ◼   ► so I run without a case and have for years and years

00:34:42 ◼   ► and years, almost 90% of the time I've run without a case.

00:34:45 ◼   ► But I will say my behavior has changed a little bit

00:34:48 ◼   ► over the years because I do value that being able

00:34:52 ◼   ► to set it down on any surface thing,

00:34:54 ◼   ► because without a case, I'm always subconsciously going,

00:34:58 ◼   ► well, this is gonna scratch my phone.

00:35:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, right. - When I set it down

00:35:01 ◼   ► on something, is this gonna scratch?

00:35:02 ◼   ► There's that little mental check that you do,

00:35:05 ◼   ► just like a little loop process

00:35:07 ◼   ► that your brain runs through, I'm setting this down.

00:35:09 ◼   ► Is it a surface that's gonna scratch my phone or not

00:35:12 ◼   ► or damage it?

00:35:13 ◼   ► And if so, then don't do that, right?

00:35:16 ◼   ► Put it in your pocket instead or whatever.

00:35:17 ◼   ► And so it is nice to be able to just toss it around.

00:35:20 ◼   ► It is good for kids in Disneyland and various other things,

00:35:23 ◼   ► just other people touch my phone more, you know?

00:35:25 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:35:26 ◼   ► - And then I have to say the addition of MagSafe,

00:35:31 ◼   ► because the tackiness of the rubber back

00:35:34 ◼   ► and the magnet strength of the cases

00:35:37 ◼   ► actually makes MagSafe accessories work better.

00:35:40 ◼   ► I have actually been wearing it more for that reason too.

00:35:43 ◼   ► So it's not just, hey, protect the phone.

00:35:46 ◼   ► It's also that actually makes MagSafe accessories

00:35:49 ◼   ► work a bit better, in my opinion.

00:35:51 ◼   ► I just bought this little,

00:35:53 ◼   ► I had been wanting one for a while that worked for travel

00:35:58 ◼   ► and for casual use, and I hadn't found one,

00:36:00 ◼   ► which is an iPhone stand.

00:36:03 ◼   ► And I had, which I think you have as well,

00:36:05 ◼   ► a little plastic credit card style.

00:36:07 ◼   ► And it's sort of cut out and you twist it

00:36:11 ◼   ► into a stand shape, but it's sort of cut and packed flat,

00:36:14 ◼   ► almost like those little metal models

00:36:18 ◼   ► that you get and pop out and--

00:36:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:36:21 ◼   ► - Almost like that.

00:36:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:23 ◼   ► - But I don't like it for writing reasons,

00:36:26 ◼   ► most of which is that it's fragile.

00:36:27 ◼   ► It's already cracked in a couple of places

00:36:29 ◼   ► and still kind of barely works.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So I put out on Twitter, I asked people,

00:36:34 ◼   ► hey, does anybody know a credit card sized iPhone stand

00:36:39 ◼   ► that's MagSafe compatible, right?

00:36:41 ◼   ► That I could just put on the back of my phone,

00:36:43 ◼   ► or if I'm not, I don't need it on the back

00:36:45 ◼   ► of my phone permanently, I can just tuck it away

00:36:47 ◼   ► in a pocket in my bag and not even know it's there

00:36:49 ◼   ► until I sit on a plane or go somewhere

00:36:51 ◼   ► and I wanna prop it up and watch a movie

00:36:52 ◼   ► or prop it up and have the screen visible to me or whatever,

00:36:56 ◼   ► or you can take a picture, right?

00:36:58 ◼   ► And somebody recommended the MOFT cases or MOFT stands

00:37:02 ◼   ► to me, M-O-F-T.

00:37:03 ◼   ► And I think Craig Hockenberry recommended it,

00:37:06 ◼   ► a couple other people recommended it on Twitter.

00:37:07 ◼   ► And so I bought one and it's actually quite nice.

00:37:10 ◼   ► It's a foldable, like origami style case

00:37:14 ◼   ► that is as flat as maybe two to three credit cards stacked

00:37:18 ◼   ► when it's folded.

00:37:19 ◼   ► And then when you pop it out, it does a little origami

00:37:22 ◼   ► and it can stand either vertically or horizontally

00:37:25 ◼   ► at one single angle, you know, nothing special,

00:37:27 ◼   ► nothing, no adjustability or anything like that,

00:37:30 ◼   ► but it does stand the phone up,

00:37:32 ◼   ► which is all I really wanted.

00:37:33 ◼   ► And I've been pretty happy with that.

00:37:35 ◼   ► But I think this speaks to the modularity of MagSafe

00:37:38 ◼   ► and what Apple's hoping to see long-term from the ecosystem.

00:37:43 ◼   ► And I think that people are taking advantage of it

00:37:45 ◼   ► and creating some pretty neat stuff so far.

00:37:47 ◼   ► So I'm anxious to see how this develops over time

00:37:50 ◼   ► as people go like, "Hey, there's real utility here."

00:37:52 ◼   ► And I think the battery case is part of that,

00:37:54 ◼   ► you know, that story, people have been waiting for it.

00:37:57 ◼   ► - I got one of those, yeah,

00:37:58 ◼   ► I had one of those credit card cases.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I don't know how you even know that though,

00:38:01 ◼   ► 'cause I know I got it while you and I have been apart

00:38:03 ◼   ► for the pandemic, but I do have one.

00:38:05 ◼   ► It was one of those stupid damn things.

00:38:07 ◼   ► - I know everything, Jon.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - I bought on Instagram and mine cracked too.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And I never really used it and I was never rough with it.

00:38:14 ◼   ► I didn't like put it in my butt pocket

00:38:16 ◼   ► and sit all the time on it and that's how it cracked.

00:38:19 ◼   ► It just sort of cracked while I was playing with it.

00:38:21 ◼   ► And I think the fundamental problem with that,

00:38:23 ◼   ► I don't know the name brand,

00:38:24 ◼   ► I don't wanna throw anybody under the bus,

00:38:26 ◼   ► so I'm glad I don't remember it,

00:38:27 ◼   ► but the problem I figured out with it

00:38:30 ◼   ► is they tried to make it way too adjustable.

00:38:32 ◼   ► Like it's like once you have it in position

00:38:35 ◼   ► and it's folded and you put the iPhone in,

00:38:37 ◼   ► then it's like you can rotate this part of it.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And it's like, no, that's the part that broke

00:38:44 ◼   ► is playing with that, it's too much.

00:38:46 ◼   ► It's like, just give me something I can fold to prop it up

00:38:49 ◼   ► and then I'll figure out how to get the angle right.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Like if I have to prop up the whole thing somehow, you know?

00:38:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, it should be one click, right?

00:38:59 ◼   ► That kind of thing should be you take it out of your wallet

00:39:02 ◼   ► or wherever and you twist it once

00:39:04 ◼   ► and then it stands the phone up.

00:39:06 ◼   ► It should not, they did try to do too much.

00:39:09 ◼   ► They've got these little cutouts

00:39:10 ◼   ► that allow you to adjust the angle to a,

00:39:13 ◼   ► they even have degree measurements on it.

00:39:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the same one, I got the same one.

00:39:15 ◼   ► - It's just like a stand or a sextant, you know?

00:39:17 ◼   ► Like what is this?

00:39:18 ◼   ► - That's the word I was looking for, sextant.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I couldn't, I couldn't, which sounds dirty, but it's not.

00:39:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't need to measure the angles of the sun

00:39:28 ◼   ► and your astrological sign with it.

00:39:30 ◼   ► You just need to stand your iPhone up.

00:39:32 ◼   ► - Right.

00:39:33 ◼   ► - This MOF one works for that, for me.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - If you're shooting a serious video with your iPhone

00:39:38 ◼   ► such that you really need to know

00:39:39 ◼   ► that it's exactly 30 degrees,

00:39:41 ◼   ► you're not using a credit card stand, you know what I mean?

00:39:44 ◼   ► Like if you're using something that folds up

00:39:46 ◼   ► to a credit card, you're not,

00:39:48 ◼   ► you don't really care if it's 25 or 30 degrees.

00:39:51 ◼   ► You're just framing it by eye.

00:39:53 ◼   ► - It's over-engineered and under-delivers, right?

00:39:56 ◼   ► Which is pretty standard

00:39:57 ◼   ► for third-party accessories sometimes.

