0:00:00Top of the mornin' to ya.
0:00:02(laughing)
0:00:04Holy hell, I was not at all prepared for that.
0:00:08- The best part about that is that that's the very first
0:00:12time you've ever greeted anybody on a Skype call.
0:00:15- I think that's accurate.
0:00:16I really honestly--
0:00:17- I'm not sure that was a greeting.
0:00:19I guess technically you're right,
0:00:21it is a greeting of a kind, but not meant that way.
0:00:25So is your beard gone or what?
0:00:27- No.
0:00:29This is my fear, I was like, he's gonna get back
0:00:31and he's still gonna have it.
0:00:33You just don't let it happen to you.
0:00:36- And then-- - Just tip like it?
0:00:37- Yeah. - Is it gonna determine
0:00:38whether the, oh no, this is a problem.
0:00:40It's a big problem.
0:00:41- I have started this morning in Ireland,
0:00:47the conclusion of a wonderful trip to the OOL conference.
0:00:50So I woke up this morning in Dublin.
0:00:52It is now in the time zone that I was supposed
0:00:56to be used to, two in the morning.
0:00:59And so we'll see how this goes.
0:01:03I never really shifted 100% to the new time zone.
0:01:08So what has really happened is now just time
0:01:10has lost all meaning and I'm just always tired
0:01:13but yet can't sleep.
0:01:15So this should be interesting.
0:01:16- Delightful.
0:01:17I am overjoyed that you are this tired with respect
0:01:20because this means I have a prayer of going to bed
0:01:24somewhere near my normal bedtime
0:01:26because I figured about an hour you're gonna be like,
0:01:28I gotta go.
0:01:30And then at this point, it'll be great.
0:01:32No, he's punch drunk now.
0:01:34He's gonna be all loopy.
0:01:35Oh, God.
0:01:36He's gonna want to talk even longer.
0:01:37Wait, we're having a holiday party?
0:01:39I gotta go.
0:01:40I'll be right back.
0:01:41He's high on life.
0:01:42I'm gonna go through the same thing that Marco's going through, and I realize I'm not gonna
0:01:45come back and do a podcast.
0:01:46I'm gonna come back and go back to work.
0:01:48Yeah, that's not fun.
0:01:49I mean, technically, this is work for all of us, me included.
0:01:54Except some of us have other work.
0:01:56All right, let's start the show as usual with some follow-up copyright 2011 John Syracuse.
0:02:03APFS iOS app updates have hit the App Store.
0:02:06Tell us about this, John.
0:02:07Everyone's telling us about them.
0:02:09They're saying, "Hey, guess what?
0:02:10I downloaded the updated version of my favorite app, and the top thing in the release notes
0:02:16was fixed APS file name issues."
0:02:18We have many, many reports of many people sending us many applications that surprisingly
0:02:24feature APFS in their release notes, so the update is happening. Even though the update
0:02:32was seamless for users, for developers, not exactly.
0:02:36Actually I think I might have hit one of these problems. So in the recent version of Overcast
0:02:42that's in the store as of like last week, I had to remove support for M4A chapters.
0:02:50I forget whether I talked about it on this show or not. Did I talk about it here?
0:02:52No, you just tweeted about it.
0:02:53- That's right, anyway, so for AAC/M4A/Mauve, John,
0:02:58chapters, I had to remove support for them temporarily,
0:03:02at least, until I can write my own parser,
0:03:04because the Apple parser kept crashing
0:03:06on a lot of the files that were doing that.
0:03:09And on iOS, there's no way, as far as I know,
0:03:12there's no way for me to parse metadata
0:03:14like in a separate process or anything
0:03:16so that if it crashes, my whole app doesn't come down.
0:03:19And I think, the crashes seem to start
0:03:22around the time the 10.3 beta started.
0:03:24So it would not surprise me if this was file system related.
0:03:27The reason I had to do all this,
0:03:29it was kind of a crazy hack I'll try to tell quickly.
0:03:31Basically, when Overcast downloads its files,
0:03:34it downloads them with no extension.
0:03:37It just saves it as like a big ID number
0:03:39with no file extension, no .mp3 or anything.
0:03:43The metadata parser from Apple in the API
0:03:46can only operate on a file name or URL,
0:03:48cannot operate just on a data blob.
