The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► What do you want to talk about first? We don't have too much, but I think the MacBook Pros are still interesting.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Because I had a show before Thanksgiving with Jason Snell, but at the time we had recorded that, it was sort of at the time,

00:00:12 ◼   ► maybe early orders were like unboxing their MacBook Pros, but at the time it was really just people who had the review units, who'd had them.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Whereas now, lots and lots of people have MacBook Pros. We have some real world experience.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Might as well talk about it first.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I reached out to you 'cause I was,

00:00:31 ◼   ► when you, I really enjoyed your review.

00:00:34 ◼   ► And then let me pull up what you said about my review.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - I don't remember.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - It was good.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And I was like, I need to come on the podcast

00:00:44 ◼   ► and defend myself.

00:00:45 ◼   ► And you know what, also we can talk about,

00:00:51 ◼   ► 'cause I decided I'm gonna put the mic

00:00:53 ◼   ► right up against the MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:00:56 ◼   ► So even though your listeners don't like loud sounds,

00:01:01 ◼   ► I can just be typing on my MacBook Pro the entire time

00:01:05 ◼   ► and which will annoy them.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Or maybe that won't annoy them.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - That is a good topic.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I'm glad you brought that up.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I would have been furious if we'd hit stop

00:01:13 ◼   ► and Rick stopped recording

00:01:14 ◼   ► and never brought up the sound on the keyboards.

00:01:17 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - What did I say?

00:01:19 ◼   ► Let's see, I can find it first.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - Oh, so you said very good take as usual.

00:01:25 ◼   ► It felt really good to get that.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And then I say that it's baffling.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Let me, I'll quote what I wrote.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I said, "Why this isn't available,"

00:01:36 ◼   ► and this is the Touch ID,

00:01:38 ◼   ► "isn't available on all of Apple's MacBook laptops,

00:01:41 ◼   ► "especially the entry-level 13-inch,

00:01:42 ◼   ► "no Touch Bar Pro is baffling."

00:01:45 ◼   ► And you said, "Not baffling at all."

00:01:47 ◼   ► Or maybe you should do it.

00:01:49 ◼   ► You should read your own thing.

00:01:51 ◼   ► This is like an interactive reading of your posts.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Well, I don't--

00:01:55 ◼   ► - I should do like your voice, what I think is your voice.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, you should just do my voice.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - Not baffling at all.

00:02:01 ◼   ► With Apple, you have to pay for awesome new stuff.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Is that a good impression?

00:02:07 ◼   ► - That's pretty good.

00:02:08 ◼   ► - I think Touch ID combined with the Secure Enclave

00:02:12 ◼   ► is at least half the value of the entire Touch Bar.

00:02:17 ◼   ► - It's funny because I would say, no pun intended,

00:02:20 ◼   ► your impression of me is a little stern.

00:02:23 ◼   ► It is much better than my wife's though.

00:02:27 ◼   ► My wife's impression of me is always sort of that I'm like, "Adult.

00:02:31 ◼   ► You gotta pay for the touch bar."

00:02:34 ◼   ► That's how Amy does me, and it's pretty…

00:02:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually just hear your voice.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I don't hear whatever voice I did.

00:02:44 ◼   ► That was just like a…

00:02:45 ◼   ► That's just what I…

00:02:46 ◼   ► Yeah, a blogger.

00:02:47 ◼   ► A man with a computer.

00:02:49 ◼   ► You know?

00:02:50 ◼   ► that I picture all men with computers not baffling at all.

00:02:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:59 ◼   ► - But you know what, this is exactly what I mean.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Now what I mean by that, and you know,

00:03:02 ◼   ► it's the format of "Daring Fireball" that I try to be--

00:03:06 ◼   ► - No, do no apologizing.

00:03:09 ◼   ► - What's that?

00:03:10 ◼   ► - Are you apologizing for my--

00:03:12 ◼   ► - No, I'm not apologizing, but I sometimes wonder

00:03:15 ◼   ► if it's easy to, it's easy to be a little,

00:03:18 ◼   ► Because I'm so terse sometimes that it's--

00:03:21 ◼   ► that's why I sort of like having a podcast on the side,

00:03:23 ◼   ► is that we can go on lengthy digressions over--

00:03:27 ◼   ► I'm looking at it right now, two sentences.

00:03:29 ◼   ► When something new comes out, like Touch ID,

00:03:38 ◼   ► it's only available on the premium price models.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And you have to wait.

00:03:43 ◼   ► And I'm sure, like a year from now,

00:03:46 ◼   ► the mid-range model will probably be upgraded with the touch bar.

00:03:50 ◼   ► >> I hear that, but let's think about how long iPhone owners have had touch ID.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Almost, I would say now what, 90% of iPhone owners have touch ID?

00:04:04 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I would think so.

00:04:06 ◼   ► >> Right, I mean how many, like going back to-

00:04:09 ◼   ► >> 5S, right?

00:04:10 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:04:11 ◼   ► So, okay, maybe a couple, I don't know.

00:04:14 ◼   ► I don't have the percentages,

00:04:16 ◼   ► really only Apple has the percentages.

00:04:18 ◼   ► But that's a long time,

00:04:21 ◼   ► and we've all gotten used to using it on our iPhone,

00:04:23 ◼   ► and it's great, it's magical, really.

00:04:27 ◼   ► The fact that you're able to do so many things now

00:04:30 ◼   ► with your fingerprint,

00:04:31 ◼   ► and you don't have to punch in passwords,

00:04:33 ◼   ► it really made lives better.

00:04:36 ◼   ► It makes your life better on the MacBook Pro.

00:04:39 ◼   ► Why can't I do it on a MacBook?

00:04:41 ◼   ► Why can't I do it on really just the MacBook?

00:04:44 ◼   ► because that's really the only two new laptops that Apple has.

00:04:47 ◼   ► It just, it kind of makes sense.

00:04:51 ◼   ► And, and, and on the, and on the 13 inch no touch bar, which is supposed to be,

00:04:57 ◼   ► I think what they thought would be a very sort of, not entry level for $1500,

00:05:01 ◼   ► obviously, but this basic model, it seems like you could have this without the touch

00:05:07 ◼   ► bar. Now I know there's a lot of technology that you could, that,

00:05:09 ◼   ► that comes along with the touch bar, but I don't know.

00:05:12 ◼   ► It just seems like it should be there.

00:05:15 ◼   ► - My guess is that part of it is product marketing,

00:05:19 ◼   ► meaning putting this appealing new feature

00:05:24 ◼   ► only at these higher price points.

00:05:26 ◼   ► What, I think it's like 1799 for the first one

00:05:29 ◼   ► that has the touch bar?

00:05:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, 1800 versus 1500 for the entry.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I keep saying entry level, but I guess it is entry level

00:05:39 ◼   ► for the new MacBook Pros, right?

00:05:41 ◼   ► - Right, and it clearly occupies the mid-range

00:05:45 ◼   ► of the overall lineup.

00:05:46 ◼   ► It is, I would say, it is the central,

00:05:50 ◼   ► it's the very middle of the lineup.

00:05:52 ◼   ► That and combined with the high-end regular MacBook

00:05:57 ◼   ► are sort of right there around the same price point,

00:05:59 ◼   ► and it's which one do you want, the super thin and light,

00:06:01 ◼   ► or the more powerful one?

00:06:03 ◼   ► - Right, and I think my recommendation,

00:06:06 ◼   ► I struggled with this review more than any review

00:06:09 ◼   ► I've written in a number of years because to me there wasn't a very clear,

00:06:14 ◼   ► you should get this one.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Not that I usually tell people you should get this one, but

00:06:19 ◼   ► that you just sort of, you talk through what you may want.

00:06:22 ◼   ► But it was so complicated and when you looked at that 13 inch without the touch

00:06:28 ◼   ► bar, without touch ID, without the extra ports, with the slower processor,

00:06:32 ◼   ► it's like why?

00:06:35 ◼   ► Even though that seems like the one you'd want to recommend to people, right?

00:06:38 ◼   ► if you don't need the touch bar, get this one.

00:06:40 ◼   ► But you can't really say that

00:06:42 ◼   ► because it doesn't have touch ID,

00:06:43 ◼   ► it doesn't have the extra ports,

00:06:45 ◼   ► and you're sort of like in this place where you're like,

00:06:47 ◼   ► you should pay $300 more to get this other one,

00:06:50 ◼   ► even though you might not use the touch bar.

00:06:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you compare that model,

00:06:56 ◼   ► the new 13-inch, as it's called, the MacBook escape, right?

00:07:01 ◼   ► - Right.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - If you compare that one to the remaining old generation

00:07:07 ◼   ► 13-inch MacBook Pros that they're still selling,

00:07:10 ◼   ► the ones that have the SD card slot

00:07:12 ◼   ► and the old school USB-A ports.

00:07:16 ◼   ► It's, that's a tough decision.

00:07:21 ◼   ► That would be a tough decision even for me personally.

00:07:23 ◼   ► Like if I--

00:07:23 ◼   ► - And that was the, that's my entire review, right?

00:07:26 ◼   ► Like my entire review was there's a new thing, it's good.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I don't think it's bad, it's very good.

00:07:35 ◼   ► There's a lot of great things in it.

00:07:36 ◼   ► But there's this old thing that is also still really good,

00:07:40 ◼   ► even though it hasn't been updated in many years.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And I don't really know which one to tell you to buy.

00:07:45 ◼   ► So let's just go through what's good here,

00:07:47 ◼   ► what's bad there, and you decide.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And I still, like, I don't even wanna think about,

00:07:55 ◼   ► like, I'm happy we did this podcast

00:07:56 ◼   ► like a couple weeks after because, like,

00:07:58 ◼   ► my brain hurt from thinking about MacBooks so much.

00:08:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree, it's--

00:08:03 ◼   ► - It was actually great timing

00:08:04 ◼   ► 'cause it was happening during the election,

00:08:06 ◼   ► and it was a good escape, in a way, escape.

00:08:09 ◼   ► It was the election escape key.

00:08:12 ◼   ► That's pretty good, actually.

00:08:15 ◼   ► The MacBook was the election escape key for me.

00:08:20 ◼   ► I spent a lot of hours being able to think about laptops

00:08:23 ◼   ► and not having to think about

00:08:26 ◼   ► what the disaster that was happening everywhere else.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - So I will say this.

00:08:31 ◼   ► I think you have a very good point

00:08:33 ◼   ► that maybe it has taken too long for Touch ID

00:08:36 ◼   ► to come to MacBooks in general,

00:08:39 ◼   ► that if we had it on iOS all the way back to the 5S,

00:08:42 ◼   ► why is November 2016 the first time

00:08:45 ◼   ► it was available for the Mac?

00:08:47 ◼   ► There, I think you have a strong point,

00:08:48 ◼   ► and I can't really refute it.

00:08:50 ◼   ► It seems to me like, if anything,

00:08:53 ◼   ► more proof on the side of--

00:08:55 ◼   ► - Right, if you had a video podcast,

00:08:57 ◼   ► you'd see me dancing in my office right now.

00:08:59 ◼   ► - That iOS is the favored child at Apple,

00:09:03 ◼   ► and the Mac is the second fiddle.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I think that you could definitely argue that.

00:09:11 ◼   ► It might even be hard to argue otherwise

00:09:13 ◼   ► 'cause how long ago was the 5S?

00:09:16 ◼   ► Last year was the 6 Plus.

00:09:18 ◼   ► 6, 6 Plus. - 6S.

00:09:20 ◼   ► - 6S.

00:09:21 ◼   ► The year before was the 6, the year before.

00:09:23 ◼   ► So three years ago was when the 5S was new.

00:09:27 ◼   ► That's pretty long, right? - Four, right?

00:09:28 ◼   ► Yeah. - Four years ago, right?

00:09:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:09:32 ◼   ► So that's pretty long, and I agree with that.

00:09:34 ◼   ► What I'm not surprised by, my take

00:09:36 ◼   ► is that whenever it did first appear on the Mac,

00:09:39 ◼   ► of course it's going to start only at the high end

00:09:41 ◼   ► and then trickle down year after year.

00:09:44 ◼   ► So I think you have a good point that maybe the first Macs

00:09:47 ◼   ► with Touch ID should have appeared--

00:09:50 ◼   ► Across the lineup.

00:09:51 ◼   ► --like 18 months after the 5S or something like that.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:54 ◼   ► And across the lineup is my--

00:09:57 ◼   ► Well, across the lineup--

00:09:58 ◼   ► But across the lineup wouldn't happen all at once.

00:10:01 ◼   ► But then if it had happened two years ago,

00:10:06 ◼   ► then by now it would be across the lineup.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - Right, well, or at least,

00:10:10 ◼   ► why didn't it come with the MacBook?

00:10:12 ◼   ► And that was in my review when I reviewed the MacBook

00:10:14 ◼   ► when it first came out.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Why is this not here?

00:10:16 ◼   ► And why is it still not there?

00:10:18 ◼   ► Right? - Yeah.

00:10:20 ◼   ► It could be.

00:10:21 ◼   ► - I mean, maybe it's,

00:10:22 ◼   ► maybe I would, you know, people have had it now,

00:10:26 ◼   ► like you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast,

00:10:27 ◼   ► people now have had these new MacBook Pros.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Maybe they aren't finding that it's a huge game changer for them, but I mean, I like

00:10:34 ◼   ► it a lot, you know, and I'm waiting for the Dashlane integration, but like, I use it,

00:10:41 ◼   ► I mean, I hate typing in passwords, and I open and close my laptop like all day long.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's, you know, it's, have you set up the thing where you can log into your Mac

00:10:52 ◼   ► with your watch?

00:10:54 ◼   ► I haven't.

00:10:55 ◼   ► - I haven't either because I went to do it

00:10:57 ◼   ► and it seemed like it was gonna take like an hour.

00:11:00 ◼   ► It was like-- - Yeah, it was like a thing.

00:11:02 ◼   ► - It's like you've gotta like turn off

00:11:04 ◼   ► two-factor authentication

00:11:06 ◼   ► and turn on two something else authentication.

00:11:10 ◼   ► And it really seemed like more trouble than it was worth,

00:11:15 ◼   ► especially since I don't wear my Apple Watch all the time.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And it just, and I use a couple of different Macs.

00:11:21 ◼   ► It just seemed like,

00:11:22 ◼   ► and it was going to be set up on each device.

00:11:24 ◼   ► And at the same time, I knew that I'd be testing the Touch Bar

00:11:28 ◼   ► 1 soon enough.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So I never did it.

00:11:32 ◼   ► And I've heard from people that it's not even that fast.

00:11:35 ◼   ► It's cool.

00:11:35 ◼   ► It works.

00:11:36 ◼   ► But it may not be as fast as typing the password that I have

00:11:40 ◼   ► in muscle memory when I sit down.

00:11:43 ◼   ► But I'll tell you, just logging into the thing

00:11:45 ◼   ► with putting your finger up there, boy, that is great.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Just makes sense.

00:11:49 ◼   ► And it's funny, just going back to Apple

00:11:52 ◼   ► not having put this on laptops for years,

00:11:55 ◼   ► it's like the whole idea of fingerprint sensors

00:11:57 ◼   ► and technology really began on enterprise Windows laptops.

00:12:02 ◼   ► They were terrible.

00:12:04 ◼   ► They were so bad.

00:12:06 ◼   ► You'd have to either swipe your finger

00:12:08 ◼   ► in the exact right direction,

00:12:10 ◼   ► and even then you'd get through

00:12:12 ◼   ► three different software layers that would say,

00:12:15 ◼   ► whatever, whoever was making the fingerprint sensor

00:12:19 ◼   ► would have their software,

00:12:20 ◼   ► then you'd have Windows software.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And Apple just fixed that with the iPhone, right?

00:12:25 ◼   ► They fixed that with Touch ID,

00:12:26 ◼   ► and then the entire Android industry followed suit.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Just like, why was it never on laptops?

00:12:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:12:34 ◼   ► So I, you know,

00:12:37 ◼   ► I don't blame, I'm not surprised.

00:12:43 ◼   ► I kind of, you know, circle back.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I think, I wish Touch ID had come to the MacBooks earlier.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I think this is pretty late.

00:12:51 ◼   ► But now that it's here, I really like it.

