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00:00:00 ◼   ► This is not going on this show. We can't. We can't. I thought it was going to, but it really can't.

00:00:04 ◼   ► You can spend your birthday going through the email of the booth editor. Just sort through them one by one.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Happy birthday. Here's a scandal. I really thought I was going to be able to ride the line, but I definitely did not.

00:00:16 ◼   ► No, you didn't think it through. Yeah, not even close. No, no. It sounded good in my head.

00:00:20 ◼   ► All right, let's start with some follow-up. Jane Manchin Wong writes... Wait, I have some car pre-show stuff, because we have to cut your retire pre-show.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, no. Marco, can you... I saw on your Instagram story you had a photo of the Wheel of Shame, and I was super excited, but can you get that picture and make it the show art, please?

00:00:40 ◼   ► I sure can. I find that endlessly hilarious. Let me just briefly explain what this is.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Marco, do you want to describe the Wheel of Shame? I think you get it more accurate than I do.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Okay, so when Tesla Roadside Assistance has to give you a temporary wheel with a temporary tire that they loan you,

00:00:59 ◼   ► when you have a flat tire, and then you can drive on it as long as you need to until you can get to a service center appointment and get yourself a new tire,

00:01:06 ◼   ► when they give you this loaner wheel, apparently they had a problem that...

00:01:10 ◼   ► You know, many cars have roadside assistance that will... Or many insurance things like AAA, they'll offer you roadside assistance where they will bring you a loaner wheel.

00:01:20 ◼   ► But it's not something you really want to drive on for very long. Usually it's some really basic steel rim with some cheap low-needs tire on it that maybe just barely fits your car well.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Tesla doesn't do that because they're Tesla, and for various pragmatic reasons, like the fact that most wheels won't fit over their giant brake calipers.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So there's only a few sizes of rim that will even fit and tire, and so they send you an entire tire mounted on a real Tesla rim.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And apparently, people who would get this installed on their car by Roadside Service would often just never return it because it's a Tesla rim.

00:01:59 ◼   ► It looks like they're other ones, and why bring it back to the service center ever and have to buy a new tire when you could just keep the loaner tire?

00:02:08 ◼   ► People just weren't returning them. So, to solve this problem, Tesla Roadside Assistance apparently started spray painting the loaner rims that they would use with ugly red spray paint sloppily applied so they can tell...

00:02:24 ◼   ► Those are owned by Tesla and not by the owner of this vehicle, and it apparently deters people from stealing them for too long.

00:02:32 ◼   ► So, I got one when I got a flat tire about a year and a half ago. That's my first time I'd ever seen one. First time I ever had a flat tire, incidentally.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And then recently, I also got another flat tire. Well, a flat tire was gotten for me by someone hitting it when it was parked.

00:02:48 ◼   ► So anyway, I brought it to the service center, and here's the fun part. So I have my winter tires on still.

00:02:58 ◼   ► The service center that was loaning me the tire until I can get back to my main place where I have the summer wheels and therefore don't need to replace this tire quite yet.

00:03:06 ◼   ► They didn't have any winter tire loaner rims. They did, however, have two summer tire ones.

00:03:15 ◼   ► So they actually gave me two of these for both wheels on the front axle so they will match and not be lopsided because the winter and summers are like one inch different or something.

00:03:24 ◼   ► So they had to match. They are not lopsided. They are two loaner rims. Both of them spray painted so it looks like my car has been vandalized.

00:03:32 ◼   ► The best part is that one of them is silver and one of them is black. So I have two different loaner rims, both of which look totally hideous on my car.

00:03:42 ◼   ► But...

00:03:43 ◼   ► I was thinking about this when I saw your picture, though. And I have, I mean, it's not really a question because I have explanations for the answers, but it does really make me, I mean, many things make me reconsider how Tesla runs its business.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And this is one of them, right? So first of all, the problem of people keeping the wheel, because it's like it's a legit wheel. It's just like the wheel that comes with your car and then it's whatever tire is on it, right?

00:04:03 ◼   ► I understand why Tesla doesn't want that to happen because, like you said, it's an older wheel and it doesn't match your other, older tire, it doesn't match your other tire.

00:04:12 ◼   ► It's probably a safety concern. Maybe it's a liability thing. Like, I totally understand that.

00:04:17 ◼   ► But it seems that Tesla roadside assistance can arrive in some reasonable amount of time and give you a genuine Tesla wheel with a tire on it.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Why don't they just give you a new tire and a new rim at that time? And then you can keep it because the problem would be solved.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Why don't they have to take it back to Santa's workshop like the Grinch and do something with the tire and the wheel and then bring it back later?

00:04:40 ◼   ► And I know the answer is probably, well, they don't know what tires I have on and I've got my winter tires and they don't have a new tire available. They just have this old one.

00:04:46 ◼   ► But it does seem weird to me that they're trying to keep you from using and keeping essentially the solution to your problem, albeit a used one or whatever.

00:04:56 ◼   ► I kind of get it, but it does seem a little bit weird to me.

00:05:00 ◼   ► I mean, probably the most direct reason, which this might not be a very good reason, but when you have roadside assistance come, it's just like some towing company.

00:05:09 ◼   ► When Tesla contracts with all these different companies, all these different places, I guess whoever's closest that is a towing or roadside assistance company, they just dispatch them out and then they pay the bill.

00:05:19 ◼   ► In my case, the first time I got it a year ago, it was actually a mobile service van that was just some van that showed up and a guy takes a Tesla tire out of the back that I guess he carries a supply of them from Tesla and just stuck it on and was in and out in a half hour.

00:05:33 ◼   ► This time, there were none of those in the area and so they had to actually flatbed tow my car to a service center.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I understand why they don't want you to use the wheel. It makes sense, but they're so close to basically solving your problem.

00:05:49 ◼   ► They just need to go a little bit farther. Those towing companies need to have this random Tesla wheel of shame hanging around.

00:05:55 ◼   ► The second thing is, for people who haven't looked at the show art that Marco has hopefully put in, showing the picture of this wheel, if you're picturing a wheel that has been spray painted red, like just sort of rattle can spray painted like a kind of a drippy paint job, no.

00:06:09 ◼   ► That's not what it is. Imagine a nice Tesla wheel haphazardly randomly sprayed, not to cover the entire wheel. It is not spray painted a color. It's just like "shhhshhhshhhshhh" and that's it.

00:06:20 ◼   ► It literally looks like it's been vandalized. The first time I saw this, I was like "oh, they had this problem and they just came up with a solution on the fly."

00:06:28 ◼   ► But now, multiple years separated, in two different geographies, we see the same quote-unquote "technique" which is "you just randomly sprayed the wheel with red spray paint."

00:06:38 ◼   ► I feel like the corporate angle on this would be to have a sort of standardized wheel of shame that is ugly and that people don't want in their car but isn't literally "let's randomly haphazardly spray a few red lines on this wheel."

00:06:52 ◼   ► Maybe you could say "test wheel" or maybe you could have "temporary spare" or "must return" like something, like a decal. You could make it even uglier than red spray paint because it actually kind of matches Marco's car.

00:07:06 ◼   ► It just boggles my mind that this is the standard way of doing business. You have this nice fancy car and they give you a wheel that looks like it's been vandalized. Now you've got two of them.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it's kind of amazing. It makes sense. As I mentioned, the tires have to be a certain size to fit over the brake caliper. There aren't going to be a lot of cheap, off-the-shelf stock rims they could just stock their service people with. At the same time, they do probably have a supply of reject rims from manufacturing.

00:07:38 ◼   ► They made them to sell them and for whatever reason, some of them are messed up or they're scratched or whatever, so they probably do have some extras that otherwise would just have to be disposed of or somehow otherwise get written off.

00:07:52 ◼   ► I'm not saying use a different rim. I'm saying do a nicer, ugly paint job on the genuine Tesla rims. You could make it look like the crash test dummy thing with the orange and white checkerboard pattern or whatever. You could make it look very unsettling and something that someone wouldn't want in their car, but in a nice way, in a way that looks like it wasn't an accident or like it was done on the fly by the guy who drove the tow truck over.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Well, and that's the thing. The way that I think Tesla is run is a phrase that I've heard Casey use before. It seems very grab-ass. It seems like everything is just kind of done haphazardly, kind of like, "Oh, crap, we've got to do this. Hurry up, somebody just grab this thing."

00:08:36 ◼   ► Someone was rewarded for coming up with the brilliant idea of, "I got it. I'm just going to go to the hardware store and get some red spray paint," and that somehow becomes corporate policy. And then no one in the company has the taste to say, "Okay, that was good for you doing on the fly, but let's come up with a formalized version of that that is not quite as embarrassing but fulfills the same purpose, like a very fancy decal that looks like a test pattern or some other thing that makes it clear that this is a temporary rim."

00:09:00 ◼   ► It does seem like it was just like some service center did this because they needed to solve this problem. They didn't have time to work out an official policy with corporate or whatever. Some other service center heard about it or saw it and they did it too. Maybe it's just the ones around New York that do this. I don't know.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I know. Maybe you have to get a flat out of state. We really need to know, like, is the haphazard red spray paint a national policy, international policy? Please, someone get a flat tire in another country and tell us on their Tesla and tell us if you get the Wheel of Shame and what it looks like. Wheel of Shames from across the world.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Yeah, Californians, drive over your nonexistent potholes.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Tell us what sound ducks make in France.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Oh, man, this show has already been well off the rails.

00:09:44 ◼   ► The Wheel of Shame is ridiculous and hilarious.

00:09:47 ◼   ► I do have a bit more car follow up.

00:09:49 ◼   ► As I was driving around doing all these errands with my vandalized car rims, I also had some chance to sit in the car and wait for a while as I was like waiting for the tow truck to come and everything.

00:10:00 ◼   ► So I installed my new ProClip USA, previous sponsor, my new ProClip USA MagSafe mount.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And I have experience using MagSafe in the car with my iPhone 12 mini.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And overall, there are a couple of snags, but overall it is fantastic.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Now, snag number one, the MagSafe brick has to, or the MagSafe puck is USB-C, not USB-A, so I had to like change the whole thing.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I had to change the extension cable that runs like kind of under the console in a semi-clean fashion all the way to the 12 volt plug thing.

00:10:38 ◼   ► And I had to change the 12 volt plug thing to an adapter that has a USB-C output port of 15 watts.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Fortunately, the ProClip USA MagSafe mount comes with that.

00:10:49 ◼   ► So you supply the Apple cable, the MagSafe mount is just kind of like this regular ProClip compatible mount that you then like kind of wedge the cable into and screw it in with a tension screw to hold it in place.

00:11:00 ◼   ► So total cost of this setup is quite high because ProClip USA stuff is already on the higher end of pricing compared to most like cheap garbage car mounts people usually buy.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Although again, it is totally worth it. Again, they were a former sponsor. I don't know if they might still sponsor in the future, but they're awesome.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And so anyway, total cost of this thing once you factor in the Apple MagSafe puck is probably over $100.

00:11:25 ◼   ► But it's a pretty great overall outcome once you have it.

00:11:30 ◼   ► The other limiting factor, can you guess what might be a problem with a MagSafe mount in a car? This is something I did not foresee.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I mean, I would assume that jostling it would be the problem, but since you said you didn't foresee it, then I'm not sure now.

00:11:44 ◼   ► Do you have other magnetic things in the car sticking to the MagSafe clip? Do you have metal filings flying around the cabin?

00:11:49 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:11:50 ◼   ► It would surprise me.

00:11:51 ◼   ► No, so I did expect jostling to be a problem. I expected like if I hit a speed bump, it would fall off.

00:11:58 ◼   ► And so far it hasn't. So far it has stayed perfectly in place throughout all of my drives over all of our bumpy New York roads.

00:12:05 ◼   ► It has been totally fine. Maybe time will tell. Maybe I'll find some situation in the future where it falls off, but so far I haven't found it.

00:12:12 ◼   ► So that's great.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Now the problem is, I was driving back from one of the things, this really nice, great weather day we were having, and I noticed the screen was pretty dim on my phone.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And I'm like, "That's weird. Normally I can see ways a little bit better than this."

00:12:28 ◼   ► I'm like, "It's not my sunglasses." I put on control center and pushed the brightness.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Well, it was already all the way up. I'm like, "Well, that's weird. Maybe it's a bug."

00:12:36 ◼   ► Sometimes iOS has weird bugs with the ambient light sensor.

00:12:38 ◼   ► So, put the phone to sleep. Wake it back up. Turn the brightness down. Turn the brightness up.

00:12:42 ◼   ► It wasn't getting very bright. Figure out the problem yet?

00:12:46 ◼   ► Oh, I don't know. I mean, the ambient light sensor's on the front. It shouldn't matter, should it?

00:12:51 ◼   ► Heat.

00:12:52 ◼   ► What?

00:12:53 ◼   ► The phone was over thermal limiting.

00:12:56 ◼   ► Oh, my word.

00:12:57 ◼   ► And when iPhones get too hot, one of the first things they do before they go into shutdown mode is reduce the screen brightness.

00:13:04 ◼   ► I didn't know they did that.

00:13:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's a fairly recent thing. I don't know if older models did it, but...

00:13:09 ◼   ► That's one of the advantages of car clips, usually, is if you clip them to your vent or near your vent, you actually have coolish air blowing on the back of them, cooling off your phone a little bit.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Right. And I do clip it on the vent. However, it was a really nice day, and I had all the AC off, and I just had all the windows open.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And so it was getting a lot of sun, but not any cooling.

00:13:32 ◼   ► And I didn't have a great charge level from earlier that day when I was sitting in a waiting room for a long time.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And so at that point in the day, the MagSafe charger was actually charging it pretty substantially.

00:13:44 ◼   ► So it was receiving a good deal of charge, and it was in the sun, and it was not getting the AC blown on it.

00:13:50 ◼   ► So even though it was only like 65 degrees, that was enough heat that the phone was actually fairly warm to the touch.

00:13:57 ◼   ► And that was enough to reduce the maximum screen brightness.

00:14:00 ◼   ► You just got to get a lightning cable and connect it to the lightning port, and then just use the magnet part not to charge, but to just hold the phone.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Because I guess that eliminates some of the convenience. Now it's attached with a wire, right?

00:14:11 ◼   ► But that should prevent--because I'm assuming the heat is because it's the inductive heating or inductive charging and not with the lightning cable.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Have you ever had any overheating problems with your phone in your car plugged into a lightning cable to charge?

00:14:25 ◼   ► Never. But I also haven't had the iPhone 12 mini in very hot weather before, because it came out in the fall.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Although this wasn't very hot weather either. Anyway, so that is--actually, John, that isn't a bad idea to also have a lightning cable that it can plug into instead.

00:14:41 ◼   ► But that would have ruined a lot of the appeal. Because if you plug in the lightning, it won't do inductive charging.

00:14:46 ◼   ► But anyway, other than the heat issue, which I'll report back as the summer goes on, other than that, it actually worked very, very well.

00:14:54 ◼   ► And I loved not having to slide it into a lightning connection. And the lightning connection, probably due to some fault of the lightning cable or the port or whatever, would not work a tenth of the time.

00:15:10 ◼   ► I would be halfway through a drive and realize, "Oh no, I haven't been charging this whole time." And the screen's been on, Waze has been on, and GPS has been on.

00:15:17 ◼   ► The lightning connection wouldn't work?

00:15:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:20 ◼   ► That's weird.

00:15:22 ◼   ► It started happening when Apple started getting picky about USB security and whether USB connected devices were allowed to even start using the phone until it was locked in certain conditions or whatever else.

00:15:37 ◼   ► So around that time, that started becoming a problem. I never quite figured out the pattern to it, but I'm sure it was something like maybe it was locked when I slid it into the charger and then I unlocked it once it was in there or something, who knows.

00:15:47 ◼   ► But MagSafe gets rid of all that because it's much simpler and it seems to be always permitted no matter what the lock state of the phone is.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So anyway, overall, this is great with the potential issue of heat might become a problem.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Can you get a lower power thing to hook up to your MagSafe thingamabobber so it just charges slower at lower wattage?

00:16:09 ◼   ► That's not a bad idea either. I could, but the thing is, Qi charging is so inefficient that I think even if I just put a 5 watt charger on there, which would be honestly possibly not enough to keep up with Waze and the screen being on full brightness, that actually might slowly lose charge.

00:16:29 ◼   ► But I'm not sure that would actually be enough of a savings because it gets pretty warm even just under 5 watt Qi charging.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Even if you don't have the AC on, maybe just turn the fan speed up because even just regular temperature air blowing on the back would probably help cool it.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Yeah, and I had the fan totally off because it was a really nice day and I'm like, "I don't need climate control. I'm in the climate. It's controlling itself. It's great."

00:16:52 ◼   ► I actually have a teaser for next week. I received an early birthday present from my parents, which is one of the CarPlay wireless adapters, and I have only used it for literally 5 minutes stationary in my garage.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And in those 5 minutes it worked pretty well. But similar to what you're saying, imagine how, well first of all Marco, can you imagine having CarPlay in your car?

00:17:17 ◼   ► That sounds amazing.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Wouldn't that be neat? Wouldn't that be neat?

00:17:19 ◼   ► I would love that.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I mean, I imagine that my car, which probably costs less than half of yours, has CarPlay and it's pretty awesome. But remember guys, Tesla's perfect.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Anyway, so my car is wired CarPlay as most cars do. And they sell these little boxes. I definitely tweeted about it a while ago and I thought we talked about it on the show.

00:17:38 ◼   ► They have these boxes that are basically like bridges. And so you plug the box into the USB port and then it connects to the phone via, I think, Bluetooth.

00:17:47 ◼   ► I'm not confident I'm correct about that. And it basically gives you wireless CarPlay. And so in my 2 minutes of testing it seemed to work pretty well.

00:17:54 ◼   ► But I plan to be in the car several times over the next several days. And so I hope to have some more feedback about this next week. So we'll talk about it then.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Oh, I did forget to mention too. When I was in the waiting room at the dealer thing, I saw the Model Y for the first time.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I didn't drive it because it was just in the showroom. But it, I think, is going to be a really big hit. If it isn't already. It probably is.

