ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Oh, God, I can't imagine having to put a key in a steering column. Oh, gross.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Like an animal.

00:00:05 ◼   ► It's fun. Twisting the key is fun. Yeah.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Oh, John, how do you live, man?

00:00:10 ◼   ► Get in, foot down on the clutch, foot on the brake, twist the key. That motion is still,

00:00:15 ◼   ► you know, it's a thing.

00:00:16 ◼   ► You know what's even better than that? Get in, push the gas.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure Tiff loves it when you just get out of her car and leave it rolling down the driveway.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Put the engine with the engine running.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Running and unlocked.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Running and unlocked.

00:00:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Running and unlocked.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - All the windows open, air conditioning on, radio blaring.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - The sick thing is you're probably serious.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I bet this has happened at least once.

00:00:37 ◼   ► - I have not left it like in gear rolling,

00:00:40 ◼   ► but I have left his car running and unlocked.

00:00:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Good God.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Oh man, you're so spoiled.

00:00:48 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:00:50 ◼   ► All right, so let's start the show

00:00:52 ◼   ► and we'll start with some neutral follow-up.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Apparently people pay attention to racing cars and people pay attention to Formula One. I'm not really clear why and

00:01:02 ◼   ► Apparently, please please write Marco

00:01:06 ◼   ► apparently

00:01:08 ◼   ► Pretty much every racing car has its paddles on the wheel

00:01:11 ◼   ► I was lamenting last week that the Alfa Romeo had its paddles on the column which I've heard other like car reviewers

00:01:19 ◼   ► And in people like that say oh it always has to be on the column

00:01:23 ◼   ► But I don't really understand why, because I didn't like it that way, and I had at the

00:01:27 ◼   ► same time a BMW loaner, an F30 loaner, and that had the paddles on the wheel, and I much

00:01:34 ◼   ► preferred that.

00:01:35 ◼   ► So anyway, a lot of people wrote in to say, "Pretty much every racing car has the paddles

00:01:40 ◼   ► on the wheel.

00:01:41 ◼   ► You are right.

00:01:42 ◼   ► That's where it should be."

00:01:44 ◼   ► And somebody, and I don't remember who this was, I apologize, but somebody said to me,

00:01:48 ◼   ► and this is just a theory, but I mean it makes sense to me, "Maybe it's less of a big deal

00:01:51 ◼   ► for race car drivers because their wheels don't typically do like an entire revolution. If you

00:01:56 ◼   ► think about it, they're typically doing maybe a 30 or 60 or maybe a 90 degree turn, but I would

00:02:02 ◼   ► assume not often, not much more than that. If I'm wrong, I don't really care. It was just a thought

00:02:08 ◼   ► exercise. So no big deal, but I just thought I'd cover that really quickly. I did have to-

00:02:12 ◼   ► **Matt Stauffer** A lot of the responses related to this were due to me musing about what F1 cars

00:02:17 ◼   ► might be and knowing nothing about F1. And I had a brain fart there. That was my bad. I was like,

00:02:20 ◼   ► Like F1 cars, they don't even use paddles because they got all those buttons on the

00:02:24 ◼   ► steering wheel.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And while there is very often a button to shift into neutral, they still use paddles

00:02:29 ◼   ► for everything.

00:02:30 ◼   ► So never mind on that.

00:02:33 ◼   ► I did have to give the Alfa Romeo back.

00:02:34 ◼   ► I was very, very sad.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It pulled away and I wept.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Not really, but I was sad.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And now I'm back to my BMW.

00:02:43 ◼   ► Life is rough, I tell you.

00:02:44 ◼   ► God, I sound like such an intolerable piece of crap.

00:02:46 ◼   ► All right, moving on.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Let's, oh, actually it's getting no better as it turns out.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Let's talk about our iPhone orders and our $1,000 phones.

00:02:53 ◼   ► I quit.

00:02:54 ◼   ► This is just going nowhere good.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - So I think one of the biggest things that we have learned

00:03:00 ◼   ► in this entire iPhone 10 cycle

00:03:03 ◼   ► is that the rumor mill is completely full of now.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Like it's complete all of it.

00:03:11 ◼   ► It's turned out so much of it was complete.

00:03:15 ◼   ► (phone chimes)

00:03:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, and we were complicit,

00:03:18 ◼   ► or at least I'll speak for myself.

00:03:19 ◼   ► I was complicit in it because I was probably the most worried of the three of us about

00:03:24 ◼   ► not getting a phone until 2020.

00:03:26 ◼   ► And I was freaking out about it for no reason.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Well, as it turns out, spoiler alert, no reason.

00:03:33 ◼   ► But yeah, I was just as deep in this as anyone else, if not more so.

00:03:37 ◼   ► And I don't know, I was trying to like do a retrospective, which is a word that you

00:03:41 ◼   ► don't really understand, Marco, but John will.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I was trying to have my own little one-man retro meeting.

00:03:46 ◼   ► meeting. I believe it's called a post-mortem in the parking lot. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, so you do know.

00:03:50 ◼   ► So anyway, so I was tossing things into the parking lot as I was having my one-person

00:03:56 ◼   ► retro, and I don't really know specifically where this notion came from. I mean, I was one of the

00:04:03 ◼   ► ones parroting it, so I'm guilty. I am 150% guilty, but where did we all get it in our brains? This is

00:04:10 ◼   ► not just the three of us. This is the royal us. Where did all the talking heads get it in their

00:04:14 ◼   ► brains that it was going to be this bad. Like where did this come from?

00:04:18 ◼   ► Well, I mean, the phone is supply constrained and people had guesses about how many they

00:04:22 ◼   ► were going to make and there were lots of stories about part shortages. So that's

00:04:27 ◼   ► what it was. It was basically like, "Oh, they can't make enough of those 3D dot thingies."

00:04:30 ◼   ► And supposedly they lowered their standards for the dot thingies to make more of them.

00:04:34 ◼   ► But then Apple said, "No, we didn't do that. That's BS." I mean, at this point,

00:04:38 ◼   ► the past few cycles, you have to imagine that a lot of those stories about Apple's manufacturing

00:04:44 ◼   ► problems and blah blah blah are things motivated or not planted by competitors but like that

00:04:51 ◼   ► they're that they're motivated stories that somebody wants to put that information out

00:04:55 ◼   ► there to sow doubt into Apple's situation. Now they you know they don't have enough iPhone

00:05:02 ◼   ► tends to go around just like they don't have enough of any they don't have enough iPhone

00:05:06 ◼   ► you know sevens to go around certainly not the jet black there's always shortages right

00:05:10 ◼   ► It's very difficult to tell until Apple starts reporting numbers exactly how big the shortage

00:05:15 ◼   ► was.

00:05:16 ◼   ► But last show, all we were talking about was, "Will we be able to get our phones?"

00:05:20 ◼   ► Forget about how many Apple sells and so on and so forth, although we did touch on that

00:05:23 ◼   ► briefly.

00:05:24 ◼   ► But everything was just estimates.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Like that one newspaper or whatever said it looks like they're going to have four times

00:05:29 ◼   ► fewer phones as in previous years.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Well, we'll find out when Apple reports how many iPhones did they sell between launch

00:05:38 ◼   ► and the end of the year, although they have a fiscal year, I don't know how this all works.

00:05:41 ◼   ► But anyway, we'll find out. And it could be that the numbers are dead on, really. They

00:05:47 ◼   ► sold one-fourth as many as they did last year. But that's not what we're talking about here.

00:05:51 ◼   ► What we're talking about here is we were all staying up till 3 a.m. to order phones, and

00:05:55 ◼   ► some of us were very, very pessimistic about getting a phone anytime soon. So how did it

00:06:00 ◼   ► go for everybody, assuming we all stayed up?

00:06:03 ◼   ► I think it's pretty safe to say that Marco and I did, and since I've got the mic, I will

00:06:08 ◼   ► say that I stayed up.

00:06:10 ◼   ► My experience was slightly worse than the watch, than the LTE watch.

00:06:15 ◼   ► My experience with the LTE watch was stunningly good.

00:06:17 ◼   ► It was, the Apple Store app was live at 3.01 or something like that.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I was in and out in no time.

00:06:23 ◼   ► In this instance, it was typical Apple, which is to say five to ten minutes late.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Now, in the defense of Apple, maybe that's an aggregation issue or something to do with CDNs.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I'm now outside of my comfort zone. But one way or another, it was like 305-ish that everything woke

00:06:42 ◼   ► up. I did use the Apple Store app, and surprisingly, I heard a fair bit of reports from like Twitter and

00:06:48 ◼   ► whatnot that the Apple Store app was not the pretty much flawless experience for everyone

00:06:52 ◼   ► that it had been for the last few years. I had a few people say that they actually had better luck

00:06:56 ◼   ► on the website, which is stunning, because anytime I've tried that it's been a disaster.

00:07:01 ◼   ► But anyway, about 3.05 I ordered my phone, and then I rolled over and ordered Aaron's

00:07:07 ◼   ► phone and got both of them, and they should be here Friday.

00:07:11 ◼   ► So it worked out really, really well for me, to a degree that I did not expect.

00:07:16 ◼   ► I did choose to ship to home.

00:07:18 ◼   ► I was thinking about doing a store pickup, which I've never done before, and I know would

00:07:23 ◼   ► get me my phone earlier in the day, because typically UPS doesn't get to us until like

00:07:26 ◼   ► five or six at night on iPhone day, but I was scared that just going through that whole

00:07:31 ◼   ► process, especially when I'm unfamiliar with it, would slow me down too much and I would

00:07:35 ◼   ► lose my chance. So both of them will be delivered to the house sometime Friday. So I'm working

00:07:41 ◼   ► from home Friday, if you happen to be listening to this from my job. I will be here at the

00:07:45 ◼   ► house making sure that I know.

00:07:47 ◼   ► I'm sick.

00:07:48 ◼   ► No, I mean, everyone knows exactly what's happening. Marco, how did it fare for you?

00:07:54 ◼   ► similar. I used the app as usual. The app didn't come up for me until like, you

00:08:00 ◼   ► know, 305 or 306 like it was way and like I was in some slacks were like

00:08:04 ◼   ► some people are already completing the entire orders and reporting back what

00:08:07 ◼   ► their dates were when they completed the order before my store was even up. But

00:08:10 ◼   ► that happens all the time. I mean the Apple ordering process with the iPhones

00:08:14 ◼   ► has gotten really, really good with just that one exception. The only part about

00:08:20 ◼   ► about it that really feels unfair is that there's a huge

00:08:24 ◼   ► variance in when people's stores come up and it could be

00:08:28 ◼   ► like fifteen minutes apart like it's a big variance and so

00:08:32 ◼   ► some people said they saw the store like at two fifty eight

00:08:35 ◼   ► so and some people didn't see the store until three ten and

00:08:38 ◼   ► like it's a huge range. Usually I fall on the on the

00:08:41 ◼   ► worst side of this range like usually for me it's it's

00:08:44 ◼   ► somewhere around like five five or six minutes after the

00:08:46 ◼   ► an hour. And you can try alternating between cellular and Wi-Fi to be on different networks.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Some people suggested even trying a VPN. I didn't get that far into it. I didn't think

00:08:57 ◼   ► about it at three in the morning, surprisingly. But it just seems like it's a total crapshoot

00:09:04 ◼   ► when your store will come up. And that makes a pretty big difference in whether you get

00:09:09 ◼   ► one on day one or not, usually. If yours comes up at 3.07, you're probably not getting day

00:09:15 ◼   ► day one delivery on most high profile products.

00:09:19 ◼   ► Same thing happened with the watch.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Any kind of high profile 3 a.m. Apple launch,

00:09:23 ◼   ► usually this is a problem.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Jet black phone, same problem.

00:09:26 ◼   ► So the whole rest of the system feels very good

00:09:29 ◼   ► and very fair and it has dramatically improved

00:09:32 ◼   ► over the last few years.

00:09:33 ◼   ► And it's just that one piece that feels,

00:09:36 ◼   ► like if you're on the bad end of that,

00:09:37 ◼   ► it feels like you're getting screwed for no reason.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So I hope Apple can figure out a way to improve that.

00:09:42 ◼   ► I've never done anything on their scale before,

00:09:46 ◼   ► but I have done high-scale things.

00:09:47 ◼   ► It is possible to make everything go up

00:09:49 ◼   ► at almost exactly the same time.

00:09:53 ◼   ► That is a thing that can happen on the internet.

00:09:54 ◼   ► It's not easy, but it's possible.

00:09:57 ◼   ► So if they prioritize that,

00:09:59 ◼   ► maybe they don't realize how annoying this is,

00:10:01 ◼   ► but I hope someone, I hope whoever at Apple

00:10:03 ◼   ► cares a lot about these things, about getting these right,

00:10:06 ◼   ► about building into systems like the thing

00:10:08 ◼   ► where if it can't contact the carrier,

00:10:09 ◼   ► it reserves it for you and emails you again tomorrow.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Like, a lot of thought has gone into that system,

00:10:15 ◼   ► and for the most part it's great.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And there's just this one big glaring problem with it

00:10:19 ◼   ► that I hope they can figure out a way to fix,

00:10:21 ◼   ► or at least reduce that variance in CDN availability,

00:10:25 ◼   ► so that like, maybe everyone's store comes up

00:10:27 ◼   ► in the same one minute instead of the same 15 minutes.

00:10:29 ◼   ► That's the only thing about the system that feels unfair.

00:10:32 ◼   ► A lot of it's competitive, a lot of it's cutthroat,

00:10:34 ◼   ► but all of it feels fair, except that.

00:10:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:10:39 ◼   ► I can't think of any particular way that they could do better with it. I mean, I guess maybe

00:10:46 ◼   ► a lottery, but I think just like we lamented when WWDC went to a lottery, I think there's something

00:10:53 ◼   ► to be said for having the dedication to wake up at three in the morning if you're on the East Coast

00:11:00 ◼   ► to actually ensure that you get one initially. In the same way, WWDC rewarded the people who had

00:11:07 ◼   ► seven different notification strategies

00:11:09 ◼   ► in order to know when tickets went on sale.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And maybe a more fair answer would be a lottery,

00:11:14 ◼   ► but if not that, I think you're right,

00:11:17 ◼   ► that this is as fair as it can get

00:11:19 ◼   ► with the CDN propagation issues notwithstanding.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - And the thing is, a lottery,

00:11:24 ◼   ► like a few people have said that,

00:11:25 ◼   ► I think it's such a more complicated thing

00:11:28 ◼   ► than WBC tickets.

00:11:29 ◼   ► First of all, you're talking about

00:11:31 ◼   ► allocating 5,000 conference tickets

00:11:33 ◼   ► versus 10 million phones.

00:11:36 ◼   ► There's a pretty big difference in scale.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And of course the phones are tied to carrier things

00:11:41 ◼   ► and have to be checked out with carriers.

00:11:43 ◼   ► The phones are way more complicated than WBC

00:11:45 ◼   ► and there's way more of them.

00:11:46 ◼   ► So the same system doesn't necessarily apply.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Again, I think the system they have, I agree with you.

00:11:51 ◼   ► I think it's fine.

00:11:52 ◼   ► They just need to fix that one thing.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Anyway, so all that being said,

00:11:56 ◼   ► I did wake up at three in the morning.

00:11:58 ◼   ► I did place an order successfully

00:11:59 ◼   ► for my iPhone 10 on day one delivery.

00:12:03 ◼   ► I didn't do store pickup, just a delivery.

00:12:05 ◼   ► The store pickup is fine, but you still have to wait

00:12:08 ◼   ► in such a long line for pickup on day one.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Like if you're not day one and you do pick up at the store,

00:12:14 ◼   ► it's much faster, you know, there's basically no line

00:12:16 ◼   ► or a very short one.

00:12:17 ◼   ► But on day one, you're waiting on line

00:12:19 ◼   ► just like everyone else, you're just waiting on like

00:12:21 ◼   ► a different roped off section of the line

00:12:23 ◼   ► if you have reservations, but you're still gonna be there

00:12:26 ◼   ► for like two hours, you know.