0:03:50So it knows about the file name.
0:03:52And if that file name does not end in .aac or .m4a,
0:03:57it doesn't work right.
0:03:59But only for those files.
0:04:00And if it's an MP3, it needs to end in that to work right.
0:04:04And so the solution I came up with was when,
0:04:08oh, and also I don't always have the whole file.
0:04:10Sometimes I'm streaming the file,
0:04:13and so I have to just write out the bit I have
0:04:16to a temp file and then read the metadata from it
0:04:19and then delete the temp file.
0:04:21And then to get around the extension issue,
0:04:25when I'm reading the metadata from an M4A file,
0:04:27I create a sim link to it with a .m4a extension,
0:04:31read the file name, read the data off of that,
0:04:33and then delete the sim link.
0:04:35And it was at those parts that I was getting
0:04:37a lot of crashes all of a sudden in 10.3.
0:04:40So something's up with the way my app
0:04:44and/or the metadata parsing library in iOS
0:04:48deals with me creating these symlinks
0:04:50or writing these little tiny temp files to disk
0:04:52that don't actually include the whole file.
0:04:54And it was causing the whole thing to crash sometimes.
0:04:55So I temporarily removed that support
0:04:57and left in only my own ID3 MP3 parser,
0:05:02which supports MP3 chapters,
0:05:03which is what this show uses,
0:05:04'cause that I can do all in memory
0:05:07with my own safe routines.
0:05:09But at some point I have to figure out
0:05:10how to re-implement support for AAC chapters
0:05:14and for the lack of them,
0:05:16I apologize to the entire nation of Germany.
0:05:19And I'm hoping to get that done quickly,
0:05:23but right now there's a big problem with that.
0:05:25And I think it actually might be related
0:05:26to some bug somewhere, whether it's mine or Apple's,
0:05:29I'm not sure, regarding the file system
0:05:32because it did not happen before 10.3.
0:05:35- Why don't you try switching from sim links to hard links
0:05:37and see if that just magically fixes it?
0:05:39- Well, I was thinking that that's,
0:05:40I'm not sure I wanna even still be dealing with links.
0:05:43I think the better long term, well,
0:05:46the longest term fix is to write my own parser,
0:05:49but the problem is, without getting too far into this again,
0:05:52the AAC chapters format is completely undocumented
0:05:57and proprietary to Apple.
0:05:59I've tried to figure it out on numerous times
0:06:03and numerous occasions in the past,
0:06:05and I've gotten most of it, but it's really, really tricky
0:06:10and really undocumented.
0:06:11and the bits of data that you need are all over the file.
0:06:16They aren't even all up front.
0:06:17They're interspersed throughout the entire file
0:06:20because it's structured in such a way
0:06:23that as it's playing a track,
0:06:25if it's playing a stream of a track,
0:06:28if say the chapter changes
0:06:30and the chapter includes a URL and an image,
0:06:32then the URL and image are spliced into the stream
0:06:37at that point in the audio data.
0:06:39So it might not--
0:06:40- What?
0:06:41- Exactly, this is why this format sucks.
0:06:43So you can't even, and that same splicing format
0:06:47also applies to the titles of the chapters.
0:06:50So you cannot build a table of contents reliably
0:06:53from an AAC chapter file unless you have the whole file,
0:06:56because you have to skip through the whole thing
0:06:58to get all the titles out.
0:06:59- That's bananas.
0:07:00- Yes, I know, it's a huge pain.
0:07:02In the MP3 chapter format, it's based on ID3 tags,
0:07:06which are very, very crude,
0:07:08but very, very simple to deal with.
0:07:10and they have a lot of limitations.
0:07:12It's very similar to RSS versus Adam feed formats
0:07:16like back in the day.
0:07:17RSS is really simple, hence the name,
0:07:20but it had some limitations,
0:07:23and Adam was designed to be everything to everybody,
0:07:27and as a result, it's overly complicated
0:07:29and a huge pain in the butt.
0:07:31And that's kind of MP3 versus the MOV format,
0:07:34which is what AAC and M4A,
0:07:36that's all just renaming versions of the MOV format,
0:07:39basically asterisk, but basically.
0:07:41- Once again, humans, he's trying to say move.
0:07:43He means a file that ends in .mov,
0:07:45just so you're not listening to him say,
0:07:46what is he even saying?
