ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Did you try that a translucent menu bar thing by the way that I pasted no because I guess you have to don't yet like kill

00:00:05 ◼   ► System UI server to make it take effect and something like that. Yeah, please don't do that while podcasting

00:00:10 ◼   ► over the years

00:00:12 ◼   ► I've come to the conclusion and I think I first heard this from Dan Benjamin and I think Tim for me

00:00:17 ◼   ► He was right about this that it is it is a happier experience for you

00:00:22 ◼   ► whoever you is, if you customize or if you insist on as few customizations to

00:00:28 ◼   ► vanilla Mac OS or iOS as possible. Obviously every one of us, myself included,

00:00:33 ◼   ► has plenty of customizations that you consider critical to me on a new

00:00:38 ◼   ► installation of Mac OS and same with iOS. But I try to choose wisely and I try to

00:00:46 ◼   ► choose things that usually just amount to installing like an app or something

00:00:52 ◼   ► like that. And this is not, I mean, it's a default to right. Like I understand what it

00:00:56 ◼   ► is. It's not hard to do. It's something I am perfectly capable of doing. But the fact

00:01:01 ◼   ► that I didn't even notice that the darn menu bar was translucent until you said something

00:01:04 ◼   ► means, you know what? It's probably just not worth it to worry about it. And I'm okay with

00:01:09 ◼   ► that. I disagree with that philosophy. I understand

00:01:11 ◼   ► it. Like maybe if you're hoteling in a world where you have to use other people's generic

00:01:15 ◼   ► computers all the time that you don't want to customize, but I'm in the opposite camp.

00:01:20 ◼   ► I'm not going to live with some minor annoyance for years and years just because it's like,

00:01:22 ◼   ► oh, if I happen to find myself a stranger's computer, that's a default setup, I'll be

00:01:26 ◼   ► able to do it.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And if I get a new computer, I'll just be able to use that out of the box.

00:01:29 ◼   ► That's not true because migration system has been great for so many years.

00:01:32 ◼   ► People always ask me, do you do a clean install or do you upgrade install?

00:01:35 ◼   ► I upgrade install.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I've been upgrading install forever and Apple's upgrading stalls have historically both on

00:01:41 ◼   ► classic Mac OS and on OS 10 and Mac OS or the hell it's called now have been really

00:01:46 ◼   ► good about keeping all your crap.

00:01:48 ◼   ► And yes, that's why I have like a resource fork based

00:01:51 ◼   ► preference file sitting in my library folder on my Mac.

00:01:54 ◼   ► But it just keeps your settings.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Like I, that's why, you know,

00:01:57 ◼   ► if I ever do set up a new Mac, I'm faced with like,

00:02:00 ◼   ► well, how did I set this up?

00:02:01 ◼   ► Because it's a setting that I changed.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I ran a default to right command like in Panther, right?

00:02:07 ◼   ► And it's still, it's still carrying over, right?

00:02:09 ◼   ► 'Cause the plist file is there and it's just,

00:02:12 ◼   ► that's what I want it.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Like it's such a, you get such bang for your buck out of it.

00:02:16 ◼   ► If you just keep doing upgrade installs,

00:02:18 ◼   ► it'll just carry everything over and it's perfectly fine. It's not like Windows where

00:02:21 ◼   ► you have to wipe out your whole computer. Don't be afraid of the upgrade install. Embrace

00:02:25 ◼   ► it. And there are lots of cool products out there, cool to varying degrees, that will

00:02:31 ◼   ► script your like, "So you got a new Mac. This thing will apply all your settings." But I

00:02:36 ◼   ► felt like all of them, I've looked into a lot of them, some of them are based on Puppet,

00:02:39 ◼   ► which is a little bit scary because Puppet's a little bit wonky. But Google uses one based

00:02:43 ◼   ► on Puppet, I think. But there's all sorts of solutions like that. Even just some people

00:02:46 ◼   ► have a giant shell script that they run that does a bunch of things, but you don't need

00:02:49 ◼   ► any of that if you just do upgrade installs.

00:02:51 ◼   ► So don't be afraid to customize your computer.

00:02:55 ◼   ► It is a good idea to keep a text file around to just remind you what the customizations

00:02:58 ◼   ► are, which is what I did when I got my new Mac at work because I wasn't upgrade installing

00:03:01 ◼   ► from anything, right?

00:03:03 ◼   ► But for your home computers you don't have that problem.

00:03:06 ◼   ► You can use migration assistant connected with ethernet, Wi-Fi, FireWire, I recommend

00:03:10 ◼   ► using the fastest connection possible to bring all your crap over from your old computer

00:03:14 ◼   ► to your new one.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I kind of use both extremes.

00:03:17 ◼   ► I hardly ever upgrade my desktop,

00:03:20 ◼   ► like both hardware and software-wise,

00:03:23 ◼   ► and when I do update to the newest OS on my desktop

00:03:27 ◼   ► or get a new desktop,

00:03:28 ◼   ► I always do upgrade installs or migrations, it's fine.

00:03:32 ◼   ► However, on my laptops,

00:03:34 ◼   ► which I'm buying at increasing frequencies,

00:03:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:37 ◼   ► I almost always do clean installs,

00:03:39 ◼   ► because it's like my secondary system,

00:03:41 ◼   ► Usually I am less careful with what I install on it,

00:03:45 ◼   ► like when I installed that collection of trucks.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I am usually more willing to experiment on it.

00:03:52 ◼   ► So for instance, right now my laptop has High Sierra on it,

00:03:55 ◼   ► my desktop is not.

00:03:57 ◼   ► So my laptop, I'm always doing clean installs.

00:04:00 ◼   ► My laptops, I guess I should say.

00:04:02 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:04:03 ◼   ► And my desktop, I always upgrade.

00:04:05 ◼   ► And I've been carrying over the same installation

00:04:07 ◼   ► on my desktop for a long time now.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I think in my entire time using Macs since 2004,

00:04:14 ◼   ► I think I've done two clean installs on my desktop,

00:04:19 ◼   ► or maybe one.

00:04:21 ◼   ► It's a small number.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And everything else was just upgrades,

00:04:25 ◼   ► and it's been totally fine.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Like Jon, I probably have a lot of clutter

00:04:30 ◼   ► that I could get rid of, but it's also just,

00:04:33 ◼   ► I have so many things set up just the way I like them,

00:04:34 ◼   ► and so many little details here and there,

00:04:36 ◼   ► and I can tell because when I go use

00:04:38 ◼   ► cleanly installed laptop that I have purchased

00:04:40 ◼   ► for this quarter, I can always tell,

00:04:43 ◼   ► "Oh wow, this thing doesn't work right,"

00:04:44 ◼   ► or, "This is kinda not quite there,"

00:04:46 ◼   ► or, "Oh, I wish I had this thing here

00:04:48 ◼   ► "that I have on my desktop setup."

00:04:49 ◼   ► So there are benefits of both, but certainly,

00:04:53 ◼   ► the old, if you're like me and you came

00:04:56 ◼   ► from the Windows world where it was basically

00:05:00 ◼   ► a horrible idea to ever upgrade,

00:05:02 ◼   ► in the Windows world, when I was in it,

00:05:05 ◼   ► you should only ever have done clean installs,

00:05:07 ◼   ► And even when you weren't changing Windows versions,

00:05:11 ◼   ► you should probably do a clean install of your OS

00:05:13 ◼   ► like every six months, which I did.

00:05:15 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:05:16 ◼   ► 'Cause Windows is so bad, at least it was.

00:05:18 ◼   ► I don't know if Windows is any better.

00:05:20 ◼   ► I haven't honestly been a Windows user

00:05:22 ◼   ► in literally 10, 12 years now at least.

00:05:26 ◼   ► So it might be better now,

00:05:28 ◼   ► although one thing Windows doesn't do very well is change.

00:05:32 ◼   ► So we'll see. (laughs)

00:05:34 ◼   ► I'm sure we'll hear in the feedback with that.

00:05:36 ◼   ► But yeah, so I've seen both, and I would say on a Mac,

00:05:39 ◼   ► you don't need to do clean installs for the most part,

00:05:42 ◼   ► almost any time ever.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I only do it on my laptops more as a curiosity

00:05:47 ◼   ► and cleanliness thing and experimentation.

00:05:51 ◼   ► - So you guys should run ls minus tl

00:05:53 ◼   ► tilde slash library slash preferences,

00:05:56 ◼   ► and then look at the last line of output.

00:05:58 ◼   ► - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down.

00:05:59 ◼   ► - Just find the oldest item

00:06:01 ◼   ► in your library preferences folder.

00:06:02 ◼   ► I was just giving you a way to do it.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - 2011 for me.

00:06:06 ◼   ► What's your last item, Casey?

00:06:09 ◼   ► Today, so the last item, December 31st, 1969.

00:06:14 ◼   ► January 18 of 2016, which is when I got the computer.

00:06:17 ◼   ► So that matches my--

00:06:19 ◼   ► Was it a clean install?

00:06:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that matches my recollection,

00:06:21 ◼   ► which is that this was a clean install.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Marco, what is your last item there?

00:06:27 ◼   ► What actually is it?

00:06:27 ◼   ► What preference?

00:06:28 ◼   ► It's a whole bunch of lock files, P-list lock files.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Ah, great.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Yeah, those are great.

00:06:34 ◼   ► leftover from programs that crashed while they were in the middle of locking something

00:06:37 ◼   ► and nothing ever cleaned up the lock files.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's just, you know, it's all like, you know, the com.apple embezzle services,

00:06:42 ◼   ► app store, address book, you know, stuff like that.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Yeah, so I must have done a good job cleaning out the resource-based ones, although BBE

00:06:47 ◼   ► probably still has ones, but I moved a lot of BBE out of stuff to Dropbox, so it's synced

00:06:50 ◼   ► between machines.

00:06:51 ◼   ► That's another preference hack, by the way, if programs support it, you can symlink things

00:06:55 ◼   ► into Dropbox and then your preferences will be the same everywhere you install Dropbox.

00:06:59 ◼   ► But anyway, my bottom item is from 2003, Adobe Registration Database.

00:07:03 ◼   ► I've also got in there folder an Aladdin folder and com.ambrosia.sw.ev_nova.plist.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Lots of good stuff there.

00:07:12 ◼   ► So 2003, and I think I must have gone through and cleaned out a bunch of stuff before this.

00:07:16 ◼   ► So that's how, at the very least, that's how long I've been doing upgrade installs that

00:07:20 ◼   ► have carried over to this exact computer.

00:07:22 ◼   ► In the early days of Mac OS X, things were a little bit sketchier, so I probably lost

00:07:26 ◼   ► a bunch of my folders at various points.

00:07:28 ◼   ► 2004, 2005, if I scroll up, 2006, every year is represented.

00:07:33 ◼   ► The preferences never go away.

00:07:37 ◼   ► So we should start with follow-up, and we have some follow-up with regard to the Google

00:07:40 ◼   ► Pixel.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And we had a handful of people write in various degrees of anger, mostly just emails, about

00:07:48 ◼   ► how we didn't really give Google enough credit.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And this happens every time we talk about Google, and I think some of it is justified.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Like I said, it's not unreasonable for someone to say, "Hey, we don't know Google in and

00:07:59 ◼   ► out like we at least think we know Apple."

00:08:02 ◼   ► But one of the things that we had said, and I think it was me especially, that I thought

00:08:07 ◼   ► it was kind of bogus that my buddy at work could pre-order his, or maybe just straight

00:08:12 ◼   ► up order his, Google Pixel 2 XL maybe?

00:08:18 ◼   ► Whatever it was that he ordered.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Anyway, he ordered it.

00:08:20 ◼   ► It's 40.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Which, by the way, whatever joke you made, what was it?

00:08:24 ◼   ► You said Pixel 210 or something like 10L?

00:08:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:28 ◼   ► That joke was much better than I gave you credit for because it flew right over my head

00:08:30 ◼   ► when it happened.

00:08:31 ◼   ► So I'd like to publicly acknowledge that I missed it on the last episode.

00:08:34 ◼   ► But anyway, I was lamenting that it's a bummer that I have to wake up at three in the morning

00:08:40 ◼   ► to give Apple a whole shed load of my money, which of course I don't have to do, but that's

00:08:44 ◼   ► what I need to do if I want to get it in a timely fashion because I'm an entitled, materialistic

00:08:49 ◼   ► American.

00:08:50 ◼   ► So, Hans Hauer, I hope I pronounced that right, I asked for help, I hope I got that right,

00:08:54 ◼   ► wrote in to say, "You know, Apple launches the iPhone 8 in more than 25 countries and

00:09:00 ◼   ► we'll add dozens more this year. The old Pixel, the original Pixel, so a year ago Pixel, is

00:09:06 ◼   ► still only available in six countries, which I thought was a really interesting point.

00:09:11 ◼   ► So here it is, I'm beaten up on Apple for not really doing the pre-order the way I wanted

00:09:15 ◼   ► it at the time I wanted it. But, you know, this is a really good point, that Apple is

00:09:20 ◼   ► shipping to way more places, and presumably shipping far more phones, than Google is.

00:09:25 ◼   ► And that comes with it some penalty, for lack of a better word, in that it's just harder

00:09:29 ◼   ► to do. Yeah and I mean that also even restricts like what kind of component

00:09:34 ◼   ► choices and manufacturing methods that Apple and materials that Apple can even

00:09:39 ◼   ► use in the iPhone like Apple just makes so many more iPhones than pretty much

00:09:45 ◼   ► anything else in the computer and electronic world that it's it's hard to

00:09:51 ◼   ► even fathom like the the realities of how they need to do this and the

00:09:56 ◼   ► the restrictions it puts on them.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I remember there was a brief rumor

00:10:01 ◼   ► before last year's phone that they were going

00:10:04 ◼   ► to make one out of ceramic.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And a few people with knowledge of that business

00:10:09 ◼   ► basically said there isn't enough ceramic making capacity

00:10:14 ◼   ► in the world to satisfy that.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Even if they bought every machine that exists

00:10:20 ◼   ► to do this in the world, it wouldn't be enough capacity.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And so what Apple has to do at their scale

00:10:26 ◼   ► is so unlike what most companies have to worry about.

00:10:29 ◼   ► 'Cause not only do they have to make a lot of them,

00:10:33 ◼   ► but they have to make a lot of them quickly

00:10:35 ◼   ► and all over the world.

00:10:36 ◼   ► This is not easy.

00:10:38 ◼   ► And so it's almost impossible to compare anything else

00:10:43 ◼   ► to what Apple does with the iPhone.

00:10:45 ◼   ► But anyway, the feedback we got about

00:10:49 ◼   ► mostly my dismissing remarks about Google Pixel,

00:10:52 ◼   ► 'cause my position basically was like,

00:10:55 ◼   ► It's interesting and every time a Google phone comes out,

00:10:58 ◼   ► all the reviewers say, "Wow, this is really great."

00:11:01 ◼   ► And then they just abandon it like two weeks later

00:11:03 ◼   ► for the next Samsung thing.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Or they go back to their iPhones if they were iPhone people.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Most of the feedback we got didn't really contradict that.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It was more like, "You're wrong because I like it."

00:11:15 ◼   ► And that's fine. (laughing)

00:11:17 ◼   ► I'm not saying that nobody likes the Pixel,

00:11:20 ◼   ► but that it's not a,

00:11:21 ◼   ► that the Google phones are not mass market devices.

00:11:25 ◼   ► And I hope someday they will become mass market devices

00:11:28 ◼   ► because as I said last episode,

00:11:30 ◼   ► when Apple has really good competition, Apple does better.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And even though I don't have any interest

00:11:35 ◼   ► in switching to Android,

00:11:36 ◼   ► I want there to be amazing Android phones

00:11:39 ◼   ► that keep pushing Apple to make the phones I use better.