00:12:27 ◼   ► So I'm looking forward to it.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Anyway, just to conclude the room mill thing

00:12:30 ◼   ► before we leave this topic, in general,

00:12:32 ◼   ► The room mill has gotten so much wrong

00:12:35 ◼   ► since about a year ago or so when there was a rumor

00:12:39 ◼   ► going around that one of Mark Gurman's big sources

00:12:43 ◼   ► was escorted out of campus very publicly.

00:12:47 ◼   ► I don't know if that was true or not,

00:12:49 ◼   ► but it certainly does seem like there's not a lot of leaks

00:12:53 ◼   ► out of Apple anymore.

00:12:55 ◼   ► By far, the most credible information we got

00:12:59 ◼   ► about the iPhone X leaked out of Apple itself.

00:13:02 ◼   ► in their two software leaks.

00:13:04 ◼   ► It didn't leak out of anywhere else.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Like the rumor mill was basically empty.

00:13:10 ◼   ► All they were doing for the most part

00:13:12 ◼   ► was reporting on what Apple accidentally leaked.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Almost everything else they reported ended up being BS.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Like now as we're getting more information about the phone,

00:13:22 ◼   ► people are using the phone,

00:13:23 ◼   ► we're hearing more from Apple executives

00:13:25 ◼   ► like on the record stories and stuff,

00:13:27 ◼   ► it certainly seems like the entire

00:13:28 ◼   ► like touch ID under the glass thing was completely false.

00:13:31 ◼   ► that there are now multiple Apple executives

00:13:33 ◼   ► directly stating that in interviews.

00:13:35 ◼   ► And I'm inclined to believe them.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I don't think they would lie about that kind of thing.

00:13:38 ◼   ► I think that it wouldn't serve them at all to lie about that.

00:13:40 ◼   ► We're now hearing things like the face ID

00:13:44 ◼   ► having issues and everything.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Those are probably BS too.

00:13:47 ◼   ► The component thing having adjustments,

00:13:49 ◼   ► Apple directly called that out and denied it,

00:13:52 ◼   ► which they never do for things like that.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Like that's unprecedented for the most part.

00:13:56 ◼   ► So that also I'm inclined to believe

00:13:58 ◼   ► because they so rarely ever comment

00:14:00 ◼   ► and things like that publicly.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So like, that was probably BS.

00:14:03 ◼   ► It seems like anything that was about supply

00:14:06 ◼   ► being super short was probably BS too,

00:14:10 ◼   ► because here's the thing, right now,

00:14:12 ◼   ► so everyone, us, other podcasters,

00:14:15 ◼   ► tech podcasters, the rumor sites,

00:14:17 ◼   ► we were all expecting this to be

00:14:18 ◼   ► a massive backorder situation.

00:14:21 ◼   ► We were saying on the show, like, you know,

00:14:23 ◼   ► 2018 isn't that far away.

00:14:25 ◼   ► We were all saying like, we would be lucky

00:14:27 ◼   ► to get, waking up at 3 a.m.,

00:14:30 ◼   ► we'd be lucky to get it by December.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And then it won't be too long before it's 2018.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Well guess what?

00:14:36 ◼   ► Right now, today, as we record almost a week later,

00:14:39 ◼   ► the latest estimates say five to six weeks.

00:14:42 ◼   ► That's mid-December.

00:14:43 ◼   ► A week later, you can still order it

00:14:46 ◼   ► and have it come this year,

00:14:47 ◼   ► 'cause then this year's almost over.

00:14:49 ◼   ► So that's pretty good.

00:14:51 ◼   ► So one of two things is true.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Either there is way less demand for this phone

00:14:57 ◼   ► than anybody thought, which I think is pretty unlikely.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Or most of those reports about there being

00:15:03 ◼   ► incredibly short supplies and everything are wrong.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So that just adds even more to the pile of rumors

00:15:10 ◼   ► that were wrong about the iPhone X.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Like we heard so many.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Everything about the software we heard was wrong.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Like everything about the home indicator situation,

00:15:19 ◼   ► the home gesture, that was all wrong.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Like we heard so much wrong stuff about the iPhone X.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Really, this has been a bad year for the Apple rumor game.

00:15:30 ◼   ► And in some ways, it's kind of like, you know,

00:15:32 ◼   ► Good Riddance, it was getting a little bit too good.

00:15:34 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:15:35 ◼   ► It was getting, it was starting to get

00:15:36 ◼   ► like a little too spoilery on a lot of the new products.

00:15:39 ◼   ► You know, I'm saying this here, not only to call them out,

00:15:44 ◼   ► but also to kind of help the world help me remind myself

00:15:49 ◼   ► when I get caught up in talking about these rumors,

00:15:52 ◼   ► 'cause I too, like you said Casey,

00:15:53 ◼   ► I too have been totally complicit

00:15:54 ◼   ► in discussing these rumors as if they were almost

00:15:57 ◼   ► a sure thing or if they were a sure thing

00:15:58 ◼   ► because for so long, the rumors were that good.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Like for so long in like the heyday of Mark Gurman

00:16:03 ◼   ► like two years ago, they actually,

00:16:06 ◼   ► like they were getting every detail of every product.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Like they were nailing so much before the release.

00:16:13 ◼   ► It was actually really unfun.

00:16:15 ◼   ► It was like, it was kind of fun to be a commentator

00:16:17 ◼   ► but it was unfun to like watch the events

00:16:19 ◼   ► and just see them unveil the things

00:16:21 ◼   ► that you already knew about like two months ago

00:16:23 ◼   ► great detail, no less.

00:16:25 ◼   ► But we all, all of us commentators and Apple fans

00:16:28 ◼   ► and readers of these sites and followers of the Apple news,

00:16:32 ◼   ► we all have to now readjust from that time

00:16:36 ◼   ► that now we have to probably assume

00:16:39 ◼   ► that most of the rumors that we're hearing are wrong

00:16:41 ◼   ► rather than assuming that they're right

00:16:43 ◼   ► and then figuring out later that some of them are wrong.

00:16:45 ◼   ► - Let me do the opposite of helping you, Marco,

00:16:47 ◼   ► and say once again that I generally disagree

00:16:49 ◼   ► with your assessment that the rumor was off.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Before Apple's leaks, we knew all screen OLED phone with Face ID.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Face ID leaked.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Face ID leaked so early before any software leaks.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And yes, there were tons of reports about details that were wrong.

00:17:07 ◼   ► And yes, Apple's exec said, you know, we committed to Face ID

00:17:10 ◼   ► and we never really spent any time trying

00:17:12 ◼   ► to do under the screen or aside things and stuff like that.

00:17:15 ◼   ► That's all well and good, right?

00:17:16 ◼   ► But there's always a certain amount of noise.

00:17:18 ◼   ► So even before Apple software leaks, which were massive

00:17:20 ◼   ► and gave us huge amounts of totally verified

00:17:23 ◼   ► reelsie reel information.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Even before that, we knew almost everything

00:17:28 ◼   ► about this phone.

00:17:29 ◼   ► What it looked like, the shape,

00:17:30 ◼   ► the size down to the millimeter,

00:17:32 ◼   ► the orientation of the cameras,

00:17:33 ◼   ► how many cameras there would be,

00:17:34 ◼   ► the fact that it would be all screen,

00:17:35 ◼   ► the fact that the screen was OLED,

00:17:36 ◼   ► the fact that it would detect your face

00:17:37 ◼   ► and that's how you would unlock it.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Everything else is details.

00:17:40 ◼   ► I think that still for these phone products,

00:17:43 ◼   ► it is impossible so far for Apple

00:17:45 ◼   ► to actually keep anything like this secret.

00:17:47 ◼   ► There was a lot of BS and misinformation,

00:17:50 ◼   ► especially the stories and we've said this at the time we were discussing them where they're like apples considering like

00:17:55 ◼   ► You know using whether it's going to have face ID under there

00:17:58 ◼   ► It was like a month before or it was got touch idea on the screen

00:18:00 ◼   ► It was like a month before the the an intro announcement

00:18:03 ◼   ► It's like they're like displaced in time where maybe this was true a year and a half ago

00:18:08 ◼   ► We're just hearing about it now, but always the rumors especially on

00:18:11 ◼   ► A lot of the rumor sites are phrases if it's happening now and it's nonsensical like I mean, who is it?

00:18:18 ◼   ► Dan is his name? Dan Ricchio? I don't know how to pronounce his name. Something like that.

00:18:21 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure you're right on the Dan part. It's Ricchio, I think?

00:18:24 ◼   ► Yeah. One of Apple's people was in a press thing and he said that they had locked the design for

00:18:31 ◼   ► the iPhone X in November. That's November of last year, right? Not now, November 1st.

00:18:37 ◼   ► Not today.

00:18:38 ◼   ► Yeah. They had locked it a year ago, right? And yet there were rumor stories like two months ago

00:18:43 ◼   ► that Apple's debating what it should do with Face ID versus Touch ID under the screen. And I'm like,

00:18:47 ◼   ► No, what do you know they're not like I mean that so we knew those were BS at the time

00:18:52 ◼   ► But I still think that the combination of the rumor mill knowing so much about this phone before any leaks and then the leaks

00:18:59 ◼   ► Basically putting highlighter over the details that are right and sort of Xing out the ones that are wrong

00:19:04 ◼   ► Means that we still more or less knew what was getting introduced and I'm you know one way

00:19:10 ◼   ► I kind of like being surprised but also kind of like hearing details so I can go either way but

00:19:15 ◼   ► Just because the rumors especially motivated rumors like Oh apples having manufacturing problems Oh fear uncertainty and doubt

00:19:21 ◼   ► Especially since things like that

00:19:23 ◼   ► There's reasons for them to exist and they're gonna be wrong over in a while

00:19:26 ◼   ► I don't think that's that big of a deal and I think I I I don't know

00:19:31 ◼   ► I'm I'm not adjusting my attitude towards rumors because I

00:19:34 ◼   ► Don't mind as a bunch of BS noise mixed in with the real information

00:19:37 ◼   ► And I still think there's a ton more real information than we used to have about things because this Apple makes too many of these

00:19:43 ◼   ► phones, the supply chain is too leaky, and we're just going to have to accept that we're

00:19:49 ◼   ► more or less going to know what the next phone is going to be like, and that all we have

00:19:53 ◼   ► to worry about are the details, and then sometimes, like a few weeks before intro, Apple tells

00:19:57 ◼   ► us all the details accidentally by releasing a bunch of software.

00:20:00 ◼   ► No, I mean, I think, you know, we did hear a lot of rumors that ended up being true,

00:20:05 ◼   ► but the thing, but like, with the rumor mill, like, the challenge is always like, knowing

00:20:09 ◼   ► what parts of this are actually likely to be real or not.

00:20:11 ◼   ► And usually, during the really good days of rumor mills,

00:20:16 ◼   ► like two years ago, you could be sure

00:20:18 ◼   ► almost everything they said was actually true.

00:20:21 ◼   ► But until Apple's software leaks,

00:20:24 ◼   ► we didn't know whether the products would be

00:20:28 ◼   ► possibility A, B, C, or D, or many of the details of that.

00:20:31 ◼   ► - But we knew exactly what it would look like.

00:20:33 ◼   ► - Well, not really.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - I saved some of the images of,

00:20:37 ◼   ► down to the millimeter, you know,

00:20:40 ◼   ► when people were selling cases for it,

00:20:42 ◼   ► we knew what this thing would look like.

00:20:43 ◼   ► There were still questions like,

00:20:44 ◼   ► "I can't tell if it's Touch IDed into that screen,

00:20:45 ◼   ► can you?" Right?

00:20:46 ◼   ► And same with the Face ID, like that rumor was really long,

00:20:50 ◼   ► it took a really long time of coming,

00:20:51 ◼   ► but didn't really get confirmed until much later.

00:20:54 ◼   ► But what I'm saying is like, you know,

00:20:58 ◼   ► is this the next iPhone and they'd show you some 3D render?

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah, that was the next iPhone

00:21:03 ◼   ► and we knew it a long, long time ago.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Will it recognize your face?

00:21:05 ◼   ► That was the only credible rumor we had

00:21:07 ◼   ► other than various other places to put touch ID.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And so that was the only debate.

00:21:11 ◼   ► It's like, oh, surely it'll do the face thing,

00:21:13 ◼   ► but is it gonna have touch ID at all anymore

00:21:15 ◼   ► under the screen on the back?

00:21:16 ◼   ► Like that was a question,

00:21:17 ◼   ► but we knew like the face ID would be there.

00:21:20 ◼   ► So I feel like we had a really good picture of this phone

00:21:22 ◼   ► and it all turned out to be correct.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And the details that turned out to be wrong

00:21:27 ◼   ► were interesting, especially when we were discussing,

00:21:30 ◼   ► you know, touch ID in the back.

00:21:31 ◼   ► And the best one was the game of telephone rumor

00:21:34 ◼   ► about touch ID being on the home button.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Do you remember that rumor?

00:21:36 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Right, and that's explicable.

00:21:39 ◼   ► Now you see how it works,

00:21:40 ◼   ► because you have to double tap the power button

00:21:42 ◼   ► to make Apple Pay work,

00:21:44 ◼   ► and it puts that little highlight-y thing over it.

00:21:47 ◼   ► So somebody, like in this game of telephone,

00:21:49 ◼   ► knew about that, and through seven different people,

00:21:52 ◼   ► it becomes suddenly Touch ID and the power button,

00:21:54 ◼   ► which never really made any sense,

00:21:55 ◼   ► because it's not big enough.

00:21:56 ◼   ► But anyway, even things like that,

00:21:58 ◼   ► I love seeing after the fact,

00:21:59 ◼   ► oh, that's what they were confused about.

00:22:02 ◼   ► There was never Touch ID and the power button,

00:22:04 ◼   ► but somebody knew that piece of information,

00:22:06 ◼   ► and it got lost in translation,

00:22:09 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden this rumor came out of it.

00:22:10 ◼   ► So I think that's just par for the course of rumors.

00:22:13 ◼   ► - I don't know, I feel like the rumor mill was so sketchy.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And then around the time of the lost iPhone 4,

00:22:21 ◼   ► I think sources got really good.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And then in the last year or so,

00:22:25 ◼   ► like I think Marco had said,

00:22:27 ◼   ► sources have been not as good.

00:22:31 ◼   ► Because I feel like we knew,

00:22:33 ◼   ► even without software releases,

00:22:36 ◼   ► we knew exactly what this stuff would look like,

00:22:37 ◼   ► like to the pixel, so to speak.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I understand that's a terrible analogy,

00:22:40 ◼   ► but now if it wasn't for software releases,

00:22:43 ◼   ► we know the broad strokes, you're right, Jon,

00:22:45 ◼   ► but I don't think without the HomePod debacle,

00:22:49 ◼   ► we would have known as specifically as we have

00:22:52 ◼   ► in prior years, but I don't know.

00:22:53 ◼   ► - I don't think it's a broad strokes.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Like we didn't have,

00:22:56 ◼   ► if it wasn't for that phone left in a bar,

00:22:58 ◼   ► we wouldn't have known exactly what the iPhone 4 looked like

00:23:00 ◼   ► until somebody found one,

00:23:01 ◼   ► but we knew exactly what the iPhone 10 would look like.

00:23:04 ◼   ► maybe some service details we didn't know.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I feel like the iPhone 8, we didn't have

00:23:08 ◼   ► a really good grasp on service details, maybe.

00:23:10 ◼   ► But when you have millimeter perfect, you know,

00:23:15 ◼   ► measured drawings of the phone months ahead of time

00:23:18 ◼   ► that turn out to be 100% accurate,

00:23:19 ◼   ► so accurate that people could build cases based on them,

00:23:22 ◼   ► that is unprecedented.

00:23:23 ◼   ► We didn't have that for the iPhone 3GS, for the iPhone 4.

00:23:25 ◼   ► Like back then, you know, being left in a bar

00:23:28 ◼   ► was the only way we were gonna get that kind of thing, so.