00:18:18 ◼   ► But it seems like exactly, like you know how, like you look around the car market today, in America at least. The rest of the world has generally better taste.

00:18:27 ◼   ► But in America you look around the car market and it's pretty much dominated by a whole bunch of cars that are exactly the same car.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And it's this kind of like weird like short length wise, kind of tall, kind of crossover-y, kind of SUV kind of thing.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Every car in America is that right now. That's not a coincidence. That's what people buy. Like that's what everyone in America seems to want right now.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Again, I'm not entirely sure why but that's what happens. The Model Y seems to fit that exactly. The Model 3 has already been a huge hit.

00:19:03 ◼   ► The Model Y basically takes the Model 3 and pulls it upwards slightly and gives it way more trunk space because it gives it a hatchback like the Model S.

00:19:13 ◼   ► It looks like it's going to be a huge hit. I have a feeling like, you know, as I'm riding around my S which feels like a dinosaur by comparison, although a dinosaur I absolutely love still.

00:19:24 ◼   ► I can look at this and say like, yeah, they're going to be busy for a while. And whatever, like if you're hoping for something from Tesla like the Cybertruck or the Semi or whatever else, something in the future that is not like really scheduled for production yet.

00:19:37 ◼   ► I don't know how they're going to have time to make anything else instead of spending all of their manufacturing capacity on the Model 3 and Model Y.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Because they're going to sell an absolute ton of the Ys in addition to the absolute ton of the 3s they've already been selling. So I think this is going to do very well for them.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I guess you didn't see my link I put in our little neutral Slack channel showing the Ford quote unquote Mustang Mach-E beating a Model Y in a range test. The EPA rating for the Model Y is 326 miles and the EPA rating for the Mach-E is 270.

00:20:13 ◼   ► But they just ran the cars next to each other on like a 250 mile trip and the Model Y ran out of juice before completing it and the Mach-E did not. They're both incredibly ugly, disgusting SUV cars that I don't like.

00:20:26 ◼   ► But I think the Model Y might actually have some legit competition because that Ford is just as ugly which people love. It's better range apparently in real life and I think it's also cheaper.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Because unlike Tesla I think Ford hasn't, it's like subsidies from the government haven't expired so you get the $7500 tax credit on the Mustang Mach-E.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Anyway, we'll have a link in the show notes to this video and you can watch it. It looks like it's pretty well done. Obviously there are many variables with range but I think if you watch the video they go over lots of little nuances of the different charging networks and the various pros and cons.

00:21:08 ◼   ► But I think the Model Y at this point might actually have some competition if you like this kind of car which I don't. And neither does Marco and Casey kind of drives one of these cars but he drives the gigantic sneaker version so I guess it's a little bit different.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Did you hear that? Did you hear my eyes rolling right out of my head because that's what just happened. I can't continue the show. I can't see anything.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Marco is right. This is what everybody buys. This is basically the default car which makes lots and lots of people happy but not me.

00:21:40 ◼   ► So I have to look harder and harder to find a car that is even remotely the right type of car. In terms of number of doors, shape, everything because everyone wants little crossover SUV things and I don't like them at all. I don't.

00:21:57 ◼   ► I think I also I'm pretty sure like I kind of decided as I was driving around my car a lot this last week or two for reasons. I kind of decided I think I'm going to buy it out at the end of the lease because looking at what Tesla is doing.

00:22:13 ◼   ► You're afraid of the steering wheel. You can get around one I bet. It'll be fine.

00:22:19 ◼   ► Well but they messed up the gear shifter. They kind of messed up the center console in a way I don't love. It just seems like the Model S that I have is the last car Tesla designed to be driven by the driver.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Everything they've designed since then including from the 3 forward including the current S, the current 10, and the 3 and the Y. All of those cars seem to have been designed primarily to drive themselves.

00:22:50 ◼   ► But the thing is they don't primarily drive themselves yet and they might never do that. I know full self driving is in beta and the beta is amazing and all this stuff. Yeah I know. I've seen the videos too.

00:23:00 ◼   ► But in actual day to day use of actually owning these cars they're still mostly driven by you.

00:23:07 ◼   ► And the Model S that I have seems to be the last car Tesla made that was designed to actually accommodate that and be designed for that primarily.

00:23:15 ◼   ► And I just like that better. It's a car that is a really. It's my favorite car I've ever had. It's so incredibly nice to drive.

00:23:24 ◼   ► And at no point do I feel like I am fighting against the design of the car. Whereas the new ones I don't like the center screen only on the 3 and the Y.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And I don't like the stock removals on the new S and 10. And I don't like that they removed the sunroof also on the new S and 10 which I used this entire time.

00:23:43 ◼   ► It just seems like they're going in a direction that I think they'll course correct at some point. But that hasn't happened yet. And so I'm very happy to keep the one I have I think.

00:23:51 ◼   ► And now you've got it all dented and scratched up and everything.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I know. I still don't have an estimate on the bodywork. We're going to see how that goes.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean well I don't know how financially whether it makes more sense for you to buy this car out and fix it yourself.

00:24:04 ◼   ► Either way you have a. It's really yours now because now you've damaged it or someone has damaged it for you as you said.

00:24:09 ◼   ► Yes.

00:24:11 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Mack Weldon. I love Mack Weldon clothes. There's always so much I want to tell you in these reads and I run out of time because I love their stuff so much and it's so good.

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00:26:19 ◼   ► Alright, shall we start with follow up? Oh my word. Alright, Jane Manchin Wong writes, Clubhouse no longer requires contacts access for sending invites in the latest update.

00:26:29 ◼   ► You can now directly enter the phone number or use the iOS contact picture which does not require contacts access in order to send an invite. I have not yet tried this but I've heard several people reporting this.

00:26:39 ◼   ► So that's good news. I dig that you can do this by hand. I'm still a little iffy on the fact that it's using phone numbers but here we are. But at least you can do it in a less gross way.

00:26:50 ◼   ► It's interesting because apps like Clubhouse, especially Clubhouse specifically appealing to the Silicon Valley, VC, startup, whatever. The subset of people who are using the app are exactly the type of people who might be disproportionately annoyed by giving access to their contacts.

00:27:10 ◼   ► In general, in the mass population, that would probably go without most people worrying. If this was the hot app and everyone was on it, they would just say yeah yeah okay and tap their way through it.

00:27:23 ◼   ► But because it's a bunch of nerds who are probably like me, simply refusing to give access to their contacts, they weren't getting as much social engagement as they would have expected.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Because I never invited anybody. Because I couldn't without giving access to my contacts. So it makes some kind of sense that they would actually notice this and say what are we trying to do here?

00:27:42 ◼   ► We're trying to get access to their contacts to try to bootstrap our network but if they're refusing to do it because it seems too onerous and over the top, these sensitive nerds who care about giving access to their contacts, it's not working.

00:27:55 ◼   ► So why don't we just do what we should do in the first place which is let people invite who they want to invite. Let them use the iOS contact picker which lets them pick a contact from their list without us seeing what they are and we only get the one phone number that we're being sent the invite to.

00:28:08 ◼   ► Good job Clubhouse doing a fairly fast reaction to a poor design choice. You can follow the link in the show notes to the tweet that shows, Jane's tweet that shows the screenshots of what the interface looks like.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I think it even looks better than the old interface. No more scary dialogue saying give access to your contacts or go away.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Moving right along, Apple Arm and TSMC, I think that John you probably have some thoughts about this but somebody, I think it was Mark Hagen pointed to a good but very long write up, unfortunately on Medium.

00:28:39 ◼   ► But nevertheless, write up on why or some theories as to why the M1 is so darn fast and it gets into a lot of technical details. However, it does a pretty good job of giving an appropriate amount of explanation as to what Eric Engheim is the author was talking about without spending three hours on tangents explaining, you know, here's the fundamental knowledge you need to understand every nuance of what I just said.

00:29:06 ◼   ► So I breezed through this and it was a pretty good article. So we're gonna put that in the show notes. But John, I think you have other thoughts as well.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Slight disagree on that article, which I'll get to in a second. This was about last, it was Ask ATP last episode about like, who is the sprinkles? Is it Arm with Apple sprinkles? Is it Apple with Arm sprinkles? I don't remember if the sprinkles were good or not.

00:29:28 ◼   ► The idea was trying to apportion credit for Apple's amazing chips in their phones and now in their Macs. Who gets most of the credit for that? And our conclusion, I think collectively, was Apple gets most of the credit.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Apple is the most important part of that formula. And a couple people pointed out that one other ingredient that we should talk about that we didn't mention last time is fabbing, right? TSMC is doing the fabbing for Apple. Intel used to be the king of fabs. They are not anymore.

00:29:58 ◼   ► They haven't been for a long time. It's been a sad decline for them. Fabbing is short for fabrication. It is how your chips get made and each new process size corresponds to how small they can make the little things on the chips.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And in general, the smaller they can make the little transistors, the better that is overall. And TSMC is currently in the lead. And Apple has a lot of money and they use that money to pay TSMC to make their chips using the best process technology that TSMC has to offer.

00:30:27 ◼   ► In fact, Apple has so much money that they often buy up as much of TSMC's capacity as they possibly can to say, "Here is a huge bucket of money. Make our chips with your best stuff and whatever you have left you can sell to other people."

00:30:39 ◼   ► But if you have no more capacity left, as in the factory is entirely engaged making chips for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, well, you know, Apple doesn't care. In fact, that's great for Apple because its competitors can't use the latest process size for their chips, right?

00:30:53 ◼   ► Now, TSMC, just like ARM, are things that are in theory accessible to everybody. Anyone can make an ARM chip. The whole ARM's whole business is we will license you, the CPU architecture, CPU designs, and so on and so forth.

00:31:05 ◼   ► TSMC's whole business is, "We'll make your chips for you. We don't have our own chips. We just make people's chips. You pay us money, we make your chip." That's the whole business that they're in.

00:31:13 ◼   ► So you would think TSMC, like ARM, would cancel out, right? Because everyone has access to ARM. That was the whole point with Apple being great. Everyone has access to ARM. Qualcomm has access to ARM. Qualcomm chips stink. Apples are great. They're both ARM chips.

00:31:27 ◼   ► So ARM is not the special sauce here. It's Apple, or the sprinkles, or whatever the hell it is. TSMC is similar in that they will fab anything for everybody.

00:31:35 ◼   ► But like I said, unlike ARM, which ARM will just give you licenses, there's an unlimited amount of ARM licenses. They can make a new copy of that ARM license without any cost to them.

00:31:47 ◼   ► TSMC has limited capacity. And when Apple hogs it, that doesn't leave as much for everybody else.

00:31:53 ◼   ► That said, most of Apple's good ARM competitors are either on the same process size, maybe not done by TSMC, maybe done by another fab, or close.

00:32:04 ◼   ► So the fab advantage that Apple may have is a factor, but I don't think it is the deciding factor. So if you had to rank these, I would say Apple is the most important factor, because they're really good at making chips, and the people who are doing that at Apple are doing a great job.

00:32:18 ◼   ► The second most important factor is probably the fab access, in that if Apple didn't have access to the best process, its chips wouldn't be as good. They would only be 170% better instead of 200% better, right? And then a distant third is ARM.

00:32:33 ◼   ► And as for that article, it reminded me of the sort of RISC vs. CISC wars from the early 2000s on the Ars Technica website. I'll put a link in the show notes, which is a 10-year retrospective on RISC vs. CISC.

00:32:46 ◼   ► If you read the article, it falls into some of the same traps. I don't know if most people are going to do this. If you went back and read all the RISC vs. CISC articles on Ars Technica for that 10-year span, you would see them laboriously going through all the proposed advantages of RISC and how that works out in the real world.

00:33:07 ◼   ► So lots of the things about RISC. It's clearly better than CISC because reasons X, Y, and Z. And then you look at how real world chips performed and how the distinction between RISC and CISC is not as clear cut as you think it is when it comes to actual chips.

00:33:19 ◼   ► I think that article is a little bit of a naive view of what makes ARM or Apple's chips good. It has some good fundamentals that you can learn about it and has some interesting points, but it leans a little bit too heavily on the magic of RISC is just better because X.

00:33:34 ◼   ► We have decades of experience showing that RISC is not just better. It's the individual chip that makes it right. PowerPC chips are RISC and Intel chips were CISC and Intel was crushing them. Yes, they had a fab advantage, but their instruction set was terrible by any technical view.

00:33:52 ◼   ► But that was mitigated and as the number of transistors in chips go up, the mitigation that you have to do for ugly instruction set becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the overall chip. It becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of your power budget.

00:34:05 ◼   ► And therefore a smaller and smaller factor in your designs. And so all the supposed advantages that you have in RISC versus CISC can be overwhelmed by other advantages like a fab size advantage or better or just having smarter designers.

00:34:18 ◼   ► I would take what you read in that article with a grain of salt, but if you've never read anything like that before, it's good to get a lay of the land. Just don't buy into the RISC hype too much.

00:34:27 ◼   ► That's fair. It was an article worth reading even if you disagreed with it, I think. And yeah, I remember the RISC and CISC debate, especially when PowerPC was a big thing. And it was interesting even way back then.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Alright, so a lot of people had a lot of feedback with regard to our lamentations about family sharing with regard to photos. And a lot of people said in varying degrees of politeness, "What is wrong with you idiots? This is what shared photo albums is for."

00:34:58 ◼   ► And I can understand why people were saying that, but that is not at all what I want. And I'm pretty sure it's not at all what Jon wants. And I don't know if Marco really has a horse in this race.

00:35:07 ◼   ► So Jon, would you like to explain perhaps differently, maybe better, what it is you would like? What is it you want, Jon?

00:35:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't do a good enough job explaining the complaint. The whole premise was that we get this complaint all the time, and so it's easy for me to think that everyone knows what I'm talking about because they're all the people writing in saying, "Hey, I've got this problem. How do I solve it?"

00:35:27 ◼   ► And we don't have a good answer. But there are lots of people who don't have the problem, so I should have explained it a little bit better. But first, iCloud shared photo albums. This is a feature I use, and this is a feature I think mostly does a good job at what it's meant to do.

00:35:40 ◼   ► If you make a shared album in iCloud Photos or whatever, you can put photos into it, and in fact you can make it so that other people can also put photos into it, and it's a great way to share photos with other people.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Usually you're sharing it with people who are outside your family or outside your immediate family, but it doesn't matter. There's no family relationship implied or required. It's independent of Apple's family support. In fact, it predates it.

00:36:11 ◼   ► And so, the general thing of "Hey, we went on a family vacation. Grandma wants to see pictures of the kids at Disney World." Assuming grandma has an iPhone or a web browser, because there's a web interface too, but the web interface is kind of cruddy. But anyway, especially if grandma has an iPad or an iPhone, it's really easy and convenient to just make a shared album of our Disney trip, and then everyone who went on the Disney trip puts the five or six photos they thought were good from the Disney trip into the shared album.

00:36:35 ◼   ► And then on grandma's phone, a little notification comes up and says, "New pictures have been added to your..." First little thing that will come up that says, "You're invited to a shared album," and you click accept. And then any time photos are added, a little notification comes, and you just tap on it, and you see the pictures. It's great.

00:36:48 ◼   ► This is what I use shared albums for. For similar things. When we go on vacations or see pictures of the kids or whatever, we have a shared album that all the grandparents and interested aunts and uncles and everybody and cousins are all in, and you throw photos into it and they can see them.

00:37:03 ◼   ► I know it's confusing because that's an example of sharing photos, right? And they're called shared photo albums. So what's the problem? You're sharing, right?

00:37:12 ◼   ► What I was talking about, and what the problem everybody has with their Apple's photos not understanding families, is sharing in the sense of shared photo libraries within the family, within the immediate family.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Usually mom and dad or whoever the parents are, right? Or maybe the kids as well, but just within the immediate family. And what they're not doing is sharing photos with each other to say, "Oh, here's pictures of our identification. Check these out."

00:37:39 ◼   ► What they're trying to do instead is have all of their inputs go into a shared photo library. Now, what's the difference between a library and an album? This is a distinction that I think Casey doesn't yet fully grok, which is why he has a system that he has.

00:37:55 ◼   ► A photo library in Apple's sense, in their implementation, is a place where your pictures go. You take pictures and you put them in there. You either go in there from your phone or whatever, or you take pictures with your big camera and you import them, right?

00:38:08 ◼   ► And what you've got in there is the original picture, plus any edits you have made to it. You've cropped it, you've resized it, you've rotated it, you've made adjustments to it, right?

00:38:17 ◼   ► Plus all of the face recognition data, plus any tags that you've added to, which is a feature maybe nobody uses but they exist, you can tag it with whatever. Plus, of course, all the EXIF data and the geotagging and the lens and the camera and the date and all that other information.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And then whatever album you file it in, if you file it into a little folder or whatever, right? All of that is what makes a photo library. When you share that into a shared album, most of that is left behind, right?

00:38:43 ◼   ► I'll get into the limits of shared photo albums and Apple's limitation, but in general, you're just trying to share the picture. But you're not sharing your photo library. They don't have access to your edits. They can't tweak your exposure adjustment. They can't change the crop. They can't see the face recognition.

00:38:57 ◼   ► They can't adjust the tags. They can't refile it into a different thing because you're not sharing your photo library. You're just sharing the picture with them.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Hey, check out this picture from our location. Sharing the library lets the entire family cooperate to manage the presumably hundreds of thousands of photos that make up a photo library.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Doing the edits, picking the favorites, cropping them, making sure the faces get recognized, assembling them to, you know, making a smart folder or whatever to make a bunch of pictures that you're eventually going to upload to Shutterfly to make the yearly album.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Like photo library stuff. When only one person can own the quote unquote family library, that is the problem we're trying to solve here. That now everyone has to funnel everything into that and you have to log in as the person who owns the library.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And that's where you have to do all of that work. And other people have their own little islands of libraries, but you can't do the work there because all the photos are in the library that's owned by whoever is a designated library family owner.

00:39:50 ◼   ► So it's the distinction between sharing and sharing as in sharing outside the family or sharing within or whatever sharing in the small circle and sharing in the wider circle.

