ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► So anyways, what'd you order at Shake Shack?

00:00:01 ◼   ► I'm still jealous.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - So Tiff and I have, you know,

00:00:03 ◼   ► we go on special occasions sometimes to Shake Shack.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Normally our order is a Shackburger each,

00:00:08 ◼   ► which is the cheeseburger.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Like the basic, like one patty cheeseburger.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Which is somewhat small.

00:00:16 ◼   ► So a Shackburger each, we share an order of cheese fries,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and we share a black and white shake.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Solid.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Today, we decide, 'cause every time,

00:00:25 ◼   ► when you finish that burger,

00:00:27 ◼   ► because it's such a good burger,

00:00:29 ◼   ► but it's also a relatively small burger.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Every time you order that you think,

00:00:33 ◼   ► "I wonder if I could have gotten away with a second burger."

00:00:35 ◼   ► (laughter)

00:00:37 ◼   ► - You should not be thinking that.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - So today, we decided to splurge,

00:00:40 ◼   ► being that it was Valentine's Day,

00:00:41 ◼   ► this was our special trip to the city just to eat Shake Shack,

00:00:44 ◼   ► and we got three burgers, and we cut the third one in half,

00:00:47 ◼   ► so we each had 1.5 burgers.

00:00:49 ◼   ► - That is actually a very good choice.

00:00:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it turned out we were pretty full,

00:00:55 ◼   ► but it was not like a mistake.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Well, you really, you really, you know,

00:01:01 ◼   ► stretched yourself out a little bit

00:01:03 ◼   ► with all the top four episodes.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Now you're able to handle that much food.

00:01:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Oh goodness, there is no Shake Shack anywhere near me.

00:01:11 ◼   ► I think the nearest one is in DC,

00:01:12 ◼   ► which is like a two hour drive,

00:01:13 ◼   ► and it makes me so sad because, you know, as with,

00:01:17 ◼   ► what is it, In-N-Out?

00:01:18 ◼   ► Like In-N-Out, I think is very tasty,

00:01:20 ◼   ► but a little bit overrated.

00:01:22 ◼   ► And I think with Shake Shack,

00:01:25 ◼   ► I would say it's less overrated,

00:01:27 ◼   ► But what I'm driving at is that some of the appeal is that it is not approximate.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Is that the word I'm looking for?

00:01:34 ◼   ► It's not near me.

00:01:35 ◼   ► And so because it's not near me, I seek it and yearn for it in a way that I very much

00:01:39 ◼   ► do for In-N-Out, even though I would say In-N-Out is good, whereas Shake Shack is great.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I'm surprised you asked Margot what he got at Shake Shack, because there's like nothing

00:01:50 ◼   ► on that menu.

00:01:52 ◼   ► They expanded it quite a bit over the last couple of years.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Like as they've expanded...

00:01:56 ◼   ► Expanded to what?

00:01:57 ◼   ► There's like burgers, I think there's a chicken sandwich now.

00:02:00 ◼   ► There was always the mushroom, vegetarian burger.

00:02:01 ◼   ► - You have a chicken sandwich?

00:02:02 ◼   ► - I think there's a chicken option now.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - We don't have a chicken sandwich.

00:02:04 ◼   ► - There's hot dogs, there's a lot.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - I know about the hot dog.

00:02:07 ◼   ► They've got like two kinds of burgers, a hot dog,

00:02:10 ◼   ► a bunch of different kinds of shakes,

00:02:11 ◼   ► and fries that are not good.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - And the mushroom burger, don't forget that.

00:02:14 ◼   ► - I said a bunch of different kinds of burgers.

00:02:15 ◼   ► I get the Shaq burger too, 'cause it's like,

00:02:17 ◼   ► that's, you know, there's just no variety.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Which is fine, I like the burger, it's a good burger,

00:02:21 ◼   ► but In-N-Out has better fries.

00:02:23 ◼   ► - I don't think I've had In-N-Out before.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I have had Five Guys, there's those around here,

00:02:28 ◼   ► and I find them incredibly disappointing.

00:02:30 ◼   ► I don't think Five Guys is even in the same league.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Like to me, Five Guys, I'd rather just have like

00:02:35 ◼   ► McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Like it's at that level.

00:02:38 ◼   ► - No way, you're insane.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Five Guys is so much better than McDonald's or Burger King.

00:02:42 ◼   ► - All right, so hold on.

00:02:43 ◼   ► So Five Guys, if I'm not mistaken,

00:02:44 ◼   ► started either in Virginia in the DC suburbs

00:02:46 ◼   ► or in DC proper, and so I feel some amount of need

00:02:50 ◼   ► to defend Five Guys.

00:02:51 ◼   ► Five Guys to me is the kind of burger you have once a year,

00:02:54 ◼   ► because it is, here's a Simpsons reference for you, John.

00:02:57 ◼   ► - 'Cause it takes you a year to forget how bad it is

00:02:59 ◼   ► and how worth it it isn't?

00:03:01 ◼   ► - Maybe. - It is not bad.

00:03:02 ◼   ► - It's not that it's bad. - It is different

00:03:03 ◼   ► than Shake Shack and Shake Shack is better,

00:03:05 ◼   ► but Five Guys I think is pretty good.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - No, it's not. - Five Guys is good.

00:03:09 ◼   ► So here's the thing, with Five Guys though,

00:03:10 ◼   ► is that it's so unbelievably and unabashedly greasy.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Not to say it's not tasty, but it's so greasy.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Oh, goodness. - I don't think so.

00:03:17 ◼   ► I think Shake Shack is greasier than Five Guys.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - See, I haven't had Five Guys in a while,

00:03:21 ◼   ► so maybe you're right, but the point I'm driving at,

00:03:23 ◼   ► It's like Dr. Nick when he was telling Homer how to get fat and he just like held up a

00:03:27 ◼   ► piece of chicken or something like that to the wall or to a piece of paper or something.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I don't remember the exact reference, but he basically says, "Hey, if it's see-through,

00:03:34 ◼   ► then you can eat it and that's how you're gonna get really fat."

00:03:35 ◼   ► I feel like that's five guys.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And so I feel, even if I only have like, my typical order is a little bacon cheeseburger

00:03:43 ◼   ► and I say that as though I go off and I go again like once a year.

00:03:48 ◼   ► But I feel like after I have my little bacon cheeseburger and fries, I feel like a beached

00:03:53 ◼   ► - I love that it's called the little burger.

00:03:55 ◼   ► I love that they make you--

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Try to shame you into not overeating.

00:03:59 ◼   ► - It's like they make you say the indignity of,

00:04:01 ◼   ► can I have the little burger, please?

00:04:03 ◼   ► Like at Shake Shack, if you say the Shackburger,

00:04:06 ◼   ► the Shackburger is available in single or double patty,

00:04:08 ◼   ► but the default is single,

00:04:09 ◼   ► which is probably what you should get.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Like you don't have to say,

00:04:12 ◼   ► can I please have the smallest burger you have,

00:04:14 ◼   ► even though that's what it is.

00:04:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, so anyway, so the point I'm driving at is,

00:04:18 ◼   ► after I eat one, or after I eat at Five Guys,

00:04:21 ◼   ► I need like six months to a year to recover,

00:04:23 ◼   ► because I feel like a beached whale at first.

00:04:25 ◼   ► - You gotta train yourself up

00:04:26 ◼   ► 'cause we get Five Guys here all the time.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I mean, we have Shake Shack and Five Guys both close to us,

00:04:30 ◼   ► so we get them both plenty.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I think what you're thinking of with the grease bomb

00:04:35 ◼   ► is Five Guys fries are just grease bombs

00:04:37 ◼   ► and are of varying quality.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And they give you like,

00:04:40 ◼   ► that's the thing about Five Guys,

00:04:41 ◼   ► they give you, I think it must be in their manual,

00:04:44 ◼   ► when somebody orders fries,

00:04:46 ◼   ► fill up whatever cup size they told you to fill up with fries

00:04:49 ◼   ► but also dump a whole bunch more, which is fine.

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Like a spa-- - Yeah, like place it in a bag

00:04:53 ◼   ► and then pour more fries on top of it

00:04:55 ◼   ► such that the entire bottom of the bag,

00:04:57 ◼   ► so your cup of fries is padded from damage by other fries.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - And I think that's a good corporate policy

00:05:04 ◼   ► because potatoes are cheap, right?

00:05:07 ◼   ► And they've got 'em stacked up in the thing there

00:05:08 ◼   ► and they give you more than you could ever possibly want

00:05:11 ◼   ► and people feel like that's generous,

00:05:12 ◼   ► especially for the ridiculous prices

00:05:14 ◼   ► everybody charges for these hamburgers, right?

00:05:16 ◼   ► - For, you know, it seems like Five Guys fans

00:05:19 ◼   ► rave about their fries a lot, honestly,

00:05:21 ◼   ► I find them absolutely nothing special.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And maybe this is just because the Five Guys nearest us,

00:05:27 ◼   ► maybe it's just a terrible location.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Like maybe it's just a bad Five Guys.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But again, one area where I think Shake Shack

00:05:33 ◼   ► has done very well is that so far I've eaten at

00:05:35 ◼   ► probably five or six distinct Shake Shack locations,

00:05:38 ◼   ► and they are remarkably consistent.

00:05:39 ◼   ► They are all, they've all been consistently good for me.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Everything tastes like exactly the same.

00:05:44 ◼   ► - What are your Shake Shack fries?

00:05:47 ◼   ► What kind are they?

00:05:48 ◼   ► because they've changed them

00:05:48 ◼   ► and it might be location specific.

00:05:50 ◼   ► - We have what used, I guess what used to be the only kind,

00:05:53 ◼   ► which is they almost look like frozen crinkle cut fries.

00:05:55 ◼   ► - Yep, all right, that's what we have too,

00:05:57 ◼   ► but they went to Shoestring for a while near us

00:05:58 ◼   ► and it was grim.

00:05:59 ◼   ► - No, that's bad, that's bad.

00:06:02 ◼   ► - They can be good, but theirs weren't,

00:06:03 ◼   ► theirs were not good, so they changed back.

00:06:05 ◼   ► But I think the crinkle cut fries are not particularly good.

00:06:08 ◼   ► - Oh, I think they're wonderful.

00:06:09 ◼   ► To me, Shake Shack fries, they taste like frozen fries

00:06:14 ◼   ► from your childhood, except done really well.

00:06:17 ◼   ► And also, I don't find them greasy really at all,

00:06:21 ◼   ► like beyond what the minimum required to deep fry something.

00:06:24 ◼   ► But where Five Guys fries I feel like could make

00:06:27 ◼   ► a piece of paper clear by just going near

00:06:29 ◼   ► that piece of paper, Shake Shack fries

00:06:31 ◼   ► really don't seem greasy.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - At least Five Guys has the Cajun option

00:06:35 ◼   ► if you get sick of the regular fries.

00:06:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, but Shake Shack fries are so good

00:06:37 ◼   ► you don't get sick of them.

00:06:38 ◼   ► You just put cheese on top of them.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And the cheese fries are really good.

00:06:42 ◼   ► - No, the cheese is gross, it's like Cheez Whiz.

00:06:44 ◼   ► It's like Casey's Velveeta, it's terrible.

00:06:46 ◼   ► - It's kind of, it's lighter in color

00:06:49 ◼   ► than a slice of American cheese

00:06:50 ◼   ► or like most nacho cheese sauce.

00:06:52 ◼   ► - It's cheese food.

00:06:53 ◼   ► - It's definitely some kind of,

00:06:55 ◼   ► well it is because it melts very well.

00:06:57 ◼   ► But it's a really nice, somewhat mild cheese sauce.

00:07:01 ◼   ► The distribution's always really nice.

00:07:03 ◼   ► And they give you that little wooden stick

00:07:04 ◼   ► to pick up the fries with, it's so good.

00:07:06 ◼   ► - I'm with Marco on this.

00:07:07 ◼   ► However, I do need to also bring up,

00:07:09 ◼   ► for those of us who are from--

00:07:10 ◼   ► - Mr. Velveeta loves the fake cheese surprise.

00:07:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I know, nobody's surprised.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I also need to bring up, for those of you

00:07:16 ◼   ► who live south of the Mason-Dixon,

00:07:18 ◼   ► specifically in or around North Carolina,

00:07:20 ◼   ► there's a chain called Cookout,

00:07:22 ◼   ► wherein you can get a truly heinous amount of food

00:07:26 ◼   ► for a hilariously small amount of money.

00:07:28 ◼   ► And if you've never experienced Cookout,

00:07:31 ◼   ► but have the opportunity, you need to try it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► And Cookout, their burgers taste, guess what,

00:07:36 ◼   ► like you had just cooked them at a Cookout.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Or as some people, where is it that they call

00:07:42 ◼   ► any sort of like picnicky Cookout thing a barbecue,

00:07:44 ◼   ► which is completely bananas?

00:07:45 ◼   ► Is that the Northeast?

00:07:46 ◼   ► - The whole country except for the South.

00:07:48 ◼   ► - Oh, God, that's so ridiculous.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Barbecue is its own thing.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:07:51 ◼   ► - So honestly, I gotta say, I don't like,

00:07:53 ◼   ► I don't, and I'm using the lowercase version

00:07:56 ◼   ► of the cookout word here.

00:07:57 ◼   ► I don't like cookout burgers most of the time.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Burgers, in my opinion, are best made

00:08:02 ◼   ► on a flat griddle surface, whereas when you put it

00:08:05 ◼   ► on the rack of a grill, especially the way most people,

00:08:09 ◼   ► most people are just amateur barbecue cooks or grill cooks,

00:08:13 ◼   ► whatever word you use for that large metal box

00:08:15 ◼   ► that you put hamburgers and hot dogs in.

00:08:17 ◼   ► For me, my move is always to go for the hot dogs.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Because first of all, they're less filling usually.

00:08:24 ◼   ► So like you can have just one, or you can have two,

00:08:26 ◼   ► depending on how hungry you are.

00:08:27 ◼   ► You can have more room for the side dishes,

00:08:29 ◼   ► which are always better.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - Or one and a half, if you're sharing it.

00:08:33 ◼   ► - Right, thanks.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And hot dogs are pretty much impossible

00:08:38 ◼   ► to screw up that badly.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Whereas burgers on people's grills are always,

00:08:42 ◼   ► Usually they're way overdone.

00:08:44 ◼   ► They're also usually way under seasoned.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And a hot dog, you put it on the grill,

00:08:50 ◼   ► it's already cooked, you just need to make it warm,

00:08:52 ◼   ► and maybe get a little bit of like a split on the skin,

00:08:55 ◼   ► like a little bit of the bubbliness

00:08:56 ◼   ► on the skin from the heat.

00:08:57 ◼   ► And that's it, you put it in a bun,

00:08:58 ◼   ► you put anything or nothing on it and it's delicious,

00:09:01 ◼   ► it totally takes the barbecue cook out of the equation.