00:23:30 ◼   ► - But there are so many, there's so much noise.

00:23:33 ◼   ► said John, like I feel like part of the Apple rumor game is always trying to figure out

00:23:38 ◼   ► like you know what what if this will actually because like everybody who you know floats

00:23:43 ◼   ► their head near Apple or is a is a you know friend of a nephew of a supplier or something

00:23:48 ◼   ► like everybody who was anywhere near Apple can leak something about what they think they

00:23:54 ◼   ► might be working on because they had one part made or they heard from a friend of a friend

00:23:59 ◼   ► of a friend who works at a factory or you know something like that there's always something

00:24:03 ◼   ► or even people on campus who leak,

00:24:06 ◼   ► people inside the company,

00:24:07 ◼   ► they can leak about things that they've seen

00:24:09 ◼   ► or heard about around campus.

00:24:11 ◼   ► But none of that has a strong correlation

00:24:13 ◼   ► to what actually gets released

00:24:15 ◼   ► and how things actually ship

00:24:16 ◼   ► and what the final version of things actually look like

00:24:18 ◼   ► or do or work.

00:24:19 ◼   ► So the challenge of the room reel has always been,

00:24:23 ◼   ► okay, you have all this information,

00:24:25 ◼   ► 10% of it is true,

00:24:27 ◼   ► but you don't know what 10% until the event.

00:24:29 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:24:30 ◼   ► And that part has reverted back to as bad as it used to be.

00:24:34 ◼   ► That part was better two years ago,

00:24:38 ◼   ► and that part is now back to where it was 10 years ago,

00:24:42 ◼   ► which is basically all over the place,

00:24:43 ◼   ► and not that useful.

00:24:45 ◼   ► So that's why I'm saying,

00:24:47 ◼   ► it's not that we won't have seen

00:24:50 ◼   ► many of the details ahead of time,

00:24:51 ◼   ► but we won't know which of the details we've seen are true,

00:24:54 ◼   ► and which will ship.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And that's the kind of thing

00:24:57 ◼   ► that used to leak a lot better than it does now,

00:24:59 ◼   ► and that's what I'm very happy about now.

00:25:01 ◼   ► But again, that's also what I need to now,

00:25:04 ◼   ► I need to now adjust myself to,

00:25:06 ◼   ► by default, disbelieve rumorsites,

00:25:09 ◼   ► rather than by default believing them

00:25:11 ◼   ► the way I've been doing the last two years.

00:25:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know if you wanna change your defaults,

00:25:15 ◼   ► but maybe just make it a setting.

00:25:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:19 ◼   ► On this front, I think the iPhone X

00:25:21 ◼   ► was actually a tricky case too,

00:25:23 ◼   ► because so much was changing.

00:25:25 ◼   ► We knew so much was changing with the iPhone X.

00:25:27 ◼   ► So with so much up for grabs,

00:25:28 ◼   ► there's less sort of bedrock that you can say,

00:25:31 ◼   ► well, it's an iPhone and these two minor things change.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Once you get rid of all the stuff on the front

00:25:37 ◼   ► and make it all screen,

00:25:38 ◼   ► there are many possibilities with how that can go,

00:25:40 ◼   ► especially before the software leaks.

00:25:42 ◼   ► That's why it was idea of like,

00:25:43 ◼   ► well, what happened to Touch ID?

00:25:44 ◼   ► Where does it go?

00:25:45 ◼   ► Is it on your screen?

00:25:46 ◼   ► Is it on the back?

00:25:47 ◼   ► Is it on the power button?

00:25:48 ◼   ► Because more things were up for grabs.

00:25:51 ◼   ► If this pretend that 10 doesn't exist

00:25:53 ◼   ► and this is just the eight,

00:25:55 ◼   ► there wouldn't have been a weird rumor about Touch ID being in the power button on the

00:25:59 ◼   ► 8, because they'd be like, well, Touch ID is where it always is. Like, look, there's

00:26:02 ◼   ► the phone. Like, you know, only a few things are changing. So the bigger the break from

00:26:07 ◼   ► the past, the more possibility is for random guesses and rumors and misheard things, because

00:26:13 ◼   ► just so much more seems possible, right? So you entertain it as a possibility, because,

00:26:17 ◼   ► you know, who knows what they'll do? And then, of course, the software leaks sort of, you

00:26:20 ◼   ► know, refine that all. But we'll see. Next, presumably, next phone, they will not have

00:26:25 ◼   ► have a catastrophic software leak like this and we'll get to play the game all the way

00:26:29 ◼   ► up to the end where we'll have, you know, it will be more constrained.

00:26:32 ◼   ► I bet there won't be such, you know, the one after the ten is not going to be as radical

00:26:36 ◼   ► a departure as the ten is from the seven, right?

00:26:39 ◼   ► And we'll have a bunch of different competing theories and we'll see how we do on them.

00:26:44 ◼   ► But it still seems like, you know, a couple of months before our iPhone time next year

00:26:48 ◼   ► we will have measured drawings of exactly what the phone will look like.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Maybe we won't know the exact colors and names though.

00:26:54 ◼   ► So get that going for us.

00:26:55 ◼   ► All we know is that it'll be a new shade of space gray.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Will they ever run out?

00:27:00 ◼   ► They should just line them up and see, you know, when do they have to go from like, you

00:27:04 ◼   ► know, 8-bit color to 16-bit color to contain all the space grays?

00:27:09 ◼   ► All this is to say, let me tell you about my iPhone.

00:27:12 ◼   ► I was just about to ask.

00:27:15 ◼   ► So I, the first time I ever did this, getting a phone from my wife, we both ended up waking

00:27:20 ◼   ► up because really when one person wakes up like look everyone's gonna be up. I was very

00:27:26 ◼   ► unlucky in the CDN lottery. The store did not come up for me for like 10 or 12 minutes.

00:27:34 ◼   ► What I eventually got through on first was actually the website. So I'm in the category

00:27:38 ◼   ► of one of the people where I'm furiously force quitting and relaunching the app on you know

00:27:43 ◼   ► on Wi-Fi and LTE did not let me get to it. I got it first on the website but because

00:27:48 ◼   ► my wife was also doing this on multiple devices, she was doing it on her Mac and her phone.

00:27:54 ◼   ► Before I went through the auto process right up to the end because I knew what she wanted

00:27:57 ◼   ► but before I hit the button, by that point I had walked downstairs and wanted to check

00:28:01 ◼   ► are you in the same process?

00:28:02 ◼   ► It turns out she was, she was right at the buy step as well.

00:28:05 ◼   ► So I didn't actually pull the trigger on my buy, she pulled the trigger on hers, two to

00:28:09 ◼   ► three weeks.

00:28:10 ◼   ► That's when my ship date is.

00:28:12 ◼   ► So I did not get day one.

00:28:13 ◼   ► I was unlucky in the unintentional CDN lottery, but two or three weeks is not that bad.

00:28:20 ◼   ► She was happy with it because she was also worried that it would be a really long time,

00:28:23 ◼   ► and she didn't want to wait a really long time because she was kind of getting sick

00:28:25 ◼   ► of her phone.

00:28:26 ◼   ► So two or three weeks is acceptable to her.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Oh, I forgot.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Yeah, she got the big one, and we did it at Verizon, and they did the thing where it's

00:28:33 ◼   ► like, "We're having trouble contacting your carrier," which is a vast improvement.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I tweeted, you know, I tweeted that it might have seemed like snark, but it wasn't, and

00:28:41 ◼   ► I called it progress.

00:28:42 ◼   ► This is progress.

00:28:43 ◼   ► better than it was before. It's still sad that they, you know, the carriers suck and

00:28:46 ◼   ► they can't make this work, but at least it doesn't stop the process. But there was, you

00:28:51 ◼   ► know, a good 24 hours of fretting because you go through the process and it's like,

00:28:56 ◼   ► "Oh, well, I could contact the carrier, but don't worry, your phone is reserved." And

00:28:59 ◼   ► you go to bed, you know, 3.30 thinking everything's fine, right? But then the next day you start

00:29:04 ◼   ► to worry as everyone else says, "Look at my order, look at my ship date, blah, blah, blah,

00:29:08 ◼   ► blah." And you have nothing. You just have a screen that you saw last night at 3.30 in

00:29:12 ◼   ► morning that said you had a phone but there's no proof that even happened right and you have an

00:29:18 ◼   ► email that says oh we'll contact you when it's time for you to complete your order right but then

00:29:23 ◼   ► you're just waiting for an email it's like so when when are you going to email me and tell me i can

00:29:26 ◼   ► complete my order then you start worrying they're going to email me and tell me i can complete my

00:29:29 ◼   ► order and that's going to count as my order time like that i didn't reserve a spot in the line at

00:29:32 ◼   ► 3 a.m but it's really just going to be when i get the email especially since they say you'll have

00:29:35 ◼   ► 24 hours to complete your order so there's a little bit of time pressure and it was a really

00:29:40 ◼   ► a long time. Like everybody else had gotten their orders and they got their dates and

00:29:44 ◼   ► everything. We still hadn't received the email. But finally towards the end of the day, the

00:29:47 ◼   ► next day, got an email, completed the order. And that's when we saw the two to three week

00:29:52 ◼   ► thing. So that's not the best system. It's a little bit nerve wracking. I would like

00:29:56 ◼   ► it if I could actually go through the process and give them the money and complete the order

00:30:00 ◼   ► and just say, just settle up, figure it out with Verizon later. Because obviously already

00:30:04 ◼   ► reserving me a spot. I don't see why I have to be involved with the time delayed retry.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Apple can do that on their end.

00:30:11 ◼   ► So that was a little bit nerve-wracking,

00:30:13 ◼   ► but it all came out well in the end.

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00:31:40 ◼   ► Jamf Now, manage your Apple devices from anywhere.

00:31:43 ◼   ► - So tell me about your iMac.

00:31:48 ◼   ► - It's back.

00:31:49 ◼   ► So here's what happened.

00:31:52 ◼   ► So the Genius Bar or Grove or Forest, whatever,

00:31:55 ◼   ► had it for a little less than a week.

00:31:58 ◼   ► In a little less than a week, they replaced the panel.

00:32:03 ◼   ► That's it.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Oh, and then the very last day,

00:32:07 ◼   ► somebody called me to ask if they could format

00:32:09 ◼   ► my hard drive, even though I told them

00:32:11 ◼   ► when I dropped it off, yes, I have everything backed up,

00:32:13 ◼   ► you can replace it or format it if you need to.

00:32:15 ◼   ► They said they needed to format my hard drive

00:32:18 ◼   ► because there was some bad data on the platters,

00:32:21 ◼   ► by the way, this is an SSD only iMac,

00:32:24 ◼   ► there was some bad data on my platters,

00:32:27 ◼   ► and that was causing my GPU overheating issue,

00:32:31 ◼   ► and that they had to reformat the hard drive

00:32:34 ◼   ► to get rid of the bad blocks on my platters.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And so I was just like, really?

00:32:41 ◼   ► Like, can you explain that a little bit more?

00:32:43 ◼   ► And every explanation I got was worse than the last one.

00:32:47 ◼   ► And I didn't pull like the I'm a nerd card.

00:32:50 ◼   ► I didn't tell them how wrong they were.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - Why did you bother pressing them on that?

00:32:55 ◼   ► Did you think there was a real explanation

00:32:58 ◼   ► hiding under there or did you just wanna hear them squirm

00:33:00 ◼   ► as they try to rephrase it another way.

00:33:02 ◼   ► - Well, and I was trying, 'cause I was like,

00:33:04 ◼   ► how can that affect the GPU?

00:33:06 ◼   ► Okay, I said GPU every single time I talked about this fan.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Every time, like look, the GPU runs too hot.

00:33:15 ◼   ► I monitor, I can even tell you the temperature.

00:33:16 ◼   ► It runs too hot, then the fan spins up.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Well, it's doing almost nothing, okay?

00:33:21 ◼   ► The GPU, and I kept, I said it when I dropped it off,

00:33:24 ◼   ► I said it when they were doing testing,

00:33:25 ◼   ► I said it everywhere.

00:33:27 ◼   ► every single time that they said it back to me,

00:33:31 ◼   ► they said, "Oh, this is why your fan's running hot."

00:33:33 ◼   ► I'm like, "No, no, no, no, it's more detailed than that.

00:33:36 ◼   ► "Trust me, I'm trying to help you figure this out."

00:33:39 ◼   ► Like, no, they didn't hear it.

00:33:41 ◼   ► So, you know, look, I had a mediocre experience, right?

00:33:44 ◼   ► The people were very nice, they didn't fix

00:33:46 ◼   ► any of my problems except for the screen.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Oh, and now I have a hot green pixel

00:33:49 ◼   ► in the middle of the screen.

00:33:51 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm not gonna have them touch it again.

00:33:54 ◼   ► This is why I don't, like, whenever people,

00:33:56 ◼   ► Whenever I complain about a problem with hardware I have,

00:33:59 ◼   ► and people are like,

00:34:00 ◼   ► "Why didn't you just bring it in for repair?"

00:34:01 ◼   ► This is why, because it doesn't usually

00:34:04 ◼   ► get the problems fixed.

00:34:05 ◼   ► And sometimes if it's easy,

00:34:07 ◼   ► like when I had a bad lightning port on my phone,

00:34:10 ◼   ► that was easy.

00:34:11 ◼   ► They swapped it out, done, great experience.

00:34:13 ◼   ► But when it's like a nuanced issue with a desktop computer,

00:34:18 ◼   ► I had to haul it there, go without a desktop for a week,

00:34:21 ◼   ► get it back, put all my data back on,

00:34:23 ◼   ► 'cause they formatted the drive for no reason,

00:34:26 ◼   ► The fan still runs too fast when the GPU runs hot

00:34:28 ◼   ► for no apparent reason.

00:34:29 ◼   ► It wasn't bad data on my platters and my SSD.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Surprise, surprise.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And so, you know, I appreciate that they tried.

00:34:38 ◼   ► But this is why I don't do this usually.

00:34:41 ◼   ► - I usually take the opposite approach

00:34:42 ◼   ► where I feel like once the seal is broken,

00:34:44 ◼   ► once I've gone to and from the store once,

00:34:46 ◼   ► I'm going to continue to go back until,

00:34:48 ◼   ► as John Roddick would say, I get satisfaction.

00:34:51 ◼   ► That's why I brought my Thunderbolt display

00:34:52 ◼   ► back three times.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So if they replaced the screen and it came back

00:34:55 ◼   ► with a hot green sub pixel,

00:34:57 ◼   ► that would go back immediately just for the screen.

00:34:59 ◼   ► Because like, look, I've gone through this asshole

00:35:01 ◼   ► to get the screen.

00:35:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna keep going through it

00:35:03 ◼   ► until I get a perfect screen back.

00:35:04 ◼   ► Unless there's some policy about them not doing it,

00:35:06 ◼   ► but I don't know the deals, but I would try, right?

00:35:09 ◼   ► And my attempt to explain the erasing of the disc,

00:35:12 ◼   ► like maybe like the cutting the ends off the roast reason

00:35:17 ◼   ► behind this poor person trying to explain to you

00:35:19 ◼   ► why they wanna erase your hard drive.

00:35:23 ◼   ► I have had many times in the past problems that make the computer do weird stuff that

00:35:28 ◼   ► have to do with like corrupted libraries somewhere, right?

00:35:30 ◼   ► So like some sort of file on disk does not check some correctly.

00:35:33 ◼   ► It has the wrong data in it.

00:35:35 ◼   ► Who knows why?

00:35:36 ◼   ► Like HFS+ errors, you know, could actually be a hardware related failure.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:35:41 ◼   ► And you say like, well, how, why would that manifest in the GPU getting hot?