0:07:47'Cause I know that's happening.
0:07:48- That's a color, isn't it?
0:07:50- Yeah, mov has the most RAM, yeah.
0:07:52- Wow, yeah, so anyway,
0:07:54that is my possible APFS bug in Overcast,
0:07:58and also why anybody listening,
0:08:00why your chapters in mov format podcast
0:08:03might have stopped working in the recent update.
0:08:05- Yeah, that doesn't sound like an APFS thing,
0:08:07but who knows, it is a new file system,
0:08:08if it is related to, like, it's not of the kind
0:08:11that people are talking about in the release notes,
0:08:12'cause they're all talking about encoding,
0:08:13file name encoding issues, but I'm assuming
0:08:14when you make these temp files,
0:08:15you're making them with ASCII file names,
0:08:17so it's totally not an issue for you.
0:08:18- Yeah, it's like, the file name is like,
0:08:19is the ID number of the file, dot M4A.
0:08:22- Yeah.
0:08:23- Now, and so the other possible quick solution,
0:08:25if I wanted to do just a quick solution,
0:08:27just save all the files as dot M4A, even when they're not.
0:08:30And like, and just, you know, have a migration
0:08:32that runs on the first launch of the new version
0:08:34that just renames them all, and just doesn't do
0:08:36any kind of hard linking or sim linking,
0:08:38and just permanently leave them as those names.
0:08:39But then that will break the MP3 file decoder sometimes
0:08:43under certain conditions.
0:08:44So it's like, and the M4A/AAC/MOV/MOVE,
0:08:49those are all, like that format is,
0:08:52last time I checked it was like less than 5%
0:08:55of all items in the iTunes directory.
0:08:57So it's like--
0:08:59- I think you mean the Apple Podcast directory.
0:09:01- Oh God, you're right.
0:09:02It's been like two hours.
0:09:03All right, so, yeah, in the Apple Podcast directory,
0:09:07the vast majority, well over 90%, the format is MP3.
0:09:11So to do a whole bunch of work to accommodate AAC files
0:09:15in a special way, especially chapterized ones,
0:09:18we're talking a very small number of podcasts.
0:09:20I'm guessing off the top of my head,
0:09:21the total number of podcasts that are both chapterized
0:09:25and M4A format and that are listened to by anybody
0:09:29in Overcast is probably less than 100,
0:09:32maybe even less than 10.
0:09:35And so it's a question of whether I actually
0:09:38should do anything about this or not.
0:09:40- But isn't it like 90% of the podcasts in Germany?
0:09:43- And the Germans do use chapters heavily,
0:09:46and a few of them do use AAC chapters,
0:09:49but a lot of them use MP3 chapters
0:09:51or other formats that I don't even support,
0:09:53like the Podlove Simple Chapters format,
0:09:55which is a wonderful idea, but I don't have a lot
0:09:57of market push to support it really yet.
0:10:00The idea behind that, by the way,
0:10:02Podlove Simple Chapters, which is the idea basically
0:10:04to put the chapter information in the feed
0:10:07rather than in the individual files.
0:10:09And that's a great idea, but there's just,
0:10:11there's almost no support for it on either side,
0:10:14on the producer side, on the CMS side,
0:10:17or on the podcast app player side.
0:10:21So that's, I don't know what I'm gonna do about that
0:10:23if anything, but, chapters, I don't know.
0:10:27I waded into this chapter mess
0:10:28and now I'm making a chapter tool,
0:10:30and now I'm making this chapter app,
0:10:31and now I'm stuck with parsing chapters forever.
0:10:34chapters all the way down. It is. I do love the Germans though. They are great.
0:10:38Bringing it back around, talking more directly about APFS,
0:10:42Kyle Seth Gray, otherwise known as KyleSlegray, had
0:10:46tweeted at us a very interesting pair of screenshots. So
0:10:50he writes, "Here's my iOS disks before and
0:10:54after upgrading to 10.3." So it shows
0:10:58in the before that he has a capacity, or
0:11:02His disks are 86% full, 91% full, and 20% full.
0:11:07After upgrade, the same disks go from 86% to 40%
0:11:12and then from 20% to 8% full, which
0:11:16means somewhere out of nowhere, he now has more free space,
0:11:20thanks to APFS.
