0:00:00Real-time follow-up, as of approximately 10 or so minutes ago, I am now an uncle.
0:00:05Hey, congratulations!
0:00:06Hey!
0:00:06Do you intend to be a creepy uncle or a fun uncle or some other kind of uncle?
0:00:12I hadn't even thought about it, but uh...
0:00:14I mean, you gotta think about these things.
0:00:16Casey's gonna try to be the cool uncle, we already know that.
0:00:18The question is, the question is, what is he going to be?
0:00:20Oh, that is, that's true.
0:00:21[laughter]
0:00:24That is 100 percent, that is 100 percent accurate.
0:00:28I wish I could deny it, but that is absolutely accurate.
0:00:34So I wanted to spend a moment and talk about the somewhat political section of our last
0:00:40episode.
0:00:42And we got a lot of feedback.
0:00:44We got a lot of good feedback.
0:00:45We got a lot of bad feedback.
0:00:48But one thing that was common that I think was on me that I wanted to apologize to listeners
0:00:52for is, at one point in the heat of getting fired up, or in the midst of getting fired
0:00:58up, I had said in so many words, you know, "If you disagree with me, you're a monster."
0:01:03And name calling is not really a constructive way to have a reasoned debate. Not to say
0:01:08that that debate was terribly reasoned anyway, but name calling does not really help the
0:01:12scenario. And, you know, if I'm going to be grumpy about other people name calling, then
0:01:17I should be grumpy about me doing it. And so, no snark intended. I really do apologize
0:01:22for name calling. I stand by the general premise of what I said, which is to say I think that some
0:01:26of the behaviors of those who want to take away healthcare, that is a monstrous behavior, but that
0:01:31does not by necessity make somebody a monster. So I don't know, you guys can either confirm or deny
0:01:38everything I've just said, but for what it's worth, I feel bad about that, and I wish I had
0:01:43handled that a little bit better, despite by and large sticking by pretty much everything I said,
0:01:47but the name calling doesn't help. I think you undercut yourself with the monstrous behaviors
0:01:51thing because I'm not sure that distinction is particularly important, but we don't usually
0:01:56talk about politics in the show, and I think we kind of accidentally talked about it,
0:01:59which is fitting, because it was not on the topic list. It sort of slid right into it from
0:02:03WikiTribune, which was on the topic list, and it ended up staying in the show unlike many other
0:02:08similar discussions. But one of the main problems with any time that we get into
0:02:12politics is that for the most part, the three of us are coming from the same place. Like,
0:02:18we agree on the issues. And it's actually surprisingly difficult to talk about a controversial
0:02:26political issue amongst three people who all agree with each other. And it's why we get the
0:02:31complaints of like, you know, echo chamber, so on and so forth. The good thing and the bad thing
0:02:35about podcasts is even though it's just the three of us talking about it, and we all agree,
0:02:39in aggregate, it's not an echo chamber, because believe me, the opposing opinions are presented
0:02:45to us, right? So we just don't get them in real time. It is delayed. But that's not, you know,
0:02:51we're not doing a political debate show. But yeah, so when we're all talking about it, and we all
0:02:55more or less agree, we're just like saying things that each one of us agrees about. There's not even
0:02:59that much nuance to our disagreement. And it just kind of spirals off from there. And I don't,
0:03:03I don't, it's difficult to, it's difficult to clarify our thinking on it when there's
0:03:08essentially no opposition on the podcast itself. So that's a difficulty I always feel when,
0:03:13when engaging those and when listening to them, always trying to look for an angle that is
0:03:17illuminating rather than just the three of us venting, which occasionally happens. Occasionally
0:03:21we got to vent and occasionally we're feeling bad about things. I'm surprised after the presidential
0:03:26election, we didn't have a similar show. Somehow we avoided it, but it came out last week.
0:03:29I have no regrets. I had a feeling, but like In an Outland says in the chat,
0:03:36saying that people are monsters is counterproductive and makes the argument sound dumb.
0:03:39and I would agree with that.
0:03:40So I am sorry for that portion of the discussion.
0:03:43The rest of it, I pretty much stick by.
0:03:44- I think one thing that is really badly missing
0:03:49in our culture is the ability to agree on some
0:03:55cause and effect norms or being able to talk
0:03:59about cause and effect without it being assumed to be,
0:04:03or without it being politicized.
0:04:05'Cause if we, the healthcare debate,
0:04:07It's like when I was saying last week
0:04:09about how I want people to actually think
0:04:12through their arguments of,
0:04:13well, how do we think people in society should be treated?
0:04:18And how do we think the government should take care
0:04:20of people or not take care of people?
0:04:22I wish we could talk about that in, we as a society,
0:04:25I wish we could talk about that
0:04:27without it being so politically charged
0:04:29and people immediately jumping down each other's throats
0:04:31about their identities.
0:04:34Because what we need to instead be able to talk about
0:04:37like, you know, how do we want to treat people in our society who need some kind of help?
0:04:45Do we want the standard of that to be that we should just let people fail and die and
0:04:51starve or not? And if the answer is not, then how do we allocate these resources? How do
0:04:58we pay for them? And I wish we could actually talk about that, but the second you give an
0:05:04opinion either way on that. Whether you say, "I think society should help those less
0:05:10fortunate," whether you think, you know, "We should provide for people and we should
0:05:14like not let people fail too badly or starve or die," or whether you think that we should
0:05:21just let people do all those things. That shouldn't be a U.S. Republican versus Democrat
0:05:29thing, but it is. And so it's hard to say like, "Oh, we should stay away from political
0:05:35topics or that every view is valid," when some of these views, people on both sides
0:05:43think that it's not just politics, that it's like the basics of their identity or of human
0:05:49standards of decency and obligations to each other. And it's not just political. It's
0:05:55It's not like I think we should vote for the person
0:05:58in the red versus the person in the blue or whatever else.
0:06:01It's like I want people who aren't like me to die
0:06:05or I want to help people.
0:06:08And those shouldn't be political opinions.
0:06:10Those should be like this is the one that we teach ourselves
0:06:13and that we value because we're good people
0:06:16and this is the other one.
0:06:17But apparently that's not what these things are.
0:06:19- But nobody wants people to die.
0:06:21That's what people are just gonna say.
0:06:22- No, no.
0:06:23They very much do.
0:06:25I mean, so that's the, I don't want to get into it again
0:06:27'cause this is what it's supposed to be,
0:06:29touching on this topic, but that's,
0:06:30I feel like I can argue the other side pretty decently
0:06:34to like the old other side, again,
0:06:36I alluded to like the '80s when they used to make arguments
0:06:39to say that actually we all agree
0:06:40on what we want to accomplish,
0:06:41it's just a difference of opinion
0:06:42on how to best accomplish it.
0:06:43- Right.
0:06:44- That debate is a lot easier to have.
0:06:46What you're getting at is it doesn't feel like
0:06:47we're even unified on the goal.
0:06:49But even though the consequences of these decisions
0:06:52may be real, it's not connected in a straight line
0:06:55in terms of I want people who aren't like me to die.
0:06:59Like, I don't think you will get anybody
0:07:02to own that opinion anywhere, right?
0:07:04- Well, that's true, but the problem is
0:07:07that people will very strongly own opinions
0:07:11that precede that, but if you actually follow them
0:07:13through the conclusions, then that is a penalty.
0:07:15So, suppose somebody has a life-threatening illness
0:07:19that is treatable, but they can't afford the treatment.
0:07:22What should happen in this case?
0:07:24Should our society find a way to pay for people
0:07:28in these kinds of conditions to get treatment,
0:07:30or should we let them die?
0:07:32That is a fundamental argument that we have
0:07:37seemingly about every 10 years.
0:07:39And if you're on the side of we should help people,
0:07:42it seems like you'd be a total monster,
0:07:45to use Casey's word, right?
0:07:46It seems like you'd be a total monster
0:07:48to argue the other side of that,
0:07:49to say like, you know, actually,
0:07:50no, we should let people die.
0:07:52Like, no, that's—but that actually—
0:07:53But they don't want them to die.
0:07:55They don't want them.
0:07:56They're not wishing them ill.
0:07:57They wish that if they could snap their fingers and cure them, they would say, "Yes, you're
0:08:00cured.
0:08:01We should totally do that."
0:08:02It's just an unfortunate situation, and there's just, you know, debating the best
0:08:06way to allocate scarce resources and to incentivize the right behaviorist and blah, blah, blah.
0:08:10Like, we start shifting to the more intellectual argument towards it.
0:08:13But when you connect it up to, like, malice, like, to say that people have malice towards
0:08:17like it's not... and get it, ignoring the specifics of this thing more generally, the other general
0:08:23topic on the political stuff is, this happens to me, this happens to everybody when you're
0:08:27listening to someone talk about something, whether it's political or technological or anything on a
0:08:31podcast, they will, especially things with two sides, red/blue, Mac PC, whatever it may be,
0:08:38you know, the two-sided debate, they will address a thing like, "people who support x are wrong
0:08:46because blah blah blah blah blah. And if people that support X are on a particular team and
0:08:52you are also on that team but you don't support X, they'll say people who support X, here's
0:08:58what I don't like about it. And people will get offended to say, well, I don't support
0:09:01X, but I'm on the same team as the people who support X. And because you're yelling
0:09:05at that person, I feel you're yelling at me. And it's very difficult to hold on to the
0:09:09thread that says, look, if they are complaining about something that you don't believe, they're
0:09:14not talking to you. You know what I mean? But when there are two teams, it's like, if
0:09:18they're saying anything about my team, even though I agree with them on this specific
0:09:22point, it's like they're attacking my team and I feel attacked. Like, are you trying
0:09:25to say that I believe X? It's like, well, if you don't believe X, we're not talking
0:09:27to you. And so, like, this is not addressed with you. But when there's two teams, and
0:09:33it's on your team, you can't help but get pulled into it. And again, that happens with
0:09:37everybody, especially with two-sided debates or, you know, actual sports teams, as the
0:09:41case may be, where you can't wrap your mind around a player on your favorite sports team
0:09:45maybe did something bad, but you really do love the sports team and you try to square
0:09:49that circle so when someone says, "Hey, that person on that sports team did a bad thing,"
0:09:53you say, "You be quiet!
0:09:54He didn't do a bad thing!"
0:09:55And really, in your heart of hearts, you also agree he did a bad thing, but you love the
0:09:58sports team.
0:09:59Right?
0:10:00So, anyway, that's a difficulty, and when I'm listening to people talk about, you know,
0:10:06it's to like or dislike a particular movie or a director or a TV show or, you know, Mac versus
0:10:13PC things, it's very easy to think that they're talking about you or to you, ascribing to you
0:10:18beliefs that you don't have, when you have to realize it's a broadcast medium and no one is
0:10:22saying you specifically there believe these things. And if you don't, then don't take on the burden of
0:10:28thinking that you're being reprimanded for something that you don't believe.
0:10:32The good news, though, is that there are some universal truths in the world.
0:10:36And speaking of sports, there are universal truths like Bill Belichick is a cheater and
0:10:41Tom Brady really should not be playing football.
0:10:42So anyway, let's talk about the back of the iPhone.
0:10:45Adam Mork writes in to say, "My take on that rumor image with Touch ID on the back is that
0:10:52it's a real schematic for a real prototype, but it's only for testing.
0:10:57There have been more leaked schematics with no Touch ID on the back, and I'm surprised
0:11:00that this has been debated in two episodes as an inevitability. In my opinion, this is
0:11:04Adam, there is zero chance Apple releases a phone with such idea in the back. It's too
0:11:08big of a paradigm shift in form and function. Apple has done more work for far less in the
0:11:12past. I'd bet a lot of money it's under the screen at launch. It really feels like a deal-breaking
0:11:17feature they would wait for. So I think to be clear, none of us were saying
0:11:21that was inevitability merely that this was a supposed leak thing and that we could all
0:11:26conceive of Apple releasing such a thing.
0:11:29Obviously it would not be ideal, and obviously, you know, plan A is the thing under the screen.
0:11:34But we were discussing it, because like, what if they did?
0:11:35What if they couldn't get it under the screen?
0:11:37Would they put it on the back?
0:11:38Like, obviously, Apple doesn't want to if they want to do that thing on the screen.
0:11:41It's totally cool, right?
0:11:43But I, you know, as I said when we first started talking about this, I believe it is a thing
0:11:47that Apple would do, because if the choice is between doing that and not having a new
0:11:53phone form factor at all, they would totally do that.
0:11:57But I also totally buy this, you know, this is not a slam dunk, this is just a random
0:12:00drawing that could be totally fake and as I said we'll find out when the real phone
0:12:03is released and we look at the millimeter sizing and if they got it down to three decimal
0:12:06points, chances are that it was at the very least a real leak or something manufactured
0:12:12based on the knowledge of what the phone would be like.
0:12:14But yeah, could be a prototype, could be just a testing thing, it's hard to think of it
0:12:17as being a prototype like that because it would take a lot of stuff to move around the
0:12:22the touch ID to the back even just for testing because there's a bunch of other crap there
0:12:24on the phone.
0:12:26But anyway, for my part, I'm not tied to any one of these particular rumors and obviously
0:12:32the plan A in both terms of rumors and in terms of what Apple would want to do is a
0:12:37thing in the screen.
0:12:38And so that's what I'm certainly hoping for, but if it doesn't arrive and the thing is
0:12:42on the back, we won't all be flipping out because I feel like we will be acclimated
0:12:47to that idea through these leaks.
0:12:49All right.
0:12:50Let's talk about dirty fabric on laptops
0:12:52Sure, let's
0:12:55This this is this is a little bit of an odd more than a little bit of an odd thing. So
0:13:02to set some context the surface laptop has
0:13:07Alkintara, is that how you pronounce it? I just just avoid it. Just just avoid it
0:13:12Like we avoid all the words we can't pronounce just avoid it
0:13:14And and so it has some sort of fabric II leathery something or other on it and that is to my understanding
0:13:20including where your wrists sit. And that seems to me to be a really poor
0:13:26choice for any human being of any kind. Because I remember having a poly book,
0:13:31hi Steven Hackett, which is to say a white polycarbonate MacBook, and I had to
0:13:36take a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to that thing like once every couple weeks, or
0:13:40deal with all of my wrist gunk and sweat and whatever and oils turning that thing
0:13:46brown and it was gross. And that's plastic. Imagine fabric! And so there's a link to...
0:13:52what is this? Boy Genius Report or something like that? I don't remember what BGR stands
0:13:56for.
0:13:57>> It's Brown's Booger.
0:13:58>> Oh, fair enough. So we have a link to something. And they show an example of a surface with...
0:14:05it appears to be a surface keyboard with some really gross wrist oils all over it because
0:14:09clearly it's been used a lot. And that just strikes me as a poor choice. But I don't know,
0:14:13maybe I'm missing something. What do you guys think?
0:14:15When we talked about the fabric on the Surface laptop's last show, I was concerned about
0:14:22the edges fraying and the difficulty of mating that material.
0:14:26But more broadly, as this dirty fabric issue brings up, a laptop is something that gets
0:14:35a lot of contact, even though you're not supposed to rest your wrists when you're typing.
0:14:39People do.
0:14:41And people's hands and wrists are going to be in contact with this thing very very frequently
0:14:46during use.
0:14:48And for anything like that, it's a good idea to make it out of a material that is durable
0:14:54or washable or ideally both.
0:14:57Because there is gunk on our hands.
0:14:59And it is going to come off and go onto the thing that we're touching and there needs
0:15:03to be some plan for that.
0:15:05So on the iPhone screens, A, they're made of glass which is very hard material and easy
0:15:10clean and B) they have that coating that tries to repel oil so that when you do try to wipe
0:15:13all your gunk off it will come off easily.
0:15:16And that's a good plan for the front of a cell phone that you're going to be touching
0:15:19all the time.
0:15:20Similarly for the track pads on Macs, I think we all remember the original track pads before
0:15:25they were glass, they were, you know, various kinds of plastic, and over time the track
0:15:30pads would get kind of shiny and slippery and worn down and discolored on the particular
0:15:34parts that you touch them.
0:15:36Moving to the glass track pad really helps solve that problem to keep it sort of uniformly
0:15:39color colored and textured easy to clean because it is a part that you're
0:15:44touching all the time. same thing with keycaps making them out of hard plastic
0:15:48figuring out how to make keycaps so that the letters and numbers don't come off
0:15:51I'm sure we have all met somebody who is some strain of X person which means that
0:15:56they secrete oils from their bodies that wear the letters off of the keycaps
0:15:59right some people just have I don't know it's if it's acidic or otherwise solvent
0:16:06based secretions from their fingertips that will defeat almost any keyboard and leave
0:16:11their keycaps perfectly smooth and featureless. But it's a challenge to...
0:16:15Wait, people have acid fingers? That's awesome! I don't know if it's actually acid. All I
0:16:19know is that some people, you know, if you look at some people's keyboards, they will
0:16:22have the exact same keyboard as you and all the letters will be gone from like the home
0:16:25row or like the E key and the return and stuff. And you're like, "Look, I'm using the same
0:16:29keyboard as you for the same period of time. There's obviously some difference in our body
0:16:32chemistry that is causing this to happen." Which is fine, like whatever, but the job
0:16:35of making a keyboard is to make it easy to clean and make the little, you know, letters
0:16:40resist wearing off. For a laptop, to cover it in fabric, fabric falls down in almost
0:16:46all these categories. It is not easy to clean because anything that gets in there gets down
0:16:53to the weave or whatever, and to really wash fabric, you put it in the washing machine,
0:16:57and if you're lucky, that does a good job, but you're not putting your laptop in the
0:16:59washing machine, so you've got a problem already.
0:17:02To wash fabric you need moisture.
0:17:04You need liquid, which unless you're Casey,
0:17:07that's not going anywhere near your laptop.
0:17:08- Yeah, and it still needs to pass through it.