00:11:42 ◼   ► But the Google Pixel and former Nexus series,

00:11:46 ◼   ► they just don't sell in enough volume

00:11:48 ◼   ► to really make Apple have to worry about really anything.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So again, I hope that changes over time,

00:11:54 ◼   ► but that is still the reality.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:11:58 ◼   ► Also in the Google camp, Josh Lamkin writes,

00:12:01 ◼   ► and he wrote an email describing kind of the repair process

00:12:04 ◼   ► because I think he took issue with the fact

00:12:07 ◼   ► that one of the things that, it might have been Marco,

00:12:08 ◼   ► but one of us said, was that,

00:12:10 ◼   ► "Hey, you know, Apple has all this retail presence

00:12:12 ◼   ► "and Google doesn't have that,

00:12:13 ◼   ► "and that's an advantage for Apple,"

00:12:15 ◼   ► which, as much as we all lament

00:12:17 ◼   ► the time it takes to get a Genius Bar appointment, I still stand by what Marco said. But Josh

00:12:22 ◼   ► writes in and said, in summary, that if he needs to get a repair done on his Pixel phone,

00:12:29 ◼   ► the repair is an overnighted replacement unit with a box for your existing phone, and it's

00:12:34 ◼   ► all done online. And he said, "I usually have my replace an Android device before my usual

00:12:39 ◼   ► Geek Bar appointment would be." So in other words, if he has a problem, he, I guess on

00:12:44 ◼   ► the phone if possible and if not on the web he goes and reports an issue and ends up talking

00:12:48 ◼   ► like live chatting with a Google representative and if they confirm that it's a legitimate problem

00:12:53 ◼   ► they will overnight him a new phone or presumably a refurbished phone so it will be there the

00:12:57 ◼   ► following day and and he takes that box puts his existing phone in it ships it back and that's it

00:13:04 ◼   ► job done and you know what that sounds pretty freaking great to me it's not as quick as you

00:13:10 ◼   ► you know, going into the Apple store

00:13:11 ◼   ► and getting a screen replaced in the span of two hours,

00:13:14 ◼   ► but that's pretty good for a company

00:13:17 ◼   ► that has pretty much zero retail presence.

00:13:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, gotta give them credit, that is a good setup.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I still think Apple is way ahead of them on so many levels

00:13:24 ◼   ► by having physical stores, but that is better

00:13:27 ◼   ► than I expected Google's process to be,

00:13:29 ◼   ► because in the past, not even that distant past,

00:13:33 ◼   ► dealing with them for any kind of directly purchased

00:13:35 ◼   ► electronic device was a nightmare.

00:13:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:13:39 ◼   ► I just want to add that like an old man playing World of Warcraft on an iMac and a Panera

00:13:43 ◼   ► bread, I have nothing to apologize for.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Oh my word.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Because I did not make this unfounded disparaging remarks about Google because I've never had

00:13:51 ◼   ► a Google phone.

00:13:52 ◼   ► The only thing that I would have added to that conversation about Google if I had anything

00:13:55 ◼   ► to add, which I always said I didn't feel like I did, was my impression of the Nexus

00:13:59 ◼   ► line, and this was echoed by a couple of people who sent feedback, was like, I don't know

00:14:03 ◼   ► if Google's not trying to make a mass market phone or this is just their excuse, but it

00:14:07 ◼   ► always like, "This is what you could do with our operating system if you made a cool phone.

00:14:12 ◼   ► Now everybody else who uses our operating system, go make cool phones like this." It's

00:14:17 ◼   ► like the exemplar. Like, they don't expect to sell a whole bunch of them. That's why

00:14:21 ◼   ► it's only for sale in six countries. It's just kind of like showing the way to other

00:14:24 ◼   ► people. Kind of like reference designs from video card makers or whatever. Maybe not quite

00:14:28 ◼   ► the same thing because they're not just giving that design to other people. But I don't know

00:14:31 ◼   ► if that's actually true or if that's just something they say when they don't sell a

00:14:34 ◼   ► lot of them but yeah. Indeed. So I feel like I need a moment to get something

00:14:42 ◼   ► off my chest and that's something that something relates to you guessed it

00:14:47 ◼   ► cellular Apple Watch service fees. Oh really? Oh yes it does. We're giving more time to this?

00:14:54 ◼   ► We are giving more time to this and you know why? They even charge him tax and

00:14:58 ◼   ► additional fees. Oh yeah I read about this. That's that is the executive summary.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, that is that is the executive summary

00:15:07 ◼   ► But I have received my first bill since I have activated my cellular Apple watch

00:15:11 ◼   ► My $10 a month service, which I knew would not be 10, but I was hoping

00:15:17 ◼   ► ignorantly and

00:15:19 ◼   ► Naively, so I was hoping would be not too much more than $10 a month

00:15:22 ◼   ► Would you two if you've not already clicked the link in the show notes?

00:15:26 ◼   ► Would you like to guess how much my $10 a month services? Is it like 12 or 13?

00:15:31 ◼   ► 17 dollars.

00:15:32 ◼   ► John, did you look at the show notes because it is 17 dollars and 40 cents.

00:15:37 ◼   ► So the monthly plan charges is 10 dollars.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And I will put an image in the show notes for the episode.

00:15:43 ◼   ► Is there a convenience fee?

00:15:45 ◼   ► Like when you buy tickets online, movie tickets online?

00:15:47 ◼   ► The breakdown is, very quickly, 10 dollars for the watch, administrative fee 76 cents,

00:15:53 ◼   ► federal universal service charge 2 dollars and 42 cents, regulatory cost recovery charge

00:15:58 ◼   ► $1.25, and Virginia equipment tax recoupment, 7 cents. Delightful.

00:16:05 ◼   ► Oh, and then not to mention the government taxes and fees.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Well, I think that is everything. I think that the Federal Universal Service Charge

00:16:10 ◼   ► is that, the $2.42.

00:16:12 ◼   ► No, but what about the government taxes and fees, the $2.90, Virginia wireless E911, and

00:16:17 ◼   ► Virginia communications sales tax?

00:16:18 ◼   ► Oh, I didn't scroll down. My mistake. I didn't scroll down on my own image. My mistake. Yes,

00:16:23 ◼   ► You're exactly right.

00:16:24 ◼   ► $2.90, of which 75 cents is Virginia wireless C911, and $2.15 is Virginia communications

00:16:30 ◼   ► sales tax.

00:16:31 ◼   ► My mistake.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Yeah, so you actually are $1740.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Wow.

00:16:34 ◼   ► There you go.

00:16:35 ◼   ► What kind of tiny size do you have your web browser window that you had to scroll to see

00:16:39 ◼   ► the bottom of this image?

00:16:40 ◼   ► This is the real question.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Is your web browser like a tiny slit, like the window on a – the Challenger?

00:16:45 ◼   ► Wow.

00:16:46 ◼   ► No, because – all right.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Well, now we're going to have to go down this road.

00:16:51 ◼   ► A glimpse into Casey's life. All his web browser windows are one inch tall.

00:16:55 ◼   ► I'm not sure you want to talk about crazy window setups, John.

00:16:58 ◼   ► No, as I'm saying, minor proportion like sheets of paper,

00:17:01 ◼   ► because that's the same proportion for a web browser window.

00:17:03 ◼   ► So only when I record this show, only when I record this show.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So I have four panes on my single virtual desktop. So I don't really bother with my spaces,

00:17:15 ◼   ► as I usually do when I'm typically using the computer.

00:17:17 ◼   ► In the upper left hand corner is Skype.

00:17:20 ◼   ► In the upper right hand corner, taking up approximately a quarter of the screen, is

00:17:23 ◼   ► my web browser.

00:17:24 ◼   ► In the bottom, which by the way is Chrome only because I use Google Docs here.

00:17:28 ◼   ► Generally speaking I never touch Chrome.

00:17:29 ◼   ► The bottom right hand corner is Visual Studio Code to work on the show notes.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And the bottom left hand corner is Call of Quay, which is how I get on the chat room.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So it is effectively divided into four quarters, and this is on my 5K iMac, and so this particular

00:17:44 ◼   ► window was about a quarter of the screen.

00:17:47 ◼   ► and it was just barely not enough to see that last section.

00:17:51 ◼   ► - This is an incredibly inefficient use of space.

00:17:53 ◼   ► - You're using Windows wrong.

00:17:56 ◼   ► I love that call recorder jammed it to the little.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's actually kind of perfect.

00:18:00 ◼   ► But no, this is an incredibly poor use of space.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Like, first of all--

00:18:04 ◼   ► - I don't like things overlapping when I'm recording.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - The sidebar on the Coliquy window, come on.

00:18:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't need Skype to be that big.

00:18:10 ◼   ► You don't need Coliquy to be anywhere near that big.

00:18:12 ◼   ► - The Skype window is as small as I can possibly make it.

00:18:14 ◼   ► I wish I could make it smaller,

00:18:15 ◼   ► you know, Skype being Skype, it has like,

00:18:17 ◼   ► nope, you can never make it a reasonable size.

00:18:19 ◼   ► This is as small as it ever gets.

00:18:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and your text editor window,

00:18:23 ◼   ► like that's a terrible aspect ratio for writing notes.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Like I would, like the portrait orientation sheet of paper

00:18:30 ◼   ► aspect ratio is way better for text editors.

00:18:32 ◼   ► - Like look at, I love all the white space

00:18:34 ◼   ► and his browser windows have the huge margins left and right

00:18:36 ◼   ► but it cuts off on the thing.

00:18:37 ◼   ► Anyway, stop tiling your windows.

00:18:39 ◼   ► - That's amazing.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - This is only for when I record you big jerks.

00:18:44 ◼   ► How many S's do you have in your menu bar there?

00:18:47 ◼   ► I'm like, all right, so you got a lot of icons?

00:18:48 ◼   ► Why are there three S's?

00:18:49 ◼   ► Four, four S's, one of them is way over on the right.

00:18:52 ◼   ► - Wow. - It's like the worst wall.

00:18:53 ◼   ► - It's even worse.

00:18:54 ◼   ► It's even worse. - Those are dollar signs.

00:18:56 ◼   ► - Are they?

00:18:57 ◼   ► I can't, I gotta zoom in.

00:18:58 ◼   ► - You're really raking in the dough there in your menu bar.

00:19:00 ◼   ► You got three dollar signs?

00:19:01 ◼   ► Wait, does that mean your menu bar is expensive?

00:19:03 ◼   ► Like on Yelp and stuff?

00:19:04 ◼   ► - Sort of. - Oh, I see it now.

00:19:05 ◼   ► 100%, I can see it. - Oh no, there's four.

00:19:06 ◼   ► There's a fourth that's over there.

00:19:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, they're hiding.

00:19:09 ◼   ► - Do you wanna know what it is?

00:19:11 ◼   ► What's the little pinwheel next to Dropbox?

00:19:13 ◼   ► Hold on one step at a time.

00:19:15 ◼   ► All right, the S is--

00:19:15 ◼   ► Why do you have Siri enabled at all,

00:19:17 ◼   ► but it's all the way over there?

00:19:18 ◼   ► For the love of God, people, can you give me a chance

00:19:20 ◼   ► to reply to any of this?

00:19:22 ◼   ► The one car icon is just randomly placed

00:19:24 ◼   ► in the middle of everything else.

00:19:27 ◼   ► Give me a chance.

00:19:28 ◼   ► My menu bar is a disaster on this machine.

00:19:30 ◼   ► I'll be the first to admit it.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I will be the first to admit it.

00:19:33 ◼   ► The dollar signs are because I have installed the most

00:19:36 ◼   ► recent version of iStat menus, but apparently never entered

00:19:40 ◼   ► my registration information. And so it is then said, "Give me money," apparently.

00:19:46 ◼   ► So how long has that been that way?

00:19:48 ◼   ► I don't know. For maybe a few days, maybe a week.

00:19:51 ◼   ► So all the benefit you're getting from iStat Menus. I need to keep an eye on my dollar

00:19:55 ◼   ► signs. Keep his mind on his money and his money on his mind.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Who's saying that? Oh my God, who's saying that? I'm drawing a blank.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Snoop Dogg, Get In Juice.

00:20:06 ◼   ► I don't recall. You're probably right.

00:20:08 ◼   ► I just put my updated menu bar in the robot,

00:20:11 ◼   ► and I'm sorry, live listeners.

00:20:13 ◼   ► I will be the first to tell you it is not good.

00:20:14 ◼   ► It is not good, and it is just plain not good,

00:20:18 ◼   ► and I am embarrassed by it.

00:20:20 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

00:20:21 ◼   ► - Especially because I'm a devout,

00:20:22 ◼   ► as few things in the menu bar.

00:20:24 ◼   ► I can get Siri out of the menu bar?

00:20:26 ◼   ► I need to do that.

00:20:27 ◼   ► - Fuzzy clock, come on.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - Oh, fuzzy clock.

00:20:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:30 ◼   ► Wait, can I get Siri out of the menu bar?

00:20:33 ◼   ► I gotta do that.

00:20:34 ◼   ► - And do you have a translucent menu bar too?

00:20:36 ◼   ► - No, I do.

00:20:37 ◼   ► - You do. - I think I do.

00:20:38 ◼   ► - You definitely do.

00:20:39 ◼   ► - Oh, that cannot be.

00:20:41 ◼   ► - I didn't even know that was still a feature.

00:20:43 ◼   ► - Let's play a new game.

00:20:44 ◼   ► What won't Casey notice about his computer?

00:20:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:48 ◼   ► - Dollar signs at my translucent menu bar.

00:20:50 ◼   ► Everything's fine.

00:20:51 ◼   ► It's half past nine.

00:20:53 ◼   ► - I did know about the dollar signs.

00:20:59 ◼   ► Is my menu bar really translucent?

00:21:00 ◼   ► - Yes, that's the yellow background

00:21:03 ◼   ► of the leaves or whatever.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Honestly, I was going through my file

00:21:09 ◼   ► full of like a P-list hack commands

00:21:12 ◼   ► for undocumented stuff, like turn off window animations.

00:21:14 ◼   ► And I saw the one about the translucent menu bar.

00:21:16 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, I'm glad that feature

00:21:17 ◼   ► isn't in Mac OS X anymore.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Or Mac OS whatever it's called.

00:21:19 ◼   ► - Where do you turn this off?

00:21:20 ◼   ► I want this off now.

00:21:21 ◼   ► - I honestly thought it wasn't there anymore,

00:21:22 ◼   ► but apparently it is.

00:21:23 ◼   ► And just like my P-list setting

00:21:25 ◼   ► has been surviving multiple OS updates.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Or maybe it's a checkbox now.

00:21:29 ◼   ► - Where is this?

00:21:29 ◼   ► - I think it's actually a GUI.

00:21:31 ◼   ► I think it's in the display panel?

00:21:33 ◼   ► - We'll figure, I'll figure it out.

00:21:34 ◼   ► We'll do some real-time follow-up in three hours

00:21:37 ◼   ► when I finally figure out where the hell it is.

00:21:39 ◼   ► Aye yai yai yai yai.

00:21:41 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:21:42 ◼   ► - That's all right.

00:21:42 ◼   ► So anyway, suffice it to say,

00:21:45 ◼   ► never ever ever talk about your setup

00:21:47 ◼   ► with these two numbskulls,

00:21:48 ◼   ► because it's not good. (laughing)

00:21:50 ◼   ► It's just not smart.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Oh my word, I can't find this.

00:21:54 ◼   ► This is driving me bananas.

00:21:55 ◼   ► Where is it?

00:21:56 ◼   ► - You might have to do the defaults right whatever thing.

00:22:00 ◼   ► So in summary, I pay too much for my Apple Watch

00:22:02 ◼   ► and it makes me sad.

00:22:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:22:05 ◼   ► So I was totally railing against you that complaining

00:22:08 ◼   ► about $10 a month to the degree that you complained

00:22:11 ◼   ► about it was unnecessary.

00:22:14 ◼   ► However, it was still like, I still agree

00:22:17 ◼   ► that that is a little more than what it should cost.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I just didn't think it was worth complaining

00:22:22 ◼   ► as much as you did and not getting it as a result.

00:22:24 ◼   ► However, $17 a month really, which is what this really is,

00:22:29 ◼   ► that's a different story, that's really pushing it.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It is not worth that for almost anybody,

00:22:36 ◼   ► which is unfortunate.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I don't know, because, so it's basically being treated

00:22:41 ◼   ► as a separate line by the cellular bills,

00:22:45 ◼   ► taxing and regulation system.

00:22:48 ◼   ► And I don't know if it's possible,

00:22:50 ◼   ► 'cause because you have number sync,

00:22:53 ◼   ► even though the watch does technically have its own number,

00:22:56 ◼   ► It's the same way like my iPad has its own phone number

00:22:59 ◼   ► assigned to it when I activated it with cellular,

00:23:01 ◼   ► but you can't call it, you can't do anything

00:23:03 ◼   ► with that phone number.

