The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► So here's part two. This is the experimental episode of the talk show.

00:00:06 ◼   ► We're recording for eight hours straight, breaking it into two shows.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Let's see what happens.

00:00:13 ◼   ► See, the flaw with this plan is what if there's some really big news next week?

00:00:18 ◼   ► That's possible.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I mean, we can try to guess what it was and then pretend like it happened

00:00:25 ◼   ► and just talk about it as if it had really happened.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:29 ◼   ► we got that uh that X Mac finally. That would be shocking. That would be so shocking. I don't think

00:00:37 ◼   ► there's any room for that Mac anymore. Was there ever really? Well there was when the Mac Pro was

00:00:44 ◼   ► huge, physically huge. Like, the expects aside, just there was a physical, I don't even know if

00:00:54 ◼   ► it makes any marketing sense and I don't even know if it makes any engineering sense that they could

00:00:58 ◼   ► have put something into it, you know, that they couldn't have fit into a Mac

00:01:04 ◼   ► Mini. But, you know, I think that there was at least... it felt like maybe there was

00:01:09 ◼   ► room for a mid-sized model with mid-range specs. In a way that, like, an

00:01:14 ◼   ► iMac... because that's what everybody wants, is they want the iMac without the

00:01:17 ◼   ► display. Right, and with, like, expansion slots and everything else. Basically...

00:01:23 ◼   ► basically they want they want the iMac in a regular mid tower case with with a

00:01:30 ◼   ► couple of you know GPU slots that people can put big gaming GPUs for 300 bucks

00:01:35 ◼   ► and that's that's what they want which of course Apple will never make and if

00:01:40 ◼   ► if there was any hope before the new Mac Pro came out that certainly shattered it

00:01:46 ◼   ► yeah totally you guys had some good episodes of ATP talking about the Mac

00:01:51 ◼   ► Pro. Yeah, we talked about it way too much and I still don't even have mine yet. Mine's

00:01:56 ◼   ► still like, you know, waiting to be shipped. It hasn't even shipped yet. And you ordered

00:02:01 ◼   ► like day one, right? Well, not really. I ordered through the business rep at the store. But

00:02:08 ◼   ► it was within days. Well, sort of. It was, I ordered the day after they became available,

00:02:14 ◼   ► but then I got cold feet on a couple of my very expensive options and chickened out and

00:02:18 ◼   ► change the order like two weeks in or three weeks in.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So I imagine that reset my position in the queue.

00:02:25 ◼   ► So now I'm getting a slower one later,

00:02:30 ◼   ► which I'm not sure was the best idea now,

00:02:33 ◼   ► but at least it's a lot cheaper.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - I suspect that a lot of listeners of this show

00:02:39 ◼   ► listen to ATPI, so I don't wanna regurgitate

00:02:42 ◼   ► the whole thing.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And if you don't and you have never listened

00:02:46 ◼   ► to the Accidental Tech podcast with Marco and John and...

00:02:50 ◼   ► - Casey Liss. - Casey Liss, that's right.

00:02:54 ◼   ► - That was the best, just joke-wise,

00:02:58 ◼   ► that was the best of the three of us to forget temporarily.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - I didn't actually forget him, but I had to make the joke.

00:03:03 ◼   ► It's a great show, really good show,

00:03:08 ◼   ► and comes out on a regular basis

00:03:10 ◼   ► as opposed to an irregular basis like this one.

00:03:13 ◼   ► When do you guys record?

00:03:14 ◼   ► We record every Wednesday night, and then we release it.

00:03:17 ◼   ► I edit Thursday morning, pass it off to Casey

00:03:21 ◼   ► for final edit, for final, you know, catching things.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I do a final edit in show notes,

00:03:24 ◼   ► and then we release it Friday morning.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - And you guys broadcast live.

00:03:28 ◼   ► - We do, yeah.

00:03:29 ◼   ► - Dan and I, I guess, used to do that.

00:03:31 ◼   ► I forget if we did that for most of the run

00:03:33 ◼   ► of the old talk show, or if it was only a stretch of it,

00:03:36 ◼   ► but I guess it was a big stretch of it

00:03:39 ◼   ► where we would do live, and...

00:03:41 ◼   ► I don't know. Do you think that's worth it?

00:03:48 ◼   ► It depends on the kind of show you do. If it's like an interview show, like the old

00:03:53 ◼   ► pipeline and Command Space now, if it's like that kind of show, I don't think it really

00:03:58 ◼   ► adds anything. But if it's the kind of show like what we do, where it's just three guys

00:04:02 ◼   ► bullshitting about tech, and I think your show you could probably do it too, it really

00:04:09 ◼   ► add something where it adds, you know,

00:04:12 ◼   ► the number of people who listen is not big.

00:04:14 ◼   ► You know, our show gets usually about 275 listeners

00:04:19 ◼   ► to the live stream, which as a percentage

00:04:23 ◼   ► of our whole audience is really pretty small.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But those are like 275 of the most devoted fans,

00:04:30 ◼   ► you know, like those people are,

00:04:32 ◼   ► like they love the show so much to listen to it live,

00:04:35 ◼   ► and they usually provide really good feedback live.

00:04:37 ◼   ► And so if we're like kind of fumbling over a fact or URL

00:04:42 ◼   ► or something, they'll paste it in, they'll give it to us.

00:04:44 ◼   ► - It's like the world's best Siri,

00:04:46 ◼   ► because it's really, really smart people who--

00:04:49 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:04:50 ◼   ► - Who completely understand the words

00:04:53 ◼   ► coming out of your mouth.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - And are domain experts in the things

00:04:58 ◼   ► that you're talking about.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - The only thing is with live listening

00:05:03 ◼   ► is that you can take it too far,

00:05:05 ◼   ► which is like, it's also a distraction for the hosts.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Like I, it's often hard for me to not pay too much attention

00:05:12 ◼   ► to the chat room.

00:05:14 ◼   ► And also it changes the nature of the show.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Like it changes the way it feels to do the show

00:05:21 ◼   ► because it's like, there's an immediate audience there.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And overall, I think it's a net win

00:05:29 ◼   ► for the kind of show we do because, you know,

00:05:32 ◼   ► if we start digging ourselves a little hole

00:05:34 ◼   ► where we're totally wrong or off base about something.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - It gets stopped.

00:05:38 ◼   ► - It gets stopped very quickly,

00:05:40 ◼   ► as opposed to if you and I start taking ourselves

00:05:43 ◼   ► to a hole now, we aren't even gonna know for two weeks,

00:05:46 ◼   ► and then it's gonna be way worse.

00:05:48 ◼   ► - Imagine what the chat room would look like

00:05:50 ◼   ► if the Celsius Fahrenheit thing was.

00:05:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:53 ◼   ► You know what I really miss?

00:05:54 ◼   ► I'll tell you the one thing I deeply miss

00:05:57 ◼   ► about the chat room with the talk show was episode titles.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Yeah, that's that's a good one too because that's like that's one less thing

00:06:06 ◼   ► You have to try to keep track of in your head along the way because if you're trying to pick

00:06:10 ◼   ► Three or four words that were uttered by one of the people on the show that makes for a funny and apt episode title

00:06:18 ◼   ► the live

00:06:21 ◼   ► Thing is the best way to get them because I will hit stop on this and I'll forget everything we said

00:06:26 ◼   ► And then you just kind of have to go back and hope you think of a good title

00:06:31 ◼   ► Whereas with the live one, we never once didn't get a a grade title out of the chat room

00:06:37 ◼   ► Usually it was like hard to pick one because there'd be like three or four really good ones, right?

00:06:42 ◼   ► There'd be like 70 suggestions and you know, you know ten decent ones and then a handful of really good ones

00:06:49 ◼   ► And yeah, it was great. And yeah, and that's what we have still with our show. It's great

00:06:52 ◼   ► I someday I have to write up how I do this because it's I don't do anything

00:06:56 ◼   ► Difficult. It's just complicated. It's you know, the way you set it up

00:07:00 ◼   ► it's like this pile of tools and it doesn't it doesn't genericize well and

00:07:07 ◼   ► so I really not at all no well to encapsulate though the Mac Pro

00:07:13 ◼   ► discussion and and you know it really is it's it's like the the origins of the

00:07:18 ◼   ► show right it was you guys wondering whether Apple was even gonna do another

00:07:22 ◼   ► Mac Pro or a year or two ago it wasn't necessarily the origin of the show it

00:07:28 ◼   ► - It was just always the running joke of the show.

00:07:31 ◼   ► It was our logo since the beginning of the show

00:07:34 ◼   ► and I had to make a logo.

00:07:35 ◼   ► It was always our logo, the old Mac Pro

00:07:39 ◼   ► with the little new badge on it.

00:07:41 ◼   ► Kind of a joke with the fake update we got in 2012.

00:07:44 ◼   ► And it was always a running theme

00:07:48 ◼   ► because Casey was not a Mac Pro guy,

00:07:50 ◼   ► but me and John Siracusa are and have been for a long time.

00:07:55 ◼   ► And so it was always this thing like,

00:07:57 ◼   ► when are they gonna do a new Mac Pro and then

00:07:59 ◼   ► once

00:08:01 ◼   ► Once they announced it then it was well

00:08:03 ◼   ► What's it gonna be like and what's it gonna cost and what whatever the options gonna be and now that it's out?

00:08:07 ◼   ► It's like all right. How does it perform is it worth it? What are they you know is it still right for us?

00:08:12 ◼   ► And so there's a whole

00:08:14 ◼   ► Vast ocean of possible discussion that nobody except me and John, Syracuse I care about no

00:08:19 ◼   ► But now people care and it's such a good. It's a perfect mix. It's a perfect

00:08:24 ◼   ► Example of how the three-way mix of the show works where you and John

00:08:29 ◼   ► Have are both into the Mac Pro and care about it deeply but for very different reasons

00:08:35 ◼   ► right and

00:08:37 ◼   ► Casey as

00:08:39 ◼   ► Someone who doesn't have one and just lives off. I think two MacBooks, right? He's got like or maybe it says one

00:08:45 ◼   ► I don't know, but he's a MacBook guy

00:08:47 ◼   ► He's got like two MacBook Pros like a MacBook Pro at home and a home and a work home in a day and a night

00:08:53 ◼   ► Speaks to clearly speaks to the the masses and even the masses of people who listen to our show

00:08:59 ◼   ► I'm sure there's no doubt in my mind that most of the people who listen to our show their main Mac is a Mac book

00:09:04 ◼   ► Of some sort if not an error. It's a pro definitely. I mean just look at the numbers

00:09:08 ◼   ► that they sell

00:09:10 ◼   ► And so it's a good mix but I think you know the gist of your

00:09:14 ◼   ► Multi-episode long discussion though is that John is gonna hold off. I

00:09:19 ◼   ► Think so he at least has so far hell right hasn't ordered it because one of the main things I mean, it's

00:09:26 ◼   ► Really hard to summarize the John, Syracuse argument, but one of the main things though is that he's always been into gaming

00:09:33 ◼   ► Serious gaming and you know his ideal

00:09:37 ◼   ► Mac Pro would have either have either be configurable with gaming

00:09:43 ◼   ► GPUs or somehow you'd be able to you know as an expert user add them on

00:09:49 ◼   ► And it doesn't. That it comes with these pro GPUs that are optimized for, you know, like

00:09:56 ◼   ► professional video and design type stuff, which is very different than gaming GPUs.

00:10:02 ◼   ► And like, and the high-end ones do have decent gaming performance, but not only is it not

00:10:07 ◼   ► cutting edge, but you pay $1,000 for it to be decent and not cutting edge.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Right, you pay an enormous surtax if your interest is in the gaming.

00:10:19 ◼   ► You're paying for something that you're not getting any use out of.

00:10:23 ◼   ► I mean, I think one way, and I'm just paraphrasing Sir Q-Sai here,

00:10:27 ◼   ► so I'm probably going to botch it because he's impossible to paraphrase too,

00:10:30 ◼   ► but with gaming, you just want the frame rate,

00:10:34 ◼   ► and you want it to be able to handle lots of pixels at once and do these things.

00:10:38 ◼   ► if there's minor things that are imperfect in a render,

00:10:43 ◼   ► it's 1/60th of a second

00:10:44 ◼   ► if you're going 60 frames per second.

00:10:46 ◼   ► Whereas if you're rendering out a video,

00:10:49 ◼   ► you don't want any imperfections anywhere.

00:10:51 ◼   ► You're optimizing for a different case.

00:10:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:10:55 ◼   ► I mean, and the whole,

00:10:56 ◼   ► a lot of times the pro GPUs,

00:10:59 ◼   ► I think almost all the time,

00:11:00 ◼   ► the pro GPUs are really almost the same

00:11:03 ◼   ► or identical hardware as the gaming GPUs,

00:11:07 ◼   ► but with very, very different drivers

00:11:09 ◼   ► and very different software.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And a lot of times it'll have substantially more RAM maybe

00:11:14 ◼   ► or faster bus or something like that.

00:11:16 ◼   ► But it's the same, usually it's based on the same hardware.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And it's like the Xeons with Intel.

00:11:23 ◼   ► It's like it's based on the same hardware

00:11:24 ◼   ► as the consumer stuff, but it's with some modifications

00:11:27 ◼   ► and possibly different platforms.

00:11:29 ◼   ► - They're optimized for a totally different purpose.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Whereas the Pro ones are meant so that every frame

00:11:36 ◼   ► perfect and then do them as fast as possible and the gaming ones are do it as fast as possible and

00:11:41 ◼   ► Secondarily make them look as good as possible because if you're playing a shooter

00:11:44 ◼   ► The last thing you want is a stutter between frames because you're gonna get blown away

00:11:49 ◼   ► Whereas if you're rendering out a movie the last thing you want is a frame in the movie that's got like a visual glitch in it

00:11:54 ◼   ► right and

00:11:56 ◼   ► and with the new Mac Pro, it's even weirder because

00:11:59 ◼   ► so there's two of these GPUs you think you have to order them the same and

00:12:06 ◼   ► If you're in Windows, they can work together

00:12:09 ◼   ► to both render games in parallel.

00:12:12 ◼   ► But if you're using Mac OS X,

00:12:15 ◼   ► one of those GPUs is basically always off

00:12:19 ◼   ► unless you are doing OpenCL computation.

00:12:22 ◼   ► One of the GPUs does not control the screens

00:12:25 ◼   ► and cannot control the screens at all, which is weird.

00:12:29 ◼   ► So the new Mac Pro is a very lopsided machine.

00:12:36 ◼   ► The old Mac Pro was this big, ungraceful generalist,

00:12:41 ◼   ► which is what PC towers always have been.

00:12:43 ◼   ► It was, it's this, the old Mac Pro is this big workstation

00:12:47 ◼   ► with tons of slots, tons of hard drive bays,

00:12:50 ◼   ► a bunch of different CPU options,

00:12:52 ◼   ► even though they were all fairly expensive Xeon chips,

00:12:54 ◼   ► but it's still a bunch of different CPU options,

00:12:56 ◼   ► a bunch of RAM slots.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Just, you could do a ton of stuff with this.

00:13:00 ◼   ► You could configure it in all sorts of weird ways

00:13:02 ◼   ► to be lopsided in whatever way you needed it to be,

00:13:05 ◼   ► or to be like a decent generalist

00:13:09 ◼   ► with lots of future expansion of just hard drives and stuff,

00:13:12 ◼   ► you had all these options.

00:13:13 ◼   ► The new Mac Pro comes pre-configured

00:13:17 ◼   ► to be lopsided in one particular way,

00:13:19 ◼   ► which is having tons of GPU power, way more GPU power,

00:13:23 ◼   ► and not even for gaming, as you said,

00:13:25 ◼   ► tons of GPU power for computation

00:13:29 ◼   ► and for professional type apps than anything else.

00:13:34 ◼   ► and pretty moderate CPUs.

00:13:39 ◼   ► They're better than what you get on an iMac at most things,

00:13:42 ◼   ► but not by a huge margin,

00:13:44 ◼   ► unless you're doing super parallel things,

00:13:46 ◼   ► and you get the very expensive, very many core chips.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So it's this machine that used to solve a lot more roles

00:13:54 ◼   ► for a lot more people.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Now they've reduced that,

00:13:58 ◼   ► and they've made it more specialized.

00:14:00 ◼   ► It's less of a generalist now.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And so they've made it more specialized in a way

00:14:04 ◼   ► that now fits me a little bit worse

00:14:07 ◼   ► and fits John Siracusa a lot worse than the old one did.

00:14:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I have to say, I'm really, you know,

00:14:15 ◼   ► I've bugged you offline about this,

00:14:17 ◼   ► that I need to buy a new computer, I need to buy a new Mac.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And I was waiting for Mac Pros,

00:14:24 ◼   ► I've been waiting for Retina,

00:14:25 ◼   ► and that's a whole other discussion

00:14:26 ◼   ► you guys have covered thoroughly,

00:14:27 ◼   ► is when are desktop-sized displays,

00:14:30 ◼   ► 24, 27-inch displays gonna go Retina?

