PodSearch

ATP

430: Apple Did Not Eat That Food

 

00:00:00   I've lost my play/pause shortcut on my keyboard.

00:00:04   Like it just doesn't work anymore,

00:00:05   and I haven't debugged Waa yet,

00:00:06   and wow is that disruptive.

00:00:09   - Reboot.

00:00:10   - No, I did, I tried rebooting.

00:00:11   - Oh no.

00:00:12   - Yeah, I've had some weird issues,

00:00:13   like sometimes my keyboard will stop being recognized

00:00:15   until I unplug and replug the USB receiver.

00:00:17   So yeah, it's a whole thing.

00:00:21   What's also very strange,

00:00:22   I'm gonna have even more pre-show unplanned follow-up.

00:00:27   So this is my two week anniversary plus one day

00:00:30   of being fully vaccinated,

00:00:31   so that means now I'm like fully, fully vaccinated.

00:00:34   - Hooray.

00:00:34   - And my town has also lifted the outdoor mask requirement

00:00:39   as most places have now.

00:00:41   So I have been walking around without a mask outside,

00:00:45   and it's still kind of,

00:00:47   like the first time I did it it felt very much like this,

00:00:49   but it still kind of feels like I'm walking around naked.

00:00:53   Like it feels like, oh this is,

00:00:55   like I'm feeling air on a part of my skin

00:00:57   that I shouldn't be feeling air on.

00:00:59   Like I feel, it still feels like I have like forgotten

00:01:02   to put pants on or something.

00:01:03   It's a very strange feeling.

00:01:04   Have you guys gotten that?

00:01:06   - Yes-ish.

00:01:09   I don't, I didn't go that many places in the past.

00:01:14   - Don't you have a dog?

00:01:15   - Yeah, but around the neighborhood I never wore a mask

00:01:18   'cause our streets are very, very wide,

00:01:20   and I would just walk to the other side of the street.

00:01:22   - Oh, okay.

00:01:22   - It's probably, I'm sure hearing this

00:01:26   it sounds very selfish and very red hatty,

00:01:29   but truly our streets are like,

00:01:32   the streets in our neighborhood are like easily 30 feet,

00:01:34   which is what, 10 meters, 30 feet wide,

00:01:36   and it was not dangerous or disrespectful at all

00:01:40   to just move to the other side of the road

00:01:41   if somebody's coming, and that's what everyone does,

00:01:44   and that's fine.

00:01:45   So yeah, I didn't really have much of this,

00:01:48   and I haven't traveled in any meaningful way.

00:01:50   So I definitely did put a mask on outside

00:01:53   when the situation made it appropriate,

00:01:55   when I was close to people,

00:01:56   when I was around people I don't know, et cetera,

00:01:59   but that happened so infrequently

00:02:01   that I never really got to the point that you're at,

00:02:05   but I can't speak for how it was for you, Jon.

00:02:08   - It was similar here.

00:02:09   I was like, I gotta take my dog for the walk,

00:02:11   for a walk in the park.

00:02:12   Like there's literally no other people there,

00:02:13   and I'm just in the woods by myself, right?

00:02:15   So it was easy to just not have a mask on

00:02:17   'cause you literally don't see another human,

00:02:18   and I'm outdoors, right?

00:02:20   I think it'll feel weird the first time I do it

00:02:22   like in a place with other people,

00:02:24   but that doesn't happen yet, so I don't know.

00:02:26   - Yeah, exactly.

00:02:28   But you are fully vaccinated, to quote Gruber,

00:02:31   I am fully vaccinated.

00:02:32   Jon, remind me, where are you in the process here?

00:02:36   - Next week's show I'll be fully all set.

00:02:39   - So you've already had your second shot?

00:02:41   - Yep, and this is the one week after my second shot,

00:02:44   and next week's show will be two weeks after.

00:02:46   - That's right, that's right.

00:02:47   I forgot that you and I did it on Wednesdays

00:02:48   'cause we're amateurs.

00:02:50   And then how was your day after second shot?

00:02:53   Was it bad or not too bad?

00:02:55   - It was all right.

00:02:55   I mean, I felt cruddy, you know,

00:02:57   had a headache, had muscle aches in my neck,

00:03:00   and just generally felt like that whole run over

00:03:03   by a truck feeling, which doesn't really make any sense

00:03:05   'cause none of us know what it feels like,

00:03:06   or most of us don't know what it'd feel like

00:03:07   to be run over by a truck,

00:03:08   but you just feel like your whole body just,

00:03:09   it's more like being even squished by a giant or something.

00:03:12   Like you're just like, ugh.

00:03:14   I felt like that for basically the whole day,

00:03:16   and then the next day it was fine.

00:03:18   - All right, so what I'm hearing is after next week's show,

00:03:23   then the three of us can all meet up somewhere

00:03:25   and hug it out.

00:03:26   It'll be okay then.

00:03:27   - In theory.

00:03:28   - You still have to make Jon travel.

00:03:29   That's the hardest part.

00:03:30   - Well, I can't travel now.

00:03:32   I can't even travel 'cause apparently everyone in Richmond

00:03:34   has bought all the gas in Richmond.

00:03:36   - Oh, there's a gas shortage?

00:03:37   I wouldn't have known.

00:03:38   - Oh, you are such a--

00:03:39   - I haven't been keeping track of this story,

00:03:41   but like, what does it say?

00:03:43   I saw, it's one of those stories that I see

00:03:46   by its third degree effects on Twitter,

00:03:48   but I don't actually know why everyone

00:03:50   is all super nervous about gas.

00:03:52   Is there an actual reason or is it just random?

00:03:54   - Yeah, you honestly don't know about this?

00:03:55   That's fascinating.

00:03:56   - Well, I mean, I know people want gas

00:03:58   and they're hoarding it, but I don't know why.

00:04:00   - So I haven't dug into this too much,

00:04:02   and as always, I might get the details slightly wrong,

00:04:04   but the general gist as chief summarizer in chief

00:04:06   is that there is a pipeline that runs from Texas

00:04:09   to the Northeast, I think, if not all the way to Maine,

00:04:13   but it runs somewhere up to your guys' neck of the woods,

00:04:16   and it got hacked and ransomed and it got shut down,

00:04:21   and this is the pipeline that apparently provides,

00:04:27   I would assume, crude, but maybe it's refined gasoline,

00:04:31   I'm not sure, but provides it for most of the East Coast,

00:04:34   particularly the Southeast, and so gas stations

00:04:38   on Tuesday, I think it was, started to run out of gas

00:04:42   because I guess they get daily shipments or whatever,

00:04:44   and they started to run out of gas,

00:04:46   and so when I went, I met up with a friend of mine

00:04:49   to have an outdoor lunch, we're both fully vaccinated,

00:04:52   and I met up with him, and on the way there,

00:04:55   I passed one of our local big box stores,

00:04:59   and there was a line for the gas station

00:05:03   all the way to the street,

00:05:05   and this is one of those situations

00:05:06   where it's not unusual for there to be a line,

00:05:08   but to go all the way to the street, that's very unusual,

00:05:11   and so yeah, apparently there are gas stations in my area

00:05:14   that have straight up run out of gas,

00:05:16   there's price gouging because capitalism.

00:05:19   I filled up by pure circumstance on Monday,

00:05:22   and Aaron filled up, I think, over the weekend,

00:05:23   and we typically only fuel once a month as it is,

00:05:27   so I'm not particularly nervous,

00:05:29   especially since I think I saw,

00:05:30   as we record on Wednesday night,

00:05:32   that the pipeline has just reopened,

00:05:34   but nevertheless, there is a big scare,

00:05:37   and there's pictures and videos of people

00:05:41   putting gasoline into garbage bags,

00:05:44   and that's not a joke. - Oh God,

00:05:45   please don't do that for long.

00:05:47   - Now, from what I understand,

00:05:48   some of these are recycled from years ago,

00:05:50   like they're memes that went around,

00:05:51   and somebody would recycle and say,

00:05:52   "Oh, look what these idiots are doing,"

00:05:53   but supposedly some of them are really honestly true,

00:05:56   so yeah, it's been a little bit of a mess,

00:05:58   again, thankfully, because we never drive anywhere,

00:06:02   never really go anywhere,

00:06:03   it hasn't been an issue for the List family,

00:06:05   but if it were to persist for another two to three weeks,

00:06:07   then certainly it would be a bit of a problem,

00:06:10   so if you want me to come to you

00:06:13   any time in the next week or two,

00:06:14   I'm going to maybe have to wait on that.

00:06:18   - If you had a Tesla, you could just come here for free

00:06:20   when the Supercharger network.

00:06:22   - The chat room says that the pipeline

00:06:23   is back up and running,

00:06:24   and I can't, for, I don't know for how long,

00:06:27   but for most of the pandemic,

00:06:29   I haven't even been filling my gas tank up,

00:06:31   I think we talked about this before,

00:06:32   'cause I was afraid of the idea of like,

00:06:34   letting the gas get old in the car,

00:06:36   'cause I use my car so little,

00:06:38   that if I filled up my tank,

00:06:39   I was like, I'm afraid it'll be eight months

00:06:41   before I empty it,

00:06:42   and it's not good to have the gas sitting there

00:06:44   for a long time,

00:06:45   so I've only ever been filling my tank to half,

00:06:48   and even then, even then I'm like,

00:06:50   how many months has it been?

00:06:51   I just, I never go anywhere,

00:06:52   'cause like, what, you know, we have two cars,

00:06:54   and my car is always at the front of the driveway,

00:06:56   and I just never drive it anywhere,

00:06:57   I mean, that's changed with the kids going back to school,

00:06:59   and I'm driving them back and forth there,

00:07:00   but school is like 10 minutes away,

00:07:03   so I can't even remember the last time

00:07:04   I filled up my gas tank.

00:07:05   I am back to doing full tanks,

00:07:07   but I think I did my last full tank fill up like,

00:07:10   maybe a month ago,

00:07:12   and a half ago, so I'm not worried.

00:07:14   - But speaking of spending the money on fire,

00:07:17   if you wanted to set a little bit of your money on fire,

00:07:20   and you didn't wanna get gouged

00:07:21   with ridiculous gas prices,

00:07:22   let me tell you about ATP shirts,

00:07:24   because the ATP store's closing soon.

00:07:27   As we record, it is Wednesday night on Friday night,

00:07:30   just two days from now,

00:07:31   probably the day you're listening to this,

00:07:34   in all likelihood, the store will be closed.

00:07:38   I tell this story every time.

00:07:39   I know you're all frustrated with it.

00:07:41   Imagine me, who has to live it.

00:07:43   Every, every sale, somebody tweets,

00:07:46   non-ironically, saying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no,

00:07:49   "did I miss it, did I miss it?"

00:07:50   And typically, this is but hours after the store is closed.

00:07:54   Yes, you did miss it,

00:07:55   because you didn't listen to your friend Casey,

00:07:57   and your friend Casey is telling you,

00:07:58   "Pull the car over," if you drive anywhere,

00:08:01   "maybe pull over to the side of the road if you're walking,

00:08:03   "go to ATP.fm/store."

00:08:05   You can get our sweet, sweet M1 shirt,

00:08:09   which, speaking of lighting money on fire,

00:08:10   is not particularly cheap, and I'm sorry for that.

00:08:12   You can get the M1 shirt,

00:08:13   which has the beautiful six colors M1 logo on the front,

00:08:16   and the M1 kind of cutaway on the back.

00:08:19   You can get a monochrome version of that as well,

00:08:21   in multiple different fabric colors.

00:08:22   You can get the ATP Performance shirt,

00:08:25   which is, I think the term is moisture wicking,

00:08:27   or something like that.

00:08:28   Basically, it means if you're sweaty,

00:08:29   you can take it off without it sticking to you.

00:08:31   You can get my beloved ATP pint glass,

00:08:34   which I'm super excited to get in hand,

00:08:36   and of course, we have our logo shirt.

00:08:37   Now, some of you have heard our plea on the last episode,

00:08:42   that, oh, the enamel pin is going to be sold out soon.

00:08:45   Guys, guess what happened?

00:08:47   It sold out.

00:08:48   Guess what I heard?

00:08:49   Oh, did I miss the pins?

00:08:51   Oh, I missed the pins, didn't I?

00:08:53   You missed the pins.

00:08:54   (laughing)

00:08:55   This is how it works, kids.

00:08:56   This is how it works.

00:08:57   - You only had two years and seven months to buy those pins,

00:08:59   and you just missed it by a day.

00:09:00   - Yep.

00:09:01   (laughing)

00:09:02   So yeah, so if you look at my mentions,

00:09:04   shortly after the store closes,

00:09:06   you will see all the people competing to be first,

00:09:08   to say, oh, did the store close?

00:09:10   And that's fine, whatever.

00:09:12   If it makes you laugh, go for it.

00:09:13   But you'll also see a bunch of people saying,

00:09:15   oh no, did the store close?

00:09:16   Yes, the store closed, because you didn't listen to me.

00:09:19   ATP.fm/store.

00:09:20   Now remember, if you're not already a member,

00:09:23   please, ATP.fm/join.

00:09:26   Join, do it for a year, do it for a month.

00:09:28   It's okay, whatever you want.

00:09:30   Go use the discount code for 15% off

00:09:33   your ATP merchandise at Cotton Bureau,

00:09:36   and then you can just cancel if you want to.

00:09:38   But you don't have to do that.

00:09:39   You can just continue to enjoy the bootleg

00:09:41   and all the sweet, sweet perks that membership gives you,

00:09:44   like the bootleg and an ad-free feed, if you so desire.

00:09:48   - Yeah, there's more stuff. (laughing)

00:09:49   - So anyways, ATP.fm/store.

00:09:53   The time is now.

00:09:55   - And if you've already made a purchase from the store,

00:09:58   we thank you, and now I would like to tell everybody,

00:10:00   this is the time when you forget to cancel your membership.

00:10:04   I told you in the last show,

00:10:05   as we make it really easy to cancel,

00:10:06   you can get the discount and you can just cancel,

00:10:07   it's really easy, new instruction.

00:10:09   Now everybody, don't cancel, just keep it.

00:10:12   Just keep it going, just keep the ball rolling.

00:10:15   Start, get used to the show with no ads in it, it's awesome.

00:10:17   Listen to the bootleg every once in a while, it's fun.

00:10:20   Now is the time to not cancel.

00:10:21   You can if you want to, we make it super easy, but don't.

00:10:24   (laughing)

00:10:26   - Well done, Sean.

00:10:27   - Oh, some real-time follow-up for the chat room.

00:10:29   For people who don't know,

00:10:29   thinking I'm making a joke about gas getting old,

00:10:31   this is what happens if you don't read enough books

00:10:33   about the end of the world.

00:10:34   If you read any post-apocalyptic books,

00:10:36   inevitably someone does something, a little bit of research,

00:10:38   and like, you know, three years into the post-apocalyptic

00:10:41   world where the zombies have taken over,

00:10:43   the gas doesn't stay good forever.

00:10:45   It loses its combustibility, it oxidizes,

00:10:47   like gasoline sitting in a gas tank of a car

00:10:50   eventually becomes no good for making the car go

00:10:53   after a certain amount of time.

00:10:55   Which I just did a quick Google for it,

00:10:56   and some people are saying, ExxonMobil's saying like,

00:10:58   six months or whatever, but certainly five years

00:11:01   into the zombie apocalypse, you find a car on the side

00:11:03   of the road with a tank full of gas,

00:11:04   you're not going anywhere.

00:11:05   So yes, gas does go bad, sorry.

00:11:07   - Speaking of more ways to set money on fire,

00:11:11   I have some AirTag attachment follow-up.

00:11:14   - Oh, I actually just got my AirTag,

00:11:16   my one and only AirTag, and I like it.

00:11:18   And it's actually really fun for Declan to play

00:11:21   hide and go seek where I hide the AirTag

00:11:23   and he goes and finds it, but nevertheless.

00:11:25   I haven't put it in any sort of mount.

00:11:27   So Marco, tell me, how did you set your money aflame

00:11:30   to get overpriced AirTag mounts?

00:11:33   - So, for science, I bought two AirTag

00:11:38   mounting options from Apple.

00:11:40   - You were supposed to get the balloons for science,

00:11:42   not the-- - Oh.

00:11:44   - I did not get the balloons, I also did not get

00:11:47   the like $350 Hermes one.

00:11:50   I got an AirTag leather key ring in product red,

00:11:55   which is $35, and I have here the AirTag loop in white,

00:12:00   which is $29.

00:12:03   This is probably the worst way I've ever spent $64

00:12:06   or whatever it is, like I, these things are such

00:12:09   pieces of crap for how much they cost.

00:12:12   First of all, they're both massive.

00:12:15   When you compare them to the size of the AirTag,

00:12:19   they're ridiculously large, and I would have loved instead,

00:12:24   if you're going with the Apple store-provided options,

00:12:27   the Belkin Secure Holder with Key Ring for AirTag,

00:12:32   that would be a much better product, and that's only $13,

00:12:34   but that's back-ordered until mid-June.

00:12:36   - Oh my. - So I couldn't get those.

00:12:38   (laughing)

00:12:39   So I have this like plastic kind of like, you know,

00:12:41   rubbery loop thing that like loops into itself

00:12:45   and tucks into itself, and by the way,

00:12:47   the location in which the, what is it called?

00:12:50   The AirTag loop, the location where it folds over

00:12:54   onto itself, like there's a very thin part of material

00:12:57   there that will bear the entire weight of it

00:13:00   when it, if it gets tugged or pulled in just the wrong way,

00:13:03   and I don't trust that material thickness for a second.

00:13:05   I think this thing is gonna break with any kind of,

00:13:07   you know, stress on it.

00:13:08   It doesn't-- - Oh, it needs.

00:13:09   - And these things don't feel good.

00:13:11   Like, the AirTag loop feels like a silicone wrapped sheet

00:13:17   of cardboard, and the leather key ring feels okay,

00:13:22   but it's not like soft or supple in any way

00:13:27   like the way nice leather is, 'cause there's just not enough

00:13:30   like flexibility or room for the material.