00:39:59 ◼   ► - It did occur to me though,

00:40:00 ◼   ► 'cause I just got this Anker one a couple of days ago

00:40:03 ◼   ► in anticipation of maybe having it and the Apple one

00:40:07 ◼   ► by the time I did the next show, but I don't have 'em both.

00:40:09 ◼   ► But it occurred to me, and then I was doing some,

00:40:13 ◼   ► taking some notes before we recorded

00:40:15 ◼   ► with the specs of the batteries and the prices

00:40:20 ◼   ► of comparing the Anker and the Apple and blah, blah, blah.

00:40:22 ◼   ► And it just occurred to me of how many magnets now

00:40:25 ◼   ► or like when you're in the Apple gadget reviewing spectrum,

00:40:30 ◼   ► how many of the, everything has a magnet now, right?

00:40:33 ◼   ► 'Cause the MacBooks have snapped shut

00:40:36 ◼   ► with a magnet for years to close the lid.

00:40:40 ◼   ► The iPads have the craziest magnet system

00:40:44 ◼   ► all over the back of them now

00:40:46 ◼   ► for connecting to the keyboards and various things.

00:40:50 ◼   ► Now the-- - And the pencil.

00:40:50 ◼   ► - The pencil is magnetic now.

00:40:53 ◼   ► It's magnets all the way down.

00:40:56 ◼   ► And it's so crazy because for decades,

00:41:00 ◼   ► one of the cardinal rules of using a computer,

00:41:03 ◼   ► like one of 'em was like,

00:41:05 ◼   ► don't kick the power out of the wall.

00:41:07 ◼   ► Don't lose power while it's writing to disk.

00:41:10 ◼   ► And the other one is don't even get a magnet

00:41:13 ◼   ► in the same room as your computer.

00:41:15 ◼   ► - Yes. - Don't even--

00:41:16 ◼   ► - If you bring a magnet in this room, I will kill you.

00:41:18 ◼   ► I will slaughter you.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Do not bring a magnet in your mic.

00:41:21 ◼   ► I don't care if you work in a big open office space.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It's like no magnets in here because you could,

00:41:26 ◼   ► you know, this is, this, there.

00:41:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:41:29 ◼   ► - Our hard drives, think of the hard drives.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, don't, it was like a 50/50 call

00:41:34 ◼   ► whether you'd wanna get a magnet near it

00:41:36 ◼   ► or spill water on your keyboard.

00:41:38 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know, if I spill water on my keyboard,

00:41:41 ◼   ► I won't lose data.

00:41:42 ◼   ► I could just get a new keyboard, right?

00:41:43 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:41:44 ◼   ► - Whereas a magnet would wipe out your data.

00:41:47 ◼   ► And now we've got magnets all the way down.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And I'm sitting here playing around

00:41:51 ◼   ► with how strong the magnet is.

00:41:53 ◼   ► And you know, like I'm holding this iPhone 12

00:41:56 ◼   ► with the anchor case.

00:41:57 ◼   ► - Thank you, solid state memory.

00:41:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:00 ◼   ► - One other new gadget I wanted to get your thoughts on.

00:42:04 ◼   ► I just, ordinarily maybe not quite daring

00:42:07 ◼   ► Fireball material, but this new Steam Box

00:42:10 ◼   ► handheld gaming PC from what's Steam's parent company, Valve.

00:42:15 ◼   ► - Valve, yeah.

00:42:18 ◼   ► - So for anybody who hasn't seen it,

00:42:19 ◼   ► I think it was announced at the end of last week.

00:42:21 ◼   ► It is effectively a gaming PC

00:42:27 ◼   ► in the form of a Switch, a Nintendo Switch.

00:42:32 ◼   ► But without, with, but you know,

00:42:34 ◼   ► the big difference from the Switch form factor

00:42:37 ◼   ► is that the paddles don't disconnect from the sides.

00:42:40 ◼   ► They're permanent, the controllers.

00:42:42 ◼   ► But you know, I think it's a fair description

00:42:45 ◼   ► that in a form factor that Nintendo pioneered

00:42:48 ◼   ► with the Switch, sort of a horizontal,

00:42:51 ◼   ► you know, like a Knight Rider steering wheel

00:42:57 ◼   ► type form factor, that you can also connect via a dock

00:43:02 ◼   ► to a TV or a display and then play

00:43:07 ◼   ► like you would on a normal TV or display

00:43:11 ◼   ► or something like that, that you can both use

00:43:13 ◼   ► as a console style gaming and handheld style gaming.

00:43:18 ◼   ► But it plays regular PC games for Steam.

00:43:23 ◼   ► 400 bucks to start.

00:43:24 ◼   ► The $400 config seems really weak.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And I don't blame them 'cause I get the product marketing

00:43:30 ◼   ► that you kind of want to hit the 400.

00:43:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, you gotta get the price point.

00:43:32 ◼   ► - Right, and then I've seen so many articles say,

00:43:37 ◼   ► you know, Valve's new $400 handheld gaming.

00:43:40 ◼   ► And I'm like, huh, successful.

00:43:42 ◼   ► Even though nobody who knows what they're doing

00:43:44 ◼   ► would ever buy it.

00:43:45 ◼   ► I think you need to spend like 550.

00:43:47 ◼   ► I saw a lot of people buying the mid-level,

00:43:49 ◼   ► which I think is totally reasonable.

00:43:51 ◼   ► You know, and then of course you have the people

00:43:53 ◼   ► who just buy the Macs on everything

00:43:55 ◼   ► and that's why you offer the upgrades.

00:43:56 ◼   ► The same reason Apple offers the high level,

00:43:58 ◼   ► high tier iPhones, right?

00:44:00 ◼   ► They're like, people are just gonna buy

00:44:01 ◼   ► that biggest one, right?

00:44:02 ◼   ► They're gonna, these e-suckers like me and you come in

00:44:04 ◼   ► and they're like, just make a bigger one too, just in case.

00:44:08 ◼   ► And we're like, sure, oh, it's good.

00:44:12 ◼   ► Is there a bigger one?

00:44:13 ◼   ► Oh, okay, I'll take that one.

00:44:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's an interesting piece of hardware, right?

00:44:18 ◼   ► So Valve's experiments with this,

00:44:21 ◼   ► I mean, there's a lot of water under the bridge

00:44:23 ◼   ► with Valve and Steam and trying to get into

00:44:26 ◼   ► like the living room and the hand, you know?

00:44:29 ◼   ► It's a, the Steam, many people will remember the Steam Box,

00:44:34 ◼   ► which they launched in like 2013.

00:44:39 ◼   ► And at that time, Gabe Newell said that Linux

00:44:43 ◼   ► is the future of gaming, right?

00:44:45 ◼   ► And everybody was like, ha ha, ha ha ha, right?

00:44:48 ◼   ► And then the Steam Box didn't really go anywhere.

00:44:50 ◼   ► You know, it made some, it was interesting,

00:44:52 ◼   ► it was an interesting experiment.

00:44:55 ◼   ► But the Steam Deck runs on Linux, right?

00:44:59 ◼   ► So, and they definitely have something there

00:45:01 ◼   ► because they can package custom drivers

00:45:04 ◼   ► and custom operators and a custom layer, essentially,

00:45:08 ◼   ► to interpret PC games for the Steam Deck.

00:45:11 ◼   ► It just opens the door so much better than say,

00:45:14 ◼   ► going on Android with an emulation layer or going on,

00:45:18 ◼   ► you know, I mean, just,

00:45:19 ◼   ► it maximizes the performance of the device.

00:45:21 ◼   ► It gives them the ability to write their own software layer

00:45:25 ◼   ► for the hardware in-house.

00:45:27 ◼   ► And I think that it was the right choice, I think.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So in the end, they got their last laugh

00:45:32 ◼   ► 'cause I do feel that this is actually

00:45:33 ◼   ► a pretty compelling device.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Now, whether it is good and, you know, lasts

00:45:37 ◼   ► and whatever else, I don't know,

00:45:38 ◼   ► but it is a pretty compelling device on the face of it.

00:45:41 ◼   ► And I honestly, I think the biggest complaint anybody

00:45:44 ◼   ► has had with it so far is the controller placement,

00:45:47 ◼   ► which seems a little top heavy.

