0:00:00It's the lead up to the holidays and there's a lot of projects in the air, you know, like there's there's not only you know
0:00:06the typical holiday stuff of like better make sure we get gifts for everybody
0:00:10we also
0:00:12Unfortunately, I have been unable as of yet to convince my extended family
0:00:19That adults no longer need presents at Christmas
0:00:22In addition to gift-giving you have stuff like sending out Christmas cards, which fortunately my lovely wife Tiff does the vast majority
0:00:29Of the work for that. So that's that's good. But just like this so we just pause there
0:00:34Yeah
0:00:35I hope that you appreciate the amount of freaking labor that takes because I am the de facto
0:00:41Christmas card person in my family and it is
0:00:46So frustrating and takes so much more time and money than it should all for as Aaron is off to remind me people to look
0:00:54At and go oh lovely and then throw in the trash. I think I really really love the tradition
0:00:59I really do and I find it very enjoyable and a lot of fun
0:01:01to think about what I want to send but the actual sending and like
0:01:06Working with these god-awful websites that that are that you use to like generate these cards
0:01:12I mean, I maybe Tiff actually puts everything together in like Photoshop or something like that. I'm not at that advanced
0:01:16No, no, she she uses the god-awful websites and that that's part of the frustration and of this time of year
0:01:21You know because like because of course, you know that the first few days of December
0:01:25everyone goes through it about the same time into these websites crumble under the load and you know, you can imagine a
0:01:30Fairly mediocre web app even in the best of days is not the best user experience, right?
0:01:35but to to add to the mediocre and crappy user experience also like
0:01:40server lag and delays and occasionally lost work because something timed out like
0:01:45It's infuriating and so like this year
0:01:48I actually so last year I put in a reminder for myself
0:01:51to in like mid-november like really start getting the process going because my typical mo is that I just plain don't think about it until
0:01:58December and then I'm like crap. I got to get the show on the road and so like mid-december
0:02:03I'm like going through pictures trying to figure out the ones I like
0:02:05But then I realized I didn't have like a good hero picture, you know
0:02:09Like a good picture of all of us first good day to do it was this past weekend
0:02:12And so then we have to go get everyone dressed up and do the picture and blah blah blah and now I'm like delayed getting
0:02:17Everything to the printer and then the printer is gonna take like a week or two to print it and then it doesn't arrive here
0:02:21Until like four days before Christmas and I like put all these undue goals
0:02:25I guess on myself and I always fail every year and so then I get frustrated and of course because I'm a turd I take
0:02:31It out on Aaron and then Aaron's like why are you getting frustrated? This is stupid
0:02:34We just everyone's going to put these in the trash in a week. Anyway, why do we care like well, yes, but but it's so enjoyable
0:02:39Of course, he looks at me. She's like is it now? So
0:02:43It's it's I love it and I hate it so much
0:02:46So all of that is many many words to say I hope that you do indeed appreciate the work that TIFF is surely putting in
0:02:51For this because it is such a pain in the tuckus
0:02:52I think this is a good time for me to announce that the Syracuse family will not be sending cards this year
0:02:58So you do in particular when you don't get a card from us. Don't be insulted. We're not sending them to anybody
0:03:03Why because we didn't get our acts together soon enough and we have too much other crap
0:03:07So it's like we made I mean, I made a different call than the list family, but we're in a similar situation
0:03:13We're just like nope can't do it
0:03:15So if you're listening to this and you normally get a card from me when you don't get one this year. Don't be insulted
0:03:20We just know not sending them out this if you'd like to see a picture of us
0:03:23Let me know and I can but we can borrow us look the same
0:03:26Sorry Marco like 30 minutes ago. You were trying to make a point. I totally do. I'm sorry. I don't remember it was anymore
0:03:32Oh, I think the point was the holidays are stressful. Yes, and many projects are going
0:03:38We're not going in my case. Yeah
0:03:41Yeah
0:03:41I was I was saying to the boys before the show that we just picked up our Christmas tree and we and we are a believer
0:03:46In the live Christmas trees here in the list household and this is unremarkable in and of itself
0:03:52But this is Penny's first Christmas with a Christmas tree because we got her we adopted her
0:03:57Just before New Year's last year and my limited understanding is that it is probably not good for her to chew on
0:04:04Said Christmas tree, which is probably as a dog just yes. Sorry penny penny my dog. That wasn't clear at this point
0:04:11Yeah, no, it's it's our third child penny
0:04:14Anyways, it's going to be an adventure keeping her from just eating every bit of that tree
0:04:19And so we're gonna see how that goes
0:04:20Ask me about this next week when I'm when the tree has been moved outside or something
0:04:24I think it'll be fine cats are the biggest jerks with Christmas trees dogs usually good about it
0:04:28Well cats are jerks in general. So I mean, what are you gonna do? So I already said that we totally failed
0:04:33did not finish on the
0:04:36the holiday cards
0:04:37Mm-hmm Christmas tree weren't ready to give up on that one
0:04:41but we did wait and wait too long and I went to get a tree and it was
0:04:45Slim pickins literally like all the trees were super skinny. Well, that's fine. It's Charlie Brown tree then
0:04:51No, they weren't like it's not that they weren't like, you know the density of
0:04:55Foliage and branches was fine. They were just instead of being triangular shape
0:05:01They were more like tube shaped and so they didn't get fatter as they went down
0:05:06So it was like it was like a pipe cleaner like a big bushy pipe cleaner and I asked the person like what's the deal?
0:05:12Why are all the trees skinny this year?
0:05:14These are the trees that we got so teenagers. Yeah, and our problem is we have really low ceilings in our ancient
0:05:20New England house here
0:05:21So even the ones that were like nine feet tall that would no way they would fit in our house
0:05:25Even those didn't get wide at the bottom, but I had to pick one that would fit
0:05:28You know, I had to pick like a seven foot tree that would fit in our tiny little house and those just look like pipe
0:05:33Cleaners, so I got the best one I could
0:05:35And we put it in the garage as we really do because waiting to the weekend to bring it in
0:05:38And it's sitting there in the garage looking like a sad pipe cleaner
0:05:41And my wife just couldn't take it and she said, you know what I'm going out and getting a better tree
0:05:47She went and got a better tree and it is better she did find a better tree at a place
0:05:53It's like close to her work, but not really close to us. So now we have two Christmas trees a reject one
0:05:58And a better one. So that's kind of how the holidays are going for us
0:06:02I mean, yeah, where does the reject one live in the house? They're both in the garage right now
0:06:06The reject one is laying on the floor in the garage and the oh the good one is in the in the stand in water
0:06:12So it's trying to keep it alive. So you're just slowly starving the the bad
0:06:16I don't I don't know what we're gonna do with that. We just we're having difficult
0:06:20I'm I'm not gonna get into all my difficulties
0:06:22There will be an after show update freezer update for people who want to know
0:06:25But there is much more going on than just that and maybe it'll wait for a rectus episode in the future
0:06:30Oh god, no, you got to give us that content man. Come on. It's too much. It's too much
0:06:35There's too much you don't understand. Oh god, so wait
0:06:38So I thought my impression was there was almost not enough room in your garage for air much less a tree
0:06:45Even even more so to Christmas trees. Did you move the cars outside for a while?
0:06:50Oh the cars haven't been in the garage for like a year, you know
0:06:53As soon as the weather gets warm again, my wife takes over the garage and fills it with junk and usually each winter
0:06:58It's a battle to get rid of enough junk that the car can fit back into it
0:07:02But that is not happening anytime soon for reasons that I will mention in the after show. Oh my oh
0:07:07My you know a little birdie is sending me picture of your reject tree and it is
0:07:13It is not great job
0:07:16But it was like and that was one of the best ones he's like it healthy branches from top to bottom
0:07:21It's just shaped like a pipe cleaner and they were all like that. It's not just like this one
0:07:25They were all like that. He said nine ten-foot trees that just did not get wider at the bottom
0:07:29I'm like what is going on? Oh my god. This tree is sad. Oh dear God
0:07:34Why did why would you buy this at all?
0:07:35Like I think if I saw it was the best one and you don't understand the place I go to get the trees is like
0:07:41a nightmare like just it's a parking lot that is too small with people all fighting with each other's right get parking spots and
0:07:46stalking other parking spots to get in there and just
0:07:48Go somewhere if this was the best one I would go somewhere else and if I couldn't find anywhere else I would get a fake
0:07:53Tree that this year because that this is not isn't the fake tree is not an option
0:07:57This tree incur would have would have been okay
0:08:00Because I mean again, you just want it to be healthy like the big other big problem is usually they don't leave you're starving it though
0:08:06No
0:08:07Usually the one thought the branches lower are just like either gone or pathetic that they can't hold anything
0:08:12This thing had sturdy branches from top to bottom
0:08:14So among the skinny trees that would fit in our house
0:08:17This was the best one and the problem is we went too late
0:08:20Like you need to go like basically the day after Thanksgiving and we waited too long because then our acts together
0:08:24So we had slim pickins you literally
0:08:27Let's do some follow-up a few months ago, I think it was we were talking about ubiquitous breach
0:08:35So to recap ubiquity is like the fancy person
0:08:39home networking equipment
0:08:41Fancy person you heard me and I would say they're really nerdy and also like very often used in businesses networking equipment
0:08:50Fine, whatever like I said fancy person
0:08:52But anyway, I would say almost nobody whoever touches ubiquity gear would be considered a fancy person by almost anybody else
0:09:00Good god, this shows going off the rails quick. All right, this conversation is quickly becoming a confrontation
0:09:06All right, so ubiquity had a breach several months ago and turns out whoopsie-dupsies. It was from the inside
0:09:11So we have a post on bleeping computer calm and I don't remember where I saw this. I apologize
0:09:18I think it was in a slack somewhere but Nicholas sharp who is who is posting
0:09:22opposing excuse me as an anonymous company whistleblower planted damaging news stories falsely claiming that the theft of data of
0:09:30Ubiquity data had been by a hacker enabled by a vulnerability in the company's computer systems among other things
0:09:35This is a quote sharp applied one-day life cycle retention policies to certain logs on AWS
0:09:41Which would have the effect of deleting certain evidence of the intruders activity within one day court documents read
0:09:46After his extortion attempts failed sharp shared information with the media while pretending to be a whistleblower and accusing the company of downplaying the incident
0:09:53So he leaked the data and then got
0:09:55Pretended to be ticked off about the fact that the data was leaked
0:09:58It is well truly evil a very ingenious plot and and it would be much funnier if it wasn't so gross
0:10:06So yeah, that ingenious because it seems like he got caught pretty easily here. No, it's a tushé and fairly quickly as well
0:10:11I mean, this is only a few months ago, right? That's true. But anyway, I
0:10:15Admire the hustle if if nothing else and actually I do think I admire nothing else about this plan
0:10:20But nonetheless, you know, it was all kidding aside
0:10:24it was a little bit alarming because even though I
0:10:26Genuinely do use and have paid for some but not all of eros stuff in my house and I genuinely do like it
0:10:32If I ever got to a point that I didn't want euro anymore
0:10:36I would probably turn to Ubiquity and when when all of this happened
0:10:39I kind of was like, oh, I don't know if I would ever go to that either but now we know what their their
0:10:44Issues were all personnel related things from the inside
0:10:48So whoopsie-dupsie, but the data was leaked like because he was inside the company
0:10:53He did have access to the data and he did leak it, right? Yes
0:10:55I believe that and and and it also like a couple of current and former employees
0:11:00I've seen like comment here and there anonymously and it sounds like this, you know
0:11:04This wasn't just like some low-level engineer. This was like a pretty high ranking person in the company and
0:11:10Apparently people did not enjoy working with him on many levels. And so it sounds like Ubiquity might you know
0:11:18Maybe their security is not as bad as as we all thought it might have been back then
0:11:21But they they definitely have some personnel issues for sure at least they had and so they're they're not doing everything, right?
0:11:29However, I am still very happily using all their Wi-Fi here
0:11:31Yeah, setting aside whether there is an actual criminal inside your organization
0:11:35Like their reports are like hey everyone complained about this person and nothing ever happened in general
0:11:39That's the sign of an organization
0:11:41That's not healthy because no matter how super important somebody is or no matter what they may have done in the past that
0:11:47Has earned them a reputation as a good employee who was involved with successful projects or whatever if lots and lots and lots of people
0:11:53Complain about them. It's worth considering maybe that employee is not
0:11:59As valuable to the company as you think
0:12:02We are sponsored this week by
0:12:06Slidebox an iOS app that helps you keep your photos clean and organized go to slide box co to get the app
0:12:12This is such a simple and great idea. I love I love this so much
0:12:17So slide box just an iOS app and provides tinder like swipe gestures to sort your photos one by one
0:12:25So you see a photo you can swipe up to delete it
0:12:28pull down to mark it as a favorite and tap one of your albums at the bottom to sort the photo into it and
0:12:33That's it and you just swipe swipe swipe and you can go through and sort and organize your photo library so easily
0:12:39It makes organizing photos fun and not honestly the chore that it usually feels like with the built-in tools if I'm honest and
0:12:47Slide box integrates and interacts directly with your iOS and iCloud photo library
0:12:53So when you organize using slide box, you're organizing your actual photo library on your phone
0:12:58Just like you see it in the photos app and your organization then of course sinks. So if you you know
0:13:03Pick through and delete all the crappy photos and everything. That's all synced to all your devices
0:13:07So it's really a fantastic way to quickly easily and just with a lot of fun
0:13:13Pick through and filter out and organize your photo library. It's great. Check it out today
0:13:17slide box co slide box co organize your photos with a swipe
0:13:23Thank you so much to slide box for sponsoring our show
0:13:26(music)
0:13:28Speaking of things that are not as valuable as I thought
0:13:33Hey, so my desk has been rearranged again. Oh, yeah, I'd like to know why is there still a large monitor on it?
0:13:41Depends on your definition of large because it ain't 27 inches. I could tell you that so is it 32?
0:13:47No, it's not 32. No, I would have been I would have been much less suave about breaking that news to you
0:13:53So finally calling 4k casey lists. Yep. That's right. What did you say?