00:13:33   And the main thing with both of these things is that,

00:13:35   again, they just make, I mean, not only does this double

00:13:37   the cost of your AirTag, and frankly,

00:13:40   I don't know why Apple's charging as much as they are

00:13:42   for these things, well, I know why, but it doesn't seem

00:13:45   like it's worth what they're charging for it.

00:13:47   But also, like, the resulting, you know, combined

00:13:51   sum product of these things is so ridiculously large

00:13:54   and bulky, and they're both designed to show off the AirTag,

00:13:58   which I guess makes sense if you're Apple's

00:14:00   industrial designers, but I think in most cases

00:14:03   you wouldn't wanna show off your AirTag.

00:14:04   Like, I don't know, but anyway, so I, these things

00:14:07   got a big thumbs down for me, and I hope that

00:14:10   in the near future all of these, like, inexpensive

00:14:12   key ring mounts, like the Belkin one,

00:14:14   become more widely available, or at least, you know,

00:14:17   knockoffs from Amazon should be available pretty soon.

00:14:19   Now, I also have some follow up on, I did actually attach

00:14:23   two of these so far to our family bicycles.

00:14:28   And the attachment method I went with

00:14:31   cost significantly less than $29.

00:14:34   I was thinking, like, I need to attach this securely

00:14:37   to the bikes, because what if the attachment method I use,

00:14:42   like, breaks and the AirTag falls off?

00:14:44   I quickly realized, like, if my AirTag falls off,

00:14:49   that's not that bad, because I can just find it.

00:14:53   So, I realized I don't need anything fancy,

00:14:57   and I wanted something small, and discreet,

00:15:02   and weatherproof, so I just used electrical tape.

00:15:06   I used vinyl, 3M electrical tape.

00:15:09   - Duct tape is a little bit better for moisture,

00:15:12   just FYI, but it'll be fine.

00:15:14   - I just wrapped them in electrical tape

00:15:16   so you can't see them, and it's fairly weatherproof,

00:15:20   and it's fairly salt and weatherproof,

00:15:23   or salt and waterproof mostly, like, salt and, you know,

00:15:26   sand and everything, all the conditions it'll encounter.

00:15:28   It's fairly resilient to those things.

00:15:31   And when the battery dies in a year,

00:15:32   I'll have to cut the electrical tape off,

00:15:35   and pull it out, and put a CR2032 back in there,

00:15:38   and use about a dollar more of electrical tape to attach it.

00:15:41   And the electrical tape is a far better attachment option

00:15:45   than any of these weird $30 pieces of material from Apple.

00:15:50   So, overall, I can recommend electrical tape

00:15:53   as your AirTag mounting option.

00:15:56   Way, way more than any of the official accessories

00:15:59   that I've seen so far.

00:16:00   We are sponsored this week by Mack Weldon,

00:16:04   Reinventing Men's Basics.

00:16:07   I love Mack Weldon's clothes.

00:16:09   I am wearing Mack Weldon's clothes today,

00:16:11   as I do literally every single day,

00:16:13   because every single pair of underwear I have

00:16:16   is Mack Weldon underwear.

00:16:17   I've threw away everything else once I discovered them.

00:16:19   They're that good.

00:16:21   I'm also wearing Mack Weldon T-shirt right now,

00:16:23   and Mack Weldon's socks.

00:16:24   Their stuff is awesome.

00:16:25   Look, this year, spring, is a little bit different,

00:16:28   'cause we're all finally starting to get back outside

00:16:31   and see friends again.

00:16:32   No matter where your adventures take you,

00:16:34   bring Mack Weldon's comfort and style along for the ride.

00:16:38   Your closet will thank you.

00:16:39   Whether it's their hoodies, their polos, tees,

00:16:42   active shorts, they have such good stuff.

00:16:45   This morning, I wore the Mack Weldon Ace sweatpants,

00:16:47   'cause they are super comfortable.

00:16:49   I worked out in the Ace shorts.

00:16:52   I'm currently wearing the silver T-shirt,

00:16:55   which I love the silver T-shirts.

00:16:57   These are naturally antimicrobial, and they hold up.

00:17:00   I bought a whole bunch of them,

00:17:02   I think five years ago now, four or five years ago.

00:17:04   I haven't lost a single one to wearing out

00:17:07   or perma-stink or anything like that.

00:17:09   They're really well made.

00:17:10   They fit really great.

00:17:12   They look great.

00:17:13   I love Mack Weldon stuff,

00:17:15   and it spans a wide variety of needs.

00:17:17   You can dress down, you can dress up,

00:17:20   you can wear it to work, they have workout clothes,

00:17:22   wide range of customized fabrics

00:17:24   that really take advantage of different properties

00:17:26   you might want for different contexts.

00:17:28   It's wonderful.

00:17:29   They also have a guarantee.

00:17:30   They want you to be comfortable.

00:17:31   If you don't like your first pair of underwear,

00:17:33   you can keep it, and they'll refund you no questions asked.

00:17:36   And they have a totally free loyalty program.

00:17:39   Level one, you get free shipping for life.

00:17:41   Once you spend $200, you reach level two,

00:17:43   and you get 20% off every order for the next year.

00:17:45   So for 20% off your first order,

00:17:47   visit mackweldon.com/atppodcast,

00:17:50   and enter promo code ATPPODCAST.

00:17:53   That's mackweldon.com/atppodcast,

00:17:56   promo code ATPPODCAST for 20% off.

00:17:59   Mack Weldon, Reinventing Men's Basics.

00:18:02   (upbeat music)

00:18:05   All right, we have some other feedback

00:18:07   that involves spending less money.

00:18:09   We were talking about, I think it was NASK ATP,

00:18:11   is that right?

00:18:12   About unintended restart when you have FileVault enabled.

00:18:16   And several people wrote in to give a couple

00:18:18   of command line commands you can try.

00:18:19   You can do using sudo fde setup space auth restart.

00:18:24   We'll put this in the show notes.

00:18:27   And on supported hardware,

00:18:28   this allows a restart of a FileVault enabled system

00:18:31   without requiring unlock during the subsequent boot.

00:18:33   And that's by using this auth restart thing.

00:18:36   Be careful though, because FileVault protections

00:18:38   are reduced during authenticated restarts.

00:18:40   In particular, fde setup deliberately stores

00:18:43   at least one additional copy of a permanent fde

00:18:45   or full disk encryption unlock key,

00:18:47   and both the system memory and unsupported systems

00:18:49   in the system management controller.

00:18:51   And you have to run it as root,

00:18:52   and it will ask you to unlock your,

00:18:54   the FileVault password and so on.

00:18:57   Additionally, Paul Galal writes,

00:18:59   "I regularly use this method to remotely update

00:19:01   max via SSH or Apple remote desktop.

00:19:04   Running software update space hyphen IA."

00:19:07   Again, it'll be in the show notes.

00:19:08   "We'll install all available software updates,

00:19:10   then follow this up with the fde setup auth restart

00:19:13   to reboot your Mac."

00:19:14   Or you can also optionally do fde setup auth restart,

00:19:17   and then hyphen delay minutes, and then a numeral.

00:19:20   So like hyphen delay minutes space five

00:19:23   to delay at five minutes.

00:19:24   And then Hugo Jobling writes,

00:19:26   "Another interesting quirk about the FileVault login screen

00:19:28   is that many or maybe all Bluetooth devices

00:19:30   will not work here.

00:19:31   For example, neither my keyboard, the Keychron K2 or mouse,

00:19:34   the Microsoft Precision, will work on at this logic screen.

00:19:36   I keep my keyboard connected via USB as a result,

00:19:39   according to Hugo."

00:19:41   So that is something I did not know today I learned.

00:19:44   - Yeah, that's why I couldn't remember this command

00:19:46   last time, but I was pretty sure there was a way to do it,

00:19:48   and many people wrote in with this command line

00:19:49   way to do it.

00:19:50   So if you feel like you can't enable FileVault

00:19:52   because you won't be able to do unattended restarts,

00:19:55   or you won't be able to do software updates,

00:19:57   that's not true, apparently you can use this method.

00:19:58   And I don't think this is broken with the M1 Macs,

00:20:01   lots of stuff related to booting has either changed

00:20:05   or broken with the M1 Macs and/or Big Sur,

00:20:07   but I'm pretty sure this one still works.

00:20:08   So you have tools available,

00:20:11   no more excuses for not enabling FileVault.

00:20:14   - And then a couple of people wrote in most of,

00:20:17   or perhaps first, Matt Friedman,

00:20:19   with regard to Apple TV and spatial audio,

00:20:21   and Matt writes, "In all of your discussions

00:20:23   of the new Apple TV 4K,

00:20:24   I'm surprised that you've not yet brought up

00:20:26   its most obvious missing feature,

00:20:27   no support for spatial audio."

00:20:29   As Matt recalls, when discussing the AirPods Max,

00:20:31   we had talked about how great spatial audio is,

00:20:34   but the big downside is that you're limited

00:20:35   to the iPhone and the iPad,

00:20:37   and how obviously it is needed on the Apple TV.

00:20:39   I was shocked when the new one came out

00:20:40   and it wasn't included.

00:20:41   I would have been more perturbed about this

00:20:43   had I ever experienced spatial audio,

00:20:45   but I'm still on the second gen AirPods.

00:20:47   I've never had the, what is it, the AirPods Max,

00:20:51   the MaxPods, whatever they're called,

00:20:52   the big headphony things, and I've never had AirPods Pro.

00:20:56   So I've never experienced this,

00:20:57   even though I've heard it's really delightful.

00:20:59   I don't know if you guys have thoughts on that.

00:21:00   - So I have experienced it,

00:21:02   and unless I'm entirely misunderstanding this feature,

00:21:05   and maybe Marco can correct me if I'm getting it wrong,

00:21:08   but when I tried it, and my understanding

00:21:10   of what it's supposed to do is it's like,

00:21:11   so you put them, I tried it with the AirPods Pro

00:21:13   'cause my wife has them, right?

00:21:15   You put them in, you put them in spatial audio,

00:21:16   and then say you're looking at your iPad, right?

00:21:18   It uses whatever, various sensors and stuff,

00:21:22   to understand where the iPad is in relation to your head

00:21:26   so that it fools you into thinking

00:21:30   that sound is coming out of the iPad.

00:21:32   So if you take the iPad and move it to your left,

00:21:34   all of a sudden the sound is coming

00:21:35   from where you moved the iPad to,

00:21:37   and you take the iPad and move it to your right,

00:21:38   oh, now it's coming from the right,

00:21:39   as opposed to just traditional headphones

00:21:41   where no matter where you move the iPad,

00:21:43   if you have the headphones in your ear,

00:21:45   they sound exactly the same.

00:21:46   You can move the iPad up, down, left, and right.

00:21:48   It doesn't change the sound, right?

00:21:49   Am I getting this right?

00:21:51   This is what spatial audio is supposed to do?

00:21:53   - Yeah, so that's one of the things it does,

00:21:54   but then it also allows it to then act like surround sound.

00:21:57   So not only does it sound like it's coming

00:21:59   directly from the iPad, even when the things

00:22:01   are in your ears and you're moving your head around,

00:22:03   but the idea then is that it can also then position sounds

00:22:06   like around you or behind you like surround sound would.

00:22:09   - Yes, I haven't heard that part of it.

00:22:13   I've heard the panning, you know,

00:22:15   make it sound like the sound

00:22:17   is coming from the TV part of it.

00:22:20   Like I understand where people are saying like,

00:22:22   oh, spatial audio, that should be used

00:22:24   to trick me into thinking I have surround speakers,

00:22:27   but I think the thing that makes it sound like

00:22:30   the audio is coming from wherever you move the iPad

00:22:32   or the iPhone to, I can understand how that would work.

00:22:36   And I have experienced it and yes, it does,

00:22:38   it feels like that.

00:22:39   Like it can trick you into thinking,

00:22:40   oh, the audio must not be, you know when you forget

00:22:42   that like your AirPods don't connect or something

00:22:45   and the audio is coming out of the speakers of your device

00:22:47   but not your headphones?

00:22:48   Very often it feels like that.

00:22:50   You're like, oh, I guess I forgot the audio

00:22:52   is still coming out of the speakers.

00:22:53   I forgot to change it to AirPods, but you didn't.

00:22:55   You did change it to your headphones.

00:22:56   It's just fooling you into thinking

00:22:57   the audio is coming from the iPad or something.

00:23:01   But first on that specific feature,

00:23:04   that's pretty much never what I want

00:23:06   when I'm like watching TV on my iPad or something.

00:23:09   I don't want it to sound like the sound

00:23:11   is coming from the iPad.

00:23:12   I want it to sound like the sound is all around me, right?

00:23:15   I don't, you know, like part of the reason

00:23:17   of putting in headphones is it's a more quote unquote

00:23:19   immersive experience than sound coming out of the iPad

00:23:22   that's sitting on my lap, right?

00:23:24   So that is an anti feature for me.

00:23:27   And same deal when watching television on a big television.

00:23:30   I would, I don't want the sound to sound like it's coming

00:23:33   from, you know, the person's mouth on the screen.

00:23:36   A lot of modern TVs do this

00:23:37   with their built-in speakers now.

00:23:38   They take pride in the fact that they do,

00:23:40   I'm assuming they do facial recognition or whatever

00:23:42   and figure out where the speaker is.

00:23:43   Like the person who is talking, not the audio speaker,

00:23:46   but they figure out where the person who is talking

00:23:48   is on the screen and they try to make the sound

00:23:50   with the built-in speakers come from that location

00:23:52   because the speakers essentially shake the screen.

00:23:55   Like the giant, the screen is like one big,

00:23:57   like, you know, speaker diaphragm.

00:23:59   But that's not what I want.

00:24:00   That's not how I want audio to work.

00:24:02   In general, for things like movies with surround sound,

00:24:04   I want it to sound like you're in a movie theater

00:24:06   where yes, I want all the sound to be even coming at me,

00:24:10   but I don't want to think the sound is coming

00:24:13   from a particular speaker.

00:24:15   I want to feel like I'm completely immersed in it, right?

00:24:17   So if people want spatial audio because they want the audio

00:24:21   to sound like it's coming from their screen

00:24:22   or really coming from their headphones,

00:24:25   you know, more power to them,

00:24:26   but that is absolutely not what I want.

00:24:28   If people that think that the sound,

00:24:30   that it is able to simulate surround sound

00:24:32   convincingly from headphones, I haven't experienced that

00:24:35   and I am very doubtful that it's going to,

00:24:37   like kind of like soundbars.

00:24:38   Like, yeah, you can do tricks, you can do bouncing audio

00:24:40   and obviously headphones, you could do more tricks,

00:24:42   but they don't have my head-related transfer function.

00:24:45   How good could this possibly be?

00:24:47   You know, what Sony has taught us that just, you know,

00:24:49   they can try their best, but in the end,

00:24:52   actual surround speakers, if you want that,

00:24:54   are the way to go and actual surround speakers

00:24:57   do not try to make it sound like all the sound

00:25:00   is coming from the television screen.

00:25:01   They might make it sound like some sound

00:25:03   is coming from behind you because guess what?

00:25:04   It really is because there's a speaker back there.

00:25:06   So I'm not shocked that it wasn't included

00:25:09   and I'm not sure I would even want it to be included,

00:25:12   but all that said, for the people who do want it

00:25:14   to be included, it does seem kind of silly

00:25:16   that it doesn't support it.

00:25:17   This is a completely Apple ecosystem

00:25:19   and for the most part, an Apple TV doesn't move,

00:25:23   so it's not like they have to do complicated math

00:25:25   and computation to figure out where everybody is.

00:25:27   Like they're probably in front of the TV

00:25:29   and that's where they're gonna stay.

00:25:30   And it seems like all the hardware on the Apple TVs

00:25:34   must be there for this.

00:25:35   I mean, didn't they put like a Thread Radio

00:25:36   on the Apple TV, like they couldn't put in

00:25:38   whatever they needed for U1 or, you know.

00:25:41   - I'm guessing that's the issue right there.

00:25:43   - That they don't have the U1 in there?

00:25:45   - I'm guessing that, so I mean, we know the Apple TV

00:25:47   doesn't have a U1, but I think the bigger problem

00:25:49   is the AirPods don't have a U1.

00:25:50   And I think you can look at the AirTag

00:25:53   as an example of what's like the smallest

00:25:57   you could make something that is, you know,

00:25:59   self-powered that has a U1 and you know,

00:26:02   any kind of basic logic.

00:26:05   And granted, much, I'd say most of the AirTag's volume

00:26:09   is that battery, second to that is probably

00:26:11   the plastic of the case, you know,

00:26:13   but if you look at AirPods and AirPods Pro,

00:26:15   they don't have anywhere near enough space

00:26:17   to add, you know, probably the U1

00:26:20   and the whatever antenna that it uses to transmit stuff.

00:26:22   So, my guess is that the reason why this is not

00:26:26   a feature on Apple TV is because the way it's done

00:26:29   with AirPods Pro and iPads is probably with Bluetooth.

00:26:34   And I'm guessing that at the distance that you would

00:26:36   have an iPad in front of you on a table,

00:26:39   that might be accurate enough, but if it's gonna be like,

00:26:41   you know, 12 feet in front of you, you know,

00:26:44   across the room with an Apple TV,

00:26:46   maybe it can't be precise enough

00:26:49   for the effect to work very well.

00:26:51   - I don't know, Bluetooth range is pretty good.

00:26:53   And you know, and the fact that they can fit the hardware

00:26:55   to make this work inside the AirPods Pro,

00:26:57   the tiny little things that go in your ears,

00:26:58   like there's no excuse for it not to be in the AirPods Max.

00:27:01   - Yeah, that's true.

00:27:02   - Anyway, maybe they'll get around to it eventually,

00:27:03   but I am curious now hearing that it's supposed to,

00:27:06   there is apparently a mode where it's supposed

00:27:08   to simulate surround, I have not heard that myself.

00:27:11   But if that is any good, I can see why people might want it.

00:27:13   But I've, you know, I've tried stuff like that

00:27:15   on my various gaming consoles with gaming headphones

00:27:18   that supposedly simulate 5.1 and you can watch a movie

00:27:21   on your PlayStation with 5.1 sound

00:27:22   and put on these headphones and it's just,

00:27:24   it has never, it has never sounded any good to me.