00:12:53 ◼   ► I'm not surprised it doesn't go across the whole line.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I do wonder how much Apple debated internally

00:12:58 ◼   ► whether to release that MacBook escape at all.

00:13:02 ◼   ► I can't help but think that that was a discussion.

00:13:04 ◼   ► - It just, it's like, why?

00:13:08 ◼   ► It's a weird, it's a weird product,

00:13:11 ◼   ► and it's very confusing.

00:13:13 ◼   ► I think if that product had either been $300 cheaper,

00:13:18 ◼   ► $300 cheaper, right?

00:13:21 ◼   ► Let's say, well, then that would be like right up

00:13:23 ◼   ► against the MacBook and that would be confusing.

00:13:25 ◼   ► The whole lineup is very confusing to me,

00:13:28 ◼   ► but not really, not the whole lineup is very confusing

00:13:31 ◼   ► to me with the old models and then with that 13,

00:13:34 ◼   ► the new 13 inch no touch bar, it's very confusing to me.

00:13:38 ◼   ► I think if that product didn't exist,

00:13:40 ◼   ► it might be a little bit easier

00:13:42 ◼   ► or if the price was dropped.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - My guess is that it's because they,

00:13:48 ◼   ► this is my best guess is that they clearly for the last few years,

00:13:53 ◼   ► quite a few years,

00:13:54 ◼   ► they don't significantly change their Mac hardware on a regular basis.

00:14:00 ◼   ► Like I think we can safely assume that these new Mac book pros are what the

00:14:06 ◼   ► Mac book pros are going to look like for at least three years, probably four,

00:14:10 ◼   ► um, forever. Yeah. For a long time. And at the most,

00:14:14 ◼   ► The most they might do would be add new anodization finishes.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Totally.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Maybe add a gold one or something like that,

00:14:22 ◼   ► or a new version of black or something like that.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And so I kind of feel that that $1,500 MacBook Escape

00:14:32 ◼   ► isn't really there to sell in great numbers right now.

00:14:37 ◼   ► But it's there because six months from now or a year

00:14:41 ◼   ► from now, it will move down.

00:14:44 ◼   ► it'll be $1,300 instead of $1,500 a year from now,

00:14:48 ◼   ► and maybe technically unchanged.

00:14:50 ◼   ► Like they'll do the thing where they don't change

00:14:52 ◼   ► any of the internals.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And eventually it'll be like a 1200, $1100 MacBook

00:15:00 ◼   ► with two USB, that's a pretty good machine

00:15:04 ◼   ► for an entry-level person.

00:15:06 ◼   ► - And maybe that is the machine that goes

00:15:08 ◼   ► to fill the MacBook Air void, right?

00:15:11 ◼   ► I mean, for now the MacBook Air sticks around, Apple's saying it very loud and

00:15:16 ◼   ► clear, the MacBook Air sticks around, they know how much people love it.

00:15:20 ◼   ► We can talk about some of us who have considered stocking up on the MacBook Air

00:15:25 ◼   ► because we think it might be taken away at some point.

00:15:29 ◼   ► But maybe that's the thought process, right?

00:15:32 ◼   ► Like, in my mind, right, and for someone who's constantly asked about laptops,

00:15:37 ◼   ► less so more recently, but if the no touch bar 13 inch,

00:15:42 ◼   ► what is it called, the escape, the MacBook Pro Escape

00:15:48 ◼   ► was let's say $1,000.

00:15:52 ◼   ► - I think it's gonna be a while before it gets 1,000.

00:15:54 ◼   ► - I agree, I agree, I agree.

00:15:55 ◼   ► But if it was, I would have,

00:15:59 ◼   ► it would be a great system for students, right?

00:16:02 ◼   ► Put aside the dongle situation,

00:16:06 ◼   ► It would be a great recommendation for students, right?

00:16:10 ◼   ► And price is part of it, but also all the other things that add to it, right?

00:16:14 ◼   ► It would be great if it had Touch ID.

00:16:16 ◼   ► So, okay, so let's say it comes down to $1,200, like you're saying, or $1,300.

00:16:21 ◼   ► I think it is a much easier sell than it being $1,500.

00:16:26 ◼   ► >> Mm-hm.

00:16:29 ◼   ► I also think that the touch bar as a whole,

00:16:37 ◼   ► including not just the actual display, not just the touch screen,

00:16:40 ◼   ► but the touch ID sensor, and the secure enclave, and the stuff that

00:16:46 ◼   ► lets that--

00:16:48 ◼   ► it really is kind of fascinating at a meta level

00:16:52 ◼   ► that it really is an iOS computer inside an Intel computer.

00:16:57 ◼   ► It's a computer in a computer.

00:17:00 ◼   ► It's an input device that is itself a standalone computer,

00:17:03 ◼   ► including a display.

00:17:06 ◼   ► I think it really is probably a $200 to $250 component,

00:17:14 ◼   ► that the price difference between them, it's a significant--

00:17:18 ◼   ► it's almost certainly-- it's way more expensive than the trackpad

00:17:23 ◼   ► or the keyboard.

00:17:24 ◼   ► It's a very expensive thing.

00:17:25 ◼   ► And it's not, you know, it's a pretty simple explanation why they start at $1,800.

00:17:30 ◼   ► It's because they all, you know, the ones with the touch bar have a very expensive component at the top of the keyboard.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Totally. And I don't have as big of a problem with the $1,800 starting price on the touch bar.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I mean, I think it's high, absolutely.

00:17:45 ◼   ► But when you consider that versus the $1,300 MacBook, old MacBook Pro, where that starts,

00:17:54 ◼   ► To me, that one in the middle just doesn't make sense,

00:17:57 ◼   ► the escape MacBook Pro.

00:17:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a hard time recommending it.

00:18:00 ◼   ► I really would.

00:18:01 ◼   ► - You know, because--

00:18:02 ◼   ► - Even the fact that it only has two ports instead of four.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - Right.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - That's the one, if there's one thing as the weeks go by

00:18:10 ◼   ► that irks me the most about that

00:18:12 ◼   ► is that it doesn't have the USB-C ports on the other side.

00:18:17 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:18 ◼   ► - At $1,500.

00:18:19 ◼   ► It seems to me, I understand,

00:18:20 ◼   ► I really do understand why it doesn't have even the Touch ID

00:18:23 ◼   ► because I think that you can't really separate the touch ID

00:18:27 ◼   ► from the fact that it's this whole,

00:18:28 ◼   ► it doesn't make sense to do a very,

00:18:30 ◼   ► to have touch ID, you'd still have to have an iOS device.

00:18:32 ◼   ► It would just be an iOS device without the touchscreen thing

00:18:35 ◼   ► but it would still have to have a miniature iOS device

00:18:38 ◼   ► to have the secure enclave and all of that.

00:18:41 ◼   ► I don't think it'd be worth it for them

00:18:42 ◼   ► to do the engineering to make it.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I think it's sort of a-- - I see, yeah.

00:18:46 ◼   ► - But it's for $1,500, it really seems weird to me

00:18:52 ◼   ► to cheap out on USB-C ports.

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Right.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and I'm in the place

00:18:58 ◼   ► where I want a new laptop, right?

00:19:00 ◼   ► I've had this MacBook Air for three years now.

00:19:02 ◼   ► I have like beat it into the ground.

00:19:05 ◼   ► It's a great system.

00:19:06 ◼   ► It could probably keep going for someone

00:19:08 ◼   ► who doesn't do as much stuff on their laptop as I do.

00:19:11 ◼   ► And I don't really know what to get.

00:19:13 ◼   ► Like I keep going back and forth

00:19:15 ◼   ► between the old 13-inch Pro and the new Touch Bar.

00:19:21 ◼   ► And I even ended my review saying maybe I'm holding out for one of these price drops or

00:19:25 ◼   ► something.

00:19:28 ◼   ► But it seems like odd to me that I still really want a two year old computer.

00:19:34 ◼   ► And part of it is the ports, like part of it is I mean, I'm using the Mac, the new MacBook

00:19:38 ◼   ► Pro with Touch Bar to podcast right now.

00:19:40 ◼   ► And I've got two of the, you know, $40 dongles out of the sides.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I've got, you know, the one with the HDMI hooked up to my monitor.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I've got my external mic plugged in.

00:19:52 ◼   ► I've got ethernet plugged into the other one.

00:19:56 ◼   ► This isn't like a typical setup for me,

00:19:58 ◼   ► but that could be one of the things.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Yeah, the SD card slot is a thing for me.

00:20:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:08 ◼   ► I came here for you to tell me what to do.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Well, the other thing I just wanted to mention

00:20:13 ◼   ► is that one of my favorite things about the new one--

00:20:15 ◼   ► and this is another one of the reasons why I'm kind of annoyed

00:20:18 ◼   ► that the MacBook escape only has the two ports is that,

00:20:23 ◼   ► one of my favorite things about the new thing

00:20:25 ◼   ► is that you can plug the power on either side.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And it seems like that it's a decent trade off

00:20:31 ◼   ► with losing MagSafe.

00:20:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's like, I really miss MagSafe.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - That's a good point.

00:20:36 ◼   ► - But being able to plug it in on the right side

00:20:39 ◼   ► in a lot of cases is really makes it a lot more convenient.

00:20:43 ◼   ► There are certain like,

00:20:44 ◼   ► I don't know why, but I always feel like

00:20:48 ◼   ► every time I ride the Acela between Philly and New York,

00:20:51 ◼   ► and if I'm lucky enough to get one of those seats

00:20:54 ◼   ► with the table, you've done it, right?

00:20:58 ◼   ► And it's nice to have a table, but you're facing,

00:21:01 ◼   ► it's like a table for anybody that doesn't know

00:21:04 ◼   ► the Amtrak on the East Coast.

00:21:07 ◼   ► There's some seats on the Acela trains

00:21:09 ◼   ► that you face people on the other side,

00:21:11 ◼   ► and in between you is a very narrow table.

00:21:13 ◼   ► But it's really great, and if you can get one of those seats

00:21:16 ◼   ► And I always feel like every time I do that,

00:21:19 ◼   ► the seat means that I have to snake my power cord

00:21:22 ◼   ► around people.

00:21:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:21:24 ◼   ► Because you're sitting left.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Yes.

00:21:27 ◼   ► I always am sitting on the left.

00:21:29 ◼   ► And it's not like, wow, that really changes my life

00:21:33 ◼   ► that I don't have to drag the cable around the outside

00:21:35 ◼   ► of my computer and plug it in.

00:21:36 ◼   ► But it would sure be a lot nicer if I could just

00:21:38 ◼   ► have it sneak up right next to my lap

00:21:40 ◼   ► and just plug it in on the right side.

00:21:42 ◼   ► That's a really good point.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Maybe part of the reason I've always chosen the left side of the bed

00:21:50 ◼   ► is because of MagSafe.

00:21:54 ◼   ► That's possible, right?

00:21:56 ◼   ► What if that's true?

00:21:58 ◼   ► I didn't even think about that, but people using laptops in bed, it's not--

00:22:01 ◼   ► I use my laptop in bed all the time.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm a iPhone in bed, only and always.

00:22:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, me too.

00:22:08 ◼   ► But if I'm writing late at night, and I'm just like,

00:22:11 ◼   ► I don't want to be sitting at my desk, or I'm--

00:22:14 ◼   ► It's true.

00:22:14 ◼   ► That's a good point, though.

00:22:16 ◼   ► Right side of the bed people have been screwed forever.

00:22:20 ◼   ► But in our last two apartments, I always

00:22:24 ◼   ► have chose the left side.

00:22:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a very selfish view, I must say.

00:22:30 ◼   ► Well, my wife doesn't love MagSafe as much as I do,

00:22:33 ◼   ► I guess.

00:22:35 ◼   ► She's probably like, who cares, right?

00:22:38 ◼   ► Right.

00:22:38 ◼   ► And interestingly, usually you pick

00:22:40 ◼   ► based on which side is closest to the bathroom, right?

00:22:43 ◼   ► That's usually one of the choices, at least for women.

00:22:46 ◼   ► Well, I guess men too.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Men pee in the middle of the night, right?

00:22:50 ◼   ► Is this like a thing?

00:22:51 ◼   ► - All the time.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - I don't live with a man, so I don't know.

00:22:54 ◼   ► Anyway, and so in this apartment, I'm on the left side

00:22:59 ◼   ► and that's not even the closest to the bathroom.

00:23:01 ◼   ► So I think it is the answer.

00:23:03 ◼   ► MagSafe has determined what side of the bed I sleep on.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Anyway, I still don't know what to do.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I don't know what to do.

00:23:11 ◼   ► And I'm just gonna keep just figuring it out.

00:23:14 ◼   ► And yes, I had this funny conversation on Twitter last night with Walt Mossberg,

00:23:17 ◼   ► because apparently on his podcast, he mentioned that he has bought,

00:23:22 ◼   ► and I guess it's a recent, it's the newest model of the MacBook Air.

00:23:27 ◼   ► And he has this model in the box, unused,

00:23:31 ◼   ► stored in his house, till his current one stops working,

00:23:36 ◼   ► because he's worried Apple's going to discontinue it.

00:23:40 ◼   ► This is a thing.

00:23:41 ◼   ► He's stockpiling and saving up for doomsday

00:23:45 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air disappearing.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - And you agreed with him.

00:23:48 ◼   ► You were like, that's a great idea.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - I think it's a genius idea.

00:23:52 ◼   ► - So it's like a Y2K shelter.

00:23:56 ◼   ► You've got a bunch of canned food.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - Well, I'm one of those people that,

00:24:02 ◼   ► if I have a shirt or something that I love,

00:24:05 ◼   ► I will buy a couple of, yeah,

00:24:08 ◼   ► I'll buy a couple of versions of the shirt.

00:24:10 ◼   ► I'll buy like--

00:24:11 ◼   ► I do that.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I do that.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And so I just never really thought

00:24:15 ◼   ► about doing it for tech in a way, especially not a laptop

00:24:21 ◼   ► that costs over $1,000.

00:24:23 ◼   ► I don't really have that kind of money

00:24:25 ◼   ► where I want to just save a $1,000 laptop in my closet,

00:24:29 ◼   ► to be honest.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I chimed in on Twitter, and I was like, you guys are nuts.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Because I can't understand--

00:24:36 ◼   ► Yeah, and I said back, you're right.

00:24:38 ◼   ► We are.

00:24:38 ◼   ► I am.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Totally am.

00:24:39 ◼   ► It's a non-retina screen.

00:24:40 ◼   ► looks terrible. Ben Thompson, my friend of the show, sometimes a guest, Ben Thompson,

00:24:44 ◼   ► had the same feelings where he felt like, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but more or less

00:24:50 ◼   ► that the nice things about the MacBook Air that you like the keyboard, you like the thinness,

00:24:54 ◼   ► you like the weight, you like having a couple of those different ports. He bought one too,

00:24:59 ◼   ► like I'm gonna buy one while it's still available, opened it up, looked at the screen, closed it,

00:25:05 ◼   ► packed it back up and sent it back to Apple because he had forgotten just how crude the

00:25:11 ◼   ► non-retina displays are. I can't see what there is that is appealing about the MacBook

00:25:16 ◼   ► Air other than the price. And I know that it's not like you and Walt are limited to

00:25:21 ◼   ► $1,000. I don't see the appeal of it anymore. I see no appeal to the current MacBook Air

00:25:27 ◼   ► other than price. None. Zero. If you really wanted to stockpile something, if the ports

00:25:33 ◼   ► were what's important to you, why not get the 13 inch?

00:25:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and that's what I've said. I totally agree, I'm not buying another Air, but I love

00:25:45 ◼   ► this laptop. I just have a special place in my heart for this laptop. And that's why yesterday

00:25:52 ◼   ► I said I came back to this laptop after two weeks and I was like, "I could work with this."

00:25:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not, like, yes, the screen is definitely

00:25:59 ◼   ► this big jarring adjustment back to basically

00:26:02 ◼   ► seeing pixels all the time.

00:26:05 ◼   ► But I just love it.

00:26:07 ◼   ► It just feels like home, you know?

00:26:09 ◼   ► - All right, I'm gonna take--

00:26:11 ◼   ► - Maybe a little bit more time with the MacBook Pro

00:26:13 ◼   ► and I could feel a little bit at home.