0:13:58So my LG 5k which in the time that it worked I loved so dearly
0:14:04Does that sound like any white car that you've once heard about on this very program when it worked it worked great
0:14:08but anyways
0:14:105k the 5k
0:14:12Seems to have gotten worse and worse and so it was taking more and more cajoling to get it to actually display video
0:14:20On on the screen, but what was fascinating though is in as much as I'm laughing and trying to poke fun at both myself
0:14:28And this monitor it was a very puzzling predicament that I was in in the sense that was it
0:14:33No, don't just hear me out ten out of ten times
0:14:36I would plug in my laptop to the 5k the laptop would get power from the 5k every time no matter what without fail
0:14:45Eight out of what nine out of ten times who would get video on they would display video on the 5k then like
0:14:51Seven out of ten times then like a couple days later four out of ten times and now it's to the point of like
0:14:58basically never happens and I didn't understand and I still don't
0:15:02completely understand how that could be but
0:15:05Iden Warsaw
0:15:08Warsaw ski on Twitter it gave me an excellent theory and this is through his own terrible lived experience
0:15:15So I didn't writes. I have an LG 5k that has this issue as well
0:15:18The port is wearing down and one of the high-speed connectors isn't making a good contact
0:15:25Cool power delivery and power does so it charges
0:15:30I opened it up a while back and reflow the connector which fixed the issue temporarily, but it started up again
0:15:35So it took a little bit of back and forth because I'm a dumb dumb and didn't understand what he was trying to say at first
0:15:40But basically there are several of course, you know thinking about this deeper
0:15:44There are many different pins in the USB C connection
0:15:46right and some of them are for power and some of them are for data and what I didn't was saying was that
0:15:50The power pins the way that they are physically connected to the PC board on on the on the LG 5k
0:15:59Those tend to be alright like they don't tend to like have any sort of physical issues
0:16:04But the high-speed data pins like to just kind of fall off after a while or lose their physical connection
0:16:10And so that means that I can get power but I can't get video which is exactly the the thing I'm seeing right now
0:16:16So I didn't wrote a little more so that this is with a picture though. It'll be in the show notes
0:16:21That that's the Thunderbolt 3 connector on the LG 5k PCB
0:16:25I I didn't says I wasn't able to get good pictures with my phone due to the angle
0:16:28But the far pins if you look at this picture that transfer Thunderbolt 3
0:16:32We're not making good contact and cause signal integrity issues on my monitor due to the connector pulling off the board
0:16:36And I should have mentioned and I forgot that during the days when it went from 8 out of 10 times to 5 to 2 out
0:16:42Of 10 times I noticed that if I jiggled the USB C connector
0:16:45Occasionally I would get it to work and then all of a sudden it would just die and stop working
0:16:49But power would still be working. Nothing else would so everything that I know
0:16:53Says that I didn't hit the nail on the head and this is the this is the real issue here
0:16:58So I have done a chat day before yesterday. I believe was me was late yesterday
0:17:03I did an online chat with LG and said I would like to get an RMA please because I would like to get the serviced
0:17:08It took just a couple minutes of back and forth and then they said alright
0:17:11It will be $150 to have you send it to us and then we will repair it and send it back
0:17:17Now they didn't want to take my credit card over the chat because they shouldn't and I wouldn't have let them anyway
0:17:22And they're supposed to call me to get my credit card number which hasn't happened yet
0:17:26And so I'm kind of wondering where that whole phone call is sitting but nonetheless
0:17:31Hopefully I will get the 5g repair the excuse me the LG 5k repaired and then
0:17:36My computing life will be good again
0:17:38But in the meantime, I had to figure out well
0:17:41What the hell do I do because using just a 14 inch screen every day all day?
0:17:44Not the most desirable thing in the world and I literally do not have any other monitors in the house. So
0:17:50He sent a message as sent a text to a good friend of mine
0:17:55Who is that my last job job who happens to be the IT director at that job job was like hey, man
0:18:01Do you happen to have any of those LG fork?
0:18:04No
0:18:04These are not ultra fine mind you with the LG 4k sitting around that maybe I could like buy one off of you
0:18:08Because I kind of need something to hold me over for a few weeks and he said, you know what don't worry about it
0:18:12I'll just loan you one for a little while because we're not using them
0:18:14And so in out of the goodness of his heart and I mean that genuinely
0:18:17I ran to my old office today for the first time in three years and I picked up a 24 inch LG 4k monitor
0:18:23Which is what I'm currently using on my desk right now. So I am back in 2018, baby. Well
0:18:29Even 24 inches even in 2018 was small
0:18:32yes, and actually it's funny because I wrote a blog post about how much I hate the complete dearth of
0:18:38monitor options for max these days or particularly retina monitors and
0:18:42Somebody pointed out to me and they're right that strictly speaking my own metrics say that this screen isn't really enough
0:18:49It's a long and involved story that I'm already running way too long
0:18:53But suffice to say there's a certain like pixels per inch number that you should really hit in order to be retina
0:18:57And even though I do view this screen that I have in front of me, which is 24 inches at 4k
0:19:02I do view it as retina in the sense that from for my eyes and from the distance at which I sit
0:19:07I can't see pixels, but it's only like 180 ppi and strictly speaking. It should be like 220 to be true to form retina
0:19:14So even this screen which I do
0:19:16Endorse isn't strictly speaking one of these what is it for options that are on the market right now?
0:19:22So or that are one of the four options that is retina
0:19:26Capable retina friendly whatever on the market right now. It is truly ridiculous. So Apple, please for the love of God
0:19:31can I have something that is in between the LG 5k which
0:19:34hashtag mark I was right is maybe not the best thing in the entire world or and the the utterly ridiculous
0:19:42Pro display XDR which I should add by the way the morning that the LG 5k really gave up the ghost
0:19:48I think a stiff if somebody had coughed behind me
0:19:51That would have been a stiff enough breeze to get me to buy an old either the XDR
0:19:55But thankfully cooler heads prevailed and I didn't and and that is the truth
0:19:59I'm not trying to spring anything on you to you. Like I really haven't bought one
0:20:02I really don't intend to and and part of that is because it occurred to me that two of these LG 4k's which again
0:20:08I'm borrowing one, but you know if I were to buy two of them, it would be $600 all in
0:20:12So for the price of the stand of the XDR you could get three of them. Yes, exactly
0:20:19No, you're exactly right. And I know you're I know you the point you're making and I agree with you
0:20:22Yes, it's it and that's what I came down to you. Like I was seriously about to commit to buying an XDR
0:20:26And then it occurred to me for six thousand dollars like oh, let me rephrase I guess for six hundred dollars
0:20:33I can get two 4k screens which without question is nowhere near as good
0:20:37But is it is an XDR ten times better than two of these four K's? I don't know about that
0:20:45It is certainly ten times more expensive, but is it ten times better? I don't know five times better probably ten
0:20:50I don't know about that. So that's why I didn't remind me of this in a month when I end up buying one
0:20:55But sitting here now
0:20:57My hope is I will use this borrowed 4k to get me by and then in a month or maybe two
0:21:02I will finally have the 5k and be living the dream that I was for about a week before it died
0:21:07I love that that's the dream like that's the best I got Marco. I'm a simple man
0:21:11It's you got you got a dream a little bit dream a few inches bigger
0:21:14All right moving right along
0:21:21This this picture of the connector
0:21:23Hopefully Marco will make this the chapter art, but it's like it's the printed circuit board
0:21:28Green in this case and then just coming out of the printed circuit board, you know perpendicular to it is the USBC connector
0:21:37Mm-hmm, and it's just soldered right to it. Like yep
0:21:40That seems like a bad arrangement
0:21:44Seems so doesn't it? Um, I mean in general like it we complain about this and laptops for years. It's usually a good idea to have
0:21:51like a
0:21:52separate smaller printed circuit board
0:21:54to just host the connectors for anything that has connectors whether it's laptop with its ports on the sides or a monitor with ports on
0:22:01the back and then have like a ribbon cable or something flexible that connects to the main printed circuit board because
0:22:07The connectors can wear out because they're like a mechanical part things are going into them and out of them and you know
0:22:12People yanking things and things bend and get pulled or whatever
0:22:15And so if the connector goes bad what you want to happen is oh
0:22:17I'll just replace this whole little sub assembly with this little printed circuit board with the three connectors on it
0:22:22I'll just rip out that ribbon cable throw this in the garbage get a new one of those plug it in
0:22:25Without having to replace or any re solder anything on the board or anything like that
0:22:29And it also provides a form of strain relief like the connectors can be on a little thing that is
0:22:34Independent and is bolted directly to the back of the display. So it's you know fixed in place
0:22:39Rather than you know in this arrangement. I'm assuming the openings on the back of the monitor support these connectors a little bit
0:22:45So they can't move around too much
0:22:47But depending on how precisely engineered the plastic is and how well the printed circuit board is supported inside there apparently
0:22:55It's not constructed well enough
0:22:57But like this just seems like a design that it was made to eventually fail because it just just you know
0:23:02And it makes me worry about how the connector is in the back of my pro display XDR connector
0:23:07They just sticking out of the server printed circuit board like that
0:23:10like I already dread taking that connector in and out and I tried it to never do it, but
0:23:15Anyway this well the XDR connectors are like like the the holes are part of the solid metal casing like they it's those
0:23:23Things can't budge like I can't imagine that would be an issue
0:23:26They're not translating
0:23:28But if you are to if you are to bend the connector down could the inside of it tilt up while using the case as a fulcrum
0:23:33You know what? I mean like a levering action. Honestly, I think I think those they're so rigid from the metal that I don't
0:23:39I wouldn't worry about that too much but certainly it's worth asking
0:23:41Yeah, anyway, I'm very careful these time
0:23:44But this is this LG design seems just like a bad idea from the start that is sort of bound to fail
0:23:49So if they if they fix it, they're just gonna give you a new circuit board. That's like this
0:23:52I guess just be very very careful
0:23:54Tell me then and make sure nothing ever pulls on the cord or yanks it or does anything bad to it
0:23:59No, truly. I I don't know what I'm going to do specifically but like, you know
0:24:03It's a silly example
0:24:04I moved the LG 4k down to the screened in porch once you know
0:24:08Just because it was a beautiful day and I wanted to have it down there in any normal situation
0:24:11I would think a thing of it. But now once that LG if gay arrived did I say 4k minute ago?
0:24:17I'm in 5k
0:24:17But anyway, once that ultra fine 5k arrives back at my house after the repair
0:24:22I will probably like super glue it to my desk
0:24:25Super glue a cable to the back of it because my goodness, although I can't say in this picture
0:24:31Maybe this is a smaller printed circuit board that has the connectors on it
0:24:34It's just that's the that printed circuit board has them connected strange
0:24:37Like no knowing you have a separate printed circuit board that the connectors are like laying down flat on it
0:24:41Like they are in a laptop or whatever, but I guess maybe that's not possible in the back of the monitor
0:24:44Anyway, I don't I don't want to pass any particular judgment from this very zoomed in picture
0:24:48Except to say that apparently this is a chronic problem on the LG 5k
0:24:51So it seems like it's not the best way to do connectors one of many chronic problems in the LG 5k is
0:24:56Yeah, and that's that's the thing is I would love genuinely
0:25:01I would love to have somebody go pipe up from the back of the house and say hey, did you realize the you know?
0:25:07I don't know a sis qrstuv
0:25:096573 monitor exists and is exactly what you want and a lot of people have said oh, well, there here's a 4k
0:25:1427-inch monitor that's very cheap and that's not what I want like yes want is there's a million 4k 27-inch monitors, right?
0:25:23right and so what I if genuinely if somebody is out there listening and knows of a
0:25:28monitor that is available in the United States today that is between 22 and 24 inches and 4k or
0:25:35Preferably about 27 inches and 5k. Please. Let me know
0:25:39I know and people love to reach out with like these 32 plus inch
0:25:44monstrosities that are 5k in one in one dimension and then like I don't know 15
0:25:48It's like 5k vertically and like 15 K horizontally like this. I'm not into that
0:25:52I just want as close as I can get to an iMac screen without the computer behind it if you please but
0:25:58If such a thing exists, let me know but you're behind the times
0:26:01I was we discussed last show like I know this would be fine for your purposes like the LG 5k and this 4k
0:26:06These are not HDR monitors. These are not mini LED. They do not have any of the the new modern specs
0:26:12They're not high refresh. I don't think right. Nope
0:26:14They don't have any of the modern specs that your laptop screen has so you're just looking for like
0:26:19Oh something that will tide me over or something that you know, but you're never gonna see HDR images on these things
0:26:24You're not gonna get 120 Hertz out of them
0:26:25Right, so and this is this is why I think you should not get the the XDR
0:26:29I don't think the XDR is going to be replaced anytime soon
0:26:32I just think now it is too late to buy it and when when will it be replaced in six years?
0:26:37Oh, so you're saying it's too late to buy it now, but it's gonna be replaced in six years. Yes
0:26:40That's exactly what I'm saying. That's the way that's the way of the Apple monitors
0:26:44Have you have you ever bought an Apple monitor before this is the experience right Marco and I got in just under the line
0:26:48We bought it when it was the best option available and it was actually kind of good
0:26:52But now that you can buy a 14-inch laptop with the screen that's better. Although way way smaller. It's too late now
0:26:57No way no way you spend six thousand dollars on this monitor
0:27:00You just have to wait for Apple to either put out the new big iMac with a with a cool screen and then the monitor that
0:27:06Uses that screen or I don't know what you wait for like so I I feel for you Casey
0:27:10But I'm glad you held strong did not buy the XDR because it is not time to buy that screen
0:27:14It's time to wait six years for it to be refreshed
0:27:19Okay, that's right I think for me and Casey and most normal people it is not time to buy the XDR that time passed and
0:27:27He missed it. I agree with you
0:27:28And the thing of it is is that a lot of people have been have said in so many words sometimes
0:27:31Kindly sometimes not you know, what is your sanity worth?
0:27:34And in what is you know, this would arguably help you earn more money by helping you do your job better
0:27:39Why would you not spend that money and if it was?
0:27:42$2,000 like I would have paid and in retrospect
0:27:46maybe should have paid full price for an LG 5 like a new LG 5k, but
0:27:50Even that seemed a little spendy if I could get like an XDR or something along those lines for a couple grand
0:27:57I probably would but
0:27:59$6,000 like I just can't I can't get to the point where I think that that is a reasonable expenditure money
0:28:06Even if it could make even if you know printed it had a money printer on the back that printed money
0:28:10Like I still don't know if I could do it because it's just so preposterously expensive
0:28:15What's your vision the way it is Casey a
0:28:18Retina like you're you're aim of like 220 points per inch or whatever. Mmm 180 or even 150 and that may be your future
0:28:26Anyway, so the idea that you might get a 32 inch screen with like 170
0:28:30Points per inch that may be what you want
0:28:33Like I know a lot of I mean a lot of people as they get older and I get worse and I'm going to like 42
0:28:38inch televisions like people you were using like 42 inch plasma TVs
0:28:41Because it makes things bigger as in it has lower PPI right and it's larger physically speaking. So
0:28:47You know, it'll is easy
0:28:50It's I said, it's very not very easy, but it's easier to find 4k 27 inch monitors with HDR and high refresh
0:28:57They're just still expensive as discussed on past shows
0:28:59But at least they exist and having you know
0:29:02I I've got one right here
0:29:04I play my PlayStation on a 4k 27 inch monitor and for a while when I had like the dtk it's a little Mac mini
0:29:09Thing I hooked it up to that and everything's bigger, right?
0:29:12It's not as quote unquote not retina everything looks bigger like like a funhouse type thing and I don't need that right now
0:29:18But if my vision continues to deteriorate
0:29:20That might be the type of thing that I want
0:29:23So by the time Apple comes out with like finally they made a monitor that's retina and it's 5k and it's a reasonable price
0:29:28It's like yeah, but now that people's are just small for me because I'm old
0:29:31That's probably not gonna happen to you anytime soon, but I'm probably getting close to that
0:29:35So I'm enjoying my my retina 6k while I have it and when it's refreshed in six years
0:29:40Maybe my eyes won't be able to see it anymore. We'll see. No, I think you're exactly right
0:29:43I think there's that and that's part of the reason why this strictly speaking
0:29:46Incorrect LG not ultrafine 4k that I'm looking at right now
0:29:51Part of the reason why I think it is acceptable is because my eyes are garbage and so so for me it's like yeah
0:29:57Whatever, it's it's good enough. I don't know. It's just it's so frustrating
0:30:01Like we don't need to perseverate on this anymore
0:30:02But it's just so frustrating that this is seemingly a solvable problem that Apple
0:30:09Especially like they're they've gotten these MacBook Pros
0:30:12so right and to have
0:30:14No good options either first or third party like I could excuse it
0:30:19If let's suppose that we all agree that the LG 5k ultrafine was was really truly ultrafine
0:30:25Like it was a great monitor just for the sake of discussion then fine. I wish it was Apple branded, but okay
0:30:31That's no big deal. But the fact that there is literally nothing on the market that I can find that is truly
0:30:37Workable other than the XDR which is now eliminated because it's so absurdly expensive
0:30:42Like it's such a hole in their lineup
0:30:45And I I just I I got to assume they're gonna fill this hole at some point
0:30:49But why is it why is this hole there? Like let's fix this please
0:30:53This is that tweet that Tim Cook had a tweet occasionally our temp cooks Twitter account
0:30:58Occasionally tweets things of like oh here I am at the opening of Apple Store and whatever and we love all our customers
0:31:03blah blah and one of them was like look at these people doing creative things with our new MacBook Pros and it showed a
0:31:08Bunch of people with MacBook Pros sitting in front of this big setup doing I don't know audio video whatever they're doing
0:31:13So they're professionals using their MacBook Pros, right?
