The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► All right, I'll forgive you for cheating. How are you feeling? You feeling better or are you still getting worse?

00:00:03 ◼   ► Now I feel terrible that I invited you on the show.

00:00:05 ◼   ► No, no, I'm doing really good. It's one of those things where like I'm someone who's only really sick at night

00:00:09 ◼   ► and like late at night, like nine o'clock, I'll feel horrible, but you know, most of the day I'm fine.

00:00:14 ◼   ► So I'm using up the remaining hours of you feeling good.

00:00:16 ◼   ► No, this is a lot of fun.

00:00:17 ◼   ► All right, well, we'll try to hurry up.

00:00:20 ◼   ► No, not at all.

00:00:21 ◼   ► What do you want to start with?

00:00:28 ◼   ► Do you want to do the year-end review stuff?

00:00:29 ◼   ► Do you want--

00:00:29 ◼   ► Oh, I think we should probably save that.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Let's save that.

00:00:31 ◼   ► OK.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Let's do the-- let's talk about topical, new stuff that's--

00:00:35 ◼   ► Apple and finally publishing AI?

00:00:38 ◼   ► Yeah, that was-- that's--

00:00:40 ◼   ► they said they were going to do it, and now they've done it.

00:00:43 ◼   ► So it's-- in some ways, it's--

00:00:46 ◼   ► Apple does what they said they were going to do,

00:00:48 ◼   ► so it's not that big a deal.

00:00:49 ◼   ► But it's another step in the new Apple--

00:00:54 ◼   ► open Apple, right?

00:00:56 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:00:57 ◼   ► And what was hilarious to me is that we talked about this on the talk show previously was

00:01:02 ◼   ► Google got up at I/O and instead of showing off a lot of the cool stuff that they're doing

00:01:06 ◼   ► with AI, they basically reintroduced sequential inference from Siri from 2010 and everyone

00:01:11 ◼   ► just lost their shit and said, you know, Apple's way behind.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And Apple's been doing this stuff since before Siri and they've been doing all sorts of different

00:01:17 ◼   ► machine learning and they just never spoke about it.

00:01:21 ◼   ► And now there's sort of, it's become table stakes and Wall Street and everyone is judging

00:01:24 ◼   ► you based on your AI performance, so now they have to get ahead of the story.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Sequential inference is when you do something like, "Hey Dingus, what's the Dallas Cowboys

00:01:35 ◼   ► record?"

00:01:36 ◼   ► And then Siri will answer and tell you that they're 13 and 2.

00:01:41 ◼   ► And then you say, "When do they play next?"

00:01:44 ◼   ► And Siri—I don't know if that particular example works—but sequential inference is

00:01:52 ◼   ► when, in other words, the sequential query, Siri can infer what I mean when I say "they."

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah, like the classic example is what's the capital of Germany and it'll say Berlin, you say

00:02:02 ◼   ► what's the population, you don't have to say Berlin again because it remembers what you're talking

00:02:05 ◼   ► about. Right, which is something that you don't, the reason I don't even know, I'm not, number one,

00:02:11 ◼   ► I'm not an AI researcher, number two, the reason most people don't know the term "sequential

00:02:17 ◼   ► inference" is because it comes naturally to human beings, it's called having a conversation.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely. It's all part of their natural language, you know, whatever magic that they've

00:02:28 ◼   ► got going on. Right. There's all sorts of things that we'll say even in this conversation on the

00:02:32 ◼   ► show that taken out of context as an individual sentence, somebody would say, "Well, I don't know

00:02:37 ◼   ► what the hell they're talking about, but it makes perfect sense in the midst of a conversation." And

00:02:42 ◼   ► that's a very tricky AI problem. Yeah. And, you know, again, there was all this conversation

00:02:48 ◼   ► about right now people are saying Amazon is far and away ahead in terms of natural language and

00:02:53 ◼   ► voice assistance and we saw the story about Wynn Hotels installing Alexa in all, you know, the Wynn

00:02:59 ◼   ► and in Encore. And yet to some extent because but I think it's also greatly inflated by how much

00:03:07 ◼   ► American tech pundits really love Amazon because outside of the US and the UK and now Germany since

00:03:12 ◼   ► September, Amazon has absolutely no presence. Meanwhile, Apple and Google are doing multi-language

00:03:17 ◼   ► and now sometimes multilingual, where you can switch from one language to another

00:03:20 ◼   ► during a conversation, which is super important in some countries like Europe, even in Montreal.

00:03:24 ◼   ► And so everyone is sort of ahead in different areas, and when you normalize it,

00:03:28 ◼   ► it's a super interesting area. Yeah, so we could segue right into the

00:03:32 ◼   ► story about the win and encore. Yeah.

00:03:35 ◼   ► It's pretty interesting. So the basic... Do we miss anything on the other story?

00:03:44 ◼   ► it was basically computer vision where they were trying to train, it's super hard to get to

00:03:48 ◼   ► take a human being and annotate images because you have to go through the image and tell the

00:03:52 ◼   ► computer what everything is, so they're trying to use simulated images to identify enough that

00:03:56 ◼   ► they can start implying what's in, so they start figuring out what's in the natural images.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Right, but as I wrote, I think, and I, you know, I guess I agree with myself, the bigger news is not

00:04:07 ◼   ► whatever the details of this particular paper, it's that Apple's AI researchers are in fact

00:04:12 ◼   ► publishing papers at all, because Apple is a very secretive company. I don't know if you knew that.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And they traditionally keep what they're working on to themselves until they have a product,

00:04:25 ◼   ► and even when the product comes out, they don't really explain a lot—often don't explain how

00:04:30 ◼   ► it works. They just put it out for people to enjoy. Yeah, and that seemed to have changed radically,

00:04:35 ◼   ► like right around WWDC when they started talking about computer vision and machine learning on

00:04:39 ◼   ► stage and then Tim Cook made comments about how they're using artificial intelligence

00:04:43 ◼   ► to increase battery life.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And Apple is one of the few companies that makes their own silicon.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Like Samsung makes their own silicon, but they don't use it in all their phones.

00:04:49 ◼   ► Apple does.

00:04:50 ◼   ► So they can put stuff in the chip that does a lot of the stuff that other companies have

00:04:53 ◼   ► to do in the software layer.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And they're deeply invested in all this technology.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah, and there was a presentation recently that an Apple AI researcher gave.

00:05:02 ◼   ► I think it was actually where the news came out that they're going to start publishing.

00:05:06 ◼   ► And I know that this particular thing on the image recognition was part of the talk that

00:05:10 ◼   ► was given.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And they were talking about the custom set of images that they have that's apparently

00:05:17 ◼   ► way bigger than the standard one.

00:05:21 ◼   ► There's an open source one.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I don't know if it's actually open source, but effectively open, that researchers can

00:05:25 ◼   ► use.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And Apple has their own proprietary set of I don't know how many million images.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But the bigger story is that Apple's publishing it at all.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And I think this is true.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I think it's a very simple story, which is that in the AI community, it's a very academic

00:05:41 ◼   ► community, and much like the university world, publishing is how you get ahead professionally.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And so to take a job as an AI researcher at a company where you're not allowed to publish

00:05:55 ◼   ► anything is sort of a dead end career-wise.

00:06:00 ◼   ► So you could maybe throw money at the problem,

00:06:04 ◼   ► but at a certain part, for a lot of these professionals,

00:06:08 ◼   ► their career is more important than their salary.

00:06:10 ◼   ► They're not in it for the money.

00:06:12 ◼   ► I mean, the money's nice.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I'm sure that Apple's AI researchers

00:06:15 ◼   ► are compensated very well compared to the median income

00:06:20 ◼   ► of an average citizen in the United States.

00:06:25 ◼   ► But there's more to it than that,

00:06:27 ◼   ► if you're really are looking to cultivate a decades-long career,

00:06:31 ◼   ► publishing is fundamental to it.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And apparently, Apple had a notorious reputation

00:06:35 ◼   ► that at conferences and stuff like that, that AI researchers--

00:06:40 ◼   ► it just wasn't a place that you go because you can't publish.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Yeah, and it was similar this year's security.

00:06:45 ◼   ► For years, Apple would just swallow up

00:06:47 ◼   ► people who were experts at algorithms

00:06:48 ◼   ► or some form of advanced computing or product category

00:06:52 ◼   ► that they wanted to do.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And they would go into a black hole,

00:06:54 ◼   ► and you'd never hear about them again.

00:06:55 ◼   ► And this year, they very slowly started

00:06:57 ◼   ► letting Apple people, for example, present--

00:06:59 ◼   ► Ivan Krstic presented at Black Hat

00:07:01 ◼   ► this year for the first time.

00:07:02 ◼   ► And now you have these papers being published.

00:07:04 ◼   ► And it is becoming table stakes to acquiring and retaining

00:07:06 ◼   ► the best talent.

00:07:07 ◼   ► And if Apple can't or won't offer that as an option,

00:07:09 ◼   ► other companies will.

00:07:10 ◼   ► So I think it's become a competitive enough area

00:07:12 ◼   ► that they have to relent.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Yeah, actually, it wasn't the first time

00:07:15 ◼   ► Apple presented at Black Hat.

00:07:17 ◼   ► They presented a long time ago.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And it was a widely panned talk because it was so empty.

00:07:25 ◼   ► It was sort of what you think a secretive company would give.

00:07:27 ◼   ► It's like, you know, it was sort of like an empty presentation.

00:07:33 ◼   ► Now, years later, maybe like 10 years later,

00:07:36 ◼   ► the presentation this year was a lot of people,

00:07:39 ◼   ► because of the last one, I saw a lot of coverage of it

00:07:41 ◼   ► from Black Hat attendees.

00:07:42 ◼   ► They rolled their eyes, and they're like, oh, this

00:07:44 ◼   ► is going to be something.

00:07:45 ◼   ► And then it ended up being a very, very serious,

00:07:47 ◼   ► you know, informative talk.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And again, that's what you want for the top people

00:07:53 ◼   ► in their respective fields, especially

00:07:54 ◼   ► it is something as new and exciting as AI, which a lot of people think is going to be

00:07:57 ◼   ► one of the next big chapters in computing.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Yes. So speaking of AI, what in the news this week was this announcement you referred to

00:08:08 ◼   ► that the Wynn and Encore in Las Vegas, Nevada, are going to equip all of their rooms, about

00:08:15 ◼   ► 4,800 rooms between the two, with an Amazon Echo. Wynn and Encore, it's sort of one

00:08:22 ◼   ► big resort, you can go between one and the other without ever stepping outside. There's

00:08:28 ◼   ► like a shopping mall between the two. So it's sort of really, it's more like one property.

00:08:35 ◼   ► It's just two different towers and slightly different themes between the two. It's a lot.

00:08:42 ◼   ► 4800 is a lot of rooms. And I think it's interesting. My take on it is that there's a lot of talk

00:08:50 ◼   ► that hey it's early days of this voice driven AI stuff nobody's too late to the

00:08:55 ◼   ► game like the fact that Apple doesn't have a standalone speaker type thing

00:09:01 ◼   ► like the Google Home and the Amazon echo doesn't mean that they're too late you

00:09:07 ◼   ► know because it's so early it's sort of like how maybe you know smartphones in

00:09:12 ◼   ► 2004 2005 the fact that Apple didn't have one was didn't mean they were too

00:09:17 ◼   ► late, obviously, in hindsight, and that the situation might be similar to that with voice.

00:09:24 ◼   ► But 4,800, 5,000 of them in a hotel here, 5,000 in a hotel there, and all of a sudden

00:09:31 ◼   ► you can have a pretty entrenched market leader. Because it's also the sort of thing that

00:09:36 ◼   ► in a hotel room is not going to get replaced every year or every two years like a cell

00:09:41 ◼   ► phone is.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Yeah, no, totally. Again, it's one of those things that really depends on your point of

00:09:45 ◼   ► because some people will look at the Amazon Echo or now the Google home and say that Apple

00:09:49 ◼   ► is super far behind because they don't have a home hub, where with Amazon, if you have

00:09:54 ◼   ► the Amazon Echo or the Dot and you leave the house and then realize something's wrong,

00:09:58 ◼   ► you can't just yell and change whatever is on that device.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Where with Siri, it's super portable across a wide range of different devices and Google's

00:10:07 ◼   ► assistant, it can be in the home, it can be on the phone, it's in all of those areas.

00:10:12 ◼   ► And again, Amazon Echo only functions in, I think, two languages now and three countries

00:10:17 ◼   ► compared to multiple languages, including Chinese and Hebrew for something like Siri.

00:10:22 ◼   ► So you could look at it and say Amazon is super far behind because they don't have multilingual,

00:10:25 ◼   ► they don't have multi-device, they're not mobile, they're not portable.

00:10:28 ◼   ► An assistant that's not with you all the time is not a very good assistant at all.

00:10:31 ◼   ► So all this stuff is very perspective-based, but I think this is sort of the exciting period

00:10:34 ◼   ► where everything's being figured out.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And the win is a huge, I don't see what to say, but it's a huge win for Amazon.

00:10:41 ◼   ► But again, for me, it's like, what is the implication of all this?

00:10:44 ◼   ► Is this a dumb terminal that's going to just parse voice commands and do a certain subset

00:10:47 ◼   ► of features?

00:10:48 ◼   ► Or there was a story in the information today about a court subpoenaing Amazon Records in

00:10:52 ◼   ► a murder trial, and I'm not even going to have to worry about everything I say in a

00:10:54 ◼   ► hotel room from now on.

00:10:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I just was about to mention that.

00:10:58 ◼   ► Well, and I even wrote, you know, it's—in any hotel room, I think that a reasonable—it's

00:11:06 ◼   ► reasonable for somebody to have privacy concerns about an always-listening electronic device

00:11:10 ◼   ► whether you're committing a crime or not. And in Vegas in particular, there might be, you know,

00:11:17 ◼   ► there might be more concerns than in other cities. I don't think that's unreasonable in the least

00:11:24 ◼   ► bit. So I'm curious at a practical level what the win and encore will do if some guest is checking

00:11:32 ◼   ► in and says, "I don't want that." Yeah, well, it reminds me of that, the Citizen 4, the movie,

00:11:38 ◼   ► the documentary about Edward Snowden. And all these companies have technology. Like they parse

00:11:43 ◼   ► the voice locally until you say the command phrase and then they engage the network. So it's not as

00:11:47 ◼   ► if everything you're saying is streamed to Amazon. But we don't know if that can change and we don't

00:11:51 ◼   ► know if someone can order that to be changed. So it's sort of like when Edward Snowden sees that

00:11:55 ◼   ► phone and he starts taking it apart and the reporter says, "But that phone's not on." And

00:11:59 ◼   ► he goes, "Ha ha ha." You know, as if that's the most naive question in the world. And you have

00:12:04 ◼   ► you have to deal with, yes, I understand that Amazon says,

00:12:06 ◼   ► or that the technology is built this way,

00:12:08 ◼   ► I don't know who flipped a switch

00:12:09 ◼   ► or forced them to flip a switch,

00:12:10 ◼   ► and I can't understand the state of this device,

00:12:12 ◼   ► therefore my only option is to disassemble it.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - Right, and I, you know,

00:12:17 ◼   ► I have the Echo downstairs, and by default,

00:12:22 ◼   ► it's very, very simple, you just plug it in,

00:12:24 ◼   ► you can unplug, if you unplug it,

00:12:25 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure you're good,

00:12:26 ◼   ► because there's no battery in it.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And when you address it,

00:12:32 ◼   ► with the, you know, whatever your catchphrase is.

00:12:35 ◼   ► I think you have the choice with that.

00:12:37 ◼   ► I use, what do I use?

00:12:39 ◼   ► Alexa, I think.

00:12:40 ◼   ► I think you can, I forget what else you can call it.

00:12:42 ◼   ► You can call it like Echo or something, I don't know.

00:12:44 ◼   ► But I call it Alexa.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And then when Alexa starts listening,

00:12:49 ◼   ► there's a blue ring that lights up.

00:12:52 ◼   ► So you know, okay, now it's listening.

00:12:54 ◼   ► But it's always listening

00:12:57 ◼   ► because otherwise how would it hear Alexa?