00:26:15 ◼   ► - I wanna take a break, but when we come back,

00:26:16 ◼   ► we should talk about the keyboard.

00:26:20 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Remind me.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - I'll just be typing loudly here during your--

00:26:24 ◼   ► Our first sponsor is, I love this company and I love their product. It's Eero. E-E-R-O. Eero

00:26:32 ◼   ► makes Wi-Fi routers, little hockey puck things. And they're brand new.

00:26:40 ◼   ► And it's a totally different model. This is a totally different system. It's a distributed

00:26:48 ◼   ► system. They really only make one type of device. Typically, what you do though is you get a couple

00:26:53 ◼   ► of them. You place them around your house or your apartment and they create a distributed system

00:26:59 ◼   ► to fill your whole house with wi-fi. Having just one router somewhere, probably in your living room,

00:27:06 ◼   ► really doesn't work for multi-room homes. If you've got any spots in your house, like a bedroom

00:27:14 ◼   ► two floors up, which is what I've got, that gets kind of like, "Yeah, I got wi-fi," but it's like

00:27:20 ◼   ► nowhere near as good as it is downstairs. Eero solves that problem and they do it

00:27:25 ◼   ► painlessly. Kind of right on time with rumors that Apple is getting out of the

00:27:32 ◼   ► airport business and they haven't updated their airport routers in years

00:27:36 ◼   ► anyway. I have a friend, this is anecdotal, obviously your mileage may vary, I can't

00:27:41 ◼   ► guarantee it. I have a friend, good friend, technically very very adept, who just

00:27:48 ◼   ► replaced the airport routers in his house with an Eero system.

00:27:52 ◼   ► And the first thing he noticed when he was doing testing

00:27:55 ◼   ► was that his upstream bandwidth went from 8 to 24 megabits

00:27:59 ◼   ► per second.

00:28:00 ◼   ► And he was under the impression that 8 megabits per second

00:28:02 ◼   ► was what he was capped at by Comcast.

00:28:04 ◼   ► He had no idea that there was even more upstream bandwidth

00:28:08 ◼   ► to have.

00:28:08 ◼   ► It tripled by switching to Eero.

00:28:13 ◼   ► It could not be an easier, less technical product to set up.

00:28:17 ◼   ► This isn't like getting enterprise stuff

00:28:21 ◼   ► that you've got to configure in an enterprise.

00:28:23 ◼   ► You have to sort of put on a network administrator hat

00:28:26 ◼   ► to set up.

00:28:27 ◼   ► No, you just get these little pucks.

00:28:29 ◼   ► They're all the same.

00:28:30 ◼   ► There's not like you have one that's the home one,

00:28:32 ◼   ► and then you get these little satellite ones.

00:28:34 ◼   ► You get a three-pack.

00:28:35 ◼   ► You can make any one the main one

00:28:37 ◼   ► and put it in where you connect it to your cable modem.

00:28:39 ◼   ► And then you just take the other two and put them

00:28:41 ◼   ► around the house.

00:28:43 ◼   ► They're all the same.

00:28:44 ◼   ► They're very, very nicely designed.

00:28:46 ◼   ► they quite frankly look a lot like Apple products.

00:28:49 ◼   ► They're just very, very elegant little pucks.

00:28:51 ◼   ► - I bought the two set for my new apartment,

00:28:56 ◼   ► and I was going to say the same thing.

00:29:00 ◼   ► It just feels like the whole experience

00:29:03 ◼   ► feels even simpler than setting up the airport.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And you just wonder, why is Apple,

00:29:10 ◼   ► I mean, that's a whole other conversation.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - We can turn this into an editorial,

00:29:14 ◼   ► we can roll this sponsored thing

00:29:15 ◼   ► right into an editorial discussion.

00:29:16 ◼   ► - We really could because I love,

00:29:19 ◼   ► Eero is at like the top of our holiday gift guide list.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Like it sounds like such a weird thing,

00:29:24 ◼   ► but it's like you should get someone a router.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Like it sounds like super bad and Eero does not pay me.

00:29:29 ◼   ► Anyone who's listening to this,

00:29:30 ◼   ► Eero absolutely does not pay me.

00:29:32 ◼   ► I never reviewed the Eero's.

00:29:33 ◼   ► My partner, Jeff Fowler did it here,

00:29:36 ◼   ► but I bought them and I'm in love with it.

00:29:38 ◼   ► - Well, it's a great product.

00:29:41 ◼   ► They recommend one for every thousand square feet.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Their default pack is a three-pack.

00:29:45 ◼   ► That's what I have.

00:29:47 ◼   ► I forget how many square feet my house is,

00:29:49 ◼   ► but it's probably a little more than 1,000,

00:29:50 ◼   ► but it's absolutely, the three-pack fills it up.

00:29:54 ◼   ► If you're lucky enough,

00:29:55 ◼   ► this is right out of their talking points,

00:29:57 ◼   ► if you're lucky enough to live in a mansion,

00:29:59 ◼   ► you can add additional Eros up to 10 in total.

00:30:02 ◼   ► You configure the thing with a really nice iOS app.

00:30:05 ◼   ► So it's right there on your iPhone,

00:30:07 ◼   ► and it's not like you gotta log into like a bizarre thing

00:30:10 ◼   ► on a web browser that's running on port 80 on the Ero.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Just a nice little iPhone app.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Just hook them up, connect them.

00:30:18 ◼   ► Once you've actually plugged them into power,

00:30:20 ◼   ► you've done most of the work.

00:30:21 ◼   ► It's really-- it could not be-- if you have an old Wi-Fi setup

00:30:25 ◼   ► in your house, you're going to get better performance out

00:30:27 ◼   ► of a Nero.

00:30:28 ◼   ► So where do you do to find out more?

00:30:31 ◼   ► You go to the Wall Street Journal.

00:30:33 ◼   ► You go to the Wall Street Journal

00:30:34 ◼   ► and read their review just to double check that I'm not

00:30:36 ◼   ► full of it.

00:30:37 ◼   ► No, just go to--

00:30:38 ◼   ► The really nice thing about the app, by the way,

00:30:40 ◼   ► is that you can keep speed testing.

00:30:43 ◼   ► And sometimes it does the speed tests for you.

00:30:46 ◼   ► Have you noticed?

00:30:48 ◼   ► So I am obsessed with checking what the speed tests are in my house.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Like the last speed test it did was yesterday at 4 PM.

00:30:56 ◼   ► >> It lets you know whether, hey, maybe we should jiggle some of the settings

00:30:59 ◼   ► because you're getting worse performance than you were a month ago or

00:31:02 ◼   ► something like that.

00:31:04 ◼   ► It really is, quite frankly, an Apple-like experience.

00:31:08 ◼   ► You don't have to understand it to know how it works.

00:31:10 ◼   ► just follow these simple instructions and it just works and it looks nice and etc. etc.

00:31:15 ◼   ► So anyway, what do you do to get more of them, to get these things? Go to Eero.com and at

00:31:21 ◼   ► checkout select overnight shipping and enter the code "THETALKSHOW" and that shipping will

00:31:28 ◼   ► be free. So as you're listening to this, depending on the time of day, you can have these Eero's

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00:31:40 ◼   ► thanks to Eero. Really, I am getting paid to say this, but I really do mean it. I've

00:31:45 ◼   ► got them set up in the house and it's a better Wi-Fi network. It really is.

00:31:49 ◼   ► And I am not getting paid to say any of this. Not even my impression of John Gruber do I

00:31:56 ◼   ► get paid for.

00:31:58 ◼   ► You know what I thought? I thought when that story—all right, end of the sponsorship

00:32:01 ◼   ► read. We're done. Thanks to Eero. I thought when that news came out that Germin had the

00:32:07 ◼   ► the report that Apple is getting out of the airport base station business. Whether or

00:32:12 ◼   ► not I've heard sort of conflicting things about that. More or less, the thing I've heard

00:32:20 ◼   ► is what I often hear with German stories about Apple, which is not that he's wrong, not that

00:32:24 ◼   ► anything he wrote was wrong, but that he only has part of the story.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the nightmare for any journalist.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Right. And that when the other parts of the story come out, it might make what he wrote

00:32:36 ◼   ► - More sense, yeah.

00:32:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, but also maybe, you know, not look good.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Now I don't know, this is just pure speculation,

00:32:43 ◼   ► pure speculation.

00:32:44 ◼   ► This is not anything I've heard,

00:32:47 ◼   ► but for example, one way that he could only have

00:32:49 ◼   ► part of the story right would be if Apple comes out

00:32:51 ◼   ► with one of these, you know, Alexa type, yeah,

00:32:56 ◼   ► speaker type systems, like Siri in a box,

00:33:00 ◼   ► and the Siri in a box also acts as a wifi base station.

00:33:06 ◼   ► It does seem weird to me, and I know I said

00:33:08 ◼   ► we'll get back to the MacBook keyboard,

00:33:10 ◼   ► but it's irresistible. - No, I like this.

00:33:12 ◼   ► - It really does seem weird to me,

00:33:14 ◼   ► 'cause this story about Apple getting out

00:33:17 ◼   ► of the router business, it does seem weird to me,

00:33:21 ◼   ► because the Apple idea is,

00:33:24 ◼   ► if you just stick with Apple stuff,

00:33:26 ◼   ► you're probably gonna pay more for X.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Like, and let's say X is a WiFi base station, right?

00:33:34 ◼   ► Apple's base stations cost more than just about any other, most other consumer base

00:33:40 ◼   ► stations.

00:33:41 ◼   ► But the appeal of it is, if you stick with the Apple stuff, it'll all just work, and

00:33:46 ◼   ► it'll be a lot less hassle to set up and a lot less hassle to keep it going.

00:33:50 ◼   ► And that is, in my experience, largely true.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And to that point, right, the home, if that is the next major, one of the next major battlegrounds

00:34:01 ◼   ► in tech, which it clearly seems to be with these talking speakers that are all about

00:34:05 ◼   ► being home, and if you look at Google strategy there as well, Wi-Fi and helping control that

00:34:11 ◼   ► part of the equation seems pretty essential, especially when you talk about smart home

00:34:16 ◼   ► stuff, right? It's all on the same network. You know, there's the privacy of the security

00:34:23 ◼   ► of the network, but there's also the management of the network. And that's one thing that

00:34:27 ◼   ► people have seemed to always love about the airports. I actually have never had one, which

00:34:31 ◼   ► is just how simple it is to manage.

00:34:34 ◼   ► It is very.

00:34:35 ◼   ► That's the reason I've always had them.

00:34:37 ◼   ► And I've always known that I'm not getting-- or at least for a couple of years now, I've

00:34:40 ◼   ► known that I'm not getting the absolute best performance.

00:34:45 ◼   ► And one reason I've justified that is I just know that the Comcast service we have at the

00:34:50 ◼   ► house isn't that great anyway.

00:34:52 ◼   ► And we're thinking about moving, and it's all just sort of been-- in the back of my

00:34:57 ◼   ► mind I thought when we move I'm gonna deal with Comcast, bite the bullet, and get the

00:35:03 ◼   ► best Comcast service I possibly can and then I'll figure out, you know, I'll get a Wi-Fi

00:35:08 ◼   ► setup that takes advantage of it.

00:35:11 ◼   ► But it just seems weird for me to out for Apple to exit that because it doesn't, it

00:35:14 ◼   ► just seems like they're, once they start making it easy to say, well, you know, I'm not gonna

00:35:22 ◼   ► buy an Apple blank, then you start saying I'm not gonna buy an Apple blank for other

00:35:26 ◼   ► things too. That being able to have like, "Hey, all of my stuff is Apple stuff,"

00:35:32 ◼   ► makes it easy to just say, "Well, I'm just going to buy another Apple thing because

00:35:35 ◼   ► I know it's just going to work."

00:35:37 ◼   ► Right. Well, I definitely like your theory about whatever the, you know, if they get

00:35:43 ◼   ► into this talking speaker race, which seems like they've got to, right? That device

00:35:53 ◼   ► is so core to the home,

00:35:55 ◼   ► I think this theory of it,

00:35:58 ◼   ► maybe possibly doing something with a network

00:36:00 ◼   ► could make sense.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean,

00:36:04 ◼   ► and that's the other top thing

00:36:08 ◼   ► that we have on our holiday thing,

00:36:09 ◼   ► which is the Echo.

00:36:11 ◼   ► And Amazon, now they're,

00:36:14 ◼   ► when another one of Gurman's reports

00:36:16 ◼   ► is that they'll have some sort of tablet version

00:36:19 ◼   ► of the Echo in the next couple of, whatever,

00:36:22 ◼   ► next couple of months or early in the next year. And that makes you wonder, you know,

00:36:28 ◼   ► okay, is that because people are then jumping on their phones or their tablets to, you know,

00:36:33 ◼   ► finish up a task or whatever it is. And in many cases, that's probably an iPhone or that's

00:36:37 ◼   ► probably an iPad. And Apple already controls that other part of the experience in the home.

00:36:44 ◼   ► So, if I'm remembering it correctly,

00:36:49 ◼   ► Gurman's report, this just came out the other day.

00:36:53 ◼   ► And it was interesting to me at a meta level

00:36:55 ◼   ► because I like Mark a lot.

00:36:57 ◼   ► And now that he's at Bloomberg,

00:36:59 ◼   ► and he's so young, he's just getting started,

00:37:04 ◼   ► I thought when he took that job at Bloomberg,

00:37:06 ◼   ► my guess was he's going to expand beyond Apple

00:37:11 ◼   ► because it just seemed inevitable.

00:37:13 ◼   ► It doesn't seem justified to have just an Apple rumors guy

00:37:18 ◼   ► at a publication that covers as wide,

00:37:23 ◼   ► the entire industry like Bloomberg.

00:37:24 ◼   ► And here you go, he's got a scoop,

00:37:27 ◼   ► just like the scoops he typically gets

00:37:28 ◼   ► on Apple upcoming stuff, he's got one on an Amazon product.

00:37:31 ◼   ► The gist of it though is that

00:37:35 ◼   ► like a seven inch display built into a speaker.

00:37:38 ◼   ► I don't know, and I do think it's in some ways

00:37:41 ◼   ► It is obviously competitive with tablets where you could just, why not just put, say, an

00:37:46 ◼   ► iPad Pro in your kitchen and prop it up.

00:37:50 ◼   ► And the iPad Pro has beefed up its speakers significantly compared to the pre-Pro iPads.

00:37:56 ◼   ► I mean, it's probably not as good as a standalone speaker system.

00:38:00 ◼   ► But one of the other things that Germin had in his report is that this new Echo is going

00:38:05 ◼   ► to have better speakers anyway because that's sort of the complaint people have about the

00:38:08 ◼   ► current Echo is that the speakers aren't that great.

00:38:11 ◼   ► They're good for like a novelty device.

00:38:13 ◼   ► If you think like, oh my god,

00:38:15 ◼   ► I'm talking to a black cylinder.

00:38:16 ◼   ► This is amazing.

00:38:18 ◼   ► The speakers are great.

00:38:19 ◼   ► But then if you start listening to music coming out of it

00:38:22 ◼   ► and you really just judge it as like speakers

00:38:25 ◼   ► for playing music, it's like eh, it's kinda, you know.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, you could get a better probably speaker

00:38:31 ◼   ► in that price range or, well,

00:38:33 ◼   ► they've dropped the prices significantly.

00:38:35 ◼   ► - Right. - I mean, so yeah,

00:38:36 ◼   ► I love the Echo.

00:38:38 ◼   ► I did the review of the Echo in the home

00:38:41 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago,

00:38:42 ◼   ► and even preferred it to Google's product.

00:38:45 ◼   ► And speaking of, Google's also doing an Eero competitor.

00:38:49 ◼   ► They've got this new Google Wi-Fi,

00:38:50 ◼   ► which I don't think has actually come out yet.

00:38:53 ◼   ► - I don't think so either.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I think it was supposed to, but I don't think it has.

00:38:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, they haven't sent review units,

00:38:58 ◼   ► and they were going to.

00:38:59 ◼   ► So it's all this fight of these ecosystems,

00:39:03 ◼   ► or these companies trying to control the ecosystems

00:39:06 ◼   ► we live in, especially in our homes now. So yeah, the Wi-Fi thing is interesting.