00:14:32 ◼   ► And the Mac Pro the one that is now new is not the answer or at least not yet

00:14:39 ◼   ► And

00:14:43 ◼   ► So why wait any long I feel like the answer and I really became clear to me after listening to ATP is I should just

00:14:50 ◼   ► Buy a 27 inch iMac because that way

00:14:53 ◼   ► Like the thing that's always put me off on the iMac is I don't want to just I don't want to

00:14:57 ◼   ► Get rid of the display when I get rid of the computer

00:14:59 ◼   ► I'd rather put money into it invest in a display that I'll keep for more years than I might keep the whole computer

00:15:06 ◼   ► But I think it's just not worth worrying about at this point price wise because I think when retina displays for Macs come out

00:15:14 ◼   ► they're going to be expensive enough that the cost of

00:15:16 ◼   ► 27 inch iMac today is just not that significant

00:15:20 ◼   ► probably and you know my theory is that is that 4k is coming first and

00:15:28 ◼   ► and probably pretty soon, probably this year,

00:15:30 ◼   ► to, you know, if they wanted to do a true 5120 by 2880,

00:15:36 ◼   ► you know, what is truly 2X the current 27 inch size,

00:15:41 ◼   ► there's a lot of technological problems with that right now,

00:15:44 ◼   ► mostly relating to bandwidth limitations

00:15:47 ◼   ► of things like Thunderbolt and various interfaces.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But for them to do 4K,

00:15:53 ◼   ► everything's in place for that right now.

00:15:55 ◼   ► They could ship a 4K Thunderbolt display today

00:15:58 ◼   ► that works just fine in all the new MacBook Pros,

00:16:03 ◼   ► not the Airs, but all the new MacBook Pros,

00:16:06 ◼   ► everything that's Thunderbolt 2.

00:16:08 ◼   ► So all the MacBook Pros and all of the new Mac Pros.

00:16:11 ◼   ► And that could do software scaling

00:16:14 ◼   ► the way the Retina MacBook Pros do,

00:16:16 ◼   ► software scaling up to bigger, better resolution.

00:16:19 ◼   ► So like all of this is in place for that to happen today.

00:16:21 ◼   ► So that we could kind of say

00:16:23 ◼   ► that's gonna happen any time now.

00:16:24 ◼   ► I wouldn't expect an iMac update until this fall

00:16:28 ◼   ► when the new Intel CPUs come out.

00:16:29 ◼   ► So I would say iMac update this fall

00:16:33 ◼   ► has a decent chance of going retina,

00:16:36 ◼   ► and any time now there might be a Thunderbolt display,

00:16:39 ◼   ► a standalone Thunderbolt display, that would be 4K.

00:16:43 ◼   ► So I think however you look at this,

00:16:46 ◼   ► it's pretty clear that desktop's going retina

00:16:51 ◼   ► are going to happen soonish.

00:16:54 ◼   ► whether it's this year or next year,

00:16:56 ◼   ► when you're talking about buying a computer,

00:16:58 ◼   ► especially you buying a home computer,

00:17:00 ◼   ► 'cause your current home computer is what, six years old?

00:17:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:04 ◼   ► - Right, so this is not a frequent purchase for you.

00:17:07 ◼   ► So looking at this from that point of view,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and you're the kind of person,

00:17:11 ◼   ► you will care a lot about retina.

00:17:12 ◼   ► When retina comes out on the desktop,

00:17:13 ◼   ► you will probably want it.

00:17:15 ◼   ► And so it's hard for me to say to you,

00:17:18 ◼   ► you should buy this new computer today,

00:17:21 ◼   ► when we are probably within a year of desktops going retina

00:17:26 ◼   ► in some meaningful way.

00:17:28 ◼   ► - I think the problem is that I broke the cardinal rule

00:17:30 ◼   ► of computing, of buying a computer,

00:17:33 ◼   ► which I used to follow pretty religiously,

00:17:35 ◼   ► which is when you need a new computer, buy it,

00:17:37 ◼   ► and take a little bit, take like a three month window

00:17:41 ◼   ► of common sense in terms of being able to tell

00:17:43 ◼   ► if there's a good chance that new ones might be coming

00:17:47 ◼   ► in the next three months or so, and maybe wait,

00:17:50 ◼   ► but no more than that. And conversely, if the one you're going to buy is like three,

00:17:56 ◼   ► four months old, you know it's going to be okay for a while. And then just buy it when

00:18:00 ◼   ► you need it. In which case, I would have bought a new, probably would have bought a 27-inch

00:18:03 ◼   ► iMac like three years ago. And the whole reason I didn't then was I thought retina might be

00:18:09 ◼   ► imminent. My enthusiasm for retina displays is such that I vastly, I convinced myself

00:18:16 ◼   ► that they were coming way sooner than they are, especially once the iPhone 4 came out,

00:18:22 ◼   ► which was the first retina device. And I just immediately thought everything's going to

00:18:25 ◼   ► go retina soon.

00:18:27 ◼   ► And it's entirely possible that my enthusiasm for it is causing me to make these predictions

00:18:32 ◼   ► too aggressively. And I'm not going to deny that. That is very much a possibility here

00:18:38 ◼   ► that I could be way off on my timeline as well. This could be three years out, and I'm

00:18:42 ◼   ► saying it might happen this year.

00:18:43 ◼   ► I've said this before I remember it was like 2006 or 2007

00:18:47 ◼   ► I don't know it was a while back and at WWDC and they had a session about resolution independent Mac development

00:18:53 ◼   ► I mean before iOS even existed and they were like there was you know

00:18:57 ◼   ► They actually pushed it up quite a bit the one year and they wanted you know there you could use

00:19:02 ◼   ► Instead of bitmaps you could use PDFs for like the elements and cable Sasser

00:19:07 ◼   ► And I we just like had lunch the one day at WDC were like retina max. They're coming soon

00:19:13 ◼   ► They're probably gonna be out by the end of summer

00:19:15 ◼   ► We were so excited and cable of course, you know the panic guys they made like their apps retina ready

00:19:21 ◼   ► They they had like retina ready resources in their Mac apps like six years ago because cable, you know

00:19:29 ◼   ► It was so excited about it and it just seemed like hey apples telling us to do it

00:19:34 ◼   ► And you know a lot of times an Apple tells developers to do something

00:19:39 ◼   ► Developers will be like all right

00:19:40 ◼   ► Maybe in the next version and then all of a sudden they get bit on the ass because the thing that they were pushing it

00:19:45 ◼   ► For comes out. Oh

00:19:46 ◼   ► Yeah

00:19:48 ◼   ► And you know could not have been more wrong so yeah, I think

00:19:53 ◼   ► if you if you want to keep your next computer for

00:19:58 ◼   ► More than a couple of years. Yeah, I shouldn't be an iMac that you buy today

00:20:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, but-- - So whether it's an iMac

00:20:06 ◼   ► that you buy this winter, this coming winter,

00:20:08 ◼   ► or whether it's a Mac Pro that you buy today

00:20:10 ◼   ► that you plug in a 4K display to when those come out,

00:20:13 ◼   ► that's up to you, and that's vague.

00:20:17 ◼   ► I think the better thing to do in your shoes

00:20:21 ◼   ► is just to wait to see how this plays out.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Because you're right, the cardinal rule of computers

00:20:27 ◼   ► used to be, oh, just buy it when you need it

00:20:29 ◼   ► because they're always about to get better.

00:20:32 ◼   ► but there are certain major leaps

00:20:34 ◼   ► that it kind of sucks to be on the wrong side of.

00:20:37 ◼   ► And so if you can foresee one of those major leaps,

00:20:39 ◼   ► or if it's very obvious that one of those major leaps

00:20:41 ◼   ► is gonna happen within the next year,

00:20:44 ◼   ► that's usually worth waiting for.

00:20:47 ◼   ► - I feel like if I buy a new iMac this month,

00:20:52 ◼   ► and Retina iMacs, or Retina Mac Pro,

00:21:00 ◼   ► Mac Pro plus a 4K display equals retina comes out sometime later this year.

00:21:05 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know, I could give it to,

00:21:09 ◼   ► I could find somebody to take the iMac off my hands. I don't know.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Or I could set it up for Jonas as a game machine or something.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Very, very high end. Well, that's the other thing too. I mean,

00:21:18 ◼   ► one of the reasons why I ordered this new Mac Pro and why I ordered a fairly

00:21:23 ◼   ► modest configuration of it,

00:21:25 ◼   ► why I changed the order is because I have that out too

00:21:29 ◼   ► because my wife uses a Mac Pro.

00:21:30 ◼   ► She does tons of heavy photography work

00:21:32 ◼   ► with these giant RAW files that our cameras now shoot

00:21:35 ◼   ► these days and so she's had a Mac Pro for three years now

00:21:39 ◼   ► and so I know like if a really crazy update comes out

00:21:44 ◼   ► in a year that I really, really want,

00:21:48 ◼   ► maybe it's needed for retina, maybe the CPUs actually

00:21:50 ◼   ► did take a meaningful leap forward with the Haswell EPs

00:21:55 ◼   ► when those come out.

00:21:56 ◼   ► You know, if there's some major new advance

00:21:59 ◼   ► in a year in the Mac Pro line,

00:22:01 ◼   ► I know I can give this one to my wife,

00:22:02 ◼   ► upgrade her, which she wants anyway.

00:22:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:22:06 ◼   ► So upgrade her and then get myself the new one.

00:22:09 ◼   ► So I at least have that out.

00:22:11 ◼   ► So yeah, that's possible,

00:22:13 ◼   ► but an iMac is a little hard to give away.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Like it's easy to give away a laptop to like your family,

00:22:18 ◼   ► your spouses, grandparents, parents, whatever.

00:22:21 ◼   ► It's easy to give away laptops.

00:22:23 ◼   ► Desktops are much more of an imposition on people. Yeah, and so it's it's harder. So I don't know

00:22:29 ◼   ► Well, I still I feel like you know, if I get bit I get bit and I have to eat it

00:22:35 ◼   ► But so you said when we were chatting about it on instant message

00:22:38 ◼   ► It's a as much of a pain in the ass as it is to package up and sell its ship

00:22:42 ◼   ► Like a MacBook like packaging I give some if I sold it to somebody online

00:22:47 ◼   ► What a pain in the ass that is to ship a iMac. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's terrible

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like I did that actually, there was one of those sites

00:22:56 ◼   ► that buys old stuff from you.

00:22:58 ◼   ► You know, whatever one used to sponsor Five by Five,

00:23:01 ◼   ► I forget the name of it.

00:23:03 ◼   ► But I sold it to them 'cause it was easier.

00:23:05 ◼   ► 'Cause like they sent me the box and everything.

00:23:06 ◼   ► It was just so, and even though like, you know,

00:23:08 ◼   ► I know it's like selling a car back to like a dealer

00:23:11 ◼   ► versus private sale, like you can sell a car,

00:23:14 ◼   ► private sale and get a bit more money out of it,

00:23:15 ◼   ► but it's such a pain in the ass.

00:23:17 ◼   ► It's really not worth it a lot of the time.

00:23:19 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:23:19 ◼   ► - Most of the time.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - It's a huge pain in the ass.

00:23:22 ◼   ► people oh

00:23:24 ◼   ► Terrible, I've done that twice. I'll never do it again

00:23:26 ◼   ► I will always sell my cars back to the dealer now because it's just I know I'm getting a little bit ripped off by it

00:23:32 ◼   ► but it saves it saves you like months of dealing with

00:23:37 ◼   ► flaky people and

00:23:39 ◼   ► Yeah, terrible. There is an actual convenience to it

00:23:42 ◼   ► Like if you want to call it a convenience surcharge it is as opposed to ticket barista

00:23:50 ◼   ► Where the convenience charge I wish I wouldn't even mind paying it if the if when you go to buy something in Ticketmaster

00:23:56 ◼   ► and they charge you 1750 for a convenience charge if they just put an asterisk after it and

00:24:02 ◼   ► Then at the bottom put a footnote that said not actually convenient. I

00:24:07 ◼   ► Would I would pay it without begrudging. That's what they should call the dealer the dealer

00:24:12 ◼   ► Markup that you pay on

00:24:15 ◼   ► trade in is it's a convenience charge because they know they know exactly what

00:24:20 ◼   ► a pain in the ass it is to sell it private unless you're like in the case

00:24:25 ◼   ► where like your brother or your best friend is actually in the market for the

00:24:30 ◼   ► used car you're looking to get rid of yeah well even then like would you would

00:24:35 ◼   ► you sell your car to somebody you know you know I guess I would be a little

00:24:39 ◼   ► reluctant to do it because you know it's it's like the whole don't mix business

00:24:44 ◼   ► with pleasure where you sell it and you might sell it in good conscience that the car has

00:24:50 ◼   ► no problems that you're actually aware of. You just want a new car. And then all of a

00:24:54 ◼   ► sudden you sell it and the transmission goes bad and then you feel like a jerk.

00:24:58 ◼   ► Exactly. You want it to be out of your life. You want a clean break when you get rid of

00:25:03 ◼   ► something that's so potentially financially burdensome to somebody. You don't want to

00:25:09 ◼   ► be involved with that.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So yeah, I would not recommend that you get an iMac

00:25:14 ◼   ► right now, especially because you upgrade so infrequently.

00:25:18 ◼   ► I can foresee, maybe this will be podcast claim chowder,

00:25:22 ◼   ► I can foresee you buying the iMac

00:25:25 ◼   ► in a few weeks or a month.

00:25:29 ◼   ► No, that's way too fast.

00:25:32 ◼   ► - I'm gonna buy it right now while we're recording this.

00:25:32 ◼   ► - I'm gonna see you buy the iMac in three months,

00:25:35 ◼   ► So like, right before WVDC, you're gonna buy the iMac,

00:25:40 ◼   ► and the new one's gonna come out,

00:25:44 ◼   ► and you're gonna say, "Oh, I really want the new one."

00:25:46 ◼   ► - Here it is, I just bought it.

00:25:47 ◼   ► - And you're not gonna get it for five years.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Like, this is gonna sit on your desk,

00:25:51 ◼   ► and you're gonna be like,

00:25:52 ◼   ► "Oh, I want to have bought the new one."

00:25:55 ◼   ► But you're not gonna care enough

00:25:56 ◼   ► to actually go through the hassle of doing it.

00:25:59 ◼   ► It's like, listeners of your podcasts for long enough

00:26:03 ◼   ► are probably very familiar with the 11 inch MacBook Air

00:26:06 ◼   ► that you have that you have been saying

00:26:09 ◼   ► you've been trying to sell for how long?

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Since it was like a year old.

00:26:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember you first said it to Dan Benjamin

00:26:17 ◼   ► to give you some idea of how long it was.

00:26:19 ◼   ► - Well, it's the last 11 inch Air

00:26:22 ◼   ► that doesn't have a light up keyboard.

00:26:25 ◼   ► - It's a 2010 model.

00:26:26 ◼   ► - Right. - Right?

00:26:27 ◼   ► - And yeah, I guess that's the year.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And so as soon as the light up keyboards came out,

00:26:31 ◼   ► I really thought about buying one just to get that light up keyboard because you can't see the keys on it when you're like on

00:26:36 ◼   ► An airplane or something if you're flying at night

00:26:38 ◼   ► Plus the keys it's not just that they light up. It's actually the the

00:26:42 ◼   ► They're there. They made like some clicky, you know, like the the older 11 inch errors have a like a squishier less clicky keyboard

00:26:50 ◼   ► so you have this computer that you've been dissatisfied with for three years and

00:26:57 ◼   ► Close to four probably. It is the smallest laptop that Apple sells. It would be the easiest thing in the world to sell to somebody and ship.

00:27:05 ◼   ► Right. And you have infinite people who have probably given you offers since you first mentioned on a podcast three years ago.

00:27:12 ◼   ► And you still have... I just couldn't be bothered to find the box. Right.

00:27:16 ◼   ► Right. So I don't buy your iMac upgrade story at all. Well, that's why I'm thinking I'm thinking more likely that we'd figure out, you know, set it up for Jonas somewhere else in the house.

00:27:25 ◼   ► and you'd have a nice big gaming machine.

00:27:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, if you foresee a need for that

00:27:31 ◼   ► in the next year where that would be the right choice,

00:27:34 ◼   ► as opposed to a laptop or something,

00:27:37 ◼   ► then yeah, that's a valid way out for you, I think.

00:27:41 ◼   ► - Here's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about

00:27:44 ◼   ► before on this new Mac thing,

00:27:46 ◼   ► 'cause you had a, I wanted to go into detail on it.

00:27:49 ◼   ► If one were to buy an iMac,

00:27:53 ◼   ► I'm intrigued by the fusion drive, which is the SSD, smallish SSD combined with a spinning

00:28:00 ◼   ► hard disk that the file system magically makes appear as a single volume. It combines some

00:28:07 ◼   ► measure of the speed of an SSD with the greater capacity of a spinning hard disk. You mentioned

00:28:16 ◼   ► almost offhandedly that the one terabyte Fusion Drive is not too bad but that the

00:28:23 ◼   ► three terabyte one is no good. Is that... do you agree with that? Am I stating it right?