00:13:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, they claim that it's locally listening only

00:13:03 ◼   ► until it hears the phrase,

00:13:04 ◼   ► and then it enables network function.

00:13:05 ◼   ► But again, in a post-Noden world,

00:13:06 ◼   ► I don't wanna make any of these assumptions anymore.

00:13:08 ◼   ► - Right, and who is to say whether a court order

00:13:13 ◼   ► could force them to secretly,

00:13:17 ◼   ► I mean, again, this sounds like paranoid stuff.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Like, if you told me I'd be talking about this

00:13:22 ◼   ► 10 years ago, I would've thought I was a nut,

00:13:23 ◼   ► but I mean, this stuff has come to pass,

00:13:28 ◼   ► that these, you know, you get these,

00:13:29 ◼   ► I forget what they're called, the court order,

00:13:32 ◼   ► that in addition to having to comply with it,

00:13:34 ◼   ► you're also not allowed to talk about it

00:13:36 ◼   ► or to inform your customer.

00:13:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, the national security letters.

00:13:39 ◼   ► - Right, national security letters.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Who's to say that they can't come to Amazon

00:13:43 ◼   ► and either force them to make it listen

00:13:46 ◼   ► without having the blue light light up

00:13:48 ◼   ► or similar to the Apple case from earlier this year,

00:13:55 ◼   ► what if the FBI has, or whoever else, law enforcement,

00:13:59 ◼   ► they have their own team of hackers who have a patch.

00:14:03 ◼   ► You know, like, you don't even have to,

00:14:05 ◼   ► we're not even gonna make you write it.

00:14:06 ◼   ► All we want, we just wanna force this patch

00:14:10 ◼   ► onto this guy's Echo.

00:14:13 ◼   ► - Or a nation state, or a hacker just goes

00:14:14 ◼   ► into the assembly line, or smokies themselves

00:14:16 ◼   ► into the source code, you know,

00:14:17 ◼   ► they just hide amongst the other programmers.

00:14:19 ◼   ► If you don't bring the device into the room,

00:14:21 ◼   ► your confidence level can never be 100% about that device.

00:14:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So it's, yeah, exactly, especially going to a hotel room,

00:14:28 ◼   ► who's to say that the device hasn't been diddled with

00:14:30 ◼   ► by somebody, you know, not even,

00:14:32 ◼   ► even if you trust the Wynn Corporation completely,

00:14:35 ◼   ► who's to say that a previous guest hasn't been in?

00:14:37 ◼   ► - Totally, I mean, there are jobs where if your devices

00:14:39 ◼   ► are ever out of your sight, you just have to walk away,

00:14:41 ◼   ► you can never pick them up or touch them again.

00:14:43 ◼   ► And you know, Vegas, are they gonna have guests like that?

00:14:46 ◼   ► So I wonder how they're gonna tackle those problems.

00:14:46 ◼   ► - At the same level, who's to say that,

00:14:48 ◼   ► I mean, if you're gonna say that there's malfeasance

00:14:50 ◼   ► who are gonna come in and hack the echo in the room,

00:14:53 ◼   ► Who's to say that they didn't go in and plant a bug,

00:14:56 ◼   ► just an old-fashioned bug underneath the bed

00:14:58 ◼   ► or somewhere else where a housekeeping

00:15:00 ◼   ► can go to spot it. - Absolutely.

00:15:01 ◼   ► - So, I mean, it's not like it's entirely new.

00:15:04 ◼   ► But why would they do this?

00:15:05 ◼   ► Why would the wind do this?

00:15:05 ◼   ► I've stayed at the wind several times.

00:15:08 ◼   ► Where by several, I mean many.

00:15:11 ◼   ► - We stay there every CES.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - If I went there for CES,

00:15:14 ◼   ► I would definitely stay at the wind.

00:15:16 ◼   ► If I ever go to CES, and it's a perennial topic on the,

00:15:20 ◼   ► I'm not going this year.

00:15:21 ◼   ► This year it was impossible for personal reasons here.

00:15:24 ◼   ► I've gotta, I cannot be away in early January.

00:15:26 ◼   ► But every year I say, boy, one of these years

00:15:31 ◼   ► I'd like to go to CES, just because,

00:15:32 ◼   ► not because I think it'd be great.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I think for all the reasons that people

00:15:36 ◼   ► in the press complain about it would be bad.

00:15:38 ◼   ► But I think it's something to see.

00:15:40 ◼   ► And I don't think it's gonna last forever.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And so I kind of wanna see it while it is still a thing.

00:15:45 ◼   ► But anyway, I would say it win for sure,

00:15:46 ◼   ► 'cause it's my, A, it's my favorite place in Vegas.

00:15:49 ◼   ► And B, it's reasonably walkable to both the convention center,

00:15:56 ◼   ► which is a bit of a hike from the Wynn,

00:15:58 ◼   ► and it's right next door to the Sands Convention

00:16:01 ◼   ► Center, which is part of Venetian,

00:16:04 ◼   ► where there's a whole bunch of other stuff.

00:16:07 ◼   ► And it's so close to the Venetian

00:16:08 ◼   ► that you'd be nuts to take a cab.

00:16:11 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:12 ◼   ► It'll take you 20 minutes longer than it would take you to walk.

00:16:15 ◼   ► So they annex more and more hotels every year,

00:16:17 ◼   ► - Until one day it'll just be in the wind.

00:16:20 ◼   ► - I doubt it.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I don't think the wind would,

00:16:21 ◼   ► I think the wind would turn the business down.

00:16:24 ◼   ► - Probably. - Honestly.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I know they don't want the refraf.

00:16:27 ◼   ► But anyway, I've been there many times

00:16:29 ◼   ► and they actually recently, I think within the last year,

00:16:32 ◼   ► I think only the last time I was there

00:16:33 ◼   ► did they have the new setup, but they replaced,

00:16:36 ◼   ► there used to be a console next to one side of a bed

00:16:39 ◼   ► that would control the drapes,

00:16:41 ◼   ► what do they call them, the shears?

00:16:42 ◼   ► So you could like let light in,

00:16:44 ◼   ► but have, you know, like sheer things

00:16:46 ◼   ► so nobody could see through the window,

00:16:48 ◼   ► and the various lights in the room.

00:16:50 ◼   ► So you control the lights, you control the drapes

00:16:52 ◼   ► and the shears with this touch thing.

00:16:54 ◼   ► They recently replaced them with a sort of new one

00:16:58 ◼   ► that still looks sort of '80s-ish.

00:17:00 ◼   ► It looks like really high-end consumer electronics

00:17:03 ◼   ► from the '80s.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I can't help but think that maybe that's part

00:17:06 ◼   ► of how this is possible, though,

00:17:07 ◼   ► that they got these new ones that are more,

00:17:11 ◼   ► at least sort of computerized rather than purely electronic

00:17:14 ◼   ► so that Alexa, that they can write some kind of custom app

00:17:17 ◼   ► to have it happen.

00:17:20 ◼   ► And the Wynn is supposed to be the nicest place in town.

00:17:23 ◼   ► I think it is the nicest place.

00:17:24 ◼   ► It's a high-end hotel.

00:17:26 ◼   ► It's sort of annoying, if you think about it,

00:17:27 ◼   ► if you're in bed with another person, that only one of you

00:17:31 ◼   ► has those controls on their side.

00:17:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it can be a sore spot.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Right.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And for us, it's not like an argument of--

00:17:40 ◼   ► with me and Amy, I always sleep on the left, she on the right.

00:17:43 ◼   ► I mean, and this is, I don't know, geez, 20-some years.

00:17:46 ◼   ► That's set in stone.

00:17:48 ◼   ► But a lot of hotels, it's like when you stay there,

00:17:52 ◼   ► it's like every other room is every other side.

00:17:54 ◼   ► And so it's like a 50% chance who's got the thing.

00:17:59 ◼   ► So just being able to address Alexa and say,

00:18:01 ◼   ► "Hey, open the drapes," that'd be way nicer.

00:18:05 ◼   ► That'd be 10 times nicer.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And plus, honestly, the buttons don't even work

00:18:09 ◼   ► half the time you touch them.

00:18:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:11 ◼   ► - So I think it'd be great.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And with the lights and stuff like that, every time you go to any hotel,

00:18:15 ◼   ► I mean, I stay at the Wynn at least once a year.

00:18:18 ◼   ► And I still get confused over which lights control,

00:18:20 ◼   ► which buttons control which lights.

00:18:23 ◼   ► >> To their credit, I mean, Amazon made Alexa a very open platform.

00:18:25 ◼   ► And it seems, I'm not a developer, but it seems relatively easy to sort of add

00:18:28 ◼   ► these automations and these customizations to it.

00:18:31 ◼   ► And they've got a lot of, I forget what they call them, recipes or formulas or

00:18:34 ◼   ► what the nomenclature is.

00:18:35 ◼   ► But to sort of add these control points to them for

00:18:37 ◼   ► different features and services.

00:18:39 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:18:39 ◼   ► But here's what's weird, and I have a friend, Hunter,

00:18:42 ◼   ► who has a great app if you ever go to Vegas, VegasMate.

00:18:47 ◼   ► Just, it's just sort of like a,

00:18:51 ◼   ► you know, like a tour guide type thing.

00:18:55 ◼   ► And you can just plug in, AI has news

00:18:57 ◼   ► so you can find out what's going on in Vegas

00:18:59 ◼   ► if there's anything new going on.

00:19:00 ◼   ► So there's lots of news and how to get between places

00:19:04 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:19:05 ◼   ► Anyway, it's a great app, go check it out

00:19:06 ◼   ► if you're in Vegas, VegasMate.

00:19:09 ◼   ► He pointed out immediately after I read "Staring Fireball," he pointed out immediately,

00:19:14 ◼   ► the Wynn Corporation's biggest investments by far aren't in Vegas, they're in Macau.

00:19:20 ◼   ► They actually have two separate resorts in Macau.

00:19:26 ◼   ► I don't really understand the layout of Macau quite, but there's a waterway between the

00:19:31 ◼   ► two parts of town and there's resorts on both sides and Wynn has one on each side.

00:19:37 ◼   ► So it's way bigger.

00:19:39 ◼   ► The casino revenue is way bigger over there.

00:19:44 ◼   ► They obviously aren't going to equip those rooms with Alexa,

00:19:47 ◼   ► because like you pointed out, they don't speak Chinese yet.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Yeah, no Cantonese, no Portuguese, none of those things.

00:19:53 ◼   ► And they don't even officially support locations in English

00:19:58 ◼   ► outside the United States.

00:20:01 ◼   ► I mean, you can get it to work.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And I know people have complained

00:20:04 ◼   ► when I pointed this out.

00:20:04 ◼   ► People in other countries-- well,

00:20:06 ◼   ► I have one, and just cheat and have it work.

00:20:09 ◼   ► But you can't do things like get the weather,

00:20:11 ◼   ► because you have to give it a zip code in one

00:20:13 ◼   ► of the countries they do support.

00:20:15 ◼   ► So you can set it up and use it if you live in Taipei,

00:20:18 ◼   ► like Ben Thompson.

00:20:20 ◼   ► But it gives them the weather from Madison, Wisconsin.

00:20:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:24 ◼   ► And some people say it's trivial for them

00:20:25 ◼   ► to roll out additional languages and dialects.

00:20:27 ◼   ► But that's years and years of work that Apple and Google

00:20:30 ◼   ► have put in that Amazon has invested in something else.

00:20:32 ◼   ► And the opportunity cost is huge.

00:20:33 ◼   ► So yeah, anything could be trivial,

00:20:36 ◼   ► given enough money and resources.

00:20:37 ◼   ► - I'm skeptical of anything in AI being called trivial.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:20:41 ◼   ► - You know, ship it and let's see.

00:20:42 ◼   ► - Absolutely, no, totally agreed.

00:20:44 ◼   ► And again, things like the multi-language,

00:20:46 ◼   ► which they started doing on Apple TV,

00:20:48 ◼   ► where you can ask for a movie in French

00:20:50 ◼   ► with a title in English.

00:20:51 ◼   ► I mean, just understanding that problem set

00:20:53 ◼   ► of when does one language start,

00:20:54 ◼   ► when does one begin, when does it end again,

00:20:56 ◼   ► what's the time, I mean, those are all non-trivial problems.

00:20:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm curious, too, how they're going to do it.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Like presumably, they're not going

00:21:05 ◼   ► to have you use your own Amazon ID.

00:21:12 ◼   ► I don't think you would need it, though.

00:21:14 ◼   ► There's no-- they'll just pay Amazon some sort of group rate,

00:21:19 ◼   ► massive group rate, for access to Amazon Music

00:21:21 ◼   ► so that you can tell your Alexa to play music

00:21:23 ◼   ► and it's not going to tell you to log in or whatever.

00:21:29 ◼   ► I'm just curious, though.

00:21:31 ◼   ► because it is sold as a personal device.

00:21:34 ◼   ► I'm curious how it will work

00:21:35 ◼   ► as sort of an institutional device.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Well, that was one of the things I heard

00:21:38 ◼   ► about a potential Apple home hub,

00:21:40 ◼   ► is that one of the things that needed to be solved for

00:21:42 ◼   ► was a multi-personal Siri,

00:21:43 ◼   ► because if, let's say for example, you have one at home,

00:21:45 ◼   ► and you say, what are my messages?

00:21:47 ◼   ► Does it play your messages, Amy's messages, Jonas's messages?

00:21:50 ◼   ► Solving those problems are also non-trivial,

00:21:52 ◼   ► if you wanna have the deep level of integration

00:21:54 ◼   ► and the full range of services

00:21:55 ◼   ► that something like Siri offers.

00:21:57 ◼   ► So you can do rudimentary account switching,

00:22:00 ◼   ► like they do on Apple TV right now,

00:22:01 ◼   ► but that's not a full featured product.

00:22:03 ◼   ► And making a multi-personal Siri is, I think,

00:22:06 ◼   ► key to what they wanna do in the living room.

00:22:08 ◼   ► That's probably why it's taking a little bit long.

00:22:10 ◼   ► But it's also interesting because when you look

00:22:11 ◼   ► at Amazon's businesses, like you said, in Macau,

00:22:14 ◼   ► it's not clear to me that Amazon has much

00:22:16 ◼   ► of a roadmap in China.

00:22:17 ◼   ► They have established internet companies and retailers

00:22:20 ◼   ► in China to begin with, where maybe Apple

00:22:22 ◼   ► or maybe Google have a better story to tell there.

00:22:24 ◼   ► And if you don't have something

00:22:25 ◼   ► that can truly scale internationally,

00:22:27 ◼   ► this can go with you when you travel.

00:22:29 ◼   ► I'm in London right now and I need my assistant and where is it? Or I'm in Germany today or I'm,

00:22:33 ◼   ► you know, I'm in Spain, I'm in Northern Africa. All those things aren't necessary until they are,

00:22:39 ◼   ► and I think that's why it was a better decision to sort of scale a little bit internationally

00:22:44 ◼   ► before we started going deeper in terms of APIs and things like that.

00:22:47 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So I'm curious, you know, where it's going to go. But clearly the end solution,

00:22:54 ◼   ► It needs to be, I mean, we are in some ways early,

00:22:58 ◼   ► so early days, I don't care what anybody says,

00:23:00 ◼   ► because clearly where this is going to go,

00:23:03 ◼   ► and somebody will get there, it's inevitable,

00:23:05 ◼   ► and I think it'll be sooner than later,

00:23:09 ◼   ► is truly a personal assistant quality conversation

00:23:15 ◼   ► where you never have any question

00:23:18 ◼   ► that the sequential inference is going to work,

00:23:21 ◼   ► and that things that you think,

00:23:23 ◼   ► everything you think that your assistant could do for you,

00:23:27 ◼   ► they definitely can do.

00:23:28 ◼   ► So if you say, get us a reservation at the Palm

00:23:33 ◼   ► at nine o'clock tomorrow night,

00:23:37 ◼   ► it's going to know that you mean the Palm in Vegas.

00:23:40 ◼   ► You know what I'm saying,

00:23:41 ◼   ► if you're in a hotel in Vegas.