0:11:21You're looking at the wrong column in these screenshots.
0:11:24Am I?
0:11:24My bad.
0:11:24Yes.
0:11:25That's a lot of numbers.
0:11:26We'll put the link in the show.
0:11:27It's a tweet, and you can look at the screenshots.
0:11:29So the percentages are different, right?
0:11:31I mean this is the output of like DF or whatever and the key thing to look at, like so there
0:11:37are some partitions that are not interesting to us like dev for the devfs and the one at
0:11:42the bottom which is like baseband data for wireless or whatever, but there are you can
0:11:47see the the os and the user partitions and the key column is size.
0:11:52Before ios 10 the size of the first one which is mounted at slash is 4.3 gigs and that's
0:11:58like the OS partition I'm assuming.
0:12:00And the size of like the big one where all your stuff is is 59 gigs.
0:12:04So 59 plus 4.3 gigs is like this is a 64 gig phone, right?
0:12:08And then you know ancillary stuff left over for the other little partitions, right?
0:12:12After upgrade, the size of both the iOS and the your stuff partition, both of them say
0:12:1864 gigs.
0:12:19So the OS partition, it's 64 gigs.
0:12:22And the user partition, it's 64 gigs.
0:12:24Exactly what we were talking about.
0:12:25And this didn't occur to me before when I was talking about the sizing because I couldn't
0:12:27quite figure out how the numbers added up, but this makes perfect sense. If you have
0:12:30a 64 gig phone, it does what we were saying in the example last show with like if you
0:12:33had a 1 gig disk and you put two 1 gig partitions, they have a 64 gig disk essentially in this
0:12:38phone and they put two 64 gig partitions on it. One of them for the OS and one of them
0:12:43for all the rest of your stuff, which is a reasonable simplification because now they
0:12:47don't have to like think about, oh geez, how big should the OS partition be? Like how big
0:12:52our OS, how much should we use? Because in the pre-iOS 10.3 state, the size of the OS partition
0:12:59was 4.3 gigs, but only 3.6 was used. So they give themselves a little wiggle room, like if the next
0:13:03OS update is a little bigger, or they could resize the partitions. But with APFS, they don't have to
0:13:08worry about exactly how the size partitions. Both of them are 64 gigs. Both of them have,
0:13:12quote unquote, "the whole phone." And that messes up the capacity and how much is available,
0:13:20measurements depending on how you are going to report this information.
0:13:25So that could explain these discrepancies that we were seeing before in particular.
0:13:31If you have 55 gigs used and you think the thing is 64 gigs, then you think you have more left
0:13:36than if it was a different size. Or it could just be the F totally confused by APFS. Either way,
0:13:40free space in APFS is weird. Indeed. Moving on, Nvidia job posting suggests an Nvidia chip return
0:13:47to Apple Macs. John, I presume this is most interesting to you, so tell us about this.
0:13:52>> We talked last show about Nvidia releasing the Mac drivers for their new card and for the whole
0:13:58line of top end cards essentially, which is a weird thing to do because Apple doesn't even
0:14:02sell a computer that you can stick an Nvidia card in. Just older ones that people might still have
0:14:08hanging around. And something was tickling my mind about this and a lot of people sent in this link
0:14:14from September 2016.
0:14:16Job posting, Nvidia did a job posting.
0:14:19They were looking for someone to be a software engineer
0:14:21at Nvidia and the role would require,
0:14:23this is a quote from their job listing,
0:14:24"Working in partnership with Apple
0:14:27"and writing code that will define and shape the future
0:14:29"of graphics-related software on Macs."
0:14:32So they were looking for this in September
0:14:34and now they've delivered a thing.
0:14:36So who knows when the Mac Pro decision was made?
0:14:40Who knows when this decision was made?
0:14:41But clearly Nvidia made a decision
0:14:43that previously we weren't doing much Mac stuff, but guess what, now we're gonna.
0:14:47And again, it seems really weird that Nvidia would make that decision on its own, because
0:14:53they have no market to sell into except for people with really old Macs.
0:14:57So and especially the thing working in partnership with Apple, it certainly seems like Apple
0:15:02was talking to Nvidia sometime on or before September 23rd, 2016, saying, you know, come
0:15:09back.
0:15:10We miss you.