00:28:27 ◼   ► No. I mentioned that the... that the... a one terabyte SSD, a real all SSD, one

00:28:37 ◼   ► terabyte SSD, which is now available on all the Macs, or most of them at least,

00:28:40 ◼   ► that that while it is more expensive and smaller is way better than a fusion

00:28:47 ◼   ► drive ah okay and so you know a lot of people when fusion drives first came out

00:28:53 ◼   ► it was great it was it's and it still is a great option no question it is a

00:28:58 ◼   ► fantastic option and I would say anybody buying an iMac because it it's only

00:29:03 ◼   ► available on the iMac and Mac mini right yeah I think as a yeah if you're not

00:29:08 ◼   ► going to get into a do-it-yourself thing with the terminal command. Right. It's

00:29:12 ◼   ► it's only a Mac Mini and iMac. Well I think, I'm not positive on this, I think

00:29:18 ◼   ► the drives both have to be internal. I don't think it'll do it on external, so

00:29:22 ◼   ► you pretty much stuck with like old Mac Pros, iMacs and Mac Minis. So I'm not

00:29:29 ◼   ► positive on it. Anyway. Well it wouldn't even make any sense with a portable

00:29:31 ◼   ► because I mean what's the sense of having a portable, a MacBook that

00:29:35 ◼   ► that the startup drive is tied to an external drive.

00:29:40 ◼   ► I mean, in theory you could do it,

00:29:41 ◼   ► but I mean, there's no way Apple would support it.

00:29:43 ◼   ► - Well, you could also, you know,

00:29:44 ◼   ► if you have one of the older MacBook Pros

00:29:46 ◼   ► with the optical drives, you could do the thing

00:29:47 ◼   ► where you swap it out for another hard drive bay

00:29:49 ◼   ► and stuff, you know, I've done that.

00:29:50 ◼   ► It's a decent setup.

00:29:52 ◼   ► Anyway, so, Fusion Drive, whether you get it built in

00:29:57 ◼   ► or whether you do the hacky commands to enable it yourself

00:29:59 ◼   ► on the command line, Fusion Drive is good.

00:30:03 ◼   ► And if you're going to buy a computer where that's an option, if you don't want to go

00:30:07 ◼   ► all the way to the all SSD, or if you can't afford it, or if you need the space of the

00:30:11 ◼   ► fusion drive, then do the fusion drive.

00:30:14 ◼   ► It is way better than the hard drive and whatever.

00:30:17 ◼   ► I think they charge a couple hundred dollars to get it over just a hard drive.

00:30:20 ◼   ► I actually have it in front of me, I can tell you.

00:30:22 ◼   ► So new iMac default hard drive is one terabyte spinning hard disk.

00:30:28 ◼   ► If you want to upgrade to a fusion drive, one terabyte.

00:30:31 ◼   ► So same storage capacity, but now it's a fusion drive. It's a $200 add on the three, no three

00:30:38 ◼   ► terabyte is add 350. So it's 150 more than the one terabyte. Definitely worth it. And

00:30:45 ◼   ► you know, so that's, that's great. And then here's the pricing on a pure flash storage

00:30:51 ◼   ► drive. So 256 gigabytes is $200. So that's the same as the one terabyte fusion drive.

00:31:00 ◼   ► 512 gigabyte SSD is a $500 add-on, and then the big one, the one terabyte SSD is a $1,000

00:31:08 ◼   ► add-on.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:10 ◼   ► So you can see, you know, this gets expensive quickly.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:14 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden I'm looking at an iMac that I would not, I would definitely

00:31:18 ◼   ► think twice about replacing nine months from now, you know, if the retina comes out.

00:31:22 ◼   ► Right, because now it's $4,000.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So, Fusion Drive is very good.

00:31:29 ◼   ► is substantially better than hard drives, no question.

00:31:33 ◼   ► But it isn't as good as a pure SSD and this is not, I ran a fusion drive for a while before

00:31:39 ◼   ► I bit the bullet and just bought a big SSD.

00:31:42 ◼   ► So first I did, over the last few years thanks to the freedom of the old Mac Pro I have experimented

00:31:47 ◼   ► with a lot of these different things.

00:31:48 ◼   ► I first had two different small SSDs over the years and I would do like you know the

00:31:54 ◼   ► the home directory on the SSD or do everything on there

00:31:57 ◼   ► and then try to sym link certain big directories

00:32:00 ◼   ► off onto hard drive and stuff like that.

00:32:01 ◼   ► So I've done a few arrangements there.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Then I did a do it yourself fusion drive

00:32:06 ◼   ► and then I did a real big SSD

00:32:10 ◼   ► with no more spinning disks in the machine.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And all of those things are very different.

00:32:16 ◼   ► And the real SSD that has no spinning disks involved

00:32:19 ◼   ► whatsoever really is substantially faster.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And most importantly, it is more consistent.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Fusion Drive has this buffering system

00:32:29 ◼   ► where most of the time it can be very fast,

00:32:32 ◼   ► but then if you do something that it doesn't expect,

00:32:34 ◼   ► that's not cached, or if you try to write too much data

00:32:37 ◼   ► and it fills with the right buffer faster

00:32:38 ◼   ► than it writes it out, you can hit these things

00:32:41 ◼   ► where all of a sudden things will get a lot slower

00:32:43 ◼   ► as it has to use the spinning disk

00:32:45 ◼   ► more than it thought it would need to.

00:32:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can rob Peter to pay Paul for a while,

00:32:49 ◼   ► But eventually Peter's gonna come back

00:32:53 ◼   ► and want his money back.

00:32:54 ◼   ► - Right, because the way Fusion drives work

00:32:56 ◼   ► is they have this system where they move

00:32:59 ◼   ► frequently used blocks to and from a 128 gig SSD.

00:33:04 ◼   ► And then they reserve, I think, four or eight gigs

00:33:07 ◼   ► or two gigs, something like that,

00:33:09 ◼   ► some small single digit number of gigs.

00:33:11 ◼   ► They reserve that as a write buffer.

00:33:13 ◼   ► So all writes go to that first and then get buffered out

00:33:17 ◼   ► to the spinning disk over time.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And so there's a system going on behind the scenes

00:33:23 ◼   ► that's shuffling stuff back and forth.

00:33:24 ◼   ► But the idea is it tries to put the most frequently used

00:33:28 ◼   ► stuff onto the Fusion or onto the SSD,

00:33:30 ◼   ► but because the SSD is a 10th the size

00:33:34 ◼   ► or a 30th the size of the hard drive,

00:33:37 ◼   ► it's not gonna be able to fit everything on there.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And so it's gonna get wrong sometimes.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And you're gonna have to hit the hard drive here and there.

00:33:44 ◼   ► And so it makes for a very uneven experience

00:33:47 ◼   ► in my experience at least.

00:33:50 ◼   ► It's a very inconsistent, uneven thing

00:33:52 ◼   ► where you'll have a fast system most of the time,

00:33:54 ◼   ► but then all of a sudden something will beach ball

00:33:57 ◼   ► and page and you'll hear the hard drive,

00:33:58 ◼   ► and you're like, what, what, this is slow?

00:34:00 ◼   ► Come on, I used to do this yesterday.

00:34:02 ◼   ► It's not as good.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So it is way better than a hard drive,

00:34:07 ◼   ► which is that slow all the time for everything.

00:34:09 ◼   ► It's way better than a hard drive.

00:34:11 ◼   ► But if you can afford to get the all SSD, it is worth it.

00:34:16 ◼   ► and I take issue with any kind of comparison that says,

00:34:19 ◼   ► like, you know, when I was putting out comparisons with,

00:34:21 ◼   ► like, you know, if you configure a Mac Pro and an iMac

00:34:25 ◼   ► with equal specs, the price difference

00:34:27 ◼   ► is actually pretty small.

00:34:28 ◼   ► And a lot of people took issue with that,

00:34:29 ◼   ► saying, well, no, the iMac, you can get the Fusion Drive,

00:34:32 ◼   ► it's the same thing.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Trust me, it's not.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And that's why, you know,

00:34:36 ◼   ► if you're gonna make a price comparison

00:34:38 ◼   ► between the Mac Pro and the iMac,

00:34:39 ◼   ► you should really do a fair comparison

00:34:41 ◼   ► where they both have all SSD storage.

00:34:43 ◼   ► One of the reasons that I've been, I've had this MacBook Pro that's my main desktop since 2008 is that I forget exactly when I did it, but I, it's been a while though, might have been like 2010 or so.

00:34:58 ◼   ► So like two years-

00:34:59 ◼   ► I think that was also with Dan.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Yeah, two years after I bought it and I replaced the hard drive with an SSD as the startup drive and it's, I think it's a 200 gigabyte, yeah, it's a 200 gigabyte drive.

00:35:11 ◼   ► And it made such a difference that it felt like I bought it felt like it like I bought a new MacBook Pro like it felt like I had a brand new machine that was way faster than the old one. So it feels still feels to me like a three year old machine or four year old machine, not a six year old machine, because it was so much faster just replacing that.

00:35:33 ◼   ► replacing that. That's not a great example compared to an

00:35:36 ◼   ► iMac either because iMacs can have faster drives than portable,

00:35:40 ◼   ► you know, mobile drives. But it is still a it's a night and day

00:35:44 ◼   ► difference.

00:35:44 ◼   ► I mean that more than anything, you know, I've been analyzing

00:35:49 ◼   ► and writing about debating between laptops and desktops for

00:35:53 ◼   ► years now, because I'd always face those questions myself. And

00:35:57 ◼   ► one of the reasons why you justify going Mac Pro only in

00:36:01 ◼   ► the past, instead of just getting a laptop, was there was this massive difference between

00:36:08 ◼   ► the performance of desktop hard drives and laptop hard drives. Because the desktop hard

00:36:12 ◼   ► drives could be so much bigger, could use so much more power, they were able to just

00:36:17 ◼   ► completely mop the floor with laptop drive performance. Now though, that gap is way smaller.

00:36:26 ◼   ► And now the gap is gone, effectively, because SSDs are tiny, and they don't use any power.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Even the good ones are tiny and don't use any power.

00:36:35 ◼   ► So you get the exact same SSDs or these PCI Express modules, you get the exact same ones

00:36:40 ◼   ► between laptops and desktops.

00:36:41 ◼   ► So now you have the exact same disk performance, and it's amazing.

00:36:44 ◼   ► It's shockingly fast, thousands of times faster than old hard drives.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So the gap between laptops and desktops has closed more than anything because of SSDs.

00:36:55 ◼   ► The other thing that it heralds is like the end of physical feedback from your computer.

00:37:07 ◼   ► We talked on the previous episode we recorded about the old days of the 80s and 90s and

00:37:12 ◼   ► modems and floppy drives and even today, a spinning hard disk.

00:37:18 ◼   ► You can hear it.

00:37:19 ◼   ► It makes--

00:37:20 ◼   ► Yeah, just that sound of the hard drive grinding in your 90s PC when you did anything.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Were a lot louder and floppies were louder. So I mean you'd feel it you could feel a floppy being used physically

00:37:32 ◼   ► You could always feel on a

00:37:36 ◼   ► On a MacBook when it had a DVD in it or a CD you could feel the spinning

00:37:42 ◼   ► You know and we don't think about it with iOS devices because iOS devices have always been SSD only but you know as hard drives

00:37:50 ◼   ► die out

00:37:54 ◼   ► It's like the last

00:37:55 ◼   ► physical

00:37:57 ◼   ► It's you know

00:37:58 ◼   ► I don't know there's something about that where I still associate computers like a computer that you're using hard

00:38:03 ◼   ► You can somehow hear it and feel it

00:38:06 ◼   ► And that's it's like no longer the case

00:38:08 ◼   ► By all reports actually like the new Mac Pro it has it has one moving part the fan

00:38:16 ◼   ► That's it. That's crazy. If you look even most Macs have more than one fan, right?

00:38:22 ◼   ► And by all reports so far, the Mac Pro fan is pretty darn quiet, and there's a pretty

00:38:27 ◼   ► decent chance that the other ambient noise in whatever room you work in, you won't be

00:38:33 ◼   ► able to hear the fan above it.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Yeah, and that's amazing.

00:38:38 ◼   ► And that's probably one of the reasons why they don't have any hard drive bays.

00:38:43 ◼   ► They don't even bother with that.

00:38:45 ◼   ► They don't have certainly any optical bays.

00:38:48 ◼   ► I don't think anybody even cares anymore about that.

00:38:51 ◼   ► One of the reasons why is because all the advantages they were able to have with this

00:38:56 ◼   ► enclosure by just having one central place where all the heat goes and then one nice

00:39:01 ◼   ► big quiet fan to blow it out, that's awesome.

00:39:05 ◼   ► For so many reasons that's just cool.

00:39:09 ◼   ► It's an amazing thing that you have not only a computer but the highest end computer in

00:39:15 ◼   ► the lineup that only has one moving part and you don't even hear it, that's amazing.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I don't even mean to imply that I'm nostalgic for it and I'm not quite to Syracuse in levels

00:39:26 ◼   ► But I've always been annoyed by loud computers and loud fans

00:39:29 ◼   ► and and certainly like humming or or you know certain frequencies of a

00:39:35 ◼   ► Anything you can hear that's one area when I was when I was building my own PC's back when I was a PC guy

00:39:41 ◼   ► I I spent so much money and bought so many weird things to try to quiet my computers down

00:39:48 ◼   ► I had like these mounts for the hard drives that had these big like rubber band kind of gaskets in them that you'd so you'd the

00:39:55 ◼   ► Hard drive would be like suspended in rubber bands and I had dynamat which people are supposed to use on car doors when installing car

00:40:01 ◼   ► Stereos that vibrate too much

00:40:02 ◼   ► I had dynamat lining my case and this special like

00:40:05 ◼   ► carpet material from Germany that was supposed to make the case even quieter and these

00:40:11 ◼   ► Giant heat sinks with these big giant slow fans. I spent hundreds of dollars

00:40:17 ◼   ► trying to achieve the volume levels of every Mac

00:40:22 ◼   ► Even even towards the end of that time even Dell's were you know even like PCs from regular vendors were shipping that were quieter

00:40:29 ◼   ► Than what you could build yourself because they would get the big fans the big heatsinks

00:40:32 ◼   ► And it was this constant battle and well

00:40:35 ◼   ► Do you want your computer to be fast and have this you know hot GPU and hot CPU and?

00:40:40 ◼   ► Three or four hard drives, or do you want to be quiet and now you don't have to make that choice anymore now

00:40:46 ◼   ► they're just all quiet, which is fantastic.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think it's the sort of thing that once hard drives really do go away, and for,

00:40:54 ◼   ► you know, an awful lot of people, you know, anybody with a MacBook Air who really lives

00:40:58 ◼   ► off it on a day-to-day basis, hard drives are a thing of the past.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Or I guess the new MacBook Pros, right?

00:41:07 ◼   ► They're all SSD.

00:41:08 ◼   ► Yeah, all the retinas are all SSD.

00:41:12 ◼   ► In hindsight, once that happens, the idea that your computer used to make noise and

00:41:16 ◼   ► you'd feel it spinning and vibrating is going to seem so antediluvian, you know, that it'd

00:41:22 ◼   ► be like it's a Rube Goldberg contraption, you know, that there were like marbles going

00:41:28 ◼   ► down a slide that shot over, you know, a flame and ran into a series of dominoes that were

00:41:37 ◼   ► were set up, and if they fell exactly right, then your data would come out as it was intended.

00:41:43 ◼   ► That pretty much is how they worked.

00:41:45 ◼   ► Right.

00:41:46 ◼   ► I really do think, even my son, who's 10, but certainly for Adam, it's the idea that

00:41:55 ◼   ► your computer spun around real fast to read the ones and zeros, and you could hear it.

00:42:01 ◼   ► You would just hear it going, "ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

00:42:31 ◼   ► that experiments it with 15,000 RPM desktop hard drives

00:42:33 ◼   ► from the Western Digital Raptor series

00:42:35 ◼   ► that nobody should ever buy 'cause it's not worth it.

00:42:38 ◼   ► But to think that here's this drive that,

00:42:43 ◼   ► even in laptops, it's pretty amazing that this works at all.

00:42:47 ◼   ► This tiny little drive that has these big platters in them

00:42:52 ◼   ► that spin at over 7,000 RPM,

00:42:57 ◼   ► sometimes 15,000 RPM for the good ones,

00:43:00 ◼   ► and have these little tiny heads floating like nanometers

00:43:05 ◼   ► above the head, or nanometers above this platter

00:43:08 ◼   ► that's spinning super fast, and its little head moves around

00:43:11 ◼   ► like hundreds of times per second trying to like

00:43:13 ◼   ► read this data as it passes under the head.

00:43:15 ◼   ► I mean, the idea that that works at all,

00:43:19 ◼   ► that that ever worked, and that it worked reasonably well

00:43:21 ◼   ► for all this time, that's amazing.

00:43:24 ◼   ► That is, I think, even more Rube Goldbergian

00:43:29 ◼   ► than anything else.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Just the way hard drives work at all,

00:43:34 ◼   ► and the fact that they do work at all is shocking.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, my parents' iMac, old iMac,

00:43:39 ◼   ► went belly up before Christmas,

00:43:41 ◼   ► and the hard drive went belly up,

00:43:43 ◼   ► but they were due for an upgrade anyway.

00:43:45 ◼   ► And so I talked them into, like typical old people,

00:43:49 ◼   ► they just thought you should fix it

00:43:51 ◼   ► because you don't just buy new computers.

00:43:53 ◼   ► But I talked them into getting a new iMac instead.