0:17:11Like it's not just gonna go on the surface.
0:17:13And you wanna make it so that whatever does get on it
0:17:17comes off easily, you know?
0:17:19And the surface stays the same
0:17:22if you have it from year to year.
0:17:23And the fabric, fabric wears down and frays
0:17:25and can get thin and rub through in spots
0:17:28and so on and so forth.
0:17:29So it is not a great solution for anything
0:17:31you're gonna handle that much.
0:17:33I mean, even clothes wear out,
0:17:35'cause they're made of cloth, we put it on our body,
0:17:36eventually you get holes in the knees
0:17:38and holes in the pockets and they just fray.
0:17:41So it is definitely a material
0:17:45that you can't treat the same way you would treat
0:17:47even Casey's plastic eye book.
0:17:49And one of the problems with the plastic eye books
0:17:52was they were white and they had some discoloration issues
0:17:56that may not have been noticeable
0:17:57if they were like a boring gray
0:18:00or if the plastic could be formulated differently
0:18:03if it was a different color,
0:18:04but they were like very white and translucent
0:18:06and that was a problem.
0:18:07I think they probably could be cleaned pretty easily.
0:18:09I don't know if they were porous or what,
0:18:10but and even for the very, what,
0:18:13the Blackbook also had similar problems
0:18:14with the surface texture going.
0:18:16Eventually Apple settled on materials
0:18:18that are pretty darn resilient.
0:18:20The aluminum and the finish they put on the aluminum,
0:18:22it's not super glossy.
0:18:23You know, it's like,
0:18:25it's a finish that will stay looking the same
0:18:27for pretty much the life of the thing
0:18:28and combined with the glass trackpad and good keycaps and the glass screens,
0:18:32you can have a Apple laptop that looks more or less the same,
0:18:36plus or minus dense and maybe scratches, but in terms of color,
0:18:41discoloration and finish many, many years later,
0:18:44one of these fabric covered things, I think no matter how careful you are,
0:18:48depending on your personal body chemistry and amount of crap on your hands,
0:18:53not literally, but maybe literally, uh, it's going to be very difficult.
0:18:58Very, very difficult to keep this thing looking like new with unwashable fabric coating the
0:19:03surface where your hands are going to be.
0:19:06So perhaps not a wise choice.
0:19:08It is a differentiator.
0:19:09It is a style difference.
0:19:11As I mentioned last show, I think it's a style difference that doesn't go far enough because
0:19:14it essentially looks like an Apple laptop that someone put a bunch of felt on top of,
0:19:18which A, I think is not a good look and B, I think is APES Apple's design cues still too
0:19:23strongly despite the fabric.
0:19:26Anyway, be careful out there with your fabric-covered laptops.
0:19:30One thing I will also point out, I was thinking about this earlier today, and as Casey's
0:19:33talking about the plastic MacBook, it kind of reminded me of this, that it wasn't that
0:19:37long ago that most of Apple's lower-end or consumer-grade products were plastic, and
0:19:44you had to pay more to get the premium Pro ones that were metal.
0:19:49And for all the complaining I do about some of Apple's product decisions or apathy or
0:19:53there are various things nearby there.
0:19:57The move to pretty much everything being made
0:20:00out of premium materials is appreciated.
0:20:03That is something that not every brand does,
0:20:05in fact no other brand does it as far as I know
0:20:07in computing.
0:20:08Every laptop, every Mac that Apple sells
0:20:12is now made of metal.
0:20:14Every phone now is made of decent metal
0:20:17and has a decent industrial design.
0:20:19There are no more cheap plastic options,
0:20:21unless I'm forgetting something big,
0:20:22as far as you can tell, there aren't any.
0:20:25Everything now is made of the nice materials
0:20:28that, for the most part, that age well
0:20:31and things like that.
0:20:32- Apple TV is plastic, right?
0:20:34- Oh yeah, but you don't touch that or move it anywhere.
0:20:37- It's nice looking plastic,
0:20:38and you totally don't touch it.
0:20:40- Yeah, same deal with time capsule.
0:20:41Thanks, Tipster.
0:20:42Yeah, I forgot about the time capsule.
0:20:43Everybody forgot about the time capsule.
0:20:45Apple forgot about the time capsule.
0:20:47- But they don't sell it.
0:20:48They're out of the router business.
0:20:49- I think they still are for sale.
0:20:50I think they just weren't going to make more of them.
0:20:52- Really?
0:20:53- Anyway, it doesn't matter.
0:20:55Anyway, so yeah, just nice little note
0:20:57that it's nice that now everything
0:20:58is made of good materials.
0:21:00- Someone in the chat mentioned the iPhone 5C,
0:21:02which is my immediate thought with plastic.
0:21:03I think the iPhone 5C shows that plastic
0:21:06can look and feel premium,
0:21:08because I think the 5C was a great design,
0:21:11a great external design for a phone.
0:21:13Every time I see them in public,
0:21:14they look like they're brand new.
0:21:16Like, you know, it's just a very hard, durable,
0:21:20shiny, probably really easy to clean plastic that doesn't get dirty, right?
0:21:25So it can be done.
0:21:27And you know, you mentioned the Apple TV, it's a similar type of thing that even if
0:21:30people were handling that I think it would be very resistant.
0:21:32Because if you just make it out of, like plastic is not just one material, it's a million different
0:21:35formulations.
0:21:36And Apple sort of learned the hard way which formulations do and don't work from the soft
0:21:41plastic on the screen of the first iPod Nano, you know, to the discoloring Macbooks and
0:21:47other materials they tried like the titanium power book that had problems with the paint
0:21:52staying on.
0:21:53They eventually set it on a solution that works well and they spread it throughout their
0:21:56line which is a good idea but I'm not going to count out plastic entirely but I think
0:22:00I'm going to kind of count out fabric entirely as something that you want to put on the "wrist
0:22:07rest area" of a laptop.
0:22:08Like no matter how you go to the furniture store and they say "we've got the magic coating
0:22:14that repels water and you can throw like jello pudding on this couch and nothing will happen
0:22:18and that's true until that coating wears away and then you know then you know it's anything
0:22:25that you're going to rub something up against it's just it's not going to last so I suppose
0:22:30they could work on was that Simon izing or whatever all sorts of super duper waterproofing
0:22:36coating for fabrics but a that they make the fabric feel more like plastic at that point
0:22:41and B, even those wear off eventually.
0:22:43- Can I pay the extra 50 cents at the car wash
0:22:45to get it re-simonized?
0:22:47- I don't know what that, I'm just pulling that
0:22:49word out of my head.
0:22:50I don't know where that came from.
0:22:51- I believe that's wax at the car wash,
0:22:53but I'm not positive.
0:22:54(laughs)
0:22:56Yes, I go through drive-through car washes.
0:22:58You know, don't at me, bro, or whatever.
0:23:00- I can't believe you'd do that.
0:23:01I wouldn't do that.
0:23:02I'm sure Casey wouldn't.
0:23:03- I decided a few years ago, after first doing it
0:23:07for cars where I didn't know better or didn't care,
0:23:10And then I started getting nicer cars
0:23:12and people like you guys scared me
0:23:14into not going through automatic car washes
0:23:16and I didn't want to get my clear cut all swirly or whatever.
0:23:19And the result of that was I had really nice cars
0:23:21that were always incredibly embarrassingly dirty.
0:23:24- You live in upstate New York,
0:23:25that's what you're supposed to have.
0:23:26- So instead, I decided, starting with my current car,
0:23:31I decided I'm not going to care anymore,
0:23:33I'm just gonna go through the car wash when I feel like it.
0:23:35And my car has been way cleaner as a result.
0:23:38And I don't care.
0:23:39- It's just a lease.
0:23:40care all the scratches that are getting from little bits of grit that are on those flabby
0:23:43things scratching your car all over the place. It's not yours.
0:23:46And honestly I don't really notice. Like I know what to look for. It is a little bit
0:23:50different now that my car is red. Like it's way more noticeable on black. On the red it's
0:23:55a lot less noticeable or it's noticeable at fewer angles I guess. So I don't care. And
0:24:00most of the time from almost every angle my car looks better now that I'm going through
0:24:05car washes whenever I feel like it,
0:24:07rather than when I would go like five months
0:24:10without getting a car wash, 'cause I had to wait
0:24:12until I could go to the place that took an hour,
0:24:14or when Casey visited.
0:24:16- Pretty much.
0:24:17Oh, to be blissfully ignorant again.
0:24:19And you know, it turns out maybe the black cars
0:24:21weren't such a good idea.
0:24:22Moving on.
0:24:23- Oh! - Oh, man.
0:24:25Amartya Banerjee, and I'm sorry if I pronounced that wrong,
0:24:28asks, "Do you folks think that the popularity
0:24:30"of touch input on Windows laptops
0:24:32"could just be attributed to the terrible trackpads?
0:24:34that given a good trackpad, having a fridge toaster OS in a laptop form factor is unnecessary.
0:24:41It's very hard for me to say because I've never had a touchscreen laptop, and I've only
0:24:45ever used them a couple times, and I found them very frustrating because I wasn't used
0:24:49to being able to touch the screen, and maybe I grazed it accidentally and all of a sudden
0:24:54my cursor moved, or maybe I was stabbing at it like a monster, who knows.
0:24:58But anyway, because I've never really understood the appeal of it, I don't think that it's
0:25:04a trackpad problem, although I do know that Windows computers have just woefully terrible
0:25:10trackpads.
0:25:11I think that people just genuinely do like having touchscreen laptops.
0:25:15Like anyone who I've ever spoken to who has a touchscreen Windows laptop, pretty much
0:25:20every single one of them enjoys it and likes having the option of stabbing at the screen.
0:25:24I don't get that.
0:25:25It seems kind of kooky to me, but that's pretty universally my anecdotal experience.
0:25:31What do you guys think?
0:25:32- I mean, we've all been around computers for a long time now.
0:25:34We know that there are screen textures and non-screen textures.
0:25:38So maybe the screen texture is finally just one.
0:25:40- Yeah.
0:25:41- As long as they don't touch my screen.
0:25:43I know.
0:25:44I agree with Casey that, yes, they have travel track pads, but this is a separate issue.
0:25:48People like to touch the screen.
0:25:49And I don't think they do it super duper often.
0:25:51They just like the option of being able to do it because, I mean, just think of the generation
0:25:54is going to grow up with the expectation that every screen is touchable. To have one that's
0:25:57not just seems broken, it doesn't mean that you're going to spend the vast majority of your time on
0:26:02your traditionally laptop-shaped piece of hardware stabbing at the screen. I mean, you're going to be
0:26:07typing on the keyboard, you're going to be using the trackpad, and every once in a while you're
0:26:09going to stab at the screen, and it's just all of a piece. And I think it mostly comes down to
0:26:14software. Like, if the touch targets are frustratingly small, as I think they would be if you
0:26:19just slap the touchscreen on a Mac, that won't be a good experience. But if you're using something
0:26:24like a modern version of Windows where a lot of the applications and parts of the OS make an
0:26:29effort to have touchable targets, whatever, I think it's fine. And I don't think it has to do
0:26:34with the bad trackpads. Because honestly, we trackpad connoisseurs, Marco in particular,
0:26:41with his hatred of the ForceTrust trackpad, may be picky about these things. Regular people cannot
0:26:46distinguish between the worst Windows trackpad and the best Apple one.
0:26:52Because I mean I think most people have trackpad skills that are
0:26:58more in line with mine. I am not a tactical wizard. I am not particularly
0:27:03graceful with the trackpad. I think I'm closer to the average and being a closer
0:27:08to the average trackpad person I know how clumsy it feels and that is the
0:27:14overwhelming factor in trackpad use, not the quality of the trackpad, or the mouse tracking,
0:27:19or the size of the trackpad, or how sensitive it is, or whatever. No matter how good the
0:27:23trackpad is, I feel clumsy. So I think that's how most people feel, and that's why if you
0:27:26were trying to put the two trackpads, maybe they would notice the Apple one is bigger,
0:27:29but other than that, they're like, "Yeah, whatever, they're both trackpads." So no,
0:27:33that's not the reason they like touch screens.
0:27:37I think that's a little bit aggressive. I think that certainly not everyone notices
0:27:41how far improved the Apple trackpads are,
0:27:43but I think a lot of quote unquote normal people do notice.
0:27:48Certainly they notice the size, just like you said,
0:27:50but I think that it's noticed more often than most.
0:27:52I've heard people that are not like super nerds say to me,
0:27:55"Oh, you know, I got this Mac,
0:27:56"and man, that trackpad's much better."
0:27:58It doesn't happen a lot, to your point,
0:28:00but it does happen for sure.
0:28:01- It's kind of one of those things
0:28:02where if they haven't tried the better one,
0:28:04they're not sitting there using their Windows laptop
0:28:05and you come up to them, "Man, how can you use that trackpad?"
0:28:07They're like, "What? It's fine."
0:28:08Now, if you were to give them an Apple laptop
0:28:10for a week and they had to go back,
0:28:11Maybe they could tell the difference,
0:28:12but I don't hear it as a pain point.
0:28:14I don't hear it as a reason
0:28:15people don't like their computers.
0:28:17Or if I go to have to use someone's Windows computer at work
0:28:19and I say to the person,
0:28:21"I don't know how you work on this trackpad,"
0:28:23they'll be like, "What, what's wrong with it? It's fine."
0:28:24'Cause they don't have anything to compare it to
0:28:26and it is the same awkward little thing
0:28:29that they're just used to using.
0:28:30Or they just use the keyboard all the time.
0:28:32- Don't forget the culture of being a Windows user,
0:28:34which is like everything kind of doesn't work.
0:28:38And so you just, that's what you expect as normal.
0:28:40you don't even realize how much better things can be
0:28:43when things work and are thoughtfully designed.
0:28:45Because on Windows, you're just constantly
0:28:47lying on a bed of nails,
0:28:49and you don't even notice it after a while.
0:28:52- Sometimes I go to use someone's Windows laptop at work
0:28:54and they have four buttons,
0:28:56two above and two below the track pad,
0:28:58or some other weird arrangement
0:28:59where there's basically redundant left and right
0:29:00mouse buttons on the surface of the laptop,
0:29:03and I'll try to do it and nothing will happen.
0:29:05Like, oh yeah, that set of buttons doesn't work,
0:29:07use these ones.
0:29:08(laughing)
0:29:09continue to tolerate and use this thing, you consider it not broken when some of the buttons
0:29:14and some of the major buttons on the front of it don't work. You just get around. You
0:29:17just have to use that button. Well, no, no, no. What probably is happening
0:29:20there is it probably has both an inferior trackpad pointing device and the unequivocally
0:29:26superior trackpoint style pointing device. And the buttons above the trackpad are for
0:29:32the trackpoint, the weapon mouse. Yeah, that's probably it.
0:29:35And oftentimes that'll get turned off because people are wrong and they use the trackpad
0:29:39instead. Before the entire world, well actually it's me, remember that I'm basing this opinion
0:29:44on a pre-gesture time. Now the gestures are a thing, and trackpads honestly are the better
0:29:49approach. But before gestures were a thing, I tell you, all you people who laugh at that
0:29:55little nubbin mouse, you're wrong. It was way better. Anyway, Cory Floyd wrote in to
0:30:00say that they work at Wikimedia and heard our latest show discussing the Wicked Tribune
0:30:06Project and they wanted to kind of, not necessarily correct, but bring up a few things.
0:30:12WikiTribune isn't affiliated with Wikipedia or Wikimedia in any way, which has been causing
0:30:17some confusion in the media.
0:30:18This is Corey still.
0:30:19I think this mostly came across in your episode, but I also wanted to include a few other interesting
0:30:23specifics below.
0:30:25WikiTribune is based on WordPress, not MediaWiki, like Wikipedia and its sister projects.
0:30:31Additionally, it is not actually developed or otherwise maintained by existing Wikimedia
0:30:36or Wikipedia community.
0:30:37And finally, Wikimedia also has an existing, albeit unsuccessful, project called Wikineews,
0:30:43which is in some ways a competitor to Wikitribune in the first place.
0:30:46And that's it.
0:30:47Wikineews.org.
0:30:48We'll put all these links in the show notes.
0:30:49So I've got Jimmy Wales.
0:30:51That is the connecting thread.
0:30:52But don't be confused about the fact that this is a Wikipedia spinoff, because it's
0:30:56not.
0:30:59We are sponsored this week by Warby Parker with prescription eyeglasses starting at just
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0:31:53We are big fans of Warby Parker here.
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0:32:17Their app can also help you out.
0:32:19They have an app in the App Store
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0:32:55Thank you very much to Warby Parker for sponsoring our show.
0:32:58(upbeat music)
0:33:00- So another Amazon cylinder that isn't a cylinder thing
0:33:05came out and I really don't care.
0:33:09So does somebody who actually gives a crap
0:33:10wanna talk about this, Marco?
0:33:11- And this is more of a three-dimensional trapezoid.
0:33:14- Ah, fair enough, yeah, good point.
0:33:15- This is what Marco said.
0:33:16We've got a quote from someone named Marco
0:33:18who wrote into the show to say,
0:33:20"I'd upgrade our kitchen echo to this in a heartbeat," he says, looking at a then-rumored
0:33:24picture of the actual Echo show.
0:33:27Yeah.
0:33:28So, Marco, have you upgraded your kitchen echo to this now that your heart has beaten?
0:33:32No, I haven't, because it isn't out yet.
0:33:34But I did place a pre-order, and it will be here on, allegedly, June 28th.
0:33:38So we will see when that comes.
0:33:41Basically the gist of it is, you know, the Amazon Echo is quite wonderful to many people,
0:33:47myself included.
0:33:49And my family has really gotten into it.
0:33:51We use it all the time.
0:33:52And it lives in our kitchen, and it is wonderful
0:33:56for playing music around the house,
0:33:58for setting timers, especially while cooking.
