ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► "Chili Kickoff" is like one of those confusing titles where people will listen to the whole

00:00:04 ◼   ► episode and then glance back at the title before it's out to the least.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I'm like, "What was that about anyway?

00:00:09 ◼   ► What the hell is this episode going to 'Chili Kickoff'?"

00:00:11 ◼   ► It's a great title.

00:00:12 ◼   ► I didn't love this title when you first said it, but the two of you are convincing me that

00:00:17 ◼   ► this thing has got legs, just like my icon.

00:00:19 ◼   ► There's depth to that title.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Depth of flavor and spice.

00:00:23 ◼   ► It's just a good title.

00:00:25 ◼   ► But not a lot of levels of depth mapping on that.

00:00:28 ◼   ► No, very few.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Oh, John, you've redeemed yourself.

00:00:35 ◼   ► So as always, we start with follow-up, and listener Richard Buxton wrote in to say that

00:00:39 ◼   ► traits people generally like Face ID, and this was something I hadn't considered, and

00:00:45 ◼   ► I really like this email.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Richard wrote, "I wanted to provide some feedback on the Face ID concept and perhaps shed light

00:00:50 ◼   ► on an entirely different group of phone users.

00:00:52 ◼   ► I'm a traits person, or more specifically, an electrician, and Touch ID sucks.

00:00:57 ◼   ► As a consequence of manual work with rough materials all day long, my fingertips constantly

00:01:01 ◼   ► get scratched and worn.

00:01:03 ◼   ► The result is that Touch ID on either a 6 or 7+ constantly fails.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I have perhaps a 10% success rate and I am therefore forced to type my password in a

00:01:11 ◼   ► lot."

00:01:12 ◼   ► And thus, Richard had written that he is really, really, really excited about Face ID.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And that makes perfect sense, but it was something I hadn't really considered.

00:01:21 ◼   ► The obvious thought of like, oh, people who don't have, I don't know, hands or perhaps,

00:01:25 ◼   ► you know, don't have fingers that are dexterous enough to be placed on a little fingerprint

00:01:30 ◼   ► sensor, that all, you know, is semi-obvious.

00:01:32 ◼   ► But I didn't even think of somebody who has potentially 10 working digits, but they're

00:01:37 ◼   ► hacked to smithereens because of the line of work that they're in.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So I thought that was a really useful follow-up.

00:01:42 ◼   ► You also didn't think about people who have weather, which is the first thing that comes

00:01:45 ◼   ► to my mind when thinking about Face ID, is the large portion of the year that many people

00:01:50 ◼   ► don't want to take their hands out of their gloves or mittens or whatever to use their

00:01:55 ◼   ► phone that's why they have all the special gloves with the touch sensors on them but

00:01:58 ◼   ► then sometimes they only work for a short period of time or sometimes it can be too

00:02:01 ◼   ► cold for them to even work and to not have to deal with that to be able to basically

00:02:06 ◼   ► say if I got gloves that are dexterous enough to handle my phone I don't have to worry that

00:02:11 ◼   ► the phone can't touch my fingerprints in any way even if my fingerprints are pristine I

00:02:16 ◼   ► can just point it at my face and it will unlock and then of course you still have the problem

00:02:19 ◼   ► of how do you touch the screen, but I think that's,

00:02:23 ◼   ► again, that's where those gloves come in,

00:02:24 ◼   ► where at least you can do touch and scroll things,

00:02:28 ◼   ► but as far as I'm aware, there are no gloves

00:02:30 ◼   ► that transfer your fingerprint through their warmth

00:02:33 ◼   ► to the Touch ID sensor.

00:02:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, with any of these biological systems,

00:02:38 ◼   ► you kinda have to think like,

00:02:39 ◼   ► how many people does this exclude?

00:02:42 ◼   ► And for the most part, our mainstream tech commentators

00:02:47 ◼   ► and media reviewers and everything,

00:02:49 ◼   ► We usually are not very aware of the kinds of people

00:02:53 ◼   ► or groups or situations that anything could rule out

00:02:58 ◼   ► in a lot of the Dej cases.

00:02:59 ◼   ► And Touch ID provides a fairly simple interaction,

00:03:04 ◼   ► but if you for some reason can't do that,

00:03:08 ◼   ► very often that's gonna be a major problem.

00:03:10 ◼   ► There's no real out for you.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Face ID I think is a little bit more flexible.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Like they had the thing, first of all,

00:03:17 ◼   ► I think more people can probably show their face

00:03:19 ◼   ► But not everybody, of course.

00:03:21 ◼   ► But more people can, I think,

00:03:23 ◼   ► than can take out their finger all the time.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And there's the wonderful accessibility option

00:03:27 ◼   ► where you can turn off the looking at it attention detection.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So in case people can't use their eyes that way,

00:03:36 ◼   ► then they don't have to be directly looking at the screen

00:03:39 ◼   ► for it to unlock.

00:03:40 ◼   ► So there's that kind of accommodation.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And you're never gonna find a system like this

00:03:44 ◼   ► that accommodates everybody,

00:03:46 ◼   ► but it does seem like Face ID probably accommodates

00:03:49 ◼   ► more situations than Touch ID did.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - One of you like to tell me about why

00:03:54 ◼   ► the multitasking gesture feels different on Springboard.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - This is me, I'm the one who last week described

00:04:00 ◼   ► how I couldn't bring up the multitasking switcher

00:04:03 ◼   ► reliably from Springboard versus doing it

00:04:06 ◼   ► from within an application, so much so that I actually

00:04:08 ◼   ► thought it wasn't even possible to bring up

00:04:10 ◼   ► the multitasking switcher from Springboard.

00:04:12 ◼   ► And I pretty quickly figured out why after the show

00:04:14 ◼   ► I went back and looked at it more closely.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And it has to do with something that we talked about, which is animations.

00:04:22 ◼   ► When you do the multitasking gesture on a screen that contains an application, as you

00:04:28 ◼   ► start to do the swipe up thing, whether you're gonna like take a hard ride and go multitasking

00:04:34 ◼   ► or go up on an angle and go to multitasking or go straighter up and go to the home screen,

00:04:39 ◼   ► no matter what one of those things you're doing, as you're doing the gesture, the application

00:04:44 ◼   ► that was in the foreground starts to like shrink and move upward like it doesn't follow

00:04:48 ◼   ► your finger exactly but it reacts to what your finger is doing in a reasonably linear

00:04:54 ◼   ► way.

00:04:55 ◼   ► I'm swiping up at the farther up I go the more shrinky the front thing gets and you

00:05:00 ◼   ► know if I flick to the right I see a little multitasking thing or whatever.

00:05:04 ◼   ► If you do it on springboard the screen reacts to your scrolling upward from the bottom like

00:05:13 ◼   ► It doesn't just sit there and not move at all.

00:05:14 ◼   ► It does sort of start to shrink and move a little bit,

00:05:18 ◼   ► but then it stops shrinking and moving

00:05:20 ◼   ► and is kind of inert for a period of time.

00:05:24 ◼   ► If you successfully complete the gesture,

00:05:26 ◼   ► the multitasking switcher appears.

00:05:28 ◼   ► If you don't successfully complete it,

00:05:30 ◼   ► it snaps back to where it was.

00:05:32 ◼   ► And that discontinuity,

00:05:34 ◼   ► like the fact that there was a different relationship

00:05:39 ◼   ► between what my finger was doing and what was on the screen

00:05:41 ◼   ► was apparently enough to make me think it wasn't possible initially and then fail at

00:05:46 ◼   ► it a way higher percentage of the time than on other screens.

00:05:51 ◼   ► So what I've been trying to do is break that connection, which is hard for me because I'm

00:05:56 ◼   ► a visual person and I, you know, like when things are connected in that way it makes

00:06:01 ◼   ► sense to me.

00:06:02 ◼   ► When they're not connected it feels like things are broken.

00:06:04 ◼   ► But to say, look, the screen's not going to react the same way in Springboard.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Just do the gesture, right?

00:06:07 ◼   ► Just do your little J-turn, do your little angle swipe, do whatever it is you have to

00:06:10 ◼   ► do to make and and have faith that even though the screen stops reaction to your sliding finger

00:06:16 ◼   ► just keep sliding it just just keep sliding swipe me just keep swiping and have some confidence now

00:06:22 ◼   ► i still am less successful and it could be that i need some kind of feedback to match up with my

00:06:29 ◼   ► like yeah you know yeah your thumb's making a right turn yeah it's going to happen for you see

00:06:33 ◼   ► how the little thing is moving to the right a little bit like i i don't know you know what

00:06:36 ◼   ► what the disconnect is there um but i did find out that i'm not the only one a lot of people

00:06:40 ◼   ► did tweet at me and tell me they, some people also thought it wasn't possible from Springboard

00:06:45 ◼   ► until they heard the program. Some people knew it was possible but have much more difficulty doing

00:06:48 ◼   ► it. And then of course there are all the people who are the equivalent of Tap the Click wizards,

00:06:52 ◼   ► like, "No problem. I've never failed at a single time. I just make it an exact 45 degree line with

00:06:57 ◼   ► my thumb and it happens every single time." So whatever. Everyone has difficulty, you know,

00:07:02 ◼   ► this is an accessibility issue. Everyone has different abilities to swipe. But I think the

00:07:09 ◼   ► The difficulty on Springboard actually is explicable

00:07:12 ◼   ► by the difference in animation.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Because that is the only difference as far as I can tell.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Like it's still like the same gesture works in both places.

00:07:19 ◼   ► The only difference is what happens on your screen.

00:07:21 ◼   ► And if you have an expectation of something

00:07:24 ◼   ► that's gonna happen on your screen and it doesn't,

00:07:25 ◼   ► it can cause you to pause, to rethink,

00:07:29 ◼   ► to move your finger differently, to stop moving

00:07:32 ◼   ► and all those things will mess up your gesture.

00:07:33 ◼   ► So I'll keep practicing on my wife's phone.

00:07:38 ◼   ► In the meantime, Apple should consider

00:07:40 ◼   ► doing something about that, Jeff,

00:07:43 ◼   ► 'cause I don't see any reason why

00:07:44 ◼   ► Springboard can't have the same animation

00:07:47 ◼   ► when going into multitasking.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Obviously, you're never gonna go

00:07:49 ◼   ► from Springboard to Springboard,

00:07:50 ◼   ► so the only animation it has to initiate

00:07:53 ◼   ► is the one that brings the multitasking switcher.

00:07:55 ◼   ► And if you bail on the gesture,

00:07:56 ◼   ► yeah, it'll snap back to where it was,

00:07:58 ◼   ► but I don't see why it doesn't do,

00:08:00 ◼   ► doesn't follow your thumb the full way through the gesture

00:08:02 ◼   ► to give you the confidence to know

00:08:03 ◼   ► that it's gonna happen for you,

00:08:05 ◼   ► the multitasking screen is gonna come up.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it is weird.

00:08:09 ◼   ► I've noticed that as well, that it's super peculiar.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Speaking of things that I think you said, Jon, last episode, I got this phone for $50

00:08:19 ◼   ► and it's fine.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Tell me more about that.

00:08:21 ◼   ► That's still funny.

00:08:22 ◼   ► That was just me describing my sister getting her phone and how I wasn't able to get an

00:08:27 ◼   ► iPhone and it occurred to me that would be a good slogan for Android and some people

00:08:30 ◼   ► took that and ran with it.

00:08:31 ◼   ► But I did want to offer some clarification because some people thought it was like they

00:08:37 ◼   ► were putting down Android that is, you know, pejorative like, oh, this $50 phone bought

00:08:43 ◼   ► a piece of crap, right?

00:08:44 ◼   ► My main point was the opposite, that the Android phone you can get for $50 is fine, right?

00:08:52 ◼   ► And if you're not, as I said, a phone enthusiast or like an Apple enthusiast or a gadget head

00:08:59 ◼   ► or someone who appreciates the ways in which iOS differs from Android, the supposed superiority

00:09:08 ◼   ► of iOS or Apple hardware or anything like that does not even come close to overcoming

00:09:14 ◼   ► the price difference.

00:09:16 ◼   ► So I got this phone for $50 and it's fine, sounds like Apple people yucking it up, but

00:09:23 ◼   ► really it's Apple's problem in that if the $50 phone is fine, Apple has a problem there.

00:09:28 ◼   ► And the second aspect is people say, well, I don't--

00:09:30 ◼   ► I do appreciate those differences.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I just-- you know, I do like high-tech gadgets.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I just don't like iOS, or I like Android phones better,

00:09:36 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:09:37 ◼   ► And those are the people who are shopping

00:09:39 ◼   ► for the high-end, fancy Android phones.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And those people were insulted.

00:09:42 ◼   ► They thought-- they said, if you're a gadget nerd,

00:09:44 ◼   ► obviously you're going to like iOS.

00:09:45 ◼   ► And if you're a non-gadget nerd, then Android is fine for you.

00:09:48 ◼   ► And that wasn't my intention.

00:09:50 ◼   ► I couldn't understand where you got that impression.

00:09:52 ◼   ► But yeah, of course, if you don't like iOS at all,

00:09:55 ◼   ► but also like high tech fancy phones,

00:09:58 ◼   ► yeah, you're also gonna shop for an Android,

00:10:00 ◼   ► but you're not gonna pay $50 for it,

00:10:01 ◼   ► is what I'm getting out there.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Like you're gonna actually pay the big money

00:10:04 ◼   ► for the fanciest highest end Android phone,

00:10:06 ◼   ► and that phone is not going to cost you $50.

00:10:08 ◼   ► So you are excluded from this,

00:10:10 ◼   ► I got this phone for $50 and it's fine.

00:10:12 ◼   ► The only thing I can say for those people is,

00:10:14 ◼   ► you do have to make do with the slower CPU.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Sorry about that.

00:10:17 ◼   ► But other than that,

00:10:19 ◼   ► if you like Android and the control it offers

00:10:22 ◼   ► and all the various features that Android has

00:10:24 ◼   ► that iOS doesn't, like a configurable set of widgets on your lock screen and all that

00:10:29 ◼   ► good stuff, then yeah, go for it.

00:10:31 ◼   ► But yeah, my main point is I got this phone for $50 and it's fine.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Sounds insulting if you're an Apple snob, but really it constitutes a semi-real problem

00:10:41 ◼   ► for Apple because if a $50 phone is fine, why the hell are we all paying $1200 for an

00:10:45 ◼   ► iPhone X?

00:10:46 ◼   ► Yep.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Duncan Stevenson Price writes in, "Regarding AppleCare+, did you guys know that you can

00:10:52 ◼   ► get a pro rata refund on the plan if you change your iPhone after one year.

00:10:56 ◼   ► This changes the math.

00:10:58 ◼   ► This individual wrote maths.

00:10:59 ◼   ► That's incorrect.

00:11:00 ◼   ► This changes the math a little though admittedly not the overall thrust of your argument against

00:11:04 ◼   ► buying it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► I had no idea that that was possible.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And I don't recall how they said that you go about doing that because I think they did

00:11:12 ◼   ► include it in their email.

00:11:13 ◼   ► But apparently there's a way to get a bit of a refund on your AppleCare+.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I don't get a phone every year.

00:11:18 ◼   ► So I didn't know about this at all.

00:11:20 ◼   ► But to you two who do get a phone, you should try that.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Well, if Casey, you bought the AppleCare this time,

00:11:25 ◼   ► next time you go to get a phone,

00:11:27 ◼   ► say Duncan told you you're supposed to get

00:11:29 ◼   ► some of the money back for AppleCare and see what they do.

00:11:31 ◼   ► - Well, I did not get AppleCare this time.

00:11:33 ◼   ► - Oh, no, you didn't?

00:11:34 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I got a, well, I did get AppleCare.

00:11:37 ◼   ► It's a $50 leather case.

00:11:38 ◼   ► Remind me of this when I still shatter my phone.

00:11:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:41 ◼   ► But that's all right.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Steven Harrison writes,

00:11:44 ◼   ► "You mentioned that it is not possible

00:11:45 ◼   ► "to remove individual keys on the new keyboards.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Well, I just had a faulty B key on my MacBook Pro, and the first thing they did at the Genius Bar was

00:11:53 ◼   ► take it out back (that sounds awkward) and removed the offending geek app to check for dust, etc.