00:35:46 ◼   ► There's enough tiny little things all over the place, loadable pieces of code and various

00:35:51 ◼   ► library files and stuff, that it's possible that one of them could be loaded and only

00:35:59 ◼   ► a certain code path hits the corrupted part and that causes it to crash and then it immediately

00:36:03 ◼   ► relaunches and that happens over and over and over again and that causes some subsystem

00:36:07 ◼   ► to work harder than it should because it's basically probabilistically constantly crashing

00:36:12 ◼   ► depending on when the code path that hits the corrupted part of the library is hit.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And you don't see that except maybe in a console line somewhere if you're lucky and that would

00:36:21 ◼   ► cause temperature to go up, so that's my most charitable interpretation of why there might

00:36:24 ◼   ► be a legit reason for them to erase your disk.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Although that's why a lot of people say "I did a combo updater and it fixed everything!"

00:36:31 ◼   ► Like just reinstalling the OS often fixes it too because it'll replace that library

00:36:34 ◼   ► with the correct version of it again.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Stuff like that has happened.

00:36:38 ◼   ► It probably doesn't explain a temperature specific thing, I would expect to see more

00:36:41 ◼   ► crashes or whatever, but I'll bet that issues like that are one of the reasons why they

00:36:46 ◼   ► routinely want to erase your drive, just to reduce the number of variables essentially.

00:36:50 ◼   ► They should have just said, "We don't know, but we're out of ideas, and this is always

00:36:54 ◼   ► the last thing we try, and sometimes it fixes it, so it's worthwhile."

00:36:58 ◼   ► And so they did it.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Okay, so we had somebody write in who is an anonymous AppleCare advisor, and they said

00:37:05 ◼   ► that they were servicing a 2017 MacBook Pro 13-inch for a spacebar that stopped functioning.

00:37:13 ◼   ► AppleCare had determined that the issue was related to accidental damage and therefore

00:37:16 ◼   ► was not covered under warranty.

00:37:18 ◼   ► held their MacBook Pro for a re-quote price of $475.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Holy smokes.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Although the customer disputes prying the key off in an effort to fix the issue herself,

00:37:29 ◼   ► I don't doubt that she probably did.

00:37:31 ◼   ► The point is, our customers would have no reason to try and perform surgery on their

00:37:34 ◼   ► brand new laptops with their car keys if the keyboards worked reliably in the first place.

00:37:39 ◼   ► $500 to fix this keyboard?

00:37:42 ◼   ► That is bananas.

00:37:43 ◼   ► I thought this was a good story because it shows just how things can go wrong.

00:37:48 ◼   ► Thus far we've been talking about it like, "Oh, we don't really know what the reliability

00:37:51 ◼   ► issue is, but these things are all still under warranty and eventually they won't be and

00:37:53 ◼   ► it will be worse."

00:37:54 ◼   ► But this is, you know, this is an example of good Apple customer service in the end,

00:37:59 ◼   ► but sort of a trap for customers.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Like if this happens to you, you get a new laptop and the space bar stops working and

00:38:07 ◼   ► you decide to try to pry the keycap off.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Now maybe you're just frustrated, maybe you're impatient, maybe you don't want to bother

00:38:12 ◼   ► taking the store, maybe you've pried the keycaps off past Apple laptops and have fixed

00:38:16 ◼   ► it yourself by blowing stuff out or whatever. But either way, if you do this and when you

00:38:23 ◼   ► do it with these new keyboards, there's no way to get it back on successfully. You're

00:38:28 ◼   ► doomed to prying off the keycaps is not a thing you should do. It's not even a thing

00:38:31 ◼   ► that Apple repair centers do. That's why they have to replace the whole top of your computer,

00:38:36 ◼   ► right? If you do that and then bring it into the Apple Store, they're going to say, "Well,

00:38:41 ◼   ► I see that your problem, you pry it off your space bar.

00:38:44 ◼   ► And that's not covered under warranty

00:38:46 ◼   ► because you essentially damaged your own computer.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And if you say, no, no, no, I've only pried it off

00:38:51 ◼   ► because before the space bar wasn't working,

00:38:54 ◼   ► by the letter of the Apple Care laws,

00:38:57 ◼   ► like no, if you pry the key,

00:39:00 ◼   ► if you try to repair your own computer and mess it up,

00:39:02 ◼   ► we don't pay for that.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Now, the reason this is good Apple customer service

00:39:07 ◼   ► is that the person involved was able to make an exception

00:39:10 ◼   ► and override the repair center or whatever.

00:39:12 ◼   ► The genius understands.

00:39:14 ◼   ► The only reason you pry this off is because it was broken.

00:39:15 ◼   ► I don't think you're sitting around deciding

00:39:16 ◼   ► to pry off your key caps for the hell of it, right?

00:39:19 ◼   ► And so they did the right thing

00:39:21 ◼   ► and are letting this get repaired under warranty,

00:39:22 ◼   ► but when the warranty runs out,

00:39:24 ◼   ► like we just go wait for the first person

00:39:26 ◼   ► to have a stuck key at exactly the time

00:39:30 ◼   ► that warranty runs out and realize stuck key equals $475.

00:39:34 ◼   ► And that's gonna be a very, very sad person.

00:39:37 ◼   ► A person who will probably start considering

00:39:39 ◼   ► how convenient it might be to use their laptop without ever touching the keyboard on it.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Maybe they're in the market for a new Mac Mini.

00:39:45 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:39:46 ◼   ► If only.

00:39:47 ◼   ► I don't remember which show it was I heard this on, but did you hear that repairing the

00:39:53 ◼   ► back glass on an iPhone X is something like $500?

00:39:56 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like a full replacement cost, basically.

00:40:00 ◼   ► So yeah, it's like over $500.

00:40:03 ◼   ► And notice, AppleCare costs $200 now on the iPhone X.

00:40:06 ◼   ► - I forgot to ask, did you guys all get AppleCare?

00:40:10 ◼   ► - I did not.

00:40:11 ◼   ► - Oh, living dangerously.

00:40:13 ◼   ► - I buy it for Tiff's because she wants the peace of mind

00:40:17 ◼   ► of knowing, and she does drop her phone occasionally.

00:40:19 ◼   ► We do have cases, we have yet to break one,

00:40:21 ◼   ► but still for hers we wanted to buy it

00:40:24 ◼   ► because that makes me feel better.

00:40:26 ◼   ► For mine, I never have.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And my policy has been, you know,

00:40:31 ◼   ► 'cause now AppleCare is like,

00:40:33 ◼   ► I think it's like 130 or 140-ish for the regular iPhone 8s,

00:40:38 ◼   ► and then for the iPhone 10, it's 200.

00:40:40 ◼   ► My thinking here is the first time

00:40:43 ◼   ► I have to have a very expensive repair,

00:40:46 ◼   ► I will reconsider my policy of having not spent $200

00:40:49 ◼   ► every year up until that point.

00:40:50 ◼   ► But until that happens, and unless that happens,

00:40:54 ◼   ► I'm gonna keep not spending $200 to protect the phone

00:40:56 ◼   ► that I don't necessarily need to be protected,

00:40:58 ◼   ► and we'll let it ride from there.

00:41:01 ◼   ► I'm the kind of person who I don't really drop my stuff.

00:41:03 ◼   ► I've never dropped gadgets before.

00:41:05 ◼   ► I think I've dropped a phone,

00:41:08 ◼   ► in the total of time that I've had iPhones,

00:41:11 ◼   ► the entire last 10 years,

00:41:13 ◼   ► I think I've dropped it maybe twice.

00:41:16 ◼   ► And neither time it was significantly damaged.

00:41:19 ◼   ► So I hope I don't need it, and if I start needing it,

00:41:22 ◼   ► then I'll eat that first repair as a life lesson

00:41:25 ◼   ► and I'll start getting it then.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Until that happens, I'm saving 200 bucks a year.

00:41:29 ◼   ► I did get AppleCare+ on my iPhone 7, and if you recall, I dropped it when I was running

00:41:36 ◼   ► with it because I'm an idiot, and that was my first iPhone casualty.

00:41:41 ◼   ► I have also developed a deep scratch in the screen.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Since that happened, I have no earthly idea how.

00:41:46 ◼   ► So the good news is if I get this repaired a second time, the AppleCare will have paid

00:41:50 ◼   ► for itself.

00:41:51 ◼   ► But this is the first phone I've run in a long time without a case, and $200 on top

00:41:56 ◼   ► of $1200 or whatever I paid is a lot of money. So I have a leather case that will be a few

00:42:02 ◼   ► days late behind my phone because I just ordered it today, and I think I'm going to go back

00:42:07 ◼   ► to having a leather case and hopefully not destroying my phone.

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00:43:55 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:43:58 ◼   ► - John, it is all coming up Milhouse

00:44:00 ◼   ► with regard to the Apple TV.

00:44:02 ◼   ► Tell us about this.

00:44:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, so a bunch of essentially announcements from Apple

00:44:08 ◼   ► because they have videos, this strange sort of out of time,

00:44:11 ◼   ► not at WWDC, but very much like WWDC videos

00:44:14 ◼   ► explaining some of the new APIs in tvOS 11.2 which is not yet released but presumably will

00:44:21 ◼   ► be in beta soon.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So the very first thing I did was went out to my Apple TV and turned on beta software

00:44:27 ◼   ► updates which is a thing that you can do if you sign up for the beta program you get a

00:44:30 ◼   ► menu thing that says in the software update thing do you want to also consider beta updates?

00:44:34 ◼   ► I said yes and I said please update me and it did an update but then when I rebooted

00:44:39 ◼   ► I was still on 11.1 and now every time I check for an update it says I have the latest version

00:44:43 ◼   ► So I do not have 11.2.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I don't know if anybody has it.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Maybe that beta's not out yet.

00:44:48 ◼   ► But anyway, why do I want 11.2?

00:44:50 ◼   ► Well, a couple of reasons.

00:44:51 ◼   ► First, there is a new API called A/V Display Manager.

00:44:55 ◼   ► Actually, I don't even know if it's a new API.

00:44:57 ◼   ► Unfortunately, I have not had time to watch this video.

00:45:00 ◼   ► But there's new APIs that allow you as an app developer

00:45:04 ◼   ► to switch video display modes.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Confusingly, there's a second set of screenshots

00:45:11 ◼   ► showing what the tvOS thing will look like, where there are options now to say automatically

00:45:18 ◼   ► match the frame rate of the source video and automatically match the HDR-ness of the source

00:45:23 ◼   ► video, and you can turn them both on.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And for a little while I was confused, well, which is it?

00:45:30 ◼   ► Is it that application developers have to update their apps to switch modes, or is it

00:45:34 ◼   ► that Apple TV will simply detect the frame rate and quality of the video that's displaying

00:45:40 ◼   ► in Apple TV will switch modes.

00:45:41 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, it is you need both for this to happen.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Developers need to update their apps to use a new API.

00:45:48 ◼   ► And the new API won't actually switch your mode

00:45:50 ◼   ► unless the preference is set in your Apple TV to say,

00:45:53 ◼   ► hey, if an application says that it wants to change the mode

00:45:56 ◼   ► to 24 frames per second or whatever,

00:45:58 ◼   ► or some multiple of that, allow it to do it.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Again, I haven't actually installed this beta

00:46:03 ◼   ► because they won't send it to me, so I'm not entirely sure.

00:46:05 ◼   ► So I'm just going off several articles on this topic.

00:46:07 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes

00:46:08 ◼   ► the Ars Technica one, which I think just summarizes the information that's provided.

00:46:12 ◼   ► But anyway, this is all good news. The good news is you will not have to go to that menu

00:46:17 ◼   ► and pick from umpteen different formats every time you're going to play a video, which of

00:46:21 ◼   ► course you know the exact frame rate for. And it's also good news for people with HDR

00:46:25 ◼   ► TVs because previously apparently it was, if you turned HDR on and played some non-HDR

00:46:29 ◼   ► video, it would try to display it in HDR and make it look all gross, which is just terrible.

00:46:33 ◼   ► I didn't know that because I don't have an HDR TV. My only fear now is that these

00:46:38 ◼   ► These features will come and they will be 4K only.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Not Apple TV 4K only but will only be available if you have a 4K television.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Because right now I can't tell the Apple TV to output at some multiple 24Hz to my television

00:46:53 ◼   ► because I have a standard, not a standard television, a non-4K television and I don't

00:46:58 ◼   ► have a 24Hz option or any multiple thereof.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Which is a shame if you have a 4K TV you do.

00:47:03 ◼   ► I'm hoping all this mode switching and everything is not confined to 4K like these other settings

00:47:09 ◼   ► are.

00:47:10 ◼   ► So we'll see, but I'm excited about it.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Things are going in the right direction.

00:47:12 ◼   ► All right, let's ask ATP.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Drew wants to know, "What do you recommend for antivirus on High Sierra?

00:47:18 ◼   ► Don't run it, don't know."

00:47:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I had someone ask me this at work too, and the reason I put this question in there

00:47:23 ◼   ► is that this is a surprisingly common question, especially for new Mac users.

00:47:26 ◼   ► What should I get for antivirus?

00:47:28 ◼   ► My answer to all these people is, "Do not install antivirus software on your Mac."

00:47:32 ◼   ► Maybe that sounds terrible and maybe people think I'm an old fogy and really in this modern

00:47:36 ◼   ► day and age you need antivirus software and blah blah blah, but from my experience over

00:47:40 ◼   ► many many years being forced to run many different kinds of antivirus software at work, I hate

00:47:46 ◼   ► all of them and all of them made my Mac worse.

00:47:48 ◼   ► And at home I have never ever ever ever run antivirus software on my Macs and as far as

00:47:55 ◼   ► I'm aware I have never had any problems with viruses.

00:47:58 ◼   ► So my recommendation is do not run antivirus software

00:48:02 ◼   ► on your Mac, it's all bad.

00:48:03 ◼   ► - Marco, any other thoughts?

00:48:06 ◼   ► - I think exactly what John says,

00:48:07 ◼   ► minus the work experience part.

00:48:09 ◼   ► I mean, at this point, I would say that antivirus software

00:48:14 ◼   ► on your Mac, I think, probably is a bigger threat

00:48:18 ◼   ► of itself being malware than any malware

00:48:21 ◼   ► that you would find.

00:48:22 ◼   ► - And even when it's working correctly,

00:48:23 ◼   ► not that it's malware, but it messes with your computer.

00:48:26 ◼   ► It makes it slow, it makes it annoying,

00:48:28 ◼   ► makes things not work that were supposed to work,

00:48:30 ◼   ► the headaches you will get

00:48:32 ◼   ► from the antivirus software itself

00:48:34 ◼   ► far outweigh the supposed protection.

00:48:36 ◼   ► And honestly, it's not gonna protect you anyway.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Like, I mean, the real question is like,

00:48:39 ◼   ► just find a long time Mac user,

00:48:41 ◼   ► maybe not me, like, you know, 1984 Mac user, but you know.

00:48:44 ◼   ► - Humble brat.

00:48:45 ◼   ► - Right, well, I'm just saying like,

00:48:47 ◼   ► find someone who's been using your Mac for years

00:48:48 ◼   ► and ask them, what do you run for antivirus?

00:48:50 ◼   ► Like, can you find a Mac user who has not run antivirus

00:48:55 ◼   ► and has been, you know, overrun by viruses?

00:48:57 ◼   ► Like Marco and Casey, have you ever run antivirus software

00:49:00 ◼   ► on your Mac?

00:49:01 ◼   ► - My work computer, but that's because it's compulsory,

00:49:03 ◼   ► not because I choose it.

00:49:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I mean your home one.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:49:07 ◼   ► - Even when I had a work computer, I didn't.

00:49:09 ◼   ► - Have you ever had any problem with viruses?

00:49:13 ◼   ► - Not only have I never had a problem with a Mac virus,

00:49:15 ◼   ► I've never even heard of anybody else having a problem

00:49:18 ◼   ► with one ever.

00:49:19 ◼   ► - Same.

00:49:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean more likely it's gonna be

00:49:22 ◼   ► social engineering and getting you to click on some button

00:49:24 ◼   ► you're not supposed to,

00:49:26 ◼   ► And not to say there aren't vulnerabilities.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Macs are totally vulnerable to malware and viruses, 100%, and humans are completely vulnerable

00:49:32 ◼   ► to social engineering and things that trick you into clicking something you're not supposed

00:49:36 ◼   ► to do, right?