00:23:04 ◼   ► It's just like an implementation detail

00:23:06 ◼   ► of something having cellular service,

00:23:07 ◼   ► but it shouldn't be treated the same way

00:23:09 ◼   ► as like a regular phone line is.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And so maybe the watch is being misclassified,

00:23:16 ◼   ► maybe it's temporary, I don't know, but that's messed up.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Like to have, for a $10 fee, to have another $7 in taxes

00:23:25 ◼   ► BS on top of that, that's BS.

00:23:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, and by the way, a quick, not real-time follow-up,

00:23:33 ◼   ► but a quick follow-up.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I found on my AT&T bill that there is, to your point, Marco,

00:23:40 ◼   ► an actual phone number listed there.

00:23:43 ◼   ► And it occurred to me, I bet I could call that number.

00:23:47 ◼   ► And I feel like I had heard on a podcast somewhere,

00:23:49 ◼   ► maybe it was Mike, somebody had talked about this.

00:23:51 ◼   ► And so I turned off Bluetooth on my phone

00:23:54 ◼   ► and then used my cell phone to dial my Apple Watch.

00:23:58 ◼   ► And once it realized the phone wasn't there

00:24:01 ◼   ► and it fell back onto cellular,

00:24:03 ◼   ► sure enough, I could dial this unique number

00:24:06 ◼   ► that's unique to my Apple Watch,

00:24:08 ◼   ► and it rang no problem,

00:24:10 ◼   ► which is exactly what I expected, but just kind of funky.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Like, it makes sense.

00:24:13 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's bad or wrong or anything,

00:24:15 ◼   ► but it's kind of weird and kind of funny

00:24:16 ◼   ► that it worked that way.

00:24:18 ◼   ► - No, that is bad and wrong.

00:24:19 ◼   ► That means it's gonna get robocalls.

00:24:21 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

00:24:23 ◼   ► It very well may.

00:24:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's terrible actually.

00:24:25 ◼   ► - Now, but, but, but on the plus side,

00:24:28 ◼   ► the only way that would happen is if it actually

00:24:29 ◼   ► has the cellular radio on, which only happens

00:24:32 ◼   ► when it's away from the phone, which for me,

00:24:34 ◼   ► only happens once or twice a day.

00:24:36 ◼   ► - You can get robocalls during the time

00:24:39 ◼   ► when you really want to be like focused on your exercise

00:24:42 ◼   ► or whatever else, or focused on your kid in the park.

00:24:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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00:26:23 ◼   ► So hopefully cheer me up one of you and tell me about Sonos, which I don't care about,

00:26:26 ◼   ► and Google Assistant, which I also don't care about.

00:26:28 ◼   ► We missed this last week when we talked about it, Sonos integrating with Amazon and what

00:26:32 ◼   ► was the deal with them, you doing the Alexa stuff.

00:26:35 ◼   ► Sonos is apparently trying to be the hardware platform that is host to anybody who has a

00:26:45 ◼   ► software thing that you can talk to.

00:26:47 ◼   ► So Google Assistant is another software thing you can talk to and Sonos is apparently integrating

00:26:51 ◼   ► with them.

00:26:52 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how it works.

00:26:53 ◼   ► You buy a Sonos thing, do you get to say, "Do you want to talk to the Amazon Personal

00:26:58 ◼   ► Assistant voice thingy or do you want to talk to the Google one?"

00:27:00 ◼   ► Or do you pick when you buy it, like an old Verizon iPhone versus AT&T iPhone thing?

00:27:05 ◼   ► I don't know the details, but this kind of changes, well, it doesn't change, but like

00:27:10 ◼   ► I'm trying to get some new perspective on Sonos and the combination of Amazon and who's

00:27:17 ◼   ► coming out ahead in this deal and what the strategies are. And there's two parts

00:27:21 ◼   ► of this. One is that the some of the people with voice assistants, certainly

00:27:26 ◼   ► Amazon but maybe also Google, we'll see, seem to be initially pursuing the

00:27:31 ◼   ► strategy of "we want our voice thing everywhere" is apparently available on an

00:27:36 ◼   ► anchor product too. ANKER, the people who make like the chargers and stuff. And

00:27:41 ◼   ► And various times Amazon has talked about

00:27:44 ◼   ► spreading their voice thingy everywhere.

00:27:48 ◼   ► If you have a thing that with microphones

00:27:51 ◼   ► that you can talk to

00:27:52 ◼   ► and you wanna do a business deal with them,

00:27:53 ◼   ► they'll connect it up to Amazon

00:27:55 ◼   ► because now you got our paper towels

00:27:57 ◼   ► through your whatever because you talk to it, right?

00:28:00 ◼   ► So that's one way you can go.

00:28:01 ◼   ► It's kind of like the windows everywhere strategy

00:28:04 ◼   ► of, you know, we, you know, just think of Amazon

00:28:08 ◼   ► for the most part with its,

00:28:11 ◼   ► where can I watch Amazon video?

00:28:12 ◼   ► Most televisions you buy will have it built in,

00:28:14 ◼   ► just like Netflix.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Most boxes you buy will have it built in,

00:28:19 ◼   ► except for Apple's because of a grudge match thing

00:28:21 ◼   ► going on there.

00:28:22 ◼   ► And they'll put their voice assistant on hardware products

00:28:26 ◼   ► that are not made by them, whether it's Somnos or Anker

00:28:28 ◼   ► or probably anybody else who will do whatever deal.

00:28:32 ◼   ► I think their ideal future is wherever you are

00:28:34 ◼   ► in the entire world, you can just yell out the name

00:28:36 ◼   ► of that voice assistant that I'm trying to avoid saying

00:28:38 ◼   ► and order paper towels.

00:28:40 ◼   ► and it'll figure out who you are and send them to people.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Easy ways to send Amazon your money, it's great, right?

00:28:46 ◼   ► And Google Assistant, being on Sonos,

00:28:48 ◼   ► I don't know if Google is spreading its assistant

00:28:50 ◼   ► far and wide, but being on Sonos as well,

00:28:54 ◼   ► it's like, okay, well, we're not going to say,

00:28:56 ◼   ► if you want to talk to the Google Assistant,

00:28:57 ◼   ► you have to buy an Android phone or Google Home.

00:29:00 ◼   ► You can talk to the Google Assistant

00:29:02 ◼   ► through your Sonos speaker at the very least

00:29:03 ◼   ► and possibly other places as well.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And on the other side of that, if you're Sonos,

00:29:09 ◼   ► their strategy seems to be like, we make great hardware and we have, you know, the wireless communication stuff and an iOS app or whatever to do multi-room audio and all the stuff that we do.

00:29:21 ◼   ► We don't do an assistant, but we're not going to tell you which assistant you have to use. We're not going to say we believe the one and only true assistant is the Amazon one.

00:29:29 ◼   ► And that's it. That's like if you have an assistant that you want to talk to through our speaker, let's do a deal.

00:29:35 ◼   ► And I guess they'll let the customers decide.

00:29:38 ◼   ► And when I think of, you know, if the Amazon strategy is Alexa everywhere,

00:29:43 ◼   ► when I think of the Sonos strategy, I feel like, are you trying to be the hardware makers in the PC

00:29:48 ◼   ► age where Windows is everywhere and then Microsoft doesn't really care who is licensing Windows for

00:29:54 ◼   ► their hardware? Just let the hardware people fight it out and then you'll just be marginalized and be

00:29:58 ◼   ► fighting over raises and margins against everyone else who makes a speaker that has Amazon or Google

00:30:03 ◼   ► assistant integrated. The difference here of course is that no voice assistant is as dominant as

00:30:10 ◼   ► Windows was. If that changes then yeah the hardware people are in a bad position because I feel like

00:30:14 ◼   ► most of the value is in the thing that you talk to especially if the thing that you talk to

00:30:18 ◼   ► buys you things from like the store that one of the people runs. And then way off to the side

00:30:26 ◼   ► lest anyone forget is Apple who doesn't really have an Amazon Video TV app still right we're

00:30:32 ◼   ► We're still waiting for that. I keep yep. I don't really check them, right?

00:30:34 ◼   ► So Amazon is kind of being mean to them about that because they're everywhere else

00:30:40 ◼   ► They have a speaker thingy

00:30:42 ◼   ► But it hasn't even shipped yet when it does ship you can be sure that it will not support Google assistant or Amazon's

00:30:48 ◼   ► you know voice stuff right and

00:30:50 ◼   ► So far it doesn't seem like Apple is all about putting Siri everywhere

00:30:57 ◼   ► Will my next television has Siri built in can I buy an anchor puck for $35 at a Siri built in I'm thinking no

00:31:03 ◼   ► so some very different strategies in the early age of cylinders that you talk to and

00:31:09 ◼   ► To wrap all this up our friend Stephen Hackett had a nice post about his smart speaker conundrum

00:31:16 ◼   ► And I think it is similar to a lot of tech nerdy people who may have

00:31:22 ◼   ► May I may have gone in too deep with like too much different stuff like well my light bulbs speak this but I like Apple stuff

00:31:29 ◼   ► But I subscribe to Google Play music, but I have you know, it gets very confusing very fast

00:31:35 ◼   ► It's a sharp blog post. You should read it. But just to get an idea of the choices that you have to make about

00:31:40 ◼   ► What sort of Internet of Things?

00:31:43 ◼   ► Hardware products you buy what software services you pay for and can they all talk to each other and work together and how you figure?

00:31:48 ◼   ► out

00:31:49 ◼   ► How to make your next purchase do I continue to go down the road that I was going down before with a bunch of Amazon things

00:31:55 ◼   ► Do I ditch everything and go to an all-apple world? But what about the Sonos?

00:31:58 ◼   ► Even Marco who's mostly dedicated the Amazon thing is kind of in that situation because you were saying

00:32:03 ◼   ► You know, do I have to buy a sonus thing or maybe if the sonos will just my existing

00:32:10 ◼   ► Echo products will talk to my existing sonos

00:32:14 ◼   ► What do I do or do I switch over to be completely sonos and get rid of the echoes?

00:32:17 ◼   ► because why do I need them if the Sonos all have smarter things in them, but can the Sonos

00:32:21 ◼   ► thing talk to my light bulbs? I don't know. I'm kind of glad I'm out of this market for

00:32:27 ◼   ► the most part, other than having a cylinder that I can talk to. But it doesn't... Things

00:32:32 ◼   ► don't look smooth over there, is all I can say.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, this is... And first of all, some quick follow-up. Well, some half follow-up.

00:32:40 ◼   ► Last episode, I had questioned whether it was possible to just set up your Amazon Echo

00:32:46 ◼   ► devices to talk to existing Sonos devices without having the new Sonos 1? The answer

00:32:50 ◼   ► is yes, that I set it up tonight. However, I didn't actually test it out because I was

00:32:55 ◼   ► too busy playing Stardew Valley all night. But I will add to this discussion that for

00:33:03 ◼   ► just general kind of buying advice or guiding people for what to do while all this stuff

00:33:09 ◼   ► is getting all crazy like this, as much as possible, get things that speak multiple languages

00:33:15 ◼   ► basically, like, you know, the Sonos,

00:33:18 ◼   ► if Sonos ends up really pulling this off in a big way,

00:33:22 ◼   ► like if they really do have AirPlay 2 support,

00:33:25 ◼   ► which is not having Siri built in,

00:33:27 ◼   ► but having AirPlay 2 will allow it even better integration

00:33:30 ◼   ► with the Apple ecosystem, so if they pull off AirPlay 2,

00:33:34 ◼   ► which they promise for next year,

00:33:36 ◼   ► if they pull off the Google Assistant,

00:33:37 ◼   ► which they also promise, I believe, for next year,

00:33:39 ◼   ► or is that immediate, do you remember?

00:33:40 ◼   ► Anyway, they're adding Google Assistant sometime soon,

00:33:44 ◼   ► And right now there are a few weird little asterisks

00:33:46 ◼   ► about voice control.

00:33:49 ◼   ► So basically, with Sonos you can't access Spotify

00:33:53 ◼   ► through voice control, even though the Echo products can.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And you can't access Apple Music through voice control,

00:34:01 ◼   ► even though the Sonos products can.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So there's all these little weird exceptions to like,

00:34:06 ◼   ► well it can do mostly everything,

00:34:08 ◼   ► except it can't do this little exception.

00:34:10 ◼   ► It can't do this little exception.

00:34:11 ◼   ► It's kinda like USB-C.

00:34:13 ◼   ► But anyways, all these little exceptions.

00:34:16 ◼   ► So it's hard to say for sure, like,

00:34:18 ◼   ► you know, this device or this device can do everything.

00:34:21 ◼   ► But it sure does look like, you know,

00:34:23 ◼   ► Google is never gonna integrate anything.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Like, Google's never gonna have Siri

00:34:28 ◼   ► or AirPlay 2 from Apple.

00:34:29 ◼   ► They're never gonna have probably the Amazon Assistant

00:34:33 ◼   ► or the kind of integrations Amazon has.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Amazon's also never gonna have the stuff from Apple,

00:34:38 ◼   ► but will also never do the Google Assistant.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Sonos is probably set up so far with the things we know

00:34:45 ◼   ► to have the most support from the most places,

00:34:48 ◼   ► which is why it's interesting,

00:34:49 ◼   ► even though it has those weird little exceptions to things.

00:34:52 ◼   ► And when you're buying products like smart home stuff,

00:34:56 ◼   ► these days it's not that hard to find stuff

00:34:59 ◼   ► that supports both HomeKit and the Amazon devices,

00:35:04 ◼   ► so you might as well do that when you can.

00:35:06 ◼   ► But all this stuff is so, so early

00:35:09 ◼   ► that it's still advisable to just wait

00:35:13 ◼   ► on almost all this stuff, even though it's fun.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Like, if you are averse to having to replace

00:35:20 ◼   ► some of the gear you buy now in a year or two

00:35:23 ◼   ► when standards change or when you wanna change ecosystems

00:35:26 ◼   ► or when some ecosystem cuts off some other ecosystem

00:35:29 ◼   ► that used to be integrated, if you're averse to that,

00:35:31 ◼   ► just don't buy anything yet.

00:35:33 ◼   ► If you do jump in now, be prepared for that possibility.

00:35:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, in some respects, they're saying like,

00:35:38 ◼   ► Apple's just off there in the corner, like with its proprietary stuff that it's never

00:35:42 ◼   ► going to mix with anybody else and that it hasn't even shipped its very first cylinder

00:35:45 ◼   ► and who knows how good it will even be.

00:35:47 ◼   ► And meanwhile everyone else is on their second or third iteration and has this big ecosystem

00:35:51 ◼   ► and lots of users and stuff.

00:35:52 ◼   ► But on the other hand the advantage that Apple still has, because there is still no dominant,

00:35:57 ◼   ► really dominant player in this market on the hardware or software side at this point, except

00:36:01 ◼   ► for I guess maybe Amazon but I don't think they ever tell us what they sell, is that

00:36:05 ◼   ► If you do go all Apple, you subscribe to Apple Music, you buy Apple stuff, you buy the Apple

00:36:09 ◼   ► HomePod, you have AirPlay support and all your things, you have Apple TVs everywhere,

00:36:14 ◼   ► at least you can be sure all that stuff works together.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Whereas I guess Google, if you have an Android phone and a home thing, you're kind of in

00:36:22 ◼   ► the same situation, but Amazon doesn't have a desktop/laptop operating system.

00:36:29 ◼   ► They have a tablet OS, but I don't know if you're really going to buy that tablet.

00:36:33 ◼   ► They don't have a phone anymore, right?

00:36:34 ◼   ► I don't sell the Fire phone like that. No one has as complete an ecosystem as Apple and

00:36:39 ◼   ► so no one can offer the type of just buy everything from us and your whole life from your computer to your phone to your

00:36:46 ◼   ► Television to your to your weird cylinder speaker that you talk to well and subscribe to our music service. We'll all work together

00:36:52 ◼   ► They've got the biggest picture

00:36:54 ◼   ► I suppose Google does too if you count like the Google the weird Google laptops and the Chromebooks and stuff as well

00:36:59 ◼   ► I'd like to not to count those

00:37:01 ◼   ► so

00:37:02 ◼   ► If you had money to burn and you wanted to make sure you had a system that all worked together

00:37:06 ◼   ► that would be one way to go assuming Apple actually shipped that stuff and it was any good but I

00:37:10 ◼   ► Don't see how that can hold long term. I

00:37:14 ◼   ► you know the and

00:37:17 ◼   ► If Apple just wants the high end and if some of this isn't successful then maybe they can get that but I hope eventually

00:37:22 ◼   ► Standards start to emerge and coalesce and it's it becomes more clear

00:37:28 ◼   ► What the safe approach is what you can you buy and have some reasonable chance that it will be useful for a long time

00:37:33 ◼   ► But like Margo said right now there is nothing that's the case for if you want to buy and play with it

00:37:36 ◼   ► It's cool and it's fun fine

00:37:37 ◼   ► But don't buy it and then two years be all annoyed because you have to replace half of it or you know

00:37:42 ◼   ► It becomes obsolete or doesn't work with your new new light bulbs or whatever. I

00:37:45 ◼   ► am also I'm

00:37:48 ◼   ► increasingly concerned about Apple's chances to really make a dent in this market because at you know as everyone else progresses and

00:37:56 ◼   ► advances so quickly.