00:11:58 ◼   ► underneath. From what I could gather, they have a special device or machine for removing keys,

00:12:02 ◼   ► so it's not something one could do at home, but it's possible. In the end, I still had a new top

00:12:07 ◼   ► case with the accompanying touchpad, or trackpad, touchbar, and battery, etc. There's been a lot of

00:12:13 ◼   ► talk about whether or not you can remove individual keys in a non-destructive way.

00:12:18 ◼   ► And Stephen certainly thinks that it's possible, although he ended up going the, or they ended

00:12:23 ◼   ► up going the destructive route on his behalf anyway.

00:12:26 ◼   ► So what we heard from Geniuses in past feedback is, yeah, of course you can get the keycaps

00:12:31 ◼   ► off, right?

00:12:32 ◼   ► But that the process of removing them has such a high chance of bending or breaking

00:12:38 ◼   ► one of the very very tiny very delicate plastic pins that holds these things together that

00:12:45 ◼   ► the geniuses who wrote to us said basically I've never seen anyone pull it off successfully

00:12:48 ◼   ► or the success rate is so low that it's not even worth trying so I don't doubt that they

00:12:52 ◼   ► still try to do it but I wonder like why did this person get a new keyboard possibly because

00:12:57 ◼   ► they got the key cap off and they thought they had done it successfully and they tried

00:13:01 ◼   ► to put it back on and realized they'd accidentally bent one of the little tiny pins and it's

00:13:04 ◼   ► like well that's it game over because there's no repairing a bent pin there's no repairing

00:13:07 ◼   ► a broke pin, if you don't get it off cleanly and get it back on cleanly, then it's a whole

00:13:14 ◼   ► new top case, which is one of the many reasons that this keyboard is not friendly to repair.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems like the rate at which they're able to properly rescue it with some kind

00:13:25 ◼   ► of replacement in store or some kind of, like, you know, not replacing the entire top case,

00:13:30 ◼   ► the number of problems that are solved that way seems significantly smaller than the number

00:13:34 ◼   ► that require a whole top case replacement anyway.

00:13:37 ◼   ► So however the multiple parts inside the keys work out,

00:13:40 ◼   ► however the serviceability works out,

00:13:42 ◼   ► the reality is this is a incredibly service

00:13:46 ◼   ► unfriendly problem.

00:13:48 ◼   ► I also, on this topic, there's been a number

00:13:51 ◼   ► of good discussions about this on Connected

00:13:53 ◼   ► with Stephen Hackett, 'cause he was a genius back in the day,

00:13:57 ◼   ► and he mentioned that the idea of one bad key

00:14:03 ◼   ► requiring the replacement of the entire top case

00:14:05 ◼   ► of the computer and the entire top case

00:14:08 ◼   ► being a very expensive repair

00:14:10 ◼   ► because the entire computer is basically built under it

00:14:12 ◼   ► so that you have to like basically take

00:14:14 ◼   ► the entire computer apart in order to replace that

00:14:16 ◼   ► and put it back together.

00:14:18 ◼   ► He mentioned that this is actually not new

00:14:20 ◼   ► to this current generation of MacBook Pros.

00:14:23 ◼   ► This started with the Unibody back, what was that, 2011

00:14:26 ◼   ► that the Unibody started, 2010, something like that.

00:14:30 ◼   ► And ever since the Unibody MacBook Pros,

00:14:32 ◼   ► you've had to replace the entire top case

00:14:34 ◼   ► and it's been a lot of work

00:14:36 ◼   ► if the keyboard breaks in certain ways.

00:14:38 ◼   ► The main difference with the new ones

00:14:40 ◼   ► is that not only are the keys more likely to break

00:14:43 ◼   ► in a way that requires top case replacement,

00:14:45 ◼   ► you know the older keys, you had a better chance

00:14:48 ◼   ► of servicing individual key caps.

00:14:50 ◼   ► But also, as we know, the new ones have such an incredibly

00:14:53 ◼   ► high key failure rate with whatever it is,

00:14:56 ◼   ► specs of dust, things bending,

00:14:57 ◼   ► whatever the problem ends up being with these,

00:15:00 ◼   ► we know that they are failing way more often

00:15:02 ◼   ► than they used to.

00:15:03 ◼   ► So the whole top case being acquired thing is not new,

00:15:07 ◼   ► but the rate of failure and how severe the failures are now

00:15:12 ◼   ► does seem very new.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - And even the old keyboards with the scissor switches,

00:15:16 ◼   ► I've manually tried to repair many of those

00:15:18 ◼   ► and they have a lesser version of the same problem.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Removing the keycaps from an older scissor switch keyboard

00:15:25 ◼   ► is possible, but there is some fairly high chance

00:15:29 ◼   ► that you will bend or break one of the little pennies.

00:15:31 ◼   ► I think mostly I bent them.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I don't know if I ever really broke one off,

00:15:35 ◼   ► but I've definitely bent them

00:15:37 ◼   ► in my attempts to repair things,

00:15:38 ◼   ► both on the laptop keyboards

00:15:39 ◼   ► and on the same scissors switches

00:15:41 ◼   ► that are in the extended aluminum keyboard and stuff.

00:15:45 ◼   ► It's pretty easy to mangle the tiny semi-clear pieces

00:15:49 ◼   ► of plastic in there

00:15:50 ◼   ► because it's basically like a bunch of little plastic

00:15:53 ◼   ► hingey mechanisms with these little feet, little legs,

00:15:56 ◼   ► little cylindrical sticks that snap into these little C-shaped clamps on the keycap, or at

00:16:02 ◼   ► least with the scissors it was.

00:16:03 ◼   ► I imagine it's similar with the new butterfly ones.

00:16:07 ◼   ► And that's just a really difficult thing to work with.

00:16:11 ◼   ► You kind of have to do a lot of them blind, but you just have to get the pieces aligned

00:16:14 ◼   ► correctly, put the cap on, and then just press down and hope everything snaps in all at once.

00:16:19 ◼   ► It's not particularly friendly to repair.

00:16:22 ◼   ► It never has been.

00:16:23 ◼   ► like these new ones are even smaller

00:16:25 ◼   ► and the little leggy things are even finer.

00:16:27 ◼   ► You can find some good like sort of macro photography

00:16:29 ◼   ► of it online if you search,

00:16:31 ◼   ► but it's not something that I would wanna repair.

00:16:33 ◼   ► And I'm sure there are lots of sort of gung ho geniuses

00:16:35 ◼   ► who are like, I'm gonna do it.

00:16:36 ◼   ► This is gonna be the time.

00:16:37 ◼   ► I'm gonna get the key cap off.

00:16:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna get it back on.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Everything's gonna work until the next speck of dust.

00:16:41 ◼   ► But you know, they know that if they blow it,

00:16:44 ◼   ► $475 or whatever it is.

00:16:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's rough.

00:16:48 ◼   ► I see the notes here about the OLED display,

00:16:52 ◼   ► but I have a feeling that somebody's trying to tell a story with them.

00:16:54 ◼   ► So rather than flood my way through it, whoever, I'm assuming this is John,

00:16:58 ◼   ► do you want to talk about this?

00:16:59 ◼   ► I think we touched on this in many past shows in terms of burn-in on the OLEDs

00:17:02 ◼   ► and everything, uh,

00:17:03 ◼   ► and things Apple might be doing that acknowledged the fact that it has burn-in,

00:17:06 ◼   ► whether it be the 30 second timeout on the thing, which by the way,

00:17:10 ◼   ► some people say is not new and just a bug or happened with non iPhone X.

00:17:13 ◼   ► So who knows? That's still mysterious. But, uh, this, the,

00:17:17 ◼   ► the burn-in of the OLEDs is communicated in various Apple Tech Notes.

00:17:20 ◼   ► It's also communicated in iOS itself.

00:17:23 ◼   ► If you look at the auto brightness setting

00:17:26 ◼   ► on and on iPhone 10, it says auto brightness on and off.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And there's a little descriptive text underneath it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► It says turning off auto brightness way

00:17:32 ◼   ► affect battery life.

00:17:33 ◼   ► Right, so that was the old message.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Like, hey, if you don't let the phone sense

00:17:36 ◼   ► how much light there is in the room and dim itself,

00:17:38 ◼   ► if you just set up, keep a brightness

00:17:40 ◼   ► and set it that way all the time,

00:17:41 ◼   ► even in a pitch dark room, it may affect battery life.

00:17:44 ◼   ► We're just saying it may lessen your battery life, right?

00:17:46 ◼   ► The new thing, if you have an iPhone 10,

00:17:49 ◼   ► on that very same switch says,

00:17:51 ◼   ► "Turning off auto brightness may affect battery life

00:17:54 ◼   ► and long-term display performance."

00:17:56 ◼   ► So they added some words to that.

00:17:57 ◼   ► And what they mean by long-term display performance

00:18:00 ◼   ► is that if you turn off auto brightness,

00:18:03 ◼   ► crank it to max brightness,

00:18:05 ◼   ► and don't let it dim itself even in a dark room,

00:18:07 ◼   ► you're probably gonna get burned in sooner

00:18:09 ◼   ► than if you didn't do that.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Because one of the tools,

00:18:12 ◼   ► like if you read the Apple docs,

00:18:13 ◼   ► they in typical sort of marketing PR speak,

00:18:16 ◼   ► they say, "The Apple display and iPhone 10 and whatever,

00:18:19 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, have been engineered to reduce burn-in.

00:18:22 ◼   ► And there are many aspects to being

00:18:23 ◼   ► engineered to reduce burn-in.

00:18:25 ◼   ► One of those aspects is our software

00:18:27 ◼   ► will try to prevent burn-in by trying

00:18:30 ◼   ► to be nice to your screen.

00:18:31 ◼   ► We'll adjust the brightness down so it's not

00:18:33 ◼   ► a max brightness in a dark room.

00:18:34 ◼   ► We'll dim as soon as we possibly can.

00:18:36 ◼   ► We'll try to pay attention to whether you're

00:18:37 ◼   ► looking at the screen so we know when we can dim.

00:18:40 ◼   ► And also the way the screen is built

00:18:42 ◼   ► to be resistant to burn-in, whatever that involves.

00:18:44 ◼   ► So it's the whole package.

00:18:45 ◼   ► It's not just hardware.

00:18:46 ◼   ► It's not just software.

00:18:47 ◼   ► It's everything.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And part of that is you taking some responsibility

00:18:51 ◼   ► in your own hands if you tweak the settings.

00:18:54 ◼   ► If you put the brightness to max, turn off auto brightness

00:18:57 ◼   ► and probably also turn off true tone and put your sleep,

00:19:00 ◼   ► your display sleep timer on five minutes,

00:19:03 ◼   ► you are probably gonna get burned in sooner

00:19:05 ◼   ► and more severely than someone who leaves it

00:19:06 ◼   ► in the default setting.

00:19:07 ◼   ► So welcome to my world of plasma television ownership.

00:19:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is probably my only long-term concern

00:19:15 ◼   ► about the iPhone 10 and using all that screens

00:19:17 ◼   ► in general on the iPhone, which, you know,

00:19:20 ◼   ► this is not gonna be the first phone to do this.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Or, I mean, sorry, the only phone to do this.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Because we really don't know what they mean

00:19:27 ◼   ► by, critical word here, long term.

00:19:31 ◼   ► If you actually use your phone with the screen on a lot,

00:19:35 ◼   ► because if you're using it,

00:19:36 ◼   ► the screen's going to be on a lot,

00:19:38 ◼   ► and many parts of iOS are always in the same place,

00:19:40 ◼   ► like status bar items and the home indicator and stuff.

00:19:43 ◼   ► When they say long term,

00:19:46 ◼   ► to refer to OLED problems.

00:19:49 ◼   ► Well, how long?

00:19:50 ◼   ► What are we talking here?

00:19:50 ◼   ► Are we talking a few months?

00:19:53 ◼   ► Are we talking a year, a few years?

00:19:55 ◼   ► I feel like whatever the number actually is there

00:19:59 ◼   ► makes a great deal of difference

00:20:01 ◼   ► onto what we should do and how big those problems are.

00:20:04 ◼   ► If it turns out that OLED screened iPhones

00:20:08 ◼   ► are going to have really annoying screen flaws

00:20:13 ◼   ► eight months into ownership,

00:20:15 ◼   ► that's gonna be a really big problem.

00:20:17 ◼   ► Even if they're gonna have really annoying flaws

00:20:18 ◼   ► after two years of ownership,

00:20:20 ◼   ► that's gonna really impact the used market.

00:20:22 ◼   ► So either way, if this is at all likely to have

00:20:26 ◼   ► serious display flaws during the useful lifetime

00:20:30 ◼   ► of the product, that's gonna be a big problem down the road.

00:20:33 ◼   ► And I really hope it's not that bad.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - I think it will probably be okay,

00:20:39 ◼   ► just because Apple seems so aware of this issue

00:20:41 ◼   ► and Apple held off on OLEDs for such a long time,

00:20:44 ◼   ► And also the whole rest of the industry, meaning Android, has had OLED screens for so long

00:20:48 ◼   ► that I feel like it's not a—it shouldn't be a mystery. Apple's not the first, you know,

00:20:53 ◼   ► company to put an OLED in its phone. So we should have data from all the many, many years of OLED

00:20:58 ◼   ► Android phones of what their performance characteristics are like and how bad burn-in is.

00:21:04 ◼   ► And then Apple, of course, waiting until it gets just the right display, hopefully has one that is

00:21:08 ◼   ► better in all ways that they can make it better, including burn-in. So my advice to people is to

00:21:13 ◼   ► not be as obsessed about this as I am with my plasma television.

00:21:19 ◼   ► And just, you know, use sensible settings.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Maybe just take the default if you don't know what sensible settings are.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Leave auto brightness on.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Don't crank your brightness to max if you can help it.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Let your display go to sleep.

00:21:32 ◼   ► But in general, just use your phone.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Because I, my prediction is that image retention will not be a problem in the average lifetime

00:21:42 ◼   ► of a newly bought iPhone X. Because I would imagine the average lifetime of a newly bought

00:21:46 ◼   ► iPhone X is probably like 2 point something years.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Because if you buy the fancy iPhone X, probably you're going to want to buy a new one within

00:21:53 ◼   ► at least two years.

00:21:55 ◼   ► And maybe there's some long tail of people who try to keep them for much longer.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Because it's an expensive phone.

00:22:00 ◼   ► It may be more of a problem when OLED travels down the line to the cheaper phones that tend

00:22:03 ◼   ► to be kept longer.

00:22:05 ◼   ► And Marco's right about the used market.

00:22:06 ◼   ► But I don't know how much people buy their phones contingent on the idea of being able

00:22:13 ◼   ► to sell them for – them having high resale value.

00:22:15 ◼   ► I'm not sure how common that is.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Versus trade-ins, which that's the good thing about trade-ins is you're not getting

00:22:19 ◼   ► a great deal on trade-ins anyway.

00:22:21 ◼   ► But I don't think Apple is going to give you guff about trading in your phone for their

00:22:24 ◼   ► like update program if you've got image retention.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Because like look, it's your damn phone, Apple.

00:22:27 ◼   ► That's not my fault it has image retention.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Take my phone and give me my pittance for it.

00:22:32 ◼   ► So I'm not that concerned.

00:22:35 ◼   ► Also when I look at my plasma television, that is, I don't know how old it is, but it's

00:22:40 ◼   ► older than two years old and plasmas are just notorious for image retention.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I don't know what the OLED characteristics of image retention are, but I'm pretty convinced

00:22:49 ◼   ► that the characteristics of plasma are that if you are patient enough, your destiny hud

00:22:55 ◼   ► will go away in a year, right?