00:43:57 ◼   ► And I tried to explain how a hard drive works to them.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And I really-- I don't think they believe me.

00:44:04 ◼   ► Well, it seems ridiculous.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And the more you learn about it, the more crazy and impossible,

00:44:10 ◼   ► it seems.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Right, and even though SSDs do the same thing

00:44:16 ◼   ► and the result is equally amazing,

00:44:18 ◼   ► knowing how it works makes perfect sense.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Right, and there's some complexity

00:44:23 ◼   ► in how their controllers work.

00:44:24 ◼   ► but the fundamental part of how the data is stored

00:44:28 ◼   ► and read is way simpler and much more sensible sounding.

00:44:33 ◼   ► Another thing too, a lot of people reminisce

00:44:38 ◼   ► about the iPhone 1 enclosure.

00:44:41 ◼   ► A lot of people will say, of all the iPhones,

00:44:45 ◼   ► the best feeling one or the one I liked the best,

00:44:48 ◼   ► the one that looked the best,

00:44:48 ◼   ► the one that was best in your hand was the iPhone 1.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And I disagree with that for a major reason

00:44:55 ◼   ► that most people never talk about.

00:44:58 ◼   ► It ran warm.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And I normally have pretty warm hands,

00:45:03 ◼   ► so it's uncomfortable if I'm holding something warm

00:45:06 ◼   ► for a while, then my hands are just sweat, that sucks.

00:45:09 ◼   ► And so I was never that comfortable with the iPhone 1

00:45:11 ◼   ► because if you used it to do anything,

00:45:14 ◼   ► not even heavy duty stuff,

00:45:15 ◼   ► if you were just doing anything on it,

00:45:17 ◼   ► even browsing the web, for more than five minutes maybe,

00:45:21 ◼   ► it would be like really warm to the touch and uncomfortable.

00:45:25 ◼   ► - I don't know if that's fair though,

00:45:26 ◼   ► to hold that against it because that's, it's,

00:45:29 ◼   ► I think when people say that they're just talking about it

00:45:32 ◼   ► as like, let's just say, like comparing all iPhones

00:45:37 ◼   ► ever made, power off as just physical objects

00:45:41 ◼   ► that you're going to carry and judge

00:45:43 ◼   ► before you even see the OS.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Because otherwise you get into, you know,

00:45:48 ◼   ► you certainly get into performance,

00:45:50 ◼   ► which gets better year over year significantly.

00:45:52 ◼   ► I mean, what was the stat that they gave at the 5S event?

00:45:55 ◼   ► It was like 48 times faster.

00:45:58 ◼   ► I mean, it's not even close, it's absurd.

00:46:01 ◼   ► But you also get into things like,

00:46:03 ◼   ► well, iOS 1.0 was really rudimentary, didn't have apps.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I think when people sing the praises of the original iPhone,

00:46:13 ◼   ► they mean it purely in the industrial design sense

00:46:16 ◼   ► and that, you know, and even not even counting

00:46:20 ◼   ► screen resolution, just what it felt like powered off.

00:46:24 ◼   ► - Right, as long as you didn't try to plug in

00:46:26 ◼   ► any headphones that weren't Apple headphones.

00:46:29 ◼   ► - Did they have problems with non-Apple headphones?

00:46:31 ◼   ► - Just, you know, the shape of the jack

00:46:33 ◼   ► where the plastic came up. - Oh, right, because it was--

00:46:35 ◼   ► - I had to like cut one of the plugs down,

00:46:38 ◼   ► like cut off some rubber on it, anyway.

00:46:40 ◼   ► So, you know, looking back, the heat was annoying, right?

00:46:46 ◼   ► Well, I think now, talking about how computers

00:46:48 ◼   ► have been radically getting better,

00:46:50 ◼   ► as the whole world has moved primarily towards laptops

00:46:54 ◼   ► as their PCs instead of desktops

00:46:56 ◼   ► over the last 15 years or so,

00:46:58 ◼   ► I think it's very, we've gone through this period

00:47:02 ◼   ► of laptops even up until two or three years ago

00:47:05 ◼   ► where it was perfectly normal for them to work pretty hot.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And so if you were using your laptop to do something

00:47:12 ◼   ► even moderately substantial--

00:47:14 ◼   ► - Just using it. - For, yeah, just,

00:47:15 ◼   ► just using it regularly, you know, typing some emails, browsing the web, you know, maybe playing a video.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Any of that stuff that's considered like, you know, moderate usage or even light usage these days,

00:47:26 ◼   ► it would get noticeably warm and it would radiate the heat out the keyboard right onto your hands.

00:47:31 ◼   ► And so that was ungraceful, you know, it felt like all of our old vibrating blinking computers of the old days.

00:47:38 ◼   ► It's ungraceful, it's uncomfortable, it's annoying.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And even now, like now the laptops have gotten so good that, you know, and a combination of both power management getting very good, so it uses, it creates less heat, but also the, the ventilation designs, especially of the Retina MacBook Pros, the ventilation designs are so good that it doesn't even get noticeably hot under normal use anymore.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you can make it get hot if you really try, but you have to really try.

00:48:06 ◼   ► - There's that whole argument that we call,

00:48:07 ◼   ► everybody calls them laptops,

00:48:08 ◼   ► or I mean there's also notebook,

00:48:09 ◼   ► but should you say laptop or notebook,

00:48:12 ◼   ► and the argument in front of the notebook

00:48:14 ◼   ► has always been that most people

00:48:16 ◼   ► don't actually use them on their lap.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Sort of a stupid word.

00:48:19 ◼   ► But I usually, if I'm on an airplane,

00:48:22 ◼   ► do actually put it on my lap,

00:48:24 ◼   ► because I find it easier to type with my wrists

00:48:28 ◼   ► at lap level than my wrists at like chin level

00:48:31 ◼   ► on the tray in front of me.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And yeah, that's where I really remember noticing it,

00:48:38 ◼   ► you know, that it would get actually hot.

00:48:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's this yet one more area

00:48:44 ◼   ► where we've kind of made incredible strides

00:48:47 ◼   ► and no one really talks about it.

00:48:49 ◼   ► That computers are way better now

00:48:51 ◼   ► than they were even a few years ago,

00:48:53 ◼   ► for the most part,

00:48:54 ◼   ► because the most popular kind of computer, the laptop,

00:48:57 ◼   ► is finally getting better design

00:48:58 ◼   ► and more efficient with heat generation.

00:49:01 ◼   ► So that's like one more big, everyday annoyance

00:49:04 ◼   ► That's becoming better.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - Right, it's just clearly overall massive increases

00:49:09 ◼   ► in energy efficiency because it's also battery life

00:49:13 ◼   ► has suddenly gotten way better.

00:49:16 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:49:18 ◼   ► - Like year over year, like buy an iPad Air a year ago

00:49:23 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden you're way behind

00:49:25 ◼   ► on the battery life curve from the ones that are out now.

00:49:27 ◼   ► It's very different than the days when

00:49:31 ◼   ► the year-over-year thing was, wow, that went so much faster.

00:49:34 ◼   ► - Maybe that can finally get you to upgrade your air.

00:49:39 ◼   ► - I gotta upgrade that too, I don't wanna talk about that.

00:49:40 ◼   ► I do wanna talk about our first sponsor,

00:49:43 ◼   ► and it's our friends at Backblaze.

00:49:46 ◼   ► You guys know Backblaze, they sponsored the previous episode,

00:49:49 ◼   ► they've been here before.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Online backup, $5 a month.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Native Mac OS X software, it's unlimited, unthrottled,

00:49:59 ◼   ► As much data as you have on your Mac, you can back it up, and it's uncomplicated.

00:50:04 ◼   ► They have an iOS app to access and share any of your files, so you back up your whole Mac

00:50:11 ◼   ► to Backblaze.

00:50:12 ◼   ► You are out of the house, you're on your iPhone, you can get access to any of the files that

00:50:16 ◼   ► are backed up to Backblaze right through the app.

00:50:19 ◼   ► You can restore one file or all your files easily with their restore features.

00:50:26 ◼   ► It's founded by ex-Apple engineers.

00:50:29 ◼   ► It runs native on your Mac.

00:50:31 ◼   ► It's updated for Mavericks.

00:50:32 ◼   ► And that to me is such a huge deal because it's not just some kind of janky thing that's

00:50:36 ◼   ► meant for Windows and they have a Mac client.

00:50:39 ◼   ► This is a service that is for Mac users by Mac users/engineers.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And it's no nonsense offer.

00:50:49 ◼   ► There's no add-ons or gimmicks or additional charges.

00:50:53 ◼   ► You just pay $5 per month per computer and you get unlimited unthrottled backup for that

00:50:58 ◼   ► computer.

00:50:59 ◼   ► Couldn't be easier and it's a super, super good deal.

00:51:03 ◼   ► It's the simplest online backup program to use.

00:51:06 ◼   ► You just install it and it does the rest.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Just $5 a month you'll sleep so much better with the peace of mind knowing that your whole

00:51:14 ◼   ► Mac is backed up.

00:51:15 ◼   ► Not just backed up, backed up online out of your house.

00:51:21 ◼   ► So if your house burns down, you get robbed.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Anything that could go wrong right there

00:51:26 ◼   ► if your only backup is, say, a time machine hard drive

00:51:31 ◼   ► connected to your Mac, you don't have to worry about it.

00:51:33 ◼   ► You've got something out of the house.

00:51:36 ◼   ► You know what I used to do?

00:51:37 ◼   ► - It's nice because you are paying somebody else

00:51:41 ◼   ► to worry about your backup.

00:51:43 ◼   ► It's no longer just on you.

00:51:45 ◼   ► - And it's somebody who's a professional at it.

00:51:48 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I used to, before Backblaze, I used to, my off-site plan was that I had two sets of super-duper

00:51:59 ◼   ► clone backups for my stuff.

00:52:02 ◼   ► And every time I would go home, Amy's and my parents live in the same town, I would

00:52:11 ◼   ► just take it with me and swap them out with a copy stashed at my parents' house.

00:52:16 ◼   ► But what I was stupid because I forget sometimes or I wouldn't have it up to date and then

00:52:20 ◼   ► I ended up with like a the one that was off site was like 11, 12 months out of date.

00:52:26 ◼   ► So I didn't really have an offsite backup like anything that revolves and I thought,

00:52:30 ◼   ► well, maybe I can make it more convenient.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I could get like a safe deposit box at a bank here or near my house.

00:52:37 ◼   ► But I don't want to go to the bank on a regular basis.

00:52:38 ◼   ► Who does that?

00:52:39 ◼   ► Who wants to do who wants to take a hard drive to the bank and then to get a manager to I

00:52:43 ◼   ► I mean, that sounds good, and a bank is, in theory, a nice, secure place, but it's stupid.

00:52:49 ◼   ► Backblaze, you just install it, and it's just there, it's just offline, and you don't have

00:52:53 ◼   ► to worry about it, and it's up to date all the time.

00:52:55 ◼   ► You don't have to remember to do anything.

00:52:57 ◼   ► I think that's a good rule of thumb, is any backup system where you have to remember to

00:53:01 ◼   ► do something is not really a backup system.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Exactly.

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00:53:26 ◼   ► Alright, here's what I want to talk about. I want to work this

00:53:30 ◼   ► out. I want to I want to do the definitive discussion on big

00:53:34 ◼   ► screen iPhones talking of speaking about old iPhones and

00:53:38 ◼   ► iPhone displays because last pressure well I don't feel like it should be that

00:53:43 ◼   ► complicated no hopefully it won't be but people it's like the rumor mill is all

00:53:48 ◼   ► over the map on this and I guess it was on Friday the Wall Street Journal like

00:53:54 ◼   ► the big news of the day on Friday was a report in a Wall Street Journal that

00:53:59 ◼   ► Apple is working on two bigger iPhones for this year it was like one of them

00:54:07 ◼   ► bigger than 4.5 inches diagonal and one of them bigger than five inches diagonal and

00:54:12 ◼   ► that one's further along than the other blah blah blah and

00:54:16 ◼   ► Number one, I don't understand how they think one that's in preliminary development in January has any chance of coming out this year

00:54:24 ◼   ► Like that's not how it works. And I know with the original iPhone. It was a little bit seat of the pants in

00:54:33 ◼   ► in terms of that the industrial design was tweaked a few months before it was unveiled in January 2007.

00:54:41 ◼   ► And even some of the major components were updated between when it was announced in January 2007 and

00:54:49 ◼   ► when it went on sale at the end of June that year. Like the biggest one is that in January when it

00:54:54 ◼   ► was announced it was going to have a plastic display. And they made that switch from plastic

00:55:00 ◼   ► to Gorilla Glass in between January and June, which is a huge deal. But that's, you know,

00:55:08 ◼   ► the original iPhone sold like a couple of million in the first year. Like, and I'm not saying that

00:55:15 ◼   ► was easy. I'm sure it was difficult. But Apple sold 51 million iPhones. Now they weren't all

00:55:21 ◼   ► five S's, but they sold 51 million iPhones in the quarter that just finished. Like they, they can't

00:55:27 ◼   ► change things a few months in advance anymore. Like that's part of the problems

00:55:34 ◼   ► that they face in in this era when iPhones and iPads are such selling such

00:55:41 ◼   ► remarkable quantities. They have to get things set up at least a year in advance

00:55:47 ◼   ► if not more. And they have to only do things that can be high yield because

00:55:52 ◼   ► they have to make so many of them that they you know they can't afford to use

00:55:56 ◼   ► like a cutting-edge screen technology that is gonna be low yield for the next

00:56:01 ◼   ► 18 months. They can't do that in the iPhone. They can do it maybe in something

00:56:04 ◼   ► else, but not the iPhone. So I've started... exactly, I completely agree with that.

00:56:08 ◼   ► They cannot have low yield. Can't do it. They might be able to now, next time they

00:56:12 ◼   ► come out with a big new thing, you know, iWatch or whatever that, you know,

00:56:17 ◼   ► just pick any new thing. It's probably gonna start a lot slower than people

00:56:23 ◼   ► think like, you know, armchair analysts who want Apple to come out with an iWatch or an

00:56:28 ◼   ► Apple TV that that is just as big of a business as the iPad or iPhone within a couple of months.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Well, that nothing ever works that way. New things start slow and build and in hindsight,

00:56:40 ◼   ► you know, the iPhone has grown pretty quick. But you can take chances with yield and stuff

00:56:47 ◼   ► like that on a new product that you can't on a revision to an established and super,

00:56:51 ◼   ► super popular product like the iPhone. Exactly doesn't make any sense. So there

00:56:56 ◼   ► right there, the Wall Street Journal printed something that to me doesn't

00:56:59 ◼   ► make sense. And they should know better like, you know, as reticent as Apple

00:57:03 ◼   ► employees are to tell you, you know, any kind of secrets, or what they're working

00:57:06 ◼   ► on. It's not that hard to find people who will let you know that the time basic

00:57:11 ◼   ► timeline on hardware for iOS devices is really surprisingly long. It's, you know,

00:57:18 ◼   ► I'm not saying they can't change anything a year in advance, but

00:57:21 ◼   ► It's longer, you know, whatever iPhone or iPhones that they're planning to unveil this year

00:57:28 ◼   ► They've been in the works for you know years not months. Yeah, probably at least 18 months

00:57:34 ◼   ► You know and it's another example of that mentality is like when the iPad

00:57:39 ◼   ► Mini came out last year the first one and and some people attributed to the you know

00:57:45 ◼   ► Nexus 7 or something like that that it shipped four months earlier. It's like that. It doesn't work like that that it they can't

00:57:52 ◼   ► There's nothing to do with you know trying to defend Apple against copying other people who've made smaller tablets

00:57:59 ◼   ► They just can't there's no way they could make a new device in four months. It just it doesn't work like that

00:58:04 ◼   ► Here's the thing I don't understand this and and Bloomberg had a story a couple months ago

00:58:13 ◼   ► Halfway similar to the Wall Street Journal thing about two different sizes of bigger than the current iPhone display

00:58:19 ◼   ► So maybe there is something to it

00:58:21 ◼   ► I don't know

00:58:22 ◼   ► There's two different somewhat reputable news sources that have printed somewhat the same thing

00:58:26 ◼   ► But the Bloomberg story a couple months ago said the glass was gonna be curved along the edges

00:58:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't see that happening

00:58:34 ◼   ► No, I don't either although I think and it was ambiguous which way it was gonna be curved like concave or convex

00:58:40 ◼   ► right and

00:58:42 ◼   ► When I when I express skepticism about that on

00:58:45 ◼   ► Daring fireball some readers suggested that I was thinking about it wrong and it probably wasn't concave

00:58:51 ◼   ► Like a lot of these Android phones with curved screens

00:58:55 ◼   ► But it might be the other way so that they could taper the edges and make the edges seem thinner

00:59:00 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, but like I would expect that if there's a curve in the glass or a taper on the glass

00:59:05 ◼   ► It's probably not in the area of the glass. That is the display

00:59:10 ◼   ► It's probably, you know, on the borders.

00:59:12 ◼   ► - Right, it might be glass but not the display.