00:37:58 ◼   ► The possible advantages Apple has keep getting,

00:38:03 ◼   ► I think that list keeps getting shorter

00:38:06 ◼   ► and that on the main factors of the reasons

00:38:09 ◼   ► why people buy and use these things,

00:38:11 ◼   ► I am increasingly concerned about Apple's competitiveness.

00:38:14 ◼   ► So for instance, not only my previous concerns

00:38:17 ◼   ► about things like price, connectivity,

00:38:21 ◼   ► and the quality of Siri and the consistency of Siri

00:38:25 ◼   ► to react quickly and correctly to as many queries as possible. I'm increasingly concerned

00:38:31 ◼   ► that if having a large ecosystem of compatible, you know, Internet of Things things, you know,

00:38:38 ◼   ► if that's important or if interoperability with anything else, with any of these other

00:38:43 ◼   ► systems are important or if third party app support is important, Apple's going to really

00:38:47 ◼   ► fall down hard in those areas probably for a very long time, if not forever. And so I

00:38:54 ◼   ► I really have concerns, like, not that they'll sell

00:38:59 ◼   ► none of these things, they'll sell some,

00:39:02 ◼   ► but are we looking at the next Amazon Echo

00:39:04 ◼   ► or are we looking at the next iPod Hi-Fi?

00:39:06 ◼   ► - Well, the Echo took a while to get going too

00:39:08 ◼   ► and they have loosened up the HomeKit stuff

00:39:10 ◼   ► in various ways which shows I think they know

00:39:12 ◼   ► that they need to do something,

00:39:13 ◼   ► but my biggest concern with Apple is everyone else

00:39:16 ◼   ► is shipping and shipping again in multiple generations.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Like, we'll just hoist this up from,

00:39:20 ◼   ► it was down in the topic section.

00:39:22 ◼   ► We didn't talk last week about the Google Home Max and Mini, which is the Google Home

00:39:26 ◼   ► Mini is a tiny little puck thing, kind of like the Echo Dot.

00:39:31 ◼   ► And then the Max is a big Sonos-sized multi-speaker thing, it's got two big woofers and two big

00:39:36 ◼   ► tweeters for better sound.

00:39:38 ◼   ► This is Google's second, or maybe third iteration of their home products, and they already have

00:39:43 ◼   ► multiple form factors in three different sizes.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Apple still has not shipped its one single form factor very first cylinder.

00:39:51 ◼   ► so far behind, you can't be in this game if you haven't even shipped your thing yet.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Where is the three different sizes of Apple stuff, the second or third revision of the

00:40:01 ◼   ► hardware and software, and the ecosystem that's built up around it?

00:40:05 ◼   ► You have to ship.

00:40:06 ◼   ► You have to start, make your first one that doesn't seem like it can do much and people

00:40:10 ◼   ► aren't that interested in, then make your second one, then make your line of three new

00:40:14 ◼   ► ones and just... they have a lot of catching up to do if they want to do something here.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And they're just lucky essentially that no one standard or thing has really completely

00:40:24 ◼   ► run away with it.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And again, maybe that's not true.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Maybe Amazon has run away with it and we just don't know because people are shy about their

00:40:30 ◼   ► sales numbers.

00:40:32 ◼   ► But and you know Google's an also random that very few people get.

00:40:36 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Apple's marketing and brand recognition is something that could save it if their product

00:40:41 ◼   ► is actually good.

00:40:42 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Do you think it's still going to ship this year?

00:40:49 ◼   ► Did they say it was supposed to ship this year?

00:40:50 ◼   ► I kept thinking it was gonna ship next year.

00:40:52 ◼   ► - No, they said HomePod was,

00:40:53 ◼   ► I believe they said either later this year or December.

00:40:55 ◼   ► I forget which of those exactly they said.

00:40:57 ◼   ► - Maybe the reason I discounted it

00:40:58 ◼   ► is because they said such a late ship date.

00:41:00 ◼   ► It's like, well, you're not making the holiday,

00:41:01 ◼   ► so who the hell cares?

00:41:02 ◼   ► Just pretend it's next year.

00:41:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, it sounded kind of like they were gonna

00:41:05 ◼   ► like pretty much miss the holidays,

00:41:07 ◼   ► but maybe you can place an order on December 15th,

00:41:10 ◼   ► even though you probably won't get it by the holidays.

00:41:13 ◼   ► That's kind of what it sounded like,

00:41:14 ◼   ► but like they're not going to launch this thing

00:41:18 ◼   ► without having another event, right?

00:41:20 ◼   ► 'Cause right now we know nothing about its capabilities.

00:41:23 ◼   ► All we know is that it sounds good.

00:41:24 ◼   ► - It plays music.

00:41:25 ◼   ► - That's all we know.

00:41:26 ◼   ► But we don't know how it plays music.

00:41:28 ◼   ► We don't know anything about Siri on it.

00:41:30 ◼   ► We don't know anything about any other kind of smart,

00:41:32 ◼   ► anything about it.

00:41:33 ◼   ► They were able to show nothing, basically.

00:41:37 ◼   ► So they probably wouldn't launch it

00:41:40 ◼   ► without some kind of small event,

00:41:43 ◼   ► or at least private demos.

00:41:46 ◼   ► but time is running out in the year

00:41:48 ◼   ► for when they might do that.

00:41:50 ◼   ► I would bet, especially 'cause we've heard nothing

00:41:56 ◼   ► about it since then, I bet it misses this year.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I bet it's delayed, which is even more concerning

00:42:01 ◼   ► if it's true.

00:42:02 ◼   ► - It would come with an Apple TV remote

00:42:04 ◼   ► that you hold down the speaker button

00:42:05 ◼   ► and talk into when you wanted to play something.

00:42:07 ◼   ► You just wear it around your neck on a lanyard.

00:42:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

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00:43:31 ◼   ► All right. Any other follow-up? Oh, yes, there is one more, which I am deeply afraid to bring

00:43:39 ◼   ► up somebody has written hi Sierra update and then somebody was this me did I

00:43:44 ◼   ► write this maybe I wrote this god I'm a few have had a drink yeah seriously no

00:43:49 ◼   ► what you're doing Casey's fear and his FOMO I think I don't know why I wrote

00:43:53 ◼   ► this because I wrote it days ago but basically I want to write it I wrote it

00:43:56 ◼   ► you don't even know what you wrote I thought you were right no I just you

00:44:01 ◼   ► wrote yeah because you were asking before like you wrote you wrote FOMO in

00:44:06 ◼   ► here you did that's a very casey thing to say not casey thing to say it's just

00:44:11 ◼   ► lying sure but you're you're above that I thought I didn't think of slang anyway

00:44:16 ◼   ► it's a thing that you say a lot so it's a good applicable to you anyway this is

00:44:20 ◼   ► about you asking hey can I update hi Sierra what is it because I have to have

00:44:24 ◼   ► freaking permission no you just want reassurance and anyway so I feel like

00:44:29 ◼   ► it's a balancing of your fear which is like what if updated hoses my computer

00:44:32 ◼   ► and your phone which is like everyone else are on hi Sierra and they're all

00:44:35 ◼   ► having fun in High Sierra and up and I'm over here and just plain old Sierra is not high

00:44:39 ◼   ► at all. And I don't have the cool new desktop background which is the most important feature.

00:44:43 ◼   ► No, that I don't care about. The most important feature is Apple Watch unlock for my fancy

00:44:47 ◼   ► pants cellular Apple Watch. The desktop background is actually really nice though. So last time

00:44:53 ◼   ► we talked I had some fear about it too. I was like, "Ah, I don't know if I'm going to

00:44:56 ◼   ► update." And it's a little bit scary and, you know, you got the new file system and

00:45:01 ◼   ► the new version of photos and I'm hearing some weird stories and so on and so forth,

00:45:06 ◼   ► but actually shortly after that show, an opportunity presented itself to just update my wife's

00:45:11 ◼   ► computer after doing umpteen backups. And so I did. And it was entirely uneventful.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Other than one thing, which I mean, it's kind of all tied up in the OS, the new version

00:45:24 ◼   ► of photos, which I've been playing with a lot, is being a little bit cranky. I don't

00:45:29 ◼   ► I don't know if I want to blame this on the new version of photos because if you google for the error

00:45:32 ◼   ► I'm getting it is a many many years old error Mike

00:45:35 ◼   ► It's for the entire life of the photos application you can go back in time and see this is not

00:45:39 ◼   ► It's not a new phenomenon

00:45:40 ◼   ► But it's a thing where it hangs during closing library like you do you quit and it shows a tiny little window that says closing the

00:45:46 ◼   ► Library dot dot dot and then it will just hang there forever. You'll leave it overnight come back

00:45:50 ◼   ► It'll still say closing the library and of course you don't want to kill it right because then you're like well

00:45:54 ◼   ► It's gonna corrupt its library or whatever

00:45:56 ◼   ► It's like oh just hold down the option key when you launch it and you can repair your database

00:46:00 ◼   ► Which I did and it took a really long time to run and it repaired and then I used photos for a while

00:46:04 ◼   ► And then I quit and it's a closing library. I just sat there for a long time. So I did a bunch of samples

00:46:09 ◼   ► I filed a bug they sent me back some scary instructions to enable the super duper debug mode on photos

00:46:13 ◼   ► Which I may do if I get desperate

00:46:16 ◼   ► But that's the only problem I've had other than that. I just just pretend like nothing ever happened

00:46:22 ◼   ► I'm just like, "Oh, new desktop backgrounds for everybody."

00:46:24 ◼   ► And Photos has a bunch of new features in it,

00:46:26 ◼   ► but it's still slow, by the way.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And so I'm fine.

00:46:30 ◼   ► It doesn't mean Casey should update

00:46:32 ◼   ► 'cause maybe it will be disastrous for you,

00:46:33 ◼   ► but I did it and nothing weird happened.

00:46:36 ◼   ► All my time machine updates continued to run,

00:46:38 ◼   ► crash point contains run, no software stopped working.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Everything, it just like,

00:46:43 ◼   ► it is one of those updates where, you know,

00:46:46 ◼   ► it seems like nothing actually happened.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I guess it means that I'm not taking advantage

00:46:50 ◼   ► whatever cool new features are in there that I'm supposed to be looking at, but it's fine

00:46:53 ◼   ► with me. That's what I wanted. I wanted it to be uneventful. And so far, other than photos

00:46:57 ◼   ► being photos, it is.

00:47:00 ◼   ► So I actually have High Sierra on both my work computer and my MacBook Adorable. And

00:47:07 ◼   ► it's been just fine. But I've been scared/hesitant to do it on my iMac because, God forbid, there

00:47:14 ◼   ► is some sort of issue with my podcast equipment or whatever. I guess I could fall back to

00:47:18 ◼   ► to Aaron's MacBook Air and presumably pour another cup

00:47:21 ◼   ► of water on it, but I'd rather not have a problem.

00:47:24 ◼   ► But I basically asked in the relay Slack,

00:47:28 ◼   ► hey, have you guys upgraded?

00:47:29 ◼   ► And Dan Morin, I think one or two other people had said,

00:47:33 ◼   ► yes, I have, and it's been fine.

00:47:36 ◼   ► And like I said, it's been fine in every other regard

00:47:39 ◼   ► other than podcasting, but I hadn't tried any

00:47:41 ◼   ► of the podcast related stuff yet.

00:47:43 ◼   ► And I think the moral of the story is I'm probably

00:47:45 ◼   ► gonna do it after we record the show, not like tonight,

00:47:47 ◼   ► but sometime in the next few days.

00:47:48 ◼   ► - Make backups.

00:47:50 ◼   ► And keep in mind that I'm not,

00:47:52 ◼   ► the computer that I'm recording this podcast on

00:47:53 ◼   ► is still running El Capitan

00:47:55 ◼   ► because it's my tool that's named Mac Pro

00:47:56 ◼   ► and can't run Sierra.

00:47:58 ◼   ► - Womp, womp.

00:47:59 ◼   ► - That's fine.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Like what I'm saying is I wasn't,

00:48:01 ◼   ► if I was trying to do it on the computer

00:48:03 ◼   ► where I record a podcast, maybe I'd be even more wary,

00:48:05 ◼   ► but my wife's computer, I felt like,

00:48:08 ◼   ► I had her permission more or less.

00:48:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:48:12 ◼   ► I talked to her about it.

00:48:14 ◼   ► She just, I was trying to say,

00:48:15 ◼   ► I'm thinking of,

00:48:17 ◼   ► I told her it might take many, many hours, because you can't say, "Oh, the update will

00:48:19 ◼   ► take like an hour."

00:48:21 ◼   ► But like, you know, what if it had gone wrong?

00:48:23 ◼   ► And then I have to restart from backup.

00:48:24 ◼   ► That's like, look, just I'm going to start this process at noon on a weekend.

00:48:29 ◼   ► If I started at noon, worst case scenario, you get your computer back tomorrow midday,

00:48:34 ◼   ► as I just spent hours doing tremendous amounts of I/O, right?

00:48:37 ◼   ► All right.

00:48:38 ◼   ► So let's do some Ask ATP.

00:48:41 ◼   ► Let's see.

00:48:42 ◼   ► We'll start with Kyle.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Kyle writes in to say, "Hey, ATP.

00:48:46 ◼   ► What browser do you guys use?

00:48:47 ◼   ► I like the idea of using Safari on all my devices, but Chrome's extensions are so much

00:48:51 ◼   ► better.

00:48:52 ◼   ► I do use, and I think I got this idea from Marco actually, I do use Chrome on occasion

00:48:57 ◼   ► as like my Google Docs/Flash quarantine.

00:49:01 ◼   ► The Flash part isn't really a thing barely ever anymore, but from time to time I need

00:49:05 ◼   ► it for some reason or another, usually restaurants.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But I use it for Google Docs, which is why I have it open for tonight, because I have

00:49:14 ◼   ► our show notes in Google Docs.

00:49:16 ◼   ► But generally speaking, 99% of my web browsing for anything

00:49:20 ◼   ► personal is Safari on every platform.

00:49:22 ◼   ► I also use Google for work-related things, because

00:49:25 ◼   ► our work is all in on Google Apps.

00:49:27 ◼   ► But other than work, and other than basically when I record

00:49:30 ◼   ► this show, it's pretty much all Safari to me.

00:49:33 ◼   ► I am not a heavy extensions user on either browser.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Personally, I can't fathom using Chrome full time,

00:49:42 ◼   ► especially on a laptop, but really at all,

00:49:44 ◼   ► because I find it to be no faster than Safari,

00:49:48 ◼   ► which I know everyone's gonna write in

00:49:49 ◼   ► and tell me how wrong I am,

00:49:50 ◼   ► but I don't find it to be any faster than Safari,

00:49:52 ◼   ► and it is such a battery hog that it's just,

00:49:55 ◼   ► I can't do it, and personally,

00:49:57 ◼   ► I don't know why anyone would.

00:49:58 ◼   ► So with that in mind, Marco, what do you use?

00:50:01 ◼   ► - Pretty much same thing I've been doing

00:50:02 ◼   ► for a long time now, which is Safari for almost everything,

00:50:06 ◼   ► and then Chrome on the desktop, as you described,

00:50:08 ◼   ► for either sites I don't trust

00:50:11 ◼   ► or things that require Flash,

00:50:13 ◼   ► or things that are generally in the Google ecosystem.

00:50:16 ◼   ► So Google Docs, as you mentioned,

00:50:18 ◼   ► it's kinda like my podcasting browser,

00:50:20 ◼   ► I have it open now, so my first few tabs

00:50:23 ◼   ► are all the stuff that I need to record podcast stuff,

00:50:26 ◼   ► because it started out being Google Docs,

00:50:28 ◼   ► and it kinda became my convention from there.