0:15:13Let's kiss and make up whatever our problem was.
0:15:15We want to get some of that sweet Pascal hardware in Macs someday.
0:15:20And this could have been well before they even decided to keep making a Mac Pro.
0:15:23So who knows, maybe the iMac Pro will have Nvidia stuff in it.
0:15:26I don't know, I'm getting my hopes up a little bit.
0:15:28But anyway, the mystery deepens, but this wasn't an overnight thing, and I think it's
0:15:35got to have some form of Apple's input, because I just don't see any reason Nvidia would do
0:15:40this on its own.
0:15:41All right, a friend of the show Kieran Healey writes in regarding Marco at 43 minutes and 15 seconds of the last episode
0:15:49We'll put an overcast link in the show notes
0:15:51Quote obviously something has changed with Apple's thinking on release schedules since 2012
0:15:56Around then everything slowed down this is paraphrased around then everything slowed down
0:16:00But now something has changed to make Apple flip around so Kieran pontificates
0:16:05I wonder if it was project Titan which is ostensibly the car project
0:16:08Perhaps that swallowed up a lot of resources.
0:16:10Last I heard, maybe nine months ago,
0:16:12it sounded like that was getting
0:16:13at least substantially scaled back.
0:16:16It was surprising not to hear on the show,
0:16:18but also elsewhere in the news coverage I read,
0:16:20any discussion of the possibility
0:16:21that the Apple Car project was the black hole
0:16:23that absorbed hardware design, talent,
0:16:24and effort for two to three years with no results as yet,
0:16:27and that had significant opportunity costs
0:16:30for every piece of hardware the company makes
0:16:31apart from the iPhone.
0:16:33Thoughts on that?
0:16:34- Any kind of massive project like this,
0:16:37like Apple trying to make a car and then a self-driving car,
0:16:40that's going to draw talent from the rest of the company,
0:16:42no question.
0:16:43However, I think a large part of the talent
0:16:47that was or is working on that
0:16:49was probably from external sources.
0:16:52It's probably like from external hires,
0:16:54from acquisitions, places like that.
0:16:56I don't think the team that was working on the Mac Pro
0:17:00or would have updated the Mac Mini otherwise
0:17:02or was trying to ship new laptops two years earlier,
0:17:06I don't think those people went to go work on the car project and that's why those things
0:17:12didn't happen.
0:17:14It's probably more complicated than that.
0:17:16Also I bet Project Titan has not actually gone away or anything or necessarily been
0:17:22scaled back.
0:17:23I think it was just rethought based on what we've actually heard and what actually makes
0:17:27more sense.
0:17:28But anyway, I'm guessing that these are at least partially separate.
0:17:33that the product slowdown that we have seen
0:17:37was not probably a direct result of Project Titan
0:17:41sucking talent out of the company.
0:17:42I think it's way more likely that it was a combination
0:17:45of operational screw-ups somewhere along the way
0:17:49and also decisions up top that were basically
0:17:54along the lines of we don't think these are worth doing.
0:17:57- Well, Product Titan being scaled back,
0:18:00Regardless of the current size of it, because of the change in direction that was rumored,
0:18:06I think a lot of people got laid off.
0:18:07Like we don't need people who know how to build a car if we're not building a car anymore.
0:18:11But all of a sudden we do need people who know how to write software that other people
0:18:14in the audio industry are going to consume or whatever.
0:18:17But yeah, the main reason I put this on the show is just to ask the question.
0:18:20You know, people have this question a lot.
0:18:21I think we've talked about it a few times in the past.
0:18:23But you're always looking for something to blame for the product that you want to be
0:18:30updated or worked on or become prominent, not getting the attention it deserves.
0:18:35And it's easy to blame it on the mysterious, you know, potentially very large secret operation
0:18:42going on to make a car.
0:18:44But I'm on the same page with Marco, I think.
0:18:47Projects like this do take talent away.
0:18:50They take attention away, attention to the executives and the attention of the employees,
0:18:54but in general if any project was going to be, it was going to contain a large proportion
0:19:02of new employees who are new to Apple or who would not be working on the Mac at all, it's
0:19:06a car project.
0:19:07Because yeah, there's going to be smart people who are like, "We want some of these people
0:19:09because they're just smart people and they're just good software people so we'll definitely
0:19:12take them," right?