00:09:06 ◼   ► Unless they like seriously horribly burn it,

00:09:08 ◼   ► but that's pretty rare and pretty hard to do.

00:09:10 ◼   ► All I'm saying is, if you're ever in a position

00:09:12 ◼   ► where you can go visit a cookout,

00:09:14 ◼   ► get yourself a cookout tray,

00:09:15 ◼   ► I mean, they consider a full quesadilla as a side item.

00:09:19 ◼   ► That's all you need to know.

00:09:21 ◼   ► That's all you need to know.

00:09:22 ◼   ► The whole family, my whole family can eat there

00:09:23 ◼   ► for like under 15 bucks, it's ridiculous.

00:09:25 ◼   ► I love cookout, God, I love cookout.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Anyway, we should probably start the show

00:09:29 ◼   ► lest I talk about food for the entire night.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Do you wanna talk politics?

00:09:33 ◼   ► We can do that for a little while

00:09:34 ◼   ► 'cause I'm really fired up.

00:09:35 ◼   ► - I mean, now that we talked

00:09:36 ◼   ► like fancy people's burger chains,

00:09:38 ◼   ► I feel like politics is a much safer choice.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, probably.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Can we just ban all guns?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Let's just do that.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Can we all agree on that?

00:09:45 ◼   ► Good, I'm glad we talked.

00:09:46 ◼   ► All right, let's start with some follow-up.

00:09:50 ◼   ► And I don't wanna talk about

00:09:51 ◼   ► any of this battery stuff anymore, so why don't you do it?

00:09:54 ◼   ► - I don't want to either.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Why are we still doing this?

00:09:57 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I don't care. - We're not talking about it.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I just wanted to give some,

00:10:01 ◼   ► we're still getting feedback about it, that much is certain.

00:10:03 ◼   ► - We're not talking about it.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Here, let's talk about it.

00:10:04 ◼   ► - Right, we're still getting feedback about it.

00:10:06 ◼   ► People continue to send us stuff,

00:10:07 ◼   ► And I just wanted to give some representative samples for real live listeners covering the

00:10:11 ◼   ► spectrum of the type of feedback we're getting.

00:10:14 ◼   ► But I didn't practice pronouncing these people's names.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Did I just hear a beer crack?

00:10:17 ◼   ► You sure did.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Did that, did that?

00:10:19 ◼   ► Marco, I love you so much.

00:10:21 ◼   ► I've never loved you more than I love you right now.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Sorry, what were you saying, Jon?

00:10:25 ◼   ► I'm saying I didn't practice how to pronounce these people's names because I didn't think

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'd be doing it, so I'm trying to figure it out.

00:10:28 ◼   ► You don't have to do it.

00:10:29 ◼   ► We can skip this topic.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Yeah, we can skip it.

00:10:31 ◼   ► Just skip it.

00:10:32 ◼   ► No, we're totally doing it.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Just skip it.

00:10:34 ◼   ► We're going to go with Migurdich Carnigian?

00:10:35 ◼   ► No, that's definitely not it.

00:10:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:40 ◼   ► I need more beers to open, oh my God.

00:10:42 ◼   ► - I think that's it, I think that's close,

00:10:44 ◼   ► you give it a try.

00:10:45 ◼   ► - So, we have some follow up about my task managers.

00:10:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:48 ◼   ► - Nope, nope, we're doing these,

00:10:49 ◼   ► it's just you just gotta read them,

00:10:51 ◼   ► that's all we have to do, it's not complicated,

00:10:52 ◼   ► there's no discussion required,

00:10:53 ◼   ► you just have to read the feedback.

00:10:55 ◼   ► - Oh God, why are we so talking about the battery stuff?

00:10:57 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't know.

00:10:58 ◼   ► - We're not talking about it, we're reading feedback.

00:10:59 ◼   ► - That's talking.

00:11:00 ◼   ► - It's three items, there needs to be no discussion about it.

00:11:03 ◼   ► - Can we read in our minds and then not talk about it?

00:11:06 ◼   ► Alright, here we go, here we go, I'm over it, I'm over it, here we go, here we go, we're

00:11:10 ◼   ► gonna speedrun it.

00:11:12 ◼   ► One person said...

00:11:14 ◼   ► Done and done.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - So the reason I picked these three things is because they're representative of the entire

00:11:19 ◼   ► spectrum.

00:11:20 ◼   ► One person saying my battery's great and I have terrible problems, one person saying

00:11:23 ◼   ► that I had slowdowns and I fixed it with a clean install, one person saying I had slowdowns

00:11:27 ◼   ► and I fixed it with a battery thing.

00:11:28 ◼   ► I just wanna put that out there because lots of people think that the various descriptions

00:11:33 ◼   ► of things that might happen that we offer on the show are fictional or hypothetical or completely

00:11:38 ◼   ► one-sided. Every possibility is encountered for by people. That's what we're trying to express in

00:11:42 ◼   ► these shows. You think you know exactly how everybody is handling it. It's always throttling,

00:11:46 ◼   ► it's never throttling, Cleanest All always fixes it, Cleanest All never fixes it,

00:11:49 ◼   ► battery always fixes it, battery never fixes it. It's not true. We're getting real accounts of all

00:11:52 ◼   ► these different occurrences. So this is actually a complicated nuanced issue. And I'm sorry for

00:11:56 ◼   ► all the people who think it is 100%, whatever their pet theory is. I hereby declare this topic

00:12:03 ◼   ► done. Seriously. Permanently done. I understand why you brought it up, John, but I'll embark on

00:12:07 ◼   ► this. We're done. All right. I was talking, and I guess it made it in the show, I never listen to

00:12:12 ◼   ► the show after it's released, I was talking under the influence of a beverage or two about my

00:12:17 ◼   ► photo management Swift console app. And one of the things I'd said is that I wanted to verify that if

00:12:25 ◼   ► I find a name collision, whether or not those two files are the same file. And the reason I made

00:12:31 ◼   ► some of the choices I made is because this app was written just for me, and in my particular

00:12:36 ◼   ► scenario, all of the final versions of the files are stored on my Synology, on my network-attached

00:12:41 ◼   ► storage.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And so what I was saying was, "Hey, I want to MD5 all these files to make sure they're

00:12:45 ◼   ► identical or not, make decisions based on that."

00:12:48 ◼   ► And more than a few people wrote in to say, usually very, very nicely, "You friggin' idiot.

00:12:54 ◼   ► The first thing you do is check the size of the files, and then you worry about MD5ing

00:12:59 ◼   ► which was really annoying because I should have thought of that myself and didn't.

00:13:03 ◼   ► So...

00:13:03 ◼   ► I didn't mention it because I assumed you were doing that, so yes, you should feel shame.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I feel deep shame and I am admitting it publicly.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Honestly, I'm with you, Casey, I would not have thought of that.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Like, yeah, just check the file size.

00:13:14 ◼   ► There's only MD5 that the file sizes match.

00:13:16 ◼   ► I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

00:13:17 ◼   ► No, you totally would have done it.

00:13:19 ◼   ► When you're writing the code, you feel it, you're like, "Wait a second.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Why don't you, like, a ver..."

00:13:23 ◼   ► "Alright, go ahead."

00:13:25 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:13:26 ◼   ► I feel it's impossible. I feel it's impossible to write that code and actually have your fingers typo without going, "Wait a second."

00:13:31 ◼   ► Well, I could tell you it is not impossible because I did it.

00:13:35 ◼   ► But no, all kidding aside, it was a truly--

00:13:38 ◼   ► it was an obvious answer that I just really did not think of. So I appreciate all of you writing in and I am--

00:13:43 ◼   ► I have felt and continued to feel the appropriate amounts of shame. Now, the final follow-up topic,

00:13:48 ◼   ► everyone and their mother also wrote in to tell Marco that they have the one true task management

00:13:56 ◼   ► advice or app or what have you.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Marco, did you try any of them and do you care?

00:14:02 ◼   ► - I tried, I think, three or four

00:14:05 ◼   ► different grocery list apps.

00:14:07 ◼   ► We had lots of recommendations for these.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I didn't try anything to replace things

00:14:12 ◼   ► as my main to-do app, because I've tried enough

00:14:15 ◼   ► of those already and honestly, trying to do apps,

00:14:17 ◼   ► giving them a real shot, is so time-consuming

00:14:19 ◼   ► and cumbersome that I don't want to try a million of them.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I'm very happy with things now, it's fine.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So for the grocery list role, I mentioned that I use Clear,

00:14:29 ◼   ► and I've been using Clear for years, and it's been fine,

00:14:33 ◼   ► but I would like something that has Siri integration

00:14:35 ◼   ► so I can quickly add to my list.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So a bunch of people wrote in and suggested

00:14:39 ◼   ► a lot of different apps that make grocery lists

00:14:42 ◼   ► and do things in a smart way.

00:14:43 ◼   ► I found all of them to be either hideous looking

00:14:48 ◼   ► and/or too complicated.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Some of them tried to be too smart.

00:14:53 ◼   ► A lot of them, I mentioned that one of the reasons

00:14:55 ◼   ► I like using Clear is it makes it very easy for me

00:14:57 ◼   ► to just drag and reorder things to be in the order

00:15:01 ◼   ► in which they are in the store,

00:15:02 ◼   ► because I know my stores really well,

00:15:03 ◼   ► and so I always arrange things to be in an efficient way.

00:15:08 ◼   ► Many apps try to do that for you automatically,

00:15:10 ◼   ► through some kind of, either by learning the way

00:15:12 ◼   ► you order them, or by defining sections,

00:15:15 ◼   ► like okay, produce, and then cereals, and then dairy,

00:15:18 ◼   ► and you can even, some of them are even advanced enough

00:15:20 ◼   ► to know that you can set like, okay, this store,

00:15:24 ◼   ► the aisles are in this order.

00:15:25 ◼   ► First produce, then dairy, like, it's a very,

00:15:29 ◼   ► these apps have a very, very advanced

00:15:32 ◼   ► and complicated solution to this problem,

00:15:35 ◼   ► and I found none of them compelling enough.

00:15:37 ◼   ► I have already food shopped with, I think,

00:15:38 ◼   ► two or three of them, and I found them not compelling.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Either it was cumbersome to use, or it was just,

00:15:44 ◼   ► it took a lot of space on screen,

00:15:46 ◼   ► or they were very cluttered.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I didn't like the way any of them actually flowed in use.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Ultimately, this is a situation where

00:15:54 ◼   ► you could make custom apps that try to be smart

00:15:57 ◼   ► about grocery shopping.

00:15:59 ◼   ► That's too much for me.

00:16:01 ◼   ► I'm fine with Clear.

00:16:02 ◼   ► All I want is Siri entry and maybe sharing for Clear.

00:16:07 ◼   ► That's it.

00:16:08 ◼   ► A basic list that I can drag to reorder myself.

00:16:11 ◼   ► All the intelligent stuff,

00:16:13 ◼   ► it's kinda like my Nest thermostats.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Like when I first got the Nests back forever ago now,

00:16:20 ◼   ► I very soon afterwards turned off

00:16:22 ◼   ► all of their automatic learning features.

00:16:24 ◼   ► And instead I just set a program on the website.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Like you can just enter, like,

00:16:28 ◼   ► "Alright, go to this temperature at this time,

00:16:30 ◼   ► "go to this temperature at this time,

00:16:31 ◼   ► "and stop guessing what to do."

00:16:33 ◼   ► I found that I greatly preferred that

00:16:35 ◼   ► because the intelligent part of it

00:16:37 ◼   ► would often just guess wrong or just get in my way.

00:16:40 ◼   ► There's a lot of places where this is the case

00:16:43 ◼   ► and a lot of different things for a lot of different people.

00:16:45 ◼   ► This is just one of those problem domains,

00:16:47 ◼   ► this grocery list thing, where for me,

00:16:49 ◼   ► the simpler option is not only good enough,

00:16:53 ◼   ► but better on average.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Like, for all of the gains that I got

00:16:59 ◼   ► for the ones that would rearrange themselves intelligently,

00:17:01 ◼   ► there were just as many times where it guessed wrong.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And maybe if I used them for longer periods of time,

00:17:07 ◼   ► they would learn better, and they would get better,

00:17:10 ◼   ► you know, whichever one I used most

00:17:11 ◼   ► would like really learn me and my stores.

00:17:14 ◼   ► but I found the process so cumbersome to use them

00:17:17 ◼   ► and so uncompelling, I don't want to use them for any longer.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I'm fine just using a very simple list app now,

00:17:23 ◼   ► which so far is clear, and I hope the next version of clear,

00:17:26 ◼   ► which I hear is being worked on,

00:17:27 ◼   ► I hope it adds stuff like sharing and Siri.

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00:19:28 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:19:32 ◼   ► - Today there has been all sorts of drama

00:19:35 ◼   ► about how you hold the HomePod incorrectly or something.

00:19:38 ◼   ► - Well, your shelf or table holds the HomePod directly.

00:19:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:42 ◼   ► - Well done.

00:19:43 ◼   ► - All this time, who knew that we were supposed

00:19:45 ◼   ► to be using coasters under our HomePods?

00:19:47 ◼   ► Obviously, we are at fault here.

00:19:49 ◼   ► We should have known that.

00:19:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, who knew?

00:19:51 ◼   ► So, basically, when people place their new HomePods,

00:19:54 ◼   ► which actually, quick aside, did either of you

00:19:56 ◼   ► get a HomePod yet, because I have not.

00:19:59 ◼   ► - So I'll tell you why. (laughing)

00:20:00 ◼   ► - Oh, here we go.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Here we go.

00:20:04 ◼   ► What else did you do in the city today on Valentine's Day?

00:20:06 ◼   ► - Sometimes the UPS man just comes to Marco's house

00:20:09 ◼   ► and has things.

00:20:09 ◼   ► We don't know how it happens.

00:20:11 ◼   ► - Here it is.

00:20:12 ◼   ► - Is there a connection with Marco's actions?

00:20:14 ◼   ► Not conclusive.

00:20:15 ◼   ► - What'd you do, Marco?

00:20:19 ◼   ► - I don't have a HomePod, I will say that.

00:20:21 ◼   ► But I did think if I wanted to try it out,

00:20:24 ◼   ► I was under the impression,

00:20:27 ◼   ► or under the conclusion so far,

00:20:29 ◼   ► that there really was no place in my house

00:20:31 ◼   ► that I could really use one.

00:20:32 ◼   ► And that actually is not correct.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Next to the Echo, I have a Sonos Play One.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Not the new Sonos One that has the built-in Alexa

00:20:40 ◼   ► integration, not that, but the old Sonos Play One

00:20:44 ◼   ► that is just the speaker, just the Sonos speaker.

00:20:46 ◼   ► And I have it there because when, you know,

00:20:49 ◼   ► like two years ago now, I started trying out Sonos

00:20:51 ◼   ► to build an Overcast integration,

00:20:53 ◼   ► and they were kind enough to send me some units

00:20:55 ◼   ► to test with and everything, and so I have a few

00:20:57 ◼   ► of those in the house, and I needed a place to put it,

00:20:59 ◼   ► so I put it next to the Echo.