0:31:16and there are a bunch of monitors attached to the MacBook Pros and none of those monitors were Apple monitors and I
0:31:20Did a snarky quote tweeted going? Oh, I wonder why they're not using Apple monitors. Like that's because I
0:31:26Understand where Apple's coming from and that the market is probably small, but that's true of the Mac Pro as well
0:31:30We already had this conversation. No, not a lot of people are gonna buy the Mac Pro
0:31:33Yes, Apple you still have to make it like even if it's a money-loser like just to have a complete lineup
0:31:37That's to have some coherence, right?
0:31:39Otherwise you're gonna take your best most perfectly arranged like glamour shot of people using your products in real-world situations
0:31:46And you'd be embarrassed by things and they'd be embarrassed by the fact that there was six monitors in front of these people and none
0:31:51Of them were Apple monitors because they didn't need XTRs and there's no other choice
0:31:54Haha, so they're not that and the other thing the other thing they're embarrassed about is those brand new MacBook Pros with their amazing displays
0:32:01And all the ports and everything had this giant mess of dongles coming out of the back of them because they were like
0:32:05HDMI dongle so they could have like three HDMI monitors attached to it and everything cuz why are the monitors HDMI monitors because that's all
0:32:11you can buy because you know, it's just I
0:32:13You know Tim Cook probably doesn't care about these things. They're like, hey they bought Apple products
0:32:18It's great and we love how our products integrate with their existing monitors that they use with all those stuff
0:32:23but you know, it would be nicer if we could say look we sell the complete solution and they can use all of our stuff and
0:32:30Apple might say well they can just buy Pro Display XDRs
0:32:33But no one wants to waste money if you don't need a Pro Display XDR
0:32:36If you just need a 4k size monitor Apple doesn't sell one
0:32:40So you have to get whatever they were using in that picture and it's it's not a good luck for Apple
0:32:46Especially in like, you know, you want them to work with other monitors
0:32:49I'm not saying only have proprietary monitors, but in the glamour shot you want to say look if you buy all Apple stuff
0:32:54it works all well together and
0:32:56It's a great experience and you just can't do that to Casey's point. You made these great new laptops
0:33:01They have places where you can connect monitors. What am I supposed to put in there besides the XDR?
0:33:04I mean just to put things in perspective this monitor, which I'm very thankful to be able to borrow. I'm running it via DisplayPort
0:33:11What is this like 2002?
0:33:14It's I'm going USB C to DisplayPort because if I use HDMI, I believe it's only 30 Hertz. So I
0:33:20Like it's fine. Everything's fine. I'm thankful for this monitor, but it's just frustrating. It's so frustrating
0:33:26I think a few things are true at the same time, you know thing number one is
0:33:31Yes, the XDR is absurdly expensive
0:33:35Thing number two is yes, you should buy one
0:33:38anyway, and thing number three is
0:33:42What will probably actually happen is the monitors that you're juggling now whether it's the 4k's that you have now
0:33:49The 5k if it ever comes back and if it then subsequently works after that
0:33:53Those are two big ifs in my mind if all that happens that will probably tide you over until
0:33:59Mid next year at which point Apple probably will release a monitor
0:34:04Like I expect if they have a monitor project going which was lightly rumored about a year ago
0:34:10I was supposed to come out probably at WBC this coming year
0:34:13So or you know thereabouts so I think the this hole in their lineup, which is very big and very real
0:34:21I think they do they did finally admit to themselves. They should fill that hole in typical Apple fashion
0:34:28Even though this this giant like fire and the product line was there
0:34:32They're gonna take their sweet time to fill it
0:34:34But when they do finally fill it'll probably be fine that being said they're probably also in a similar time frame
0:34:40going to release the larger iMac and
0:34:43When that happens assuming that the larger iMac and the next large monitor come out in a similar time frame
0:34:50I think you're gonna have a big decision to make
0:34:53About whether you go for the larger iMac for your desktop needs and relegate your current laptops laptop only needs
0:34:58that being said
0:35:00I think you really couldn't go wrong with either of those options when they come and assuming the monitor does come
0:35:07You know it's funny
0:35:09I might be the only person that is that is not excited for the new 27 inch iMac or you know whatever fills that gap
0:35:16because right now
0:35:18Monitor accepting I know I've done a lot of you know complaining about the monitor situation especially over the last week or two
0:35:23But monitor accepted I could not be happier with this Mac this MacBook Pro. It is so good. Oh my god
0:35:29They're amazing software. It's a couple of software quirks here
0:35:32And they're like the SD card reader seems to be a piece of garbage, and I'm still getting some Bluetooth wonkiness
0:35:36But I'm pretty sure both those are software and so eventually those will get fixed
0:35:40I have to assume and leaving that aside these laptops are so good. I'm so happy with this laptop
0:35:46I didn't think I could be happier with a computer than I was at the iMac Pro
0:35:50And then I got a portable iMac Pro and it turns out it's even better
0:35:53So you're gonna be even happier with the big iMac though like I think it's a no-brainer when that happens you have a decision
0:35:57Make the decision is you get the new iMac because the new iMac will be faster than these laptops
0:36:02You'll know it will have a good display so that problem is solved and then your laptop continues to be an awesome laptop
0:36:07It's just freed from the burden of having to also be a mediocre desktop for you, right?
0:36:12It will just be a great laptop, and then you'll also have a great desktop. They're great desktops, too
0:36:17That's the great thing about this
0:36:18That's the thing like here's but you know iMac will be an even greater desktop because it will be less thermally constrained
0:36:23And we'll have a bigger screen
0:36:24The screen you know you're right the iMac will probably you know have to have the bigger screen and everything but that being said I
0:36:29Really don't feel any constraints at least using the 16 inch as a desktop the 14 inch if you do like sustained long testing on
0:36:37The 14 inch it does thermally throttle sooner than the 16 inch does but in practice most people aren't doing that kind of work
0:36:44and these are like I feel like when the iMac comes out it's gonna be less of
0:36:51like a bomb going off of joy and happiness because
0:36:54Apples are making really great desktops for a while now
0:36:58You know the desktops weren't on fire the way the laptops were like the desktop lineup from you know even the 27 inch regular
0:37:07iMac before the iMac Pro the 27 inch iMac has always been a pretty great computer
0:37:12And you know for the first entire existence
0:37:14It's been a pretty great choice and those those have been really good especially once they you know when they went retina
0:37:19That was like it just was so great that the 27 inch 5k iMac
0:37:22What an amazing computer for its entire existence and then the iMac Pro took that model and made it even better and again
0:37:30Amazing computer even though they only ever made one of them amazing computer amazing product line the new Mac Pro even though it's ridiculous
0:37:38And no longer really knew by any stretch of the imagination
0:37:41But the the the soon-to-be outgoing
0:37:44John Mac Pro
0:37:46That also amazing computer for what it is like they really have been making great desktops hell even you know
0:37:53We mentioned last week even the Mac mini from 2018 forward has been great
0:37:58So apples are making great desktops for years now
0:38:01We don't we're not we weren't like as starving for great desktops from them
0:38:05They haven't been making amazing laptops since 2016 or so like that that's been there's been all these compromises and so to finally have
0:38:15Really freaking great laptops coming out of Apple
0:38:18You know from last year's m1 based models and and you know making them even better now with this new line of MacBook Pros
0:38:24Oh my god. They're so good and frankly as I mentioned in my in my kind of review episode of these
0:38:30my desire for a desktop is lower than ever right now because
0:38:35currently the fastest max you can buy by far our MacBook Pros and
0:38:42So I'm extremely happy with this and using this laptop as a desktop. I
0:38:48Really don't feel much compromise at all
0:38:51The the only thing I feel is I think I still have to open it up to turn it on if it's powered down
0:38:56But oh, well that never happens in practice and I don't have touch ID on my keyboard
0:39:02But that's only because I don't have Apple's keyboard like even that problem could be solved now if I wanted to be so
0:39:07This is just great. Like it's such an awesome
0:39:11Computer as a laptop or as a clamshell mode desktop these things rock
0:39:17It is nothing like previous laptops being used in this way
0:39:21Like if you want to if you're interested in using clamshell mode or even I haven't tried side-by-side mode
0:39:26We have laptop open but a lot of people do that. So I'm doing right now
0:39:29There you go
0:39:29the m1 series of laptops is so much better at either one of those than
0:39:34The previous than any of the Intel ones and hell even the power PC ones. These are so good
0:39:39I can't overstate how good a computer these are and how happy it makes me that
0:39:44Finally Apple's making just kick-ass amazing laptops
0:39:49I mean, but obviously you have a connected to an XDR
0:39:52So you hope the the monitor problem saw quote-unquote solved case
0:39:55He does not have one of those nor should he buy one
0:39:57So his decision will be different than yours and honestly your decision
0:40:00Especially if they come up with a 20 core version of the iMac you're probably gonna get that too
0:40:04Let's be honest, although you might not because it'd be a downgrading screen size
0:40:07So you have a more your your decision Marco is trickier because do you want to give up 6k for 5k?
0:40:13depending on what no big the iMac screen is and so but Casey's decision is straightforward is
0:40:17You get to use your laptop as a laptop and you get a desktop with a good screen that that's faster than your laptop
0:40:22So it'll be straightforward for Casey when the big iMac comes out will it though because I just spent like
0:40:29$5,000 on this laptop on the on the on the agreement with myself
0:40:33Yeah, maybe you'll maybe maybe you'll hem and haw and wait
0:40:37But I just feel like I've always been in the opinion that let a desktop be a desktop little laptop be a laptop
0:40:41Don't try to use one for both if you want to spend six thousand dollars on monitor then you can be in Marco's land
0:40:47But honestly Marco's only gonna be in that land until though something until something with a ridiculously higher number
0:40:51Of course comes out in which case he'll jump ship to that. It would it would probably have to be a Mac Pro though
0:40:56I wouldn't I don't think I would jump ship for an iMac because of the monitor thing, you know
0:41:01But but I but a Mac Pro would be tempting I think or like a mini Mac Pro this half-size thing
0:41:07We don't actually sure lineup is gonna be like but yeah
0:41:09Yes
0:41:10You're just waiting to see something that is appreciably faster than then what you've got and you don't have any issues right now
0:41:16Because the laptop works great in clamshell and you already have a huge monitor
0:41:19Well, and even like the things I would want to be faster mainly are Xcode builds
0:41:23But I'm like even just from going from four performance course to eight
0:41:29I'm I'm nearing that point where like things start to level off with Xcode builds of my scale
0:41:35So I might not even need the Mac Pro when it comes out and I know everyone's gonna make fun of me for even thinking
0:41:43That I would possibly not buy it, but I didn't buy the last one. That's true
0:41:46Yeah, but you had a you had a 10 core iMac Pro at that point. Yeah fair enough
0:41:49So, you know, we'll see what the the compile times are like again. You are using more Swift. So yeah
0:41:55Don't even get them started
0:41:58No, I think the more interesting question to me is I guess maybe a Mac Pro for Marco
0:42:03But even even potentially more interesting is what happens if we get some sort of screaming Mac Mini that has you know, basically the 16-inch
0:42:11MacBook Pro guts but in a Mac Mini because I think I think if I were Marco that would be pretty appealing
0:42:16I mean you you're here. So you tell me I'm wrong, but I got to imagine. Okay, tell me why
0:42:21Well if I didn't already own my desktop laptop
0:42:23Maybe but but like now that I've now that I've joined the world of desktop laptop for the time being
0:42:28It's great that if I'm going on
0:42:31you know a
0:42:32Trip where I want to actually bring like all of my stuff with me all of my work all of my files or just have
0:42:38The biggest screen I can have I can bring the giant laptop and I I have my computer like
0:42:43Really, you know if there's not significant compromises for using a laptop as a desktop
0:42:51Then there's no reason to get a desktop. The only reason we get desktops is because usually there are huge trade-offs involved
0:42:57When if you try to use a laptop as a desktop instead of just using a desktop, you know
0:43:02Actual desktops are better in certain ways
0:43:04But those ways are smaller than ever right now
0:43:09In fact right now it's the way right now. The laptops are better than the desktops
0:43:12Yeah, we're in this weird situation where that where the powerful desktops have not dip and have not gotten the the arm
0:43:19System on a chip treatment so right and they will like, you know next, you know next summer next fall
0:43:24Whatever it whenever it is that we get faster desktops, you know
0:43:27that'll put things kind of back in order a little bit, but the
0:43:30The laptops are are so good and so like low compromise
0:43:35I mean for instance like typical things that that have always been problems in the past whenever I've tried to use a laptop as a
0:43:42desktop
0:43:43number one thing usually was thermals and fan noise and
0:43:49With these current like with the 16 inch that is just not a thing. I haven't tried using the 14
0:43:54I can't speak to it like as a desktop configuration, but the 16 inch
0:43:57This thing is quieter under load full load like full sustained a hundred percent CPU load for hours
0:44:06It's quieter than my iMac Pro was and that was a very quiet machine. That was remarkable
0:44:13It's quieter than the Mac Pro at idle and load
0:44:18Because the Mac Pro has like real fans that like this thing is is so quiet and runs so cool
0:44:24Like and I can you know, I mentioned how I keep it in a vertical like a little wood clampy stand
0:44:30With the vent the screen hinge and vent on top
0:44:33So I can reach over and put my hand on top of the vent
0:44:35I can feel the temperature of the air and the velocity of the air coming out of the machine
0:44:39I almost never feel anything or I'll feel a very slight air current and it's barely warm at all
0:44:46Or it's or it's just cool like this thing the thermals and the noise are so good on this
0:44:53So that's you know major compromise number one with desktop laptop situations out the window. This thing is
0:45:00silent the vast majority of the time and even again when I was able to crank it and
0:45:05this is like the only time I've ever heard the fans was when I
0:45:10Maxed out all of the CPU cores for multiple hours
0:45:14Then I heard the fans barely and again, it was warm
0:45:18You know the air coming out was warm, but it was nothing like any Intel machine of any class
0:45:24I've ever seen so that's thing number one thing number two
0:45:27Usually using a desktop as a laptop is a bit unreliable especially regarding sleep/wake and the connection or disconnecting of screens
0:45:35That doesn't seem to be a thing with any of the m1 based computers the in the MacBook Air and and you know
0:45:41These new MacBook Pros like so far the Apple silicon, you know use in clamshell or out of clamshell plugging in external displays
0:45:49This connection or displays all that stuff seems to be way more reliable with the m1 based stuff than previous machines
0:45:56So that compromise is also gone. I would agree with that with a small asterisk. I
0:46:01Would when the 5k was still working rest in peace
0:46:04I would sometimes have my computer in clamshell and sometimes not and
0:46:09One crummy thing about the m1 max is that they will
0:46:14Come back to like, you know, not when they're suspended, but when they're just you know, the screen is off
0:46:19There's kind of what is this? What is the name of that when it's not fully asleep at screens off?