00:22:56 ◼   ► I don't know if that helps the resale market or makes people feel better, but I'm actually

00:23:01 ◼   ► kind of optimistic about this, having been in the Berlin Wars for many, many years. And

00:23:08 ◼   ► finally, having seen so many people in real life use absolutely shattered cell phones,

00:23:16 ◼   ► like smartphones, just completely destroyed, like not just little spider web or a crack

00:23:21 ◼   ► here or there, but like whole giant glass chips missing, circuit boards exposed, like

00:23:27 ◼   ► step short of sparks flying from the phone as they use it. I have a hard time believing

00:23:32 ◼   ► that the average person will be thwarted from using their phone because it has image retention

00:23:36 ◼   ► on it. Because that's not even a physical defect like a tactile defect that they can

00:23:42 ◼   ► feel. That's just like, eh, the home indicator always looks like it's on the screen, but

00:23:46 ◼   ► whatever. So I think it'll be okay. But if you're a super paranoid nerd about it, you

00:23:51 ◼   ► know, take a look at your phone in a year or two and I don't know, Marco will put a

00:23:56 ◼   ► a free app in the App Store that puts a checkerboard pattern on your screen and then turns it gray.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I really hope that this is a non-issue. But my concern is, you know, so they set it

00:24:09 ◼   ► at the 30-second by default screen sleep, which I hate. And thank God I turned it off.

00:24:15 ◼   ► My concern is, since I raised that to five minutes, if I get bad image retention on my

00:24:22 ◼   ► screen in six months, are they/you/all the crazy Apple defenders on Twitter going to

00:24:28 ◼   ► say, "Well, I was doing it wrong. I was using this option that I shouldn't have been

00:24:31 ◼   ► using." Is that going to be my fault because I changed this annoying setting back to where

00:24:35 ◼   ► it was on all LCD phones before that?

00:24:37 ◼   ► - It said, "May affect battery life and long-term display performance." Marco, can't you read?

00:24:45 ◼   ► It does say that, and yeah, that will contribute to it, but I don't think there's any consequences.

00:24:49 ◼   ► they're not going to say, you know, you like if you bring it in with image retention, I'm

00:24:54 ◼   ► not sure what their deal will be. But same thing with the iMac. Like, if you just let

00:24:57 ◼   ► your iMac screen dim more often or move your windows around more often, maybe you'd have

00:25:01 ◼   ► less image retention, but it still just replace the screen for you, right?

00:25:04 ◼   ► I wonder if it's kind of like, if you use launch control on a sports car, there's always

00:25:10 ◼   ► like conventional wisdom that like there's a counter for that, right? And like, if you

00:25:14 ◼   ► burn out the engine, like they'll check that counter or if you do any launch controls,

00:25:18 ◼   ► that they won't service your car?

00:25:20 ◼   ► Is there a counter on the iPhone of how many times

00:25:22 ◼   ► that I've let it reach that's five minute timer?

00:25:27 ◼   ► - Sit there at max brightness for five minutes

00:25:28 ◼   ► without you looking at it.

00:25:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:31 ◼   ► - Sorry sir, we can't replace this panel.

00:25:32 ◼   ► You changed this one setting too much.

00:25:34 ◼   ► - It's been in the bathroom.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Red tag.

00:25:36 ◼   ► - Red flag, John, red flag.

00:25:40 ◼   ► - It was actually a tag though, wasn't it?

00:25:41 ◼   ► Wasn't the proper tag?

00:25:43 ◼   ► - I don't know.

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00:27:41 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:27:44 ◼   ► Anyway, at least a couple people wrote in and were confused/perturbed that we didn't

00:27:50 ◼   ► really talk about the iPhone X camera last week when we were going over our impressions.

00:27:56 ◼   ► That's a fair criticism, and I don't have all that much to say, surprisingly.

00:28:02 ◼   ► I do really, really like portrait mode until Joe Steele corrects me and shows me all the

00:28:09 ◼   ► ways in which portrait mode is terrible.

00:28:12 ◼   ► But my eyes are not discerning enough to be able to see in a lot of cases all the places

00:28:18 ◼   ► that portrait mode is just falling on its face.

00:28:21 ◼   ► And portrait mode is where they get the fake bokeh, whatever, however you pronounce it,

00:28:26 ◼   ► the background blur and the depth of field tricks.

00:28:28 ◼   ► It's one of those words like niche or niche where no matter how you pronounce it, everyone's

00:28:31 ◼   ► going to tell you what you're wrong.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:33 ◼   ► So if I remember, I'll see if I can dig up some links for the show notes.

00:28:38 ◼   ► But follow Joe Steele on Twitter.

00:28:40 ◼   ► He's funny and he's good.

00:28:42 ◼   ► But anyways, he has gone through some of the pictures I've taken and noted all the places

00:28:46 ◼   ► that portrait mode has been not as good.

00:28:50 ◼   ► And it's funny because some of the things that he's noted are extremely obvious in retrospect,

00:28:57 ◼   ► but in the heat of the moment I just don't notice them.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Like I think I had tweeted a picture of a cup of Diet Coke at McDonald's to friend of

00:29:05 ◼   ► the show Alex Cox, and half of the straw was missing and I didn't even notice it until

00:29:10 ◼   ► Joe pointed it out.

00:29:11 ◼   ► Like, again, it's super obvious that I should have noticed, I just didn't.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And maybe it's because I'm just predisposed to like this because this is the first time

00:29:17 ◼   ► I've had this in a human-sized phone, but I really do like portrait mode, and I think

00:29:23 ◼   ► it's pretty cool.

00:29:24 ◼   ► It just has a lot of room to improve.

00:29:26 ◼   ► But I don't know, Marco, what do you think about the camera?

00:29:29 ◼   ► So I had a hard time evaluating the camera in any kind of useful way to anybody else

00:29:32 ◼   ► because I didn't have the dual lens camera from the 7 Plus because I didn't do Plus phones

00:29:38 ◼   ► before.

00:29:39 ◼   ► impressions of it with that giant disclaimer you know aside I love the

00:29:44 ◼   ► regular cameras on this the regular wide and the regular you know quote

00:29:49 ◼   ► telephoto which is not a telephoto but I'll take it because it's it's like a 45

00:29:53 ◼   ► millimeter ish equivalent something like that so I very much enjoy that focal

00:29:57 ◼   ► length and and so I've really enjoyed the camera using its regular modes I

00:30:02 ◼   ► have played a little bit with portrait mode and portrait lighting and have

00:30:07 ◼   ► managed so far to take zero acceptable pictures with it.

00:30:10 ◼   ► In addition, when I've seen other people's pictures

00:30:13 ◼   ► using these modes, I have seen, I'm pretty sure,

00:30:16 ◼   ► zero of them that I considered good

00:30:19 ◼   ► without obvious weirdness or flaws.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Maybe it's because I have a lot of experience

00:30:26 ◼   ► shooting pictures with big cameras and big glass

00:30:29 ◼   ► with proper background blur with shallow depth of field.

00:30:33 ◼   ► But the pictures from portrait mode,

00:30:36 ◼   ► and not even getting into portrait lighting,

00:30:37 ◼   ► which I think portrait lighting is basically the same thing

00:30:40 ◼   ► but with some weird effects applied to the same data

00:30:42 ◼   ► that sometimes work but usually don't.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Portrait mode itself,

00:30:48 ◼   ► it just always looks really bizarre to me.

00:30:51 ◼   ► It never fools me into thinking that this was taken

00:30:54 ◼   ► with a shallow depth of field and a lot of glass.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Ideally, it shouldn't be perfect every time

00:30:59 ◼   ► but it should be able to provide that illusion

00:31:01 ◼   ► much of the time.

00:31:03 ◼   ► And to me it just doesn't.

00:31:04 ◼   ► And maybe I'm just being too picky or too observant

00:31:06 ◼   ► or nitpicking on the details, but the problem with me,

00:31:09 ◼   ► I basically have two critical problems with it.

00:31:12 ◼   ► Number one is obviously the depth map that it captures

00:31:16 ◼   ► just simply is not granular enough.

00:31:18 ◼   ► It is not high resolution enough.

00:31:21 ◼   ► And you can see, there's actually been a couple of apps,

00:31:23 ◼   ► one of them is called FOCOS, F-O-C-O-S,

00:31:27 ◼   ► has this really cool 3D, it kinda shows you the picture

00:31:32 ◼   ► in the 3D rendering as the depth map,

00:31:36 ◼   ► and you can kind of turn it and you can see

00:31:38 ◼   ► like the different layers that it captured in the depth map,

00:31:40 ◼   ► it's really cool to see.

00:31:42 ◼   ► But you can see from these depth map viewing apps

00:31:46 ◼   ► that the resolution of the depth data is not very high,

00:31:51 ◼   ► it's not very granular, it's pretty coarse.

00:31:54 ◼   ► There's not that many levels

00:31:56 ◼   ► and it's not doing per pixel depth mapping.

00:32:00 ◼   ► So that's why you can have like,

00:32:01 ◼   ► if somebody has like a hair sticking out of their head,

00:32:05 ◼   ► that hair will be blurred away in this effect.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Whereas on a real camera, that hair,

00:32:08 ◼   ► if the rest of the hair was in focus,

00:32:10 ◼   ► that hair would be in focus too.

00:32:12 ◼   ► - Also, infinity starts at the back of the people's head.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Not only does it not have a lot of levels,

00:32:17 ◼   ► but it uses up all the levels on the stuff

00:32:19 ◼   ► that's close to you.

00:32:19 ◼   ► So it's like nose, cheek, ear, back of the head,

00:32:23 ◼   ► and then everything else is one depth, which is behind.

00:32:27 ◼   ► Like the farthest depth.

00:32:29 ◼   ► So when you do the 3D thing and you rotate it,

00:32:31 ◼   ► it looks like everyone's head is embedded in a wall.

00:32:33 ◼   ► And that wall is like, here are the levels, close, closer, closer, closer.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And then everything else is basically either infinity or whatever.

00:32:40 ◼   ► And so when they blur the background, they're blurring everything that's beyond their last

00:32:45 ◼   ► level of depth resolution as if it's equidistant.

00:32:48 ◼   ► And it's not like the tree that's 10 feet from you is different than the tree that's

00:32:52 ◼   ► 40 feet from you.

00:32:53 ◼   ► But as far as the blurring is concerned, it has no more depth information.

00:32:56 ◼   ► So it treats them all the same, which contributes to the what Marco was talking about.

00:33:00 ◼   ► if you know what it's supposed to look like

00:33:02 ◼   ► and you see these pictures,

00:33:03 ◼   ► it's so obvious to you that something is off.

00:33:05 ◼   ► - Right, so problem number one

00:33:08 ◼   ► is that the depth information is not high resolution enough

00:33:12 ◼   ► to even do the effect consistently

00:33:14 ◼   ► around things like object edges.

00:33:16 ◼   ► And that's where usually the obvious problems appear

00:33:20 ◼   ► is around edges, edges of people's heads, edges of objects,

00:33:25 ◼   ► 'cause they're just applying this very coarse map

00:33:27 ◼   ► and they're trying to be smart about it

00:33:28 ◼   ► and they succeed sometimes,

00:33:31 ◼   ► but even Apple's example photos,

00:33:33 ◼   ► I remember when the iPhone 8 and 10,

00:33:35 ◼   ► when their event happened,

00:33:37 ◼   ► and they put up their big press pages on the site,

00:33:40 ◼   ► even some of their example photos, I thought,

00:33:42 ◼   ► had obvious flaws in them from the algorithm.

00:33:45 ◼   ► So again, maybe I'm just seeing this too much,

00:33:47 ◼   ► but they're not capturing enough resolution of depth data

00:33:51 ◼   ► to be able to do the edges correctly.

00:33:53 ◼   ► That's why edges always look weird and fuzzy,

00:33:56 ◼   ► and they blur things that shouldn't be blurred,

00:33:58 ◼   ► and vice versa sometimes.

00:34:01 ◼   ► And the other problem is what John said,

00:34:03 ◼   ► the blur doesn't look right.

00:34:06 ◼   ► If you have seen actual blur photos from RealOptics

00:34:11 ◼   ► more than a few times, you will probably recognize

00:34:14 ◼   ► that the type and look of the blur

00:34:18 ◼   ► in these portrait mode photos isn't right.

00:34:21 ◼   ► And it's hard to put into words why,

00:34:23 ◼   ► but it's just not the right kind of blur.

00:34:26 ◼   ► It doesn't look the way it would look from a lens.

00:34:29 ◼   ► Even if the depth map was perfect

00:34:30 ◼   ► and they were able to do it pixel by pixel,

00:34:32 ◼   ► the blur is still wrong.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And it just looks like a filter.

00:34:38 ◼   ► It looks like a cheap image editing filter

00:34:42 ◼   ► that's trying to cover up bad optics, which it is.

00:34:45 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:34:46 ◼   ► Well, not bad optics, small optics,

00:34:49 ◼   ► that are not designed for this.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Now, so all that being said,

00:34:53 ◼   ► I am very, very happy with the camera

00:34:56 ◼   ► without any of these tricks.

00:34:58 ◼   ► It's a fantastic camera. (laughs)

00:35:01 ◼   ► And you don't need the portrait crazy effects

00:35:04 ◼   ► that all look weird and blur the edges of your dog off.

00:35:06 ◼   ► You don't need those to make this camera look amazing.

00:35:10 ◼   ► They're a fun trick, they're a fun demo.

00:35:12 ◼   ► And I'm sure people have fun with them,

00:35:14 ◼   ► and I'm sure everyone's gonna write in to me

00:35:15 ◼   ► saying how much fun they have with them.

00:35:16 ◼   ► If you like 'em, great, but I really, really don't.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And the cameras are so good without them

00:35:22 ◼   ► that I almost find them like an odd detraction

00:35:25 ◼   ► from this otherwise awesome camera.

00:35:26 ◼   ► But fortunately, it doesn't get in my way.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I just don't use those modes.

00:35:30 ◼   ► And I get to take awesome pictures,

00:35:33 ◼   ► well, you know, technically awesome.

00:35:34 ◼   ► My composition is terrible,

00:35:35 ◼   ► but I get to take technically awesome pictures

00:35:39 ◼   ► with this camera and with both of these cameras.

00:35:41 ◼   ► And finally have the flexibility

00:35:43 ◼   ► of having that zoomed in lens.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And I love all that.

00:35:47 ◼   ► I just have no use for the trickery modes.

00:35:50 ◼   ► having a telephoto lens is really, really nice.

00:35:53 ◼   ► And I forget that it's a thing at first,

00:35:56 ◼   ► 'cause I'm so used to just never, ever, ever

00:35:59 ◼   ► zooming my camera ever, you know,

00:36:02 ◼   ► and, or at least my iPhone, I should say,

00:36:05 ◼   ► in the same way that I never really use the flash ever,

00:36:09 ◼   ► because I've just trained myself to never use the flash,

00:36:11 ◼   ► which actually, from everything I've gathered and seen,

00:36:14 ◼   ► the flash on the iPhone, both front-facing and rear,

00:36:16 ◼   ► is actually not bad.

00:36:18 ◼   ► I mean, it doesn't mean that it's perfect, but as a flash goes, particularly on a phone,

00:36:22 ◼   ► it's pretty decent.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And so because I've trained myself to never zoom, I forget that the telephoto lens is

00:36:27 ◼   ► a thing, but as it turns out, it's awesome, just to have, like you were saying, Marco,

00:36:32 ◼   ► just to have the option to zoom at all is really, really nice.

00:36:37 ◼   ► And as a quick aside, at work today, we had a chili cook-off, and I'm going somewhere

00:36:42 ◼   ► with this.

00:36:43 ◼   ► The way it worked was we had something like, we had something like 12 different employees

00:36:47 ◼   ► cooked chilies, and then they gave us like a little shooter, like a shot cup, or it would

00:36:54 ◼   ► be a glass if you will, but like a little paper cup, it was like the size of a shot,

00:36:59 ◼   ► that you could take a little sample of each of the chilies and you know, vote on whichever

00:37:03 ◼   ► one was your favorite, right? So I had taken a picture to send to Aaron earlier today and

00:37:08 ◼   ► I used portrait mode. Now in the defense of Apple, portrait mode was only really officially

00:37:12 ◼   ► marketed as being for people. But what I did was I took a shot of my stack of, you know,

00:37:18 ◼   ► shot cups, if you will, and I sent it to her. And I just looked back at it a few minutes

00:37:24 ◼   ► ago and realized that if you look at it at a glance, it looks really, really good, or

00:37:30 ◼   ► at least it does to me. But if you look at it for even a second more than a glance, and

00:37:35 ◼   ► I've put a link in the show notes and I've put a link in the chat room, look at the right

00:37:39 ◼   ► side all the way at the top like part of the cup is just gone.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Which is kind of preposterous.