00:21:02 ◼   ► I hardly ever use the Sonos stuff.

00:21:04 ◼   ► And when I do, I hardly ever play things out of that output.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Usually it's out of the living room output.

00:21:09 ◼   ► So I have a short, squat, white speaker

00:21:14 ◼   ► that is better for music than assistant type things

00:21:18 ◼   ► already sitting next to my Echo.

00:21:19 ◼   ► So I could just remove the Sonos Play One

00:21:22 ◼   ► and put a HomePod there.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And then I can continue using the pair of them

00:21:26 ◼   ► the way I have been using the pair of them so far,

00:21:28 ◼   ► which is I use the Amazon Echo for kitchen timers

00:21:31 ◼   ► and that kind of personal assistant stuff

00:21:33 ◼   ► that the HomePod is maybe not so great at,

00:21:36 ◼   ► and especially timers, come on, why is that, come on.

00:21:39 ◼   ► And then I could theoretically then use the HomePod

00:21:42 ◼   ► for music there.

00:21:43 ◼   ► I haven't done this yet, but if I wanted to try one out,

00:21:46 ◼   ► and eventually, I hope so much that this summer at WBC

00:21:51 ◼   ► we hear of new SiriKit intents

00:21:54 ◼   ► that involve audio playback services.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I really, really hope that. - Amen.

00:21:59 ◼   ► - Honestly, my hopes are not that high.

00:22:01 ◼   ► or rather my confidence is not that high,

00:22:03 ◼   ► I don't think we're gonna actually get that.

00:22:05 ◼   ► I really hope I'm wrong though, I really hope we do.

00:22:08 ◼   ► If we do, then Overcast has something to do on the HomePod

00:22:11 ◼   ► and so I will have to get one for testing

00:22:13 ◼   ► and so that will be a sensible place to put it.

00:22:15 ◼   ► But until that happens, and unless that happens,

00:22:19 ◼   ► I'm still not that compelled to try it.

00:22:22 ◼   ► But if I did put a HomePod there,

00:22:25 ◼   ► that is actually a finished MDF wood piece,

00:22:28 ◼   ► so I don't think I would create a ring,

00:22:30 ◼   ► and if I did create a ring, it's already white,

00:22:32 ◼   ► so it wouldn't really be visible.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - So to back up, the issue that's at hand

00:22:37 ◼   ► is that people are starting to notice

00:22:38 ◼   ► that when you sit your HomePod on some kinds of wood

00:22:42 ◼   ► or maybe treated wood, maybe untreated wood,

00:22:44 ◼   ► to be honest, it doesn't really matter

00:22:46 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things,

00:22:47 ◼   ► but if you sit your HomePod on wood,

00:22:50 ◼   ► it will more likely than not leave a ring

00:22:53 ◼   ► from the base of the HomePod on the wood.

00:22:55 ◼   ► So I don't see how there's really a lot of argument or discussion about this.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Like, this seems like it's bogus and it's a poor design.

00:23:05 ◼   ► And a lot of people are saying, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:23:08 ◼   ► You should put this on a coaster or a doily or something like that."

00:23:12 ◼   ► - Who's saying that? Who says that?

00:23:14 ◼   ► - Oh, you'd be surprised, Jon.

00:23:16 ◼   ► - I'm lucky.

00:23:17 ◼   ► I must be doing a good job of curating my Twitter followers

00:23:19 ◼   ► because I have not seen a single person say that.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - I got to say, there's a lot of people out there who feel like it's

00:23:25 ◼   ► it's their job to explain Apple to everyone.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And sometimes this is a wonderful service,

00:23:33 ◼   ► and sometimes it's just people basically being

00:23:37 ◼   ► Apple's PR department for them,

00:23:39 ◼   ► and I don't think that's healthy for anybody.

00:23:41 ◼   ► That's not healthy for Apple,

00:23:42 ◼   ► it's not healthy for people trying to make

00:23:44 ◼   ► like a writing or blogging or analysis career,

00:23:48 ◼   ► and it isn't healthy for the audience.

00:23:51 ◼   ► You know, in fact, and I wanted to give a shout out here,

00:23:53 ◼   ► there's a podcast called The Menu Bar

00:23:56 ◼   ► that was, I think, reintroduced,

00:23:59 ◼   ► restarted a few weeks ago.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Spoiler, I'm gonna be the guest on it next week,

00:24:04 ◼   ► and so this is partially, you know, self-promotional.

00:24:08 ◼   ► But I suggest you listen to The Menu Bar.

00:24:10 ◼   ► It is a very, very good angle of Apple critique,

00:24:14 ◼   ► and not just Apple, it actually is a critique

00:24:19 ◼   ► of the entire tech industry.

00:24:21 ◼   ► there's a really fresh take of Apple critique

00:24:24 ◼   ► on the menu bar that I think is worth hearing.

00:24:28 ◼   ► 'Cause it isn't just like, oh the keyboard sucks,

00:24:30 ◼   ► oh the HomePod, blah, it's not that.

00:24:33 ◼   ► It's not the kind of stuff,

00:24:34 ◼   ► like if you're tired of me criticizing Apple,

00:24:36 ◼   ► it's not that.

00:24:38 ◼   ► The way I do it, they do it in a much better way,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and a much more interesting and constructive

00:24:44 ◼   ► and thoughtful way.

00:24:45 ◼   ► So I strongly suggest checking out the Menu Bar Podcast.

00:24:48 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes

00:24:49 ◼   ► and I'll have it appear here in the chapter art.

00:24:51 ◼   ► basically the reason that I brought that up is

00:24:52 ◼   ► one of the things they said in a couple of the episodes now

00:24:55 ◼   ► is that they don't feel like they need to basically

00:24:59 ◼   ► be Apple's PR department for them.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Anytime Apple does anything wrong,

00:25:04 ◼   ► fans and sometimes writers,

00:25:07 ◼   ► and mostly honestly just fans,

00:25:08 ◼   ► a certain subset just thinks it's their job

00:25:12 ◼   ► to jump out there and defend Apple

00:25:15 ◼   ► in ways that Apple doesn't need to be defended.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Like, if the HomePod has this problem,

00:25:21 ◼   ► which it certainly appears that it does,

00:25:23 ◼   ► this is absolutely, it's a flaw.

00:25:26 ◼   ► It's simple as that.

00:25:27 ◼   ► It's not gonna end the world.

00:25:29 ◼   ► It's not gonna make the HomePod a flop.

00:25:31 ◼   ► It's not gonna cause some kind of massive recall

00:25:33 ◼   ► or anything.

00:25:34 ◼   ► It's an embarrassing flaw.

00:25:36 ◼   ► We heard for months that the HomePod hardware

00:25:40 ◼   ► has been done for a long time,

00:25:42 ◼   ► and they were just waiting on the software.

00:25:43 ◼   ► The hardware's done.

00:25:44 ◼   ► It's awesome, it's perfect.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And then there's a hardware problem.

00:25:48 ◼   ► There's an actual hardware flaw that shipped.

00:25:50 ◼   ► and not a small one.

00:25:52 ◼   ► It just seems like it's just yet another thing

00:25:56 ◼   ► about this product launch that's just sloppy and rushed

00:26:00 ◼   ► and apparently the hardware wasn't done well enough

00:26:03 ◼   ► or they found this problem and decided it wouldn't matter

00:26:05 ◼   ► and shipped it anyway, kinda like when they knew

00:26:07 ◼   ► that the MacBook keyboards were bad from the first MacBook

00:26:09 ◼   ► but decided to bring them across the whole lineup anyway.

00:26:12 ◼   ► Somewhere, things are falling apart in weird ways.

00:26:16 ◼   ► Flaws are getting shipped that should not get shipped.

00:26:19 ◼   ► That is cause for concern.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Even if this particular flaw you don't think is that bad

00:26:24 ◼   ► or doesn't affect you, we are seeing a lot of

00:26:28 ◼   ► embarrassing flaws that get out the door.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And it seems like either this product was not tested

00:26:35 ◼   ► to the degree that we heard that it was,

00:26:37 ◼   ► and the hardware was not done as recently,

00:26:40 ◼   ► or as far back as we heard it was.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Or, if any of the employees who had these take home units

00:26:46 ◼   ► that we heard about that they were all over campus

00:26:48 ◼   ► all over people's houses, certainly somebody

00:26:51 ◼   ► must have had this issue and must have reported it.

00:26:54 ◼   ► And so either they didn't do enough testing

00:26:56 ◼   ► or they found this issue and decided not only

00:26:59 ◼   ► was it not worth addressing, and by changing

00:27:02 ◼   ► the foot of the HomePod, changing the material,

00:27:05 ◼   ► or adding some kind of pad or something,

00:27:08 ◼   ► not only was it not worth addressing in the hardware,

00:27:10 ◼   ► but it wasn't even worth mentioning anywhere

00:27:13 ◼   ► in the manuals and anything.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Something's wrong there.

00:27:17 ◼   ► But mistakes are getting out that should not get out.

00:27:21 ◼   ► That I think ultimately, big picture, not just the home pod ring of death or whatever,

00:27:27 ◼   ► that is the more concerning thing to me about Apple right now.

00:27:31 ◼   ► And that when these flaws come out, one of the main reactions from people both inside

00:27:37 ◼   ► and out is defensiveness, not actually going back and getting these problems fixed.

00:27:44 ◼   ► One interesting theory I heard is that it's not actually a design problem but a manufacturing

00:27:50 ◼   ► problem and that some manufacturers responsible for making that smushy little ring cheaped

00:27:54 ◼   ► out in a way they thought wouldn't be apparent but ends up being apparent and it could be

00:27:59 ◼   ► that all the Apple people who got the take home things got the good properly manufactured

00:28:04 ◼   ► rings on the bottom so they didn't have this problem but then the mass production ones

00:28:08 ◼   ► like you know some supplier cheaped out.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I mean, not that that's also—it's obviously also Apple's responsibility, but I can think

00:28:14 ◼   ► of all sorts of ways how this can get out.

00:28:18 ◼   ► You know, not because Apple didn't test it thoroughly or didn't pay attention to

00:28:22 ◼   ► it, but simply because it's something that appears for the first time in the mass-produced

00:28:27 ◼   ► models the customers get, which would be a bummer, but it's plausible.

00:28:32 ◼   ► But Apple makes a lot of products that sit on tables and desks.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Why hasn't that happened before?

00:28:37 ◼   ► I know.

00:28:38 ◼   ► This makes me think.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Do you think, I think, I mean, obviously for the HomePod,

00:28:41 ◼   ► we expect them to test this, right?

00:28:42 ◼   ► That's what we're getting at.

00:28:43 ◼   ► It's like, you know this thing is gonna be sitting

00:28:45 ◼   ► on people's furniture all over the place.

00:28:47 ◼   ► Like it's the whole point of this device, right?

00:28:48 ◼   ► But I think when I saw this, I think about,

00:28:50 ◼   ► do you think Apple tests whether the feet

00:28:53 ◼   ► on a MyMac Pro markup furniture?

00:28:55 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess they don't,

00:28:56 ◼   ► because there's not much expectation that the Mac Pro,

00:29:00 ◼   ► my cheese grater, is going to be all over the house

00:29:02 ◼   ► and all sorts of different kinds of furniture.

00:29:04 ◼   ► It's basically gonna be on desks or underneath desks.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Do you think they test whether the little rubber feet

00:29:09 ◼   ► on the bottom of IMAX markup things that they're put on,

00:29:12 ◼   ► I'm also gonna guess that they don't.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Not that they don't test that on all materials,

00:29:15 ◼   ► but that they basically don't test it at all,

00:29:17 ◼   ► because I don't know, it just doesn't seem like,

00:29:20 ◼   ► 'cause it's not a product like the HomePod

00:29:21 ◼   ► where they show it literally on like here,

00:29:22 ◼   ► we're gonna put it on your end table or on your whatever.

00:29:26 ◼   ► So that's why I think it's much more relevant

00:29:29 ◼   ► to the HomePod, but it does make me realize

00:29:31 ◼   ► that this blind spot probably extends

00:29:35 ◼   ► to a lot of their products.

00:29:37 ◼   ► everything from the plastic that they make their cords out of to all the different feet

00:29:41 ◼   ► on, probably the feet on laptops they do test in the same way that you would expect them

00:29:45 ◼   ► to test the HomePod.

00:29:46 ◼   ► But I bet they don't test it on Macs, right?

00:29:49 ◼   ► I mean, even if you have a wooden desk, like, I don't know.

00:29:53 ◼   ► Maybe someone should write in and tell us, "Do you have a Mac that sits on a wooden desk

00:29:57 ◼   ► and has marred the surface in some way?"

00:29:59 ◼   ► I think it's plausible because I honestly don't see them testing Macs on a bunch of

00:30:02 ◼   ► different desk services.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Whereas the 100% should have and perhaps did test the HomePod and also the different services.

00:30:09 ◼   ► It's just weird.

00:30:11 ◼   ► And here again I think it's an instance of, arguably an instance of a little bit better

00:30:17 ◼   ► communication up front might have maybe not solved the problem but helped the problem.

00:30:21 ◼   ► Now I still think it's bogus.

00:30:22 ◼   ► I still think it's bogus that if you sit this thing on wood without putting something between

00:30:27 ◼   ► it that it could screw up the wood.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Like that's messed up full stop.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But it certainly would have been nice.

00:30:33 ◼   ► And somebody else made the-- and I don't remember who it was, but I saw it.

00:30:36 ◼   ► But somebody made--

00:30:36 ◼   ► Viti talked about the communication.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Right, well, yeah.

00:30:38 ◼   ► And maybe it was him that said, oh, we knew that the jet black iPhones were

00:30:42 ◼   ► going to scratch.

00:30:42 ◼   ► We knew it up front.

00:30:43 ◼   ► We were OK with it because we knew what we were getting.

00:30:46 ◼   ► What's the line from--

00:30:48 ◼   ► it was Batman Dark Knight, where they say,

00:30:51 ◼   ► if you-- something along the lines of Joker says,

00:30:53 ◼   ► if you expect something, people are totally fine.

00:30:56 ◼   ► It's when something unexpected happens that they lose their minds.

00:30:59 ◼   ► And so you can expect that your brand new, you know, $800 iPhone is going to scratch to kingdom come and that's cool

00:31:04 ◼   ► Because we knew it was gonna happen

00:31:06 ◼   ► But you know you you don't expect this ring to show up and everyone loses their minds and I would too I'd be upset

00:31:11 ◼   ► I don't think it's entirely about expectations though

00:31:13 ◼   ► Like I understand the communication angle, but I think the comparison to the phone just highlights how how different this is, right?