00:39:59 ◼   ► And then album, which is just here some pictures and the library, which is your photos plus all the metadata and all the edits and the original and all of the organization you're doing to it.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Now, some more things you should know about iCloud shared photo albums.

00:40:14 ◼   ► They are fairly limited, right? So even if you don't care about any of that stuff I mentioned, you're just like, I'm just going to use the family shared photo album that will solve my problem.

00:40:21 ◼   ► I don't think you will, at least not for very long.

00:40:24 ◼   ► First of all, shared albums have a limit of 5000 items per album. So if you think you're ever going to have more than 5000 photos, a family shared album is not going to work.

00:40:33 ◼   ► And if you don't think you're gonna have more than 5000 photos, you might not have been alive very long because you will.

00:40:39 ◼   ► In general, you tend not to delete your pictures. Most people don't delete their pictures. I don't need to see my 16th birthday anymore. I'll just delete that when I turn 18.

00:40:48 ◼   ► You probably won't or you probably shouldn't anyway. And then when you have kids, forget it. All bets are off with the pictures.

00:40:54 ◼   ► 5000 is like a month of your first born. That's nothing.

00:40:58 ◼   ► The maximum number of shared albums you can have is you can have 200 of them and you can only subscribe to 200 of them.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Max video quality in an album is 720p. Max photo size in an album is 248 pixels in the largest dimension.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So you are getting lesser quality, recompressed, limited number of pictures.

00:41:18 ◼   ► And of course you lose all of the edits plus the originals and everything. You lose all of the metadata that you may have like tags and keywords and faces and whether it's your favorite. You lose all of that.

00:41:28 ◼   ► So it is a lossy, limited, and again, this is probably appropriate if you're just trying to share photos with your wider circle of people who are interested in them.

00:41:36 ◼   ► They don't need the original. They don't need the full res. Maybe 720p video is a little bit rough. Maybe they would like to have a little higher res video than that.

00:41:43 ◼   ► And obviously Apple can adjust these things. But you will eventually run into the 5000 limit.

00:41:48 ◼   ► To give an example, my brother has had a shared album. He was sharing pictures of his kids. But his problem was he just kept having kids.

00:41:54 ◼   ► And he hit the 5000 photo limit. So instead of being like, here's pictures of the boys, the boys shared photo album, now there had to be like every year there would be the boys 2015, the boys 2016, the boys 2017.

00:42:08 ◼   ► Because you'd fill up the album eventually if you just, you know. Anyway.

00:42:12 ◼   ► So shared photo albums are a good feature for what they do, but they are not what I'm asking for and they are not the solution to the problem of having an entire family collaborate to work on their shared photo library together.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Rather than designating a single member of that family to own the shared photo library and then having everyone have to somehow funnel their photos from their devices and their cameras and their private libraries into the shared one.

00:42:37 ◼   ► It's really really tough. And I understand, especially after a bunch of people wrote in, how hard this can be.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Because I think I fell into the trap that a lot of seemingly Apple people fall into.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Which is, oh well, you know, you have you and your wife and your 2.3 kids and that's the way it works.

00:42:59 ◼   ► And people quickly pointed out, okay well great, what if you get a divorce or what if something else dramatic in your family happens.

00:43:08 ◼   ► How do you know who controls what and where does this all go?

00:43:12 ◼   ► Write your names in all your books.

00:43:14 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:43:15 ◼   ► Someday you're going to go ten rounds.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I'm sure this is a reference I'm missing.

00:43:20 ◼   ► I don't know the rest of the line. Chat room help me out.

00:43:22 ◼   ► That's alright.

00:43:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I sure do.

00:43:24 ◼   ► I think John wrote in the show notes, family photo libraries are hard. And that's very true.

00:43:29 ◼   ► I mean there are a lot more complexities here than I think I had initially thought about at first glance.

00:43:34 ◼   ► But nevertheless, it seems like this should be, if not completely conquerable, it should be better than it is today.

00:43:43 ◼   ► And I didn't bring it up last week and a couple of people called us out on it and I regret not having brought it up.

00:43:50 ◼   ► But even though it's not an apples to apples comparison, like 1Password for families is really really good and does this really really well.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Again, I acknowledge it's not apples to apples, but with 1Password for families, and I don't think they've sponsored but they might have in the past.

00:44:05 ◼   ► They haven't.

00:44:06 ◼   ► Okay, there you go. Well they should.

00:44:07 ◼   ► But nevertheless, I could not say enough good things about 1Password.

00:44:12 ◼   ► And 1Password for families is a subscription service where basically everyone has their own 1Password, you know, this is a repository to hold all of your passwords and so on.

00:44:23 ◼   ► Everyone has their own 1Password vault, but then you can have shared vaults, which is to say you can have shared passwords.

00:44:30 ◼   ► So, I'm trying to think of a good example.

00:44:32 ◼   ► So like logins for like doctors and things like that.

00:44:35 ◼   ► Aaron and I have in our shared vault, so either one of us can log into the pediatrician's website and see what's the latest thing is for one of the kids or what have you.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Or schools, you know, what Declan's grades are these days.

00:44:47 ◼   ► Or even to give another example, I don't even use 1Password, but to give another example, say you're a household and you have a Netflix subscription.

00:44:55 ◼   ► Somebody signed up for Netflix.

00:44:57 ◼   ► Maybe it was you, maybe it was your spouse, right?

00:44:59 ◼   ► But whoever it was, there's just one email address and password, right?

00:45:03 ◼   ► And so say it's 2007 or whenever Netflix came out and I'm like, "Oh, Netflix is a great service. I'm going to sign up for it."

00:45:09 ◼   ► I enter my email address, I make an account, I give them my credit card, great, now we have Netflix.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Now my wife wants to sign into Netflix on her, you know, laptop upstairs.

00:45:19 ◼   ► She's got to say, "What was the Netflix password?"

00:45:22 ◼   ► And if you use good passwords, you don't have it off the top of your head.

00:45:25 ◼   ► "Oh, it's in my password keychain."

00:45:26 ◼   ► "Well, it's not in mine."

00:45:27 ◼   ► Like every service is like that.

00:45:29 ◼   ► It's another family type thing of like, "Yeah, probably only one person in the household is going to sign up for Netflix."

00:45:34 ◼   ► The two adults aren't going to each have their own accounts, which means as soon as one person signs up for Netflix,

00:45:40 ◼   ► what you want is that Netflix login information to be available to all adults in the household so everyone can sign in.

00:45:47 ◼   ► And that's exactly the problem that 1Password is solving.

00:45:49 ◼   ► And you're right, that it's easier and it's just a username and a password and not thousands of photos.

00:45:53 ◼   ► But it's exactly the same situation.

00:45:55 ◼   ► That there are things in a household that one person does, like I took the picture with my camera,

00:46:01 ◼   ► but that become owned, would be properly owned by default by everyone in the household.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is a solvable problem to at least some degree.

00:46:10 ◼   ► And I haven't played with Google Photos implementation of this in a long, long, long time.

00:46:15 ◼   ► But I believe that there is, there are affordances for this sort of thing,

00:46:21 ◼   ► both when you're temporarily in the same place for like a party or something like that,

00:46:24 ◼   ► or if you're just members of the same family.

00:46:27 ◼   ► But take that with a grain of salt, I haven't looked at it in a while.

00:46:30 ◼   ► So nevertheless, it just seems like there should be more than nothing here.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And what we're getting from Apple is nothing.

00:46:38 ◼   ► And it's very, very frustrating.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Yeah, people complain that we're not actually getting nothing, but we've got to share albums.

00:46:44 ◼   ► But I honestly think that shared albums are solving a different problem and doing a pretty good job of it.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Like they are the, you know, I keep saying like immediate family and extended family,

00:46:53 ◼   ► but it's just like smaller circle and bigger circle.

00:46:55 ◼   ► You want your sort of inner circle, perhaps, to share a photo library,

00:46:59 ◼   ► but you want a much wider circle with which you can share select photos.

00:47:04 ◼   ► And those people don't need library access, they just want to see the pictures, right?

00:47:08 ◼   ► So I think that they're for two different purposes.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And I put this item in here, photo libraries are hard because a lot of people wrote in about that.

00:47:13 ◼   ► I tried to make that point last episode, right?

00:47:16 ◼   ► This is not an easy problem.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Photos are big, lots of weird policy decisions, family structures change,

00:47:22 ◼   ► ownership is difficult to control.

00:47:23 ◼   ► How do you make a UI for this?

00:47:24 ◼   ► How do you make it sensible, right?

00:47:26 ◼   ► Two things I'll add about that.

00:47:27 ◼   ► One, in the degenerate case, it works exactly like it does now.

00:47:30 ◼   ► If you don't care about any of this stuff, you don't have to.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Totally independent Apple IDs, totally independent iCloud photo libraries,

00:47:36 ◼   ► no loss in functionality, no loss in simplicity.

00:47:38 ◼   ► It's exactly the way it is now, right?

00:47:40 ◼   ► That's how this should be implemented is.

00:47:42 ◼   ► If you don't care about this stuff, don't do it.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Works just like it does now.

00:47:45 ◼   ► No problem, right?

00:47:46 ◼   ► Second thing I'll add is what I said last week.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I wasn't expecting this overnight.

00:47:50 ◼   ► This is a really hard problem.

00:47:51 ◼   ► It takes a long time to work on.

00:47:53 ◼   ► It has a lot of foundational components that need to be laid down

00:47:55 ◼   ► and you have to really think about it and do well.

00:47:57 ◼   ► But I think my feelings about this are best expressed by a clip

00:48:00 ◼   ► from the movie "Gross Point Blank" that will be in the show notes.

00:48:03 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by FlatFile.

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00:49:08 ◼   ► That's flatfile.io.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Our thanks to FlatFile for sponsoring our show.

00:49:13 ◼   ► We also had some feedback with regard to getting your data out of iCloud Photos.

00:49:22 ◼   ► We had talked about how you can ask for Apple to ship all of your data to Google Photos.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Ezekiel Ellen writes, "You can download your iCloud Photos

00:49:31 ◼   ► with the same privacy.apple.com as a zip.

00:49:34 ◼   ► It will break it up into file sizes that you choose, 1, 2, 5, 10, or 25 gigs."

00:49:37 ◼   ► Which is pretty cool. I didn't know that.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So you can check that out if you so desire.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Igor Makarov writes, "The photo transfer feature discussed in the last episode

00:49:46 ◼   ► is part of the Data Transfer Project, which is at datatransferproject.dev,

00:49:50 ◼   ► which is an open source protocol maintained by the member companies with multiple adapters."

00:49:54 ◼   ► And we'll put some links in the show notes.

00:49:56 ◼   ► The members are Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Igor writes, "I've transferred a Facebook photo library to Google recently,

00:50:01 ◼   ► and the only things that I had a problem with were the lack of proper progress indication

00:50:04 ◼   ► and missing timestamps on videos, but the photo timestamps were okay."

00:50:08 ◼   ► A brief real-time follow-up, just so I don't have to do this next week.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Max photo size and shared photo libraries is 2,048 pixels in the widest dimension,

00:50:16 ◼   ► 5,400 pixels for panoramas. I think I said 248 last time.

00:50:19 ◼   ► They're not that bad.

00:50:21 ◼   ► Good deal. We're sorry for the error.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Hung Nguyen writes, "The easiest way to back up your Gmail account is to use gotyourback,

00:50:29 ◼   ► or GYB, which will back up your entire Gmail or G Suite/Workspace email account

00:50:34 ◼   ► into a directory hierarchy of mbox files, which you can then use to restore to the same

00:50:43 ◼   ► or a different Gmail or G Suite/Workspace mailbox or group.

00:50:48 ◼   ► GYB can also upload any mbox file, including from Google Takeout, to your Gmail."

00:50:53 ◼   ► And then Hung continues to write, "In my day job, I use it all the time to archive off emails

00:50:57 ◼   ► of employees who leave the company, etc. I've also had occasion to use it to re-upload

00:51:01 ◼   ► an entire email account when employees come back.

00:51:03 ◼   ► In G Suite or Workspace--" I keep trying to say "workspace."

00:51:06 ◼   ► "In G Suite or Workspace, I can create and use a service account,

00:51:10 ◼   ► so I don't even need the user's credentials."

00:51:12 ◼   ► This is the companion to GIM, which lets you manage G Suite or Workspace from the command line.

00:51:19 ◼   ► And these two utilities are extremely useful if you do any amount of work around Google accounts.

00:51:24 ◼   ► You can also see something similar at thehorcrux.com.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And we will put all these links in the show notes.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Yeah, lots of suggestions. Those are just two of them.

00:51:32 ◼   ► Like, tools that will pull down your email to get a local copy.

00:51:36 ◼   ► I looked at a whole bunch of them.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Obviously, most of these tools want you to enter your credentials to get your email,

00:51:43 ◼   ► which is kind of scary.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Any time you take a third-party application and enter your mail credentials,

00:51:49 ◼   ► because your email is so essential to--

00:51:51 ◼   ► it's like the linchpin of security on the internet is whatever your official email address is.

00:51:56 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons I tend to use mail clients as my backups.

00:52:02 ◼   ► I looked at all these things, and I usually just wimp out.

00:52:06 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Eh, I'd rather just run Apple Mail

00:52:10 ◼   ► and use POP to pull my Gmail down through Apple Mail

00:52:14 ◼   ► and just never use it as a mail client."

00:52:16 ◼   ► Like, I just launch Apple Mail, it downloads my mail, and then I quit it.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And that's essentially doing a local backup of my mail.

00:52:21 ◼   ► And plus, I do use Google Takeout.

00:52:24 ◼   ► But I feel a little bit better about using a few well-known mail clients,

00:52:28 ◼   ► like Apple Mail or Google's own takeout service, than I do about third-party ones.

00:52:33 ◼   ► That said, a lot of people use these third-party ones and really like them.

00:52:35 ◼   ► So if you're interested in that, there's lots of GUI apps that do this.

00:52:39 ◼   ► There's lots of collections of Python scripts that do it.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Like, if you search GitHub, you'll find all sorts of things,

00:52:45 ◼   ► because these are mostly open protocols.

00:52:48 ◼   ► It may take a while to download all your mail.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I just recently realized that my Google Apps email address,

00:52:55 ◼   ► which is my primary email address,

00:52:56 ◼   ► I'm not that far away from my one-terabyte limit,

00:52:59 ◼   ► because it's all getting lumped together with Google Photos and my email

00:53:02 ◼   ► and so on and so forth.

00:53:04 ◼   ► You can buy more.

00:53:05 ◼   ► I know, but I don't know what I'm going to do.

00:53:07 ◼   ► I might just cancel Google Photos since I only have iPhone pictures in there.

00:53:12 ◼   ► And even though I like having 17 levels of redundancy John Syracuse-style,

00:53:16 ◼   ► I just -- I don't know.

00:53:18 ◼   ► I don't feel like, since their uploader is such trash last I looked anyway,

00:53:22 ◼   ► I feel like maybe I should just retire it.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that was another one of the tips.

00:53:26 ◼   ► Lots of other people had ideas of things you can use besides Google backup and sync

00:53:30 ◼   ► to upload photos to Google Photos,

00:53:33 ◼   ► because there were lots of suggestions that were, in theory, better,

00:53:35 ◼   ► because I mean it's not hard to be better, because that app is really garbage.

00:53:38 ◼   ► There were ones that even run on your phone,

00:53:40 ◼   ► if you don't mind burning your phone battery.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Like if you have iCloud photo library and the photos eventually get on your phone,

00:53:44 ◼   ► then they're available for these apps on your phone to upload to Google Photos.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Anyway, Google Photo backup and sync has been bad for a really long time.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Bad as in it performs poorly and I think it doesn't get all the photos.

00:53:57 ◼   ► There are utilities out there --

00:54:00 ◼   ► Kind of important.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Yeah, two major points on the program, right?

00:54:03 ◼   ► There are utilities out there that understand Apple's photo library structure.

00:54:08 ◼   ► Google's backup and sync does not.

00:54:09 ◼   ► It just finds JPEGs, right?

00:54:11 ◼   ► And it does an okay job of not uploading the thumbnails

00:54:13 ◼   ► and deduplicating and all that stuff, right?

00:54:15 ◼   ► But there are like third-party commercial utilities that purport to anyway,

00:54:20 ◼   ► understand the Apple photo library format,

00:54:23 ◼   ► and can do a better job of pulling all of your photos out

00:54:28 ◼   ► and sticking them into Google Photos if that's a thing you're interested in.

00:54:30 ◼   ► We also had some feedback from Soren with regard to why the iMac Pro was discontinued.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Marco, you had said recently, I guess last episode,

00:54:38 ◼   ► that Intel will sell Xeons forever and it probably wasn't the Xeon that was the problem.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And according to Soren, the narrator then said it was the Xeon.

00:54:45 ◼   ► So Intel has officially announced the discontinuation of the entire Skylake X HEDT and Xeon W2000 CPU families.

00:54:55 ◼   ► The move is primary due to the fact that said chips have been replaced by new parts,

00:54:58 ◼   ► which include the Cascade Lake X HEDT and Xeon W3000 series family,

00:55:04 ◼   ► which has been on the retail market for a while now.

00:55:06 ◼   ► The last shipments will be made on July 9th, 2021.

00:55:08 ◼   ► So in other words, Intel updated the CPUs a while ago, Apple never used them,

00:55:13 ◼   ► and they're stopping making the old ones.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Yeah, so July, the date is pretty coincidental,

00:55:18 ◼   ► Apple making this announcement and Intel saying the last shipment is July.

00:55:22 ◼   ► So there may have been other parts and other reasons,

00:55:25 ◼   ► but the Xeon discontinuation alone is enough reason for them to can it early.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Indeed, sad times, but it's understandable.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And I think that's it for follow-up. We made it.

00:55:36 ◼   ► All right.

00:55:37 ◼   ► I feel like I need a nap.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Speaking of sad times.

00:55:41 ◼   ► Aww.

00:55:42 ◼   ► You know, it's not sad for me, I never bought, I still haven't even heard one.

00:55:45 ◼   ► You gotta get one while supplies last.

00:55:47 ◼   ► This is the, this past two episodes have been the get one while supplies last episode.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Hey, Casey, good news, they're only available in white now.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Hooray.