0:46:23It does matter
0:46:23anyway
0:46:24point being when it the when screen is off and you you know hit a button in order wake the screen up the screen wakes
0:46:28Instantly and any other monitor any other monitor? Yeah, well, maybe not the XDR actually, but any other monitor I've ever seen
0:46:35It's you're feeling like you're waiting a year for that darn thing to turn off
0:46:39It is remarkable how quick these m1 max wake up and and also switching resolutions like just for grins
0:46:46I was doing that just a moment ago on this very very old LG 4k monitor and it's astonishing
0:46:53How quickly that even this old monitor can switch resolutions?
0:46:56It's not like the Intel days where you sit there with a you know
0:46:59Stopwatch and wait 15 seconds for flicker flicker flicker black screen flicker flicker black screen
0:47:04It's it's instant when you switch resolutions, which sounds like such a silly thing, but it's so delightful
0:47:10So yes, I absolutely agree with everything you're saying
0:47:12It is on it is
0:47:15Unbelievable how few compromises these machines have and for that reason, I don't know again leaving the displays aside
0:47:22I don't know John that I would get an iMac
0:47:24Because I would feel guilty about spending another five thousand dollars or whatever
0:47:28It would be on another computer and because I really don't have compromises on this machine
0:47:32I really really don't it's it's remarkable
0:47:35Yeah, and and there's so many other ones too like other compromises that you would typically get with laptops
0:47:40You know, they're usually like the the performance ceiling would not be as high because they don't have the thermals
0:47:47well, we'll see what chips they put in the iMac and the Mac Pro but
0:47:51Chances are like following the current rumors and their current apparent strategy so far that they've had with the m1 series of chips and the
0:47:59Products that feels it from them. It seems like
0:48:02they're mostly just putting the same chips in the desktops and laptops and
0:48:07Running them at the same or very close or close enough clock speeds and you know, so I wouldn't actually expect
0:48:15significantly higher
0:48:17CPU performance between the families now what they do on the GPU side that that's gonna depend, you know
0:48:23I would suspect they would they're gonna beef that up in various ways as rumored but but like, you know
0:48:28If it ends up that the MacBook Pro is gonna have you know, two of these chips or you know
0:48:33one of these chips and then the Mac Pro has two of them or four of them like
0:48:37for my purposes
0:48:40That's gonna be mostly the same performance between the MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro most of the time
0:48:45It's just gonna add my add more, you know parallelism for you know, very large parallel tasks
0:48:50But if the MacBook Pro is already reaching the point of diminishing returns for Xcode builds of my size and scale
0:48:56Then I'm not gonna really need anything faster it for a lot of a lot of cases until I start using Swift UI
0:49:01So the real compromise for desktop laptop as far as I'm personally concerned
0:49:05And I think this is a thing even people who are not as obsessed with this as I obviously am
0:49:09Um is you get all your windows arranged and then you unplug the monitor and oh
0:49:13Where does your 6k worth of windows go on your tiny little 14 inch screen?
0:49:19Well, they go somewhere and the OS tries to do something sensible with them
0:49:22And I think it's been better about restoring them
0:49:24but it's still just like you've disrupted your working environment because now you need to go use your laptop and having them separate means that your
0:49:31desktop is
0:49:32arranged the way it is and no one's ever going to pick up your desktop and
0:49:35Smush it screen to be smaller or remove a screen and suddenly it used to think it had two screens now
0:49:40It just has one and that one screen is the only 14 inches instead of 6k
0:49:43That's a disruption as far as I'm concerned
0:49:45I did it at work for when I was still going to the office for many many years and as we said in this program
0:49:50my solution this problem was to run my
0:49:54the monitor attached to my
0:49:56laptop at the exact same resolution as the monitor on my desk and I could do that because I had these
0:50:02Pre-retina things and I ran the laptop at the the highest like whatever it is the most scaled
0:50:07Resolution right and I just man my my desktop monitor at its native resolution was at 1920 by 1200 or whatever
0:50:14So I was 1920 by 1200 both and I mirrored displays. So even when I yanked it out, I knew nothing moved but that
0:50:21Was had its own compromises 1920 by 1200 on a 15 inch laptop was not great and it was kind of blurry and 1920 by
0:50:281200 on non-retin display
0:50:29It was also not the best
0:50:31But that was the compromise I chose there and I don't think you could do that in the modern world nor would I want to
0:50:36So if I had an XDR and a laptop attached or even a 16 inch laptop and I disconnected that laptop
0:50:41What happens to my windows? It's madness. So that's
0:50:44That's gonna keep me on desktops forever. And I also don't like laptops
0:50:47Oh, I mean that's that's that's a fair point. Like that is like the disruption of
0:50:52Taking of unplugging a laptop from his desktop configuration and taking it with you. Yeah, there is a lot of disruption that happens
0:50:57You know, maybe you'll just get external disks attached to the monitor like it's all like desktops
0:51:02You're able to sort of build a setup with a bunch of junk and the laptop
0:51:05Yeah, it's great that you can take it away and take it with you
0:51:07But not everything comes with the laptop some stuff stays on the desk
0:51:10There are utilities like there's one called stay that that purports to fix that window or even problem
0:51:15I actually have it on my list to try it out. I haven't tried it out yet
0:51:18Please don't send us the million apps that do this
0:51:20We all know but but but the thing is like the OS like the OS could do this better third-party apps do it better
0:51:25But in the end if you used to have a 6k display in a 16 inch now
0:51:28You just have a 16 inch like something's got to give like there's no solution to this with software
0:51:34You now have less space for your stuff, especially if you had stuff arranged carefully on both screens. Where does it all go?
0:51:40Well, I mean, I think that can be solved with apps
0:51:43but I think the the bigger counterpoint here is like
0:51:46even if like this is what I think my my
0:51:51two laptop situation is
0:51:53actually kind of great because here's the thing if a MacBook Pro is
0:52:00Actually a better desktop than most desktops for most people
0:52:04Then even if you literally never move it
0:52:08You might be better off getting it as as your desktop just in case you might need to move it
0:52:14Sometimes if you're a Mac user, it's like you said it's the best desktop
0:52:17You just think of it like it's like a car up on blocks in your front lawn. It never goes anywhere
0:52:20It's the highest performance desktop that Apple sells right now
0:52:25Yeah, but but like I think if you're if you're gonna be like super mobile back and forth all the time then yeah get a laptop
0:52:32if you're gonna be only
0:52:35occasionally mobile I still think this makes sense because
0:52:40Again, like if there's not significant compromises to it not being a desktop
0:52:45Then it being a laptop is always going to be better because even if you hardly it's it's like people who buy SUVs
0:52:52Like well, I might go off-road sometime
0:52:53It's like well
0:52:54Even if you almost never do that's you still have that capability if you need it if there were no other compromises
0:53:01You know, it's but there are the SUVs have higher rollover. I know I know I use more fuel and they're more subject to crosswinds
0:53:08And like it just like you know, I know but but imagine if there were no if there were no compromises, right?
0:53:13Well, but there are still are some like you it's way better than it used to be for sure
0:53:17And Apple's line is in a weird place right now
0:53:19but there is less space inside those things and
0:53:21All the components are sort of wedged in there and batteries can expand and do weird stuff and there's not as much room for dust
0:53:28To get caught and like they're doing wrong. They're way better than they used to be and right now
0:53:32They are the best desktop that Apple sells, but I expect this to be a temporary condition
0:53:36it just depends on how much value you put on the other stuff and and how lucky you get in avoiding the laptop whammies because
0:53:42Like I would you know if given the choice
0:53:44I would rather have a purpose-built desktop like an iMac then the laptop even if they were exactly the same speed and I never
0:53:51Disconnected them just because like why do I want to pay for a monitor that I'm gonna keep folded up all the time if I?
0:53:55Don't want to use it that way why do I want to pay to have everything?
0:53:58Miniaturized and put in the skinniest possible case when that has no value for me
0:54:01You think the desktops are gonna be any different given the way the iMac's are we don't know yet, but you know the 24-inch
0:54:07I Mac that is not a it's not a different distinction, but maybe the big one it will be but yeah
0:54:13Just like the laptops are you know they're made to be small and portable and they expect you to carry them around
0:54:17And it's not that there are compromises, but there are different trade-offs for
0:54:22Achieving that portability if that portability literally isn't important to you
0:54:26Then the only reason to buy them right now is because it's the best desktop that Apple sells
0:54:29But that won't be true for a while
0:54:30I don't know man. I keep coming back to I think Marco's right that with so few trade-offs
0:54:36I mean and in your you're hanging your hat on things that just really aren't true anymore like oh, there's more space well
0:54:42It's all crazy look at the iMac 24 inch. You just said it yourself. It's all crammed into this
0:54:47I know I'm saying right right now
0:54:49That's this is that's the right thing to do, but I assume that I mean certainly the Mac Pro will be less compromised in terms
0:54:54Of how much space at least I hope it will be
0:54:56But we don't know the big iMac might be as thin as the 24 inch
0:54:59But it might not be so we have to wait and see what Apple does with these other desktops already
0:55:02I would say the Mac the M1 Mac mini incredibly spacious like this empty little empty space is not there right?
0:55:08Obviously, it's not the M1 Pro and the M1 Mac's inside there, but the Mac mini is suddenly a cavernous
0:55:14You know it's got this massively overbuilt power supply right from the old Intel Mac mini this tiny little
0:55:21Logic board with system on a chip on it, and I feel I think I would feel more confident about the long longevity of an M1
0:55:29Mac mini than a new 14 inch M1 maxing just because the new 14 inch M1 max
0:55:34It's got a bunch of batteries inside there
0:55:36And it's much tighter and there's more room for stuff to get caught in the the M1 Mac mini is
0:55:40Just an empty cavern an overbuilt empty cavern you know it's probably gonna be fine like it's not that big of a difference
0:55:47So they could be compromises that used to be there are just not there anymore
0:55:51But it doesn't mean there's zero of them
0:55:53It just means that they're one they are falling below the threshold of people most people caring
0:55:58But definitely not falling the below threshold of me caring and in the end it is a waste to buy a screen and a keyboard
0:56:03And a trackpad if you're not going to use them
0:56:05Well, I mean I think ultimately the the biggest reason to get the new iMac when it comes out again
0:56:12We don't know anything about it
0:56:13But the biggest reason to get the new iMac that when it comes out is going to be the screen problem like it's gonna be
0:56:18That oh well Apple still is not gonna
0:56:20Especially if they have they don't have a monitor with it, and that is the the biggest selling
0:56:24But you're basically buying a monitor, and it's like I guess that has a computer attached
0:56:27Yeah, like the screen problem is gonna be a big driver and then secondarily to that yeah desktops
0:56:33Do have like more ports you know it'll have something
0:56:36It'll have things like built-in Ethernet that these laptops don't have and we'll see but yeah
0:56:40I'll probably but at least on the power brick right yeah, I don't know
0:56:45Will it be will it be like 10 gig Ethernet like on the Mac Pro who knows right?
0:56:50I mean so so I think like they like yeah, there are still reasons, but I think what Casey was said
0:56:55It was important
0:56:55It's like there are still reasons
0:56:57But they're mattering less and less over time and and they matter less now than ever with that one exception of
0:57:03The monitor question which again we keep coming back to this you know bringing it back around like that's why it's such a glaring hole
0:57:09in the lineup
0:57:09But if you're either willing to set six thousand dollars on fire or have some other solution to your monitor needs on your desktop besides
0:57:16Relying on a built-in one for it for like an iMac if you have the monitor question answered
0:57:21The MacBook Pro is the best desktop Apple makes and I don't think the new iMacs whenever they come out will be
0:57:28That much better than the MacBook Pro is already agreed well see I mean
0:57:33I mean it's easy to predict if you want to make bets on Marco changing his setup
0:57:36That's usually a safe bet, but you have gone back and forth from laptop desktop laptop desktop
0:57:40I'm assuming this cycle will continue to repeat and that means
0:57:43Eventually you'll be in a desktop again for a little while, so we'll see I mean most like I mean
0:57:48You were just very recently you were on the Mac mini
0:57:49But just because that was the best one you could get but now the laptops are better
0:57:52So now you're on that and they'll probably desktops to come out that are better
0:57:55And you'll be on that and who knows round and around you go
0:57:57We are sponsored this week by
0:58:01Compending ink this is actually a job posting sponsorship. This is kind of great
0:58:05So if you remember that incredible to do app called clear I have I personally use clear for years and years
0:58:12I love so simple. It's fully gestural the design is great super colorful musical if you have the sound on
0:58:19It's just a lot of fun as a to-do list
0:58:20I loved it as a shopping list too, and you probably also played the game heads up kind of like charades
0:58:25But with the phone in your forehead
0:58:27It's made with Ellen has partnerships with Marvel has been in the top grossing apps for nearly 10 years
0:58:31Those apps are actually designed by the same team of just four people and for the first time ever
0:58:37They're looking for their fifth developer teammate, so if your developer listen to this they stay small on purpose
0:58:43Everything is done in-house and custom design apps are made perfectly for their purpose
0:58:48Heads up has been very successful and still keeps growing and growing every year
0:58:52They're working on clear 2 and 2 other secret projects, so you'd be working on both heads up and clear 2 and the new projects
0:58:59Remote work is welcome and first and foremost
0:59:02They're looking for fit for the right fit pay is not an issue depending on experience level could be upwards of
0:59:07$200,000 and include partnership profit share so if you've been feeling stifled or looking for a new start in 2022
0:59:15This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the right person reach out via
0:59:20Impending.com slash hiring and tell them you came from ATP once again
0:59:25That's impending.com slash hiring and don't forget to tell them you came from ATP
0:59:30Thank you so much to impending Inc for sponsoring our show
0:59:33All right, we should probably talk about
0:59:39Apple announcing self-service repair this dropped like a month ago now, but we just haven't had a chance to get to it
0:59:46And so this is Apple announced self-service repair which will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access to Apple genuine
0:59:54Parts and tools it starts with the iPhone 12 and 13 and m1 max we coming soon
0:59:58It starts on the iPhone with the display battery and camera this all began in the US in early 2022
1:00:04following the repair customers return their used part for recycling will receive credit toward their purchase and
1:00:10In the past three years it is noted
1:00:12Apple has nearly doubled the number of service locations with access to Apple genuine parts tools and training including more than
1:00:182800 independent repair providers the rapidly expanding independent repair provider program originally launched the US in 2019 since grown to more to more than 200 countries
1:00:27Enabling independent repair shops to access the same training parts and tools as other Apple authorized service providers
1:00:33I should it's probably obvious by now, but I should note this is an Apple PR release
1:00:36this is
1:00:39Interesting I don't think that I would be the kind of person that would want to open up my own phone and replace a display
1:00:45But it's cool that I can next year, right
1:00:49So the the context for this announcement if you're not gonna keep up with things in this world
1:00:55You're like alright, I guess whatever this seems weird or I'm not interesting or whatever
1:00:59But there is a context for Apple making this announcement and that context is the challenge of people with broken Apple products
1:01:09Getting them fixed and not wanting to pay a lot for that to happen
1:01:13There are a lot of
1:01:16Challenges involved with that there's one
1:01:18Youtuber Lewis Rossman will put a link to his video responding to this, but he does the type of repairs you know
1:01:24What I said Sega does what intend don't?