0:34:02Tiff uses it all the time for things like checking
0:34:04the weather in the morning when running around
0:34:06and getting Adam ready for school.
0:34:08So there are a number of use cases during the day
0:34:12where it would be nice to have a screen.
0:34:15For instance, the timers that I just mentioned,
0:34:18it would be nice to see how much time is left
0:34:20to see them counting down.
0:34:22If there ever becomes a way to set multiple named timers,
0:34:25right now you can set multiple timers
0:34:26but you can't name them.
0:34:27I'm pretty sure the Google Home you can name them
0:34:30but the Echo does not support that at the moment.
0:34:32But again, like when you have multiple timers going
0:34:34it would be nice to see them visually
0:34:36and maybe to have little touch buttons
0:34:37to pause or cancel them individually
0:34:39'cause right now it's kind of,
0:34:40you kind of can't do it very well via voice
0:34:43if you have multiple ones going.
0:34:45When Tiff checks the weather in the morning.
0:34:47First of all, these pictures show it kind of always
0:34:50having this home screen that has the clock
0:34:52and the current weather conditions
0:34:54on the screen all the time.
0:34:55So that would be nice too, to just not even have to
0:34:58ask at certain things.
0:34:59If you're just walking by, you can glance at it
0:35:01and see the weather.
0:35:02So there's all sorts of wonderful things like that
0:35:04where many of the uses that we currently use the Echo for
0:35:08would be nicer sometimes or all the time with a screen.
0:35:12Now, there is a fair argument to be made.
0:35:15"Why don't you just put an iPad right there
0:35:18"and just use an iPad all the time
0:35:20"and enable the Hey Dingus feature on it
0:35:22"and just use that?"
0:35:24And that is a fair argument.
0:35:26I have an iPad that sits right next to it
0:35:27that I take around the first floor
0:35:29and play some podcasts while we do things.
0:35:31But we really enjoy the Amazon Echo ecosystem.
0:35:36We enjoy the way the product works.
0:35:37It works very well for us.
0:35:39To have another Echo come out that has a screen,
0:35:43I am willing to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt on this.
0:35:45When the first Echo came out, we all made fun of it
0:35:47because they released this horrible video
0:35:49and it seemed so weird and creepy.
0:35:50Not that different as we mentioned last week
0:35:52from the new Echo Look,
0:35:54the weird dressing room camera thing.
0:35:56But I will give them the benefit of the doubt
0:35:59because as weird as the first Echo seemed
0:36:01because they were very bad at selling it
0:36:03or promoting it and giving us an idea
0:36:05of what it would be like,
0:36:07it turned out to be pretty great for a lot of people,
0:36:08myself included and my family included.
0:36:11Also to point out too, so there have been increasing rumors
0:36:14and increasing rumblings that Apple is probably
0:36:17going to release something similar to this.
0:36:20Rumors are that it might even come as soon as
0:36:22like next month at WBC.
0:36:24Keep in mind that if Apple does something like this,
0:36:26which would be like a premium speaker
0:36:28with some kind of screen and some kind of built in
0:36:31you know, Siri thing, how much is that gonna cost?
0:36:35'Cause this Amazon thing is 230 bucks.
0:36:38And if you buy two of them you get $100 off of it.
0:36:40That's what I did, I ordered two.
0:36:42I figure, we'll have a use for the second one,
0:36:45maybe we'll give it to our parents or whatever else.
0:36:49There is no way that Apple is going to release
0:36:53a standalone speaker with a screen that is very iPad-like,
0:36:56possibly for $200.
0:36:59That's not going to happen.
0:37:00So this will be interesting to see
0:37:03how Apple plays in this market.
0:37:04And also, again, going back to previous discussions
0:37:08about it, a lot of what makes the Echo so good
0:37:12are things that Apple's not historically been so great at,
0:37:14things like having a really easy to use open ecosystem
0:37:18to integrate really well with it,
0:37:20things like having a really reliable voice service
0:37:23that is fast, that is very consistent,
0:37:25that works the same way every single time,
0:37:28and hears you very, very well every single time.
0:37:31These are things that Apple so far has struggled with.
0:37:33So we'll see how that goes,
0:37:34but I am optimistic about this Amazon thing,
0:37:38and to have this only be like 50 bucks more
0:37:42than the one without the screen is pretty impressive.
0:37:45And yeah, so I'm looking forward to when it arrives in June.
0:37:48And look, it might be terrible, we don't know yet.
0:37:49Nobody has a review of it yet.
0:37:51No one outside of Amazon, as far as I know,
0:37:53has gotten a chance to use one yet.
0:37:54But again, I think Amazon's track record
0:37:57in this particular area has actually been proven
0:37:59to be pretty good, so we'll see what happens.
0:38:01- So you mentioned before that you thought
0:38:03it was a fair argument that why don't you just have
0:38:04an iPad in your kitchen instead of this.
0:38:06I don't think that's a particularly good argument
0:38:09because the iPad, even setting aside software issues
0:38:14in terms of how well Siri understands
0:38:18and can respond to what you can do
0:38:19and how open the ecosystem is for adding, you know,
0:38:22various skills and actions
0:38:23that connect other devices in your house,
0:38:25even just setting that aside,
0:38:26just in terms of the hardware.
0:38:29An iPad can't compete with this type of device
0:38:34in two of the three areas that are most important.
0:38:39One, speakers.
0:38:40iPad, the new iPads have very good speakers,
0:38:44but this device is dedicating way more room for speakers.
0:38:47So in theory, again, we haven't seen one of these,
0:38:49in theory, you can put way, way, way better speakers
0:38:52in this thing, 'cause there's just so much more room
0:38:54for quote unquote real speakers
0:38:56instead of very clever little cavities
0:38:57in your skinny little thing.
0:38:59And playing audio to fill the whole kitchen or whatever
0:39:02is an important function of these types of devices.
0:39:06And the second one is microphones.
0:39:08The iPad has, I think it has multiple likes probably for noise cancellation, but I think
0:39:13it has two.
0:39:14The strength of the Echo is whatever weird five-microphone beamforming BS it does to
0:39:20be able to...
0:39:21Eight microphones.
0:39:22How many?
0:39:23Eight?
0:39:24Eight.
0:39:25I know.
0:39:26Anyway, there's way more room for more microphones in this type of thing, and again, we don't
0:39:28know how many microphones this thing has, but based on the Echos they have put out,
0:39:33this is one of the most important functions of this thing, is to be able to hear you no
0:39:37no matter where you are. And the iPad, current iPads, just don't dedicate that much hardware
0:39:41for that. The third area where I think it can match it is in the camera, because you
0:39:44didn't mention this, but this doesn't just have a screen, it has a camera. And they're
0:39:47selling the kind of video conferencing thing, who knows how that will go. That's a whole
0:39:50sort of network effect ecosystem type thing. We may just still end up, end up FaceTiming
0:39:55each other on our phones.
0:39:56I do see why they added this, and I think people will use it, just not me.
0:40:01Yeah, you can go on to grandma, who doesn't have an iPhone, doesn't know how iPhones work,
0:40:04and if she can just come in front of this, especially the drop-in feature, like where
0:40:07you don't actually, where there's a certain time where your thing is open to just suddenly
0:40:10seeing these people on the screen, you know? Like if you set this up with relatives who
0:40:16are not tech-savvy, just to be able to do video conferencing, where you could never
0:40:20get them to use an iPad, even if that was too much for them, if you just plop this down
0:40:23on their counter, like I think that could be effective for that particular purpose.
0:40:27But for regular people, I don't know. But the camera, again, getting back to the, what
0:40:30what I call the look or the echo look over,
0:40:33what the hell is it called?
0:40:33- The Echo Screen, what's it called?
0:40:35Echo-- - Echo Look.
0:40:36- Echo Show. - Echo Look, yeah.
0:40:37- Echo Show.
0:40:38That's because everyone thinks it's a podcast,
0:40:39but it's not. - No, no, the other one,
0:40:40I'm talking about the look, the fashion camera thing.
0:40:42- These are the worst names.
0:40:43Okay, yeah, that's called the look.
0:40:44- Yeah, so I was saying last week
0:40:48that this device category of computing devices
0:40:52in your home that have cameras that can see you has legs,
0:40:55and here we have within the next week
0:40:57another device of granite from the same company
0:40:58that puts a camera in your house that can see you,
0:41:00and does something with it.
0:41:02Both of them look like they have tiny little tablet type
0:41:06cameras.
0:41:07So I think that's a wash in terms of the iPad
0:41:09competing with this.
0:41:11But I would be looking for these type of devices,
0:41:16the Look and the Show and other things like this,
0:41:19to get increasingly sophisticated cameras that
0:41:21can follow you, that made multiple cameras to synthesize
0:41:25an image with depth sensors and stuff like that.
0:41:27Because that's where these things are going,
0:41:29to have more sort of awareness of what's going on.
0:41:31They can project sound and video to you,
0:41:34and they can be aware of where you,
0:41:35they can hear you no matter where you are,
0:41:37and they can see you no matter where you are.
0:41:38As far as I can tell from this one,
0:41:40it only sees you when you're in front of it.
0:41:41And that leads me to all the things I don't like
0:41:44about this particular hardware product.
0:41:46Like, if it is a fixed camera, that's kind of crappy.
0:41:49You'd hope it'd be smarter, but again,
0:41:51cost, you know, whatever, this is the first version.
0:41:53We'll wait.
0:41:53This thing is homely.
0:41:54It's not an attractive device.
0:41:56- Yeah, I will agree with you on that.
0:41:58I mean, but to be fair, like, the Echo Cylinder is also not very attractive.
0:42:03I think that's pretty sleek, and I think the Cylinder has a thing going for it where it's
0:42:06to be unobtrusive and you can put it off to the side.
0:42:07Although I do, that's another reason why I like the Google Home, now that I think about
0:42:11it, because I was thinking about, you know, if we got an Echo, where would I put it?
0:42:14The Home is smaller than the Echo, and it is less obtrusive in the place where I have
0:42:18it.
0:42:19But this, you can't make this unobtrusive because it has to be a place where you can
0:42:21see the screen.
0:42:22And it's not particularly attractive.
0:42:25or white, it looks kind of like a sort of retro 70s piece of hardware. It's very strange.
0:42:32It certainly doesn't look elegant. It doesn't look like an Apple device anyway, and it doesn't
0:42:36-- it has kind of sort of -- it's kind of like a brutalism, kind of like a rugged, you
0:42:40know, 80s Soviet-era hardware. I mean, I guess it has a certain appeal. And then finally,
0:42:47this thing is -- I can't really tell from the pictures, but it's slanted back in all
0:42:51the pictures I see. It's tilted backwards, like the shape dictates the tilt. It doesn't
0:42:55to have an adjustable tilt and for something that you're going to be looking at that's
0:42:59going to be looking back at you, that seems just ergonomically and practically speaking
0:43:04very limiting. Because the Echo you can put literally anywhere that it can hear you like
0:43:08high, low, left, right, just whatever, it's fine. This thing, you need sight lines and
0:43:13you need to be able to see it and it needs to be able to see you and depending on how
0:43:17tall you are or how tall most of the people are, even just being able to see kids and
0:43:21adults, like how would you get that thing in a position where it can both, where grandma
0:43:23can both see your kids that are half your height and you.
0:43:28And even just if you're just living by yourself, you have to put it on a surface where the
0:43:33camera can see you and you can see the screen.
0:43:36It seems like that it would have been better to design this to have a little bit more flexibility
0:43:43about angle and stuff.
0:43:45Again, costs, I understand you can't have an adjustable stand or any kind of tilt thing
0:43:49that is any reasonable quality for this price point.
0:43:51So like I'm willing to give a lot of leeway there, but this definitely, it kind of reminds
0:43:57me of the first Kindle.
0:43:58Remember what a monster the first Kindle was?
0:43:59Oh, that was something.
0:44:01Weird angular white thing with the weird terrible hardware keyboard on it.
0:44:05It's like they took a lot of shots of that until they kind of settled down onto like
0:44:10the paper white, which is kind of the epitome of the old style Kindle.
0:44:12And now they've gone with that weird thing.
0:44:13It's like thick on one edge and thin on the other.
0:44:16They need to iterate on this one.
0:44:17I'm sure they will.
0:44:18Although I say I'm sure they will, but what have they done to the Amazon Echo?
0:44:20it's still the same black cylinder it always was maybe they just nailed that one on the first try but
0:44:23I worry about their software ecosystem too because once they start getting into the realm of like
0:44:28video calling and stuff like that I think it's going to be difficult for them to compete with
0:44:32facetime because that's basically what they've got here they've got their own little version of
0:44:35facetime and facetime for all of the wonkiness of like the weird patent thing that caused them to
0:44:41have to restructure the way it's done and the fact that steve jobs impulsively said it was going to
0:44:45going to be opened up to the world and it never was and all those other things.
0:44:50I use it for its intended purpose frequently and it works.
0:44:53You know what I mean?
0:44:54I can successfully send video and audio to people.
0:44:57The only limiting factor is ever crappy internet connections, which is really nothing you can
0:45:01do about it, right?
0:45:02Because if you're trying to communicate with somebody who has a crappy internet connection
0:45:04or you have a crappy internet connection, it's not great, but it will gracefully degrade
0:45:09to a black screen with just audio and also other things.
0:45:13It basically works.
0:45:14And Amazon, as far as I'm aware, this is kind of their first foray into this.
0:45:19I think did they do like kind of video support for one of the color Fire tablets maybe?
0:45:24So maybe it's not their very first thing?
0:45:26- Yes.
0:45:27Yeah, they had some kind of thing where it was like a screen sharing thing where you
0:45:30could, where like their support rep could like log into your tablet and show you how
0:45:34to do things or do things for you.
0:45:35- Did you see them or did they see you?
0:45:38- I don't know.
0:45:39I never, I don't think I ever heard of anybody actually using this feature, but they did
0:45:42have that kind of thing.
0:45:43And again, I think this is one of those things like,
0:45:45Amazon, you know, similar to the drop-in thing,
0:45:49was that what they call on this?
0:45:50Where you can kind of force call someone.
0:45:52- Yeah, it's the same as the Google knock-knock thing
0:45:54that we thought was a dangerous sort of thing for abuse,
0:45:58but this is opt-in.
0:45:58- But at least the way they're doing it,
0:46:00yeah, it's like it's opt-in, it's whitelist only,
0:46:02and it seems like it's pretty well controlled.
0:46:03But I do give Amazon credit.
0:46:06They have for years on their tablets and other products,
0:46:10other mainstream consumer products,
0:46:12for years they have been adding features like that
0:46:16or like very good parental controls
0:46:19and like kid scheduling and everything else.
0:46:22Features that you really would expect
0:46:24a company like Apple to do.
0:46:26'Cause Apple's so considerate and innovative
0:46:28and cares a lot about the customer experience and everything.
0:46:31Amazon has really made a lot of these features
0:46:32over the years and they can kind of get away with it
0:46:34because their scale is so much smaller.
0:46:37Imagine the staffing required if Apple were to
0:46:41one of those things where they will log into your computer
0:46:43with you and show you how to do things,
0:46:44like they would never in a million years be able to
0:46:47handle that on any kind of scale.
0:46:50But Amazon can do it 'cause they're really at a much
0:46:53smaller scale for most of these products.
0:46:54- As far as we're aware.
0:46:56- Well, that's true.
0:46:57- There's no labels on the waxes.
0:46:59- They make a bunch of weird stuff,
0:47:01and not all of it works, but it does seem like,
0:47:04I think they have earned the benefit of the doubt
0:47:07in that some of their weird stuff is actually really good.
0:47:11- It's also weird that like, I mean,
0:47:13it's setting aside Apple, which has a strange history
0:47:16with these type of devices and just like,
0:47:19being almost like stubbornly unwilling to enter markets
0:47:22even after it's proven they're viable
0:47:25just because it doesn't seem big enough for Apple
0:47:26or they have different plans
0:47:27or they're pursuing other strategies
0:47:29and just in the meantime we get nothing
0:47:30and now maybe they're finally gonna come out with one.
0:47:32But like an Apple that was doing the opposite
0:47:35of what it's actually doing.
0:47:36Apple is reducing the number of things that it's made, getting rid of the, you know, the routers
0:47:41and reducing, trying to simplify its computer and phone lines and, you know, it's going the other
0:47:46direction. But if it wasn't going in that direction and it was expanding, there's a lot of categories
0:47:50of devices that you feel like Apple could make a good one of. And also Google. Both of these
0:47:53companies have the, have all the pieces to be able to make a really good Bluetooth speaker,
0:48:00a really good thing that listens to you. I would argue that I don't think we have seen
0:48:06great hardware from Google.
0:48:08- I mean, Google Home is fine.
0:48:10- We've seen lots of things that come kind of close
0:48:13and they always kind of fall down on the support
0:48:16or they don't follow through or the products
0:48:19end up being delayed and not shipping
0:48:20or they have weird shortcomings
0:48:22or they only get an OS for like six months.
0:48:25I think Google has shown that they are really not set up
0:48:29to be a company that sells and supports their own hardware.
0:48:33- They don't follow through
0:48:35but they have all the pieces to make it.
0:48:37They have the server side component,
0:48:38they can make reasonable hardware,
0:48:39even if it's just a broken apart Chromecast
0:48:41shoved in a cylinder, which is the Google Home.
0:48:43And the Chromecast for that matter,
0:48:45like that little dongly thing.
0:48:46I agree with you that the follow through isn't there,
0:48:49but they have the pieces to make it happen.
0:48:52Like any company can make a Bluetooth speaker,
0:48:53but once you start connecting it up to services,
0:48:55not everybody has services.
0:48:56Google has tons of services.
0:48:57Apple has enough services that, you know,
0:48:59you get Siri and Google Now and stuff like,
0:49:01what's on the other end of this making it work, right?