00:55:59 ◼   ► Actually, to be honest, I'd probably get a black one if I were to get one, but that's all right.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Honestly, I only have white ones there. I think the white looks better.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Fair enough. All right, so what we're dancing around is that the full-size HomePod,

00:56:10 ◼   ► the OG HomePod has been discontinued.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Apple writes, "HomePod Mini has been a hit since its debut last fall,

00:56:16 ◼   ► offering customers amazing sound and intelligent assistant

00:56:19 ◼   ► and smart home control, all for just $99.

00:56:22 ◼   ► We're focusing our efforts on the HomePod Mini.

00:56:24 ◼   ► We are discontinuing the original HomePod.

00:56:26 ◼   ► It will continue to be available while supplies last through the Apple Online Store,

00:56:29 ◼   ► Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service

00:56:34 ◼   ► and support through AppleCare."

00:56:36 ◼   ► And you couldn't hear it when Casey read it,

00:56:38 ◼   ► but this is an official statement from Apple I pulled from this TechCrunch article

00:56:41 ◼   ► that we'll link in the show notes.

00:56:43 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure they copied and pasted it into this, so this is Apple.

00:56:46 ◼   ► "Apple wrote this text, and it contains a comma splice."

00:56:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I noticed that.

00:56:50 ◼   ► "We are discontinuing the original HomePod, comma,

00:56:53 ◼   ► it will continue to be available while supplies last," yada, yada, yada.

00:56:56 ◼   ► No, those are two sentences.

00:56:57 ◼   ► You can't just take them and stick a comma between them and say,

00:56:59 ◼   ► "I've made a new sentence out of two sentences by putting a comma between them."

00:57:02 ◼   ► That's called a comma splice. Don't do that.

00:57:05 ◼   ► And this is -- you almost never see, like, grammar or spelling mistakes from Apple,

00:57:11 ◼   ► like, official statements. Really weird.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I don't know what's going on over there.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Everyone's sad that they're discontinuing their iMac Pro and now the big HomePod.

00:57:21 ◼   ► But I think the big HomePod had so little effort put into it

00:57:24 ◼   ► that they couldn't even bother to proofread its discontinuation notice.

00:57:27 ◼   ► Well, so that's the thing about the home --

00:57:30 ◼   ► they get the big HomePod, the regular HomePod, the original HomePod,

00:57:33 ◼   ► the normal-size HomePod.

00:57:34 ◼   ► HomePod Max.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Oh, gosh. Right.

00:57:36 ◼   ► It's not. As many people pointed out,

00:57:38 ◼   ► they're going to have a product called Blank Mini, but there will be no blank,

00:57:41 ◼   ► so it's a mini version of a product that doesn't exist.

00:57:44 ◼   ► The rumors about the HomePod, the big HomePod,

00:57:49 ◼   ► were that it was part of the effort that was involved with, like,

00:57:53 ◼   ► Apple making its own television, right?

00:57:55 ◼   ► You know, some of the research going into, like,

00:57:57 ◼   ► home audio/video equipment, sort of medium to high-end --

00:58:01 ◼   ► like, if Apple ever actually made a television set that, in theory,

00:58:05 ◼   ► some of the work done to make a compact, good-sounding speaker

00:58:10 ◼   ► that didn't take up a lot of room could have, you know,

00:58:13 ◼   ► eventually got folded into the HomePod.

00:58:14 ◼   ► This is -- so goes the rumor, right, that Apple decided,

00:58:16 ◼   ► "We're not going to make a TV,

00:58:18 ◼   ► but we did a bunch of research on this speaker stuff,

00:58:20 ◼   ► so maybe we can make this little thing.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Oh, and it also looks like these, you know,

00:58:24 ◼   ► cylindrical voice assistants are a thing now,

00:58:27 ◼   ► so why don't we take some of the work we did for the TV set,

00:58:29 ◼   ► which we never shipped,

00:58:30 ◼   ► and then smush it together into something,

00:58:32 ◼   ► and now we've got our own cylinder that we can sell,

00:58:34 ◼   ► and it's really expensive and big and, you know, whatever," right?

00:58:38 ◼   ► And that would explain some of the muddled history of this product

00:58:41 ◼   ► and why it sounds better than it really needs to,

00:58:44 ◼   ► but what this rumor doesn't explain,

00:58:46 ◼   ► assuming it's true at all, is, "Okay,

00:58:48 ◼   ► but then why did the thing just have a power cord hanging out of it?"

00:58:51 ◼   ► Because if you're going to sell any kind of AV equipment

00:58:54 ◼   ► for a theatrical television set or whatever,

00:58:56 ◼   ► wouldn't it have some kind of I/O?

00:58:59 ◼   ► Like, in general, if you're trying to sell people

00:59:03 ◼   ► audio-visual equipment of any kind,

00:59:06 ◼   ► it's important that you either sell the whole setup,

00:59:10 ◼   ► in which case you can kind of do whatever you want,

00:59:12 ◼   ► if you want to say, like, "Just buy all the stuff from us,

00:59:14 ◼   ► and it will all work together."

00:59:15 ◼   ► Sony used to do that.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Like, "Did Marco do you have one of those sets

00:59:18 ◼   ► that was like the Sony, like, surround sound TV

00:59:21 ◼   ► entertainment center thing that came with, like,

00:59:23 ◼   ► all the speakers and the subwoofer and the amplifier in one big box?"

00:59:27 ◼   ► Yeah, well, sort of.

00:59:28 ◼   ► It was actually in the speakers, but, yeah, it's close enough.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and still that would hook up to a TV,

00:59:33 ◼   ► but, like, that -- and generally that approach is frowned upon,

00:59:35 ◼   ► but it's a thing that some people find convenient,

00:59:37 ◼   ► and it's a product that you can make.

00:59:38 ◼   ► So you either sell the whole thing, or you sell components,

00:59:41 ◼   ► in which case they have to connect with standard things.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Now, you could argue Bluetooth is standard,

00:59:46 ◼   ► but especially when they made the HomePod,

00:59:48 ◼   ► and I would argue even now,

00:59:49 ◼   ► if you're trying to do a home theater setup,

00:59:52 ◼   ► you probably want to buy --

00:59:53 ◼   ► unless you're talking about, like, the back surround speakers --

00:59:56 ◼   ► if you're buying something that's connected to the television,

00:59:58 ◼   ► you probably want it to be connected with wires, if you can.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Just the idea of AV equipment

01:00:03 ◼   ► that only plugs in with a power cord, and that's it,

01:00:06 ◼   ► is hanging a lot on software --

01:00:09 ◼   ► eternal software support to make that thing work.

01:00:12 ◼   ► As Jason Snell pointed out, he's got an iPod Hi-Fi,

01:00:15 ◼   ► which young listeners won't even know what the heck that is,

01:00:17 ◼   ► but picture a boombox with a place for an iPod to stick in the top,

01:00:22 ◼   ► and it sticks there with a giant -- what is it, 16-pin?

01:00:25 ◼   ► I don't even remember how many pins were on it.

01:00:26 ◼   ► -10? -Oh.

01:00:27 ◼   ► -12? -No.

01:00:29 ◼   ► -We're all so old.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Chat room, shame us by telling you 30-pin.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Thank you. -30-pin!

01:00:34 ◼   ► -There we go. -Golly.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Man, we're a bunch of idiots.

01:00:37 ◼   ► I was the closest without going over.

01:00:39 ◼   ► Right rules.

01:00:41 ◼   ► Well done. Well done.

01:00:43 ◼   ► The iPod Hi-Fi was like -- it had an amplifier and two speakers

01:00:47 ◼   ► and a place to connect your iPod, but, importantly,

01:00:49 ◼   ► it also had a place for standard audio input.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So Jason Snell continues to use his iPod Hi-Fi

01:00:55 ◼   ► because it just acts as a powered speaker.

01:00:58 ◼   ► I set a pair of stereo-powered speakers,

01:01:01 ◼   ► and the interfaces for analog audio to AV equipment

01:01:07 ◼   ► doesn't change that often.

01:01:09 ◼   ► And so the iPod Hi-Fi may end up outliving his full-size HomePod

01:01:13 ◼   ► because the full-size HomePod has no way to get audio into it

01:01:16 ◼   ► except for these various wireless protocols

01:01:18 ◼   ► combined with the software that runs on the HomePod.

01:01:21 ◼   ► And if any of that becomes unsupported

01:01:23 ◼   ► or changes in some way, the HomePod,

01:01:25 ◼   ► you may be left with, like, a very heavy

01:01:27 ◼   ► 300-and-something-dollar plastic and rubber paperweight

01:01:32 ◼   ► with a power cord coming out of it.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And a ring under it on the table.

01:01:36 ◼   ► Yeah. It is a very --

01:01:38 ◼   ► It is an ill-advised piece of audio/video equipment.

01:01:42 ◼   ► And, obviously, it was a very ill-advised voice assistant

01:01:45 ◼   ► because its value as a voice assistant

01:01:50 ◼   ► depends heavily on the voice assistant part,

01:01:53 ◼   ► which is independent of the audio quality.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And if you really care about audio quality,

01:01:57 ◼   ► you probably want something that works together

01:02:01 ◼   ► with a cohesive system.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Like, I mean, Sonos is the obvious competitor.

01:02:05 ◼   ► Sonos does a whole bunch of things

01:02:07 ◼   ► that will integrate both with each other,

01:02:09 ◼   ► and also they will integrate with audio/video equipment,

01:02:11 ◼   ► like if you buy a television set or even if you have a receiver.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Like, it can all sort of work together.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And the HomePod was just this little island with a power cord

01:02:19 ◼   ► that was not a very good voice assistant --

01:02:21 ◼   ► not its fault, that's Siri's fault,

01:02:23 ◼   ► but it's part of the package --

01:02:25 ◼   ► was a pretty good speaker for its size.

01:02:27 ◼   ► But what can you use that pretty good speaker with?

01:02:29 ◼   ► I just was listening to a podcast

01:02:31 ◼   ► where Mike Hurley was complaining

01:02:33 ◼   ► that he likes to use his HomePod with his television,

01:02:35 ◼   ► but it's so unreliable that, like,

01:02:37 ◼   ► the audio would cut out or pause or something

01:02:39 ◼   ► that it's just not viable for that.

01:02:41 ◼   ► If it just connected with a regular audio cable

01:02:43 ◼   ► and was simply a powered speaker

01:02:45 ◼   ► with maybe some DSPs built into it or something,

01:02:47 ◼   ► it would be more reliable long after Apple abandons it.

01:02:50 ◼   ► You could just continue to use it as a powered speaker.

01:02:53 ◼   ► But I think the HomePod is going to have a very sad death

01:02:56 ◼   ► in that once Apple finally abandons it

01:02:58 ◼   ► or the wireless protocols move on

01:03:00 ◼   ► or it stops getting software updates,

01:03:02 ◼   ► it just becomes a paperweight,

01:03:04 ◼   ► unlike the iPod Hi-Fi, which was ridiculous and expensive

01:03:07 ◼   ► and Steve Jobs loved it, no one else did,

01:03:11 ◼   ► that will continue to work long after we're all dead

01:03:14 ◼   ► because it uses standard audio interfaces.

01:03:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, when the HomePod was announced

01:03:19 ◼   ► and then when it was released later,

01:03:21 ◼   ► we all kind of called this.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Like, we all kind of said, like, hey,

01:03:25 ◼   ► this is entering a market where people expect certain things

01:03:29 ◼   ► and they have certain prices that they want things to be

01:03:33 ◼   ► and this thing isn't as good in critical areas

01:03:37 ◼   ► as things like the Amazon Echo and the Google whatever

01:03:40 ◼   ► or Sonos's gear.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Like, the HomePod was great in some areas

01:03:45 ◼   ► but competed very poorly in some very critical areas,

01:03:50 ◼   ► namely Siri and price.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Like, those are the two big areas where it just was,

01:03:56 ◼   ► it seemed like, and I have HomePods,

01:03:59 ◼   ► I have, I think, four of the big ones

01:04:02 ◼   ► and four of the little ones, actually, yeah.

01:04:06 ◼   ► We use them all the time.

01:04:07 ◼   ► As I mentioned in a recent episode,

01:04:09 ◼   ► because of the unreliability of the latest Amazon Echo,

01:04:12 ◼   ► we recently got fed up with it and unplugged it

01:04:14 ◼   ► and put it into a closet and now our home is 100% HomePods.

01:04:18 ◼   ► They're not as good as the Echo at certain things

01:04:20 ◼   ► but they're pretty good products overall now

01:04:25 ◼   ► when we have the Mini and when the big HomePod

01:04:28 ◼   ► no longer costs $350.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I think, for most of ours, I think I paid 200 or 230

01:04:34 ◼   ► or something for them.

01:04:35 ◼   ► So, the thing is, this product is,

01:04:39 ◼   ► you know, John said it's a pretty good speaker.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I think, for its size and for what it contains,

01:04:45 ◼   ► it's a great speaker, the big one I'm talking about.

01:04:48 ◼   ► The little one isn't and this is kind of a problem.

01:04:51 ◼   ► But anyway, the big one is a really good speaker

01:04:55 ◼   ► for what it is.

01:04:56 ◼   ► - And when you say that, you mean it sounds good

01:04:58 ◼   ► but it's not a really good speaker

01:05:00 ◼   ► because one of the features of a really good speaker

01:05:02 ◼   ► is you can connect things to it

01:05:03 ◼   ► so that they can output sound that you could then hear

01:05:05 ◼   ► through your really good speaker

01:05:06 ◼   ► and the HomePod utterly fails in that area.

01:05:09 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

01:05:10 ◼   ► But it is, for what it is of like a standalone plug-in

01:05:15 ◼   ► smart speaker, especially when you get a stereo pair of them

01:05:21 ◼   ► which cost--

01:05:22 ◼   ► - For a mere $700.

01:05:23 ◼   ► - Yes, which cost, at MSRP, $700.

01:05:26 ◼   ► - And doesn't plug into any of your other expensive equipment

01:05:29 ◼   ► so if you're the type of person who wants to buy two speakers

01:05:31 ◼   ► for $700 but also does not have any other AV equipment

01:05:35 ◼   ► that you wanna plug into them,

01:05:36 ◼   ► boy, we got the product for you.

01:05:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Apple made really good hardware

01:05:42 ◼   ► that was completely let down by their services team

01:05:47 ◼   ► and their marketing team.

01:05:49 ◼   ► And so the services team, that one's obvious.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Siri still isn't good enough.

01:05:54 ◼   ► It is slowly getting better but it definitely lags behind,

01:05:58 ◼   ► Alexa, in terms of reliability, speed,

01:06:01 ◼   ► ability to pull knowledge out of web pages, stuff like that.

01:06:04 ◼   ► It's just not as good.

01:06:06 ◼   ► - And Google, I'll add, they're also behind Google.

01:06:08 ◼   ► I mean, there was another, the most recent flare-up

01:06:10 ◼   ► was someone that was showing examples of trying to ask,

01:06:12 ◼   ► it wasn't on the HomePod but it's the same,

01:06:14 ◼   ► I think it's the same Siri everywhere, it's hard to tell,

01:06:16 ◼   ► but they were asking Siri when the Grammys were on

01:06:19 ◼   ► and Siri's answer was to give the date and time

01:06:21 ◼   ► of last year's Grammys.

01:06:23 ◼   ► Come on, come on, it's the night of the Grammys.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Of course, every other voice doesn't get it

01:06:27 ◼   ► because they have teams that just say,

01:06:29 ◼   ► "Look, on the day of the Super Bowl,

01:06:31 ◼   ► "I bet a lot of people are gonna ask

01:06:33 ◼   ► "when the Super Bowl is on

01:06:34 ◼   ► "so we should probably make sure our thing does that

01:06:35 ◼   ► "and the Siri's team like,

01:06:36 ◼   ► "we're not gonna do special case code for that.

01:06:38 ◼   ► "It either works or it doesn't, and guess what, it doesn't."

01:06:40 ◼   ► - I think what we discovered is that

01:06:41 ◼   ► Eddy Cue does not watch the Grammys.

01:06:43 ◼   ► But anyway, the other half of the HomePod failure

01:06:47 ◼   ► was marketing, and I don't mean the fact

01:06:49 ◼   ► that they didn't advertise it enough once it was released.

01:06:52 ◼   ► What Apple considers marketing

01:06:54 ◼   ► is integrated into product development

01:06:57 ◼   ► and helps determine what products they even make,

01:07:01 ◼   ► how they need to be priced, what kind of features they have,

01:07:04 ◼   ► what things are priorities and what things aren't.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Product marketing does that at Apple,

01:07:08 ◼   ► and I think the original HomePod was just massively let down

01:07:13 ◼   ► by the direction that should have come from product marketing

01:07:17 ◼   ► that either didn't or they got bad direction.

01:07:20 ◼   ► The HomePod should never have been released

01:07:23 ◼   ► in the state and at the price that it was.

01:07:27 ◼   ► It was missing critical features from the beginning.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Some of them were later added via software.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Many of them couldn't be the input, any kind of input.

01:07:36 ◼   ► - Well, that's the thing about the product design,

01:07:39 ◼   ► product marketing, whatever you want to say it.

01:07:41 ◼   ► They could have solved some of these problems

01:07:42 ◼   ► by making it more expensive.

01:07:44 ◼   ► So picture this.

01:07:45 ◼   ► This is something that some high-end stuff does.

01:07:48 ◼   ► Say you buy your two HomePods,

01:07:50 ◼   ► and they're $700 in the original price.

01:07:52 ◼   ► You're like, "Oh, the product, the designers say,

01:07:55 ◼   ► "'Well, we're not gonna put an ugly audio input on this thing.

01:07:57 ◼   ► "'It'll ruin the design.

01:07:58 ◼   ► "'Look how elegant it is.

01:07:59 ◼   ► "'It's just got the power cord coming out of it,

01:08:01 ◼   ► "'and we're gonna make it a wireless speaker of the future.

01:08:02 ◼   ► "'No one wants wires.

01:08:03 ◼   ► "'You don't want us to put a bunch of, like,

01:08:05 ◼   ► "'RCA jacks or speaker wires or optical--

01:08:07 ◼   ► "'You don't want wires in this.

