ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► We're watching Severance, have you seen Severance?

00:00:02 ◼   ► - No, no, shh.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - I'm not gonna tell you anything about it

00:00:04 ◼   ► except that it's really good

00:00:06 ◼   ► and I strongly suggest that season one just ended.

00:00:09 ◼   ► It's been renewed for a second season.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Highly, it starts out weird

00:00:14 ◼   ► and you're gonna think, what am I watching?

00:00:16 ◼   ► It's very, very strange.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Where's the square footage going?

00:00:19 ◼   ► But trust me, it's worth watching this show.

00:00:22 ◼   ► It's very, very good.

00:00:23 ◼   ► I'm actually, we've recently just finished the dropout too,

00:00:26 ◼   ► the one about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos

00:00:28 ◼   ► and we're trying to watch the WeWork one,

00:00:31 ◼   ► but I don't know, are you able to watch shows

00:00:35 ◼   ► about Silicon Valley startups and enjoy them?

00:00:37 ◼   ► - I was gonna say you're making some interesting choices.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Of all the things you can pick, Severance,

00:00:41 ◼   ► good, thumbs up, nice selection.

00:00:43 ◼   ► WeWork and the Theranos one,

00:00:45 ◼   ► you gonna watch the Uber one next?

00:00:46 ◼   ► That would not be on my list.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - So the Theranos one I was happy to get through

00:00:51 ◼   ► because first of all it was very well done.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I made a safe read, it was amazing in it.

00:00:55 ◼   ► And I wasn't really following the story

00:00:58 ◼   ► when it was happening in real life.

00:00:59 ◼   ► So it was mostly new to me, or at least I knew

00:01:01 ◼   ► like the high level overview,

00:01:02 ◼   ► but didn't really know the details.

00:01:04 ◼   ► So that was nice, and it was just a very well done show.

00:01:07 ◼   ► But the parts that are more about glorifying

00:01:11 ◼   ► Silicon Valley culture, which so far that we work on

00:01:13 ◼   ► definitely is in that area, and partly,

00:01:15 ◼   ► I mean it's just a different company, different show,

00:01:17 ◼   ► but I find that kind of show hard to get through as a nerd.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Like my favorite show of this type is Silicon Valley,

00:01:24 ◼   ► because it just did not even try to take our world

00:01:27 ◼   ► seriously and I know so many people in our world did not think it was funny

00:01:31 ◼   ► that kind of hit too close to home to them and I'm I love that show so much

00:01:35 ◼   ► because the world of our startup culture and everything is ridiculous and it is

00:01:39 ◼   ► totally stupid and there's so much about it that is easily made fun of because

00:01:43 ◼   ► it's so ridiculous and stupid but I have a hard time watching shows that glorify

00:01:49 ◼   ► it non sarcastically like the we work with so far well the other shows are

00:01:53 ◼   ► based on real people and true stories I mean the Silicon Valley is just you know

00:01:57 ◼   ► it's a comedy, a satire, right? And so there's lots of fictionalized things that have obvious

00:02:01 ◼   ► analogs like what they're making fun of, but it's not trying to be a dramatized version of real

00:02:08 ◼   ► events at all. And I feel like that's really hard to do because we've got the whole plumber problem

00:02:12 ◼   ► is because we know a lot about the business and the companies that are involved, and sometimes

00:02:17 ◼   ► some of the people that are involved. So if you try to make a TV show out of that, the TV show

00:02:21 ◼   ► ends up, you know, trying to dumb things down, or there's a bunch of things that they gloss over

00:02:25 ◼   ► that we know the intricacies of and just takes you out of it. Whereas Silicon Valley, you

00:02:30 ◼   ► know, all it's trying to do is make you laugh. And I feel like knowledge of Silicon Valley

00:02:33 ◼   ► makes that show more funny, not less. There were a couple of examples that I can

00:02:37 ◼   ► think of, of movies that I've seen that are, you know, at least adjacent to our world that

00:02:43 ◼   ► I thought were enjoyable, maybe not good, but enjoyable. Um, the, what was the one,

00:02:48 ◼   ► the Pirates of Silicon Valley or something like that? That wasn't a fiction though. That

00:02:51 ◼   ► It was like a documentary thing.

00:02:54 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I'm thinking of the one with Noah Wylie.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, Noah Wylie, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - That one I enjoyed.

00:03:01 ◼   ► What was the one with Tim Robbins and Ryan Filipe,

00:03:04 ◼   ► Filipe, whatever his name is.

00:03:06 ◼   ► It was super campy and super silly.

00:03:09 ◼   ► He was like, Tim Robbins was playing

00:03:11 ◼   ► like a Gates sort of character.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - The Circle?

00:03:14 ◼   ► - No, no, shoot.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I don't have to look it up.

00:03:16 ◼   ► But there was one, it was years ago now, 'cause I'm old.

00:03:20 ◼   ► That one was enjoyable, if dumb.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Let's see, oh, I liked The Social Network a lot, actually.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I thought that, oh, Antitrust, thank you, bleh, 11.

00:03:30 ◼   ► - The Social Network, I mean,

00:03:32 ◼   ► The Social Network was a good movie,

00:03:34 ◼   ► but the more you know about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg,

00:03:37 ◼   ► the more there's sort of a dissonance

00:03:39 ◼   ► with the stuff that's on the screen.

00:03:41 ◼   ► - Well, sure, but--

00:03:42 ◼   ► - It's hard to make movies about real people,

00:03:44 ◼   ► especially when they're currently live.

00:03:47 ◼   ► "Tram for the Nerds" was a documentary.

00:03:48 ◼   ► - That's it, that's what I'm thinking of.

00:03:49 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Part of Silicon Valley was Noah Wylie,

00:03:53 ◼   ► there was the Steve Jobs one with Fassbender.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - That one I hated, if I remember right.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I absolutely hated that one.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just don't watch the fictionalized ones,

00:04:00 ◼   ► 'cause I know I'm not gonna like 'em.

00:04:01 ◼   ► - They're usually about some company,

00:04:03 ◼   ► like the Facebook ones.

00:04:04 ◼   ► It would be easier to like the Facebook ones

00:04:08 ◼   ► if I liked Facebook.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Instead, I'm watching these shows,

00:04:12 ◼   ► and it's like I hate all of the people in the show.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Every single guy, I hate every character.

00:04:16 ◼   ► In the show and in real life, I just hate all these people.

00:04:19 ◼   ► Makes it hard to enjoy

00:04:21 ◼   ► No finger traps for you

00:04:23 ◼   ► Nice. Oh, it's such a good show. Oh my god

00:04:26 ◼   ► Marco just wanted to tell people about severance TV show that he is watching not five years after the rest of the world

00:04:32 ◼   ► You know, what really sucks though?

00:04:33 ◼   ► Is that now they just finished season one and they just picked it up for season two

00:04:36 ◼   ► Which means they haven't made season two yet, which means I have to wait like a year. Oh, yeah

00:04:40 ◼   ► Just waited five years and spent five years complaining about everyone telling you about severance

00:04:47 ◼   ► Why is everyone telling me about Severance?

00:04:48 ◼   ► I'm sick of hearing about Severance.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Then you'd finally watch it after five years

00:04:51 ◼   ► and then you wouldn't have this problem.

00:04:52 ◼   ► It worked for me with Hamilton.

00:04:54 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Still haven't seen that.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - Still waiting for the Hamilton sequel, yeah.

00:04:58 ◼   ► - It was, I'll tell you what though, it's weird.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Like, you know, we've been watching a lot of current shows

00:05:01 ◼   ► and we've basically, we've ran into old shows.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And so we've been watching current ones.

00:05:05 ◼   ► - You have not run out of old shows.

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Seriously. - For the record.

00:05:08 ◼   ► - We'll leave that there.

00:05:09 ◼   ► But it's so weird now going back to having to wait

00:05:14 ◼   ► like a week for the next episode to come out.

00:05:16 ◼   ► 'cause we've largely not done that for years,

00:05:20 ◼   ► for almost anything we watched.

00:05:21 ◼   ► - Did you watch "Severance" in real time,

00:05:22 ◼   ► or did you just watch it once it was all out?

00:05:24 ◼   ► - We watched it, I think, the first four or five

00:05:27 ◼   ► in a batch, 'cause we jumped in halfway through,

00:05:30 ◼   ► and then we hit the end, and we're like, "Oh no,

00:05:32 ◼   ► "we have to wait 'til next week, what?"

00:05:34 ◼   ► And then it's just been excruciating.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - Well, what did you do for "Ted Lasso,"

00:05:38 ◼   ► you didn't watch that live?

00:05:39 ◼   ► - So season one we blew right through,

00:05:41 ◼   ► and then season two we had to do it live.

00:05:43 ◼   ► And it feels like going back in time

00:05:46 ◼   ► to a long lost pain of our youth.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Like, what do you mean I can't watch everything

00:05:51 ◼   ► I want all the time, like, whenever I feel like it?

00:05:54 ◼   ► How is that, what do you mean?

00:05:55 ◼   ► How is this not available?

00:05:57 ◼   ► - So tangential to that, this pre-show's never gonna end.

00:06:00 ◼   ► You've ruined everything.

00:06:00 ◼   ► So tangential to that. - You're welcome.

00:06:03 ◼   ► - We have occasionally gone and eaten

00:06:05 ◼   ► at like restaurant patios over the last few months.

00:06:09 ◼   ► The kids have completely forgotten how restaurants work,

00:06:12 ◼   ► most especially that once you order you have to cook the food. Like it isn't that we've

00:06:19 ◼   ► already ordered and we just grab it and go. You have to sit there and entertain yourself

00:06:23 ◼   ► and let the people cook the food. And they do not understand this concept at all. And

00:06:29 ◼   ► so we are trying to break them back into restaurants but they're having a hard time. So it's funny

00:06:35 ◼   ► how things are coming. Everything old is new again. And for us it's restaurants.

00:06:41 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:06:43 ◼   ► Hooray, it is t-shirt time, everybody.

00:06:47 ◼   ► T-shirts are back and dare I say, better than ever.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So here's the thing, you know, when you work with people

00:06:54 ◼   ► that you genuinely deeply enjoy and respect,

00:06:58 ◼   ► the flip side of that coin is that

00:07:00 ◼   ► sometimes they really tick you off.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Marco has now twice come up with my two,

00:07:05 ◼   ► well, he's done it in two different occasions,

00:07:07 ◼   ► come up with my favorite ATP merchandise jokes.

00:07:11 ◼   ► The first one, which Jon will probably tell me

00:07:13 ◼   ► was actually his idea, but my recollection is

00:07:15 ◼   ► it was Marco's idea, was the watch edition shirt,

00:07:20 ◼   ► like the three different styles.

00:07:21 ◼   ► It was sports, what was the middle one?

00:07:23 ◼   ► - Just like no name on the middle,

00:07:25 ◼   ► sport on the bottom and then the edition at the top.

00:07:27 ◼   ► - Right.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - That happened too long ago for me to remember

00:07:29 ◼   ► whose idea it was.

00:07:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I honestly don't remember.

00:07:32 ◼   ► - I'm pretty sure it was Marco.

00:07:34 ◼   ► I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Normally I am annoyingly accurate about remembering

00:07:38 ◼   ► which things I should get credit for,

00:07:40 ◼   ► but in this case I actually don't remember.

00:07:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was a really long time ago.

00:07:43 ◼   ► I don't even know if our Slack scroll back goes that far.

00:07:46 ◼   ► - Well, either way, that one was one

00:07:48 ◼   ► of my top two favorites.

00:07:50 ◼   ► The other is, actually I should,

00:07:53 ◼   ► honestly I should attribute Jon for this

00:07:54 ◼   ► 'cause it was a group effort,

00:07:55 ◼   ► but it was Marco's initial idea.

00:07:57 ◼   ► - That was Marco's idea.

00:07:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then Jon perfected it.

00:08:00 ◼   ► - The Slack t-shirt didn't get you,

00:08:01 ◼   ► didn't make your list?

00:08:02 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It was good, it was very good.

00:08:04 ◼   ► - We know that was your idea, it was good.

00:08:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:08:07 ◼   ► - So the store is up and you can buy merchandise right now

00:08:12 ◼   ► through the 30th of April.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Saturday, the 30th of April is the last time

00:08:17 ◼   ► you can get your shirts and I'll do my normal spiel

00:08:19 ◼   ► about that in a second, but let's look at the merchandise.

00:08:22 ◼   ► So we've got the M1 Ultra shirt,

00:08:23 ◼   ► which is exactly what you expect.

00:08:24 ◼   ► It's the M1 colorful logo with Ultra

00:08:27 ◼   ► with a yellow background below it.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Very well done, very nice.

00:08:29 ◼   ► The back, I don't even know what to say.

00:08:33 ◼   ► I think this shirt might have caused Syracuse to quit.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Because doing this must have been a nightmare.

00:08:39 ◼   ► I know you're gonna say, "Oh, just copy paste it."

00:08:40 ◼   ► No, I'm telling you, it must have been a nightmare to do.

00:08:42 ◼   ► - No copy pasting.

00:08:43 ◼   ► It was all done by hand, lovingly done by hand.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Every line drawn with the line tool or the rectangle tool.

00:08:49 ◼   ► - Yep, so this is the shirt that broke Syracuse's back.

00:08:53 ◼   ► And for that, I will always be thankful for it.

00:08:54 ◼   ► However, where Marco comes in

00:08:56 ◼   ► is the M1 Ultra Interposer shirt.

00:09:00 ◼   ► So picture in your mind's eye.

00:09:02 ◼   ► You've got the six colors M1 logo.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Below that, there is a very wide pill

00:09:10 ◼   ► that is a yellow background, but instead of saying ultra,

00:09:14 ◼   ► on the left-hand side, it says the word max.

00:09:17 ◼   ► Then there's a crude illustration of an interposer.

00:09:21 ◼   ► And on the right-hand side, it says the word max,

00:09:24 ◼   ► but upside down, because that's what the M1 Ultra is.

00:09:28 ◼   ► It's two M1 maxes, one upside down.

00:09:30 ◼   ► I love this so much.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I cannot even tell you, I'm dead serious.

00:09:35 ◼   ► I love this shirt so much.

00:09:36 ◼   ► This might eclipse the different watch editions, whatever,

00:09:40 ◼   ► the different watch styles as my favorite merchandise gag

00:09:43 ◼   ► that we've ever done.

00:09:44 ◼   ► I love this so much. - This is probably

00:09:45 ◼   ► the nerdiest one because the number of,

00:09:48 ◼   ► first of all, the number of people

00:09:49 ◼   ► who are gonna recognize an ATP shirt

00:09:51 ◼   ► or know what the heck M1 is,

00:09:52 ◼   ► it's already vanishingly small.

00:09:53 ◼   ► We all know that, right?

00:09:55 ◼   ► People who live in your house with you

00:09:56 ◼   ► when you get the shirt, they'll be like,

00:09:57 ◼   ► "What the hell is this?"

00:09:58 ◼   ► Maybe they'll guess BMW, but no one's gonna know what it's about.