0:49:03And so those simple categories of like,
0:49:05Wouldn't we have all loved if Apple made a good Bluetooth speaker and had been revising it over the years?
0:49:10We would all give them an extra 50 bucks for the Apple one because it would be nice in some way, if it was actually nice.
0:49:15And the same thing for, you know, essentially a Bluetooth speaker with a screen with Siri that you can ask the weather that, you know, like the cheapest possible iPad shoved into a Bluetooth speaker thing with much better, like Apple could have made this is what I'm saying.
0:49:28Apple could make the exact Echo Show and who knows if WWC may announce the thing they've made that is like this but better.
0:49:33and as Marco said, twice as expensive, whatever.
0:49:36But they haven't been participating in this market at all,
0:49:39leaving other people to try all sorts of things
0:49:41and I suppose to gain loyalty and to build their ecosystems
0:49:45and so on and so forth, to the point where I feel like
0:49:47Google saw it happening and they're like,
0:49:49oh, we should have a cylinder and so they do.
0:49:51And maybe Google will try to come out
0:49:53with something like this too.
0:49:54And just to see Apple sit on the sidelines,
0:49:56it's fine if they are working on the next big thing,
0:49:59but it may turn out that these little things
0:50:01build up to the next big thing, and if Apple's gonna sit it out for much longer, I think
0:50:05it's a mistake.
0:50:06I'm curious to see what happens, and I'll use me as an example, if it, let's say at
0:50:13WWDC they announce the Apple equivalent of this tube thing. I'm stumbling because I
0:50:22don't want to say any of the trigger words and have to have you bleep them later, but
0:50:25anyway.
0:50:26It's called the Apple Alexa Hey Siri.
0:50:27Yeah, well, you did this to yourself. So anyway, if Apple releases a lady in a canister equivalent,
0:50:35I'm curious to see what my reaction will be. Because sitting here now, like, again, I don't
0:50:39doubt that the Echo is very nice and that it serves a purpose for a lot of people and
0:50:43that, you know, I have no doubt, Marco, that you guys use it constantly and love it. Like,
0:50:47there's nothing wrong with that. Me, I don't feel like this is solving a problem that I
0:50:51have in my life. I've said that many times before. I'm curious as kind of a litmus test
0:50:55to how susceptible I am to whatever Apple tells me to do.
0:51:00I'm curious to see what happens
0:51:02if Apple releases their own lady in a canister
0:51:04and what my reaction is to that.
0:51:07Because if I'm like, "Well, holy crap,
0:51:08"I've got to have one of these.
0:51:10"How could I have lived without it?"
0:51:11And it's really just a Echo but Apple-branded,
0:51:14then apparently I really am a lemming
0:51:16and it's all downhill from here.
0:51:19- In reality, it would most likely be $300
0:51:22and you would say, "Oh, I don't wanna buy this one.
0:51:23"I'll get the next one maybe."
0:51:25- Yeah, and then inevitably I'll buy it anyway.
0:51:27- Yeah, right, six months later you'll have three of them.
0:51:30- Speaking of a Google Home, a minor Google Home update,
0:51:32they added a thing that lets you distinguish people by voice
0:51:35and so they can ask for, you know,
0:51:36tell me what my day is like
0:51:37and it will tell you your calendar
0:51:39by recognizing who you are.
0:51:41So it's basic multi-user functionality.
0:51:43Unfortunately, no one ever asks Google Home
0:51:46what's on their calendar
0:51:48because it's just not a thing that we do
0:51:49and so distinguishing us by voice is not particularly useful.
0:51:52I think the only two voices that knows
0:51:53to distinguish is mine and my daughter's
0:51:54we are like the most frequent users. But all that said, I continue to be impressed by,
0:51:59I mean it's basically just Google search behind the scenes, because I'm always impressed by Google
0:52:03search when you do, when you type in something in that search box and it somehow figures out
0:52:07what you mean and gives you relevant results. That's the magic of Google. Most recent one is
0:52:14we were talking about something at the dinner table and we were talking about a movie and,
0:52:19and we're like, was that released then? Or, you know, what year was that released?
0:52:23we could ask the Google Home, "What year was the movie blah blah blah released?"
0:52:28And I didn't have to think about how do I have to phrase this in a way they can understand. I
0:52:33don't even remember how I phrased it. I just asked it the same way I would ask a person with
0:52:38encyclopedic knowledge of movie releases who's sitting in the corner of the room,
0:52:40and the thing spoke out, "The movie blah blah blah was released in March blah blah blah blah blah."
0:52:48That to me is still magic because it's exactly like Google search.
0:52:54Like I probably just turned it into text and typed into Google search and then read me the top hit
0:52:58or something like that. But the bottom line is it answered my question. It wasn't just like a
0:53:01general purpose, like what's the weather? What does my day look like? I had a specific question
0:53:07about a movie about the release date. And it just didn't just tell me the movie and then list off
0:53:10like all the metadata. Let me tell you everything about this movie starring this person, directed by
0:53:14this person, released it and I had to wait for the... It just told me the release date of the movie.
0:53:17And that I love that right and that's something that I feel like you can't do if you aren't backed by Google
0:53:24Because the hard part is not hearing me and translating as a text the hard part is figuring out
0:53:28What did you say and what did you mean and how do I answer you know for all I know that's a can thing that?
0:53:32They expect people to ask or whatever
0:53:33But the more of those I have the less I think I'm just getting lucky and happening to hit upon something they anticipated
0:53:39And especially coded support for and there's just like the magic of Google. So what was the movie despite?
0:53:44I don't remember. It was too long ago. But despite Google Home, I feel like it's still
0:53:51not being revised as quickly as I would have hoped, and its capability is not expanding
0:53:56in the way that I hoped. But just for the basic functionality of answering my questions,
0:54:00we have the dinner table and quickly settling arguments is money well spent.
0:54:05All right, name a movie.
0:54:07Hunt for Red October.
0:54:08There you go.
0:54:10Alexa, what year was the Hunt for Red October released?
0:54:12The movie The Hunt for Red October was released in 1989.
0:54:16It's magic.
0:54:18There's been a lot of these queries where I will ask the Echo one of the, you know, a question like this,
0:54:24and things that I will say will, that I think there's no way that it's going to be able to help me with this.
0:54:30Well it didn't because it's wrong. It's the 2nd of March 1990.
0:54:33Really?
0:54:34Minor points. Minor points.
0:54:37According to IMDb, that was the American release.
0:54:40Is that international versus US release?
0:54:42Okay, well hold on though.
0:54:43I thought to myself, that didn't sound right to me.
0:54:47You can ask similar questions about albums and songs and artists or who sings the song,
0:54:52whatever, and all the lyrics are where you can name any lyrics in the song and it will
0:54:56figure it out. I mean, there's a lot of overlap between these things, but that I think is amazing.
0:55:01And ask the same question. Say, "What is the release date for? What year was it released?
0:55:07when was it put out?
0:55:09Like, just try different phrasings and see, like,
0:55:11eventually if you can stump it, but it's pretty good.
0:55:13- Well, basically, so my point is,
0:55:15I have asked it questions like this a number of times,
0:55:18thinking that it would get it wrong,
0:55:19thinking that there would be no chance
0:55:21that it'll get it right.
0:55:22And it gets it right about maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of the time
0:55:26when I ask a weird question like that,
0:55:28which is not only better than I expect,
0:55:31but is probably fairly similar to most of these things.
0:55:34It's probably even fairly similar
0:55:36how often Google gets it right.
0:55:38In my experience, the accuracy of search results
0:55:42between different search engines,
0:55:44I still use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine
0:55:47instead of Google.
0:55:49It turns out this kind of stuff is actually not that rare
0:55:54to be decent at.
0:55:55It is not just Google that can do these things.
0:55:58It is possible for other companies,
0:56:01and in the case of DuckDuckGo, way smaller companies,
0:56:04be able to be competent at search, just not Apple most of the time unfortunately, but
0:56:11it is very possible for other companies.
0:56:12Remember when Amazon had its own search?
0:56:14What was that called?
0:56:15A3?
0:56:16It was called Alexa, no, Alexa was the rank, right?
0:56:19A3, right?
0:56:20A9 was their search engine.
0:56:23But it was...
0:56:24Anyway, there's not a lot of them.
0:56:25There's Bing, there's DuckDuckGo, there's Google, there's A9 which we all know still
0:56:28exist.
0:56:29Apple has never dipped its toe into this field.
0:56:31I don't think there need to be that many people, especially if it's like...
0:56:33- The App Store.
0:56:35- God, yeah, Apple can't search a domain
0:56:37way smaller than the web in an efficient manner.
0:56:40- Well, look, Siri searches things, right?
0:56:42Especially in contexts like Apple TV or Apple Music.
0:56:45- Well, that's like Wolfram Alfora.
0:56:47- No, but Apple TV, Apple Music,
0:56:48it's searching libraries of content,
0:56:51and the App Store is really just a really big version
0:56:53of that that should be way better than it is.
0:56:55- (laughs) But it's not, yes.
0:56:57- No, it's so, is it?
0:56:58- You know what just occurred to me?
0:56:59Doesn't Amazon own IMDb now?
0:57:02- Yeah, they sure do. - Yeah, they do.
0:57:04- So how could they have gotten this wrong
0:57:05if IMDb says it's 1990?
0:57:08- You can't find anything on the IMDb website
0:57:10with your own eyes and hands.
0:57:12So it's like whatever, IMDb is now at work,
0:57:16hard at work obscuring the information
0:57:18you wanna know about movies.
0:57:19'Cause I go to that website page and I'm like,
0:57:21"Just who played the main character?"
0:57:23And I'm just scanning and thinking
0:57:24I have to disclose something or click on something
0:57:26and it was just tons of sound and fury signifying nothing.
0:57:32- I miss the old IMDb.
0:57:33- Yeah, I mean, chances are like the Alexa was trying
0:57:35to find the answer on his page
0:57:36and just got blocked by all the ads.
0:57:38(laughing)
0:57:39- Oh yeah, one more thing on the Echo Show.
0:57:41Marco is lucky because he has a fairly long kitchen.
0:57:46I would have no room for this thing in my kitchen.
0:57:48As much as I would like to have a thing like this,
0:57:50that is I think another limitation for a device.
0:57:53I can't really tell how big it is from the pictures,
0:57:54but certainly it is both wider than the Echo
0:57:57and you can't like put it behind
0:57:59or nestled into a corner or whatever.
0:58:01has to be somewhere where you can see it.
0:58:03- Well, I think it actually might be fairly small
0:58:05'cause didn't people say it's a seven inch screen?
0:58:08- Yeah, maybe it's, I mean, it's hard to tell.
0:58:09Maybe it's smaller than it looks like.
0:58:11But anyway, you can't nestle it in a corner
0:58:13or hide it somewhere.
0:58:14You do need the space and the line of sight for the thing,
0:58:16which makes me think that it could replace like a kitchen TV
0:58:19so if this thing started getting live TV,
0:58:21if Amazon wanted to pull a YouTube,
0:58:24what is the YouTube one?
0:58:25YouTube TV and Hulu has a live TV.
0:58:28Everyone at Apple has a skinny bundle
0:58:31on a live TV offering.
0:58:32That would be a great thing to incorporate this.
0:58:34'Cause people do like little TVs in their kitchen
0:58:36to like watch cooking shows or whatever
0:58:38with like voice activated DVR functionality.
0:58:40They already showed it like cooking up to your like,
0:58:42you know, baby cam to show your baby in your crib and stuff.
0:58:45The potential for a smart screen with good speakers
0:58:49and a camera that's internet connected
0:58:51with good software in your kitchen.
0:58:54That feels like a fruitful, like it's a device
0:58:56that has been made a million times over.
0:58:58if you're old and remember all of like the Audrey
0:59:01or the three com, maybe that's the Audrey
0:59:04that I'm thinking of, but Sony has made,
0:59:06Sony was it the E-Villa, I don't know.
0:59:08There's been tons of like things like this.
0:59:11And they were just, they were gonna say
0:59:13they were ahead of their time,
0:59:14they were ahead of the tech.
0:59:15They weren't ready, there was no ecosystem,
0:59:17there wasn't a smart search behind it,
0:59:18there wasn't a speech recognition,
0:59:19there wasn't, so often there wasn't the internet
0:59:21for the really old ones.
0:59:23I feel like the time is now.
0:59:25And I really hope that we see more of these devices
0:59:29from the big three or four, however many,
0:59:32however you wanna count it, Apple, Amazon, Google,
0:59:35and whoever else, not fewer.
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1:01:28(upbeat music)
1:01:31- All right, so somebody has put something
1:01:33that I find actually somewhat terrifying in the show notes.
1:01:37The show notes reads, "Brief quiz."
1:01:40(laughing)
1:01:42- Yeah, I saw that earlier too
1:01:43and got a little bit scared of what,
1:01:44I knew immediately that it was Jon.
1:01:46I mean, come on.
1:01:47- Yeah.
1:01:49There was an article going around that hopefully you two were too busy this evening to read
1:01:53and follow the link for that involves a brief quiz that I think we should all take.
1:01:58I have already taken it.
1:01:59It takes two seconds.
1:02:02And so I will paste the URL into the chat room now.
1:02:06It is a thing that asks you to make a bunch of selections.
1:02:10So just don't read the whole article.
1:02:11Don't scroll down.
1:02:12Just go to the part where you make the selections and make the selections.
1:02:15Do not share your comments.
1:02:16And then when we have all done it, come back and we will discuss our choices.
1:02:20So here you go.
1:02:21It's in the chat room.
1:02:22Okay, so…
1:02:23What the hell is Alphabet?
1:02:24That's Google, right?
1:02:25It's Google's parent company.
1:02:26Google, that's Google.
1:02:27So if an evil monarch forced you to choose, in which order would you give up these inescapable
1:02:33giants of tech?
1:02:34So…
1:02:35Okay, I'm done.
1:02:36Well, I got to think about this for a second.
1:02:38Jeezy peasy people.
1:02:39Okay, he's got to mull it over.
1:02:40Just a little.
1:02:41You all done?
1:02:42Yes.
1:02:43All right.
1:02:44Yes.
1:02:45All right, so now I will explain the premise.
1:02:48They list the big tech companies, Alphabet, basically Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook,
1:02:52and Amazon.
1:02:53And it asks you in what order would you be willing to give them up.
1:02:56So if there's one company that you're like, "I don't care if that company goes away tomorrow,"
1:02:59that's obviously your number one pick.
1:03:00You'd pick that one and you keep working your way down.
1:03:03At the end, you'll be left with the company you would least like to see depart this earth,
1:03:06like if they just disappeared or whatever.
1:03:08So who wants to go first?
1:03:11Well, let's just go through our – let's do a top four style.
1:03:14- Oh, God.
1:03:15- First of all, the question of like,
1:03:16how many people do you think arrived at this article
1:03:19and knew what Alphabet was?
1:03:21And then every time they mention it,
1:03:24they have to say the parent company of Google
1:03:26because nobody knows what that is
1:03:28because Google is so bad at everything branding-wise,
1:03:32everything human, they can't do.
1:03:35- I would have just called it Google
1:03:36because Google uses the Google brand.
1:03:38And I don't think, can you think of something
1:03:40that is in Alphabet but not in Google that you care about,
1:03:42like AS&S stuff or something?
1:03:44Anyway, let's now do our number one choice,
1:03:47sort of backwards top four,
1:03:48the company that we would all be willing to get rid of first.
1:03:51- I'm willing to bet we all have the same one for this one.
1:03:53- Yes.
1:03:54- Facebook?
1:03:55- Facebook.
1:03:56- Nope.
1:03:56- Whoa. - No.
1:03:58All right, what did you pick?
1:03:59- Microsoft.
1:04:00- Microsoft, hmm.
1:04:01- What has Microsoft done for me lately?
1:04:03And by lately I mean in the last year, no more than that.
1:04:05- Well, they did provide your livelihood for many years.
1:04:09- Right, no, but yeah, that's why I said,
1:04:11only in the last year.
1:04:12And you're absolutely right.
1:04:13- Now you have a grudge in the style of my Microsoft grudge.
1:04:18- No, no, no, I will never be a grudge.
1:04:20It will never be a grudge like you.
1:04:21But what has Microsoft done for me lately?
1:04:24Nothing really.
1:04:25I mean, I do love Visual Studio Code.
1:04:27Yes, people are mentioning Visual Studio for the Mac,
1:04:29but that's just a rebranded Xamarin development,
1:04:32monodevelop, whatever it's called.
1:04:33I don't think that there's anything
1:04:35that Microsoft has given me in the last 12 to 18 months
1:04:40that really affects me day to day.
1:04:43and maybe I'm just missing something,
1:04:45but I do get some value out of Facebook, believe it or not,
1:04:49whereas I don't think I actively get any value
1:04:51out of Microsoft today.
1:04:52- What value do you get out of Facebook?
1:04:54- Oh, (beep)
1:04:55Instagram.
1:04:56- Oh, shoot, I didn't even think about that at all.
1:04:59Oh, that might change my tune then.
1:05:01- Yeah, I just realized, but see,
1:05:02I can't throw Microsoft under the bus either
1:05:04because I use their keyboard.
1:05:05(laughing)
1:05:06And also, they own Skype, which we don't love,
1:05:10but we use it every week,
1:05:11and there's nothing good to replace it.
1:05:13These are all hard choices.
1:05:14I factor this into my choice for Facebook as number one,
1:05:17despite Oculus, which you also forgot about,
1:05:19and Instagram or whatever,
1:05:21that Facebook is the one I get rid of.
1:05:23And, bring it, this evil monarch,
1:05:26it doesn't necessarily say which one of these affects you.
1:05:28That's the framing device that you're bringing to it.
1:05:30Casey's decided the way he's gonna pick this
1:05:32is like which one affects his life.
1:05:34But there are many other factors that you could use
1:05:35in determining which one do you want
1:05:36to depart this Earth magically.