00:39:12 ◼   ► But it makes me wonder, you know, and again, Germin's report wasn't that specific, but

00:39:18 ◼   ► what would be the advantage of an Echo, which is like a physical thing that has to be plugged

00:39:25 ◼   ► in and is not itself a tablet? You know, it's more of whether it's still a cylinder or whether

00:39:30 ◼   ► it's a rectangle now because it has a display, but having a built-in display, what would

00:39:33 ◼   ► be the advantage of that versus a device? Let's just say I mean,

00:39:41 ◼   ► if Apple made one, but that also could serve as an iPad dock, and

00:39:46 ◼   ► then just use the iPad as the display.

00:39:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I would assume that Amazon's thinking is that

00:39:52 ◼   ► people start something on the Echo, right? And like, I just

00:39:56 ◼   ► talked to my experience, I'll start something on the Echo and

00:39:58 ◼   ► then realize, okay, I actually need more information, right? And

00:40:02 ◼   ► so that I always have my phone,

00:40:03 ◼   ► I usually have my iPhone in the kitchen,

00:40:05 ◼   ► and so I end up just sort of pulling that out

00:40:08 ◼   ► and going and doing whatever.

00:40:09 ◼   ► I'm not doing that in the Alexa app.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I'm usually not even doing that at all

00:40:13 ◼   ► with Amazon's assistance,

00:40:14 ◼   ► whether it's searching for something

00:40:16 ◼   ► or now the new recipe functions, things like that.

00:40:21 ◼   ► I would assume this is more of a ploy

00:40:23 ◼   ► to keep people in an Amazon world,

00:40:27 ◼   ► but also try and move them away from using their phones.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I don't know. Well, the other thing that occurs to me is and I forget if the word kitchen appeared in Gherman's report or not. Did it or people just speculating that this is more of a kitchen optimized device. So I know I've seen people saying that the echo is meant to go anywhere and some people have them in their bedroom and some people have in their living room and lots of people including me have one in the kitchen. But this this new device with the display is sort of specifically meant for the kitchen and I can think of a couple of reasons why you definitely want to display one of them would be recipes. Right? If you're

00:41:01 ◼   ► doing something, you know, if you're cooking in the kitchen, not having a display is almost

00:41:08 ◼   ► worthless, right? It's like, you know, nobody's going to do a recipe by audio, right? Because

00:41:13 ◼   ► you'd have to keep repeating. All right, how much of this? How much of that?

00:41:18 ◼   ► Yeah, but there's a new All Recipes app for the Echo and it does read out some of the

00:41:23 ◼   ► instructions.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Right. Well, I just think though that—

00:41:26 ◼   ► No, no, but as a thing to depend on, I totally agree. Like, and that's usually what I end

00:41:29 ◼   ► up pulling up my phone for, which is some recipe or something like that.

00:41:34 ◼   ► And the other thing that's very obvious, and a lot of people for a long time have had TVs

00:41:38 ◼   ► in their kitchen, like mini TVs.

00:41:41 ◼   ► When I was a kid, they invented little eight-inch TVs that some people put in their TVs, and

00:41:46 ◼   ► I thought that was amazing, and I wanted my parents to get one, and they were like, "No."

00:41:52 ◼   ► But it's obvious.

00:41:53 ◼   ► as much as there's tons of audio stuff that you can listen to, like podcasts, there's

00:42:02 ◼   ► also a lot of people like video and a lot of people like to watch video. And guess what?

00:42:06 ◼   ► Amazon has a giant video service. That would be, to me, it's very obvious why they might

00:42:13 ◼   ► want to have a display on the thing in the kitchen because it'd be like you just tell

00:42:17 ◼   ► it to play something from Amazon Prime Video and there you are watching it.

00:42:21 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, like, part of what Amazon also wants you to do is buy more things on

00:42:27 ◼   ► Amazon and it's very simple now, but there are a lot of times where I'm like, "Oh,

00:42:32 ◼   ► you know, I'll say, 'Alexa, add paper towels to my cart,'" or whatever.

00:42:37 ◼   ► And it usually tries to remember, you know, "We'll pick what I've ordered before,"

00:42:41 ◼   ► but like having a visual indication of what that is or what I've just ordered or added

00:42:47 ◼   ► is helpful.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Like, I never really complete the order on the Echo.

00:42:50 ◼   ► I always end up going to my cart on my laptop or on my phone.

00:42:55 ◼   ► - Because you feel more confident if you see it.

00:42:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's the one."

00:43:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, so it's just,

00:43:06 ◼   ► you have to wonder what would have happened

00:43:08 ◼   ► if Amazon had actually had a successful phone years back,

00:43:12 ◼   ► if they really, I mean, I think honestly,

00:43:15 ◼   ► it's hard to see that the Echo would have come through

00:43:17 ◼   ► in the way it has if they had had a successful phone.

00:43:21 ◼   ► It almost feels like them not having control of a phone

00:43:25 ◼   ► and not having a strong presence in people's mobile lives

00:43:29 ◼   ► allowed them to create something

00:43:30 ◼   ► that was outside of the phone, right?

00:43:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:43:34 ◼   ► I definitely think it helped them

00:43:35 ◼   ► because it was sort of,

00:43:37 ◼   ► I think the failure of the Fire Phone

00:43:39 ◼   ► was sort of freeing for them.

00:43:40 ◼   ► And I think the timing of the stuff that they've done since

00:43:42 ◼   ► is sort of, you know, it sort of adds up

00:43:46 ◼   ► that from the point where they gave up on the Fire,

00:43:48 ◼   ► they've, or Fire Phone at least, they have, you know,

00:43:53 ◼   ► you know, to some measure or not, I mean,

00:43:56 ◼   ► as with all Amazon products,

00:43:57 ◼   ► who the hell knows how many they've actually sold

00:43:59 ◼   ► because they won't tell you,

00:44:00 ◼   ► but it certainly seems with the Echo

00:44:02 ◼   ► that they have some measure of a hit on their hands.

00:44:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I definitely think so.

00:44:07 ◼   ► And I think this holiday, like,

00:44:09 ◼   ► even though the Echo's now two, almost two years old,

00:44:12 ◼   ► it'll be two years old in January,

00:44:14 ◼   ► which is why I think this new rumor

00:44:16 ◼   ► makes a lot of sense.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I think it's probably primed for early next year.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I think this is the first time that I confidently,

00:44:24 ◼   ► I'm, yeah, it really is the first time

00:44:25 ◼   ► I've confidently recommended it to most people.

00:44:28 ◼   ► You know, I'm buying one for my parents.

00:44:29 ◼   ► They just built a new house,

00:44:31 ◼   ► and I just think it's perfect for the kitchen

00:44:33 ◼   ► that they made.

00:44:34 ◼   ► People for holiday, I've just said, this is now.

00:44:38 ◼   ► Like, now is the time to get one of these.

00:44:40 ◼   ► There's a, it's just the response time is better.

00:44:44 ◼   ► her answers, Alexa's answers are mostly on point,

00:44:49 ◼   ► and compared to, especially compared to people's

00:44:52 ◼   ► experiences with Siri, you know, you really do get

00:44:54 ◼   ► this feeling like people are sort of like,

00:44:57 ◼   ► they gave Siri a chance and then they stopped

00:44:59 ◼   ► giving Siri a chance, I think that, and I've said

00:45:01 ◼   ► for a number of months and almost years now,

00:45:04 ◼   ► that's Apple's biggest hurdle with Siri,

00:45:06 ◼   ► is getting the people, even as Siri improves,

00:45:09 ◼   ► it's hard to get people to go back and try and use Siri

00:45:12 ◼   ► for things, but with Alexa right out of the box,

00:45:14 ◼   ► you have this really strong experience.

00:45:17 ◼   ► The response times, the answers are right,

00:45:19 ◼   ► there's not a lot of,

00:45:20 ◼   ► I'm sorry, I have to search the web for that.

00:45:22 ◼   ► So I think it's gonna get more and more people

00:45:27 ◼   ► comfortable with talking to gadgets.

00:45:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I totally agree, and I've said that too,

00:45:33 ◼   ► that the single biggest problem Apple has with Siri

00:45:36 ◼   ► is getting people who felt burned by it to try it again.

00:45:38 ◼   ► That the first impressions mean so much,

00:45:41 ◼   ► and the first impression that people have with

00:45:43 ◼   ► Siri, it was so bad for so many people and was for a while that they've just given up

00:45:52 ◼   ► on it.

00:45:53 ◼   ► I think the same thing was true going back a very long time.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter because it was such a niche product, but the Newton handwriting

00:46:01 ◼   ► was the same way.

00:46:02 ◼   ► At the end of the Newton's lifespan, the handwriting recognition was excellent.

00:46:06 ◼   ► It really was.

00:46:07 ◼   ► And almost nobody remembers it.

00:46:09 ◼   ► Everybody remembers that part of the reason why the Newton failed was that the handwriting

00:46:12 ◼   ► recognition was so bad, because it was bad when they first shipped it.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Everybody was like, "This is amazing!

00:46:17 ◼   ► A little thing, a little computer I can almost put in my pocket and I can write on it."

00:46:21 ◼   ► And it got everything wrong.

00:46:24 ◼   ► At the end of the lifespan, it was amazing, but it was too late.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Everybody had filed Newton handwriting recognition under "Terrible."

00:46:30 ◼   ► It's really interesting.

00:46:32 ◼   ► It's something I've been thinking about lately, which is that we're early adopters,

00:46:37 ◼   ► right?

00:46:38 ◼   ► And many of your listeners are early adopters, and so everyone tries all this stuff that's

00:46:42 ◼   ► And in the case of what's been going on with technology over the last couple of years,

00:46:47 ◼   ► it's like companies and Apple more so than ever I think before, releases something that

00:46:53 ◼   ► might not quite be done and gets better over time, right?

00:46:58 ◼   ► Especially now in terms of software because software is so much of the experience.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Like the Apple Watch is the best example, I think.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Certainly the new version is faster because there's a better processor and it's waterproof

00:47:10 ◼   ► and there's all these fancy things.

00:47:11 ◼   ► But there's really an argument to be made.

00:47:13 ◼   ► It was better if you waited a year, right?

00:47:15 ◼   ► It was really better if you waited, or even if you waited and

00:47:19 ◼   ► bought the old one for cheaper price because the software got so much better.

00:47:24 ◼   ► It's the same thing with the Echo.

00:47:27 ◼   ► And it's really the same thing with Siri and a number of these things.

00:47:29 ◼   ► But there's this fear, there's this problem if people are early adopters and

00:47:35 ◼   ► get that really bad taste in their mouth and then they just say this thing sucks.

00:47:39 ◼   ► and then they put it away and they don't keep at it.

00:47:43 ◼   ► So it's like almost, it's a good time to be an early adopter

00:47:46 ◼   ► but it's also a really terrible time to be an early adopter.

00:47:49 ◼   ► That's a lot of thoughts.

00:47:54 ◼   ► - Let's talk about the new MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:47:56 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:47:57 ◼   ► - The poor new MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:47:59 ◼   ► - Oh, but first, it's a good time to take a break.

00:48:01 ◼   ► I'll take a break and do our next,

00:48:03 ◼   ► talk about our next sponsor.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And then we will talk about the keyboard.

00:48:08 ◼   ► I will try not to interrupt you.

00:48:09 ◼   ► That's alright. That was the best interruption ever.

00:48:11 ◼   ► Um, this episode is also sponsored by Audible.com,

00:48:16 ◼   ► who has an unmatched selection of audiobooks, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more.

00:48:23 ◼   ► And you can get a 30-day free trial at Audible.com/talkshow.

00:48:31 ◼   ► No "the," just /talkshow.

00:48:33 ◼   ► If you want to listen to it, Audible has it.

00:48:35 ◼   ► They have audio books from every genre you can imagine,

00:48:38 ◼   ► anytime, anywhere.

00:48:40 ◼   ► And you can play them on just about any device

00:48:43 ◼   ► you can imagine.

00:48:44 ◼   ► If your device has a Wi-Fi connection,

00:48:46 ◼   ► you can almost certainly use Audible on it.

00:48:50 ◼   ► Everybody knows they have audio books.

00:48:53 ◼   ► That's sort of like what Audible was known for.

00:48:56 ◼   ► And they have just about every audio book

00:48:58 ◼   ► you could possibly imagine.

00:48:59 ◼   ► And if you're listening to a podcast, you are obviously--

00:49:02 ◼   ► This is like the greatest sponsor to medium match ever.

00:49:05 ◼   ► If you're listening to me tell you this,

00:49:07 ◼   ► you obviously like listening to long form audio content.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Audio books are a terrific way to fill your time.

00:49:15 ◼   ► If you've got like a long commute and every day

00:49:17 ◼   ► and you run out of podcasts to listen to and stuff like that,

00:49:20 ◼   ► audio books can fill that up.

00:49:22 ◼   ► It is such a great thing.

00:49:23 ◼   ► But Audible has expanded beyond that.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And they have their own shows.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Like I said, they have news.

00:49:28 ◼   ► They have comedy things.

00:49:29 ◼   ► They have so much more.

00:49:30 ◼   ► almost like they are Netflix for audio.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Maybe not even almost, maybe that's just a perfect analogy.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Really, really great.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So go there, get a 30-day free trial

00:49:42 ◼   ► at audible.com/talkshow.

00:49:45 ◼   ► They always say optional, you can recommend a book.

00:49:47 ◼   ► I will just say the book that I have read

00:49:50 ◼   ► over the Thanksgiving break, I reread,

00:49:54 ◼   ► reread last year's "Becoming Steve Jobs,

00:50:00 ◼   ► "The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader" by Brent Schlander and Rick Tetzeli.

00:50:06 ◼   ► This is sort of the unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs that came out last year

00:50:11 ◼   ► that I found way more satisfying and way more interesting and way more insightful

00:50:16 ◼   ► than his official biography by Walter, whatever his name was.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Because it focuses on his work.

00:50:26 ◼   ► And I know that this book sort of—there is sort of a skepticism when it came out in

00:50:31 ◼   ► People I Rolled because this book had the participation of people like Tim Cook and

00:50:35 ◼   ► a few others at Apple.

00:50:39 ◼   ► And people wanted to present it as, "Well, this is a whitewashing of Steve Jobs' life,"

00:50:43 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:50:44 ◼   ► And if you read—I don't think anybody who actually reads this book would actually

00:50:47 ◼   ► say that.

00:50:48 ◼   ► The book, it just happens not to—it happens to be a lot less about his personal life and

00:50:52 ◼   ► a lot more about his professional life. Early years at Apple, his years out in the wilderness

00:51:01 ◼   ► when he was at Next, and when he founded Pixar, and then how Pixar became a great success

00:51:06 ◼   ► and how Apple became, you know, at least to some degree, you know, I think Apple did a

00:51:11 ◼   ► little bit better after Steve Jobs came back in '97. It's a great, great book. I've

00:51:17 ◼   ► This is the second time I read it, and I couldn't recommend it more.

00:51:22 ◼   ► They have it.

00:51:23 ◼   ► They have the unabridged version right there on audible.com, so you can use it to listen

00:51:25 ◼   ► to.

00:51:26 ◼   ► Sixteen hours, twenty-one minutes.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Pretty much like a long episode of the talk show.

00:51:32 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:51:33 ◼   ► audible.com/talkshow.

00:51:34 ◼   ► And if you want my recommendation, give Becoming Steve Jobs a listen.

00:51:40 ◼   ► All right.

00:51:43 ◼   ► MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:51:44 ◼   ► new keyboard. You hear that? I've mentioned this. So while I was doing my review, I at

00:51:55 ◼   ► one point thought, "You know what? This keyboard is different than what I expected.

00:51:59 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like the 12-inch MacBook keyboard, even though it looks the same and

00:52:04 ◼   ► it seems to have the same key travel." It didn't feel the same to me at all. And then,

00:52:08 ◼   ► you know, Apple said on stage that they did something different with these "butterfly

00:52:12 ◼   ► underneath the keys. And I believe it. Absolutely, it's less squishy and more clicky.

00:52:18 ◼   ► I agree. And there's like more of a bounce, right?

00:52:21 ◼   ► Yeah. It just feels better. It definitely feels better to me.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:52:26 ◼   ► But at one point during the review, I thought, "Boy, I like the way this feels better than I feared. But is this loud? This seems loud."