1:01:27Rossman does what Apple don't
1:01:30If your Mac is broken you can of course
1:01:33or your phone or whatever you can of course take it to an Apple store and
1:01:38They will fix it for you for a price
1:01:40But you might not like that price that price might be really high
1:01:44Let's say you have one of those stupid laptops or everything was all attached to the top case and your stupid keyboard went bad and
1:01:49They had to replace the whole top case and let's say it was out of warranty
1:01:51And you don't want to pay that much you just can't you just fix the keyboard no we have to replace everything right
1:01:55That that same thing plays out a lot of different ways. Oh, I cracked my screen on my laptop
1:02:01Can you just replace the screen no we have to replace the entire assembly?
1:02:05Involved in screen even just even though just the LCD panel is bad
1:02:08We have to replace the aluminum top of the case and the backlight back in the old days and the LCD thing like
1:02:14That even though there are independent parts. They want them to be replaced together
1:02:18Oh one chip on my logic board is bad. Can't you just replace that chip nope sorry new logic board?
1:02:23$900 chip is 30 bucks, right?
1:02:26So this is the the this is the problem here and
1:02:32You would think okay? Well that's what Apple wants to do they want to give you the best repair possible
1:02:36They don't want to replace individual chips because when you're placing individual chips
1:02:39It's unreliable and they just go bad again, and it's problems with corrosion and blah blah blah
1:02:43You know they just they just want to give you the best repair possible and that costs a lot of money
1:02:46So fine you don't like it apples thing go someplace else and get it repaired
1:02:50That's where the tricky part gets in where else are you going to go and so here's Apple bragging about their independent repair
1:02:56providers and how they've doubled the number of those and how they're getting more and more places that
1:03:01You have genuine Apple parts, which is another problem because lots of places will repair your stuff, but put in sort of like
1:03:05Equivalent parts counterfeit parts you know parts that are not genuine Apple parts. Let's say that might cost less money or whatever
1:03:14that
1:03:16Customers may be okay with but Apple isn't because what if you know there's liability problems or especially if it's involving the battery or something
1:03:22or whatever
1:03:24so Apple wants there to be a
1:03:27Better network of independent repair shops that use Apple parts and the do things the Apple way
1:03:34And for that to happen those parts need to enter an agreement with Apple
1:03:39That says we will do the repairs the way we're supposed to and in exchange you will allow us to get Apple genuine parts and Apple
1:03:46genuine
1:03:47You know repair manuals that tell us how to fix them or whatever
1:03:50but still
1:03:52like
1:03:53Those places are under constraints due to that agreement with Apple. They're still not allowed to do repairs that Apple thinks
1:04:00shouldn't be done and that's where this big tension is between
1:04:04People who want I keep wanting to say I don't want to pay a lot for this muffler
1:04:09But it's an ad that only old people even know about it remember when I was on TV and people watch them
1:04:14It was a long time ago
1:04:15They don't want to pay that much for things to get repaired
1:04:18They're okay having a non genuine Apple thing if that means the screen on their phone works again. They don't care
1:04:24They just want to get their phone fixed for less money than Apple charges
1:04:27And if they go to an independent Apple retailer and that retailer gets genuine Apple parts at the genuine Apple price and has to do
1:04:33with the genuine Apple way
1:04:35Where it's not probably not going to be that much cheaper or to the degree that it will be cheaper
1:04:40It's just cutting into the margins of the independent shop like they're not they're not empowered
1:04:45To solve the actual problem here. That's what I have in the notice
1:04:48Like what problem is being solved the problem from consumers perspective is I have a broken thing
1:04:53I want to pay the least amount possible to get it fixed and I'm willing to compromise on like
1:04:58Maybe long-term viability won't be that good me
1:05:01It would be better if you replace the whole logic board like I acknowledge that but I don't want to pay $900
1:05:06I want to pay 200. It's a big difference in money, right or I just want my screen to be fixed
1:05:12It doesn't need to be genuine Apple screen
1:05:13I don't care if the screen is worse. I just want to be able to use my phone again
1:05:16So it'll hold me over to next year and I want to pay half price
1:05:19right and
1:05:22That option is not that that problem is not being solved by this program
1:05:26This program of allowing people to do things a genuine Apple way with genuine Apple parts is not helping and so people like Lewis Rossman
1:05:32That his problem is at his shop
1:05:34He can't get the parts anymore because no one will sell them to him
1:05:37Apple won't sell them and the people who make the parts like the actual vendors that Apple buys them from
1:05:42Also won't sell him the parts. So he literally can't get this one little, you know, $2 chip
1:05:47On the logic board needs to be replaced. He knows how to replace it. He can replace it
1:05:52He's got videos and YouTube of him replacing it and it costs way less than buying a whole new logic board
1:05:56And yes, maybe it is less reliable over time
1:05:58But this is a trade-off that consumers are willing to make but Apple says consumers shouldn't be able to have that choice
1:06:02Consumers should only be allowed to repair their things in the way that Apple wants them to be repaired
1:06:07Which is usually the better safer way but also the more expensive way
1:06:12And so this is the whole right to repair thing
1:06:14How much say should Apple have as a vendor in how I can decide to get my thing repaired and this program
1:06:22It sounds like oh, well fine just do it yourself
1:06:23But no if you want to do this yourself
1:06:25You also have to pay the genuine Apple price to get the genuine Apple parts and repair things genuine Apple way and they're starting with
1:06:33Display battery and camera which are things that you know break a lot on phones and same thing with Macs
1:06:37They're not going to sell you the little chips that you need to fix a little thing on a logic board
1:06:41They're not going to sell you just this part of the screen instead of the whole screen assembly. Apple's not going to do that
1:06:47so still Apple is exerting control by saying here's what we'll sell you and
1:06:52We will tell all our vendors
1:06:55You're not allowed to sell any of the parts that you sell to us to other people
1:06:59So Apple is essentially boxing out independent repair shops from doing things. Not the genuine Apple way
1:07:04Which is kind of crappy and this
1:07:08repair program
1:07:11Doesn't really do much to change that except in that it allows
1:07:15I mean as far as I can tell it allows people to undercut Apple
1:07:18By cutting into their own profit margins by saying okay Apple wants X amount of profit margins because they have to maintain a fancy store
1:07:25In a mall, right? I don't have to maintain that I have lower rent
1:07:28I'm in a smaller place that doesn't have like Italian marble tiles on the wall or whatever the hell
1:07:33Apple has on their Apple stores and I'll pass that savings on to you by taking less of a profit on this screen repair
1:07:39But I will do the screen repair the Apple way with Apple parts and it will cost
1:07:43Almost the same price minus 10% or something and that 10% is 10%
1:07:48I'm eating because I have to pay the same price for the parts that Apple does, right?
1:07:51So I guess that helps I'm not saying this is an announcement. It's bad
1:07:54I'm just saying that the problem that is that the context the surrounding context of like hey
1:07:59What is the problem with people getting stuff repaired that's not being fundamentally changed by this program. It's helping
1:08:05It's better than not doing this
1:08:06It's better to have independent repair shops than to not have them
1:08:09But still Apple is essentially controlling from top to bottom exactly the kind of repairs that can be done to its products by anybody
1:08:16Not just by Apple
1:08:17Marco any thoughts? No, John covered it really well. I think this is going to change things in small ways not big ways
1:08:25Yeah, I mean and it's good if you're one of the independent repair shops
1:08:28Oh, I want more access to more stuff and to be able to do more repairs good great
1:08:32But the bigger problem like the big question is should Apple be able to decide how I can get my thing repaired and the answer
1:08:37Is right now they can
1:08:39Sort of like de facto like through all their arrangements and dealings
1:08:43It doesn't look like they're stopping you from doing anything, but they really are and it's kind of crappy in some ways
1:08:50It's also kind of better because you got these things to have with you my is the scare tactic that always uses
1:08:54It's the computer repair equivalent of think of the children
1:08:57Oh
1:08:57Battery is gonna explode because you use a cheap battery and they poke the battery when they were changing your screen and everything setting on
1:09:02Fire and everyone's gonna die and flames right like that's Apple will always tell you that you're all gonna die in flames
1:09:07And there is some truth to that. Someone's probably gonna die in flames
1:09:09But like think of it this way when you get your car repaired
1:09:14You don't have to go to the dealership
1:09:16You can go other places and anybody can buy a part from Honda to repair your car
1:09:20And Honda does not force you to rebuy the whole engine if you just need a new head gasket
1:09:25They will sell you the head gasket. They will sell you every part in that car
1:09:29It's a good business parts are very profitable, right, but they won't just up. Sorry
1:09:32We won't just sell a head gasket you need to buy the entire head that that's not how Honda works
1:09:37Imagine if they did imagine if first they were only you could only take it to the Honda dealership
1:09:41I said now we're allowed third parties to do stuff
1:09:43But also you can only buy the entire, you know top of the engine
1:09:45You can't just buy a head gasket because we feel like if you just replace the head gasket
1:09:49That's not a good repair. You just need to replace the whole top of the engine, right? That's the situation
1:09:53We're in with computers and cars are way more dangerous than computers at this point right in terms of potential for instant death, right?
1:10:00Yes, battery is gonna go bad and burst into flames
1:10:02But you know if you're hurtling along in this, you know multi thousand pound machine
1:10:07They could veer off into an immovable object in any second, but somehow we're okay with doing with cars, but computers
1:10:12It's you know when Apple makes the safety argument. It's true. There probably be more
1:10:16Incidents of bad repairs and things going bad
1:10:19But is it going to be worse than vehicles and somehow the world goes on, you know?
1:10:23We think it's better that you can take your car to someplace other than the dealer and I don't think anybody if you're interested
1:10:28It said hey, we've decided that you're no longer going to be allowed to get your car up at any place other than dealer
1:10:33That's kind of true with Tesla right now. Sorry Marco, but yeah
1:10:36Tesla tries very hard to be like Apple in this regard of not allowing third-party repairs this whole YouTube videos
1:10:41Not if you want to look at it, but but I don't think we'd want to go back with cars
1:10:45I don't think we anyone would agree to a new law that says your car can only be repaired at the dealer because we know
1:10:50What would happen there?
1:10:51Well, that's a situation where we're in with Apple not, you know
1:10:54We were in with Apple and Apple is trying to expand it out in the other direction
1:10:57but we're nowhere near where we should be which is I
1:10:59Can get my car repaired anywhere and I can be confident unless I have a Tesla
1:11:03I guess that that you can buy any part of this car any one of these thousands and thousands of parts that make up
1:11:08This car you can buy a genuine part or a replacement part. That is not an OEM part
1:11:14And pay someone else to put it in there and it will be fine
1:11:16We are sponsored this week by trade coffee we get almost everything delivered these days
1:11:23Why should coffee be any different let trade bring the best coffee right to your door?
1:11:28Trades goal is to make every cup of coffee your best ever
1:11:31So the journey your perfect cup starts with taking their simple coffee quiz you tell them how you brew it French
1:11:37Press automatic drip cold brew no problem. Your answers will allow trade to pair you with the perfect coffee to fit your taste
1:11:44trade will match you to coffees you'll love from over 400 craft coffees and will send you a freshly roasted bag as
1:11:50Often as you'd like and trade guarantees you'll love your first match on the off chance
1:11:55You don't they'll replace it with a different bag for free and you can give feedback as you sip as your preferences evolve over time
1:12:02Your coffee matches will too and you can feel good about each cups and trade partners with over 55 small
1:12:08Us based roasters who are committed to ethical and sustainable sourcing. I have personally used trade
1:12:14I use it for months and I go back every swap and whenever I'm in the mood to like kind of mix up my coffee
1:12:18game because honestly
1:12:20It's just really consistently good and it's hard to find that in the coffee world
1:12:24But trades, you know, you get a variety with trade, but it's all good
1:12:29Like I had I don't I almost never had anything I didn't love from them. Like it was really great
1:12:33So for our listeners right now trade is offering a total of $20 off your first three bags at checkout
1:12:39To get yours go to drink trade comm slash ATP and use promo code ATP
1:12:45Take the quiz to start your journey to the perfect cup. That's drink trade comm slash ATP
1:12:52promo code ATP for $20 off your first three bags and
1:12:56This holiday season give the coffee lover in your life the gift of better coffee too with their own
1:13:01Personalized gift coffee subscription from trade. Enjoy. Thank you so much to trade for sponsoring our show
1:13:08All right
1:13:12Let's do some ask ATP and Todd cap really in rights
1:13:15The iPhone was a big risk for Apple in part because it didn't have a hard of keyboard instead
1:13:21They opted for the flexibility of a virtual one and this usage a virtual interface was a smashing success
1:13:26Following this lesson. I can see the merits of replacing the top row of
1:13:29Regular function keys with virtual ones and the Mac laptops like like they did in the touch bar. This appears to have been a failure
1:13:35However, why do you think the use of a virtual interface works so well in one context, but not the other
1:13:39I have a couple of theories. First of all when I am using the virtual keyboard on a phone
1:13:45Nine times out of ten. I am looking at the phone
1:13:48Whereas I am a touch typist and so it is very rare that I am looking down at my keyboard
1:13:55It happens, but it is very very rare and it is very unusual
1:13:58And secondly every iPhone had the same keyboard
1:14:02not every Mac had the same keyboard and a lot of times people who wrote code to to
1:14:09Create programs in applications for these Macs were doing it on iMacs which didn't have a touch bar
1:14:16So those are two potentially silly reasons
1:14:19But those are two reasons I see why it never really took off and then there were people like Marco who just never gave it
1:14:24a chance. Excuse me. I gave it lots of chance. I am kidding. I am kidding.
1:14:27No, I think you know number one
1:14:29You're right that the fact is that when you are touching a screen that you are looking at that's a very different thing
1:14:36than a
1:14:38keyboard where
1:14:39Traditionally like typically most people typing on physical laptop keyboards most of the time are not looking at the keyboards when they're typing on them
1:14:46So that's you know problem number one is that is that the touch bar
1:14:50Required you to move your eyes every single time down to the keyboard to be able to reliably use it
1:14:57Whereas with the phone you are looking at the screen the entire time you are actively using it
1:15:02And so, you know you you have a lot more, you know direct interaction there
1:15:08and I think the other thing is that
1:15:10the the software keyboard on the phone is
1:15:14not a
1:15:16hundred percent better in every way than a physical keyboard
1:15:19but it enabled such additional features like the screen opening up when the keyboard wasn't there into much more screen area and
1:15:28other kinds of customization or anything else so it it allowed other benefits that let us forgive the
1:15:35Downsides of the virtual keyboard over a physical one the touch bar didn't do that the touch bar
1:15:43Didn't enable enough additional value
1:15:46Compared to the hardware keys to justify the loss of the hardware keys that was the biggest problem is that?
1:15:54You know in certain ways it was significantly worse. You know the lack of feel
1:15:58accidental input you know not
1:16:01Having to like activate it to do certain things you know having to wake it up
1:16:05You know so it was worse than all these in all these ways
1:16:09But it wasn't better enough. It didn't provide enough benefit in in you know to offset the ways in which it was worse whereas the iPhone
1:16:16It's the opposite the iPhone keyboard like yeah, it's worse than hardware keyboards in some ways
1:16:21But all these benefits came from doing that that we we put up with the with those downsides
1:16:27And and it was overall a very good trade-off. Yeah, and the touch bar just didn't have that
1:16:32Yep, I agree. There was the that's the big difference that what do I get in exchange for this in exchange for this weird thing?