00:10:01 ◼   ► But then within that tiny circle, to get this joke, you also have to know how the M1 Ultra

00:10:06 ◼   ► is constructed with two Maxes.

00:10:08 ◼   ► They're basically rotated.

00:10:10 ◼   ► If you take an M1 Max die and then rotate it around so it touches it, that's how the

00:10:16 ◼   ► Ultra is formed.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And so we formed the Ultra badge with two Maxes.

00:10:20 ◼   ► On the shirt it looks like one Upset M1.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Almost nobody is going to get that.

00:10:25 ◼   ► I bet in the ATP audience, most of you listening to me don't understand what I'm talking about

00:10:29 ◼   ► and also don't remember how the M1 Ultra is constructed and so even if I was explaining

00:10:34 ◼   ► it better you still wouldn't get it.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Very narrow interest and I will say because it's narrow interest, this is probably the

00:10:40 ◼   ► only time we're going to sell this shirt.

00:10:42 ◼   ► We've been doing like an on-demand thing like when the store is up you can get these on-demand

00:10:45 ◼   ► shirts for all the people who watch the YouTube videos so they don't have to get illegal pirated

00:10:50 ◼   ► shirts or whatever.

00:10:52 ◼   ► We're probably going to put the M1 Ultra up in the on-demand shirt but this one won't

00:10:55 ◼   ► So if you want this inside-est of inside joke shirt,

00:11:00 ◼   ► this is probably the only time you're ever going

00:11:03 ◼   ► to be able to get it.

00:11:04 ◼   ► So M1 Ultra Interposer shirt, check it out.

00:11:06 ◼   ► - When I suggested this, I was joking.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Like I made a quick little crappy Photoshop mockup

00:11:11 ◼   ► and I'm like, hey, shouldn't it be like this?

00:11:13 ◼   ► But I do not think anybody will actually buy this shirt.

00:11:17 ◼   ► I literally think there will be zero sales of it.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - I can guarantee you I will be one of them.

00:11:22 ◼   ► - Okay, then there will be two sales.

00:11:25 ◼   ► If any of you out there actually want this,

00:11:27 ◼   ► prove me wrong, that's great.

00:11:28 ◼   ► I totally understand if you'd rather buy

00:11:31 ◼   ► one of the other designs. (laughs)

00:11:34 ◼   ► But I'd be shocked if anybody buys this.

00:11:37 ◼   ► - We've already sold two of them.

00:11:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, you and Casey.

00:11:40 ◼   ► - I didn't buy mine yet.

00:11:41 ◼   ► - No, me neither.

00:11:41 ◼   ► - All right, well.

00:11:42 ◼   ► - I was waiting till the end and almost forget to buy it.

00:11:44 ◼   ► And by the way, just the final thing on these shirts,

00:11:45 ◼   ► these two shirts, as we've discussed before,

00:11:48 ◼   ► all the M1 shirts,

00:11:50 ◼   ► these are like the most expensive shirts we've ever made

00:11:52 ◼   ► because they have so many colors on them.

00:11:54 ◼   ► every single color is a sucker printing pass that's why the badges always match

00:11:57 ◼   ► one of the colors in the stripes so we don't have to do yet another printing

00:12:00 ◼   ► pass because every printing pass costs more money

00:12:02 ◼   ► and by the way there's a printing pass on the back as well so we apologize for

00:12:05 ◼   ► the cost of these shirts they are very expensive

00:12:07 ◼   ► i will say that as we said in the past with the on-demand shirts

00:12:10 ◼   ► the on-demand shirts use a different process for printing that's why they're

00:12:14 ◼   ► cheaper they do not look as good as these shirts

00:12:16 ◼   ► these are the good looking ones so i know they're horrendously expensive

00:12:19 ◼   ► we apologize for that it costs us a lot to make them because of all the

00:12:22 ◼   ► different colors and everything. I was gonna say this will be the end of the M1 shirts,

00:12:26 ◼   ► but we might do M2 shirts. I don't know. We don't know what we're gonna do. But anyway,

00:12:29 ◼   ► I just want to put that out there. And that brings us to the next shirt, which is, so

00:12:33 ◼   ► you don't want to pay all that money for the 17 printing passes that it takes to make these

00:12:37 ◼   ► shirts. We do have an M1 Ultra in monochrome. We do not have the Max Max joke in monochrome.

00:12:44 ◼   ► If you want the obscure joke, you gotta pay through the nose for it.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Just like if you want an actual M1 Ultra.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, right.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - And all our cores are enabled,

00:12:52 ◼   ► no bump cores in our shirt.

00:12:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:55 ◼   ► And the good thing about the monochrome shirts though

00:12:58 ◼   ► is that the M1 Ultra and the M1 Ultra Interposer shirts

00:13:01 ◼   ► just come in black, but the monochrome version

00:13:04 ◼   ► comes in all sorts of colors.

00:13:05 ◼   ► So if you want a colorful shirt, go for the monochrome one.

00:13:08 ◼   ► It's cheaper 'cause it's just one printing pass

00:13:09 ◼   ► on each side, you can get it in blue, purple, pink,

00:13:12 ◼   ► lavender, green, all sorts of colors, it's very nice.

00:13:17 ◼   ► - And then we have the classic ATP logo shirt,

00:13:19 ◼   ► And then we have brought back the ATP hoodie,

00:13:21 ◼   ► which is absolutely a delightful hoodie.

00:13:24 ◼   ► I cannot recommend it enough.

00:13:25 ◼   ► A very, very nice hoodie.

00:13:27 ◼   ► And then by popular demand, we have the ATP pint glass

00:13:32 ◼   ► and a ever so slightly tweaked ATP mug.

00:13:36 ◼   ► To be completely honest with you,

00:13:37 ◼   ► we would have left the mug alone, but we couldn't

00:13:39 ◼   ► because they're not available right now.

00:13:41 ◼   ► #supplychain.

00:13:42 ◼   ► So the only difference on this ATP mug

00:13:44 ◼   ► is that the interior, rather than being red,

00:13:46 ◼   ► is like a gray, is that right?

00:13:48 ◼   ► - It's grayish blue almost, like a slate.

00:13:50 ◼   ► - I mean, we didn't do this on purpose.

00:13:52 ◼   ► We would've just got red if we could've.

00:13:53 ◼   ► We couldn't get either of these, by the way,

00:13:54 ◼   ► during the last sale, but they just weren't available,

00:13:56 ◼   ► period, they're finally available now,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but we couldn't get red.

00:13:58 ◼   ► But the way I would rationalize it,

00:14:00 ◼   ► now that we are forced to get gray

00:14:02 ◼   ► because red is not available,

00:14:03 ◼   ► if you thought the interior of the ATP mug was too garish,

00:14:06 ◼   ► or you didn't like the color it made your beverage look

00:14:08 ◼   ► 'cause it was red and everything, which I can relate to,

00:14:10 ◼   ► and you want something that's more neutral, this is it.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Black outside, gray inside,

00:14:15 ◼   ► and then it makes the rainbow logo pop

00:14:16 ◼   ► because it is the only splash of color on the thing.

00:14:18 ◼   ► I still think it looks pretty good,

00:14:19 ◼   ► but if and when we can get red back, we will do so.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Also to answer Melbo's question in the chat,

00:14:25 ◼   ► no pins this year?

00:14:26 ◼   ► Yes, Melbo, no pins this year,

00:14:28 ◼   ► because it took us 30 seconds to sell the first batch of pins

00:14:30 ◼   ► and 30 years to sell the second batch of pins.

00:14:32 ◼   ► So we're never bringing pins back.

00:14:34 ◼   ► - That may be true of the pint glasses and the mugs too,

00:14:36 ◼   ► 'cause they're also the type of thing

00:14:38 ◼   ► where we have to guess how many we're gonna sell

00:14:39 ◼   ► and then we buy them upfront.

00:14:41 ◼   ► So I really hope we're not selling these mugs

00:14:43 ◼   ► and pint glasses for the next five years,

00:14:45 ◼   ► but who knows, it could happen.

00:14:46 ◼   ► So we'll see, it's the danger of guessing

00:14:49 ◼   ► how much people are gonna want things.

00:14:50 ◼   ► - Turns out supply chains are hard.

00:14:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, at the very least,

00:14:53 ◼   ► my wife wants a bunch of pint glasses,

00:14:54 ◼   ► 'cause now these are her favorite glasses in the house.

00:14:56 ◼   ► I don't want them because they're taking over the cabinet.

00:14:58 ◼   ► Like they're so much wider on the top

00:15:00 ◼   ► than I have my favorite glasses

00:15:02 ◼   ► that are like these cheap ones from,

00:15:03 ◼   ► what are they from Crate and Barrel or something,

00:15:05 ◼   ► that I like, and they're just cylinders.

00:15:07 ◼   ► But these are like, you know, it's a pint glass,

00:15:09 ◼   ► so it's wider at the top than it is at the bottom,

00:15:10 ◼   ► and we store them upside down.

00:15:12 ◼   ► So these take up more room,

00:15:13 ◼   ► and they're slowly like overpopulating my kitchen cabinets

00:15:16 ◼   ► and kicking out my glasses.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - John, take your own advice, alternate.

00:15:21 ◼   ► You don't store them all upside down.

00:15:23 ◼   ► - That's a deep cut, that's a deep cut.

00:15:25 ◼   ► - You can't alternate, no that's not good.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - You see so much more space that way with, you know.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - There's so much crap filtering out of the air in my house,

00:15:32 ◼   ► I don't want that settling in the glasses.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Inside the cabinets?

00:15:36 ◼   ► - Yes, it's everywhere.

00:15:37 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, anyway.

00:15:38 ◼   ► All right, so we've got the pint glasses,

00:15:40 ◼   ► those are dishwasher safe

00:15:42 ◼   ► because the logo is etched, it's not painted, it's etched.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And then the ATP mug, no, not dishwasher safe.

00:15:48 ◼   ► You should treat this with care, come now.

00:15:50 ◼   ► And I believe it's a 14 ounce capacity on that,

00:15:53 ◼   ► which hopefully is enough for whatever liquid

00:15:55 ◼   ► you're putting in it.

00:15:56 ◼   ► So to recap, the M1 Ultra shirt with a yellow ultra pill

00:16:01 ◼   ► underneath the M1 logo, the colorful M1 logo,

00:16:04 ◼   ► the M1 Ultra Interposer shirt,

00:16:06 ◼   ► probably my favorite ATP joke shirt of all time.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Although I was reminded in the chat

00:16:11 ◼   ► that I do take credit for the wheels on the Mac Pro shirt

00:16:14 ◼   ► being a little more expensive.

00:16:15 ◼   ► I will take credit for that.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Still not on my list of my favorites,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but a close runner up, or honorable mention,

00:16:20 ◼   ► excuse me, Marco.

00:16:22 ◼   ► Anyway, M1 Ultra Interposer shirt with the Max Max on it.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Those are available in black only

00:16:27 ◼   ► in various sizes and whatnots.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Then the M1 Ultra shirt in monochrome,

00:16:31 ◼   ► which is a little bit more affordable.

00:16:33 ◼   ► That's in a variety of t-shirt colors,

00:16:35 ◼   ► the ATP logo shirt, the ATP hoodie,

00:16:36 ◼   ► the ATP pint glass, ATP mug,

00:16:38 ◼   ► All of this available until Saturday, April 30th.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Now, here's where I remind you of a couple things.

00:16:44 ◼   ► First of all, if you are an ATP member,

00:16:47 ◼   ► which you can do by, which you can join if you want to,

00:16:50 ◼   ► by going to ATP.fm/join.

00:16:52 ◼   ► If you're an ATP member, you will get a coupon code for you

00:16:56 ◼   ► and you can enter it at Cotton Bureau and save,

00:16:58 ◼   ► what is it, 15%, do I have that right?

00:17:00 ◼   ► 15% off. - Yep.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - And if you spend, if you buy probably one

00:17:05 ◼   ► or at most two pieces of merchandise,

00:17:07 ◼   ► You've already basically paid for the first month of membership.

00:17:10 ◼   ► So definitely check that out at ATP.fm/join.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Secondly, if you're driving, if you're walking, if you're doing stuff,

00:17:19 ◼   ► you're doing the dishes, if you're doing something right now where you just can't

00:17:22 ◼   ► place the order, do Casey a favor.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Stop what you're doing.

00:17:26 ◼   ► Pull over, pull to the side of the sidewalk.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Do what you can put the dishes down for just a moment.

00:17:32 ◼   ► go to ATP.fm/store and order now.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Because every time, every time I get,

00:17:39 ◼   ► oh, did I miss it?

00:17:41 ◼   ► Yes, you missed it.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Order now, ATP.fm/store.

00:17:46 ◼   ► - Some very enthusiastic people in the chat

00:17:48 ◼   ► said they forgot to use their discount code.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Cotton Bureau's really good about that.

00:17:51 ◼   ► If you just email them and say,

00:17:53 ◼   ► hey, I made an order and I forgot to use my discount code,

00:17:55 ◼   ► and then just send them the discount code

00:17:56 ◼   ► you would have used, they'll give you the credit for it.

00:17:58 ◼   ► I know it's a hassle to do back and forth in the email,

00:18:00 ◼   ► but they will give you the credit for it.

00:18:01 ◼   ► So yes, if you're an ATB member,

00:18:03 ◼   ► don't forget to use your code.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Just go to atb.fm/store.

00:18:06 ◼   ► There's a link to your member page where you'll,

00:18:08 ◼   ► you know, the paragraph attacks at the top

00:18:10 ◼   ► tells you what the deal is and links you to it

00:18:12 ◼   ► so you can get your code and paste it

00:18:13 ◼   ► in the promo code field when you're checking out

00:18:15 ◼   ► and yada yada.

00:18:16 ◼   ► So yeah, and then the same picture we made last year,

00:18:19 ◼   ► I like how Casey was saying,

00:18:20 ◼   ► this is a perfect time for you to take advantage of this.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Buy a membership, buy a bunch of merch,

00:18:26 ◼   ► and then you can cancel your membership.

00:18:28 ◼   ► - And then nothing, and then nothing, John.

00:18:28 ◼   ► - And then forget to cancel your membership.

00:18:30 ◼   ► - We're gonna walk away.

00:18:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, we'll see.

00:18:32 ◼   ► So last year, finally, I have to say the last sale,

00:18:34 ◼   ► not last year, I guess it was last year,

00:18:36 ◼   ► the last sale we did, people finally took my advice.

00:18:38 ◼   ► We had this pretty substantial bump in membership

00:18:41 ◼   ► and then most of it went away after the sale was over.

00:18:44 ◼   ► So that's good.

00:18:44 ◼   ► You're using it the way it's intended.

00:18:49 ◼   ► You might as well just get the discount.

00:18:50 ◼   ► But the second thing I'll say about that,

00:18:52 ◼   ► and this is a special for this year,

00:18:54 ◼   ► Khan Bureau told us that the prices

00:18:55 ◼   ► on all of our stuff is going up, right?

00:18:57 ◼   ► So the cost to us, ATP, on all these products

00:19:00 ◼   ► has increased, for this sale, we have not passed

00:19:03 ◼   ► any of that cost on to you, unlike Apple.