00:31:19 ◼   ► So whether people are aware of it or not

00:31:21 ◼   ► The trade-off that Apple is making with the phone that scratches more and Apple does advertise this but doesn't connect it up as much is

00:31:28 ◼   ► is that they made softer glass in the hopes that it will shatter less often.

00:31:32 ◼   ► So that's a trade-off that they're making.

00:31:34 ◼   ► You can make the glass really, really hard, but then it's more likely to shatter.

00:31:36 ◼   ► If you make it softer, it's more likely to scratch.

00:31:39 ◼   ► That's a trade-off that they have made, because they advertise about how much more durable

00:31:43 ◼   ► and less likely to shatter the iPhone X is, and they also tell you it will scratch more.

00:31:47 ◼   ► And they don't connect the two of them for you, but I'm pretty sure they're connected.

00:31:52 ◼   ► And they warn you upfront.

00:31:53 ◼   ► That's communication, right?

00:31:54 ◼   ► For the ring thing, even if they had warned me, I'd be like, "Oh, thanks for telling me

00:31:58 ◼   ► I shouldn't buy this," because there is no trade-off.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Is the sound better because it makes rings on my furniture?

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't think it is.

00:32:04 ◼   ► I don't think there's any connection.

00:32:05 ◼   ► Is it made of a magic material that makes it better than a non-marking rubber?

00:32:09 ◼   ► I don't think it is.

00:32:10 ◼   ► Right?

00:32:11 ◼   ► There is no trade-off.

00:32:12 ◼   ► It's just plain simple, something bad about it.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And you could say, if they had warned, I would say, "It's great that I know this while I

00:32:18 ◼   ► wait for my defective unit to be replaced for free, Apple.

00:32:22 ◼   ► for warning me, but I'm not going to take it as, "Oh, they warned me, and so now I think

00:32:26 ◼   ► it's okay."

00:32:27 ◼   ► It's 100% not okay, because as far as I can tell, there is no trade-off.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It's not a design decision, it is a mistake, and it is a mistake that can cause cosmetic

00:32:36 ◼   ► damage to things in your house, and that I feel like is unacceptable.

00:32:39 ◼   ► I don't think Apple will recall these because of it, but honestly, I kind of think they

00:32:45 ◼   ► should if they really want to have a reputation as a company that stands behind its products.

00:32:49 ◼   ► Basically they should say, "We're not going to recall all of them, but if your HomePod

00:32:52 ◼   ► marks up your furniture, send it back to us and we'll send you a new one where the

00:32:55 ◼   ► footage doesn't mark it up."

00:32:56 ◼   ► That's the right thing to do as far as Apple's concerned, or as far as I'm concerned for

00:32:59 ◼   ► Apple to do.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Or they just give everybody a doily or a coaster to put it on.

00:33:04 ◼   ► A fine Corinthian leather coaster.

00:33:06 ◼   ► No, they need to not have things that – I mean, it's not a glass of ice water that's

00:33:12 ◼   ► going to sweat and leave a ring.

00:33:13 ◼   ► Like there's no water.

00:33:14 ◼   ► It's an electronic device.

00:33:16 ◼   ► It shouldn't leave rings on wood furniture, I'm sorry.

00:33:19 ◼   ► - I'm guessing we get no actual response from them on this,

00:33:22 ◼   ► but who knows?

00:33:23 ◼   ► - Well, no, we did get a response

00:33:25 ◼   ► because they put in a new thing.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - It was typical defensiveness.

00:33:28 ◼   ► The response was you're holding it wrong.

00:33:30 ◼   ► - Cleaning and taking care of your HomePod.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, the response was you should refinish your table.

00:33:36 ◼   ► - Where to place your home,

00:33:37 ◼   ► it's not unusual for any speaker

00:33:38 ◼   ► with vibration-damping silicone base

00:33:40 ◼   ► to leave mild marks when placed on it.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Is it you think it's not unusual?

00:33:43 ◼   ► I don't know, it seems pretty unusual to me.

00:33:46 ◼   ► I have to think there is a vibration damping material that you can put on the bottom of

00:33:50 ◼   ► a speaker that does not mark wood surfaces.

00:33:54 ◼   ► Right?

00:33:55 ◼   ► I mean, lots of, you know, to put it this way, lots of speakers use the really, really

00:33:58 ◼   ► pointy feet, which would leave like actual holes in your things, you know, but at least

00:34:01 ◼   ► that's obvious when you see the really, really pointy, I don't know.

00:34:03 ◼   ► It just doesn't seem to me that there, that that material is so special that there is

00:34:07 ◼   ► no replacement that would, that would, you know, it would, it would impair the speaker's

00:34:12 ◼   ► sound quality if they used a different kind of rubber.

00:34:15 ◼   ► I don't see that.

00:34:17 ◼   ► And honestly, I think the PR response to this is poor.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Well in their defense, as we record, there's been like an afternoon, an evening worth of

00:34:25 ◼   ► time for there to have a response?

00:34:27 ◼   ► Because this just broke earlier today, did it not?

00:34:30 ◼   ► Yes.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Okay, so I mean, let's give them a little slack.

00:34:33 ◼   ► There may be some sort of response coming.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Yeah, no, we don't know what their reaction is going to be.

00:34:36 ◼   ► I'm just saying that their reaction thus far seems insufficient to me.

00:34:41 ◼   ► And again, it's not like they need to recall them all like defective airbags in cars or

00:34:44 ◼   ► something. If someone has it and it's sitting on a, you know, a piece of

00:34:48 ◼   ► furniture that it doesn't mark, there's no reason to recall that person's thing

00:34:51 ◼   ► or whatever, but if someone has one of these and it leaves a mark on their

00:34:54 ◼   ► furniture, they should be able to say "Apple, take this back and give me my

00:34:59 ◼   ► money back," or, which they can do if they're inside the return window, or

00:35:02 ◼   ► "Apple, take this back and give me one that doesn't leave a ring," and Apple

00:35:05 ◼   ► should do that. I'm not even going so far as to say "Oh, Apple has to pay for the

00:35:08 ◼   ► damages to your furniture," which would also be nice but is a little bit

00:35:10 ◼   ► unfeasible in terms of logistics. But no, it's a mistake. It's probably an honest mistake.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I can imagine how this slipped through, but it's not acceptable. This is not a design

00:35:23 ◼   ► tradeoff like phone screens that scratch a little bit easier in exchange for not shattering

00:35:26 ◼   ► as much.

00:35:27 ◼   ► -Do you have any thoughts on the teardowns? Those were done between last episode and this

00:35:33 ◼   ► one, so we didn't get a chance to talk about them left.

00:35:35 ◼   ► -I looked at a little of them. I don't think anyone was surprised by what was in there,

00:35:38 ◼   ► right?

00:35:39 ◼   ► It's very interesting to me, to see a lot of the way

00:35:42 ◼   ► that it's structured and built.

00:35:44 ◼   ► I think one of the weird surprises for me is how

00:35:49 ◼   ► none of the speakers fire outwards.

00:35:53 ◼   ► Like the woofer fires up and the tweeter is fired down.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Like the whole middle of it, it's covered in cloth

00:35:59 ◼   ► so you kinda get the feeling that it's like one big speaker.

00:36:02 ◼   ► But in fact, the speakers are firing out of the top

00:36:05 ◼   ► and bottom out of little vents,

00:36:07 ◼   ► And there's nothing firing out the sides.

00:36:10 ◼   ► The sides are just solid.

00:36:11 ◼   ► - I thought we had seen some sort of indication

00:36:14 ◼   ► like during WWDC of what this looked like inside,

00:36:16 ◼   ► at least approximately.

00:36:18 ◼   ► So I'm not too terribly surprised by that.

00:36:20 ◼   ► But to be honest, I did not get a chance

00:36:23 ◼   ► to look at the teardowns,

00:36:24 ◼   ► so I don't really know what I'm talking about.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - Oh, also, while we're on the subject of teardowns,

00:36:27 ◼   ► gotta also give massive shout out to the season finale

00:36:31 ◼   ► of this season of Welcome to Macintosh,

00:36:34 ◼   ► the podcast by Mark Bramhill.

00:36:36 ◼   ► It was an interview with the founder of iFixit,

00:36:41 ◼   ► who does these wonderful teardowns,

00:36:43 ◼   ► about repairability and long-term recyclability

00:36:47 ◼   ► of our devices.

00:36:48 ◼   ► It was really good, and really makes you think about things

00:36:51 ◼   ► like e-waste and the way these products are being built

00:36:56 ◼   ► and manufactured and designed, and how there are ways

00:36:59 ◼   ► you can design something for repairability

00:37:02 ◼   ► and then later recyclability, and there are ways

00:37:04 ◼   ► that you can make that harder or impossible.

00:37:07 ◼   ► And, you know, Apple seems very split on this issue.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Like, there's obviously parts of Apple that care deeply

00:37:14 ◼   ► about the environment and about recyclability of things,

00:37:17 ◼   ► but a lot of their hardware designs are very hard

00:37:20 ◼   ► or impossible to recycle some pretty major parts.

00:37:23 ◼   ► They don't necessarily need to be done that way.

00:37:26 ◼   ► So I think it's a very good episode, worth a listen,

00:37:28 ◼   ► and certainly thought-provoking.

00:37:30 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:39:40 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:39:43 ◼   ► - All right, any other HomePod thoughts?

00:39:46 ◼   ► John, how do you like yours?

00:39:47 ◼   ► - I was actually thinking of getting one

00:39:49 ◼   ► 'cause I thought I had a line to get one at a steep discount

00:39:52 ◼   ► 'cause like I said, I have a place to put it

00:39:53 ◼   ► and I'm like, oh, I wanna hear how it sounds

00:39:55 ◼   ► but I'm not able to, I have not been able to secure one

00:39:58 ◼   ► for significantly less than the retail price,

00:40:02 ◼   ► and so I'm still back too well.

00:40:03 ◼   ► I'm not paying $350 for it, so I'm still holding out.

00:40:08 ◼   ► - One thing also, we've had a lot more impressions

00:40:10 ◼   ► and reviews and real world tests and impressions

00:40:13 ◼   ► that have come out.

00:40:14 ◼   ► The opinion on the sound quality is starting

00:40:17 ◼   ► to get a little bit split.

00:40:18 ◼   ► Most people still think it sounds amazing,

00:40:20 ◼   ► but there are some people who have heard them

00:40:22 ◼   ► and come out of it saying, "I actually don't like the sound."

00:40:24 ◼   ► And I think it's interesting, most of the complaints

00:40:27 ◼   ► tend to be either the processing is doing something weird

00:40:31 ◼   ► with the mid-range that doesn't agree with their music

00:40:33 ◼   ► or their tastes, or a common complaint is the bass

00:40:37 ◼   ► is just too prominent.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And it's hard with the HomePod because it does

00:40:43 ◼   ► room calibration and because it is listening

00:40:45 ◼   ► to the bass response and dynamically adjusting it

00:40:48 ◼   ► and things like that, and because it does so much

00:40:51 ◼   ► processing on the audio to try to separate the components

00:40:54 ◼   ► out into different positions in the room and everything.

00:40:57 ◼   ► Because it's so complex like that,

00:40:59 ◼   ► it's really hard to get an idea of what it sounds like,

00:41:04 ◼   ► 'cause it could sound like lots of different things.

00:41:07 ◼   ► And whether the sound works for you

00:41:10 ◼   ► can be highly dependent on what the HomePod

00:41:14 ◼   ► has calibrated to for your room,

00:41:16 ◼   ► and also how it's processing things like,

00:41:20 ◼   ► centering part of the mid-range to things like the vocals,

00:41:22 ◼   ► and then putting parts of instruments in the background

00:41:24 ◼   ► and things that are instruments,

00:41:25 ◼   ► and whether that works for certain songs or not.

00:41:28 ◼   ► It's gonna be a really hard thing to get a handle on,

00:41:30 ◼   ► like whether it works for you or not

00:41:33 ◼   ► without actually just trying one,

00:41:34 ◼   ► because it's going to vary so much.

00:41:37 ◼   ► And even trying to test it,

00:41:40 ◼   ► like there was that Reddit post where the guy

00:41:42 ◼   ► did allegedly a controlled test,

00:41:44 ◼   ► although it wasn't that controlled,

00:41:46 ◼   ► and measuring its frequency response and distortion

00:41:49 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But that's really hard to test on the HomePod

00:41:52 ◼   ► because it's doing so much processing to the sound,

00:41:55 ◼   ► you really can't get a good handle on

00:41:57 ◼   ► what it will always output because there is no

00:42:00 ◼   ► one frequency response or one distortion rate

00:42:04 ◼   ► that it will always output because it's doing things

00:42:06 ◼   ► to the input sounds based on various intelligence

00:42:10 ◼   ► and heuristics and stuff.

00:42:11 ◼   ► So it's really hard to get a solid idea

00:42:14 ◼   ► on whether it's for you without just listening to it

00:42:17 ◼   ► without trying your music in your house,

00:42:20 ◼   ► in the room that you wanna put it in to see for yourself.

00:42:23 ◼   ► But I do think that not having any tone controls

00:42:28 ◼   ► is probably a mistake because, you know,

00:42:32 ◼   ► the Echo doesn't have any tone controls as far as I know,

00:42:35 ◼   ► but the Echo sounds like garbage,

00:42:36 ◼   ► so it doesn't really matter.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Like, no one's seeking good sound quality out of that,

00:42:39 ◼   ► and Amazon's not selling it as good sound quality.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Sonos has tone controls, I think.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Google, who knows, who cares?

00:42:47 ◼   ► But because Apple is positioning this

00:42:49 ◼   ► as a really good speaker,

00:42:52 ◼   ► and also because they're doing so much

00:42:54 ◼   ► non-standard processing of the audio,

00:42:58 ◼   ► I think they need to offer some kind of basic tone control.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Even if it's as simple as like,

00:43:04 ◼   ► how much bass do you want?

00:43:05 ◼   ► Like that I think might need to be a control,

00:43:08 ◼   ► because a lot of people have reported

00:43:10 ◼   ► that not agreeing with them.

00:43:12 ◼   ► But it's, 'cause it's really hard to design

00:43:14 ◼   ► a speaker that appeals to everybody,

00:43:17 ◼   ► It's even harder when you're doing very heavy

00:43:22 ◼   ► and non-standard things to the audio,

00:43:25 ◼   ► not just replaying it out of transducer.

00:43:29 ◼   ► - That sounds like a feature,

00:43:30 ◼   ► and we talked about this before,

00:43:30 ◼   ► about how the hardware,

00:43:32 ◼   ► it's just a question of adding software updates to it.

00:43:34 ◼   ► That sounds like a feature that could come

00:43:36 ◼   ► in a fairly soon in a software update.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Like you said, even just for base response.

00:43:40 ◼   ► I'm not even saying they're gonna throw,

00:43:41 ◼   ► like give you, I mean, an equalizer,

00:43:44 ◼   ► because almost every other audio thing that Apple sells,

00:43:46 ◼   ► but I think iPhones have it in the music app, don't they?