00:45:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:51 ◼   ► - You know, the actual D-pads, or not D-pads,

00:45:55 ◼   ► the thumb sticks are too high.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And the D-pad and buttons are actually quite high as well.

00:46:01 ◼   ► And they have put these two touch-sensitive controllers

00:46:04 ◼   ► down below those.

00:46:05 ◼   ► And Valve's been obsessed with touch sensitivity

00:46:07 ◼   ► for a long time, actually,

00:46:08 ◼   ► with a lot of their controllers and things.

00:46:11 ◼   ► So it remains to be seen how usable it is,

00:46:14 ◼   ► especially over long gaming sessions.

00:46:17 ◼   ► But overall, the package seems pretty compelling.

00:46:20 ◼   ► I mean, up to 512 gigabytes of storage.

00:46:23 ◼   ► They use NVMe, I believe, memory, which is incredibly fast.

00:46:28 ◼   ► It's a Zen 2 CPU.

00:46:30 ◼   ► It's got an AMD graphics chip with a good 16 gigabytes

00:46:34 ◼   ► of memory in the graphics chip, which is great.

00:46:37 ◼   ► 'Cause at that resolution, it should work just fine.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And I think that people in this arena will buy this stuff.

00:46:47 ◼   ► They do wanna play their games

00:46:48 ◼   ► in pretty much every venue possible.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And the interesting thing is about this,

00:46:55 ◼   ► this dovetails with a movement going on in gaming overall

00:47:00 ◼   ► that even what you would call like AAA titles

00:47:04 ◼   ► or high-tier titles in gaming,

00:47:06 ◼   ► and I'm sure you've seen this with Jonas,

00:47:08 ◼   ► are much more about socialization and being with friends

00:47:12 ◼   ► and existing in the same world with friends virtually

00:47:15 ◼   ► than they are any sort of like hardcore gaming apparatus.

00:47:20 ◼   ► And so, yes, there's the pro-cod players

00:47:23 ◼   ► and the streamers and all of that stuff.

00:47:25 ◼   ► But in many ways, those are the broadcasters, right?

00:47:28 ◼   ► And many more people watch those broadcasters

00:47:30 ◼   ► then play those games at that level.

00:47:33 ◼   ► And many more people play those games

00:47:35 ◼   ► to hang out with their friends

00:47:36 ◼   ► and do funny stuff and just mess around

00:47:40 ◼   ► with the gaming environment and just exist together.

00:47:44 ◼   ► And so if you have a portable device,

00:47:45 ◼   ► I actually think it dovetails nicely

00:47:47 ◼   ► with this overall feeling

00:47:49 ◼   ► because they can be with their friends

00:47:51 ◼   ► wherever they are virtually.

00:47:52 ◼   ► They're not tied to a desktop or to a console.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And I think that's very interesting.

00:47:57 ◼   ► - And it's gonna be way more compatible

00:48:00 ◼   ► than trying to do it on your phone,

00:48:01 ◼   ► whatever kind of phone you have.

00:48:02 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Yeah, that was Jonas's take on this.

00:48:06 ◼   ► I think that the, it's the,

00:48:09 ◼   ► and again, I don't wanna judge the controller placement

00:48:11 ◼   ► without ever having even seen the damn thing in real life,

00:48:14 ◼   ► but just eyeballing it, both the, like you said,

00:48:17 ◼   ► the thumbsticks seem really high.

00:48:19 ◼   ► The A, B, X, Y buttons, the action buttons,

00:48:23 ◼   ► which is sort of universal now on game controllers,

00:48:26 ◼   ► are way up in the upper right corner.

00:48:28 ◼   ► It just seems like an odd placement.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And Jonas's first thought was,

00:48:33 ◼   ► it seems like they moved everything way up high

00:48:35 ◼   ► just to make room for these touch pads

00:48:37 ◼   ► that who knows what you're supposed to use them for?

00:48:40 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't seem like this is an ergonomic placement

00:48:44 ◼   ► of thumbsticks and action buttons.

00:48:46 ◼   ► It seems like this is the best option we have

00:48:49 ◼   ► if we're going to put these track pads on both sides.

00:48:52 ◼   ► - Correct.

00:48:53 ◼   ► It seems like a concession to the track pad,

00:48:55 ◼   ► not some sort of usability decision

00:48:57 ◼   ► that was driven by user comfort first, right?

00:49:01 ◼   ► And we could be wrong, as you said, right?

00:49:04 ◼   ► Like you're judging it without having any hand.

00:49:05 ◼   ► We could be wrong.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Maybe the touch pads have an immense amount more utility

00:49:09 ◼   ► than we think.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Maybe they're just as good as a thumbstick.

00:49:13 ◼   ► They're not, but maybe they are.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Maybe they are.

00:49:16 ◼   ► And we'll see, right?

00:49:17 ◼   ► And that's the part of it where you're like,

00:49:19 ◼   ► okay, you know, we'll see.

00:49:21 ◼   ► We'll judge it once we have it in hand.

00:49:23 ◼   ► But absolutely, it does send the message.

00:49:26 ◼   ► We think these touch pads are much more important

00:49:28 ◼   ► than your thumbsticks, so enjoy.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Now I will say this.

00:49:31 ◼   ► You can't put those thumbsticks above,

00:49:34 ◼   ► or excuse me, those touch pads above the thumbsticks, right?

00:49:36 ◼   ► That's not gonna work, period, from a usability perspective.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So there's some part of it that's like,

00:49:41 ◼   ► they kinda have to be where they are, but--

00:49:45 ◼   ► - Unless you just didn't have them.

00:49:47 ◼   ► - Unless you, correct, correct.

00:49:48 ◼   ► There's a choice.

00:49:49 ◼   ► There's a definite choice being made here,

00:49:51 ◼   ► and it's just a matter of time and usability and testing

00:49:56 ◼   ► to see whether that choice was the right one.

00:49:58 ◼   ► - I probably could have had Jonas on the show this week,

00:50:00 ◼   ► 'cause the other related topic is--

00:50:02 ◼   ► - I'm interested to hear what he had to say.

00:50:03 ◼   ► - Jonas has thought on the new Switch OLED.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I think that's actually the name of the product.

00:50:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:50:10 ◼   ► - It is, I think it literally is, yeah.

00:50:13 ◼   ► - Which is--

00:50:14 ◼   ► - Nintendo's brilliant about that kind of stuff.

00:50:15 ◼   ► They're just like, I don't know, just call it this.

00:50:17 ◼   ► - They have a new version of the Switch coming out

00:50:20 ◼   ► for the holiday season that has a much improved screen

00:50:23 ◼   ► that is, of course, now, surprise, surprise, OLED.

00:50:27 ◼   ► But all the other specs are the same,

00:50:30 ◼   ► and he's baffled by that.

00:50:33 ◼   ► And he's like, I don't understand why they would do that.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And he loves his Switch.

00:50:36 ◼   ► He's PC gamer first, but he loves his Switch.

00:50:38 ◼   ► He really, and when we travel, he loves to take it,

00:50:40 ◼   ► and he really enjoys the action.

00:50:43 ◼   ► But he feels the Switch has always been

00:50:45 ◼   ► just barely fast enough to run the games

00:50:49 ◼   ► that Nintendo wants you to play on Switch,

00:50:51 ◼   ► so why not give it a spec bump?

00:50:53 ◼   ► And I tried to explain that from Nintendo's perspective,

00:50:56 ◼   ► while they have a thriving platform

00:50:59 ◼   ► that hasn't really gone into decline in popularity yet,

00:51:03 ◼   ► the precise compatibility is a feature, not a bug,

00:51:07 ◼   ► that you know that if the game says

00:51:09 ◼   ► it's a Nintendo Switch game,

00:51:11 ◼   ► you might have the low-cost Switch,

00:51:14 ◼   ► you might have the classic Switch,

00:51:15 ◼   ► you might have the Switch OLED,

00:51:17 ◼   ► but you're gonna get the exact same performance,

00:51:19 ◼   ► and there's no game that's gonna run better

00:51:22 ◼   ► just because you bought the latest and greatest one

00:51:24 ◼   ► from 2021, and that's a feature, not a bug,

00:51:27 ◼   ► but he just doesn't get it.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Whereas--

00:51:30 ◼   ► - It's also a feature of the App Store, right?