00:50:30 ◼   ► And also, I use Facebook for a couple of groups

00:50:34 ◼   ► that I have to be a part of,

00:50:35 ◼   ► and so I don't even have the app installed

00:50:38 ◼   ► on my phone or anything.

00:50:39 ◼   ► I keep Facebook only in Chrome,

00:50:42 ◼   ► and so that way I'm not allowed to do it anywhere else,

00:50:45 ◼   ► and don't have their creepiness attracting me,

00:50:48 ◼   ► or attracting me all over the place, and et cetera.

00:50:50 ◼   ► I respect why people like Chrome.

00:50:55 ◼   ► There were times in my professional career,

00:50:58 ◼   ► and my home life, where I have used Chrome full-time.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I ended up switching back after a while,

00:51:04 ◼   ► but Chrome is fine.

00:51:06 ◼   ► I just really like Safari a lot better.

00:51:08 ◼   ► - So I run both Chrome and Safari all the time

00:51:12 ◼   ► on all my computers that I use,

00:51:13 ◼   ► which may sound crazy to remember I'd use desktops

00:51:15 ◼   ► or I have a laptop at work that I pretend is a desktop.

00:51:17 ◼   ► So I don't care about battery

00:51:18 ◼   ► 'cause everything's always plugged in.

00:51:21 ◼   ► - Now, is this because you're hitting some kind of limit

00:51:23 ◼   ► on how many tabs and windows

00:51:24 ◼   ► that one of them can have open at once

00:51:25 ◼   ► so you have to use the book? (laughing)

00:51:27 ◼   ► - I'm not hitting a little bit like that,

00:51:28 ◼   ► but why do I do it this split way?

00:51:32 ◼   ► I feel like there are advantages to both browsers.

00:51:35 ◼   ► Safari has always been and still is my default.

00:51:37 ◼   ► So if I click a link in anything,

00:51:38 ◼   ► It opens in Safari.

00:51:40 ◼   ► I like both browsers a lot.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Chrome I use all my Google stuff in.

00:51:45 ◼   ► I use Gmail for my email.

00:51:46 ◼   ► And I figure there's a nice synergy.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I'm sure that Google's properties or whatever

00:51:51 ◼   ► will all work well in Chrome, because it's

00:51:53 ◼   ► in Google's interest to make sure that--

00:51:55 ◼   ► I'm sure they work fine in Safari, too.

00:51:57 ◼   ► But it just seems more natural for me

00:51:59 ◼   ► to do all my Google stuff.

00:52:01 ◼   ► I use Google Calendar, Google Docs.

00:52:03 ◼   ► All that stuff is in Chrome.

00:52:06 ◼   ► and Safari for general web browsing.

00:52:08 ◼   ► I use Chrome for general web browsing too,

00:52:11 ◼   ► 'cause Safari still does that thing occasionally to me

00:52:13 ◼   ► where it just says,

00:52:14 ◼   ► "I'm not into loading web pages anymore."

00:52:16 ◼   ► I always feel like it's telling me

00:52:17 ◼   ► you have too many windows open, right?

00:52:19 ◼   ► Like you've got a lot of-- - Probably.

00:52:21 ◼   ► - You've got a lot of browser windows open.

00:52:23 ◼   ► I know that you typed an address to the address bar

00:52:26 ◼   ► and hit return.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I might just stay here as a white window for a while

00:52:30 ◼   ► to punish you for having,

00:52:31 ◼   ► like maybe I'm not gonna load windows anymore.

00:52:33 ◼   ► And furthering that fact,

00:52:35 ◼   ► sometimes I'll be like, all right,

00:52:36 ◼   ► what if I close one of these background windows?

00:52:38 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, okay, now I can load.

00:52:39 ◼   ► Like I've said this before,

00:52:40 ◼   ► like it feels like it's out of file descriptors.

00:52:42 ◼   ► That's not what's happening.

00:52:43 ◼   ► It doesn't say that on the console,

00:52:44 ◼   ► but it's that type of feeling where it's like,

00:52:45 ◼   ► it has exhausted some kind of resource.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Whereas Chrome, every single time I open a new window

00:52:50 ◼   ► or tab and type a URL into the address bar and hit return,

00:52:53 ◼   ► it loads the damn page every single time it does.

00:52:56 ◼   ► And that is super important to me.

00:52:58 ◼   ► And I love Chrome for that.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And I also use Chrome's dev tools.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And I don't love this about Chrome,

00:53:03 ◼   ► but I use it for a node debugging too.

00:53:05 ◼   ► I know there are better solutions.

00:53:07 ◼   ► I'm just still stuck using Chrome for that.

00:53:10 ◼   ► So I use both.

00:53:12 ◼   ► But Safari is my default. But I do really love Chrome.

00:53:14 ◼   ► And not because of all the extensions.

00:53:15 ◼   ► I do have extensions installed.

00:53:17 ◼   ► I just think it's a good, reliable web browser.

00:53:21 ◼   ► All right.

00:53:23 ◼   ► Sebastian writes in, continuing on the John portion

00:53:26 ◼   ► of the show, what are John's thoughts on the new Accord?

00:53:28 ◼   ► And we kind of touched on this in what will probably

00:53:30 ◼   ► end up being the after show that we talked about before we

00:53:33 ◼   ► started really recording.

00:53:35 ◼   ► So you may not have heard this listeners, but there will be more Accord talk at some point or another.

00:53:39 ◼   ► But Jon, what are your thoughts on the new Accord?

00:53:41 ◼   ► I think it's uglier than my generation of Accord, which is a shame.

00:53:44 ◼   ► I like the fact that you get the stick shift with the big engine.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I'm not sure about anything beyond that because I haven't actually driven it myself.

00:53:54 ◼   ► All I can say is that it seems like Honda is going in the right direction with those cars and it's getting good reviews,

00:53:59 ◼   ► but I'm kind of glad that both I and my wife got the previous generation.

00:54:02 ◼   ► And the only thing I'm really jealous of in the new one

00:54:05 ◼   ► is the infotainment, because my infotainment is dire

00:54:08 ◼   ► and this one is less dire.

00:54:11 ◼   ► - Komei writes in, "For command line work,

00:54:13 ◼   ► "do you just use terminal,

00:54:14 ◼   ► "or are you partial to a third party app?"

00:54:15 ◼   ► And so, Marco, since you were quiet before,

00:54:17 ◼   ► let's start with you.

00:54:18 ◼   ► - I had forgotten that there even were

00:54:21 ◼   ► third party terminal apps.

00:54:23 ◼   ► So, anyway, is this the question about third party terminal,

00:54:25 ◼   ► when, like terminal clients, or is it about like

00:54:29 ◼   ► using GUIs versus terminal commands for things like MySQL

00:54:34 ◼   ► and Git and stuff like that.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Let's make it all of the above.

00:54:39 ◼   ► So A, what shell are you on?

00:54:43 ◼   ► B, in what app are you running that shell?

00:54:46 ◼   ► - Please don't confuse shell with terminal.

00:54:47 ◼   ► You know it's one of my pet peeves.

00:54:48 ◼   ► Why would you do that to me?

00:54:49 ◼   ► - Whatever.

00:54:50 ◼   ► God, Jon.

00:54:52 ◼   ► - I was not aware this was one of your pet peeves, actually.

00:54:54 ◼   ► - I wasn't either, but okay.

00:54:55 ◼   ► - Must be a long list.

00:54:56 ◼   ► - Are you on Bash or something else?

00:54:59 ◼   ► or whatever ridiculous one that Jon insists on,

00:55:01 ◼   ► are you on the stock terminal app or something else?

00:55:05 ◼   ► And when you're doing things like Git,

00:55:07 ◼   ► do you tend to do that on the command line or elsewhere?

00:55:08 ◼   ► So all three of those starting with Marco.

00:55:12 ◼   ► And I have answers as well,

00:55:13 ◼   ► but I'll round us all out at the end.

00:55:15 ◼   ► - Okay, I use Apple's normal terminal app.

00:55:19 ◼   ► I find it great.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I have never sought a different one

00:55:22 ◼   ► because I'm very happy with it.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Yep, titto.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - I use Bash because,

00:55:28 ◼   ► probably for the same reason most people use Bash,

00:55:30 ◼   ► it's already there and it's what I've always known.

00:55:33 ◼   ► I know there are better shells out there,

00:55:35 ◼   ► but it has just never been worth it for me

00:55:37 ◼   ► to not only learn a new shell,

00:55:40 ◼   ► but then to put it on all the different,

00:55:42 ◼   ► not only Macs, but all the servers that I log into.

00:55:45 ◼   ► I mean, I log into like 30 servers on a regular basis,

00:55:48 ◼   ► so it's not, like yes, you could try to automate stuff,

00:55:52 ◼   ► but it would be a pain for me to switch away from Bash,

00:55:55 ◼   ► and it's fine, I know it's not amazing, but it's fine.

00:55:59 ◼   ► As for GUIs versus terminal commands for things

00:56:05 ◼   ► that programmers deal with, so things like Git,

00:56:09 ◼   ► MySQL, PHP, any kind of database source control

00:56:14 ◼   ► kind of stuff, I use terminal commands for almost all of it,

00:56:19 ◼   ► including any kind of MySQL administration,

00:56:25 ◼   ► things like that, the only thing I really use GUIs for

00:56:28 ◼   ► is I do still use them, I do now use them for Git.

00:56:33 ◼   ► I use the Git Tower app for Mac, it is wonderful.

00:56:38 ◼   ► And I know most of the Git commands,

00:56:43 ◼   ► to use it via terminal or via command line,

00:56:46 ◼   ► but Git is terrible on the command line.

00:56:47 ◼   ► I mean, it's hard enough to understand on a GUI,

00:56:49 ◼   ► let alone the command line.

00:56:50 ◼   ► And so I find that while I can do these things

00:56:53 ◼   ► in the command line, I usually prefer not to

00:56:56 ◼   ► because not only is the GUI less error prone

00:56:58 ◼   ► and more intuitive for these kind of things,

00:57:01 ◼   ► but it also provides some really nice features

00:57:02 ◼   ► like the way it diffs and displays commits

00:57:06 ◼   ► and file diffs and per line diffs and everything.

00:57:10 ◼   ► It's really nice to be able to visualize that

00:57:11 ◼   ► in a really nice GUI so I can tell

00:57:13 ◼   ► what have I changed in this file?

00:57:15 ◼   ► What am I actually committing here?

00:57:17 ◼   ► And exactly what lines have changed?

00:57:20 ◼   ► Where have they changed?

00:57:21 ◼   ► It's way, all this stuff is possible on the command line,

00:57:25 ◼   ► but it's just so much easier in the GUI.

00:57:27 ◼   ► - John.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - Already forgotten what all the questions were.

00:57:31 ◼   ► - Okay, so do you use--

00:57:32 ◼   ► - I'll figure it out.

00:57:34 ◼   ► The terminal app, I use the default terminal one

00:57:36 ◼   ► and always have, it has been very reliable to me.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I think I first fell in love with it

00:57:41 ◼   ► when I saw the unlimited scroll back feature,

00:57:44 ◼   ► 'cause that's all I want in life,

00:57:46 ◼   ► is unlimited scroll back.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Use all my memory.

00:57:48 ◼   ► - That's all you want in life.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Yeah, just unlimited scroll back because I might keep my computer running for a long time and Windows open for a long time

00:57:55 ◼   ► although actually I'm kind of a bit of a

00:57:57 ◼   ► Serial command care in terminal like truncating the scroll back, which I shouldn't do and I should use marks, but I don't but anyway

00:58:05 ◼   ► plain old terminal I've dabbled in things like I term and stuff, but just terminal is

00:58:11 ◼   ► what I've always used and it's always been so reliable and it just does its job and all the

00:58:18 ◼   ► The basics like copying pasting text and having it

00:58:21 ◼   ► You know not copy hard line breaks at the end like crappy windows terminal programs do and stuff like that

00:58:27 ◼   ► Just everything works fine when I and when I when I scroll my mouse wheel or you know

00:58:33 ◼   ► Like or use the the cursor and Emacs and it picks it up. Like I don't have to set all that stuff up

00:58:38 ◼   ► It's the terminal type is set correctly for all the Mac OS X things that expected to be anyway, it's fine

00:58:44 ◼   ► I'm sure the other ones are better, but I don't use them

00:58:47 ◼   ► So, plain old terminal.

00:58:51 ◼   ► For what was the next one, command line versus GUI apps for program or anything?

00:58:55 ◼   ► Shell.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Oh, shell.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I use TCSH because that's what was installed on the ACS system at BU when I entered college

00:59:02 ◼   ► in 1993.

00:59:03 ◼   ► That's it.

00:59:04 ◼   ► I just have a collection of dot files that I've been building up since then.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I have also dabbled in other shells, but there's no way I'm going to redo all my dot files

00:59:11 ◼   ► and aliases.

00:59:12 ◼   ► I like TSSH.

00:59:13 ◼   ► And it would take me a while for any shell, I actually tried to fish as well, it would

00:59:17 ◼   ► me a while for any shell for me to, I would have to basically remap everything. I'd have

00:59:21 ◼   ► to say, I need Control-R to be reverse history search interactive, and I need it to behave

00:59:27 ◼   ► exactly the same way as TCSH does, because if it doesn't, my fingers won't work anymore,

00:59:31 ◼   ► and I don't need to go with that. So I dread the day that I have to compile TCSH myself,

00:59:36 ◼   ► because Apple stopped shipping it, but so far they still do. And for program retype

00:59:43 ◼   ► apps pretty much always command line like I you know there's been many many

00:59:48 ◼   ► years using perforce and I only use the command line the only time I use the

00:59:51 ◼   ► gooey sorry it's not that bad don't have to use the gooey is when I need to see

00:59:55 ◼   ► like a revision graph or some other sort of gooey thing in the p4v app but I kind

01:00:00 ◼   ► of feel like that I don't actually know the version control system if I don't

01:00:04 ◼   ► know how to use the command line and get is the ultimate challenge that it's like

01:00:07 ◼   ► oh yeah try using this freaking command line I hate it with a passion it is so

01:00:11 ◼   ► poorly designed, everything about it is terrible. And I am terrible at Git, because I've only

01:00:16 ◼   ► been using Git at work basically for, I don't know, like less than a year now. I never really,

01:00:22 ◼   ► really learned it, even though I've read a million tutorials and at one point I feel

01:00:25 ◼   ► like I finally understand Git. But that was like years ago when it was first created,

01:00:28 ◼   ► someone wrote a really good explanation of exactly how it works under the covers and

01:00:32 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, now I get it." But, you know, years pass and it all leaves your head and

01:00:39 ◼   ► nothing sticks in there because the command line

01:00:40 ◼   ► is so unintuitive and yet I still basically force myself

01:00:43 ◼   ► to use the command line.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I just make mistakes.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And I've tried Git Tower and the GitHub has an app.

01:00:50 ◼   ► What's the other one?

01:00:50 ◼   ► There's like a third one that's popular on the Mac.

01:00:52 ◼   ► - Source tree.

01:00:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's one.

01:00:54 ◼   ► And there's one that's side by side.

01:00:56 ◼   ► Gitbox, I think.

01:00:56 ◼   ► Yeah, Gitbox.

01:00:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, Gitbox is the other one, yeah.

01:00:59 ◼   ► I have all those installed

01:01:00 ◼   ► and occasionally I dive into them,

01:01:01 ◼   ► but I feel wary about doing any version control stuff

01:01:05 ◼   ► from the way, and things like MySQL and stuff like that.

01:01:08 ◼   ► command line always like you know the postgres command line is great and I was spoiled by

01:01:12 ◼   ► that the MySQL command line isn't that bad the Oracle you know SQL plus is the worst

01:01:17 ◼   ► command line ever created by a human being and yet still I don't it'll make you feel

01:01:22 ◼   ► better by git if you've never had the pleasure to use SQL star plus or whatever the hell

01:01:28 ◼   ► the weird name of that is so bad but I mostly use the command line ones for those and I

01:01:34 ◼   ► still have the GUIs installed and we'll fire them up occasionally like Oracle has SQL

01:01:38 ◼   ► developer, Oracle SQL developer or whatever, but they're not good GUI apps.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Even if they run on the Mac, they're usually like weird Java things or they seem weird.