00:59:15 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:59:16 ◼   ► And one thing to consider, so, you know,

00:59:20 ◼   ► I know it used to be the common game

00:59:21 ◼   ► where Apple would do these kind of controlled leaks

00:59:24 ◼   ► to the Wall Street Journal and possibly Bloomberg

00:59:27 ◼   ► in the past and so there was a certain style,

00:59:31 ◼   ► which you're very familiar with,

00:59:32 ◼   ► there was a certain style of Wall Street Journal story

00:59:35 ◼   ► about Apple stuff that you could pretty much identify

00:59:38 ◼   ► as a controlled intentional leak,

00:59:41 ◼   ► usually to set expectations in the market,

00:59:44 ◼   ► or to kind of confirm or deny some of the hype, et cetera.

00:59:47 ◼   ► Do you think, first of all, do they still seem to do that,

00:59:52 ◼   ► or has that changed in the Cook era?

00:59:54 ◼   ► And second of all, do you think

00:59:55 ◼   ► this is one of those things?

00:59:57 ◼   ► - I think it has changed a little,

00:59:58 ◼   ► or at least it hasn't happened recently

01:00:00 ◼   ► that I could think of.

01:00:01 ◼   ► And at the very least, B,

01:00:05 ◼   ► I don't think this is one of those at all.

01:00:08 ◼   ► I really--

01:00:08 ◼   ► - It kind of reads like one that's gone through

01:00:10 ◼   ► like two or three levels of telephone.

01:00:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:00:13 ◼   ► I think so.

01:00:14 ◼   ► So the big one, I think the best example

01:00:17 ◼   ► of one of those controlled leaks, I think,

01:00:19 ◼   ► is weeks ahead of the original iPad introduction,

01:00:24 ◼   ► and I'm pretty sure it was the Wall Street Journal,

01:00:27 ◼   ► had a story that Apple is definitely working

01:00:29 ◼   ► on a tablet computer,

01:00:31 ◼   ► and that they're targeting a price under $1,000.

01:00:35 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Everybody took that to mean that that's marketing ease for it's gonna cost

01:00:41 ◼   ► $999 to start. Yep, and it just it

01:00:45 ◼   ► It was very clear and there wasn't anything, you know, there wasn't anything else to the story really to the league

01:00:51 ◼   ► It was they're working on a tablet

01:00:53 ◼   ► And it's gonna be under a thousand and everybody took that to mean it's gonna be

01:00:58 ◼   ► 999 to start and probably you know with configurations, you know a hundred dollar, you know increments above that for higher capacity

01:01:06 ◼   ► So then when the iPad came out and it started at $4.99, it felt like it was half the price

01:01:16 ◼   ► everybody in the room had been expecting the whole event long. You know, it was 45 minutes

01:01:21 ◼   ► into the event and everybody was like, "Well, this is pretty cool. I don't know if this is

01:01:24 ◼   ► a thousand dollar thing though." And then all of a sudden they're like, "4.99." And it felt like,

01:01:29 ◼   ► "Wow, Apple just totally wowed me with a price." Yeah, that was masterful.

01:01:34 ◼   ► This doesn't seem like that because this doesn't seem like they're setting up any kind of

01:01:38 ◼   ► Any kind of way to

01:01:42 ◼   ► it's like a controlled leaks from Apple to me is one where it seems like they're setting up a way to under promise and

01:01:48 ◼   ► Overdeliver and whereas saying just saying that there's two bigger iPhones coming out doesn't do either of those

01:01:54 ◼   ► Well, I think they've also used them in the past to kind of

01:01:59 ◼   ► calm people's fears of what they might not be doing.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Like to say, don't worry, we got this.

01:02:05 ◼   ► - Right.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - Like, yeah, we know we're supposed to make a bigger iPhone,

01:02:08 ◼   ► don't worry, we'll have one shortly.

01:02:11 ◼   ► - Right.

01:02:12 ◼   ► - I think that's, if this is a controlled leak,

01:02:15 ◼   ► I think that's the reasoning for it.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Not to set expectations too low and then over-deliver,

01:02:21 ◼   ► but to tell people like--

01:02:23 ◼   ► - You got it.

01:02:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't have to worry,

01:02:25 ◼   ► you don't have to bail on us,

01:02:27 ◼   ► You don't have to switch platforms if you want a bigger screen. Don't worry. We're gonna make a bigger screen finally, you know

01:02:32 ◼   ► That's I think that's the reason so I don't think it's I wouldn't rule it out and for just that reason

01:02:36 ◼   ► I guess that is a there's a logical reason where they've why they might

01:02:39 ◼   ► The two thing though confuses me

01:02:43 ◼   ► Tremendously. Yeah, that's that's also

01:02:46 ◼   ► Yeah, so the fact that they're saying there's two new ones

01:02:49 ◼   ► I think not only is unlikely but it's a really weak story the way they've written it like oh

01:02:53 ◼   ► oh, this one's really kind of early,

01:02:55 ◼   ► 'cause lots of stuff is in early development,

01:02:56 ◼   ► it doesn't mean it's gonna come out.

01:02:58 ◼   ► And then the way it's written with,

01:03:01 ◼   ► not with actual screen sizes,

01:03:02 ◼   ► but just saying it's gonna be larger than X.

01:03:05 ◼   ► So the small one's gonna be larger than 4 1/2

01:03:08 ◼   ► and the big one's gonna be larger than what,

01:03:09 ◼   ► five, 5 1/2, whatever it is.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It's like, that's a weird way to say it.

01:03:14 ◼   ► It's just kind of odd.

01:03:16 ◼   ► That's why I think it looks like this

01:03:17 ◼   ► has kind of been churned a couple of times

01:03:20 ◼   ► and somebody heard something wrong

01:03:24 ◼   ► or interpreted something wrong along the way.

01:03:26 ◼   ► - And it is entirely possible that,

01:03:30 ◼   ► like one explanation for the leaks,

01:03:35 ◼   ► for the story in the journal and the one in Bloomberg,

01:03:38 ◼   ► which kind of matches, is that they come not from Apple

01:03:41 ◼   ► but from Asian suppliers who make screens.

01:03:45 ◼   ► And it could be that Apple has placed, you know,

01:03:48 ◼   ► not significant like hey they're ramping up production but significant they're

01:03:52 ◼   ► trying to build a lot of test devices for multiple screen sizes and you know

01:03:59 ◼   ► that they've built prototypes of 4.8 inch iPhones and 5.3 inch iPhones or or

01:04:07 ◼   ► while the suppliers may have no idea what the devices are that they're built

01:04:12 ◼   ► that they're buying though 4.8 inch touch screens and 5.3 inch touch screens

01:04:16 ◼   ► and they're guessing that they're for bigger iPhones and because they've bought both they've passed this along and

01:04:21 ◼   ► The journal and Bloomberg both presume that just because Apple has

01:04:26 ◼   ► Prototypes that they're all going to be real products or shipping products that to me makes sense that it's just they're just under us

01:04:33 ◼   ► Just completely misunderstanding

01:04:36 ◼   ► How Apple does product development, right?

01:04:39 ◼   ► And you know the other thing too looking at the timing of these announcements and and and the scale of the iPhone

01:04:45 ◼   ► The iPhone has reached a scale where it's very hard

01:04:48 ◼   ► to surprise us with hardware anymore.

01:04:50 ◼   ► And you can look at the last few releases as evidence

01:04:54 ◼   ► that usually you'll start getting parts leaks

01:04:57 ◼   ► for the iPhones like three to six months

01:05:01 ◼   ► before they actually come out.

01:05:02 ◼   ► It's pretty far ahead of time.

01:05:04 ◼   ► I mean, I think we had parts leaks for one of the,

01:05:08 ◼   ► either the five or the five S,

01:05:09 ◼   ► I think we had them like in February.

01:05:11 ◼   ► - Well, that sounds about right.

01:05:13 ◼   ► - We had them like so long in advance

01:05:15 ◼   ► because they have to involve so much manufacturing

01:05:19 ◼   ► to get this kind of roll out on this massive scale device

01:05:23 ◼   ► that they get like, somebody always leaks

01:05:26 ◼   ► on this massive amount of people involved here.

01:05:30 ◼   ► And so whatever they're planning on doing with the iPhone,

01:05:34 ◼   ► it's gonna creep up on us gradually.

01:05:37 ◼   ► You know, it's gonna be very clear what they're doing

01:05:41 ◼   ► hardware wise, you know, physical size wise.

01:05:43 ◼   ► it's going to be very clear what they're doing probably by June.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Quite possibly.

01:05:50 ◼   ► I think it's worth taking a step back.

01:05:53 ◼   ► And I know I've written about this.

01:05:54 ◼   ► I know you've written about it at marco.org.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I don't know that anything will say is new.

01:06:01 ◼   ► But I feel like if we put it all together,

01:06:03 ◼   ► it'll make more sense of the big picture.

01:06:05 ◼   ► And the first thing I think you have to ask

01:06:08 ◼   ► is what problem are you trying to solve with a bigger screen

01:06:11 ◼   ► iPhone?

01:06:12 ◼   ► Because there's no way they're ever gonna make it

01:06:14 ◼   ► if it doesn't actually solve a real problem.

01:06:16 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:17 ◼   ► - Now, in one sense, it could just be

01:06:21 ◼   ► a pure marketing problem.

01:06:23 ◼   ► And I think that this one is, it is to some degree true,

01:06:26 ◼   ► where there are some number of people

01:06:29 ◼   ► who when they decide what to buy as their next phone,

01:06:32 ◼   ► that they want a bigger iPhone,

01:06:34 ◼   ► or a bigger display than the iPhone has today.

01:06:38 ◼   ► And that means that they're not going to buy an iPhone.

01:06:41 ◼   ► they're gonna buy an Android or maybe a Windows phone,

01:06:44 ◼   ► but there's no other choice.

01:06:45 ◼   ► And there are people, absolutely, no doubt in my mind,

01:06:48 ◼   ► there are people who, that's like the first thing

01:06:51 ◼   ► on their mind when they're buying their next phone.

01:06:54 ◼   ► And it could be that the phone they're replacing,

01:06:57 ◼   ► they've just considered the display to be too small.

01:07:00 ◼   ► And I think that's, I don't wanna put words in your mouth,

01:07:04 ◼   ► but I think that's sort of been your argument that you,

01:07:06 ◼   ► the reason you believe Apple probably is working

01:07:09 ◼   ► on a bigger screen iPhone is just that there's too much,

01:07:13 ◼   ► they're leaving too much money on the table

01:07:15 ◼   ► by not selling to the people

01:07:16 ◼   ► who that's their primary decision.

01:07:21 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, and that's actually getting,

01:07:23 ◼   ► it's gonna get worse if they don't address this.

01:07:26 ◼   ► As our friend Ben Thompson points out on Stratechery,

01:07:30 ◼   ► Stratechery, I get this wrong every time.

01:07:32 ◼   ► - Close enough.

01:07:33 ◼   ► - Ben Thompson's site, sorry,

01:07:37 ◼   ► As he pointed out recently,

01:07:38 ◼   ► Apple's next wave of growth is gonna happen in Asia.

01:07:43 ◼   ► And the bigger screen devices are very popular there,

01:07:48 ◼   ► especially at the high end, which is where Apple competes.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Things like the Galaxy Note sell very well

01:07:56 ◼   ► in a lot of the Asian countries.

01:07:57 ◼   ► - Right, the Galaxy Note is truly humongous.

01:07:59 ◼   ► I mean, it's like 5.7.

01:08:01 ◼   ► I mean, it really, you know,

01:08:03 ◼   ► on the tablet to smartphone scale,

01:08:07 ◼   ► really is closer to tablet than phone.

01:08:11 ◼   ► - Right, and so for Apple to continue

01:08:13 ◼   ► not to have a bigger screen phone in their lineup,

01:08:16 ◼   ► as they grow more into Asia,

01:08:19 ◼   ► that's gonna hurt them more than it has in the US.

01:08:22 ◼   ► In the US, there are lots of these big screen phones,

01:08:26 ◼   ► and we see them, we see comparisons,

01:08:29 ◼   ► we see the iPhone losing those comparisons,

01:08:31 ◼   ► and we see some people who buy them,

01:08:33 ◼   ► but percentage-wise, as far as I know,

01:08:36 ◼   ► the data shows they aren't actually incredibly popular.

01:08:40 ◼   ► They do sell, but they're not insanely popular

01:08:44 ◼   ► compared to how they are in Asia.

01:08:46 ◼   ► So it's certainly more pressing

01:08:49 ◼   ► for that sales and marketing reason.

01:08:52 ◼   ► It's becoming more pressing as time goes on

01:08:54 ◼   ► for Apple to address this purely because

01:08:56 ◼   ► of the different markets in which they're now gonna expand.

01:08:59 ◼   ► So that's one issue.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But it is certainly still a marketing issue

01:09:04 ◼   ► even in the US and other places that buy like us

01:09:08 ◼   ► where we've seen, I mean I've seen so many people

01:09:13 ◼   ► who buy Android phones instead of iPhones

01:09:17 ◼   ► because of the screen size.

01:09:18 ◼   ► And this applies down the whole spectrum

01:09:21 ◼   ► from geeks all the way down to extreme novices.

01:09:26 ◼   ► People who want the bigger screen

01:09:27 ◼   ► because bigger screens are nice for a lot of reasons.

01:09:30 ◼   ► It does lead to a bigger phone

01:09:31 ◼   ► which is bad for some reasons

01:09:33 ◼   ► But for a lot of people, the bigger screen is really important and is often the biggest

01:09:38 ◼   ► buying factor for why they pick the phone they pick.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Because the trade-off math is multi-variable.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It's not just a simple one factor this way, one factor this way, decide.

01:09:49 ◼   ► It's very many variables.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Well, and like when phones – back in the flip phone era, when the Motorola Razr came

01:09:57 ◼   ► out, like when phones were pushing to get smaller and smaller and smaller, what they

01:10:01 ◼   ► were mostly doing was getting thinner. It wasn't, you know, people didn't require

01:10:06 ◼   ► their phone to be super narrow and short. What was really cool was making it thin, because

01:10:12 ◼   ► that would make it fit more gracefully in a pocket, but having this bibbly bulge that

01:10:16 ◼   ► made you look like a nerd. Although we wouldn't care, but everyone else does. So, you know,

01:10:22 ◼   ► the thing that, you know, this wisdom that phones need to be small, what they really

01:10:27 ◼   ► need to be as thin. And they just need to be thin and fit gracefully in a pocket.

01:10:32 ◼   ► But you can make a pretty nice sized screen that still fits gracefully into

01:10:36 ◼   ► like most jeans pockets, as long as the whole body of the phone is

01:10:40 ◼   ► relatively thin. So I don't think you need to have your phones be small anymore

01:10:46 ◼   ► and I think the market is validating that and has been validating that

01:10:49 ◼   ► for years that, you know, there's always gonna be people who like the smaller

01:10:53 ◼   ► our phone. But people also like bigger screens and and they do

01:10:57 ◼   ► more with their phones now and more computing type tasks where

01:10:59 ◼   ► they're where a big screen helps. And so the standards now

01:11:03 ◼   ► are totally different. And I think people really like for me,

01:11:08 ◼   ► I mean, would you buy one if they made one, say an inch

01:11:11 ◼   ► bigger, so you know, or almost five inches, I can't answer

01:11:14 ◼   ► greater than four and a half in quotes.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I can't answer that yet. Because the next thing before we talk

01:11:20 ◼   ► about this, which is, okay, marketing wise, there is a problem to be solved.

01:11:26 ◼   ► But you can't just solve it by saying, make a bigger iPhone.

01:11:30 ◼   ► It has to, there has to be a specific, it has to be specific.

01:11:34 ◼   ► It has to have an exact pixel count.

01:11:37 ◼   ► And here, here--

01:11:38 ◼   ► Well, I think you would solve about two-thirds of it without that.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Well, but here's the thing.

01:11:42 ◼   ► When people say they want a bigger phone, there's two ways to make a bigger phone.

01:11:46 ◼   ► would be to make everything bigger and that you're saying I in loose terms

01:11:52 ◼   ► you're solving a vision problem that and and the easiest way to do this and many

01:11:58 ◼   ► people I'm not does not original I think you've even written about it but let's

01:12:02 ◼   ► just say it would be like the the to make it like the iPad mini to iPad air

01:12:07 ◼   ► the exact same pixel count so it would be 1136 vertically by 640 horizontally

01:12:13 ◼   ► And instead of it 332 pixels per inch it would be at like the iPad Air's resolution

01:12:20 ◼   ► 264 pixels per inch it comes out to like 4.9 inches diagonal

01:12:25 ◼   ► Yeah

01:12:26 ◼   ► 4.94 the software would just run and so the relationship between big iPhone and

01:12:31 ◼   ► Smaller iPhone would be exactly the same as iPad mini to iPad

01:12:35 ◼   ► Air

01:12:38 ◼   ► right and

01:12:40 ◼   ► The problem that it would solve is that if you think text is too small to read on your phone

01:12:45 ◼   ► And that pictures aren't quite big enough you want video to be a little bigger, but the exact same resolution by the bigger one

01:12:51 ◼   ► That's not what everybody wants in a bigger iPhone though. The other problem you could solve is putting more information on

01:12:59 ◼   ► your phone

01:13:01 ◼   ► packing more pixels in and so

01:13:05 ◼   ► You know Apple doesn't compete on specs all the time in fact famously sometimes does stubbornly doesn't

01:13:11 ◼   ► But there are Android phones with true 1080p displays, so it's like 1920 by 1080

01:13:18 ◼   ► Pixels which is a lot more pixels than an iPhone 5 or 5s

01:13:23 ◼   ► so Apple could go that way and make a 5-inch phone with

01:13:28 ◼   ► Who knows what the exact pixel count would be whether it be 1920 by 1080 or?