00:37:47 ◼   ► The algorithm kind of hopefully found the edge of that design on the cup and expected that that was an edge of a

00:37:52 ◼   ► person and just blur it out for you.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Which I mean again to be fair to Apple like this is a really crummy situation to put this software through right to put this edge detection through like this is this is this is ripe for failure but at the same time like it is

00:38:08 ◼   ► It is clear that I'm not going to be giving up on my micro four-thirds camera anytime soon. You know what I mean?

00:38:13 ◼   ► So I think the the blur effect that Marco thought look bad

00:38:18 ◼   ► I think that blur effect would be fine if there was depth information back there

00:38:23 ◼   ► Because the reason I think it looks terrible is because it is basically blurring a flat photo

00:38:27 ◼   ► Whereas if you have an actual absolute optically, you know blurred stuff

00:38:32 ◼   ► Depending on the distance the closer things are blurred less than things are farther away like depending from where how close they are to like

00:38:38 ◼   ► the focal point, right?

00:38:41 ◼   ► But if you only have depth information for the first two feet in front of you, everything

00:38:45 ◼   ► behind that is like a blurred poster, and it looks like a blurred poster.

00:38:49 ◼   ► But all that said, and I agree with Marco, you don't need this, the cameras are great

00:38:52 ◼   ► without it, that's probably why we didn't talk about it, it's like these are the best

00:38:56 ◼   ► iPhone cameras ever, everything Apple says is true, they are better than the previous

00:38:59 ◼   ► cameras, and the previous cameras are already pretty good, and they're great, and you'll

00:39:03 ◼   ► take good pictures with them.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Two things to say about this the portrait lighting modes. I think fulfill their purpose better than

00:39:10 ◼   ► the whatever the portrait blurring mode because

00:39:14 ◼   ► They're so focused on

00:39:17 ◼   ► Like selfies and you know dramatic pictures of people. They're more like Instagram filters. We're like, yeah

00:39:22 ◼   ► We're gonna mangle your picture for an artistic effect

00:39:25 ◼   ► No one is going to think like this is an untouched photo and that's the point the crazy studio lighting where blacks out the background

00:39:31 ◼   ► for extra drama and stuff. You can get some hilarious weird effects out of that, but it's

00:39:35 ◼   ► kind of, you know, that's it. The people who want to use it and try it are getting exactly

00:39:40 ◼   ► what they want out of it. Ridiculous, overblown, dramatic effects that are going to screw up

00:39:44 ◼   ► a lot of the time, but hey, you take 900 selfies before you pick the one you like anyway, right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► So no problem there. As for the portrait mode blurring thing, which has been around for

00:39:54 ◼   ► a while now, and I see all over the place in real life and on Instagram, I think the

00:40:00 ◼   ► main feature of that is if you don't have a big expensive camera, and most people don't,

00:40:07 ◼   ► just look at the numbers, like they don't sell a lot of big expensive cameras as compared

00:40:11 ◼   ► to the number of cell phones, this is the first time many people have ever been able

00:40:16 ◼   ► to take a picture that has this look that, you know, "Oh, the thing I wanted to take

00:40:23 ◼   ► a picture of now looks sharper because the rest of the thing is blurred and so I'm not

00:40:28 ◼   ► distracted by the background and it looks like a better picture.

00:40:32 ◼   ► It looks more professional.

00:40:34 ◼   ► It doesn't matter whether they can tell whether it looks right or not.

00:40:38 ◼   ► All that matters is that they had never previously had the ability to take pictures that were

00:40:42 ◼   ► anything like this, that had any kind of depth of field, right?

00:40:45 ◼   ► It was always like everything was, you know, there's some tiny pinhole camera and everything

00:40:49 ◼   ► was in focus because all the light beams were getting found through this tiny, tiny aperture

00:40:52 ◼   ► on their, you know, cheap camera on their phone, right?

00:40:56 ◼   ► And so for them it's a huge upgrade of never having this effect.

00:41:00 ◼   ► And subjectively, looking at a picture of your kid with the background pleasantly blurred

00:41:05 ◼   ► out makes your kid look better.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's not that they're comparing that to how it would look with an actual wide aperture,

00:41:12 ◼   ► big glass expensive camera, because they don't have one of those and they probably never

00:41:15 ◼   ► will.

00:41:16 ◼   ► They're comparing it to how it would look with that effect turned off.

00:41:17 ◼   ► And as far as they're concerned, this looks better because it just looks closer to like

00:41:22 ◼   ► a quote unquote professional picture or a magazine type picture.

00:41:25 ◼   ► And I can see that.

00:41:26 ◼   ► I can see when I see people use it, they just say, "I just like it better.

00:41:29 ◼   ► It looks better."

00:41:30 ◼   ► So in the end, the blurring portrait picture is giving people a better experience with

00:41:37 ◼   ► this phone, at least in the moment, where they're like, "This phone takes pictures that

00:41:41 ◼   ► I'm just blown away."

00:41:42 ◼   ► They maybe don't even know what it is about them, like that they just look better, right?

00:41:47 ◼   ► And even if you point out, "Oh, you just erased your kid's ear," they're like, "Oh, I hadn't

00:41:50 ◼   ► noticed that, but I still like it."

00:41:52 ◼   ► The only concern with the blurring, which so many people love, is that I worry that

00:41:57 ◼   ► years down the line they will feel bad that all their pictures are blurred.

00:42:02 ◼   ► Now Apple also saves the unmodified picture, so that shouldn't be a problem, but I still

00:42:06 ◼   ► worry that somehow that information will get lost or the blurred one will be burned out

00:42:12 ◼   ► to a flat jpeg and moved around to a different service and just, you know, I don't know.

00:42:16 ◼   ► I've already heard from some people who kind of regret they took a lot of pictures of their

00:42:19 ◼   ► kids with that.

00:42:21 ◼   ► Maybe they don't know they can recover the original,

00:42:24 ◼   ► or maybe they can't anymore

00:42:25 ◼   ► because they've exported it in some way.

00:42:27 ◼   ► But in general, I think despite what Marco and I

00:42:31 ◼   ► and many other big camera-owning people think about it,

00:42:35 ◼   ► a lot of people like this feature.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I think it helps sell iPhones,

00:42:38 ◼   ► and I think it makes people happier with their phone

00:42:40 ◼   ► and happier with the pictures they take with it.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:42:44 ◼   ► And again, if you don't take a critical eye to it,

00:42:46 ◼   ► which for the three of us is,

00:42:48 ◼   ► or certainly the two of you, probably the three of us,

00:42:51 ◼   ► It's hilarious, but you know if I don't if I don't really and truly look at these pictures even those cups

00:42:57 ◼   ► Which as soon as you take a true look at it. It's so obvious how broken it is, but at a glance

00:43:02 ◼   ► I didn't even notice so yeah, if you're not discerning then this is more than enough and it saves you the

00:43:08 ◼   ► Thousand plus dollars of getting another camera that has big glass etc. Yeah, you wouldn't want to spend $1,000 on a camera, right?

00:43:15 ◼   ► Yeah, why would you do that? You might spend $1,200 on a phone. It's fine though

00:43:19 ◼   ► We are brought to you this week by Jamf Now, which helps you manage your Apple devices from anywhere.

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00:43:30 ◼   ► When you first start a business, it is pretty easy to keep track of your own computer and your own phone and your own iPad.

00:43:37 ◼   ► But as you grow, you start to buy more technology for your employees.

00:43:40 ◼   ► And it gets harder to keep track of everyone's Macs, iPhones, and iPads and how to manage them.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Figuring out how to secure, for example, the iPad that your sales rep just lost.

00:43:50 ◼   ► This can be tough and this can require lots of complex technology and setup, especially

00:43:55 ◼   ► if you want to do it all remotely for any locations.

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00:44:27 ◼   ► jamf.com/ATP. That's J A M F dot com slash ATP. Manage your Apple devices from

00:44:36 ◼   ► anywhere. Alright, moving on to Ask ATP. Kim Alberg writes in, "Would John consider

00:44:43 ◼   ► gaming on the GeForce Now service instead of getting a tricked out new Mac Pro, and

00:44:48 ◼   ► Kim included a YouTube link, which we will put in the show notes.

00:44:51 ◼   ► So what is GeForce Now, and what is this all about?

00:44:56 ◼   ► So the short answer is no, I wouldn't consider that, but the longer answer is what GeForce

00:45:00 ◼   ► Now is.

00:45:01 ◼   ► GeForce Now is another sad/I don't know, it's sad to me, attempt to get gaming, to bring

00:45:11 ◼   ► gaming to Mac users.

00:45:13 ◼   ► You've got a Mac, you want to play games, boot camp is there for you if you want it,

00:45:18 ◼   ► but even if you go in boot camp, you probably don't have the best GPU because Apple doesn't

00:45:23 ◼   ► sell Macs with it.

00:45:24 ◼   ► And so you're like, what if you want to play the most demanding modern PC games, but you

00:45:29 ◼   ► don't want to own a PC, you just have a Mac.

00:45:31 ◼   ► You're kind of stuck these days.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And GeForce Now is a service a lot like some services in the past, including the one I'm

00:45:39 ◼   ► most familiar with onLive for many years ago, where it will run the game for you in a data

00:45:46 ◼   ► center far away on a tricked-out PC with all the fancy hardware, presumably using NVIDIA

00:45:51 ◼   ► GPUs, right?

00:45:53 ◼   ► And then it will let you remotely control that PC, sending the picture of it to your

00:45:56 ◼   ► screen and letting your keyboard and mouse act as input for it.

00:46:00 ◼   ► So that's what the GeForce Now service is.

00:46:03 ◼   ► It lets you run on your dinky MacBook escape with a wimpy GPU, you can run the most modern

00:46:12 ◼   ► game at a really high frame rate, at a really high resolution.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Because you're not running it.

00:46:17 ◼   ► It's running on a fancy computer far away from you.

00:46:19 ◼   ► You're just displaying the results as kind of a dumb terminal.

00:46:24 ◼   ► But of course, there's no free lunch.

00:46:28 ◼   ► You've got latency, because you're communicating over the internet.

00:46:30 ◼   ► The image quality that you're getting is not going to be the same as if it was running

00:46:33 ◼   ► locally because they have to compress that video and send it to you.

00:46:37 ◼   ► You need to have a fast internet connection.

00:46:39 ◼   ► You need to have not many hitches in your internet connection.

00:46:41 ◼   ► You need to have a surprising amount of bandwidth because there are a lot of frames in that

00:46:45 ◼   ► video and that's generally why I wouldn't want it instead of a local computer because

00:46:49 ◼   ► the compromises are not great and they are especially bad for some of the types of games

00:46:55 ◼   ► that I like, like, you know, a game like Destiny if I wanted to try.

00:46:57 ◼   ► I would love to play Destiny 2 on the PC because I get a higher frame rate and it's higher

00:47:01 ◼   ► res, but Destiny is the type of game that is very sensitive to lag.

00:47:06 ◼   ► It would really affect gameplay.

00:47:08 ◼   ► If you wanted to play something like Civilization or some other game that is also very demanding

00:47:11 ◼   ► but maybe not as sensitive to lag, I don't know, someone who plays Civilization can tell

00:47:14 ◼   ► me if it's a game where you need to have twitch reflexes, but surely there are games out there

00:47:19 ◼   ► that you don't care about the extra latency and it's more about the rest of the gameplay

00:47:24 ◼   ► experience.

00:47:25 ◼   ► This would be something you might be interested in.

00:47:28 ◼   ► It's gonna be a pay service and then you have to pay for the games on top of that.

00:47:32 ◼   ► So it's cheaper than buying a gaming PC, but it's an additional cost.

00:47:37 ◼   ► So I wish them luck with the service and it seems like a good idea.

00:47:39 ◼   ► I just wish that gaming would actually get better on Macs.

00:47:43 ◼   ► But if that's never ever gonna happen, I'm kinda glad that someone still feels like there's

00:47:47 ◼   ► money to be squeezed from Mac users who wanna play games.

00:47:50 ◼   ► As long as they make that amount of money smaller than the price and hassle and desk

00:47:53 ◼   ► space of buying a gaming PC.

00:47:55 ◼   ► I guess maybe there's a market for it.

00:47:57 ◼   ► All right, so Mark M.V. writes in, "Do you use a VPN?

00:48:00 ◼   ► If so, which one would you recommend?"

00:48:03 ◼   ► So the motivation here, I think, is

00:48:05 ◼   ► that there are many VPN services that

00:48:09 ◼   ► allow for different things.

00:48:10 ◼   ► One example is if you live outside the United States

00:48:13 ◼   ► but want to have an internet connection that

00:48:15 ◼   ► appears to be within the United States, so you can use--

00:48:18 ◼   ► well, I guess Netflix used to be a good example.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Now I don't think it's quite as important,

00:48:23 ◼   ► or any number of other services that are forced to be US only.

00:48:28 ◼   ► But another option is if you're just in a public Wi-Fi hotspot and you want your communications

00:48:33 ◼   ► to be encrypted, then you could use a VPN for that.

00:48:37 ◼   ► I do use a VPN when I am out of the house on a Wi-Fi network that I do not trust, or

00:48:45 ◼   ► if for some reason I want to get on my in-home network.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And the answer that I have for what VPN do I recommend?

00:48:51 ◼   ► Well, I recommend the VPN that you run on your Synology that's sitting in your house,

00:48:56 ◼   ► which is not a terribly useful recommendation, I'll be the first to admit.

00:49:00 ◼   ► But you could install a macOS server if you have a computer, a Mac at home that's on all

00:49:05 ◼   ► the time.

00:49:07 ◼   ► If you have any sort of like cheap computer that can run Linux, you can run various different

00:49:10 ◼   ► servers that do it that way.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Or if you have a Synology, I strongly recommend setting up a VPN server on there.

00:49:18 ◼   ► If, like me, you connect your Synology to the internet, which I know John's is not.

00:49:22 ◼   ► But that's what I do.

00:49:24 ◼   ► I can't speak for either of you guys.

00:49:26 ◼   ► So Marco, what do you do for this, if anything?

00:49:29 ◼   ► I mostly don't use them because, first of all, I'm hardly ever out of my house.

00:49:33 ◼   ► And when I am, I'm usually on the cell network.

00:49:35 ◼   ► And I know the cell network is not perfectly secure.

00:49:38 ◼   ► But I'm hardly ever connecting to somebody else's Wi-Fi, is what I'm saying.

00:49:43 ◼   ► So, where I think is probably the most common need for a VPN

00:49:48 ◼   ► is to protect yourself in that kind of situation.

00:49:52 ◼   ► There are lots of other reasons to use one, as you said.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I'm not that up on what's the best solution

00:50:00 ◼   ► if security and privacy are the main reasons

00:50:03 ◼   ► you're using them.

00:50:04 ◼   ► You can use a big service like,

00:50:07 ◼   ► so the one I use occasionally when I need it

00:50:09 ◼   ► is encrypt.me, which is formerly known as Cloak.

00:50:13 ◼   ► I signed up for that a little while back,

00:50:16 ◼   ► but it's mostly for practicality,

00:50:19 ◼   ► not sheer amount of security.

00:50:21 ◼   ► So for instance, at my in-laws place,

00:50:25 ◼   ► their crappy rural ISP blocks outbound SSH connections.

00:50:30 ◼   ► So I can't SSH into any of-- - Seriously?

00:50:32 ◼   ► - Yes, so I can't log into any of my servers

00:50:34 ◼   ► when I'm there. - Why?

00:50:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:36 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:50:37 ◼   ► - That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

00:50:38 ◼   ► - It's probably, I'm sure it's like some Windows worm

00:50:42 ◼   ► probably started attacking SSA servers,

00:50:43 ◼   ► they just figured they'd block, I don't know.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I'm sure there was a reason like that.