00:43:49 ◼   ► Well, certainly iTunes does, has an equalizer.

00:43:51 ◼   ► - It's in the settings app, yeah,

00:43:53 ◼   ► but it's only for music played in the music app.

00:43:55 ◼   ► It doesn't apply system-wide.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And also, it isn't a real equalizer.

00:43:58 ◼   ► They only have presets.

00:43:59 ◼   ► It's like the same 10 or 15 presets that--

00:44:02 ◼   ► - Like rock and pop and random, you know.

00:44:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, the same ones that iPods had 10 years ago,

00:44:07 ◼   ► they have not changed,

00:44:08 ◼   ► and there's no actual equalizer for you to just,

00:44:11 ◼   ► if you wanna get in there and define your own thing,

00:44:13 ◼   ► you can't.

00:44:14 ◼   ► If you wanna adjust certain frequencies

00:44:15 ◼   ► for certain things you can't.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I get the feeling most people just probably don't use it.

00:44:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, but anyway, iTunes has the full equalizer,

00:44:21 ◼   ► but then like the HomePod, like you said,

00:44:22 ◼   ► it doesn't need an equalizer, it doesn't need presets,

00:44:24 ◼   ► it just needs one slider for bass and that's it.

00:44:26 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:44:27 ◼   ► - And that would go a long way towards making it appeal

00:44:30 ◼   ► to a much wider range of people.

00:44:32 ◼   ► And I would say that that slider should go up

00:44:35 ◼   ► as well as down, because some people want more bass

00:44:37 ◼   ► than the HomePod puts out, right?

00:44:38 ◼   ► I mean, that's why Beats headphones are so popular, right?

00:44:42 ◼   ► But beyond that, I think there's not, because of all the dynamic adjustability stuff, there's

00:44:49 ◼   ► probably not that much more control that you can give people because it's like, what are

00:44:53 ◼   ► they even controlling?

00:44:54 ◼   ► Are they controlling the final output or are they controlling the input before the HomePod

00:44:58 ◼   ► decides how it's going to interpret that?

00:45:00 ◼   ► Are they controlling the signal before it goes into the HomePod's processing or are

00:45:03 ◼   ► they just like, you know, the bass is easy.

00:45:06 ◼   ► You can just lower the output to the one big speaker that you know most of the bass frequencies

00:45:10 ◼   ► are sent to.

00:45:11 ◼   ► else I think it gets a little bit tricky.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Agreed.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Anyway, that feels like a no-brainer update to me for a software update that will widen

00:45:23 ◼   ► the appeal of this device.

00:45:24 ◼   ► For what you were talking about, the testing, that blind test that Pogue did.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that was pretty good too.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Well here's the thing about this test.

00:45:36 ◼   ► mentioned, I think you're talking about this on Twitter, how subjective sound is.

00:45:41 ◼   ► Oh yeah. Some people like lots of bass, some people like not as much, some people

00:45:45 ◼   ► have certain reactions to certain songs that sound a certain way, and it's

00:45:48 ◼   ► very subjective. And then doing any kind of audio sort of blind testing, even

00:45:58 ◼   ► though David Polk said he, well I forget what his wording was, but he

00:46:02 ◼   ► basically said "I tried to volume match them by ear" like because that's a very

00:46:06 ◼   ► important about the thing about sound testing is one thing we know if you make

00:46:09 ◼   ► one speaker slightly louder everyone picks it as the best no matter how bad

00:46:12 ◼   ► it sounds like people are very sensitive to volume right so it's important for

00:46:16 ◼   ► all the speakers to be the same volume but the way you get them all the same

00:46:20 ◼   ► volume is probably not listening to them all and saying yeah I feel like they're

00:46:23 ◼   ► about the same volume and furthermore how do you even adjust the volume on a

00:46:27 ◼   ► thing that is dynamically changing how it outputs sound based on what it

00:46:31 ◼   ► detects about the room like how do you even adjust the home pod volume it's

00:46:35 ◼   ► It's very difficult to do.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And then finally, how many people did he test it?

00:46:38 ◼   ► I put it in front of four people?

00:46:41 ◼   ► I guess you get an article out of that.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Did you put it in front of 400 people?

00:46:46 ◼   ► Even if you did, all you'd be doing is getting a survey of what people think of the HomePod.

00:46:50 ◼   ► That's why I feel like the frequency response thing, at least it gives you a baseline.

00:46:56 ◼   ► Frequency response is like, here's the ideal and here's what it sounds like.

00:46:58 ◼   ► Doesn't mean you're going to like how it sounds, but at least it's something that you can measure.

00:47:01 ◼   ► So if you know that you like speakers that are dead on for the expected frequency response,

00:47:06 ◼   ► you will like the HomePod if it's close to that.

00:47:08 ◼   ► And if you don't like speakers that are like that, you won't like the HomePod.

00:47:10 ◼   ► So let someone read something, and especially with an audio file, probably know, "Am I going

00:47:18 ◼   ► to like the sound of this speaker?"

00:47:19 ◼   ► Because we've done some objective measurements on the speaker, and then you can decide, "Do

00:47:23 ◼   ► you like speakers that have measurements like this, or do you not like them?"

00:47:25 ◼   ► And again, only audio files would know that.

00:47:27 ◼   ► For everybody else, it's just kind of a crapshoot.

00:47:29 ◼   ► buy it, you put it in your house where you're gonna put it, you listen to it and

00:47:32 ◼   ► you either like it or you don't. And if most people are comparing to the Echo, I

00:47:36 ◼   ► can't imagine anyone not liking it because as you said the Echo sounds

00:47:39 ◼   ► terrible because that's not what it's supposed to do. But for comparing it to

00:47:45 ◼   ► Sonos and other things that are high quality, I'm not sure like if someone's

00:47:51 ◼   ► asking me for advice, should I get a Sonos or a HomePod which sounds better?

00:47:54 ◼   ► better? I don't think there's any answer I can give them that is the truth. It's

00:47:59 ◼   ► like, they're both good speakers. I think you'll have to hear each other in the environment

00:48:03 ◼   ► where it's going to be and then return the one you don't like, which is an answer

00:48:06 ◼   ► nobody wants to hear, but that's just the nature of sound, I think.

00:48:09 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is what I was ranting about on Twitter. First of all, nobody

00:48:14 ◼   ► can really agree on what is a good frequency response. A lot of people think, "Oh, you

00:48:21 ◼   ► You want it to be flat, you don't.

00:48:23 ◼   ► And people can't agree on what the curve should be.

00:48:26 ◼   ► There's a couple of like, you know,

00:48:28 ◼   ► why they know the standards,

00:48:29 ◼   ► like there's like a Harman Kardon one

00:48:30 ◼   ► that a lot of, or like the Harman curve

00:48:33 ◼   ► that a lot of manufacturers use or set as their goal.

00:48:37 ◼   ► But like I find the Harman curve fairly boring

00:48:40 ◼   ► 'cause it really is weak on the treble side.

00:48:42 ◼   ► And I like some treble strength

00:48:44 ◼   ► and I find it a little bit withdraws the vocals.

00:48:47 ◼   ► I like some vocals.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And so everyone has different tastes.

00:48:50 ◼   ► I am an audiophile who used to compare products online

00:48:54 ◼   ► by looking at their frequency response graphs.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Like, I made so many headphone purchases

00:48:59 ◼   ► or avoided so many headphones because I looked

00:49:02 ◼   ► at their frequency response graph and thought,

00:49:04 ◼   ► you know what, either, oh, that looks like something

00:49:06 ◼   ► I would like or that looks like another HarmonKurve headphone

00:49:10 ◼   ► and I probably wouldn't like that.

00:49:12 ◼   ► But I have found that frequency response graphs

00:49:17 ◼   ► can almost never really provide useful input

00:49:21 ◼   ► for whether something will sound appealing to you

00:49:24 ◼   ► when you actually have it.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And it's even more, and that's just with headphones.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Headphones are super easy to test,

00:49:29 ◼   ► and their output is very reproducible,

00:49:33 ◼   ► because you don't really have the room to worry about.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Speakers are a nightmare of inconsistency,

00:49:39 ◼   ► because they depend so much on the room,

00:49:42 ◼   ► and the placement of the speakers,

00:49:44 ◼   ► and where you are sitting relative to the speakers,

00:49:46 ◼   ► that it's almost impossible to have any idea

00:49:50 ◼   ► how a speaker will sound unless you actually put it

00:49:53 ◼   ► in the room it's going in and just try it,

00:49:55 ◼   ► which is really inconvenient with speakers

00:49:57 ◼   ► 'cause they can be quite large and quite heavy

00:49:58 ◼   ► and a lot of times you just have to buy blind

00:50:00 ◼   ► and just hope it works out.

00:50:02 ◼   ► Fortunately, this kind of speaker is much smaller

00:50:05 ◼   ► and much easier to buy and return if it doesn't work out.

00:50:08 ◼   ► But all this is to say that you can't look

00:50:12 ◼   ► at any measurements or read any reviews

00:50:15 ◼   ► or for God's sake, watch any videos.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Like, a video is completely useless

00:50:20 ◼   ► for letting you hear how a speaker will sound.

00:50:23 ◼   ► Like, I don't know why people keep doing this.

00:50:26 ◼   ► 'Cause, you know, going through a different microphone

00:50:27 ◼   ► and then at whatever your speakers are,

00:50:29 ◼   ► it's totally garbage.

00:50:30 ◼   ► The only way to really know how it will sound

00:50:33 ◼   ► and whether you will like it is to get it in your house

00:50:36 ◼   ► and just try it.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And the HomePod, you know,

00:50:39 ◼   ► it seems like people do generally like it.

00:50:41 ◼   ► So it seems like, you know, your chances are good,

00:50:43 ◼   ► this will probably work out for you if you're interested.

00:50:46 ◼   ► But none of these tests are particularly useful

00:50:50 ◼   ► and no frequency response graph or measurements

00:50:53 ◼   ► really are very useful for this product

00:50:55 ◼   ► for so many reasons,

00:50:57 ◼   ► not least of which is the massive processing it does,

00:51:00 ◼   ► but also just these graphs aren't useful

00:51:03 ◼   ► most of the time anyway for any product.

00:51:05 ◼   ► - And to be fair, I think the first round of reviews

00:51:08 ◼   ► struck the right balance,

00:51:09 ◼   ► 'cause mostly the things you wanna know

00:51:11 ◼   ► that anyone can tell is like,

00:51:14 ◼   ► how loud does it get without distorting?

00:51:16 ◼   ► 'Cause we've all had small speakers

00:51:18 ◼   ► that strain to be heard when you're far away.

00:51:20 ◼   ► And if you crank the volume up to max,

00:51:22 ◼   ► they just start distorting heavily.

00:51:24 ◼   ► I don't think you need instruments to measure that.

00:51:26 ◼   ► You can kind of see like,

00:51:28 ◼   ► your iPhone, for example,

00:51:29 ◼   ► your iPhone at max volume,

00:51:31 ◼   ► it's not going to fill a room with sound.

00:51:32 ◼   ► You don't need any instruments to measure that.

00:51:35 ◼   ► You can tell.

00:51:35 ◼   ► And is it faithfully reproducing the sound

00:51:37 ◼   ► or at max volume,

00:51:39 ◼   ► is it somewhat distorted and certain frequencies?

00:51:41 ◼   ► you don't need to be an autophile to kind of tell, "No, that's not really what this

00:51:44 ◼   ► song sounds like." And at max volume, it's not particularly loud. So, I mean, obviously

00:51:49 ◼   ► that's an extreme, right? But all the HomePod reviews said, "This gets surprisingly loud,

00:51:55 ◼   ► and even at high volumes, it doesn't start fuzzing out and sounding terrible." And overall,

00:52:01 ◼   ► the sound quality is pretty good. And that, I think, is the right balance to strike for this

00:52:06 ◼   ► type of review because if you start saying things beyond that like direct comparison with the sonos

00:52:11 ◼   ► play five or play one or anything like that it's just too subjective to say anything definitive

00:52:18 ◼   ► about until you start getting out the the instruments and you know and then once you get

00:52:21 ◼   ► out the instruments the home pod defies you because you stick an instrument close to it and it thinks

00:52:25 ◼   ► it's next to a wall or something and changes the sound in a weird way and you have no idea what's

00:52:28 ◼   ► going on that was the question with the sheet they put in front of like to be a blind test

00:52:32 ◼   ► was was the home pod detecting that the sheet was there even though it's supposed to be

00:52:35 ◼   ► be acoustically transparent as I think it's a wall and it's trying to bounce sound off

00:52:38 ◼   ► it and doing something weird. Who knows? We have no visibility into the black box that

00:52:41 ◼   ► is the black cylinder that is the HomePod or space gray or white. So anyway, I'm still

00:52:47 ◼   ► interested to try one in my house and see how it sounds but still not interested enough

00:52:51 ◼   ► to plunk down $350.

00:52:53 ◼   ► That's exactly how I feel. I was really hoping that Mr. All I do is spend money would come

00:53:00 ◼   ► through for us on this one.

00:53:01 ◼   ► I thought about it.

00:53:02 ◼   ► You've let us down, John.

00:53:03 ◼   ► He's getting there, give him a couple more weeks.

00:53:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, probably.

00:53:06 ◼   ► But so like, if I'm honest with myself,

00:53:09 ◼   ► yeah, probably by next week's show.

00:53:10 ◼   ► One more thing to consider though is like,

00:53:13 ◼   ► this is a product that has shipped

00:53:15 ◼   ► without some of its major features.

00:53:17 ◼   ► It just didn't make it in time.

00:53:19 ◼   ► You know, definitely, obviously, it lacks AirPlay 2,

00:53:23 ◼   ► that's the big one, and that also means it lacks

00:53:25 ◼   ► multi-speaker stereo pairing, it lacks multi-room.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And also Siri is greatly lacking in a lot of areas,

00:53:35 ◼   ► some small, some pretty big.

00:53:36 ◼   ► I have a feeling this product is going to grow slowly.

00:53:40 ◼   ► I have a feeling that there's gonna be a lot of people

00:53:43 ◼   ► who are waiting for one of those things to get fixed.

00:53:46 ◼   ► I would caution people, don't buy it today

00:53:51 ◼   ► unless you are okay with the features

00:53:53 ◼   ► and Siri that it has today.

00:53:55 ◼   ► And this is not a statement about Apple,

00:53:58 ◼   ► this is a statement about all tech products.

00:54:00 ◼   ► never buy tech products based on future software

00:54:04 ◼   ► or service promises.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Because so often they either don't deliver

00:54:10 ◼   ► or they deliver really late or incomplete or just crappy.

00:54:14 ◼   ► And so whatever the HomePod,

00:54:16 ◼   ► like if you're on the fence about the HomePod,

00:54:17 ◼   ► you're like well, this one limitation of Siri,

00:54:20 ◼   ► but they'll fix it in a software update.