1:16:38What do I any what you get on the phone is like well you get like double the screen size without making the device bigger
1:16:43How does that feel and it's you know it's such a massive win and the other thing I had going for it is
1:16:49Those tiny keyboards like on blackberries or whatever they weren't great
1:16:53You know
1:16:55Laptops can have full-size keyboards on them that are just you know they're fine full-size keys full-size, right?
1:17:01to
1:17:03Replace part of that with the screen then with all these compromises or whatever like it's easier to replace the crappy tiny
1:17:08keyboard with a slightly crappier on-screen keyboard in exchange for getting double the screen space and
1:17:14Enabling a whole world of new applications and by the way when you don't need the keyboard
1:17:18You know it's like such a huge win and the touch bar is like
1:17:21We're going to compromise your full-size keyboard that you like setting aside the butterfly business or whatever and in exchange you don't
1:17:30Get much, maybe you get some benefit, but also you get some downsides of having to move your eyes, so that's why like it's
1:17:37It's like any design thing
1:17:40it's all about the trade-offs you have to look at what are the pros and what are the cons and the
1:17:43The balance for getting the software keyboard on the phone was just you know witness the entire world of phones now
1:17:49Such a huge win that it more than makes up with compromises and the touch bar look at Apple's laptop lineup
1:17:56Look at the laptops around the entire industry
1:17:58That trade-off obviously had a much worse ratio otherwise
1:18:02All laptops would have touch bars now, but they don't not even apples
1:18:06I think another thing we learned is that you know the the touch bars promise
1:18:11You know if it was going to have some positive value the promise was look we can change all these function keys to be
1:18:18Anything you want depending on applications and needs and preferences you can have all the dynamic you know changing stuff
1:18:24But I think what we ultimately learned from that is what most people need from laptops in that area is things like well
1:18:30Yeah, I need to control the brightness and you control the sound volume
1:18:34I might want media playback controls there all things that the keyboard already offered in the function keys and
1:18:41You kind of want those to like most people want those to be available most of the time on laptops
1:18:47And then once you throw in touch ID on one side escape on the other like well to make that area
1:18:52functional the way most people need for laptops
1:18:54You could actually just use function keys and just put have them be permanently
1:19:00You know that fixed in place, and that's gonna solve most people needed most of the time
1:19:04So even the upside of the touch bar of like the the dynamism of it
1:19:09Was something that proved to be?
1:19:11Not as good and not as necessary as I think people would have would have thought if they would have first come up with
1:19:18This idea in you know 2015 or whatever
1:19:20It's not like there's you know unlike the phones where the half the device was
1:19:25Dominated by the keyboard because the phones had to be so small right that you were doubling the screen size
1:19:29There's already a large amount of screen space on laptops. That was part of Steve Jobs
1:19:33original pitch was
1:19:36You know why would we take half of the surface of this device and put it on a thing that can never change?
1:19:40Right if we make the whole thing screen we can change everything that appears there
1:19:45We can have a keyboard that just accepts numbers and we can have a keyboard with a dot-com button when you're entering an email address
1:19:49And like look at that you know look at the benefits of a screen you can put anything you want in a screen
1:19:54Laptops have a big screen, and you can put lots of stuff that you want there
1:19:58It's almost as like if Apple wanted to do
1:20:01Something like the touch bar in terms of a user interface element
1:20:05You could just dedicate the bottom of the screen can you call it the control strip bring a blast in the past from classic Mac OS
1:20:11You can put the touch bar on the actual screen and then make the screen a touchscreen Apple
1:20:15And just dedicate a region of the bottom of the screen to that if you think if you think it's a useful thing to have
1:20:20You know oh part of a part of the interface that can change anytime we want
1:20:25It's the screen you've got a whole screen for that and do it like there's lots of interface elements that are like that in the Mac
1:20:30UI
1:20:31Put them there moving it down to the keyboard and more importantly
1:20:34Taking away the physical function keys that you can always reliably find the volume up and down a mute button
1:20:39Because it never moves and it works like a button and you can feel for it and so on and so forth
1:20:43Taking that away, which by the way was stupid you could have a touch bar on top of the function keys
1:20:47It's not like you didn't have room on the surface of these giant laptops anyway taking that away
1:20:50You needed something to balance it and they didn't give enough benefit to balance it
1:20:54Alrighty Arien Anaha writes. Why is chromium's dominance considered bad for the open web?
1:21:00I understand the chromium browsers have poor support for Apple devices, but isn't that because Apple uses WebKit
1:21:05What would we lose or what would Google gain if all competing browsers were based on chromium?
1:21:09pros of greater greater website compatibility and interoperability of extensions seems like a massive upside to every of
1:21:16Everyone using chromium after all it is open source, isn't it John? Yeah, so
1:21:21Setting aside the obvious disadvantages of like a monoculture both biologically speaking in the various biological
1:21:27analogs in the software world like it's not a good idea to have you know a
1:21:31Important part of our computing platform be like one piece of software
1:21:36You know based on chromium or whatever the open source thing is a bit of a sort of get out of jail free card that people
1:21:42Like to play but as I wrote it in a very old blog post that
1:21:462013 when I used to write slightly more on my blog
1:21:49Having something being open source is great and all but for projects like chromium big complicated projects
1:21:56Where it's not like a single developer can do anything you need
1:22:00large companies funded by billions of dollars in advertising revenue to be able to
1:22:06Make any headway on that project and it's basically whoever
1:22:09Whoever does has the most employees working on it whoever pays people to work on it whoever writes the most lines of code
1:22:15By default controls that project. Oh, it's open source. Don't we all share this together?
1:22:21Good luck competing with hundreds of Google engineers, right? You can't they're going to make all the changes
1:22:26They're going to drive the change
1:22:27You can't compete with that because they just put more money and more people on the project and therefore they control it
1:22:32So even it's like oh, it's not Google controls it chromium is an open source project. It's controlled by all of us
1:22:38No
1:22:39It's controlled by Google because Google puts the money in and everyone else is volunteering in their spare time or whatever
1:22:45They can't compete with people being paid with you know
1:22:48The millions of dollars that we funnel into them through Google searches and search ads and stuff, right?
1:22:52So having an important part of our computing experience being de facto controlled by one company
1:23:00And a company that makes us money off advertising that's bad
1:23:03And yeah Apple uses a WebKit not too long ago WebKit and chromium were based on the same
1:23:08browser engine called WebKit
1:23:11But now it's based on blink or whatever, but I understand chromium is bigger than just the browser engine
1:23:15It's you know, like I get it
1:23:16but yeah
1:23:17it would be bad for all of us if Google and advertising company was the one and only vendor of
1:23:22The major component used to power our web browsers and the fact that it's open source doesn't change that
1:23:29Dave Saunders writes and we kind of hinted at this earlier
1:23:32We now have a MacBook Air with an M1 and a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro and M1 Max
1:23:37We have an iMac with an M1
1:23:38So it is a strong possibility that when we next get an iMac or perhaps an iMac Pro
1:23:43It'll have the M1 Pro or M1 Max chips
1:23:46When the iMac hasn't been refreshed for ages the iMac Pro was a clear statement of intent
1:23:51But in the current context Dave writes
1:23:54I'd be interested in your thoughts on what is the incentive for Apple to keep producing the Mac Pro to serve the small and
1:23:59shrinking number of users who are not served by other Macs. I feel like this is one of those ones that we
1:24:03Get asked like annually and apparently it's that time of year again. So John take it away
1:24:10I'm gonna just put my same article from 2013 the case for a true Mac Pro successor
1:24:16It's still the same case that's ever been like luckily. We don't have to remake this case Apple agrees with us
1:24:21Apple has is not you know, I
1:24:24Haven't said that they're producing an R Mac Pro, but they're producing an R Mac Pro like
1:24:29Apple needs to continue to push at the top edge of
1:24:33computing hardware not because they make a lot of money off of them or you know selling lots of people or just because for the
1:24:39Same reason that the analogy I made in this old blog post. It's the same reason the car makers make what they call
1:24:45Halo cars, right? It's a car that burnesses your brand. It's really cool
1:24:48You probably lose money on the whole project, but it's important place support serves so many different purposes
1:24:53It's a place where new technologies are tried out for the first time
1:24:56It's a place where you push the envelope things like the XDR which is a ridiculous product
1:24:59It was their first mini LED display
1:25:01It was the first HDR display like it was pushing the envelope and what was possible and it taught people inside Apple
1:25:08about this new technology
1:25:11It also a role that I don't think I talked about in this blog post and people don't really consider but like
1:25:16It is being on a halo car project at a car company. That's a good gig
1:25:22It helps you retain employees if you have like your very best employees, maybe they want to make the cool
1:25:28You know supercar even though that's not an important you'd rather have them be making the next Toyota Camry, right?
1:25:34but if you want to retain that engineer this great, you know, this is a great automotive designer and
1:25:38They want to be on the LFA project put them on the LFA project. You will retain that employee. You will make them happier
1:25:45They will improve their skills burning through all your money making this ridiculous supercar
1:25:49That's never gonna it's not gonna turn a profit, right?
1:25:52They'll be happy happy employees with even better skills. That's what you want, right?
1:25:58So having you know, if you are on the Mac Pro team and this sort of like twist turns your propeller
1:26:03You love making big fast beefy computers. You want that job in Apple, right?
1:26:08You want and if you can't get it Apple you go elsewhere you work on Threadripper at AMD or something?
1:26:13Who knows you'll go you're on Microsoft and work on whatever, right?
1:26:17Having projects like this is important for the morale of the company. There's a point for employee retention. It's important for R&D
1:26:23It's important for satisfying your customers. Do you want to keep video?
1:26:26You know editors as one of your markets you want to keep selling Final Cut Pro
1:26:31You need to sell a machine that they can use to do their real job. No, there's not a lot of them
1:26:35No, they're not gonna make you a lot of money. But you if you want in that market, this is the price of entry. So
1:26:40Yeah, Apple eventually was convinced that argument they had a Mac roundtable
1:26:46They said they're gonna make a modular Mac Pro. They made one. It's pretty cool. I think they're gonna make another one
1:26:50I don't think we have to relitigate this early. So I hope we don't
1:26:53Yeah agreed. I think you know, they even though
1:26:57What they're making so far with with the Apple silicon max
1:27:01Like if you just look at the current lineup, even though everything I was saying earlier
1:27:04But how you don't really need desktops for many people anymore
1:27:06There are still those higher needs or more specialized needs that the current products won't cover
1:27:13Well, you know, even if we got a nice iMac that's very similar in hardware to the current MacBook Pros
1:27:19That's gonna be great
1:27:21But if you're like, you know a professional video producer, you're gonna want more GPU grunt
1:27:28You know, you're gonna want more bandwidth. You're gonna want more, you know storage options and higher even higher RAM capacity
1:27:35Possibly like there's always there's always gonna be some customer
1:27:40That is not going to be served by laptop grade or mid-range desktop grade hardware
1:27:46Even though that hardware is fantastic because as time goes on as that hardware can get more fantastic
1:27:53The needs of high-end customers also continue to increase, you know video gets higher bitrate people do more advanced processing of things
1:28:01There's more scientific research or ML training or you know stuff like that
1:28:05The bar is always getting getting raised and there's always going to be like whatever most people are able to get away with
1:28:12there's gonna be high-end users and
1:28:15they're gonna want more and they're gonna be able to use more and they're gonna be willing to pay for more and
1:28:19And so the Mac Pro is going to address those markets, you know similarly to how the current one addresses them
1:28:26I think it's not going to be a high-volume machine
1:28:29but it is going to be very important to certain markets and certain users and
1:28:35Therefore they should keep making it and including for all the reasons John just said as well
1:28:38Plus it gives us more Mac Pro stuff to talk about exactly. What would we talk about if they didn't make Mac Pros?
1:28:45Thanks to our sponsors this week slide box
1:28:49Impending and trade coffee and thanks to remember to support us directly. You can join at
1:28:55ATBI.fm/join, maybe if enough of you join we can get Casey to waffle more about an XDR and we will talk to you next week
1:29:04(music)
1:29:06Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental
1:29:14It was accidental
1:29:17John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental
1:29:24It was accidental
1:29:27And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:29:33And if you're into Twitter you can follow them at
1:29:38Cas, Ey, L, I
1:29:41Ss, so that's Casey Liss, Marco, ARM
1:29:46Anti Marco Armin, SIR, AC
1:29:51USA, Syracuse
1:29:54It's accidental
1:29:56It's accidental
1:29:58They didn't mean to
1:30:00Accidental
1:30:02Tech podcast so long
1:30:06So John what's new with your freezer? Yeah, I guess that's a spoiler
1:30:11But honestly, you should re-listen to the episodes in order and so you already know the source of my beeping turned out to be my freezer
1:30:16I said I'm solving the problem by buying a new freezer. Just a brief update on this unfortunately ongoing saga. Oh, no
1:30:23I did buy a new freezer
1:30:25There was a whole rigamarole about preparing the way that maybe I'll talk about on rectiffs, but whatever
1:30:29Please freezier gets delivered gets installed. I killed myself trying to level it again more rectiffs content probably
1:30:35Set it all up
1:30:39Put food into it
1:30:41Painfully carried the old one up and out and put it in the garage while waiting to for someone to give it away to
1:30:47Turns out the new freezer has some problems. It's kind of like the LG 5k
1:30:55It was okay, but then like it was confused about whether the door was open or closed I'm like well the door just did yet
1:31:00You know it comes in without the door and you connect the door
1:31:02So they'd sorted that out but like and the little high temperature light was on and like well
1:31:06But it is high temperature now we got away for to cool down
1:31:08But by the time the first day was over we realized that
1:31:12You know after many hours, it would eventually just start beeping constantly
1:31:17That's the high temperature alarm right at least you know what it is now, yeah
1:31:24No, there's no doubt like it is constant. It is it's the high temperature alarm. It's constant beeping like about that fast
1:31:29No, I sound like at least you know what the freezer. Yeah, I know it's the freezer and it's not a song
1:31:33It's just constant beeping I
1:31:35You know we did get like a freezer thermometer to see is it really high temperature, and it's not it's negative 20 degrees inside
1:31:41There so the thing is broken it thinks that it is
1:31:44You know it's temperature sensor doesn't work
1:31:47If you google for this online you will find lots of people with this exact problem with this exact model which unfortunately yeah
1:31:53anyway
1:31:55And the other thing is like frost is
1:31:57forming inside the thing so I
1:31:59Made the pretty quick call to say I am NOT going to try to deal with this. I'm just sending it back. Yep smart
1:32:06Yeah, so I it's you know sending everything with the whole kovat and shipping and blah blah blah
1:32:12The earliest they could come and pick it up is the 20th so oh geez like three weeks from now. Yep
1:32:19So it's a good thing we didn't get rid of the old freezer because the old freezer is up in the garage right now
1:32:23And we have transferred the food out of the downstairs freezer and put it into the garage freezer and unplug the downstairs one
1:32:29You know why because the high temp alarm would go off every six hours
1:32:32So that meant every morning when we woke up we woke up to pee pee pee pee pee pee pee
1:32:39Every morning because it would it was going off at 12 and 6 at 12 6 12 6 12
1:32:44You know you have to go down there and press the alarm reset button so we lasted a few days on that and we're like no
1:32:48F that
1:32:50And so now the food is in the upstairs
1:32:52Freezer that's in the garage and guess what?
1:32:55It doesn't sing a song anymore
1:32:58It's in the garage
1:33:02Did we knock a bunch of dust loose carrying it up?
1:33:05Was it just angry in the basement?