00:50:47 ◼   ► It's not a good, whatever it is, it's not a good reason.

00:50:49 ◼   ► But the fact is I have to occasionally log into servers

00:50:52 ◼   ► when I'm away, so I basically bought it just to do that.

00:50:56 ◼   ► But I use it also when traveling,

00:51:00 ◼   ► when I have to be on hotel wifi for reasonable connectivity,

00:51:03 ◼   ► I'll use it then.

00:51:04 ◼   ► But I usually don't use one, because again,

00:51:08 ◼   ► I'm almost never connected to anybody else's wifi networks.

00:51:11 ◼   ► I think the whole idea of connecting to a random Wi-Fi network in public and letting

00:51:17 ◼   ► all your traffic flow over that without always being encrypted, like without everything running

00:51:22 ◼   ► over HTTPS, which, you know, let's face it, you're going to have something that probably

00:51:25 ◼   ► doesn't.

00:51:26 ◼   ► The idea of that sounds crazy to me.

00:51:28 ◼   ► And I think we're going to look back on this era of using public Wi-Fi networks unencrypted.

00:51:34 ◼   ► I think we're going to look back on this and think that was crazy, and not even that long,

00:51:38 ◼   ► maybe in five or 10 years.

00:51:40 ◼   ► the whole idea of connecting to random public WiFi

00:51:43 ◼   ► and everyone not having every device

00:51:45 ◼   ► have a cellular connection that is theirs in private,

00:51:48 ◼   ► that's gonna seem barbaric.

00:51:50 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, I use Cloak,

00:51:54 ◼   ► which is now known as EncryptMe,

00:51:55 ◼   ► but hardly ever actually need to use it.

00:51:58 ◼   ► If you are doing it more for privacy,

00:52:01 ◼   ► I don't know a lot about this,

00:52:02 ◼   ► but I do know there is always discussion

00:52:05 ◼   ► about which of the various VPN services keep logs

00:52:08 ◼   ► or will be beholden to government requests

00:52:10 ◼   ► or things like that.

00:52:12 ◼   ► There's all sorts of levels of paranoia/security,

00:52:16 ◼   ► depending on your point of view,

00:52:17 ◼   ► that you can go into with this,

00:52:19 ◼   ► and I'm not familiar with that.

00:52:20 ◼   ► So I will say, if you lean that direction

00:52:22 ◼   ► or if you have more advanced needs like that,

00:52:24 ◼   ► you're probably better off doing something more

00:52:25 ◼   ► like Casey just suggested,

00:52:26 ◼   ► which is kind of running your own on some kind of server

00:52:29 ◼   ► that you can trust somewhere,

00:52:32 ◼   ► rather than doing somebody's big service.

00:52:33 ◼   ► But I don't know anything about that.

00:52:37 ◼   ► I'm always worried about, you know, kind of like the stories about antivirus software

00:52:41 ◼   ► being a vector for malware, right?

00:52:43 ◼   ► The VPNs that are secretly run by like some hostile foreign government.

00:52:48 ◼   ► Unbeknownst to you, they're just man in the middling all of your traffic, even the secure

00:52:52 ◼   ► stuff and feeding you fake certificates for SSL and all sorts of other stuff.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And like, "Oh, I'm using it on my Synology.

00:52:57 ◼   ► It's local.

00:52:58 ◼   ► It's fine."

00:52:59 ◼   ► It's like, "You don't know that.

00:53:00 ◼   ► You don't know."

00:53:01 ◼   ► Like Synology could be unknowingly shipping some, you know, thing that is infected with

00:53:03 ◼   ► some malware that is sending all your traffic to who knows where.

00:53:07 ◼   ► But yeah, in general I use VPN at work for work because I have to.

00:53:13 ◼   ► I have no idea if the VPN I'm using for work is actually making things more secure or not,

00:53:17 ◼   ► but I have to use it so I do.

00:53:19 ◼   ► When I'm out and about, I'm never connecting back to anything in my home because I have

00:53:24 ◼   ► no way to do so just because that makes me feel more comfortable.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And I tend not to, you know, I think I have Cloak and a couple other VPN software that

00:53:36 ◼   ► I think I've used on occasion when I've been feeling particularly paranoid and have no

00:53:38 ◼   ► choice but to connect to some potentially sketchy Wi-Fi network.

00:53:42 ◼   ► But in general, I will connect to the Wi-Fi at the hotel I'm staying at and I'll just

00:53:47 ◼   ► use it and just try not to worry about it.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I'm basically going for the big sky theory, which is a lot of people out in the world

00:53:52 ◼   ► and unless someone is specifically targeting me, I'm probably going to be fine.

00:53:56 ◼   ► I'm on sell most of the time on my way anyway,

00:53:59 ◼   ► but I have to think back a few times at hotels.

00:54:02 ◼   ► I use the hotel wifi.

00:54:03 ◼   ► I rely on the fact that the things I care about

00:54:06 ◼   ► should all be over a sell,

00:54:07 ◼   ► and I just hope that I'm not being man in the middle

00:54:09 ◼   ► with some fake certificate authority crap.

00:54:13 ◼   ► And I just keep my fingers crossed,

00:54:14 ◼   ► 'cause what else can you do?

00:54:16 ◼   ► - And there's also other practical reasons

00:54:17 ◼   ► you might wanna use one.

00:54:18 ◼   ► Like, there's a lot of VPN services

00:54:20 ◼   ► that provide built-in ad blocking

00:54:21 ◼   ► for like just all of your stuff through the VPN.

00:54:24 ◼   ► There's some that enable, as Casey said,

00:54:28 ◼   ► to enable you to change your regions for video services,

00:54:30 ◼   ► which can be nice.

00:54:32 ◼   ► There's also, and that could be not only just internationally

00:54:34 ◼   ► but even that could be for things like sports blackout

00:54:36 ◼   ► things, which I won't even pretend to know anything more

00:54:39 ◼   ► than just that's a term that exists.

00:54:41 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:54:43 ◼   ► There's also things like on airplanes,

00:54:46 ◼   ► where a lot of times the airplane wifi providers

00:54:49 ◼   ► will throttle or block certain things

00:54:52 ◼   ► or they'll do creepy things like recompress images

00:54:55 ◼   ► down to lower sizes.

00:54:57 ◼   ► And if you're trying to do something

00:54:58 ◼   ► that requires you to not have your images recompressed,

00:55:01 ◼   ► like if you're doing web development or something,

00:55:04 ◼   ► that might get in your way.

00:55:06 ◼   ► So you can, oftentimes they will allow you

00:55:08 ◼   ► to get around those restrictions.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Even when you're at a hotel or something,

00:55:11 ◼   ► or on some kind of large public wifi network,

00:55:14 ◼   ► like an airport or something like that,

00:55:15 ◼   ► a lot of times they will use

00:55:17 ◼   ► different traffic prioritization schemes

00:55:20 ◼   ► to deprioritize or limit certain types of traffic,

00:55:23 ◼   ► that might get in your way.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So if you're trying to download something off of a CDN,

00:55:28 ◼   ► or if you're trying to watch a YouTube video or something,

00:55:31 ◼   ► that might get throttled or blocked by a hotel or airport

00:55:34 ◼   ► if you download it directly.

00:55:36 ◼   ► But if you go through a VPN, it might not be.

00:55:38 ◼   ► So it kinda gives you more flexibility and more options

00:55:41 ◼   ► to have this tool at your disposal

00:55:43 ◼   ► if you're out and about a lot.

00:55:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, some people use it just to get a different route.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Like if you're having trouble reaching a server,

00:55:49 ◼   ► and people say, "Oh, connect to your VPN,"

00:55:50 ◼   ► then your traffic will go through the VPN, which may be geographically located in a way

00:55:54 ◼   ► that totally changes your route to that host and suddenly you can get through to it.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Some people have tried this, like getting through to the store when ordering, putting

00:56:00 ◼   ► their thing on Wi-Fi through a VPN to have a different route on one device to see if

00:56:05 ◼   ► maybe their CDN comes up sooner.

00:56:07 ◼   ► Lots of interesting things you can do to sort of using VPN, not for its primary purpose,

00:56:11 ◼   ► but merely to just take a different path to the same destination.

00:56:14 ◼   ► All right.

00:56:16 ◼   ► Elliot George would like to know, "Do you think Apple will eventually bring AirPower

00:56:19 ◼   ► to its magic mouse and keyboard. So to recap, the new iPhones all support Qi?

00:56:26 ◼   ► Qi? Qi. wireless charging, thank you.

00:56:30 ◼   ► The ground's niche. Exactly. And Bizell. They pronounce, they pronounce, they support

00:56:36 ◼   ► that wireless charging and so the Apple has announced but not released a special

00:56:43 ◼   ► mat that will allow you to charge your phone, your watch, and your AirPods, giving

00:56:49 ◼   ► you spend money on a special case or get a brand new set of AirPods, all on the same

00:56:54 ◼   ► mat. Because currently you can only, for most of these pads, you can only charge one device

00:57:00 ◼   ► at a time. And so AirPower will allow you to do, if you're a super nerd like me that

00:57:05 ◼   ► has a watch and AirPods and a phone, it will let you do all three on one pad. So Elliot's

00:57:10 ◼   ► asking, "Do we think that Apple will eventually bring AirPower to the Magic Mouse and Keyboard?"

00:57:14 ◼   ► I don't think so, but I can't figure out why.

00:57:17 ◼   ► It just doesn't feel to me like something Apple would do.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I think they're perfectly satisfied

00:57:20 ◼   ► with having you periodically charge via the lightning cable,

00:57:25 ◼   ► even the harpooned turtle that is the magic mouse.

00:57:29 ◼   ► And I don't think they feel like there's really any need

00:57:33 ◼   ► to change or improve that.

00:57:34 ◼   ► But I don't know, that's my thoughts.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Jon?

00:57:37 ◼   ► - They change their Apple input devices so infrequently.

00:57:42 ◼   ► The keyboards change infrequently,

00:57:43 ◼   ► mice change even more infrequently.

00:57:46 ◼   ► But all that said, I think the mouse is...

00:57:51 ◼   ► They should do it, and I think there's a reasonable chance that they will, just because the harpoon

00:57:55 ◼   ► turtle is ridiculous.

00:57:56 ◼   ► And the reason they did the harpoon turtle is there's no other good place to plug the

00:57:59 ◼   ► thing in.

00:58:00 ◼   ► And the mouse is small and easy to pick up and put on a mat, so once a month when you

00:58:05 ◼   ► have to recharge it, it's easier to just say, like, the thing pops up to just plop it down

00:58:11 ◼   ► on the thing.

00:58:12 ◼   ► It would be too awkward.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Like how do you pick up your keyboard and like balance?

00:58:17 ◼   ► It's bigger than the AirPower mat.

00:58:18 ◼   ► You're not going to have a mat that's the size of your keyboard and the keyboard would

00:58:20 ◼   ► take up the whole thing and which part of the keyboard needs to be over the thing.

00:58:24 ◼   ► It just seems like not a good fit.

00:58:26 ◼   ► The mouse is more or less the size of a phone and I think it would fit perfectly well and

00:58:30 ◼   ► I think it will solve the harpoon turtle problem.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Solve their like where do we put the charging port problem.

00:58:37 ◼   ► And if you do have one of those mats there's a reasonable chance that it will be on the

00:58:41 ◼   ► desk where your computer is because that's where you plop your phone when you're using

00:58:44 ◼   ► the computer, so you plop your mouse there. So I'm semi-optimistic that five years from

00:58:49 ◼   ► now when they finally revise their mouse again that it will have whatever the current standard

00:58:54 ◼   ► of wireless charging is because it makes sense to me as a product to be a thing that you

00:58:59 ◼   ► put on a mat to charge every once in a while.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Yeah, that sounds about right. The only thing is that the Lightning method of charging them

00:59:07 ◼   ► also provides a secondary function,

00:59:09 ◼   ► which is it pairs them to the computer.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Like you never have to go through

00:59:12 ◼   ► Bluetooth pairing and everything.

00:59:14 ◼   ► All you have to do is plug them into the lightning cable

00:59:17 ◼   ► that's connected to a computer

00:59:18 ◼   ► and it just automatically pairs to the computer,

00:59:19 ◼   ► which is really nice.

00:59:21 ◼   ► It's also frequently used for me

00:59:23 ◼   ► when my trackpad disconnects itself for no reason.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Thanks, Sierra.

00:59:28 ◼   ► And then I have to plug it back in about every two days

00:59:31 ◼   ► so that it reconnects itself.

00:59:32 ◼   ► So there's reasons why you need,

00:59:35 ◼   ► why the cable is nice to have

00:59:36 ◼   ► besides just charging.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I agree with Jon that it doesn't make as much sense

00:59:41 ◼   ► on the trackpad and keyboard where it's not only

00:59:43 ◼   ► do they need to be plugged in generally less often,

00:59:45 ◼   ► but also you can still use them when they're plugged in.

00:59:48 ◼   ► So if you forget to charge a keyboard or trackpad,

00:59:50 ◼   ► not that big of a deal, just plug the cable in

00:59:52 ◼   ► and keep working.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Whereas if you forget to charge the mouse,

00:59:55 ◼   ► you have to literally just stop using it for a while

00:59:57 ◼   ► as it sits there sideways.

00:59:58 ◼   ► And then you go back to your trackpad

00:59:59 ◼   ► that has disconnected for no reason.

01:00:01 ◼   ► So, okay, not that I'm bitter.

01:00:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:07 ◼   ► This to me, it's an interesting problem to solve

01:00:11 ◼   ► on the mouse, but if they just move the port

01:00:15 ◼   ► to the front of the mouse and gave us a little

01:00:17 ◼   ► like indentation there, that would also solve

01:00:19 ◼   ► the problem with the lightning port.

01:00:21 ◼   ► I think it's, the Qi charging makes,

01:00:23 ◼   ► is less necessary and is less compelling

01:00:26 ◼   ► for a device that you only have to charge

01:00:28 ◼   ► once a month for a little while.

01:00:29 ◼   ► You know, it makes a lot more sense on devices

01:00:32 ◼   ► like phones where you are using them constantly

01:00:36 ◼   ► and they're draining their batteries constantly

01:00:38 ◼   ► and then every night or even throughout the day

01:00:41 ◼   ► they need to be topped off, they need to be recharged.

01:00:43 ◼   ► That's not really the case with these peripherals

01:00:44 ◼   ► so I can't really see them doing that necessarily.

01:00:49 ◼   ► - They really need to add is to solve

01:00:52 ◼   ► your disconnecting problems like the equivalent

01:00:55 ◼   ► or maybe the identical, like the W1 chip.

01:00:57 ◼   ► The fact that you can plug it in to Parrot is great

01:00:59 ◼   ► 'cause it gets you out of the whole

01:01:00 ◼   ► Bluetooth device pairing game.

01:01:01 ◼   ► like they've circumvented it with a hard wired connection.

01:01:04 ◼   ► But also on AirPods, they have their own pairing mechanism.

01:01:09 ◼   ► Yes, AirPods are Bluetooth, but the whole W1 thing

01:01:11 ◼   ► and the experience of opening a little container

01:01:13 ◼   ► and switching easily from device to device

01:01:15 ◼   ► and all that stuff, that experience would help you

01:01:19 ◼   ► presumably work around OS bugs

01:01:22 ◼   ► when your trackpad disconnects

01:01:23 ◼   ► without having to actually plug in a cable.

01:01:26 ◼   ► And so, wireless everything for devices

01:01:29 ◼   ► that are small and handheld.

01:01:31 ◼   ► I think is a reasonable future.

01:01:33 ◼   ► And like I said, they were advised there so infrequently

01:01:35 ◼   ► that by the time they do,

01:01:37 ◼   ► all this stuff should be more reliable, lower power,

01:01:39 ◼   ► cheaper, and just sort of be table stakes

01:01:42 ◼   ► for any portable thing that has batteries

01:01:44 ◼   ► that presumably will become less common

01:01:47 ◼   ► to have to keep plugging these things in

01:01:49 ◼   ► and have to have ports on them

01:01:50 ◼   ► and have to deal with connectors.

01:01:51 ◼   ► It'll just be like, put it down on the pad and let it go.