00:19:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:06 ◼   ► So all the prices are the same as they were before.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Like, you know, the ATP shirt is the same as before,

00:19:11 ◼   ► or the M1 Ultra shirt's the same as the M1 Pro

00:19:13 ◼   ► and the MAC shirts, you know, all our prices are the same,

00:19:16 ◼   ► but you should know that our costs for each one of these

00:19:19 ◼   ► is more than it used to be.

00:19:21 ◼   ► And so I will say what I've said in many past things.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Buy a shirt or a mug or a pint glass or whatever,

00:19:27 ◼   ► If you want that item, if instead you're like,

00:19:30 ◼   ► I wanna support ATP, and you think,

00:19:33 ◼   ► oh, if I buy a $35 t-shirt, doesn't that support ATP?

00:19:38 ◼   ► Buying a membership for $8 supports us way more,

00:19:42 ◼   ► believe it or not, right?

00:19:43 ◼   ► Even just for one month, what I'm telling you is that

00:19:46 ◼   ► if you just wanna give us money, membership.

00:19:49 ◼   ► If you want a cool t-shirt, pint glass mug, hoodie,

00:19:52 ◼   ► these are cool products, you should get them,

00:19:54 ◼   ► but don't feel like you're, you know, like,

00:19:56 ◼   ► well I don't really want this stupid t-shirt

00:19:58 ◼   ► but I wanna support the show

00:19:59 ◼   ► and surely if I buy two expensive t-shirts

00:20:01 ◼   ► I'm supporting the show a super duper amount.

00:20:03 ◼   ► If you just wanna support the show, buy a membership.

00:20:06 ◼   ► And you get something for the membership too.

00:20:07 ◼   ► You get an ad free episode and you get the bootleg

00:20:09 ◼   ► and you know, you get stuff for the membership too

00:20:11 ◼   ► but if you just wanna support it, buy a membership.

00:20:13 ◼   ► If you want cool merch, buy cool merch.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And I will add that we have not changed prices

00:20:19 ◼   ► even though our costs are gone up.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I'm not sure how long we can sustain that.

00:20:22 ◼   ► We'll see how this sale goes.

00:20:24 ◼   ► If our margins are so slim that we barely make any money

00:20:27 ◼   ► on the sale, next sale, maybe some of the prices will go up.

00:20:30 ◼   ► So if you wanna get something,

00:20:31 ◼   ► even if you just wanna refresh your ATP shirt

00:20:33 ◼   ► 'cause your old one's looking a little ratty or whatever,

00:20:35 ◼   ► buy now because prices may change during the next sale.

00:20:38 ◼   ► That is another thing that Apple won't tell you,

00:20:39 ◼   ► but that we will.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wouldn't even say may change.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I think it's all but guaranteed

00:20:43 ◼   ► that the prices are gonna have to go up next time.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - Unless the supply chain changes

00:20:46 ◼   ► and all of a sudden our costs go down, who knows?

00:20:48 ◼   ► - When does that ever work in our favor?

00:20:51 ◼   ► When does anyone say due to supply chain efficiencies,

00:20:53 ◼   ► We're now lowering our prices.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It never happens.

00:20:55 ◼   ► - It happens all the time.

00:20:56 ◼   ► Apple just never passes the savings onto us.

00:20:57 ◼   ► They just keep selling the same, you know,

00:20:59 ◼   ► 16 gig RAM upgrade for $600 for five years.

00:21:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:03 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:21:04 ◼   ► - All right, we should move on, but Marco, 16,

00:21:07 ◼   ► 16 sold, Marco, of the Max Max shirt.

00:21:09 ◼   ► 16, baby.

00:21:10 ◼   ► - What we should really not be saying is like,

00:21:12 ◼   ► I don't think anyone's gonna buy it.

00:21:13 ◼   ► What we should really say is the first person

00:21:15 ◼   ► to give us a legit story of someone noticing the shirt

00:21:18 ◼   ► and understanding it in public.

00:21:20 ◼   ► I'm gonna say noticing the shirt and understanding it

00:21:22 ◼   ► who's not an ATP listener, that's gonna be miraculous.

00:21:26 ◼   ► That's never gonna happen.

00:21:27 ◼   ► - I don't think, even if you allow it to be a listener,

00:21:30 ◼   ► it's never gonna happen.

00:21:32 ◼   ► - And the best thing about this nerd shirt is,

00:21:34 ◼   ► if someone does interrogate you about it,

00:21:36 ◼   ► then you are kind of obliged to explain it to them,

00:21:39 ◼   ► and there's no way to explain that

00:21:41 ◼   ► without making you look like a giant nerd.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - I'm just imagining the look on the other person's face

00:21:46 ◼   ► as their eyes glaze over and they're like, oh no,

00:21:49 ◼   ► why did I ask for more information about this?

00:21:51 ◼   ► - I feel like you could sheepishly explain it to be like,

00:21:54 ◼   ► I know this is boring, but you did ask, so I'll explain it.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Or you could enthusiastically explain it,

00:21:58 ◼   ► in which case they'd be like,

00:21:59 ◼   ► what's wrong with this person?

00:22:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:02 ◼   ► - But I mean, in all fairness,

00:22:03 ◼   ► I think certainly the three of us,

00:22:05 ◼   ► and probably most of our listeners,

00:22:06 ◼   ► have seen that look before.

00:22:08 ◼   ► - Yes. - Yep.

00:22:08 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:22:09 ◼   ► That's why I love this shirt,

00:22:11 ◼   ► because it's the type of thing,

00:22:12 ◼   ► it's like when you wear a shirt from an obscure band

00:22:14 ◼   ► that you know nobody's heard of,

00:22:15 ◼   ► just as to how cool you are,

00:22:16 ◼   ► because you've heard of the obscure band,

00:22:17 ◼   ► only the uncool version of that.

00:22:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:20 ◼   ► Really, really sound it while they're done. All right, we got to do some follow up and

00:22:24 ◼   ► I would like to start with the most important and also tragic follow up. It breaks my heart.

00:22:31 ◼   ► It breaks my heart. We've gotten news via Ari Badgers that original gravity Marco and I's

00:22:39 ◼   ► beloved beer/sausage place in San Jose. One of two. Why is it not my beloved place? I've eaten

00:22:44 ◼   ► there plenty of times. Is it one of your beloved places, John? I mean, it's like one of the only

00:22:48 ◼   ► only places I've eaten so yeah I guess so it's one of the only tower tolerable

00:22:51 ◼   ► places that we of the two places in San Jose that I can think of that the three

00:22:55 ◼   ► of us approve of this is one of them except it's not the way it used to be so

00:23:01 ◼   ► re writes us writes to us if you're coming to San Jose just because of

00:23:06 ◼   ► original gravity please don't they don't have any sausages anymore and have

00:23:10 ◼   ► turned into a sit-down overpriced burger place just like any other boring place

00:23:13 ◼   ► in South Bay so the beer and sausage place is now the beer and burger place

00:23:18 ◼   ► and is apparently not as good and that's that's very sad. I think I got a grilled cheese there once too

00:23:22 ◼   ► Didn't they just have grilled cheese?

00:23:24 ◼   ► They had yeah, they had a they had a like, you know

00:23:25 ◼   ► Ten or fifteen different things on the menu if it was like greasy and bad for you

00:23:28 ◼   ► They had it. Yeah, that's true. And now they just have burger which is greasy and bad for you

00:23:32 ◼   ► It's just one thing

00:23:32 ◼   ► Yeah

00:23:33 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna lie if you look at their website and you have to click on the food tab big and then it just

00:23:37 ◼   ► Scrolls to the food section of the single serving page

00:23:40 ◼   ► The burgers do look pretty damn good and so did the french fries

00:23:44 ◼   ► But I love this sauce and they had like 10 or 15 different sausages and they were delightful and not no more

00:23:50 ◼   ► I mean in all fairness though

00:23:51 ◼   ► Like at least they still have all the beer and what made them good was not just the sausages but that they were I

00:23:58 ◼   ► Think the only place we found in our time in San Jose that actually had good service and consistent service

00:24:04 ◼   ► That's also true. And so as long as they have beer some kind of food and good service. They're still

00:24:11 ◼   ► Significantly, you know ahead of the pack there and they didn't just have good service for San Jose

00:24:15 ◼   ► They had nothing good service for anywhere like in particular if it's type of restaurant where you you order at a counter

00:24:21 ◼   ► And then you and then you just go sit anywhere you want someone comes and finds you and brings you your food

00:24:25 ◼   ► That never really works out that well except at this place

00:24:28 ◼   ► They would come and find you and bring your food in a timely manner. I don't know how they did it

00:24:32 ◼   ► Miracle of service where it's because most places where they have that even if they have a system they can't find you

00:24:37 ◼   ► But if they don't have a system, it's like you'll never know if you're ever gonna get your food

00:24:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I ate at another place in San Jose that you order at the counter, they give you a

00:24:45 ◼   ► number, you go sit down, and you'll be sitting there forever because they gave you a number

00:24:49 ◼   ► for no reason. They don't actually ever bring the food out to you. And you have to eventually

00:24:54 ◼   ► walk off the back of the counter and be like, "Hey, I'm just checking, you know, how's my

00:24:58 ◼   ► order going?" And they'll be like, "Oh, here it is."

00:25:01 ◼   ► Then why'd you give me the number? This means something everywhere else in the world, but

00:25:07 ◼   ► but not here.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I'm telling you, all of San Jose, it's the Truman Show.

00:25:11 ◼   ► They're all actors, no one knows how to do the job

00:25:12 ◼   ► until you ask them, they're like,

00:25:14 ◼   ► I don't know what to do, I guess I need to go figure out

00:25:17 ◼   ► how to do this.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Whew, except original gravity.

00:25:20 ◼   ► There, they seem to know what they're doing,

00:25:22 ◼   ► and so I hope this change doesn't ruin them,

00:25:24 ◼   ► 'cause if I ever go back to San Jose,

00:25:26 ◼   ► which we'll get to later I guess,

00:25:27 ◼   ► if I ever go back to San Jose,

00:25:29 ◼   ► that's the first place I'm stopping.

00:25:31 ◼   ► - And since we'll get questions about it,

00:25:32 ◼   ► what is the name of the vegan place that we all like?

00:25:35 ◼   ► What do we know about it?

00:25:36 ◼   ► It's like right across the street,

00:25:37 ◼   ► it's like a vegan Indian place.

00:25:40 ◼   ► It's called Good Vibes or something,

00:25:41 ◼   ► it's like something like that.

00:25:43 ◼   ► - Good Karma, there it is.

00:25:44 ◼   ► - There it is, yeah, right.

00:25:45 ◼   ► - All right, all right, good deal.

00:25:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, that place is also very good.

00:25:48 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Mack Weldon.

00:25:52 ◼   ► This is my favorite brand of clothes

00:25:54 ◼   ► and it is by far the brand of clothing that I wear the most.

00:25:58 ◼   ► You know, we all wanna look our best.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Now it's springtime coming up,

00:26:01 ◼   ► you might wanna get some new spring essentials.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Mac Weldon makes the best essential clothing

00:26:07 ◼   ► and it's perfect for all seasons.

00:26:09 ◼   ► You know, going into the spring,

00:26:10 ◼   ► I'm gonna look at some of my t-shirts,

00:26:11 ◼   ► maybe get some new t-shirts,

00:26:13 ◼   ► maybe keep some long sleeves in the wardrobe there,

00:26:16 ◼   ► maybe get a nice new light jacket or hoodie

00:26:18 ◼   ► and Mac Weldon has all these things.

00:26:19 ◼   ► It's so great.

00:26:21 ◼   ► They even have the DeliWear system,

00:26:23 ◼   ► all their clothes work together,

00:26:25 ◼   ► so it's just a fantastic brand.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Let me tell you right now,

00:26:27 ◼   ► I'm wearing Mac Weldon underwear, you know,

00:26:28 ◼   ► look, I'll say it, I love their underwear.

00:26:30 ◼   ► I'm always wearing it,

00:26:31 ◼   ► that's 100% of my collection of underwear is there,

00:26:33 ◼   ► So I'm wearing that every single day.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I'm also wearing their boot socks right now,

00:26:36 ◼   ► their boot cut socks, these wonderful weave,

00:26:38 ◼   ► 'cause it's a little bit cold today.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I got their silver t-shirt,

00:26:41 ◼   ► which is made from actual antimicrobial silver fibers

00:26:44 ◼   ► in the fabric blend.

00:26:45 ◼   ► And so it basically never stinks.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Like I wear these almost all the time.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Like I'm almost always wearing a Macbalden silver t-shirt.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Earlier today I worked out, I used the Ace sweatshorts.

00:26:54 ◼   ► I love the Ace line.

00:26:56 ◼   ► They have sweatpants, sweatshorts, it's just fantastic.

00:26:59 ◼   ► It's sweatshirts even.

00:27:00 ◼   ► Super soft, really premium feeling.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And I've had a lot of my Mac Weldon stuff for years now.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I started wearing their stuff maybe five years ago,

00:27:08 ◼   ► and I don't think I've ever had anything

00:27:09 ◼   ► of theirs wear out yet.

00:27:12 ◼   ► So it's really nicely made stuff.

00:27:15 ◼   ► It fits well, the fabrics are really nice, it looks good,

00:27:18 ◼   ► they have things that range from casual to workout wear

00:27:22 ◼   ► to semi-formal, even to formal,

00:27:24 ◼   ► and all sorts of pieces all across the whole line.

00:27:26 ◼   ► It's just wonderful.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Check out Mac Weldon for yourself.

00:27:29 ◼   ► Save 20% on your first order by visiting

00:27:31 ◼   ► mackweldon.com/atppod using promo code ATP pod.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Again, that's mackweldon.com/atppod,

00:27:40 ◼   ► promo code ATP pod for 20% off.

00:27:43 ◼   ► Find your perfect look for this spring.

00:27:45 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Mack Weldon for sponsoring our show.

00:27:48 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:27:51 ◼   ► - All right, so now that we've got that covered,

00:27:53 ◼   ► we need to go to Etymology Corner.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I feel like we should be on Fun Fact right now.

00:27:57 ◼   ► Matt Rigby writes, "As fans of arbitrary and obscure measurements, you may enjoy the additional

00:28:02 ◼   ► info that a decibel is in fact one tenth or a deci of a bell, with a bell being a measurement

00:28:07 ◼   ► for the loss of signal power over a one-mile stretch of 19-gauge telephone cable.

00:28:11 ◼   ► The measurement we use today to measure all kinds of things, including an idling max studio,

00:28:15 ◼   ► has its origins in the early telephone age of the late 19th century and is named after

00:28:19 ◼   ► Alexander Graham Bell."