1:33:09so anyway the
1:33:11The replacement is going back on the 20th right now all the food is in the garage room
1:33:17Which is no longer singing a song and then we're not quite sure what to do
1:33:20We could replay and by the way if you're looking to replace it
1:33:23There's you know given the like what's actually in stock your choices are
1:33:29Various rebranded versions of the one that's in the garage
1:33:32It comes under it's under Maytag brand whirlpool brand you can look at them
1:33:36You just if you're familiar with them you can say that's the same freezer with different brandings right so you can get that one
1:33:40Or you can get various rebranded versions of the one that's in the basement, which is a GE
1:33:44But there's also insignia, but it's the same those are the two
1:33:47standing frost free vertical
1:33:51Freezers that you can get in stock there are lots of others made
1:33:56But like you'd have to wait months for them to come over on a boat from somewhere right only those two are in stock anywhere
1:34:02So we are either going to
1:34:04Pretend that the one in the garage is cured, and then I guess carry it back down to the basement
1:34:10Which I'm not looking forward to
1:34:13Especially now that's considered. It's filled with frozen food, which we have to remove and would be like a time pressure thing right
1:34:18I like to leave it in the garage where it's cold anyway or
1:34:22Buy a new one probably just buy a new slightly larger because you know of course slightly larger
1:34:29The version of the one that's in the garage and sort of reset the clock on the beeping song or whatever
1:34:34So that's where we are. I will give more updates as things change, but
1:34:40Anyway, the saga continues. We have not solved the problem. We had a different amount of beeping
1:34:44And the old ones not playing its song anymore. I
1:34:47Would just leave it like Lee just return the bad one
1:34:51Leave the leave the now garage freezer in the garage, and that's just where you get your frozen food now
1:34:56Well, that's a getting a lot
1:34:58I do want to be able to fit the car in there again eventually so with the car will not fit
1:35:02That's a lost cause the car will not with the with the with the freezer in there
1:35:07No way no house. So that's got to come out it barely fit before like I know but it did fit
1:35:12I think you've lost this battle once. No, I'll bring it back down. I mean, we don't we don't want it in the garage
1:35:18It's a pain to go outside into the cold garage when you want something
1:35:22It's better to stay inside the conditioned house and go, you know in the basement
1:35:25So we'll see I'm you know, this is there are other things in progress again, you know
1:35:30Listen to rectives you wanna hear more of this saga. Yes, I do
1:35:35All right, Marco what's going on with you these days
1:35:37Well, I'm gonna take it to neutral. I
1:35:39Do not have a driving permit for the sand yet. Mm-hmm. However, I
1:35:45have driven on the sand and
1:35:47I have purchased a vehicle. Oh
1:35:51Did you get that? What was it?
1:35:53I put the link in I put the picture in our slack so you guys can see so the neighbors fj
1:35:59It is the fj Cruiser not the neighbor, but yeah somebody else in town
1:36:03So I have purchased an fj Cruiser it is colors the roof
1:36:07well
1:36:10The roof happens to be white but the car
1:36:13This is a homely car. I'd forgotten how I do these things. Yeah, the car is gray
1:36:19It is nothing that I would have picked out in terms of like if I was going to choose my own fj Cruiser. I
1:36:26By the way, which hasn't been made since 2014. So, you know, you're already and it was never made in large volume
1:36:32So they're they're kind of hard and it was never attractive. They're kind of no it was never tried
1:36:36they're kind of hard to find but you know, they're out there and
1:36:39if I were to pick my own I would probably get a
1:36:43yellow or orange one
1:36:46Why to lean into the ugly factor? Yeah. Oh, and I would almost certainly get it with a stick which it was available in
1:36:53This is gray and automatic. So this is not what I normally would have picked
1:37:01But as I mentioned, I don't have a driving permit yet
1:37:04The reason I have purchased this vehicle. I think I'm pretty high on the list to get a permit
1:37:11So I think I'm I think I'm going to get one probably either this winter or next winter in the winter
1:37:17sometimes the bay freezes over and the ferries have to suspend service for
1:37:22Drive right over that Bay on this vehicle. Well, so the
1:37:25when the bay freezes which happens usually every winter for at least a few days and sometimes it can be
1:37:31A week sometimes it can be a few weeks. Sometimes it could be a month and when the bay freezes
1:37:35You no longer have access to the land for things like grocery shopping and that's kind of annoying and and problematic
1:37:44So when the bay freezes if if there's no ferry service
1:37:47Anyone who's on the sand driving waiting list can get weekly sand driving permits
1:37:54This is a hell of a system here
1:37:56However if the bay freezes
1:38:00And I and I had got a I got a temporary freeze-over permit. I
1:38:04Can't necessarily drive my Tesla on the sand. No not advisable. You need a vehicle that can do it
1:38:12to make use of that and so
1:38:14Normally, you know, I was not planning on buying anything until and unless I got the full permit but
1:38:21Somebody in town who had a permit is was moving
1:38:26She decided to sell her car and she was offering it at a price. That was
1:38:31Well below not only its its official value I think but also
1:38:36Well below anything that is online for sale right now
1:38:41Like, you know, try first of all try to buy any car right now
1:38:44It's this is not a good time to need to buy a car if you're if you're buying in most context
1:38:50This is also really not a good time to want to buy an FJ Cruiser or a Wrangler or any vehicle that would be suitable
1:38:56for this purpose
1:38:57so this was
1:38:59an opportunity that I just didn't want to pass up because so, you know a I have I have like, you know,
1:39:05The bay freezing over contingency now covered. I have a sand capable vehicle and it was very inexpensive
1:39:11Was it was it more or less expensive than my Mac more but not by a lot
1:39:17Not not by much at all actually Mac it has very poor performance on the sand I'd advise
1:39:22It doesn't even have wheels you didn't even get the wheels a lot of place for a sandy ingress and in my Mac
1:39:30Yeah, and I didn't get the wheels
1:39:31so, you know it this this opportunity came up to get this vehicle and it was it was too good of a price to pass up and
1:39:38and it's and it's actually it's only
1:39:4080,000 miles and it's a 2014 model year which was the last year they were made like if you're gonna get an FJ
1:39:47Besides, you know that it's not really the color or transmission
1:39:50I would have necessarily picked for myself if you're gonna get an FJ you want a 2014 model year with relatively low mileage
1:39:56It's a Toyota. So it's fine. Thank you. Bye like a Land Rover or something
1:40:00I think it's fine. And and as part of as part of the the deal the previous owner was
1:40:06Super nice and super generous with you know her time and everything and she taught me how to drive on the sand
1:40:13She'd been doing it for like 30 years. And so she took me out. We we did a whole run
1:40:17I did it with her through the gate and everything as she she's allowed to have other people drive the car. She's in it
1:40:21So we went through the gate. I went the two different routes you can go and I learned where everything was and
1:40:26Let me tell you
1:40:29driving on the sand
1:40:31was
1:40:32Way harder than I expected
1:40:34So a few things I've learned so first of all
1:40:37This was you know, the conditions we're talking about here. This is driving
1:40:43across a beach for a few miles and it's in the winter and so and it hadn't rained in a while and
1:40:50so the beach consisted almost entirely of
1:40:55Multiple very deep tracks through the sand, you know, just tire tracks, you know, like deep tire tracks just running straight
1:41:01You know kind of exact here and there but mostly like straight tire tracks on the sand
1:41:05Forming like a bunch of like I guess like kind of virtual lanes
1:41:09Across the beach maybe like eight or ten like virtual sand lanes wide but super deep tracks
1:41:14you know probably at least six to ten inches deep, you know, just the tracks in the sand and
1:41:19Going between them the sand because it hadn't rained in a while. The sand is not hard packed down
1:41:25So it's very loose packed and you're riding in these basically deep ruts
1:41:29so getting in and out of the tracks is is
1:41:33Not easy necessarily because you have these big ruts you're going in and out of and the sand is loose and it's very tall
1:41:39And so this was a challenging time to drive through the sand, you know, I don't want to toot my own horn here
1:41:44I'm pretty good at car control in
1:41:47Loose traction situations like Casey you recall at BMW like the driving fun thing we did with with underscore
1:41:54I was pretty good on the skid pad
1:41:55Yeah, like I wasn't good at going around it quickly
1:41:57But I was really good at not spinning out and not losing control. Like I'm generally pretty decent at that kind of thing with cars
1:42:04This was hard
1:42:07Again way harder than I expected, you know, there were lots of times where you know
1:42:13I'm going down this track and and the woman who was selling me the car who was telling me like she had given me a
1:42:19Ride off like on the sand a few days earlier
1:42:22I would describe her driving style as like pretty gentle like, you know
1:42:26She was a slow careful driver
1:42:29Like one of the reasons why I bought the car actually cuz I could tell the shoot it
1:42:32She wasn't like a hard driver of it, but there were so many times where she would tell me you should go faster here
1:42:38Go faster. Otherwise, you're gonna get stuck. You gotta go faster. You gotta go faster
1:42:41Like I had to keep keep the car moving at certain points, you know
1:42:44Otherwise I was I was at risk of getting stuck and this is an FJ Cruiser which you know off-roaders respect this vehicle
1:42:51It's a pretty well regarded vehicle for off-road driving. It has off-road tires
1:42:55They were aired way down to like 20 psi and it was still
1:42:59really hard
1:43:02It was in four-wheel drive mode. The diffs were locked
1:43:05like it was it was as as off-road mode as it could be and
1:43:10there were still times when like I would try to steer out of
1:43:15The current like rut I was driving in and I would turn the wheel and I just keep going straight
1:43:22As if you're driving on ice like, you know, just you turn the wheel and you just well
1:43:25You're just I guess I'm going straight for a little while longer until until I can get it to kick up
1:43:30You know get up there on the on the ridge. So
1:43:32it was very very hard and and
1:43:34One thing she told me, you know, she said like, you know everybody who has a driving permit gets stuck sometime
1:43:40Really everyone like cuz I'm here I'm thinking like I'm gonna get a really capable vehicle and I'm and I'm a pretty good driver
1:43:46I'm never gonna get stuck and she's like no everybody gets stuck and what do you do when you get stuck?
1:43:52You call 911 and they dispatch a local police something to come pull you out
1:43:57I'm like really I'm like first of all, I'd really I'd be mortified if I ever had to do that
1:44:02Yeah, I really don't want to have to do that. But all of this is to say
1:44:07This vehicle. I really appreciated how how capable it was at the same time
1:44:15It was just barely what I would want in capability
1:44:20and so recognizing that there aren't many vehicles that are more off-road capable than this that aren't like really
1:44:25Giant things like because I don't want to I don't want a huge like lifted pickup truck
1:44:29I don't even want a full-length SUV because once you get onto the beak streets boy
1:44:34Do you want a very small vehicle at that point? Yes, like a wrangler
1:44:38The Rivian is more capable of this though higher ground clearance more power bigger knobby your wheels, right?
1:44:43Yes, and that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in the Rivian
1:44:46It is however a bigger vehicle and it doesn't exist yet. That's the bigger problem
1:44:50but it's like, you know, certainly I think if if I get a permit and the Rivian comes out during the time I have a
1:44:58Permit, I would most likely then sell or trade this in and switch to that until then in case you're right
1:45:04The Wrangler is the other choice
1:45:06However, I don't think a Wrangler is that much more capable in this condition. I think it would be fairly similar overall
1:45:12I I would probably agree with that but it is a if the two-door anyway is a very small car
1:45:19It's been a while since I've been physically next to a fj or whatever the heck this thing is called
1:45:23So I don't recall how big they are
1:45:25But a two-door Wrangler is very small the four doors are not the four doors are pretty big
1:45:29well
1:45:29and I wouldn't get the two the two-door Wrangler don't have enough space for me like I
1:45:32Like we have a kid and you're a family of wee little people. You'd be fine
1:45:36Have you seen a two-door Wrangler like if you have a car seat in the back, there's no trunk
1:45:41That's a bit of a problem
1:45:42There's not an abundance of trunk and you only have one car
1:45:46so if you have it free a car seat if you just have a
1:45:49Passenger in the back if you have the back seats operating as seats you have basically no trunk
1:45:55I wouldn't say that you have a frunk. It's just in the back. So anyway
1:45:59That's not at all. But and then no trunk in the front anyway
1:46:04all right, so now if I went Wrangler I would go with the four-door one and
1:46:08Dimensionally the Wrangler and the after the Wrangler and the FJ are very similar. There's a couple inches here there, but it's not
1:46:13They're very they're very close in size overall
1:46:15But anyway when I was first thinking about like, you know, what kind if I if I got a sand vehicle
1:46:22What would I go for?
1:46:23Would I go for something like a Wrangler or some giant SUV thing or I was thinking like could I get away with something?
1:46:30That's maybe just like a really good all-wheel drive system with some good ground clearance
1:46:34You know, like there's there's certain options like like the the Subaru Outback has this off-road package in the modern ones
1:46:40That gives it like pretty good ground clearance and like, you know, it has a pretty good
1:46:44It's pretty good system. But like so people recommended that
1:46:47There's all there's like other Jeep models that are like a little, you know larger more comfortable on the highway
1:46:53but aren't like, you know as off-road focus with the Wrangler and
1:46:56Now I know from this experience of just driving driving there and back, you know, basically two two trips on the sand
1:47:03I already know that I would absolutely not want any vehicle that is less
1:47:08Off-road capable than this if anything I'd welcome more, you know, like if I can get the Rivian cool, I
1:47:14Wrangler and FJ are my new baseline. Nothing that is less capable than these off-road would work for me here
1:47:21I've also of course I went and got the the super expensive
1:47:25Maxtrax
1:47:28Skid plate things that you can like you can stick under your realtor get stuck and help pull yourself out or help drive out
1:47:33I guess
1:47:34So I ordered those I'm like I do not want to get stuck ever and have to like call the police. That sounds terrible
1:47:41So I hopefully I never have to use those but I did order those
1:47:45And like, you know, like little mini shovel, so we'll see if I ever had if this ever even happens
1:47:51I forget if I ever get the permit but you know the great thing about
1:47:54This deal too is like it was such a good price that even if I never get the permit and I end up selling this in
1:48:00A few years. I'll probably make up all of what I paid for it or most of it at least so
1:48:04It was kind of a no risk and that again
1:48:07This is another reason why it's kind of a no-brainer deal, but other thing other notes about driving it
1:48:11This was the FJ Cruiser. It was it was an old vehicle
1:48:15like it came out in I think like
1:48:172008 or 2007 at first and the 2014 was not
1:48:21Changed that much from then and so it still works the way cars from the early 2000s worked
1:48:26So it doesn't have the stupid engine auto start-stop, which I hate on all vehicles that have it. It doesn't have
1:48:33Proximity key it doesn't have oh, I'm out no proximity key
1:48:38It basically has no it's like it's the way all cars used to be that's how this car is the way all my cars still
1:48:44Are by the way, yeah
1:48:45Like there's an ignition you put the key in it and turn it and just to start the car
1:48:50That's still a thing. I will I will trade that for no stop-start any day of the week
1:48:54Like oh, yeah, so many car like the thing every time I look at a modern car review
1:48:58I then they go over like and here's where you disabled the start/stop button
1:49:01All I want to know is the one piece of information that would tell me is
1:49:04Do I have to disable stop-start every time I get into the car?