01:01:55 ◼   ► - So why don't you like the next Ask ATP,

01:01:58 ◼   ► which I know we've already hit three,

01:02:00 ◼   ► but I'm bothered by you not liking this question,

01:02:03 ◼   ► and I'm willing to give Marco the editing work

01:02:05 ◼   ► to clean this up because--

01:02:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:02:08 ◼   ► So in the show notes, it reads,

01:02:11 ◼   ► how would you define quote,

01:02:13 ◼   ► close to the metal quote, to non-nerds?

01:02:15 ◼   ► And do you have a favorite non-computer,

01:02:17 ◼   ► analogical use for the saying?

01:02:19 ◼   ► And all I see-- - Analogical, is that a word?

01:02:22 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

01:02:23 ◼   ► - Looks terrible.

01:02:24 ◼   ► - And it's prefixed in italics,

01:02:27 ◼   ► I don't like this question.

01:02:29 ◼   ► So I asked in Slack earlier,

01:02:31 ◼   ► "John, why don't you like this question?"

01:02:33 ◼   ► The response I got was as follows, many reasons.

01:02:38 ◼   ► - I was busy, I don't have time to type a big thing.

01:02:40 ◼   ► I was on my iPad, I gotta type a big answer

01:02:41 ◼   ► to you on my iPad.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - So what the hell's wrong with this guy?

01:02:44 ◼   ► I thought this was a perfectly reasonable question.

01:02:45 ◼   ► - Wait, you don't have a smart keyboard on an iPad?

01:02:47 ◼   ► - No, that's it. - No, I don't.

01:02:48 ◼   ► - Oh, you're missing out.

01:02:50 ◼   ► The only way to use an iPad Pro is with a smart keyboard.

01:02:52 ◼   ► It's so good.

01:02:53 ◼   ► - But I don't type on it.

01:02:54 ◼   ► I'm just reading the web and browsing Twitter

01:02:56 ◼   ► and watching YouTube.

01:02:57 ◼   ► I'm not typing things.

01:02:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause it sucks to type on the screen,

01:03:00 ◼   ► but if you have a keyboard, you'd start typing on it.

01:03:02 ◼   ► - No, I wouldn't, I'm using my iPad.

01:03:04 ◼   ► I don't have, if I want a laptop, I would get a laptop,

01:03:07 ◼   ► but I don't like laptops, so I don't have a laptop.

01:03:09 ◼   ► - Except your work laptop.

01:03:10 ◼   ► - Well, I got no choice, no choice.

01:03:12 ◼   ► - That's right, I don't like that one either.

01:03:14 ◼   ► - Anyway, what the hell's wrong with this question?

01:03:16 ◼   ► - My assumption is that they're asking this

01:03:19 ◼   ► because of the Merlin many years old troll gag

01:03:25 ◼   ► of trying to say, you know, is that close to the metal?

01:03:28 ◼   ► I think he was like riffing on something that we said

01:03:31 ◼   ► in an early tech podcast that he reframed.

01:03:34 ◼   ► And, you know, I don't know if how close to the metal

01:03:38 ◼   ► was something we said, or it was close to something we said,

01:03:41 ◼   ► but he latched onto it as like a catchphrase

01:03:45 ◼   ► and a sort of a nonsense thing that I don't know.

01:03:49 ◼   ► Like it's a multi-layered, multi-year old gag

01:03:53 ◼   ► that has lost all meaning and never really did have a meaning.

01:03:57 ◼   ► It's like his returning null thing, right?

01:03:58 ◼   ► That's -- it's not -- it doesn't seem like an honest question,

01:04:02 ◼   ► because how would you define --

01:04:04 ◼   ► why would you find yourself needing to define close to the metal,

01:04:07 ◼   ► unless they also listen to a bunch of podcasts with me and Merlin

01:04:10 ◼   ► for years and years to understand what this gag is about,

01:04:12 ◼   ► in which case you would never need to define it.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Like, there's context that's missing here.

01:04:16 ◼   ► What is the -- why does this come up?

01:04:20 ◼   ► Why are you saying close to the metal to anyone?

01:04:23 ◼   ► Why do you feel like you have to explain it?

01:04:24 ◼   ► Why is it an important thing for them to understand?

01:04:26 ◼   ► Do you understand it?

01:04:27 ◼   ► Are you asking me to explain it to you?

01:04:28 ◼   ► Or do you just want, you think you understand it,

01:04:30 ◼   ► but you want me to tell you how to explain it

01:04:31 ◼   ► to someone else who doesn't care about it?

01:04:33 ◼   ► It's a bad question.

01:04:34 ◼   ► That's why we're not answering it.

01:04:35 ◼   ► - Are you serious right now?

01:04:37 ◼   ► This is the most insane thing I've ever heard.

01:04:39 ◼   ► - I mean, maybe you guys don't have that same context

01:04:42 ◼   ► and maybe I'm wrong and this person also has no idea

01:04:44 ◼   ► what I'm talking about and they just like,

01:04:46 ◼   ► I've just heard close to the middle.

01:04:47 ◼   ► I don't want them to know what it means

01:04:48 ◼   ► or I know what it means,

01:04:49 ◼   ► but I need to explain it to other people.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Maybe it's perfectly honest,

01:04:51 ◼   ► I didn't interpret it that way. How would you define quote "close to the metal"

01:04:55 ◼   ► quote to non-nerds? Okay, that was literally verbatim the question. How in the name of

01:05:01 ◼   ► Zeus's butthole did you get that much context from that little text? Maybe you don't have that

01:05:07 ◼   ► context, but if you had listened to tons of podcasts with me and Marlin and remembered

01:05:11 ◼   ► the origins of this whole gag, you would have the same context as I do, which that's why I don't

01:05:16 ◼   ► like the question. I'm stupefied right now. I understand the words coming out of your mouth,

01:05:23 ◼   ► but how you concluded from how would you define close to the metal to non-nerds?

01:05:28 ◼   ► How did you come to that conclusion? Because the only reason they're saying close to the metal is

01:05:34 ◼   ► because like, I mean, again, I'm assuming you're right, but like it's too much of a coincidence.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Marco, who actually listens to podcasts that Merlin is on and I am on and probably remembers

01:05:44 ◼   ► this more better than most of us. You know what I'm talking about, right?

01:05:47 ◼   ► I don't think so. Well, forget aside whether you like the question or not. You know the origins of

01:05:52 ◼   ► the most of the metal thing, right? In computer terms, I know what it means. I'm not sure maybe

01:05:57 ◼   ► I don't. You don't know the John Merlin podcast axis of this? Maybe I've forgotten it. I mean.

01:06:01 ◼   ► All right. Well, then maybe it's just me. But anyway, that was my interpretation. And my guess

01:06:06 ◼   ► is that the person asking this question also knows what I'm talking about, even if nobody else does.

01:06:10 ◼   ► I bet you that you are 100% wrong on this. Anyway, you can see why I didn't want to try to type that.

01:06:18 ◼   ► So can we answer this without all of that completely bananas backstory?

01:06:24 ◼   ► If you do want to answer, let's put it this way. You're abstaining from this?

01:06:27 ◼   ► No, no, no. Listen, listen. If you, uh, why, what is the non-John Merlin related context

01:06:36 ◼   ► for asking this question? Do you think close to the metal is a phrase that needs to be explained

01:06:40 ◼   ► to other people? Does it come up in conversation? Why would anyone say this and be disappointed

01:06:46 ◼   ► that someone didn't understand it to them and yet not know how to explain it to them? Like,

01:06:49 ◼   ► why is this a legit question in any way independent of any other stuff?

01:06:54 ◼   ► - Who knows? Why are you judging whether or not Jonathan Bowling has used the phrase

01:06:59 ◼   ► "close to the metal" in conversation? That's not up to you. You're not the boss of him.

01:07:03 ◼   ► It's not like you could say how would you define?

01:07:07 ◼   ► You know

01:07:09 ◼   ► Like a slippery is a banana peel to non nerds. Do you have a favorite analogy used to explain?

01:07:14 ◼   ► It's like that's not even a comma phrase, you know, yes, the bad people are slippery

01:07:18 ◼   ► But as slippery as a banana peel is not a thing that people say

01:07:20 ◼   ► So why would I have to explain to you how I explain to other people? It just doesn't come up

01:07:24 ◼   ► Like it's arbitrary to arbitrary. Have you ever had to explain the metal to non nerds?

01:07:30 ◼   ► Have you ever said that to anyone? When? I'm sure I have. Oh my god. I'm sure I have at some point because there's a big difference to answer the question.

01:07:38 ◼   ► See, I'm gonna sneak the answer in here. There's no way this is making it to the show. Oh, come on. This is preposterous.

01:07:43 ◼   ► This is all for the chat room. This is the quality you get for being in this chat room.

01:07:48 ◼   ► There is no way this makes the edit. You get fish and you get this.

01:07:51 ◼   ► The answer to the question, which Jonathan will never hear, is that something... He already knows what it means.

01:07:59 ◼   ► No, he does, or maybe he does, but you just know how to describe it in a simple way.

01:08:03 ◼   ► All right, well go ahead, you help him out.

01:08:05 ◼   ► Oh my god, I'm so angry at you right now because you are putting this poor man in a context that I

01:08:11 ◼   ► don't think he—you're putting him in a box, Jon, you're putting him in a box. Anyway, the answer to

01:08:16 ◼   ► the question is—my answer to the question, which Jon will then refute and be angry with,

01:08:21 ◼   ► is that there are many different kinds of computer languages, programming languages,

01:08:25 ◼   ► and some of them are literal direct translations to ones and zeros that are run on the CPU

01:08:32 ◼   ► in question. And most of them are not. And as you get more and more current, most of

01:08:37 ◼   ► these languages have many more abstractions that they're built upon that get you further

01:08:42 ◼   ► and further and further away from ones and zeros that are run on the CPU. And so when

01:08:48 ◼   ► you're close to the metal, you're doing something that is either directly translatable to ones

01:08:52 ◼   ► and zeros or is very very very close to directly translatable as opposed to something like

01:08:57 ◼   ► say Swift or PHP or certainly Perl which is built on so many abstractions it's almost

01:09:05 ◼   ► hilarious that any of this actually works and so you know the stuff that the three of

01:09:10 ◼   ► us work in day to day is nowhere close to the metal there are abstractions upon abstractions

01:09:15 ◼   ► upon abstractions upon abstractions and and so many it's a it's a layer cake just just

01:09:20 ◼   ► layers all the way down. And thus, that's what, when somebody says close to the metal,

01:09:25 ◼   ► it means you're working in a situation where you are probably using a toolchain that is

01:09:31 ◼   ► very difficult to work in because you're talking, it's more about talking the computer's language

01:09:36 ◼   ► than it is talking about human language.

01:09:37 ◼   ► You know, when you said, I bet Jon's going to have complaints about my description. I'm

01:09:42 ◼   ► thinking to myself, "Oh, sure, it'll be fine." But then as you got further into the explanation,

01:09:47 ◼   ► I was like, "You know what? I would explain that differently."

01:09:49 ◼   ► So here we go.

01:09:50 ◼   ► So you were right.

01:09:51 ◼   ► You were right.

01:09:52 ◼   ► I couldn't take it.

01:09:53 ◼   ► Of course.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Why would you even think that that wouldn't happen?

01:09:56 ◼   ► Because I was like, you know, I'm not going to have any objections to your explanation,

01:09:59 ◼   ► but then there's like, no, no, I wouldn't say it that way.

01:10:02 ◼   ► No, no.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Do you know you?

01:10:05 ◼   ► This person knows me.

01:10:06 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:10:07 ◼   ► This person knows me.

01:10:08 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:10:09 ◼   ► They're fine.

01:10:10 ◼   ► So how would you explain it then, King?

01:10:11 ◼   ► No, you did fine.

01:10:12 ◼   ► You did like a perfectly fine job.

01:10:13 ◼   ► You just told me I didn't do fine.

01:10:14 ◼   ► Jonathan Bowling already knows what it means.

01:10:16 ◼   ► No, he doesn't.

01:10:17 ◼   ► And if he has a need to explain it to non-nerds, that's on him.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I'm tweeting right now.

01:10:22 ◼   ► I'm tweeting at Jonathan Bowling, and we're going to find this out right this second.

01:10:26 ◼   ► He's asleep.

01:10:27 ◼   ► He probably is, but…

01:10:28 ◼   ► Tell you what, if Jonathan Bowling legit needs an explanation, he can email me and I will

01:10:33 ◼   ► email him.

01:10:34 ◼   ► If he can give me a convincing…

01:10:35 ◼   ► So after, you're going to complain about my explanation and you're not even going

01:10:38 ◼   ► to actually give your own explanation?

01:10:40 ◼   ► It's hard to explain, but I don't think there's…

01:10:42 ◼   ► It's pronounced "Syracusa."

01:10:43 ◼   ► I don't think there's any…

01:10:45 ◼   ► Marco, you're like one of the only few people in the world who actually pronounce my last

01:10:49 ◼   ► name correctly and I enjoy that.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I'm right!

01:10:52 ◼   ► God, don't encourage him.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's not hard.

01:10:54 ◼   ► So really, you're not going to answer the question?

01:10:58 ◼   ► No, it's fine.

01:10:59 ◼   ► Like it was nitpicking.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Like what you said is perfectly adequate.

01:11:04 ◼   ► I would have to know why it is, you know, don't – I would never say close to the metal

01:11:08 ◼   ► to non-nerds and expect them to understand what I was saying.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like why use jargon, tech nerd jargon with someone who you know is not going to understand

01:11:14 ◼   ► it?

01:11:15 ◼   ► Destiny jargon and regular conversations people expect them to to follow along no would we even know

01:11:21 ◼   ► You would know because it would sound like nonsense oh

01:11:24 ◼   ► My gosh, I cannot believe you're you're gonna complain and moan about my about my description and then not complain

01:11:32 ◼   ► I said you were right. I said you were right then

01:11:35 ◼   ► That I thought I would wouldn't have any objections to it, but in the end I did

01:11:42 ◼   ► This is preposterous. I'm so angry at you right now. Anyway, the main reason why this shouldn't go in the show

01:11:46 ◼   ► It's because you only get three questions

01:11:49 ◼   ► Who defined that as the rule?

01:11:51 ◼   ► All of us, by consensus.

01:11:53 ◼   ► No, it was not by consensus.

01:11:55 ◼   ► It was too! We said, "How many questions?"

01:11:57 ◼   ► Go find that recording of like, "How many questions do you think we should have?"

01:11:59 ◼   ► One, two, three, and we're like, "All three questions sounds good," and that's what we've been doing ever since.

01:12:02 ◼   ► We'll make it a topic.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the first topic.

01:12:06 ◼   ► The close to the metal topic.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Technically, it's follow-up because it was discussed on another podcast before, right?

01:12:11 ◼   ► I think that's follow out. You have to ask the follow up people about that. I think that's

01:12:17 ◼   ► follow out, right?

01:12:18 ◼   ► Who invented follow out? I mean, it couldn't have possibly been the same people who invented

01:12:20 ◼   ► Ask Podcast, right?

01:12:23 ◼   ► Was that? I don't know. It was trackable, the MyCurly podcast.

01:12:26 ◼   ► Yes, it was upgrade. How do you know?

01:12:27 ◼   ► So many of them and they changed names so much.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Not upgrade, which has never changed names.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Yeah, it's only ever been upgrade.

01:12:34 ◼   ► No, but yeah, but the Dugga Dugga was from like three MyCurly shows ago, right?

01:12:38 ◼   ► No.

01:12:39 ◼   ► That's what?

01:12:40 ◼   ► - No, that's from "Dude by Friday."

01:12:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, always and forever. - No, the Doug and Doug is,

01:12:44 ◼   ► yes, they do it in "Dude by Friday,"

01:12:46 ◼   ► but why are they doing it in "Dude by Friday?"

01:12:47 ◼   ► Because in earlier show,

01:12:49 ◼   ► they're imitating an earlier show, which one was it?