00:28:20 ◼   ► I love these units of measurement that are sort of not based on physical properties of

00:28:25 ◼   ► matter but instead are sort of you know experimental measurements and this one is requires a mile

00:28:29 ◼   ► of wire for you like if you want to just you know reproduce the you know where does this

00:28:35 ◼   ► come from it like unlike the old you know before i think they've converted all the measurements

00:28:39 ◼   ► to physical properties like there used to be like the kilogram weight that would be

00:28:42 ◼   ► kept in this little vacuum chamber but it would be losing atoms over the years and so

00:28:46 ◼   ► the kilogram would be changing and people are upset right for this one like i do you

00:28:50 ◼   ► know i mean i'm sure it's probably physically based now someone will write in with more

00:28:53 ◼   ► I'll have to explain it, but the idea that to reproduce or accurately, if you had to

00:28:59 ◼   ► keep a round one, you had to keep a one mile stretch of 19 gauge telephone wire around

00:29:03 ◼   ► and then you'd have to stretch it out and then decide what temperature it has to be

00:29:06 ◼   ► and how long it has to be.

00:29:07 ◼   ► That temperature has to be consistent over the mile that you stretch it and under what

00:29:10 ◼   ► tension should it be under and should it be on the ground or not and then measure it.

00:29:14 ◼   ► It's and then now we're stuck with it I suppose, but I really do hope that a decibel is switched

00:29:20 ◼   ► to physics-based measurement, because it

00:29:22 ◼   ► seems like the most inconvenient one to reproduce.

00:29:26 ◼   ► By the way, real-time follow-up here,

00:29:28 ◼   ► the M1 Ultra Interposer shirt, I just

00:29:31 ◼   ► got the email from Cotton Bureau saying that it's

00:29:33 ◼   ► crossed the threshold to be printed.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Ah, there you go.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Some quick looking at the page indicates

00:29:38 ◼   ► that they've sold 17 of them, which

00:29:40 ◼   ► is outselling the other ones like four to one, at least.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Oh, see?

00:29:46 ◼   ► See?

00:29:47 ◼   ► When the normal people come there,

00:29:48 ◼   ► they'll get the normal shirts.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't expect this ratio to continue.

00:29:53 ◼   ► It's just kind of funny.

00:29:54 ◼   ► People in the chat room are disproportionately

00:29:56 ◼   ► inclined to get the joke shirt.

00:29:59 ◼   ► That's fair.

00:30:00 ◼   ► All right, Carl Rosles writes, you

00:30:01 ◼   ► mentioned the upcoming iPhone 14 non-pro max,

00:30:04 ◼   ► saying that it gives quote unquote "normal" people

00:30:06 ◼   ► the option of a big phone.

00:30:08 ◼   ► Don't forget to pour one out for the iPhone 12 and 13 mini.

00:30:10 ◼   ► This is nice for people who want bigger phones,

00:30:12 ◼   ► but sad for those of us that like the small or maybe

00:30:14 ◼   ► reasonable sized phones.

00:30:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I forgot to mention that last time we were talking

00:30:18 ◼   ► about the phone lineup.

00:30:19 ◼   ► I know we talked about it in past shows,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but just to refresh everyone's memory,

00:30:21 ◼   ► the current dominant rumor is that there will be no Mini 14.

00:30:26 ◼   ► So if you like the Mini, get the 12 or 13 Mini,

00:30:29 ◼   ► and then just try to use it for as long as you can.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Maybe you'll bring back the Mini, maybe they won't,

00:30:33 ◼   ► but it doesn't look like it's in the cards for the 14.

00:30:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a shame.

00:30:37 ◼   ► I see that I'm not helping here by having bought

00:30:40 ◼   ► the 12 Mini but then the 13 Pro,

00:30:42 ◼   ► so I'm not really helping the cause,

00:30:44 ◼   ► but I really did love that phone, the Mini phone,

00:30:47 ◼   ► and I wish that they would continue

00:30:51 ◼   ► to try to make really great small phones.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And we'll see if that ever becomes a thing again,

00:30:56 ◼   ► 'cause it really does sound like this is not a thing.

00:30:59 ◼   ► And the rumors have been no more mini with the iOS 14,

00:31:02 ◼   ► or with the iPhone 14, they've been saying that

00:31:05 ◼   ► ever since like halfway through the 12 mini cycle.

00:31:09 ◼   ► So it seems like it just wasn't really selling well

00:31:11 ◼   ► from the start.

00:31:12 ◼   ► And we all kinda, we had our speculation for reasons,

00:31:16 ◼   ► Obviously people do love big phones.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Even when they say they want small phones,

00:31:18 ◼   ► they end up buying big phones a lot of the time.

00:31:21 ◼   ► But also the question of whether there's a small phone

00:31:24 ◼   ► market or whether there's a cheap phone market.

00:31:26 ◼   ► And then the distinction between the SE versus the Mini.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And also our theories about like, well, maybe with COVID,

00:31:32 ◼   ► people couldn't get into the Apple store

00:31:33 ◼   ► and actually see and feel these things.

00:31:35 ◼   ► And if they will have a chance to get in there

00:31:36 ◼   ► and see and feel it, maybe there'll be more swayed to it.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Well, now people have been able to go to Apple stores

00:31:41 ◼   ► for a while and it seems like it's still getting canned.

00:31:44 ◼   ► So that's unfortunate.

00:31:44 ◼   ► But we'll see, maybe in the future,

00:31:47 ◼   ► they'll try to make their phones smaller and lighter again.

00:31:49 ◼   ► I hope so, because the 13 Pro is an amazing phone,

00:31:53 ◼   ► but it's a big heavy brick in my pocket.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - I still think it's a mistake to get rid of the mini.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Like you said, whenever we talk about

00:31:59 ◼   ► diversifying product lines,

00:32:01 ◼   ► they can't all sell in equal amounts.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Like there's always going to be the ones that are popular

00:32:05 ◼   ► or the ones that are less popular.

00:32:06 ◼   ► And you get to have a diversified product line

00:32:08 ◼   ► when you sell overall a lot of a product.

00:32:11 ◼   ► If you sell a small amount,

00:32:12 ◼   ► you can't have 17 different models,

00:32:13 ◼   ► 'cause then it costs a certain amount of money overhead

00:32:16 ◼   ► for each new model you have, right?

00:32:17 ◼   ► But I feel like the iPhone sells well enough

00:32:19 ◼   ► that there's room for small, medium, large,

00:32:23 ◼   ► instead of just medium, large.

00:32:26 ◼   ► I think there's room for the mini.

00:32:27 ◼   ► - It's large and extra large at this point.

00:32:29 ◼   ► - Right, but whatever, a diversity of sizes

00:32:32 ◼   ► and a diversity of price points,

00:32:34 ◼   ► the mini sells way, way less than the other ones.

00:32:36 ◼   ► But does it sell so little that it's not even viable?

00:32:39 ◼   ► The total number of iPhones is so high

00:32:41 ◼   ► that I think most phone manufacturers would kill

00:32:43 ◼   ► to sell as many minis as Apple did.

00:32:45 ◼   ► So I don't quite, you know,

00:32:46 ◼   ► like I understand every new variation you add,

00:32:50 ◼   ► you know, eats into your profit margins

00:32:52 ◼   ► 'cause it would be, you know,

00:32:52 ◼   ► there's less overhead to make those same people

00:32:54 ◼   ► just buy the next size up or whatever.

00:32:56 ◼   ► But I feel like this is a kind of an Apple nickel

00:32:59 ◼   ► and diming type of thing.

00:33:00 ◼   ► It's like, let's not super duper,

00:33:01 ◼   ► like it is your most popular product.

00:33:03 ◼   ► If you can't diversify your most popular product

00:33:05 ◼   ► into a reasonable range of sizes,

00:33:08 ◼   ► then what can you do that with?

00:33:10 ◼   ► Like, if you just want to do the mini every other year or something, I feel like there's

00:33:13 ◼   ► a compromise here.

00:33:14 ◼   ► You know, when everyone says, "Oh, the mini didn't sell well, so it didn't make it," I

00:33:16 ◼   ► think people envision that they sold like 10 of them, right?

00:33:18 ◼   ► But they sold millions, right?

00:33:20 ◼   ► Just that's plenty to support a product.

00:33:22 ◼   ► So I do really hope it comes back.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Quick aside.

00:33:26 ◼   ► I just, I keep thinking about poor original gravity.

00:33:28 ◼   ► Marco, can we promise each other, you and me, that if we get word that House of Prime

00:33:32 ◼   ► Rib is folding, that you and I will make the trip for House of Prime Rib?

00:33:36 ◼   ► I know we've talked about this before, but for real, can we make sure that we do that?

00:33:39 ◼   ► - We can, I mean, that place, from what I gather,

00:33:42 ◼   ► I mean, I haven't been there in like five years,

00:33:43 ◼   ► but from what I gather, that place is so incredibly popular

00:33:46 ◼   ► that I think if they announced they were closing down

00:33:48 ◼   ► at some point in the near future,

00:33:50 ◼   ► I think they would be booked up solid

00:33:52 ◼   ► and we wouldn't be able to get in at any price.

00:33:54 ◼   ► - You're probably right.

00:33:55 ◼   ► - Although, it'd be all like the people

00:33:56 ◼   ► who are the insiders who would get in,

00:33:58 ◼   ► we'd have no chance.

00:33:59 ◼   ► - You're probably right.

00:34:00 ◼   ► - But also, because they are always that busy,

00:34:02 ◼   ► I think the odds that they are gonna shut down

00:34:04 ◼   ► are pretty low.

00:34:04 ◼   ► - Agreed, 1,000% agreed.

00:34:07 ◼   ► But one of my favorite restaurants in the entire world,

00:34:10 ◼   ► I cannot say enough good things about House of Prime Rib.

00:34:12 ◼   ► It is so good.

00:34:13 ◼   ► It's one of those things that like, what?

00:34:16 ◼   ► Really, this is what you're excited about?

00:34:18 ◼   ► Really?

00:34:19 ◼   ► This thing that's been the same way probably for 100 years?

00:34:22 ◼   ► Yes, that is what I'm excited about

00:34:24 ◼   ► because it's freaking perfect.

00:34:27 ◼   ► - It's like when you hear somebody describe a restaurant

00:34:29 ◼   ► as an institution, House of Prime Rib is the institution.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Like, it is the epitome of that description of a restaurant.

00:34:38 ◼   ► It is the best version of that

00:34:40 ◼   ► that I've ever seen anywhere in the world.

00:34:41 ◼   ► It is the institution.

00:34:43 ◼   ► - Anyway, sorry, I just, I miss that place so much.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Let's talk about a friend of the show, Quinn Nelson,

00:34:50 ◼   ► who has some very strong but unusual opinions

00:34:55 ◼   ► about the studio display.

00:34:57 ◼   ► But one of the things that Quinn has said

00:34:59 ◼   ► via Twitter in this case, and I'll just read his tweets,

00:35:02 ◼   ► I can't drop the idea that the studio display was originally slated to be the "2.5 to $3,000

00:35:08 ◼   ► mini-LED" and then changed late in production.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Another reason?

00:35:13 ◼   ► Math says that it has about a 285-watt power supply.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Even with the laptop connected, input/output, screen brightness maxed, and speakers blasting,

00:35:22 ◼   ► it barely draws over 165 watts with peak everything.

00:35:27 ◼   ► So that's a whole lot of extra power that the power supply can handle.

00:35:31 ◼   ► But why?

00:35:33 ◼   ► I don't personally buy this.

00:35:36 ◼   ► I think that this is just a quirk of the display,

00:35:40 ◼   ► or maybe Apple just leaving some padding, so to speak.

00:35:43 ◼   ► But I do understand where he's coming from,

00:35:46 ◼   ► even though I don't personally think that this is the case.

00:35:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there's all sorts of complicating factors

00:35:51 ◼   ► that could be the reason why that power supply

00:35:53 ◼   ► is specced the way it is.

00:35:55 ◼   ► One of them, I didn't follow Quinn's math here,

00:35:58 ◼   ► like I didn't actually look into it,

00:35:59 ◼   ► but keep in mind, again, with all IO connected,

00:36:02 ◼   ► those ports have a certain maximum wattage

00:36:05 ◼   ► that they are spec'd to supply.

00:36:08 ◼   ► The laptop, of course, is gonna be pulling

00:36:11 ◼   ► 100 watts from the cable, if possible.

00:36:13 ◼   ► So it sounds like kind of for most of that,

00:36:16 ◼   ► but if any of those were missed, efficiency losses,

00:36:20 ◼   ► there's a lot of things that could be slightly missed

00:36:23 ◼   ► or could make a big difference here.

00:36:24 ◼   ► But the idea that Apple would design this product

00:36:27 ◼   ► to have this fairly different component in it

00:36:31 ◼   ► and then swap it out and not change anything else about it,

00:36:36 ◼   ► I think that's generally not how Apple designs hardware

00:36:41 ◼   ► these days.

00:36:42 ◼   ► We always hear stories from the rumor mill of like,

00:36:45 ◼   ► oh, at the last minute, they pulled Touch ID

00:36:47 ◼   ► from this phone and everyone's like,

00:36:48 ◼   ► no, that was never meant to be there.

00:36:50 ◼   ► The rumor was just wrong.

00:36:52 ◼   ► I think Apple, these days, Apple, when they design hardware,

00:36:57 ◼   ► they do so pretty intentionally and with a lot of lead time.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And the odds that they would have that big of a change

00:37:05 ◼   ► so late in the game that they would not

00:37:07 ◼   ► change out the power supply for that reason alone,

00:37:10 ◼   ► I just don't think it's very likely.

00:37:12 ◼   ► There was at least one product-- I

00:37:14 ◼   ► forget if it was like an iPod Touch or an iPhone,

00:37:16 ◼   ► or maybe it was an iPad even, or just some iOS device handout

00:37:19 ◼   ► thing where if you looked at the logic board inside it,

00:37:22 ◼   ► you saw the connectors where a component would

00:37:25 ◼   ► be on the more expensive phone, but they just

00:37:27 ◼   ► didn't put it in that one. Do you remember the phone? Are you talking about the iPod touch with the missing camera?

00:37:30 ◼   ► Maybe that might be it.

00:37:32 ◼   ► Yeah, like this what I'm my point for this is that that was a long time ago

00:37:36 ◼   ► And I think the Apple of today wouldn't even do that. You know sometimes you do need to

00:37:41 ◼   ► Make a quote-unquote last-minute meaning a year before the product is announced

00:37:45 ◼   ► That's last minute when hardware designs where you make let's say you design logic board you decide actually we've decided this product isn't gonna

00:37:51 ◼   ► Have a camera, but you don't redesign logic board you just don't connect the component there

00:37:54 ◼   ► So, you know, it's just why why go through the expense of redesigning and revalidating the board or whatever

00:37:59 ◼   ► Just leave leave the traces with nothing connected to them. Right so that can happen

00:38:03 ◼   ► but

00:38:05 ◼   ► The the inside of studio display and we'll link to the I fix it teardown video

00:38:09 ◼   ► If you don't know what the inside of this thing looks like I

00:38:11 ◼   ► Mean, I'm not gonna say Quinn's not familiar with the inside of Apple products

00:38:15 ◼   ► It's constantly tearing them open and even said this in the video and in his tweets Apple over designs a lot of stuff

00:38:22 ◼   ► that's that's kind of their thing like the probably the the

00:38:25 ◼   ► Biggest example in many senses of the word is a 2019 Mac Pro if you look inside that thing. It's so over engineered

00:38:32 ◼   ► Everything in there is so much more expensive to make every little part every piece of plastic every piece of metal

00:38:39 ◼   ► the the circuit board everything being

00:38:41 ◼   ► Machined and precisely fit and custom-made and color matched, right? It's massively over engineered

00:38:50 ◼   ► There's no reason any of that stuff needs to be like that. It's you know, it's the old Steve Jobs thing

00:38:55 ◼   ► which is it's not just his thing is like, uh, you know a

00:38:57 ◼   ► folktale whatever like the inside of the cabinet or a drawer that nobody ever sees or the back of a piece of furniture is

00:39:04 ◼   ► Carefully designed even though it's up against the wall and no one ever sees it

00:39:07 ◼   ► But the craftsman sees that the craftsman will know it's there so they do a good job of it

00:39:10 ◼   ► Apple over engineers its hardware. So when you look at the iFixit teardown of this

00:39:14 ◼   ► laptop

00:39:16 ◼   ► Laptop this the Apple studio display

00:39:18 ◼   ► They do a gag in the beginning where they ask a bunch of sort of people who have never seen the insides and they show

00:39:23 ◼   ► The insides of an iMac and the insides of the studio display and they say which is the computer and which is the display?