1:05:38And Facebook I want to depart for so many reasons,
1:05:40despite Instagram, which I enjoy,
1:05:42and despite Oculus, which may or may not be
1:05:44an interesting thing that I use someday,
1:05:47almost everything else they do I don't like.
1:05:51And I believe that the need they fill
1:05:53could be filled equally or better by some other company
1:05:58if they were to just poof out of existence.
1:05:59So Facebook is my number one, I don't like them.
1:06:01- Yeah, I'm gonna stick with that too.
1:06:03As much as I love Instagram,
1:06:05the other things on this list are more important to me.
1:06:11And the omission of Facebook from the world,
1:06:14I think, I agree with you,
1:06:15I think would have a better effect on the world,
1:06:17not just me, than the removal of any other ones here.
1:06:22- Flickr could rise again to fill the Instagram.
1:06:24If Instagram didn't exist, I feel like something else
1:06:25would have done a similar thing,
1:06:26'cause what it does is not as revolutionary
1:06:29as the fact that it was able to do it
1:06:31and gather this network of people and so on and so forth.
1:06:33- I mean, honestly, it's kind of amazing
1:06:34that Tumblr didn't do that.
1:06:36I know I'm biased here, but it was,
1:06:39Looking back on it, I think that Tumblr had a big opportunity
1:06:42to be what Instagram was, but their timing to mobile
1:06:46was all wrong because it was similar cases,
1:06:48what almost made Facebook pretty irrelevant
1:06:52in the mobile age is that when you have a big
1:06:55desktop browser web service, it's hard when mobile
1:06:58comes around to realize that you have to change everything
1:07:01and be mobile first.
1:07:02Facebook realized it almost too late.
1:07:05Tumblr got in on it eventually too, but by that point,
1:07:08a lot of the ground was already taken,
1:07:10and including things like Instagram.
1:07:12- Alright, so number two, Facebook.
1:07:15- Yeah, for me it's Microsoft, obviously.
1:07:17- Microsoft for me as well.
1:07:19- And you know, like we said,
1:07:21they haven't done a lot for me recently,
1:07:22however, again, these companies are all really big.
1:07:24They do own a lot of stuff.
1:07:26Like, you know, none of us had anything nice,
1:07:28except for Casey, had anything nice to say
1:07:30about the Facebook product itself,
1:07:32but Instagram is owned by it,
1:07:34so we have to consider that, Oculus and things like that.
1:07:36With Microsoft, they own a lot of stuff too.
1:07:38As I mentioned, they own Skype.
1:07:40We're all using Skype right now,
1:07:41and as much as we hate it,
1:07:42there's no clear, better thing for podcasters to use,
1:07:47except whatever the Germans are using
1:07:48with that Studio Link thing.
1:07:49But I don't know anything about that.
1:07:50I can't read German, I can't understand the page,
1:07:52and it looks like it's some kind of weird plugin
1:07:54for another app I don't use, so, oh well.
1:07:56Well, I guess I'll figure out some other time, I hope.
1:07:58- So far, you can still use Google Translate,
1:08:01because you haven't gotten rid of Google yet, so.
1:08:03- Yeah, right. (laughs)
1:08:05I actually did use that to read the,
1:08:07I opened the page in Chrome so I could use
1:08:08the built-in translate thing.
1:08:10But yeah, ultimately Microsoft doesn't have a large role
1:08:16in my life, so that would be my number two.
1:08:19And it's not, I don't really dislike Microsoft.
1:08:23I kind of feel bad for them these days
1:08:25'cause they're playing catch-up on so many
1:08:27major important fronts in the industry.
1:08:29But they just don't provide a lot of value for me
1:08:33compared to the other ones above it on this list?
1:08:35>> Yeah, I picked Microsoft for a bunch of reasons, most of which are not evil grudges.
1:08:41There's the evil grudge in the back of my mind.
1:08:43But I can think of a lot of reasons why I actually wouldn't want them to go away, which
1:08:47is why they're not number one.
1:08:48Xbox, even though I don't like it, is an important counterbalance to PlayStation.
1:08:53It's only a real competitor in the same sort of level playing field, because Nintendo is
1:08:56always off doing its own weird thing.
1:08:57So I think it's good that it exists.
1:09:00They did buy Bungie, which we'll hate them for forever, but on the other hand, we would
1:09:04not have the Bungie that we have today if it was not for Microsoft, right?
1:09:08So there's some credit there.
1:09:10The cloud stuff they're doing I think is interesting and again is a counterbalance to both Amazon
1:09:15and Google and so I'd like to see more competition there.
1:09:18But I don't like Word or Excel or Office.
1:09:21I think all those programs, the world will be better if those programs disappeared and
1:09:25we should, you know, come up with modern alternatives.
1:09:27They're dinosaurs, we can't get rid of them
1:09:29because they've always been here
1:09:30and it's a self-perpetuating cycle.
1:09:32And all those products that I listed,
1:09:37I either don't use them or would love to use something else.
1:09:40So I don't say goodbye to them with a grudge,
1:09:42but out of this group, they are my number two.
1:09:44- All right, so number three.
1:09:48- Google for me.
1:09:49- Yep, ditto.
1:09:50- Or excuse me, I selected Alphabet, whatever that means,
1:09:53but I'm gonna say it means Google.
1:09:54And this is, again, tricky
1:09:57because this includes things like YouTube,
1:09:58which is, you know, that's a major--
1:10:00- Oh yeah, didn't consider that.
1:10:01I think I stick by it, but, hmm.
1:10:04- That's the thing, all of these companies,
1:10:06they have major acquisitions and major properties
1:10:08that you don't think of necessarily,
1:10:10but yeah, Google owns YouTube, and that's a major thing.
1:10:15So that's hard to give up in a lot of ways
1:10:20for a lot of people, but there are other ways
1:10:25to find videos online, just none of them are very big,
1:10:28I guess, but that doesn't mean somebody else
1:10:30couldn't make one, I don't know.
1:10:32It's a weird calculus, but I don't use Google's web apps
1:10:36for anything other than the show notes for this show,
1:10:39which we could, again, we've decided that's the best
1:10:43for us to just use Google Docs for our shared notes
1:10:46for the show, but there are other options.
1:10:49We've all decided they aren't as good,
1:10:52but we could go to one of them.
1:10:53And I don't use Google web search the vast majority of the time.
1:10:57I'm almost always using DuckDuckGo.
1:10:59I only occasionally jump into Google when I'm not finding the answer I want.
1:11:02So that would be fairly easy for me.
1:11:04But for a lot of other people, that would be really hard because they have a lot of
1:11:07tie-ins to things like Gmail that are really important to them.
1:11:10So it's kind of an easy one for me to say Google, but I wouldn't think that would be
1:11:13very common.
1:11:14Steven: I did not say Google.
1:11:16I said Amazon.
1:11:17Steven (01h00m
1:11:17Interesting. You know, as we were talking, I started to wonder if me choosing Google
1:11:23for number three was a poor choice, because specifically of YouTube. I don't contribute
1:11:28to YouTube very often, although I have once. But I feel like I am on YouTube almost every
1:11:36day to look at something or look up something or something like that. So my answer was to
1:11:41to put Google as number three,
1:11:44but I wonder if maybe I should have swapped that with Amazon.
1:11:48So how did you land on Amazon as the next one to go, Jon?
1:11:52- Well, Google, stuff that Google does is,
1:11:55going back to the KC framing of like just the things
1:11:59that are important to your life that you use,
1:12:00I use it for my email.
1:12:01There is no alternative for Gmail
1:12:04that has the same properties.
1:12:05Like I don't like, using my own server,
1:12:08using IMAP is not the same as Gmail.
1:12:09I am a Gmail user at this point, not an email user.
1:12:12I use Google search all the time.
1:12:14And the alternatives are differently able to do things,
1:12:19but I'm used to the way Google works
1:12:22and I just use it so extensively
1:12:23that I wouldn't want to have to try
1:12:25to get used to something else.
1:12:26YouTube was a big factor in my decision as well.
1:12:28I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos
1:12:31and I believe that it's not a matter of
1:12:34if they went away, someone else can make a video service
1:12:36because even before Google owned YouTube,
1:12:39YouTube is very good at what it does in terms of making video that plays when you hit the
1:12:44play button, the recommendation engine to figure out things you might be interested
1:12:48in.
1:12:49And there's all sorts of terrible things about YouTube as well, inevitably as the big dominant
1:12:53player in a field, but I think they do a good job at what they do.
1:12:56And if Google went away tomorrow, it would take a long time for those ecosystems to reform
1:13:04around another set of services.
1:13:06So I wouldn't want to say goodbye to that as well.
1:13:08And then all the other stuff that Google does, all the wacky things that it does, for the
1:13:12most part, I like them.
1:13:14The translation engine that was translating that German webpage for you.
1:13:17Google has really good translation and it gets better all the time.
1:13:21All their weird projects with hot air balloons and Wi-Fi and self-driving cars and like,
1:13:25I love all that stuff about Google and I think the world would be lesser for them not to
1:13:30be there.
1:13:31So that's why.
1:13:32And Amazon, why did I pick Amazon as my number three?
1:13:37Amazon is great.
1:13:38it like crazy like that's what I was thinking about like if Amazon went away
1:13:42where would I order all my stuff because I order so much stuff from there right
1:13:45but I've used other places that sell you stuff over the internet and they're not
1:13:52that much worse than Amazon now maybe they don't have as much selection and
1:13:56maybe they don't have as cheap shipping and so on and so forth but I feel like
1:13:59beg to differ here I've used enough of them to know I mean even just like
1:14:04simple as like when I you know camera stuff I can buy it from Amazon or I can
1:14:08buy it from B&H Photo, and B&H Photo is not a titan of the internet industry, but it's
1:14:13fine. Lensrentals.com is not Amazon, but it was fine. I bought enough stuff online from
1:14:19non-Amazon places that I feel like I could live with that. And often the defaulting of
1:14:25Amazon that we all do, like, "Oh, we gotta buy something, let's go to Amazon," that defaulting
1:14:28runs me into trouble more often these days, because I will accept Amazon selection as,
1:14:35well if Amazon doesn't have it it must not exist which is not true or if Amazon
1:14:39has a price it must be a reasonable price which is not true because sometimes
1:14:42something on Amazon is insanely highly priced and you need to do some
1:14:45comparisons elsewhere for a variety of weird reasons so I do use it I do value
1:14:50and rely on the service but I believe that it is not as impressive and
1:14:55because I don't have an echo and don't do I'm not in that ecosystem either and
1:14:59also I believe that other people can do similar things it was my number three
1:15:02This was probably my most difficult choice
1:15:04between these two, Amazon and Apple Vet/Google,
1:15:08but I came down on Amazon.
1:15:11- Interesting.
1:15:12All right, so that makes number four next, is that right?
1:15:15- Mm-hmm.
1:15:16You see, this is where I picked Amazon for my number four.
1:15:19I saved it for this.
1:15:20- Same here.
1:15:21- You know, my reasoning for saving it for so long
1:15:24throughout this elimination is basically that,
1:15:27you know, there are lots of places,
1:15:29like, you know, you mentioned B&H.
1:15:31There are lots of other online retailers for the,
1:15:33and by the way, again, Amazon owns a lot of stuff,
1:15:36including, if you're a programmer, AWS,
1:15:38which is kind of important for a lot of stacks,
1:15:42and not always easy to replace the components you're using,
1:15:45depending on what you're using.
1:15:46But anyway, for retail alone,
1:15:50whenever I buy anything from other places,
1:15:52I very often wish I would have bought it from Amazon
1:15:55for various reasons.
1:15:57There's a lot of parts of it
1:15:59that other people can do reasonably well sometimes,
1:16:02but it's rare that you get any other vendor
1:16:04anywhere else online that has the combination
1:16:08of everything Amazon offers.
1:16:09And this is not only like the kind of fundamentals
1:16:13of buying stuff online, which is get it for a good price.
1:16:17I mean, now a lot of places offer the same price
1:16:19on things as Amazon, or similar price, close enough pricing.
1:16:22But also be able to ship to you quickly
1:16:25and for not that much money.
1:16:27and be able to accept returns really easily
1:16:30if it doesn't work out for you, if it arrives broken.
1:16:34Be able to provide basic order tracking and things like that.
1:16:39Many of the other online retail things that are good,
1:16:44Amazon actually owns them, things like Zappos
1:16:47and Soap.com which is now merged into Amazon,
1:16:51Diapers.com, all this stuff, a lot of those things,
1:16:54Amazon actually owns them all.
1:16:56so it would rule out a bunch of that stuff.
1:16:58And it's also just really nice to have somewhere
1:17:00where I've been buying large quantities of things
1:17:03from Amazon for so many years now,
1:17:06for well over a decade now,
1:17:09that I can go back and search my order history
1:17:11whenever I need to know what was that thing I bought
1:17:14or when did I buy this thing that might be about to break
1:17:17and I wanna know how long its warranty is.
1:17:19When did I buy this?
1:17:20How much should I pay for it back then?
1:17:22If I wanna get another one of these things,
1:17:25'cause the one I have just wore out or broke
1:17:27or ran out or whatever.
1:17:28What exactly was that so I can just go buy
1:17:30the same thing again?
1:17:31Amazon's great when you have a big history like that.
1:17:34And so there are other vendors or other retailers
1:17:37that provide some of these parts,
1:17:39but to have it all in one place like Amazon
1:17:41is really very, very convenient.
1:17:44There are lots of things about Amazon retail
1:17:45that are bad, things like the conditions
1:17:48in their warehouses for some of the workers.
1:17:51There have been various reports over time
1:17:53about how those are less than great.
1:17:55So it's not wonderful in all ways.
1:17:59Being a seller on Amazon apparently has a lot of issues
1:18:03because of things like their incredibly overly generous
1:18:06return policy for the customer,
1:18:08which is very problematic for a lot of the sellers.
1:18:10But for the most part, as a user of Amazon,
1:18:14I really, really greatly, greatly enjoy it.
1:18:17Again, it isn't perfect.
1:18:19Like for example, I recently got a,
1:18:21I needed to get a SanDisk memory card,
1:18:24a fairly fast, decent one that was like 60 bucks.
1:18:27And any memory card is kind of a risk to buy from Amazon
1:18:31'cause they have such a problem with counterfeit products
1:18:33being in their stock.
1:18:35And memory cards are very commonly counterfeited.
1:18:37So anything like that I'll buy from B&H
1:18:39because they're much more reliable in that way.
1:18:43And things like Pro Audio Gear I'll buy from B&H
1:18:45most of the time too.
1:18:46But like, with those few exceptions,
1:18:50Anything I can buy from Amazon, I usually will buy from Amazon.
1:18:54I just should also remember AWS S3, EC2, and all the other services that Amazon, that's
1:19:00powering tons of startups.
1:19:02I know there are equivalent cloud offerings from Microsoft and Google, but if they were
1:19:06to disappear the next day, it would probably kill like half the internet startups and a
1:19:09bunch of other companies.
1:19:10It's like when S3 goes down, you find out how many companies are relying on it.
1:19:14So it is a tough one.
1:19:16But yeah, I had a number three instead of number four, and you never were.
1:19:19I had Google in number four, but I already talked about that.
1:19:21Fair enough.
1:19:22So we all chose Apple last?
1:19:24Yeah, I mean, surprise.
1:19:26Like obviously we're going to do that.
1:19:28But I suppose this is a good litmus test.
1:19:30This quiz doesn't give you much guidance.
1:19:35You could use any criteria you want to remove it, and we're all talking about the different
1:19:38things we thought about.
1:19:39But I would guess that for the reason we kept Apple until last is mostly based on the fact
1:19:46that we use Macs and iOS devices.
1:19:48So it's suddenly a very personal decision.
1:19:51That factored in like, oh, I use Gmail or I order lots of stuff from Amazon or, you
1:19:55know, I get some value from Facebook and not from Microsoft because I don't use their stuff.
1:19:58But for Apple, I think it would actually be harder to argue about like if Apple is gone,
1:20:06no one will be able to do X, right?
1:20:09I think, at least for me, more comes down to I use and like the Mac and there is no
1:20:14alternative that I would want to use and I use and like iOS devices and there's probably
1:20:18no alternative that I would want to use, and so I don't want those things to go away.
1:20:23For me, it is less about, "If Apple is gone, they'll never be self-driving cars," because
1:20:28that's not true.
1:20:29"If Apple is gone, GNOME will ever make VR or AR," not true.
1:20:32Like, "If Apple is gone, GNOME will ever make a handheld touch operating system again,"
1:20:36actually, we have those now.
1:20:37You know, so it's not based on future stuff.
1:20:40Like I think in the past, if we were sort of in the beginning phases, like just after
1:20:45the iPod and when Apple was making a series of computers that were really impressive and
1:20:50weird and setting the world on fire, and then the iPod, the surprise success, the surprise
1:20:55overnight five-year success.
1:20:58I think I would have said at that time, "I'm saving Apple for last because I want to see
1:21:02what they do next because they're just doing hit after hit after hit and even the duds
1:21:06like the Cube are still awesome, right?
1:21:09What is that Apple going to do next?"
1:21:11These days I have less of what is an Apple going to do next thing and it's more just
1:21:14like, "Please, Apple, you make many products that I like and enjoy that are an important
1:21:17part of my life and I wouldn't like the alternatives. Please keep making them and improving them,"
1:21:22which is a lesser thing, but I did save it for last, and for me it's for very selfish
1:21:26reasons.
1:21:27I mean, I make my living off of Apple. No matter how useless it would be, this show
1:21:31or my jobby job, it's all because of Apple at this point. So I would be pretty sad and
1:21:38broke if they disappeared.
1:21:41- For me it's all about Beats.
1:21:42I just don't wanna give up my Beats,
1:21:44my Beats Solo 2 Studio X headphones.
1:21:49- And Apple Music Connect, right?