01:12:50 ◼   ► - I feel like I'm watching,

01:12:52 ◼   ► this is the verbal version of like looking in your brain

01:12:56 ◼   ► and seeing the world's most intricate conspiracy theory

01:12:59 ◼   ► with yarn between all these different--

01:13:00 ◼   ► - That's not the way it comes from.

01:13:01 ◼   ► Look, someone in the chat room,

01:13:03 ◼   ► tell me where the Doug and Doug is from.

01:13:03 ◼   ► - This is the verbal version of like that T-shirt

01:13:06 ◼   ► that says Helvetica printed in Comic Sans.

01:13:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:13:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Someone says the prompt, is that ringing a bell to you guys?

01:13:13 ◼   ► The prompt, remember the dugga dugga on the prompt?

01:13:14 ◼   ► - No, I don't remember the dugga dugga on that.

01:13:17 ◼   ► - They had the recording of the word followup

01:13:19 ◼   ► with a weird voice.

01:13:20 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yes.

01:13:21 ◼   ► - And it had the little musical like trill in front of it.

01:13:23 ◼   ► - Followup.

01:13:24 ◼   ► - No, it's like a space laser sound effect.

01:13:26 ◼   ► It sounds awful, actually, the sound effect.

01:13:28 ◼   ► - Yes. - Right, I think that's what

01:13:29 ◼   ► they're imitating on Dubai Friday

01:13:30 ◼   ► when they do a dugga dugga followup.

01:13:31 ◼   ► - No, not even close. - No.

01:13:33 ◼   ► - No, it's like they're imitating like TV news.

01:13:36 ◼   ► - Yes. - Like,

01:13:37 ◼   ► "Doo doo doo doo, breaking news!"

01:13:38 ◼   ► Like, it's that kind of thing.

01:13:39 ◼   ► - Right, but I thought what they were doing

01:13:41 ◼   ► was imitating the prompt.

01:13:43 ◼   ► Certainly, the-- - No, John, you are--

01:13:45 ◼   ► - The weirdly voiced word follow-up is from the prompt,

01:13:47 ◼   ► right?

01:13:48 ◼   ► - Yes, that is from the prompt.

01:13:50 ◼   ► - And so I was tying those two together.

01:13:52 ◼   ► If the Dougadug is not from that, my bad.

01:13:54 ◼   ► I recalled that little musical laser trill,

01:13:56 ◼   ► and I thought that's what they were imitating,

01:13:58 ◼   ► and it slowly warped until it was Dougdug.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - I don't even know where to go from here.

01:14:05 ◼   ► This is, we have just created a verbal, an oral train wreck.

01:14:10 ◼   ► What just happened?

01:14:13 ◼   ► - It's a reference all the way down

01:14:14 ◼   ► and anything that gets filtered through Merlin

01:14:16 ◼   ► slowly mutates until it's unrecognizable.

01:14:19 ◼   ► So what can you do?

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01:16:06 ◼   ► - I don't have a Qi charger,

01:16:12 ◼   ► but I hear rumors that one or two of us do.

01:16:15 ◼   ► So can one of you with a Qi charger

01:16:16 ◼   ► tell me if they're any good and worth buying?

01:16:19 ◼   ► - So I got my first Qi chargers this past week.

01:16:21 ◼   ► And so I have the Mophie one that the Apple store sells,

01:16:26 ◼   ► because one of the only ones that Apple

01:16:27 ◼   ► has ever officially acknowledged its existence of.

01:16:30 ◼   ► And I have the, what is this, let me see,

01:16:32 ◼   ► the RavPower Standup one.

01:16:36 ◼   ► It looks like it props it up

01:16:37 ◼   ► so it can stand up on your desk.

01:16:40 ◼   ► It's like this black thing that says,

01:16:41 ◼   ► "Fast charge!" in the middle of it for some reason.

01:16:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:16:45 ◼   ► RavPower seems to be a reasonable brand.

01:16:47 ◼   ► They seem like they're pretty much on the level of anchor

01:16:50 ◼   ► in terms of power and charging and battery gear

01:16:53 ◼   ► that is inexpensive and seems to be reasonably made.

01:16:57 ◼   ► So anyway, and Mophie is very well regarded too.

01:17:00 ◼   ► I usually find their stuff a little bit pricey

01:17:03 ◼   ► for what it is, but it's well made stuff,

01:17:05 ◼   ► so I can't complain too much.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Anyway, so this is my first experience

01:17:11 ◼   ► with any kind of wireless charging for phones.

01:17:13 ◼   ► I know with previous phones you could get cases

01:17:16 ◼   ► that were basically Qi receivers,

01:17:18 ◼   ► and Mophie even sells those actually,

01:17:21 ◼   ► and a few other people do too.

01:17:23 ◼   ► but I have no experiences with those.

01:17:25 ◼   ► All the reviews that said,

01:17:27 ◼   ► why wireless charging is not very good,

01:17:31 ◼   ► I think the only reason they were saying that

01:17:33 ◼   ► is because it seems like Apple gave the Belkin charger

01:17:36 ◼   ► to reviewers, not the Mophie charger.

01:17:39 ◼   ► And the Belkin charger seems like it has,

01:17:42 ◼   ► I haven't tried it 'cause everyone said it sucked,

01:17:44 ◼   ► but it seems like it has pretty significant problems

01:17:46 ◼   ► with the phone vibrating off of it

01:17:48 ◼   ► and also the correct target spot

01:17:52 ◼   ► of where you have to put the phone being pretty small

01:17:55 ◼   ► and it being very easy to put it on there

01:17:58 ◼   ► thinking that you're charging it,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but it's actually slightly misaligned

01:18:00 ◼   ► and so it doesn't charge.

01:18:02 ◼   ► I have not found this to be the case at all

01:18:05 ◼   ► with either my RavPower stand-up one

01:18:07 ◼   ► or the Mophie circle pad thing.

01:18:11 ◼   ► And so let's, I don't know what these are called,

01:18:14 ◼   ► the Mophie disk, I don't know.

01:18:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know what you're saying.

01:18:18 ◼   ► - So let's get that right out of the way.

01:18:21 ◼   ► And I don't know if the Mophie one has multiple coils.

01:18:24 ◼   ► I know like one of the ways that the stand up ones

01:18:27 ◼   ► try to fix this problem is they'll have multiple coils

01:18:30 ◼   ► in there and so if the phone is aligned with any of like

01:18:33 ◼   ► three different coils, it'll charge properly.

01:18:35 ◼   ► So that way you can maybe have it in different orientation

01:18:37 ◼   ► like some of the desk ones, they support the phone

01:18:40 ◼   ► being in landscape if you're like standing up

01:18:42 ◼   ► to watch a movie or something,

01:18:43 ◼   ► which is a nice little touch.

01:18:44 ◼   ► Do you have to have like a coil kind of down low for that?

01:18:46 ◼   ► And they also have one kind of up high in the middle

01:18:48 ◼   ► so the phone can be standing up in different heights.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Anyway, so the experience of using these things,

01:18:55 ◼   ► I gotta say, these are amazing.

01:18:57 ◼   ► These are awesome.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Like, and for a number of reasons.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Now they're not perfect, there are a couple of downsides.

01:19:04 ◼   ► As mentioned, you do have to actually land it

01:19:06 ◼   ► somewhere near the charging spot.

01:19:07 ◼   ► In practice, I have found this to not be a problem

01:19:10 ◼   ► at all with these two chargers.

01:19:12 ◼   ► Maybe there's other ones that are terrible,

01:19:14 ◼   ► sounds like there are, but with these two chargers,

01:19:16 ◼   ► the only ones I've had experience with so far,

01:19:18 ◼   ► they seem great.

01:19:19 ◼   ► There's other slight problems like the flat ones. Obviously it's like having the phone

01:19:27 ◼   ► flat on the desk for face ID purposes. So you're probably not going to have face ID

01:19:31 ◼   ► work with it lying on the desk flat. The stand up RAM power one that I have on my desk though

01:19:35 ◼   ► does actually work and will unlock face ID with it in the stand. So this probably has

01:19:40 ◼   ► to do with angle and distance and everything else, but just so you know, that's a thing

01:19:44 ◼   ► thing that can work. So I'm very happy with that and the

01:19:48 ◼   ► other main downside to be aware of these things is that

01:19:50 ◼   ► they charge fairly slowly compared to high wattage power

01:19:55 ◼   ► bricks. It seems like most of them charge at five watts.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Some of them will charge at seven point five watts on the

01:20:01 ◼   ► eleven point two beta. I don't know how many of them will do

01:20:04 ◼   ► that, but at least the mofi one will and that's roughly

01:20:08 ◼   ► that's like that's like roughly two thirds of the speed that

01:20:12 ◼   ► get out of an iPad if you use an iPad power brick or any kind of 2.4 amp charger. So it's

01:20:17 ◼   ► not quite as fast. It's closer to the speed of the little crappy power brick that comes

01:20:22 ◼   ► with the iPhone, which for many purposes is totally fine. So if you're charging overnight,

01:20:28 ◼   ► like next on a bedside table, it's totally fine. And let me tell you, being able, like

01:20:33 ◼   ► every night for the last, I don't know, decade, I have, upon going to bed, placed my phone

01:20:40 ◼   ► in some kind of dock or charger on my nightstand

01:20:43 ◼   ► to charge overnight.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I have a feeling this is a pretty common use case.

01:20:47 ◼   ► I think pretty much everyone does something like this.

01:20:50 ◼   ► And I've gone through so many different docks

01:20:53 ◼   ► and good and bad, lots of different ones.

01:20:57 ◼   ► There used to be zero good docks,

01:20:59 ◼   ► now there's lots of good docks.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Our friends at Studio Neat make one, the Material Dock,

01:21:02 ◼   ► that's wonderful, it even has an Apple Watch option.

01:21:05 ◼   ► I have one of those on my desk, it's great.

01:21:07 ◼   ► That's how I keep my watch charged.

01:21:08 ◼   ► - Yep, my bedside table is one of their material docks

01:21:12 ◼   ► with my phone and my watch.

01:21:13 ◼   ► And were it not for this Qi stuff,

01:21:15 ◼   ► I would probably use that frickin' forever,

01:21:17 ◼   ► but now that Qi is a thing, it's got my eye wandering.

01:21:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's been all sorts of efforts

01:21:22 ◼   ► over the years to make docks that were easy

01:21:25 ◼   ► to lift the phone out of one-handed.

01:21:27 ◼   ► I believe Elevation Dock kinda made this famous.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Then right after Elevation Dock launched,

01:21:33 ◼   ► the 30-pin connector was replaced by Lightning,

01:21:35 ◼   ► and it really screwed them over for a while.

01:21:37 ◼   ► They had various attempts to fix that for a while.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Their current, the way most docks seem to fix this

01:21:44 ◼   ► is to just have one of those micro suction pads

01:21:48 ◼   ► on the bottom that just sticks it really hard

01:21:50 ◼   ► to the surface it's on.

01:21:52 ◼   ► So that way you can just pull the phone out

01:21:53 ◼   ► and have the dock stay where it is.

01:21:56 ◼   ► So you know, there's lots,

01:21:57 ◼   ► and I have the new elevation dock too,

01:21:59 ◼   ► it's also really nice.

01:22:00 ◼   ► What's especially nice about it is that

01:22:02 ◼   ► you can adjust the alignment and the thickness

01:22:05 ◼   ► of its charging things really quickly and easily

01:22:08 ◼   ► with little knobs on it.

01:22:09 ◼   ► So if you frequently change whether your phone

01:22:12 ◼   ► has a case or not, or you change between two different

01:22:13 ◼   ► thicknesses of cases or something like that,

01:22:16 ◼   ► the Elevation Dock is great for that.

01:22:17 ◼   ► But once you get to Qi charging,

01:22:20 ◼   ► once you try a wireless charging pad,

01:22:23 ◼   ► I have a feeling you're gonna not wanna ever use

01:22:25 ◼   ► a dock again, because it is so different,

01:22:27 ◼   ► it is so much better.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Rather than having to align your phone into a dock,

01:22:32 ◼   ► no matter how good that dock is,

01:22:33 ◼   ► no matter how nice it's designed,

01:22:35 ◼   ► and then having to pull your phone out of that dock

01:22:37 ◼   ► in the morning, rather than doing that,

01:22:39 ◼   ► to just lay it on a pad and it lights up to confirm

01:22:44 ◼   ► that it's charging, that's awesome.

01:22:47 ◼   ► And then when you want to pick up the phone again,

01:22:49 ◼   ► you just reach over and pick it up.

01:22:51 ◼   ► It's incredibly, it's so much lower friction,

01:22:54 ◼   ► it's so much, both physically and metaphorically,

01:22:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:59 ◼   ► it's so much nicer that it really is a behavior changer.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Similarly, the one on my desk.

01:23:06 ◼   ► This is nice, I was reminded by somebody on Twitter

01:23:09 ◼   ► the other day, I'm sorry, I forget who right now,

01:23:11 ◼   ► I can't find it quickly, but I didn't realize

01:23:14 ◼   ► that WiFi iOS app debugging had shipped

01:23:18 ◼   ► and is a thing we can now do in Xcode 9.

01:23:20 ◼   ► - I still haven't tried it.

01:23:21 ◼   ► I knew, I did know it was a thing,

01:23:23 ◼   ► but I still have not tried it myself.

01:23:25 ◼   ► - So the great thing is, so all you do is you go,

01:23:28 ◼   ► so basically, the reason why I've always

01:23:30 ◼   ► had lightning cables on my desk

01:23:32 ◼   ► is that as an iOS developer,

01:23:33 ◼   ► where you frequently need to, from Xcode,

01:23:35 ◼   ► do a build and run where you are building your code

01:23:38 ◼   ► that you just wrote and you deploy it onto your iPhone

01:23:40 ◼   ► or iPad and you get to test it right on the device.

01:23:43 ◼   ► To do this, before this fall, you had to use a cable.

01:23:46 ◼   ► You had to be plugged in via USB and a lightning cable

01:23:49 ◼   ► and it helpful also charged the phone,

01:23:50 ◼   ► which was nice during this time,

01:23:52 ◼   ► but you had to do that.

01:23:53 ◼   ► With Xcode 9, this came out this fall,

01:23:56 ◼   ► you can now do Wi-Fi build and run and Wi-Fi debugging.

01:24:00 ◼   ► And all you do is you go into the organizer pane

01:24:02 ◼   ► You go to that device and there's a little checkbox

01:24:04 ◼   ► at the top that says something like access via network.

01:24:07 ◼   ► And then it's just always available.

01:24:10 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be connected via USB anymore.

01:24:13 ◼   ► And so this is a perfect combination

01:24:15 ◼   ► with a Qi charging device.

01:24:17 ◼   ► Because you can have your phone sitting there charging

01:24:20 ◼   ► when you're not running, and then when you build and run

01:24:22 ◼   ► you can just pick it up and hold it in your hand

01:24:24 ◼   ► and you're running and debugging your code.

01:24:26 ◼   ► It's glorious.

01:24:27 ◼   ► It is so, so nice.

01:24:29 ◼   ► and it works as far as I can tell,

01:24:31 ◼   ► there doesn't seem to be any difference in performance.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Everything seems to work just fine.

01:24:36 ◼   ► It isn't like horribly slow or anything

01:24:38 ◼   ► in my initial testing and use so far.

01:24:40 ◼   ► It's great.

01:24:41 ◼   ► So anyway, so now on my desk,

01:24:44 ◼   ► I lose a big reason to plug my phone in

01:24:47 ◼   ► or a big reason why I would need to plug my phone in.

01:24:51 ◼   ► So that's why this RadPower thing is great

01:24:52 ◼   ► to have on my desk 'cause here's the phone standing up.

01:24:55 ◼   ► It's charging much of the time.

01:24:57 ◼   ► And when I want to build and run, I can just pick it up,

01:25:00 ◼   ► and it's glorious.

01:25:01 ◼   ► And another great thing about these Qi charges

01:25:04 ◼   ► is that there are tons of them

01:25:06 ◼   ► in all different shapes and sizes and looks.