01:08:08 ◼   ► "'It's a bad idea, right?'"

01:08:09 ◼   ► Sell a third box that connects to AV equipment

01:08:14 ◼   ► and sends a low-latency wireless signal

01:08:17 ◼   ► to your Apple speakers,

01:08:18 ◼   ► and that box accepts all of the audio standard inputs

01:08:22 ◼   ► from your AV receiver, your television, or whatever,

01:08:24 ◼   ► and then sends the signal out, right?

01:08:26 ◼   ► You're basically slowly reinventing Sonos or whatever,

01:08:28 ◼   ► and then that box you can sell for extra,

01:08:30 ◼   ► and then suddenly people who would never consider this product say,

01:08:33 ◼   ► "Oh, but if I buy the extra $200 box,

01:08:35 ◼   ► "now I can have a stereo pair,

01:08:37 ◼   ► "and it will work with my home theater setup,

01:08:39 ◼   ► "and my home theater setup just sees it as a normal speaker's

01:08:41 ◼   ► "because they're just plugged into it,

01:08:42 ◼   ► "like, with standard connections,"

01:08:44 ◼   ► and then Apple handles the wireless connection.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Now you have a very expensive, fairly good-sounding,

01:08:48 ◼   ► hopefully low-latency wireless speaker setup.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Hell, you could send--sell five of them

01:08:53 ◼   ► and, you know, have people do full surround setups, right?

01:08:56 ◼   ► But without that box, without that middle component,

01:08:58 ◼   ► without understanding who you're selling to

01:09:00 ◼   ► and that those people want to use it

01:09:02 ◼   ► as their home theater system but can't,

01:09:04 ◼   ► because it's like, "Oh, I got to get Apple TV

01:09:06 ◼   ► "and get it to connect to the stereo pair,

01:09:08 ◼   ► "and the software's flaky, and it doesn't work,"

01:09:10 ◼   ► it's totally fumbled the ball, not because, you know,

01:09:12 ◼   ► "Oh, you made it too expensive."

01:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah, they did make it too expensive,

01:09:15 ◼   ► and the cheaper one is the solution to that,

01:09:17 ◼   ► but if you wanted to make it as expensive, you could have.

01:09:19 ◼   ► By making it even more expensive,

01:09:21 ◼   ► just add the features those people want, and they just--

01:09:23 ◼   ► I don't know who they were trying to sell this to,

01:09:25 ◼   ► besides, I guess, Marco.

01:09:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:09:28 ◼   ► I bought one, and I used this 300--

01:09:30 ◼   ► I paid full price, and I bought this thing,

01:09:32 ◼   ► and I used it to turn my lights on and off.

01:09:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:09:35 ◼   ► So, that's good.

01:09:36 ◼   ► - No, and the thing is, like,

01:09:38 ◼   ► so many things about it are the best.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Like, it hears you better

01:09:43 ◼   ► than any Alexa thing I've ever seen.

01:09:46 ◼   ► It takes a little while to respond,

01:09:48 ◼   ► but it does hear you really well.

01:09:51 ◼   ► - Sometimes it tells you to chill.

01:09:53 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, what is it, just a moment?"

01:09:54 ◼   ► Or whatever it says.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Working on it.

01:09:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

01:09:57 ◼   ► The sound quality is better

01:09:59 ◼   ► than all the other smart speakers I've ever heard

01:10:01 ◼   ► at any price point.

01:10:02 ◼   ► It is better than everything I've heard from Sonos.

01:10:05 ◼   ► It's better than certainly anything

01:10:07 ◼   ► I've ever heard from Amazon, but that's not saying a lot.

01:10:09 ◼   ► It sounds really, really good for a smart speaker,

01:10:12 ◼   ► and it sounds pretty good for speakers, period.

01:10:15 ◼   ► You know, in its size class, at least.

01:10:17 ◼   ► I also, I love that it's just an Airplay 2 terminal

01:10:21 ◼   ► at the end of the day.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like, one thing that I absolutely love

01:10:24 ◼   ► is when something is playing on the HomePod,

01:10:27 ◼   ► it just shows up as an entry in Control Center

01:10:30 ◼   ► under the playback thing.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And you can open that session in the music app

01:10:35 ◼   ► on your phone, and you can control it there.

01:10:37 ◼   ► You don't have to ask what's playing.

01:10:39 ◼   ► You can just see it right there on Control Center.

01:10:41 ◼   ► You can add whatever's playing to your app music collection

01:10:43 ◼   ► if you want to right from there.

01:10:45 ◼   ► You can control the volume right there with your finger.

01:10:47 ◼   ► You don't have to tell it up, volume 25, volume 30,

01:10:50 ◼   ► volume 40, you don't have to go through all that.

01:10:52 ◼   ► You can just do it on your phone.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Without saying anything.

01:10:55 ◼   ► Anybody in your house on your Wi-Fi network

01:10:57 ◼   ► with an iPhone can do the same thing.

01:10:59 ◼   ► They can control it.

01:11:00 ◼   ► So it's very, like, family compatible in that way.

01:11:04 ◼   ► It automatically recognizes me and Tiff

01:11:07 ◼   ► without us having to create profiles.

01:11:09 ◼   ► It just recognizes us both separately

01:11:11 ◼   ► and can play our separate collections of music.

01:11:14 ◼   ► So if Tiff asks for one of her playlists, it has it.

01:11:18 ◼   ► If I ask for one of my playlists, it has it.

01:11:20 ◼   ► She can ask for a personal request to it.

01:11:22 ◼   ► Like, have things added to her reminders or whatever.

01:11:24 ◼   ► I can ask for the same thing.

01:11:25 ◼   ► And it just gets it right.

01:11:27 ◼   ► There are so many things that it does really well

01:11:31 ◼   ► and that's why I'm disappointed that Apple

01:11:34 ◼   ► flubbed the marketing and pricing

01:11:37 ◼   ► and market targeting of it so badly

01:11:39 ◼   ► and that they seem to probably be killing it off

01:11:42 ◼   ► with apparently no higher end model that seems to be in sight

01:11:47 ◼   ► because I think if they were going to do a higher end one,

01:11:50 ◼   ► I think they would have kept this one around

01:11:52 ◼   ► until the high end replacement was ready

01:11:54 ◼   ► and then just replaced it.

01:11:55 ◼   ► But it sounds from their statement

01:11:57 ◼   ► and from the discontinuation of the highest one,

01:11:59 ◼   ► it sounds like they're just going to do the Mini indefinitely

01:12:03 ◼   ► and not any other ones probably.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - And speaking of the Mini,

01:12:07 ◼   ► everything you just said that you liked,

01:12:09 ◼   ► the Mini also does with the exception

01:12:11 ◼   ► of it not sounding good, right?

01:12:13 ◼   ► Because literally everything, it does all those things.

01:12:16 ◼   ► It can recognize you, it does all the things,

01:12:18 ◼   ► it is exactly equivalent, it's just a crappy speaker, right?

01:12:21 ◼   ► So you can imagine having the Mini, right?

01:12:24 ◼   ► And then what if Apple just sold, let's say,

01:12:27 ◼   ► a pair of really nice sounding powered speakers

01:12:29 ◼   ► that connected and you could have the Mini

01:12:31 ◼   ► controlling those speakers and broadcasting sound to them.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Like you don't need, if Apple's thing is like,

01:12:37 ◼   ► we were doing this work on home theater

01:12:38 ◼   ► and we found out a way to make a fairly small,

01:12:40 ◼   ► you know, fairly compact smart speaker

01:12:42 ◼   ► that figures out the room

01:12:43 ◼   ► and makes everything sound good or whatever,

01:12:45 ◼   ► then do that, right?

01:12:46 ◼   ► But you don't need to tie that up

01:12:48 ◼   ► with the voice assistant thing.

01:12:49 ◼   ► The voice assistant is all the problem you gotta solve,

01:12:51 ◼   ► but all the features that you said that you liked,

01:12:53 ◼   ► those are all embodied in the $99 Mini.

01:12:56 ◼   ► And for people who don't care about sound quality,

01:12:59 ◼   ► because let's say they're primarily

01:13:00 ◼   ► not going to play music through it, right?

01:13:02 ◼   ► The Mini is so much a better deal.

01:13:05 ◼   ► Like it takes up less room in your house,

01:13:07 ◼   ► it's explicable for it to just have

01:13:09 ◼   ► a power cord dangling from it,

01:13:10 ◼   ► like it is a well established product category,

01:13:12 ◼   ► it charges the Apple Premium

01:13:14 ◼   ► because it's a little bit more expensive

01:13:15 ◼   ► than equivalent products from other companies.

01:13:18 ◼   ► It answers your questions less well

01:13:20 ◼   ► than the Google Home Minis

01:13:23 ◼   ► that I keep getting sent for free,

01:13:25 ◼   ► that are apparently like 20 bucks, right?

01:13:27 ◼   ► But that functionality,

01:13:30 ◼   ► that is a product, that is an established product category,

01:13:33 ◼   ► Apple now has it entered in it and you're fine.

01:13:35 ◼   ► What Apple no longer has is a bunch of nice speakers.

01:13:38 ◼   ► And it's like, as with so many things,

01:13:40 ◼   ► Apple, if you have good technology

01:13:43 ◼   ► that can make a product that,

01:13:45 ◼   ► especially a product that is a little bit more expensive

01:13:48 ◼   ► that people will buy, you can sell that.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Just like you gotta figure out how to package it.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Like if you just sold the whole Pod Mini

01:13:56 ◼   ► and then transformed the big Home Pods

01:13:58 ◼   ► into just, I don't know, like Home Pod speakers

01:14:01 ◼   ► and all they were were speakers

01:14:02 ◼   ► and you needed a Mini to work with them,

01:14:04 ◼   ► you would probably sell just as many of those things.

01:14:06 ◼   ► You'd probably sell just as many to Marco

01:14:08 ◼   ► because you don't care that necessarily that there are,

01:14:10 ◼   ► hell, leave the microphones in them, right?

01:14:12 ◼   ► You don't necessarily care that the Mini

01:14:15 ◼   ► is the thing controlling the show or whatever.

01:14:18 ◼   ► You just like that they sounded good, right?

01:14:20 ◼   ► And they were fairly compact and nice looking

01:14:21 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:14:22 ◼   ► They had a winner on their hands,

01:14:24 ◼   ► they just didn't know what they were making.

01:14:26 ◼   ► And now they're just gonna give up and say,

01:14:28 ◼   ► well, it's just Minis forever.

01:14:30 ◼   ► I agree with you, Marco, that if they were gonna replace them

01:14:32 ◼   ► with some sort of high-end speakers,

01:14:34 ◼   ► they probably would have done it at the same time.

01:14:35 ◼   ► But it's just such a shame to see Apple

01:14:37 ◼   ► make a move in this direction

01:14:40 ◼   ► and because they don't get it right,

01:14:41 ◼   ► just retreat entirely and say, no, it's just Mini.

01:14:44 ◼   ► They just don't show stick-to-itiveness.

01:14:47 ◼   ► It's okay to get it wrong when you start,

01:14:49 ◼   ► but you really should realize what parts you had right.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And I think one of the things they had right

01:14:55 ◼   ► was everyone more or less agrees

01:14:57 ◼   ► that for a compact, fairly unobtrusive speaker

01:15:00 ◼   ► that works in many different environments,

01:15:03 ◼   ► that was the impressive part of the HomePod.

01:15:05 ◼   ► And there is a viable product in there waiting to get out.

01:15:08 ◼   ► They just need to take another run at it.

01:15:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and actually fully ass it this time

01:15:14 ◼   ► instead of the half-assed drive they did with the first one.

01:15:16 ◼   ► I worry that Apple will learn the wrong lesson from this.

01:15:22 ◼   ► They put out their first HomePod offering

01:15:26 ◼   ► and I worry that the lesson they're going to learn is,

01:15:30 ◼   ► well, I guess the market doesn't want

01:15:32 ◼   ► a really good smart speaker.

01:15:34 ◼   ► I can totally see Apple's executive culture

01:15:37 ◼   ► kind of leading to that conclusion, right?

01:15:39 ◼   ► But that's not what happened here.

01:15:41 ◼   ► The actual lesson they should learn is

01:15:44 ◼   ► we didn't nail it on our first try,

01:15:47 ◼   ► but the market does want a good smart speaker.

01:15:51 ◼   ► The market has room for that.

01:15:53 ◼   ► They just didn't do a good enough job

01:15:55 ◼   ► nailing it the first time with a whole bunch of factors.

01:15:59 ◼   ► But if they took a second try at it,

01:16:01 ◼   ► I think they could do well.

01:16:03 ◼   ► It just either can't be $350

01:16:08 ◼   ► or it has to really earn its $350 price tag.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And the first HomePod did neither of those things.

01:16:15 ◼   ► It was too expensive for the mass market,

01:16:19 ◼   ► but wasn't good enough with the features

01:16:22 ◼   ► and the expectations of the high end.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So I hope that they keep making,

01:16:28 ◼   ► or at some point soon I hope they make

01:16:30 ◼   ► a larger HomePod again that is better than the first one.

01:16:34 ◼   ► I would love for it to have a faster processor

01:16:37 ◼   ► so it can respond faster,

01:16:39 ◼   ► it can support more advanced software updates and everything.

01:16:42 ◼   ► I would love for it to have the cool

01:16:45 ◼   ► half woofer design that it had

01:16:47 ◼   ► that allowed it to have really pretty good base response

01:16:51 ◼   ► to a pretty low frequency without being super large.

01:16:54 ◼   ► I love the microphones in it.

01:16:56 ◼   ► Certain things we don't need.

01:16:58 ◼   ► We probably don't need it to fire all the way around 360 degrees.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Because most people don't put speakers in the middle of a room.

01:17:07 ◼   ► They put them against something.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Maybe that's one area they can economize.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Maybe some of the processing stuff that it does

01:17:15 ◼   ► to detect when it's been moved and reset its EQ.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Some of that stuff, maybe that can go in the name of value.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Certainly if they wanted to make the materials

01:17:25 ◼   ► a little bit simpler on the outside,

01:17:27 ◼   ► that's a way to save some money on the bill of materials and stuff like that.

01:17:31 ◼   ► If they want to rethink that weird LED screen thing on top

01:17:35 ◼   ► that starts playing music every time you try to dust it,

01:17:38 ◼   ► that could use some rethinking as well.

01:17:40 ◼   ► There are ways to make an amazing HomePod

01:17:43 ◼   ► that is larger and more expensive than the HomePod Mini

01:17:46 ◼   ► and also a successful product.

01:17:49 ◼   ► The fact that they didn't do it the first time

01:17:51 ◼   ► doesn't mean the market's not there.

01:17:53 ◼   ► It just means they didn't do a good job.

01:17:55 ◼   ► I hope the lesson they learned from this is not,

01:17:58 ◼   ► "Well, I guess there's no market."

01:18:00 ◼   ► I hope the lesson is, "We didn't hit it right that first time,

01:18:03 ◼   ► but if we really focus and really follow through,

01:18:07 ◼   ► we can make another run at it that can be better."

01:18:09 ◼   ► When it came out, the thought of having one or maybe two

01:18:14 ◼   ► really fantastic speakers that basically I could plug in anywhere

01:18:19 ◼   ► in and of itself that sounded really appealing.

01:18:21 ◼   ► I was all in, especially because we know how I am

01:18:23 ◼   ► with missing out on things,

01:18:25 ◼   ► and we know how much I love to buy new Apple toys.

01:18:27 ◼   ► And so I was all in, and then I saw the price tag,

01:18:29 ◼   ► and I was, "Ooh, maybe not."

01:18:31 ◼   ► And then at the time -- and I don't think this is true anymore,

01:18:34 ◼   ► but at the time, you certainly couldn't use Spotify with the HomePod.

01:18:38 ◼   ► And I don't know if this is true anymore or not,

01:18:41 ◼   ► and I don't think it is, but one of my favorite features

01:18:44 ◼   ► of the Amazon tube is that we can call out to it,

01:18:48 ◼   ► "Hey, add such-and-such to the grocery list,"

01:18:51 ◼   ► and that integrates with AnyList, which is a particular app we like

01:18:55 ◼   ► for doing that sort of thing, and it'll add something

01:18:58 ◼   ► to our shared grocery list within AnyList.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And neither of those things were possible when the HomePod came out,

01:19:04 ◼   ► and those are the two things that we do most with our Echo,

01:19:07 ◼   ► is play things on Spotify and add things to grocery or other shopping lists.

01:19:12 ◼   ► And so you combine no Spotify, no real third-party integration

01:19:17 ◼   ► for apps or things like that,

01:19:20 ◼   ► and a $350 price tag, and there's no way for me to use this

01:19:24 ◼   ► with anything but the Apple ecosystem?

01:19:26 ◼   ► Get out of here with that nonsense.

01:19:27 ◼   ► There's no frickin' way I'm paying that money for it.

01:19:29 ◼   ► And then it would go on sale periodically at Best Buy or whatever,

01:19:32 ◼   ► and I would think about it, but I still came back to,

01:19:36 ◼   ► "I don't think this fills a need I have in my life."

01:19:39 ◼   ► And yes, I can go on myself about how potentially --

01:19:43 ◼   ► I don't know if "dangerous" is a bit overblown,

01:19:45 ◼   ► but I can't think of a better word --

01:19:46 ◼   ► "dangerous" it is to have an Echo in my house,

01:19:49 ◼   ► but golly, if I want to be able to just shout into the ether

01:19:52 ◼   ► and have something -- and have what I want to happen happen,

01:19:56 ◼   ► I don't think -- certainly not at the time of launch --

01:19:58 ◼   ► a HomePod would be that thing, and maybe it is now,

01:20:02 ◼   ► but I don't know if I want a crappy --

01:20:04 ◼   ► I don't want to trade one crappy speaker for another.

01:20:07 ◼   ► When I know this one works, why would I mix that up?

01:20:10 ◼   ► And I think a lot of other people are probably in a similar position.