1:49:07Does it remember like that's the most important feature of this car and let's just like Casey if they say oh you got to disable
1:49:12It every time you get in I'm out. Yeah, it's not that bad
1:49:16and in fact the worst part of the reason a lot of the positive reviews that the Wrangler 4xe are getting that the plug-in hybrid Wrangler a
1:49:24lot of those positive reviews are positive because
1:49:26The 4xe you don't really feel the engine start/stop because it's a hybrid system
1:49:31Whereas all other Wranglers you feel it and everyone hates it because it sucks so principle of the matter stop start
1:49:38I reject on principle even if I never feel it. I just know that it's happening
1:49:41I say no you need to be burning gas constantly
1:49:46Yeah, so again like it has it's just it's an old it's like a basic functioning car
1:49:52So, you know the the key fob does have a little remote control buttons to like lock and unlock the doors by remote
1:49:58So that's that it has that see yeah, it has that like capability, but that's it
1:50:02Everything is have carplay. No, it does. However have a standard doubled in radio socket
1:50:09Does it have Bluetooth?
1:50:10So here here's the thing
1:50:11So first of all, I don't know much about these cars, but I did know that everyone said like if you're gonna have a vehicle
1:50:17On the beach for this purpose get the FJ because it's you know, it's better than the Wrangler for
1:50:20The needs of most residents here. So great. Okay, other than that
1:50:24I really didn't know much about the vehicle the first time that I get into it and I you know
1:50:29I look around the controls. I notice right? There's no there's no navigation system
1:50:32It's just like the stock head unit that just has like, you know, the regular, you know
1:50:35LCD display that shows like, you know the seven segments of the numbers or whatever like it's not it doesn't have like a full
1:50:40You know bitmap screen so there's no navigation system
1:50:43But I did see like there's like a USB port and a line in on the bottom
1:50:48Okay, so I can I can you know rig something up there. I ordered myself ProClip USA mount for my phone
1:50:53I'm just gonna mouse up there with a mag safe puck and that's fine
1:50:55I thought to like, you know, one of the flaws of the FJ is the visibility is not great and
1:51:01Especially like, you know with the rear visibility if you're trying to like, you know do some parking maneuvers
1:51:05It does actually have those beeping parking sensors like the proximity sensors for parking on the rear bumper
1:51:10So that's nice
1:51:11but I
1:51:13Was thinking like the first thing I think I'm gonna get here is some kind of aftermarket backup camera because I'm spoiled now
1:51:18I love backup cameras
1:51:19I don't want to go without them and especially a vehicle that I'm not that familiar with I have to navigate around very tight
1:51:24Streets and you know like navigating it on the island is terrifying
1:51:28Actually on the streets because it's the streets here are so narrow and there's like houses built right up to the edge
1:51:34It's it's terrifying. So again Lord over our children's
1:51:38Yeah in my day we had to back up all these big vehicles with no rear visibility and no backup cameras. Yeah, exactly
1:51:44So first thing I think like all right
1:51:46I gotta get an aftermarket backup camera and then another thing like well
1:51:48Maybe I'll maybe I'll also get like maybe I replace the head unit with a carplay head unit
1:51:52Oh now we're talking right because it cuz you can do that. It's just you unscrew a few screws and you have the head unit
1:51:57It's a standard double din
1:51:58So and I already own one actually from my my carplay testing rig that I've actually since replaced with something better
1:52:04So I have it. I already own an extra doubled in carplay head unit. That's just sitting around not being used
1:52:11Like this is great. I could just pop it in and those usually have video inputs for backup cameras as well
1:52:17So I think oh great I can rig that up. It should be no problem
1:52:20I could have some local shop do it. I don't know how to do any of that stuff
1:52:22I could have some local shop do it. It'll be fine. Do you actually want though?
1:52:26I'm wondering I know what the interior looks like but like in a car this old
1:52:29Is that is carplay actually better than your phone mounted on event because like if it's positioned really low in the dash
1:52:37You're not gonna want to look at that
1:52:38You rather look at your phone to be closer to your island
1:52:40Like it's not made to be like current modern carplay things where the screen is like within your eye line
1:52:45Where you just glance down at it. Is it like down in the floor? So it's it's low, you know
1:52:49It's it's not it's not super super low, but it's not certainly ideal
1:52:53So here's so as I was, you know, we transfer the car over I'm putting on the new license plates
1:52:59and
1:53:00I notice as I'm as I'm putting the license plate on because I was looking kind of eyeing the bumper to say like where I've read
1:53:06Some forum posts ago
1:53:07You can you can put a backup camera right in the middle of the rear bumper and it kind of looks nice with the parking sensors
1:53:12And everything they're looking at that and I look up I notice
1:53:15There is what appears to be a backup camera in the spare tire enclosure thing on the back of the car
1:53:20There's no screen in the car though
1:53:22Like so and I then did some research and learn that they added a backup camera to the FJ like in later model years
1:53:29Oh great. Okay. I have the last year of it. So I have the newest thing. That's great
1:53:33But there's no screen so I thought maybe the backup camera was only used if you optioned the navigation system
1:53:39And so I'm like, all right
1:53:41well
1:53:41I guess let me let me figure out how to hook up the stock camera to a carplay head unit and I'll put that in I
1:53:48Was looking at the manual
1:53:50Casey because I had some questions about some of the off-road controls that I don't know anything about I'm stunned
1:53:56So I was reading the manual and I noticed that there's a section about the back camera and it didn't have the asterisk
1:54:03That said for all the all the optional equipment has the asterisk and that says if equipped
1:54:08And the backup camera did not have the asterisk so it's standard
1:54:12This is where Doug DeMuro needs to come in and show you all the quirks and features of your car
1:54:15You don't know where the hidden screen is. Yes, so it turns so in all of my test driving of this car
1:54:22I had never put it in reverse. I
1:54:25Learned from the manual that when you put the car in reverse
1:54:29It shows a tiny greeny little backup camera image in the rearview mirror. Yeah
1:54:35Which apparently is a common thing on lots of cars that I've just never seen before
1:54:40So that
1:54:44I'm like, okay. I'm being I'm trying to be too smart about this
1:54:48This is fine. It also already has Bluetooth on the radio
1:54:53So I already have Bluetooth in a backup camera and a car mount for my phone. So that's it
1:54:59I'm not gonna bother with carplay. I'm not gonna bother changing the head
1:55:02You know
1:55:02Just gonna keep the car stock as it is and just clip my phone to the to the dashboard like I do with my test
1:55:08Because that's that's fine like that that gives me everything I want really
1:55:14So it's yeah overall. It's even better than I thought
1:55:18Others other notes before we end here. I was very pleased we used to be growing up
1:55:23We were always a Toyota family, but I haven't owned a Toyota or driven one since
1:55:282002 maybe and I was very pleased when I got into this car that I already knew how to use the cruise control
1:55:36Because it still works exactly the same way they that old cruise control stock
1:55:40That's on Toyota's like with like, you know, the res and set and everything. It works exactly the same way
1:55:46You mean it's not just tap on the navigation item on touchscreen then go to cruise control then go to the slide
1:55:52Physical controls for the cruise control how barbaric that you can do that in one operation without looking
1:55:59Yeah, so everything worked like it's a fully manual car except for the transmission, of course
1:56:06Although honestly again for a moment going back to the transmission
1:56:10First of all, I didn't actually mind the automatic transmission that much because I'm not driving this car in a sporty way
1:56:16You got it. You got enough to worry about not getting stuck in the sand. Don't worry about shifting - I feel like automatic
1:56:21It gives you one more thing
1:56:23You know that you don't have to worry about you can concentrate on steering and throttle input and gives you one more Thunderbolt lane
1:56:28Well, and that's the thing. I
1:56:30think for off-road use
1:56:33automatic might be better for me at least at being a relative amateur at off-road driving because what you often need is to
1:56:41Start from a stop in a very slow way like to creep and that's really hard with a stick
1:56:46Yeah, especially with my relatively sloppy stick technique. Like that's why they have a creeper gears on
1:56:51This is the thing when people say off-road
1:56:54They're picturing going up a mountain with rocks or whatever sand is an entirely different beast to deal with and you're not going to there
1:57:00Just to be clear people to know what Long Island Beach is like. He's not going over boulders
1:57:04No, no boulders here. It is sand. It is just sand
1:57:07Yeah, lots of sand often very loosely packed and I have to go around but I had to pass a school bus
1:57:13Which that was terrifying because it was it passed very close and speaking about what are the rules about?
1:57:21Like how much of the beach is available for you to drive on it varies depending on like how much how much have storm was washed
1:57:28Away recently, you know
1:57:29But I'm saying can you go all the way down into the water and just like splash through the waves if you want to or is
1:57:34That illegal it's not illegal. You will get stuck if you do like
1:57:37I'm just like, you know
1:57:39If you think like a car I'd go down there and sunset and speed through the hard-packed sand
1:57:45With the spray coming behind you and then just trying to get stuck. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like you you don't want it to be wet
1:57:50But you absolutely like you're you are allowed if you have this permit
1:57:55You are allowed to drive on any part of the beach except for the dunes
1:57:58Obviously if you want to if you want to really accelerate the corrosion of your vehicle, you could splash through the salt wall. Yeah, right
1:58:05But yeah, so it was oh and there was also there was one scary moment too where I was
1:58:11I was turning in one of like the like one of the inland but still sand
1:58:15roadways and a truck was coming to the direction and I saw it had to pass me in a relatively small space and I tried to
1:58:23Pull over a little bit like off to the right to give them more space the non-existent shoulder
1:58:28Yeah, and my rear end fish tailed left very much towards them
1:58:33Nice, so yeah this again
1:58:35Terrifying and way harder of a drive than I expected. So yeah, I'm I still obviously if this permit happens
1:58:43I still have a lot to learn about how to drive and I think a lot of that will just come with experience
1:58:47But it was so much harder than I thought
1:58:50So much harder do you eventually get on to the you know, you know what they have?
1:58:55They just recently expanded this the place where you can take your RVs and stuff
1:58:58No, I guess that's maybe not like Robert Moses somewhere. Yeah, I guess maybe they don't have that like it's that's not dissection fuck father
1:59:05I'd ease the hip so there's the beach and then there's the dunes and then if you go farther out east on the south shore
1:59:11they have beach dunes and then another sand road and then
1:59:15RVs that are like that have views of the bay essentially, right? But that sand road
1:59:21It's a road but it is not a road
1:59:23It is just sand and that reminds me what you're talking about
1:59:25It's so skinny where you see like these it's always pickup trucks pickup trucks are RVs
1:59:29there are V's being pulled by pickup trucks and
1:59:31two pickup trucks will be coming toward each other on that road and it's like there's no way two cars are gonna be able to
1:59:37Pass each other because there's no room and it's just sand it's like feet deep
1:59:39You know, like you're saying the ruts and you see them creep past each other and try to like squeeze by with you know
1:59:45The big those whatever they're whatever those plants are in the dunes like scraping the sides of their fancy
1:59:50$80,000 pickup trucks against the dunes as the deer chew on things and laugh
1:59:55Anyway, I guess you don't have those roads
1:59:57I'll have to go look at some satellite things see if they're around there
1:59:59But but anyway, you're on the beach the whole time
2:00:00There's no part where you sort of go to the other side of the dunes, but you're still on sand
2:00:04No, there's both like so there's there is an interior route that drives through more towns
2:00:11But it's just it's slower and tighter and there is still there are still sandy sections on that
2:00:17But there's fewer sandy sections or you can you there's a couple of points where there's like little ramps
2:00:23You can cross the dunes like sand ramps like but there's there's a couple like cuts through the dunes that you're allowed to drive through
2:00:28That you know get you in and out of that area
2:00:30And then you can drive on the beach the whole time as well if you want to so
2:00:33But sometimes in the winter, especially like sometimes there's not enough Beach to drive on
2:00:39And so everyone has to then use the interior route
2:00:42So it's a whole thing and and you know, keep in mind that the context of this like the interior route
2:00:47All the interior roads that is such that such as they are are one lane wide and even just barely that
2:00:55And so if there's someone coming the other way
2:00:57One of you just has to turn somewhere and let the other person pass or back up into like, you know
2:01:03back up to the next street behind you and turn into that like and this is one of the reasons why like backup visibility is
2:01:08pretty important for this this kind of driving because you often are having to
2:01:13Back out of the street you're on to let some other vehicle go the other direction or something like that
2:01:18And so it's it's it's not easy driving by any means
2:01:21But yeah, it was it was very educational
2:01:25You should consider a duck boat though because when the Atlantic Ocean punches through into the bay as it has as it has done
2:01:31Multiple times in Long Island's history if you just go out east there various places where the ocean has punched through. Oh, yeah
2:01:37There your road will end and you will need more than a sand permit to get out. Yeah
2:01:42No at that point I think I'd get back on the ferry
2:01:43I really feel like Fire Island is the geographic equivalent of an LG ultrafine 5k. It's great
2:01:50Except that you occasionally can't get to the mainland and can't get food
2:01:54It's great, but only certain people are allowed to drive and by the way, you have to drive on the sand
2:01:59It's great, but it's going to sink into the ocean sometime in maybe Adams lifetime
2:02:05It's not sinking of the ocean. The ocean is going over it. Oh, I'm sorry my mistake
2:02:10Anyway, watch great asterisk dagger double asterisk double dagger cross double cross. No, it's just great
2:02:17Is it though? Oh one more thing that I loved about the FJ here. I'm gonna send you a picture to the
2:02:22controls for things like the ventilation system
2:02:27they're a very small number of
2:02:30Giant knobs and buttons. Yeah, imagine having a physical control for something. Isn't that?
2:02:38Easy it is to use those things without thinking about it. They never move really easy to find
2:02:42It was great because for for one of the drives it was cold
2:02:46And so I was wearing gloves for most of the drive and it was no problem to operate these giant
2:02:52Imagine that with gloves on it was great. Like it was just it was so
2:02:56refreshing it was almost like you know
2:02:59After having driven more modern cars for a while
2:03:02It was like retro appeal, you know to have this like it's not accessibility is not retro
2:03:08It's just good usability. Well that too but yeah, like oh man, it was so satisfying
2:03:12You know, I just I'm just gonna turn this temperature knob slightly. All right, you need to turn the heat on
2:03:17Oh, I just go over here and you know turn this a couple notches with my giant gloved hands and it's totally fine
2:03:22Imagine that I can't wait until you end up buying another ice and another internal combustion car because you realize that
2:03:29Yes, it is. Nice to have an electric powered car, but everything else about the Tesla's a pain in the ass
2:03:34And so there's plenty of electric cars with physical controls like not everyone is on the same page as Tesla
2:03:39That's how much should be physical and how much should be not like it
2:03:42You can look at the car manufacturers that are getting a clue faster than others
2:03:46But a few of them have already sort of gone back on their previous iterations and said nope
2:03:50We're bringing back physical controls for climate. We're bringing back physical controls or cruise control and all that other stuff
2:03:55So I have faith that people will figure it out eventually, but maybe not Tesla
2:04:00Where's the AC outlet in the car like the vents? No, no, no, no, no
2:04:04No, the alternating current outlet because I'm looking at a button in this oh, there's what there's an ACL in the trunk
2:04:09That's pretty cool
2:04:10Yeah
2:04:11And as well as a giant subwoofer for some reason I get the other benefit of physical controls you get to have blanks for the features
2:04:17that you're
2:04:19Three blanks, but anyway, it's surprisingly nice. I it's the first time I've bought a gas car in forever
2:04:26It's the first time I bought an automatic car in forever
2:04:28It is not at all what I thought I would want to buy ever
2:04:34But it's pretty nice like for what it is. It's got a round steering wheel - yeah, imagine that complete circle
2:04:43Real easy when you like those turns. Yeah, it turns out this car is very easy to drive as a human
2:04:50Which you still have to do a lot turns out
2:04:53You
2:04:55(door closes)
2:04:57[ Silence ]