00:51:31 ◼   ► Like, you know, the iPhone shirt,

00:51:34 ◼   ► the more powerful iPhone is gonna do things,

00:51:35 ◼   ► but if you're using the native frameworks,

00:51:38 ◼   ► you're gonna get roughly the same performance

00:51:39 ◼   ► out of any iPhone, 'cause it's gonna scale it automatically.

00:51:42 ◼   ► - Right.

00:51:42 ◼   ► But it's, you know, it is still good,

00:51:46 ◼   ► and my other thought on that is it warms my heart,

00:51:49 ◼   ► and as somebody who is very pessimistic

00:51:52 ◼   ► about Nintendo's prospects five, six, seven years ago,

00:51:56 ◼   ► a couple years before the Switch came out,

00:51:58 ◼   ► it warms my heart that they have another hit platform

00:52:01 ◼   ► that even my 17-year-old gaming PC-obsessed son

00:52:06 ◼   ► cares enough about to drag me up

00:52:10 ◼   ► and chew my ear off about.

00:52:12 ◼   ► - Right, that's great, I love it.

00:52:14 ◼   ► Yeah, it's fantastic.

00:52:15 ◼   ► And, you know, it's, yeah,

00:52:17 ◼   ► you only care enough about, I mean, like, he cares, right?

00:52:22 ◼   ► That's why he's like, "Wait, what?"

00:52:24 ◼   ► You know, like, and that's what you want.

00:52:25 ◼   ► You want people, enthusiasts going like,

00:52:27 ◼   ► "Wait a minute, are you sure this is the right move?"

00:52:29 ◼   ► You know, you don't want people going, "Who cares?"

00:52:31 ◼   ► Right, like, that's the worst case scenario,

00:52:32 ◼   ► is people going, "I don't care, do whatever you want."

00:52:36 ◼   ► But the Switch is very interesting too,

00:52:38 ◼   ► because I really do believe that this is like,

00:52:42 ◼   ► if Nintendo is smart, and they have been dumb

00:52:45 ◼   ► and have been smart, alternatively, throughout the years,

00:52:48 ◼   ► you know, very smart in many things like game design,

00:52:50 ◼   ► obviously, very dumb in things like online play

00:52:52 ◼   ► and other areas, but they, if they are smart,

00:52:57 ◼   ► the Switch is sort of the future of all Nintendo consoles.

00:53:01 ◼   ► Right, like, this is not a, "Hey, we had the Switch,

00:53:04 ◼   ► "and now we're gonna have the, the Poomerang," right?

00:53:08 ◼   ► Enjoy your new Nintendo Poomerang with these new things,

00:53:12 ◼   ► right, and I know that they love to play,

00:53:14 ◼   ► and they love to create new ways to play,

00:53:17 ◼   ► but I do feel that the Switch is so potent,

00:53:20 ◼   ► like it's so good in its form factor,

00:53:23 ◼   ► they nailed it so hardcore, that they really need to focus

00:53:26 ◼   ► on creating more Switches, you know, not new paradigms.

00:53:31 ◼   ► Like, this Switch could be the Nintendo console

00:53:35 ◼   ► in perpetuity, and yes, they will increase

00:53:38 ◼   ► hardware capability or add accessories

00:53:41 ◼   ► or change the performance levels or, you know,

00:53:44 ◼   ► even tweak the form factor to some degree,

00:53:46 ◼   ► but this idea, this concept that they had,

00:53:49 ◼   ► the removable controllers, the portability,

00:53:51 ◼   ► the fact that the console is in your hands

00:53:53 ◼   ► and, you know, on your dock, and there is no two separate

00:53:57 ◼   ► consoles and all that stuff, all of that,

00:53:59 ◼   ► they just nailed it, and they need to double down on that.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Right, just a nice, unobjectionable dock

00:54:05 ◼   ► that you can keep plugged into your TV,

00:54:06 ◼   ► and all you need to, and it'll both charge your Switch

00:54:09 ◼   ► and let you play on your TV, it is, it's a hit.

00:54:14 ◼   ► But anyway, I thought it was fascinating that Steam,

00:54:16 ◼   ► you know, sort of took the idea and ran with it

00:54:18 ◼   ► in the PC direction.

00:54:19 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here, thank my next sponsor.

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00:56:16 ◼   ► Next on my list of breaking news is this sort of slow,

00:56:20 ◼   ► drip-by-drip leak from a bunch of publications

00:56:24 ◼   ► about this investigation into the NSO Group

00:56:27 ◼   ► and their Pegasus software, which I know, it's a summary.

00:56:32 ◼   ► So the NSO Group is a crackerjack team of top,

00:56:37 ◼   ► maybe the top iPhone hackers, or phone hackers,

00:56:44 ◼   ► 'cause probably they hack computers too,

00:56:46 ◼   ► but obviously phones are the big target these days.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Computer hackers, they're from Israel,

00:56:52 ◼   ► they're an Israeli company.

00:56:53 ◼   ► They claim that they only sell their product and service,

00:56:57 ◼   ► they're not like an underground team,

00:56:59 ◼   ► they're on the up and up, they're a commercial organization,

00:57:02 ◼   ► a company that charges a lot of money,

00:57:04 ◼   ► but they supposedly only sell their services

00:57:08 ◼   ► to legitimate law enforcement agencies

00:57:14 ◼   ► in countries that supposedly can be trusted around the world,

00:57:19 ◼   ► and that their terms that they claim

00:57:22 ◼   ► they require law enforcement agencies to use

00:57:25 ◼   ► is that their software will only be used

00:57:27 ◼   ► to target criminals and terrorists,

00:57:30 ◼   ► and I guess bad guys, to use a phrase.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And they're at the forefront of the cat and mouse game

00:57:42 ◼   ► with Apple in terms of NSO Group seeks and finds

00:57:47 ◼   ► and uses exploits in iOS to take control of iPhones,

00:57:53 ◼   ► and Apple seeks to close exploits and vulnerabilities

00:57:59 ◼   ► and entire classes of vulnerabilities

00:58:04 ◼   ► to keep this from happening.

00:58:06 ◼   ► And this investigation, somehow a list of, I think,

00:58:10 ◼   ► hundreds, maybe a thousand phone numbers leaked

00:58:15 ◼   ► that had been attacked by the NSO Group,

00:58:17 ◼   ► and Amnesty International, which is an unusual group

00:58:20 ◼   ► to be sort of spearheading and funding the investigation,

00:58:23 ◼   ► or at least seems to be,

00:58:26 ◼   ► 'cause you don't think of Amnesty International

00:58:27 ◼   ► as being at the forefront of computer security journalism,

00:58:31 ◼   ► but if you think--

00:58:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there was 50,000 phone numbers.

00:58:34 ◼   ► - 50,000 phone numbers, okay.

00:58:36 ◼   ► So, but that's it, and it was too many

00:58:38 ◼   ► for the investigators to really thoroughly,

00:58:40 ◼   ► they had to pick swaths. - Pick stuff, yeah.

00:58:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, pick stuff.

00:58:44 ◼   ► But if you think of Amnesty International's overall goal

00:58:48 ◼   ► of supporting human rights protesters and organizers

00:58:53 ◼   ► around the world who often, because of the nature

00:58:58 ◼   ► of what they're hoping to bring about change,

00:59:02 ◼   ► are in danger themselves of being targeted by countries.

00:59:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, you really can't concentrate on human rights

00:59:10 ◼   ► without talking about digital rights

00:59:11 ◼   ► and concentrating on that as well.

00:59:13 ◼   ► It's just part and parcel of being a human these days, yeah.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - Right, and this investigation showed that,

00:59:19 ◼   ► some of it's surprising, or I guess none of it, to me,

00:59:24 ◼   ► was shocking, but it's,

00:59:28 ◼   ► like the most interesting tidbit of the news,

00:59:31 ◼   ► and Washington Post had a story,

00:59:33 ◼   ► and The Guardian had a story today,

00:59:37 ◼   ► it's one of these stories where a bunch of organizations

00:59:39 ◼   ► have sort of collaborated and seemingly,

00:59:42 ◼   ► not schemed, but plotted out a, okay, you'll publish this,

00:59:47 ◼   ► and then we'll publish that on the next day,

00:59:50 ◼   ► and it's sort of a drip, drip, drip.