01:20:13 ◼   ► And for a thing that was rumored to have been part of their television set development,

01:20:17 ◼   ► it's so weird that it launched, and still to this day,

01:20:19 ◼   ► without an obvious story that's clear to customers

01:20:21 ◼   ► in how you can use this thing as a speaker for your television.

01:20:24 ◼   ► Even today, it is more complicated than you might think,

01:20:27 ◼   ► and apparently unreliable, according to Mike Hurley,

01:20:29 ◼   ► who actually tries to do it that way.

01:20:31 ◼   ► If it doubled as a normal speaker, or had a breakout box,

01:20:34 ◼   ► or had any kind of standard connection,

01:20:36 ◼   ► it would be clear to everybody that if you buy this thing,

01:20:39 ◼   ► "Yeah, yeah, you can talk to it, and it does stuff or whatever,

01:20:42 ◼   ► and maybe it doesn't support Spotify,

01:20:43 ◼   ► but, you know, I'm just going to use it as my TV setup."

01:20:46 ◼   ► Because most people don't have any nice --

01:20:47 ◼   ► They just use the speakers that come with their TVs.

01:20:49 ◼   ► And so part of the pitch of this is, like you said, Casey,

01:20:51 ◼   ► it's fairly compact, it's small, it's simple,

01:20:53 ◼   ► and you can put it anywhere.

01:20:54 ◼   ► And, boy, wouldn't it be --

01:20:55 ◼   ► It would be a big upgrade to the sound system on my television

01:20:58 ◼   ► to use the HomePod instead of the built-in speakers.

01:21:01 ◼   ► But there was no story for that.

01:21:02 ◼   ► It was like, a customer would look at it and say,

01:21:04 ◼   ► "But it's just got a power cord. How do I do it?"

01:21:06 ◼   ► "Oh, well, if you have an Apple TV and the right software."

01:21:08 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, I don't have an Apple TV,

01:21:10 ◼   ► and I don't want an Apple TV. I've got a television set.

01:21:12 ◼   ► Can I use this speaker with my television?"

01:21:14 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, it just, you know,

01:21:17 ◼   ► it didn't have a good story."

01:21:19 ◼   ► And still, I feel like it still doesn't have a good story with that.

01:21:21 ◼   ► If I have to be selecting inputs

01:21:22 ◼   ► and trying to get it to recognize stereo pairs,

01:21:25 ◼   ► it's like, that's not how --

01:21:26 ◼   ► People buy speakers, and they hook them up,

01:21:28 ◼   ► and you put it into place, and you connect it to your TV,

01:21:30 ◼   ► and maybe at worst, you have to, like, switch inputs

01:21:32 ◼   ► or turn on something or whatever.

01:21:33 ◼   ► But in general, people just want that stuff to work.

01:21:36 ◼   ► If there's any futzing involved,

01:21:37 ◼   ► "Oh, there's no sound coming out of the TV,"

01:21:39 ◼   ► or, "It's coming out of the built-in speakers again."

01:21:41 ◼   ► No one wants that.

01:21:42 ◼   ► It's just -- It's death in the AV market.

01:21:44 ◼   ► So, like, I think, Casey,

01:21:47 ◼   ► if you could have gotten this on day one

01:21:49 ◼   ► and used it as your television speaker

01:21:51 ◼   ► without thinking about it,

01:21:52 ◼   ► it would just work as your television speaker,

01:21:54 ◼   ► I bet you would have done it,

01:21:55 ◼   ► because you don't have any kind of TV speaker set up, do you?

01:21:59 ◼   ► -Well, the simple answer to your question is no,

01:22:02 ◼   ► but it's actually more convoluted than that.

01:22:04 ◼   ► But the problem that I have, though,

01:22:05 ◼   ► with using this as my television speaker

01:22:07 ◼   ► is that my television does not exclusively play the Apple TV.

01:22:10 ◼   ► We still have a cable box. We still --

01:22:12 ◼   ► -Well, that's what I'm saying.

01:22:13 ◼   ► When you have a story working up to your television,

01:22:15 ◼   ► no one buys -- sells you by a speaker,

01:22:17 ◼   ► a surround sound thing for your TV,

01:22:19 ◼   ► and they say, "Oh, but this will only work

01:22:20 ◼   ► when you watch things through the Chromecast."

01:22:22 ◼   ► No one sells speakers like that. It doesn't make any sense.

01:22:25 ◼   ► It's like, if I'm buying speakers from my TV,

01:22:28 ◼   ► anything I play through my TV has to work with those speakers.

01:22:31 ◼   ► It can't be like, "Only when you're watching Hulu

01:22:33 ◼   ► will it go through the speakers," which is a bad example,

01:22:35 ◼   ► because they don't even have surround support on the Apple TV,

01:22:37 ◼   ► which I'm still mad about.

01:22:39 ◼   ► But, yeah, like -- And that's what I say,

01:22:41 ◼   ► but they didn't have a good story for it.

01:22:43 ◼   ► It should have just been obvious to anyone looking at the product

01:22:45 ◼   ► that, "Yep, you can just --

01:22:47 ◼   ► You can use these as your TV speakers."

01:22:48 ◼   ► No ifs, ands, or buts, right?

01:22:51 ◼   ► And any time you have to have an explanation,

01:22:53 ◼   ► and, like -- And especially, I think the stereo pairing

01:22:55 ◼   ► didn't come support even for Apple TV.

01:22:57 ◼   ► The stereo pairing support didn't come for a while.

01:22:59 ◼   ► It was just such a mess.

01:23:00 ◼   ► No inputs, doesn't work with your TV,

01:23:02 ◼   ► and so, so many people who might have bought it

01:23:04 ◼   ► were exactly like Casey, saying,

01:23:06 ◼   ► "It might be neat to have audio,

01:23:08 ◼   ► but it doesn't support Spotify.

01:23:10 ◼   ► I can't use it as a TV speaker."

01:23:11 ◼   ► And then as time went on, people learned,

01:23:13 ◼   ► "Oh, I've got one. I want to use it for a while.

01:23:15 ◼   ► I turn the lights off or ask it to play songs,

01:23:17 ◼   ► but it doesn't work with Spotify.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Do you use it as a TV speaker?

01:23:19 ◼   ► No, 'cause I can't or can't figure out how

01:23:21 ◼   ► or it doesn't work well."

01:23:22 ◼   ► And, oh, God, what a fumbled ball.

01:23:24 ◼   ► And like Marco said, it's not because there wasn't promise

01:23:27 ◼   ► in this product, right?

01:23:28 ◼   ► You have a product that has qualities

01:23:30 ◼   ► that people who bought them like.

01:23:31 ◼   ► It shows that there's something you can do there,

01:23:33 ◼   ► and, you know, and I'm just missing the Mini.

01:23:35 ◼   ► The Mini is a great thing that they should do,

01:23:37 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, "Well, we missed this market,

01:23:39 ◼   ► which is the cheap, small things that are voice assistants,

01:23:42 ◼   ► and so let's make a product in that category."

01:23:44 ◼   ► Great, good. You should do that,

01:23:45 ◼   ► because $350 is just the wrong price

01:23:47 ◼   ► for that whole category, right?

01:23:49 ◼   ► Especially for a thing with no screen, right,

01:23:51 ◼   ► 'cause that's the other thing of, like,

01:23:52 ◼   ► if you want to do this, you can have a screen on it

01:23:54 ◼   ► and go all sorts of fancy stuff.

01:23:56 ◼   ► But on the other end is this nice consumer-prosumer-speaker

01:24:00 ◼   ► thing, and that -- the raw materials are there

01:24:03 ◼   ► for you to make a couple of different cool products

01:24:05 ◼   ► if you actually care about that market at all,

01:24:07 ◼   ► which so far it seems like Apple doesn't.

01:24:09 ◼   ► And by that market, I mean audio-visual equipment,

01:24:12 ◼   ► things that Apple doesn't want to make,

01:24:14 ◼   ► like Wi-Fi routers and AV receivers

01:24:17 ◼   ► and television sets and speakers.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I think Apple could do well in all those markets

01:24:21 ◼   ► if it wanted to, witness Sonos,

01:24:23 ◼   ► but just seems like they tried the HomePod

01:24:26 ◼   ► and quickly retreated to essentially making

01:24:29 ◼   ► a $99 Echo Dot.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Yeah, which is actually kind of expensive

01:24:34 ◼   ► for what it is.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it should sound absurd.

01:24:37 ◼   ► A $99 Dot? Aren't those $15?

01:24:41 ◼   ► Any real honest look at the speaker market

01:24:46 ◼   ► would reveal, like, okay, we're going

01:24:48 ◼   ► in two different directions here.

01:24:50 ◼   ► There is a huge market for these little smart speakers

01:24:53 ◼   ► people put in their kitchens, and the market for that

01:24:56 ◼   ► needs to really want them to be as cheap as possible.

01:24:59 ◼   ► And it can be small and cheap, and people don't really care

01:25:03 ◼   ► about garbage sound quality, because most of the entrants

01:25:05 ◼   ► there have garbage sound quality, but they don't care

01:25:07 ◼   ► because they were small and cheap.

01:25:08 ◼   ► And then you also have good speakers,

01:25:11 ◼   ► and where people almost always want to put good speakers

01:25:14 ◼   ► is their TV setup.

01:25:16 ◼   ► Even when they're using them for music,

01:25:20 ◼   ► they're so often also used for TV,

01:25:23 ◼   ► and they're in the same spot, that if there's no way

01:25:27 ◼   ► to play the TV sound out of the good speakers,

01:25:31 ◼   ► most people don't really have a justification for that

01:25:33 ◼   ► in their homes or a place to put them.

01:25:35 ◼   ► The other thing that you mentioned is, like,

01:25:37 ◼   ► Apple doesn't make things that feed it.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Oh, they totally do.

01:25:39 ◼   ► You know where I would love to have HomePod input support?

01:25:43 ◼   ► On Macs.

01:25:45 ◼   ► There is no way to use a pair of HomePods

01:25:48 ◼   ► for all of your system output on the Mac.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Why?

01:25:52 ◼   ► - I thought they just added Stereo Pair support for that,

01:25:55 ◼   ► or is that only with iTunes?

01:25:56 ◼   ► - Oh, did they finally?

01:25:57 ◼   ► - Or music.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Music supports it in a really hacky and existent way.

01:26:00 ◼   ► I think it's similar to when you try to use the Apple TV

01:26:03 ◼   ► to output to HomePods, where you kinda have to

01:26:05 ◼   ► reset it up a lot.

01:26:06 ◼   ► I do it occasionally, where I'll play something

01:26:08 ◼   ► from my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch

01:26:10 ◼   ► to the HomePods that are around,

01:26:13 ◼   ► or to the AirPlay 2 Sonos amp thing that I have at the TV.

01:26:17 ◼   ► But there was never, the HomePods are great

01:26:21 ◼   ► as desk speakers, because they are small,

01:26:25 ◼   ► and they sound good, and they look nice.

01:26:27 ◼   ► Like, that would, why was that never even prioritized?

01:26:31 ◼   ► Like, I, again, there's just so many missed opportunities

01:26:35 ◼   ► here, and again, it's not that the market

01:26:38 ◼   ► doesn't want these things.

01:26:39 ◼   ► The market just wants Apple to deliver something

01:26:42 ◼   ► that fits them better.

01:26:43 ◼   ► And the HomePod mini does some of that,

01:26:46 ◼   ► but the HomePod mini is not a good enough speaker

01:26:50 ◼   ► to be the entire product range.

01:26:53 ◼   ► If they're going to keep having a product range

01:26:56 ◼   ► of HomePods, whatever that means to them,

01:26:59 ◼   ► if that product range is gonna keep existing,

01:27:02 ◼   ► there has to sometime be a higher-end one

01:27:05 ◼   ► that is for higher-end needs, bigger rooms,

01:27:08 ◼   ► higher audio quality, et cetera.

01:27:10 ◼   ► And I really hope that they actually go back

01:27:14 ◼   ► to the drawing board and make that happen,

01:27:17 ◼   ► as opposed to just leaving this product line

01:27:19 ◼   ► to wither away with just one product forever.

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01:29:22 ◼   ► Nathaniel Mall writes, "Why does macOS not support

01:29:25 ◼   ► background notifications for more first- and third-party apps?

01:29:27 ◼   ► The only apps I've found that have background notifications

01:29:30 ◼   ► are Messages, Calendar, and Safari site notifications.

01:29:32 ◼   ► It makes it hard to use certain apps

01:29:34 ◼   ► that I want to get notifications from,

01:29:37 ◼   ► but not have running.

01:29:38 ◼   ► For example, Apple Mail.

01:29:39 ◼   ► Is this not a thing developers can implement,

01:29:41 ◼   ► or do they just choose not to?"

01:29:43 ◼   ► So this took me a couple of reads

01:29:45 ◼   ► before I understood what was being asked about.

01:29:48 ◼   ► So if certain apps like Messages,

01:29:52 ◼   ► even if Messages isn't running at all,

01:29:55 ◼   ► you can still receive, like, an iMessage or a text message,

01:29:58 ◼   ► and it will show the little notification notification center.

01:30:01 ◼   ► That's not true for Mail.

01:30:02 ◼   ► And as Nathaniel had written,

01:30:04 ◼   ► in order to get a notification with regard to Mail,

01:30:06 ◼   ► Mail has to be running.

01:30:08 ◼   ► And I understand to a degree the complaint,

01:30:12 ◼   ► but given -- and we just talked about this

01:30:14 ◼   ► a few weeks ago --

01:30:15 ◼   ► given that you can close all the windows of, say, Mail,

01:30:20 ◼   ► and yet it is still running,

01:30:22 ◼   ► I don't really understand why that's a problem.

01:30:24 ◼   ► Like, why not just close Mail,

01:30:26 ◼   ► which is what I do when I'm done working with email?

01:30:28 ◼   ► -No, that's mean to close all the windows.

01:30:31 ◼   ► I mean, you can just hide it.

01:30:32 ◼   ► -What do you mean it's mean?

01:30:34 ◼   ► -No, so, I mean, I put this question in here

01:30:37 ◼   ► because I think it's an interesting situation

01:30:40 ◼   ► because the Mac is technically capable

01:30:43 ◼   ► of doing exactly what is described in this question, right?

01:30:47 ◼   ► There are no -- Just to be clear about that,

01:30:49 ◼   ► there are no technical limitations.

01:30:50 ◼   ► Literally any Mac application can do this.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Like, the Mac has facilities

01:30:55 ◼   ► where you can run things in the background,

01:30:57 ◼   ► faceless background processes through launchD

01:31:00 ◼   ► that can constantly be checking for whatever it is,

01:31:02 ◼   ► whether it's Slack messages or new email or, you know,

01:31:05 ◼   ► whatever your app does,

01:31:06 ◼   ► you can run stuff in the background on macOS.

01:31:09 ◼   ► In fact, it is way easier to do it than it is on iOS, right?

01:31:12 ◼   ► So, why, from a user's perspective,

01:31:14 ◼   ► does it seem like Mac apps don't have --

01:31:16 ◼   ► don't support background notifications

01:31:18 ◼   ► like they do on iOS?

01:31:19 ◼   ► And the reason is because there is a well-defined facility

01:31:23 ◼   ► for background operations on iOS that it used to be,

01:31:26 ◼   ► but eventually there was.

01:31:27 ◼   ► It was very well-defined, very limited, very controlled,

01:31:30 ◼   ► and if you want to do something in the background on iOS,

01:31:33 ◼   ► this is the one and only way to do it, right?

01:31:35 ◼   ► You can't just make up your own thing and say,

01:31:37 ◼   ► "I'm just gonna run arbitrarily whenever I want

01:31:39 ◼   ► and run for as long."

01:31:40 ◼   ► Like, it's not possible on iOS,

01:31:42 ◼   ► so it funneled everybody on iOS into this one channel,

01:31:45 ◼   ► this one well-supported API.

01:31:47 ◼   ► On the Mac, that doesn't exist.

01:31:48 ◼   ► There's a whole bunch of different APIs

01:31:50 ◼   ► at a whole bunch of different facilities,

01:31:51 ◼   ► and you can, in fact, write your own thing from scratch.

01:31:53 ◼   ► Like, you have so many options.

01:31:55 ◼   ► It is a complete green field

01:31:56 ◼   ► where you can do anything you want,

01:31:57 ◼   ► and that means individual app developers

01:32:00 ◼   ► have to sort of roll their own solution.

01:32:02 ◼   ► How do I want to hook into my thing?

01:32:03 ◼   ► How do I want to cause my thing to run?

01:32:05 ◼   ► Which of the umpteen facilities that are offered by macOS

01:32:08 ◼   ► that could be used for this do I want to use?

01:32:09 ◼   ► And then I have to write my own thing and control how I run

01:32:12 ◼   ► and make sure my process doesn't spin out of control

01:32:14 ◼   ► and make sure it comes up and goes down at the right times,

01:32:17 ◼   ► and how do I handle debugging

01:32:18 ◼   ► and how do I interface that from my app?

01:32:20 ◼   ► And there's so many choices for you to make

01:32:22 ◼   ► that because the Mac is more flexible,

01:32:24 ◼   ► fewer developers do it

01:32:25 ◼   ► because there's no one obvious, well-paved path

01:32:28 ◼   ► for you to go down.

01:32:30 ◼   ► And that's true -- you know, that's a --

01:32:32 ◼   ► this is a microcosm of the entire iOS versus macOS experience.

01:32:35 ◼   ► The Mac is so much more capable, but in many respects,

01:32:38 ◼   ► iOS has more mature, sort of paved roads

01:32:42 ◼   ► for certain things that all apps want to do.

01:32:46 ◼   ► And it just so happens because the iPhone

01:32:48 ◼   ► and the iOS platforms started life

01:32:51 ◼   ► not having this facility at all, and people wanted it.

01:32:54 ◼   ► Then when background processing finally came,

01:32:57 ◼   ► it came as a singular feature that everyone jumped on,

01:33:01 ◼   ► whereas the Mac has always been capable --

01:33:03 ◼   ► almost always has been capable -- of doing random stuff

01:33:06 ◼   ► in addition to the programs that you're "really running."

01:33:09 ◼   ► Even in classic macOS, you could do weird stuff

01:33:11 ◼   ► and have memory-resident processes running

01:33:13 ◼   ► and all sorts of, you know, hacking stuff like that.