00:23:42 ◼   ► It knows that it's not gonna ask you what city,

00:23:45 ◼   ► and it's going to make the,

00:23:49 ◼   ► either make the reservation or tell you that you can't

00:23:53 ◼   ► because there's no times available.

00:23:55 ◼   ► You can have 930, will 930 work for you?

00:23:58 ◼   ► Yes, that's fine, and then you get the 930 reservation.

00:24:00 ◼   ► Everything you think, you know,

00:24:01 ◼   ► anything you could communicate with a human,

00:24:04 ◼   ► you should be able to do with these.

00:24:06 ◼   ► And in the same way that if you and I were working

00:24:10 ◼   ► in a shared office together,

00:24:11 ◼   ► that I could say, what are my messages?

00:24:14 ◼   ► And you could say, what are my messages?

00:24:15 ◼   ► And it's gonna know who we are, you know?

00:24:19 ◼   ► is gonna be able to tell, in the same way that a human

00:24:22 ◼   ► is never gonna be confused over my voice and your voice,

00:24:25 ◼   ► neither is the personal assistant.

00:24:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I spoke about this before,

00:24:29 ◼   ► but Nuance has an office in Montreal,

00:24:30 ◼   ► and they went there for one of their demos,

00:24:32 ◼   ► and they were showing technology like that,

00:24:33 ◼   ► and it was about two years ago, it was super primitive.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Basically, you snapped your fingers twice,

00:24:37 ◼   ► and three cameras and three beam-forming microphones

00:24:40 ◼   ► locked in on you, and then would isolate you from the room

00:24:42 ◼   ► as you walked about saying things.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And that's obviously not a consumer product yet,

00:24:45 ◼   ► but it was one of the, and also driving between cities

00:24:48 ◼   ► when there's no internet connection.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Right now, as you saw people commenting about the AirPods,

00:24:51 ◼   ► if you lose the internet connection,

00:24:52 ◼   ► the functionality of a lot of these virtual assistants

00:24:54 ◼   ► goes away 'cause they're still incredibly server-based.

00:24:57 ◼   ► So there's all these problems that they're solving for.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And it could be like that movie "Her"

00:25:01 ◼   ► where Scarlett Johansson is in your AirPods.

00:25:03 ◼   ► I don't know if you saw it or not,

00:25:04 ◼   ► but there was that video that,

00:25:05 ◼   ► I still don't know if it's a real product or not,

00:25:07 ◼   ► but it was that Japanese Azuma Hikari virtual assistant

00:25:11 ◼   ► where it was like a little animated person

00:25:13 ◼   ► in a display case that was in your house

00:25:17 ◼   ► talking to you as your friend so you were not lonely,

00:25:19 ◼   ► and then would follow you to your phone

00:25:20 ◼   ► and to your computer throughout your day,

00:25:22 ◼   ► and then get your house ready for you

00:25:24 ◼   ► when you came back at night.

00:25:26 ◼   ► It's quasi-creepy, but it's the sort of stuff

00:25:28 ◼   ► people are working on.

00:25:29 ◼   ► - I just realized, I think I have like two or three

00:25:33 ◼   ► episodes of this show, and I keep passing this forward

00:25:36 ◼   ► in my show notes from one show to another,

00:25:37 ◼   ► follow-up on Mario Run, or I forget if it was two shows,

00:25:40 ◼   ► I think it was two shows ago, where we were saying

00:25:44 ◼   ► If you don't log in to a Nintendo account,

00:25:47 ◼   ► you have to pay again to get it.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And that's not true.

00:25:49 ◼   ► It ends up, you know, you can just restore the purchase

00:25:53 ◼   ► on the same ID.

00:25:54 ◼   ► You don't have to have a Nintendo account.

00:25:56 ◼   ► You can put it on your iPad and your phone.

00:25:59 ◼   ► But one of the things that they do do

00:26:01 ◼   ► is you can only run one at a time per Apple ID.

00:26:06 ◼   ► So if you buy it on your iPad and you buy it

00:26:09 ◼   ► and then you install it on your iPhone

00:26:12 ◼   ► and somebody's playing it on your iPad,

00:26:14 ◼   ► you can't play it on your iPhone.

00:26:15 ◼   ► That's part of the reason that they require always

00:26:18 ◼   ► on internet access is that they're

00:26:21 ◼   ► checking for things like that.

00:26:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I think in their perfect world,

00:26:24 ◼   ► you'd have to pay for every instance that you run.

00:26:28 ◼   ► The talk show, the show where we do follow up halfway

00:26:30 ◼   ► into the show.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what else I saw about Mario Run before we break

00:26:35 ◼   ► for the first time is that it is falling off

00:26:40 ◼   ► the top selling, falling down the top grossing list around the world. Still on it, but it's

00:26:49 ◼   ► now back, things have been, order has been restored and Clash Royale or whatever the

00:26:53 ◼   ► hell it is is now back to being the top grossing app. Yes, Clash Royale, Pokemon Go, Clash

00:27:00 ◼   ► of Clans, Mobile Strike, Game of War, Madden NFL, and then at number seven, here in the

00:27:07 ◼   ► at least, is Super Mario Run.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Netflix, number eight.

00:27:10 ◼   ► - One time purchase can't compete with consumables.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Consumables that people are playing all the time.

00:27:14 ◼   ► - Right, and these games that people are truly addicted to.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Candy Crush, all the way down at number 10.

00:27:22 ◼   ► - I saw someone playing that on a 12.9 inch iPad Pro

00:27:25 ◼   ► in my last plane trip, respect.

00:27:27 ◼   ► - I love, the thing I love is that Minecraft

00:27:29 ◼   ► is still at number 11 on top grossing,

00:27:31 ◼   ► and it's still, you're firmly entrenched

00:27:35 ◼   ► at number one on top paid.

00:27:37 ◼   ► And that's--

00:27:38 ◼   ► It came out for Apple TV.

00:27:39 ◼   ► It's $7.

00:27:41 ◼   ► You just pay $7 up front.

00:27:43 ◼   ► There is no demo.

00:27:43 ◼   ► You pay $7.

00:27:44 ◼   ► You get Minecraft on your iOS device.

00:27:47 ◼   ► And they're doing so-- it's the only app making money

00:27:50 ◼   ► with that, the old-fashioned pay-for-the-app model.

00:27:54 ◼   ► I mean, effectively, that's what Mario is, but it's--

00:27:58 ◼   ► No demos.

00:27:59 ◼   ► I think in hindsight, they would have been better

00:28:00 ◼   ► with a Minecraft model.

00:28:01 ◼   ► It's just because their brand is as good as Minecraft.

00:28:03 ◼   ► People know what Minecraft is, and they want it.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And again, the Apple TV version just came out,

00:28:06 ◼   ► people wanted that too and they would have just wanted Mario. Mario, sorry.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Right, what if you had to pay, right, I would love to run that alternate universe where,

00:28:14 ◼   ► all right, so let's take the price down, right, if you have to pay. So instead of nine, nine,

00:28:19 ◼   ► you know, play three levels and then pay $9.99, what if they just matched Minecraft's price and

00:28:24 ◼   ► sold Mario run for $6.99? Yeah, you get rid of... And if you don't pay $6.99, you get nothing and

00:28:32 ◼   ► like it. Yep, and you can't leave bad reviews about how much you've charged in half and

00:28:36 ◼   ► it's just a cleaner experience. Yeah, no bad reviews. Man, if anybody could have pulled

00:28:40 ◼   ► it off, it's a Nintendo. I can't help but think that they'd have made more money. I

00:28:44 ◼   ► really do. Yeah, I think they're one of the few people who like Minecraft who would absolutely

00:28:48 ◼   ► have just the recognition to do it. Right. And once you get the good faith, you could

00:28:52 ◼   ► do that with your next game and so on. Right. Or maybe split it? I do, and I salute them,

00:28:59 ◼   ► And I don't want to complain.

00:29:00 ◼   ► I salute them for not even going near the radioactive pile

00:29:04 ◼   ► of dog shit that buying--

00:29:06 ◼   ► paying $1 here and there for extra coins.

00:29:08 ◼   ► And you have to watch a video before you

00:29:11 ◼   ► can do the next level or pay your way out

00:29:14 ◼   ► that these other games do.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I salute Nintendo for not doing it.

00:29:17 ◼   ► I'm not surprised.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I think that would be poisonous, absolute poison to their brand.

00:29:22 ◼   ► But it's obviously-- that's the path to make money,

00:29:26 ◼   ► the most money on the App Store.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I salute them for not doing it, but I can't help but think that they could have made money

00:29:31 ◼   ► with paid up front for less than $9.99 and maybe one other in-app purchase in some way

00:29:36 ◼   ► to something else that was cut off that you'd have to pay another maybe $5 for the game

00:29:41 ◼   ► and $5 for the rest, something like that.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Or one of the different games that comes built into it, like the Toad Rally or something.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Right.

00:29:48 ◼   ► Like maybe you get to play $5.99, you get to play all the regular levels, and for another

00:29:53 ◼   ► 599 you get to play the toad rally and they'll give you a taste of toad rally like they did with the taste of the levels

00:29:59 ◼   ► Like you get like three toad rallies before you have to pay

00:30:02 ◼   ► Another 599 and then you are an end for 99 and then you're done you're in for you know

00:30:07 ◼   ► Not ten bucks and you got the whole game. I think that they have made more money

00:30:12 ◼   ► And I think I would have given a better experience

00:30:14 ◼   ► They wouldn't have had the same problem they had with bad reviews and it would have it would have been I mean

00:30:18 ◼   ► Way better than I think the review I think it would be a five-star game. I really do

00:30:22 ◼   ► Agreed because the people who would buy it pay that much money are the superfans and they would have had a much easier

00:30:26 ◼   ► Bolst in the beginning. It's the first action game for iOS that I've played

00:30:31 ◼   ► Ever I think that I've stuck with I mean, I played cannibal a little bit

00:30:36 ◼   ► Cannibal, but cannibal is like 90 seconds and I mean the best I ever did was like 4,000 meters or something like that

00:30:42 ◼   ► So it's like, you know, and then once you get a good run like that, you're like done. Yeah, I mean there are games

00:30:47 ◼   ► I always say I don't play games. I played the

00:30:50 ◼   ► I've played the stick band golf a little bit. I played the day. I like the desert golf, which is sort of you ever play that

00:30:55 ◼   ► yep, I

00:30:58 ◼   ► Like the desert golfing I think it's I think it's sort of

00:31:01 ◼   ► It it's artful it's it's sort of like meditative

00:31:07 ◼   ► Letterpress and threes and a bunch of those puzzle games. Yeah letterpress. Yeah threes I got into a little bit. It was real quick

00:31:13 ◼   ► I appreciate the artistry of it letterpress. I had a brief obsession with and I was yeah

00:31:17 ◼   ► I hate to brag but I was really really good

00:31:20 ◼   ► But it's too competitive. I don't know. Or too time-consuming and I feel guilty then,

00:31:28 ◼   ► because it's with other people, I feel guilty when I drop off and leave a good game hanging.

00:31:33 ◼   ► You know, it was too time-consuming to me. So...

00:31:38 ◼   ► And you never knew when Game Center just did it to you. You couldn't tell if they weren't playing

00:31:41 ◼   ► or Game Center was.

00:31:42 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:31:42 ◼   ► But Mario, boy I like that game. And I've started replaying it.

00:31:50 ◼   ► Nintendo does best, they made it.

00:31:52 ◼   ► So I beat all the levels and now I'm going through and collecting all the pink coins on each level.

00:31:58 ◼   ► I don't think I'm going to keep going. I think I'll do that, but I can't see going after the damn purple ones.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't know about that. I'm not good enough.

00:32:06 ◼   ► They just do a really good job of matching the game to the control mechanics that are available on the device.

00:32:10 ◼   ► on the device and he did that with the iPhone as well,

00:32:12 ◼   ► which I thought was really great.

00:32:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally.

00:32:14 ◼   ► It's a very, very, you know, you think infinite runner,

00:32:18 ◼   ► ah, it's simple, but it's pretty damn good.

00:32:21 ◼   ► I do think they messed up with the pricing.

00:32:25 ◼   ► All right, let's take a break.

00:32:27 ◼   ► All right, our first sponsor.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Are you ready for it?

00:32:30 ◼   ► It's very exciting.

00:32:31 ◼   ► First sponsor is Casper.

00:32:33 ◼   ► Casper, they're the company

00:32:36 ◼   ► that make obsessively engineered mattresses

00:32:38 ◼   ► that's shockingly fair prices.

00:32:39 ◼   ► to kasper.com/thetalkshow and use code "thetalkshow" to save 50 bucks towards your mattress. But

00:32:47 ◼   ► there's an asterisk. Let me tell you what that means. It's a footnote that I'll tell

00:32:51 ◼   ► you at the very end of this. Casper has created one perfect mattress. You don't have to decide

00:32:56 ◼   ► between different types of mattresses. If you want springs or you want memory foam or

00:33:00 ◼   ► you want latex foam or something like that. No, you don't want that. They've got one type

00:33:05 ◼   ► of mattress. It is a blend that their engineers have spent thousands of hours developing it.

00:33:10 ◼   ► It combines springy latex and supportive memory foams for a sleep service with just the right

00:33:15 ◼   ► sink and just the right bounce. It's exactly like the reason I like buying Apple products.

00:33:20 ◼   ► You don't have to decide between 20 different types of phone or something like that. They

00:33:26 ◼   ► give you one. They figure out, "Here's two sizes. Here's one type of phone. Two sizes.

00:33:32 ◼   ► You're done.

00:33:33 ◼   ► That's what the mattresses from Casper are like.

00:33:36 ◼   ► One quality style of mattress.

00:33:38 ◼   ► You just pick how big your bed is and you go.

00:33:41 ◼   ► And because they don't have stores,

00:33:43 ◼   ► they don't have middlemen, they don't

00:33:45 ◼   ► have warehouses around the world and stuff like that,

00:33:50 ◼   ► they can sell them direct to you at a shockingly fair price.

00:33:53 ◼   ► This is such a better way to buy a mattress.

00:33:56 ◼   ► Premium mattresses usually start at over $1,500.

00:34:00 ◼   ► Casper mattresses cost just $500 for a twin, $750 for full, $850 for queen, and just $950

00:34:06 ◼   ► for a king.

00:34:07 ◼   ► You cannot buy a king-size mattress for $950 that's a good mattress anywhere else.

00:34:13 ◼   ► It just can't.

00:34:14 ◼   ► It can't be done.

00:34:15 ◼   ► And they're made right here in America.

00:34:19 ◼   ► They've also made buying mattresses online easy and completely risk-free.

00:34:23 ◼   ► No, you can't try it before you buy it because you're buying online.

00:34:27 ◼   ► But they have a 100-night home trial.

00:34:30 ◼   ► it keep it for three months and if you don't like it they will come and pick it

00:34:34 ◼   ► up at your house and give you a full refund no questions they also have a new

00:34:41 ◼   ► pet mattress if you have a dog and I have that more reader comments or

00:34:46 ◼   ► listener comments wherever you want to call you people listening to me from

00:34:49 ◼   ► people who bought this thing for their dog that their dog loves it now here's

00:34:54 ◼   ► the here's the deal you use that code to talk so you see 50 bucks towards a

00:34:57 ◼   ► mattress. Here's the bad news. It only applies to human mattresses. The dog

00:35:01 ◼   ► mattress costs less and so they don't give you 50 bucks off for it. So I'm

00:35:05 ◼   ► sorry about that but it's a heck of a dog mattress and I'm telling you I got

00:35:09 ◼   ► more comments from people who've bought that than anything else. So go to Casper

00:35:13 ◼   ► dot com slash the talk show. Use that code. If you need a mattress I'm telling you

00:35:17 ◼   ► that's where to go. I never thought I'd be selling mattresses. I really didn't.

00:35:23 ◼   ► It's one of my favorite sponsors.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Just makes me…

00:35:27 ◼   ► Just, it's, Casper is a sponsor.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Oh, they're amazing.