00:27:27   So my hopes of this are dim.

00:27:28   - So, so optimistic.

00:27:32   All right, and then Humberto Ira's Pereira writes,

00:27:36   the new Apple TV has Wi-Fi 6,

00:27:38   which might improve connection speed and stability

00:27:40   for some people, especially given how frequently TVs

00:27:42   have terrible connections.

00:27:43   - Just looking for more reasons to be interested in,

00:27:46   what's new about the new Apple TV 4K,

00:27:48   why should they even want it?

00:27:49   Hey, maybe if your current Apple TV's got terrible signal,

00:27:52   maybe Wi-Fi 6 will help.

00:27:54   - All right, let's move right along.

00:27:56   So as we record today on the evening of Wednesday the 12th,

00:28:01   right not too long before we recorded,

00:28:03   there was a whole lot of brouhaha

00:28:06   about a new hire at Apple.

00:28:09   And the three of us haven't really had much time

00:28:11   to read into this, so this is gonna be really quick.

00:28:15   We'll put a link in the show notes to a Verge article

00:28:16   that kind of talks about it.

00:28:17   But apparently Antonio Garcia Martinez

00:28:20   was the author of a book called "Chaos Monkeys."

00:28:23   And I have not read this,

00:28:24   I'm not familiar with this particular gentleman,

00:28:26   but from everything I've heard,

00:28:29   "Chaos Monkeys" is extremely problematic,

00:28:33   like really, really, really problematic.

00:28:38   And for anyone to hire this individual seems unwise,

00:28:43   especially since from everything I've heard

00:28:45   through the grapevine, again,

00:28:46   not having done my proper research,

00:28:47   is that he never really changed his ways.

00:28:50   Like he's been doubly tripling,

00:28:51   quadrupling down ever since.

00:28:53   And so this is a new hire that Apple made

00:28:57   to lead their ad team, I believe,

00:28:59   like their advertising team or something like that,

00:29:01   and he's ex-Facebook, which kind of makes sense.

00:29:05   But yeah, this is from, at a glance at least,

00:29:08   this is super gross and none of the three of us

00:29:10   can endorse or are enthusiastic about it.

00:29:14   And we just wanted to call attention to it real quick.

00:29:16   But again, we haven't really had the time

00:29:18   to properly look into this.

00:29:19   I don't know if you guys have any further thoughts.

00:29:21   - Yeah, when I was trying to compile everything for this,

00:29:23   I'm like, oh, people saying stuff on Twitter,

00:29:26   and then I saw some quotes from his book,

00:29:28   and like these quotes are terrible,

00:29:29   but I'm not sure I have the context.

00:29:30   So I did a Google Book search

00:29:32   to make sure I had the context for this stuff.

00:29:33   And it was just increasingly looking like,

00:29:35   no, this is the story, this guy's terrible, right?

00:29:38   And what I assume would happen is that

00:29:40   if he is this terrible, Apple will eventually

00:29:41   get rid of him.

00:29:42   And just before we started recording,

00:29:45   the Verge article is basically Apple employees

00:29:48   who have been discussing this on Twitter,

00:29:49   and I follow some of them, saying like,

00:29:51   Apple employees saying, we're not taking this lying down.

00:29:54   They are circulating a petition within Apple asking,

00:29:58   essentially demanding Apple to explain

00:30:00   why they hired this person,

00:30:01   how their vetting process could have let this in.

00:30:03   And by the way, if you're wondering,

00:30:04   what did this person do that's so bad or whatever?

00:30:07   He published a book that he wrote himself.

00:30:09   It's not like hearsay or people saying bad things

00:30:12   about this person.

00:30:13   This is his own words.

00:30:14   He is the author of the book.

00:30:15   It is a nonfiction book.

00:30:17   And in it, there are many passages that clearly,

00:30:21   clearly label this guy as just a general sexist jerk,

00:30:26   Silicon Valley jerk, right?

00:30:28   And so, Apple, supposed to be an inclusive organization,

00:30:32   this petition from the Apple employees,

00:30:36   I think was very well written,

00:30:37   because it really highlights like,

00:30:38   why do we care about this?

00:30:39   Like, why do we care if you hire a jerk?

00:30:41   Well, actually, hiring jerks affects all of us.

00:30:43   Like, what if this person who, you know,

00:30:46   like here, I'll just read you one of the quotes,

00:30:47   just to let you know what we're dealing with here.

00:30:48   This is from his book.

00:30:50   Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak,

00:30:53   causited and naive despite their claims of worldliness,

00:30:56   and generally full of stuff.

00:30:58   I'm not gonna do it so far, but believe me.

00:31:01   They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism

00:31:04   and ceaselessly want their independence.

00:31:05   But the reality is, come the epidemic plague

00:31:07   or foreign invasion,

00:31:09   they'd become precisely the sort of useless baggage

00:31:11   you'd trade for a box of shotgun shells

00:31:12   or a jerrycan of diesel.

00:31:14   - Oh, wow.

00:31:15   - There's so much in this one statement

00:31:17   that lets you know exactly who this guy is,

00:31:19   aside from simply being a virulent misogynist.

00:31:21   And the idea that, you know,

00:31:23   women are useless in the apocalypse and I'm a tough man,

00:31:26   and I would trade these women for shotgun shells,

00:31:28   and it's just, oh my, and just goes on from there, right?

00:31:31   So anyway, why, so Apple hires a jerk.

00:31:33   How does that affect me as an Apple employee?

00:31:35   And this thing spells it out.

00:31:37   How can you put this person in the organization

00:31:41   and ever have them involved in any kind of person's

00:31:44   performance review, right?

00:31:46   You know, would you ever want this person

00:31:48   managing other people or having any say

00:31:51   in who gets promoted?

00:31:52   Never mind just having this person in the organization

00:31:55   with published works expressing their views of this type,

00:31:58   like it's, you know,

00:31:59   it wouldn't really make you feel welcome.

00:32:01   Here's an Apple employee responding to this thing.

00:32:04   Every day I go to work and I know that some people

00:32:06   view me this way, this is a female Apple employee.

00:32:08   I don't know which people, but I've heard stuff like this

00:32:10   enough to know that it's ever-present in our world.

00:32:13   It angers me to see these viewpoints expressed

00:32:15   by someone in a leadership role at my own company.

00:32:17   So Apple employees aren't taking this lying down.

00:32:19   I think this is a sign of a,

00:32:22   a sign of health of an inclusive organization

00:32:25   if the people you already have,

00:32:27   like your existing employees,

00:32:29   see something like this and say,

00:32:31   "This is not how we do things at Apple."

00:32:33   And sort of, you know, from the bottom up rise up and say,

00:32:37   you know, "What's the deal?

00:32:38   "What's going on here?"

00:32:39   Right?

00:32:40   We want an investigation,

00:32:40   we wanna know how someone with these views

00:32:42   got past our screening process.

00:32:44   We wanna, you know, understand how

00:32:46   it's not like these are secret views

00:32:47   that people didn't know about it

00:32:48   and then people who are enemies of this person

00:32:50   starting saying bad things about it behind his back.

00:32:52   This is a book that he published.

00:32:54   It was a New York Times bestseller.

00:32:55   Like it's not obscure, right?

00:32:57   And I'm not saying you have to read everybody's books,

00:32:58   but you should really know who you're hiring.

00:33:00   - Yeah, and honestly, like,

00:33:02   I'm sure Apple has already decided to get rid of him.

00:33:04   They're just looking for a way to do it

00:33:05   without getting sued.

00:33:06   And he, probably by the time that we publish this episode,

00:33:08   I bet he's out.

00:33:09   - I think you're right.

00:33:10   I think you're definitely right.

00:33:12   But, you know, just because we like to,

00:33:15   we wanna make it clear that the three of us,

00:33:17   you know, this is not cool to us

00:33:19   and we don't support this sort of thing

00:33:21   and, you know, we don't necessarily need to get involved

00:33:23   with every Apple hire or anything like that.

00:33:26   But, you know, a lot of people have asked us,

00:33:28   hey, what are your two cents on this?

00:33:29   And our two cents is it's gross and shouldn't have happened.

00:33:31   So hopefully--

00:33:32   - Yeah, and this is what happens when you hire people

00:33:34   who have a high profile.

00:33:36   Like, I mean, obviously, you know, you vet every employee

00:33:38   and you try to hire people who you think

00:33:40   will fit into your organization and will, you know,

00:33:42   like it's the hiring process.

00:33:44   Like we understand it's big, it's complicated or whatever.

00:33:46   But when someone has a New York Times best-selling book,

00:33:49   maybe look at the book.

00:33:50   That's all I'm saying.

00:33:51   Like, it's not, you know, again,

00:33:53   everyone has enemies, everyone has things.

00:33:55   People change too.

00:33:56   Like, you know, that's also a thing.

00:33:57   Like, that's why this thing goes about, you know,

00:33:59   like just don't hold people's past against them forever.

00:34:01   Maybe they've learned it.

00:34:02   We talked about this last show.

00:34:03   Everyone learns and changes and grows, right?

00:34:06   But I feel like that's worth discussing, right?

00:34:08   Like with the employee during the hiring process.

00:34:10   Hey, we looked at your New York Times best-selling book

00:34:12   and here's what you said.

00:34:14   How do you feel about that now?

00:34:15   Like, I feel like it should come up, right?

00:34:17   So as the story unfolds, we'll see.

00:34:19   But I feel like this person's tenure at Apple

00:34:22   may not be particularly long.

00:34:23   We are sponsored this week by Memberful.

00:34:27   Memberful allows you to monetize your passion

00:34:31   by selling memberships to your audience.

00:34:34   This builds sustainable, recurring revenue,

00:34:37   and it's used by the biggest creators on the web.

00:34:39   Memberful gives you everything you need

00:34:42   to run a membership program.

00:34:43   This includes all the features you might expect,

00:34:45   custom branding, gift subscription support,

00:34:48   Apple Pay support, free trial support.

00:34:50   You can offer private podcasts to your members

00:34:53   and tons more features on that.

00:34:55   And of course, you have full control and ownership

00:34:58   of your audience, your brand, and your membership.

00:35:02   Memberful seamlessly integrates

00:35:04   with the tools you already use

00:35:06   and they have a world-class support team

00:35:07   ready to help you integrate them,

00:35:09   simplify your memberships, and grow your revenue.

00:35:13   And of course, Memberful is passionate about your success.

00:35:16   You will always have access to a real human

00:35:18   on their support team.

00:35:20   Memberful, honestly, if you're out there,

00:35:22   you wanna build membership support

00:35:23   to help monetize your audience, we do that here.

00:35:26   We built our own, honestly,

00:35:28   and I'm not sure it's really worth it.

00:35:30   It was a lot of work, a lot of hours went into that,

00:35:33   a lot of support and trouble went into that.

00:35:35   You probably shouldn't build your own, if I can be honest.

00:35:38   Memberful makes it super easy

00:35:40   and you don't have to then build your own

00:35:42   and you can save all that time

00:35:43   and you can have their support and their amazing tools

00:35:46   and their full integration with your other stuff.

00:35:49   It's a really good solution.

00:35:51   You can get started for free with no credit card required.

00:35:55   A real free trial at Memberful

00:35:58   by visiting memberful.com today.

00:36:01   That's memberful.com today.

00:36:03   Get started for free.

00:36:04   Thank you so much to Memberful

00:36:06   for helping people monetize their passions with membership

00:36:10   and for sponsoring our show.

00:36:11   - Moving right along.

00:36:17   Some thoughts on Apple versus Epic.

00:36:19   So I think Jon most especially had a few things

00:36:22   that you wanna talk about about Apple versus Epic.

00:36:24   It is not our intention to go into a deep dive

00:36:27   on Apple versus Epic.

00:36:28   I would expect that we probably will at some point,

00:36:31   but since so much stuff is still developing

00:36:33   as we sit here and record right now,

00:36:35   I don't think it's worth anyone's time

00:36:37   going deep into what's happening.

00:36:39   And a lot of other places are talking about it too.

00:36:41   But Jon, you said you had some thoughts

00:36:43   you wanted to bring up with regard to Apple versus Epic.

00:36:45   So tell me about them.

00:36:46   - Yeah, I think we're like a week into this or whatever.

00:36:48   To refresh everyone's memory, this is Epic,

00:36:50   the game company, they got kicked out of the app store

00:36:53   for trying to use their own payment method.

00:36:55   And Fortnite, that whole thing,

00:36:56   we've talked about it passed in the show.

00:36:57   This is the court case, Epic suing Apple saying,

00:37:01   Apple shouldn't be allowed to do what they did to us.

00:37:02   And Apple saying, we totally should be allowed to do that.

00:37:05   And just, you know, the general consensus seems to be,

00:37:09   and it has always seemed from the beginning,

00:37:10   Apple's gonna win this court case

00:37:12   because Epic doesn't really have

00:37:14   much of a particular case to make,

00:37:15   except for saying, hey, no fair, we don't like that, right?

00:37:18   But that's just the battle.

00:37:20   The larger war is okay, but then what, you know,

00:37:22   lots of people are viewing this as like,

00:37:23   even if Epic loses, they're kind of winning

00:37:26   by making Apple look bad

00:37:28   and by triggering sort of government regulation.

00:37:30   And, you know, regardless of how this court case goes,

00:37:33   Apple is kind of getting it from all sides here

00:37:37   and under a lot of pressure to change things.

00:37:39   And they have been changing things,

00:37:40   and I think that will continue, right?

00:37:41   But setting that aside,

00:37:42   part of the function of this court case,

00:37:44   even if Epic loses, is the discovery process

00:37:46   where we, you know, the public gets to see

00:37:48   all sorts of things that we would never see otherwise.

00:37:50   Emails from inside Apple about Epic, about the App Store,

00:37:54   hearing people have to testify under oath

00:37:57   about things that are at Apple, you know,

00:37:59   current Apple employees, ex-Apple employees.

00:38:00   That's why a lot of the coverage of this is like,

00:38:02   you know, each day there's some new revelation about,

00:38:05   you know, internal communications inside Apple,

00:38:08   things that we wouldn't see without this court case, right?

00:38:10   And I've mostly not been following it too closely

00:38:13   'cause again, I don't think this court case

00:38:15   is anything consequential that's gonna happen.

00:38:16   I think we just have to wait for it to be over

00:38:18   and then see what the actual fallout is for Apple.

00:38:21   But the one thing that has struck me

00:38:22   with all of the stuff I have read,

00:38:24   'cause anytime there's something juicy,

00:38:25   like a good email or a good message or, you know, whatever,

00:38:28   that gets highlighted in various articles.

00:38:32   And the one thing that has struck me about all of it

00:38:34   from like communications inside Apple

00:38:36   between all the big name executives that we know,

00:38:38   finally we get to see what were they emailing each other

00:38:41   in 2008, in 2011, in 2015,

00:38:43   about all these App Store controversies,

00:38:45   a lot of them that we talked about on this show,

00:38:47   what were they saying to each other inside Apple?

00:38:50   Or about anything, not just App Store controversies,

00:38:52   but there's Apple corporate strategy and stuff like that.

00:38:55   And the thing I've been struck by

00:38:57   is that nothing anyone says is surprising.

00:39:01   Like they're saying all exactly the same things

00:39:03   that you would expect them to say.

00:39:05   Like on shows like this where we're speculating

00:39:08   about how Apple might think about things,

00:39:10   you know, how does Apple, like the one that I cut and pasted

00:39:13   into the show notes a couple of weeks ago was like,

00:39:15   Eddie Q talking to Craig Federighi

00:39:16   about the possibility of iMessage on Android,

00:39:18   how is Apple talking to itself internally

00:39:20   about those possibilities?

00:39:21   We've talked about it on our show and guess what?

00:39:23   They're saying all the same things.

00:39:24   Like there's no, like it's shocking how similar

00:39:29   the conversation inside Apple is

00:39:31   to the conversation outside Apple

00:39:32   in terms of what are the factors,

00:39:33   what are the pros, what are the cons?

00:39:36   The people inside Apple are just people

00:39:38   and they do not have it seemingly

00:39:40   for most of these topics that are in this discovery anyway,

00:39:42   there is no secret information

00:39:44   that really changes the landscape.

00:39:45   All of the factors that we would discuss in the show

00:39:48   about the pros and cons of iMessage and Android,

00:39:50   exactly what they discuss.

00:39:51   And there are sometimes some people making a case

00:39:53   on one side and sometimes people making a case on the other.

00:39:55   Repeat for anything you can imagine.

00:39:57   How do you think Apple was dealing with Epic?

00:39:59   Does Apple treat big companies different

00:40:01   than little companies and why would they?

00:40:03   Everything that has ever been discussed

00:40:04   in the entire pundit sphere about Apple?

00:40:07   That's exactly what's happening inside Apple.

00:40:09   Which reassures me that, you know,

00:40:12   'cause it's always so hard

00:40:13   whether a company is secretive as Apple,

00:40:15   it's like well we're talking about all this stuff

00:40:16   but maybe there's stuff we don't know

00:40:18   and maybe the conversation inside Apple is very different.

00:40:20   Maybe a lot of times people will say though,

00:40:22   like you don't understand the secret factors

00:40:24   that influence this decision

00:40:26   and all of this discovery in this entire court case

00:40:28   has revealed there is no secret information.

00:40:30   All the factors that we were discussing,

00:40:32   those are the factors and these are the pros

00:40:34   and these are the cons

00:40:36   and we saw which decision they made

00:40:37   and they did weigh all of these factors

00:40:39   and there's no angle that anybody

00:40:41   in the sort of the news pundit sphere is missing.

00:40:44   It's dead straightforward.

00:40:46   I mean obviously they're usually talking about it

00:40:48   before we do because, you know,

00:40:50   they do know about things before we do

00:40:52   but by the time a story comes out

00:40:53   or a policy is implemented,

00:40:54   when we back solve and say what must they have been thinking

00:40:57   to implement this policy,

00:40:58   it's pretty much been dead on every single time

00:41:01   'cause there's no secrets.

00:41:02   So I would encourage people to look,

00:41:04   I mean the transcripts are mind numbing.

00:41:05   That's why I wait for news articles to pull them out

00:41:08   'cause I can't read that format

00:41:09   with like the monospace font

00:41:11   and the deposition format.