00:59:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, these stories often get too big

00:59:53 ◼   ► for any one team, and so if a centralized organization

00:59:57 ◼   ► says, hey, we've got all of this data,

00:59:59 ◼   ► they'll often involve multiple newsrooms,

01:00:01 ◼   ► and the newsrooms will chew over the data themselves, yeah.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - I spoke about this on Dithering, I guess,

01:00:08 ◼   ► on the show that came out today.

01:00:10 ◼   ► I thought the Washington Post story was,

01:00:12 ◼   ► it's one of my pet peeves, is a overly sensational headline,

01:00:17 ◼   ► and then comparing it with the webpage title,

01:00:21 ◼   ► which might have been the original headline,

01:00:23 ◼   ► and then they juiced it up, but the original title

01:00:27 ◼   ► of the Washington Post story, or at least the one

01:00:31 ◼   ► that you see in your browser tab,

01:00:34 ◼   ► unless you're using Safari 15, where you don't get

01:00:36 ◼   ► to see webpage titles in your tabs anymore.

01:00:40 ◼   ► But the non-sensational headline in the browser tab

01:00:43 ◼   ► is Apple iPhones were successfully hacked

01:00:46 ◼   ► by NSO's Pegasus surveillance tool,

01:00:50 ◼   ► which is a terrific headline that would grab my attention

01:00:53 ◼   ► and would get me to read it, but then on the actual page,

01:00:56 ◼   ► the headline is, despite the hype, iPhone security

01:01:00 ◼   ► no match for NSO spyware, which is true.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I can't say there's a false word in that headline,

01:01:07 ◼   ► but it paints a very different picture as to the scope of it.

01:01:13 ◼   ► And then the sub headline, which I think tells you

01:01:16 ◼   ► the scope is International investigation

01:01:20 ◼   ► finds 23 Apple devices that were successfully hacked.

01:01:24 ◼   ► - Right.

01:01:25 ◼   ► - Your thoughts.

01:01:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, 23 is out of over a billion is pretty good.

01:01:33 ◼   ► Even 23 out of 50,000 is pretty good,

01:01:37 ◼   ► you know, in terms of percentages.

01:01:40 ◼   ► But in reality, you go into these things looking at,

01:01:44 ◼   ► I feel like the most important things to look at

01:01:45 ◼   ► are the technical realities.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And so the technical reality of the situation is that NSO,

01:01:53 ◼   ► some of NSO's zero clicks worked on versions of iOS

01:01:57 ◼   ► up to 14.6.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And so it's really a matter of,

01:02:01 ◼   ► hey, are there current vulnerabilities?

01:02:04 ◼   ► - Which was literally just for historical context

01:02:07 ◼   ► in case anybody's listening to this podcast,

01:02:09 ◼   ► not in July, 2021, was literally the current version of iOS

01:02:13 ◼   ► until yesterday.

01:02:15 ◼   ► - Right.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And so if for me, it's not really about the number.

01:02:19 ◼   ► I mean, the number is really how you,

01:02:21 ◼   ► that's all about positioning.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And as you mentioned, you know, kind of choosing how you

01:02:26 ◼   ► sensationalize or scope the headline, right?

01:02:29 ◼   ► And so you go like, hey, this is a big problem

01:02:34 ◼   ► or is it not a big problem?

01:02:35 ◼   ► Well, the fact of the matter is it is a big problem

01:02:38 ◼   ► for anybody who's in this kind of work

01:02:40 ◼   ► and that scope is much smaller than a billion users, right?

01:02:44 ◼   ► So in terms of overall users affected,

01:02:46 ◼   ► it's incredibly tiny.

01:02:47 ◼   ► And that's why I think, you know,

01:02:49 ◼   ► you can point to the iPhone being in general

01:02:52 ◼   ► kind of affected, effective in terms of general security

01:02:55 ◼   ► because it requires this hyper-targeting

01:02:58 ◼   ► by a very intense and well-funded and effective organization

01:03:03 ◼   ► to properly and in a very targeted kind of nasty way,

01:03:09 ◼   ► utilize these vulnerabilities, right?

01:03:14 ◼   ► So it's a little bit of both in that scenario.

01:03:17 ◼   ► You've got, even amongst their scope,

01:03:20 ◼   ► you have a relatively small number of devices

01:03:22 ◼   ► that seem to have been compromised,

01:03:24 ◼   ► but those are targeted, that's what targeting is all about.

01:03:27 ◼   ► You know, those single people could be the voice

01:03:30 ◼   ► of 10,000 or 10 million individual citizens

01:03:35 ◼   ► because they're reporting on an area, you know,

01:03:37 ◼   ► on a regime, in an area where they don't wanna be

01:03:40 ◼   ► talked about and if they could silence a handful of voices,

01:03:44 ◼   ► they'll silence a good amount of the dissent

01:03:46 ◼   ► and the exposure of their, you know, the goings on.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And so that's why it's like a big deal.

01:03:52 ◼   ► I think that in the aggregate, it's like,

01:03:56 ◼   ► whether you position it as something

01:03:59 ◼   ► that everybody needs to worry about it or not

01:04:00 ◼   ► is really the big deal, you know?

01:04:03 ◼   ► And I think it, and the second thing,

01:04:05 ◼   ► the second part about it is how long did these persist?

01:04:09 ◼   ► And as you said, we've got some evidence

01:04:11 ◼   ► that these bugs persisted up until

01:04:14 ◼   ► the next to latest version of iOS at this point.

01:04:16 ◼   ► - And in fact, I wouldn't-- - It's a pretty big deal.

01:04:18 ◼   ► - I wouldn't be surprised if they still persist

01:04:20 ◼   ► because I would think if there's any clues

01:04:24 ◼   ► in what's been unveiled in this reporting

01:04:26 ◼   ► that would give Apple a hint as to what,

01:04:29 ◼   ► whoa, we should look at this,

01:04:31 ◼   ► iOS 14.7, which just came out yesterday, might be too soon.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if, maybe not all, you know,

01:04:38 ◼   ► but some of them still persist.

01:04:41 ◼   ► And it is interesting, like one of the things

01:04:44 ◼   ► that's interesting about this overall reporting

01:04:46 ◼   ► is that both Amnesty and I think, what is it,

01:04:51 ◼   ► Citizen something or another,

01:04:55 ◼   ► but two, at least two of the people involved in it,

01:04:58 ◼   ► Citizen Lab. - Citizen Lab.

01:04:59 ◼   ► - Citizen Lab. - Yeah,

01:05:00 ◼   ► at the University of Toronto.

01:05:01 ◼   ► - Right, and they both confirmed witnessing

01:05:04 ◼   ► iPhones running iOS 14.6 be exploited

01:05:09 ◼   ► with zero-click vulnerabilities.

01:05:11 ◼   ► So there's two things that are very interesting

01:05:14 ◼   ► about that to me because most of the times

01:05:17 ◼   ► when news about the NSO Group's abilities

01:05:20 ◼   ► or the GrayKey people, is GrayKey the box

01:05:24 ◼   ► or GrayKey the company?

01:05:25 ◼   ► - I always forget. - Doesn't matter.

01:05:28 ◼   ► Well, whatever they are.

01:05:29 ◼   ► But that's the outfit that sells law enforcement.

01:05:33 ◼   ► It's a very different sort of thing,

01:05:35 ◼   ► although from Apple's perspective, it still is--

01:05:38 ◼   ► - GrayShift, I think, is the company.

01:05:40 ◼   ► - GrayShift, they sell the GrayKey device,

01:05:42 ◼   ► and that's a device that they sell

01:05:44 ◼   ► to law enforcement agencies who are in physical possession

01:05:49 ◼   ► of somebody's phone and they connect it by USB

01:05:53 ◼   ► and do something that takes control,

01:05:57 ◼   ► or unlocks the phone and gives them access

01:05:59 ◼   ► to the contents of the phone.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Very different in terms of what your risk,

01:06:06 ◼   ► if you're like, hey, I don't want these people

01:06:10 ◼   ► to have access to the contents of my locked iPhone.

01:06:12 ◼   ► With the GrayKey, they have your phone

01:06:15 ◼   ► and they connect it to this box.

01:06:16 ◼   ► With NSO Group, it is all remote,

01:06:19 ◼   ► and they just send you an iMessage.