00:54:23 ◼   ► Assume they won't, assume they never will fix it.

00:54:26 ◼   ► If you still want it, okay, it's safe to buy.

00:54:28 ◼   ► but don't buy it based on the assumption

00:54:31 ◼   ► of some future thing that they will change

00:54:33 ◼   ► or improve or add until that thing is actually delivered.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And that applies to all tech products.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, how is your full autopilot working out on your car?

00:54:44 ◼   ► - I never bought full autopilot,

00:54:45 ◼   ► and I would not recommend anybody buy Tesla's full autopilot

00:54:48 ◼   ► until it's actually released and demonstrated.

00:54:50 ◼   ► You can add it later for a small additional charge.

00:54:52 ◼   ► - No, we had this conversation privately a few days ago,

00:54:54 ◼   ► and that's exactly why I brought it up.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I, as always, am waffling on the idea of a HomePod.

00:55:00 ◼   ► In so many ways, I like the idea of having a really small

00:55:03 ◼   ► but really, really good sounding, ostensibly, speaker.

00:55:08 ◼   ► But I still am struggling to find

00:55:11 ◼   ► an actual justification for 350 bucks.

00:55:13 ◼   ► If this was 100 bucks,

00:55:14 ◼   ► which I'm not saying it's overpriced necessarily,

00:55:16 ◼   ► I'm just saying if it was $100,

00:55:18 ◼   ► I think I would've bought it and just said,

00:55:19 ◼   ► yeah, the hell with it, I'll give it a shot.

00:55:21 ◼   ► But at $350, that, for me anyway,

00:55:23 ◼   ► is something where I have to weigh the pros and cons.

00:55:25 ◼   ► and it's just, right now I'm with Jon,

00:55:28 ◼   ► it's just not compelling enough for me to spend the money.

00:55:30 ◼   ► So when I have one next week, you can all laugh at me.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And we'll play this clip back.

00:55:34 ◼   ► - So what color are you not getting next week?

00:55:36 ◼   ► - Oh definitely not getting space gray, definitely not.

00:55:40 ◼   ► - See I would have to not get the white

00:55:41 ◼   ► to live next to my Echo.

00:55:43 ◼   ► - So you would get white and I would get black.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Hmm, funny how that is.

00:55:47 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Eero.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Finally, wifi that works.

00:55:53 ◼   ► visit Eero.com and use code ATP at checkout

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00:55:58 ◼   ► We've tried for years to cover our entire houses

00:56:01 ◼   ► and wifi without any dead zones or slow areas.

00:56:04 ◼   ► And it's really hard because when you only have one router,

00:56:08 ◼   ► there's always just inherently going to be dead zones

00:56:10 ◼   ► 'cause of things like walls and real life.

00:56:13 ◼   ► With Eero, they solve this problem

00:56:14 ◼   ► by having a distributed wifi system.

00:56:17 ◼   ► There's multiple routers that you plug in

00:56:19 ◼   ► throughout your house and they share the connection.

00:56:22 ◼   ► and you don't even have to hardwire them.

00:56:24 ◼   ► They wirelessly talk to each other

00:56:26 ◼   ► and they blanket your entire home in fast, reliable wifi.

00:56:30 ◼   ► This is an enterprise-grade system

00:56:33 ◼   ► with enterprise-grade functionality

00:56:34 ◼   ► and speed and reliability,

00:56:36 ◼   ► but not enterprise-grade complexity.

00:56:38 ◼   ► It is super easy to set up.

00:56:40 ◼   ► The new Eero hardware is also incredibly nice.

00:56:43 ◼   ► It just looks really nice.

00:56:44 ◼   ► It's small, it's discreet.

00:56:45 ◼   ► The base station is about the size of an Apple TV or so

00:56:48 ◼   ► and it's nice and white.

00:56:49 ◼   ► And they now have the second generation hardware.

00:56:51 ◼   ► It's nice and fast.

00:56:52 ◼   ► There's triple band radios and all sorts of wonderful

00:56:55 ◼   ► new advanced technology.

00:56:56 ◼   ► And then the kind of accessory satellite base stations,

00:57:00 ◼   ► they now have these Eero Beacons.

00:57:02 ◼   ► This is also a new second generation piece of hardware,

00:57:05 ◼   ► tri-band, twice as fast as its predecessor,

00:57:08 ◼   ► and the beacon is this nice small,

00:57:11 ◼   ► almost like plug in an outlet.

00:57:13 ◼   ► It just sits flush against the outlet,

00:57:15 ◼   ► and that is your little wifi repeater

00:57:17 ◼   ► for different parts of your house.

00:57:19 ◼   ► They're so small, you wouldn't even put them

00:57:21 ◼   ► in a hallway, you wouldn't even notice them.

00:57:23 ◼   ► They're wonderful, and this blankets your house

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00:57:58 ◼   ► I've been using Waze for a year

00:58:05 ◼   ► and I added it to the topic list a year ago

00:58:08 ◼   ► because I wanted to spend five seconds saying,

00:58:10 ◼   ► you know what, I use Waze and it's awesome.

00:58:12 ◼   ► And John's like, oh I have a lot to say about that,

00:58:13 ◼   ► that has to be a full topic.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And so it was added to the topic list

00:58:16 ◼   ► and it's been floating on the topic list

00:58:18 ◼   ► for a year, right at about spot number four.

00:58:22 ◼   ► And most shows we have three topics.

00:58:25 ◼   ► So it has never gotten into the main topic list.

00:58:28 ◼   ► And we've always been like one topic away

00:58:31 ◼   ► from covering the ways topic.

00:58:32 ◼   ► And I have no idea what Jon wants to say about it.

00:58:34 ◼   ► What I want to say about it would take maybe five minutes.

00:58:38 ◼   ► - Well, let's have you do an opening statement then.

00:58:40 ◼   ► - Let's test that five minute idea.

00:58:42 ◼   ► - Everyone look at the timestamp right now and go.

00:58:47 ◼   ► So, I have used a lot of GPS systems either in cars

00:58:52 ◼   ► or as apps on computers first, laptops and then phones.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Many of them try to be smart

00:58:58 ◼   ► about routing you around traffic.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Or even just the basic routing tries to be smart

00:59:03 ◼   ► in some degree, but many of them try to be smart

00:59:05 ◼   ► like when there's traffic, if they have some kind

00:59:07 ◼   ► of internet connectivity for traffic service,

00:59:10 ◼   ► like they detect traffic and they try to route you around

00:59:12 ◼   ► or they offer you like alternative like hey,

00:59:15 ◼   ► you can go over here and save 10 minutes

00:59:16 ◼   ► and it takes you off some weirdo crazy path

00:59:19 ◼   ► through residential areas or off a cliff or whatever.

00:59:22 ◼   ► Those, I have found, have almost no credibility whatsoever.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Almost every time one of the traffic routing apps

00:59:32 ◼   ► has suggested a route to me to save time,

00:59:34 ◼   ► it almost never does save time,

00:59:36 ◼   ► and it almost always makes me regret having done it

00:59:39 ◼   ► because of some weird place it brings me through,

00:59:42 ◼   ► whether it's really narrow roads or dirt roads

00:59:45 ◼   ► or like going through like, you know,

00:59:47 ◼   ► really like, you know, bad neighborhoods

00:59:50 ◼   ► or residential areas that like,

00:59:52 ◼   ► it's just really weird to just keep going through

00:59:53 ◼   ► a million stop signs in front of people's houses

00:59:55 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:59:57 ◼   ► I started going to Long Island a lot

00:59:59 ◼   ► for the beach last summer,

01:00:01 ◼   ► and I started using Waze a lot.

01:00:04 ◼   ► Going to Long Island is, you know,

01:00:05 ◼   ► always a traffic nightmare,

01:00:07 ◼   ► especially when you go on the weekends

01:00:08 ◼   ► when everyone else is going.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And I have since been using Waze, so yeah,

01:00:13 ◼   ► for about a year and I've been using it since then also.

01:00:16 ◼   ► And Waze is so much better than every other

01:00:21 ◼   ► traffic routing system I have ever used by a long shot.

01:00:26 ◼   ► To the point where it has earned my trust.

01:00:29 ◼   ► When Waze tells me to go a certain way, I go that way.

01:00:33 ◼   ► It has not steered me wrong yet.

01:00:35 ◼   ► It is so good and I know that there's,

01:00:38 ◼   ► I know first of all it's owned by Google

01:00:40 ◼   ► and it is constantly sending lots of data to them

01:00:44 ◼   ► and really burns your battery,

01:00:45 ◼   ► so you gotta have it plugged in.

01:00:47 ◼   ► I'm aware of the trade-offs here

01:00:50 ◼   ► for privacy and creepiness for this service,

01:00:53 ◼   ► but it so dramatically is better

01:00:57 ◼   ► than everything else out there in so many ways.

01:01:00 ◼   ► It has earned my trust, and I highly suggest,

01:01:03 ◼   ► if anyone else is okay with giving

01:01:04 ◼   ► a whole bunch of your location data to Google

01:01:06 ◼   ► while you're using Waze,

01:01:07 ◼   ► I strongly suggest using it when you drive somewhere.

01:01:10 ◼   ► And there's lots of other things about it

01:01:12 ◼   ► that a lot of people first heard about it

01:01:14 ◼   ► because of its feature where people can report

01:01:16 ◼   ► where police officers are and it'll alert you,

01:01:19 ◼   ► hey, there's a police officer up ahead,

01:01:21 ◼   ► .5 miles ahead or whatever.

01:01:22 ◼   ► That's honestly, that's a side benefit.

01:01:24 ◼   ► The traffic routing is really where it's at.

01:01:26 ◼   ► That is where Waze kicks so much butt

01:01:30 ◼   ► across everything else.

01:01:31 ◼   ► And it's also incredibly good at time estimates.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Like, I can go on a two hour drive

01:01:37 ◼   ► with lots of traffic in the middle

01:01:40 ◼   ► and whatever time estimate Waze told me

01:01:42 ◼   ► at the beginning of the drive of when I would arrive

01:01:45 ◼   ► on a two hour traffic filled drive,

01:01:47 ◼   ► it's right within like five minutes almost every time.

01:01:49 ◼   ► It's crazy how accurate the time estimates are.

01:01:51 ◼   ► So unlike a lot of the other systems I've used,

01:01:54 ◼   ► you know, you don't sit there and watch the timer count up

01:01:57 ◼   ► and it's just really discouraging.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Like, you know ahead of time roughly

01:02:02 ◼   ► what you're getting into.

01:02:03 ◼   ► And you can even plan drives.

01:02:05 ◼   ► You can say like, I'm going to be driving

01:02:07 ◼   ► from here to here tomorrow morning.

01:02:09 ◼   ► What time should I leave?

01:02:12 ◼   ► And you can scroll through this cool graph

01:02:14 ◼   ► where it'll show you like, well,

01:02:15 ◼   ► if you leave an hour earlier, it'll take less time.

01:02:17 ◼   ► And if you go near this time zone,

01:02:20 ◼   ► it'll get really trafficy,

01:02:22 ◼   ► but then it'll lessen out down here after rush hour.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Like, it's so nice that it is one of the very few things

01:02:28 ◼   ► that I'm very willing to give up a massive amount

01:02:31 ◼   ► my privacy and my data for the incredible benefit

01:02:34 ◼   ► that it gives.

01:02:35 ◼   ► So John, why am I wrong about everything?

01:02:38 ◼   ► - By the way, that was roughly four minutes.

01:02:39 ◼   ► Well done, Seth. - Yes!

01:02:41 ◼   ► - I would love to see what those graphs look like

01:02:44 ◼   ► if you're in the Hamptons and it's Sunday night.

01:02:47 ◼   ► It should be like, just go to sleep.

01:02:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:02:51 ◼   ► Try 'em Monday morning.

01:02:52 ◼   ► 'Cause it'd be like, if I leave now,

01:02:55 ◼   ► I'll get home in seven hours.

01:02:56 ◼   ► But if I leave five hours from now,

01:02:58 ◼   ► I'll get home in one and a half hours.

01:03:00 ◼   ► So this Waze has been a topic that's so long I have no idea what I think I was going to

01:03:04 ◼   ► say about it.

01:03:05 ◼   ► Of course.

01:03:06 ◼   ► But I do have some things to – do have something – well, one fairly silly but possibly depressing

01:03:12 ◼   ► thing to say about it.

01:03:14 ◼   ► I have Waze on my phone.

01:03:16 ◼   ► At various times during drives or before I knew I was going to take a drive, I'm like

01:03:21 ◼   ► we should use Waze because there might be traffic and I'm interested in alternate

01:03:26 ◼   ► routes.

01:03:27 ◼   ► I tried to use Waze by launching the application, and it has sent me into a sign-up funnel that

01:03:33 ◼   ► I have never made it through.

01:03:35 ◼   ► And I don't remember now what it is that was sending me away, but I think at least three

01:03:40 ◼   ► or four times I was motivated to use Waze.

01:03:43 ◼   ► I started down whatever funnel of sign-up things it had for me, and partway through,

01:03:49 ◼   ► I bailed out because it was too onerous.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Did it want my social security number?

01:03:54 ◼   ► Did it want...

01:03:55 ◼   ► I'm not one of those people like whatever take my email. I'll make a password. I don't care

01:03:59 ◼   ► I'll make an account like it's not like I'm you know shy about making accounts

01:04:02 ◼   ► But there was something about the signup process and this I think is like the first app that has happened to it

01:04:06 ◼   ► It's memorable to me because I have been repeatedly motivated to try the app because people say it's good and yet it keeps repelling me

01:04:13 ◼   ► So I have no idea if it's changed since the last time I've tried it, but whatever it is like I couldn't

01:04:21 ◼   ► get through to the app to use the app because of this

01:04:25 ◼   ► Funnel that it was sending me through and I find that kind of depressing my question for Marco is what are the competitors?

01:04:30 ◼   ► Like you mentioned ways compared to what other things have you tried because I don't honestly I don't even know I know Apple Maps

01:04:35 ◼   ► I know Google Maps and I know ways and that's it. Yes. I've those three those those are the probably the big ones

01:04:39 ◼   ► I've also used the built-in systems for Tesla. The Tesla system is garbage. It has Google map tiles, which is nice

01:04:45 ◼   ► So you can see the good maps but through I probably some weird licensing thing

01:04:50 ◼   ► it doesn't use Google for the directions.

01:04:53 ◼   ► Tesla, I think, has their own service

01:04:55 ◼   ► or licensing something else for the routing.

01:04:57 ◼   ► And so the Google tiles are literally just there

01:05:00 ◼   ► as the image of the map.

01:05:02 ◼   ► And so Tesla has its own system for routing

01:05:05 ◼   ► that has options for dynamic traffic routing

01:05:08 ◼   ► and it is horrible.