00:39:27 ◼   ► And a bunch of people get it wrong

00:39:28 ◼   ► That doesn't show much of anything just because they both have circuit boards in them or whatever

00:39:31 ◼   ► But look at the studio display and look at how

00:39:34 ◼   ► Look at how nice it looks on the inside, right?

00:39:37 ◼   ► That's how Apple is makes things these days especially things that go anywhere near the pro realm like look look inside the

00:39:43 ◼   ► The Mac studio itself the little you know it doesn't look like a Mac mini in there looks more like a tiny Mac Pro

00:39:48 ◼   ► Everything precisely fit all sorts of custom parts everything is all color matched inside there as well

00:39:55 ◼   ► So when I look at the studio display, I think yep

00:39:58 ◼   ► It's a typically over engineered modern Apple piece of hardware

00:40:02 ◼   ► Hopefully over an engineered in all the good ways as in all the over respect the power supply because it's you don't want to run a

00:40:08 ◼   ► Power supply at the ragged edge of what it's able to support or whatever

00:40:11 ◼   ► but not so much that like

00:40:13 ◼   ► This was an entirely different product and they just sort of changed plans a year ago and made a slightly different one now

00:40:20 ◼   ► That could be the case because Apple is known to reuse pieces like them power bricks and other things where they just like why make

00:40:27 ◼   ► One of them when you know if I make a power brick this size

00:40:31 ◼   ► We can use it with two of our laptops and we don't have to make one

00:40:33 ◼   ► Special for the other one because they can just use the same part for both that is definitely an Apple move

00:40:36 ◼   ► So I would say watch to see if they do release the mini LED version of this and

00:40:41 ◼   ► When that one gets torn down how many parts does it share with this one?

00:40:45 ◼   ► Maybe that will bear it out because it is like Apple to say hey

00:40:48 ◼   ► We're gonna make a bunch of different versions of this whether it's the Mac studio with the ultra and the max inside it or whatever

00:40:52 ◼   ► to basically try to share as many parts as you can or

00:40:56 ◼   ► You know or like the m1 Mac mini reuse the power supply from the Intel one just because well

00:41:00 ◼   ► I make a new power supply even though it's massively oversized for the m1. It works fine. Just keep using it, right?

00:41:06 ◼   ► So I don't entirely discount this,

00:41:07 ◼   ► but I do say most of the weirdness of the inside of this

00:41:12 ◼   ► and other Apple products is just because Apple,

00:41:14 ◼   ► especially on their pro-ish products,

00:41:16 ◼   ► loves to over-engineer things,

00:41:18 ◼   ► as in putting more time, energy, and also money

00:41:21 ◼   ► into things that other manufacturers do not.

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00:43:19 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:43:21 ◼   ► - All right, so we had a little bit of,

00:43:24 ◼   ► well more than a little bit of feedback

00:43:25 ◼   ► about multiple computers and one Thunderbolt monitor.

00:43:28 ◼   ► And I'm not gonna make the obvious joke here,

00:43:30 ◼   ► you're welcome.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Steve Wado wrote, "I just got this to try to share my studio display between a MacBook

00:43:36 ◼   ► Pro and a Mac Mini.

00:43:37 ◼   ► I have my peripherals plugged into the display, so when I switch with this, everything swaps

00:43:41 ◼   ► over."

00:43:42 ◼   ► And this is, "Cable decon USB-C type C 8K updated switch USB 3.1 C Gen 2 cable for video

00:43:50 ◼   ► by direction 8K at 30 hertz 4K at 120 hertz power delivery at 100 watts 10 gigabit per

00:43:55 ◼   ► second data transfer splitter converter."

00:43:56 ◼   ► Oh, I made it.

00:43:57 ◼   ► - Okay, so this is basically like a HDMI switch,

00:44:02 ◼   ► but instead of being for HDMI, it's obviously for USB-C

00:44:06 ◼   ► or I guess not Thunderbolt, maybe Thunderbolt.

00:44:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, so it's very much like a KVM.

00:44:11 ◼   ► So it's like a one in, two out, or I guess two in,

00:44:16 ◼   ► one out switch that only switches USB-C, not Thunderbolt.

00:44:21 ◼   ► So what's interesting about this is that

00:44:24 ◼   ► in the description of it, they specifically say

00:44:27 ◼   ► in their Amazon descriptionees,

00:44:30 ◼   ► do not use this with the LG monitor and Max,

00:44:34 ◼   ► because the first generation LG ultrafine monitors

00:44:39 ◼   ► were Thunderbolt only.

00:44:41 ◼   ► I believe the newer generation of them added USB-C support

00:44:44 ◼   ► so they could be used with iPads.

00:44:46 ◼   ► But basically, any monitor that did not work

00:44:49 ◼   ► with the original iPad Pro will not work with this,

00:44:54 ◼   ► but because it is USB-C but not Thunderbolt.

00:44:58 ◼   ► And now it does seem to support all the high data rates

00:45:01 ◼   ► and everything.

00:45:02 ◼   ► And so it is apparently supporting the USB-C display mode

00:45:06 ◼   ► or whatever that is at the low level,

00:45:08 ◼   ► but it is literally just USB-C, not Thunderbolt.

00:45:11 ◼   ► But most modern nice monitors, including the studio display,

00:45:16 ◼   ► will actually switch properly that way.

00:45:19 ◼   ► So this should theoretically work with that.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Will it work with the XDR?

00:45:23 ◼   ► I don't think so, right?

00:45:24 ◼   ► - I thought it would, but--

00:45:26 ◼   ► - I don't think it can do that resolution over USB-C,

00:45:28 ◼   ► but I can't keep track.

00:45:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, it might work with the XDR,

00:45:31 ◼   ► but it definitely does work with the studio display.

00:45:33 ◼   ► - And this is the thing about a lot of like,

00:45:35 ◼   ► when you're looking for a Thunderbolt whatever,

00:45:37 ◼   ► it's very easy to accidentally find a USB whatever

00:45:40 ◼   ► that's not actually Thunderbolt anything,

00:45:42 ◼   ► because the connector looks the same.

00:45:43 ◼   ► And often it will do the job that you want,

00:45:45 ◼   ► and so you don't care.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Like if it supports the resolution you want,

00:45:48 ◼   ► and it supports all the peripherals, and everything works,

00:45:50 ◼   ► then what do you care whether it's Thunderbolt or USB?

00:45:52 ◼   ► but you do have to be careful,

00:45:53 ◼   ► and usually the way you can tell is

00:45:55 ◼   ► if it's Thunderbolt anything, it's way more expensive.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Well, if it's Thunderbolt anything,

00:45:58 ◼   ► it will usually say Intel certified in the description,

00:46:02 ◼   ► and it will always have the Thunderbolt

00:46:04 ◼   ► little lightning logo on the port.

00:46:06 ◼   ► If you don't see that lightning logo, it is not Thunderbolt.

00:46:08 ◼   ► - All right, so Steve continues,

00:46:10 ◼   ► "I literally just plugged it in a few minutes ago

00:46:11 ◼   ► "and it seems to work just great.

00:46:13 ◼   ► "Unless I'm missing some little detail

00:46:14 ◼   ► "around resolution, et cetera, but I think it's okay.

00:46:16 ◼   ► "Speakers and camera work great

00:46:17 ◼   ► "and everything still identifies to the system

00:46:19 ◼   ► "as a studio display.

00:46:20 ◼   ► "I haven't messed with spatial audio,

00:46:21 ◼   ► I just use the speakers, which are excellent.

00:46:24 ◼   ► So according to Steve, this is an option

00:46:26 ◼   ► if you just want a sort of KVM kind of thing

00:46:30 ◼   ► that's literally just one USB-C port

00:46:33 ◼   ► that you can plug your studio display into.

00:46:36 ◼   ► - Does it make some sense for Apple to have supported this?

00:46:39 ◼   ► They might just get it for free

00:46:39 ◼   ► with the chipset they're using,

00:46:40 ◼   ► but like, aren't there still,

00:46:42 ◼   ► I mean, I suppose people have older computers,

00:46:43 ◼   ► like a Macs that you might want to connect

00:46:46 ◼   ► to the studio display that don't support Thunderbolt,

00:46:48 ◼   ► but are listed as supported by the studio display?

00:46:52 ◼   ► Like what?

00:46:54 ◼   ► I mean, they still have USB-C, though?

00:46:55 ◼   ► The first generation MacBook?

00:46:56 ◼   ► The adorable, maybe?

00:46:58 ◼   ► I don't think Apple wants to acknowledge anybody still

00:47:00 ◼   ► uses those things.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Maybe they just get it free as part of the chipset.

00:47:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:47:03 ◼   ► But anyway, this--

00:47:04 ◼   ► The keyboards have already broken by now, anyway.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Not errands.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Not errands.

00:47:07 ◼   ► By using this KVM, you're basically

00:47:09 ◼   ► forcing your computer to speak USB-C, because the KVM,

00:47:12 ◼   ► this thing supports USB-C, but not Thunderbolt.

00:47:15 ◼   ► And then once you do that, apparently Thunderbolt display.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Thunderbolt display. Apparently the studio display is just fine with that and

00:47:22 ◼   ► you know I was that I asked that's why I asked the follow-up question like does

00:47:25 ◼   ► the camera work does the speakers work and yeah apparently it all works great.

00:47:28 ◼   ► And then tangentially an anonymous friend of the show wrote there is in

00:47:32 ◼   ► fact a KVM switch for Thunderbolt that would let you multiplex two inputs to

00:47:36 ◼   ► one output and thus build a switch for multiple Macs to use one Thunderbolt

00:47:39 ◼   ► monitor. It's part of Intel's Thunderbolt developer tools which are used for

00:47:43 ◼   ► stuff like hot plug testing since test software can poke the quote-unquote

00:47:46 ◼   ► Switch from input A to input B, but it seems like none of the Thunderbolt dock developers

00:47:51 ◼   ► have yet thought of shipping this as an actual product.

00:47:54 ◼   ► So it exists, but you can't have it.

00:47:56 ◼   ► Yeah, this is like if you are a manufacturer, like say you're CalDigit and you're making

00:48:01 ◼   ► their Thunderbolt docks, this is apparently a piece of hardware that you can, I guess,

00:48:05 ◼   ► get from Intel or somebody to help you develop your hardware product, and it basically acts

00:48:10 ◼   ► like a software controlled switch which changes your Thunderbolt things.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I'm not sure you could just take that and say okay, we're gonna package this and resell it

00:48:17 ◼   ► It's maybe a part of some developer agreement when you get this piece of hardware, but it shows that it's definitely possible

00:48:22 ◼   ► It's just not a product that is in our lineup. Yeah, and the anonymous friend did share a picture with us

00:48:29 ◼   ► We are not at liberty to share it with everyone else unfortunately, but I can I can assure you this picture

00:48:33 ◼   ► It makes me think that this is absolutely a factual thing and plus this anonymous friend wouldn't lie. So this is a real thing

00:48:40 ◼   ► It's just we can't have it

00:48:41 ◼   ► Now, tangentially related, there's been a lot of follow-up and kerfuffle with regards

00:48:47 ◼   ► to USB Ethernet adapters that are apparently slow on modern Macs.

00:48:51 ◼   ► And James Badger writes, "Gigabit USB-C Ethernet adapters mostly use the Realtek RTL8153 chipset.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Realtek's last driver for the RTL8153 is for Mac OS 1015 Catalina.

00:49:04 ◼   ► A newer Mac OS version, COS will fall back to the default "Apple ECM" driver, which has

00:49:10 ◼   ► slower transfer speeds and will noticeably increase CPU usage during transfers. The 2.5

00:49:15 ◼   ► gigabit adapters sometimes use the Realtek RTL8156 instead. The 8156 uses the NCM MacOS driver,

00:49:24 ◼   ► which is much higher performance. We also got some feedback from Lex Postma about this as well.

00:49:27 ◼   ► But yeah, apparently if you use the, what is it, 81, where did it go, 8153 chipset, which is like

00:49:36 ◼   ► almost every USB C thing dongle that has an Ethernet adapter on board that's no

00:49:43 ◼   ► bueno in modern versions of Mac OS so you need to find something that's

00:49:47 ◼   ► basically two and a half gigabit to be to be more likely in the safe zone yeah

00:49:52 ◼   ► or use Apple's Thunderbolt controller which I'm using through stupid adapter

00:49:56 ◼   ► it's a little more pricey like you can get freezing for reference like you can

00:49:59 ◼   ► get a 2.5 gigabit adapter with the 8156 the good chipset for like 30 bucks so

00:50:05 ◼   ► So these aren't super expensive things,

00:50:07 ◼   ► even if you don't ever plan to use

00:50:09 ◼   ► the two and a half gigabit capability of it.

00:50:12 ◼   ► So that's one option.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And just to clarify, as far as I can tell,

00:50:16 ◼   ► I did some research on this already today,

00:50:17 ◼   ► as far as I can tell, the Apple-sold Belkin USB-C

00:50:21 ◼   ► Ethernet adapter is the crappy chipset, the 8153.

00:50:25 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, mine is about 100 miles away

00:50:29 ◼   ► or about 50 miles away right now,

00:50:30 ◼   ► so I can't actually check mine.

00:50:31 ◼   ► But I did as much research as I could

00:50:33 ◼   ► seem to be that's the case.

00:50:35 ◼   ► I also, somebody said somewhere, like on Hacker News,

00:50:39 ◼   ► that the CalDigit TS4, the new CalDigit doc,

00:50:42 ◼   ► might be the nice chip, the 8156.

00:50:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, how can I figure that out?

00:50:46 ◼   ► I'm running one right now.

00:50:47 ◼   ► Where can I go to find this out?

00:50:48 ◼   ► In System Report?

00:50:49 ◼   ► - There's like a kext command you can run

00:50:51 ◼   ► to list what it's using.