0:19:14But it's not, I think it's not the same thing as, for example, when iOS stole a lot of resources
0:19:21from the Mac.
0:19:22Because they're the same core OS under the covers, right?
0:19:25And making a GUI operating system, even though one is touch and one is mouse, they're so
0:19:29closely related.
0:19:30They share code, they share concepts, whereas the car is far enough away that I feel like
0:19:36the worst thing you can probably blame it for is distracting executives, perhaps.
0:19:40But I think it is a separate issue than why are Macs taking a long time to update all
0:19:46of a sudden or why are these other products being emphasized or de-emphasized.
0:19:49I mean if you wanted to blame anything you could blame the watch or something.
0:19:52Another project that is closer to the Mac than the car is to say, because the watch
0:19:58was behind schedule a little bit according to the rumors of when Apple wanted it to be
0:20:01released, and there's a little fire drill about software and all sorts of other stuff.
0:20:04So I don't blame the car or the whatever it is now at all.
0:20:09(upbeat music)
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0:21:28and deliver to you is almost no spam.
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0:22:20Thanks a lot.
0:22:21- Front of the show, Greg Pierce had noticed
0:22:27something interesting about the Clips app,
0:22:29which I was able to talk about briefly last episode
0:22:32before we dove into three hours of MacProTalk,
0:22:34he noted that Clips did not ask permission
0:22:37to use his camera or microphone.
0:22:39And he said, "Bad form, Apple," which I agree with.
0:22:41Kay writes in reply to Greg,
0:22:45"It's a deliberate choice made by Apple.
0:22:47They granted Clips special entitlements
0:22:49to access camera, mic, contacts, et cetera without asking."
0:22:51And there's a screenshot of what I believe to be,
0:22:54oh, it's in the entitlements of the Clips app,
0:22:57And it has a key com.apple.private.tcc.allow,
0:23:02which has entries such as ktcc service photos
0:23:05and camera and microphone, et cetera,
0:23:07which is an interesting special case
0:23:10that we aren't allowed to do that blesses clips
0:23:13and gives clips access to your mic and camera
0:23:15and contacts and whatnot,
0:23:16without the user actively having done so.
0:23:19Which, I mean, obviously it's Apple's right to do that,
0:23:22but I don't know, I kind of wish that they would just play
0:23:23by the same rules as everyone else.
0:23:25- Yeah, so this is not a new thing with clips.
0:23:27tons of Apple apps do this, but it's just, it's worthwhile.
0:23:31And again, in case people didn't know,
0:23:33obviously Apple runs the platform.
0:23:34They can do whatever the hell they want, right?
0:23:35And they do, like, I mean,
0:23:37they put Xcode on the Mac App Store for crying out loud.
0:23:39Xcode is in slight violation of a couple of Mac App Store
0:23:43rules that apply to other applications.
0:23:45But for this specific case,
0:23:49for iOS apps like this in particular,
0:23:51I think like it's an interesting object lesson
0:23:55for the policies they have, in that clearly someone at Apple
0:24:00who is making clips thought that not having to ask
0:24:05for permission to access the camera and the microphone
0:24:07and your contacts and your photos and stuff like that
0:24:12is a better user experience for the app.
0:24:15Like forget about whether they have the ability
0:24:17to get rid of, to put these secret entitlements in or not.
0:24:20Like it's a design question.
0:24:22Is this app better when it asks for permission
0:24:24Or is this better when it doesn't ask permission?
0:24:25And it seems like this is an interface decision.
0:24:27This is a nicer experience for users
0:24:29if we don't ask for permission, right?
0:24:31But because only Apple gets to make that,
0:24:34it's kind of like they're saying,
0:24:36not only do we applicant to do secret things
0:24:38you don't get to do,
0:24:39but because we get to do those secret things,
0:24:41our applications have a nicer user experience
0:24:44than yours can ever have.
0:24:45Because the first thing you have to do on the first launch
0:24:47is throw a bunch of dialogs in someone's face and say,
0:24:49can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this?
0:24:50And users don't like that.
0:24:52And we get to bypass that,
0:24:53but you, because you are untrustworthy,
0:24:56must have a worse user experience.
0:24:58And needless to say, the vast majority of applications
0:25:02downloaded from the App Store are not made by Apple.