01:25:09 ◼   ► And while many of them, most of them, I would say,

01:25:12 ◼   ► are these hideous plastic things with fast charge

01:25:16 ◼   ► written in capital letters on them somewhere for no reason,

01:25:19 ◼   ► some of them are decent looking,

01:25:21 ◼   ► and they're all really inexpensive.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Like, you can get tons of them,

01:25:25 ◼   ► because Apple didn't invent Qi charging,

01:25:27 ◼   ► it's been around for some time,

01:25:29 ◼   ► and Android phones have supported it for some time,

01:25:31 ◼   ► and so there's a whole ecosystem out there

01:25:32 ◼   ► of existing Qi products that are all pretty functional.

01:25:36 ◼   ► You know, they're pretty ugly, most of them,

01:25:39 ◼   ► but they're pretty functional, and they're so cheap,

01:25:42 ◼   ► and even IKEA makes a lot of pretty decent looking ones,

01:25:45 ◼   ► and because they're so plentiful and inexpensive,

01:25:49 ◼   ► you can afford to put these pretty much all over the place.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Like, I already have the one next to my bed,

01:25:54 ◼   ► which is amazing.

01:25:55 ◼   ► I have the one on my desk, which is incredibly useful

01:25:57 ◼   ► and amazing.

01:25:58 ◼   ► I've ordered a few more to have like on the kitchen counter,

01:26:02 ◼   ► on the end table next to the couch,

01:26:04 ◼   ► 'cause like when we watch TV,

01:26:05 ◼   ► I often will put my phone on that table.

01:26:07 ◼   ► Might as well have a pad there, right?

01:26:09 ◼   ► Like, I mean, I might confuse it for a coaster sometimes,

01:26:12 ◼   ► but if it's only 18 bucks, that's not that bad.

01:26:16 ◼   ► So like, it's really, it is a pretty big game changer.

01:26:23 ◼   ► It also brings another big advantage that you can charge

01:26:27 ◼   ► the phone while you have something plugged into

01:26:29 ◼   ► the lightning port, like maybe headphones,

01:26:32 ◼   ► which is a very, very common need.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Now that I see how Qi charging actually works,

01:26:38 ◼   ► and this is, I'm sorry Android people,

01:26:40 ◼   ► this is like the Opera did it first, people.

01:26:42 ◼   ► Like the Android people are just screaming right now,

01:26:44 ◼   ► like we know, we've had this forever,

01:26:47 ◼   ► like you guys are living in the past,

01:26:50 ◼   ► but I know how frustrating this must be

01:26:53 ◼   ► for you Android people, I'm sorry.

01:26:55 ◼   ► But this is new to us.

01:26:56 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:26:57 ◼   ► And so, whatever you were talking about six years ago

01:27:00 ◼   ► when you and Opera did it together,

01:27:01 ◼   ► we are now enjoying this now.

01:27:03 ◼   ► So let us have this moment.

01:27:05 ◼   ► But it's so clear to me now that the iPhone 7

01:27:10 ◼   ► should never have been the phone

01:27:12 ◼   ► to remove the headphone jack.

01:27:14 ◼   ► The 10 and the 8s should have been.

01:27:16 ◼   ► Because-- - Oh, that's interesting.

01:27:18 ◼   ► - Once you have wireless charging abilities,

01:27:21 ◼   ► One of the biggest annoyances about the removal

01:27:25 ◼   ► of the headphone jack is you can't charge the phone

01:27:27 ◼   ► at the same time you have headphones plugged in.

01:27:29 ◼   ► You know, there are other annoyances,

01:27:31 ◼   ► like having that dongle for other headphones,

01:27:33 ◼   ► but the fact is, most people use the earbuds

01:27:34 ◼   ► that come with it, and so,

01:27:36 ◼   ► or they use Bluetooth headphones, honestly.

01:27:38 ◼   ► So, you know, it's less intrusive,

01:27:41 ◼   ► as long as you can use that lightning port.

01:27:44 ◼   ► But you can't, but so many people listen to their phone

01:27:47 ◼   ► like all day at work, 'cause their work computer

01:27:48 ◼   ► doesn't have any, you know, they can't install apps

01:27:50 ◼   ► on it or something, so they use their phone

01:27:51 ◼   ► and play Spotify or whatever.

01:27:54 ◼   ► It's so common for people to wanna listen

01:27:55 ◼   ► and charge all day long.

01:27:57 ◼   ► And with the iPhone 7, they couldn't do that

01:28:00 ◼   ► without buying some kind of expensive dongle or adapter

01:28:03 ◼   ► or series of adapters and dongles and it was horrible.

01:28:06 ◼   ► Whereas, I think it's a much more defensible position

01:28:11 ◼   ► to remove the headphone jack

01:28:13 ◼   ► when introducing Qi charging.

01:28:15 ◼   ► Because you can just get a $15 disc

01:28:17 ◼   ► and put it on your desk and that problem goes away.

01:28:20 ◼   ► So, a little side note there.

01:28:22 ◼   ► But overall, this is really great.

01:28:24 ◼   ► And the charging speed thing, that is indeed a problem.

01:28:28 ◼   ► You know, it is noticeably slower

01:28:31 ◼   ► than like an iPad brick through a wire,

01:28:34 ◼   ► or like a USB-C power brick through a wire.

01:28:38 ◼   ► But when you can afford, and when you can practically,

01:28:42 ◼   ► and when it's low friction enough

01:28:44 ◼   ► to put these little charging pads all over the place,

01:28:47 ◼   ► the charging speed becomes less important

01:28:48 ◼   ► because the battery is probably more charged

01:28:51 ◼   ► most of the time.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Like you don't have to go from 15% to 80% in a half hour

01:28:57 ◼   ► because you're probably not dropping the battery down

01:28:59 ◼   ► that low most of the time.

01:29:00 ◼   ► And for the very few occasions

01:29:02 ◼   ► that you actually need very fast charging,

01:29:04 ◼   ► you can plug it in somewhere for that,

01:29:05 ◼   ► you can cable it for that.

01:29:07 ◼   ► The other benefit to this is that all these times,

01:29:12 ◼   ► every single night and throughout the day,

01:29:14 ◼   ► that I'm not plugging in a lightning cable

01:29:16 ◼   ► over and over again, plugging it in, unplugging it,

01:29:18 ◼   ► putting it in and out of a dock,

01:29:20 ◼   ► I'm saving tons of wear and tear on the lightning connector

01:29:23 ◼   ► and on the outside edge of the bottom of the phone.

01:29:27 ◼   ► Like my iPhone 7, I had to get my iPhone 7 replaced

01:29:31 ◼   ► after about six months because the lightning connector broke.

01:29:35 ◼   ► Like it just, through regular use,

01:29:36 ◼   ► it just like started frying cables

01:29:38 ◼   ► and then eventually just wouldn't charge

01:29:40 ◼   ► because it had probably some kind of damaged pins

01:29:42 ◼   ► or something in there, who knows?

01:29:44 ◼   ► And from what I learned at the time,

01:29:45 ◼   ► that was not that uncommon of a problem to have.

01:29:49 ◼   ► And so with this, I'm turning the Lightning port

01:29:53 ◼   ► from something that I plugged something into,

01:29:55 ◼   ► two to eight times a day probably on average,

01:29:59 ◼   ► into something that on some days I'll never use at all.

01:30:03 ◼   ► And so that's probably gonna be great

01:30:04 ◼   ► for long-term reliability of the port and of the phone.

01:30:08 ◼   ► So to me, this is pretty much all wins.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I don't know, what do you guys think?

01:30:13 ◼   ► - So what room do you think there is

01:30:15 ◼   ► for Apple's AirPower mat to come into this market

01:30:19 ◼   ► and give you something that you feel like you're not getting?

01:30:21 ◼   ► What, is there a place for Apple innovation here,

01:30:25 ◼   ► or is no matter what Apple comes out with,

01:30:26 ◼   ► you're just gonna keep surveying the field

01:30:30 ◼   ► of cheap Android-focused chargers

01:30:32 ◼   ► and just buy 50 of them and spread them around your house?

01:30:35 ◼   ► - I feel like if you have the full Apple combo

01:30:37 ◼   ► of AirPods, Apple Watch, and phone,

01:30:41 ◼   ► that becomes more compelling for the AirPower mat,

01:30:43 ◼   ► because right now, the AirPods and the watch

01:30:46 ◼   ► are not Qi compatible.

01:30:48 ◼   ► You can't just put them on a Qi disk and have them charged.

01:30:50 ◼   ► They seem to be their own little thing

01:30:52 ◼   ► that only the AirPower mat will support.

01:30:55 ◼   ► So if you have all the current Apple stuff,

01:30:58 ◼   ► you get the new AirPods or the new case-free

01:31:00 ◼   ► or old AirPods, you get the Apple Watch Series 3,

01:31:03 ◼   ► so it has whatever this thing is in it,

01:31:05 ◼   ► and you have the iPhone 8 or 10,

01:31:08 ◼   ► then you can go buy the AirPower mat whenever it comes out.

01:31:11 ◼   ► Honestly, I'm kind of wondering where it is.

01:31:13 ◼   ► It seems kind of weird for them not to release it

01:31:16 ◼   ► when they release their Qi charging phones, but oh well.

01:31:19 ◼   ► That I can see being popular for the people

01:31:24 ◼   ► who are all in on new Apple gear

01:31:27 ◼   ► and want to charge it all at once.

01:31:29 ◼   ► If it isn't too big or heavy,

01:31:31 ◼   ► that could also be really nice to bring

01:31:32 ◼   ► when you're traveling.

01:31:33 ◼   ► If you travel with all those Apple products,

01:31:36 ◼   ► that could be nice to then not have to travel

01:31:38 ◼   ► with as many chargers or cables.

01:31:40 ◼   ► But ultimately, I have a feeling

01:31:43 ◼   ► it's going to be very expensive.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Who knows where it is, it isn't out yet.

01:31:48 ◼   ► And I think it's gonna be a totally good product probably.

01:31:52 ◼   ► It's very likely to be a good product.

01:31:55 ◼   ► But I think it's going to be unlikely to be very compelling

01:32:00 ◼   ► unless you are one of those Apple superpower users

01:32:02 ◼   ► with all the new hardware.

01:32:04 ◼   ► You know, see also HomePod, by the way.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Like I think HomePod's gonna have the exact same problem.

01:32:09 ◼   ► And where is that?

01:32:10 ◼   ► Another good question.

01:32:12 ◼   ► - So you've got all that hardware,

01:32:13 ◼   ► but I'm thinking that you're not gonna get it

01:32:15 ◼   ► because you want your phone to charge

01:32:18 ◼   ► while you're wirelessly debugging it

01:32:21 ◼   ► while FaceTime can see you,

01:32:22 ◼   ► and the AirPower mat makes everything

01:32:25 ◼   ► lay flat on the table.

01:32:26 ◼   ► So even though you have AirPods

01:32:30 ◼   ► and you could get the new case for it

01:32:31 ◼   ► for 60 or whatever bucks if you wanted,

01:32:32 ◼   ► and you have an Apple Watch

01:32:33 ◼   ► even though you hardly ever wear it,

01:32:35 ◼   ► and you have a phone.

01:32:36 ◼   ► But I don't think you want all three of those things

01:32:40 ◼   ► on the same mat, even on your nightstand,

01:32:42 ◼   ► I would imagine that you don't have your AirPods,

01:32:45 ◼   ► your watch, and your phone all charging on your nightstand,

01:32:48 ◼   ► 'cause that's getting pretty crowded, right?

01:32:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, my nightstand isn't big enough

01:32:51 ◼   ► for all those things.

01:32:52 ◼   ► And for me, my personal use here is weird.

01:32:55 ◼   ► I don't use the AirPods, Tiff uses the AirPods.

01:32:57 ◼   ► I had to give her mine because they make my ears hurt.

01:33:00 ◼   ► - That's right, you got the weird ears.

01:33:01 ◼   ► - I know, I really, I wish I could wear them,

01:33:03 ◼   ► 'cause they're so good, but I can't.

01:33:05 ◼   ► So I don't have AirPods, that's one thing out.

01:33:09 ◼   ► And then the Apple Watch, I do wear it frequently,

01:33:11 ◼   ► just not for long durations.

01:33:13 ◼   ► I wear it almost every day for dog walks

01:33:15 ◼   ► and for much of the morning.

01:33:18 ◼   ► But then I take it off when I shower and get dressed

01:33:21 ◼   ► for the day after dog walk and school drop off

01:33:23 ◼   ► and everything else.

01:33:24 ◼   ► Anyway, so the Apple Watch lives on my desk, not upstairs.

01:33:27 ◼   ► But this is, I get, this is the very unusual setup

01:33:31 ◼   ► that I have here.

01:33:32 ◼   ► I think most people who own the Apple Watch

01:33:34 ◼   ► probably wear it every day or most days.

01:33:36 ◼   ► So they might have different needs than me.

01:33:39 ◼   ► But I'm guessing the AirPower mat's probably gonna cost

01:33:43 ◼   ► like one to $200.

01:33:45 ◼   ► - Oh, I hope not.

01:33:46 ◼   ► Although on a recent episode, I think it was Cortex,

01:33:49 ◼   ► Mike and Gray brought up the problem of if you have like

01:33:54 ◼   ► one of those bands that doesn't let your watch lay flat,

01:33:57 ◼   ► like a link bracelet or something,

01:33:58 ◼   ► then I guess you also can't use the AirPower mat

01:34:01 ◼   ► 'cause you can't get your watch,

01:34:03 ◼   ► the charging part of your watch on the bottom

01:34:06 ◼   ► to contact with the pad?

01:34:08 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:34:09 ◼   ► - And that, you know, what,

01:34:10 ◼   ► mostly what I'm getting at with the AirPower mat,

01:34:12 ◼   ► which seems like a good solution for like, you know,

01:34:14 ◼   ► the fat part of the curve of like,

01:34:16 ◼   ► hey, you're all in, like you said,

01:34:17 ◼   ► you buy, you got a lot of Apple stuff

01:34:18 ◼   ► and this will charge it all at once

01:34:19 ◼   ► and isn't that convenient.

01:34:21 ◼   ► But I don't envision Apple selling

01:34:23 ◼   ► 17 different charging mats.

01:34:26 ◼   ► Like they've just got the one that they announced

01:34:28 ◼   ► and maybe there'll be a little bit of variety on the line,

01:34:31 ◼   ► but nothing will ever compare to the ecosystem

01:34:35 ◼   ► of cheap charging stuff that's out there.

01:34:38 ◼   ► And this is the type of thing, charging devices,

01:34:40 ◼   ► even though there is a fat part of the curve

01:34:43 ◼   ► where most people charge things like this,

01:34:46 ◼   ► there are long tails on both sides

01:34:48 ◼   ► of all sorts of different scenarios.

01:34:50 ◼   ► Developers who want the thing upright.

01:34:52 ◼   ► And what I'm thinking of is like for me,

01:34:54 ◼   ► families with lots of devices,

01:34:55 ◼   ► we've had lots of problems figuring out

01:34:57 ◼   ► where to charge all our devices.

01:34:58 ◼   ► And as our kids got older and have more and more devices

01:35:01 ◼   ► that they actually care about,

01:35:03 ◼   ► we have a problem with where you charge all these things.

01:35:05 ◼   ► And the current solution we're using,

01:35:08 ◼   ► it was really the only one that physically fits

01:35:11 ◼   ► in the space we have allotted for it.

01:35:12 ◼   ► We have like a sideboard table and we have, let's see,

01:35:15 ◼   ► we all have iPads and we all have something

01:35:18 ◼   ► that's phone-shaped and some of us have watches, right?

01:35:23 ◼   ► There is no room for all those things to be laying on pads.

01:35:29 ◼   ► The pad would have to be like three feet by five feet

01:35:31 ◼   ► to fit all those iOS devices

01:35:34 ◼   ► and the crazy jigsaw puzzle on it, right?

01:35:36 ◼   ► So even if Apple made like a family pad

01:35:39 ◼   ► where you can put all your stuff,

01:35:41 ◼   ► good luck finding a place to put four iPads,

01:35:44 ◼   ► four iPhones and two watches down on a pad.

01:35:47 ◼   ► Like, are you gonna dedicate an entire piece of furniture

01:35:49 ◼   ► to this?

01:35:50 ◼   ► It's just not efficient.