01:05:10 ◼   ► I don't recommend anybody use it for that.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Like to the point where I had this giant touchscreen

01:05:16 ◼   ► in my car, which I love all other times.

01:05:18 ◼   ► M will often use to browse around the map

01:05:21 ◼   ► and see what areas around me are full of traffic right now.

01:05:23 ◼   ► If I'm going somewhere local,

01:05:24 ◼   ► I wanna see how it should get there.

01:05:26 ◼   ► The giant Tesla map is awesome for that.

01:05:28 ◼   ► But then I'll have my phone in this little $7

01:05:31 ◼   ► suction cup mount right next to the Tesla screen,

01:05:34 ◼   ► running ways when I'm actually going somewhere

01:05:37 ◼   ► on the highway, because it's so much better.

01:05:40 ◼   ► So yeah, the Tesla system's terrible.

01:05:42 ◼   ► I've also tried the Lexus system,

01:05:44 ◼   ► and two or three generations of the BMW iDrive system,

01:05:49 ◼   ► none of them are very good.

01:05:52 ◼   ► The traffic routing on all of them is pretty poor.

01:05:55 ◼   ► BMW system also has the additional benefit

01:05:57 ◼   ► of being incomprehensible,

01:06:00 ◼   ► like when it's offering you traffic routing options,

01:06:02 ◼   ► in this case, you've seen this,

01:06:03 ◼   ► like it can be pretty awkward trying to figure out

01:06:05 ◼   ► like what button here do I hit to take this route

01:06:07 ◼   ► or decline this route, and then if you decline it,

01:06:09 ◼   ► can you go back later and see it,

01:06:10 ◼   ► or what is it going to do for you?

01:06:11 ◼   ► So it's very confusing and very hard to use.

01:06:16 ◼   ► All the other systems have led me down crazy paths

01:06:20 ◼   ► and that didn't pay off

01:06:22 ◼   ► and made terrible time estimates along the way

01:06:25 ◼   ► and made terrible decisions along the way

01:06:27 ◼   ► where Waze just hasn't.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I think I've had maybe one or two times

01:06:32 ◼   ► where Waze told me to do something

01:06:33 ◼   ► and afterwards I thought maybe that wasn't worth it.

01:06:37 ◼   ► But it's nothing like with the other systems

01:06:38 ◼   ► where you take one of their traffic suggestions

01:06:40 ◼   ► and every time you're like, oh God,

01:06:42 ◼   ► Tesla does not know what speed traffic moves

01:06:44 ◼   ► on side streets in New York City.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Like, that's crazy.

01:06:47 ◼   ► It's that level of bad with the other systems.

01:06:49 ◼   ► And Waze just, again, it has earned my trust.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Like, when Waze tells me to take some direction,

01:06:55 ◼   ► even if I know that it's gonna be indirect,

01:06:58 ◼   ► I know they're telling me for a good reason,

01:07:00 ◼   ► and so I take it, and it works almost every time.

01:07:04 ◼   ► It's shocking how good it is.

01:07:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, you have the advantage

01:07:08 ◼   ► that the New York metro area

01:07:09 ◼   ► has incredibly good coverage for Waze information, right?

01:07:13 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean, there's a reason why,

01:07:14 ◼   ► if you get into any Lyft or Uber or even a lot of taxis

01:07:18 ◼   ► and car services, the drivers of almost all of these services

01:07:23 ◼   ► use Waze to route themselves.

01:07:25 ◼   ► You can watch on their phones that they have mounted,

01:07:29 ◼   ► a lot of times they'll have multiple phones,

01:07:30 ◼   ► one of them running the Lyft driver app

01:07:33 ◼   ► and one of them running Waze.

01:07:35 ◼   ► And even if they only have one phone,

01:07:36 ◼   ► they'll be switching between those two apps,

01:07:38 ◼   ► they'll be actually using Waze to route them there

01:07:40 ◼   ► and whatever map Uber or Lyft is telling them to take

01:07:43 ◼   ► as the driver, they're mostly ignoring

01:07:44 ◼   ► because Waze is better.

01:07:46 ◼   ► So yeah, obviously it is obviously

01:07:48 ◼   ► a very data dependent service,

01:07:50 ◼   ► so if you're in an area where there's not a lot

01:07:52 ◼   ► of users of it, it's not gonna be as good

01:07:54 ◼   ► at traffic routing, but it's really popular

01:07:58 ◼   ► and it's been really popular for a long time

01:08:00 ◼   ► and it's really popular among people

01:08:01 ◼   ► who drive a lot like taxi drivers.

01:08:03 ◼   ► So there tends to be a lot of Waze coverage,

01:08:07 ◼   ► pretty much everywhere in my experience.

01:08:10 ◼   ► - I've used the Google app

01:08:12 ◼   ► and it has suggested to me alternate routes.

01:08:14 ◼   ► I don't know if Google, I mean, Google,

01:08:16 ◼   ► if they own ways, I would think they would leverage

01:08:17 ◼   ► some of that information or something,

01:08:18 ◼   ► but I have no idea if the Google's, you know,

01:08:21 ◼   ► so every once in a while I have taken

01:08:23 ◼   ► the suggested alternate route from Google

01:08:25 ◼   ► and so far hasn't stayed in my room,

01:08:26 ◼   ► but they haven't been radically different.

01:08:27 ◼   ► It doesn't like take this major highway

01:08:29 ◼   ► instead of this one because there's an accident.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And I'm like, all right, good, thanks.

01:08:32 ◼   ► But for the most part, I have not entered the world of,

01:08:36 ◼   ► you know, letting go and letting Waze just tell me where to go.

01:08:41 ◼   ► So I have not done any sort of scientific testing on this, but my completely anecdotal

01:08:46 ◼   ► single data point, based on my experience, is that Google does use the same data that

01:08:52 ◼   ► Waze does, but it seems to be a lot less aggressive about routing you through somebody's backyard,

01:08:57 ◼   ► like Marco was talking about.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Like it will keep you to only ever so slightly aggressive changes of route, whereas Waze

01:09:06 ◼   ► will send you through a residential street

01:09:08 ◼   ► and not even think twice about it.

01:09:09 ◼   ► - It also, it's kind of funny when you are doing that,

01:09:11 ◼   ► there's almost always two cars ahead of you

01:09:13 ◼   ► who are following the exact same route

01:09:14 ◼   ► and you can tell like,

01:09:15 ◼   ► "Oh, this is the Waze cluster right here.

01:09:17 ◼   ► "All the Waze users are going through

01:09:18 ◼   ► "this random residential street."

01:09:20 ◼   ► But then we pop onto the highway

01:09:22 ◼   ► magically right in front of a giant traffic jam.

01:09:25 ◼   ► It's like, "Okay, well, I guess that was worth it after all."

01:09:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's totally true.

01:09:29 ◼   ► The one thing that really bothers me about Waze

01:09:32 ◼   ► has almost nothing to do with Waze at all.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And at the risk of sounding like a broken record,

01:09:38 ◼   ► and what do I need for that?

01:09:39 ◼   ► A vinyl player, is that right?

01:09:41 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:09:41 ◼   ► - A vinyl turner, I believe it's called.

01:09:42 ◼   ► - A vinyl turner, that's what it is.

01:09:44 ◼   ► At the risk of sounding like a broken record,

01:09:46 ◼   ► one of the things that really bums me out about Waze

01:09:48 ◼   ► is that if I'm in Erin's car

01:09:50 ◼   ► and she has a 2017 XC90, a Volvo XC90 with CarPlay,

01:09:54 ◼   ► if I'm in Erin's car,

01:09:55 ◼   ► and you must run into this in the BMW

01:09:56 ◼   ► if you ever take that for any long journey,

01:09:59 ◼   ► you can't, I know, I know,

01:10:00 ◼   ► but you can't use Waze natively on CarPlay.

01:10:04 ◼   ► I'm not clear, and it may be,

01:10:07 ◼   ► that that's entirely Waze's fault.

01:10:09 ◼   ► I don't think that's the case.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - It's not, the only way that other apps

01:10:15 ◼   ► can integrate with CarPlay is as audio playing apps.

01:10:17 ◼   ► That's it, there's no other APIs for,

01:10:20 ◼   ► and no other integrations that they've done

01:10:22 ◼   ► with partners or anything, it's only audio playback.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - There you go, so it is infuriating

01:10:29 ◼   ► that here is a really, really lovely, perfectly, well, maybe not perfectly, but really well

01:10:35 ◼   ► thought out secondary display for my phone that is right in the center console, right

01:10:42 ◼   ► where you would want to look at it.

01:10:44 ◼   ► And there is nothing that Waze can do about that and Waze can't use it at all.

01:10:49 ◼   ► And it's super duper frustrating.

01:10:51 ◼   ► One of the nice things about Erin's car is that I will often plug in my phone to her

01:10:57 ◼   ► her car and so we are looking at the car played display of my phone on the center display

01:11:03 ◼   ► because it's easy for me as a passenger to reroute her or choose different route or whatever

01:11:07 ◼   ► the case may be on Apple Maps or just do something different, you know, change where we're going

01:11:13 ◼   ► or whatever the case may be.

01:11:15 ◼   ► It's nice as the passenger to be able to do that but to affect the display that she is

01:11:19 ◼   ► looking at.

01:11:20 ◼   ► So I don't have to call out every four seconds, make a right, make a left, make a right, make

01:11:23 ◼   ► a left.

01:11:24 ◼   ► She can just look down and see it for herself.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And that would be amazing with Waze.

01:11:28 ◼   ► And I would kill to be able to have Waze on Aaron's CarPlay display, but because Apple

01:11:35 ◼   ► is the walliest of walled gardens, no dice.

01:11:39 ◼   ► And this is the same problem I have with Spotify on the HomePod.

01:11:42 ◼   ► And it is getting to the point that I am starting to get deeply frustrated about this.

01:11:49 ◼   ► Deeply frustrated enough to go Android?

01:11:51 ◼   ► Eh, let's not go crazy.

01:11:52 ◼   ► But I am getting deeply frustrated by this.

01:11:55 ◼   ► And I don't feel like Apple is really doing themselves any service, particularly in this

01:12:00 ◼   ► context.

01:12:01 ◼   ► I could see how, "Yeah, okay, fine.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Let the HomePod drive, Apple Music sales fine, whatever."

01:12:06 ◼   ► But I still disagree with it, but I can at least understand the perspective.

01:12:09 ◼   ► But in this case, why are you forcing people to use Apple Maps?

01:12:15 ◼   ► And I actually don't have that much of a problem with Apple Maps, and I'll turn to that when

01:12:19 ◼   ► I'm doing any sort of normal half an hour or an hour journey.

01:12:23 ◼   ► But if I'm doing like what you're talking about, Marco, going to the beach or doing

01:12:26 ◼   ► like a two-hour-plus journey, I'm always all the time.

01:12:29 ◼   ► And especially if I'm going to DC, which is a traffic nightmare, I'm going ways for that.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And so it is infuriating that because of hubris, because of obnoxiousness, I don't know what

01:12:44 ◼   ► adjective you want to use here, but for whatever reason, laziness, Apple just does not let

01:12:50 ◼   ► let us use the one app that I think almost everyone universally wants to use.

01:12:54 ◼   ► I think I understand why they, why CarPlay is so limited.

01:12:57 ◼   ► I think they're just very nervous about putting arbitrary third-party iOS user interfaces

01:13:02 ◼   ► up on a screen, even just for display purposes, that they just want to be conservative and

01:13:07 ◼   ► say these are the things that we've decided are not, don't distract drivers, I don't know,

01:13:15 ◼   ► that are distraction free enough that we feel like

01:13:17 ◼   ► we are in the right band of legal exposure.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's also like, you know,

01:13:25 ◼   ► it's a difficult problem because there are so many

01:13:28 ◼   ► different laws in different countries

01:13:30 ◼   ► and even different states about what a car screen

01:13:35 ◼   ► can display and how much can it change,

01:13:38 ◼   ► how many items can be like in a list of items

01:13:41 ◼   ► 'cause they don't want people like browsing long lists

01:13:43 ◼   ► or they're driving, there's so many regulations and stuff

01:13:46 ◼   ► that it's, and again, when you're dealing with auto safety,

01:13:51 ◼   ► you really have to be very conservative

01:13:53 ◼   ► because literally lives are at stake if you're not.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And so there's lots of regulations

01:13:58 ◼   ► and safety concerns there.

01:13:59 ◼   ► So it makes sense why they don't add much to it,

01:14:03 ◼   ► but the reality then is what people do is,

01:14:06 ◼   ► what I've done with my car is that you just get

01:14:09 ◼   ► a cell phone mount for $7 and you stick it to the car

01:14:12 ◼   ► and then you have your phone screen available to you.

01:14:15 ◼   ► Maybe that's an acceptable compromise

01:14:17 ◼   ► because then they're legally covered,

01:14:20 ◼   ► 'cause like, well, we didn't do that.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I wonder if that's necessarily the best idea,

01:14:25 ◼   ► but ultimately it doesn't really matter

01:14:27 ◼   ► whether it's a good idea or not,

01:14:28 ◼   ► that's what everyone's doing.

01:14:30 ◼   ► And across all walks of life, Android and iOS,

01:14:34 ◼   ► that's what everyone does is they wanna use Waze

01:14:36 ◼   ► in their car, which a lot of people do,

01:14:38 ◼   ► they just get a cell phone mount

01:14:40 ◼   ► and stick it to the dashboard or the windshield,

01:14:42 ◼   ► It's not the best setup in the world, but it's fine.

01:14:44 ◼   ► - It'll be increasingly wasteful as large screens in cars

01:14:48 ◼   ► trickles down from the high end to basically every car,

01:14:51 ◼   ► which is slowly but surely happening.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Right now you feel the frustration.

01:14:56 ◼   ► I got a 17 inch LCD in my Tesla

01:14:58 ◼   ► and I got to look at my little phone screen

01:15:00 ◼   ► because I can't display ways on my giant Tesla screen.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And the same thing with all of the high end cars

01:15:05 ◼   ► that have displays in front of the driver

01:15:07 ◼   ► and the instrument cluster and everything like that.

01:15:10 ◼   ► fast-forward 10 15 years where every single car you buy has like two or three giant screens in them and

01:15:16 ◼   ► Still people are clipping things to ventilation

01:15:18 ◼   ► You know ports so they can look at their tiny phone screen and have all the wires dangling all over the place

01:15:25 ◼   ► That that's bad. That's not good

01:15:27 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure what the solution is because I don't think you should just let arbitrary phones display

01:15:32 ◼   ► Whatever they want on the screens in the car, but that may be

01:15:35 ◼   ► Inevitable the only comparison I can think of is one that is not

01:15:39 ◼   ► particularly not a particularly good comparison which is radar detectors

01:15:43 ◼   ► which there are all sorts of laws against as well but I don't think we ever

01:15:47 ◼   ► got to the point where any car manufacturer was brave enough to build

01:15:50 ◼   ► them into the car right so everyone who wants to have a radar detector or a

01:15:54 ◼   ► laser detector or whatever in the days before we had ways to tell us where the

01:15:58 ◼   ► cops are would have a device with a suction cup and a cable snaking down

01:16:03 ◼   ► along their car and it never changed from that like even cars with radar you

01:16:09 ◼   ► I don't know if they have the sensors built in for that.