00:52:34 ◼   ► And I called my wife and son in at one point and I said, "Listen to this. Do you think this is too loud? Is this louder than the old ones?"

00:52:41 ◼   ► than the old ones, and they both convinced me

00:52:45 ◼   ► that I was kind of crazy.

00:52:46 ◼   ► They were like, it definitely sounds different,

00:52:47 ◼   ► but it's not loud.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And I was like, all right, well, I'll just forget it,

00:52:49 ◼   ► and I didn't write about it.

00:52:50 ◼   ► But then when the reviews all hit,

00:52:53 ◼   ► a couple of people mentioned, including you,

00:52:55 ◼   ► that the keyboard is louder, and I thought,

00:52:59 ◼   ► damn, I should have written about that,

00:53:00 ◼   ► because I think I was on to something.

00:53:03 ◼   ► - So I have a theory that, but it's hard,

00:53:06 ◼   ► because I haven't gone back to the MacBook,

00:53:07 ◼   ► but I think you're right.

00:53:08 ◼   ► I think they fixed a lot with the keyboard.

00:53:10 ◼   ► I still don't love it.

00:53:12 ◼   ► I don't really like it really, to be honest,

00:53:14 ◼   ► but I think I need to move into the future

00:53:18 ◼   ► and accept that this keyboard is changing.

00:53:20 ◼   ► But I think because the keys are flat

00:53:24 ◼   ► and when you're moving from a keyboard

00:53:27 ◼   ► that had these more raised keys that had more travel,

00:53:31 ◼   ► you might be hitting the keys harder.

00:53:33 ◼   ► And I know I think I hit the keys harder,

00:53:36 ◼   ► especially when I'm like in it and I'm really writing

00:53:39 ◼   ► and I'm like, this is it.

00:53:40 ◼   ► I've got a great thought and I figured out how to do this.

00:53:42 ◼   ► I feel like I'm sort of slamming on the keys a little bit more.

00:53:46 ◼   ► And so that might be why it's louder.

00:53:49 ◼   ► It's part of my theory.

00:53:51 ◼   ► I mean, I definitely think it certainly is a different sound than the regular MacBook.

00:53:57 ◼   ► And if you actually, the funny thing is in my video review,

00:53:59 ◼   ► I did a first person video, as I do sometimes with the helmet camera.

00:54:04 ◼   ► And the whole video kind of shtick was that I was typing on my

00:54:09 ◼   ► typing on my laptop as sort of like a diary as I was going through my review process.

00:54:14 ◼   ► And so we recorded the two different sounds.

00:54:16 ◼   ► The beginning opens when I'm typing on my MacBook and you hear the sounds of the MacBook

00:54:21 ◼   ► Air.

00:54:22 ◼   ► Sorry, I'm typing on my MacBook Air and you hear the keyboard sounds of the MacBook Air.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And then we recorded the sounds of the MacBook Pro because then I switched to typing on the

00:54:29 ◼   ► MacBook Pro for the rest of the piece.

00:54:31 ◼   ► So you hear, I recorded it in our booth here and you definitely hear the different sounds.

00:54:38 ◼   ► The question I have is, is it louder because I'm hitting the keys with more force, or is

00:54:44 ◼   ► it just genuinely louder?

00:54:46 ◼   ► And I can't really think of a scientific test to figure out.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Well, I can think of a scientific test, but I haven't done it.

00:54:52 ◼   ► I think it is louder.

00:54:55 ◼   ► But I think it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. I think it is

00:54:57 ◼   ► louder.

00:54:58 ◼   ► I do think, though, that I think I just tend to have a very hard typing style.

00:55:06 ◼   ► And I think with other people, you know, have very different, you know, maybe have a gentler

00:55:11 ◼   ► typing style.

00:55:12 ◼   ► And I think if you were in like a library and you were self-conscious about the noise

00:55:17 ◼   ► of your typing, if you were thinking about typing softly, I don't think that the MacBook

00:55:22 ◼   ► is going to be a problem.

00:55:23 ◼   ► I think though that if you, you know, have headphones on and weren't really paying attention

00:55:29 ◼   ► to your typing, it could be a problem.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:34 ◼   ► I mean, I feel like I just am typing a lot harder

00:55:39 ◼   ► on this computer, but maybe I've always typed really hard.

00:55:42 ◼   ► - What's your opinion of the keyboard overall, noise aside?

00:55:46 ◼   ► - Like you get used to it, right?

00:55:49 ◼   ► Like I said in this piece, and I know a lot of people

00:55:51 ◼   ► thought it was a super harsh line, I was like,

00:55:53 ◼   ► you get used to it.

00:55:54 ◼   ► You also get used to sleeping on a rock

00:55:56 ◼   ► when you're camping, right?

00:55:57 ◼   ► Like, you know, I didn't mean that to be super snarky.

00:56:00 ◼   ► I guess it came out that way, but like you get used to it.

00:56:03 ◼   ► It's like anything that might not be comfortable at first,

00:56:06 ◼   ► then you just sort of get used to it.

00:56:07 ◼   ► And then you kind of learn to like it.

00:56:11 ◼   ► That's the other thing.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I went back to my MacBook Air this week

00:56:13 ◼   ► and I'm just like, I missed you.

00:56:15 ◼   ► You know, I really missed you.

00:56:17 ◼   ► But I've written some,

00:56:20 ◼   ► like I have this also like superstition sometimes

00:56:22 ◼   ► where I like work on a laptop

00:56:23 ◼   ► and I like if I've done some of my best work on that laptop,

00:56:26 ◼   ► I'll be like, this is a great laptop.

00:56:27 ◼   ► You know, the laptop made the work great.

00:56:30 ◼   ► And I think I've done some really good work

00:56:32 ◼   ► on this MacBook Pro.

00:56:33 ◼   ► So really can't say that I don't like using it.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:40 ◼   ► I don't have a-- I don't say that-- I think it's fine.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And I say that meaning that I think all laptop keyboards are

00:56:49 ◼   ► a compromise, that none of them-- I've never

00:56:52 ◼   ► had a MacBook or a PowerBook or any Apple laptop

00:56:56 ◼   ► ever that has had a keyboard that I find

00:56:58 ◼   ► as nice as a desktop keyboard.

00:57:00 ◼   ► And on the desktop, I'm the guy who famously still uses

00:57:03 ◼   ► a 20-some-year-old Apple Extended Keyboard 2

00:57:06 ◼   ► that's super clicky and loud.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Although not as loud as a lot of these mechanical keyboards.

00:57:11 ◼   ► By mechanical keyboard standard, it's kind of quiet,

00:57:13 ◼   ► but it is very clicky and loud

00:57:14 ◼   ► compared to modern lower travel keyboards.

00:57:18 ◼   ► And I will also add some wiseacre on Twitter

00:57:23 ◼   ► after I made fun of you and Walt for stockpiling

00:57:26 ◼   ► at MacBook Air,

00:57:29 ◼   ► said this from the guy who has a closet full of old Apple extended keyboards, which is

00:57:34 ◼   ► true. I've got at least like four of them in my closet. But my defense on that is that

00:57:39 ◼   ► this keyboard, they don't make keyboards like this anymore. As a keyboard, if you do

00:57:43 ◼   ► prefer it, there is a reason to stockpile them.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Right. Right. That's the thing. I really do prefer the MacBook Air or the old MacBook

00:57:54 ◼   ► Air, MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:57:55 ◼   ► Yeah. I think I prefer it, though, only because I'm used to it. I think if I spend enough

00:57:59 ◼   ► time on the new one, I would go back to this one and I'd be too unfamiliar with it.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Right. Right. Yeah. It's like anything. You get used to it.

00:58:10 ◼   ► There's another thing about the new keyboard that I think, and again, I think I would completely

00:58:15 ◼   ► get used to it, but I haven't yet, which is that the actual keys are bigger. The keyboard

00:58:22 ◼   ► isn't bigger, but they've reduced the space between the keys and made the keys bigger.

00:58:28 ◼   ► And for some reason, it makes me feel like my fingers are spread out more, even though

00:58:33 ◼   ► it makes no sense because the center of each key is exactly the same distance from each

00:58:37 ◼   ► other as on the old keyboard.

00:58:39 ◼   ► But for some reason, that subtle difference makes me feel like I have to spread my fingers

00:58:44 ◼   ► out more.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And it's not true, but it somehow makes it feel that way.

00:58:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I really think—I'm just typing on it right now—I really think I'm hitting

00:58:54 ◼   ► the keys harder because and maybe over time I wouldn't hit the keys as hard if I hadn't

00:58:59 ◼   ► I found you know if I hadn't if I don't keep going back to the old keyboard I might get

00:59:05 ◼   ► more used to just the regular feel of this and I won't strike the keys as hard but I

00:59:12 ◼   ► think it has something to do with the fact that I keep switching between them.

00:59:15 ◼   ► All right the other thing that bothers me lastly on the keyboard the new arrow key arrangement

00:59:20 ◼   ► And I don't know why, but it's like instead of being a T-shape, now they've made the left

00:59:26 ◼   ► and right ones full height.

00:59:27 ◼   ► And for some reason in the two or three weeks that I was using the new MacBook Pro, I could

00:59:32 ◼   ► never get used to that.

00:59:34 ◼   ► It just took the entire two, three week period, never got used to it.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Isn't that the same on the MacBook too?

00:59:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it is.

00:59:40 ◼   ► It started, debuted with the new MacBook, but I never used the new MacBook.

00:59:43 ◼   ► So it's, you know, I mean, other than like just kicking the tires in the store and the

00:59:47 ◼   ► hands-on area, I never like reviewed one.

00:59:49 ◼   ► Oh, really? Yeah, I think I kind of got used to it. I used a MacBook for like four months

00:59:56 ◼   ► about. I used it most of the summer, switching back to my Air for sort of heavier work and

01:00:03 ◼   ► stuff like that. What about the trackpad? Do you care that it's ginormous?

01:00:08 ◼   ► I love it. And I don't have any palm—I didn't have any palm rejection problems whatsoever.

01:00:13 ◼   ► I saw a couple of people on Twitter when they first started getting their 15-inch MacBook

01:00:18 ◼   ► pros saying, "This is unusable for me. My palms keep getting registered as..."

01:00:26 ◼   ► I wonder if they were using it at a desk.

01:00:29 ◼   ► I don't know if they got bad hardware. I don't know if their skin

01:00:34 ◼   ► registers differently, capacitively.

01:00:36 ◼   ► If they have weird skin.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Or if they got a bum device. I don't know. But I kept my eye on it, and it doesn't seem to be

01:00:44 ◼   ► like a rampant problem. It was like a couple of people the first few days, but I retested

01:00:50 ◼   ► the 15-inch, you know, and was really thought about it, and, you know, my palms absolutely

01:00:55 ◼   ► rest on the trackpad while I'm typing, and it was never a problem.

01:00:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's a big thing about what the angle, what angle you're using the laptop

01:01:04 ◼   ► at. So I don't have really any problem when I'm using it at my desk, but there have

01:01:08 ◼   ► been some times where I have it on my lap and I do have the problem, or the keys, or

01:01:13 ◼   ► the laptop's raised up a little bit more.

01:01:16 ◼   ► So the bottom of my palm will strike the trackpad

01:01:21 ◼   ► as I'm trying to type something lower on the keyboard.

01:01:25 ◼   ► - I don't know, I find it to be delightful.

01:01:28 ◼   ► And it's, you know, my personal,

01:01:30 ◼   ► the MacBook that I own is a 13-inch MacBook Pro

01:01:34 ◼   ► that I guess is exactly two years old.

01:01:36 ◼   ► And I think it was the last MacBook Pro

01:01:40 ◼   ► that didn't have the Magic Trackpad.

01:01:42 ◼   ► It still, it physically clicks.

01:01:44 ◼   ► I much prefer the new trackpad.

01:01:48 ◼   ► - Me too. - To the one

01:01:49 ◼   ► that physically clicks.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And especially because it doesn't work as a lever.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So when you click at the top,

01:01:55 ◼   ► it clicks just as nicely as it does

01:01:57 ◼   ► when you click at the bottom.

01:01:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I totally agree.

01:02:00 ◼   ► And that's one thing I hate about going back

01:02:02 ◼   ► to the MacBook Air is that it doesn't have the Force Touch

01:02:04 ◼   ► or whatever it's called.

01:02:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, whatever they call it.

01:02:07 ◼   ► It's my favorite.

01:02:07 ◼   ► It seems silly, but at this point,

01:02:11 ◼   ► I'm not really performance constrained.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Nothing I really do, especially on a MacBook,

01:02:16 ◼   ► really strains the CPU that much.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And one of the little things I thought about

01:02:22 ◼   ► was what I've always done when I buy a MacBook--

01:02:24 ◼   ► I don't buy them that often.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I try to just get it, set it up exactly as I want it,

01:02:29 ◼   ► and then use it until I can't stand it anymore,

01:02:32 ◼   ► and then get a new one.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And when I buy a new one, I've always just maxed it out.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Just go into the thing and upgrade from the Core i5

01:02:40 ◼   ► to the core i7, the top of the line, whatever.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Get the most RAM, get the biggest SSD, et cetera.

01:02:47 ◼   ► I realized, I think that if I were buying a new--

01:02:49 ◼   ► or when next I do buy a new MacBook Pro,

01:02:53 ◼   ► I'm not going to upgrade the CPU.

01:02:55 ◼   ► I'm going to probably stick with the default,

01:02:57 ◼   ► because the CPU isn't constraining me at all.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And I'd rather have the longer battery life of the lower

01:03:02 ◼   ► powered CPU.

01:03:04 ◼   ► I think I made a mistake two years ago when

01:03:06 ◼   ► I bought the highest speed CPU, because I don't

01:03:10 ◼   ► need it. I never pegged this almost never pegged the CPUs. And but I'm getting I know

01:03:14 ◼   ► I'm getting worse battery life because I made that decision.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And, and you know, what I what was I spent hours benchmarking the old pro, the old 13

01:03:23 ◼   ► inch pro, and the new 13 inch pro. And performance wise, even though there's a leap in a generation,

01:03:29 ◼   ► yeah, there's one generation Intel that leap that happens. You really cannot tell the difference

01:03:37 ◼   ► and the performance. The Intel performance has basically slowed to a point where you're

01:03:41 ◼   ► not going to notice much unless, you're really not going to notice much unless, I mean, unless

01:03:48 ◼   ► you're doing things that are more reliant on storage and the SSD and the SSD speed was

01:03:52 ◼   ► faster but not much faster for everyday type things. So, you know, like, and I've, you

01:03:59 ◼   ► know, people have said, oh, well, shouldn't I get the new one because it's faster? I don't,

01:04:03 ◼   ► I don't think the reason to get the new one is because of,

01:04:06 ◼   ► well, it's not because of processor performance is faster.

01:04:10 ◼   ► It's graphics performance or SSD performance.

01:04:12 ◼   ► And for the everyday person,

01:04:13 ◼   ► that's not a ton that they're gonna see.

01:04:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was surprised.

01:04:18 ◼   ► And I don't know how much of this is just the constraints

01:04:23 ◼   ► that Apple was under,

01:04:24 ◼   ► 'cause obviously the Touch Bar ones

01:04:26 ◼   ► weren't ready on day one,

01:04:27 ◼   ► because nobody got a Touch Bar review unit

01:04:29 ◼   ► until like a week or so after the event.

01:04:31 ◼   ► like leaving the event, everybody who got a review unit

01:04:33 ◼   ► got the MacBook escape.

01:04:35 ◼   ► And I think that they were,

01:04:37 ◼   ► I think it was simply because they didn't have them

01:04:39 ◼   ► to give out. - Yeah, totally.

01:04:41 ◼   ► - And when I did get the 13 inch, the one that I got,

01:04:44 ◼   ► and I'm guessing they probably gave everybody the same one

01:04:47 ◼   ► was the Core i5 model, not the Core i7.

01:04:50 ◼   ► I don't know this for sure, but in my memory,

01:04:53 ◼   ► every other time I've ever gotten review units from Apple,

01:04:55 ◼   ► they just give you the top of the line model.

01:04:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was happy they didn't actually.

01:04:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too, because it's a more typical configuration.