01:01:46 ◼   ► The native MySQL and Postgres clients, they're nice, but the best interface I've ever had

01:01:51 ◼   ► is something like a database has been the Postgres command line, like better than any

01:01:55 ◼   ► GUI that I've used.

01:01:56 ◼   ► So that's it.

01:01:58 ◼   ► So for me, I use Fishell for reasons I don't even really know.

01:02:03 ◼   ► It's color-coded nicely.

01:02:05 ◼   ► scripting I like more because I've never, I was never really proficient in like bash scripting

01:02:10 ◼   ► or anything else. So it makes logical choices in places where I would expect a logical choice,

01:02:16 ◼   ► which is probably more about my own ignorance of bash than anything else. I do basic command line

01:02:23 ◼   ► stuff for git for basic things a lot of the time. I'm probably, I would say I'm probably 50/50 with

01:02:29 ◼   ► git tower and the command line. And certainly anytime things get really wonky, I'm looking

01:02:34 ◼   ► at Git Tower because I agree with the both of you.

01:02:36 ◼   ► And I'm sure we're gonna get a bunch of feedback about it,

01:02:38 ◼   ► but I agree with you guys that Git on the command line

01:02:41 ◼   ► is really weird and has never really clicked with me.

01:02:45 ◼   ► And I use Terminal App.

01:02:48 ◼   ► So Terminal App, Fish, and Git Tower

01:02:50 ◼   ► with Git on the command line from time to time.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And that concludes Ask ATP.

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01:03:33 ◼   ► or exercising, audiobooks are wonderful.

01:03:36 ◼   ► You can see for yourself with a free 30 day trial

01:03:38 ◼   ► and your first audiobook is free.

01:03:41 ◼   ► Go to audible.com/ATP to see for yourself.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I'm recently reading the book called

01:03:47 ◼   ► "Arbitrary Stupid Goal" by Tamara Shopsin

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01:04:08 ◼   ► Anyway, go to audible.com/ATP

01:04:12 ◼   ► and you can get a free audio book when you sign up

01:04:15 ◼   ► with a 30 day free trial at audible.com/ATP.

01:04:18 ◼   ► Again, thank you so much to Audible for sponsoring our show.

01:04:21 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:04:24 ◼   ► - I have a question.

01:04:27 ◼   ► And I don't really expect either of you to have an answer.

01:04:30 ◼   ► But at one point, and I believe this was before I had installed it on my watch, but I might

01:04:39 ◼   ► have my details wrong.

01:04:40 ◼   ► But at one point, I had my phone, I think it was like in the house upstairs, far enough

01:04:46 ◼   ► away that the watch couldn't see it.

01:04:49 ◼   ► And maybe I was on a walk, maybe I was in the house on the other side of the house.

01:04:52 ◼   ► We don't have a terribly large house, but I guess we were on opposite ends of the house

01:04:55 ◼   ► from each other, whatever.

01:04:57 ◼   ► But the point is, my watch was on cellular, and I got a push notification from the app

01:05:02 ◼   ► Do, D-U-E.

01:05:05 ◼   ► But my watch was on cellular, and I hadn't used the app on my watch at all at that point,

01:05:11 ◼   ► I don't believe.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Like, I don't think I had installed it on my watch.

01:05:13 ◼   ► I might be wrong about that, so maybe I've answered my own question.

01:05:17 ◼   ► But my question is, if the watch app wasn't installed, and I got a Do push notification,

01:05:27 ◼   ► but all of the stuff that was in Do was living only on the phone, like I don't think I'd

01:05:33 ◼   ► set up iCloud syncing or anything like that, how did I get that push notification?

01:05:38 ◼   ► So in summary, is Apple proxying push notifications from the phone to the watch?

01:05:46 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:05:47 ◼   ► Because in theory, this wasn't a push notification from like some server somewhere.

01:05:54 ◼   ► It was from the phone itself.

01:05:56 ◼   ► So it's like the phone calling home to Apple and saying, "Hey, can you push this notification

01:06:01 ◼   ► to the watch because I can't find it myself?"

01:06:04 ◼   ► Again, I don't know if I really expect an answer from you guys, but it seemed wonky

01:06:09 ◼   ► that I was—and it was good, it was a good thing, don't get me wrong—but it seemed

01:06:13 ◼   ► wonky that I was getting a push notification for something I didn't expect on my watch.

01:06:16 ◼   ► You should have written in to ask ATP.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Didn't I try that once and you yelled at me to put it in the show notes? I'm pretty sure that's

01:06:25 ◼   ► what happened. Marco, I'm assuming we'll have the best answer for this if any of us do, but

01:06:30 ◼   ► the only thing I have to add is having just gone through the watch setup process when I was nuking

01:06:34 ◼   ► my watch and reinstalling watchOS 3 before upgrading to 4 was I was reminded again that

01:06:39 ◼   ► that there's an option somewhere in the watch app preferences that says "watch mirrors notifications

01:06:44 ◼   ► on phone"?

01:06:45 ◼   ► Sure, sure, sure.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And that would seem like you were doing what you said.

01:06:48 ◼   ► Oh, it's a local notification and the watch is set to mirror any notification that happens

01:06:51 ◼   ► on your phone, and so it did.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Well, but I think that's more about the settings for notifications.

01:06:57 ◼   ► So as an example, let's take "do" the app, D-U-E.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Well okay, if you're saying "mirror" what the phone settings are, that means just do

01:07:05 ◼   ► what the phone is doing. And if that means play a sound and show it on the lock screen,

01:07:10 ◼   ► then the watch will get a sound and it'll show it, you know, just like any other notification.

01:07:14 ◼   ► If you've muted the notifications on the phone, then the watch would not receive those notifications.

01:07:19 ◼   ► This is in contrast to going into the watch app on your phone and saying, "No, I don't

01:07:24 ◼   ► want 'do' on my watch, even though I do want it on my phone." That's a terrible choice

01:07:28 ◼   ► of examples because now I'm using D-U-E and D-O back to back. But hopefully you get what

01:07:33 ◼   ► I'm driving at. So it just it I think this is something different which is it felt as

01:07:39 ◼   ► though and somebody in the chat is saying the same thing it felt as though there was

01:07:44 ◼   ► a push notification that was that was sourced from my phone that wound up on my watch when

01:07:50 ◼   ► my watch was on cellular and thus could not connect to the phone. So is that being proxied

01:07:56 ◼   ► by Apple or is there some some other trickery going on or am I just playing bananas? Marco

01:08:01 ◼   ► thoughts. I don't think we know. Yeah I don't think we do either. And I appreciate

01:08:07 ◼   ► that you think I would have more information on this as presumably an app

01:08:10 ◼   ► developer but I don't. It would be interesting to know whether the

01:08:16 ◼   ► notification you receive in your watch was a local notification or a remote

01:08:19 ◼   ► push notification because you mentioned that you weren't really sure about that.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I don't know how do works I don't use it so I'm not sure but if it was a remote

01:08:30 ◼   ► a push notification, that would be easier to figure out

01:08:32 ◼   ► because the way push notifications work on the app side

01:08:36 ◼   ► is whenever you say yes, you can send this device

01:08:38 ◼   ► notifications when you first install the app,

01:08:41 ◼   ► the app gets a token that it can use,

01:08:43 ◼   ► just like a long string that identifies that device

01:08:46 ◼   ► and when the app is sending notifications

01:08:48 ◼   ► from the server side, it just basically sends

01:08:52 ◼   ► the notification service like that token

01:08:53 ◼   ► and then a JSON dictionary of what the notification

01:08:56 ◼   ► content should be.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So it would be perfectly reasonable,

01:09:00 ◼   ► I don't think the watch gets its own identifier separately.

01:09:03 ◼   ► - I was about to ask, yeah, yeah.

01:09:04 ◼   ► - But it would be perfectly reasonable

01:09:06 ◼   ► for the push notification service

01:09:07 ◼   ► if it knows of a watch that is on LTE

01:09:11 ◼   ► to just forward anything that goes to the phone's token

01:09:14 ◼   ► also to the watch.

01:09:15 ◼   ► If it's a local notification,

01:09:17 ◼   ► it's a different story though.

01:09:18 ◼   ► That's a very different implementation.

01:09:20 ◼   ► That would mean that, as you theorized,

01:09:22 ◼   ► the phone would have to basically like

01:09:24 ◼   ► realize it couldn't contact the watch,

01:09:27 ◼   ► send the local notification back up to Apple

01:09:30 ◼   ► for it to be sent back over to the phone,

01:09:33 ◼   ► or to the watch, rather.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And that's a little bit weird

01:09:35 ◼   ► when you consider the possibility

01:09:36 ◼   ► that a phone can be paired to multiple watches.

01:09:39 ◼   ► So, it's a very complicated setup.

01:09:43 ◼   ► When you're thinking about the LTE watch,

01:09:46 ◼   ► it sounds kind of like a checkbox of like,

01:09:50 ◼   ► oh, this year they added LTE.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Okay, like, done.

01:09:54 ◼   ► But in practice it was probably way more complicated

01:09:57 ◼   ► than that because of things like this.

01:09:59 ◼   ► People are gonna expect it to just work.

01:10:01 ◼   ► And Apple has to figure out how to implement

01:10:03 ◼   ► whatever that means.

01:10:04 ◼   ► So it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did it.

01:10:08 ◼   ► If they actually have some kind of crazy proxying system

01:10:11 ◼   ► where they're sending local notifications from the phone

01:10:12 ◼   ► back up to Apple and then back over to the watch

01:10:15 ◼   ► when connected to relatively.

01:10:16 ◼   ► It actually might do that.

01:10:18 ◼   ► But I don't know.

01:10:19 ◼   ► It certainly seems like a lot of the stuff

01:10:22 ◼   ► regarding LTE on the watch is super early

01:10:25 ◼   ► and possibly even a little bit unfinished.

01:10:27 ◼   ► So it wouldn't surprise me also

01:10:30 ◼   ► if this was nothing fancy going on,

01:10:33 ◼   ► if it was just like the same push token

01:10:35 ◼   ► being used remotely by Apple servers,

01:10:37 ◼   ► or the other option is maybe it was local to your phone,

01:10:42 ◼   ► but that it actually did receive it already,

01:10:45 ◼   ► or it was a local notification

01:10:47 ◼   ► scheduled to go at a certain time

01:10:50 ◼   ► and the watch just copied it over

01:10:52 ◼   ► last time it talked to the phone.

01:10:53 ◼   ► So it just knew, like, all right,

01:10:55 ◼   ► well over the next 24 hours or whatever,

01:10:56 ◼   ► I'm gonna need these notifications.

01:10:58 ◼   ► And so here, I'll just copy them all over

01:10:59 ◼   ► and then I'll show them if the phone isn't nearby.

01:11:02 ◼   ► So there are so many ways they could do this,

01:11:04 ◼   ► we don't really know how they did.

01:11:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that totally makes sense.

01:11:08 ◼   ► And like you said, I don't think we're going to know

01:11:11 ◼   ► unless a little birdie reaches out, hint, hint.

01:11:13 ◼   ► But it just was, it was interesting to me

01:11:16 ◼   ► because it felt like, and I wish I had taken better notes

01:11:20 ◼   ► had paid more attention, but this like happened in the midst of me doing something with Declan,

01:11:23 ◼   ► and I took enough of a note to remind myself that I wanted to talk to you guys about it,

01:11:27 ◼   ► but I didn't have the time to document, you know, repro steps or anything like that. Anyways,

01:11:32 ◼   ► the point is, it just felt like the sort of thing where maybe it was being proxied by

01:11:36 ◼   ► Apple, and that was kind of cool. I mean, it was, again, the behavior was what I wanted.

01:11:41 ◼   ► It's not like the behavior was bad, it was just unexpected, that's all. So we'll see,

01:11:44 ◼   ► I don't know, we'll figure it out one way or the other,

01:11:47 ◼   ► but I think all of your less fancy,

01:11:50 ◼   ► but also more probable interpretations

01:11:53 ◼   ► make perfect sense to me, so who knows.

01:11:56 ◼   ► John, apparently everything's coming up,

01:11:59 ◼   ► Syracuse this week because, that's a reference by the way,

01:12:03 ◼   ► Twitteriffic for Mac, it is back and it is out.

01:12:06 ◼   ► So tell me about it.

01:12:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is just a quick follow up.

01:12:09 ◼   ► People asked, I think I asked--

01:12:10 ◼   ► - Wait, this is follow up, you're in the wrong section.

01:12:12 ◼   ► - Well, you know what I mean, it's, yeah.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Anyway, because we asked about it and asked ATP,

01:12:18 ◼   ► "Hey, how are you liking the Phoenix betas?"

01:12:20 ◼   ► Which was the name of this application

01:12:22 ◼   ► when it was testing for the Kickstarter thing.

01:12:24 ◼   ► This is the whole Kickstarter that a lot of people funded

01:12:27 ◼   ► to get them to bring back their Mac application,

01:12:29 ◼   ► which they have that language

01:12:30 ◼   ► because they just want to run off customers for it.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And then the Kickstarter gave them enough money

01:12:34 ◼   ► to remake the app.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And so I've been using it for a long time and it's great.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And as I said in the last Ask ATP that asked about this,

01:12:42 ◼   ► I'm enjoying it.

01:12:42 ◼   ► It's exactly what I wanted.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Now it is out for everybody to buy.

01:12:47 ◼   ► It is on the Mac App Store.

01:12:49 ◼   ► I think there might, let me click through.

01:12:51 ◼   ► Is there a direct download?

01:12:51 ◼   ► I don't even know.

01:12:52 ◼   ► Anyway, twitteraffic.com/mac.

01:12:54 ◼   ► The link will be in the show notes.

01:12:55 ◼   ► If you're interested in a Mac Twitter client

01:12:57 ◼   ► and you don't like any of the Mac Twitter clients

01:12:59 ◼   ► that are out there, check this one out.

01:13:01 ◼   ► It's got an adorable icon.

01:13:03 ◼   ► The most important feature of this Twitter application,

01:13:05 ◼   ► as far as I'm concerned,

01:13:05 ◼   ► is that it has my beloved unified timeline,

01:13:08 ◼   ► which gives you a list of all the tweets

01:13:10 ◼   ► that are related to you.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Mentions replies direct messages and all the tweets from the people you follow and their RT is just one big long

01:13:19 ◼   ► Chronological timeline from the past to the future. That's it and you have the other views to it

01:13:25 ◼   ► Do I just just see my mentions direct messages searches all sorts of stuff?

01:13:29 ◼   ► That's all there too. But the important feature is the unified timeline sort of thing was certain and it's just a nice Twitter client

01:13:34 ◼   ► So check it out if you're interested

01:13:37 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's on the Mac apps.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Oh, and the other important feature is on iOS, Twitterfic has always been updated on

01:13:44 ◼   ► iOS and it continues to be updated because it's, you know, more of a viable platform

01:13:48 ◼   ► than the Mac these days.

01:13:50 ◼   ► And your reading position is synced between the Mac and the iOS version, which is super

01:13:54 ◼   ► important because if I read a bunch of stuff on my phone and I come to my Mac, I want it

01:13:57 ◼   ► to realize what I read on my phone in my one big chronological timeline.

01:14:00 ◼   ► And it does, and it's great, and it's got laser beams if you know where to find them.

01:14:04 ◼   ► So check it out.

01:14:05 ◼   ► That's awesome.

01:14:06 ◼   ► All right.

01:14:07 ◼   ► John, tell me about Apple TV Gaming.

01:14:10 ◼   ► - This is from, remember the, what is it, September event?

01:14:13 ◼   ► We had some stuff from the September event lurking

01:14:15 ◼   ► down there for a long time, and I didn't want this one

01:14:18 ◼   ► to fall off the end.

01:14:20 ◼   ► Do you remember they did that gaming segment in that event?

01:14:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was that journey, or whatever it is,

01:14:27 ◼   ► knockoff, or not knockoff, like another,

01:14:29 ◼   ► what is it, that game company?

01:14:31 ◼   ► That game company made another game, or something like that?

01:14:34 ◼   ► I'm trying not to offend you, and I think I'm failing.

01:14:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I never liked the name of that company. That game company is clever initially, but then it's like all lowercase associated. Anyway, the...

01:14:42 ◼   ► So this is Apple TV and gaming. We talked a lot about this before about whether they should ship a controller with it

01:14:49 ◼   ► and whether they should allow people to ship games that require a controller, which they flip-flopped on and now they're saying yes,

01:14:54 ◼   ► they will and how viable is it as a gaming platform versus things like the Switch or

01:14:59 ◼   ► a real game console or PC or Mac gaming even with Steam and everything?