1:21:50Is that really a big part of your life?
1:21:52- Yes, yes, definitely.
1:21:53I really love connecting with my engaged,
1:21:57I don't even know what it does.
1:21:58- It's a big part of finding the setting
1:22:00to remove that from your toolbar in iOS.
1:22:02That's the best part.
1:22:04- Yeah, no, I mean, so like Casey,
1:22:06I also make my living off of Apple stuff.
1:22:10whether it's through my iOS app,
1:22:12which could not exist anymore if Apple went away.
1:22:15And yes, Overcast does have a web player,
1:22:19which is used by something like 1% of the user base.
1:22:23So that's probably not much of a business there.
1:22:26Granted, it does suck,
1:22:27but it's still not much usage there.
1:22:30So my living would go away, or most of it at least.
1:22:35We could theoretically keep podcasting
1:22:38and we could make money that way,
1:22:39but a large part of what we talk about would go away,
1:22:42especially if we eliminated the other five companies
1:22:44or the other four companies here also.
1:22:46- We'd all be using Windows or Linux and Android,
1:22:48so I think we'd have a lot of things to talk about.
1:22:50- That's true.
1:22:51(laughing)
1:22:51That's true.
1:22:52So that would be a problem.
1:22:54And also, I will go one step further,
1:22:55speaking of that, Jon,
1:22:57that you mentioned that without Apple,
1:23:02you couldn't really say like,
1:23:03oh, without Apple, nobody would ever do X
1:23:05or this thing would never exist.
1:23:07I would say that there are many of those things in practice,
1:23:12but the one that I will point out here
1:23:14is I think without Apple, nobody would ever make
1:23:18a great personal computing platform again.
1:23:21And there's lots of reasons why,
1:23:23and this could be a bigger discussion, I don't know.
1:23:26But this is part of the reason why I'm so defensive
1:23:28of Apple continuing to make pro hardware
1:23:32and keeping the Mac healthy.
1:23:35Because without that, many slices of people
1:23:39have to go to Windows or Linux
1:23:41or whatever future options might come about.
1:23:44And I honestly do not believe that anyone else,
1:23:48any other company will ever make a good general purpose
1:23:52computer operating system as we know it today, besides Apple.
1:23:56- Well, you put a lot of qualifiers on that
1:23:57because you're saying as we know it.
1:23:59I think that if Apple was to go away
1:24:01and you're waiting for the next great one of those things,
1:24:03It would be an OS that is not, quote unquote, "as we know it" today.
1:24:07Like, to give an example from the past that didn't quite do it but I feel like could have,
1:24:11WebOS.
1:24:12I don't remember WebOS.
1:24:13It was a little bit of a mess.
1:24:14It had some bad ideas, but it's not a desktop operating system or general purpose operating
1:24:18system as we know it, right?
1:24:20And you could even argue Android.
1:24:21Like, I feel like the next -- what you'd be waiting for is the next great computing platform
1:24:25after Android, essentially, because we've already got Android and iOS.
1:24:28We've already erased Google, so Android is gone.
1:24:30And then we erased Apple, so Apple is gone.
1:24:32So we're left side of this void, right?
1:24:34And I feel like the next thing to emerge would be more like webOS, iOS, and Android.
1:24:39You're right that there would never be, with all your qualifiers, a great personal computing,
1:24:44general personal computing platform as we know it, because I feel like that time has
1:24:48passed.
1:24:49And so it is true that we'd be losing a category of things, right?
1:24:53And that would be sad for us because we're old, but there would indeed be a new great
1:24:59computing platform.
1:25:00it just wouldn't be recognizable to us as like a general purpose computing platform.
1:25:04I mean, surely in this day and age, it would be entirely like locked down and filled with
1:25:07an app store and all sorts of other stuff.
1:25:09Exactly.
1:25:10And probably be touch based or VR based or whatever.
1:25:12And like...
1:25:13And ad based.
1:25:14You know.
1:25:15Well, we'll see.
1:25:16I mean, I thought you were going to say privacy.
1:25:17That's what I thought you were going to say.
1:25:18Because if you look at all these companies, which one of these even makes like...
1:25:23Most of them don't even make faints in the direction of privacy, right?
1:25:26I mean, Google, I feel like is kind of good on the security of its own data, but that's
1:25:30just so it can data mine it for itself. It doesn't want to lend to the outside world,
1:25:34right? But Apple is by far the strongest on data privacy for, you know, and even things
1:25:41like energy, sustainability, and stuff like that. Apple's core values, under Tim Cook
1:25:54or otherwise, these other companies don't express in the same strong way.
1:25:59And so data privacy could be without Apple, how long would it take for another company
1:26:02of that size to actually care about the privacy and security of your data to the point where
1:26:07it's fighting the government to prevent it from turning stuff over?
1:26:10That is not a value that is spread very far and wide in tech, so it would be a shame to
1:26:14lose that as well.
1:26:15It's an interesting quiz, for sure.
1:26:19So now we can scroll down on the thing and see what everyone else picked.
1:26:21So 57% pick Facebook as number one, which I think is interesting.
1:26:24I mean, who knows?
1:26:25Like, this is a self-selected thing.
1:26:26Who's gonna click on these things?
1:26:27Probably a bunch of tech nerds.
1:26:28And I know there's a lot of hatred of Facebook
1:26:29among tech nerds, but this is the New York Times,
1:26:32by the way, it's on its thing.
1:26:33So I'm thinking that maybe the audience is broader
1:26:36than I might imagine.
1:26:37Maybe it's not entirely tech nerds.
1:26:39And what I want to believe is that it shows
1:26:44that Facebook is popular because Facebook is popular,
1:26:47but people don't really have that much love for it, right?
1:26:50They're like, you have to be on Facebook
1:26:51'cause everyone's on Facebook,
1:26:52and everyone's on Facebook
1:26:53everyone's on Facebook, but not universally beloved for whatever reason, whether it's
1:27:00the software platform itself or the things people associate with it or they resent the
1:27:03fact that they have to be there or whatever.
1:27:07Microsoft and second, Microsoft is not on the way up.
1:27:14I'm not saying it's on the way down, but it is in transition, so it doesn't surprise me.
1:27:18Transition down.
1:27:19Amazon third.
1:27:20Amazon Third kind of surprises me because I would think more people would frame this
1:27:25as here's a service that I use all the time and if I couldn't order from Amazon, but maybe
1:27:29only tech nerds with more money than time order everything on Amazon.
1:27:35I don't know.
1:27:36Alphabet, assuming people knew what the hell Alphabet was.
1:27:38Alphabet is third.
1:27:40I think people like Google.
1:27:41I think people like YouTube, especially YouTube.
1:27:43I think people, you know, the general population don't want to, they just think of Google as
1:27:48the way you search things, they don't know what the DuckDuckGo exists, they maybe heard
1:27:51the word Bing once, Google's an essential thing, everything is Googling, and then YouTube,
1:27:56if they're even aware that YouTube was part of it, they're gonna be like, "I'm not giving
1:27:59up YouTube, YouTube is basically my TV." And then Apple, most people wanted to drop that
1:28:05last because, I don't know, like, Apple customer sat and brand recognition and good feelings,
1:28:13you know, people have a lot of good feelings about it. This is not a strict ranking, because
1:28:17It really just tells you 32% chose to drop it last and 26% chose to drop Alphabet first.
1:28:23So to slice and dice this data it would be difficult.
1:28:26But anyway if you look at the little bar graphs at the bottom, Facebook dropped first.
1:28:30It's just the runaway winner.
1:28:31And then drop last.
1:28:32Oh actually no, Google had a higher percentage of drop last.
1:28:36So there you go, 40% for Google and 32% for Apple.
1:28:39So two companies with a recognizable brand that people really, really like and Facebook,
1:28:45Somebody likes them.
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1:30:31(upbeat music)
1:30:34- Marco, you wanna talk to us about how you don't believe
1:30:38in Dropbox anymore, and that would have been
1:30:40your first one to go if you had the option?
1:30:42(Marco laughs)
1:30:43Yeah, so maybe about a month or two ago now,
1:30:47I forget exactly when it was, about a month ago maybe,
1:30:50I decided to try a life without Dropbox, basically.
1:30:54I still have my account, but I uninstalled it
1:30:57from all of my computers, and I stopped using it
1:31:01for anything except I logged onto the website
1:31:04to download the audio files that you guys give me
1:31:06every week for this podcast.
1:31:07And there were a number of reasons
1:31:11why I wanted to drop Dropbox.
1:31:13Their software on the Mac has gotten increasingly
1:31:17invasive of the system.
1:31:20It does creepy things like trying to hack
1:31:22the accessibility database and installing
1:31:24kernel extensions and things, all in the name
1:31:27of features that I don't want.
1:31:30The accessibility thing I think was about
1:31:34sucking in photos or something,
1:31:36and the kernel extensions are for things like
1:31:39their project infinite file system thing
1:31:41that I don't need or want.
1:31:43And there's no good options to just say,
1:31:46no, please don't do this, thanks,
1:31:47just give me the basic thing that uses
1:31:49the supported API in Mac OS to do this,
1:31:53the stuff that you're doing for syncing a folder.
1:31:55All I really want is a synced folder.
1:31:57That's all I really want out of this thing.
1:32:00Basically the thing it used to be.
1:32:01And so all these features I figure,
1:32:03all this stuff that I don't want or use
1:32:05that are part of Dropbox now,
1:32:07let's see what else I can get away with.
1:32:09And what I've settled on at the moment
1:32:13is I just moved everything to iCloud Drive.
1:32:15Because I already pay for iCloud storage for all my photos.
1:32:18I already have all Apple devices that I'm running this on,
1:32:21with one important exception,
1:32:23which is my server that runs my blog engine,
1:32:25which I'll get to.
1:32:26But for the most part,
1:32:28iCloud Drive should work fine for me.
1:32:30So let's see how this goes.
1:32:32So far, it's mostly fine.
1:32:37But I think I'm gonna go back anyway.
1:32:39In everyday use, everything's fine with iCloud Drive.
1:32:42I even, to make the transition easier
1:32:44with some of my muscle memory of running shell scripts
1:32:46in my Dropbox folder, I sim-linked home/Dropbox
1:32:51to whatever the crazy path is, like mobile documents,
1:32:56whatever the path is to the actual iCloud Drive folder
1:33:00on your Mac, I sim-linked home/Dropbox to that.
1:33:03So I at least start, you know, everything is kind of
1:33:06where I expect it to be if I get into like a muscle memory
1:33:10of like, you know, going to the Dropbox folder
1:33:11or running a script from there, whatever else.
1:33:13So that was actually a very easy progression.
1:33:15As far as I can tell, doing that has not caused
1:33:18anything really weird to happen.
1:33:19Although I do keep running out of file descriptors,
1:33:22but it's probably not really, it's probably not that.
1:33:25(laughing)
1:33:26- Mm, an OSF.
1:33:27(laughing)
1:33:28- Anyway, so.
1:33:29(laughing)
1:33:31So for sharing my own files between my computers,
1:33:36like the basic synced folder,
1:33:38iCloud Drive has been totally fine for me.
1:33:40I haven't noticed any kind of weird data loss.
1:33:43Everything is always right there when I want it.
1:33:45One of the interesting things about it is
1:33:47because it kinda has like infinite background privileges
1:33:51on iOS, I was out working today
1:33:55out in the world on my iPad.
1:33:58Not something I actually do very often,
1:34:00but I was doing it today for various reasons.
1:34:03Number one, cellular Macs don't exist.
1:34:06But anyway, I was doing this and I went to the iCloud Drive
1:34:10app on my iPad for the very first time.
1:34:12I have never launched it before.
1:34:14And all my stuff was there.
1:34:16And all the files that I wanted to access
1:34:18were already there because it is always
1:34:21working in the background.
1:34:21It is privileged.
1:34:22It has Apple's blessing to do whatever it wants.
1:34:25So unlike Dropbox, which can only work
1:34:27if I had already ever launched it, first of all,
1:34:30and then whenever it gets a background update,
1:34:32but then the system controls that and limits it,
1:34:34and if I never use it, it won't really get any.
1:34:36So it has privileges on Apple platforms
1:34:40that Dropbox can't have.
1:34:43I mean, on the Mac, I guess it can, but on iOS, it can't.
1:34:46So for the most part, for just that purpose
1:34:49of sharing your own files between your own devices,
1:34:52iCloud Drive has been totally fine for me.
1:34:54The main areas that hurt are, number one,
1:34:59I built my blog engine on Dropbox.
1:35:00Now, I don't blog very often anymore,
1:35:02and that's a separate discussion, and I want to change that.
1:35:06But one of the main problems with this is that
1:35:09now I don't have a way to edit my blog,
1:35:12except for SSHing into my server
1:35:15and using vim in the terminal to edit text files.
1:35:18- The old ways are best.
1:35:19- Yeah. - Stick to that.
1:35:21- Which is clumsy, to say the least.
1:35:23I could also just switch to a regular CMS,
1:35:26but you know I'm not gonna do that.
1:35:27- It's a crazy talk.
1:35:28- Yeah, exactly, you know me, I know me,
1:35:30that's not gonna happen.
1:35:31And so that's, yeah, so that has been a pain.
1:35:36And a bigger pain has been our shared folder for this show.
1:35:41The way we do the show is that this is a common thing.
1:35:45You guys give me audio files every week
1:35:47from your recording, I take them out of the Dropbox folder,
1:35:49I make a project, record it, sync it all up
1:35:53and edit it and everything else and publish it.
1:35:55We also work together on certain files and folders
1:35:58within that shared folder.
1:35:59So when we're doing things like t-shirt designs,
1:36:02we're working often with shared files in that folder.
1:36:07And this is an area that as far as I know,
1:36:10iCloud Drive has nothing to offer.
1:36:11There are no, as far as I know, right,
1:36:13there's no collaborative iCloud Drive folder syncing options.
1:36:18And maybe at the RBC, maybe they'll change that.
1:36:21So maybe I should wait.
1:36:22But for the most part, as far as I know,
1:36:24that doesn't exist.
1:36:25So collaborating with other people
1:36:27and working with other people in a shared folder,
1:36:30that seems like I'm gonna have to either go without that
1:36:35or do what I do now,
1:36:36which is just download stuff off the web interface,
1:36:37but that makes it, it's much less convenient
1:36:40to actually work in the folders with you guys.
1:36:43I guess one thing, if you're just giving me files
1:36:45and I just have to download them, that's fine.
1:36:47But if we are working together on something
1:36:49where we're all kind of editing stuff in a folder together,
1:36:53the web interface is going to suck royally for that.
1:36:56I should not be using that.
1:36:57So basically I'm probably gonna go back to Dropbox
1:37:02because of those two big things of shared folders
1:37:04and it isn't just you guys,
1:37:05like I occasionally need it for other things
1:37:07but this show is the one that happens most often.
1:37:10But so basically Dropbox shared folders
1:37:13and the blog engine problem.
1:37:15Now I could install another cloud service
1:37:18to do these things.
1:37:19I could for instance use something like
1:37:21whatever the new name is for BitTorrent Sync,
1:37:23what is it, it's Rosilio, yeah.
1:37:25I could do that.
1:37:26There's a bunch of other things that are kind of like that.
1:37:30Other various services and products
1:37:32that will behave like Dropbox.
1:37:34So maybe I should try some of those first.
1:37:37But it's probably gonna be hard to ever address
1:37:40the shared folder problem with those things because--
1:37:43- Google Drive will do it.
1:37:44- Well, I'm not installing that.
1:37:46- Why not?
1:37:48Google Drive is fine.
1:37:49- I trust Google even less than Dropbox.
1:37:51- I have a terabyte of Google Drive stuff
1:37:53and I'm like, I'll stop paying for that one.
1:37:54I don't need it anymore.
1:37:55but I don't, it's nice to have.
1:37:56I mean, I still prefer Dropbox, but Google Drive
1:37:58and OneDrive, which is not as terrible as you think it is.
1:38:02Speaking as someone who has had it forcibly installed
1:38:05on their Mac at work.
1:38:06- Yeah, I don't know.
1:38:08The problem I have is that all the other options
1:38:11sound worse to me, like the ones that are from big companies
1:38:14like Google Drive or I think even Amazon
1:38:17has something like this and Box.
1:38:20- Box is worse, you're right about that.
1:38:22- So yeah, so this thing, I think all of these things
1:38:24are worse in some way.
1:38:26And to address the shared folder problem,
1:38:30I pretty much need to use what everyone else around me
1:38:32is using, and around our community and around these parts,
1:38:36that's Dropbox, no question, it's always Dropbox.
1:38:38So I basically have to decide how much am I willing
1:38:42to fight Dropbox or to fight not having Dropbox.
1:38:47How much is that worth to me versus how annoying is it
1:38:52to just have it and tolerate its crappy Mac client.
1:38:55And I'm leaning more towards reinstalling it
1:38:59just because not having it has been a pain
1:39:02in those two big areas.
1:39:03But we will see, I don't know.
1:39:05I haven't made any final decisions yet.
1:39:06What do you guys think?
1:39:07- Didn't you disable the privilege,
1:39:10accessibility, blah, blah, blah thing?
1:39:13- I just say no every time it boots up
1:39:14and it says we need your password to work properly.
1:39:17I'm like no you don't.
1:39:18I know you're lying to me Dropbox.
1:39:19I just say no, I just say cancel every time I reboot.
1:39:22But that pisses me off, like why should I have to say that?
1:39:25- You should let it, it's probably dumb enough
1:39:27that you can let it install and then modify the things
1:39:30such that the OS will refuse to run them,
1:39:32and so the check to see that it has successfully installed
1:39:34will return true, but then they'll never actually run
1:39:37and you'll get some errors in your console.
1:39:38Like you just chmod the files too,
1:39:40because it's, especially with the kernel extension,
1:39:42Mac OS is super picky about the permissions
1:39:44of every single thing having to do
1:39:46with the kernel extension for good reasons.