01:06:22 ◼   ► This is the part that clearly, judging from the email

01:06:27 ◼   ► I've gotten from daring fireball readers so far,

01:06:29 ◼   ► some of them find it hard to believe,

01:06:30 ◼   ► and so it's worth talking about,

01:06:33 ◼   ► but that it's not like you get this message

01:06:36 ◼   ► from an unknown phone number,

01:06:39 ◼   ► and it has a sketchy-looking URL, and you get hacked

01:06:43 ◼   ► if you tap the URL in iMessage,

01:06:46 ◼   ► which I'm sure is probably an easier exploit to do,

01:06:49 ◼   ► and they probably have ones like that.

01:06:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a fish.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:52 ◼   ► That does happen, but if you've been thinking,

01:06:57 ◼   ► well, I would never tap a fishy-looking URL

01:07:01 ◼   ► in an iMessage from an unknown person,

01:07:04 ◼   ► and I might even be savvy enough

01:07:07 ◼   ► that if a message looked like it came from somebody I knew,

01:07:10 ◼   ► but the URL was weird-looking, I still might not tap it,

01:07:14 ◼   ► but this is nothing like that.

01:07:16 ◼   ► This is a message that shows up on your phone,

01:07:19 ◼   ► contains a corrupted GIF image or JPEG,

01:07:24 ◼   ► and the image process, and there might be other exploits too.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Maybe just URLs with weird strings or binary bytes

01:07:36 ◼   ► can trigger it too, but apparently a lot of these bugs

01:07:39 ◼   ► are in the image I/O subsection,

01:07:42 ◼   ► and just by trying to parse the image

01:07:45 ◼   ► so that it can show it to you, the exploit gets to run--

01:07:49 ◼   ► - Executed, yeah.

01:07:50 ◼   ► - Executed and can see the contents of your phone

01:07:54 ◼   ► and do things on your phone.

01:07:55 ◼   ► It's obviously real.

01:07:59 ◼   ► These people have confirmed it.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Pretty scary, but the thing to keep in mind,

01:08:05 ◼   ► and I think Apple's statement on this is very truthful,

01:08:08 ◼   ► that these exploits cost millions of dollars

01:08:11 ◼   ► for NSO Group to develop.

01:08:13 ◼   ► They charge, obviously, more than that,

01:08:16 ◼   ► tens of millions of dollars for these countries to use them,

01:08:20 ◼   ► and they target specific individuals,

01:08:21 ◼   ► but that's not great.

01:08:22 ◼   ► That's still bad.

01:08:23 ◼   ► The publicity is terrible, right?

01:08:25 ◼   ► Apple wants to protect everybody,

01:08:32 ◼   ► and I said this on Dithering 2.

01:08:34 ◼   ► It's like even selfishly, Apple's senior executives

01:08:39 ◼   ► have to think that they might be targets too, right?

01:08:42 ◼   ► Wouldn't Tim Cook be a legitimate target

01:08:46 ◼   ► of a high-level, somebody with tens of millions of dollars,

01:08:49 ◼   ► maybe? - Of course.

01:08:50 ◼   ► - And getting Tim Cook's phone number probably isn't easy,

01:08:56 ◼   ► but it's probably a lot easier

01:08:58 ◼   ► than attacking Tim Cook in any other way.

01:09:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, right.

01:09:04 ◼   ► And you have a scenario where you could easily see

01:09:07 ◼   ► like Tim sending an email about security,

01:09:11 ◼   ► potential security updates, or being briefed,

01:09:13 ◼   ► probably the inverse, right?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Being briefed about security updates

01:09:16 ◼   ► or changes to, say, iCloud encryption or anything like that,

01:09:20 ◼   ► and getting access to his phone

01:09:21 ◼   ► would give people access to that,

01:09:23 ◼   ► which would give them a leg up on iPhone updates.

01:09:26 ◼   ► I mean, there's an enormous array

01:09:28 ◼   ► of potential attack surfaces there,

01:09:29 ◼   ► so they have to be worried about it.

01:09:31 ◼   ► And for the last four years,

01:09:34 ◼   ► the President of the United States was using an iPhone,

01:09:38 ◼   ► and everybody knew it, and he used it all the time.

01:09:40 ◼   ► And supposedly, from what I've read,

01:09:43 ◼   ► they tried to swap it out as frequently as possible

01:09:46 ◼   ► with a new device.

01:09:48 ◼   ► But it's like a new era in communications,

01:09:53 ◼   ► where even prior to Trump, even with Obama,

01:09:59 ◼   ► it was like Obama had like a specially hardened--

01:10:02 ◼   ► - A hardened phone, yeah.

01:10:03 ◼   ► - Blackberry that the NSA had put together.

01:10:07 ◼   ► Whereas my, I don't think, unless, if they do it,

01:10:12 ◼   ► nobody in public has ever publicized it,

01:10:14 ◼   ► nobody's heard it.

01:10:15 ◼   ► Like if Apple has like a special private secret program

01:10:18 ◼   ► to give hardened iPhones to somebody

01:10:21 ◼   ► like the President of the United States

01:10:22 ◼   ► or other leaders of that stature around the world,

01:10:28 ◼   ► I mean, if that program exists,

01:10:29 ◼   ► nobody has ever even whispered about it.

01:10:31 ◼   ► So I don't think it does.

01:10:33 ◼   ► I think, you know, I think Tim Cook uses the same iPhone

01:10:37 ◼   ► that I use, and you use.

01:10:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I do believe that there is a lot,

01:10:41 ◼   ► and there is a lot done, I have heard,

01:10:44 ◼   ► that there's a lot done with provisioning

01:10:48 ◼   ► to lock down the phone.

01:10:49 ◼   ► So in that way, there are special precautions taken,

01:10:52 ◼   ► but as far as like a special high-security model

01:10:55 ◼   ► that runs a different version of the OS, no.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Not that I've heard of.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - Right, and there is, the other thing too is that

01:11:02 ◼   ► it's like security by obscurity is famously

01:11:05 ◼   ► not a great strategy if it's your only strategy,

01:11:08 ◼   ► but it actually does help, right?

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like whatever the phone is on the desk of the president

01:11:15 ◼   ► in the Oval Office, and how that phone is connected

01:11:21 ◼   ► to the standard phone lines so that when the president

01:11:25 ◼   ► calls up somebody, they actually can hear each other.

01:11:29 ◼   ► A lot of that is secret, and that's not enough,

01:11:33 ◼   ► and I'm sure that it's actually using actual encryption

01:11:36 ◼   ► so that when he calls another senior leader

01:11:39 ◼   ► of another G7 country around the world,

01:11:41 ◼   ► there's actual encryption that doesn't have to be secret.

01:11:46 ◼   ► Like that's end-to-end encryption,

01:11:49 ◼   ► what part of the part that's beautiful about it

01:11:51 ◼   ► is that you don't have to be secret about it.

01:11:53 ◼   ► You can tell people exactly how it works,

01:11:55 ◼   ► publish it to see if anybody spots any errors

01:11:58 ◼   ► in your algorithm or your math,

01:12:00 ◼   ► and it's just the fact that it's the way

01:12:04 ◼   ► that it's supposed to work is, requires computing power

01:12:08 ◼   ► that doesn't exist today.

01:12:10 ◼   ► But the secrecy is a nice other layer.

01:12:13 ◼   ► If you don't even know the details of,

01:12:15 ◼   ► well, how exactly is that phone connected

01:12:17 ◼   ► to the phone network, and what is the connection

01:12:19 ◼   ► from A to B?

01:12:21 ◼   ► If you don't even know that,

01:12:22 ◼   ► that's just an added layer of security.

01:12:24 ◼   ► The fact that everybody, a billion people around the world

01:12:27 ◼   ► are running the exact same version of iOS

01:12:30 ◼   ► on a handful, relatively speaking,

01:12:35 ◼   ► handful of hardware devices that anybody can just buy

01:12:40 ◼   ► and take apart and study with anything

01:12:42 ◼   ► they can get their hands on is sort of unprecedented

01:12:46 ◼   ► in electronic communication history.

01:12:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is.

01:12:51 ◼   ► I mean, they do, they have the additional layer of,

01:12:55 ◼   ► in all reality, they know that Apple is going

01:13:00 ◼   ► to be chasing these bugs hard and fixing them hard,

01:13:04 ◼   ► so they have this, there's an additional layer

01:13:05 ◼   ► of scarcity which has created the market.