01:13:33 ◼   ► something that's

01:13:35 ◼   ► More aligned with the dimensions that they've used before

01:13:39 ◼   ► and

01:13:42 ◼   ► Keep the resolution at three hundred and thirty two pixels per inch or even increase it and go to like four hundred pixels per inch

01:13:49 ◼   ► Like HTC has in some of their phones

01:13:51 ◼   ► And you know just make a new size target for developers. You'd have to target a second size

01:13:59 ◼   ► And then you'd have the same size text that you're physically same size text as you're looking for

01:14:05 ◼   ► But you'd be able to fit more of it on screen

01:14:07 ◼   ► Well, that's exact, you know, you can't one phone can't solve both problems

01:14:11 ◼   ► and

01:14:14 ◼   ► I don't know. I I can't see you can't solve both problems. And if I think Apple is more likely to go

01:14:23 ◼   ► The I say judging by past history to go the first route meaning keep it at 11 36 by 640

01:14:31 ◼   ► and just make it bigger and

01:14:33 ◼   ► Then they have a big phone and they would keep sell it alongside a new next generation

01:14:39 ◼   ► iPhone you know six that has this four inch screen and it would be like the iPad air and iPad mini and the tech

01:14:48 ◼   ► press would go into they'd have like strokes they go into conniptions because the resolution is so low and

01:14:54 ◼   ► You know Android phones have you know?

01:14:56 ◼   ► 1920 by 1080 and true 1080p and all this stuff

01:15:01 ◼   ► That sounds like exactly the sort of thing where that when the tech people go into conniptions over the specs that sounds like

01:15:08 ◼   ► Something Apple would do oh

01:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah, well you know

01:15:12 ◼   ► Going past a certain DPI

01:15:16 ◼   ► You're just wasting battery life and cost, you know, like it like once you can no longer see the pixels anymore

01:15:22 ◼   ► There's not a lot of reason to go much past that point

01:15:26 ◼   ► So like, you know, there's I believe there was a couple Android phones that came out that had like a 400 DPI screen

01:15:32 ◼   ► Yes, that is way past that point where that is that is great for marketing for to nerds not to anybody else

01:15:40 ◼   ► but it's great for marketing to nerds, but

01:15:42 ◼   ► You're killing the battery. You're killing the GPU

01:15:45 ◼   ► for no real benefit that people are gonna actually notice.

01:15:49 ◼   ► - Right, you're only really marketing towards

01:15:51 ◼   ► like the Verge and Engadget readers

01:15:53 ◼   ► who don't want a great screen, they want a 1080p screen.

01:15:57 ◼   ► - Right, so that's problematic.

01:16:00 ◼   ► So I'm not saying Apple doesn't have to go

01:16:03 ◼   ► any further than where they are now.

01:16:04 ◼   ► I don't know where that point is,

01:16:06 ◼   ► but certainly that point exists

01:16:07 ◼   ► and I'm pretty sure it's before 400 DPI.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And if you look at iOS and hints,

01:16:14 ◼   ► you said earlier with the high DPI support

01:16:16 ◼   ► they added to Mac OS X,

01:16:17 ◼   ► that was like a hint of what's coming.

01:16:19 ◼   ► Well, if you look at iOS and the hints of what's coming,

01:16:22 ◼   ► you see both sides.

01:16:23 ◼   ► You see auto layout being added in iOS 6.

01:16:27 ◼   ► And auto layout's like, well, of course,

01:16:29 ◼   ► now they can add multiple phone sizes

01:16:32 ◼   ► and it'll be easier to support, which is true.

01:16:35 ◼   ► And then iOS 7 comes along and it has dynamic text size.

01:16:40 ◼   ► and say, well, now they can just keep the same resolution,

01:16:43 ◼   ► blow everything up, and let users adjust the text size

01:16:45 ◼   ► system-wide, which is also true.

01:16:47 ◼   ► So there's support on both sides of pretty much equal weight.

01:16:52 ◼   ► You can look at the iPad Mini versus iPad Air.

01:16:54 ◼   ► That's a huge example of saying, well, they did it like this

01:16:57 ◼   ► here, and it works just fine, and nobody really complains,

01:17:00 ◼   ► although it was the opposite direction.

01:17:02 ◼   ► So there's that issue.

01:17:04 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:17:07 ◼   ► I think it would solve a lot of the demand for a bigger phone.

01:17:13 ◼   ► I think it would be solved both ways.

01:17:15 ◼   ► And so they could do the easier way of saying,

01:17:17 ◼   ► well, we'll just make everything bigger.

01:17:20 ◼   ► But also, the iPhone is such a major product,

01:17:23 ◼   ► such a major platform for developers,

01:17:25 ◼   ► that they could just go ahead and add another size.

01:17:29 ◼   ► And say, hey, developers, suck it up.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And if they are planning on adding two models,

01:17:34 ◼   ► if that actually is the truth, whether it

01:17:36 ◼   ► happens now or we get one now and one the next cycle, maybe those two models both have

01:17:43 ◼   ► the same resolution that is higher than the current resolution.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Right, Pixel count.

01:17:48 ◼   ► So maybe that's how they do it.

01:17:50 ◼   ► Maybe they add a higher resolution than what we have now and they apply that same resolution

01:17:56 ◼   ► to both of those new models, one's just bigger than the other.

01:17:59 ◼   ► So maybe that's how it's done.

01:18:01 ◼   ► The iPhone, again, it's a big enough product, they can go all these different ways.

01:18:04 ◼   ► One thing I wanted to mention also,

01:18:06 ◼   ► I brought up this email for this show.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I got an email from a reader

01:18:10 ◼   ► and I haven't gotten permission to use his name yet.

01:18:13 ◼   ► So I'll leave him anonymous for now.

01:18:14 ◼   ► But he pointed out that, you know,

01:18:17 ◼   ► a lot of the arguments that you and I have both fielded

01:18:20 ◼   ► and along with other people is like,

01:18:23 ◼   ► well, they can just take one of the existing screens

01:18:25 ◼   ► they're making and, you know,

01:18:27 ◼   ► as the panel's being manufactured,

01:18:28 ◼   ► just cut them to different sizes

01:18:30 ◼   ► and to make a new size screen of the same DPI.

01:18:33 ◼   ► But as this reader pointed out, that's kind of weak

01:18:37 ◼   ► because historically they haven't really done that

01:18:40 ◼   ► because a lot of times when they change,

01:18:41 ◼   ► when they bring an old screen density to a new size,

01:18:46 ◼   ► they change the screen technology too.

01:18:48 ◼   ► So he pointed out, like the 3GS had a TN display

01:18:53 ◼   ► and the iPad Mini was IPS.

01:18:56 ◼   ► So that broke completely.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And then like, there's some of them

01:18:58 ◼   ► have different substrates.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Like some of them will be LTPS, some of them will be Ixo,

01:19:03 ◼   ► a more for silicon for some of them like, you know, like there's all these different

01:19:06 ◼   ► technologies that are being changed also. So in the iPhone five and five s, while they

01:19:11 ◼   ► are at 332 dpi, the same dpi is the iPad mini, the iPhones have full RGB spectrum, and they

01:19:20 ◼   ► have that thing where they're fused to the glass, which is different than the cutting

01:19:24 ◼   ► of the thing. But they're, you know, right. I don't know all the point is like all this

01:19:27 ◼   ► stuff is different enough as as technology progresses, and as the screen technology gets

01:19:31 ◼   ► better and changes and gets lower power and more colors and everything else, the likelihood

01:19:36 ◼   ► of them cutting the same panels to two different sizes for two very different products, especially

01:19:42 ◼   ► across a couple of years, becomes pretty small.

01:19:45 ◼   ► And so if they're going to retool everything anyway, or use a different process anyway,

01:19:50 ◼   ► then they can change DPI's too.

01:19:51 ◼   ► So I don't think we need to put too much weight into, "Oh, well they can just multiply this

01:19:55 ◼   ► DPI into this technology."

01:19:57 ◼   ► I would say it not so much that it's any kind of manufacturing convenience, but just that

01:20:05 ◼   ► they've done it because they've done it with the iPad. And because the math works out pretty

01:20:10 ◼   ► clearly that at the 264 pixels per inch resolution of the iPad Air, an iPhone would be 4.9 inches,

01:20:19 ◼   ► which is noticeably not humongous, not, you know, absurd. It's right in line with a lot

01:20:24 ◼   ► of market leading Android phones, but noticeably bigger than the iPhones we have today.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it would put it solidly into the large screen phone category, and it would be able

01:20:37 ◼   ► to hold itself there for a long time. But it wouldn't put it into the "make fun of you

01:20:42 ◼   ► ridiculously big, tablet on your face" category.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Right, especially with the ground that's already been broken by Android phones.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:20:50 ◼   ► And I know other people when I've brought this up often say that if you go by the math that

01:20:55 ◼   ► Steve Jobs used when he introduced the original retina display about how far people hold their phones from their eyes and blah blah blah that

01:21:02 ◼   ► that it's they call the

01:21:05 ◼   ► iPad Air screen retina because you hold it further than you do a phone and a phone it wouldn't

01:21:11 ◼   ► 264 pixels per inch wouldn't count as retina

01:21:14 ◼   ► You know what if they call that one retina they would call this one retina, right?

01:21:18 ◼   ► That's why retina is such a beautiful marketing bullshit term it retina means whatever they want it to be right

01:21:24 ◼   ► I mean, you know nerds like us

01:21:26 ◼   ► Sometimes we'll try to overanalyze that and do that math, right? Well, you know who doesn't care at all about that math Apple, right?

01:21:32 ◼   ► They don't give a crap. They will call retina retina was you know, if it's if it's just under that threshold

01:21:38 ◼   ► But it's pretty close. They'll call it that you know, it doesn't it doesn't need to be exact if you're using at 2x

01:21:46 ◼   ► Right resources and

01:21:48 ◼   ► Point is equal to four actual pixels

01:21:51 ◼   ► That's retina

01:21:52 ◼   ► It has nothing to do with how far you hold your phone from your eyes and and whether you can

01:21:57 ◼   ► We're at what point you can discern that the pixels. Yeah, I would say that the pixel distance thing is really a guideline

01:22:05 ◼   ► Maybe you know, it's it's general category. It's not set in stone

01:22:11 ◼   ► So here's the one thing I I do think though that introducing a second iPhone size it it it raises the big question to me is

01:22:19 ◼   ► Let's say it's true that they're gonna release one this year

01:22:24 ◼   ► Which I think is a lot more likely than two because with two I do not understand how they say that

01:22:29 ◼   ► How they tell a story that this makes any sense, you know that there's two bigger iPhones

01:22:34 ◼   ► But if they release one and

01:22:39 ◼   ► It's let's just say roughly five inches diagonal give or take maybe a little more maybe a little less

01:22:43 ◼   ► Do they is that the one and only new iPhone top of the line and and the four inch is?

01:22:50 ◼   ► relegated to the second tier currently occupied by the 5c or

01:22:56 ◼   ► Do they do it like the iPad where there's two sizes both top of the line?

01:23:01 ◼   ► Like there would be a new like let's just call it the iPhone 6

01:23:08 ◼   ► For lack of a better word are there gonna be two like an iPhone 6

01:23:12 ◼   ► Air and iPhone 6 mini. I don't think those are the words they would use iPhone 6 plus-sized

01:23:18 ◼   ► But just to put it in the context of the iPad so that you're it's clear which one I'm talking about

01:23:23 ◼   ► They could I don't think that's

01:23:27 ◼   ► Ridiculous and honestly it's what I hope they would do because I think I would to answer your question from 10 minutes ago

01:23:34 ◼   ► I think I would still prefer the smaller one

01:23:37 ◼   ► Especially if it's the same pixels display if it's the same pixel count. I'm almost certain

01:23:42 ◼   ► I want the smaller physical device if they make a new one with you know a lot more pixels I

01:23:48 ◼   ► might have to see I

01:23:51 ◼   ► Might I might have to withhold judgment until I see but I can I can better imagine an 11 36 by 6 45 inch iPhone

01:23:58 ◼   ► And I would just rather have a small one

01:24:00 ◼   ► But I if they only come out with one with new specs and a new camera and a new a8 CPU and it's five inches. I

01:24:08 ◼   ► Think I'm gonna be unhappy

01:24:11 ◼   ► Right. So here's something big to consider

01:24:13 ◼   ► With the iPhone as it's gone so far and with with all Apple product lines, really

01:24:19 ◼   ► They very rarely

01:24:23 ◼   ► Give themselves or given permission by the market to to make things bigger or heavier

01:24:29 ◼   ► So, you know, the iPad 3 was an exception and they kind of got panned for it.

01:24:36 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro got heavier at one point by like a tenth of a pound, but for the most

01:24:40 ◼   ► part things get smaller and thinner and lighter.

01:24:44 ◼   ► And so the iPhone 4 inch line doesn't really have permission to ever get thicker.

01:24:54 ◼   ► But if they had the separate size that they're starting fresh, what if they launch a bigger

01:25:01 ◼   ► iPhone that not only has a bigger screen, but is like 20% or 15% thicker, and that allows

01:25:11 ◼   ► them to put in a substantially nicer camera and a substantially longer life battery?

01:25:18 ◼   ► Well, see now that's more tempting. But it also, I don't know, it also sounds more like

01:25:27 ◼   ► that wanting them to build for us and not for the mass market.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Okay, sure. Look at the mass market and how many of those people have this as their primary

01:25:39 ◼   ► camera and care about the quality of that camera? And how many of those people have

01:25:42 ◼   ► these giant battery cases on their phones?

01:25:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:25:46 ◼   ► phones big and ugly anyway. You know, and Apple would be able to make it better

01:25:49 ◼   ► because they'd have less, you know, casing to add around it. Actually, I don't think most

01:25:53 ◼   ► people you see with cases have battery case. I think battery cases are still

01:25:56 ◼   ► fairly rare, but regular... No, you're right. Regular big ugly make the thing a lot thicker

01:26:01 ◼   ► and ungainly than it really is naked cases. I mean, clearly, you know, most

01:26:07 ◼   ► iPhones are in a case. Seems to me. I think, I think if Apple created a second

01:26:14 ◼   ► phone size and they gave themselves permission to make that phone size thicker, then they

01:26:20 ◼   ► could make a really, really nice phone. And it wouldn't, you know, and they could still

01:26:25 ◼   ► have the thin one. Maybe they would even rename the 4-inch one the iPhone Air. Who cares?

01:26:30 ◼   ► Doesn't matter. Maybe they would, whatever it is, they could advertise that as being

01:26:35 ◼   ► still the super thin one. They might even be able to make it even thinner because it

01:26:38 ◼   ► wouldn't have to necessarily have the highest end camera module in it anymore. And even

01:26:44 ◼   ► Even if they keep the processor the same.

01:26:48 ◼   ► If there's an iPhone 6 4-inch and an iPhone 6 almost 5-inch and they both have the same

01:26:54 ◼   ► CPU, same RAM, same GPU, even with the same screen pixels, but the bigger one has a bigger

01:26:59 ◼   ► battery and a nicer camera.

01:27:01 ◼   ► That's a really compelling phone.

01:27:03 ◼   ► And that's two really compelling phones.

01:27:05 ◼   ► They have the small one for people who want the small size, who've always had the small

01:27:08 ◼   ► size and don't want to go bigger, and they have the big one to address all those new

01:27:13 ◼   ► new people, plus take some of those old people up.

01:27:16 ◼   ► All right, hold that thought, because that's a good place

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01:28:40 ◼   ► All right, you were saying, what if they gave themselves permission to put a bigger battery

01:28:47 ◼   ► in thicker and they could put a better camera in there.

01:28:50 ◼   ► That's interesting, but it's very...

01:28:52 ◼   ► It wouldn't have to be like super thick.

01:28:54 ◼   ► Right, but it is...

01:28:55 ◼   ► Just having like 10 or 15% more thickness would go a long way for those two things.

01:28:59 ◼   ► It's very different though than what they've done with the iPad.

01:29:02 ◼   ► But maybe phones are different than, so different than iPads that it's not, you know, it would

01:29:07 ◼   ► be the opposite thing.

01:29:08 ◼   ► Right?

01:29:09 ◼   ► The thing with the choice between the two iPads is you really only have to choose between

01:29:13 ◼   ► size.

01:29:14 ◼   ► Do you want a smaller device or do you want a bigger screen?

01:29:19 ◼   ► I think that's more – in my gut, that tells me what they would do with the iPhone.

01:29:23 ◼   ► But your idea is definitely tempting and it would – your idea makes it a tough decision

01:29:27 ◼   ► for me, whereas my idea makes it an easy decision.

01:29:30 ◼   ► I'd still want the smaller one.