00:49:37 ◼   ► But the question wasn't like, "Are Macs vulnerable to viruses?"

00:49:40 ◼   ► They are.

00:49:41 ◼   ► The question was, "Should I install antivirus software?"

00:49:43 ◼   ► And the answer to that is no, because that software is bad and makes your Mac worse.

00:49:47 ◼   ► And remember that Apple does have very rudimentary anti-malware stuff that you're getting whether

00:49:53 ◼   ► you know it or not.

00:49:54 ◼   ► push updates to it when they identify new malware.

00:49:56 ◼   ► It's not gonna save you from everything,

00:49:58 ◼   ► but it's not as if you're completely unprotected.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - So this next one was an email submission,

00:50:03 ◼   ► and I thought it was really interesting.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Charlie Elman writes, "If iOS and macOS were available

00:50:09 ◼   ► "to install and integrate with any hardware,

00:50:11 ◼   ► "would you still use an iPhone and a Mac?"

00:50:13 ◼   ► And he continues, "For this thought experiment,

00:50:15 ◼   ► "assume that it works well on all devices,

00:50:18 ◼   ► "none of the Windows driver crap,

00:50:20 ◼   ► "software updates would happen just as regularly,

00:50:22 ◼   ► none of the Android fragmentation crap.

00:50:25 ◼   ► You could use any of the new hardware on other devices

00:50:28 ◼   ► without issue, NFC, Microsoft Pen and Dial,

00:50:30 ◼   ► Google Pixel Squeeze, et cetera.

00:50:33 ◼   ► And the prices don't change,

00:50:34 ◼   ► meaning the Galaxy S8 wouldn't cost as much as an iPhone,

00:50:37 ◼   ► the Surface Book wouldn't cost as much

00:50:38 ◼   ► as a Touch Bar MacBook, et cetera.

00:50:40 ◼   ► I have thought about this for several days now,

00:50:44 ◼   ► 'cause I was the one who added this to the show notes.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And I don't think I have any really strong answers,

00:50:50 ◼   ► because I really, really do think, for me,

00:50:55 ◼   ► that the best hardware out there is Apple hardware.

00:50:58 ◼   ► I would probably at least flirt with a ThinkPad,

00:51:03 ◼   ► especially that retro one that just came out.

00:51:06 ◼   ► I know Jon is getting really sick to his stomach

00:51:09 ◼   ► hearing me talk about this,

00:51:10 ◼   ► but man, I think that looks good.

00:51:12 ◼   ► But anyway, I don't think I've ever seen a phone

00:51:15 ◼   ► that I've longed for,

00:51:18 ◼   ► And I don't really ever see computers that I'm terribly enthusiastic about outside of

00:51:24 ◼   ► what comes from Apple.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And I don't know if it's Stockholm Syndrome at this point or what, but other than maybe

00:51:31 ◼   ► a ThinkPad, I don't think there's anything.

00:51:33 ◼   ► But what about you, Jon?

00:51:36 ◼   ► I would definitely use non-Apple hardware because I would get basically the modern equivalent

00:51:42 ◼   ► of my 2008 Mac Pro.

00:51:43 ◼   ► I'd get a big computer with room for lots of stuff inside, including a really big gaming

00:51:47 ◼   ► video card.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Apple doesn't sell anything like that.

00:51:49 ◼   ► So I would have gotten that long ago.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Like that's what I'm waiting around for is that, you know, a Mac Pro that I want to buy.

00:51:54 ◼   ► If I could get third party hardware and run macOS and not have to deal with any of the,

00:51:58 ◼   ► you know, Hackintosh stuff or whatever.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Yes, I definitely would.

00:52:02 ◼   ► For phones, I also have never seen a phone that has made me think I would rather have

00:52:09 ◼   ► that hardware than my iPhone hardware.

00:52:11 ◼   ► Even if it's down to something like mini USB versus lighting, that was no contest.

00:52:16 ◼   ► USB-C versus Lightning, I think I still kind of prefer Lightning.

00:52:19 ◼   ► So I don't think there's any phone hardware that would tempt me, especially now that we

00:52:24 ◼   ► have like the six and seven size phone, and we'll see what I think of the ten when it

00:52:29 ◼   ► gets here.

00:52:31 ◼   ► But for my desktop Mac computer, in the absence of a Mac Pro that suits my needs, I would

00:52:37 ◼   ► definitely be running third-party hardware.

00:52:39 ◼   ► >> Markov?

00:52:40 ◼   ► >> I have never seen another phone that I actually thought like, I would like to see

00:52:46 ◼   ► stop using my iPhone and go use that please.

00:52:49 ◼   ► It has never come close.

00:52:50 ◼   ► I was very impressed when I saw the,

00:52:52 ◼   ► what is it, the Samsung, the S8?

00:52:55 ◼   ► The one that, not the Note, but the one that came out

00:52:58 ◼   ► like six months ago that was edge to edge-ish,

00:53:01 ◼   ► like that one, I was very impressed when I saw that.

00:53:03 ◼   ► But it wasn't so compelling that I like,

00:53:06 ◼   ► I wanna lose everything I know about the hardware.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Now this is a great question in the sense that

00:53:09 ◼   ► it assumes that we can still use the software that we like,

00:53:12 ◼   ► you know, all the Apple software.

00:53:14 ◼   ► 'Cause that really is, that's what matters more.

00:53:18 ◼   ► Ultimately, I would take Apple hardware

00:53:22 ◼   ► that makes me miserable before I would leave Mac OS

00:53:26 ◼   ► and iOS for the alternatives.

00:53:28 ◼   ► So it's a good question.

00:53:31 ◼   ► For the phones, yeah, no way.

00:53:32 ◼   ► For tablets, no.

00:53:35 ◼   ► For laptops, maybe.

00:53:38 ◼   ► I think I might consider using PC laptops, especially--

00:53:41 ◼   ► - Oh, you absolutely would.

00:53:43 ◼   ► After all this kvetching about the keyboard,

00:53:45 ◼   ► you absolutely would go to a different laptop.

00:53:48 ◼   ► - Oh, PC laptops are kinda ugly though.

00:53:50 ◼   ► - Well, I don't care about the look so much

00:53:52 ◼   ► as the functionality for me.

00:53:54 ◼   ► So anyway, I'm very happy right now

00:53:56 ◼   ► with just having an older Apple laptop.

00:53:59 ◼   ► In the future, when that plan becomes untenable,

00:54:02 ◼   ► I hope their modern ones at that point,

00:54:05 ◼   ► again, are better for me.

00:54:07 ◼   ► Then I'll just switch to the modern ones.

00:54:08 ◼   ► Or even if they're not better,

00:54:10 ◼   ► maybe I'll just wanna suck it up and deal with it

00:54:12 ◼   ► so I don't have to mess with Hackintoshes

00:54:14 ◼   ► or old laptops or anything else.

00:54:17 ◼   ► But if I could run Mac OS perfectly well

00:54:20 ◼   ► on something better from the PC world,

00:54:23 ◼   ► or at least better for my preferences,

00:54:25 ◼   ► sure I would consider that.

00:54:29 ◼   ► There isn't a lot out there

00:54:30 ◼   ► that's honestly that much better.

00:54:32 ◼   ► It's very similar to when I mentioned a couple episodes ago

00:54:35 ◼   ► how reviewers always positively review

00:54:38 ◼   ► whenever there's a new Surface book

00:54:40 ◼   ► or whenever there's like a new Google phone,

00:54:44 ◼   ► a new Nexus or Pixel phone,

00:54:46 ◼   ► the reviews are always really positive

00:54:48 ◼   ► and then the reviewers don't end up using them.

00:54:49 ◼   ► They're like, "Oh, this is a great phone for somebody else,"

00:54:52 ◼   ► and then they switch back to their iPhone

00:54:54 ◼   ► and their MacBook the next day.

00:54:56 ◼   ► With a lot of this alternative stuff,

00:54:59 ◼   ► it's hard to get good quality long-term reviews,

00:55:02 ◼   ► and oftentimes the long-term reviews

00:55:04 ◼   ► are a lot less positive than the initial ones were.

00:55:07 ◼   ► So it's hard to really know,

00:55:08 ◼   ► As somebody who admittedly does not try

00:55:12 ◼   ► non-Apple hardware almost ever,

00:55:14 ◼   ► it's hard for me to really know how good the stuff is.

00:55:17 ◼   ► But certainly I would have an open mind to it.

00:55:20 ◼   ► And on the desktop, similar to John,

00:55:23 ◼   ► right now Apple doesn't make what I need.

00:55:25 ◼   ► They said they're going to, so I hope they do.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Unlike John, I don't need my Mac Pro or my Mac desktop,

00:55:33 ◼   ► I don't need it to be a standard tower

00:55:37 ◼   ► with a whole bunch of card slots for gaming cards

00:55:40 ◼   ► or drive bays or anything else.

00:55:41 ◼   ► I don't actually need that.

00:55:43 ◼   ► The Trashcan Mac Pro would've been great for me

00:55:47 ◼   ► if they just updated it.

00:55:48 ◼   ► That would've been great.

00:55:50 ◼   ► They didn't, which is unfortunate,

00:55:52 ◼   ► but if they could just deliver me that

00:55:56 ◼   ► with not the overheating GPUs issue maybe,

00:56:00 ◼   ► deliver me that with modern internals

00:56:02 ◼   ► that can drive a 5K display,

00:56:04 ◼   ► and that would be great, I would love that.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Not a lot of other people would, but I would.

00:56:07 ◼   ► So I'd be totally fine with that.

00:56:08 ◼   ► But in the meantime, they don't have that.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And I don't know when their new Mac Pro is coming.

00:56:13 ◼   ► I assume that it's hopefully next year,

00:56:17 ◼   ► hopefully in the earlier part of the year,

00:56:19 ◼   ► but I really have no idea.

00:56:21 ◼   ► So desktops, I would use non-Apple hardware

00:56:25 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like that's where it would matter the least

00:56:27 ◼   ► that I was using non-Apple hardware.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Like you're not touching it really.

00:56:30 ◼   ► You can use someone else's screen and it's not that bad.

00:56:34 ◼   ► You know, it wouldn't be that big of a deal

00:56:36 ◼   ► to use someone else's desktop.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Especially if you build a tower, it's under your desk,

00:56:39 ◼   ► you barely even see it.

00:56:41 ◼   ► But yeah, it's a cool question.

00:56:43 ◼   ► I like having, I like thinking about this.

00:56:46 ◼   ► It kind of prompts you to look around the PC

00:56:49 ◼   ► and Android worlds to see what the alternatives even are,

00:56:53 ◼   ► but ultimately I don't find a lot of them very compelling.

00:56:57 ◼   ► It would be kind of interesting

00:56:58 ◼   ► to build my own computer again.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I used to do that.

00:57:00 ◼   ► You know, I used to build my own PC,

00:57:02 ◼   ► and I really enjoyed that hobby.

00:57:03 ◼   ► That was a really fun hobby.

00:57:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I agree.

00:57:06 ◼   ► - It would be kind of interesting to see

00:57:07 ◼   ► what that's like now from the little glances

00:57:11 ◼   ► I've seen here and there from people posting about it

00:57:13 ◼   ► and stuff, it doesn't seem like it's that different.

00:57:15 ◼   ► It seems like most of it is actually about the same.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Just like now there's been like five new versions

00:57:20 ◼   ► of ATX since then, but it's still fairly similar.

00:57:25 ◼   ► You know, now I think everybody water cools now.

00:57:29 ◼   ► Back then it was much more of a specialized thing

00:57:32 ◼   ► that most people didn't do.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Now water cooling is much more common

00:57:35 ◼   ► and there's a lot more blue LEDs,

00:57:37 ◼   ► which I would not consider a feature.

00:57:39 ◼   ► So it would be kind of fun to build computers again,

00:57:44 ◼   ► but ultimately, if Apple gives me a really nice Mac Pro,

00:57:49 ◼   ► I'll be pretty happy with that.

00:57:50 ◼   ► - I forgot to address laptops because I don't like laptops,

00:57:53 ◼   ► but if forced to pick a laptop,

00:57:54 ◼   ► would you stick with the Apple one?

00:57:57 ◼   ► I'm in a bind because I think all the laptops,

00:58:00 ◼   ► except for the Microsoft ones,

00:58:01 ◼   ► I find them less pleasing looking than the Apple ones and you know that makes a difference

00:58:07 ◼   ► to me.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And it's not like you can build your own laptop like you can with desktop, right?

00:58:11 ◼   ► So you don't have as many options there.

00:58:13 ◼   ► But all I've heard about the Microsoft laptops and their you know transformable tablets and

00:58:18 ◼   ► stuff like that is that they have all sorts of weird reliability problems and durability

00:58:21 ◼   ► problems with the fabric and everything.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Like that line of computers is the most appealing to me but I would be wary of actually buying

00:58:28 ◼   ► one for myself because of all the reliability problems I've heard for the service book.

00:58:32 ◼   ► So you know, unlike Casey, I don't have a thing for the ThinkPad, so I just don't think

00:58:37 ◼   ► there's a lot of laptop hardware out there. Although, if pressed, if I was forced, I would

00:58:42 ◼   ► probably still just grin and bear it and get an ugly PC thing just so I could have ports

00:58:46 ◼   ► and battery life and all the things that we've complained about a million times.

00:58:50 ◼   ► I will say, there was a really nice segment on Back to Work about, I think it was last

00:58:55 ◼   ► week's episode. Microsoft reps offered to send Dan Benjamin a Surface Book, honestly

00:59:03 ◼   ► I don't know, I can't tell you which model, some kind of Surface Book to just try out,

00:59:07 ◼   ► something that could be a tablet and a laptop. Can they all do that? I don't know. Whatever.

00:59:12 ◼   ► Anyway, they sent him one to try out and he talked about it on the show and the discussion

00:59:15 ◼   ► was very, very good. You know, Dan is somebody who is mostly an Apple person, but he has

00:59:22 ◼   ► recent PC experience also.

00:59:25 ◼   ► And so to hear his impressions of the service book

00:59:27 ◼   ► were very good, and overall, to spoil it,

00:59:30 ◼   ► overall his impressions of it were pretty positive.

00:59:32 ◼   ► So it's worth hearing that to know,

00:59:35 ◼   ► to have kind of a glimpse into the other side

00:59:37 ◼   ► of what it's like when a mostly Apple person

00:59:40 ◼   ► talks a lot about a modern, nice Windows laptop.

00:59:45 ◼   ► And especially hearing about what it's like

00:59:48 ◼   ► to have crossovers between tablet mode

00:59:52 ◼   ► and being able to have a pen or touch input

00:59:56 ◼   ► in a desktop OS.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Dan came out of that basically saying,

01:00:01 ◼   ► Apple should have something like this for Mac OS.

01:00:04 ◼   ► And if you're a really big fan of the iPad,

01:00:06 ◼   ► you probably shouldn't listen to this episode.

01:00:08 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:00:09 ◼   ► But I think there's a lot to consider there

01:00:13 ◼   ► that they bring up, so that's worth listening

01:00:14 ◼   ► if you're interested in this kind of stuff.

01:00:16 ◼   ► - Finally, Tim Walker wants to know,

01:00:19 ◼   ► any thoughts about Apple firing an engineer

01:00:20 ◼   ► after his daughter posted a hands-on video

01:00:22 ◼   ► of the iPhone 10 on YouTube.