00:41:12   It's so painful so I wait for people

00:41:14   to pull out the juicier bits

00:41:16   but I encourage everyone to read it

00:41:17   'cause it really does humanize the company

00:41:19   and the people involved

00:41:21   and it reveals them to be also smart

00:41:24   and even though they never talk about this stuff in public,

00:41:28   they know about all of the pros and cons.

00:41:30   They're just not gonna come out in public

00:41:31   and blab them to you but it doesn't mean

00:41:33   they don't know them.

00:41:33   It's another thing I think confuses people

00:41:35   at Apple is like well Apple never says anything about that

00:41:37   so maybe that's not how they view it.

00:41:38   It's totally how they view it

00:41:39   'cause it's the reality.

00:41:40   They're just careful in what they say to the public

00:41:42   but when they talk to each other,

00:41:44   they say all the things you think they would say.

00:41:47   So that I find sort of reassuring and boring

00:41:51   and interesting in its boringness

00:41:54   and then the other thing I'll add is that

00:41:56   I am shocked at how bad people are at writing email

00:42:02   in every company, Apple, Epic, everyone involved

00:42:05   because I mean granted, I have high standards

00:42:08   for this stuff or whatever

00:42:09   but I feel like most people I communicate with

00:42:11   on a daily basis at my actual job are better at writing

00:42:15   good, coherent, well formatted, well spelled,

00:42:18   grammatically correct, organized emails

00:42:21   than most of the big wigs at Apple and Epic.

00:42:25   I'm not asking for much.

00:42:27   I'm asking for sentences, punctuation,

00:42:31   some sort of paragraph, some sort of reasonable formatting,

00:42:35   some acknowledgement of organizing your thoughts

00:42:38   and having respect for the time of the person

00:42:40   on the other end and instead it's just like

00:42:42   I randomly slapped this out like while running

00:42:44   to catch a flight or something.

00:42:46   I had no time to do capitalization or spelling correctly

00:42:52   let alone grammar, let alone formatting.

00:42:56   The people who try to communicate in bulleted lists

00:42:59   but can't bother making any kind of bullets

00:43:01   so they just put a hyphen touching a word

00:43:03   of a sentence that's all in lowercase

00:43:05   and then the next hyphen is on the same line

00:43:06   instead of a new line and it's just what an incoherent mess.

00:43:10   Now granted, this is not what they're hired for.

00:43:12   Their job is not to be experts.

00:43:13   They're not copywriters, right?

00:43:14   That's not their job.

00:43:15   I understand that it's not everyone's forte

00:43:18   but boy, the standard is low.

00:43:20   The standard is very low for expressing coherent thoughts

00:43:24   in email, maybe they're more articulate in person,

00:43:26   maybe the meetings that they have these discussions in

00:43:31   are really where it happens

00:43:32   and the emails are just dashed off.

00:43:33   Executives are busy, I totally understand it

00:43:35   and not everyone is a writer

00:43:37   but it really makes me appreciate some of the people

00:43:39   in my, on my teams and in my sort of org chart

00:43:42   and hierarchy at work of how they,

00:43:44   how well I should send them a nice thank you at work

00:43:46   and say, you know what, I never say this

00:43:48   but your emails are always well organized

00:43:50   and respect my time and have like a topic sentence

00:43:53   and front load the important information

00:43:54   and are formatted nicely

00:43:55   and you always spell things correctly.

00:43:57   Thank you for that 'cause it could be worse.

00:43:59   (laughs)

00:44:01   - Oh, it's so true.

00:44:02   I feel like the higher up you go in the org chart,

00:44:04   the less craps you give about what your emails look like.

00:44:09   - For sure, like no one's gonna yell at like,

00:44:12   I don't wanna pick a name

00:44:13   but no one's gonna yell at Eddy Cue for being a bad emailer.

00:44:15   Like again, that's not their job but, yish.

00:44:18   (laughs)

00:44:19   I just, because you feel like law of averages,

00:44:21   like the people at work,

00:44:21   like there are people who are better at emails

00:44:23   and worse at emails, they're better writers

00:44:24   and you know, like again, especially if it's not your job

00:44:27   but you think law of average is one of the big wigs

00:44:29   that Apple would be good at writing emails

00:44:31   and based on this documentation,

00:44:34   either none of them are or none of them

00:44:36   wanna spend the time to write a good email.

00:44:39   - Yeah, but I don't know.

00:44:40   To me, like, I'm with you that there's not a lot

00:44:44   of surprises coming out here

00:44:46   and that's interesting in its boringness

00:44:49   but I've been mostly trying to stay away from the coverage

00:44:52   'cause it just keeps making me very, very angry

00:44:55   and I don't even wanna go into it too much here

00:44:56   because I'm in a good mood today

00:44:58   and I wanna keep that mood going.

00:44:59   It was a really nice day.

00:45:00   (laughs)

00:45:01   And a good time today.

00:45:03   But, you know, what we keep seeing from Apple

00:45:06   in these things is an immense sense of entitlement

00:45:11   to literally all commerce that happens

00:45:16   on their phone platform.

00:45:18   And I know from having posted about this on Twitter

00:45:22   and having gotten hundreds of responses

00:45:25   from people who think I'm wrong or an idiot

00:45:28   or naive or whatever, my main criticism of this

00:45:33   is that I don't believe that Apple automatically deserves

00:45:38   to be able to dictate terms for the entire world

00:45:42   of mobile commerce that's happening on their platform.

00:45:45   When the phone was new and when this world was smaller

00:45:48   and more specialized and more competitive,

00:45:51   you could argue, like, well, they can dictate these terms

00:45:55   just like a game console or whatever and okay.

00:45:59   I think, though, you can look at the history

00:46:02   of what has happened in the world over time

00:46:06   when a private company has built something

00:46:11   that has become critical infrastructure

00:46:13   for an entire world of commerce.

00:46:17   And you can look at things like the railroads,

00:46:20   power lines, phone lines, broadband lines.

00:46:24   There are lots of examples in history

00:46:27   where a private company has built something

00:46:30   that ended up being so incredibly important

00:46:33   to such a vast amount of commerce

00:46:36   and a vast part of society that even though

00:46:39   it was built privately, regulation had to be implemented

00:46:44   or antitrust measures had to be taken

00:46:47   because it just became too important

00:46:50   to weigh too much of the commerce of the world at that time.

00:46:55   And I think that standard should be applied here.

00:46:59   And if you look in a vacuum and say,

00:47:01   well, if Apple developed this platform,

00:47:02   they can dictate whatever terms they want to

00:47:04   for how everyone runs their business

00:47:07   and they can take whatever cut they want to

00:47:08   'cause they built it, that argument makes sense

00:47:11   up to a point, up to an approximate limit

00:47:15   of size and complexity and importance to the world.

00:47:18   And the world of mobile apps is so big

00:47:23   and such an important part to so much commerce these days

00:47:27   that I think it has crossed that threshold

00:47:30   where regulation or antitrust actions

00:47:33   need to be implemented here for the benefit of society.

00:47:38   It is now too big, it has crossed that threshold

00:47:41   where that's now warranted.

00:47:43   And I don't think that we should have sideloading

00:47:48   or alternative app stores or things like that.

00:47:50   I actually, I think it would be better for the platform

00:47:53   if we don't get those things.

00:47:55   I do think in order to relieve this anti-competitive

00:48:00   behavior and kind of relieve the pressure valve on this,

00:48:03   I do think we need to allow apps

00:48:07   to have alternative payment methods if they want to.

00:48:09   A lot of people also misunderstand that argument

00:48:12   that I'm saying.

00:48:13   I'm not saying that everyone would stop using

00:48:16   Apple's payment system.

00:48:17   I wouldn't even stop using it in my app

00:48:20   because Apple's payment system has a lot of merits.

00:48:23   It is easier.

00:48:24   As a customer, I do usually choose it if I have the option.

00:48:28   It has a lot of advantages.

00:48:29   People, as Ben Thompson often says,

00:48:32   people tend to make sure that credit card is up to date

00:48:35   and so on subscription billing, you do get fewer failures

00:48:38   and cancellations and everything

00:48:39   due to expired credit cards and everything.

00:48:40   So there are lots of value points in Apple's system

00:48:43   and I think if Apple, if they allowed people

00:48:47   to have their own payment methods in their apps,

00:48:49   I think many apps would still use Apple's

00:48:52   just because it is somewhat competitive on those areas.

00:48:57   But I also don't think it is best for the world right now,

00:49:01   including Apple, for that to be dictated as the requirement

00:49:05   that everyone must use the system and no other.

00:49:07   For this category of digital goods

00:49:10   that isn't even all purchases made through the iPhone.

00:49:12   People keep making consumer trust arguments

00:49:14   and those arguments completely fail

00:49:17   to hold any water whatsoever once you look around

00:49:20   and realize how much people have no problem

00:49:22   using their credit cards to buy all sorts of other stuff

00:49:25   through the phone that doesn't fall

00:49:27   under in-app purchase rules, things like physical goods,

00:49:29   services, stuff like that.

00:49:31   There's lots of things that you can buy

00:49:32   by typing in your credit card details

00:49:34   or using Apple Pay on the phone,

00:49:37   which is not going through the App Store purchase system

00:49:40   and people have no trust issues with that.

00:49:43   So I think that whole trust issue thing,

00:49:44   I think that's a BS diversion.

00:49:47   But going back to it, I think the rule

00:49:50   that you must use Apple's purchase system is going to fall.

00:49:54   And I think Apple should let it fall,

00:49:57   however that happens, through lawsuits or government

00:50:00   or both, because if they don't let that fall,

00:50:03   way worse stuff is going to happen.

00:50:06   If they don't loosen control on that one point,

00:50:09   they're going to lose way more control

00:50:12   when governments step in and make them do things

00:50:14   like allow sideloading or alternative app stores,

00:50:17   because that's the next step.

00:50:18   If Apple will not budge on the payment rule,

00:50:21   that's going to happen long term.

00:50:23   And I think that's way worse for the platform

00:50:26   if that happens.

00:50:27   So I hope Apple loosens the grip

00:50:30   on the payment processing rule,

00:50:32   because that, first of all, I think that's an overstep.

00:50:36   I think Apple should not be requiring

00:50:40   that all digital purchases use their system.

00:50:43   I think that's overreaching,

00:50:45   that might have made sense 10 years ago,

00:50:46   it doesn't make sense now.

00:50:48   There are lots of problems with that,

00:50:49   including things like Apple launching

00:50:51   all their own competitive services

00:50:52   that competitors literally can't match

00:50:55   because of that pricing rule and everything.

00:50:57   So there's all sorts of problems with that now.

00:50:58   I think that rule needs to go,

00:51:00   as well as the rule that says that you can't talk

00:51:02   about the rules around payment in your app.

00:51:04   Those two need to go.

00:51:06   And I think if Apple loosens the grip on those things,

00:51:09   it will save them from much more severe forced changes

00:51:13   from governments down the road.

00:51:15   And so it is in their best interest to loosen that grip.

00:51:18   And I don't think they would actually lose

00:51:21   that much money by doing that.

00:51:22   Honestly, if you look at what people do today,

00:51:27   what big companies do today,

00:51:29   you got people like Netflix and everything

00:51:30   who just bailed out of in-app purchase years ago.

00:51:34   And so many of the big companies

00:51:37   that would be paying Apple 30% have already left

00:51:40   or already have their own alternative setup

00:51:42   that they're trying to draw people to.

00:51:44   Many of the other companies, like the big game companies,

00:51:49   would probably still offer Apple stuff as an option

00:51:52   because many people, again,

00:51:54   they have those credit cards entered.

00:51:56   You know, their parents might have certain restrictions set

00:52:00   for kids' purchases and everything.

00:52:02   So actually, I think Apple would still make a killing

00:52:05   with their in-app purchase system

00:52:07   if it got to compete on its merits.

00:52:10   But right now, it's not competing on its merits.

00:52:11   And that's anti-competitive,

00:52:13   and it's causing major issues for everyone, including Apple.

00:52:17   And if they just would loosen their grip on that one rule,

00:52:21   all of this antitrust pressure would disappear.

00:52:24   It would just vanish.

00:52:25   It is the biggest relief valve in the world,

00:52:28   and that would protect them from,

00:52:31   it would let them retain control on the App Store

00:52:34   and on distribution of software on iOS still.

00:52:36   And if they don't let go of that,

00:52:38   they're going to lose that control.

00:52:40   It might take a few more years,

00:52:41   but they're going to lose it.

00:52:43   Now, part two of what makes me incredibly upset

00:52:46   of following this story is Apple's incredibly arrogant

00:52:51   and entitled and greedy and dismissive attitude

00:52:54   towards developers.

00:52:56   I have never been less excited about WWDC

00:53:01   than I am this year,

00:53:02   because what Apple keeps showing

00:53:04   in their statements around this,

00:53:06   they think we owe them everything.

00:53:09   They don't value our contributions at all.

00:53:13   They think we owe them our entire business.

00:53:16   And they think we should be kissing their feet

00:53:20   and thanking them for enabling our entire business

00:53:23   to function, and we need to be quote,

00:53:25   paying our way for the App Store

00:53:27   and paying for their developer tools

00:53:30   with our 30% commissions.

00:53:31   We should be bowing down and kissing their feet.

00:53:34   And that attitude, I'm telling you, man,

00:53:38   that, that rubs me the wrong way so hard,

00:53:42   because we have our own businesses, thank you very much,

00:53:46   and we add value to their platform.

00:53:49   We add tons of value to their platform.

00:53:52   How many people would buy iPhones

00:53:54   if they didn't have third party apps?

00:53:57   I bet a lot less than how many buy them now.

00:54:01   So we add value to their platform,

00:54:02   even if we don't give them a dime.

00:54:04   And that's why they allow lots of apps on their store

00:54:07   that don't give them a dime, that are free

00:54:08   or ad-based or whatever.

00:54:09   That's why, because they know this too.

00:54:12   Now, in addition to us, to them not needing our 30%,

00:54:17   because we make the iPhone valuable

00:54:19   and they make a lot of money off the iPhone,

00:54:21   we do pay them in other ways.

00:54:23   Every single developer pays $100 a year

00:54:25   for the developer fee.

00:54:26   And then there's search ads that many of us are paying now.

00:54:31   I have spent a large part of the last couple of years

00:54:36   paying absurd amounts of money to Apple for search ads.

00:54:41   I do this willingly, I'm not being fooled by the system,

00:54:45   I am sometimes being ripped off by it,

00:54:46   but I'm not being fooled by it,

00:54:47   I know exactly what I'm getting into, and I choose to pay.

00:54:50   And here I am paying Apple some more,

00:54:53   and they just literally,

00:54:54   they just launched a new search ad unit,

00:54:57   which I had a hilarious overpriced experience with

00:55:00   that I instantly stopped after setting

00:55:03   almost $1,000 on fire accidentally.

00:55:05   That was fun.

00:55:06   But they make money from us in lots of other ways.

00:55:11   We are paying our way by trying to get our apps

00:55:14   visible in their store, which is not doing much

00:55:16   for creation, for curation rather,

00:55:17   or promotion of our apps, despite what they say.

00:55:21   So they make lots of money off of us already.

00:55:24   They're trying to play this sad SAP card

00:55:27   that we owe them and we gotta pay our way

00:55:29   to fund the app store.

00:55:30   No, the app store is very well funded,

00:55:32   even without that 30%.

00:55:33   And if they loosen that rule,

00:55:36   they're not going to lose the entire 30%.

00:55:38   They're going to lose some of it.

00:55:40   But I honestly don't think it would be

00:55:43   more than a drop in the bucket

00:55:44   compared to all the other services revenue

00:55:45   that they're making off of us,

00:55:46   especially from things like search ads and everything else.

00:55:48   So I think that the attitude that they are showing in this

00:55:53   is both nearly delusional, as well as I think

00:55:58   many of their arguments are made in bad faith

00:56:00   to intentionally distract and distort the discussion.

00:56:03   I mean, granted they're lawyers,

00:56:04   that's their job, but still.

00:56:06   And I think finally, the attitude they have shown

00:56:09   about the way they view developers

00:56:12   and the way they view how much they think

00:56:15   they're entitled to from us,

00:56:17   how much they think we should be bowing down

00:56:19   and kissing their feet,

00:56:20   and how little they think of us overall.

00:56:23   This year at WWDC, that's all I'm gonna be thinking about.

00:56:28   And when they have people up there on stage

00:56:30   telling us how great we are and trying to rile us up,

00:56:34   all I'm gonna be thinking about

00:56:35   is how much Apple has shown over and over again

00:56:38   in their statements, in arguments like this,

00:56:41   how little they really think of us

00:56:43   and how much they think they're entitled to all of our money.

00:56:46   Everything they say at WWDC, as far as I'm concerned,

00:56:48   about what they think of developers is total bullshit

00:56:50   as long as these people are still in charge.

00:56:52   - You know, I have a lot of thoughts about this,

00:56:55   and I should start by saying that I pretty much agree

00:57:00   with everything you just said.

00:57:02   I am, you know, at best, I am a teeny tiny itty bitty

00:57:07   indie developer on the App Store.

00:57:09   I am nowhere near the position that you're in.

00:57:11   And in fact, I bet you John is probably a bigger developer

00:57:14   than me at this particular moment.

00:57:16   But yeah, something I've been thinking about,

00:57:19   to go back to the earlier part of your conversation, Marco,

00:57:22   and then I'd like to come back to what you just said.

00:57:24   I've been thinking a lot over the last week or two

00:57:27   about the Epic lawsuit and a lot of the things

00:57:30   that Apple's been saying lately,

00:57:32   and whether the 30% is fair.

00:57:35   And I've been thinking about this even since, you know,

00:57:37   the small business program or whatever they call it.

00:57:40   And it's funny you bring up

00:57:42   what I think is basically common carrier here in the States.

00:57:45   But what you were saying was, you know,

00:57:47   at some point you reached a threshold where this is too,

00:57:50   this infrastructure is too important,

00:57:52   and it becomes kind of a public good to a degree.

00:57:56   Even though it's a private company's thing,

00:57:59   it's so important to so much of the country,

00:58:01   if not the world, that it becomes kind of de facto public.