01:15:05 ◼   ► And so here Apple is again at an important keynote spending time to talk about, it was

01:15:11 ◼   ► the Apple TV 4K, but you know, the gaming angle on it.

01:15:16 ◼   ► And they brought out on stage, you know, a third party game developer, very well known

01:15:21 ◼   ► in the industry because they are the makers of Journey, which is a game that I love, and

01:15:24 ◼   ► a couple other artsy-fartsy games they made before that, which they're also bringing to

01:15:28 ◼   ► iOS, at least they brought Flower to iOS, which was erroneously identified as their

01:15:34 ◼   ► first game but it was not their first game. Anyway, that seems like an aside but I think

01:15:39 ◼   ► it factors into what I'm going to say in a little bit about it. And this is, it's not

01:15:44 ◼   ► bringing up the big guns, it's not like Nintendo is on stage, they already did that with Mario

01:15:49 ◼   ► Run I think, but it's not like Apple buys Nintendo or Ubisoft or EA announce all their

01:15:58 ◼   ► future games will be on Apple TV or like, but it is significant in that getting that

01:16:06 ◼   ► game company to port their games and to make their new game, which is called Sky, on Apple's

01:16:11 ◼   ► platform, that only has significance for people who follow the game industry, for people who

01:16:18 ◼   ► are into games.

01:16:19 ◼   ► For most people, they've never heard of that game company.

01:16:21 ◼   ► They don't know what Flower is or haven't played Journey.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Like, you have to be somewhat involved in the gaming industry to understand why it's

01:16:32 ◼   ► in any way impressive that Jenova-chan is up on stage for them.

01:16:35 ◼   ► You don't have to be so much in the game industry to be impressed that Miyamoto is telling you

01:16:38 ◼   ► that Mario is coming to iOS, right?

01:16:39 ◼   ► He has lots of name recognition there.

01:16:42 ◼   ► But that game company is more obscure.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And yet, if you were to get someone who knew a lot about gaming to say, "What's one company

01:16:51 ◼   ► you can get on stage that will make people think that you're getting more serious about

01:16:56 ◼   ► gaming without you having to spend billions of dollars to actually buy Nintendo or convince

01:17:01 ◼   ► one of the big game makers to put all their future games on your platform or whatever,

01:17:06 ◼   ► you could find a company that basically bankrupted itself producing Journey, had an exclusive

01:17:11 ◼   ► contract with Sony and PlayStation, which is why Journey isn't on other platforms, and

01:17:17 ◼   ► would be in the market to say we're trying to start the company back up again, who's

01:17:20 ◼   ► got a bunch of money to dump on our heads so we'll make our next game for their platform.

01:17:24 ◼   ► And I'm sure Sony approached them because they made a lot of money for Sony with Journey

01:17:29 ◼   ► and Flower and Flow and the whole nine yards and probably Microsoft approached them.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And here is the unlikely third suitor in Apple who has a lot of money to dump on people's

01:17:42 ◼   ► heads.

01:17:43 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, maybe they dumped more money or maybe that game company in Genova

01:17:47 ◼   ► or tired of dealing with Sony or Microsoft or, you know, whatever, they went with Apple.

01:17:53 ◼   ► And so they're making Sky on Apple TV.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Now if anyone who follows the game industry knows that platform exclusives are things

01:18:01 ◼   ► that people love to announce, but they're only really exclusive in certain more extreme

01:18:07 ◼   ► cases where it's kind of a second-party developer or a very tight relationship where this will

01:18:12 ◼   ► never be on another platform because we've really tied up the rights.

01:18:15 ◼   ► But a lot of times things are exclusive to Xbox, exclusive to PlayStation for three months,

01:18:21 ◼   ► for six months, for less time than that.

01:18:23 ◼   ► Timed exclusives they call them, which is like, so you mean not exclusive then, right?

01:18:27 ◼   ► This is a multi-platform game, it just goes on one platform first.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Or it's a multi-platform game and it ships on one three days before everything else and

01:18:33 ◼   ► there's special, you know, features for that one.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm not clear whether it's exclusive or exclusive, but either way, they gave enough

01:18:42 ◼   ► money to help the development of this game and also money to port their old games that

01:18:47 ◼   ► they were able to.

01:18:48 ◼   ► Like I said, I don't think they can port Journey because I think Sony's got the rights to that

01:18:50 ◼   ► all wrapped up, but we'll see.

01:18:52 ◼   ► I mean, that's...

01:18:53 ◼   ► Speaking of that, if Apple wants Journey, I'm sure they can give Sony a bucket full

01:18:56 ◼   ► of money and they would get it.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Bringing all those to Apple TV.

01:19:01 ◼   ► And it's a little bit of a head scratcher.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Because like, so you're trying to appeal to people who know what that game company is

01:19:07 ◼   ► and understand what a great game Journey was.

01:19:10 ◼   ► But those people don't take Apple TV seriously as a gaming platform because nobody takes

01:19:15 ◼   ► Apple TV seriously as a gaming platform.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But that's the only announcement you're going to make.

01:19:21 ◼   ► And the question I have about this announcement and Apple TV and gaming is like, "What's going

01:19:25 ◼   ► on Apple?

01:19:26 ◼   ► Are you serious?

01:19:27 ◼   ► Or is this just like another, is this your carpool karaoke of gaming?

01:19:33 ◼   ► Like you try to do, carpool karaoke is popular, right?

01:19:36 ◼   ► People like that.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Well try that.

01:19:39 ◼   ► Or is this your "I'm spending $2 billion in hiring all the showrunners from fancy shows

01:19:47 ◼   ► that are successful on other networks"?

01:19:50 ◼   ► It seems like I would say that Apple still is not serious about gaming, doesn't understand

01:19:54 ◼   ► what it takes to be a player in the gaming industry, but on the other hand wanted to

01:19:57 ◼   ► have something nice to say about gaming.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Or maybe like their close personal friends with Jenova Chen.

01:20:02 ◼   ► I don't even know.

01:20:03 ◼   ► But it's a mysterious announcement to me.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I'm assuming Sky will be a timed exclusive

01:20:08 ◼   ► and not only exclusive on Apple TV,

01:20:10 ◼   ► because come on, no one's like,

01:20:12 ◼   ► who's gonna buy an Apple TV to play Sky?

01:20:15 ◼   ► Some artsy partsy gaming nerds.

01:20:18 ◼   ► How many copies of Sky are they gonna sell

01:20:21 ◼   ► if it literally was exclusive to iOS and Apple TV?

01:20:24 ◼   ► Who knows, maybe they'll sell tons of them.

01:20:26 ◼   ► But I have to think Mario Run

01:20:28 ◼   ► has way more name recognition

01:20:30 ◼   ► than a game that no one's heard of

01:20:31 ◼   ► from a game developer that no one's heard of.

01:20:34 ◼   ► And even Mario Run, yeah, it made a lot of money,

01:20:36 ◼   ► but Zelda made more, you know,

01:20:38 ◼   ► and selling a bunch of Switches made more.

01:20:40 ◼   ► Hell, the NES Classic and SNES Classic probably made more.

01:20:44 ◼   ► So I don't know, like I would not have predicted this.

01:20:49 ◼   ► And it's still mysterious to me.

01:20:52 ◼   ► And I don't know if I'm being like biased

01:20:54 ◼   ► against Apple thinking like,

01:20:55 ◼   ► "Oh, Apple never understands games."

01:20:57 ◼   ► Like, what do they have to do to prove to you understand?

01:20:59 ◼   ► They have to prove that they understand games.

01:21:00 ◼   ► They have to prove that like,

01:21:02 ◼   ► that they know what it takes to make things that people want to play games on.

01:21:06 ◼   ► And the Apple TV is not a thing that people want to play games on.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Now I'll play Sky on my Apple TV if that's the only place I get it,

01:21:12 ◼   ► but I would much rather play it on my PlayStation.

01:21:14 ◼   ► I would rather play it on my Mac.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Macs, you can't play games on those, right, Apple?

01:21:18 ◼   ► As far as Apple's concerned, you can.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Um...

01:21:22 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:21:22 ◼   ► So I find that people are asking what I thought of it

01:21:24 ◼   ► because I love Journey so much.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I find it interesting, but also very frustrating,

01:21:28 ◼   ► and I continue to give Apple the frowny face when it comes to gaming on Apple TV.

01:21:32 ◼   ► And the Mac for that matter, because come on, like, you know, Valve was nice enough

01:21:36 ◼   ► to make Steam on the Mac, ship with good GPUs, support OpenGL better, let us play games on

01:21:41 ◼   ► the Mac.

01:21:42 ◼   ► But anyway, that's all I have to say about this.

01:21:44 ◼   ► That's all?

01:21:45 ◼   ► Oh, that's all.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I tried to make it short because I have deep feelings about it, but that's as short as

01:21:52 ◼   ► I can make it.

01:21:53 ◼   ► Oh, and I wanted to hear, are you two going to—you're good examples of people who

01:21:57 ◼   ► who don't give a damn about that game company and don't really care about Journey and, you

01:22:02 ◼   ► know, didn't know the name Sky until it was announced on stage despite the fact that they've

01:22:08 ◼   ► spent years working on this game or I don't remember if the name was out but everything

01:22:11 ◼   ► about the game had been discussed for a long time because in gaming circles.

01:22:15 ◼   ► But are you going to buy this game on your Apple TV?

01:22:18 ◼   ► If you didn't already have Apple TVs, would you buy one to play this game?

01:22:21 ◼   ► John, I don't even have time to play the Switch and you think I'm going to buy a game for

01:22:25 ◼   ► the Apple TV?

01:22:26 ◼   ► So you're not gonna buy this even if it's like 15 bucks?

01:22:29 ◼   ► - Absolutely not.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Absolutely not.

01:22:31 ◼   ► - You did buy Journey though, didn't you?

01:22:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, yes, I did.

01:22:35 ◼   ► And I borrowed a PlayStation to play it.

01:22:37 ◼   ► But, and I'm glad I did.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Don't get me wrong, it was a great game.

01:22:40 ◼   ► But the only way I'm gonna buy and play this game

01:22:43 ◼   ► is if I get browbeat into it from you,

01:22:45 ◼   ► which is quite possible.

01:22:46 ◼   ► And it's not that--

01:22:47 ◼   ► - I doubt I'm gonna do that,

01:22:48 ◼   ► 'cause really, do I want anyone playing games

01:22:50 ◼   ► with like an Apple TV remote?

01:22:51 ◼   ► Am I gonna make you buy a controller, Joe?

01:22:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's never gonna happen.

01:22:55 ◼   ► - I guess anyone of mine

01:22:56 ◼   ► probably never use them again.

01:22:58 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

01:22:59 ◼   ► So I guess that means same story for you then?

01:23:01 ◼   ► - I had, so when I saw Apple TV Gaming Sky

01:23:05 ◼   ► in the show notes document,

01:23:07 ◼   ► I had forgotten what that even was.

01:23:09 ◼   ► - So unpackable, that announcement.

01:23:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:23:12 ◼   ► I'm not a huge game nerd or even gamer at all.

01:23:17 ◼   ► I am currently very much enjoying Stardew Valley,

01:23:19 ◼   ► but I tend to really enjoy like one game a year maybe,

01:23:24 ◼   ► and then that's it.

01:23:26 ◼   ► so I really would not still call myself a gamer.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I'm sure it's going to be interesting to gamers.

01:23:34 ◼   ► If you come on here and tell me

01:23:36 ◼   ► you have to play this game, I'll play it.

01:23:38 ◼   ► I'll buy it, I'll play it, whatever.

01:23:40 ◼   ► But that would be the only reason I would do it.

01:23:43 ◼   ► The Apple TV, as much as I wanted it

01:23:46 ◼   ► to be a gaming platform when the fourth gen came out

01:23:49 ◼   ► and when the App Store for it launched and everything,

01:23:51 ◼   ► it just hasn't panned out.

01:23:53 ◼   ► and Apple has done pretty much nothing to help that.

01:23:57 ◼   ► You know, they still, they modified the rules

01:24:00 ◼   ► so that games now can at least require a controller

01:24:03 ◼   ► if it just is not gonna work with the Siri remote.

01:24:06 ◼   ► But, you know, there are so many reasons why

01:24:10 ◼   ► people don't even think of the Apple TV as a gaming platform

01:24:13 ◼   ► and if you're gonna have to go out and spend 50 bucks

01:24:16 ◼   ► on a controller to make it one, no one's gonna do that.

01:24:20 ◼   ► So the fact is, no matter how hard Apple tries

01:24:23 ◼   ► to make it a gaming platform,

01:24:25 ◼   ► which honestly doesn't seem like they're trying that hard,

01:24:26 ◼   ► but if they're trying, it's probably futile

01:24:30 ◼   ► until it comes with a type of remote

01:24:34 ◼   ► that can be used as a controller reasonably well in the box.

01:24:38 ◼   ► And I don't think that's ever gonna happen.

01:24:40 ◼   ► So as long as that's still not gonna be the case,

01:24:42 ◼   ► like no one's gonna go out there

01:24:43 ◼   ► and buy an extra controller for 50 bucks

01:24:46 ◼   ► just to play the very small handful of decent games that are available for the Apple TV.

01:24:51 ◼   ► >> So Apple has actually done a bunch of stuff in service of gaming, which is the mysterious

01:24:56 ◼   ► thing. Like all the stuff they're doing with Metal and all their W2C sessions and all their sort of

01:25:02 ◼   ► toolkits for making sprite-based and 3D games, like they're doing a lot of work. And it's like

01:25:07 ◼   ► they don't understand how games are made in the rest of the industry. Nobody is going to use all

01:25:12 ◼   ► there. Pretty impressive proprietary frameworks and stuff to make really good performing games

01:25:20 ◼   ► on Apple TV anyway. Maybe on iOS they're more motivated because you can sell a lot of games

01:25:24 ◼   ► if you get the right one on iOS. But on Apple TV, the only thing they're going to do is,

01:25:29 ◼   ► like, the best thing they've done is say, "Okay, well, we made sure that Unity has support for

01:25:33 ◼   ► Metal and all this other stuff." Like, the various game engines and the Unreal engine and all that

01:25:37 ◼   ► stuff have reasonable support for the underlying frameworks. But they're putting money into it,

01:25:41 ◼   ► And it's like, it's hard to tell, is it like, oh, this is mostly just for phone games, because

01:25:47 ◼   ► people make a lot of money on phone games, and by the way, it happens to also benefit

01:25:50 ◼   ► Apple TV.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Because if you're trying to compete in the games market, you have to do what the other

01:25:58 ◼   ► companies do who have gaming platforms.

01:26:00 ◼   ► You have to court talent and develop talent and get people to make games for your system

01:26:05 ◼   ► and make sure that multi-platform games are available on your system, unless your name

01:26:08 ◼   ► is Nintendo, and you have tons of first-party properties that can apparently keep your company

01:26:11 ◼   ► in life forever despite not doing a good job courting third-party success because you keep

01:26:15 ◼   ► making less powerful hardware. But anyway, you have to do, you have to put in a lot of work.

01:26:20 ◼   ► It's kind of like what they're doing with TV. You have to hire the right people and they have to go

01:26:23 ◼   ► get the actors and the stories and like, it is a lot of work to compete in the gaming industry.

01:26:28 ◼   ► You can't just say, "Here's the hardware and we, you know, gave some money to Jenova Chen,

01:26:33 ◼   ► so here's one cool game." And like, if you build it, they won't come. Like, you have to go get

01:26:38 ◼   ► them. You have to do all the things that Sony and Microsoft do, and Nintendo even, you know,

01:26:44 ◼   ► to some degree, do in this market. Or, you know, if you want to be like Nintendo, make a bunch of

01:26:48 ◼   ► amazing first-party games that are just system sellers on their own. And, but, and they don't

01:26:54 ◼   ► have the back catalogue for that anyway. So, it's frustrating to me because every time I see all the

01:27:00 ◼   ► gaming sessions that we ever see, I'm impressed by what I see, but I can't map that to like Apple TV

01:27:06 ◼   ► gaming. It's all, even though they talk about it and they put a powerful GPU in the Apple

01:27:11 ◼   ► TV and they say it's a platform for gaming, it just seems like a way for you to make phone

01:27:17 ◼   ► games, which is fine. That's the one area where they have a little bit of sway, although

01:27:21 ◼   ► even phone games use third-party engines for a lot of stuff. But Apple TV, it just doesn't

01:27:25 ◼   ► seem to be going anywhere, which is... I don't know. It's almost as if I wish they would

01:27:29 ◼   ► just like not keep making these sort of half-hearted efforts and instead just admit that Apple

01:27:36 ◼   ► TV is in a gaming platform.