01:33:15 ◼   ► They never really evolved into this singular thing on the Mac

01:33:18 ◼   ► with a basic API to do this thing.

01:33:20 ◼   ► In fact, I think the individual Apple apps,

01:33:22 ◼   ► you know, whether it's messages or whatever other things

01:33:24 ◼   ► that are throwing notifications

01:33:25 ◼   ► when they're "not running,"

01:33:27 ◼   ► I bet they all use different technologies

01:33:29 ◼   ► because the history of macOS is filled

01:33:31 ◼   ► with different technologies and frameworks

01:33:33 ◼   ► that can be used to accomplish this exact task.

01:33:35 ◼   ► So that's the answer, that because the Mac is too capable

01:33:40 ◼   ► and has always been too capable,

01:33:42 ◼   ► Apple has never come out with a sort of one standard,

01:33:46 ◼   ► normal, constrained, very easy, obvious path to do this,

01:33:50 ◼   ► and so it's up to individual Mac developers to do it,

01:33:53 ◼   ► and most of them don't, or they do it in weird ways.

01:33:56 ◼   ► -Can we go back a step?

01:33:58 ◼   ► Why does it mean to close the mail window

01:34:01 ◼   ► when you're done using it?

01:34:02 ◼   ► Why do I have to hide it? -'Cause you're just like,

01:34:04 ◼   ► "I want you to be running so you can check new mail,

01:34:06 ◼   ► but you're not allowed to have any windows open.

01:34:07 ◼   ► Why not just hide it?

01:34:08 ◼   ► Just option-click away from it, right?

01:34:10 ◼   ► Don't close the window. That's mean."

01:34:12 ◼   ► -I'm blue-screening as I'm sitting here.

01:34:17 ◼   ► Why is hiding better?

01:34:19 ◼   ► -It's like snipping the flowers off,

01:34:21 ◼   ► the snipping buds off of a flower,

01:34:23 ◼   ► just saying, "Snip, snip, snip, snip.

01:34:24 ◼   ► Now you're just a bare branch

01:34:25 ◼   ► 'cause I don't want to see those flowers."

01:34:27 ◼   ► -Yes, that's exactly correct.

01:34:29 ◼   ► Why would I hide it,

01:34:31 ◼   ► especially since it involves more action

01:34:34 ◼   ► than just clicking the nice little red --

01:34:35 ◼   ► -You just hold on the option key when you click away from it,

01:34:37 ◼   ► and now the window is open,

01:34:38 ◼   ► but you just can't see it anymore.

01:34:40 ◼   ► -Well, first of all, I didn't even know you could do that.

01:34:41 ◼   ► Second of all, I knew you could hide it.

01:34:43 ◼   ► I didn't know that that was a mechanism to hide it.

01:34:46 ◼   ► But there's a nice red circle in the corner of the window.

01:34:50 ◼   ► Why would I not click that?

01:34:52 ◼   ► -I mean, I'm mostly joking,

01:34:54 ◼   ► but the practical answer of why you wouldn't close the windows

01:34:58 ◼   ► is because you don't have faith

01:35:00 ◼   ► that when you try to bring a new equivalent window back

01:35:03 ◼   ► that it will be anything like the window that you just closed.

01:35:05 ◼   ► So say you had your mail window positioned in size

01:35:07 ◼   ► the way you wanted it.

01:35:08 ◼   ► Do you have faith that the next time you want that window back,

01:35:12 ◼   ► it will come back in the same place?

01:35:14 ◼   ► Mail is pretty good about that,

01:35:16 ◼   ► but things like web browsers are not.

01:35:19 ◼   ► I don't know how many users

01:35:20 ◼   ► actually have the correct mental model

01:35:23 ◼   ► that matches the program model

01:35:25 ◼   ► of how web browsers decide the position and size

01:35:28 ◼   ► of a new web browser window.

01:35:30 ◼   ► Do you two have that in your head?

01:35:32 ◼   ► And does it match your browsers?

01:35:34 ◼   ► Like, if you hit Command-N, pick your web browser,

01:35:36 ◼   ► any web browser, switch to it, hit Command-N.

01:35:38 ◼   ► But before you do, predict how big the window is gonna be,

01:35:40 ◼   ► what shape it's gonna be,

01:35:41 ◼   ► and where it's gonna be on your screen.

01:35:43 ◼   ► -Nailed it. -Yeah, same.

01:35:45 ◼   ► -And do you know what influences that?

01:35:47 ◼   ► Like, if I say, "Okay, change that,"

01:35:48 ◼   ► make the window, like, skinnier or fatter

01:35:50 ◼   ► or in a different position.

01:35:51 ◼   ► Do you know how to do that? -Got it.

01:35:54 ◼   ► -I think most people have no idea

01:35:56 ◼   ► where the window's gonna appear or how it changes

01:35:58 ◼   ► and are surprised when they hit Command-N

01:36:00 ◼   ► and a giant window appears, and they're like,

01:36:02 ◼   ► "It's just one of those things they just live with," right?

01:36:05 ◼   ► And so closing windows is a potentially destructive operation

01:36:09 ◼   ► in that some of your setup of how you had arranged things

01:36:12 ◼   ► may now be destroyed, and you may not be sure

01:36:14 ◼   ► that you can get it back, depending on the application.

01:36:17 ◼   ► I think mail actually is well behaved in this regard,

01:36:19 ◼   ► but not all applications are.

01:36:20 ◼   ► -Listeners, this is for you.

01:36:21 ◼   ► This isn't for the two of them. This is for you.

01:36:24 ◼   ► The same people who bust my cojones

01:36:28 ◼   ► over all of my tea ceremony for my records

01:36:32 ◼   ► and you have to get everything set up just right

01:36:34 ◼   ► and it doesn't make a difference,

01:36:36 ◼   ► these are the same people, mostly John,

01:36:38 ◼   ► that are saying that his windows must be just right,

01:36:41 ◼   ► and if they're even the slightest bit off,

01:36:44 ◼   ► even just a few pixels off, everything is ruined.

01:36:47 ◼   ► But I'm the one that's too particular.

01:36:49 ◼   ► -If only they were -- You think they're gonna appear

01:36:51 ◼   ► and be a few pixels off?

01:36:52 ◼   ► -No. They're gonna be wildly off.

01:36:54 ◼   ► And the final thing is mostly about the fact

01:36:56 ◼   ► that you have all the ceremony,

01:36:57 ◼   ► and in the end you get worse audio quality.

01:36:59 ◼   ► So that's not applicable to the situation.

01:37:01 ◼   ► Your mail window will be the same quality.

01:37:03 ◼   ► -Move on, move on.

01:37:05 ◼   ► -The equivalent would be you have to go through

01:37:08 ◼   ► some long ceremony, and what you would get

01:37:09 ◼   ► is a child's drawing of the mail window

01:37:11 ◼   ► instead of the actual mail window.

01:37:13 ◼   ► -Oh, my God. Please move on.

01:37:14 ◼   ► Just talk about Tesla or something safer.

01:37:16 ◼   ► [ Laughter ]

01:37:18 ◼   ► -Michael Helwig -- That's a great surname.

01:37:20 ◼   ► Michael Helwig writes, "Triggered by Marco's recent tweets

01:37:22 ◼   ► about database issues,

01:37:23 ◼   ► a question I meant to ask for a long time.

01:37:25 ◼   ► What is the reason for doing any processing

01:37:26 ◼   ► or storage server-side for Overcast?

01:37:28 ◼   ► The Android podcast app I've used so far

01:37:30 ◼   ► stored data exclusively on my device,

01:37:32 ◼   ► and all the processing of feeds and whatnot

01:37:34 ◼   ► also happens there.

01:37:35 ◼   ► What is the benefit either to you or your users

01:37:37 ◼   ► for doing stuff, and what stuff exactly

01:37:39 ◼   ► on servers owned by you?"

01:37:40 ◼   ► Didn't Castro used to do everything locally?

01:37:42 ◼   ► I don't know if it still does, but I thought it used to be locally.

01:37:45 ◼   ► -I think Marco asks himself the same question a lot.

01:37:47 ◼   ► What is the point? In fact, recently,

01:37:50 ◼   ► he may have found himself asking this question a lot.

01:37:52 ◼   ► "Why am I doing all this stuff on servers?"

01:37:54 ◼   ► Marco, please enlighten us.

01:37:55 ◼   ► -Yeah, so, I mean, part of it is there actually are

01:37:59 ◼   ► legitimate, significant gains from doing that.

01:38:02 ◼   ► One of the biggest is the gains for the users of the app.

01:38:07 ◼   ► Every single time they want to check

01:38:10 ◼   ► for whether they have any new episodes of their podcasts,

01:38:13 ◼   ► they don't have to download, like, 50 RSS feeds

01:38:17 ◼   ► all to their phone from their origin servers,

01:38:20 ◼   ► and those RSS feeds could be, like,

01:38:22 ◼   ► well over a megabyte each, depending on how many episodes

01:38:24 ◼   ► are in them.

01:38:25 ◼   ► So there's a huge amount of bandwidth and power savings

01:38:30 ◼   ► from knowing when new episodes are out,

01:38:32 ◼   ► and you also know about new episodes sooner,

01:38:34 ◼   ► because my servers are the ones hammering

01:38:36 ◼   ► all those feeds every few minutes,

01:38:37 ◼   ► and then when they get an episode,

01:38:39 ◼   ► they send notifications to everybody,

01:38:41 ◼   ► and then everyone's devices can download only the changes

01:38:44 ◼   ► and everything, so there is a significant, like, efficiency

01:38:47 ◼   ► and speed of updates, speed of getting new episodes

01:38:50 ◼   ► advantage to server-side stuff.

01:38:52 ◼   ► It's also just some practical stuff.

01:38:53 ◼   ► Like, if I discover some way in which my parsing

01:38:58 ◼   ► of an RSS feed is wrong or needs to be changed in some way,

01:39:02 ◼   ► or there's something about, like, some podcast

01:39:04 ◼   ► is messing up in Overcast,

01:39:06 ◼   ► there are fixes I can do server-side

01:39:08 ◼   ► that fix it instantly for everybody,

01:39:11 ◼   ► as opposed to if it was, you know, app-only,

01:39:14 ◼   ► I would have to figure out the bug in the app

01:39:16 ◼   ► and then fix it, you know, put it into beta testing

01:39:19 ◼   ► through Apple's processor,

01:39:20 ◼   ► and then, like, submit it up to App Review,

01:39:23 ◼   ► and it might not be in my customers' hands for days

01:39:25 ◼   ► or, you know, possibly a week or more,

01:39:27 ◼   ► depending on how long that takes.

01:39:29 ◼   ► So there are certainly, like, areas like that

01:39:32 ◼   ► that are just, like, it's just practical.

01:39:34 ◼   ► It's better to have stuff on the server

01:39:36 ◼   ► just for the result of how the app works

01:39:38 ◼   ► and how to maintain it.

01:39:39 ◼   ► There's also certain features

01:39:41 ◼   ► that require some kind of service back end.

01:39:44 ◼   ► One of them I wanted from the beginning was sync.

01:39:48 ◼   ► I wanted a way to be able to have Overcast run

01:39:52 ◼   ► on any number of iPhones, iPads, whatever,

01:39:56 ◼   ► and have it work and have it sync,

01:39:59 ◼   ► and then also, if your phone fell on a lake

01:40:02 ◼   ► and you had to, like, restore it or whatever,

01:40:04 ◼   ► your stuff would be there.

01:40:05 ◼   ► There would be some kind of sync account behind it

01:40:07 ◼   ► that you wouldn't have,

01:40:08 ◼   ► you wouldn't, like, lose all your podcast subscriptions

01:40:10 ◼   ► and data and stuff like that.

01:40:12 ◼   ► So sync, there are ways to do it,

01:40:14 ◼   ► which I'll get to in a second,

01:40:15 ◼   ► that don't involve you running servers,

01:40:17 ◼   ► but it's a lot easier if you're on servers.

01:40:20 ◼   ► The biggest reason, though, that I run the servers

01:40:22 ◼   ► is that I built this entire system,

01:40:26 ◼   ► I designed the app, I designed its architecture,

01:40:29 ◼   ► I built the infrastructure in, like, 2013 and 2014.

01:40:34 ◼   ► And that was a long time ago,

01:40:36 ◼   ► and things were different back then.

01:40:38 ◼   ► I had more of a tolerance for running servers.

01:40:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:40:43 ◼   ► And CloudKit didn't exist yet.

01:40:46 ◼   ► And now, if I was starting over from scratch today,

01:40:50 ◼   ► I think I would try to do it entirely with CloudKit.

01:40:54 ◼   ► Now, there are some limitations there.

01:40:56 ◼   ► I would probably end up still running my own servers

01:40:59 ◼   ► to do feed polling and to notify the apps

01:41:02 ◼   ► when there were changes in the feeds.

01:41:04 ◼   ► And maybe I wouldn't use my servers

01:41:06 ◼   ► to store user data, necessarily,

01:41:09 ◼   ► to store your list of subscriptions.

01:41:11 ◼   ► And I might migrate to that over time.

01:41:15 ◼   ► I could move to a setup like that over time

01:41:18 ◼   ► where I reduce the need to run my own servers

01:41:21 ◼   ► and I reduce what they're doing

01:41:23 ◼   ► down to basically no user data features

01:41:26 ◼   ► and just doing feed parsing, normalization, and notifications.

01:41:31 ◼   ► And actually, and to answer your question, Casey,

01:41:33 ◼   ► I think that's what Castro does, but that might be outdated now.

01:41:36 ◼   ► But anyway, that's the main reason is, like,

01:41:40 ◼   ► A, there are pretty compelling reasons to build server stuff,

01:41:44 ◼   ► and B, I designed this, like, eight years ago,

01:41:48 ◼   ► basically, when alternatives like CloudKit didn't exist.

01:41:52 ◼   ► And the reason I run my own servers,

01:41:55 ◼   ► as opposed to some kind of higher-level abstraction

01:41:58 ◼   ► or managed service, you know, there's, like,

01:42:01 ◼   ► all sorts of, like, managed database services

01:42:03 ◼   ► and stuff that I could be using that would abstract away

01:42:05 ◼   ► a lot of the problems that I have to sometimes deal with.

01:42:08 ◼   ► The main reason I don't do that is cost,

01:42:12 ◼   ► that right now I spend something like $5,000 a month on servers.

01:42:17 ◼   ► And to do the kind of, like, query and data volume

01:42:22 ◼   ► that I do on a managed service

01:42:26 ◼   ► would cost tens of thousands of dollars a month,

01:42:29 ◼   ► and I'm getting it for $5,000 a month.

01:42:31 ◼   ► And that's the main reason I do it,

01:42:33 ◼   ► that even though it is, you know,

01:42:36 ◼   ► it's a lot of headache and hassle sometimes,

01:42:40 ◼   ► but the vast majority of time, everything just runs

01:42:43 ◼   ► and takes almost no interaction from me at all.

01:42:45 ◼   ► Like, servers mostly run themselves

01:42:47 ◼   ► when you set them up right,

01:42:49 ◼   ► and occasionally you have to deal with something,

01:42:51 ◼   ► but it's not the common case.

01:42:52 ◼   ► If it was the common case,

01:42:54 ◼   ► I would get myself out of the server business.

01:42:56 ◼   ► But because the trouble is relatively unusual

01:43:00 ◼   ► and most of the time it runs just fine

01:43:02 ◼   ► and saves a ton of money

01:43:04 ◼   ► and gives me some really nice abilities

01:43:06 ◼   ► and really nice features, that's why I do it.

01:43:08 ◼   ► But if I were designing stuff from scratch today,

01:43:12 ◼   ► I would use less of a server component.

01:43:16 ◼   ► - That makes sense.

01:43:17 ◼   ► And finally, Sarab Kulkarni writes,

01:43:19 ◼   ► "Back in 2007, Steve Jobs proudly announced on stage

01:43:22 ◼   ► that the iPhone runs OS X.

01:43:24 ◼   ► How much of that is still true today?

01:43:26 ◼   ► How many core components of iOS do you think

01:43:28 ◼   ► are still present or dependent on macOS?"

01:43:31 ◼   ► Jon, tell us what you think.

01:43:33 ◼   ► - So, I mean, the public face of this,

01:43:35 ◼   ► of how Steve Jobs said, "iPhone runs OS X,"

01:43:38 ◼   ► and what the heck is OS X,

01:43:40 ◼   ► because at that point they hadn't, you know,

01:43:42 ◼   ► they hadn't dropped the Mac from it,

01:43:44 ◼   ► and it's just that there's a lot of confusing naming.

01:43:46 ◼   ► But under the covers,

01:43:48 ◼   ► Apple has never really had a split OS strategy.

01:43:51 ◼   ► Underneath, iPad OS, iOS, Watch OS,

01:43:55 ◼   ► whatever the heck, what is it, Audio OS,

01:43:57 ◼   ► what runs on the HomePods,

01:43:59 ◼   ► all those OSes are based on the same underpinnings,

01:44:02 ◼   ► which is the Darwin sort of underlying

01:44:05 ◼   ► low-level operating system,

01:44:07 ◼   ► which is an evolution of the BSD underpinnings from NeXT,

01:44:10 ◼   ► which they bought in 1997.

01:44:12 ◼   ► Their core OS is,

01:44:14 ◼   ► that foundation is the same under all of their platforms,

01:44:18 ◼   ► not just the iPhone, all of them.

01:44:20 ◼   ► Granted, lots of things have changed,

01:44:22 ◼   ► but the underpinnings are modular enough

01:44:24 ◼   ► that, say, when they wanted to field the iPhone,

01:44:26 ◼   ► they could make a variant of those underpinnings

01:44:29 ◼   ► and, let's say, turn off the swap file.

01:44:31 ◼   ► Still had virtual memory, but they said,

01:44:33 ◼   ► "Well, on the phone, we can't afford to swap,

01:44:35 ◼   ► so the part of the operating system

01:44:37 ◼   ► that takes memory pages and writes them out to,

01:44:39 ◼   ► quote, unquote, 'disk' and reads them back in,

01:44:41 ◼   ► we're not going to include that component,

01:44:43 ◼   ► or we'll turn that component off."