01:05:03 ◼   ► But I honestly wonder in this case

01:05:05 ◼   ► whether it wasn't just constraints,

01:05:08 ◼   ► but maybe that they really think

01:05:10 ◼   ► that this is the better model,

01:05:11 ◼   ► because the battery life is so much better.

01:05:14 ◼   ► That's one of the things-- - That's true.

01:05:16 ◼   ► - One of the things that I found that is so much better,

01:05:19 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy one right now.

01:05:20 ◼   ► My two-year-old MacBook Pro is still, it's too good,

01:05:24 ◼   ► and there's too many reasons, I think,

01:05:26 ◼   ► to wait another year on upgrading.

01:05:30 ◼   ► So I'm personally not upgrading to one of these models.

01:05:34 ◼   ► It's just not--

01:05:34 ◼   ► - Maybe I should just buy your old one.

01:05:37 ◼   ► - Maybe, it's got your keyboard.

01:05:38 ◼   ► But if there-- - Maybe, yeah,

01:05:42 ◼   ► you helped me figure it out.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I think I finally figured it out.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Just buy old MacBooks.

01:05:47 ◼   ► - If there was a reason to get it,

01:05:48 ◼   ► it would be the battery life.

01:05:50 ◼   ► It just so happens that when I'm using my MacBook Pro,

01:05:52 ◼   ► I very seldom am untethered for that long.

01:05:56 ◼   ► But if I were, that would be the number one reason

01:05:58 ◼   ► to upgrade, because the battery life

01:05:59 ◼   ► on the new MacBook Pro is unlike any other MacBook Pro

01:06:04 ◼   ► I have ever used.

01:06:05 ◼   ► It's just unbelievable.

01:06:07 ◼   ► In my review, I mentioned keeping it open on my lap

01:06:09 ◼   ► during game seven of the World Series,

01:06:11 ◼   ► which was, I don't know, it was like four and a half hours,

01:06:14 ◼   ► incredibly long baseball game.

01:06:15 ◼   ► It even had like a rain delay.

01:06:17 ◼   ► And when I was done, I still had 70% battery life left.

01:06:21 ◼   ► I've never seen anything like that.

01:06:23 ◼   ► - This was the one with the touch bar?

01:06:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, 13 inch with the touch bar,

01:06:26 ◼   ► but the Core i5, not the Core i7,

01:06:29 ◼   ► and I was on Twitter and Safari, the whole game.

01:06:33 ◼   ► - See, I've had varying results,

01:06:36 ◼   ► and I think it could be some of the apps,

01:06:39 ◼   ► and Apple said that, some of the apps that I've used

01:06:42 ◼   ► are obviously more processor intensive.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I'm talking about like TweetDeck, really,

01:06:47 ◼   ► like TweetDeck, or I'll use,

01:06:49 ◼   ► I mean, obviously Chrome is a really huge battery sucker,

01:06:53 ◼   ► but I've just noticed, whether it's TweetDeck or Spotify,

01:06:58 ◼   ► both of those can have some varying results.

01:07:01 ◼   ► But yeah, pretty much in line with what they've said

01:07:05 ◼   ► was my results.

01:07:07 ◼   ► But I've gotten, you get longer battery life with the,

01:07:12 ◼   ► not that we're going to go back and start talking

01:07:14 ◼   ► about that 13-inch without touch bar,

01:07:16 ◼   ► but you get longer battery life with that one.

01:07:18 ◼   ► but not much, you know, a couple, 20 minutes.

01:07:22 ◼   ► But if it's like you're defining characteristic

01:07:23 ◼   ► of what you need from a MacBook, that's the one to get.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:29 ◼   ► You want to talk about dongles?

01:07:32 ◼   ► Love talking about dongles, you know?

01:07:35 ◼   ► I think the dongle thing is so overblown.

01:07:39 ◼   ► It is obviously a problem if you get it now.

01:07:41 ◼   ► I mean, I would need a bunch.

01:07:42 ◼   ► There's no doubt about it.

01:07:43 ◼   ► If my main computer was a brand new MacBook Pro with the touch

01:07:46 ◼   ► I would be using a couple of dongles right now. I would you know if they if it were my main computer

01:07:52 ◼   ► I would I'm at my desk so I would be like you I'd need one to hook up a display

01:07:55 ◼   ► And I would need a dongle to do it unless I've already bought that that LG 5k display

01:08:02 ◼   ► Which I probably would do if it was my only computer depending on when last

01:08:06 ◼   ► And I would need one to hook up this microphone because this microphone is

01:08:12 ◼   ► It connects to that my computer by USB

01:08:16 ◼   ► So, I would need some kind of dongle to connect that to the USB-C port.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And I would also need one to connect my external hard drives, because none of my external hard

01:08:28 ◼   ► drives are USB-C. They're all, I think, Thunderbolt.

01:08:32 ◼   ► What else do I have?

01:08:34 ◼   ► I forget.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I think I might even have one here that's an old FireWire one that I have a FireWire

01:08:38 ◼   ► and a Thunderbolt.

01:08:39 ◼   ► So, I'd have to go.

01:08:40 ◼   ► No, I wouldn't have to.

01:08:41 ◼   ► I would.

01:08:42 ◼   ► I might have to, because I don't think there's a FireWire or USB-C.

01:08:45 ◼   ► I'd have to go FireWire to Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt to USB-C.

01:08:48 ◼   ► Yeah. Right. Well, that's not what I'm doing with this one.

01:08:53 ◼   ► I've got the display port to Thunderbolt for my Thunderbolt monitor.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Did you see there was a story somebody had,

01:09:01 ◼   ► I think I linked to it on During Firebolt,

01:09:02 ◼   ► but somebody on Medium had a post where they called the new MacBook Pro,

01:09:06 ◼   ► a surprisingly great machine for hackers and that it's

01:09:09 ◼   ► arguably the most open computer Apple's ever made.

01:09:12 ◼   ► And just to synopsize that argument,

01:09:17 ◼   ► the new MacBook Pros don't have

01:09:19 ◼   ► a single proprietary port on them.

01:09:21 ◼   ► They've got four open standard USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports

01:09:27 ◼   ► and one standard headphone jack, and that's it.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Has there ever been an Apple computer,

01:09:33 ◼   ► a Macintosh without a single proprietary port?

01:09:36 ◼   ► I don't think so.

01:09:37 ◼   ► - And I've said this many times,

01:09:39 ◼   ► USB-C is the greatest port.

01:09:41 ◼   ► It's a great port.

01:09:42 ◼   ► I think the backlash has been,

01:09:48 ◼   ► I think it's been to some of the,

01:09:50 ◼   ► obviously them cutting out the other ports.

01:09:52 ◼   ► But I also think that there's this major backlash

01:09:54 ◼   ► to Apple not having this sort of unified port structure.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And I mean, why not put USB-C on the iPhone, right?

01:10:03 ◼   ► That was like one of the biggest complaints

01:10:05 ◼   ► when they announced the MacBook was like,

01:10:06 ◼   ► okay, so now I can't plug my iPhone into the,

01:10:09 ◼   ► into the, you can't plug your iPhone into your MacBook,

01:10:14 ◼   ► right, you need a different adapter,

01:10:16 ◼   ► but you also can't plug your iPhone into the same adapter

01:10:18 ◼   ► that goes into the wall because that's USB-C.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - Right.

01:10:22 ◼   ► And that's, I have to find that article,

01:10:24 ◼   ► but it's, but part of his argument is as, you know,

01:10:28 ◼   ► sort of a nerdy, I think he's like a developer.

01:10:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and he's got like a Nexus 6P as his phone.

01:10:34 ◼   ► Because he uses a Nexus, he just needs to take one charge,

01:10:37 ◼   ► he just takes his MacBook Pro charger with him

01:10:39 ◼   ► And then he can plug his phone into it as well, which is convenient.

01:10:43 ◼   ► >> Right, and that's a great argument for

01:10:46 ◼   ► why isn't Apple using USB-C on iPhones, even for

01:10:50 ◼   ► the connector that goes into the wall.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Now, of course, they hadn't had the new MacBook Pros out yet.

01:10:55 ◼   ► And of course, there's a far bigger market for

01:10:57 ◼   ► people who are buying iPhones, and it's probably going to piss off.

01:11:00 ◼   ► We're going to hear all the complaints when they do switch to USB-C there.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Now I can't use my old cord to plug into the new little wall

01:11:08 ◼   ► adapter that comes in the box with the iPhone.

01:11:10 ◼   ► We're gonna hear all of that all over again.

01:11:12 ◼   ► But it's a tough time.

01:11:14 ◼   ► This goes back to my days.

01:11:15 ◼   ► It's a tough time to be an early adopter.

01:11:16 ◼   ► There's a lot of transition that's going on.

01:11:19 ◼   ► - I don't think they're ever gonna switch to USB-C

01:11:21 ◼   ► on the iPhone or iPad.

01:11:23 ◼   ► - I don't think they're going to switch from a USB-C

01:11:26 ◼   ► on the input, on the female input on the iPhone

01:11:30 ◼   ► or on the iPad because they love lightning

01:11:32 ◼   ► and now they've made a big to-do about lightning

01:11:34 ◼   ► as a audio interface.

01:11:37 ◼   ► But I do think they will switch to USB-C on the adapter that

01:11:41 ◼   ► goes into the wall.

01:11:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:43 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I think they'll do.

01:11:45 ◼   ► And again, in my review, I called them out

01:11:47 ◼   ► as a nickel and dime move.

01:11:48 ◼   ► I think what they should have done

01:11:50 ◼   ► is done exactly what Google did with the Pixel phone,

01:11:55 ◼   ► is ship both cables in the box.

01:11:57 ◼   ► When you buy the new Pixel, you get a USB-C to USB-C cable.

01:12:03 ◼   ► That's right.

01:12:04 ◼   ► and you get a USB-A to USB-C cable.

01:12:08 ◼   ► That's right.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Or just put-- I mean, are we talking about which box?

01:12:12 ◼   ► Should they put that in the-- they should put the--

01:12:14 ◼   ► I think they should put them in the iPhone.

01:12:15 ◼   ► I think-- and if they--

01:12:17 ◼   ► I don't think it would have killed them to maybe put

01:12:19 ◼   ► that cable in the $2,000 MacBook Pro box either.

01:12:23 ◼   ► But I think it really should have come with the iPhone 7.

01:12:25 ◼   ► I think the iPhone 7 should have shipped with both cables.

01:12:28 ◼   ► And I've adamantly said that they should have included

01:12:31 ◼   ► the USB-C to USB-A adapter that's $19, but now $9,

01:12:36 ◼   ► the same price as the adapter that you get in

01:12:39 ◼   ► from the lightning cable to the headphone jack

01:12:41 ◼   ► in the iPhone box, include that in the MacBook Pro box.

01:12:45 ◼   ► And then everyone will be pretty much okay.

01:12:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a nickel and dime move.

01:12:49 ◼   ► I really think they should have included

01:12:51 ◼   ► one of those in the box.

01:12:52 ◼   ► And I know that, and I've made this argument before,

01:12:54 ◼   ► that shipping the dongles with the device

01:12:56 ◼   ► is sort of on Apple-like.

01:12:58 ◼   ► But you know what, they did it with the headphone jack

01:13:01 ◼   ► with the iPhone 7, and ultimately I think

01:13:03 ◼   ► that was the right thing to do, I really do.

01:13:05 ◼   ► - It built up a lot of goodwill.

01:13:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they should have done it.

01:13:09 ◼   ► - People thought, okay, it's here, I got this here.

01:13:11 ◼   ► - I have this article, it will be in the show notes.

01:13:13 ◼   ► It's Adam Geitge, the new MacBook Pro

01:13:16 ◼   ► is kind of great for hackers.

01:13:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - So I will include that in the show notes.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I saw that.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you know, I actually ended up

01:13:23 ◼   ► writing this dongle piece before the MacBook Pros came out,

01:13:26 ◼   ► 'cause I just felt I had this inkling

01:13:28 ◼   ► that this was gonna be a big deal

01:13:31 ◼   ► even before they announced them.

01:13:32 ◼   ► And people were already talking about

01:13:34 ◼   ► all the dongle situation around the iPhone.

01:13:37 ◼   ► So I did this piece about this is the year of the dongle

01:13:39 ◼   ► and actually these new ports are great,

01:13:42 ◼   ► so let's not complain about the ports,

01:13:44 ◼   ► but we can complain about the dongles, that kind of stuff.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And I recommended a couple of good options.

01:13:49 ◼   ► There are some really good options.

01:13:52 ◼   ► It's a booming dongle market out there.

01:13:54 ◼   ► It's a great time to be in the dongle business.

01:13:56 ◼   ► the problem is frankly on us that you forget them at places

01:14:00 ◼   ► and they are annoying, right?

01:14:01 ◼   ► They just are annoying.

01:14:03 ◼   ► - Well, or even if you don't forget them or lose them,

01:14:08 ◼   ► it's did you take the right bag, right?

01:14:11 ◼   ► Or where do you keep them so that they're always there?

01:14:15 ◼   ► - And you buy two sets, so you have one at your office

01:14:17 ◼   ► and one at home.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - You know, and if you--

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Apple makes money off of these.

01:14:22 ◼   ► There's no doubt Apple makes money off of these.

01:14:25 ◼   ► I think that's secondary in all of their thinking, but it's certainly the fact that they could

01:14:31 ◼   ► cut the prices as much as they did is true.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Right.

01:14:34 ◼   ► But I mean, by the way, in that article that I wrote, you're better off buying Apple dongles,

01:14:41 ◼   ► right?

01:14:42 ◼   ► Because USB-C has had some issues with the open development of these, it depends on which

01:14:50 ◼   ► ones you're buying, but of some of the adapters, where some have fried ports, and Amazon has

01:14:57 ◼   ► a number of them listed there, even though Amazon says they will only carry USBIF-certified

01:15:02 ◼   ► USB-C dongles and adapters.

01:15:04 ◼   ► There are many that get through.

01:15:06 ◼   ► So you really are best buying something that either Apple sells in their stores or that

01:15:11 ◼   ► Apple makes themselves.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Dave Asprey I have, it's an interesting tangent.

01:15:16 ◼   ► I'm not afraid to go down it, but it's come up recently

01:15:19 ◼   ► where Amazon has been found to be selling fraudulent stuff.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Like Apple had a thing where they found

01:15:27 ◼   ► that there was a whole bunch of supposedly first party

01:15:30 ◼   ► Apple chargers being sold on Amazon or third party ones

01:15:34 ◼   ► and that they're completely inferior

01:15:35 ◼   ► and downright dangerous in some cases

01:15:38 ◼   ► in terms of just how shoddily made they are.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I don't trust Amazon for stuff like that anymore.

01:15:44 ◼   ► I really don't.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, like, it was funny when I was doing the reporting for the story, you know,

01:15:49 ◼   ► the only cables I would buy from Amazon, honestly, are the Amazon basics, right, Amazon branded

01:15:55 ◼   ► ones because you know that those aren't fake. And that's really good experience with them.

01:15:59 ◼   ► So when I was doing this dongle reporting, because I'm a dongle journalist at this point,

01:16:06 ◼   ► I so so I spoke to the USB IF, which is the governing body that controls the standards

01:16:12 ◼   ► around USB, USB-C and USB in general.

01:16:16 ◼   ► And so they, you know, ran me through how something gets certified, right?

01:16:20 ◼   ► And that they have to meet their specs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:16:23 ◼   ► And they said, okay, Amazon says that they will only carry things that have been, sorry,

01:16:30 ◼   ► not certified because some things haven't been certified, but meet the requirements

01:16:35 ◼   ► of the USB-IF.

01:16:37 ◼   ► So the companies don't have to have a USBIF approval, which costs some money.

01:16:42 ◼   ► They just have to have said, we meet these, we meet these.

01:16:46 ◼   ► It's basically just, you know, they just give their word on it, to be honest.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And so when I started doing some research and I was like, I found one product on Amazon,

01:16:56 ◼   ► it looked very sort of, it looked shady, frankly.

01:17:00 ◼   ► And so I emailed Amazon PR and they said, yeah, we don't, they say that this meets the

01:17:05 ◼   ► USBIF certification, but more than that, we don't really know.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Right?