00:35:30 ◼   ► It just makes me…

00:35:31 ◼   ► But it just…

00:35:32 ◼   ► I just, if you went back and told me 15 years ago that you're going to be pitching mattresses

00:35:36 ◼   ► on like a radio show, I would…

00:35:38 ◼   ► I wouldn't have believed it.

00:35:39 ◼   ► I just don't…

00:35:40 ◼   ► I didn't…

00:35:41 ◼   ► I didn't see it.

00:35:42 ◼   ► I wouldn't have seen the path from where I was to where I am at this moment and where

00:35:46 ◼   ► the world is.

00:35:47 ◼   ► I've been using one for like three years now.

00:35:48 ◼   ► I still love it.

00:35:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:50 ◼   ► It's a great mattress.

00:35:51 ◼   ► It's a great mattress.

00:35:52 ◼   ► I'm telling you.

00:35:53 ◼   ► You know, I think if anybody out there thinks,

00:35:55 ◼   ► ah, it's for lazy people

00:35:56 ◼   ► that don't wanna go to the mattress store.

00:35:57 ◼   ► No, it's a better way to get a great mattress.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and...

00:36:02 ◼   ► - What? You tell me.

00:36:04 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, good mattresses are really hard to find

00:36:06 ◼   ► because after you've had a bunch of physical,

00:36:08 ◼   ► physiotherapy like I have,

00:36:10 ◼   ► you want something that is actually pretty firm

00:36:12 ◼   ► because then when you relax,

00:36:13 ◼   ► it takes on your body weight

00:36:14 ◼   ► and your body, your muscles don't have to stress

00:36:16 ◼   ► the entire night trying to support your own weight.

00:36:18 ◼   ► And this one I find is great

00:36:19 ◼   ► because I get a better night's sleep

00:36:21 ◼   ► than I have on any of the Trician watches I bought.

00:36:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:27 ◼   ► - All right, what else is on our agenda?

00:36:29 ◼   ► I have in the news, there was Marc German's blockbuster

00:36:35 ◼   ► story, well, it wasn't really, but it was widely cited.

00:36:39 ◼   ► Last week in Bloomberg, title,

00:36:41 ◼   ► How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists.

00:36:43 ◼   ► And it had, did have some, you know, it was well reported,

00:36:45 ◼   ► definitely had some quotes, anonymous.

00:36:50 ◼   ► How would you summarize this story?

00:36:52 ◼   ► This was the big story of the day

00:36:54 ◼   ► when it came out on December 20.

00:36:56 ◼   ► - I mean, Mark has proven phenomenal sources,

00:37:00 ◼   ► but so much of this is how you string the pieces together.

00:37:03 ◼   ► And I would read similar information differently.

00:37:07 ◼   ► So this sort of paints a narrative

00:37:10 ◼   ► where Apple is negligent or lackadaisical

00:37:14 ◼   ► when it comes to supporting the Mac.

00:37:16 ◼   ► And my understanding is more that you have two kids,

00:37:20 ◼   ► love them both, one has become Taylor Swift and you have to make sure that you're on tour with her,

00:37:24 ◼   ► and the other one is a college student in grad school doing pretty great on his own,

00:37:28 ◼   ► doesn't really want you hanging around all the time, and you, again, you still love them,

00:37:32 ◼   ► but you're giving each of them the attention that they really need at the moment.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And I think that narrative fits the same facts.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Quote from the article, "Interviews with people familiar with Apple's inner workings revealed

00:37:40 ◼   ► that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout

00:37:46 ◼   ► with the famed industrial design group led by Johnny Ivan

00:37:49 ◼   ► and the company software team.

00:37:52 ◼   ► They also describe a lack of clear direction

00:37:53 ◼   ► from senior management departures of key people

00:37:56 ◼   ► working on Mac hardware and technical challenges

00:37:59 ◼   ► that have delayed the rollout of new computers.

00:38:02 ◼   ► There's a lot in that paragraph.

00:38:04 ◼   ► This is the fourth paragraph of the story.

00:38:06 ◼   ► But I feel like that's the nut paragraph.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And if you pick it apart, I haven't linked to it

00:38:12 ◼   ► because it seemed--

00:38:13 ◼   ► it's been Christmas.

00:38:15 ◼   ► and I've been busy, and it seemed impossible to link to without extensive commentary.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Yes.

00:38:22 ◼   ► You got to unpack it.

00:38:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:38:24 ◼   ► There's no way to link to it with a quip or to let it stand.

00:38:27 ◼   ► But it—and I thought, "Well, it's better to—I could do it on the show in a way that's

00:38:32 ◼   ► better—that'll take less time than writing about it."

00:38:35 ◼   ► I still might write about it, but—

00:38:37 ◼   ► All right.

00:38:39 ◼   ► First sentence of that paragraph.

00:38:40 ◼   ► "Interviews with people familiar with Apple's Center of Workings reveal that the Mac is

00:38:42 ◼   ► is getting far less attention than it once did.

00:38:45 ◼   ► When is then it once did?

00:38:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it used to be one product.

00:38:49 ◼   ► There was just the Mac, and it got all the attention.

00:38:51 ◼   ► And now there's five, six different products.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:38:53 ◼   ► So if we're talking about like pre-iPod Apple,

00:38:57 ◼   ► or like pre-2004, 2005 Apple, of course

00:39:00 ◼   ► the Mac got more attention then because it

00:39:02 ◼   ► was keeping the company afloat.

00:39:03 ◼   ► The Mac was Apple, and Apple was the Mac.

00:39:06 ◼   ► I mean, without the Mac, the company was literally--

00:39:10 ◼   ► there was no company.

00:39:11 ◼   ► So of course it gets less attention than it did then.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Now, does he mean some other time?

00:39:17 ◼   ► Does he mean--

00:39:18 ◼   ► - Like compared to last year?

00:39:19 ◼   ► - Right, 2011, 2012.

00:39:20 ◼   ► Is this a, and you know, let's just state facts.

00:39:27 ◼   ► These are, there are, the fact is the Mac Pro

00:39:32 ◼   ► is literally a relic at this point.

00:39:35 ◼   ► It is a three year old, high end, $5,000, $20,000 workstation

00:39:40 ◼   ► that literally hasn't been updated even in the most

00:39:43 ◼   ► minor components possible in three years.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Since it launched, yeah.

00:39:47 ◼   ► The Mac Mini is a relic.

00:39:49 ◼   ► And for enthusiasts-- and the Mac Mini is one of these devices,

00:39:53 ◼   ► a device where obviously there's some people who buy it

00:39:56 ◼   ► because it's a budget laptop.

00:39:58 ◼   ► And if you want to buy a third party display--

00:40:01 ◼   ► or at this point, you might be stuck buying a third party

00:40:04 ◼   ► display, we'll get to that in a second--

00:40:06 ◼   ► or a discount display, or if you've already got a display,

00:40:09 ◼   ► And that's part of, you just wanna buy a desktop

00:40:12 ◼   ► to hook up to the display you already have,

00:40:13 ◼   ► and cost is an issue.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Mac Mini is the way you go.

00:40:17 ◼   ► It's still a fine device for that.

00:40:18 ◼   ► But for the enthusiasts, and there are people

00:40:20 ◼   ► who are like power users, if you want another term,

00:40:24 ◼   ► who buy Mac Minis, maybe not to use as their main computer,

00:40:28 ◼   ► but for really super nerdy things.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Like instead of having an Apple TV,

00:40:32 ◼   ► they use a Mac Mini and install their own software

00:40:35 ◼   ► and run their home entertainment from a PC.

00:40:38 ◼   ► And the Mac Mini is great for that.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Longtime sponsor of the show, Mac Mini Colo.

00:40:43 ◼   ► There's people who use Mac Minis to host websites.

00:40:46 ◼   ► It's a great little mini rack server.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And for those people, the current Mac Mini

00:40:52 ◼   ► is actually worse than the predecessor

00:40:53 ◼   ► because it's, I think it's a dual core thing

00:40:56 ◼   ► instead of a quad core.

00:40:58 ◼   ► It's whatever, it's just got internals

00:41:01 ◼   ► that are less interesting to enthusiasts than the old one.

00:41:04 ◼   ► The iMac, which is their best desktop,

00:41:08 ◼   ► and it's the one that Tim Cook even called out and mentioned by name in a recent company Q&A,

00:41:14 ◼   ► skipped a year. It still is great. It's a great, the current iMac is a great, great device.

00:41:20 ◼   ► But there were no updates in 2016.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Nope.

00:41:25 ◼   ► And Apple is apparently out of the standalone display game.

00:41:29 ◼   ► They haven't said so officially, but they certainly hinted as much on stage at the Mac Book Pro event in October

00:41:37 ◼   ► when they said they partnered with LG to have these LG 5K and 4K displays

00:41:42 ◼   ► that are clearly meant to, by default, assume that they're being connected to a Macintosh.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and my understanding is there's significant Apple engineering resources and effort dedicated to those displays,

00:41:52 ◼   ► they just didn't have an Apple enclosure and logo on them, which is a curious choice.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Everybody cites Nely, because Nely says, Patel from The Verge, after his product briefing after the event,

00:42:03 ◼   ► said categorically when he asked that Apple said they're out of the display game.

00:42:06 ◼   ► I asked, as well, "Does the LG mean that Apple is not going to make a retina standalone display?"

00:42:14 ◼   ► And I did not get an answer that was unequivocal.

00:42:17 ◼   ► The answer I got was something more or less...

00:42:22 ◼   ► It's a very typical— oftentimes, when you ask a question like that,

00:42:27 ◼   ► I don't think Apple's unique in this regard, but they always have a prepared answer.

00:42:33 ◼   ► It doesn't they don't have to think of it on the spot, but it's not yes or no

00:42:36 ◼   ► But with the answer I got of does this mean there's not going to be an apple branded retina

00:42:41 ◼   ► Just standalone display. The answer was this is what we have to talk about today

00:42:45 ◼   ► Standalone displays today require so much engineer. It's no longer just a video signal

00:42:54 ◼   ► Going from one thing to another it's not just you know, it's effectively there like many computers

00:42:59 ◼   ► It's almost as much work as developing a standalone system.

00:43:03 ◼   ► - Which Apple, again, which Apple did most,

00:43:05 ◼   ► a lot of with LG.

00:43:07 ◼   ► And my understanding is that this is one of those things

00:43:09 ◼   ► where they're deeply conflicted internally,

00:43:10 ◼   ► that they're wrestling over this.

00:43:11 ◼   ► That some people believe that Apple does not have

00:43:14 ◼   ► to make everything anymore,

00:43:15 ◼   ► that they have to be focused and make hard choices

00:43:17 ◼   ► and choose which parts of the chain

00:43:18 ◼   ► they wanna be involved with.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And other people believe rightly,

00:43:21 ◼   ► or at least in their opinions,

00:43:22 ◼   ► that the display is your interface to the computer.

00:43:25 ◼   ► The interface is what the customer sees.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And if there's no Apple logo on that,

00:43:28 ◼   ► then the customer sees LG and it sort of ruins the effect

00:43:31 ◼   ► and it ruins the benefit of the Halo effect

00:43:33 ◼   ► that Apple's been enjoying for all these years.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And if they're staring at an LG logo for their display,

00:43:38 ◼   ► maybe it's easier to buy an LG computer

00:43:39 ◼   ► or it's easier to buy,

00:43:41 ◼   ► maybe they're getting out of the router business,

00:43:42 ◼   ► it's easier to buy an LG router,

00:43:43 ◼   ► and that sort of unravels the value

00:43:45 ◼   ► of the Apple ecosystem they've been building.

00:43:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's, you know, I can't put it better

00:43:52 ◼   ► than Sir Q-Sid has repeatedly on ATP that it's,

00:43:56 ◼   ► You know, he's even said that he's never even owned a non Apple display in his life. That's not true for me

00:44:02 ◼   ► I used to have a

00:44:04 ◼   ► Viewsonic

00:44:06 ◼   ► 17-inch I bought in

00:44:08 ◼   ► 1998 was a nice display was not as nice as the Apple displays. I bought it because I

00:44:14 ◼   ► Didn't have enough money. Well, I did the money it was enough difference that I bought the Viewsonic instead

00:44:20 ◼   ► It does hint at

00:44:25 ◼   ► at the idea that maybe the future of Apple on the desktop is iMac only,

00:44:31 ◼   ► or maybe iMac and Mac Mini, but that the Mac Pro might be on the way out simply because...

00:44:35 ◼   ► Tim Cook's statement to me was hard to parse because he talked about how great the iMac was

00:44:39 ◼   ► and how great its display was and its P3, but there was nothing he could have said about the Mac Pro or the Mac Mini.

00:44:44 ◼   ► There are 13 year old, there are 3 year old computers with Haswell.

00:44:48 ◼   ► I mean it would have been completely awkward to mention them in any context.

00:44:51 ◼   ► context and the worst part is the last iterations of both made them even more

00:44:55 ◼   ► like computing appliances and an even harder for users to update on their own

00:44:58 ◼   ► which made them dependent on Apple for future updates which then didn't didn't

00:45:02 ◼   ► come that's an incredibly uncomfortable message to have in his year-end Q&A with

00:45:06 ◼   ► his employees right it's a tough situation like you can't read too much

00:45:10 ◼   ► into it either way except that there's some there are there only thing I could

00:45:15 ◼   ► read into it it's Tim Cook's statement on the Q&A that I would say is bet on it

00:45:20 ◼   ► is that there's going to be great,

00:45:24 ◼   ► or at least in somebody's opinion, great new IMAX coming.

00:45:27 ◼   ► Because otherwise, what he said is a lie, right?

00:45:34 ◼   ► His credibility, and he has obviously got to be measured

00:45:39 ◼   ► and careful in his words, and he knows that this Q&A

00:45:42 ◼   ► is going to leak if there's anything newsworthy.

00:45:45 ◼   ► But he's not going to,

00:45:49 ◼   ► matter how cynical you want to be about it, he's not going to say something that's flat

00:45:52 ◼   ► out going to ruin his credibility with his own employees.

00:45:55 ◼   ► So let's just say in the hypothetical world that people fear that Apple is simply done

00:45:59 ◼   ► with desktop computers, period, and that it's Macbooks only the rest of the way.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Well then what he said is, in hindsight, is going to make people think it's just a flat

00:46:12 ◼   ► out lie.

00:46:13 ◼   ► And he's not going to do that.

00:46:14 ◼   ► So there's got to be iMacs coming.

00:46:15 ◼   ► There has to be.

00:46:16 ◼   ► It says desktops plural, but does that mean two sizes of iMacs or does that mean iMacs?

00:46:21 ◼   ► And it's very interesting because when you actually look at the numbers, Apple, very,

00:46:24 ◼   ► very, very, very few people connect external displays to their Macs.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And I believe the number is smaller than ever.

00:46:30 ◼   ► And also very, very, very, very...

00:46:31 ◼   ► You mean to their MacBooks?

00:46:32 ◼   ► You mean to...

00:46:33 ◼   ► Yeah, to their MacBooks.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Well, you said Macs.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Obviously, if you've got a Mac...

00:46:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I apologize.

00:46:37 ◼   ► If you've got a Mac Pro, I mean...

00:46:39 ◼   ► Totally, absolutely.

00:46:40 ◼   ► But on the flip side of that, almost nobody buys...

00:46:43 ◼   ► Again, almost nobody buys desktop Macs anymore.

00:46:46 ◼   ► the vast, vast, vast majority of what they sell are Macbooks.

00:46:49 ◼   ► When we vote with our wallet, we are telling them as customers that we care mostly and

00:46:53 ◼   ► by a vast majority about the notebooks.

00:46:56 ◼   ► And that's sort of something they have to weigh because they only have enough resources

00:46:58 ◼   ► to do this or that.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And they say that most of their customers are buying Macbooks and most of them aren't

00:47:03 ◼   ► buying displays to go with them.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Do they stop making displays?

00:47:07 ◼   ► Do they stop making desktops?

00:47:08 ◼   ► I'd argue that no, that they're important enough that they have to keep making them

00:47:11 ◼   ► anyway.