00:50:52 ◼   ► - Oh, shoot, all right.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - If you check out that blog post, it'll be in there.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Yeah, but I actually emailed CalDigit earlier today

00:50:58 ◼   ► to ask them, but I haven't heard back yet.

00:51:01 ◼   ► So, we'll see.

00:51:02 ◼   ► But yeah, basically if you wanna be sure of it,

00:51:04 ◼   ► if you actually search like Amazon or whatever

00:51:06 ◼   ► for RTL8156 USB adapters,

00:51:09 ◼   ► you will find adapters that are two and a half gigabit

00:51:12 ◼   ► that actually say specifically they have that chip in them.

00:51:15 ◼   ► So that's probably the safest bet.

00:51:18 ◼   ► - And to be clear, it's not like the chipset

00:51:19 ◼   ► is crappy or anything, it's just that there's no,

00:51:21 ◼   ► apparently no more driver, custom driver for it,

00:51:25 ◼   ► and so it falls back to some generic driver

00:51:27 ◼   ► that does a bad job, right?

00:51:28 ◼   ► And I think someone said that like Apple's response to,

00:51:31 ◼   ► you know, investigating this is like, oh, well,

00:51:33 ◼   ► the manufacturers of those product need to supply Apple

00:51:36 ◼   ► with the correct drivers for their new driver model,

00:51:39 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:51:40 ◼   ► So this is basically just a driver issue.

00:51:41 ◼   ► So this could be solved with software,

00:51:44 ◼   ► but I think it seems like Apple is saying that,

00:51:45 ◼   ► well, it's not our responsibility to solve this

00:51:48 ◼   ► with software, the hardware manufacturers need to work

00:51:50 ◼   ► with us to supply the correct driver that we will then

00:51:53 ◼   ► bundle with macOS and then your RTL 8153 chipset

00:51:57 ◼   ► will go back to performing the way it's supposed to.

00:52:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do think it's kind of galling

00:52:01 ◼   ► that Apple is still selling that terribly slow

00:52:03 ◼   ► Belkin USB-C adapter in their stores

00:52:05 ◼   ► as their only USB-C ethernet adapter.

00:52:08 ◼   ► - There is so much info for me to look through

00:52:11 ◼   ► on this command. (laughing)

00:52:12 ◼   ► I am not gonna be able to figure this out

00:52:14 ◼   ► during the time that we're recording

00:52:15 ◼   ► if you want me to participate at all.

00:52:16 ◼   ► - That's fine.

00:52:17 ◼   ► - Holy jimolies, I'll have to look into this,

00:52:19 ◼   ► but there's a lot here.

00:52:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, there is.

00:52:21 ◼   ► I read it earlier, it took a very long time.

00:52:23 ◼   ► - No, no, no, I'm not even talking about the blog post,

00:52:25 ◼   ► I'm talking about the command output

00:52:26 ◼   ► from this command that I just ran.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I would put a gist up and have the chat room go through it,

00:52:33 ◼   ► but I don't know if there's something private in here,

00:52:34 ◼   ► who knows.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Nevertheless, we'll move right along.

00:52:37 ◼   ► Tell us about Canon EF lenses and how they can work

00:52:40 ◼   ► or cannot work with mirrorless cameras.

00:52:42 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I put this in here.

00:52:43 ◼   ► It turns out, so there was a question

00:52:45 ◼   ► an episode or two ago in Ask ATP about

00:52:48 ◼   ► a person who owned a bunch of Canon EF lenses

00:52:50 ◼   ► trying to choose between, going to the mirrorless world,

00:52:53 ◼   ► trying to choose between the Canon ecosystem

00:52:54 ◼   ► in the Sony mirrorless ecosystem.

00:52:57 ◼   ► And what we didn't know at the time,

00:52:59 ◼   ► and what we, or at least we didn't say,

00:53:01 ◼   ► we got a couple of people wrote in,

00:53:03 ◼   ► both named Chris, who told us that Canon EF lenses

00:53:07 ◼   ► can be easily adapted to their new RF mount

00:53:11 ◼   ► on their mirrorless cameras.

00:53:12 ◼   ► The adapter's apparently about 100 bucks,

00:53:14 ◼   ► and it works really well.

00:53:15 ◼   ► They say there's not really any major performance losses

00:53:18 ◼   ► by using it, so that's pretty cool.

00:53:20 ◼   ► I didn't realize that.

00:53:21 ◼   ► I figured there was probably an adapter,

00:53:23 ◼   ► but I was surprised to hear that it's kind of,

00:53:26 ◼   ► you know, once you pay for it,

00:53:28 ◼   ► that it's kind of free in the sense that you don't,

00:53:29 ◼   ► you don't seem to lose much benefit of the lenses

00:53:31 ◼   ► by using them through the adapter.

00:53:32 ◼   ► So that's cool, and that changes things.

00:53:34 ◼   ► And if, you know, if I had a bunch of EF lenses,

00:53:36 ◼   ► which I mean, we kind of do, they're more my wife's,

00:53:39 ◼   ► but that would certainly, you know,

00:53:41 ◼   ► factor into my decision as well,

00:53:42 ◼   ► because some of those EF lenses are really, really good,

00:53:45 ◼   ► and it would be a shame to lose them.

00:53:47 ◼   ► - There's always an adapter,

00:53:48 ◼   ► but like the thing that people, you know,

00:53:50 ◼   ► the downsides that people have cited is like,

00:53:52 ◼   ► Well, maybe you get fewer frames per second

00:53:55 ◼   ► if you use the adapter, because the sort of communication

00:53:57 ◼   ► between the camera and the focusing system and everything

00:54:00 ◼   ► aren't that good.

00:54:01 ◼   ► But the second one that no one mentioned that I'll throw out

00:54:03 ◼   ► there is the technology inside lenses moves on,

00:54:07 ◼   ► particularly the focusing technology is one of the reasons

00:54:10 ◼   ► why I was kind of being a little bit hesitant

00:54:13 ◼   ► about the 55 millimeter prime lens

00:54:16 ◼   ► we were talking about last time.

00:54:18 ◼   ► Every time a new lens is made,

00:54:20 ◼   ► they improve the little motors that move the elements

00:54:22 ◼   ► inside the lens, the focusing elements and everything,

00:54:25 ◼   ► to make them faster and quieter or both.

00:54:28 ◼   ► And so if you have a big collection

00:54:29 ◼   ► of really expensive Canon EF lenses,

00:54:32 ◼   ► that are many, many years old,

00:54:33 ◼   ► they haven't gotten any worse.

00:54:35 ◼   ► They're just as good as they always were,

00:54:36 ◼   ► but it is possible that newer Canon lenses,

00:54:39 ◼   ► for mirrorless or otherwise,

00:54:41 ◼   ► have faster or quieter focusing or both.

00:54:44 ◼   ► But otherwise, yeah, it seems like the adapter

00:54:47 ◼   ► is able to pass through all the things

00:54:49 ◼   ► that it needs to pass through,

00:54:49 ◼   ► but sometimes the performance of your lens

00:54:52 ◼   ► will even be slightly less than it was

00:54:54 ◼   ► when it was directly connected to the full frame.

00:54:57 ◼   ► But in other cases, I would say like,

00:54:58 ◼   ► maybe there's a newer lens.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And the good thing about lenses

00:55:00 ◼   ► is they have good resale value.

00:55:01 ◼   ► So if you really do want,

00:55:03 ◼   ► even if you're moving to Canon mirrorless,

00:55:05 ◼   ► sell all your Canon DSLR lenses,

00:55:09 ◼   ► you'll make probably pretty good money on them.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And then to put that money into newer equivalent lenses

00:55:13 ◼   ► that have more modern technology inside them.

00:55:15 ◼   ► I'm not sure if Canon is as aggressive

00:55:17 ◼   ► at updating the guts as Sony is,

00:55:19 ◼   ► but I would imagine they are

00:55:21 ◼   ► because even like the third party Sony lenses

00:55:24 ◼   ► from year to year, you have to be careful

00:55:26 ◼   ► you don't accidentally get the quote unquote old one

00:55:28 ◼   ► that has like the noisy focusing motors,

00:55:32 ◼   ► just like the noisy Mac Studio.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Is it totally inaudible or is it the loudest thing

00:55:35 ◼   ► you've ever heard and you can't use it at weddings

00:55:37 ◼   ► because it's so noisy?

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00:57:24 ◼   ► - So we have sort of kind of breaking news.

00:57:29 ◼   ► We have a new setup here at my desk and--

00:57:34 ◼   ► - That's not breaking news.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - And it is breaking news--

00:57:36 ◼   ► - It's more news when you don't have a new setup

00:57:38 ◼   ► at your desk.

00:57:39 ◼   ► - That's true, but this is hypothetically

00:57:42 ◼   ► the end of the road because I am looking

00:57:44 ◼   ► at an Apple Studio display right now.

00:57:46 ◼   ► - Hey!

00:57:47 ◼   ► It is beautiful and I love it so much.

00:57:51 ◼   ► It is so delightful.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I am so excited about this thing.

00:57:56 ◼   ► In so many ways, it is the anti-KC monitor

00:57:59 ◼   ► because it was a fortune.

00:58:01 ◼   ► It doesn't do a lot of the things that I kind of wish it did.

00:58:04 ◼   ► I don't care.

00:58:05 ◼   ► It's so beautiful.

00:58:06 ◼   ► It's so, so beautiful.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Everything about it, I love it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Physically, the case, I got the VESA mount,

00:58:13 ◼   ► VESA VESA mount one,

00:58:15 ◼   ► And I'm using it on a not particularly great stand,

00:58:18 ◼   ► but that's a choice that I made.

00:58:19 ◼   ► It's not the fault of the monitor.

00:58:22 ◼   ► But the monitor itself, it looks so pretty.

00:58:25 ◼   ► It's so nice.

00:58:26 ◼   ► It looks beautiful.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And the screen of course is excellent.

00:58:30 ◼   ► I have it next to the Ultra Meche

00:58:33 ◼   ► and the Ultra Meche just looks awful and dated

00:58:37 ◼   ► and chintzy and crummy by comparison.

00:58:39 ◼   ► And I mean both the physical case

00:58:42 ◼   ► and the screen, it's probably a placebo,

00:58:45 ◼   ► but I really feel like the screen is genuinely,

00:58:47 ◼   ► not only is it brighter, but it just looks better to me.

00:58:49 ◼   ► Now this ultra fine is on the earlier side

00:58:52 ◼   ► of the ultra fine display, so that's probably part of it.

00:58:55 ◼   ► But nevertheless, I genuinely think it looks better.

00:58:58 ◼   ► The sound is way better.

00:59:00 ◼   ► - Before we move on to the sound,

00:59:01 ◼   ► I wanna say on the appearance,

00:59:02 ◼   ► that's not just your imagination.

00:59:03 ◼   ► We mentioned this on a past show that the studio display

00:59:06 ◼   ► has a higher maximum peak brightness than the LG does,

00:59:10 ◼   ► just from the product specs,

00:59:11 ◼   ► and also people have measured it and seen that's the case.

00:59:14 ◼   ► People have also looked at the actual model number

00:59:16 ◼   ► of the panel and it is not the same model numbers in the LG.

00:59:19 ◼   ► It's also not the same model numbers

00:59:21 ◼   ► in the 5K iMac, I believe.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And in people doing side-by-side comparisons

00:59:25 ◼   ► of, you know, with measurement equipment and everything,

00:59:27 ◼   ► not only does the studio display get slightly brighter,

00:59:30 ◼   ► not a lot brighter, but brighter enough

00:59:31 ◼   ► that you can notice it without measuring instruments.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Like you can notice it with your eyeballs.

00:59:34 ◼   ► But the black levels are also slightly better

00:59:37 ◼   ► than the LG display or the iMac.

00:59:39 ◼   ► It's not dramatic.

00:59:40 ◼   ► You really need to see them side-by-side to notice that,

00:59:42 ◼   ► but it is a real thing.

00:59:43 ◼   ► You can even see it in YouTube videos.

00:59:45 ◼   ► Like you don't need to, you don't need measuring equipment,

00:59:47 ◼   ► you don't need to trust a bunch of people doing it.

00:59:48 ◼   ► You can just look at the side by side photos

00:59:50 ◼   ► of the two monitors right next to each other.

00:59:52 ◼   ► The blacks are a little deeper

00:59:53 ◼   ► and the brights are a little bit brighter.

00:59:55 ◼   ► The-- - Like Oxy-Cree?

00:59:56 ◼   ► - I don't know if I wanna tell Casey this

00:59:58 ◼   ► to make him potentially find things wrong with his monitor,

01:00:01 ◼   ► but the one complaint I have seen about the studio display,

01:00:04 ◼   ► and I feel like it could be manufacturing tolerances,

01:00:06 ◼   ► but it could just be a fact of life of the display,

01:00:09 ◼   ► is minor vignetting around the menu bar, potentially?

01:00:14 ◼   ► I mean, the XDR has vignetting around all the edges,

01:00:16 ◼   ► as Marko's complained about in the past.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Casey, it's hard to tell with the menu bar

01:00:20 ◼   ► 'cause the menu bar has shading and is translucent anyway,

01:00:22 ◼   ► but if you just fill the whole screen with white

01:00:24 ◼   ► from top to bottom covering everything,

01:00:26 ◼   ► including the menu bar,

01:00:28 ◼   ► check to see if you see a little bit of a shadow

01:00:30 ◼   ► on the edges.

01:00:31 ◼   ► - I'd rather not, actually.

01:00:33 ◼   ► - All right. - Thank you for offering.

01:00:34 ◼   ► I'd rather not. - That's a thing

01:00:36 ◼   ► you might note.

01:00:37 ◼   ► I only saw one person post a picture of it

01:00:39 ◼   ► and I could see it and I could like,

01:00:40 ◼   ► yeah, my XTR looks like that.

01:00:41 ◼   ► So even for $5,000, you can't escape that

01:00:44 ◼   ► because it's just, I'm not gonna say it's inherent

01:00:47 ◼   ► in the technology that they're using to backlight it,

01:00:49 ◼   ► but it is difficult to control when you use

01:00:51 ◼   ► this kind of technology to make a monitor.

01:00:54 ◼   ► - I mean, if you can also find some masquerading in it,

01:00:56 ◼   ► you can really make it a theme.

01:00:58 ◼   ► - There it is, I was waiting for it.

01:00:59 ◼   ► Nicely done, nicely done indeed.

01:01:01 ◼   ► So yeah, so this thing, I think it looks better.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It sounds so much better.

01:01:06 ◼   ► I was suffering through the Ultrafine's speakers

01:01:11 ◼   ► because I haven't yet put together an amp

01:01:14 ◼   ► for the speakers that came in my Marco Christmas box.

01:01:17 ◼   ► - What are you waiting for?

01:01:18 ◼   ► I've updated the firmware on my Marco Christmas present,

01:01:22 ◼   ► I've changed all the settings,

01:01:23 ◼   ► I bought a lens for it, I bought a new SD card,

01:01:27 ◼   ► I'm just, you haven't even,

01:01:29 ◼   ► is it still in the box? - I've been busy,

01:01:30 ◼   ► I've been busy, all right?