01:17:11 ◼   ► So you're in this place where you're like, okay, Amazon says yes, we do this.

01:17:15 ◼   ► And they have it listed on their site.

01:17:16 ◼   ► In this Dongle article, I link to their policy.

01:17:19 ◼   ► But there's really no assurance that they really do meet that.

01:17:25 ◼   ► And so my advice, and the one I do recommend here, I spoke to the company.

01:17:29 ◼   ► They said yes, we do meet the stats, we do meet the certification or

01:17:34 ◼   ► the requirements, I went to the USBIF,

01:17:36 ◼   ► they also said this one is listed.

01:17:38 ◼   ► But yeah, it's more than meets the eye, you know?

01:17:41 ◼   ► These dongles are not just,

01:17:43 ◼   ► they're just cheap pieces of plastic,

01:17:44 ◼   ► you know, there's more to it.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - Do you ever buy stuff from Monoprice?

01:17:48 ◼   ► - No.

01:17:49 ◼   ► - I love this company,

01:17:51 ◼   ► and I've never had a bad, bad product from them.

01:17:55 ◼   ► - Is this a segue into an ad?

01:17:56 ◼   ► - No, it is not, honestly.

01:17:58 ◼   ► It is an honest, just endorsement.

01:18:00 ◼   ► But the truth is, I was looking--

01:18:03 ◼   ► - You know what I mean?

01:18:03 ◼   ► That was a compliment.

01:18:04 ◼   ► You are such a great segue-er for the ads for your sponsors that sometimes you don't

01:18:09 ◼   ► really know.

01:18:10 ◼   ► So I was like, "Is this a..."

01:18:11 ◼   ► Not a sponsor.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I would love to have them as a sponsor, but Monoprice is a great company.

01:18:16 ◼   ► Their shtick is that their cables and dongles and et cetera are very low priced.

01:18:24 ◼   ► But they're also really well made and they make them themselves.

01:18:27 ◼   ► As far as I know, all they sell are their own products.

01:18:29 ◼   ► products. So you go to Monoprice.com and search for various cables. And they even have like,

01:18:37 ◼   ► it's a little, it can be a little bit confusing where like sometimes they have like three

01:18:42 ◼   ► different tiers. And I don't know what the names are, but there's a good, better and

01:18:46 ◼   ► best of the cabling. And there's like the one that's the cheapest. And then they have

01:18:50 ◼   ► ones like, like I've bought a bunch of little, real little like a six inch, tiny six inch

01:18:57 ◼   ► lightning cables because there's certain situations where that's you don't want a big long cable

01:19:02 ◼   ► like when I plug a like a mophie battery pack into my phone I don't want I don't want a

01:19:07 ◼   ► three foot cable I just want a tiny little cable and they have so this company makes

01:19:11 ◼   ► them they make them and they're super low priced and they have a great reputation for

01:19:15 ◼   ► quality but right now in my opinion they don't have a lot of the USB C Thunderbolt stuff

01:19:20 ◼   ► because I think they're not ready yet you know it's like I feel like by this time next

01:19:25 ◼   ► Yeah, so these and they're all MFI certified. Yeah, and by next by this time next year

01:19:29 ◼   ► I think mono price is the place you maybe even six months from now

01:19:32 ◼   ► Mono price would be the place to go to get all your you know

01:19:35 ◼   ► USB C stuff that you don't want to pay thirty nine dollars or twenty nine dollars from Apple for but you can't do it yet

01:19:41 ◼   ► Because I think it's still so new but they have ones like the the high-end one

01:19:45 ◼   ► Has like this is like a just a light now USB a to lightning adapter and it has like a nice braided

01:19:53 ◼   ► Canvas cable and it even has, this is the thing I really love about it, it has a little green light on the lightning end.

01:20:00 ◼   ► So it's sort of like the old...

01:20:02 ◼   ► Yes, it's like MagSafe.

01:20:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like MagSafe, which is another thing that I really miss on the new...

01:20:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I mentioned that in my review. It is maddening not to have the little light.

01:20:11 ◼   ► You know what, and for me, and you know, again...

01:20:15 ◼   ► I'm buying these right now, by the way.

01:20:17 ◼   ► I'm telling you, it's a great, again, they haven't paid me a nickel, but I love this company.

01:20:21 ◼   ► company. And also they're certified. Again, when I did my dongle reporting, it really is important

01:20:26 ◼   ► to get the certified stuff because it means Apple's tested it. Like Apple, I mean, say what you want

01:20:33 ◼   ► about buying some of these, you know, overpriced dongles, Apple tests all of those with their

01:20:37 ◼   ► products, right? In fact, it's funny, I just got an update. I plugged in one of these adapters and

01:20:42 ◼   ► it said I needed to update the system for the dongle. Have you seen that pop up? Yes. Yes.

01:20:49 ◼   ► And just an example of like that the two are integrated, right?

01:20:52 ◼   ► So, but the MFI, you know, it might seem like it's a stupid little thing, but it's important to look for.

01:20:58 ◼   ► And it's the same with the USB-CIF stuff.

01:21:01 ◼   ► You want to look for that USB-IF certification.

01:21:03 ◼   ► The other thing that Monoprice has, their mid-priced ones have like flat cables, like a ribbon cable instead of a tube.

01:21:09 ◼   ► And those can be really nice too, because they're a lot less likely to get tangled up if they're longer.

01:21:13 ◼   ► Anyway, they make great stuff.

01:21:15 ◼   ► I love having the--

01:21:16 ◼   ► Now you're making me want to do a column now,

01:21:18 ◼   ► not on dongles, but cables.

01:21:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Well, the Monoprice cables are great.

01:21:22 ◼   ► And I love having the indicator light.

01:21:23 ◼   ► And I really miss having it on a MacBook.

01:21:25 ◼   ► And one of the things is that it's our stupid house,

01:21:27 ◼   ► the stupid house we live in.

01:21:29 ◼   ► We have some--

01:21:31 ◼   ► I don't know who the hell set up these goddamn sockets

01:21:34 ◼   ► originally and thought it was a good idea.

01:21:35 ◼   ► But there's way too many of them that

01:21:37 ◼   ► are set up where they're connected

01:21:38 ◼   ► to switches on the wall.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:21:41 ◼   ► In places-- and the only reason you'd ever want that

01:21:43 ◼   ► is for plugging a light.

01:21:44 ◼   ► But in our kitchen, there is a light hanging from the ceiling.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Like, why would anybody put a-- we

01:21:52 ◼   ► have sockets that are meant to be hooked up

01:21:55 ◼   ► to light switches in positions where you'd never

01:21:57 ◼   ► want to put a light.

01:21:58 ◼   ► And it's maddening.

01:21:59 ◼   ► But that means we've got sockets that are sometimes off.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And I love it.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And there's other things--

01:22:05 ◼   ► Because somebody comes into the room and flicks it,

01:22:07 ◼   ► but they don't realize that it's not.

01:22:08 ◼   ► And so then you turn it off, and you plug something in,

01:22:10 ◼   ► and you're like, why is this not charging?

01:22:11 ◼   ► Right.

01:22:12 ◼   ► And the other common scenario for me, at least,

01:22:14 ◼   ► is we, you know, it's somewhat older house. Um, and some,

01:22:18 ◼   ► some of the sockets are a little loosey goosey.

01:22:20 ◼   ► And when you put the heavy Mac book charger right in the wall,

01:22:23 ◼   ► sometimes gravity just pulls it out enough where it's not actually in the light.

01:22:27 ◼   ► Having the light actually go on when you plug it into the thing I find to be

01:22:32 ◼   ► very, very helpful.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Cause every once in a while I'll plug in the mag safe on my Mac book and the

01:22:36 ◼   ► light doesn't go on.

01:22:37 ◼   ► And I know it's either plugged into a socket that needs a switch to be flipped

01:22:41 ◼   ► or the thing on the wall isn't in all the way.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Yeah. No, I'm with you on the light, especially too. I have the same situation, or sometimes it'll fall out, like,

01:22:50 ◼   ► well, like, you're pulling at it and it falls out, or like, we, you know,

01:22:55 ◼   ► when we had the dog and he's younger, we would take it, we would unplug everything,

01:22:58 ◼   ► because we didn't want him to eat anything.

01:23:01 ◼   ► And, you know, you think you plug in your thing, you think it's charging,

01:23:05 ◼   ► but then it's not charging, because you don't see the light. And I always loved the orange to green.

01:23:08 ◼   ► It's like, orange, you know, it's still charging, green, you know, it's good.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Yeah, you don't even have to open the thing.

01:23:13 ◼   ► I really miss that, and these Lightning cables from Monoprice have those.

01:23:17 ◼   ► So anyway, that's my guess.

01:23:18 ◼   ► And by the way, while we're talking about cables, you know, this Griffin makes the fake

01:23:23 ◼   ► MagSafe for USB-C. Have you seen it?

01:23:26 ◼   ► I've tested it, I didn't write about it.

01:23:28 ◼   ► It's really not worth it.

01:23:29 ◼   ► It doesn't look like it's worth it.

01:23:31 ◼   ► Then you have this little dongle thing, you have another dongle hanging off for USB-C,

01:23:36 ◼   ► you know, in the USB port, and you're just like, "What the fuck should I do with that

01:23:39 ◼   ► thing?"

01:23:40 ◼   ► You know, it's just like, and I've lost it.

01:23:41 ◼   ► I don't know where it is right now.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I mean, this office is a mess already.

01:23:44 ◼   ► So you've lost the dongle for the whatever priced cable.

01:23:48 ◼   ► - It's a nubbin for your dongle.

01:23:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is.

01:23:51 ◼   ► - God bless Griffin for having tried to make it.

01:23:55 ◼   ► But to me it's-- - Yeah, no, Griffin, thank you.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Thank you, I'm sorry to be mean to your product.

01:23:59 ◼   ► It's not worth it.

01:24:00 ◼   ► - It doesn't satisfy, it's not the same.

01:24:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's not.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I plan to send it back.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Thank you, Griffin, for sending me this product

01:24:08 ◼   ► that I did not like, but good work making it.

01:24:11 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I'm happy about Monoprice though.

01:24:15 ◼   ► This is a great, great site.

01:24:18 ◼   ► - Well, here's a complaint I've seen,

01:24:19 ◼   ► and it just did not occur to me

01:24:21 ◼   ► while I was testing the device,

01:24:22 ◼   ► but some people have said that with,

01:24:24 ◼   ► I bought a USB-C thumb drive,

01:24:27 ◼   ► because that's one of the little things that you,

01:24:35 ◼   ► being able to plug a thumb drive in,

01:24:36 ◼   ► USB-A is so ubiquitous that the first time,

01:24:41 ◼   ► I really did run into this while I was testing the MacBook.

01:24:44 ◼   ► I was gonna transfer just one thing with a thumb drive

01:24:47 ◼   ► and I was like, "Oh, crap, can't do that.

01:24:48 ◼   ► "Wow, that's weird."

01:24:50 ◼   ► So I bought a thumb drive that's USB-C.

01:24:53 ◼   ► I've seen people say that they have some USB-C things,

01:24:58 ◼   ► probably not the cables,

01:25:00 ◼   ► but like drives or card readers or something.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - They need to be powered.

01:25:04 ◼   ► Well, but the problem on the new MacBook Pros is that the USB-C ports are too close to each

01:25:08 ◼   ► other.

01:25:09 ◼   ► That they're so close to each other that there are some things that you can plug in and it

01:25:13 ◼   ► covers the other port, or is at least close enough to the other port that you can't even

01:25:17 ◼   ► plug the cable in.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Well, that's exactly the problem that I have on the 13-inch, as we come back to the 13-inch

01:25:26 ◼   ► no escape, whatever it's called, the MacBook no escape.

01:25:28 ◼   ► Can we just come up with another name for that?

01:25:30 ◼   ► I don't really like love the no escape.

01:25:32 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:25:33 ◼   ► No, it's not no escape.

01:25:34 ◼   ► - The MacBook escape. - Oh, the Mac escape, sorry.

01:25:35 ◼   ► - Because it has an escape. - The MacBook escape.

01:25:38 ◼   ► On that, the ports are close to each other.

01:25:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - And I have this SD card reader that has to be powered,

01:25:46 ◼   ► because many of these dongles don't require power to work,

01:25:50 ◼   ► depending on what you're plugging into them

01:25:51 ◼   ► and depending how good the dongle is.

01:25:54 ◼   ► So this is one that's made by HyperDrive.

01:25:56 ◼   ► It's a really cheap SD card, USB-C SD card reader,

01:26:01 ◼   ► but you have to plug it, it requires power.

01:26:04 ◼   ► And I can't plug in the power

01:26:07 ◼   ► because it's blocking the port.

01:26:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:11 ◼   ► You laugh at my life.

01:26:14 ◼   ► - Well, it's, you know. - Yeah.

01:26:16 ◼   ► But it's part of the thing.

01:26:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is part of the thing.

01:26:19 ◼   ► I think I bought an SD card reader too,

01:26:21 ◼   ► and now I don't know where the hell I put it.

01:26:25 ◼   ► I hope it's in my bag.

01:26:26 ◼   ► - Right.

01:26:27 ◼   ► It's, you know, look, as much as people complain about these

01:26:29 ◼   ► and it does look silly and stupid, they complain.

01:26:31 ◼   ► These are things that people deal with

01:26:34 ◼   ► in their everyday life.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Maybe some of us more than others.

01:26:39 ◼   ► I'm lucky I'm sitting here with a giant bag of dongles.

01:26:43 ◼   ► Because I just called them all in

01:26:46 ◼   ► when I was doing this dongle piece.

01:26:48 ◼   ► Literally, it's like $500 worth of dongles, if not more.

01:26:53 ◼   ► - Can I just add one other nice thing about Monoprice

01:26:55 ◼   ► is that with other cables that they sell,

01:26:57 ◼   ► they have some color choices.

01:26:59 ◼   ► I know.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And the color choices, if you think about it

01:27:03 ◼   ► before you place your order, you can do some smart things.

01:27:06 ◼   ► What I started doing a few months ago is for--

01:27:10 ◼   ► what's the old USB?

01:27:12 ◼   ► The micro USB, right?

01:27:14 ◼   ► The one that was sort of--

01:27:15 ◼   ► that's the smallest USB connector before USB-C.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Oh, Mini.

01:27:20 ◼   ► Mini.

01:27:21 ◼   ► I think it's micro.

01:27:22 ◼   ► Mini was the one that was sort of small but fat.

01:27:25 ◼   ► Well, whatever it is.

01:27:26 ◼   ► Which one are you talking about?

01:27:28 ◼   ► the one that's standard on most Android phones, that's micro.

01:27:32 ◼   ► That's the one.

01:27:33 ◼   ► So I still need to have one of those,

01:27:35 ◼   ► because my Kindle charges with that,

01:27:37 ◼   ► and my little Mophie battery packs charge with that.

01:27:42 ◼   ► So whenever I buy those, I just buy them in orange.

01:27:45 ◼   ► And then in my bag, it's very distinctive.

01:27:47 ◼   ► It's not black, it's not white.

01:27:49 ◼   ► The white ones are the worst, because they could be anything.

01:27:51 ◼   ► But if I see orange, I know exactly what it is,

01:27:54 ◼   ► and there's no confusion.

01:27:57 ◼   ► If you have to put a bunch of cables and stuff in a bag,

01:28:01 ◼   ► having them color coordinated by type is--

01:28:05 ◼   ► This is a genius.

01:28:06 ◼   ► You're a genius.

01:28:08 ◼   ► This is truly the most useful information

01:28:11 ◼   ► I've ever gotten on anywhere, ever.

01:28:14 ◼   ► Apple's Everything White is very good for their brand,

01:28:17 ◼   ► but it is absolutely a disaster for a laptop

01:28:20 ◼   ► bag full of cables and dongles.

01:28:23 ◼   ► It is absolutely terrible.

01:28:25 ◼   ► I'm looking at these colors now.

01:28:26 ◼   ► I was about to say when you said like this site is great

01:28:28 ◼   ► and I was looking, I was like, oh my God,

01:28:30 ◼   ► I can get this red cord.

01:28:31 ◼   ► Like I have always wanted a red cord.

01:28:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, but if you keep it by port,

01:28:36 ◼   ► you know, you can, you know,

01:28:37 ◼   ► keep your stuff logically organized.