00:58:05   And I definitely think that the App Store is at that point,

00:58:10   without question.

00:58:12   And I definitely do not think, as you were saying earlier,

00:58:15   that early on it was.

00:58:17   I think early on in the first, I don't know,

00:58:19   two to four years of the App Store,

00:58:21   I don't think it was in this like common carrier

00:58:23   de facto public position.

00:58:25   And I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple

00:58:27   to have set the terms to even potentially just, you know,

00:58:30   the 30% may not have been so unreasonable then.

00:58:33   But at this point,

00:58:35   now that it's a seemingly well-oiled machine,

00:58:38   and now that Apple gets to on one side of its mouth say,

00:58:41   "Oh, look at all the money we've paid all these developers.

00:58:43   "You're welcome, everybody.

00:58:45   "Look at all this money that we got for you."

00:58:47   You know, if they're gonna say all those things,

00:58:50   then I feel like they should show

00:58:52   a little more goodwill than they have.

00:58:54   And the problem I have with this whole common carrier

00:58:57   argument that I've been building in my brain is,

00:58:59   at what point did we cross that threshold?

00:59:01   And I've yet to come up with a good answer for it.

00:59:03   I don't know if it was after two to four years,

00:59:05   I don't know if it was just 10 minutes ago,

00:59:07   or presumably somewhere in between.

00:59:09   But I completely and utterly agree

00:59:12   that we are at that threshold where

00:59:14   I think more regulation is probably necessary.

00:59:17   Even if Apple does the right thing,

00:59:20   even if they do the things that you said, which I agree,

00:59:22   even if they say, "Okay, you're allowed to talk

00:59:24   "about the rules in app, and okay,

00:59:25   "you're allowed to use your own payment method in app."

00:59:28   Even still, I kind of wonder if regulation

00:59:31   would be necessary and/or helpful

00:59:34   to prevent them from reneging,

00:59:36   or to prevent them from coming up

00:59:38   with some cockamamie scheme like search ads

00:59:40   that makes things gross again, or grosser, if you will.

00:59:45   And I don't know, it's just, I definitely think,

00:59:48   and I was planning to bring it up tonight,

00:59:49   so great minds think alike, I definitely think

00:59:51   we've reached that threshold though,

00:59:52   where this is a de facto public good.

00:59:55   The other thing I wanted to comment on,

00:59:57   I completely and utterly agree with you saying

01:00:00   that Apple is looking for us to kiss their feet

01:00:02   and saying, "Oh, you owe us, you owe us, you owe us."

01:00:06   I 100% agree, however, for the sake of conversation,

01:00:10   are they saying that because they're thinking

01:00:14   of Facebook and WhatsApp and people like them,

01:00:16   and they're not thinking of the Us and the Mes

01:00:19   and the Johns of the world?

01:00:20   Again, I agree with you, don't get me wrong,

01:00:22   I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here.

01:00:24   Do you think that they're confusing the message

01:00:26   a little bit because they're saying these things

01:00:28   without any caveats or asterisks or daggers

01:00:30   or double daggers, but really what they're thinking of

01:00:33   when they say these things are,

01:00:34   "Screw you Facebook, look at all the money we've made you

01:00:37   "with our app store," where what you and I are hearing

01:00:40   and Jon is hearing is, "Screw you, John, Marco and Casey,

01:00:44   "you should be thankful we gave you a darn cent,

01:00:46   "much less the tens or hundreds or hundreds of thousands

01:00:49   "or whatever dollars that any of you have made."

01:00:51   Do you think it's that they're thinking

01:00:54   of an entire different niche of developer,

01:00:57   or do you think that they just are thinking

01:00:58   of every single developer on the app store?

01:01:00   - I mean, I'm not thinking of that directly,

01:01:02   and Marco already touched on this,

01:01:03   so I think Marco knows, at least intellectually,

01:01:06   partially what's going on here,

01:01:07   although it doesn't make him less pissed about it.

01:01:09   Remember, this is a court case,

01:01:12   and the lawyers who are working for Apple

01:01:14   have to make the strongest possible argument,

01:01:16   which is another reason I will cite

01:01:17   that even though it looks like Apple

01:01:18   is gonna lose this court case

01:01:19   'cause it doesn't seem to have

01:01:20   particularly good legal standing,

01:01:22   the damage done to Apple is by forcing Apple

01:01:25   to make their quote-unquote strongest argument,

01:01:28   which requires them to dump all over developers.

01:01:30   You know what I mean?

01:01:31   You're saying, "This is our store, we run it, you owe us."

01:01:34   Apple is making all these arguments

01:01:37   that make Apple look bad

01:01:38   because they are the best legal arguments,

01:01:41   given the current laws, right?

01:01:42   And so every time an Apple lawyer gets up there

01:01:46   and just dumps all over developers

01:01:48   and basically says, "Epic should be thanking us,

01:01:51   "and I can't believe the nerve of them trying to say

01:01:53   "that they wanna run a store within our store,

01:01:56   "and don't they understand what we're doing for them,"

01:01:58   or whatever, it's because this is the strongest argument

01:02:00   in their favor, legally speaking,

01:02:02   and probably why they're going to win.

01:02:04   But it hurts Apple's reputation with developers so much

01:02:07   because it's like, "We can hear you, you know, Apple.

01:02:09   "We hear you saying these things."

01:02:11   And so, yeah, it definitely hurts a lot

01:02:13   if you're a developer to hear all this stuff.

01:02:15   Now, when we look at these stuff from discovery,

01:02:17   you do see that same thing echoed in emails

01:02:20   within Apple over the decades.

01:02:21   So I'm not saying this is just a lawyer thing.

01:02:23   The lawyers have to be out there today now

01:02:26   making the strongest possible argument,

01:02:27   and also probably, the lawyers don't run Apple,

01:02:29   they're just trying to win the case, right?

01:02:32   But then you see those same arguments

01:02:33   inside Apple over the years,

01:02:34   but you also see the other side of those arguments

01:02:37   inside Apple over the years.

01:02:38   So it's clear that at various times,

01:02:39   various people have brought up,

01:02:41   you know, one of them that's been circulated a lot

01:02:42   is Phil Schiller saying, just years and years ago, saying,

01:02:45   "Do we really think we can stick to 30% forever?"

01:02:48   I know we kinda just did 30% as like,

01:02:49   it seemed like a good deal, but like,

01:02:51   as the years go on and as the store gets bigger,

01:02:54   do we really think it's tenable to keep it at 30%?

01:02:57   Or should we maybe think about lowering it,

01:02:59   like, on our own from a position of strength

01:03:02   rather than being forced to lower it?

01:03:04   And it seems like Phil lost that argument,

01:03:05   because the answer is, we're not gonna do it

01:03:08   until Congress essentially starts making noises

01:03:10   and we get scared, right?

01:03:11   - Maybe that's why he's on the roof.

01:03:13   - Even then, we'll do it in a jerky way

01:03:14   that makes it complicated to make people apply

01:03:16   and have all these dumb rules,

01:03:18   and you know, we've talked about this in the past, right?

01:03:20   So, like, this is another example of the boringness of,

01:03:23   like, when we were all talking out here of like,

01:03:25   it seems like Apple really doesn't respect developers,

01:03:27   and it seems like Apple is thinking of developers

01:03:29   in this way, you could, people could say like,

01:03:31   oh, that's a very uncharitable interpretation of Apple.

01:03:34   You don't know what they're saying internally.

01:03:35   Just because you see this policy doesn't mean

01:03:37   that they have this dim view of developers,

01:03:39   but now that we see the discovery, we're like,

01:03:41   that dim view of developers exists within Apple

01:03:44   and was a factor in these decisions, right?

01:03:46   Also, we get to see the other side,

01:03:48   and that, you know, Apple is a big group of people,

01:03:50   not everyone agrees all the time,

01:03:51   and at various times, people have had different ideas

01:03:54   about what they should do.

01:03:55   The iMessage thing is a great example.

01:03:56   I didn't dig into that because, I guess we'll put a link

01:03:58   in the show notes, you can look at it or whatever,

01:03:59   but it was like, you know, Eddy Q was saying,

01:04:02   like, it's a quote, "We really need to bring iMessage

01:04:04   to Android," right?

01:04:05   Like, he wants to, like, he realizes iMessage

01:04:09   is a big thing, and by keeping it Apple only,

01:04:12   we're stopping ourselves from, like, becoming dominant,

01:04:15   the dominant messaging platform, kind of like, you know,

01:04:18   like cross-platform messaging to sort of own the world

01:04:21   of messaging, seems like we could do that.

01:04:22   We're doing really well, and the other side of that is like,

01:04:24   yeah, but iMessage does keep people on the iPhone, right?

01:04:27   And it's a thing that keeps people from buying

01:04:29   their kids' cheap Android phones

01:04:31   because they want to be able to do iMessage,

01:04:32   and like, again, both sides of the issue are presented.

01:04:36   One side is kind of like, oh, you know,

01:04:39   we're leaving money on the table.

01:04:40   We could become the dominant force,

01:04:42   and the other side is, but we need to protect ourselves,

01:04:44   right, and all these developer issues are the same thing.

01:04:47   Someone's saying, we've had 30% for a while,

01:04:49   and like, there's no real reason for it

01:04:51   other than we can get away with it.

01:04:53   Is it a great policy to just see how long we can get away

01:04:55   with it until the peasants revolt,

01:04:57   or should we now, so we can look magnanimous?

01:05:00   And again, I think this was like 2011 or '14,

01:05:03   like, this is not like last year they were discussing this.

01:05:05   This was a longer time ago, you know,

01:05:07   and the pitch was, let's do it, let's do it now.

01:05:10   We can see like, oh, everyone would just be so happy.

01:05:12   Imagine that WWC, whatever year it was,

01:05:14   if it like in 2011 or 2014 or something,

01:05:16   Apple had just come out on stage and said,

01:05:18   remember the 30%?

01:05:19   Now it's 15 for everybody.

01:05:21   People would have gone nuts.

01:05:22   Like, we would have loved it.

01:05:23   It would have been, you know,

01:05:24   'cause it wouldn't be because Congress is investigating them.

01:05:27   It wouldn't be because they're being sued,

01:05:29   you know what I mean?

01:05:30   It would be because Apple sort of read the room

01:05:33   and figured, let's do this now

01:05:34   so we look like the good guy.

01:05:36   But you know, that faction or that idea

01:05:39   didn't go anywhere inside Apple,

01:05:41   and they had to wait until it came to this.

01:05:44   So anyway, I feel differently than both of you

01:05:48   about the whole sort of monopoly aspect

01:05:51   and how important Apple is

01:05:52   and all that other things or whatever.

01:05:54   But I agree on the important part,

01:05:56   which is we can make new laws and we should,

01:05:59   and Apple is going to be subject to them.

01:06:01   So Apple really should get out ahead of this

01:06:04   even more than they have.

01:06:05   And even when Apple wins this case,

01:06:07   they should really strongly consider

01:06:09   the things that Marco is suggesting

01:06:11   or other things like that,

01:06:12   because, you know, just ask Microsoft,

01:06:15   if you try to take a hard line,

01:06:16   it may not kill your company

01:06:18   and they may not even break you up,

01:06:19   but there was a long period

01:06:21   where after the Microsoft antitrust trial,

01:06:23   where Microsoft was like wounded, let's say,

01:06:27   it was limping for a while.

01:06:28   Like it hurt Microsoft to go through that

01:06:31   and it took them a long time to recover.

01:06:33   And they never were what they were before,

01:06:36   which is probably a good thing

01:06:37   'cause we didn't need that in the world.

01:06:39   But if Apple wants to learn from that,

01:06:42   and I think Apple has learned by like doing stuff,

01:06:45   they did the small business program,

01:06:48   they're trying to loosen things up or whatever,

01:06:50   but at the same time,

01:06:51   they have a bunch of lawyers every day

01:06:53   spouting stuff and news stories

01:06:54   that makes Apple look so bad

01:06:56   to many of its stakeholders, right?

01:06:59   To the public too, I think it makes Apple look bad,

01:07:01   but certainly to developers.

01:07:02   And I've seen so many sour attitudes

01:07:04   about how developers are feeling.

01:07:06   And I feel like Apple could say,

01:07:07   "But the lawyers are just saying that.

01:07:09   And I know we said that in an email,

01:07:10   but look, here's the other email.

01:07:11   We discussed it internally,

01:07:12   but just don't pay that into the lawyers.

01:07:14   They have to say this to win the case."

01:07:16   And they're gonna win the case.

01:07:17   But don't feel bad developers.

01:07:20   And it's like, "Nah, I don't think humans work like that,

01:07:23   Apple, we're still kinda pissed at you."

01:07:24   - Well, and it's not just the lawyer saying it.

01:07:26   It's the executives saying it.

01:07:27   It's the press statements saying it.

01:07:29   It's all the little PR studies they put out about,

01:07:32   "Look how many jobs we're creating."

01:07:34   You can see it, and it's in those emails

01:07:37   from higher ups and everything.

01:07:40   This is not just something the lawyers are saying.

01:07:42   The attitude that Apple reflects--

01:07:44   - Like I said, it is in the emails,

01:07:45   but the other side is also in the emails.

01:07:46   The other side is not from lawyers mouths ever.

01:07:49   Fair enough, but there's not a lot

01:07:50   of that other side in the emails.

01:07:53   At this point, it's hard to quantify

01:07:55   how much developer goodwill Apple has set on fire

01:07:59   in the last couple of years.

01:08:01   But they just keep digging and digging and digging.

01:08:04   I mean, I don't wanna speak out of turn here,

01:08:09   but occasionally Apple has asked me for some kind of quote

01:08:15   or possible thing they could use in a press release.

01:08:19   I wouldn't give it to them now.

01:08:21   They haven't asked recently, but I would comply in the past.

01:08:24   I would gladly try to help them out

01:08:26   'cause I had a better image

01:08:28   of what that relationship might have been.

01:08:31   That goodwill is gone now.

01:08:34   I would not cooperate with them on that kind of stuff now

01:08:37   because the way I view my relationship with Apple

01:08:41   as a developer is completely different now

01:08:43   than it was a couple of years ago.

01:08:45   And I see now really what it is and how they see it.

01:08:50   And I see that they don't value me very well.

01:08:53   They think things about our relationship that I don't think.

01:08:57   I see things very differently.

01:08:59   And I can't imagine looking across the industry

01:09:02   how many developers feel similarly.

01:09:04   Like how many developers might do something

01:09:07   to work with Apple or to help them out who now won't?

01:09:10   How many apps that developers were thinking about making

01:09:14   that they now just won't?

01:09:15   How much developers are motivated

01:09:17   to adopt Apple's newest technologies

01:09:20   to support Apple's newest devices who now just won't?

01:09:23   How many developers out there who might have tried

01:09:25   a cool new business model in one of their apps

01:09:28   but can't because of the stupid end-of-purchase rules

01:09:30   or won't even go near it because it's near the edge

01:09:34   of the rules and they know better than to even step near them

01:09:37   'cause they know Apple will just bite their head off

01:09:38   at any moment.

01:09:39   It's really hard to quantify all of this,

01:09:43   but this is real massive damage Apple has done

01:09:46   to themselves out of sheer greed.

01:09:50   I have very little respect for the leadership of Tim Cook.

01:09:54   I know a lot of people out there like him.

01:09:55   I really don't.

01:09:57   And this is one of the areas that I think he has

01:10:00   really put short-term gains above long-term value.

01:10:05   And I can't imagine how they're gonna recover from this.

01:10:09   It's gonna take a decade to recover from this

01:10:11   if they turn around now.

01:10:13   Like the opinion developers have of Apple,

01:10:16   I don't think has ever been lower than right now.

01:10:19   They're gonna have to really change a lot of things

01:10:21   to turn that around.

01:10:22   And I don't see them changing any of them.

01:10:23   And furthermore, and I do very much agree,

01:10:27   as I was saying earlier, and as you were touching on,

01:10:29   Jon, a minute ago, I can't imagine it would be a good thing

01:10:34   if the government had to step in and really slap Apple down

01:10:37   in a big way with things like alternative app stores

01:10:40   or sideloading.

01:10:41   That would be a very bad thing for the platform.

01:10:44   I really hope that Apple sees that too

01:10:47   and that Apple pulls their own relief valve

01:10:50   before government has to do that to them.

01:10:52   'Cause that's not a good thing

01:10:53   if that happens to the platform.

01:10:54   But again, why Apple hasn't pulled this relief valve yet

01:10:57   I think is entirely down to just short-term gains.

01:11:00   It's a services revenue company now.

01:11:02   Look at all the services revenue growth.

01:11:03   What services revenue mostly means

01:11:06   is the Google search deal and app store taxes.

01:11:08   That's what that mostly means.

01:11:09   It's not everyone buying Apple TV Plus.

01:11:12   News break, it's not everybody buying Apple Arcade.

01:11:16   That's not most of that revenue.

01:11:17   Most of that revenue is the Google search deal

01:11:20   and app store taxes.

01:11:21   So when Apple says services revenue,

01:11:24   that's what they're talking about.

01:11:25   So I can't imagine the current leadership of this company

01:11:30   doing anything that would reduce that number,

01:11:32   that quarterly number, even though it is really very much

01:11:36   a short-term quarterly numbers game

01:11:37   that we always make fun of other companies,

01:11:39   CEOs for focusing on the short-term gains

01:11:42   at the expense of long-term values and things.

01:11:45   But that's what I see Apple doing with services revenue.

01:11:47   And I don't see anything changing anytime soon

01:11:50   unless the leadership changes.

01:11:52   - I think that they'll,

01:11:53   you don't need to change the leadership changes.

01:11:54   They'll react, they'll change.

01:11:56   I mean, they already have with the reduction of cuts.

01:11:58   And I think they're gonna go more in that direction

01:12:00   as they realize what's gonna happen.