01:27:37 ◼   ► And all that said, before we finally leave this topic, one thing I will suggest is that

01:27:41 ◼   ► Flower, which is an older game made by that game company, is actually a really good fit

01:27:48 ◼   ► for iOS and for Apple TV because it's entirely motion controlled, or I'm assuming it is,

01:27:52 ◼   ► it was in the PlayStation.

01:27:54 ◼   ► So even with the Apple TV remote, you don't have to touch any buttons, you just tilt the

01:27:59 ◼   ► remote forward and back and so I don't know I haven't actually tried it with the

01:28:02 ◼   ► AppleT remote but I'm saying if anything is gonna be reasonably playable with that

01:28:05 ◼   ► terrible remote or just on a phone or something an entirely motion-controlled

01:28:10 ◼   ► game is and flower is fine it's cute it's a nice game if you're not really

01:28:15 ◼   ► into games and just want something pretty to look at and a fun activity that

01:28:19 ◼   ► actually does build to something towards the end if you play through the whole

01:28:21 ◼   ► game I would recommend downloading the port of flower it is actually a good fit

01:28:27 ◼   ► for all of Apple's platforms, unlike so many other games that just don't work without a

01:28:32 ◼   ► controller like Marco said. So I'll play Sky and tell you how it is.

01:28:38 ◼   ► Thanks. Alright, thanks to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Audible, and Fracture.

01:28:43 ◼   ► And we will see you next week.

01:28:44 ◼   ► [MUSIC]

01:28:54 ◼   ► Oh it was accidental.

01:28:56 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

01:28:59 ◼   ► Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.

01:29:02 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental.

01:29:04 ◼   ► It was accidental.

01:29:07 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.

01:29:12 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at

01:29:18 ◼   ► [music]

01:29:47 ◼   ► You're looking at that expensive Volvo?

01:29:51 ◼   ► I knew it was a thing, but I'd never really read that much into it.

01:29:54 ◼   ► Still an SUV.

01:29:55 ◼   ► So who cares?

01:29:56 ◼   ► You know, sometimes you want, sometimes, Jon, you want space.

01:30:00 ◼   ► It's a thing.

01:30:01 ◼   ► If only there was a way to get space without making it really tall.

01:30:05 ◼   ► Yeah, and how are you going to do that, Marco?

01:30:07 ◼   ► A large sedan, a hatchback, a wagon, a crossover, a minivan.

01:30:14 ◼   ► There's all sorts of ways to do this.

01:30:15 ◼   ► No crossovers.

01:30:16 ◼   ► Minivan is acceptable answer hatchback is not

01:30:19 ◼   ► Crossover is not not a room in a Rolls-Royce. You need to make the entire vehicle 20 feet high

01:30:24 ◼   ► No the problem is that yeah, okay, I will sure John I'll buy the

01:30:29 ◼   ► $300,000 Rolls-Royce just to avoid the $50,000

01:30:33 ◼   ► lifted car

01:30:35 ◼   ► Mercedes s-class like it's not like you need to make it an SUV to have room in a car

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yeah, have you seen how much room there's in my car?

01:30:42 ◼   ► We don't like SUVs and in case you don't like SUVs either, but you have one now

01:30:47 ◼   ► So you feel compelled to defend the form and you shouldn't there's some there's some modicum of that that is true without question. However, I

01:30:55 ◼   ► Really like Karen's car a lot. I really honestly do you just like nice cars, but you know, well, that's true

01:31:02 ◼   ► It was a nice sedan. You would like it a lot too. Uh

01:31:04 ◼   ► Yes, and I and I have sat in a stationary

01:31:08 ◼   ► what the hell is it called? S90? Basically her car, but low. And

01:31:12 ◼   ► it's eerie because it feels on the inside exactly the same until you look, you know, past the

01:31:19 ◼   ► second row, because obviously Erin's car is third row. But anyway, in so many ways it feels the same, like the same infotainment, same

01:31:26 ◼   ► cushiness, etc, etc. The car is like 300 feet long,

01:31:30 ◼   ► but I don't know, it just feels wonky to me when it's that low.

01:31:34 ◼   ► I think because I was exposed to the XC90 as a SUV.

01:31:39 ◼   ► Although it's funny because to kind of parlay this into something, that's not the right

01:31:43 ◼   ► use of the word, but whatever, to turn this into something, to pivot into something else,

01:31:49 ◼   ► I am taking the BMW in in a couple of weeks for state inspection for an airbag recall,

01:31:54 ◼   ► maybe, if they actually have one in stock.

01:31:57 ◼   ► And I had to put a little coolant in the car, which in and of itself is not that remarkable,

01:32:02 ◼   ► but it's the first time I've had to do it.

01:32:03 ◼   ► So I asked them, "Hey, just go ahead and make sure this thing isn't about to explode."

01:32:07 ◼   ► Which means they're going to find a reason why it's about to explode and this will be

01:32:10 ◼   ► another $5,000 bill.

01:32:11 ◼   ► Well anyway, I bring all this up because a sales dude called me and said, "Oh, I see

01:32:15 ◼   ► you're bringing your car in in a couple of weeks."

01:32:17 ◼   ► Yes, I am.

01:32:19 ◼   ► Is there something I could do to put you in a new BMW?

01:32:21 ◼   ► To which I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

01:32:24 ◼   ► So I said to him, "I put $15,000 in this car in five years.

01:32:27 ◼   ► There's no way I'm buying another BMW."

01:32:29 ◼   ► He probably believed you as much as we do.

01:32:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:32:33 ◼   ► - I'm not buying a BMW.

01:32:34 ◼   ► - Mostly.

01:32:35 ◼   ► - No, you're gonna buy something faster but worse.

01:32:38 ◼   ► - Probably, actually to be honest,

01:32:40 ◼   ► that is an extremely accurate assessment

01:32:43 ◼   ► if I end up with a Golf R.

01:32:45 ◼   ► - Exactly, 'cause everything that you've said

01:32:47 ◼   ► that you are really wanting is like faster but worse.

01:32:51 ◼   ► - Correct.

01:32:52 ◼   ► - At least that you would actually buy,

01:32:54 ◼   ► like the Quadrafaglio or whatever it was,

01:32:57 ◼   ► that one that might overall be better

01:33:00 ◼   ► depending on the transmission severity,

01:33:02 ◼   ► but you wouldn't actually buy that one.

01:33:05 ◼   ► - Correct.

01:33:06 ◼   ► - I still continue to read all sorts of bad stories

01:33:08 ◼   ► about reliability for test fleet cars,

01:33:11 ◼   ► for like car magazines, and they usually get the good ones.

01:33:14 ◼   ► So I would, yeah.

01:33:15 ◼   ► Although I like Marco's most recent mispronunciation

01:33:19 ◼   ► because it contains fugly in it.

01:33:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:33:23 ◼   ► - It's a beautiful car.

01:33:25 ◼   ► It's a beautiful car.

01:33:26 ◼   ► I will, like you are wrong, John.

01:33:28 ◼   ► You are wrong.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Is your given name John or Jonathan?

01:33:30 ◼   ► It's John, isn't it?

01:33:31 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, and that's a good car. Sorry. It seems like it seems like a great car

01:33:37 ◼   ► It seems like it's unreliable and I do not like how it looks no

01:33:40 ◼   ► I mean first of all you can tell it's John instead of Jonathan because there's an H and he's Italian

01:33:44 ◼   ► There are no there's probably somebody out there who spells Jonathan with the H, but I'm sure it's very very rare and second of all

01:33:51 ◼   ► There's no there's no Italian Jonathan's they're all John's that's true

01:33:53 ◼   ► And then second of all a third of all whatever a number I'm up to now

01:33:56 ◼   ► D I would say that the quadratic gli-o is

01:34:01 ◼   ► probably significantly more attractive

01:34:04 ◼   ► than the current generation of BMW M cars?

01:34:07 ◼   ► - Nope.

01:34:08 ◼   ► - I would say it is more attractive.

01:34:10 ◼   ► I don't know if I would say

01:34:11 ◼   ► it's considerably more attractive.

01:34:13 ◼   ► So my product communications person

01:34:15 ◼   ► from Alfa Romeo North America wrote me today.

01:34:18 ◼   ► - We all have one of those.

01:34:20 ◼   ► - God, that sounded extremely self-reported.

01:34:22 ◼   ► - Product communications, what a title.

01:34:24 ◼   ► - My product communications from Alfa Romeo America

01:34:26 ◼   ► never writes me at all, what a jerk.

01:34:28 ◼   ► So they talk to you about products.

01:34:31 ◼   ► It's like, I want to communicate with you about products.

01:34:34 ◼   ► I'm a product communicator.

01:34:35 ◼   ► - This is not where I wanted this to go,

01:34:37 ◼   ► and I recognize that this is exactly what I deserve.

01:34:39 ◼   ► - I never, that's a hell of a title.

01:34:41 ◼   ► - It's exactly what I deserve.

01:34:43 ◼   ► But anyway, what did I call him?

01:34:45 ◼   ► A product communication specialist or whatever it was?

01:34:47 ◼   ► - I already forgot. - I closed the email.

01:34:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I closed the email and I forgot too.

01:34:50 ◼   ► So anyway, so I've been bothering him constantly

01:34:53 ◼   ► because the people that actually have the car

01:34:55 ◼   ► don't want to talk to me apparently.

01:34:57 ◼   ► But anyway.

01:34:58 ◼   ► they're not flying you to Europe to try this stick. And by the way, the chat room

01:35:01 ◼   ► runs out that you should ask them for the SUV since that's what you like.

01:35:04 ◼   ► Oh, kindly kiss the widest part of my... Well, you know, that seems to be what you're

01:35:09 ◼   ► into. It might seem weird when it's down so low, it might seem weird.

01:35:12 ◼   ► John, I hate you so much. You know what I'm gonna be... Well, actually, you know what's

01:35:17 ◼   ► worse? Did I have this conversation with you guys on the show? I don't think I did.

01:35:19 ◼   ► The worst part of this is that I've decided my shortlist for my next car.

01:35:24 ◼   ► Obviously, Golf R, there are two other options.

01:35:28 ◼   ► I would like you to guess, either one of you,

01:35:30 ◼   ► what those other two options are.

01:35:31 ◼   ► - Honda Accord.

01:35:32 ◼   ► - No. - No.

01:35:33 ◼   ► - Although I will look at it.

01:35:34 ◼   ► - Yes, he will look at it.

01:35:35 ◼   ► - It's too slow, it's too slow.

01:35:37 ◼   ► - No, the other option is gonna be

01:35:39 ◼   ► that Cadillac rectangle thing.

01:35:43 ◼   ► - No, good guess, but no.

01:35:45 ◼   ► - No, all right.

01:35:46 ◼   ► - No, no, it's automatic only.

01:35:48 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, all right, so.

01:35:49 ◼   ► - All three of these cars,

01:35:50 ◼   ► all three of these cars I can get with a stick, brand new.

01:35:52 ◼   ► - All right, so Golf R, it's probably not

01:35:55 ◼   ► the Jeep Grand Cherokee, whatever it was that you reviewed.

01:35:57 ◼   ► - Can't care, that was a stick.

01:35:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, right. - No, no.

01:36:00 ◼   ► - Mmm, what the hell is, I don't know, other stick,

01:36:04 ◼   ► uh, not an Audi, no.

01:36:06 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say, since you have SUV envy,

01:36:09 ◼   ► and there aren't that many SUVs available with a stick,

01:36:11 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess maybe a Jeep Wrangler,

01:36:13 ◼   ► 'cause those I think are available with a stick.

01:36:15 ◼   ► - That is one of the three cars.

01:36:17 ◼   ► - Yes! - That is the,

01:36:18 ◼   ► I'm not kidding, by the way, I am not kidding.

01:36:20 ◼   ► That is my "I am abandoning all pretense of luxury, I am abandoning all thoughts of

01:36:26 ◼   ► speed and comfort, and screw it, I'm just gonna go the other direction."

01:36:31 ◼   ► "Why don't I get a golf cart?

01:36:32 ◼   ► What are you doing?"

01:36:34 ◼   ► "John, all kidding aside, as much as I love to beat up on you two, have you ever been

01:36:39 ◼   ► either of you in a Jeep Wrangler that has the top off or down and does not have doors

01:36:44 ◼   ► on it?"

01:36:45 ◼   ► "Yeah, no, I understand that's why I said a golf cart.

01:36:47 ◼   ► It's fun to ride a golf cart too."

01:36:49 ◼   ► Right, and does not have doors on it. That's the key. The fact that you can just take the doors right off is amazing

01:36:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's great fun

01:36:55 ◼   ► You know, I there has never been a time when I've been sitting in a car and thought you know

01:36:59 ◼   ► This car needs fewer doors. I had never

01:37:02 ◼   ► It's feeling like, you know when I used to work at the parks department

01:37:07 ◼   ► they had a lot of vehicles that were basically this like old trucks or

01:37:11 ◼   ► Was it the brand Cushman or whatever like being four by four is that you basically sit on kind of it's fun

01:37:18 ◼   ► But like that's not that's not car and obviously if you live anywhere with weather

01:37:22 ◼   ► That's no go and even if you don't you're just you're just tempting death like why not get a super bike

01:37:27 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I'll just get myself a what's the what's the ridiculous one that they always turbocharged oh god

01:37:36 ◼   ► I'm trying to blank now Hayabusa there it is. I'll just get a Hayabusa and I'll be fine

01:37:40 ◼   ► So, okay, so you got one of the three well two of the three actually because I gave you the goal far

01:37:43 ◼   ► Oh man, so John what do you I mean? What else is available to stick BMW 2 series?

01:37:48 ◼   ► It's available with a stick.

01:37:49 ◼   ► - It's not a BMW.

01:37:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, it should be the 2 Series, but it's not.

01:37:53 ◼   ► - I need more space.

01:37:56 ◼   ► - Audi makes A4s with sticks, I think.

01:37:58 ◼   ► - Do they?

01:37:59 ◼   ► - There it is, there it is.

01:38:00 ◼   ► - 'Cause you enjoyed your renting of the silver one.

01:38:03 ◼   ► - Well, I did, although the MMI,

01:38:05 ◼   ► which is their knockoff iDrive,

01:38:06 ◼   ► used to be abysmally bad.

01:38:09 ◼   ► Not as bad as the Jeep, but really bad.

01:38:11 ◼   ► But that being said, they supposedly have a new one

01:38:16 ◼   ► and you can get the A4 with a stick,

01:38:19 ◼   ► and it has all the fancy digital dash

01:38:21 ◼   ► that I'm sure Jon hates, and it has car play.

01:38:25 ◼   ► - I don't hate digital dashes.

01:38:26 ◼   ► You mean the instrument cluster in front of you

01:38:30 ◼   ► behind the steering wheel, right?

01:38:31 ◼   ► - Correct, correct. - Yeah, I don't hate that.

01:38:33 ◼   ► - Oh, well, I'm surprised.

01:38:34 ◼   ► Well, anyway, so it has all that jazz.

01:38:36 ◼   ► - But see, I think I will still be correct

01:38:40 ◼   ► that what you'll be hitting will be faster but worse,

01:38:41 ◼   ► although actually, if you get an Audi, it might not be faster.

01:38:43 ◼   ► - It would not be, well, probably not.

01:38:46 ◼   ► It depends on how well I can drive my car.

01:38:48 ◼   ► - To me, my experience with Audi is in looking at them

01:38:50 ◼   ► and test driving them and having occasional friends

01:38:53 ◼   ► that have them and stuff, it just seems like,

01:38:55 ◼   ► it's like BMW, but everything looks a little bit better

01:38:58 ◼   ► and works a little bit worse.

01:39:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:39:03 ◼   ► - In my limited experience with Audi,

01:39:04 ◼   ► I would agree with that wholeheartedly.

01:39:05 ◼   ► - The outside of them look pretty good

01:39:07 ◼   ► on some of them though.

01:39:08 ◼   ► - Yes. - Their styling is--

01:39:09 ◼   ► - It looks a little bit better.