01:00:24 ◼   ► So the chief summarizer and chief hat is on.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Basically what happened was,

01:00:29 ◼   ► and I think it was a little while ago,

01:00:31 ◼   ► but certainly after the announcement,

01:00:34 ◼   ► an Apple employee who we have later found out

01:00:37 ◼   ► worked somewhere in the RF team, I guess,

01:00:39 ◼   ► the radio frequency team,

01:00:41 ◼   ► had his daughter into Cafe Max,

01:00:43 ◼   ► and she was filming a vlog,

01:00:45 ◼   ► and she also was handed his phone,

01:00:49 ◼   ► he handed her his phone, which was an iPhone 10, again, post-announcement, but pre-, you

01:00:56 ◼   ► know, before everyone had them. And she was flipping through the home screen, and I haven't,

01:01:01 ◼   ► you know, done the Kremlinology on this, but apparently, wow, that's kind of a loaded term

01:01:05 ◼   ► now, isn't it? I haven't done the Zapruder film or however you pronounce it on this.

01:01:09 ◼   ► But anyways, I guess there were some apps that you wouldn't expect to see. Somebody

01:01:14 ◼   ► said something about a QR code that you wouldn't expect to see. So there was some unreleased

01:01:19 ◼   ► stuff on this phone for sure. Well, this video somehow or another got popular, and I say

01:01:26 ◼   ► that only because the young woman who had filmed it and put it on YouTube had said,

01:01:32 ◼   ► you know, I have, in so many words, I have no followers, I don't know how this became

01:01:35 ◼   ► popular etc. etc. But somehow or another did. And they have since fired her dad, they fired

01:01:41 ◼   ► this engineer. And, you know, Tim Walker wants to know, how do we feel about that? And my

01:01:45 ◼   ► initial reaction was, "Man, that's kind of crappy," because the thing was already announced.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Everyone knew what it was. Like, what's the big deal? But then I found out, well, there

01:02:00 ◼   ► was some unreleased software on there, and maybe this QR code thing, and I guess there

01:02:05 ◼   ► may have been a code name or two showing on the screen at one point or another. And that

01:02:11 ◼   ► That made me less confident that Apple was being a bunch of jerks.

01:02:15 ◼   ► And then I was reminded of when, Marco, you and I went to Apple last year in 2016.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And we went to IL-1 or 1IL, I always get it backwards.

01:02:25 ◼   ► We went to the main building, and then we went to the theater that they would occasionally

01:02:30 ◼   ► do product announcements in.

01:02:31 ◼   ► And there's a Steve Jobs quote outside the theater, and I think both of us, or certainly

01:02:37 ◼   ► I, took a picture of it, put it on like Instagram or something like that.

01:02:40 ◼   ► And one of our mutual friends who works at Apple actually privately wrote me and was

01:02:44 ◼   ► like, "Who is letting you take a picture on campus?

01:02:47 ◼   ► That's BS."

01:02:48 ◼   ► And the picture was of a Steve Jobs quote.

01:02:51 ◼   ► Like, and he was genuinely, like, perturbed that this picture was taken, much less posted

01:02:55 ◼   ► anywhere.

01:02:56 ◼   ► He was perturbed that my escort had allowed me to do that, which I think is kind of freaking

01:03:02 ◼   ► ridiculous.

01:03:03 ◼   ► I tell this story to tell, to just emphasize how deep this lies within Apple employees.

01:03:11 ◼   ► And so, in the end of the day, I think, you know what, the dude knew the rules.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Like, she shouldn't have been filming in the first place and definitely should not have seen pre-release software.

01:03:23 ◼   ► If it was just that he handed her the phone and it was off, meh.

01:03:27 ◼   ► I don't see that as that big a deal.

01:03:28 ◼   ► But since apparently there was some unreleased stuff

01:03:33 ◼   ► on that device, that changes my tune quite heavily.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Marco, how do you feel?

01:03:38 ◼   ► - I come down a little harder than you, but nearby.

01:03:41 ◼   ► Basically.

01:03:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:03:44 ◼   ► None of us have ever worked at Apple.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And this is internal hiring policy stuff.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And it's hard to say what should or shouldn't happen

01:03:55 ◼   ► based on what we know from the outside of the situation

01:03:57 ◼   ► because we obviously don't know everything

01:03:59 ◼   ► 'cause we don't work there, we don't know this person,

01:04:01 ◼   ► we don't know everything that was inadvertently revealed

01:04:04 ◼   ► in that video or could have been revealed

01:04:05 ◼   ► or what the policies exactly are written.

01:04:08 ◼   ► Apple's not that keen on sharing things like that

01:04:10 ◼   ► with the public, so.

01:04:11 ◼   ► But I can say that when we were there,

01:04:16 ◼   ► like the last thing I would have ever thought to do

01:04:20 ◼   ► was shoot a vlog.

01:04:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:04:24 ◼   ► I can't even imagine, to me that just shows

01:04:27 ◼   ► a severe lapse in judgment.

01:04:29 ◼   ► And not of the woman who was vlogging,

01:04:33 ◼   ► I mean she wasn't the employee.

01:04:35 ◼   ► Her father who was permitting her to do this

01:04:36 ◼   ► and bringing her into campus knowing she was doing this,

01:04:40 ◼   ► he's the one who has the poor judgment here.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Whether it's against the rules as they're written or not,

01:04:47 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't know what the rules are.

01:04:49 ◼   ► I would never assume that would be okay.

01:04:52 ◼   ► and I don't think anybody should be surprised

01:04:56 ◼   ► that he lost his job as a result.

01:04:58 ◼   ► To let somebody in, and you said that maybe

01:05:01 ◼   ► it wouldn't matter if the phone was off.

01:05:03 ◼   ► No, I'll go even further.

01:05:05 ◼   ► The phone was not out yet,

01:05:06 ◼   ► and the press embargo wasn't even lifted.

01:05:08 ◼   ► Like, reviews hadn't even been permitted yet.

01:05:11 ◼   ► To bring someone into campus as an employee,

01:05:15 ◼   ► and to permit them to shoot video of your running phone

01:05:19 ◼   ► of this non-publicly available phone,

01:05:22 ◼   ► I think that's common sense that that would be a problem.

01:05:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:05:25 ◼   ► - And that's not even considering

01:05:27 ◼   ► that it was allegedly running internal software,

01:05:31 ◼   ► which is another problem.

01:05:32 ◼   ► But even if it wasn't running internal software,

01:05:34 ◼   ► I think allowing someone to shoot a video,

01:05:37 ◼   ► first of all, to shoot a video inside campus at all

01:05:39 ◼   ► and publish it, like, you know,

01:05:42 ◼   ► I had lunch at Cafe Max, it was amazing.

01:05:44 ◼   ► The last thing I would have thought to do

01:05:45 ◼   ► was shoot a video and post it. (laughs)

01:05:49 ◼   ► Like, even though we weren't, as far as I know,

01:05:51 ◼   ► we weren't seeing anything secret, you know?

01:05:52 ◼   ► But like, still, it's like this is like the interior

01:05:55 ◼   ► of the campus, like, it felt incredibly privileged

01:05:59 ◼   ► to be there at all, and I didn't want to get myself

01:06:04 ◼   ► or our hosts in trouble, so the last thing

01:06:06 ◼   ► I would have thought to do would be to shoot

01:06:08 ◼   ► any kind of video or like take pictures of people

01:06:11 ◼   ► in the cafe or anything like that.

01:06:13 ◼   ► You know, I too took a picture of the quote on the wall

01:06:16 ◼   ► in that one room, and because it was a press area,

01:06:19 ◼   ► I decided this is probably safe to post to Instagram,

01:06:22 ◼   ► and I did, but that was the only thing

01:06:25 ◼   ► that I took a picture of there.

01:06:27 ◼   ► Like, that's the only memory that I have a record of

01:06:30 ◼   ► of that trip because I was too afraid

01:06:32 ◼   ► to take my phone out for any other reason.

01:06:34 ◼   ► And I didn't want, again,

01:06:35 ◼   ► I didn't want to get anybody in trouble,

01:06:36 ◼   ► and I assumed that it would get people in trouble

01:06:40 ◼   ► if any of us took photos and posted them online.

01:06:43 ◼   ► So yeah, so this should have been common sense,

01:06:47 ◼   ► and I think to most Apple employees,

01:06:49 ◼   ► it is common sense.

01:06:50 ◼   ► And so if somebody didn't see that as common sense

01:06:54 ◼   ► or had a bad lapse in judgment

01:06:56 ◼   ► and lost their job as a result,

01:06:57 ◼   ► I honestly don't think that's that much of a story.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think these people need to use common sense

01:07:02 ◼   ► because every employee gets training

01:07:04 ◼   ► with regard to what, with secrets and stuff, right?

01:07:06 ◼   ► It's not like Apple just allows this to happen

01:07:09 ◼   ► through osmosis and culture.

01:07:10 ◼   ► You get told when you're hired by Apple,

01:07:13 ◼   ► here's what you can and can't do,

01:07:15 ◼   ► and all sorts of guidelines on how to be safe

01:07:17 ◼   ► and blah, blah, blah.

01:07:18 ◼   ► And this is clearly a thing that you're not supposed to do.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And this person did it.

01:07:22 ◼   ► And then not only-- and sometimes it's like, well,

01:07:25 ◼   ► is it a zero tolerance policy, one strike and you're out?

01:07:27 ◼   ► Like, isn't there, you know, OK, you made a mistake,

01:07:30 ◼   ► but maybe you're a new employee and don't know?

01:07:33 ◼   ► I'm not sure what their policy with that is.

01:07:35 ◼   ► But in this particular situation,

01:07:39 ◼   ► whether it was the first time or not,

01:07:41 ◼   ► it was not the type of thing where it's like, all right,

01:07:44 ◼   ► well, you took someone on a tour and you let them take a picture.

01:07:46 ◼   ► then you have them deleted off their phone,

01:07:49 ◼   ► or you let them take a picture,

01:07:50 ◼   ► but then it never left their phone again.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Like there was a violation of the rules,

01:07:53 ◼   ► and technically we could fire you according to,

01:07:56 ◼   ► whatever thing you signed in your employment agreement,

01:07:58 ◼   ► or whatever, but we won't

01:07:59 ◼   ► because the consequences weren't that bad.

01:08:00 ◼   ► But in this case, the consequences were about as bad

01:08:02 ◼   ► as they could possibly be,

01:08:03 ◼   ► and that the entire world saw this video

01:08:06 ◼   ► before they were supposed to see it,

01:08:08 ◼   ► revealing essentially that, yes, you broke the rules,

01:08:11 ◼   ► and now everybody knows you broke the rules.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And if Apple was to allow this to happen,

01:08:15 ◼   ► basically saying, "Our PR doesn't need to actually control the message for new

01:08:21 ◼   ► product introductions. Actually random employees in our cafeteria can also

01:08:26 ◼   ► decide when the public gets to see the phone and in what context." Because that

01:08:30 ◼   ► doesn't undermine our corporate goals at all, this gigantic corporate, like it was

01:08:35 ◼   ► a mistake and it was a fireable offense and it didn't go well. Like it went

01:08:41 ◼   ► pretty poorly when it's on YouTube and spread all over the internet. So it's a

01:08:47 ◼   ► sad story, I feel bad for everybody involved, right? But it's not a surprising

01:08:53 ◼   ► story and I don't think Apple was being excessively mean here because like I

01:08:57 ◼   ► said I think the consequences were actually pretty bad. It may not seem that

01:09:00 ◼   ► bad, be like well everyone knew about the phone whatever, but as we'll discuss in a

01:09:05 ◼   ► moment for probably the one and only topic of the show, Apple has a PR

01:09:09 ◼   ► department whose job it is to control how the world comes to know their products when

01:09:16 ◼   ► they're introduced and no part of the PR plan involves random employees in the cafeteria

01:09:21 ◼   ► posting vlogs about it.

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01:11:14 ◼   ► - This has been an interesting week in Apple PR.

01:11:20 ◼   ► And all of the talking heads like us, I think, have been,

01:11:25 ◼   ► in various degrees, confused, happy, upset,

01:11:29 ◼   ► and enthusiastic and bitter at some point or another.

01:11:34 ◼   ► So help me get the timeline right.

01:11:37 ◼   ► So was it Monday that,

01:11:39 ◼   ► was it Steven Levy's review came out, is that right?

01:11:43 ◼   ► - I believe so.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah, I might have the details slightly wrong on this

01:11:46 ◼   ► but I think that's right.

01:11:48 ◼   ► So Steven Levy was one of the very small handful of people

01:11:52 ◼   ► that reviewed the original iPhone way back when.

01:11:55 ◼   ► and he was apparently given some sort of blessing to be the first person to get a review posted

01:12:05 ◼   ► of the iPhone X.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Then I believe Tuesday, or maybe it was late Monday, sometime shortly thereafter, it ended

01:12:16 ◼   ► up that we saw that a bunch of YouTubers had, if I understand things right, been offered

01:12:24 ◼   ► to come, it seemed in New York, offered to come in to like an Apple kind of press event

01:12:31 ◼   ► where they could film and use the iPhone 10 and they could film the iPhone 10 and do a

01:12:41 ◼   ► couple minutes with it and they could post their reviews to YouTube late Monday or early

01:12:48 ◼   ► Tuesday.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And my reaction to that was kind of like, "What the hell?"

01:12:56 ◼   ► Because in and of itself, YouTubers getting access wasn't remarkable.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Like, "Okay, fine.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Of course MKBHD had access."

01:13:06 ◼   ► But it wasn't MKBHD.

01:13:08 ◼   ► It was people that I had never heard of, which to be honest is actually probably a good sign

01:13:14 ◼   ► because I don't know who any of the popular YouTubers are.

01:13:16 ◼   ► But it was surprising to me because I'm at least casually aware of most of the popular

01:13:22 ◼   ► tech-related or tech-adjacent YouTubers, like MKBHD, like Casey Neistat and people like

01:13:28 ◼   ► that.

01:13:29 ◼   ► And these people that had access seemed to have a far, numerically anyway, a far smaller

01:13:36 ◼   ► following than the heavy hitters like the Neistats and MKBHDs.

01:13:41 ◼   ► And that was kind of weird.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And naturally, I was a little, maybe offended,

01:13:48 ◼   ► that's probably too strong a word,

01:13:49 ◼   ► but I was a little like,

01:13:50 ◼   ► "Man, why didn't I get a chance at this?

01:13:52 ◼   ► "Like, is podcasting not a thing?

01:13:53 ◼   ► "Does that not count?"

01:13:55 ◼   ► - I gave up on that long ago.

01:13:56 ◼   ► - Oh, I know, I know.

01:13:57 ◼   ► And it's a selfish reaction, full on.

01:14:00 ◼   ► But it's, you know, it was my honest reaction.

01:14:03 ◼   ► And I was kind of, I wasn't upset about it,

01:14:06 ◼   ► but I was kinda like, "What the hell?"

01:14:07 ◼   ► And then I talked with Joseph Polinski and Matt Alexander.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And Matt Alexander put up a really, really great post about kind of, what do you think

01:14:18 ◼   ► about when you're a product company and releasing a new product, and how do you control the

01:14:23 ◼   ► PR?

01:14:25 ◼   ► And I am unfairly summarizing it by saying the takeaway I had from it was that these

01:14:33 ◼   ► YouTubers that I kind of, you know, fluffed off as, "Oh, who are they?

01:14:37 ◼   ► They're not important," they're actually quite important just to circles that I don't pay

01:14:42 ◼   ► attention to. And I'm embarrassed to say that didn't occur to me until I really talked to

01:14:46 ◼   ► Joe and Matt about it, but it seems obvious in retrospect. And that's probably really

01:14:53 ◼   ► smart on Apple's part because the reality of the situation is I'm unlikely to wait very

01:15:00 ◼   ► long to buy an iPhone X. And most of the listeners of this show, given infinite money, would

01:15:06 ◼   ► probably buy an iPhone X tomorrow if they haven't already. So does Apple really need

01:15:12 ◼   ► to convince us to buy an iPhone X? No, not really. But what about the people that care

01:15:19 ◼   ► about fashion or care about things that are not just technology? And so the reactions

01:15:25 ◼   ► to this were varied, some very angry, some confused, some a combination of both. And

01:15:33 ◼   ► then shortly thereafter, I think it was Tuesday morning that all that a lot of the traditional

01:15:38 ◼   ► reviewers like the Groobers of the world, the Jason Snell's, etc. when their embargo

01:15:44 ◼   ► was lifted, and then we got some of the stuff that we expect as Apple nerds. But it's been

01:15:52 ◼   ► an interesting few days watching Apple try to, you know, pull the strings on this puppet

01:15:58 ◼   ► and figure out the best way to get this PR wave orchestrated. I don't know. I've been

01:16:07 ◼   ► We've been talking for a while, thoughts?