01:29:32 ◼   ► But see, I think if they made a larger one, they would want it to be the higher-end one,

01:29:38 ◼   ► we charge 100 bucks more either way like they would want it to be the better model so Greg

01:29:45 ◼   ► now tweeted this week that a standard business card is almost exactly the same size as an

01:29:56 ◼   ► iPhone five 5s display and I never noticed that before credit cards are roughly the same

01:30:02 ◼   ► size too. Well, I took a business card off my desk and covered the screen to try it.

01:30:09 ◼   ► And it's true. It's almost, it's way closer than a credit card, a business card. So take

01:30:14 ◼   ► a business card. All that really matters on the iPhone is the screen, really. I mean,

01:30:19 ◼   ► and iOS sort of depends on a, well, really, as it stands today, it depends on the home

01:30:24 ◼   ► sensor and it has the fingerprint thing, which is a big deal now. But if you hold a business

01:30:31 ◼   ► But if you hold a business card in your hand

01:30:33 ◼   ► and pretend it's a phone,

01:30:35 ◼   ► it's phenomenally smaller than an iPhone 5S,

01:30:40 ◼   ► just as a thing.

01:30:42 ◼   ► And so in theory, just to show the same amount

01:30:46 ◼   ► of information at the same physical size,

01:30:49 ◼   ► the minimum, you know, you could make some kind

01:30:52 ◼   ► of futuristic sci-fi movie gadget that's an iPhone

01:30:56 ◼   ► that's the size of a business card.

01:30:58 ◼   ► You'd have to do something different.

01:31:00 ◼   ► You'd have to replace with the home, you know, the home button somehow put it on the back,

01:31:04 ◼   ► put it on the side.

01:31:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Just but I'm just saying there's room for the iPhone to get a lot smaller without shrinking

01:31:13 ◼   ► the display size, which is what that tweet put in my head that if you know like what

01:31:19 ◼   ► I call the chin in the forehead on the iPhone could have significant room to shrink.

01:31:26 ◼   ► And if they kept a sort of iPad style, you know that the you know, the way that the two

01:31:33 ◼   ► iPads today look like big brother, little brother of the exact same design.

01:31:39 ◼   ► If they did this and had significantly smaller chin and forehead on the phone, the big iPhone

01:31:49 ◼   ► may not be all that big.

01:31:52 ◼   ► what we're thinking today based on the chin and forehead size of all the iPhones to date,

01:31:57 ◼   ► but the display would be bigger. And the four-inch display one, if they still make them, could be

01:32:04 ◼   ► smaller, not just thinner, but it could shrink the other way and sort of come down in size to like

01:32:10 ◼   ► what a lot of cell phones used to be before the smartphone era. Well, actually, it's already

01:32:17 ◼   ► pretty close, honestly. It's already pretty close to that threshold. Even like the iPhone 5s,

01:32:21 ◼   ► looking at it on my desk, like if you compare this

01:32:24 ◼   ► to a Motorola Razr, even that one that came after

01:32:29 ◼   ► the Razr that was a little bit thinner too,

01:32:31 ◼   ► it's actually not that much larger.

01:32:33 ◼   ► I think it's even thinner.

01:32:35 ◼   ► But I think hardware design-wise, there's certainly

01:32:39 ◼   ► a lot of luxuries to the design they have now,

01:32:41 ◼   ► where they have, by having that nice chin

01:32:45 ◼   ► and forehead area, they have room to put components

01:32:48 ◼   ► that need as much thickness as possible,

01:32:51 ◼   ► Including things like the camera probably the proper probably the biggest and least flexible one

01:32:54 ◼   ► But you know also the home button has its own nice little space there the connectors the speakers the earpieces like all these things

01:33:00 ◼   ► they have

01:33:02 ◼   ► But most of the camera things that like that you you pretty much can't make thinner without making them a lot worse

01:33:08 ◼   ► So it seems weird to me that so many nobody else are in my shouldn't say nobody

01:33:14 ◼   ► I'm sure there's some i Android phone that does it but it seems like most Android phones put the camera on the back

01:33:20 ◼   ► about where the Apple logo is on iPhones?

01:33:24 ◼   ► I don't think that's true, is it? I mean, like, I don't know, usually it's, like, centered in,

01:33:29 ◼   ► like, a big blob, but I think usually it's on the top, right?

01:33:31 ◼   ► I think if you take a look around at where they are, a lot of them, it's, it's in front,

01:33:37 ◼   ► it's low enough that it's on the other side of the display, whereas the iPhone's camera is

01:33:44 ◼   ► is clearly not backed by the display, right?

01:33:49 ◼   ► Which I think has, you know,

01:33:51 ◼   ► it lets the sensor go as far back as the glass.

01:33:54 ◼   ► - Right, which, you know, and so it needs that, you know,

01:33:59 ◼   ► to make the best camera sensor possible,

01:34:00 ◼   ► you need as much depth as you're willing to allow,

01:34:02 ◼   ► and that's how you get it.

01:34:05 ◼   ► And so, it's a good point, you know,

01:34:08 ◼   ► they might go make it smaller like that,

01:34:11 ◼   ► But one of the big questions would be

01:34:14 ◼   ► what happens to the home button?

01:34:16 ◼   ► That, 'cause like right now the home button,

01:34:19 ◼   ► the home button is crammed in there and the whole,

01:34:24 ◼   ► I don't see them making one that's asymmetrical,

01:34:26 ◼   ► that has like a smaller chin than forehead or vice versa.

01:34:29 ◼   ► So I think they're, appearance wise,

01:34:31 ◼   ► they're gonna keep that symmetry going in all likelihood.

01:34:35 ◼   ► But if you make them any shorter,

01:34:36 ◼   ► then the home button becomes a problem.

01:34:38 ◼   ► 'Cause then you have to make it smaller.

01:34:40 ◼   ► or move it somewhere else.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Like, you know, there have been all these rumors

01:34:44 ◼   ► that maybe it would be on the back with the touch sensor

01:34:46 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:34:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, which sounds--

01:34:48 ◼   ► - That all kind of sucks, I think.

01:34:49 ◼   ► It doesn't sound good.

01:34:51 ◼   ► So I'm guessing that's unlikely.

01:34:53 ◼   ► So I think the way they have it now,

01:34:56 ◼   ► with these proportions, gives them the luxury

01:34:59 ◼   ► to cram in a whole bunch of big stuff

01:35:01 ◼   ► in a place that is not dominated by the screen

01:35:04 ◼   ► or that needs access, you know,

01:35:06 ◼   ► either touch access like the home button

01:35:08 ◼   ► or that needs viewing access like the front camera,

01:35:10 ◼   ► Like, you know, you can make a camera that looks through a screen, but it kind of sucks

01:35:14 ◼   ► and is kind of not mature enough to really do well yet.

01:35:18 ◼   ► So, you know, it's not good.

01:35:21 ◼   ► So I think we're going to have this basic design for a while.

01:35:26 ◼   ► So I've Googled some images.

01:35:28 ◼   ► So, like, take a Samsung Galaxy S4.

01:35:30 ◼   ► The camera is not as low as I was saying.

01:35:32 ◼   ► It's not quite as low as the Apple logo.

01:35:33 ◼   ► They have a Samsung logo there.

01:35:35 ◼   ► But it's lower.

01:35:36 ◼   ► It's not up in the top.

01:35:38 ◼   ► It's clearly, I think if you flipped it around the other side, it's still backed by the display.

01:35:45 ◼   ► But they also, the whole thing is in like nipple.

01:35:47 ◼   ► It's raised to make it further away.

01:35:51 ◼   ► I don't really see Apple doing that either, unless they switch to an all plastic back

01:35:55 ◼   ► even then, it doesn't seem like Apple style.

01:35:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't...

01:35:59 ◼   ► To have like the raised bum area.

01:36:02 ◼   ► I don't see that happening.

01:36:03 ◼   ► No, I think that they...

01:36:04 ◼   ► I think it's so gross a design that they, you know,

01:36:08 ◼   ► I don't even think it's really consistent.

01:36:11 ◼   ► - I think they would make the whole phone thicker

01:36:13 ◼   ► before doing that.

01:36:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:36:15 ◼   ► And I think that when the problem they pose

01:36:19 ◼   ► to their camera team starts with,

01:36:22 ◼   ► we're gonna make a device this thick

01:36:24 ◼   ► and you can't make the lens stick out at all.

01:36:28 ◼   ► Go.

01:36:30 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Right?

01:36:31 ◼   ► I really do think that's where it starts

01:36:33 ◼   ► when they pose the problem to the camera team on the iPhone.

01:36:36 ◼   ► Here's how thick it's gonna be, or how thin it has to be.

01:36:39 ◼   ► You don't get to raise that lens at all.

01:36:42 ◼   ► You can't even just have the glass stick up.

01:36:44 ◼   ► I just brought up the smaller thing just because to me,

01:36:51 ◼   ► not because it makes all that much sense.

01:36:54 ◼   ► And again, like you pointed out,

01:36:56 ◼   ► you gotta do something with the home button.

01:36:58 ◼   ► And there's a lot of, my loose idea here

01:37:00 ◼   ► is a lot of yada, yada, yada.

01:37:02 ◼   ► somehow you find an alternative to the home button.

01:37:05 ◼   ► All I bring it up is that with everybody saying

01:37:10 ◼   ► Apple has to do a bigger iPhone,

01:37:11 ◼   ► has to do a bigger iPhone, they're going out of business

01:37:13 ◼   ► if they don't do a bigger iPhone,

01:37:14 ◼   ► then now there's rumors of a bigger iPhone.

01:37:16 ◼   ► Apple doing a smaller iPhone now,

01:37:19 ◼   ► to me it seems like an Apple-y thing to do.

01:37:22 ◼   ► But maybe alongside a bigger one.

01:37:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I don't,

01:37:30 ◼   ► Is there really a lot of demand, and you know, not that this has stopped them before, not

01:37:35 ◼   ► that this demand wouldn't be created, but is there really a lot of demand for the iPhone

01:37:39 ◼   ► to get substantially smaller than what it is right now?

01:37:42 ◼   ► See, no, but that's not, that doesn't mean people wouldn't want it if they saw it, right?

01:37:48 ◼   ► It's because the, it's the sort of thing that the tech press wouldn't be calling for, and

01:37:54 ◼   ► the people who would, if it were, if it existed, who would get in line to buy it, didn't think

01:38:00 ◼   ► to ask for it.

01:38:01 ◼   ► Right.

01:38:02 ◼   ► But, you know, and people have said this before, so this is not a new insight, but, as if anything

01:38:09 ◼   ► ever really is, but, you know, when phones were being pushed to be small and to be as

01:38:15 ◼   ► small as possible, it was because they didn't do that much.

01:38:18 ◼   ► All they had to do really was have a dial pad, maybe have some texting ability, and

01:38:22 ◼   ► that was about it.

01:38:24 ◼   ► Now though, phones are pocket computers, even for normal people who are not total nerds

01:38:29 ◼   ► like us, and so normal computers,

01:38:32 ◼   ► people like having a nice sized screen.

01:38:34 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be huge, but people like having

01:38:37 ◼   ► a nice sized screen, and it really does affect

01:38:40 ◼   ► how good the phone is in usage, if you have

01:38:43 ◼   ► a nice big screen, or at least a nice medium sized screen,

01:38:47 ◼   ► to be able to view photos bigger,

01:38:48 ◼   ► view, you know, read things with bigger text,

01:38:51 ◼   ► watch movies bigger, like all these things

01:38:53 ◼   ► that have now become very common things

01:38:55 ◼   ► people do with their phones.

01:38:57 ◼   ► I don't think there's as much of a push

01:39:00 ◼   ► to get them smaller.

01:39:01 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know though.

01:39:02 ◼   ► - Because now people do so many things

01:39:04 ◼   ► that really benefit from a big screen.

01:39:07 ◼   ► - Right, and a good way to put that too

01:39:08 ◼   ► is to go right back to that business card analogy.

01:39:11 ◼   ► And as anybody's ever done print design,

01:39:14 ◼   ► if you've ever designed business cards,

01:39:15 ◼   ► it's a fun little challenge because it's a small canvas.

01:39:20 ◼   ► There's not too much information you need to get on,

01:39:23 ◼   ► but it's very limiting because it's so physically small.

01:39:25 ◼   ► you can't put too much on. And if you think about it,

01:39:29 ◼   ► like you would never buy a book

01:39:34 ◼   ► printed on business cards or business card size paper,

01:39:40 ◼   ► but yet we read books on our iPhones, right? I mean,

01:39:43 ◼   ► magazines, you know,

01:39:46 ◼   ► whatever you want to call stuff like during fireball and Marco.org. I mean,

01:39:50 ◼   ► there's no print analogy to it, but you're reading articles.

01:39:53 ◼   ► Nobody read articles before smartphones

01:39:55 ◼   ► on business card size publications.

01:39:58 ◼   ► It's a ridiculously small form factor for reading

01:40:03 ◼   ► by the standards of print.

01:40:06 ◼   ► - Like I ran my numbers the other day.

01:40:10 ◼   ► 31% of my paid views come from smartphones now.

01:40:14 ◼   ► Not even including tablets.

01:40:17 ◼   ► Tablets are another 17%.

01:40:20 ◼   ► 31% are on smartphones.

01:40:23 ◼   ► That's crazy.

01:40:24 ◼   ► This is how, like people are shifting

01:40:26 ◼   ► their entire computing lives onto smartphones.

01:40:30 ◼   ► - So, you know, that's why I speculate

01:40:32 ◼   ► that if they ever do a smaller iPhone,

01:40:34 ◼   ► and that's smaller in any way other than thinner,

01:40:37 ◼   ► it would not involve a smaller display.

01:40:39 ◼   ► Like I don't think we'll ever see an iPhone

01:40:41 ◼   ► with a smaller than four inch 16 by nine display.

01:40:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:40:45 ◼   ► - I think it would only be about shrinking it in other ways.

01:40:50 ◼   ► There's not too much room left on the sides.

01:40:53 ◼   ► Chin and forehead in theory could shrink.

01:40:55 ◼   ► But maybe thinner is-- - And you can see

01:40:57 ◼   ► like with the iPod Touch, they can make it thinner

01:41:00 ◼   ► and have this size screen.

01:41:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:41:02 ◼   ► - But you give up a lot of battery for that,

01:41:04 ◼   ► you give up some of the things inside,

01:41:06 ◼   ► you give up a lot of the camera quality.

01:41:08 ◼   ► So you can make it thinner,

01:41:11 ◼   ► but you might not want the resulting device

01:41:13 ◼   ► depending on what you value in the iPhone.

01:41:16 ◼   ► But one big thing to consider for the large phone though

01:41:20 ◼   ► and why this might sell so well

01:41:23 ◼   ► and why it might be so important

01:41:23 ◼   ► and why I would almost certainly buy one

01:41:26 ◼   ► is because so many people

01:41:30 ◼   ► and this is especially true in Asia,

01:41:33 ◼   ► don't usually buy separate tablets and phones.

01:41:36 ◼   ► You can almost guarantee that almost anybody

01:41:40 ◼   ► who has a modern computer and needed enough money

01:41:43 ◼   ► to buy a smartphone,

01:41:44 ◼   ► they'll almost certainly buy a smartphone

01:41:46 ◼   ► of some sort these days.

01:41:48 ◼   ► It's very rare that people who can

01:41:51 ◼   ► and want to have a smartphone don't.

01:41:53 ◼   ► But a tablet is still very much optional

01:41:58 ◼   ► for a lot of people.

01:42:00 ◼   ► I might even go as far as to say most people.

01:42:02 ◼   ► A tablet is still considered an optional luxury.

01:42:06 ◼   ► And so, so many people choose to just have a smartphone

01:42:10 ◼   ► and not get a tablet.

01:42:11 ◼   ► And I'm kind of leaning that way,

01:42:16 ◼   ► not that I wouldn't have an iPad

01:42:18 ◼   ► I developed for this platform and I'm into it enough to get one, but every iPad I get

01:42:26 ◼   ► I find myself using it less and less.

01:42:29 ◼   ► And I talked to you actually months ago with the Retina Mini coming out saying maybe that'll

01:42:34 ◼   ► change it because the Retina Mini kind of unruined the iPad for me that the first Mini

01:42:40 ◼   ► had ruined.

01:42:42 ◼   ► In practice it hasn't really come to pass.

01:42:44 ◼   ► I still use it pretty lightly.

01:42:47 ◼   ► I use it more, but it's still pretty light.

01:42:49 ◼   ► I would much rather just have a bigger phone.

01:42:53 ◼   ► And that sound, based on sales, especially in Asia,

01:42:58 ◼   ► of these big phones, it seems like that's a pretty common

01:43:02 ◼   ► position to take.

01:43:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll bet.

01:43:05 ◼   ► And I'll bet that if, it sounds right to me,

01:43:08 ◼   ► and it jibes with some of the anecdotal stuff

01:43:12 ◼   ► I've heard from people on Twitter and email readers.