00:47:12 ◼   ► But it's not like we have the numbers on our side for those.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Right. So if there is a new Mac Pro that is in the works and is coming, there's no

00:47:23 ◼   ► way that Tim Cook can say anything about it in this Q&A now. He can't. If there's not,

00:47:29 ◼   ► if the Mac Pro is end of life, he can't say anything, he can't say that

00:47:36 ◼   ► because they're still selling the old one. Now why are they still selling the

00:47:39 ◼   ► old one? I don't know, but maybe it's, you know, they're in theory they could, let's

00:47:44 ◼   ► Let's just say that they're going

00:47:47 ◼   ► to rethink the whole approach to the pro market,

00:47:50 ◼   ► and they're going to do, effectively, an iMac Pro.

00:47:52 ◼   ► That the new Mac Pro is like the iMac, but it's space gray

00:47:58 ◼   ► and has higher end Xeon processors or something

00:48:04 ◼   ► like that.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Now, put aside how do you do that and deal

00:48:07 ◼   ► with the heat dissipation.

00:48:08 ◼   ► That's their problem.

00:48:09 ◼   ► But if that's, hypothetically, where

00:48:11 ◼   ► they're going with the pro market is

00:48:13 ◼   ► devices built all in ones with pro performance,

00:48:18 ◼   ► they have to keep the old Mac Pros around

00:48:23 ◼   ► until those are ready to sell.

00:48:24 ◼   ► They can't have a gap.

00:48:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean they did announce the end of life

00:48:28 ◼   ► of the old Thunderbolt display.

00:48:30 ◼   ► But again, that raises all these questions

00:48:32 ◼   ► about what's happening with the product line

00:48:33 ◼   ► that they probably don't want to answer right now.

00:48:36 ◼   ► - Right.

00:48:37 ◼   ► They still can't talk about it.

00:48:39 ◼   ► But anyway, that's the first sentence of that paragraph.

00:48:42 ◼   ► They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial

00:48:45 ◼   ► design group led by Johnny Iovine and the company software

00:48:48 ◼   ► team, which is a weird combination.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I don't understand what they mean has lost clout.

00:48:54 ◼   ► It doesn't make sense to me.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Because there's no--

00:48:57 ◼   ► there are Mac-- there's a Mac marketing team,

00:48:59 ◼   ► but Apple doesn't have a Mac business unit,

00:49:01 ◼   ► and they don't have an iPhone business unit.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And Dan Riccio still has to build all these machines,

00:49:06 ◼   ► and Johnny Iovine's team has to design them all,

00:49:08 ◼   ► and Craig Federighi's team has to make software

00:49:09 ◼   ► to run on all of them.

00:49:10 ◼   ► And yes, those teams are highly focused on iPhone

00:49:14 ◼   ► because iPhone absolutely has to ship every year

00:49:16 ◼   ► or it's company crushing.

00:49:17 ◼   ► But those people are still working on Macs

00:49:20 ◼   ► and care desperately about Macs.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And my understanding is that a lot of the recent design

00:49:24 ◼   ► meetings have been about Macs.

00:49:26 ◼   ► So again, I don't understand the context

00:49:28 ◼   ► of all the information.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I don't know what it means to have lost clout.

00:49:33 ◼   ► What would the evidence of that be?

00:49:34 ◼   ► And the only way it would make sense

00:49:38 ◼   ► is if there are new Macs ready to go other than having

00:49:41 ◼   ► an industrial design.

00:49:43 ◼   ► And that Johnny Ives team is like, nah, we're not interested.

00:49:47 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense.

00:49:48 ◼   ► That's not how it works.

00:49:49 ◼   ► It's not like--

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's such a dependent product.

00:49:51 ◼   ► It's not like Johnny Ives--

00:49:53 ◼   ► the design team just is like a bunch of hipsters sipping

00:49:58 ◼   ► coffee, wearing berets, and they just

00:50:00 ◼   ► work on what they want to work on.

00:50:02 ◼   ► And like, ah, Macs, they're boring.

00:50:03 ◼   ► We're not going to work on those.

00:50:05 ◼   ► We're just going to work on--

00:50:06 ◼   ► "No, we are not making your Macs this year. Go home."

00:50:09 ◼   ► Right. I don't get it.

00:50:13 ◼   ► There aren't, you know, the problem is, as I said, the fact is that too many of the Macs

00:50:19 ◼   ► haven't been updated, period. It's not like they haven't gotten attention. And the ones that have

00:50:23 ◼   ► been updated, the MacBook, I know the MacBook, this year's MacBook isn't a new design, but it

00:50:29 ◼   ► came out last year. And this year's MacBook Pros, obviously, had a lot of work done by the

00:50:35 ◼   ► industrial design team. It's all new enclosures. It's very different. It's not just like the old

00:50:41 ◼   ► ones but thinner. The entire hinge mechanism for the display is entirely different. We'll get to

00:50:49 ◼   ► this later, but I've been messing around with a whole bunch of MacBooks this week running battery

00:50:54 ◼   ► tests. And with a bunch of them open at the same time and going between the two and restarting

00:50:58 ◼   ► tests, it's more clear than it was even when I reviewed the new MacBook Pro how much nicer the

00:51:04 ◼   ► the hinge is on the new one.

00:51:06 ◼   ► And how rigid they are.

00:51:09 ◼   ► But when you tilt it, if it's already

00:51:12 ◼   ► at an angle for sitting--

00:51:14 ◼   ► and I've been running these battery tests where

00:51:17 ◼   ► I'll come by and update them, and I don't even sit down.

00:51:20 ◼   ► But I want to tilt the screen just a little

00:51:22 ◼   ► so it's more of an angle for standing.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And when you do it on the new MacBook Pro,

00:51:28 ◼   ► the screen, you just put one finger

00:51:30 ◼   ► and a little bit of pressure, and it tilts back.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And on my 2014 MacBook Pro, I do it.

00:51:35 ◼   ► And at first, the whole device lifts off the table.

00:51:39 ◼   ► It's more stiff.

00:51:41 ◼   ► It's not as nice.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Anyway, that's exactly the sort of thing

00:51:45 ◼   ► that Johnny Ive's famed industrial design team does,

00:51:49 ◼   ► is design a fancy new hinge that's

00:51:52 ◼   ► way better than what was already the best hinge

00:51:56 ◼   ► on a professional notebook in the world.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Totally, and a more rigid unibody,

00:52:00 ◼   ► and was already a very, very good unibody structure.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:52:04 ◼   ► An entirely new keyboard switch system.

00:52:06 ◼   ► I don't get it.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And then there's this other half of the sentence,

00:52:12 ◼   ► "and the company's software team."

00:52:16 ◼   ► I don't get it.

00:52:16 ◼   ► And this, to me, has been--

00:52:20 ◼   ► and again, I'm worried.

00:52:21 ◼   ► I do worry.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And I'm trying to be-- in this whole,

00:52:25 ◼   ► is Apple abandoning the Mac or slowly sunsetting the Mac

00:52:28 ◼   ► or just ruining the Mac whatever debate,

00:52:33 ◼   ► which obviously does have some foundation in fact,

00:52:36 ◼   ► the fact that the hardware hasn't been updated.

00:52:38 ◼   ► One of the things I like to cite,

00:52:40 ◼   ► I feel like it's not proof, but evidence to the contrary,

00:52:44 ◼   ► is the annual update schedule that macOS has been on

00:52:47 ◼   ► for the last few years.

00:52:48 ◼   ► Like in 2007, famously, the first year of the iPhone,

00:52:53 ◼   ► the Mac, they had to put out a press release

00:52:56 ◼   ► because they had announced that the new macOS

00:52:58 ◼   ► was going to be ready at WWDC, and they put out a press release

00:53:01 ◼   ► that it's delayed five months because we

00:53:03 ◼   ► had to pull so much engineering talent to work on the iPhone

00:53:07 ◼   ► OS, as it was called then.

00:53:09 ◼   ► There's obviously enough attention on a Mac

00:53:14 ◼   ► now that the Mac is on the same annual update cycle as iOS.

00:53:19 ◼   ► I don't see it.

00:53:20 ◼   ► And it's getting features, and it's

00:53:21 ◼   ► getting important features like the continuity ones, where

00:53:23 ◼   ► you can use Touch ID or the watch to unlock it

00:53:26 ◼   ► or to verify payments.

00:53:27 ◼   ► They got Siri brought over to it.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And there is some truth to Apple reorganizing

00:53:33 ◼   ► their teams, and a lot of those teams are iOS-centric.

00:53:35 ◼   ► But when you look at Mac and iOS,

00:53:37 ◼   ► what differentiates them is their input methods

00:53:38 ◼   ► and their interface.

00:53:39 ◼   ► And Apple is, I think, wisely consolidating

00:53:42 ◼   ► a lot of the things that go on under the covers.

00:53:44 ◼   ► Like when you look at Swift, that's across all platforms.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Apple File System is gonna go from Apple Watch

00:53:48 ◼   ► all the way to Mac Pro.

00:53:50 ◼   ► All the things that they're building,

00:53:51 ◼   ► like one day, maybe, I don't know how long

00:53:53 ◼   ► AppKit will be around for, but it might make sense

00:53:55 ◼   ► have sort of a UI framework that crosses over both platforms. All that stuff can

00:53:59 ◼   ► be made with one team and could benefit both platforms without them, without you

00:54:03 ◼   ► having to micro measure how many people are doing each one. Right, and then

00:54:07 ◼   ► there's my next argument in the, I'll argue the side of Apple as Apple is

00:54:14 ◼   ► is still putting an awful lot of thought and attention into Mac is the Touch Bar,

00:54:18 ◼   ► which is at a hardware level a fascinating,

00:54:23 ◼   ► it's not really a device 'cause it's part of a device,

00:54:27 ◼   ► but it is a fascinating piece of hardware

00:54:32 ◼   ► that it's an iOS device.

00:54:34 ◼   ► It is a full iOS computer in an Intel-based Mac computer.

00:54:39 ◼   ► It's a computer in a computer which I just love.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And the computer in the computer is a better computer,

00:54:47 ◼   ► a more powerful computer than like the computers we had,

00:54:51 ◼   ► I don't know how many years ago, you know,

00:54:52 ◼   ► but at some point in my life,

00:54:54 ◼   ► a full personal computer was not as powerful

00:54:56 ◼   ► as the touch bar.

00:54:58 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:54:59 ◼   ► It's one of those only Apple things,

00:55:01 ◼   ► 'cause you have to have the ability

00:55:02 ◼   ► to make a tiny embedded device

00:55:03 ◼   ► that runs an entirely separate yet, you know,

00:55:06 ◼   ► in some ways compatible operating system.

00:55:08 ◼   ► And Brett Victor actually tweeted this,

00:55:10 ◼   ► so I think it's public knowledge

00:55:11 ◼   ► that they've been working on this for up to a decade.

00:55:13 ◼   ► It's not like this is, like last year they said,

00:55:15 ◼   ► they go, oh crap, what can we do with the Mac?

00:55:17 ◼   ► This has been a project they've been working on

00:55:18 ◼   ► for a very, very long time.

00:55:20 ◼   ► - I did not know that.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I do know, though, that I know several people

00:55:23 ◼   ► who were engineers, either at a hardware level

00:55:26 ◼   ► or a software level or some combination of the two

00:55:28 ◼   ► on the touch bar, who are truly,

00:55:30 ◼   ► you know, it's in confidence, so I can't say who they are,

00:55:34 ◼   ► but truly some of the best engineers at the company,

00:55:38 ◼   ► people who have seats in the second row

00:55:41 ◼   ► at a couple events and are seated near,

00:55:44 ◼   ► ready to go be tapped to go backstage to fix demos

00:55:48 ◼   ► if they go awry.

00:55:49 ◼   ► They're one step ready to--

00:55:52 ◼   ► they're like the emergency, the demo's gone bad,

00:55:54 ◼   ► we need top men to investigate.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Those type of talent.

00:55:59 ◼   ► And that they've spent the last 18 months on Touch Bar

00:56:02 ◼   ► and are incredibly proud of how it turned out.

00:56:06 ◼   ► One of them--

00:56:06 ◼   ► I don't have the direct quote in front of me,

00:56:08 ◼   ► but one of them said, I hope this shows people

00:56:11 ◼   ► that we still care about the Mac,

00:56:13 ◼   ► because inside Apple it's the best proof of it possible.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Combine that with the fact that on day one

00:56:23 ◼   ► of these Macs with touch bars shipping,

00:56:26 ◼   ► all of the commonly used consumer apps

00:56:32 ◼   ► that Apple makes for the Mac had full touch bar support.

00:56:35 ◼   ► A lot of it very, very thoughtful.

00:56:38 ◼   ► None of it half-assed, not one of them.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Even apps like TextEdit or something like that,

00:56:44 ◼   ► or Preview had thoughtful--

00:56:46 ◼   ► - Reminder. - Right.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And I talked about this before,

00:56:51 ◼   ► it's a separate conversation of,

00:56:53 ◼   ► does Apple even fully understand the right way

00:56:55 ◼   ► to use the touch bar yet?

00:56:56 ◼   ► Will they, you know,

00:56:57 ◼   ► my example is in the early years of the Mac,

00:57:03 ◼   ► like 1984, '85, there were dialogue boxes

00:57:07 ◼   ► where OK and Cancel were stacked vertically,

00:57:11 ◼   ► and then there was others where they were horizontal.

00:57:13 ◼   ► They just hadn't figured the consistency out

00:57:15 ◼   ► on stuff like that.

00:57:16 ◼   ► And of course now everybody knows it goes Cancel

00:57:19 ◼   ► and then OK to the right.

00:57:21 ◼   ► That maybe there's like touch bar things like that,

00:57:24 ◼   ► that there's certain things that we're doing in touch bars,

00:57:26 ◼   ► like the way that Safari defaults

00:57:27 ◼   ► to showing thumbnails of your tabs.

00:57:29 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't find that useful.

00:57:31 ◼   ► Maybe other people do, I feel like, but anyway.

00:57:34 ◼   ► - I scroll with it, I scroll super fast through windows

00:57:36 ◼   ► and I pop up to the one that I want really quickly with that,

00:57:37 ◼   ► so I'm a huge, huge fan of it.

00:57:39 ◼   ► - So you swipe your finger across?

00:57:42 ◼   ► - Yes, 'cause sometimes with tabs,

00:57:43 ◼   ► I have to hit, like previously I hit Command + T,

00:57:44 ◼   ► Command + T to get to each one,

00:57:45 ◼   ► and I just swipe now and I see which one I want

00:57:47 ◼   ► and I stop immediately.

00:57:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe I'm using it the wrong way.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Maybe that's the way I should use it,

00:57:51 ◼   ► is run my finger across it instead of staring at it

00:57:54 ◼   ► and try to poke at the right one.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I never thought about that.

00:57:56 ◼   ► So maybe that's right, I don't know.

00:57:57 ◼   ► But anyway, to me, the support across not just the OS,

00:58:03 ◼   ► but across their apps and in the Cocoa frameworks

00:58:07 ◼   ► for third-party developers.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Like everything I've heard from developer friends

00:58:12 ◼   ► about the Touch Bar APIs is that, yes,

00:58:16 ◼   ► these are very solid APIs written by people who get Cocoa.

00:58:21 ◼   ► I mean, this is exactly what you'd want,

00:58:23 ◼   ► but it's a sign that Apple has top engineering cut talent.

00:58:27 ◼   ► So I just don't get how that jibes with Germin's,

00:58:31 ◼   ► They say the Mac team has lost clout, dot dot dot,

00:58:33 ◼   ► with the company software team.

00:58:35 ◼   ► I don't get it.

00:58:36 ◼   ► - Another example of that is when you look at it,

00:58:38 ◼   ► the iOS device, the embedded iOS device,

00:58:40 ◼   ► actually controls the printout of the price on the display

00:58:43 ◼   ► because they don't want an app to be able to intercept

00:58:46 ◼   ► and change the price that you then agree to

00:58:47 ◼   ► with your fingerprint.

00:58:49 ◼   ► And that, again, is another level of complexity added

00:58:51 ◼   ► to the engineering that they do for security's sake,

00:58:53 ◼   ► but it's non-trivial to implement.