01:16:09 ◼   ► - I don't have a lot of thoughts on this.

01:16:11 ◼   ► It just seemed weird.

01:16:13 ◼   ► It seemed like a weird approach,

01:16:14 ◼   ► and it's really hard to talk about this

01:16:16 ◼   ► without somebody saying, "Oh, well, we're just old

01:16:19 ◼   ► "and out of touch because everyone gets everything

01:16:21 ◼   ► "from YouTube now."

01:16:24 ◼   ► I'm not even arguing that people on YouTube

01:16:26 ◼   ► shouldn't get pre-release review unit access.

01:16:30 ◼   ► No, I think they actually should.

01:16:31 ◼   ► I think Apple should go to where the people are.

01:16:33 ◼   ► That makes total sense, and YouTube is where

01:16:35 ◼   ► Many of the people are now, so that makes total sense.

01:16:38 ◼   ► The thing about it that seemed weird to me

01:16:40 ◼   ► is that compared to all past launches like this,

01:16:44 ◼   ► it wasn't weird that they added these YouTube channels

01:16:49 ◼   ► that honestly many of them were not very popular,

01:16:51 ◼   ► as you said.

01:16:52 ◼   ► It wasn't like MKBHD was there at that event

01:16:56 ◼   ► earlier than everyone else.

01:16:57 ◼   ► I don't know, but what seemed weird about it

01:16:59 ◼   ► was not the addition of the people who got it,

01:17:05 ◼   ► but the subtraction of the people who didn't.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Again, it's not weird that YouTubers got access.

01:17:12 ◼   ► It's weird that none of the press did, basically,

01:17:16 ◼   ► and the press that usually does.

01:17:19 ◼   ► As somebody who follows this stuff,

01:17:22 ◼   ► and I always want to read those first reviews,

01:17:25 ◼   ► maybe that makes me a dinosaur,

01:17:28 ◼   ► but for the most part, almost none of the press

01:17:32 ◼   ► that usually gets review units got one at all,

01:17:36 ◼   ► or with more than like 12 hours

01:17:39 ◼   ► before the publishing deadline.

01:17:41 ◼   ► So it was weird as a fan, most of what we have to go on

01:17:45 ◼   ► is very surface level, and that to me

01:17:49 ◼   ► is deeply unsatisfying.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Like I want, I want to like the in-depth reviews

01:17:54 ◼   ► from Gruber and from like the other tech publications

01:17:58 ◼   ► usually get them and to not have that felt weird.

01:18:02 ◼   ► And I don't think it's a good,

01:18:06 ◼   ► I don't think it projects confidence from Apple.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Like, to give so many of these reviewers less than a day

01:18:12 ◼   ► to review their phones suggests that Apple doesn't want them

01:18:16 ◼   ► to spend that much time before they publish their thoughts.

01:18:18 ◼   ► And I don't think that's a, like,

01:18:20 ◼   ► even if the iPhone X is great and by the early reports

01:18:23 ◼   ► it seems like it probably is, that doesn't look good.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Like, that doesn't exude confidence in their product

01:18:28 ◼   ► to say like, we're not even gonna give you enough time

01:18:29 ◼   ► to judge things like battery life or Face ID reliability.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like, that doesn't look good for the product,

01:18:36 ◼   ► so it's just weird.

01:18:37 ◼   ► So in an ideal world, and I've seen people suggest too,

01:18:40 ◼   ► like, well they didn't have enough to go around,

01:18:42 ◼   ► that's completely wrong.

01:18:44 ◼   ► Like, they have plenty if you can still log on right now

01:18:47 ◼   ► and order one that comes in December, they have plenty.

01:18:49 ◼   ► Apple could have given phones to more reviewers

01:18:52 ◼   ► with more time if they wanted to.

01:18:54 ◼   ► This was clearly a choice not to do that.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And I just think that part is what feels off about this,

01:19:01 ◼   ► that we don't have those in-depth reviews

01:19:05 ◼   ► from tech writers, big publications,

01:19:08 ◼   ► really hardly any of them.

01:19:11 ◼   ► We have basically like three,

01:19:13 ◼   ► and it's weird to have so few.

01:19:16 ◼   ► For such an important product coming out of Apple,

01:19:20 ◼   ► I want more.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - So I think it's easy,

01:19:26 ◼   ► Especially if you've been following Apple for a long time, to start getting into a tail

01:19:33 ◼   ► wagging the dog situation, where you really start to believe that the publications and

01:19:42 ◼   ► people who get early access to Apple stuff and write the reviews that we like to read

01:19:50 ◼   ► are getting it because of some kind of merit that they have.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Like for the original iPhone is a good example.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Like the original iPhone went to Pogue, Mossberg, Ed Beig,

01:20:04 ◼   ► and Levy, I think.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Yeah, get them all there.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Right, but that's-- all right, so that's who it went to.

01:20:09 ◼   ► But the reason we were all comfortable

01:20:13 ◼   ► with that worldview is because it went to Wall Street Journal,

01:20:16 ◼   ► New York Times, USA Today, and--

01:20:18 ◼   ► what was Steven Levy working for then?

01:20:20 ◼   ► I forget, maybe time.

01:20:22 ◼   ► But anyway, famous old people who've been doing this

01:20:25 ◼   ► for a long time working for famous, powerful,

01:20:28 ◼   ► influential old institutions.

01:20:31 ◼   ► And so it fit with the mental model of,

01:20:36 ◼   ► if you're the New York Times, you get the iPhone early.

01:20:39 ◼   ► If you're the Wall Street Journal,

01:20:40 ◼   ► you get the iPhone only.

01:20:41 ◼   ► And even if you're USA Today, which may be McPaper, right?

01:20:45 ◼   ► But it's extremely popular, right?

01:20:48 ◼   ► Of course, USA Today gets one even when we say,

01:20:50 ◼   ► "Oh, USA Today, what is that review?"

01:20:51 ◼   ► And you're gonna be like, "Haha, USA Today," right?

01:20:53 ◼   ► But they're really big.

01:20:55 ◼   ► And so that all fits with our model of like,

01:21:00 ◼   ► the tail being the publications,

01:21:01 ◼   ► wagging the dog that is Apple.

01:21:03 ◼   ► It's like, Apple has no choice.

01:21:04 ◼   ► They have to give it to the Wall Street Journal.

01:21:07 ◼   ► Apple has no choice.

01:21:07 ◼   ► They have to give it to the New York Times,

01:21:08 ◼   ► 'cause the New York Times is just too important, right?

01:21:12 ◼   ► But that's never been the situation.

01:21:14 ◼   ► The tail is not wagging the dog.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Apple has a PR department

01:21:18 ◼   ► whose job it is to choose how best to promote their products to the public.

01:21:23 ◼   ► It just so happens that the strategy chosen by that PR department has fit with the narrative

01:21:30 ◼   ► that the people who get early access get it based on prestige, longtime relationships

01:21:35 ◼   ► with Steve Jobs, longtime in the industry, like whatever criteria that we have come to

01:21:41 ◼   ► accept as like that's the reason they're getting it.

01:21:46 ◼   ► That should never have been the reason they were getting it.

01:21:49 ◼   ► Strictly speaking, it should have been that, like, it's a second degree thing where Apple's

01:21:54 ◼   ► like, "The best way to promote our product is to have the most prestigious newspapers

01:21:59 ◼   ► promoted.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Let's go find the most prestigious newspapers."

01:22:02 ◼   ► So it's a second degree.

01:22:03 ◼   ► It's not as if like, well, we have no choice but to give it to the most prestigious newspapers

01:22:07 ◼   ► because if we don't do that, we'll be hurt.

01:22:09 ◼   ► It's a selection of a strategy and an execution of that strategy.

01:22:13 ◼   ► In recent years, Apple has been changing its strategy a lot more from year to year in terms

01:22:20 ◼   ► of how it does everything.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Like the Mac roundtable showing like Yosemite early in private press briefings distributed

01:22:28 ◼   ► around the country, the incorporation of YouTubers starting several years ago.

01:22:35 ◼   ► From year to year, it's clear that Apple PR is trying different strategies.

01:22:42 ◼   ► depending on what strategy they're executing,

01:22:45 ◼   ► from that follows who gets this.

01:22:48 ◼   ► And there is no like, well, of course,

01:22:51 ◼   ► they have to go to the New York Times.

01:22:52 ◼   ► No, they don't.

01:22:53 ◼   ► They didn't do it this time.

01:22:54 ◼   ► They don't have to go to the Wall Street Journal.

01:22:56 ◼   ► Like, you know, there's no reason

01:22:58 ◼   ► that the Wall Street Journal has to have

01:23:00 ◼   ► the best and most and earliest access

01:23:02 ◼   ► as compared to a YouTuber with not a very big follow.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Like, that's not a rule.

01:23:08 ◼   ► It's just what Apple chooses to do.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Now, I'm not in PR.

01:23:12 ◼   ► I don't know what the best strategy for Apple is,

01:23:15 ◼   ► but this strategy this time around was different

01:23:19 ◼   ► in a way that seemed to break people's mental model

01:23:22 ◼   ► of how PR works and they were forced to realize

01:23:24 ◼   ► that who gets what when is entirely the choice of Apple

01:23:29 ◼   ► on how they think they can best promote their product.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Now you may say that they're wrong,

01:23:33 ◼   ► maybe you're suddenly a PR expert

01:23:34 ◼   ► and you're like Apple, you made a mistake,

01:23:35 ◼   ► you should have given this to these people

01:23:37 ◼   ► and that people in these times or whatever.

01:23:39 ◼   ► But most people on the outside

01:23:40 ◼   ► aren't thinking of it that way.

01:23:41 ◼   ► not thinking how does this put Apple's best foot forward, right? We're thinking of it

01:23:47 ◼   ► as consumers and I am as well. You just want your stories. I want my stories. I want to

01:23:53 ◼   ► read the reviews from the people that I know. And if suddenly you can't read those reviews,

01:23:56 ◼   ► you're like, "Oh, that's sad for me." But it's not about whether you get to read the

01:24:00 ◼   ► reviews from the people you want. Apple doesn't care whether you get to read the reviews from

01:24:03 ◼   ► the people you want unless that influences the success of their product and how it's

01:24:07 ◼   ► received by the public, which maybe it is and maybe that's the argument like, "Oh, because

01:24:10 ◼   ► you didn't give it to Walt Mossboro, he's retired now, but because you didn't give it

01:24:13 ◼   ► to the New York Times as early as possible, now that's going to influence me to not buy

01:24:19 ◼   ► the phone or whatever.

01:24:22 ◼   ► That's not an argument.

01:24:23 ◼   ► So mostly I think it's people had the wrong model of how PR works and that wrong model

01:24:30 ◼   ► was brought into stark relief.

01:24:32 ◼   ► And then a little tiny bit is you move my cheese.

01:24:35 ◼   ► I'm used to always reading these reviews and these people and expecting them to have a

01:24:38 ◼   ► week with the phone beforehand, because it's always been the case, right? And then finally,

01:24:42 ◼   ► the ugliest part of it is, you know, just general bitterness that somebody got the phone and somebody

01:24:50 ◼   ► didn't, right? Now it's easy for us to say here on podcasts where we never get anything, right? So

01:24:54 ◼   ► we didn't lose anything, right? We're always at the bottom of the barrel, right? Although,

01:24:57 ◼   ► I still, there's still room for us to be bitter too, because of course, selfishly, as Casey

01:25:01 ◼   ► pointed out from my perspective, I love that, you know, that more different people get the

01:25:08 ◼   ► iPhone. I'm a more different person too. Like we have a dinky podcast anyway. Yeah. So from

01:25:16 ◼   ► an outsider's perspective, not thinking of it as PR, I wish everybody got all the iPhones

01:25:21 ◼   ► they wanted. If you're doing any kind of stuff on YouTube, on podcasts, if you're writing

01:25:26 ◼   ► a blog, if you're doing anything and you're doing it day after day, year after year, week

01:25:30 ◼   ► after week and you're doing a good job and you have any kind of audience, I think it

01:25:35 ◼   ► should be possible to get review hardware for a phone after it's announced but before

01:25:39 ◼   ► the public can get it.

01:25:41 ◼   ► But that's just like, "Oh, what do you want?"

01:25:43 ◼   ► We're the tail here.

01:25:44 ◼   ► We're not the dog.

01:25:46 ◼   ► Question Apple has to ask is not, "Does this person deserve it or do we feel like we have

01:25:51 ◼   ► to give it because they have a big audience?"

01:25:52 ◼   ► The question is, "What is the best strategy for selling a lot of phones and making people

01:25:57 ◼   ► happy for them?"

01:25:58 ◼   ► And this year, they tried this strategy, which was this weird mix of low-volume YouTubers,

01:26:04 ◼   ► plus traditional media with lead time, plus some traditional media with less lead time,

01:26:10 ◼   ► and they'll see what the result is, and I bet they'll change it next year.

01:26:15 ◼   ► But people getting angry about it, like, it's a human reaction to, you know, they moved

01:26:22 ◼   ► my cheese, like, "I want to read the Walt Mossberg review, but he retired, and now I'm

01:26:26 ◼   ► angry."

01:26:27 ◼   ► like whatever you know like i i i wish uh you know grouper had had the phone for two weeks and

01:26:34 ◼   ► and he didn't well that's life right but you know it i don't think the whole class struggle thing of

01:26:42 ◼   ► like old world tech old white dudes who always get the reviews versus new people i don't think that's

01:26:46 ◼   ► actually the story other than like chiding people for being uh you know for being too

01:26:52 ◼   ► too sort of up their own butts about it like once you start really believing that like

01:26:56 ◼   ► my favorite person deserves to get the phone, you have totally lost the plot about what is going on

01:27:01 ◼   ► here. Some of us are just disappointed that we don't get to read the reviews from the people

01:27:07 ◼   ► that we wanted to read it from at the scale we wanted to read it, but that's just us.

01:27:12 ◼   ► Perhaps this is the most brilliant PR strategy ever for a phone with Apple choosing to do what

01:27:18 ◼   ► it did. We won't know until, maybe we'll never know because we won't know what the results are

01:27:24 ◼   ► are of this as compared to past strategies.

01:27:26 ◼   ► But at the very least, as a less interested outside observer,

01:27:29 ◼   ► because honestly, I do want to read the reviews basically

01:27:33 ◼   ► from people I know personally, like Jason Snell's review.

01:27:36 ◼   ► But that's a position that most people do not

01:27:38 ◼   ► find themselves in.

01:27:40 ◼   ► But none of them are going to influence my buying decision.

01:27:43 ◼   ► What's going to be influenced by my buying decision

01:27:45 ◼   ► is when you two get them, and when I get them,

01:27:47 ◼   ► and when we try them, we talk to each other, like anyone else.

01:27:52 ◼   ► But beyond that, I'm excited by new people getting the phones.

01:27:57 ◼   ► And I'm trying to think with a PR mindset,

01:28:00 ◼   ► why would it be a good idea to give low-volume YouTube

01:28:03 ◼   ► channels early access to the phone?

01:28:05 ◼   ► And I can think of a ton of reasons.

01:28:07 ◼   ► Again, not being anyone who knows anything about PR.

01:28:09 ◼   ► But just thinking about it for a few seconds, first of all,

01:28:13 ◼   ► those people are going to be so grateful.

01:28:15 ◼   ► Like, just like we would be grateful, Apple.

01:28:17 ◼   ► So those people are going to be so grateful to get

01:28:19 ◼   ► early access to the iPhone X. Because they

01:28:21 ◼   ► They know they're not some big channel that has millions and millions of subscribers.

01:28:26 ◼   ► They know how big they are compared to the YouTube world.