01:12:02   And if you think the developer faith in Apple

01:12:06   has never been lower, you haven't been an Apple developer

01:12:09   for enough decades because if we had to pick

01:12:13   the real low point, I would probably say,

01:12:16   like either just before Jobs came back

01:12:18   or right after he came back,

01:12:20   because like the various modern OS efforts they made

01:12:25   and the various new APIs they introduced and trashed,

01:12:27   and like, I think that was probably the lowest point

01:12:29   because they had so few developers

01:12:31   and they were just jerking them around constantly

01:12:33   with like, you're gonna do this

01:12:34   and you're gonna use this new API, nevermind that one,

01:12:36   but here's new OS plan, it'll be out next year,

01:12:38   nevermind we're doing a different plan,

01:12:39   where here's this thing, nevermind we bought next,

01:12:40   and it was just like, wow.

01:12:42   Like it was, I mean, if you wanna watch that,

01:12:44   the famous Q&A session with Steve Jobs at WWDC in 1997,

01:12:49   the anger in that audience is just like,

01:12:53   you can feel like heat coming off the seats,

01:12:55   like it's just, it was, and for good reason,

01:12:58   because it was a giant mess.

01:12:59   At least that was Jobs saying like,

01:13:01   look, I didn't make this mess,

01:13:02   I wasn't even here for the past few years.

01:13:04   But let me just explain to you how we're gonna fix it

01:13:06   and having everyone in the audience not believe him.

01:13:08   That's a great thing to watch, by the way,

01:13:09   we should find a link to that,

01:13:11   because in that 1997 Q&A with Steve Jobs,

01:13:13   can you imagine a WWDC session where Steve Jobs

01:13:16   gets up on stage and just takes freeform questions

01:13:18   from the audience?

01:13:19   Not a thing that would happen in later years, right?

01:13:23   But when he did it, he essentially outlined his entire plan

01:13:26   for what he's gonna do with Apple,

01:13:28   and it sounded ridiculous and no one believed him,

01:13:30   they all hated him, and then he essentially did it all.

01:13:32   And it was just like, you watch it now in hindsight,

01:13:34   and you're like, what?

01:13:35   And the audience just does not believe a word of it.

01:13:38   They're just like, we've been burned too many times,

01:13:40   you make all these promises, we do all this work,

01:13:43   and then you pull the rug out from under us

01:13:44   and you just keep asking us to do a new thing.

01:13:46   So anyway, it has been worse,

01:13:47   but that was decades ago, who cares?

01:13:50   I did wanna say that I looked up the email

01:13:51   that I was trying to refer to.

01:13:52   It was 2011, 2011 from Phil Schiller,

01:13:55   the App Store was what, 2008?

01:13:57   - Yeah. - Right?

01:13:58   So this is three years into the App Store,

01:14:00   Phil Schiller comes out with his own infinite timeline thing.

01:14:03   Food for thought, do we think our 70/30 split

01:14:05   will last forever?

01:14:07   I mean, he's gonna say, sure, it's good now,

01:14:08   but is it gonna be forever?

01:14:10   And then you can read the email,

01:14:12   I'll put a link in the show,

01:14:13   it's one of these stories that says forever.

01:14:14   2011, so it's not even like they were waiting until like,

01:14:18   wow, there's a little bit of pushback from the App Store

01:14:21   and around 2017 or so, this is 2011, it's only three years.

01:14:26   The App Store is three years old.

01:14:29   And he's like, maybe once we start making $1 billion a year

01:14:32   in profit from the App Store,

01:14:34   we could think about lowering the rate,

01:14:36   because hey, if we're making a billion dollars in profit,

01:14:38   I think we can afford to lower the rate.

01:14:40   Anyway, look at the email.

01:14:41   As he said, just food for thought.

01:14:43   Apple did not eat that food.

01:14:44   (laughing)

01:14:46   Apple spit that food back out.

01:14:48   And again, Discovery doesn't show you

01:14:50   every single relevant email to these discussions,

01:14:52   and I'm sure there's lots of discussions

01:14:55   in person over the years, right?

01:14:56   So it shows me that these thoughts are in Apple's mind,

01:15:01   but we know what they did,

01:15:02   and we know the only thing that actually caused them to act

01:15:05   has been this government pressure.

01:15:07   And the thing you were talking about, Marko,

01:15:08   of developers sentiment turning south

01:15:11   and all the things they're missing out on,

01:15:13   I think the biggest reason that I'm rooting for

01:15:17   some kind of regulation in this area

01:15:20   that affects not just Apple but everybody

01:15:22   is the idea behind, hey,

01:15:23   if you can't make your business plan work in the App Store,

01:15:26   or if you don't like Apple's terms or whatever,

01:15:29   although Apple, I think, is not a monopoly

01:15:32   and therefore not subject to all the restrictions

01:15:34   that these court cases seem to want to put Apple under,

01:15:37   saying, hey, Apple shouldn't be allowed to do this.

01:15:39   I don't think Apple is a monopoly,

01:15:40   but there is a duopoly for sure,

01:15:43   which is Google and Apple, right?

01:15:45   And so if you don't like Apple, oh, why don't you try Google?

01:15:47   Google's not that much different.

01:15:49   They are different in some important ways, but not that much.

01:15:52   Both of them have a fairly strong grip on their App Store,

01:15:56   and it really makes it so that,

01:15:59   this is what, Marko, you were getting at,

01:16:02   the entirety of the mobile landscape.

01:16:04   I don't think Apple is the entirety of the mobile landscape,

01:16:06   but Apple and Google, to a first approximation,

01:16:09   are very close to the entirety of the mobile landscape

01:16:11   in the United States, right?

01:16:13   And that is a problem.

01:16:15   It's not as big a problem

01:16:16   of when Microsoft had 90-something percent market share,

01:16:19   but it's not great when Apple and Google

01:16:21   have combined again in the US 90-something percent

01:16:24   market share, because it means that if you don't like

01:16:26   something about the App Store, it's like, well, fine,

01:16:29   just go someplace else.

01:16:30   Where else am I gonna go?

01:16:31   Should I make my own mobile phone platform

01:16:33   and try to compete with Apple and Google?

01:16:35   Or is it not possible to participate in the ecosystem

01:16:38   of the most important computing device

01:16:40   that everyone on the planet uses, right?

01:16:42   So I think this is a perfect,

01:16:45   the right way into this is not to say

01:16:47   Epic demands that Apple does what it wants,

01:16:49   because Apple is, it's illegal for Apple to do this

01:16:52   because they're a monopoly.

01:16:53   I don't think they are, and I think Apple's gonna,

01:16:55   Epic's gonna lose this case,

01:16:56   'cause you can't make a company do a thing

01:16:58   that you want them to do by saying it's not fair

01:17:00   that they're allowed to do this.

01:17:02   I think Apple is allowed to do it.

01:17:03   I just think it's dumb for Apple to do it.

01:17:05   But the, that's why we have a place where we can make

01:17:08   new laws and say, hey, the situation is what it is,

01:17:11   and I think we should, just like when there were

01:17:13   five movie studios or five music labels

01:17:16   or a small number of phone companies

01:17:18   even after the breakup of AT&T,

01:17:20   we apply regulations to industries

01:17:23   even when one company doesn't have a monopoly,

01:17:25   just because we know that a very small number of companies

01:17:29   encompass the entire world.

01:17:30   There used to be much more sane regulations

01:17:32   about owning multiple television stations

01:17:35   and also newspapers in the same jurisdiction and everything

01:17:37   to try to prevent anyone from getting big enough

01:17:40   to be a threat.

01:17:41   And here I think we've let the world of mobile platforms

01:17:45   get to a point where there is essentially a duopoly,

01:17:47   again, in the United States, it's slightly different,

01:17:49   perhaps in China and other places,

01:17:51   and that we need new laws to address that,

01:17:54   new restrictions on this industry

01:17:56   to make it so that their power is slightly lessened

01:18:00   without saying, oh, you need to be broken up

01:18:02   and the app store needs to be a separate company,

01:18:04   without saying any disgruntled developer can demand

01:18:07   that you do what you want within your app store,

01:18:09   because again, that doesn't make any sense

01:18:10   when we don't have an actual monopoly,

01:18:12   but regulation makes sense when there are a small number

01:18:16   of companies that completely define an important section

01:18:19   of the economy and this surely qualifies.

01:18:21   Obviously, any time any laws are made in this country,

01:18:24   it is a very fraught endeavor because our lawmakers,

01:18:27   I was gonna say our lawmakers are dumb,

01:18:30   some of them are dumb, many of them are bought and sold

01:18:33   due to our dumb laws that allow them to be bought and sold,

01:18:35   it's kind of a cycle there, you see, we get the, anyway.

01:18:39   I'm not optimistic that we're gonna do the right thing

01:18:41   with these laws, witness every law related to the internet

01:18:43   that came out in the 90s, right?

01:18:45   But I think that is actually the right remedy

01:18:48   for this situation, aside from Apple, you know,

01:18:50   doing the right thing by itself, but like relying,

01:18:53   we've talked about this before, relying on the devluence

01:18:55   of the powerful for Apple to preemptively do the right thing

01:18:58   that's the right move for Apple, but who knows

01:19:01   who will be running Apple in 20 or 50 years?

01:19:03   I would much rather have some laws on the books

01:19:05   that sort of define what is and isn't acceptable

01:19:07   within this space so that any new company that springs up,

01:19:10   say Apple goes down in flames, Google disappears

01:19:13   in 100 years, like whatever company pops up in this space

01:19:16   that these regulations apply to them and, you know,

01:19:20   give privacy protections, protect the economy

01:19:23   and don't allow the companies that control the platforms

01:19:26   to control all the profits.

01:19:27   - We are sponsored this week by Remote.

01:19:32   Do you employ or pay workers in other countries?

01:19:35   Even if you don't yet, you might soon.

01:19:37   Now that remote work is the norm,

01:19:39   employees have more freedom than ever to move around.

01:19:42   If you wanna keep your best people,

01:19:44   you have to stay flexible.

01:19:46   That's why Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes

01:19:49   to employ global teams.

01:19:51   They take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes

01:19:54   and local compliance so you can focus less on paperwork

01:19:58   and more on growing your business.

01:19:59   Remote helps you onboard full-time employees or contractors

01:20:03   in countries all over the world in minutes

01:20:06   on its simple, easy to use platform.

01:20:08   Even better, Remote lets you rest easy

01:20:11   by providing the most comprehensive intellectual

01:20:13   property protections and data security in the industry.

01:20:16   They own full local legal entities

01:20:19   in all of their covered countries,

01:20:20   guaranteeing you never have to deal with a third party ever.

01:20:24   To save you money, Remote never charges any fees

01:20:27   or salary percentages.

01:20:28   You get access to everything Remote offers

01:20:30   from payroll to compliance to benefits management

01:20:33   for one low flat rate.

01:20:36   No hidden fees, no surprises ever.

01:20:38   Just the best global employment solution in the business.

01:20:41   Best of all, our listeners can get

01:20:43   even a bigger discount than that.

01:20:45   You can get 50% off Remote's full suite

01:20:48   of global employment solutions for your first employee

01:20:51   for three months by visiting remote.com/ATP

01:20:56   and using promo code ATP.

01:20:58   Once again, that's remote.com/ATP, promo code ATP

01:21:02   for 50% off for your first employee for three months.

01:21:06   See why top global companies like GitLab

01:21:09   trust Remote to manage and pay their international teams.

01:21:12   Whether you wanna hire one person or 100,

01:21:14   Remote makes it easy.

01:21:16   Once again, visit remote.com/ATP

01:21:18   and use promo code ATP to get started.

01:21:21   Thank you to Remote for sponsoring our show.

01:21:23   - All right, let's do some Ask ATP.

01:21:29   Jason Bates Brownsword, what a great name, writes,

01:21:32   "I love the show.

01:21:33   "I was listening to the show on my way to work

01:21:35   "and you grabbed my attention when you were talking

01:21:36   "about hiding the icons in the menu bar.

01:21:38   "As soon as I got home, I started getting rid of the icons

01:21:40   "until I got to Dropbox.

01:21:41   "How do you get rid of it?"

01:21:42   Well, for me, I got rid of Dropbox.

01:21:46   I think I explained last episode that I'm using

01:21:50   a combination of Synology Drive,

01:21:53   of which there are like eight different things

01:21:55   that Synology has done that they call Drive.

01:21:57   But there's one of them that is basically

01:21:59   their de facto Dropbox clone.

01:22:02   And then that in combination with,

01:22:04   I think it's called Synology Cloud Sync,

01:22:06   which will synchronize on your Synology

01:22:09   a folder on your Synology with your Dropbox.

01:22:12   So my Synology Drive is my quote unquote Dropbox.

01:22:16   It's my shared file structure.

01:22:19   And one of the folders within there

01:22:21   is where I synchronize my Dropbox.

01:22:24   And so that's how I've done it.

01:22:25   And if you happen to have a Synology,

01:22:27   I cannot recommend it enough.

01:22:29   But for those of you who don't, I don't know, bartender,

01:22:32   what do you guys do for this?

01:22:34   - Yeah, that was why I put this item in here,

01:22:35   because when we were discussing the population

01:22:37   of your menu bar and I was helping you get rid of icons

01:22:39   that you didn't need to be in there,

01:22:41   lots of people said, "You guys should check out Bartender."

01:22:43   So anyway, yeah, we all know about Bartender,

01:22:44   but just for the listeners, if you don't,

01:22:46   and this is the actual answer to this question

01:22:48   if you actually don't want to stop using Dropbox,

01:22:50   there are multiple utilities,

01:22:51   bartender being the most well known,

01:22:53   that will let you hide, collapse, condense,

01:22:55   and otherwise manipulate the icons that are in your menu bar.

01:22:58   Like, Bartender is itself a third party application.

01:23:00   And what it does is it goes into your menu bar

01:23:03   and lets you rearrange and collapse

01:23:05   and hide icons that are there.

01:23:07   So if you have an icon like Dropbox,

01:23:09   and Dropbox itself doesn't let you hide the icon,

01:23:11   but you still want to be running Dropbox,

01:23:13   check out Bartender.

01:23:14   What's the other well known one?

01:23:15   I forgot the name of the other one.

01:23:16   But anyway, there's multiple utilities to do this,

01:23:18   but Bartender is very well known.

01:23:19   I've had it for a long time, I've run it in the past.

01:23:22   Now my monitor is so freaking wide

01:23:23   I don't have to worry about it anymore.

01:23:24   But if you want to hide Dropbox, check out Bartender.

01:23:29   - Yeah, there's also, I think it's Vanilla,

01:23:31   if I remember right, it's by the same fellow who does Rocket,

01:23:35   which is itself a must have in my personal opinion.

01:23:38   Rocket is a system app, it's a menu bar app

01:23:42   that lets you do Slack style typing of emojis,

01:23:46   basically anywhere you can do text entry on your Mac.

01:23:49   So I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.

01:23:51   And I'm not gonna stall for time

01:23:52   and look it up at the moment,

01:23:54   but I believe that it's Vanilla that does a similar thing.

01:23:59   This is by Matthew Palmer,

01:24:00   that does a similar thing to Bartender.

01:24:02   It's a little bit different in the mechanism

01:24:04   by which it does it.

01:24:05   But yeah, Rocket gets my highest recommendation.

01:24:08   Vanilla I haven't tried in a while

01:24:10   and it was a little glitchy for me

01:24:11   when I was using multiple monitors.

01:24:13   But you should definitely check it out

01:24:15   and see what you think.

01:24:16   - Oh yeah, and for people who don't know,

01:24:18   for the Apple icons, I know it's confusing in Big Sur

01:24:21   when they added the control center thing or whatever.

01:24:23   Anyway, if you hold down the Command key,

01:24:25   you can drag most Apple menu bar icons off of the menu bar.

01:24:29   You hold down the Command key, you drag them off,

01:24:31   you drag them down a little ways,

01:24:33   and then eventually you get a remove thing

01:24:34   and you let go, right?

01:24:35   So for first party ones, you can rearrange them

01:24:39   by holding down the Command key and dragging them

01:24:40   and you can also remove them, which essentially hides them.

01:24:42   Most of the Apple ones also have a checkbox

01:24:44   that's buried in some preference pane

01:24:46   where you'd never think to look for it.

01:24:48   Third party apps usually have a checkbox

01:24:50   in some preference setting somewhere within their app

01:24:53   that might be hard to find,

01:24:54   but the Apple ones you can usually just drag off.

01:24:57   I think it might work for third party ones too, let me see.

01:25:00   No, it gives me the little Buster icon.

01:25:01   I just tried to drag Skype off.

01:25:03   You can hold down the Command and drag it down

01:25:06   and when you get it like two inches below,

01:25:08   instead of showing the little thing

01:25:09   that says it's gonna be removed,

01:25:10   I just get a little circle with a line through it,

01:25:12   which is the OS's way of telling me

01:25:14   Skype does not let you remove that icon by dragging it,

01:25:16   but the Apple ones can be removed that way.

01:25:18   And the Skype one, if it can be removed at all,

01:25:21   would be a checkbox.

01:25:23   And if it can't be removed, bartender of vanilla.

01:25:26   - By the way, some real-time follow-up.

01:25:29   According to Mark Gurman, Antonio Garcia Martinez

01:25:32   has already been fired from Apple.

01:25:34   - Oh, he didn't even make it through the show.

01:25:36   Didn't even make it through the show.

01:25:38   See, this really does bring up exactly

01:25:40   what the people were saying in the petition,

01:25:41   which is like, how does this get past our hiring process?

01:25:45   Like, it's not obscure, it's not a secret,

01:25:47   it's not hearsay, it's a literal

01:25:49   New York Times best-selling book.

01:25:51   Maybe he wasn't a high-profile enough position,

01:25:55   maybe the whole ad organization is filled with sleazy people

01:25:58   and we just don't know it.

01:25:59   That's, you know, again, Apple will work it out internally,

01:26:02   I assume, because that's essentially what they're demanding.

01:26:05   The people at Apple weren't saying,

01:26:06   you need to fire this guy right away,

01:26:07   although I'm sure they thought that.

01:26:09   What they were saying is, how did this happen exactly?

01:26:11   Let's look at our process,

01:26:13   'cause it seems like our process is falling down.

01:26:15   Kind of like the umpteen emails that you will see

01:26:17   in discovery from the Epic trial

01:26:19   of some Apple executive or another saying,

01:26:22   look at this scam app that's number one

01:26:24   in the free apps right now.