01:13:09 ◼   ► It's almost like if there were a ton of bugs

01:13:11 ◼   ► in the iPhone at all times, everybody would assume

01:13:13 ◼   ► that everything was compromised and not really worry

01:13:15 ◼   ► about that and not really commit themselves

01:13:19 ◼   ► to doing any sort of high sensitivity comms over the iPhone.

01:13:24 ◼   ► But there isn't, instead there's a reputation

01:13:27 ◼   ► for it being hardened, there's a reputation

01:13:29 ◼   ► for it being hard to hack, and there's a reputation

01:13:33 ◼   ► for Apple being all over it and on it

01:13:35 ◼   ► and fixing bugs very quickly,

01:13:38 ◼   ► so there is an enormous market, right?

01:13:41 ◼   ► And that's why groups like the NSO group even exist

01:13:43 ◼   ► and are able to charge tens of thousands

01:13:45 ◼   ► or hundreds of millions, or hundreds of thousands

01:13:47 ◼   ► or even millions of dollars per target, you know,

01:13:52 ◼   ► that a government wants to target, to tackle,

01:13:57 ◼   ► because they know that without this special,

01:14:00 ◼   ► without these very secret and very fresh bugs

01:14:05 ◼   ► and vulnerabilities, there's no way

01:14:07 ◼   ► they'll be able to target them.

01:14:09 ◼   ► So all of their efforts in making the iPhone

01:14:13 ◼   ► as secure as possible has actually created the market

01:14:16 ◼   ► for this kind of thing.

01:14:17 ◼   ► - Right, and it also creates a market for the story

01:14:19 ◼   ► to be made a big deal out of, right?

01:14:22 ◼   ► Like, if there's somebody,

01:14:25 ◼   ► I'll make mathematically extreme hypotheticals,

01:14:30 ◼   ► but if there's two basketball players

01:14:32 ◼   ► and one player is an 80% free throw shooter

01:14:36 ◼   ► and there's another player who's a 99% free throw shooter

01:14:39 ◼   ► who hasn't missed a free throw all season,

01:14:42 ◼   ► the first player misses a free throw at the end

01:14:44 ◼   ► of a big game and it's like, well, that happens,

01:14:46 ◼   ► but if the player who hasn't missed a free throw all season

01:14:50 ◼   ► misses one at the end of the game, it's, oh my God,

01:14:54 ◼   ► they missed a free throw at the end of the game.

01:14:55 ◼   ► But it's, you know, nobody's 100% free throw shooter,

01:14:59 ◼   ► you know, and so it's a bigger deal when a platform

01:15:03 ◼   ► that is more secure, not just considered more secure,

01:15:06 ◼   ► but by all objective measures of outsiders

01:15:09 ◼   ► is truly the most secure computing platform for use.

01:15:13 ◼   ► The fact that it still isn't perfect

01:15:16 ◼   ► means that the publicity-wise, when we can prove

01:15:20 ◼   ► that it's been taken advantage of and exploited,

01:15:22 ◼   ► it's a bigger deal and it's just human nature,

01:15:25 ◼   ► it's more interesting.

01:15:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, Android devices insecure,

01:15:29 ◼   ► or Android devices have bugs, news at 11,

01:15:32 ◼   ► you know, that's a much different ring.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And not even because Google doesn't do their best,

01:15:37 ◼   ► I mean, they have security teams

01:15:38 ◼   ► and some of the best security researchers in the world,

01:15:41 ◼   ► but we all know that because of the fragmented nature

01:15:43 ◼   ► of Android, people are running all kinds

01:15:45 ◼   ► of different versions, they have hardware

01:15:47 ◼   ► and special versions of Android later on top of it

01:15:49 ◼   ► by the manufacturers who may not have

01:15:51 ◼   ► the same rigor as Google.

01:15:52 ◼   ► So like, this is not a Google bashing exercise, right?

01:15:55 ◼   ► But, 'cause their security teams are top notch.

01:15:57 ◼   ► But you just know that there is more of a chance there.

01:16:01 ◼   ► There's much more of a chance

01:16:03 ◼   ► that those things could be compromised, and maybe.

01:16:06 ◼   ► And it's just not as big of, it's just not news, you know?

01:16:09 ◼   ► Or at least not huge news.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And in, you know, maybe news on a specific individual,

01:16:14 ◼   ► especially if something, you know,

01:16:15 ◼   ► unfortunately were to happen to them,

01:16:16 ◼   ► or if there was some action taken by a government,

01:16:18 ◼   ► and the news comes out, oh, they had an Android device,

01:16:21 ◼   ► it was broken into, and blah, blah, blah.

01:16:23 ◼   ► But you attach it to the iPhone,

01:16:24 ◼   ► which has a completely different reputation,

01:16:26 ◼   ► and the security teams, you know,

01:16:28 ◼   ► sort of are able to ensure that the bug fixes

01:16:31 ◼   ► as they do put out are, they end up on people's devices

01:16:35 ◼   ► very quickly, within weeks or months

01:16:37 ◼   ► of it being published, versus years or never.

01:16:41 ◼   ► Then it becomes news.

01:16:42 ◼   ► That's part of that why it's news formula.

01:16:46 ◼   ► - The other thing that's pretty interesting

01:16:47 ◼   ► about this particular method of exploit,

01:16:50 ◼   ► sending a corrupt image carefully constructed

01:16:53 ◼   ► to exploit a bug in image processing in an iMessage,

01:16:56 ◼   ► is it something Apple specifically addressed a year ago

01:17:00 ◼   ► with a new technology they called Blast Door,

01:17:04 ◼   ► which is exactly what you think, which is sort of,

01:17:07 ◼   ► okay, any sort of, and it's in iOS 14,

01:17:11 ◼   ► it was announced at WWDC last year.

01:17:14 ◼   ► An image comes to you in iMessage,

01:17:16 ◼   ► iMessage doesn't try to decode the image right there itself,

01:17:21 ◼   ► it puts it in this Blast Door technology,

01:17:25 ◼   ► which is like a sandbox in the sandbox,

01:17:28 ◼   ► where the image is processed,

01:17:30 ◼   ► and then only after it is processed there

01:17:33 ◼   ► does it come out of the Blast Door,

01:17:36 ◼   ► and it's supposedly safe.

01:17:37 ◼   ► Obviously there's holes in the Blast Door, apparently.

01:17:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, apparently there's a little too much kiloton,

01:17:46 ◼   ► future kilotons.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - Right, but it'll be interesting to see,

01:17:49 ◼   ► I mean, and again, you don't really expect Apple to,

01:17:52 ◼   ► if they can figure out what's going on here

01:17:54 ◼   ► and they close it, you don't really expect Apple

01:17:55 ◼   ► to be forthcoming about the exact details of this,

01:17:58 ◼   ► both A, because they're Apple

01:18:00 ◼   ► and they don't wanna talk about it,

01:18:01 ◼   ► but B, because it's part of the actual security

01:18:06 ◼   ► is not tipping their hand so much

01:18:10 ◼   ► to the people they're trying to keep out.

01:18:12 ◼   ► But it is interesting.

01:18:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, their vulnerability disclosures

01:18:15 ◼   ► and their bug fix disclosures are typically,

01:18:18 ◼   ► hey, we fixed a bug in this particular subroutine

01:18:20 ◼   ► or this particular framework.

01:18:21 ◼   ► - But it's an interesting idea, though,

01:18:24 ◼   ► to encapsulate the entire idea

01:18:27 ◼   ► of a corrupt image coming into iMessage,

01:18:32 ◼   ► and let's just encapsulate the whole thing

01:18:35 ◼   ► into a safe sub-sandbox,

01:18:38 ◼   ► is an interesting meta-strategy,

01:18:41 ◼   ► as opposed to let's hire security experts

01:18:44 ◼   ► to pour through our source code line by line,

01:18:48 ◼   ► looking for possible buffer overflows

01:18:52 ◼   ► in our C++ code that does the image processing,

01:18:57 ◼   ► tens and probably hundreds of thousands of lines of code,

01:19:00 ◼   ► line by line, and trying to figure that out

01:19:03 ◼   ► and fix the bugs one by one.

01:19:05 ◼   ► It's like, instead of playing whack-a-mole,

01:19:06 ◼   ► it's an attempt to put the whack-a-mole game into a cage

01:19:11 ◼   ► and say, well, who cares?