01:43:15 ◼   ► send me that it's

01:43:19 ◼   ► It's a stupid word anything killer is usually not an actual killer of the thing but in some sense

01:43:26 ◼   ► It's a it's an iPad mini killer. Not that it might even

01:43:30 ◼   ► Hurt iPad mini sales, but that for some number of people

01:43:34 ◼   ► they'd be happier with just a bigger iPhone and

01:43:38 ◼   ► No iPad

01:43:40 ◼   ► Than a smaller iPhone and an iPad mini or an iPad air

01:43:44 ◼   ► I would even say like if a big enough iPhone comes out and is good enough for me to get,

01:43:53 ◼   ► then I might even switch back to the bigger iPad. Like I might go back to the iPad Air size

01:44:00 ◼   ► and then only upgrade it like every three years maybe or every two years rather than getting the

01:44:06 ◼   ► new one every year. Just because I would use it so much more lightly and I would be more likely to

01:44:10 ◼   ► to just leave that one at home,

01:44:12 ◼   ► like next to the bed or something.

01:44:13 ◼   ► Use it in bed before going to sleep at night

01:44:15 ◼   ► to read some stuff or browse some magazines

01:44:17 ◼   ► or New York Times or something.

01:44:19 ◼   ► I could see myself doing that

01:44:20 ◼   ► rather than having this mini that

01:44:24 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna carry around,

01:44:25 ◼   ► but in reality I usually don't

01:44:26 ◼   ► 'cause it doesn't fit in my pocket

01:44:28 ◼   ► and it's this kind of weird middle portability class.

01:44:33 ◼   ► Whereas the smartphone is my primary portable.

01:44:38 ◼   ► I always have it in my pocket.

01:44:40 ◼   ► And there's a reason why these big screen phones sell,

01:44:44 ◼   ► right, the idea of making your primary pocket computer

01:44:48 ◼   ► a little bit bigger and a little bit better

01:44:50 ◼   ► is really attractive.

01:44:51 ◼   ► And I would almost certainly get any big phone they make.

01:44:55 ◼   ► - Right, and I think it's basically about making a display

01:44:58 ◼   ► that's more suitable to long form using.

01:45:02 ◼   ► Whether you're reading something long

01:45:04 ◼   ► or watching a movie or a TV show

01:45:06 ◼   ► or some kind of long video or something.

01:45:08 ◼   ► but more about long form usage than glance usage, right?

01:45:13 ◼   ► Like if you're just turning on your phone

01:45:15 ◼   ► and turning this plan to check the weather,

01:45:18 ◼   ► doesn't really matter what size the display is, really.

01:45:21 ◼   ► Oh, and one thing I wanna say,

01:45:23 ◼   ► this is one of those things I have a note

01:45:25 ◼   ► that I wrote to myself like half an hour ago.

01:45:27 ◼   ► You had mentioned reading the cues from Apple

01:45:31 ◼   ► and that in hindsight, they often make a lot of sense.

01:45:33 ◼   ► Another change in iOS 7,

01:45:36 ◼   ► which I think clearly could be a hint

01:45:37 ◼   ► that they're going for a bigger display is

01:45:40 ◼   ► the standard system wide thumb in

01:45:46 ◼   ► from the left side to go back.

01:45:47 ◼   ► - Right, so you don't have to reach for the back button.

01:45:51 ◼   ► - Because the back button is up at the top left,

01:45:55 ◼   ► and if you're right handed holding the phone

01:45:56 ◼   ► in your right hand, I mean, even with the iPhone 5 and 5S,

01:46:01 ◼   ► which went from three and a half to four inches,

01:46:03 ◼   ► that button got harder to hit.

01:46:05 ◼   ► I think noticeably so.

01:46:07 ◼   ► and

01:46:09 ◼   ► We're you know what if we're talking about a 4.8 inch at the smallest as a bigger iPhone

01:46:15 ◼   ► It it effectively becomes not unreachable because you can contort to do it, but it you know practically speaking

01:46:23 ◼   ► It's not that good

01:46:24 ◼   ► And I think that that back button is one of the single biggest things that makes a bigger iPhone less usable

01:46:31 ◼   ► One-handed whereas just thumbing over from the left

01:46:35 ◼   ► Is a lot more convenient. Oh

01:46:37 ◼   ► Sure, you could do it or I should say you could do it no matter how you have your phone gripped in your right hand

01:46:42 ◼   ► So that's another one of those

01:46:46 ◼   ► That's another one of those things where I feel like if they do come out with a bigger iPhone this year

01:46:50 ◼   ► And it's hard to get the back button. Everybody will say well, that's why a year ago. They shipped iOS 7 with this system-wide

01:46:56 ◼   ► Thumb in from the left to go back

01:46:59 ◼   ► Yeah, a variable could be I mean that's just a good idea in general. So we could have just been that right?

01:47:04 ◼   ► - Right.

01:47:05 ◼   ► - That's the thing, I mean, they have hints

01:47:08 ◼   ► going all different, most of the hints indicate

01:47:11 ◼   ► that they at least are adding flexibility.

01:47:13 ◼   ► You know, like they're adding the ability

01:47:15 ◼   ► to swipe it this way or hit a back button.

01:47:17 ◼   ► They've added auto layout, so it could be this size

01:47:20 ◼   ► or it could be a different size and it's easier to adapt.

01:47:22 ◼   ► They've added automatic text resizing system-wise

01:47:24 ◼   ► so that you could scale it to a different size

01:47:27 ◼   ► if you wanted to based on a physical size

01:47:28 ◼   ► or your own preference or whatever else.

01:47:29 ◼   ► So like they've added all of these different doors

01:47:33 ◼   ► that they could walk through to, you know,

01:47:34 ◼   ► it's like Lost season three

01:47:36 ◼   ► when they had like 15 new characters.

01:47:38 ◼   ► It's used to open up all these different doors

01:47:40 ◼   ► they could use maybe in the future.

01:47:42 ◼   ► So this is like, this is Apple saying, you know,

01:47:44 ◼   ► we could do any of these things.

01:47:47 ◼   ► And we as the customers are not gonna know

01:47:49 ◼   ► why they did any of these things

01:47:51 ◼   ► until we see some of the hardware come out.

01:47:52 ◼   ► And even then it might be vague as to, you know,

01:47:54 ◼   ► oh, well, was this because of this

01:47:55 ◼   ► or was it just 'cause it was a good idea?

01:47:57 ◼   ► - All right, so let's make some predictions.

01:47:58 ◼   ► Do you think Apple is gonna come out

01:48:00 ◼   ► with at least one bigger screen iPhone this year?

01:48:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure.

01:48:05 ◼   ► I think they're gonna do it certainly sometime soon.

01:48:08 ◼   ► This year is as good as any.

01:48:09 ◼   ► I would have guessed last year.

01:48:11 ◼   ► I did guess last year and I was wrong.

01:48:12 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:48:14 ◼   ► Sure, why not this year?

01:48:15 ◼   ► - And do you think they'll do two?

01:48:17 ◼   ► - I don't see that happening.

01:48:20 ◼   ► - Doesn't make any sense to me.

01:48:22 ◼   ► - At least not in the same year.

01:48:23 ◼   ► Maybe they'll add another one sometime later, but--

01:48:25 ◼   ► - I think the only-- - I don't, I don't know.

01:48:27 ◼   ► I think the only if is the question I posed earlier is,

01:48:32 ◼   ► if they come out with a new bigger screen iPhone,

01:48:35 ◼   ► do they still keep the four inch size as a secondary,

01:48:40 ◼   ► or not even secondary, I don't wanna say that,

01:48:42 ◼   ► but as a second top tier spec choice?

01:48:47 ◼   ► - Right, like is there a new four inch phone also?

01:48:49 ◼   ► That's good.

01:48:50 ◼   ► - Because I think that alone is a tough marketing problem.

01:48:53 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:48:55 ◼   ► it's somehow I guess what I think is and

01:48:58 ◼   ► Maybe I'm biased and wrong that I just think I like the smaller size and that I'd be bothered by the bigger

01:49:06 ◼   ► Physical gadget of a five-inch iPhone, but I do I do believe that I do believe that all things considered

01:49:12 ◼   ► I'd rather keep the phone the size that it is now

01:49:14 ◼   ► For pocketability and the way it feels in my hand

01:49:17 ◼   ► But I worry that from a marketing perspective that if Apple believes that too

01:49:24 ◼   ► That most iPhone users are better served with the device as it stands today size wise

01:49:30 ◼   ► But that it might run into the the buying a TV and a big-box store problem

01:49:36 ◼   ► Where I mean I've discussed this before I know Syracuse has but where that you know

01:49:41 ◼   ► You go into Best Buy and the TVs all have the brightness and saturation

01:49:44 ◼   ► Turned way up to absurd levels because when you're looking at them side by side in the in a fluorescent lit

01:49:52 ◼   ► big-box store, the one that jumps out to you is the one that has the most saturated, brightest

01:49:58 ◼   ► colors. Even though that's not actually the truest display, and it, you know, like wrecks skin tones,

01:50:05 ◼   ► and you wouldn't, even if you buy that model TV set, you wouldn't want to configure it the way

01:50:09 ◼   ► they have in the store. But it just means that you're not, you're not making an informed decision,

01:50:13 ◼   ► you're making a decision based on the context of the store. And that, likewise with, let's say,

01:50:20 ◼   ► a brand to iPhone sixes one that's four into one that's five inch people go in the store and

01:50:26 ◼   ► They see the bigger one and they think bigger is better and they buy the bigger one

01:50:31 ◼   ► but it's actually a mistake because they actually would have been happier with the one that was smaller and fit in a jeans pocket better and

01:50:38 ◼   ► fit in one hand better and

01:50:40 ◼   ► That Apple that's the sort of problem that Apple

01:50:44 ◼   ► Has solved for us over the years

01:50:48 ◼   ► By well they go through it in the lab and figure out this is better, and we're not gonna let you make the

01:50:53 ◼   ► Mistake we're gonna do what's best for most users even though they're admitting that there's always some users who really would be happier with the big one

01:51:02 ◼   ► You know looking looking at see I have I have a very nice scientific

01:51:09 ◼   ► Example here because I'm such a nerd

01:51:13 ◼   ► That I have the iPhone rectangle clearly outlined on my jeans pocket

01:51:18 ◼   ► And so I can look down and I can see exactly how big the iPhone is when it's in my pocket

01:51:23 ◼   ► and how much bigger the pocket is than the phone. And there's a lot of leeway there.

01:51:29 ◼   ► Like if they add a half inch to each dimension of the phone to accommodate that big screen

01:51:36 ◼   ► or whatever it would be, you know, you're not talking about adding like four inches,

01:51:39 ◼   ► you're talking about adding like less than an inch to each dimension. I think that still

01:51:44 ◼   ► fits just fine. I think we're talking about, we're making a big deal out of this and it

01:51:49 ◼   ► would make the screen a lot bigger, but we're still talking about a device that's still

01:51:54 ◼   ► smaller than most pockets. I think there's a lot of leeway there.

01:51:59 ◼   ► Well, do you think that they would still keep the smaller one around as a new device? Or

01:52:06 ◼   ► you think the only top of the line would be the new big one?

01:52:11 ◼   ► I would not make a prediction on that either way. I'd give it like a 50/50 chance, you

01:52:15 ◼   ► know, like, I could see them going either way.

01:52:17 ◼   ► Think about how hard they admitted today with the quarterly results that they forecast the

01:52:21 ◼   ► 5C versus 5S demand, which was a lot easier to predict in my opinion than this, if they

01:52:28 ◼   ► were both the same specs.

01:52:32 ◼   ► I think it really depends on what the differences would be, you know, like if, if the only,

01:52:38 ◼   ► If they pull an iPad and the only difference is the size, I'd say there's a lot less reason

01:52:45 ◼   ► for them to keep both.

01:52:47 ◼   ► But if they segment it in different ways, if they give the bigger one a bigger battery,

01:52:52 ◼   ► a better camera, if they make it better in easily marketable ways, I can see them charging

01:53:00 ◼   ► $100 more for it.

01:53:02 ◼   ► And that becomes a new high-end model, a new way to get a little bit better margins out

01:53:05 ◼   ► that are their most profitable line.

01:53:08 ◼   ► As they have to shift lower end

01:53:10 ◼   ► and some of their other lines,

01:53:11 ◼   ► here's where to keep the margins up.

01:53:13 ◼   ► So I can see them keeping this high end.

01:53:15 ◼   ► - We don't wanna call it,

01:53:16 ◼   ► they wouldn't call it the iPhone Pro,

01:53:18 ◼   ► but it's sort of what you're talking about though.

01:53:20 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean, they wouldn't call it that, but--

01:53:22 ◼   ► - But it is, it would be like the Mac Pro,

01:53:24 ◼   ► but I mean, maybe less extreme,

01:53:26 ◼   ► the new Mac Pro is almost extreme, but it's sort of--

01:53:29 ◼   ► - Almost.

01:53:29 ◼   ► - But it's in that direction though, right?

01:53:34 ◼   ► the stuff you're talking about, like bigger battery and even better camera.

01:53:39 ◼   ► Right. You know, like, you know, almost, almost what they did this year, this year with the

01:53:43 ◼   ► 5 and 5C, the 5S and 5C, but shifting it up instead of shifting it down.

01:53:49 ◼   ► Right.

01:53:50 ◼   ► You know, and I bet, as we see, as we saw how much better the 5S is selling than the

01:53:55 ◼   ► 5C, even against Apple's own predictions, I think a lot of people want these upgrades.

01:54:00 ◼   ► And I bet, you know, certainly the price would turn off some people, but if they charge a

01:54:03 ◼   ► hundred bucks more for this? I bet they'd sell a ton of them. I do think it makes

01:54:09 ◼   ► sense for certain gaps to exist in display size continuum. So for example,

01:54:14 ◼   ► with Max, there's 11 inch, 13 inch, 15 inch. There used to be a 17 inch and that

01:54:20 ◼   ► made some some sense, but you can also kind of see why they put it to

01:54:26 ◼   ► pasture. But then there's nothing until you get to 24 inch with the smaller iMac.

01:54:32 ◼   ► And it kind of makes sense that there's nothing in between

01:54:36 ◼   ► Right other than the possible room for a 17 inch, but you definitely I mean the 17 inch MacBook was so big

01:54:43 ◼   ► Clearly you'd never want a MacBook for mass production. That was bigger than that. There's a 19 inch MacBook Pro makes no sense and

01:54:51 ◼   ► Given the affordability of a 24 inch iMac

01:54:56 ◼   ► It doesn't really make sense for Apple to still make 21 inch iMacs or going even smaller like a 17 inch iMac

01:55:03 ◼   ► That gap makes sense that there's no reason for a Mac to have a display in between

01:55:09 ◼   ► When you look at the current iPhone compared to the iPad mini, which is the next step up. It does seem like there's

01:55:17 ◼   ► There's a market for at least one device in between. Oh

01:55:23 ◼   ► Yeah, especially, you know when you start considering how many people are only gonna pick the small one

01:55:28 ◼   ► like they're not gonna so many people are not gonna ever have an iPad, but they might have an iPhone and

01:55:34 ◼   ► There's so many times where you don't have that iPad with you

01:55:38 ◼   ► but you have your phone something that still fits in a pants pocket and

01:55:43 ◼   ► Or fits in a very small handbag that a that a woman might carry

01:55:50 ◼   ► That the iPad mini still is way too big right if you want to put in your pants pocket

01:55:55 ◼   ► You know you've got to be wearing

01:55:57 ◼   ► You know

01:55:58 ◼   ► parachute pants to fit an iPad mini

01:56:00 ◼   ► Cargo pants, I guess like it'll it fits like in my my biggest winter jackets it fits in the coat pocket

01:56:07 ◼   ► You know, but that's it

01:56:09 ◼   ► That's the only like the largest pockets

01:56:11 ◼   ► I have like you could fit a two-liter bottle of soda in there if you wanted to and you can fit an iPad man

01:56:15 ◼   ► I'm sure you do every time you shoplift all the time

01:56:18 ◼   ► 'cause I drink a lot of soda, especially out of two liters.

01:56:21 ◼   ► And, but yeah, like that, I could fit it in that,

01:56:25 ◼   ► but nothing else I wear.

01:56:26 ◼   ► So like, most of the year,

01:56:28 ◼   ► I can't transparently carry an iPad.

01:56:31 ◼   ► - Right.

01:56:31 ◼   ► - You know, so I don't, so it sits at home

01:56:33 ◼   ► and I hardly ever use it.

01:56:35 ◼   ► And so I'm less happy with it than I would be.

01:56:37 ◼   ► An iPhone, I would use the crap out of a big screen iPhone,

01:56:41 ◼   ► 'cause I use the crap out of any iPhone I have.

01:56:43 ◼   ► - I'm talking myself into it.

01:56:44 ◼   ► I still think I'd prefer the smaller one,

01:56:46 ◼   ► but I'm slowly but surely talking myself

01:56:49 ◼   ► into the market sense of Apple doing it.

01:56:51 ◼   ► - And we'll see, if I'm right

01:56:54 ◼   ► and they make it a little bit thicker

01:56:55 ◼   ► and put a better camera in there,

01:56:56 ◼   ► you'll get that no question.

01:56:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:56:58 ◼   ► - All of us will.

01:56:59 ◼   ► - That would really help in my opinion,

01:57:01 ◼   ► 'cause those are things I really care about.

01:57:04 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause I still buy actual camera cameras.

01:57:07 ◼   ► So I mean, I'm definitely willing to sacrifice something

01:57:10 ◼   ► for superior camera.

01:57:12 ◼   ► All right, we have a little bit more to talk about

01:57:14 ◼   ► before we wrap up this short show.

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