01:26:25   How are these getting past review?

01:26:27   There are so many emails where people are angry

01:26:29   and credulous about that.

01:26:31   And yeah, we feel you Apple executives,

01:26:33   we have the same questions.

01:26:35   - Moving on with more Ask ATP, Chandler Kent writes,

01:26:37   with more of the computer moving on

01:26:39   to a system-on-a-chip architecture,

01:26:41   would it theoretically be possible to swap out

01:26:43   a system-on-a-chip to upgrade a computer?

01:26:45   What would be the disadvantages to allowing that to happen?

01:26:47   What design considerations would exist

01:26:49   to keep backwards compatibility with the interfaces

01:26:51   to the system-on-a-chip?

01:26:52   What are the trade-offs?

01:26:53   Chandler writes, Apple would never do this,

01:26:56   but I thought it would be an interesting discussion.

01:26:57   - Can we just start saying sock?

01:26:59   I know no one says sock, but I feel like this is

01:27:02   too awkward of a thing.

01:27:03   We have to shorten it, and it just--

01:27:05   - Stop trying to make mauve happen.

01:27:07   (laughing)

01:27:08   - I get the reference.

01:27:09   - You're the king of bad pronunciations

01:27:11   of computer acronyms.

01:27:13   - It's S-O-C, sock.

01:27:15   How would you say it?

01:27:17   - We don't, we say S-O-C.

01:27:18   It's pretty short already.

01:27:20   - I believe it's pronounced soak.

01:27:21   - Every single acronym or things that we've had

01:27:23   that have been that short, you always have people

01:27:26   start saying it as a one-syllable word.

01:27:29   - Yeah, but then you have the GIF, GIF war,

01:27:30   where there's the people who are right that say GIF,

01:27:33   and the people who are wrong that say GIF.

01:27:34   - But you also got socks.

01:27:36   I mean, you probably don't know this,

01:27:37   but people who work in big companies know socks

01:27:39   is already a thing.

01:27:41   - What is it, standard operating procedure?

01:27:43   Like what are we--

01:27:44   - No, S-O-X, Casey.

01:27:45   - Oh, is that, what am I thinking of?

01:27:49   No, I don't know what it is.

01:27:50   What's the, oh, no, I'm thinking of Oxford.

01:27:52   No, no, no, what's the, Sarbanes-Oxley, there it is.

01:27:54   - You got it, yep.

01:27:55   - Okay, yep, there you go.

01:27:56   - So it's a little bit of a sound-alike.

01:27:58   - Mm.

01:27:59   - Anyway, SOC, that's what we're calling it.

01:28:01   - Right, so if one were to do this,

01:28:03   I mean, the very first thing you'd have to do

01:28:04   is make it socketable, right, or whatever,

01:28:07   God, it's been so long since I built a computer.

01:28:09   Socketed, yeah, whatever.

01:28:10   - Bop it.

01:28:11   (laughing)

01:28:12   - Oh, gosh, oh, it's so bad.

01:28:14   You would have to make the system on a chip, or SOC, Marco,

01:28:19   easily pluggable, so a way to eject it

01:28:23   from the motherboard or the logic board,

01:28:25   and then plug a new one back in,

01:28:27   which is a thing that one could do,

01:28:30   but particularly on a laptop, I don't think,

01:28:31   or even more so an iPad, I don't think

01:28:33   you're really gonna wanna do that.

01:28:35   And plus, technology marches on quickly,

01:28:37   and there's different inputs and outputs

01:28:40   and interfaces and so on.

01:28:42   I just, I don't see it happening,

01:28:44   and I think there's too many trade-offs.

01:28:46   You're dedicating yourself to the inputs, outputs,

01:28:51   and socket of the day when you make this chip,

01:28:54   and you can't change it for years

01:28:55   if you wanna stick with it.

01:28:57   - Yeah, I mean, if you look at the world of socketed CPUs,

01:29:01   like this world exists, it's existed for quite some time,

01:29:04   in the PC and formerly Mac world,

01:29:06   we can see already what the trade-offs are.

01:29:09   First of all, you need, as Casey,

01:29:11   you kinda need physical bulk, you need a socket,

01:29:15   and then some kind of mounting mechanism

01:29:17   that can hold the chip to it.

01:29:18   You need some kind of interface

01:29:20   that's like a bunch of pits of metal or little pins

01:29:23   or something for them to touch each other,

01:29:24   to interface with the stuff around it.

01:29:27   And so that's cost, that's bulk, it's points of failure.

01:29:31   But then also, you look at the world of,

01:29:33   suppose you have some Intel or AMD motherboard.

01:29:36   After how many years can you still use that motherboard

01:29:40   with new CPUs?

01:29:41   It's not that many years usually.

01:29:43   They change the sockets or things get upgraded

01:29:45   because the components around the processor change.

01:29:48   Now, you might have things like faster RAM buses

01:29:52   and stuff like that, you might have different I/O ports

01:29:54   that come in and out of fashion,

01:29:56   different amounts of PCI lanes or whatever.

01:29:59   Now, as you move into a SOC lifestyle,

01:30:02   I'm gonna go with it.

01:30:04   As you move into the SOC lifestyle,

01:30:05   some of that stuff moves onto the chip.

01:30:07   So some of that stuff you could theoretically swap out

01:30:10   with an upgrade, like if the memory's on the chip,

01:30:14   stuff like that, some of that stuff

01:30:15   you could make interchangeable.

01:30:18   The problem is that there's still all that other stuff

01:30:20   around it, so for instance, you have things

01:30:22   like just basic power and heat requirements.

01:30:25   You design the system with a certain amount of capacity

01:30:28   for whatever socket it comes with,

01:30:30   but then if you wanna upgrade it in a couple of years,

01:30:33   maybe the new one needs more power or makes more heat,

01:30:36   and then the stuff around it no longer will supply that.

01:30:39   Maybe it's just a different size, maybe it got bigger,

01:30:42   or economies of scale worked and it got smaller.

01:30:45   Then you have that issue to deal with.

01:30:47   And you also have other things like the things

01:30:51   that it's talking to, not everything is on the SOC.

01:30:53   You still have, in some cases you have RAM,

01:30:56   that's off of it if you have a lot of it.

01:30:57   - You've gotta stop, I can't even parse what you're saying.

01:31:00   Stop saying SOC, you're killing me.

01:31:02   - And you have things like the SSD,

01:31:05   or the cell modem or stuff like that.

01:31:07   There are other things that are still pretty large things

01:31:10   that are not being SOC-itted.

01:31:13   So there are a lot of other things around it

01:31:17   that wouldn't go with it still,

01:31:18   or wouldn't have necessarily a very long lifespan.

01:31:21   So I think in practice, even though this would probably

01:31:24   never actually become a thing, I think if it was a thing,

01:31:29   you'd have a similar problem that you have

01:31:30   with the PC motherboards today,

01:31:31   where you might be able to upgrade it

01:31:34   within a year and a half or two years or whatever,

01:31:37   but once you go past that, your motherboard

01:31:41   wouldn't be compatible with the new SOCs anyway.

01:31:43   And so it wouldn't be a very long-lived upgrade path.

01:31:47   It would be much more like today,

01:31:48   where today if you buy a processor,

01:31:51   you use it with the motherboard you bought it with,

01:31:53   chances are by the time you wanna upgrade the processor,

01:31:55   you're probably gonna need a new motherboard as well

01:31:57   for all the surrounding stuff.

01:31:58   So I think it would work like that if it ever happened.

01:32:00   But again, there are the realities of making this happen

01:32:03   that would probably never actually happen.

01:32:06   - Yeah, I think you covered most of the points.

01:32:08   I mean, what Chandler, I would say to Chandler is that,

01:32:11   yes, an SOC does make it easier

01:32:13   because it has more stuff on it,

01:32:15   but there's other trade-offs are still there.

01:32:17   Some sockets live longer than others in the PC space,

01:32:21   and you can make kind of a forward-looking socket,

01:32:23   but the main reason Apple wouldn't do it

01:32:25   aside from the never wanting to upgrade stuff is,

01:32:27   as we've seen so far with all of the ARM-based Macs

01:32:30   that they've put out, they are really emphasizing the size.

01:32:33   And so that one thing that Marco mentioned,

01:32:35   hey, you gotta make it bigger and thicker

01:32:37   and have more stuff for the socket,

01:32:40   they don't want that.

01:32:41   They made the iMac as thin as an iPhone.

01:32:43   They don't want those extra millimeters, right?

01:32:46   Nevermind that they don't want you to upgrade it

01:32:48   or whatever.

01:32:49   Now that said, Apple itself,

01:32:51   even though there is no official supported socket,

01:32:55   will surely reuse motherboard designs and things like,

01:32:59   there'll be an M2-based Mac,

01:33:01   maybe we'll talk about that next week,

01:33:03   that the motherboard of which looks very much

01:33:05   like the M1 motherboard,

01:33:06   but the place where the M2 goes is a little bit different

01:33:09   than the place where the M1 went

01:33:10   because they don't have to have a standard socket,

01:33:11   but they do end up reusing a lot of stuff.

01:33:13   So there, you kind of,

01:33:14   Apple gets the advantages of having a system on a chip

01:33:17   in that so much stuff, the GPU, the RAM,

01:33:21   all the bus stuff is on the SoC

01:33:23   that they can reuse the same motherboard

01:33:25   for a couple of years, right?

01:33:27   It's not for you to swap out the SoC on,

01:33:29   it's for them to do it.

01:33:30   So I think they will take advantage of that.

01:33:32   And speaking of sockets,

01:33:34   I'm sitting next to a computer right now

01:33:36   that has a socketed CPU.

01:33:38   The 2019 Mac Pro has a socketed Xeon,

01:33:41   and maybe we'll get to in a future show,

01:33:43   but the new Xeons are out, they use a different socket.

01:33:46   So if I wanted to put the new Xeon on my Mac

01:33:50   on that motherboard, I can't,

01:33:51   'cause we just crossed over a socket.

01:33:53   I don't know if Xeons change sockets every single time,

01:33:55   every two years, or every three years.

01:33:56   - Pretty often.

01:33:57   - Yeah.

01:33:58   - Well, 'cause they don't get updated that often.

01:33:59   And so when they do, usually it's time for a new socket.

01:34:02   - Yeah, so I feel like socketed things

01:34:05   are kind of like upgradable RAM,

01:34:07   and other sort of upgradable components

01:34:09   have their place in the market for,

01:34:11   if you're building your own gaming PC,

01:34:13   you would expect to be able to swap out the RAM.

01:34:15   Maybe you'd expect to be able to upgrade the CPU

01:34:17   one or two times before you get an entirely new motherboard

01:34:20   or whatever, but that's not the market

01:34:22   that Apple operates in.

01:34:23   And we know which direction everything goes at Apple.

01:34:27   The battery gets enclosed,

01:34:28   the SSD gets soldered to the motherboard,

01:34:30   the CPU stops being socketed, right?

01:34:33   It depends on the machine though.

01:34:34   The Mac next to me, again,

01:34:35   has everything in it can be torn out.

01:34:37   The CPU, the RAM, the GPU, the SSDs even.

01:34:42   Like, it's all removable because it is the,

01:34:46   that's the role of this machine, right?

01:34:48   But Apple makes very few of these machines

01:34:50   and even that may be changing with the new Mac Pro,

01:34:52   so stay tuned.

01:34:53   - Finally, John Larson writes,

01:34:56   "Now that Apple's out of the time capsule business,

01:34:58   what options are there for MacBook owners

01:34:59   that can't duct tape an SSD to the back of their machine?"

01:35:02   Marco, is that SSD or is it S-D?

01:35:04   - It's S-D.

01:35:06   - Okay, good to know.

01:35:06   - We always pronounce them.

01:35:08   It always happens.

01:35:09   - I see.

01:35:10   - I've been on the wrong side of this so many times

01:35:11   growing up, like, you know, I would say like, you know,

01:35:12   S-A-T-A or serial ATA, like that became SATA.

01:35:16   Like, it just, it always happened.

01:35:17   People always shorten stuff on me.

01:35:20   - Well, so you should learn from that

01:35:21   and just always do the opposite of what your instinct is

01:35:23   and just say S-O-C.

01:35:25   - Nah, sock.

01:35:26   I'm going with sock.

01:35:26   - Oh my gosh.

01:35:27   iPod socks.

01:35:28   - There you go.

01:35:29   (John laughs)

01:35:30   - Anyway, what can you do for a MacBook

01:35:34   and you want to have some sort of time machine backup?

01:35:37   I mean, I would just leave something on your desk

01:35:40   or get a network attached storage like the Synology.

01:35:42   Apparently this show is also sponsored by Synology,

01:35:44   but I would say just leave something on your desk

01:35:47   and plug it in, remove it when you leave,

01:35:48   which is not fun, but I mean,

01:35:50   I guess you could get one of Marco's 17 docking station

01:35:54   things that you've tried.

01:35:55   You could do that too, but I don't know.

01:35:57   What do you guys have for this?

01:35:58   - Well, you can also, any other Mac on your network,

01:36:01   if you happen to have like a stationary Mac,

01:36:03   those can offer time machine sharing

01:36:05   to other things on the network.

01:36:07   And yes, Synology offers,

01:36:09   'cause there's like open source packages

01:36:11   that can offer the same network service over the network,

01:36:12   so lots of other hardware will also be able to do that

01:36:15   over the network if you want to.

01:36:16   And I've always had no problems with the Synology one

01:36:19   when I've used it.

01:36:20   - And this person says,

01:36:21   "If you can't duct tape an SSD

01:36:23   "to the back of your machine," right?

01:36:24   But I think it's worth revisiting

01:36:26   why you think you can't do that,

01:36:27   because drives get smaller and smaller.

01:36:29   - If you get a sort of USB-C/Thunderbolt bus-powered SSD

01:36:34   that can hold everything in your little laptop,

01:36:37   you don't have to tape it to the back of it,

01:36:39   but it's so small and unobtrusive,

01:36:42   and especially if you don't have

01:36:43   any other kind of docking station,

01:36:44   it's not that big of a deal just to plug it in

01:36:47   when your laptop is on your desk,

01:36:48   especially if it spends a lot of time at your desk,

01:36:50   like it won't really get in your way.

01:36:52   They're so small now.

01:36:54   No, they're not the size of like a Logitech RF dongle,

01:36:58   but although we'll probably get there pretty soon,

01:37:00   because you can buy like a thumb drive

01:37:02   that is actually shockingly small

01:37:04   and holds a huge amount of data.

01:37:05   So what I'm saying is don't dismiss the idea

01:37:08   of attaching a drive.

01:37:09   It's not like it used to be

01:37:10   where you have to like get a spinning hard drive

01:37:11   in a big case with an external power supply and plug it in.

01:37:14   You can get something that looks like a stick of gum

01:37:16   that can hold the contents of your 256 gig laptop

01:37:20   or something.

01:37:21   You can get something that looks like a book of matches

01:37:22   that can hold your two terabyte thing.

01:37:24   Again, completely bus-powered, small, reversible cable.

01:37:27   It's not actually as bad as you think.

01:37:29   And if you do want to tape it to the back of your thing,

01:37:31   you could probably do that

01:37:32   and not have it be particularly chunky

01:37:34   because things just keep getting smaller.

01:37:37   So don't discount the idea

01:37:39   of actually having local storage for your laptop.

01:37:42   It is viable, but yeah, if you don't want to do that,

01:37:45   never get that storage or another Mac.

01:37:47   - Also don't discount the idea of using the SD card slot

01:37:50   in your old laptop or hopefully soon to be future laptop.

01:37:53   SD card, like you can get, I just looked,

01:37:56   you can get a one terabyte micro SD card

01:37:59   for 200 bucks right now.

01:38:01   Like these things are big and cheap.

01:38:05   - I worry about the durability of an SD card

01:38:07   for the type of traffic that Time Machine puts out.

01:38:10   - That's fair, yeah.

01:38:11   They're not made to do a whole ton of writes,

01:38:13   but still, that's a really good solution.

01:38:16   If you want something on a laptop that is seamless

01:38:18   and you have an SD card slot,

01:38:20   that's a great use for the SD card slot.

01:38:22   In fact, there have been companies over time,

01:38:24   I don't know what's still in the market today,

01:38:25   but there have been companies over time

01:38:26   that back for the 2012 through 2015 MacBook Pro line,

01:38:31   you could get a little flush mount

01:38:34   that would go into the SD card slot,

01:38:36   would hold a micro SD card, I think sideways or something,

01:38:39   and nothing would stick out from the slot.

01:38:43   - It was amazing.

01:38:44   - Yeah, and this is yet another reason

01:38:46   why I really hope they bring these back

01:38:48   'cause there's so many cool uses for the SD card slot,

01:38:50   even if you don't have a camera that uses it.

01:38:52   It's really nice to just have

01:38:53   that really quick removable storage

01:38:55   that's not taking up a port

01:38:56   and having a cable sticking out of it constantly.

01:38:58   That being said, TIFF's laptop

01:39:00   has exactly that arrangement.

01:39:01   TIFF's laptop has a cable sticking out of it constantly

01:39:04   with a drive duct taped to the back of it.

01:39:06   And it's kind of annoying that this cable's always there

01:39:09   and you lose a port, but otherwise, it's fine.

01:39:12   It works, it's very ugly, but it does work just fine.

01:39:17   And so that option is not that bad, really.

01:39:22   But certainly, if you can get something

01:39:23   that's in the machine or over the network,

01:39:25   that's obviously better.

01:39:27   - I remember one of my blog posts a while back.

01:39:29   I made the argument,

01:39:30   this was back in the spinning hard drive days,

01:39:32   that Apple should sell machines

01:39:33   with double storage in them, essentially.

01:39:36   I think I said RAID 1,

01:39:37   but basically, however big a Mac you get,

01:39:40   say, oh, I got a MacBook Air with a 512 gig drive,

01:39:42   that it should actually come

01:39:43   with two completely separate internal 512 gig drives,

01:39:46   and one of them would be your main drive,

01:39:48   and the other one would be

01:39:49   your backup time machine drive.

01:39:51   Obviously, that would cost money.

01:39:53   People wouldn't want to pay extra for it.

01:39:54   There's tons of good reasons why they didn't do it.