01:01:31 ◼   ► I've been busy.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Nevertheless, so the volume is great,

01:01:34 ◼   ► And you know what's an amazingly great feature

01:01:36 ◼   ► on something that outputs an EO audio?

01:01:39 ◼   ► Having a linear volume control.

01:01:42 ◼   ► And this has a linear volume control.

01:01:44 ◼   ► It doesn't go, you know, quiet, sightless, quiet,

01:01:47 ◼   ► sightless, quiet, really loud, louder, et cetera.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Because that's what the LG does.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Like one, two, and three are linear.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Then when you jump from three to four,

01:01:55 ◼   ► it's definitely by comparison.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And so this is linear, which is excellent.

01:02:01 ◼   ► It works via the CalDigit TS4, which is also excellent

01:02:05 ◼   ► because as mentioned earlier, the LG Ultrafine,

01:02:08 ◼   ► at least the Ultrafine I have, doesn't get full 5K

01:02:12 ◼   ► if I plug it in via the CalDigit, which is annoying,

01:02:14 ◼   ► but you know, it is what it is.

01:02:16 ◼   ► The screen is completely happy going through the CalDigit,

01:02:20 ◼   ► no issues.

01:02:21 ◼   ► It wakes much faster than the Ultrafine does,

01:02:24 ◼   ► which I'm not at all surprised by.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Also, real quick about the CalDigit TS4,

01:02:29 ◼   ► It is working really well.

01:02:31 ◼   ► It's a fortune.

01:02:32 ◼   ► It was like 350 bucks or something like that,

01:02:33 ◼   ► but I really like it.

01:02:34 ◼   ► The only thing I will say,

01:02:35 ◼   ► and I don't think I said this on the show before,

01:02:37 ◼   ► the onboard ethernet, which I still haven't figured out

01:02:40 ◼   ► if it's the good or bad real tech,

01:02:41 ◼   ► but the onboard ethernet, which is two and a half gigabit,

01:02:43 ◼   ► it didn't work for beans

01:02:46 ◼   ► when I first plugged everything in.

01:02:47 ◼   ► And it turns out that you have to go into,

01:02:50 ◼   ► I know this is off the top of my head,

01:02:51 ◼   ► in system preferences and network,

01:02:53 ◼   ► and then if you go into like advanced for the TS4,

01:02:55 ◼   ► or for the ethernet connection on the TS4,

01:02:57 ◼   ► Whatever that last tab is,

01:02:59 ◼   ► I think it's like the hardware settings,

01:03:01 ◼   ► there's a bunch of different options,

01:03:03 ◼   ► including using energy efficient ethernet,

01:03:06 ◼   ► and you have to turn that off because reasons.

01:03:09 ◼   ► I don't really understand why,

01:03:10 ◼   ► but CalDigit recommends this.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Once I did that, it's been extremely reliable.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And I have heard from other people

01:03:16 ◼   ► who sleep their computers frequently

01:03:18 ◼   ► that waking the CalDigit up from sleep

01:03:20 ◼   ► can be a little spotty.

01:03:22 ◼   ► I don't know if that's a macOS problem

01:03:23 ◼   ► or a CalDigit problem.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I don't sleep my Mac barely ever,

01:03:27 ◼   ► So for me, this is not something I've run into,

01:03:29 ◼   ► but that is something to consider.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Also finding a CalDigit TS4 right now

01:03:34 ◼   ► is freaking impossible.

01:03:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can't.

01:03:35 ◼   ► I tried to buy one, like when it first came out,

01:03:37 ◼   ► I looked again today when I was doing this research.

01:03:39 ◼   ► They're nowhere.

01:03:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's a pain in the butt in that regard.

01:03:43 ◼   ► But as a quick aside, I do like the CalDigit TS4.

01:03:47 ◼   ► I give it a thumbs up for my use cases.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Again, be a little careful if you sleep your computer often

01:03:53 ◼   ► or whatever the case may be.

01:03:55 ◼   ► We did a video call this morning using Zoom.

01:03:57 ◼   ► We were talking to someone

01:03:58 ◼   ► and that was my first experience with center stage.

01:04:02 ◼   ► The camera is kind of garbage right now.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Like your face looks very porcelain.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I think I heard Snell describe it that way

01:04:08 ◼   ► and it was accurate.

01:04:10 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think it's, I shouldn't say it's garbage.

01:04:12 ◼   ► It's not garbage.

01:04:13 ◼   ► It's just not what you would expect

01:04:15 ◼   ► from the hardware that you know is in the screen.

01:04:18 ◼   ► And we're being told it would have got better with time,

01:04:20 ◼   ► software, software, software.

01:04:21 ◼   ► But I found it serviceable for the sorts of things

01:04:26 ◼   ► that I need to do.

01:04:27 ◼   ► But if you're one of those people who wants to,

01:04:29 ◼   ► who is thinking about setting up a 4K camera

01:04:32 ◼   ► pointed at your face, on top of your monitor or whatever,

01:04:34 ◼   ► it is not that nice.

01:04:36 ◼   ► But center stage, super cool.

01:04:38 ◼   ► And I did not see any, or if I didn't see any,

01:04:42 ◼   ► I didn't notice, of the delay

01:04:45 ◼   ► where you shimmy to one side or the other

01:04:47 ◼   ► and the quote unquote camera person is like,

01:04:50 ◼   ► What, huh? Oh, shoot, I gotta move.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't personally see any of that.

01:04:53 ◼   ► I'm not saying it doesn't exist.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's not a problem for others,

01:04:56 ◼   ► but I didn't see any, and center stage is super cool.

01:04:59 ◼   ► It was Aaron and I talking to our financial advisor,

01:05:02 ◼   ► and Michaela would come in and out of frame

01:05:03 ◼   ► from time to time, and it would shimmy over

01:05:06 ◼   ► to show Michaela, and then as she left,

01:05:10 ◼   ► the frame would tighten up on Aaron and me.

01:05:12 ◼   ► It was really cool.

01:05:13 ◼   ► It wasn't 1,000% perfect, but I wouldn't say

01:05:16 ◼   ► I saw a sleepy camera person.

01:05:19 ◼   ► It's just occasionally the camera person made a choice

01:05:22 ◼   ► that I wouldn't have made.

01:05:24 ◼   ► But all in all though, super thumbs up for center stage.

01:05:28 ◼   ► Let's see.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Oh, the LG, everything about it looks like garbage

01:05:32 ◼   ► and I hate it.

01:05:33 ◼   ► And one of the first things I thought to myself,

01:05:36 ◼   ► so I'm using this two monitor VESA stand

01:05:41 ◼   ► because of reasons that are not interesting.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And so I have the studio display directly in front of me

01:05:48 ◼   ► And I have the LG taking the position

01:05:50 ◼   ► that the 4K display had previously taken.

01:05:53 ◼   ► So it's offset to my right, and it's at an angle,

01:05:56 ◼   ► you know, compared to the studio display.

01:05:58 ◼   ► And within two minutes of setting this all on my desk again,

01:06:03 ◼   ► I had for a fleeting moment the thought to myself,

01:06:07 ◼   ► should I get a second one of these?

01:06:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:06:10 ◼   ► - This is how it happens.

01:06:11 ◼   ► - Because the LG, I hated you whining, Marco,

01:06:16 ◼   ► about how the stand is and how,

01:06:17 ◼   ► "Oh, you can see the LG logo."

01:06:19 ◼   ► - No, no, hold on.

01:06:20 ◼   ► I don't think I ever complained about the logo.

01:06:22 ◼   ► - Oh, you did, you absolutely did.

01:06:24 ◼   ► - The whole thing is hideous for lots of other reasons.

01:06:26 ◼   ► The weird proportions of the bezel,

01:06:28 ◼   ► the big forehead on top, the plastic everywhere,

01:06:31 ◼   ► the stand is ugly.

01:06:32 ◼   ► There's lots of other things about it that are ugly.

01:06:33 ◼   ► The actual LG logo, I don't find that offensive.

01:06:35 ◼   ► What I find offensive is the incredibly mediocre

01:06:37 ◼   ► build quality of everything else.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I agree with that, and #MarcoWasRight.

01:06:42 ◼   ► It is ultra meh, but I genuinely, for a fleeting moment,

01:06:46 ◼   ► thoughts to myself, maybe I should just get a second one of these.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Wouldn't, wouldn't that, uh, no, stop.

01:06:51 ◼   ► No, no.

01:06:52 ◼   ► If you order it now, it'll probably come by the fall.

01:06:54 ◼   ► That's also true.

01:06:55 ◼   ► But then they'll have, they'll have the pro version with the mini led.

01:06:58 ◼   ► I'm genuinely worried that that's going to happen, that there'll be a pro

01:07:01 ◼   ► version.

01:07:02 ◼   ► I'm worried.

01:07:03 ◼   ► My, my first studio display is probably going to come around the time of WNVDC.

01:07:07 ◼   ► So I'm worried that, that the pro versions are going to come out and I'm going to

01:07:12 ◼   ► be in another 2,500 bucks for a monitor.

01:07:14 ◼   ► and then this'll get shimmied over

01:07:16 ◼   ► to where the ultra fine is now,

01:07:18 ◼   ► and this Phantom new studio display pro

01:07:20 ◼   ► will be in front of me, I don't know, whatever.

01:07:22 ◼   ► But I adore this thing.

01:07:25 ◼   ► It is, by some measures, a crummy display.

01:07:28 ◼   ► It is, by some measures, deeply overpriced.

01:07:31 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:07:33 ◼   ► And Snell, not on the most recent upgrade,

01:07:36 ◼   ► I think it was last week's upgrade,

01:07:38 ◼   ► Snell talked a lot about how people are expecting

01:07:40 ◼   ► this monitor to serve purposes

01:07:42 ◼   ► that it really probably wasn't designed to serve.

01:07:45 ◼   ► And he did a much better job.

01:07:47 ◼   ► I'm not even gonna try to summarize what he was saying

01:07:49 ◼   ► 'cause I'll butcher it,

01:07:50 ◼   ► but I agree with everything Snell said

01:07:52 ◼   ► in that episode of Upgrade.

01:07:55 ◼   ► If you want the sorts of things that I want,

01:07:59 ◼   ► if you want something that's nice to look at,

01:08:00 ◼   ► both in the sense of the screen is nice

01:08:03 ◼   ► and in the sense of the industrial design is nice,

01:08:05 ◼   ► if you want something that will work reliably

01:08:07 ◼   ► with your computer, if you want something, you hope,

01:08:10 ◼   ► If you want something that has a webcam,

01:08:13 ◼   ► if you want something that isn't $5,000,

01:08:16 ◼   ► if you want something that's natively 5K,

01:08:19 ◼   ► if these are things that you care about,

01:08:21 ◼   ► this is the perfect display for you.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And I don't think it's poorly priced.

01:08:26 ◼   ► It is expensive.

01:08:27 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's cheap,

01:08:28 ◼   ► but I don't think it's unreasonably priced.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And I am so thankful that I got this.

01:08:33 ◼   ► I am so excited about it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I love it.

01:08:36 ◼   ► So two hyper enthusiastic thumbs up for me.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Remind me of this when it crashes

01:08:42 ◼   ► in the middle of us recording,

01:08:43 ◼   ► sitting here now, two tremendous thumbs up.

01:08:46 ◼   ► I am in love with this thing.

01:08:47 ◼   ► - As always software could potentially be the Achilles heel.

01:08:50 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:08:51 ◼   ► We already talked about Thunderbolt display in the past

01:08:53 ◼   ► having problems with software,

01:08:55 ◼   ► but that wasn't running iOS.

01:08:56 ◼   ► So hopefully that makes this better or maybe worse.

01:08:58 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:08:59 ◼   ► We'll see how it goes.

01:09:00 ◼   ► One of the theories, one of my theories

01:09:02 ◼   ► about why we haven't seen an update to fix the camera,

01:09:04 ◼   ► Is it because the display is running iOS,

01:09:06 ◼   ► you're not going to get an update until there's an iOS

01:09:08 ◼   ► update?

01:09:08 ◼   ► And we kind of know how long it tends

01:09:10 ◼   ► to be between iOS updates.

01:09:12 ◼   ► It's not like they rush them out unless it's a security patch.

01:09:14 ◼   ► So I'm just assuming that whatever camera fix is

01:09:17 ◼   ► going to come the next time our iPhones get a point update,

01:09:20 ◼   ► right?

01:09:20 ◼   ► We'll see how that goes.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I mean, there's no reason they have to do that.

01:09:23 ◼   ► They could divorce the two versions.

01:09:24 ◼   ► They could make it called display OS or whatever.

01:09:28 ◼   ► But right now, it's the exact same build number,

01:09:30 ◼   ► and it's probably the same OS, and maybe that will diverge.

01:09:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:32 ◼   ► There's another weird side effect of that, too.

01:09:34 ◼   ► somebody wrote in to point out of like,

01:09:36 ◼   ► and sorry, I can't pull it up right now,

01:09:37 ◼   ► so sorry, sorry, I forgot the name,

01:09:38 ◼   ► but somebody wrote in to say like,

01:09:40 ◼   ► because it's based on iOS right now,

01:09:42 ◼   ► and because it has an A13 in it,

01:09:44 ◼   ► when iOS stops supporting the A13,

01:09:47 ◼   ► will this monitor not be able

01:09:49 ◼   ► to get software updates anymore?

01:09:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's where they could just keep

01:09:53 ◼   ► putting updates out only for the monitor.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Like Apple controls this whole stack,

01:09:56 ◼   ► they can do whatever they want,

01:09:57 ◼   ► but I feel like right now it's kind of in the sweet spot,

01:10:00 ◼   ► and when the A13 is no longer supported,

01:10:03 ◼   ► Apple still has the source code to whatever the last OS that

01:10:06 ◼   ► works with that is.

01:10:08 ◼   ► I mean, you're hoping with the monitor

01:10:10 ◼   ► that it's not going to need so many updates after everything

01:10:14 ◼   ► works in a satisfactory way.

01:10:15 ◼   ► It just needs-- then it can just basically never change

01:10:17 ◼   ► unless there's some kind of security problem.

01:10:19 ◼   ► I'm still kind of hoping someone will like jailbreak this

01:10:21 ◼   ► and run Mac OS on it or whatever.

01:10:23 ◼   ► But so far, that hasn't happened.

01:10:25 ◼   ► One thing I'll add to the list of things

01:10:27 ◼   ► like Casey was saying, if you like x,

01:10:29 ◼   ► then you should buy this monitor.

01:10:31 ◼   ► If you value something that's over engineered,

01:10:33 ◼   ► we just talked about it before,

01:10:35 ◼   ► if you watch that tear down video and I fix it,

01:10:37 ◼   ► and you see what the inside of this looks like,

01:10:39 ◼   ► and you see how sort of overbuilt it is

01:10:41 ◼   ► and how ridiculous it is inside there

01:10:43 ◼   ► and that appeals to you,

01:10:44 ◼   ► this is a product you might like

01:10:46 ◼   ► 'cause Apple makes a bunch of products

01:10:47 ◼   ► that appeal to people who like that type of thing.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Now, I like that type of thing

01:10:51 ◼   ► both because I get a kick out of it,

01:10:53 ◼   ► but also because in theory that means like,

01:10:56 ◼   ► oh, maybe it's more reliable because they use expensive,

01:10:58 ◼   ► you know, they buy expensive components

01:11:00 ◼   ► Like in, again, in theory, the giant fans

01:11:03 ◼   ► that are inside my Mac Pro are expensive fans.