01:28:28 ◼   ► They are going to be so grateful to get that.

01:28:30 ◼   ► They're all enthusiastic.

01:28:32 ◼   ► These people love the iPhone.

01:28:34 ◼   ► They love Apple.

01:28:37 ◼   ► You can't buy that enthusiasm.

01:28:38 ◼   ► These people are not jaded, cynical.

01:28:40 ◼   ► I've reviewed every single thing and I just expect to get it and I'm angry if I don't.

01:28:44 ◼   ► They are excited to be there.

01:28:47 ◼   ► going to do things and review things in a way that is different than people who reviewed

01:28:52 ◼   ► a hundred different things.

01:28:54 ◼   ► I see lots of potential interesting upsides to doing what they did.

01:28:58 ◼   ► We already talked about the downsides.

01:29:01 ◼   ► Maybe it makes you look like you're scared that you don't want to give the jaded reviewer

01:29:04 ◼   ► access to your phone because they're just going to tear it apart because they're going

01:29:07 ◼   ► to find all the problems that the person who gets to play with it for ten minutes in an

01:29:11 ◼   ► Apple thing before release isn't going to find, right?

01:29:15 ◼   ► all factors into the decisions, but I'm definitely not angry that more people got access to it.

01:29:22 ◼   ► I'm not even really angry that my favorites didn't get access to it earlier, although

01:29:25 ◼   ► it seems like a lot of them are angry, which I, you know, whatever, if it's your livelihood,

01:29:29 ◼   ► I kind of don't blame them, but that's always the way it's been with Apple. Like, to give

01:29:33 ◼   ► an example from my past, for years and years and years, Ars Technica didn't get crap from

01:29:38 ◼   ► Apple. The Ars Technica could not get, like, they would, not that they wouldn't return

01:29:42 ◼   ► in our calls, but basically like,

01:29:44 ◼   ► they would be nice and polite,

01:29:46 ◼   ► but we could not get anything from Apple.

01:29:49 ◼   ► And eventually that changed.

01:29:51 ◼   ► And it changed because Apple's PR strategy changed.

01:29:55 ◼   ► It's not like we weren't worthy before

01:29:57 ◼   ► and were worthy after,

01:29:58 ◼   ► and it didn't feel good when we couldn't get anything, right?

01:30:02 ◼   ► And it felt good when we could get something,

01:30:04 ◼   ► but the connection between the quality of Ars Technica

01:30:08 ◼   ► and whether or not Apple gave us review hardware

01:30:11 ◼   ► was not the connection people want to think it is.

01:30:13 ◼   ► It is, Apple decides what to do,

01:30:15 ◼   ► and you honestly really have noticed

01:30:17 ◼   ► this important life lesson.

01:30:18 ◼   ► You can't control what other people do or think about you.

01:30:21 ◼   ► The best you can do is just decide how you're going to act

01:30:25 ◼   ► and do your best work and hope for the best.

01:30:27 ◼   ► So that's why we continue to do this podcast,

01:30:29 ◼   ► patiently waiting for Apple to send us

01:30:31 ◼   ► preview Mac Pro hardware.

01:30:33 ◼   ► - Please call us.

01:30:34 ◼   ► How funny would it be if I was the one that got the Mac Pro?

01:30:37 ◼   ► - Not that funny.

01:30:38 ◼   ► Not as funny as you think it is.

01:30:39 ◼   ► I would find it very funny.

01:30:41 ◼   ► Who else are they going to send?

01:30:43 ◼   ► I guess they could send preview Mac Pro hardware to like like actual professionals who are like doing video and stuff, but that's boring. What other

01:30:49 ◼   ► What other

01:30:51 ◼   ► cultural institution cares more about the Mac Pro than this podcast?

01:30:55 ◼   ► Two-thirds of this podcast.

01:30:58 ◼   ► Two out of three hosts in this podcast recommend the Mac Pro that is not yet released.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Oh my word. You know, I should also note that

01:31:07 ◼   ► This is name one bag now. I didn't get a chance to look it up

01:31:10 ◼   ► and I think one of you added it to the show notes, but he had a

01:31:13 ◼   ► relatively

01:31:16 ◼   ► long

01:31:17 ◼   ► kinda rant although I was very

01:31:20 ◼   ► level-headed to be called a rant but a discussion I guess about how

01:31:24 ◼   ► one of the advantages of giving you know, some of these youtubers access is that they're not all old white guys like we are and

01:31:31 ◼   ► there's a lot to be said for that and I think John you touched on this a minute ago, but

01:31:36 ◼   ► That's an improvement no matter how you slice it. That's an improvement to the PR strategy now

01:31:41 ◼   ► It does it have to be at the cost of old white dudes

01:31:43 ◼   ► Maybe maybe not I don't know but certainly reaching more diverse voices is a good thing for Apple

01:31:50 ◼   ► So you should check that out if you have about I think it was a little less than 10 minutes to spare

01:31:55 ◼   ► And like so many things in this world the older like the farther you go back in time the more likely it is that all

01:32:02 ◼   ► The people in positions of power are old white dudes, right?

01:32:04 ◼   ► And so any PR strategy that focuses on old white dudes is necessarily back in time.

01:32:14 ◼   ► Like we hope that we're making progress on all fronts and that there is a more diverse set of voices out there,

01:32:19 ◼   ► especially with the dawning of the internet and the lowering of the barriers to entry.

01:32:22 ◼   ► And if Apple was still pursuing the same strategy they did in 2007 with the iPhone and only giving it to old white dudes who work for newspapers,

01:32:30 ◼   ► like we would all agree that's an outdated strategy, right?

01:32:34 ◼   ► If they simply shift and say we should give it to new media as they did as they started giving it to websites like ours

01:32:40 ◼   ► Texting and stuff like that new media you would hope has better ratios of you know

01:32:46 ◼   ► men and women and

01:32:49 ◼   ► Different races like you would hope that purely by moving to new media you get more diversity

01:32:54 ◼   ► and that's before you even consider should we actual tart actually target diverse reviewers because

01:33:01 ◼   ► We're leaving money on the table if we don't do that, right?

01:33:04 ◼   ► And so it's not even clear to me that there was a specific effort to target more diverse

01:33:12 ◼   ► reviewers at this point.

01:33:13 ◼   ► I think it's a natural consequence of targeting modern media.

01:33:19 ◼   ► And again, it's not the first time they've done anything with YouTube where we were commenting

01:33:22 ◼   ► about the fact that they're not giving us the most popular YouTube channels or whatever.

01:33:26 ◼   ► But that is the promise and the beauty of the internet and YouTube and blogs and every

01:33:31 ◼   ► other sort of form of media without as many people preventing you from doing it.

01:33:40 ◼   ► Anyone can put up a blog, anyone can put up something on YouTube, and that is allowing

01:33:45 ◼   ► us to hear from people we previously didn't hear from.

01:33:47 ◼   ► They were there, we just didn't hear from them because they weren't hired by the New

01:33:50 ◼   ► York Times, right?

01:33:51 ◼   ► So that is all positive and a conscious shift towards modern media, like podcasts, which

01:33:58 ◼   ► which are super modern, but also still dominated by white dudes. Sorry. I think that is all

01:34:06 ◼   ► positive and, if anything, Apple should lean even more heavily in that direction because

01:34:10 ◼   ► all those voices are still underrepresented in modern media as well. It's just, like I

01:34:15 ◼   ► said, the older the people get and the farther you go back in time, the worse it gets in

01:34:19 ◼   ► terms of diversity, even if you're not doing anything different. Even if you're not consciously

01:34:22 ◼   ► trying to just give it to white dudes, if you want to give it to old people who work

01:34:26 ◼   ► in newspapers, that's what you're gonna end up with

01:34:28 ◼   ► much more so than if you wanna give it

01:34:29 ◼   ► to popular YouTubers.

01:34:31 ◼   ► - So now that we've discussed the completely insular

01:34:35 ◼   ► Brew-haha, what do we think of these reviews?

01:34:38 ◼   ► It sounds like this is a pretty solid phone.

01:34:41 ◼   ► - I don't have time to review so many of them.

01:34:43 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:34:44 ◼   ► No, I mean, my one hesitation basically is like,

01:34:48 ◼   ► almost nobody has had a chance to really live with it

01:34:50 ◼   ► for more than like a couple days.

01:34:53 ◼   ► So the initial impressions are great.

01:34:54 ◼   ► So I think I'm confident enough with all these reviews

01:34:57 ◼   ► that my first day with the phone

01:34:59 ◼   ► is probably gonna be awesome.

01:35:01 ◼   ► I just don't know what's gonna happen after that.

01:35:03 ◼   ► But it does seem pretty positive.

01:35:05 ◼   ► If nothing else, it was frustrating to see all that PR stuff

01:35:09 ◼   ► because almost every one of the YouTube quick takes

01:35:13 ◼   ► and even many of the press quick takes

01:35:15 ◼   ► were just kind of restating Apple's own PR points

01:35:19 ◼   ► about like, look, Animoji exists and it's new and shiny.

01:35:23 ◼   ► It's coming out soon.

01:35:25 ◼   ► And there wasn't much that we didn't already know.

01:35:27 ◼   ► Whenever we learn details of new things about it

01:35:30 ◼   ► that I didn't already know,

01:35:31 ◼   ► and that's one of the reasons why I like

01:35:32 ◼   ► Jason Snell's reviews so much,

01:35:33 ◼   ► and why I liked the upgraded podcast this week so much,

01:35:36 ◼   ► because it's packed full of actually new information

01:35:41 ◼   ► that we didn't already know as enthusiasts

01:35:43 ◼   ► who follow this stuff and who already saw the keynote.

01:35:45 ◼   ► So many of the articles and reviews and YouTube things

01:35:50 ◼   ► are just rehashes of the keynote event, basically.

01:35:53 ◼   ► And so to hear anything new is great.

01:35:55 ◼   ► And as we've heard new things from the very few sources

01:35:59 ◼   ► that have new things to report so far,

01:36:01 ◼   ► it just sounds really great.

01:36:03 ◼   ► It sounds awesome.

01:36:05 ◼   ► And I am very much looking forward to it.

01:36:08 ◼   ► I can't wait until Friday at 9 p.m.

01:36:11 ◼   ► when the overworked UPS server finally gets here.

01:36:15 ◼   ► I cannot wait for that

01:36:17 ◼   ► because I'm really looking forward to it.

01:36:18 ◼   ► It sounds like what I have wanted

01:36:22 ◼   ► ever since the iPhone Plus came out three years ago,

01:36:26 ◼   ► when was that, three years ago?

01:36:28 ◼   ► Ever since then, it's what I've wanted,

01:36:30 ◼   ► which is I would like the benefits of that

01:36:33 ◼   ► in a smaller body that I can actually hold

01:36:35 ◼   ► more easily than the big one.

01:36:37 ◼   ► And so this seems to offer basically that.

01:36:41 ◼   ► There's a few things that are different.

01:36:42 ◼   ► The screen is taller and skinnier.

01:36:45 ◼   ► It isn't the same aspect ratio and width as the Plus phone,

01:36:49 ◼   ► but it seems like we have the best of everything

01:36:52 ◼   ► this phone finally and that's gonna be really great.

01:36:56 ◼   ► I am a little concerned about reachability,

01:36:58 ◼   ► of the vertical reachability,

01:37:01 ◼   ► but I'm kinda looking forward to it.

01:37:03 ◼   ► As an app developer, I finally, I shipped Overcast 4,

01:37:08 ◼   ► it should be out by the time this show is edited

01:37:09 ◼   ► if everything goes well.

01:37:10 ◼   ► Now I have a giant canvas to play with

01:37:14 ◼   ► and now I have a whole UI to rethink.

01:37:16 ◼   ► I haven't really done much of that yet.

01:37:18 ◼   ► I basically just expanded the existing UI

01:37:21 ◼   ► to fill the screen properly because I didn't want to do any redesign work without actually

01:37:26 ◼   ► having it in my hand physically to test with and to see like how does this actually feel,

01:37:31 ◼   ► what can I actually reach, you know, things like that. But I'm looking forward to this

01:37:35 ◼   ► new era of kind of having to rethink everything. It's a ton of work for developers as I mentioned

01:37:41 ◼   ► last week but I think it's going to be really nice when we get there and I'm really looking

01:37:46 ◼   ► forward to having all this real estate on the screen to play with. You know, my

01:37:50 ◼   ► now playing screen can have so many more features now that I have like a tall

01:37:55 ◼   ► skinny aspect ratio. So like I'm looking forward to it both as a developer and as

01:37:59 ◼   ► a user and as a fan of this stuff and I'm happy to see so far that the

01:38:04 ◼   ► reviews, shallow as many of them are, are seemingly universally positive and it

01:38:11 ◼   ► seems like everyone loves face ID, it seems like it's really fast, it seems

01:38:14 ◼   ► like it does, it's not perfect, but it's close enough

01:38:16 ◼   ► and people don't seem to notice it much anymore,

01:38:18 ◼   ► which is awesome.

01:38:19 ◼   ► Overall, I'm very excited.

01:38:21 ◼   ► I'm very happy and thankful I got a day one order in

01:38:25 ◼   ► and I just can't wait to get it.

01:38:27 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm mostly relieved that FaceTime works

01:38:31 ◼   ► as we always hoped it would. - Face ID.

01:38:33 ◼   ► - Sorry, yes, Face ID.

01:38:36 ◼   ► Because that was my big fear, that Face ID would be good,

01:38:41 ◼   ► but just barely under the threshold of annoyance.

01:38:46 ◼   ► And every review I've read so far has said it's fine.

01:38:50 ◼   ► Like it does, it works like Apple says it's supposed to

01:38:53 ◼   ► within the parameters that they set out,

01:38:54 ◼   ► there are no surprises and it feels good to use.

01:38:57 ◼   ► It's different, but as someone who spent a long time

01:39:00 ◼   ► with touch ID phones, you know, we all know

01:39:04 ◼   ► and have internalized the vagaries of touch ID.

01:39:07 ◼   ► No wet fingers, sometimes doesn't get it on the first try

01:39:09 ◼   ► You got to pick up your finger and put it down again.

01:39:12 ◼   ► Every once in a while you get the code thrown in your face.

01:39:16 ◼   ► And we just accept that as the price of living with Touch ID.

01:39:19 ◼   ► Face ID has all the equivalents of that.

01:39:21 ◼   ► It's too far away from me.

01:39:22 ◼   ► There's bright sun.

01:39:24 ◼   ► You know, my identical twin can unlock my phone.

01:39:27 ◼   ► All sorts of things like, yes, every one of these things has inherent problems.

01:39:30 ◼   ► But the videos I've seen about how long it takes to unlock, like people going down and

01:39:37 ◼   ► doing a timing and a stopwatch and everything like that shows me so far, not having used

01:39:41 ◼   ► one of these myself, that it seems like it's under the threshold, like that it's acceptable.

01:39:48 ◼   ► And like Touch ID was in the first iteration, Touch ID in the first iteration was also,

01:39:53 ◼   ► like, you know, it was obviously a vast improvement over typing in code, but it got better in

01:39:57 ◼   ► the second.

01:39:58 ◼   ► So I'm already looking forward to the second one, but the first one, like there's no catastrophic

01:40:02 ◼   ► problem, like, "Oh my goodness, this phone hinges on Face ID, and Face ID is just too

01:40:07 ◼   ► annoying to use, that does not appear to be the case."

01:40:10 ◼   ► So I'm relieved in that case.

01:40:13 ◼   ► And there are a few reviews I've read in full, like Jason's, and I've read some of

01:40:18 ◼   ► Panzareno's, like their take on the phone obviously speaks to me the most because they

01:40:24 ◼   ► come from the same experiences that I do.

01:40:26 ◼   ► But getting back to the PR thing briefly, all those reviews, they're like, "Oh, this

01:40:29 ◼   ► is a shallow review and doesn't tell me anything that I didn't already know. The people who

01:40:33 ◼   ► watch that video don't know all the things that we already know because they didn't pore