01:16:10 ◼   ► But self-driving cars that have all sorts of sensors

01:16:12 ◼   ► all over them, I don't think any of those sensors

01:16:14 ◼   ► are dedicated to finding laser or radar speed detection,

01:16:21 ◼   ► or could even be hacked to do so.

01:16:22 ◼   ► And the current solution is internet and crowdsourcing.

01:16:25 ◼   ► That's how we find out.

01:16:26 ◼   ► But I'm hoping the screen issue resolves itself in a better way.

01:16:30 ◼   ► Because unlike speed trap detection stuff,

01:16:35 ◼   ► I think it is possible to have a constructive, useful, non-law-breaking application of better

01:16:47 ◼   ► directions inside our cars.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Most cars have some way to do directions on a map and all that other stuff.

01:16:53 ◼   ► We just want an environment where we can choose the best map for whatever area we live in

01:16:59 ◼   ► and not have to, like the HomePod or all sorts of other devices, not have to pick the hardware

01:17:05 ◼   ► based on what Soher runs on it.

01:17:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause, and, you know, first of all,

01:17:08 ◼   ► I think this is different than the radar detector example

01:17:10 ◼   ► in the largest way because it's so much more mass market

01:17:15 ◼   ► than radar detectors ever were or will be.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Like, so many more people use cell phone mounts

01:17:21 ◼   ► in their cars than ever use radar detectors, you know?

01:17:24 ◼   ► And because that was always such a kind of edge case

01:17:27 ◼   ► for high strung men, basically.

01:17:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:17:32 ◼   ► And so like, you know, but this is like,

01:17:34 ◼   ► this is so mass market, like people like Apple or Tesla

01:17:37 ◼   ► who are like, you know, designing things for cars

01:17:39 ◼   ► where, that don't accommodate the fact

01:17:41 ◼   ► that everyone's gonna just use cell phone mounts

01:17:43 ◼   ► unless they make a better solution

01:17:44 ◼   ► to put any app on a screen.

01:17:47 ◼   ► I feel like that, like that fight has already,

01:17:50 ◼   ► it's already passed them.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Like, the market has already decided

01:17:54 ◼   ► we want arbitrary apps to be able to be displayed

01:17:58 ◼   ► on our phones and our cars.

01:17:59 ◼   ► And that's terrible because it's very unsafe.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Like, you don't want people showing a texting app

01:18:04 ◼   ► or something.

01:18:05 ◼   ► - Or watching YouTube videos or whatever.

01:18:07 ◼   ► - Right, like, there's lots of reasons why that's terrible.

01:18:10 ◼   ► But the reality is, people are doing it,

01:18:12 ◼   ► and people will continue to do it.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Because for very compelling and totally legitimate

01:18:18 ◼   ► and safe uses like Waze or other navigation apps,

01:18:21 ◼   ► that's such a compelling use that people

01:18:23 ◼   ► are just gonna do it anyway.

01:18:24 ◼   ► So they might as well, you know,

01:18:27 ◼   ► the more pragmatic solution here is not to try to,

01:18:30 ◼   ► you know, stop people from doing that

01:18:31 ◼   ► to try to lock people into just your built-in thing

01:18:34 ◼   ► and whatever gated system you run,

01:18:37 ◼   ► but to acknowledge the fact that people are doing this

01:18:40 ◼   ► and will do this and try to give them a better, safer way

01:18:44 ◼   ► to do what they're going to do anyway.

01:18:47 ◼   ► - I'm gonna test the Model 3.

01:18:48 ◼   ► My recollection of the interior is correct.

01:18:50 ◼   ► It actually throws a monkey wrench into it

01:18:51 ◼   ► and it doesn't have vents in the traditional sense

01:18:55 ◼   ► where you can clip in your holder

01:18:56 ◼   ► so you'd have to use a windshield suction cup

01:18:58 ◼   ► and in that case, I don't know how far away

01:18:59 ◼   ► the windshield is.

01:19:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know if that would work.

01:19:02 ◼   ► So I started out with a vent clip

01:19:04 ◼   ► and moved to a suction cup with a little two inch arm

01:19:08 ◼   ► or four inch arm.

01:19:10 ◼   ► And it's because the suction cup thing,

01:19:13 ◼   ► or the vent thing just kept falling out

01:19:14 ◼   ► as my phone got bigger and heavier.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And as I accelerated harder sometimes.

01:19:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:21 ◼   ► It would just fall right off.

01:19:22 ◼   ► But it works for me because there's a flat piece of trim

01:19:27 ◼   ► right below the vent.

01:19:29 ◼   ► So I just have it suction cupped vertically to that.

01:19:32 ◼   ► But I'm kinda worried that whenever the next Model S

01:19:36 ◼   ► revision comes out, which is probably, I think,

01:19:38 ◼   ► gonna be in time for my next lease,

01:19:41 ◼   ► I'm a little worried they might change the interior

01:19:43 ◼   ► to be more like the three and not give me a spot

01:19:45 ◼   ► to stick a suction cup.

01:19:46 ◼   ► - Well then you'll have to do it on the windshield

01:19:48 ◼   ► on an even longer arm, 'cause the windshield

01:19:49 ◼   ► is really far away.

01:19:50 ◼   ► - I really don't wanna do that.

01:19:51 ◼   ► I really don't wanna do that.

01:19:52 ◼   ► It puts it too high up for me.

01:19:54 ◼   ► - That's why it reminded me of radar detectors,

01:19:57 ◼   ► even though like you said, it's way more common,

01:19:59 ◼   ► but it's the ugliness of messing up your car's interior

01:20:02 ◼   ► with this extra wart that you have to stick onto it,

01:20:04 ◼   ► plus the associated cord that's attached to the wart.

01:20:07 ◼   ► - Well that's why I resisted it for so long,

01:20:09 ◼   ► like why I just wanted to use the built-in systems

01:20:11 ◼   ► for so long, and then why my first thing was

01:20:14 ◼   ► just the little vent mount, because that was something

01:20:16 ◼   ► I could just keep in the little center console,

01:20:18 ◼   ► and just like, when I wanted to use it, take it out,

01:20:21 ◼   ► take out a lightning cable, and stick it on there

01:20:23 ◼   ► and use it, and then when I was done, I would take it away.

01:20:26 ◼   ► And it took three or four months of that

01:20:28 ◼   ► before I was like, all right, I'm sold on this setup,

01:20:31 ◼   ► I'm in, let me do it right and make it less annoying

01:20:33 ◼   ► and less finicky, and now I just have a permanent

01:20:36 ◼   ► tuction cup stuck right next to my giant touchscreen

01:20:39 ◼   ► of my beautiful car interior with this semi-permanent wire

01:20:42 ◼   ► running down the side because it just has

01:20:45 ◼   ► that much utility.

01:20:46 ◼   ► It's so good and so helpful that that's what,

01:20:50 ◼   ► that I'm willing to tarnish my interior

01:20:53 ◼   ► with this $7 plastic garbage

01:20:56 ◼   ► that's sitting next to my beautiful screen

01:20:58 ◼   ► because it is just that useful to me.

01:21:01 ◼   ► - One thing that could make this slightly less clumsy,

01:21:05 ◼   ► and I've always been a proponent of this,

01:21:07 ◼   ► the idea of rededicating old devices to specific uses.

01:21:12 ◼   ► The tricky part with directions is like,

01:21:14 ◼   ► yeah, but who's gonna pay for a phone

01:21:15 ◼   ► that only lives in their car forever, right?

01:21:18 ◼   ► But some fancy schmancy cars come with their own,

01:21:21 ◼   ► like cell connections that, granted,

01:21:23 ◼   ► have to pay for but you know if you're paying for an internet connection for

01:21:27 ◼   ► like an LTE connection for your car then you could reuse an old iPhone with no

01:21:31 ◼   ► sim in it merely going on the car's Wi-Fi and permanently mount it or an old

01:21:37 ◼   ► iPad for that matter and permanently mount it somewhere in your car and have

01:21:41 ◼   ► it be a single purpose device the only thing this thing does is ever is runs

01:21:44 ◼   ► the Waze application and it's permanently plugged in and I can route

01:21:47 ◼   ► the wire like you're basically designing your own car interior I have a dedicated

01:21:51 ◼   ► I can Bluetooth play music from my phone as well,

01:21:53 ◼   ► but it's nice to have a dedicated thing

01:21:55 ◼   ► that's always in the car, always connected,

01:21:56 ◼   ► always plugged in.

01:21:58 ◼   ► I could see people doing that with directions

01:22:00 ◼   ► if it was possible to get it to work.

01:22:02 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I honestly considered using

01:22:04 ◼   ► a cellular iPad mini for this purpose,

01:22:07 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like that's kind of like

01:22:08 ◼   ► a really good balance, like it doesn't cost much

01:22:10 ◼   ► to have the cell plan on that.

01:22:11 ◼   ► It's a pretty good sized screen, bigger than any phone,

01:22:14 ◼   ► so like if there was a place for that to fit in my interior,

01:22:18 ◼   ► with having a phone, I would have to go to the computer

01:22:20 ◼   ► in my interior without blocking a third of the screen,

01:22:23 ◼   ► I might have done that.

01:22:24 ◼   ► - You've got a Model 3 'cause there's nothing

01:22:25 ◼   ► on that dashboard, plenty of room for another thing.

01:22:28 ◼   ► - So gross.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Anyway, it's funny you bring that up, Jon,

01:22:33 ◼   ► because as we were talking, I was thinking to myself,

01:22:35 ◼   ► you know, Aaron's car does have an LTE connection

01:22:39 ◼   ► that we're not paying for, and you can like cough

01:22:43 ◼   ► near a cell phone store and get a free Android phone.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I could get a free Android phone, install only Waze on it,

01:22:52 ◼   ► turn everything else off, install it in Aaron's car,

01:22:54 ◼   ► and just have that be our car computer.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Because it supports Android Auto as well.

01:22:59 ◼   ► And I am almost sure, even regardless of the fact

01:23:02 ◼   ► that Google now owns Waze, I don't

01:23:04 ◼   ► think they have near as many restrictions, as far as I'm

01:23:06 ◼   ► aware, on Android Auto as Apple does.

01:23:10 ◼   ► And thus, why couldn't I just get the world's crappiest

01:23:14 ◼   ► Android phone?

01:23:15 ◼   ► I guess it's kind of redundant, isn't it?

01:23:16 ◼   ► Anyway--

01:23:17 ◼   ► - This is a good test of Casey's sense of injustice

01:23:21 ◼   ► about cell phone plans.

01:23:22 ◼   ► All right, so the watch, which is very small,

01:23:25 ◼   ► was a great affront because it charged you

01:23:27 ◼   ► however much it charged you.

01:23:28 ◼   ► But the car is very, very big.

01:23:30 ◼   ► So how much does a cell connection for your car cost?

01:23:33 ◼   ► And do you feel it is okay?

01:23:35 ◼   ► - I think it's the same, or it's double, one or the other.

01:23:38 ◼   ► And this is why we haven't paid for a cell.

01:23:40 ◼   ► Like we got our free six gigs,

01:23:42 ◼   ► whatever it was when we bought the car,

01:23:43 ◼   ► and I've never paid for it since,

01:23:45 ◼   ► because I also don't think that's worth the money either.

01:23:48 ◼   ► - But the car is so big.

01:23:50 ◼   ► - Oh my God, I'm not gonna entertain this conversation.

01:23:52 ◼   ► I'm not-- - It's true,

01:23:53 ◼   ► it's 100% true.

01:23:55 ◼   ► - No, it's not true because I'm not paying for it.

01:23:57 ◼   ► - How many watches could fit in the mass of the car?

01:24:00 ◼   ► - What I'm saying is,

01:24:01 ◼   ► I firmly believe that it seems more unjust

01:24:06 ◼   ► because the watch is small than it would for a larger--

01:24:08 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm not debating that.

01:24:10 ◼   ► I completely agree.

01:24:11 ◼   ► - And so the car is the largest device.

01:24:13 ◼   ► how often would you use the car Waze LTE connection

01:24:16 ◼   ► versus how often do you use the watch's LTE connection?

01:24:19 ◼   ► Are you actually using the LTE still?

01:24:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, two to three times a week.

01:24:23 ◼   ► Well, not for the last two months

01:24:25 ◼   ► because I just had a kid and it's been freezing out,

01:24:27 ◼   ► but yes, anytime I go for a run,

01:24:29 ◼   ► I go with only AirPods and my watch.

01:24:31 ◼   ► And so every time I do that,

01:24:33 ◼   ► well, I guess I shouldn't say I am using the LTE connection,

01:24:36 ◼   ► but I want to have the ability to.

01:24:38 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:24:39 ◼   ► So like if I break an ankle or something,

01:24:41 ◼   ► I wanna be able to call Aaron and say, "Please come get me."

01:24:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would count that as using it.

01:24:45 ◼   ► Like if you're going out without your phone

01:24:47 ◼   ► being connected via LTE, that counts as using it.

01:24:51 ◼   ► - And this is why I'm paying for it.

01:24:52 ◼   ► Like I'm grumbling about, well I grumbled about it.

01:24:54 ◼   ► I didn't bring it up this time, thank you very much.

01:24:56 ◼   ► But I did my grumbling, I moved on with my life.

01:24:59 ◼   ► This is why I do pay for the watch.

01:25:01 ◼   ► And we didn't pay for the car and haven't paid for the car,

01:25:04 ◼   ► or the LTE connection in the car that is,

01:25:06 ◼   ► because I did the math,

01:25:08 ◼   ► it just did a, in a figurative sense, I did the math.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Not even literally arithmetic.

01:25:12 ◼   ► And I thought, you know what, it's very rare that I'm in the car long enough to justify

01:25:15 ◼   ► using its connection.

01:25:16 ◼   ► Even if I am, I can just tether.

01:25:18 ◼   ► There's really no need for me to pay for a connection in the car.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Would it be more convenient if it was free?

01:25:23 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Is it worth, and I think it's either 10 or 20 bucks a month, I can't remember which,

01:25:27 ◼   ► is it worth that money for it?

01:25:28 ◼   ► No, probably not.

01:25:30 ◼   ► But I only brought it up to say it is a solution one could do, is get, even if you're a devout

01:25:35 ◼   ► iOS person, you could get a free Android phone, stick ways on it, hook it up to either tethering

01:25:41 ◼   ► on your existing iPhone or just hook it up to your car

01:25:44 ◼   ► or what have you, use Android Auto and everyone's happy.

01:25:47 ◼   ► I don't recommend it, but you could.