01:28:41 ◼   ► - This really is a site.

01:28:42 ◼   ► - It's a game changer, game changer.

01:28:44 ◼   ► - This whole thing has been a game changer.

01:28:47 ◼   ► Worth every moment of this conversation.

01:28:50 ◼   ► - All right, let me segue smoothly

01:28:51 ◼   ► into our third and final sponsor, thank you,

01:28:56 ◼   ► of the show. It is a great one, but it is time sensitive. You need to listen to me now.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Don't hear me later. It's Fracture. Fracture is the photo decor company that's out to rescue

01:29:09 ◼   ► your favorite images from the digital ether. They take your photos, you upload them to

01:29:13 ◼   ► Fracture and they print them directly onto glass and add a laser cut rigid backing so

01:29:18 ◼   ► they're ready to display right out of the box. They even include a wall anchor. You

01:29:22 ◼   ► You just upload your photo, pick the size, and that's it.

01:29:28 ◼   ► And the quality is terrific.

01:29:29 ◼   ► I've got a bunch.

01:29:31 ◼   ► I've given a bunch of holiday gifts.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Well that's where I'm going with the time-sensitive nature.

01:29:36 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

01:29:37 ◼   ► These things are terrific gifts for your family.

01:29:41 ◼   ► They really, really are.

01:29:43 ◼   ► It's a great way to knock off a whole bunch of your holiday shopping in one fell swoop.

01:29:51 ◼   ► You've got to do it now because it's everybody else thinks the same thing and these things are all handmade

01:29:56 ◼   ► down in Gainesville, Florida

01:29:59 ◼   ► From US source materials in a carbon neutral factory

01:30:03 ◼   ► But they can't they their peak capacity always gets reached and at some point in the next week or two

01:30:11 ◼   ► They're going to hit the point where they cannot fulfill orders for the holiday season. We are recording this on November 30th

01:30:19 ◼   ► It's probably going to air later tonight.

01:30:21 ◼   ► I don't know what time you're listening to this or what day.

01:30:24 ◼   ► But if you're listening to this anywhere

01:30:26 ◼   ► in the beginning of December, go act now.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Hopefully it's not too late.

01:30:30 ◼   ► But it's such a great gift idea.

01:30:33 ◼   ► Don't just pause the podcast even and go do it now

01:30:36 ◼   ► or make a note to do it.

01:30:38 ◼   ► Because you're going to kick yourself

01:30:40 ◼   ► if you wait too long and miss the deadline for the holidays.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Because it's A, it is an easy way to do your holiday

01:30:47 ◼   ► to give gifts.

01:30:48 ◼   ► and B, the people you give them to are going to love them. They are, A, people just love

01:30:52 ◼   ► seeing pictures of friends and family, and B, technically they're just beautiful little things

01:30:57 ◼   ► and they'll say, "Well, how did you make this? There's no piece of paper behind the glass. It's

01:31:00 ◼   ► just on the glass," and then you can tell them about fracture yourself. They even come with a

01:31:04 ◼   ► 60-day, they call it a happiness guarantee, so you're sure to love your order. So if you get it

01:31:09 ◼   ► and you don't like it, you can just, you know, 60 days, you can send it back to them and they'll

01:31:12 ◼   ► and I'll give you your money back.

01:31:14 ◼   ► So for more information and 10% off your first order,

01:31:19 ◼   ► go to fractureme.com/podcast.

01:31:22 ◼   ► That's really the URL, just /podcast.

01:31:26 ◼   ► And then when you place your order,

01:31:28 ◼   ► they give you a one-question survey,

01:31:30 ◼   ► which is where did you hear about fracture?

01:31:32 ◼   ► That's where you can mention the talk show.

01:31:34 ◼   ► But remember it, go do it now, right now.

01:31:38 ◼   ► Just go do it for the holiday season.

01:31:40 ◼   ► pick your favorite photos that you've taken

01:31:41 ◼   ► over the last year, and get a bunch of fractures

01:31:45 ◼   ► to give to your loved ones for the holidays.

01:31:47 ◼   ► I highly recommend it.

01:31:49 ◼   ► I'm telling you, it's a very, very popular gift

01:31:52 ◼   ► among the people in my family.

01:31:54 ◼   ► Spoiler, if you're in my family,

01:31:55 ◼   ► you're probably getting a fracture.

01:31:57 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:31:58 ◼   ► - Because you're gonna order it today.

01:32:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm gonna order it today.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I'm not gonna put it off.

01:32:03 ◼   ► I'm not a procrastinator.

01:32:04 ◼   ► - I might go order, but mostly I'm going

01:32:08 ◼   ► to Monoprice right away.

01:32:09 ◼   ► What else do we have? I know the other thing is that your column, I think it just came

01:32:13 ◼   ► out today on the Spectacles? Snapchat? Are they called Snapchat Spectacles or are they

01:32:18 ◼   ► now Snap? What's the deal with the name change? The social network is still called Snapchat,

01:32:24 ◼   ► but the parent company is now Snap. Is that correct?

01:32:27 ◼   ► Correct. Yeah, and it doesn't say Snapchat Spectacles on here, but everyone's calling

01:32:32 ◼   ► that. People are calling them that because the app is still called Snapchat, and they

01:32:37 ◼   ► only really work with Snapchat. So it's not wrong to call them Snapchat spectacles. It's

01:32:41 ◼   ► sort of wrong to add, like you can't, it's not the Snapchat spectacles. It's not, you

01:32:47 ◼   ► know, it doesn't belong to Snapchat. It would be Snaps spectacles.

01:32:51 ◼   ► You're my entire connection to Snapchat. I've installed the app, I've looked at it, I don't

01:32:56 ◼   ► understand it, and then you had a column a long while back earlier this year which is

01:33:00 ◼   ► what the hell is Snapchat? And it was the first time it ever made sense to me.

01:33:04 ◼   ► This is why I'm here.

01:33:06 ◼   ► got a review out of the Snapchat spectacles. I just, before we get into the spectacles,

01:33:10 ◼   ► I just want to say I saw this thing on Twitter yesterday, and I forget who it was, I'm sorry

01:33:14 ◼   ► if I know you, but somewhere in my Twitter feed someone was talking about that they have

01:33:21 ◼   ► a friend who has three teenagers, and at all, they were, and over Thanksgiving they were

01:33:26 ◼   ► together and the topic came up that every time Facebook/Instagram copies something from

01:33:34 ◼   ► Snapchat, it makes these teenagers more brand attached to Snapchat.

01:33:43 ◼   ► That they know what's going on, they see it, and it makes them, rather than make them,

01:33:48 ◼   ► "Ah, I'll just use Instagram instead of Snapchat," it makes them want to use Snapchat

01:33:51 ◼   ► more because they see it as the ripoff that it is.

01:33:55 ◼   ► specific context of this was that Instagram has added a a

01:34:00 ◼   ► Snapchat like feature of notifying you when somebody you're communicating with takes a screenshot of one of the

01:34:10 ◼   ► ephemeral things that you send them

01:34:12 ◼   ► Right, right. Yeah, I mean and the whole stories

01:34:17 ◼   ► Feature in Instagram which was added, you know a couple months ago is a complete ripoff of snapchat, right?

01:34:25 ◼   ► And to some degree that really did work

01:34:27 ◼   ► because I think it worked for people like you

01:34:29 ◼   ► who were just like, why do I, I've already Instagram,

01:34:33 ◼   ► Instagram used to be cool, I'm here,

01:34:36 ◼   ► why should I go learn some complicated Snapchat thing?

01:34:39 ◼   ► And then Instagram went and added Snapchat-like stuff

01:34:43 ◼   ► and people are like, okay, cool.

01:34:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that it's, like for the teens,

01:34:47 ◼   ► they use Snapchat because all their friends are already on it

01:34:50 ◼   ► I don't need Snapchat because,

01:34:54 ◼   ► I don't really like the, honestly,

01:34:55 ◼   ► I don't really care that much about the Instagram,

01:34:58 ◼   ► what do they call it, Stories.

01:35:00 ◼   ► I've started checking them out a little bit,

01:35:03 ◼   ► but I really don't pay attention to them

01:35:04 ◼   ► anywhere near as much as just my regular Instagram feed.

01:35:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, yeah, I see them up there

01:35:12 ◼   ► and I'll click on them and I'm just like, oh, okay.

01:35:16 ◼   ► But then you end up seeing the same photo

01:35:18 ◼   ► in your actual feed.

01:35:21 ◼   ► Have you posted any in there?

01:35:23 ◼   ► I don't think I've seen that.

01:35:26 ◼   ► Like once or twice, and then I was like,

01:35:28 ◼   ► why the hell am I doing this?

01:35:30 ◼   ► It does not stick for me.

01:35:32 ◼   ► I've put some in there, but it's not surprising

01:35:34 ◼   ► that you haven't noticed them because they go away.

01:35:38 ◼   ► Right.

01:35:39 ◼   ► Anyway, I thought that was just interesting, though,

01:35:41 ◼   ► that at least it might be giving some

01:35:46 ◼   ► of the benefits of Snapchat to people

01:35:48 ◼   ► who haven't signed up for it like me, where

01:35:49 ◼   ► I'm seeing these stories from the people I follow

01:35:51 ◼   ► Instagram, but it's not doing anything to draw teenagers and the people who are at Snapchat's

01:35:58 ◼   ► core market away from Snapchat.

01:36:00 ◼   ► Again, it's anecdotal.

01:36:02 ◼   ► It's one guy talking about his friends, three teenagers, but it's pretty interesting, I

01:36:06 ◼   ► thought.

01:36:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:08 ◼   ► I mean, I think it makes sense.

01:36:10 ◼   ► I think that, and especially the brand's awareness that's happened around these glasses, the

01:36:18 ◼   ► scramble to get them. They have this really strong, you know, just for better or worse,

01:36:25 ◼   ► like cool, coolness, you know? And I think part of it is like they haven't really caved

01:36:33 ◼   ► to being this sort of like mainstream place. Like they do have the whole discover thing

01:36:40 ◼   ► with all the brands and stuff like that, and they try to sort of shove that down your face,

01:36:43 ◼   ► but there's still the core of what Snapchat is, which is, you know, building these stories

01:36:48 ◼   ► or sending your expiring photos and videos.

01:36:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:53 ◼   ► And I think since I've written that piece, the piece about, you know, what is Snapchat

01:37:00 ◼   ► and how to use it, I feel like many adults sort of either, they sort of just were like,

01:37:05 ◼   ► "Okay, I get what it is now, but I'm not going to use it."

01:37:08 ◼   ► Or they've, you know, they've started to use it and they've sort of just said, "This

01:37:12 ◼   ► is a place where there are younger people and there's stuff to do here and I don't

01:37:16 ◼   ► I don't really need to know what's happening here.

01:37:19 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

01:37:20 ◼   ► - I guess it's a thing and I get it now,

01:37:23 ◼   ► but I don't need to know it.

01:37:24 ◼   ► - Right, for me, honestly, it's like,

01:37:27 ◼   ► I don't wanna hang out in a bar where I'm 20 years older

01:37:30 ◼   ► than everybody else who's in the bar.

01:37:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:37:35 ◼   ► - I don't know that I would go running away,

01:37:36 ◼   ► but I might just finish one drink and pay the tab.

01:37:41 ◼   ► - I love it for some reason.

01:37:43 ◼   ► And I have a lot of people in here that are colleagues

01:37:46 ◼   ► or friends that are similar age to me for sure.

01:37:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, but it's like, it is random things

01:37:55 ◼   ► that you don't really have to think that much about.

01:37:56 ◼   ► You know, Twitter, I mean, I'm kind of over Twitter.

01:37:59 ◼   ► I need to like get out of Twitter for a little bit,

01:38:02 ◼   ► but yeah, it's just like stuff that,

01:38:06 ◼   ► and the filters are fun.

01:38:07 ◼   ► The filters are really fun to play around with,

01:38:10 ◼   ► even though now some of them are so promotional

01:38:13 ◼   ► for some of these companies, it's ridiculous.

01:38:15 ◼   ► But yeah, the glasses are interesting because obviously they've done what Google Glass just

01:38:24 ◼   ► never did, which was make wearing a camera super cool, right?

01:38:28 ◼   ► Everyone's...

01:38:29 ◼   ► It's such an interesting comparison in so many ways.

01:38:32 ◼   ► From just a simple design perspective of what they look like, how much they cost.

01:38:38 ◼   ► And honestly, I think it really comes down to the fact that, okay, they announced these

01:38:44 ◼   ► spectacles a couple of weeks ago. But that's not a vaporware announcement.

01:38:50 ◼   ► They're out now, right? I mean there's people who have, you know, the production

01:38:53 ◼   ► ones are out in the real world. So it's not like, you know, but whereas Google

01:38:58 ◼   ► Glass was, I forget what Google called it, but it was, you know, for the explorers

01:39:02 ◼   ► program or something like that, and they were expensive and they were just so

01:39:07 ◼   ► weird and in so many ways. Everything about it, from the how much they cost

01:39:14 ◼   ► to what they look like, to the envisioned usage of recording

01:39:18 ◼   ► everything everywhere, versus these spectacles, which

01:39:21 ◼   ► are--

01:39:22 ◼   ► design-wise, they're so obviously toys.

01:39:26 ◼   ► And they're not to be taken seriously in any way.

01:39:29 ◼   ► Maybe that's just the bottom line,

01:39:31 ◼   ► was that Google Glass was clearly

01:39:33 ◼   ► meant to be taken seriously.

01:39:36 ◼   ► And I couldn't take it seriously,

01:39:39 ◼   ► but it was such an earnest device.

01:39:41 ◼   ► Whereas these things are just, hey,

01:39:43 ◼   ► "Have fun with some sunglasses that have

01:39:45 ◼   ► "take 10 second burst videos."

01:39:48 ◼   ► Or, you know what I mean?

01:39:49 ◼   ► - Totally.

01:39:50 ◼   ► And I think they're totally awesome.

01:39:54 ◼   ► Even though I was totally frustrated

01:39:55 ◼   ► with this experience of trying to get them,

01:39:57 ◼   ► which led to this funny story that I wrote

01:39:59 ◼   ► about all these people scrambling

01:40:01 ◼   ► to go to these vending machines to get these things.

01:40:03 ◼   ► I mean, it's totally insane.

01:40:05 ◼   ► They're awesome because they're just so simple, right?

01:40:08 ◼   ► And that was the other thing about Google Glass.

01:40:10 ◼   ► It was like, they were trying to do all of this stuff.

01:40:12 ◼   ► They were overlaying things.

01:40:13 ◼   ► They were, it was all this complicated technology

01:40:16 ◼   ► to swipe places, there was voice control.

01:40:19 ◼   ► This is just so simple that you just feel like

01:40:24 ◼   ► it's so easy to capture the moment that you're looking at

01:40:27 ◼   ► and the point of view video is awesome.

01:40:29 ◼   ► I'm obsessed with it to begin with

01:40:30 ◼   ► and being able to instantly share it,

01:40:33 ◼   ► although the Bluetooth pairing is a bit of an issue.

01:40:36 ◼   ► It just works.

01:40:38 ◼   ► It's just super easy and works.

01:40:41 ◼   ► But you know, it's a lot of hype about something that's really very simple.

01:40:47 ◼   ► What's your experience with like the quality of the video?

01:40:53 ◼   ► Not that good.

01:40:55 ◼   ► Is it difficult in low light?

01:40:59 ◼   ► Low light is not good at all.

01:41:02 ◼   ► But like again, they're sunglasses, so when are you really going to be wearing them that

01:41:05 ◼   ► much in low light?

01:41:06 ◼   ► Like, you know, I, the video, my video this week,

01:41:10 ◼   ► we shot pretty much, like, it's a shot of me

01:41:13 ◼   ► on the left-hand side with our regular camera,

01:41:14 ◼   ► and then the shot from the spectacles

01:41:17 ◼   ► on the right-hand side for most of the video.

01:41:19 ◼   ► And the, I mean, obviously the quality is just like,

01:41:21 ◼   ► you can very much see the difference.

01:41:23 ◼   ► And I, you know, my first idea for the video was like,

01:41:26 ◼   ► let's shoot the whole video with the spectacles.