00:58:54 ◼   ► And you stack all these up on top, and I think,

00:58:56 ◼   ► 'cause you were at the event with me,

00:58:57 ◼   ► the people at Apple were super excited about this.

00:59:00 ◼   ► And yeah, they're still feeling their way through the best practices for it, but it

00:59:03 ◼   ► was clear that they thought they were doing what was right for the platform.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Yeah, and another example is the way that the iOS—the Touch Bar's iOS device has

00:59:12 ◼   ► the Secure Enclave, which is there first and foremost for the Touch ID, but it's also

00:59:18 ◼   ► used now to control the webcam on the front of the display, so that the webcam, you know,

00:59:24 ◼   ► is obviously—that's a huge security thing.

00:59:26 ◼   ► sorts of people, you know, people put tape over the thing because they're worried that

00:59:30 ◼   ► they can be certain, you know, somebody can install software that'll surreptitiously turn

00:59:35 ◼   ► the camera on. There's a green light that turns on when the camera's on. People worry, I mean,

00:59:40 ◼   ► again, rightfully so, it's not crazy, but rightfully so, worry that that could be overridden by the

00:59:46 ◼   ► malware. That may not stop people, the fact that it goes through the secure enclave now, may not

00:59:53 ◼   ► stop people from putting tape over their camera, but it should if they think about it.

00:59:58 ◼   ► It could if they think about it. And even if you're not worried about it, it's just

01:00:02 ◼   ► Apple's just happy to know that they've cut off a path that malware could take to do something

01:00:08 ◼   ► which would be truly dreadful like take control of your webcam. And they're spending valuable

01:00:12 ◼   ► engineering resources to implement those features, which shows to me at least the investment they

01:00:16 ◼   ► they have in that platform.

01:00:17 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, what they could do,

01:00:20 ◼   ► like, this is why I don't think Germin's article

01:00:24 ◼   ► shows what people think that it shows.

01:00:27 ◼   ► I think it's written to fit the narrative

01:00:29 ◼   ► and it doesn't really show it.

01:00:30 ◼   ► I think the MacBook Pro refutes it.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Apple could have just put the upgraded Intel chipsets

01:00:39 ◼   ► in the old MacBook Pro enclosure.

01:00:42 ◼   ► It's not like the old MacBook Pro enclosure was dated.

01:00:46 ◼   ► It was still, it's exactly what most, you know,

01:00:50 ◼   ► other PC laptops still copy.

01:00:52 ◼   ► And anybody who prefers the larger key travel

01:00:57 ◼   ► wouldn't be complaining about the shallower key travel.

01:01:01 ◼   ► People who-- - The old ports?

01:01:02 ◼   ► - People who want the device, you know,

01:01:05 ◼   ► the people who want to argue,

01:01:06 ◼   ► which is a reasonable viewpoint that I'd rather Apple

01:01:09 ◼   ► stop making these things thinner

01:01:11 ◼   ► and keep them the same thickness

01:01:12 ◼   ► and just put bigger batteries in

01:01:14 ◼   ► so I get even more battery life.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Stop settling for quote unquote 10 hours of battery life,

01:01:19 ◼   ► why don't you go for 20 by keeping the old thickness.

01:01:21 ◼   ► They would have had far fewer complaints.

01:01:24 ◼   ► I think it would have been worse devices.

01:01:26 ◼   ► I think it's, in the long run,

01:01:29 ◼   ► I think they were right to do this.

01:01:32 ◼   ► But it's the weird thing,

01:01:35 ◼   ► and this is why Apple has had long-term success,

01:01:37 ◼   ► is they're not afraid to do things

01:01:39 ◼   ► that will draw criticism,

01:01:41 ◼   ► but are the right thing to do going forward.

01:01:43 ◼   ► I mean, the headphone jack

01:01:44 ◼   ► is the best example of that possible.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Nobody was gonna complain

01:01:48 ◼   ► if the iPhone 7 had a headphone jack.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Lots of people did complain

01:01:52 ◼   ► that the iPhone 7 didn't have a headphone jack.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Lots of complaints on one side, no complaints on the other,

01:01:57 ◼   ► but if it's the right way to do it,

01:01:58 ◼   ► they'll take the side with complaints,

01:02:00 ◼   ► whereas most companies always err on the side

01:02:02 ◼   ► of let's do the thing that generates the fewest complaints,

01:02:05 ◼   ► even if it's the worst thing.

01:02:09 ◼   ► People don't complain.

01:02:10 ◼   ► People complain about what's new.

01:02:11 ◼   ► They don't complain about the status quo.

01:02:13 ◼   ► - No, and there's, I mean, they can't win either way.

01:02:15 ◼   ► If they'd kept the old enclosure,

01:02:16 ◼   ► it would have been like the iPhone 7.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Oh, it's the same design.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Apple's not innovating anymore.

01:02:19 ◼   ► They're boring.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And then they change it.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Well, you know, why did they bother changing it?

01:02:23 ◼   ► They could have just left the same design.

01:02:24 ◼   ► But Apple just never goes to the judges.

01:02:26 ◼   ► They don't care about the judges.

01:02:27 ◼   ► They don't want their routine scored by the Swedish judge

01:02:30 ◼   ► with like an eight or something.

01:02:31 ◼   ► They do what they think is right,

01:02:33 ◼   ► and they'll take the lumps.

01:02:34 ◼   ► And it could be the headphone jack.

01:02:35 ◼   ► It could be USB-C, Thunderbolt 3 across the line.

01:02:37 ◼   ► could be making thinner Macs, they're

01:02:40 ◼   ► willing to take those lumps for what

01:02:41 ◼   ► they think is the best product.

01:02:42 ◼   ► But that hypothetical world, the hypothetical world

01:02:45 ◼   ► where Apple's October 2016 new MacBook Pros effectively

01:02:49 ◼   ► looked more or less just like the old MacBook Pros,

01:02:53 ◼   ► that world fits with Gherman's narrative.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Well, they've lost clout with Johnny Ive's team.

01:03:00 ◼   ► So the Ive's team said, nope, old enclosure is good enough.

01:03:07 ◼   ► It fits with the idea that they've lost clout

01:03:08 ◼   ► with the software team because no software really asked,

01:03:11 ◼   ► all they need to do is put new drivers in, right?

01:03:13 ◼   ► It's not, hey, every single Mac app from Apple

01:03:17 ◼   ► has to be updated with touch bar support.

01:03:20 ◼   ► That fits it.

01:03:24 ◼   ► The world where they come out with these new MacBook Pros

01:03:26 ◼   ► that are much thinner,

01:03:28 ◼   ► have the weight of the old MacBook Airs,

01:03:31 ◼   ► but are pro, and have the high color gamut,

01:03:35 ◼   ► wide color gamut, whatever you want to call it, displays.

01:03:38 ◼   ► I just don't get it.

01:03:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, those products were internally expensive to produce

01:03:45 ◼   ► and they wouldn't do that if that was a platform

01:03:47 ◼   ► that they were abandoning.

01:03:48 ◼   ► - I don't know what else to say about it other than,

01:03:54 ◼   ► oh, the other part that I thought was,

01:03:57 ◼   ► I haven't written about this either, but I want to,

01:03:59 ◼   ► but it's just been late in December,

01:04:01 ◼   ► is people now have more options.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Microsoft Corporation once derided by Mac loyalists for its clunky, buggy software offers

01:04:09 ◼   ► Windows 10, which provides the tablet-type functionality Apple pioneered with the iPad."

01:04:15 ◼   ► Now, that's a funny sentence because…

01:04:21 ◼   ► And I mean it.

01:04:22 ◼   ► I don't mean to be like a nitpicker, but it's a funny sentence because people now

01:04:26 ◼   ► have more options.

01:04:27 ◼   ► Windows was derided by Mac loyalists as clunky and buggy software.

01:04:34 ◼   ► I would agree with that. That is certainly why I haven't used Windows on a regular basis

01:04:38 ◼   ► other than when I had shitty jobs when I was younger and had to. Now offers Windows 10,

01:04:46 ◼   ► and it's not, which is not clunky or buggy or as unsavory as Windows ever was, but it

01:04:51 ◼   ► instead says, "Which provides the tablet type functionality Apple pioneered with the iPad."

01:04:56 ◼   ► Like...

01:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, there was 10 years of tablet PC before the iPad. I had a chance to try

01:05:02 ◼   ► out Lea Laporte's Surface Studio when I was there for the holiday show. We did a review of it.

01:05:06 ◼   ► And it's an interesting product, but I don't under... I wrote about this too. Like, it seems

01:05:11 ◼   ► like non-Apple products get created on a curve because this was an i5 with a 5200 RPM hard drive,

01:05:16 ◼   ► which was just not sufficient for that product. And this is a device that's plugged in all time.

01:05:21 ◼   ► There's no reason for it to be power constrained at all. You could put anything as powerful as you

01:05:25 ◼   ► want in there, but it was incredibly power constrained. It could run in either desktop

01:05:29 ◼   ► or tablet mode which was confusing and when you would swipe down to get rid of

01:05:32 ◼   ► something you could literally count like seconds in between the animation frames

01:05:36 ◼   ► not just they're a frame off but like seconds before would animate and

01:05:39 ◼   ► start dropping it down and not the first time when it loaded it but over and over

01:05:42 ◼   ► again and it was by far not an experience that I would tolerate on a

01:05:45 ◼   ► daily basis I know some people love Windows for gaming or for that

01:05:49 ◼   ► functionality but I just don't get that entire narrative about Apple sorry

01:05:53 ◼   ► Microsoft is now catering to creatives they're putting out very small niche

01:05:57 ◼   ► products that they're having a hard time shipping on schedule as well.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Microsoft Surface computers offer Apple-esque quality and a well-reviewed

01:06:06 ◼   ► creative paint program aimed at the Mac's audience. I do think there's a

01:06:11 ◼   ► little bit of kernel of truth there where if you are a professional

01:06:14 ◼   ► illustrator or architect or somebody who draws professionally, the Surface Studio,

01:06:19 ◼   ► if I did, I would certainly look at one and maybe only use it for drawing and

01:06:22 ◼   ► still use a Mac for all my other computing and just have a

01:06:25 ◼   ► dedicated in a way that you know a lot of these people have had a dedicated

01:06:29 ◼   ► device hooked up to their Macs it's antique yeah that you'd buy this just

01:06:32 ◼   ► for the drawing I could see it but I certainly wouldn't call it Apple s

01:06:37 ◼   ► quality honestly I mean I again it's like you know the guy who runs a site

01:06:41 ◼   ► that's mostly about Apple says yes surface studio isn't as nice as a Mac

01:06:45 ◼   ► the hinge is really good the hinge is really really good but I found that the

01:06:49 ◼   ► the drawing response time if you want to compare to the iPad Pro it's there's no

01:06:53 ◼   ► comparison, that there is latency and it varies widely. And it's true on the iPad too. I mean,

01:06:59 ◼   ► it is software dependent. But if you want to just look at the reference apps, you know,

01:07:05 ◼   ► Microsoft's own Microsoft Paint, which I tried in the store, and Apple's Notes app,

01:07:12 ◼   ► where you can draw the sketches, you know, just as baselines for latency, there's practically none.

01:07:19 ◼   ► I mean, I don't want to say none with the iPad Pro, but it's, you know, I don't think

01:07:24 ◼   ► there's any reviews that disagree that the latency is downright amazing.

01:07:28 ◼   ► There's definitely latency.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I could see it on the Surface Studio.

01:07:32 ◼   ► And there's parallax.

01:07:33 ◼   ► The display is nowhere near as close to the surface of the glass or plastic or whatever

01:07:38 ◼   ► it's made of than the iPad Pro.

01:07:39 ◼   ► There's absolutely a bit of parallax there.

01:07:42 ◼   ► It's not bad.

01:07:43 ◼   ► It's not horrible.

01:07:44 ◼   ► But it certainly isn't the iPad Pro, and the iPad Pro is what I would define as Apple

01:07:49 ◼   ► quality.

01:07:50 ◼   ► And so the service is, by definition, sub-Apple quality.

01:07:54 ◼   ► It's hard to go back.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I used a Wacom tablet for years, and that was just

01:07:58 ◼   ► what you had.

01:07:58 ◼   ► It was the best thing in the business,

01:07:59 ◼   ► so nobody really paid attention.

01:08:01 ◼   ► And after using the iPad Pro for a year,

01:08:02 ◼   ► I found it really hard to go back,

01:08:04 ◼   ► because you do notice the difference in latency,

01:08:06 ◼   ► and you do notice the air gap.

01:08:08 ◼   ► And on proper Wacom, you notice the reticule,

01:08:10 ◼   ► which I know you can turn off, but still super annoying to me.

01:08:12 ◼   ► It sort of spoils you for that experience.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And yeah, there is no 27-inch iPad Pro,

01:08:17 ◼   ► There's not a 27-inch pencil support on an iMac yet.

01:08:20 ◼   ► But technologically speaking, there's

01:08:23 ◼   ► a world of difference between the two.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Sensing an opportunity-- and back to Germin's story.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Microsoft called the MacBook Pro a, quote, "disappointment"

01:08:30 ◼   ► and said, "more users than ever were switching

01:08:32 ◼   ► to its Surface laptops."

01:08:34 ◼   ► And that's the end of that.

01:08:36 ◼   ► So it's a total Bezos chart of--

01:08:38 ◼   ► Yes.

01:08:39 ◼   ► --of how many users are switching to Surface laptops.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Switching, obviously--

01:08:46 ◼   ► I presumably from Macs they mean not from other Windows laptops more than ever.

01:08:52 ◼   ► It's the Mac problem. It's like if five people switched last month and ten people switched this month,

01:08:55 ◼   ► 100% more people switched this month. I sincerely doubt that the number of people switching from

01:09:02 ◼   ► MacBooks to Surface laptops is significant and I also strongly suspect that if the ones who are

01:09:09 ◼   ► are people who never really took to the Mac in the first place and that they are not the

01:09:14 ◼   ► Mac loyalists, that's the term of the headline of Gurman's story, I really doubt that any of them,

01:09:23 ◼   ► or no, I wouldn't say any, obviously there's in a world of seven billion people, I'm sure there's

01:09:28 ◼   ► some, but that the number effectively is zero of Mac loyalists who've switched to the surface.

01:09:33 ◼   ► But I could be wrong. But anyway, it would be nice to have numbers to back up

01:09:39 ◼   ► a statement from Microsoft that isn't refuted at all, more than ever.

01:09:44 ◼   ► And they said it's a disappointment.

01:09:46 ◼   ► - No, it's true.

01:09:47 ◼   ► I mean, I know a lot of people who are surface curious,

01:09:49 ◼   ► who just, they wanted to get a device

01:09:50 ◼   ► that they could draw on the screen that ran Photoshop.

01:09:52 ◼   ► And they all, they bought surfaces to use in coffee shops

01:09:55 ◼   ► or to use around the house, but they still kept their Macs.

01:09:57 ◼   ► And I don't know how all these numbers,

01:09:59 ◼   ► to me, this is a math problem.

01:10:00 ◼   ► It's not a real, it's not an industry trend.

01:10:03 ◼   ► It was just like the, again, like it's the same thing

01:10:06 ◼   ► where we had those Pixel sales, where Pixel,

01:10:08 ◼   ► more people were, like the acceleration of Pixel was faster.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - The internal turmoil has taken a toll.

01:10:13 ◼   ► This is Germin's story.

01:10:14 ◼   ► "More than a dozen engineers and managers

01:10:16 ◼   ► "working on Mac hardware have left for different

01:10:18 ◼   ► "Apple teams or other companies in the past year and a half,"

01:10:21 ◼   ► said people familiar with the situation.

01:10:23 ◼   ► Allow me to confirm that more than a dozen engineers

01:10:28 ◼   ► working on Mac hardware have left for different Apple teams

01:10:32 ◼   ► or other companies.

01:10:32 ◼   ► It's a lot more than a dozen.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And people within Apple switch to other places within Apple

01:10:39 ◼   ► all the time, always have.

01:10:42 ◼   ► And it has been, I think-- and you know this.

01:10:44 ◼   ► I think you probably know this too.