01:19:13 ◼   ► It's all in the cage.

01:19:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, if it doesn't execute, then we can let it in,

01:19:18 ◼   ► and if it does, then we sequester it, yeah.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - All right, let me take another break here.

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01:21:33 ◼   ► I guess the next topic I'll talk about

01:21:36 ◼   ► is the Safari 15 user interface in Broglio.

01:21:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:21:43 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:21:44 ◼   ► - Which is, I wrote about, I wrote,

01:21:49 ◼   ► and I'm really happy with the way that piece came out

01:21:52 ◼   ► because I wanted to be careful,

01:21:54 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't wanna come across as an angry crank,

01:21:57 ◼   ► but I also didn't want to pussyfoot around the fact

01:22:01 ◼   ► that I thought, this is a mistake,

01:22:03 ◼   ► and I don't wanna live for a year with this UI.

01:22:07 ◼   ► I mean, it was so bad, like on the phone,

01:22:11 ◼   ► when I installed beta one of iOS 15 on a spare iPhone,

01:22:15 ◼   ► that I was genuinely thinking, if they stick with this UI,

01:22:19 ◼   ► I genuinely have to think about not getting

01:22:21 ◼   ► a new iPhone next year and keeping my iPhone 12 on iOS 14,

01:22:26 ◼   ► and hope that they fix it.

01:22:29 ◼   ► - And it's no vulnerabilities at all.

01:22:32 ◼   ► - Right, right, well, and hopefully they will,

01:22:34 ◼   ► well, I guess with iOS, it's hard to,

01:22:36 ◼   ► yeah, you don't really get to do that.

01:22:37 ◼   ► It's like with macOS, you can skip a major update

01:22:40 ◼   ► and still get minor updates to the older version,

01:22:42 ◼   ► but with iOS-- - Yeah, for security

01:22:44 ◼   ► and other things, yeah.

01:22:45 ◼   ► - Right, but with iOS, if you don't upgrade to the iOS 15,

01:22:48 ◼   ► you're running an outdated OS.

01:22:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, in my opinion, too, by the way,

01:22:52 ◼   ► this is hearkening back to our earlier discussion about NSO,

01:22:55 ◼   ► but they really should divorce security updates from that.

01:23:00 ◼   ► I know they do put out minor patches all the time

01:23:02 ◼   ► for security patches and updates,

01:23:04 ◼   ► and they have, in the past, if it's a vulnerability

01:23:08 ◼   ► that's a big problem, come out with security patches

01:23:11 ◼   ► for older versions of iOS.

01:23:12 ◼   ► You've seen this happen in the past.

01:23:14 ◼   ► But I feel that they should be wholly divorced from it,

01:23:18 ◼   ► and they should be just like it happens on macOS,

01:23:22 ◼   ► where you get a little security update,

01:23:23 ◼   ► and maybe it's automatically applied.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Maybe you manually apply it, depending on your settings,

01:23:27 ◼   ► but it's just like a blip, and it updates,

01:23:29 ◼   ► and maybe you restart, maybe you don't,

01:23:30 ◼   ► and you never have to worry about it, right?

01:23:32 ◼   ► I think they should update the update system for iOS

01:23:37 ◼   ► to support immediate security updates,

01:23:41 ◼   ► and maybe they're already working on this,

01:23:43 ◼   ► but it should be near real-time, hey, we've got a fix.

01:23:47 ◼   ► We validated it.

01:23:48 ◼   ► It's ready to ship.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Okay, cool, wait for six weeks.

01:23:51 ◼   ► No, you know, ship it now, immediately.

01:23:54 ◼   ► It'll go out to everybody's phone tonight,

01:23:55 ◼   ► and tomorrow morning, they'll wake up,

01:23:57 ◼   ► and they'll be like, hey, we patched it.

01:23:58 ◼   ► It's a little security update.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Don't worry, everything else is the same.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Like, in my opinion, it should be separate from it.

01:24:04 ◼   ► - Well, a lot like the way the Mac does it,

01:24:06 ◼   ► where you don't get divorced

01:24:08 ◼   ► from pretty steady security updates

01:24:13 ◼   ► just because you're running last year's version of macOS,

01:24:16 ◼   ► or two years ago's version of macOS,

01:24:19 ◼   ► and there's a limit to it.

01:24:20 ◼   ► I think two years,

01:24:21 ◼   ► if they keep all these systems on an annual schedule,

01:24:27 ◼   ► two major versions is pretty good.

01:24:29 ◼   ► One major version, I think, would be the minimum,

01:24:32 ◼   ► because I think there's a lot of people, I'm sure of it.

01:24:34 ◼   ► I mean, I'm an idiot, and I get new phones every year,

01:24:37 ◼   ► and I'm already running the iOS 15 beta on a spare phone,

01:24:41 ◼   ► and if so far, it's pretty,

01:24:43 ◼   ► I like iOS 15 overall on the phone,

01:24:46 ◼   ► so if it wasn't for Safari,

01:24:47 ◼   ► I'd be very tempted to put beta three,

01:24:50 ◼   ► or maybe the next beta, on my regular day-to-day phone.

01:24:54 ◼   ► End of July is often when I start running

01:24:59 ◼   ► the summer next big version of iOS on my daily phone

01:25:03 ◼   ► just to get used to it,

01:25:05 ◼   ► but I realize that there's an awful lot of people out there

01:25:07 ◼   ► who are much wiser than I am,

01:25:11 ◼   ► and they're just genuinely

01:25:15 ◼   ► conservative about it, right?

01:25:17 ◼   ► iOS 13 shipped, and it was sort of a disaster.

01:25:20 ◼   ► I mean, disaster's overstating it,

01:25:22 ◼   ► but that was the version two years ago

01:25:24 ◼   ► where the new hardware came out with iOS 13.0.

01:25:28 ◼   ► 13.0 never shipped to people as an upgrade.

01:25:32 ◼   ► 13.1 did, like three days after the phones

01:25:37 ◼   ► started shipping to people.

01:25:38 ◼   ► - And then they shipped a bunch of updates

01:25:40 ◼   ► sequentially after that. - Yeah, and even iOS 13.1

01:25:43 ◼   ► was, by the standards of a non-beta iOS release,

01:25:48 ◼   ► was extremely buggy.

01:25:49 ◼   ► It just was.

01:25:50 ◼   ► I mean, was it unusable?

01:25:51 ◼   ► No, it wasn't like people's phones

01:25:54 ◼   ► were breaking left and right,

01:25:55 ◼   ► but lots of crashes and just weird stuff.

01:25:57 ◼   ► It was just a collision of Apple's annual hardware schedule

01:26:02 ◼   ► with the, ooh, the software's not quite

01:26:06 ◼   ► on the same schedule, but the hardware can't run iOS 12,

01:26:09 ◼   ► so we have to ship iOS 13, whether it's ready or not.

01:26:12 ◼   ► And so there's people who very reasonably

01:26:14 ◼   ► would look at that situation and think,

01:26:17 ◼   ► well, I'm never going to update to iOS new dot whatever

01:26:22 ◼   ► until it gets to like new point two,

01:26:24 ◼   ► maybe like the first update that comes out in November.

01:26:28 ◼   ► That would be like a reasonable rule of thumb,

01:26:31 ◼   ► but that shouldn't leave them exposed to bugs

01:26:33 ◼   ► that are discovered in August or September.

01:26:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:26:38 ◼   ► And you get that, once you get a reputation,

01:26:41 ◼   ► that's the difficulty of having this reputation

01:26:44 ◼   ► for solid software updates,

01:26:45 ◼   ► is once you ship one rough one,

01:26:49 ◼   ► you kind of lose years of rep and years of progress

01:26:53 ◼   ► around this idea that everybody can and should update

01:26:56 ◼   ► immediately to get all the latest security

01:26:58 ◼   ► and patches and updates and all of that.

01:27:00 ◼   ► That's why iOS adoption has been so high,

01:27:02 ◼   ► because the reputation has been,

01:27:04 ◼   ► hey, you may not like every feature,

01:27:06 ◼   ► and there may be a bug or two here and there,

01:27:07 ◼   ► but mostly it's going to be fine.

01:27:09 ◼   ► Just update immediately, right?