1:39:49If you just flip on the right bit, unlike group or other on one file, the OS will refuse
1:39:54to load it and it'll just show an error to the log.
1:39:55And I bet you that Dropbox is dumb enough that when it tries to see whether it needs
1:40:00to prompt you, it will just look to see if like a file exists and it's not getting down
1:40:04to the permission level.
1:40:05Who knows?
1:40:06Anyway, there are possible ways to hack around that.
1:40:08Or you can just let it do what it does, because I let it do what it does.
1:40:10I don't use the infinite thing.
1:40:12I don't think I ever will.
1:40:16Dropbox occasionally gets flipped out because it tries to drink from the firehose of file
1:40:21system events.
1:40:22Yep, right.
1:40:23And I wish it would drink from a smaller firehose of just the file system events that happen
1:40:28inside the Dropbox folder.
1:40:30But my impression, based on the activity of DBFS event D or whatever the hell that thing
1:40:33is called, is that it's flipping out when stuff is going on on the file system that
1:40:39is not inside the Dropbox folder.
1:40:41And I wish it would just chill out.
1:40:44But other than that, which I can solve by quitting Dropbox, which by the way is a thing
1:40:47I can't do as easily with the iCloud Drive thing, I prefer it.
1:40:50And I'm still terrified of iCloud Drive because of the weird behaviors that I've seen with
1:40:56weird locked files that can't be opened or deleted anywhere and no recourse and no ability
1:41:01to turn it on and off and no way to control the indication of download state or force
1:41:06things to download, no way to pin files to my iOS devices.
1:41:09I don't know if that's even true, but I'm assuming it is.
1:41:12features that I have with Dropbox, I just find Dropbox so much more tractable because
1:41:16it is a third-party thing. And I am concerned about the increasing invasiveness, but as
1:41:20long as, practically speaking, it doesn't do anything bad to my computer, and if I need
1:41:25to turn it off I can, I'm still definitely sticking with that. And I do have Google Drive
1:41:28installed and OneNote and a bunch of other things, and occasionally I fire up Google
1:41:32Drive, and I think it's fine. Google Drive is fine, I just prefer Dropbox for now. And,
1:41:36as you said, the network effect. It's the reason, you know, you're using it because
1:41:39'cause everyone else is using it.
1:41:40It's just the way people collaborate
1:41:42and that's just difficult to overcome.
1:41:45- Casey, what should I do?
1:41:47- Think you should take off your tinfoil hat.
1:41:49You should reinstall Dropbox
1:41:50and when we all get all of our data stolen and leaked,
1:41:53then you can blame me.
1:41:55- Cool.
1:41:56Thanks for our three sponsors this week,
1:41:58Warby Parker, Squarespace, and Away.
1:42:00And we will see you next week.
1:42:02(upbeat music)
1:42:05♪ Now the show is over ♪
1:42:07They didn't even mean to begin, 'cause it was accidental.
1:42:11(Accidental)
1:42:12Oh, it was accidental.
1:42:14(Accidental)
1:42:15John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, 'cause it was accidental.
1:42:21(Accidental)
1:42:22Oh, it was accidental.
1:42:24(Accidental)
1:42:25And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm.
1:42:30And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
1:42:40So that's Kasey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:42:44Auntie Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse
1:42:51It's accidental (it's accidental)
1:42:55They didn't mean to, accidental (accidental)
1:43:00Tech by cast so long
1:43:04So what's the drama with your switch scenario at home? Because we were talking in the relay chat
1:43:10It seems as though you are in an impossible predicament where you would like to buy another switch
1:43:17But there are deep penalties for doing so
1:43:19Yet if you don't buy another switch you will never play the switch because Tiff basically is taking it over
1:43:24I thought you're gonna talk about him putting the little slidey thing on the joy con the wrong way
1:43:28Well, there's that too.
1:43:30I was setting up Mario Kart for kids, and I was trying to do it quickly.
1:43:33This is why you can't have nice things.
1:43:35Yeah.
1:43:36Why does it go on the wrong way if it blocks it there?
1:43:39Plus goes to plus, minus goes to minus.
1:43:41Match the shapes.
1:43:43I didn't notice that at first, though, in Marco's defense.
1:43:45I did eventually notice a plus and plus and minus and minus, but at first I did not notice
1:43:49it.
1:43:50Well, and I wasn't using the wrong one for the controller.
1:43:52I was using the correct one, but backwards.
1:43:54I know, but you didn't match up the symbols.
1:43:56They go next to each other.
1:43:58Why does it go on backwards?
1:44:00- Yeah, I like the fact that you had to resort
1:44:01to a YouTube video to get out of it.
1:44:03Like basically if there was no internet,
1:44:04you would be at home staring at this,
1:44:06like staring at your broken toy, being like.
1:44:08- Do you wanna rethink your ordering from earlier now?
1:44:10- No, I (laughs)
1:44:12Maybe.
1:44:12No, I really was about to get a screwdriver out
1:44:14and start disassembling it to try to get this thing off
1:44:16because like I, remember, I forget which one,
1:44:19there were like two or three Samsung phones ago
1:44:22where like if you put the stylus in the slot the wrong way,
1:44:26it would just get stuck in there forever.
1:44:28Like, why is the Switch designed in such a way that you can so easily attach these two
1:44:35very commonly attached parts in the wrong direction?
1:44:38And when you do, it gets stuck really hard.
1:44:41I think the Switch hardware is not Nintendo-like in so many ways.
1:44:45That it is delicate and fragile and you can easily do the wrong thing.
1:44:49And it is weirdly not—and it's not like Nintendo doesn't have a history of making
1:44:54portable devices.
1:44:55look at the huge history of portal devices and almost all of them are rugged to the point
1:45:00of Fisher-Priceness and very difficult to do something wrong with.
1:45:05Like the original FireWire connector supposedly was inspired by the Game Boy Kinect thing
1:45:09of having, you know, what was novel at the time, a connector that can only go in correctly
1:45:13one way and it can be plugged and unplugged lots of times and still be sturdy.
1:45:17And then the Switch comes along and it's, I mean, it kind of started switching to it
1:45:22Wii U with making stuff glossy to try to make it look more sort of pro and fancy. I'm not
1:45:26going to say Apple-like, but like less Fisher Price-like, let's say, for the Wii U and like
1:45:31the Wii U Pro Controller, especially the glossy black model being the high end. And the Switch
1:45:35is just like, what is this, a Sony device? Like, it looks Sony-ish. It looks like, you
1:45:41know, a PSP, right down to the delicate little bits that seem like they could break off and
1:45:46the ability to put things on backwards. It should never be possible to do that. It should
1:45:49be super rugged but you know but it is fun to make fun of Margo for doing that
1:45:54but he doesn't follow gaming websites so he doesn't he didn't see the 8,000
1:45:58stories when the switch was launched about putting those things on backwards
1:46:00yeah you're right exactly so I just did it tonight when as I was trying to set
1:46:03up these controllers for two kids to play Mario Kart with us and yeah who is
1:46:07it was tough anyway but besides that I am greatly enjoying the switch because
1:46:14now Mario Kart came out and I'm having so much fun with this such incredibly fun game.
1:46:21And if you are the kind of video game person who has already played it on the Wii U like
1:46:27John it's not much new for you.
1:46:29>> Jon R
1:46:2960 frames per second but as somebody who hasn't played Mario Kart since the Nintendo 64 version. Hey, buddy
1:46:35Hey, right. It is so much fun
1:46:37and so I really am quite enjoying this and
1:46:42It really literally is fun for the whole family
1:46:45we like now Adams playing and and like all the the auto steer or like the the kind of bumper cars version of it that
1:46:53John was complaining about last week is indeed a problem when adults are playing and you don't realize little antennas in the back of
1:46:58their car, but the combination of that and the automatic acceleration is awesome for
1:47:05having small children play, because they can play with the whole family and not be too,
1:47:11too far behind, not get themselves stuck and have to try to show them how to reverse. It's
1:47:17really nice. And in addition to it just being a really fun Mario Kart racing game for adults
1:47:24when they're playing it in the normal or hard modes.
1:47:28I'm just having so much fun with this game.
1:47:30The only downside to this game is that I'm going to have
1:47:33to buy more pro controllers probably,
1:47:34so it's going to cost a lot of money that way.
1:47:36And also, the Switch is still mostly being dominated
1:47:40by Tiff and Adam playing Zelda.
1:47:42- As it should be.
1:47:43- And I also thought, there will be times
1:47:48when I want a second Switch dock.
1:47:50So for instance, when we go to a beach house
1:47:53in the summertime or we have a second TV in our playroom
1:47:57and so maybe somebody's using the main TV
1:47:59but I don't wanna play on the small screen.
1:48:00Maybe I wanna play on it back there.
1:48:02Let me see if I can get a second dock.
1:48:03How much could it cost?
1:48:0540 bucks?
1:48:06Nope, 90 bucks.
1:48:07(laughing)
1:48:09- Another story that if you had read the gaming press
1:48:11you would have seen a million of around lunchtime
1:48:13or when the prices were announced people were shocked.
1:48:15People were also shocked by the way
1:48:16with how much the pro controller costs.
1:48:17- Yeah, yeah, 'cause that's like 70, right?
1:48:18I have two of them now and I pay way too much.
1:48:22(laughing)
1:48:25So I started doing some research of like,
1:48:27if I want a second dock and it's $90,
1:48:31and a new Switch is only $250, that comes with it?
1:48:35- $300.
1:48:35- Oh, is it $300?
1:48:36I don't know, it's hard to know what the real price is.
1:48:38- This is the jump that Marco makes very quickly.
1:48:41- $90, $300, they're basically the same, right?
1:48:44- Nears makes no difference.
1:48:45- Well, it's like, well, do I need more Joy-Cons?
1:48:47I thought I was gonna need one a few hours ago
1:48:50'cause I thought I broke one of mine.
1:48:52So I started adding stuff and I go, actually, this isn't that ridiculous that maybe we
1:48:59should just get a second Switch, that way Tiff can play Zelda on the main TV and I can
1:49:03go in the back room and play Mario Kart.
1:49:05And then I can take one when I travel to the other side of the sea and Tiff can stay here
1:49:08and play with Adam and everything else.
1:49:10So I started asking around with friends like Jon of like, how does that actually work with
1:49:14like game transfers and like I bought all these games digitally, I don't have cartridges
1:49:18for any of them on John's advice, which in most cases is good. And that was the right
1:49:23decision.
1:49:24No, no, no, no.
1:49:25But I was saying, the carts won't save you. Like, even if you had it held on a cart and
1:49:28then you plugged into the other thing, the save data is not on the cart. So it's not
1:49:31helping you.
1:49:32Right. So I'm basically running into all of the issues of being a Nintendo fan that
1:49:38Nintendo fans have been yelling about for like 10 years. And I was just never really
1:49:43a part of it because I was kind of out of the game, so to speak, for all that time.
1:49:47And now that I come back in from Mario Kart,
1:49:49and I'm like, man, wouldn't it be great
1:49:50if I had a second system, or first,
1:49:53let me just get a second HDMI dock.
1:49:55Wow, that's expensive.
1:49:56Oh, okay, let me get a couple more controllers.
1:49:58My God, those are expensive.
1:50:00Oh, well, I bought my games digitally.
1:50:01Let me see if I can just download them to a second console.
1:50:04Wow, that system kind of sucks and is very limited.
1:50:06Okay, how about our save game?
1:50:08Will that transfer?
1:50:09Nope, that won't, it's like,
1:50:11all the things, again, like, Nintendo fan,
1:50:13this is not news to anybody who's been a Nintendo fan,
1:50:15forever, but because I haven't been, this is all new to me.
1:50:20Well, I'll take issue with one thing Jon just said, though, that the cart wouldn't help.
1:50:24It would help in getting the software between the two devices.
1:50:28I agree it will not help in any way, shape, or form with the save, but it will absolutely
1:50:32help with getting the game in between the devices quickly and easily without any sort
1:50:37of fuss.
1:50:38Well, it can only be activated on one device, but I bet if you downloaded it onto both,
1:50:42you could just, like, activate/deactivate.
1:50:43I don't know.
1:50:44I've never tried it.
1:50:45In theory it might be better, but I really would not relish the idea of taking those
1:50:49tiny little cartridges in and out and walking them back and forth from even just within
1:50:53your house.
1:50:54Because talk about something that could easily get like vacuumed up or eaten by a dumb dog
1:50:58or all sorts of other things that could happen to — dogs aren't smart.
1:51:02It's also when it comes to things that should or shouldn't be eaten, let's say.
1:51:08My dog particularly loves cat poop, so you know, the bad tasting Nintendo cartridge,
1:51:13forget it.
1:51:14They also don't chew and apparently don't taste things so it's like one swallow and it's gone.
1:51:17Yeah, I wouldn't relish doing that and
1:51:21I don't know what's worse. Is the having it downloaded on both of them
1:51:27but only active on one versus carrying a cart back and forth?
1:51:30Oh, you are way over blowing the difficulty of the cartridge.
1:51:34I have cartridges for both Zelda and Mario Kart and I have to swap between them when I want to play different games and
1:51:39you are way way way over blowing how difficult it is to keep track of them.
1:51:42No, I'm saying if you're walking across the house, like which room is it in from one side
1:51:46to the other, and just wait until Declan eats one of those cards.
1:51:48I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
1:51:51My house isn't that big.
1:51:52No, the transfer between the two places means you're not sure which location it is, which
1:51:57means you're not sure where it is period, which means it can get lost.
1:51:59They're very tiny.
1:52:00I mean, if it was an N64 cart, you'd be okay, but these are not N64 carts.
1:52:04Fair enough.
1:52:05Yeah, I don't know.
1:52:07I will say, though, that I've been deeply enjoying both Mario Kart and Zelda, and much
1:52:11Much to my own surprise, I have almost as much time in Mario Kart as I do in Zelda.
1:52:19And I think that comes back to what I believe I was saying on this show, it might have been
1:52:21analog, that I just find it much easier to just kind of pick up Mario Kart and play,
1:52:27where to me, yeah, we were talking about it on this show, where to me, Zelda's not quite
1:52:30so simple because I am not good at video games and so I need the context.
1:52:34You don't have what it takes to save Hyrule is what you're getting at.
1:52:37Basically.
1:52:38The world is just going to go unsaved.
1:52:39Yeah, that's correct.
1:52:40You're gonna say well it seems like a lot of work to save the world when I just go run in circles few times in
1:52:44This car racing game, right? Yeah to me as somebody who's only watched Zelda and not actually played it because I really am not into that
1:52:51Kind of game at all to me. It's like sitting down for watching an epic film
1:52:57Versus like watching a quick YouTube video for fun
1:53:00But like I said this Zelda is the is incredibly easy to pick up and do a small amount of things
1:53:05I don't think you'll actually ever finish the game by sitting down in a small amount of things
1:53:09But it is it doesn't force you to say I'm gonna do the next dungeon like the old Zelda games that you can do a
1:53:14Very small amount of things pick up at any time do a little thing and and stop and the way it
1:53:19This is one thing that Nintendo has actually finally gotten right the way you can put the system to sleep
1:53:24And it wakes back up and you're like literally back at the exact second you put it to sleep
1:53:28Yeah, sounds like you something you would take for granted
1:53:30But it is taking intent of this long to successfully do that
1:53:33That makes it so much easier to pick up
1:53:36I mean even just for me like I will pick up the switch
1:53:40This is the main time I use it in portable mode like and do my amiibo random reward thing
1:53:46Because it's just easy to do turn it on
1:53:47I'm exactly where I left off hit a button
1:53:49Hit the little NFC thing open up my chest see what I got put it back to sleep
1:53:53There's no way I would do that if I had to boot it up or load a game or wait for a long turning on
1:53:59Sequence or something like that and again, this sounds like stuff you should take for granted the other modern consoles have done forever
1:54:04But now Nintendo is finally did in that aspect
1:54:06We're just still waiting for them to understand how the hell this crazy online thing works because they haven't figured it out yet
1:54:11Do you guys have your switches nearby by chance?
1:54:14No, it's in the other room. Ah, you suck
1:54:17What are you gonna play now?
1:54:19No, I would never do that
1:54:21You to hone your games
1:54:27200cc comes auto-unlocked in this, right?
1:54:30- Yeah, almost everything is unlocked from the start.
1:54:32Like all the tracks, as far as I know, right?
1:54:33- It's too easy for you to person-appress.
1:54:34- All the characters, the only things,
1:54:36like some of the tires and stuff you need to unlock.
1:54:39- Yeah, although that is disappointing.
1:54:40I haven't spent enough time in it to unlock my favorite.
1:54:43The card I usually use is the F-Zero one.
1:54:45They have like a little F-Zero looking thing.
1:54:45- Oh yeah, I have that one.
1:54:46The blue Falcon, I think.
1:54:48- Yeah, that's a lot of the ones I like,
1:54:49and I think I haven't unlocked it yet.
1:54:50But no, in the original Mario Kart 8,
1:54:51you had to slowly unlock things,
1:54:53and a lot of the things were DLC,
1:54:55like a lot of the additional tracks,
1:54:56but this has all the DLC and everything unlocked
1:54:59except for some of the kart stuff and 200cc.
1:55:01200cc didn't even exist in Mario Kart 8 for a long time.
1:55:03That was, I think, part of a DLC pack.
1:55:05150 was the top, so I three-starred all of 150,
1:55:08and 200cc came out and I was like, no, I'm not doing that.
1:55:10But I've three-starred a couple of them in 200cc.
1:55:14I don't think I'm gonna do all of them.