01:10:45 ◼   ► I think there's been a little bit more shifting around

01:10:48 ◼   ► in the last 18 months or so than usual,

01:10:50 ◼   ► just because of Project Titan and a few other things.

01:10:54 ◼   ► But to cite as evidence of problems within Apple

01:11:00 ◼   ► that, quote, "more than a dozen engineers and managers working

01:11:03 ◼   ► on Mac hardware have left for different teams"

01:11:05 ◼   ► is really not news at all.

01:11:07 ◼   ► It would be, if 18 months go by and fewer than a dozen

01:11:12 ◼   ► engineers and managers change jobs,

01:11:14 ◼   ► that would be startling.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I wouldn't believe it.

01:11:20 ◼   ► - And also, it's unclear to me what that means

01:11:22 ◼   ► because I know people who are on loan to other,

01:11:25 ◼   ► like maybe they work on iPhone,

01:11:27 ◼   ► but they've been on loan to Apple Watch

01:11:29 ◼   ► to complete a project over there,

01:11:30 ◼   ► and then eventually they either stay or they go back.

01:11:32 ◼   ► And they move around all the time,

01:11:33 ◼   ► depending on where those engineering resources are needed.

01:11:36 ◼   ► And again, if desktop Macs weren't a priority this year,

01:11:40 ◼   ► it's very easy to see those engineers get put

01:11:43 ◼   ► on other projects in the meantime.

01:11:45 ◼   ► - Right, and I know, for example,

01:11:46 ◼   ► I know that people who worked on Touch Bar

01:11:48 ◼   ► were on loan from other teams because it's, you know,

01:11:51 ◼   ► it wasn't, it's not like they need

01:11:53 ◼   ► a dedicated Touch Bar team forever.

01:11:55 ◼   ► I mean, not that there's never gonna be an update

01:11:56 ◼   ► to the Touch Bar, but that to ship the first one

01:11:59 ◼   ► and decide here's the foundation of how it works,

01:12:01 ◼   ► we need some iOS people because we gotta get, you know,

01:12:03 ◼   ► let's get these guys from, you know, who work on iOS

01:12:05 ◼   ► 'cause they know how to do the fewer enclave or whatever.

01:12:08 ◼   ► But anyway, I don't know.

01:12:11 ◼   ► I just don't think, again, there is definitely

01:12:13 ◼   ► something weird and problematic going on

01:12:16 ◼   ► with Apple's desktops across the board, even the iMac.

01:12:21 ◼   ► Maybe, I mean, it just seems a little weird

01:12:25 ◼   ► to go over a year without an update at all,

01:12:27 ◼   ► even a speed bump.

01:12:29 ◼   ► - Totally, and it's not by the same token.

01:12:30 ◼   ► I mean, we know people who for years have been saying

01:12:32 ◼   ► why doesn't Apple take a break

01:12:33 ◼   ► and get off this yearly update cycle.

01:12:36 ◼   ► It's just those products going three or two years,

01:12:38 ◼   ► I think, is alarming.

01:12:39 ◼   ► But going a year between IMAX,

01:12:41 ◼   ► if it's the spring instead of the fall,

01:12:42 ◼   ► I don't think that's alarming.

01:12:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:45 ◼   ► So anyway, and what I've heard repeatedly

01:12:48 ◼   ► from people at Apple is that,

01:12:51 ◼   ► regarding Germin stories and stuff like this,

01:12:54 ◼   ► not specific stories, you know what I mean?

01:12:56 ◼   ► Like Germin's best story of 2016

01:12:59 ◼   ► was probably the AirPods scoop.

01:13:03 ◼   ► He got certain details wrong, including--

01:13:05 ◼   ► the big thing he got wrong was that the AirPods would

01:13:09 ◼   ► be Beats branded, and that Beats would come out

01:13:13 ◼   ► with a lower-priced thing, which made no sense to me,

01:13:17 ◼   ► marketing-wise.

01:13:18 ◼   ► The Apple-branded one is the one that would be priced to sell,

01:13:21 ◼   ► and the Beats is the premium brand

01:13:23 ◼   ► that would be more expensive.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And in fact, that's exactly how it turned out,

01:13:26 ◼   ► that Beats sells the $300 over-the-year things,

01:13:29 ◼   ► and the AirPods are, of course, Apple-branded.

01:13:32 ◼   ► But in terms of what the AirPods were

01:13:34 ◼   ► and how they would work and they'd have

01:13:35 ◼   ► a little charging case and stuff like that,

01:13:37 ◼   ► he had that last January.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Very specific, was spot on.

01:13:41 ◼   ► Even the product marketing part that he got wrong,

01:13:44 ◼   ► it shouldn't have even speculated on.

01:13:46 ◼   ► He gets the product marketing stuff wrong

01:13:48 ◼   ► almost all the time because people in product marketing

01:13:50 ◼   ► just don't leak.

01:13:52 ◼   ► And the people who do leak are people who know things

01:13:54 ◼   ► like the hardware engineering.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And that's obviously who leaked the story.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Anyway, specific story like that, Germin nails it.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Something like this that's bigger,

01:14:02 ◼   ► he often gets facts right but gets the story wrong.

01:14:04 ◼   ► And I've heard that from like three different people.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Facts were right. - And again,

01:14:09 ◼   ► it's super hard. - Story is right.

01:14:09 ◼   ► - What he does is super, super tough,

01:14:11 ◼   ► not just gathering the information,

01:14:12 ◼   ► but doing the analytics behind it,

01:14:13 ◼   ► sort of guessing Apple's intent,

01:14:15 ◼   ► which is kudos to him for doing it, 'cause I wouldn't.

01:14:18 ◼   ► But that part is super, super hard.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:14:22 ◼   ► We are desperately running out of time here.

01:14:25 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:14:26 ◼   ► We are gonna do a big year-end review

01:14:28 ◼   ► and we're not even gonna get to it.

01:14:29 ◼   ► We're gonna have to rush through that part.

01:14:31 ◼   ► We can pick our targets.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Let me take a break here and thank our next sponsor.

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01:16:16 ◼   ► Next on list is consumer reports. Yeah fiasco

01:16:25 ◼   ► So consumer reports at the end of last week on Friday

01:16:28 ◼   ► How would you summarize it? You summarize it? So they put out

01:16:32 ◼   ► And so they put out a headline

01:16:35 ◼   ► They put out a report saying that they could not recommend the new MacBook Pro because they got wildly inconsistent battery tests

01:16:42 ◼   ► It was I think that the gist of it that went from 15 hours on the high end to like three point something on the low

01:16:48 ◼   ► end

01:16:50 ◼   ► And so they gave it, it's the first MacBooks ever

01:16:53 ◼   ► not to receive their quote unquote recommended.

01:16:56 ◼   ► So in other words, it's sort of like

01:16:58 ◼   ► the good housekeeping seal of approval.

01:17:01 ◼   ► They're not saying it's the best,

01:17:02 ◼   ► they're not saying it's the worst,

01:17:03 ◼   ► they're not ranking 10 laptops,

01:17:05 ◼   ► here's number two, number three.

01:17:06 ◼   ► It's just, is it at least in their recommended list?

01:17:10 ◼   ► And it's sort of like a minimum badge of,

01:17:13 ◼   ► this is a decent machine.

01:17:14 ◼   ► And it's the first one ever not to get it.

01:17:17 ◼   ► And it was top-- all the tech sites,

01:17:20 ◼   ► it was the number one story on Tech MeMo on Friday.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and their logic was because they

01:17:25 ◼   ► thought that battery was such an important characteristic

01:17:27 ◼   ► that they couldn't take an average.

01:17:28 ◼   ► They had to take the lowest result for each one,

01:17:30 ◼   ► because that's the only thing people could count on.

01:17:32 ◼   ► So it got scored based on having around a 3-point-something-hour

01:17:35 ◼   ► battery life.

01:17:36 ◼   ► So Consumer Reports-- and again, there's a--

01:17:40 ◼   ► you complain about Consumer Reports because they

01:17:42 ◼   ► said something bad about Apple.

01:17:43 ◼   ► But this is-- to frame this, Consumer Reports

01:17:45 ◼   ► has been around for a long time.

01:17:46 ◼   ► And when I was growing up, had a great reputation.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And it was expensive, because one of the policies

01:17:53 ◼   ► that they have is that they don't accept product

01:17:55 ◼   ► advertising.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And so they are supported by their subscribers.

01:18:00 ◼   ► And it's a very expensive thing to do.

01:18:02 ◼   ► So when they do things like they test cars,

01:18:05 ◼   ► they go to a car dealer and they buy cars.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And they don't say, I'm from Consumer Reports,

01:18:10 ◼   ► and they buy a car.

01:18:11 ◼   ► They just go in like regular customers

01:18:12 ◼   ► and buy whatever cars they're testing,

01:18:14 ◼   ► so that they know that they're getting a consumer product, not

01:18:17 ◼   ► like a cherry picked, you know, hey, this is--

01:18:22 ◼   ► like the Ford Motor Company is going

01:18:24 ◼   ► to make sure everything's right about this car

01:18:27 ◼   ► before they give it to Consumer Reports on loan

01:18:29 ◼   ► for a week of testing or something like that.

01:18:31 ◼   ► They have their own test track.

01:18:32 ◼   ► They own a test track where they drive cars.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And they test everything from washing machines

01:18:37 ◼   ► to refrigerators to all sorts of stuff.

01:18:40 ◼   ► Consumer Reports is not what it used to be, though.

01:18:42 ◼   ► There was an editorial purge about five or six years ago.

01:18:45 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes from a former editor.

01:18:48 ◼   ► But effectively, they got new management

01:18:51 ◼   ► five or six years ago who thought they could do a lot

01:18:54 ◼   ► better with cheaper, with new--

01:18:57 ◼   ► just freelancing out all the work.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Yeah, like satellite reviewers.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Right, and redesigned the magazine.

01:19:04 ◼   ► And it became a lot less dense.

01:19:07 ◼   ► And the reviews, it was a lot more--

01:19:09 ◼   ► they sort of USA Today-ed it up.

01:19:11 ◼   ► a lot more graphs and charts and graphics and a lot less dense text.

01:19:17 ◼   ► And so if you think that Consumer Reports has gone downhill, just in your mind, there's

01:19:21 ◼   ► actually a factual basis for that insofar as a huge amount of their staff that used

01:19:26 ◼   ► to be there, long-term people who were there for 10, 20 years or even more, no longer work

01:19:31 ◼   ► there.

01:19:33 ◼   ► Number two, their computer testing has never actually been very good in my opinion.

01:19:38 ◼   ► So that's just background.

01:19:40 ◼   ► But here's the thing, what they say about these new MacBook Pros,

01:19:42 ◼   ► maybe the new MacBook Pros get inferior battery life.

01:19:46 ◼   ► Let's just say that that's a possibility.

01:19:49 ◼   ► What they're saying, though, it doesn't make any sense at all.

01:19:52 ◼   ► To test these machines that Apple claims gets 10 hours in whatever

01:19:58 ◼   ► Apple's testing is, it ranged from three hours to 18 hours.

01:20:03 ◼   ► The 18 hour number is impossible.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Numerous people on Twitter pointed out, and I believe it's true,

01:20:09 ◼   ► that if you turn on a MacBook Pro and don't open any apps

01:20:13 ◼   ► and just set it so that the display doesn't

01:20:16 ◼   ► go to sleep automatically, you're

01:20:18 ◼   ► not going to get 18 hours of battery life.

01:20:21 ◼   ► Just sitting there idle with the screen on as bright

01:20:24 ◼   ► as they say it is--

01:20:26 ◼   ► Unless he forgets to unplug it for part of that time,

01:20:28 ◼   ► it seems incredibly unlikely that that would be

01:20:30 ◼   ► the amount of time you get.

01:20:32 ◼   ► Obviously, the machines went to sleep or something.

01:20:34 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

01:20:35 ◼   ► But number two, they don't reveal their testing.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Now presumably they don't reveal the exact nature

01:20:40 ◼   ► of their testing because they don't want to,

01:20:43 ◼   ► if they give you repeatable steps

01:20:45 ◼   ► of how they test the battery life,

01:20:46 ◼   ► then computer makers could maybe somehow game the system.

01:20:51 ◼   ► - And that's fair.

01:20:53 ◼   ► I mean, Samsung's been caught trying to game things

01:20:54 ◼   ► like Geekbench or other benchmark systems, yeah.

01:20:56 ◼   ► - But it depends though.

01:20:58 ◼   ► See, benchmarks are different because you can,

01:21:02 ◼   ► like the benchmark cheating is dreadfully easy

01:21:06 ◼   ► in some cases where there's ways that they actually

01:21:10 ◼   ► compile code that looks for the compiled code of the benchmark

01:21:14 ◼   ► and then just knows to give the right answer

01:21:16 ◼   ► without actually going through the actual algorithm.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Right?

01:21:20 ◼   ► Like, if you happen to know--

01:21:23 ◼   ► I mean, just to put it in super layman's terms--

01:21:25 ◼   ► if you just happen to know that the benchmark is going

01:21:27 ◼   ► to ask what the square root of a particular large number is,

01:21:34 ◼   ► you could just hard code the answer

01:21:35 ◼   ► that instead of computing the square root,

01:21:37 ◼   ► you just say, well, if asking for the square root

01:21:41 ◼   ► of this particular large number,

01:21:42 ◼   ► just skip ahead to the answer 'cause we already have it.

01:21:45 ◼   ► And that's the sort of cheating Samsung's

01:21:47 ◼   ► been caught doing, literally.

01:21:48 ◼   ► I mean, not on the square root, but on a real example.

01:21:52 ◼   ► I don't know how you could do that with battery life.

01:21:55 ◼   ► Depending on the test, I don't know.

01:21:59 ◼   ► And it's contrary to the way that science works, right?

01:22:04 ◼   ► whole point of like publishing something in science is you know you publish in a

01:22:08 ◼   ► way that you can get reproducible results. Yeah they're repeatable and the

01:22:12 ◼   ► thing that immediately was a red flag to me on there was a lot of them in this

01:22:15 ◼   ► article but you know Apple controversially removed the time

01:22:18 ◼   ► remaining indicator but before they did that it's always been bad but for this

01:22:23 ◼   ► new generation of Macbooks I was and I tweeted them for weeks before it became

01:22:26 ◼   ► an issue that I was getting like 16 hours or 14 hours or 18 hours remaining

01:22:31 ◼   ► on it when it was clearly not the case.

01:22:33 ◼   ► And that those numbers sort of match

01:22:35 ◼   ► those sort of made up numbers that the API was spitting out,

01:22:37 ◼   ► to me was curious from the get go.

01:22:40 ◼   ► - Oh, so I never saw numbers like that,

01:22:42 ◼   ► but I never really looked at that number.

01:22:43 ◼   ► And I've upgraded the test machines I have here to the

01:22:47 ◼   ► 12, you know, to 10.12.2, God, I hate that 10.

01:22:52 ◼   ► So I can't test it.

01:22:55 ◼   ► I was always getting the opposite.

01:22:57 ◼   ► I was getting an under representative estimate

01:23:00 ◼   ► when I did look.

01:23:02 ◼   ► But I think-- but part of it is that I just don't

01:23:04 ◼   ► look at that time remaining.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I just look at the percentage.

01:23:07 ◼   ► I really-- it's just the habit I've gotten into.

01:23:09 ◼   ► I'm not trying to--

01:23:10 ◼   ► Yeah, it's been known to be wrong for a while.

01:23:12 ◼   ► And I was actually joking with someone

01:23:13 ◼   ► who makes-- who uses the third party API, which

01:23:15 ◼   ► is slightly different, who was just saying,

01:23:17 ◼   ► I'm just going to cap it at 10 hours

01:23:18 ◼   ► because I can't trust anything it says over that.

01:23:20 ◼   ► Oh, so the third party one is different.

01:23:22 ◼   ► I didn't know that either.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Because I do know that you can still get it--

01:23:26 ◼   ► without installing any third party utilities,

01:23:28 ◼   ► you can get it out of ActivityMeter.

01:23:29 ◼   ► - Yes, that's the Apple one still.