01:44:45 ◼   ► Various other things that you can change.

01:44:47 ◼   ► If you have good modular underpinnings,

01:44:49 ◼   ► like the OS, which is just like a Unix variant

01:44:51 ◼   ► with the mock microkernel and a BSD layer

01:44:53 ◼   ► and all that stuff, it's flexible enough

01:44:55 ◼   ► that you can run it on a watch.

01:44:57 ◼   ► You can run it on a discontinued HomePod.

01:44:59 ◼   ► You can run it on your phone, you can run it on your Mac.

01:45:01 ◼   ► And that, as far as, like, you know,

01:45:03 ◼   ► if you take a computer science course,

01:45:05 ◼   ► that is the operating system.

01:45:07 ◼   ► Now, I know people see the Finder and Springboard

01:45:10 ◼   ► and funny graphics on the top of their discontinued HomePod,

01:45:13 ◼   ► and they think, "Oh, these are totally different

01:45:15 ◼   ► operating systems," but that is a much higher-level component

01:45:17 ◼   ► and really isn't part of the operating system operating system.

01:45:20 ◼   ► Technically speaking, the operating system is the thing

01:45:22 ◼   ► that mediates access to the hardware,

01:45:24 ◼   ► but even if you go up a few levels above that,

01:45:26 ◼   ► that shared foundation is across all of Apple's products.

01:45:29 ◼   ► So how much is still true today?

01:45:31 ◼   ► The same amount as before.

01:45:33 ◼   ► Both of those operating systems have evolved.

01:45:35 ◼   ► They've gotten new features.

01:45:37 ◼   ► Features that were designed for the iPhone

01:45:39 ◼   ► have come to the Mac and vice versa.

01:45:41 ◼   ► I mean, now the Mac is using a thing that I think

01:45:44 ◼   ► is still called Mobile Update to do its operating system updates,

01:45:46 ◼   ► 'cause it's basically the iPhone update system,

01:45:48 ◼   ► but that is all, like, sort of things above the layer

01:45:50 ◼   ► of the operating system.

01:45:52 ◼   ► Under the covers, it's all the same OS that is --

01:45:54 ◼   ► You know, I think Steve Jobs said it was gonna be our next --

01:45:57 ◼   ► our OS for the next 15 years, and it has gone well past that,

01:46:00 ◼   ► because it turns out Unix is really flexible,

01:46:02 ◼   ► and Apple has just continued to tweak it

01:46:04 ◼   ► and develop it and improve it,

01:46:06 ◼   ► and they've done many, many things to improve it,

01:46:08 ◼   ► up to and including things like rolling out a new file system,

01:46:11 ◼   ► right, and, you know, they haven't needed

01:46:13 ◼   ► to change it fundamentally, because it is a flexible system

01:46:17 ◼   ► and that it underpins everything,

01:46:19 ◼   ► and so that's one of the reasons that Apple has been able to --

01:46:22 ◼   ► to do what it's done.

01:46:24 ◼   ► Like, they don't -- Every time they want to come up

01:46:26 ◼   ► with these new products, they haven't had to say,

01:46:28 ◼   ► "Oh, well, then we need a whole new platform strategy,

01:46:30 ◼   ► and we need a whole new this."

01:46:32 ◼   ► Like, they have -- They've done a really good job

01:46:34 ◼   ► of saying we have one tool chain, one IDE.

01:46:36 ◼   ► You know, we write our own compiler.

01:46:38 ◼   ► We make our own operating system,

01:46:40 ◼   ► and it underpins everything, and even though, you know,

01:46:42 ◼   ► they look so different, but there's so much that's shared,

01:46:45 ◼   ► it allows Apple to continue to support these platforms

01:46:49 ◼   ► without feeling like they're doing 20 different things.

01:46:52 ◼   ► -Thanks to our sponsors this week,

01:46:54 ◼   ► MacWeldon, Linode, and FlatFile,

01:46:56 ◼   ► and thanks to our members who support us directly.

01:46:59 ◼   ► You can join and become one of those wonderful members,

01:47:02 ◼   ► atp.fm/join.

01:47:03 ◼   ► Thanks, everybody. We will talk to you next week.

01:47:06 ◼   ► ♪♪

01:47:08 ◼   ► -♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:47:10 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:47:13 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:47:15 ◼   ► ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:47:18 ◼   ► ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:47:20 ◼   ► ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:47:23 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:47:26 ◼   ► ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:47:29 ◼   ► ♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪

01:47:34 ◼   ► ♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪

01:47:37 ◼   ► ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

01:47:43 ◼   ► ♪ So that's Casey List ♪

01:47:44 ◼   ► ♪ M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

01:47:47 ◼   ► ♪ Aunty Marco Arment ♪

01:47:50 ◼   ► ♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:47:52 ◼   ► ♪ U-S-A, Siracusa ♪

01:47:55 ◼   ► ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:47:58 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't mean to accidental ♪

01:48:03 ◼   ► ♪ Tech podcast so long ♪

01:48:08 ◼   ► -Can we talk briefly about the iMac color rumors?

01:48:11 ◼   ► -Yeah.

01:48:12 ◼   ► -Well, can we?

01:48:14 ◼   ► Yes. Will we? Probably not.

01:48:16 ◼   ► -So, the rumor is simple, and we've talked about this before.

01:48:19 ◼   ► There's gonna be a new iMac.

01:48:20 ◼   ► It's gonna have an ARM processor.

01:48:21 ◼   ► The iMac dashboard needs to be redesigned.

01:48:23 ◼   ► Wouldn't it be neat if you could get the iMac in colors?

01:48:25 ◼   ► Yes, I mean more than just gray and slightly darker gray.

01:48:28 ◼   ► And so there's this little mock-up picture

01:48:30 ◼   ► in this "9to5Mac" article from many weeks ago

01:48:32 ◼   ► showing what looked like a bunch of kind of squared-off big iPads,

01:48:37 ◼   ► but instead are iMacs, in a bunch of pastel colors,

01:48:41 ◼   ► like similar colors to the iPads,

01:48:43 ◼   ► where it's anodized aluminum, but there's a pink one,

01:48:45 ◼   ► a blue one, a green one, a dark gray one,

01:48:47 ◼   ► a white one, or whatever.

01:48:49 ◼   ► And I don't want to dig too much into this specific rumor,

01:48:51 ◼   ► but basically the idea is desktop Macs that are colored,

01:48:55 ◼   ► not just like a little splash of color,

01:48:57 ◼   ► but the whole thing comes in a color.

01:48:59 ◼   ► What do we think of that?

01:49:00 ◼   ► I think this mock-up looks good.

01:49:02 ◼   ► I mean, it's hard to say, you know, since it's clearly a mock-up,

01:49:07 ◼   ► but I think I like it having an entire case full of color.

01:49:12 ◼   ► I don't know that I would choose it.

01:49:14 ◼   ► I tend to choose very boring-looking devices,

01:49:17 ◼   ► like, you know, iOS devices.

01:49:19 ◼   ► I tend to choose black for the most part,

01:49:21 ◼   ► although my last couple iPhones

01:49:22 ◼   ► have been like that year's special color.

01:49:24 ◼   ► Looking at this particular mock-up,

01:49:26 ◼   ► which I know you're not really trying to perseverate on it,

01:49:28 ◼   ► but looking at this particular mock-up,

01:49:30 ◼   ► I don't think I would choose the pinkish

01:49:32 ◼   ► or the bluish or the greenish.

01:49:33 ◼   ► I would probably choose the thing that looks most like

01:49:35 ◼   ► my iMac Pro that I have now.

01:49:37 ◼   ► But I like the idea of having the option,

01:49:40 ◼   ► and certainly if I had a more fancier,

01:49:43 ◼   ► trendy-looking office area in my house,

01:49:45 ◼   ► having, like, a pastel color would potentially work better.

01:49:48 ◼   ► But I don't know.

01:49:50 ◼   ► That's not my taste, but I like the idea of it existing.

01:49:54 ◼   ► - I've advocated for a while that I think Apple needs

01:49:59 ◼   ► to have more fun in its product designs,

01:50:02 ◼   ► especially at the higher end of things.

01:50:05 ◼   ► They seem to be okay making, like,

01:50:09 ◼   ► colorful iPhones for the, like, the, quote, cheap iPhone,

01:50:14 ◼   ► like, you know, whatever the entry-level base model is.

01:50:16 ◼   ► They're fine to make, you know, colorful versions of that.

01:50:19 ◼   ► You know, and they make colorful iPad Airs now.

01:50:22 ◼   ► They made colorful MacBooks for a while,

01:50:25 ◼   ► but then, like, as soon as you get above the, like,

01:50:28 ◼   ► cheapest model, no more colors for you,

01:50:31 ◼   ► or at most silver or dark silver.

01:50:34 ◼   ► That's it, right?

01:50:35 ◼   ► And so I would love to have more color brought back

01:50:39 ◼   ► into the product line across larger parts of it.

01:50:42 ◼   ► One of the criticisms I have of the late Johnny Ive era,

01:50:46 ◼   ► which you've said before, is that the products got stripped

01:50:49 ◼   ► of a lot of their humanity.

01:50:50 ◼   ► They became a lot more, like, serious designs

01:50:53 ◼   ► by, you know, very, like, cold, precise kind of metal,

01:50:58 ◼   ► and that's it.

01:50:59 ◼   ► To have more of that humanity brought back into it,

01:51:02 ◼   ► to have more personality and more fun brought

01:51:04 ◼   ► into the physical design of the products is a welcome change.

01:51:07 ◼   ► And so I really hope that they do introduce

01:51:10 ◼   ► more colors over time.

01:51:11 ◼   ► Like, I remember there was a rumor,

01:51:13 ◼   ► like, a year and a half ago that they were gonna possibly

01:51:16 ◼   ► bring back the rainbow Apple logo or some other kind

01:51:18 ◼   ► of rainbow design in something.

01:51:20 ◼   ► And I think that would have been awesome.

01:51:22 ◼   ► I think it would be amazing to have, like,

01:51:25 ◼   ► the redesigned M1 MacBook whatevers that had

01:51:29 ◼   ► a rainbow Apple logo.

01:51:30 ◼   ► Like, that would be so cool, and I was hoping

01:51:32 ◼   ► they would take the M1 transition as an opportunity

01:51:35 ◼   ► to do that.

01:51:36 ◼   ► They didn't yet, at least, but, you know,

01:51:39 ◼   ► just that kind of thing, I would love to see

01:51:41 ◼   ► that kind of thing.

01:51:42 ◼   ► I love my stupid red iPhone mini.

01:51:44 ◼   ► Every time I see my red iPhone, I like it,

01:51:47 ◼   ► and I'm glad I got it in red, even though the back

01:51:49 ◼   ► of it is totally not red.

01:51:51 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:51:52 ◼   ► I never see the back, I see the sides,

01:51:53 ◼   ► and they look great.

01:51:54 ◼   ► Like, I love that my MacBook Air is its weird,

01:51:58 ◼   ► goldish, pinkish, orangish color, even though

01:52:00 ◼   ► in certain light, I don't even like the color.

01:52:02 ◼   ► But I love that it is a different color,

01:52:04 ◼   ► and it looks fresh and new.

01:52:05 ◼   ► And, like, I think if they're gonna keep putting

01:52:08 ◼   ► the amount of effort into the math that they have

01:52:09 ◼   ► been putting into it, I think it deserves to look

01:52:12 ◼   ► fresh and new, because it is fresh and new.

01:52:15 ◼   ► The insides, like the changes with Apple Silicon,

01:52:18 ◼   ► like, these are such amazing Macs coming out

01:52:20 ◼   ► of this era now, they will probably continue

01:52:23 ◼   ► to be more amazing Macs coming out of this era.

01:52:25 ◼   ► I think they should reflect that in their design.

01:52:27 ◼   ► It shouldn't just look like the same boring

01:52:30 ◼   ► computers we've had for many years now.

01:52:33 ◼   ► And colors are a really easy way to do that.

01:52:36 ◼   ► They're a really, like, big splash way to show

01:52:39 ◼   ► this thing is new, this is different,

01:52:42 ◼   ► it's the hot new thing, you want it.

01:52:44 ◼   ► And a lot of people buy tech gear based on factors

01:52:48 ◼   ► like that.

01:52:49 ◼   ► There are lots of people who will make decisions

01:52:51 ◼   ► on what computer to buy, or what phone to buy,

01:52:54 ◼   ► based on how it looks, and there's nothing wrong with that.

01:52:57 ◼   ► Like, that's a factor.

01:52:59 ◼   ► It's one of many factors people might use to choose things.

01:53:02 ◼   ► And so for Apple to make a splash and to, you know,

01:53:06 ◼   ► put out new designs of hardware that actually look

01:53:08 ◼   ► fresh and new, and actually have fun colors again,

01:53:11 ◼   ► I would love that.

01:53:13 ◼   ► So I hope these rumors are/were true.

01:53:17 ◼   ► I hope Apple does introduce more color into their product lines.

01:53:21 ◼   ► And I hope they release some bold choices,

01:53:24 ◼   ► like, not just the really safe, very pale colors

01:53:29 ◼   ► they've used, like on the iPad Air.

01:53:31 ◼   ► You know, if that's all it is, okay, fine,

01:53:33 ◼   ► that's a good step one.

01:53:34 ◼   ► But I hope they also release products that have

01:53:37 ◼   ► bold choices, that aren't just like,

01:53:40 ◼   ► here's a slightly bluish tint on space gray.

01:53:44 ◼   ► Here's a slightly pinkish tint on silver.

01:53:48 ◼   ► Like, let's go a little further than that.

01:53:50 ◼   ► Let's make it a little more bold,

01:53:52 ◼   ► show a little bit more personality, which,

01:53:54 ◼   ► I mean, you know, might not be the strong suit

01:53:57 ◼   ► of a lot of Apple leadership right now,

01:53:58 ◼   ► but I'd like to see that brought back.

01:54:00 ◼   ► I'd like to see, like, personality brought into the hardware,

01:54:04 ◼   ► where we haven't really seen a lot of that recently.

01:54:06 ◼   ► And the little bits we've gotten here and there

01:54:08 ◼   ► have been very welcome.

01:54:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, the iPhone, Apple's been better about the iPhone

01:54:12 ◼   ► in terms of, like, making it in colors at various times.

01:54:15 ◼   ► Like, the 5C had lots of very bold colors,

01:54:18 ◼   ► and in the current era, the Pro ones tend to be boring,

01:54:22 ◼   ► but the slight step-down models have more interesting colors,

01:54:26 ◼   ► even if it's just like, even if the product red

01:54:28 ◼   ► is like the most bold one.

01:54:29 ◼   ► But still, some of the other ones, you know,

01:54:31 ◼   ► make a statement.

01:54:32 ◼   ► But on phones, there's a couple of factors.

01:54:33 ◼   ► One is that most people put a case on them,

01:54:35 ◼   ► and the cases are incredibly brightly colored.

01:54:37 ◼   ► You see people's phones out in the real world,

01:54:38 ◼   ► people pick cases that they like,

01:54:40 ◼   ► and some of them, they're not shy.

01:54:41 ◼   ► Like, they're very vibrant, interesting, you know,

01:54:45 ◼   ► extremely varied cases on people's phones, any phones, right?

01:54:49 ◼   ► And for something as large as an iMac, like,

01:54:52 ◼   ► especially now that the screens are so big, right,

01:54:54 ◼   ► that's a little bit of a different kettle of fish.

01:54:57 ◼   ► Like, if you have a very bright purple case for your phone

01:55:01 ◼   ► with, like, leopard spots on it, so what, right?

01:55:04 ◼   ► But if you did that same pattern on a 27-inch iMac,

01:55:07 ◼   ► some people would be like, "Whoa, that's just too much.

01:55:09 ◼   ► I don't want that."

01:55:11 ◼   ► And so I understand why Apple might be shy of that,

01:55:13 ◼   ► but I, you know, I'm totally with Marco.

01:55:16 ◼   ► I'm reminded of a time in Apple's past

01:55:20 ◼   ► when Apple itself was not afraid to do exactly what I described,

01:55:23 ◼   ► like, you know, a bright purple huge thing.

01:55:28 ◼   ► Like, so I will put a link in the show notes

01:55:31 ◼   ► to Jason Snell's 20 Macs for 2020 podcast series,

01:55:35 ◼   ► where I talked to a bunch of people,

01:55:36 ◼   ► including me, about old Macs,

01:55:38 ◼   ► and there was a couple episodes on the Macs I'm about to describe,

01:55:40 ◼   ► and, in fact, Jason's been releasing the sort of unedited,

01:55:44 ◼   ► longer conversations with all of his different people.

01:55:46 ◼   ► So if you want to hear hours of me talking about old Macs

01:55:50 ◼   ► in a format that I didn't think was going to be released...

01:55:52 ◼   ► [ Laughter ]

01:55:54 ◼   ► ...so it's kind of casual or whatever.

01:55:56 ◼   ► Anyway, there's plenty of that.

01:55:57 ◼   ► But one of the things that came up was,

01:56:00 ◼   ► whatever, I'm so bad with ears, but after the iMac came out,

01:56:04 ◼   ► everyone remembers the iMac, the original iMac.

01:56:07 ◼   ► Even if you weren't alive for it,

01:56:08 ◼   ► you probably know what it looks like,

01:56:09 ◼   ► the kind of teal gumdrop-looking computer, right?

01:56:12 ◼   ► Bold colors brought to computers, right?

01:56:14 ◼   ► Apple had Pro computers then, too, and they were big, right?

01:56:18 ◼   ► They were big towers, and they even had big --

01:56:20 ◼   ► they weren't, you know, LCDs, but they had big CRTs.

01:56:22 ◼   ► Apple sold a 21-inch CRT, which, if you've never had one of those,

01:56:26 ◼   ► is way bigger than you think it is and way heavier, right?

01:56:29 ◼   ► So a full-size tower computer and a 21-inch CRT.

01:56:32 ◼   ► And after the iMac came out,

01:56:34 ◼   ► when Apple fielded its updated line of those products,