01:11:06 ◼   ► I mean, not super expensive,

01:11:08 ◼   ► but like they're not like the cheapest fan

01:11:10 ◼   ► that they could get of that diameter, right?

01:11:12 ◼   ► You know, and same thing goes for everything in there.

01:11:14 ◼   ► The screws, the little metal posts,

01:11:16 ◼   ► all the little pieces they got,

01:11:17 ◼   ► like everything in there is over engineered.

01:11:21 ◼   ► It's spec to be better quality

01:11:23 ◼   ► than it technically needs to be to get the job done.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And what you're hoping is that all of that together

01:11:29 ◼   ► makes for a more reliable product over the long term.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Not always true.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Software can destroy any--

01:11:36 ◼   ► I'm sure the hardware people love this,

01:11:37 ◼   ► but bad software can destroy any product.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Like if there's some kind of weird software bug,

01:11:40 ◼   ► or a driver issue, or whatever, it doesn't matter

01:11:42 ◼   ► how beautifully engineered the hardware is.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And you can over engineer stuff and still have a fatal flaw,

01:11:46 ◼   ► like the butterfly keyboard.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Or the butterfly keyboard's probably over engineered as well.

01:11:50 ◼   ► It was just a bad idea, and had a problem that apparently

01:11:54 ◼   ► didn't appear until it got into people's hands

01:11:56 ◼   ► and people started eating potato chips over it,

01:11:59 ◼   ► or whatever.

01:12:01 ◼   ► So it seems like so far the studio display

01:12:04 ◼   ► mostly is getting the benefits of being over engineered.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Casey likes it, it makes him happy.

01:12:09 ◼   ► It's a nice product, it's very solid.

01:12:11 ◼   ► It seems to work reliably with Apple stuff for now.

01:12:15 ◼   ► But the camera's a little wonky.

01:12:16 ◼   ► But even the over engineered part of that is like,

01:12:18 ◼   ► oh well it's running a version of iOS on an A13.

01:12:21 ◼   ► We have some hope that that could be corrected

01:12:22 ◼   ► because it's not like they just built in a bunch of hardware

01:12:25 ◼   ► that does one thing inside there.

01:12:26 ◼   ► It is a general purpose little computer and it has an OS

01:12:29 ◼   ► and that OS in theory can be patched

01:12:30 ◼   ► to do a better job of that.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And the final thing I'll add about center stage,

01:12:34 ◼   ► I've seen a bunch of videos of people complaining

01:12:36 ◼   ► about sort of lazy cameraman in center stage,

01:12:38 ◼   ► like, oh, I moved my head out of the way

01:12:41 ◼   ► and the camera follows me, but then I move it back,

01:12:42 ◼   ► it doesn't follow back.

01:12:44 ◼   ► That also strikes me as a sort of a difficult to tune thing.

01:12:49 ◼   ► Like, I think of like things that are being tuned

01:12:50 ◼   ► like in games or even like software inside a car,

01:12:55 ◼   ► so that sort of control system.

01:12:57 ◼   ► The other extreme would be that it tracks you

01:13:00 ◼   ► like as fast as it possibly can, which it could do,

01:13:03 ◼   ► 'cause it knows exactly where your eyeballs are,

01:13:05 ◼   ► where your face is, like probably multiple times a second,

01:13:08 ◼   ► but for the same reason you don't do that type of thing

01:13:11 ◼   ► in a game, you wouldn't want to do it on the monitor,

01:13:13 ◼   ► it would be twitchy.

01:13:14 ◼   ► It would be like every time you move,

01:13:15 ◼   ► the camera would move and it would just be like hyperactive

01:13:18 ◼   ► and if for a second it lost track of your eyes,

01:13:20 ◼   ► it would jump to another position

01:13:21 ◼   ► and jump back in your eyes and jump, jump, jump,

01:13:22 ◼   ► just, the other extreme is super slow, right?

01:13:26 ◼   ► So you've got to find the happy medium there

01:13:29 ◼   ► and everyone has a different opinion

01:13:30 ◼   ► of what that medium should be.

01:13:32 ◼   ► As soon as you notice that you've moved back

01:13:34 ◼   ► and the camera doesn't, you're like,

01:13:35 ◼   ► oh, the camera's too slow.

01:13:37 ◼   ► But if you notice that it's being twitchy,

01:13:39 ◼   ► like you just moved your head a millimeter

01:13:41 ◼   ► and the camera moved and it's making people motion sick,

01:13:43 ◼   ► you don't like that either, right?

01:13:44 ◼   ► So what you want it to do is don't react too much

01:13:47 ◼   ► if I do a little bit of motion,

01:13:48 ◼   ► but eventually notice if I've made a net change in position

01:13:52 ◼   ► and it seems like I'm gonna stay there.

01:13:53 ◼   ► So you kind of want it to read your mind.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Am I leaning over daily glass of water,

01:13:56 ◼   ► or am I shifting in my seat,

01:13:58 ◼   ► and this is gonna be my new position?

01:14:00 ◼   ► And the only way to tell it is to wait some amount of time

01:14:02 ◼   ► and say, like I think if you were the programmer

01:14:04 ◼   ► trying to code this up or whatever,

01:14:06 ◼   ► how long should I wait after a move

01:14:09 ◼   ► to decide that the person has actually repositioned

01:14:12 ◼   ► and I should move the camera,

01:14:13 ◼   ► or should I wait a little bit longer

01:14:14 ◼   ► to see if they move back

01:14:15 ◼   ► 'cause they were just shifting a little bit?

01:14:17 ◼   ► And it's not easy to tune that.

01:14:19 ◼   ► It's kind of difficult to,

01:14:21 ◼   ► it's just a bunch of different parameters,

01:14:23 ◼   ► I'm sure to whatever model they're using to do that.

01:14:26 ◼   ► But no matter how you tune it,

01:14:29 ◼   ► once it gets out into the real world,

01:14:31 ◼   ► someone somewhere is gonna think

01:14:32 ◼   ► it's either too fast or too slow.

01:14:33 ◼   ► They seem to have errored on the side of being too slow

01:14:35 ◼   ► 'cause I think too fast would look like more of a bug

01:14:39 ◼   ► than too slow.

01:14:40 ◼   ► The slow will eventually catch up with you

01:14:42 ◼   ► and it seems like, oh, maybe it's like it's a slow computer.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Is that smart enough to go?

01:14:46 ◼   ► No, that's a deliberate choice.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Maybe they've made the choice to be slightly too slow,

01:14:49 ◼   ► but too slow is probably better than too fast.

01:14:51 ◼   ► So I kind of feel for the team that is tuning this at Apple

01:14:54 ◼   ► because there's almost no way to tune this

01:14:57 ◼   ► to the point where everyone who uses it is happy.

01:14:59 ◼   ► That's their task, that's what they have to try to do.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Find out the one that will make the most people happy

01:15:03 ◼   ► and it seems like they missed on that.

01:15:05 ◼   ► But honestly, I do wonder with the next revision

01:15:07 ◼   ► if they're gonna like overcorrect and make it twitchy,

01:15:10 ◼   ► but we'll see.

01:15:11 ◼   ► - In wildly unrelated news, your setup has changed

01:15:14 ◼   ► and I owe you a little bit of an apology.

01:15:17 ◼   ► We were talking, was it on the show

01:15:18 ◼   ► that we were talking about this?

01:15:19 ◼   ► It was, wasn't it?

01:15:20 ◼   ► that you wanted to rewire a portion of your house

01:15:24 ◼   ► so you can have a smart thermostat

01:15:26 ◼   ► and you didn't have a common wire where the thermostat was,

01:15:29 ◼   ► but you sent a picture to Marco and I amongst others

01:15:32 ◼   ► saying you have successfully installed a new smart thermostat

01:15:35 ◼   ► which means your wiring project has succeeded.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I am very proud of you, Jon.

01:15:38 ◼   ► I'm sorry for doubting you.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Tell me about this new thermostat of yours.

01:15:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm gonna reiterate the strategy

01:15:44 ◼   ► of if you're going to change something

01:15:47 ◼   ► about the thermostat in your house,

01:15:49 ◼   ► don't do it in the middle of winter.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Don't do it at a time where as soon as you start the project,

01:15:54 ◼   ► the clock is ticking until your pipes freeze.

01:15:56 ◼   ► So I waited until springtime, basically,

01:15:58 ◼   ► to do this because I figured, look, if I screw it up

01:16:01 ◼   ► and I just don't have any heat in my house

01:16:03 ◼   ► because I just totally screwed it up to the point

01:16:06 ◼   ► where I can't even put back the old thermostat,

01:16:08 ◼   ► I can call someone and they can come and fix it

01:16:10 ◼   ► and we're not gonna freeze to death in our house, right?

01:16:12 ◼   ► So that was, yeah.

01:16:13 ◼   ► - I love, just for reference, this morning,

01:16:15 ◼   ► for my morning dog walk, it was 40 degrees.

01:16:19 ◼   ► Like, it's still pretty cold.

01:16:21 ◼   ► You're not going to freeze-- your pipes aren't

01:16:23 ◼   ► going to burst at 40 degrees.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And we have actually insulation in our house now,

01:16:26 ◼   ► so we can maintain temperature over just the sun coming

01:16:30 ◼   ► through the windows during the day.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Heat is not really a factor around here anymore.

01:16:35 ◼   ► So I figured it was a reasonable time to do it.

01:16:38 ◼   ► And so the one I ended up getting--

01:16:40 ◼   ► we'll put a link in the show notes--

01:16:41 ◼   ► I got the Ecobee.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Their product naming is worse than Apple's.

01:16:45 ◼   ► They used to have a bunch of products called--

01:16:48 ◼   ► I think we just call it EcoBee Smart Thermostat

01:16:50 ◼   ► and they put a number on it and they got up to four

01:16:52 ◼   ► and then they thought better of it.

01:16:54 ◼   ► And so now the new top of the line one is called the,

01:16:58 ◼   ► what is it called?

01:16:58 ◼   ► EcoBee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control,

01:17:01 ◼   ► which you have to just understand,

01:17:02 ◼   ► is that better than the four?

01:17:03 ◼   ► Is it worse than the four?

01:17:04 ◼   ► Is it better than the three?

01:17:05 ◼   ► Is three better than the, that's just,

01:17:08 ◼   ► EcoBee kind of screwed it up.

01:17:09 ◼   ► But anyway, as far as I can tell,

01:17:10 ◼   ► based on the price and the newness of this,

01:17:12 ◼   ► this is the fanciest one they make.

01:17:15 ◼   ► And it's not even that fancy.

01:17:16 ◼   ► It's not that expensive.

01:17:18 ◼   ► It was introduced many years ago, so it's not even that new.

01:17:21 ◼   ► I picked it mostly because I didn't want one

01:17:23 ◼   ► that was particularly smart.

01:17:25 ◼   ► All I really wanted was to be able to control

01:17:27 ◼   ► the temperature of my house from my phone, right?

01:17:29 ◼   ► So like if you're away for a while,

01:17:30 ◼   ► or if you're coming home on a car ride from a long journey,

01:17:32 ◼   ► you can turn the heat on so it'll be warm

01:17:34 ◼   ► when you get there.

01:17:36 ◼   ► - I can tell you from experience,

01:17:37 ◼   ► that is 99% of the value of smart thermostats.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Like you really don't need more than that.

01:17:42 ◼   ► That alone is the best way to use smart thermostats.

01:17:44 ◼   ► turn off all of the automatic prediction features

01:17:48 ◼   ► that you'll just be fighting with them forever,

01:17:50 ◼   ► like just a thermostat that you can program

01:17:53 ◼   ► on a schedule if you want to,

01:17:54 ◼   ► and that you can remotely control from anywhere,

01:17:56 ◼   ► that's what you want.

01:17:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Ecobee had a good reputation

01:17:59 ◼   ► as being kind of that back when Nest was,

01:18:02 ◼   ► kind of all the rage that Ecobee was like,

01:18:03 ◼   ► we don't really do that,

01:18:05 ◼   ► we are just a computer-controlled thermostat

01:18:07 ◼   ► with a schedule.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Since then, Ecobee has added a bunch of features

01:18:11 ◼   ► to be smarter.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Obviously, they've added voice control,

01:18:13 ◼   ► It's right in the name of this thing,

01:18:15 ◼   ► so it supports Amazon voice assistant

01:18:17 ◼   ► and Apple's voice assistant,

01:18:18 ◼   ► whose names I'm not going to say.

01:18:20 ◼   ► It doesn't support the Google one.

01:18:24 ◼   ► And it does have some smart features,

01:18:26 ◼   ► but all of that stuff, including the voice stuff,

01:18:29 ◼   ► you can just flat turn off, right?

01:18:31 ◼   ► So there is a schedule.

01:18:32 ◼   ► You put heat comes on at this temperature,

01:18:34 ◼   ► it's a straight up schedule.

01:18:36 ◼   ► What time, what temperature, until what time,

01:18:38 ◼   ► then what other temperature, so on and so forth.

01:18:40 ◼   ► On top of that, it layers some mild smarts

01:18:43 ◼   ► where it tries to tell if the house is occupied

01:18:46 ◼   ► based on motion sensors that are in the thermostat.

01:18:49 ◼   ► And if it doesn't see anyone walk by the thermostat

01:18:52 ◼   ► or any of its other remote sensors,

01:18:53 ◼   ► which we'll talk about in a little bit,

01:18:55 ◼   ► it can decide, well, even though I'm supposed to be

01:18:57 ◼   ► keeping the house at whatever temperature,

01:18:59 ◼   ► it looks like no one's home right now,

01:19:01 ◼   ► so I'm going to turn the temperature down.

01:19:02 ◼   ► And it's very cautious.

01:19:03 ◼   ► So getting back to the center stage camera thing,

01:19:06 ◼   ► it needs to not sense the motion for two hours

01:19:08 ◼   ► before it will make this decision.

01:19:10 ◼   ► And again, you can turn off that feature

01:19:12 ◼   ► if you don't want it.

01:19:13 ◼   ► wanted to do that and you just wanted to stick to a schedule, you can turn that off as well.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Alright, so anyway, that's how I ended up picking this product.

01:19:18 ◼   ► It is a smart thermostat with reasonably good app support and support for at least two of

01:19:23 ◼   ► the ecosystems that are in my home thing.

01:19:25 ◼   ► It supports HomeKit, you know, it supports the Amazon stuff or whatever.

01:19:30 ◼   ► And the little remote thingamabob-erous sensors that it has, they're kind of neat.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Part of the problem with our ancient house, like, it's basically one big zone, you know,

01:19:41 ◼   ► It's a house from the 30s, right?

01:19:42 ◼   ► It does not have separate zones for like the bedrooms

01:19:45 ◼   ► or upstairs or downstairs, anything like that.