01:23:30 ◼   ► - Or not, activity monitor.

01:23:31 ◼   ► And there's plenty of third-party utilities.

01:23:36 ◼   ► I did laugh when I first found out that Apple,

01:23:40 ◼   ► as part of their explanation

01:23:43 ◼   ► for how they've improved the battery life

01:23:44 ◼   ► on the new MacBook Pros in the 10.12.2 update,

01:23:48 ◼   ► that they removed the time remaining.

01:23:51 ◼   ► I literally laughed out loud because it looks so bad.

01:23:55 ◼   ► - So I know people internally

01:23:56 ◼   ► who've been trying to get that thing fixed for years,

01:23:58 ◼   ► and then I pointed out again,

01:23:59 ◼   ► this time to somebody-- - Fixed or removed?

01:24:01 ◼   ► - Fixed, and then I pointed it out to someone on the team

01:24:04 ◼   ► when it happened to me again, and they came back

01:24:06 ◼   ► and they looked at it and they went, holy shit,

01:24:07 ◼   ► why is this like this?

01:24:09 ◼   ► And I think that they just didn't have time to fix it.

01:24:11 ◼   ► I think maybe it was a harder problem to solve.

01:24:13 ◼   ► - And to get it out for 10.12.2,

01:24:17 ◼   ► they could, taking it out was obviously easy.

01:24:21 ◼   ► That's a really easy software change.

01:24:23 ◼   ► Fixing it might be hard, and they're not gonna delay 10.12.2

01:24:28 ◼   ► 12.2 to wait for the fix and because there's all sorts of other good stuff in in that update

01:24:35 ◼   ► that was ready to ship and

01:24:38 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm down with it. It's just funny that it can't it's just sad that's sad

01:24:44 ◼   ► But it's funny that it that they decided to do it in response to complaints about a new device

01:24:48 ◼   ► What they should have done is take it out of Sierra

01:24:51 ◼   ► Just take it out

01:24:52 ◼   ► You know should have recognized that it was

01:24:54 ◼   ► either fix it for Sierra or take it out for Sierra and just say it's a Sierra update.

01:24:59 ◼   ► It's like a lot of things at Apple, it doesn't get attention until it does.

01:25:01 ◼   ► Right.

01:25:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:25:03 ◼   ► Um...

01:25:03 ◼   ► And it's got the wrong kind.

01:25:06 ◼   ► It made me laugh.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Anyway, I've told you before the show, I have spent the last five days since Friday

01:25:14 ◼   ► creating my own little battery benchmark.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Now here's how Consumer Reports claims—I don't have the quote in front of me—

01:25:21 ◼   ► But effectively, they say what they do to test the battery is they load a series of web pages

01:25:25 ◼   ► Repeatedly over and over until the battery runs out

01:25:28 ◼   ► And they run them from a locally hosted web server in their lab

01:25:33 ◼   ► Which I think is actually in my opinion is the wrong way to do it

01:25:38 ◼   ► I feel I guess they're thinking that if they run it locally they can get more repeatable, but you know that if there's some sort of

01:25:46 ◼   ► problem between here and the actual server.

01:25:48 ◼   ► But they get like a rogue ad tracker that just spins up more and more trackers and starts killing the processes.

01:25:54 ◼   ► But I feel like if you want to test real-world battery life, you should test it on real-world websites.

01:25:59 ◼   ► It's, you know, like running off a fake web server in your lab, testing, loading the pages from a fake web server in your lab is

01:26:06 ◼   ► like, it's saying like we're not gonna run the real version of Photoshop. We're gonna, you know, run our own simulation of Photoshop.

01:26:13 ◼   ► It's you know, why not run the real thing?

01:26:15 ◼   ► It's what real people are gonna do so run a recording of a drawing instead of running the program that makes the drawing

01:26:20 ◼   ► Now I haven't published this yet because I'm not done and unlike Consumer Reports

01:26:24 ◼   ► I don't want to publish it before I'm done, but I can talk about it here on the show. It's a very simple

01:26:27 ◼   ► I wrote an Apple script and what it does I took 25 stories from the top 25 stories on tech meme on Friday

01:26:34 ◼   ► Just to have real world stories that are supposedly actually pop popular real pep pages that were loaded by real people

01:26:43 ◼   ► I don't think it really matters too much what they are, but there are real websites.

01:26:50 ◼   ► And then it, one at a time, loads them into new tabs, leaves all of them open, loads a

01:26:58 ◼   ► web page, waits five seconds, pages down, waits another five seconds, pages down, waits

01:27:04 ◼   ► another five seconds, pages down.

01:27:06 ◼   ► After that, goes on to the next URL, does the same thing.

01:27:10 ◼   ► seconds with five seconds in between to page down to simulate, you know, reading a website,

01:27:17 ◼   ► loading anything else that might roll into the scroll view like an automatic playing

01:27:21 ◼   ► video or something like that. Do all 25 of them have 25 tabs open and then at the end of that,

01:27:28 ◼   ► close it, start all over again, load the same 25 pages over and over again at a sort of,

01:27:34 ◼   ► for, you know, I could take out the five second delays and it like, it's like the screen is just

01:27:39 ◼   ► just like flash, flash, flash, and it's going way faster

01:27:42 ◼   ► than you can see.

01:27:43 ◼   ► In real life, is anybody actually gonna sit there

01:27:45 ◼   ► in front of a computer for five hours

01:27:47 ◼   ► and every 15 seconds load another webpage and scroll down?

01:27:52 ◼   ► No, I mean, it's sort of like simulating like a Coke Fiend

01:27:56 ◼   ► on a news binge.

01:27:57 ◼   ► But it's not supposed to be like this is simulating

01:28:00 ◼   ► a real person in real use.

01:28:01 ◼   ► It's just something that I could run on multiple machines

01:28:05 ◼   ► to see if the scores come out consistently

01:28:08 ◼   ► on multiple runs on the same machine,

01:28:10 ◼   ► and to compare one machine to another,

01:28:12 ◼   ► and to compare these new ones to my old 2014 MacBook Pro.

01:28:16 ◼   ► And the results I got are very different

01:28:19 ◼   ► than consumer reports.

01:28:20 ◼   ► - So there wasn't like a 15 hour one and a three hour one?

01:28:23 ◼   ► - No, if anything, the results have actually gotten slowly

01:28:27 ◼   ► but steadily better since Friday on the same machine,

01:28:30 ◼   ► which I attribute to the fact that when I first started

01:28:33 ◼   ► on Friday, I had just updated to 10 point, 12 point two

01:28:36 ◼   ► on the one.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I had sort of packed these review units up

01:28:38 ◼   ► to send back to Apple.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I'm glad I didn't.

01:28:40 ◼   ► They were all packed up, and most of the,

01:28:43 ◼   ► I have three of them.

01:28:44 ◼   ► I have one without, I have the MacBook Escape.

01:28:46 ◼   ► I have 13-inch with a Core i5 with a touch bar,

01:28:49 ◼   ► and I have a 15-inch.

01:28:51 ◼   ► I attribute the earlier ones getting worse scores

01:28:57 ◼   ► by about an hour to the fact that I did check,

01:29:01 ◼   ► not while the benchmark was running,

01:29:03 ◼   ► but just while I was setting up and testing it

01:29:05 ◼   ► and trying to figure, you know, just making sure

01:29:06 ◼   ► that the test did what I thought it did

01:29:08 ◼   ► and was logging what I thought it did.

01:29:10 ◼   ► What I do is I write to a text file every time

01:29:12 ◼   ► through the 25 tabs just to list how long has gone

01:29:15 ◼   ► since we started and what's the current battery life

01:29:17 ◼   ► as a percentage to make sure it was all sane.

01:29:21 ◼   ► I ran it sometimes with Activity Monitor running

01:29:24 ◼   ► and I could tell the first time it was running

01:29:26 ◼   ► that a lot of the photos demons

01:29:28 ◼   ► were running in the background.

01:29:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:31 ◼   ► - I think because I have these machines signed

01:29:34 ◼   ► into my iCloud account.

01:29:36 ◼   ► And I think that the photo sharing,

01:29:39 ◼   ► all the photos I've taken since I wrote my MacBook review

01:29:42 ◼   ► in October were new, and so it was doing facial detection

01:29:46 ◼   ► and all that stuff on all of the photos

01:29:49 ◼   ► that I've taken since October.

01:29:50 ◼   ► And we took a vacation over Thanksgiving,

01:29:52 ◼   ► and so there was actually a lot of photos.

01:29:54 ◼   ► I honestly think that the photo thing was giving,

01:29:57 ◼   ► so effectively I got, I don't have the exact numbers here,

01:29:59 ◼   ► but I was getting four hours and change on my test

01:30:03 ◼   ► on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the new one with the touch bar.

01:30:06 ◼   ► And now, like I ran it last night,

01:30:08 ◼   ► I got five and a half hours.

01:30:09 ◼   ► But it's all between four hours and change

01:30:15 ◼   ► and a maximum of like five.

01:30:18 ◼   ► The MacBook Escape got six hours and 20 minutes.

01:30:23 ◼   ► So it actually does get, as reported by some,

01:30:27 ◼   ► I guess now that I have the script,

01:30:28 ◼   ► I can actually report battery life

01:30:29 ◼   ► when I write these reviews.

01:30:32 ◼   ► But it does get better battery life

01:30:34 ◼   ► than the one with the touch bar, which makes some sense,

01:30:37 ◼   ► I think, because the touch bar never goes off.

01:30:39 ◼   ► This script-- I have the-- obviously,

01:30:40 ◼   ► I have the machine set to not dim the display,

01:30:43 ◼   ► not dim it automatically.

01:30:45 ◼   ► The touch bar is always on, because it seems to the computer

01:30:47 ◼   ► that the user is actively, constantly,

01:30:50 ◼   ► never stopping to use Safari.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Well, and also, I think some people noted this

01:30:54 ◼   ► when they were first introduced, that the specs are

01:30:55 ◼   ► widely different.

01:30:56 ◼   ► And it would be odd that they would get the same battery life

01:30:57 ◼   ► according to Apple with those different specs.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Right.

01:31:02 ◼   ► The other crazy thing from the Consumer Reports story was that they said that switching from

01:31:08 ◼   ► Safari to Chrome fixed the problem, that it got consistent results, and it got better

01:31:13 ◼   ► results.

01:31:15 ◼   ► So who knows what's going on?

01:31:18 ◼   ► I still can't wait to hear the explanation for this.

01:31:21 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:31:22 ◼   ► There's just no possible way that you can load web pages for 18 hours on one of these

01:31:27 ◼   ► machines.

01:31:29 ◼   ► But the idea that switching to Chrome would fix it makes no sense whatsoever because Chrome

01:31:33 ◼   ► is widely known as a battery hog.

01:31:35 ◼   ► One of the single biggest differences between Safari and Chrome on the Mac is that Chrome

01:31:41 ◼   ► is not optimized for battery life.

01:31:43 ◼   ► And Safari is optimized possibly as its single highest priority for battery life.

01:31:49 ◼   ► I don't know that there's a single priority on Apple's WebKit and Safari team higher than

01:31:53 ◼   ► maximizing battery life.

01:31:56 ◼   ► It is a grade one priority for--

01:31:59 ◼   ► - That is their zero regression jihad.

01:32:01 ◼   ► - Right.

01:32:02 ◼   ► And lo and behold, I tried the exact same battery test

01:32:06 ◼   ► with Chrome.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Same URLs, same delay between scrolling.

01:32:11 ◼   ► All I did was change TEL application Safari to,

01:32:16 ◼   ► and then here's the repeat, it's a very simple script.

01:32:22 ◼   ► I will publish it so that people can reproduce the result.

01:32:24 ◼   ► All I did was change the tell target

01:32:26 ◼   ► from tell application Safari

01:32:28 ◼   ► to tell application Google Chrome.

01:32:30 ◼   ► That's the only change.

01:32:32 ◼   ► Everything else, actually,

01:32:33 ◼   ► there's no other change that's needed

01:32:34 ◼   ► to even an Apple script.

01:32:36 ◼   ► The command is very simple.

01:32:37 ◼   ► It's just open location,

01:32:38 ◼   ► and then you put the URL as a string, and it opens.

01:32:41 ◼   ► So you don't even have to change that.

01:32:43 ◼   ► The battery life, lo and behold,

01:32:45 ◼   ► was only 2/3 as long as with Safari.

01:32:49 ◼   ► It went from four hours and change

01:32:51 ◼   ► to three hours and change,

01:32:52 ◼   ► and you divide one over the other,

01:32:54 ◼   ► It came out to like 0.65.

01:32:57 ◼   ► It was almost exactly 2/3, a 33% drop off in battery

01:33:01 ◼   ► switching to Chrome.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I always get a new MacBook.

01:33:03 ◼   ► I try-- I do Chrome for a day.

01:33:05 ◼   ► And without fail, it's an hour to an hour and a half less

01:33:07 ◼   ► battery life for me.

01:33:10 ◼   ► This exactly fits with the little simple tests that I ran.

01:33:16 ◼   ► And I'm not even saying that this is a great-- the world's

01:33:18 ◼   ► greatest battery test.

01:33:19 ◼   ► All I can say is that it's as close as I

01:33:22 ◼   ► can come to approximating what Consumer Reports says they did.

01:33:25 ◼   ► And I don't think it's an unreasonable battery test.

01:33:28 ◼   ► It seems fairly reasonable to me.

01:33:29 ◼   ► What was so odd to me with this whole situation

01:33:31 ◼   ► is, one, that Consumer Reports would be happy enough

01:33:33 ◼   ► with those results to publish them instead of becoming super

01:33:37 ◼   ► inquiring, why am I getting these results?

01:33:39 ◼   ► I need to understand these before I try to explain it

01:33:41 ◼   ► to somebody else.

01:33:42 ◼   ► And also, we find out again on Twitter--

01:33:44 ◼   ► and I know Marco has mentioned this before--

01:33:46 ◼   ► is that we're really bad with multiple truths.

01:33:48 ◼   ► Like, the battery could not live up to Apple's expectations,

01:33:51 ◼   ► and it could be shitty tests.

01:33:52 ◼   ► Both those things could be true.

01:33:54 ◼   ► And Consumer Reports did nothing to sort of convince me

01:33:56 ◼   ► that the shitty test part weren't part of it.

01:33:58 ◼   ► - I will say though that my tests show

01:34:02 ◼   ► that the new MacBook Pros are getting

01:34:04 ◼   ► better battery life consistently,

01:34:05 ◼   ► at least an hour more than my 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro.

01:34:09 ◼   ► Now, that said, my 2014 MacBook Pro,

01:34:12 ◼   ► which I personally own, is two years old,

01:34:14 ◼   ► almost exactly two years old.

01:34:17 ◼   ► And I've used it a lot over two years,

01:34:20 ◼   ► and the batteries, two-year-old batteries

01:34:23 ◼   ► that have been used for two years do not behave

01:34:25 ◼   ► as well as brand new batteries.

01:34:27 ◼   ► And I'm quite certain that that very same machine

01:34:31 ◼   ► that I own probably would have scored significantly better

01:34:33 ◼   ► if I tested it two years ago.

01:34:35 ◼   ► So it may not be an Apple,

01:34:37 ◼   ► it's an Apples to two-year-old Apples comparison.

01:34:40 ◼   ► But I will say it is an hour longer.

01:34:42 ◼   ► So if I were to switch today from my 2014 MacBook Pro

01:34:48 ◼   ► to the new one with Touch Bar,

01:34:50 ◼   ► I would expect to get an hour more battery life of active, active use.

01:34:54 ◼   ► Totally. And I mean, there's, there's a lot of things again, to unpack your one,

01:34:57 ◼   ► is that Apple famously a few years ago,

01:34:59 ◼   ► changed the way they measured battery life and it resulted in significantly

01:35:02 ◼   ► better battery estimates. People just remarked that Apple's became super solid,

01:35:05 ◼   ► but times keep changing.

01:35:07 ◼   ► And I think Apple does have to update these again.

01:35:09 ◼   ► And we saw that with iPhone devices recently too,

01:35:11 ◼   ► because it's not back like in the Steve jobs days when he did,