1:55:16- One of my favorite things about Mario Kart,
1:55:18as somebody who was out of it for so long,
1:55:21is that if you are familiar with the Nintendo 64 version
1:55:25and its mechanics and the way the vehicles handle
1:55:28and the controls and how the weapons handle,
1:55:32how you can hold onto stuff behind you
1:55:34and how you do the jumping skid thing
1:55:35and how you can hold the skid and everything else,
1:55:38all of that muscle memory translates perfectly.
1:55:41Everything still handles pretty much the exact same way.
1:55:44It still feels like that game.
1:55:46And so you're able to, at least I was able to,
1:55:48jump in and pretty much know how to play immediately.
1:55:52And actually I can say the same thing for TIFF
1:55:55and for some of our friends who have played it.
1:55:57Everyone I've seen pick up this game
1:55:58has just immediately gotten it
1:56:00because we all played the N64 version back in the day
1:56:03and it just, it handles the same way.
1:56:06It's new but familiar.
1:56:08- It does not handle the same way.
1:56:10- It totally does.
1:56:11- By any stretch of the imagination, no.
1:56:13I mean it is the same conceptually but like,
1:56:16I don't know, you have to be a Mario Kart connoisseur, but Mario Kart's handling is
1:56:20so unlike the N64 one, which is in turn unlike Double Dash.
1:56:26Maybe the closest you could say is that Mario Kart 8 is a little bit like the Wii version,
1:56:30but I find the handling very, very different, shockingly different between those different
1:56:35versions of Mario Kart, so much so that it's almost hard to believe that they're the same
1:56:38game, that they have the same graphics and everything.
1:56:40You're right, the concepts are all the same, the things you're doing are more or less the
1:56:43same, but Mario Kart 8 is a nice compromise between, well, I don't know.
1:56:49Double Dash is my favorite in terms of handling.
1:56:51That's how I wish all of them handled.
1:56:53The Wii version was a little bit floaty, the N64 version was a little bit imprecise and
1:56:57you had sprites going on there, so it was a little bit of a mess and there was a lot
1:57:00of hopping, so it was very different.
1:57:01There's no hopping.
1:57:02Remember N64 hopping?
1:57:03No hopping in this.
1:57:04Lately.
1:57:05Mm-hmm.
1:57:06Right?
1:57:07But yeah, Mario Kart 8 doesn't feel as floaty as the Wii version.
1:57:12It's not as snappy and precise as Double Dash, but it is a nice compromise.
1:57:16It is all round, in the middle, nicely rounded handling.
1:57:22But it doesn't feel as precise to me in terms of the racing as my favorites.
1:57:28My only complaint about it is that when I first started playing it, I was able to immediately
1:57:33figure out how to handle the cars and everything, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out what
1:57:37do all these different tires do and what are the different air foils do and what
1:57:42is the deal with that because I still haven't really figured that out well so
1:57:45and and also I didn't even realize like what what are the coins for like what
1:57:48are they what are the coins do and like there's so much so much help with it
1:57:51with your game right and so what so I went online and just searched for it
1:57:54because the first thing I want to know is like what are the actual like weight
1:57:57classes of these characters that I don't recognize weight classes that's not how
1:58:01it works and well and so so I went and found like there's this be like IGN like
1:58:06like wiki kind of thing that has all these numbers.
1:58:08- They have iOS apps you can download actually.
1:58:09- So now I finally understand.
1:58:12I took like 20 minutes to read all that stuff
1:58:13and I read about the thing how like,
1:58:15if you hop off of a jump, you get a little boost
1:58:17and I figured out what the little anti-grav things were
1:58:20and how they worked and like all the stuff
1:58:22that everyone who's playing it just kind of knows
1:58:24'cause this was probably introduced over the last seven years
1:58:26in various iterations of this game,
1:58:27but the last one I played was N64 versions
1:58:30so that was a long time ago
1:58:31and I didn't have things like coins and jump boosts
1:58:35and any-grav wheels and things like that.
1:58:38- So what is the deal with the different wheels
1:58:41and sales and whatnot?
1:58:43How does that empirically affect--
1:58:44- Do you guys both know how to show the stats,
1:58:46which they frustratingly don't show by default
1:58:48and don't remember your preferences about?
1:58:49- No, I didn't know that.
1:58:50- When you're picking a car, you hit the plus button.
1:58:53- Or say, "What?"
1:58:54- It's another thing that annoys you about Mario Kart 8
1:58:57is they don't remember your preference for that.
1:59:00So every time you go to that screen, you have to hit it.
1:59:02The other thing, I don't know if this is true
1:59:04America 8 Deluxe, what I'm pretty sure it is, when you hit the plus, you will see the
1:59:09stats for the things and you'll notice that the wheels change your stats.
1:59:12I don't know if wings change your stats, but anyway.
1:59:14Not all, some of the wings change your stats, but it's in very minor ways.
1:59:18But anyway, really, you shouldn't obsess too much about that because a lot of it comes
1:59:24down to, here's the two things, here's my advice for picking stats.
1:59:27When you are not good at the courses or not good at the game, pick acceleration over anything
1:59:30else because if you are going to get hit or make a bad turn or whatever, the most important
1:59:36thing is to get up to speed faster.
1:59:39And if you also have difficulty and fall off the course ladder or aren't familiar with
1:59:44whatever, prefer handling.
1:59:46So the fastest cars are the ones that have bad acceleration, high top speed, and handle
1:59:51slowly and those are the hardest to race and it will make you feel like you're worse at
1:59:54the game.
1:59:55I've never really built up to the point where I liked using those.
1:59:59And seeing speed runners use high acceleration, low top speed things for the handling purposes
2:00:03leads me to believe that those are a sucker's bet.
2:00:06So a lot of them are like, "Wow, great speed!
2:00:08Look at the top speed!
2:00:09I'll use this thing like the big Mercedes car, like the shiny gold one from one of the
2:00:13earlier mirrors."
2:00:14Huge top speed, cruddy handling, you will never get a good time with that.
2:00:18You'll never win a race, especially when a million items are flying at you.
2:00:21So those are the stats I would look at, handling acceleration and ignore speed.
2:00:26if you have decent handling acceleration
2:00:28and you use your boost and that's the wing formula.
2:00:32- Interesting, I'll have to check that out.
2:00:34I didn't know you could do that.
2:00:35- And yeah, hop on it if you're off of jumps.
2:00:37- Yeah, it seems like the character matters the most
2:00:41and then the car is like a small multiplier on that
2:00:44and then the tires seem to be a smaller multiplier on that
2:00:47and then the wing has like a very slight modifier.
2:00:50- And don't forget about bikes.
2:00:52- Yeah, so why should I use bikes or not use bikes?
2:00:54I haven't tried one yet.
2:00:56- I have never taken a shine to bikes,
2:00:59but my impression is that bikes have potentially different
2:01:04or better handling characteristics than cars.
2:01:06I'm not sure what they give up.
2:01:07I've just never, like, whatever is different about bikes,
2:01:10Ameri-Kart 8, I have not, it has not worked with me.
2:01:14So I just ignore them, pretend they don't exist,
2:01:16and I just do everything on karts.
2:01:17But your mileage may vary.
2:01:18- Usually I go the opposite way.
2:01:19Usually I play as Bowser in some kind of big, heavy thing,
2:01:21'cause I appreciate the high top speed
2:01:23that you were just telling me not to go for.
2:01:25But you're handling this crap though.
2:01:26Yeah, well I run off the track a lot, but then my top speed is--
2:01:30And then you take so long to get back up to speed.
2:01:32But my top speed is ridiculous, and I get to crash into anybody I want, and nothing
2:01:35bad ever happens to me.
2:01:36Well, bad things happen to you if you get hit with a shell.
2:01:38I mean, it's not--anyway.
2:01:39Bowser is probably good for like a non--if you don't--we're not racing with computers.
2:01:44It was just a bunch of people, because then you do have a lot of defense about like bumping
2:01:47people off the track and stuff like that.
2:01:48But I still--I don't go in for that.
2:01:52What do you play, Luigi?
2:01:53You seem like a Luigi person.
2:01:54No, I'm a Yoshi man. Same here. I've always been a Yoshi man. Mm-hmm. Same here.
2:01:59I mean Yoshi was the obvious choice for the N64 because he was clearly the best character.
2:02:03Yeah. But I feel like now maybe we have we have not only more balance, but also more options. Yeah, I mean really
2:02:09I'm just picking like a mid
2:02:11mid-range type of thing and you and it's because the N64 I'm picking it honestly like and I've carried Yoshi through all the way whether
2:02:18He's the best character or not. Yoshi's my Yoshi's my thing. You get Yoshi in different colors now.
2:02:23So how do you how does that work if you pick your own me as your player? I don't do that
2:02:28I don't know you I've got outfits for myself though the me's actually it says that apparently the me's are the me's figure out their
2:02:35Weight class based on like the the me's size and weight. Yeah, you got to use like we fit to try to change your weight class
2:02:42Get a fat enough so you can be Bowser
2:02:45So sitting here now Marco. What do you think you're gonna?
2:02:47Do you're gonna get another switch at some point when you can actually get one now probably not I will probably just
2:02:53just stick with what we have and just fight over it.
2:02:55- That's a very Casey answer to the problem
2:02:57and not a very Marco answer to the problem.
2:03:00- Normally you'd be right, but so--
2:03:02- If the game sinks work, he would already have bought one.
2:03:04- Well, if I could get a hold of one, yeah, probably.
2:03:07But yeah, so that, yeah, if there was a better
2:03:10sink solution in place for both purchases
2:03:13and for save game data, that would make that
2:03:16a lot more compelling option, especially considering
2:03:19like how much the accessories cost
2:03:21how much comes with the Switch when you buy it.
2:03:24So that would be a more compelling option in that case.
2:03:26But because that is not an option,
2:03:28or because there's no good solution there,
2:03:30that then instead I will most likely just take what we have
2:03:34and just hope that Tiff gets bored of Zelda pretty soon.
2:03:38But I don't think that's on the horizon, so we'll see.
2:03:41- How close is she to finishing?
2:03:43- I can't tell you for sure.
2:03:45I believe she has just defeated the last
2:03:48big fire monster thing that you have to defeat and return to their saviors or whatever.
2:03:53So it appears that they're fairly far in the game.
2:03:56Well, because it's open world, you don't have to do anything.
2:04:00You could go right to the final boss battle as soon as you get off of the tutorial area
2:04:04essentially.
2:04:05You'd probably die, but you could.
2:04:08So she could go, and she could have gone before, to quote unquote finish the game, and she
2:04:12could go now to quote unquote finish the game.
2:04:15But merely doing that does not mean you are done with the game by a long shot.
2:04:19I finished the game a long time ago and have put in tens of hours since then and have continued
2:04:24to put hours into the game.
2:04:26So just because she finishes the game, don't expect that you're going to get the thing
2:04:29back.
2:04:30Eventually she probably will get tired of it.
2:04:31She's not going to find all 900 Korok seeds or anything.
2:04:34But she might spend some more time trying to crank up her number of shrines.
2:04:42And if she's paranoid about going into the final endgame with enough attributes, she
2:04:48might spend some time increasing her number of hearts and stuff like that.
2:04:52Are there any other games coming up that I'm going to want to play besides Mario Kart?
2:04:55Are there any 2D Mario games on the horizon, or am I just going to convert to 3D because
2:04:59now I'm apparently into Nintendo stuff?
2:05:01Well, there's the 3D Mario coming out.
2:05:03I think you will get that and play it, and you'll probably like it.
2:05:06I don't remember what's on the schedule.
2:05:08I mean, Splatoon, which you may or may not like.
2:05:11Yeah, I've actually I've never played it. I don't even all I know is that everyone loves it, but I don't know
2:05:16I can't even tell you what kind of game it is. It's a you run around and shoot paint on
2:05:20People in different areas. It's kind of like a friendly shooter game instead of shooting bullets. You're shooting paint and painting areas
2:05:27It's it's neat. Okay, so
2:05:30Like and this is like I'm sure like all these characters in Mario Kart that I don't recognize
2:05:36They're probably all from these different franchises that I've missed right like some of them appear be wearing paint smocks
2:05:40Yeah, like the squid the squid people are from from splatoon arms is coming out which is a new IP which is kind of like
2:05:46a weird
2:05:47Boxing game with stretchy arms, which I really don't know how that's gonna be literally arms ARMS
2:05:52I figured maybe it was like, you know armaments, but no it's actually arms like it
2:05:56That's fantastic
2:05:58Okay
2:06:01Alright, yeah, so I shouldn't get a second one. I'll just I'll be patient with this one
2:06:05You are the patience is not in your vocabulary sir. No, it's not. It's only a matter of time
2:06:10You're probably right. It is I'm telling you what's gonna happen is I'm gonna call you one day from like target and say hey
2:06:17I'm looking at a switch
2:06:19Do you want me to send it to you and you're gonna say yes, and I'm gonna say and then I'm gonna say well
2:06:24How fast would you like me to ship it and you're gonna say overnight and I'm gonna say really that's gonna be like another 50
2:06:29Or $100 and you're gonna say yeah, that's fine. Just do it
2:06:32That's exactly how this entire conversation will go.
2:06:35I can guarantee it.
2:06:36If you were Amazon, I could get up the next day for three bucks.
2:06:38Well, I am not Amazon, unfortunately.
2:06:41It looks like Rime might be coming out for Switch, unless I'm misreading Zarko.
2:06:44I just googled just to see the lineup, and it's showing a bunch of games, like, "Yeah,
2:06:47yeah, fighting game, Alex.
2:06:49Alex, Marco, that other person, is not into this."
2:06:53Rime?
2:06:54Is this coming for Switch?
2:06:55Tell me.
2:06:56What's Rime?
2:06:57It's a third-person little boy runner-up.
2:07:02running around in a weird mysterious ancient world kind of thing.
2:07:04Okay.
2:07:05Yeah.
2:07:06Like there's a lot of indie games coming is what I'm getting at.
2:07:09I think they're saying it's coming to Switch.
2:07:11F-Zero.
2:07:12No.
2:07:13F-Zero's coming?
2:07:14No.
2:07:15It's RedOut.
2:07:16Oh, don't mess with my emotions, man.
2:07:17Come on.
2:07:18RedOut is F-Zero but not.
2:07:19But Marko already has an F-Zero but not.
2:07:20Yeah, I have the other one.
2:07:21The Fast RMX, isn't it?
2:07:23Yeah.
2:07:24I haven't played it once since getting Mario Kart.
2:07:26There's a bunch of little indie games that you might look at.
2:07:29And honestly, Marco, I think probably what you're really interested in is probably the
2:07:33next year when virtual console stuff ramps up.
2:07:36Yeah, I would like to see that too.
2:07:37Because, you know, all the stuff.
2:07:38I mean, it's funny, like, you know, seeing like, you know, Zelda, which is basically,
2:07:43you know, like a game that was obviously intended for the Wii U first, and then seeing Mario
2:07:47Kart being released for the Switch that is really just a repackaging and slightly expanded
2:07:52version of a Wii U game.
2:07:54seems so new to people like me and Casey who totally ignored the Wii U. And I feel like
2:08:01Nintendo is probably like screaming like, "Why didn't you care about these games before?"
2:08:06as they rake in all the money.
2:08:07Well, I think they're happy to say like we have a ready game library of like basically
2:08:11already completed games that we just have to port that most people haven't seen. And
2:08:14they're like, "Wow, this is great." And so I think it's a great, you know, I don't think
2:08:18they're angry about it. I think they're happy that they don't have to develop all these
2:08:21games from scratch, that they're sort of shovel-ready games to just chuck over there
2:08:24and they're all new to you and everyone's happy to have them.
2:08:26I think it really speaks to like not only how big of a flop the Wii U was, but also
2:08:30just like the difference in reception between these two platforms. Like I think being somebody
2:08:36who has been on the outside of it and who's only casually seen in here and there, the
2:08:41Wii U, I was never tempted to get a Wii U. The Wii U seemed profoundly uncool and uncompelling
2:08:48a lot of ways. And some of that might not have been warranted, but that's how it seemed
2:08:53on the outside. And the Switch just seemed like the cool new thing that you have to get
2:08:57in on and it's so nice and you get it and it's so fun. I know the Wii U was probably
2:09:02that much fun also when it came out, but for whatever reason I was never tempted to get
2:09:08a Wii U. Because it just seemed like such a bad idea for no good reason. Again, it seemed
2:09:16uncool and uncompelling. And you make a few changes to the hardware and you release basically
2:09:23the same games and now it's the coolest thing ever.
2:09:26If you can find one for cheap, it is worth getting the Wii U just to play Nintendo Land.
2:09:32It's not a reason to buy the entire console.
2:09:33What's that?
2:09:35It's their packing, I don't remember if it was a packing game, but it's their game that
2:09:37basically demonstrates, here's what you can do with this wacky hardware that no one really
2:09:41picked up on, but there are games in there that give you that kind of Wii Sports type
2:09:47experience where I have never played a game like this in this way before.
2:09:50It is super fun, especially for family games, very often with young children.
2:09:54For many, many years when we had the Wii U, whenever my son would have his friend come
2:09:58over, of all the gaming hardware we have in the house, they would choose to play one of
2:10:02the mini games in Nintendo Land.
2:10:06Which it was an okay mini game, but really of all the things that we have, this is what
2:10:09you want to play that we've played for hours, just week after week, month after month, and
2:10:14I don't even think that's the best mini-game. Nintendo Land is all mini-games, essentially.
2:10:18And a lot of them are really fun and really interesting, and I will tell you that you
2:10:21have never played a game, you know, never played, because it's a different hardware
2:10:25arrangement. You have multiple screens, a TV, a handheld thing, playing in the same
2:10:29environment with these very strange mechanics with motion controls and cameras and so many
2:10:34good ideas in there. None of which, obviously, is a full-fledged game, they're all mini-games,
2:10:37but totally worth it just to have that experience if you can find one cheap somewhere.
2:10:42Eh, probably won't.
2:10:44It's so uncool.
2:10:45[beeping]
2:10:47[ Silence ]