01:39:56   But again, with my whole argument of,

01:39:58   is there room in the lineup for one machine

01:40:00   that's like this?

01:40:01   The idea that this would,

01:40:02   it made much more sense back before everything

01:40:04   was in the cloud.

01:40:05   But imagine a world where we didn't have

01:40:06   cheap cloud storage and everything.

01:40:08   It was literally the only way you're ever gonna get people

01:40:10   to backup is to secretly give them twice the storage

01:40:12   and just do automatic time machine to the other thing,

01:40:14   so when they come into the Apple Store and say,

01:40:16   my thing doesn't boot, it looks like I lost all my data,

01:40:18   you can go, surprise, you didn't,

01:40:19   it's all over here in time machine,

01:40:20   because we've been backing it up every hour,

01:40:21   unbeknownst to you.

01:40:23   Nowadays, the solution is to instead,

01:40:25   not really, to do the Casey thing

01:40:27   and have your Macs be ephemeral

01:40:28   and have most of the stuff in the network

01:40:30   or the Chromebook thing or whatever.

01:40:31   So time has moved on from that solution,

01:40:33   but I was reminded of it when these people

01:40:35   are talking about duct taping drives

01:40:37   to the back of their laptop.

01:40:38   It's just like, you know,

01:40:39   there is actually room inside that laptop

01:40:41   for one more set of chips,

01:40:43   especially on a big 16 inch one.

01:40:45   You could have doubled the storage internally,

01:40:47   but of course, if you gave people that,

01:40:48   they'd be like, oh, I don't wanna use it for backup,

01:40:50   I wanna use it for stuff.

01:40:51   And now you're just back to the same situation.

01:40:53   Human nature.

01:40:54   - To go back to the flush mount SD card,

01:40:58   like hard drive, my very first thing

01:41:00   that I backed on Kickstarter was the Nifty Mini Drive,

01:41:03   which was exactly that.

01:41:05   And it was a flush mount thing,

01:41:07   so you could add effectively another drive

01:41:09   to your MacBook Pro.

01:41:10   And I loved that thing, it was great.

01:41:13   - Yeah, if the SD card does come back,

01:41:14   as I was rumored to,

01:41:16   that's something I actually plan to do.

01:41:18   Like, just to have that there as a backup

01:41:22   or extra capacity.

01:41:23   I did it in the past with the 2015 model.

01:41:25   It's a very common thing for people to do that,

01:41:28   and it's a really cool thing to have.

01:41:30   - I wonder if I still have this,

01:41:32   'cause I haven't used it in probably a decade.

01:41:34   I probably tossed it, but I loved it when I had it.

01:41:37   - Even in an even older laptop,

01:41:39   back when you could easily get to the drives inside of it,

01:41:43   I got one of those brackets

01:41:44   where you could replace the optical drive

01:41:46   with a second hard drive.

01:41:48   - Yeah, yeah.

01:41:48   - Did you ever do that?

01:41:49   - I knew people who did, but I did not.

01:41:52   - That was awesome, I had two hard drives in my laptop.

01:41:54   (laughing)

01:41:56   Not great for noise.

01:41:57   Anyway, thank you to our sponsors this week,

01:42:00   Mac Weldon, Remote, and Memberful.

01:42:03   And thank you to our members who support us directly.

01:42:05   If you'd like to join them, go to atp.fm/join.

01:42:09   Thanks everybody, and we'll talk to you next week.

01:42:12   (upbeat music)

01:42:14   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:42:16   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:42:19   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:42:21   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:42:22   ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:42:24   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:42:25   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:42:27   ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:42:30   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:42:31   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:42:32   ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:42:34   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:42:35   ♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪

01:42:40   ♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪

01:42:43   ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

01:42:48   ♪ So that's Casey List ♪

01:42:51   ♪ M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

01:42:54   ♪ Auntie Marco Arment ♪

01:42:56   ♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:42:59   ♪ U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-S-A ♪

01:43:01   ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:43:03   ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:43:05   ♪ They didn't mean to accidental ♪

01:43:08   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:43:09   ♪ Tech, podcast, so long ♪

01:43:13   - So in the after show notes,

01:43:19   there's a very interesting line item,

01:43:22   which honestly we probably should have talked about

01:43:25   last week, but we just ran out of time

01:43:27   given that we were talking about Basecamp.

01:43:28   And the line item reads, Marco tried to use Ruby.

01:43:32   Now I should say upfront that I've never really used Ruby.

01:43:37   Like the only real exposure I have to Ruby is CocoaPods

01:43:41   and I hated it.

01:43:43   So what are you up to, buddy?

01:43:47   - This is not what you think it is.

01:43:49   - Okay.

01:43:50   - It is the language, but it's not anything exciting.

01:43:53   - Okay.

01:43:54   - So for my town, I wanted to set up

01:43:58   like a little like three page static website.

01:44:02   I thought this would be a good excuse

01:44:04   to try out GitHub pages.

01:44:06   I knew there was some way to host static websites on GitHub.

01:44:09   I didn't know anything else about it,

01:44:11   but I knew, look, you know,

01:44:12   that sounds like something that would make things easier.

01:44:14   I don't want to have to like keep this running

01:44:16   on one of my servers for this stupid static page thing.

01:44:19   Let me see what this GitHub pages thing is about.

01:44:21   - By the way, quick aside, did you see the story

01:44:23   about being able to use SQLite databases on GitHub pages?

01:44:27   - What?

01:44:28   - Yeah, so the GitHub page is static hosting, right?

01:44:31   So it's like, SQLite, for people to know,

01:44:33   makes database as a little file, right?

01:44:34   So what they do is they use, they made a library

01:44:36   that does HTTP range requests into the SQLite file

01:44:39   on GitHub pages to essentially do client-side SQL querying

01:44:43   of your SQLite database.

01:44:45   This is my understanding.

01:44:46   You have your SQLite database on the static web hosting.

01:44:48   So if you want to have a database, all I'm saying is

01:44:50   you want the world's most inefficient way to query SQLite,

01:44:52   you can do with HTTP range requests with the library.

01:44:55   Anyway, continue.

01:44:56   - Yes, fortunately I don't need that,

01:44:58   but I'm sure nothing can go wrong with that.

01:45:00   But anyway, what this ends up being based on is Jekyll,

01:45:05   which is a static site generator that I've never used.

01:45:08   And Jekyll is written in Ruby.

01:45:10   Now, GitHub, being a site designed around one of the least

01:45:15   user-friendly programmer tools that's ever been made,

01:45:18   I guess it's no surprise that the documentation

01:45:22   for how to actually use Jekyll and their static site

01:45:26   generation is pretty sparse and pretty incomplete.

01:45:31   And so I just wanted to make a very simple site.

01:45:36   Now, the templates they give you to start out with,

01:45:38   like by default, put a whole bunch of stuff in,

01:45:41   like by default, like in the sidebar and everything,

01:45:43   that's all about the GitHub project that you are hosting,

01:45:47   which is not anything I wanted to be on here.

01:45:50   Like I just wanted a site with basically no template.

01:45:54   Like let me just make my own basic navigation bar

01:45:58   and like a list of pages on the side or something,

01:46:00   and that would be it.

01:46:02   That was very hard to do.

01:46:03   And so one thing I realized is like,

01:46:05   oh, well it says, let's start,

01:46:07   this becomes a lot easier if you can run Jekyll locally

01:46:10   on your own machine.

01:46:11   And that way you can build it yourself.

01:46:13   Without having to commit stuff to GitHub

01:46:15   before you can even try to see changes,

01:46:18   you can at least run it on your local machine

01:46:19   and play with templates and everything there.

01:46:21   So I thought, okay, great.

01:46:23   - Well, quick question here, Marco.

01:46:25   Why did you just not make three web pages?

01:46:28   - That's a good question.

01:46:30   (laughing)

01:46:32   - I know like the old ways seem barbaric to you,

01:46:36   but back in the day, the way we would do this

01:46:38   is by literally writing each page by hand.

01:46:40   We didn't even have server side includes.

01:46:42   It's like, oh, you mean you would write the navigation

01:46:45   each page and then on one page

01:46:46   you'd have one item highlighted?

01:46:47   It's like, yeah, we would just write it all

01:46:48   from top to bottom in a text document

01:46:50   'cause it was the old, anyway.

01:46:52   - Well, that's what I was trying to avoid.

01:46:55   Like first of all, having to either write raw HTML

01:46:59   or make my own markdown build script.

01:47:02   And I was trying to avoid having to like,

01:47:04   if I wanted to edit the template

01:47:06   or the navigation sidebar or something,

01:47:07   having to edit five pages.

01:47:09   - But yeah, I know what you're thinking.

01:47:11   'Cause you're a programmer, there's a good XKCD about this,

01:47:14   about creating a generic tool for passing salt, right?

01:47:16   It's like, we all think this way.

01:47:17   But if it really is going to be just three pages

01:47:21   for even if it's five, you would have saved a lot of time.

01:47:24   - Anyway, continue.

01:47:25   - I would have saved so much time.

01:47:27   Because this, it ended up taking me like five hours.

01:47:31   Because first--

01:47:31   - You could have written those pages 100 times over.

01:47:34   - I know.

01:47:35   - You know, copy and paste works too,

01:47:37   so you don't actually have to retype the nav.

01:47:39   - So first I'm like, all right,

01:47:43   let me try to set up Jekyll on my Mac.

01:47:46   This was a bad idea.

01:47:48   - Title.

01:47:50   - So first thing you run into is like,

01:47:52   all right, you have to get Ruby to the right version.

01:47:55   And then it's like, okay, well, first,

01:47:57   you can't just install Ruby,

01:47:58   you have to install this Bundler thing.

01:48:00   Now keep in mind, I've never worked with Ruby,

01:48:02   well, I worked with it for two seconds back in 2005,

01:48:05   but otherwise not since then.

01:48:07   So I've never done any of this stuff.

01:48:10   So I don't know any of these tools.

01:48:12   So I'm starting from nothing.

01:48:13   So first, you gotta install Bundler or something.

01:48:16   And then Bundler is like a package manager.

01:48:18   Then you have to install Gem.

01:48:19   And then Gem is the package manager installed by Bundler

01:48:22   or for Bundler or with Bundler that then has to,

01:48:25   Gem has to then install the Gem file from Jekyll

01:48:28   that will make the Jekyll build the right Gem.

01:48:30   But oh, it's requiring this GitHub Gem,

01:48:31   which I don't have here.

01:48:32   I have to use Bundler to install the Gem file

01:48:34   to install that Gem.

01:48:35   And it's like, oh my God.

01:48:36   And getting through all of that to even try to get it

01:48:40   to run Jekyll without errors on my local Mac,

01:48:44   just to start a new empty site,

01:48:48   I spent hours on this in package management hell.

01:48:51   Then I thought, oh, it says you should use Homebrew instead.

01:48:56   Okay, I tried that.

01:48:58   But then Homebrew starts conflicting

01:48:59   with all the other crap that's all over my system

01:49:01   and all over Homebrew.

01:49:03   And then I eventually, a couple hours later,

01:49:05   got the Homebrew version to run,

01:49:08   at which point Jekyll gave me a bunch of new errors

01:49:11   that were still errors and just different.

01:49:15   And it was the most obtuse experience I've had

01:49:20   in a long time with software.

01:49:22   - Well, the reason, Marco, is because apparently

01:49:25   you just need to use RBENV and then it magically just works.

01:49:28   Or so says every Ruby person I've ever spoken to,

01:49:32   even though I've tried using it in the past,

01:49:34   and granted, I'm a dunce when it comes

01:49:36   to Ruby specifically, but it didn't help me at all.

01:49:40   In all, everywhere, all the Ruby people say,

01:49:42   no, no, no, no, no, it fixes everything.

01:49:44   It's the best.

01:49:45   It's a panacea and it's a silver bullet and it's so great.

01:49:48   Oh my God, I hated, oh, I hated using Ruby

01:49:52   so much for CocoaPods.

01:49:54   - Somebody already came over in the chat room

01:49:55   and came in with the line that I was gonna say.

01:49:58   You don't want RBENV, you want RVM.

01:50:00   - Oh God.

01:50:01   - Because of course there are two competing things

01:50:03   that do that job in Ruby.

01:50:05   And really, Marco, I should have just learned Docker

01:50:07   back when we told him to, because he probably

01:50:08   could have downloaded Docker container

01:50:09   which Jekyll already set up in it,

01:50:11   but apparently he hasn't crossed that bridge yet.

01:50:12   - Yeah, you're right about that.

01:50:14   - It took me, and eventually I got it to work.

01:50:18   And then I had to figure out how to use Jekyll,

01:50:21   which again, the documentation is pretty sparse.

01:50:24   And it's funny, GitHub actually has,

01:50:26   in their pages documentation, they link to a few example

01:50:30   repositories of using GitHub pages to make a real website.

01:50:35   And they're all so incredibly complicated

01:50:38   and inconsistent and poorly documented.

01:50:41   And this entire system was so comically overwriting

01:50:46   and just filled with just massive timestamps.

01:50:51   And all I was trying to do was save myself the trouble

01:50:55   of running a basic document directory on one of my servers,

01:51:00   like serving a virtual host, serving one more virtual host.

01:51:02   And other stuff, they take care of the SSL for you

01:51:06   and everything, so there's other little niceties of it.

01:51:09   But oh my God, and the good thing is,

01:51:11   I finally did figure out, okay,

01:51:14   here is a very basic template.

01:51:16   Here is a very basic include.

01:51:18   Here's how I can make these things work.

01:51:20   It's not pretty, it's not fancy, but it does finally work.

01:51:26   And I cannot believe how long it took me to get there.

01:51:31   Now I did actually, so I did finally reach my goal.

01:51:34   I have this stupid one page

01:51:36   or two page information site running.

01:51:38   I can add to it easily in the future if I ever need to,

01:51:41   which I probably won't.

01:51:42   But if I ever need to, I can.

01:51:45   - If you wait too long, the environment that you use

01:51:47   to build these two pages will no longer work

01:51:49   and you'll have to do another two hours of work

01:51:50   to get that extra page in.

01:51:51   - Oh, well, but the thing is, sorry, to clarify,

01:51:54   I never got it running locally.

01:51:56   I just committed to get it, and I just,

01:51:59   I did server side development here,

01:52:02   just kept committing to GitHub and reading the error messages

01:52:04   and committing again and figuring it out.

01:52:06   I literally never got it to run locally.

01:52:08   - That's very efficient.

01:52:09   - Oh my word.

01:52:10   - The other one, by the way, is chruby.

01:52:12   So you've got rbm, rmv, and chruby.

01:52:15   I don't know what chruby is.

01:52:16   - Oh my god, I hate this so much.

01:52:18   Oh, I hate this.

01:52:19   - Even Perl's got one of these, although I don't use it.

01:52:21   - Yeah, I'm-- - No, thank you.

01:52:23   - I do not foresee myself using Jekyll in the future.

01:52:27   But the good thing is, if I ever need to host

01:52:29   another one or two page website,

01:52:30   I know how to do that on GitHub pages at least.

01:52:33   Like, now I have a template.

01:52:35   - I can show you how to do a new HTML document in bbedit.

01:52:38   That might save you some time.

01:52:40   (laughing)

01:52:41   - It gives you a little template,

01:52:42   and you just type your HTML right there,

01:52:43   and then you save it.

01:52:44   (laughing)

01:52:46   We used to make entire websites like this.

01:52:50   My first big website did not even have server-side includes.

01:52:54   Like, there was no templating engine,

01:52:56   there was no building the site,

01:52:58   there was no server-side includes.

01:52:59   We would literally type the HTML for every page

01:53:02   on every page, and we wanted to change the navigation?

01:53:04   Yes, you changed it on every page.

01:53:06   To do that, you could do bbedit's

01:53:08   multi-file search and replace, so it wasn't that bad.

01:53:11   Yeah, the web, the original web

01:53:13   was very often built that way.

01:53:14   That's right, no CSS.

01:53:17   Font tags.

01:53:18   And we liked it, 'cause it was all we had.

01:53:19   - Tables for layout, that was a fun time.

01:53:22   - Yeah, we were lucky to have tables for layout.

01:53:24   We were excited when you can get an image to appear

01:53:26   to the left or the right or in the middle.

01:53:28   Center tag, I think I've talked about this

01:53:30   on multiple podcasts, but one of my most profound moments.

01:53:33   So, you know when you're learning something new,

01:53:35   especially during your formative years,

01:53:38   you very quickly come to accept whatever it is

01:53:40   that you're looking at is just the way things are, right?

01:53:43   And so, I discovered the web in 1993 or whenever it was,

01:53:47   and you could have text in H1, H2, and ULs,

01:53:51   and you could have images, right?

01:53:53   And images would just display in line with everything else,

01:53:56   or you know, like against the left border or whatever.

01:53:59   And the very first time I saw Netscape,

01:54:01   or not Netscape, Mosaic it must have been,

01:54:03   whatever the first browser did,

01:54:04   it was probably Mosaic on X11.

01:54:06   And the demo, the wow, like the tech demo wow blow your mind

01:54:11   page was a page that had five images arranged

01:54:14   like the five dots on the five side of a die, you know?

01:54:17   Like one, two, then one in the middle, then one, two.

01:54:20   And I was like, you can't do that.

01:54:22   You can't have two images next to each other

01:54:25   and a centered image, what is this witchcraft?

01:54:28   And it blew my mind because in the four weeks

01:54:31   that I had seen, you know, the original version

01:54:34   of NCSA, Mosaic or whatever, where you couldn't do that,

01:54:36   and then saw whatever this version was,

01:54:38   whether it was Netscape or Mosaic 1.1 where you could do it,

01:54:41   it's like they've broken the rules of the web.

01:54:43   Images are next to each other, what's next for the web?

01:54:46   It was mind blowing.

01:54:47   Few things have impressed me as much as that did.

01:54:50   And that was because like, you know,

01:54:52   I had so accepted the parameters and limitations of the web

01:54:57   in like the month that I'd been using it,

01:54:59   that breaking those was like,

01:55:01   the whole world is cracked open.

01:55:03   Anything is possible now, images are next to each other.

01:55:05   [ Laughter ]

01:55:07   (beeping)