0:25:05And so it's like every application except for Apple's
0:25:07has to have a worse user experience.
0:25:08And I don't know what the solution is
0:25:10'cause you do want applications asking for information.
0:25:12You don't want applications to be able to secretly
0:25:14use your camera and get at your photos, right?
0:25:16But it's an interesting dilemma because it's like Apple,
0:25:20Apple is choosing not to eat its own dog food
0:25:22follow its own rules, not because they're flouting their power, but because I think
0:25:26they really believe this makes a better application.
0:25:28And so, yeah, I think this is evidence of a, perhaps a rethinking, even if it's just
0:25:34a very minor rethinking of how permission is asked for and granted, because perhaps
0:25:39the most obtrusive way to do anything on iOS is to throw a modal dialog on top of everything.
0:25:43And I'm not sure what the answer is.
0:25:45Would it be better if it like slid down or had a different appearance?
0:25:47Would it be better if there were some other way that these permissions manifested?
0:25:51when you download the app you could give it something or users could I don't even know
0:25:55I don't know the solution is I just thought it was it highlighted this this user interface
0:26:00issue more so than the technical thing because again tons of Apple apps do this.
0:26:05Finally a t-shirt update so if you are listening to this episode either live or recorded it
0:26:11doesn't matter you are probably listening to it sometime before April 26th.
0:26:18If you are listening to this episode right now and you want a t-shirt and you have not
0:26:24ordered it, please order it now.
0:26:26I cannot tell you the amount of times we've heard people say either, "Oh, I had no idea
0:26:31the t-shirts were for sale," or, "Oh, I meant to get one, but then I just plumb forgot."
0:26:36Don't be that person.
0:26:38Order a t-shirt.
0:26:39Yes, this is incredibly self-serving.
0:26:40Yes, I acknowledge that.
0:26:42But I am so sick of people saying, "Oh, I didn't have any idea," or, "Oh, I forgot."
0:26:46Don't forget.
0:26:47But please, if it's April 26th of 2017,
0:26:50before April 26th of 2017, you're listening to this show,
0:26:53please, if you are interested, buy a T-shirt.
0:26:56Now, Jon, can you give us a little bit of details
0:26:58on what's going on with those,
0:27:00because there's been a couple of changes
0:27:01since we last spoke.
0:27:02- Yeah, but first I have to remind myself
0:27:04to listen to your advice, because for the past week,
0:27:07I've been like, you know what, I need to order shirts too.
0:27:09- Same here, actually. (laughs)
0:27:11- I too have not ordered my shirts.
0:27:13- Don't be like us.
0:27:14Don't be like us.
0:27:16When we stop selling these shirts, even we can't order them again.
0:27:19Yeah, that's really true.
0:27:20Yeah, we'll be out of luck.
0:27:22So here's what happened since last year.
0:27:24I talked about how we might be changing things to, instead of taking all of your orders for
0:27:2820-something days and then, you know, after the sale ends, sending this huge giant ship
0:27:33into shirts out to everybody.
0:27:35Instead we might switch to sort of a continuous fulfillment type of thing.
0:27:38And that is what we've done.
0:27:40It's like an every three days type of thing.
0:27:42that manifests on the Teespring site saying, "This sale ends in two days! This sale ends
0:27:48in one day!" And many people keep sending us tweets panicked, "Oh no, it says it ends
0:27:51in one day or in two days, but you said it was going to end on the 26th!" Very often
0:27:55these people have already ordered their shirt, they're just trying to look out for other
0:27:57people to say like, or look out for us and say, "You might not know it, but you have
0:28:01your stuff misconfigured." Well, what happens is when it ends, it just immediately relaunches
0:28:05for another three day window. And this is going to repeat until the 26th-ish. So don't
0:28:10fret if it says you have two days remaining or one day remaining look at the calendar if it is the
0:28:1426th or before you can still order if it's after the 26th take seriously any things you see on the
0:28:20site this is just the way it works on the site i wish we could have said continuous fulfillment
0:28:24but with it with a definitive end date but we can't because this is not how the site works so
0:28:28never fear it's a rolling cycle that repeats every three days ish um and the other thing i wanted to
0:28:35mention because Teespring itself mentioned it to us, one of the shirts that we sell in
0:28:41our bazillion different color varieties here, which by the way we didn't point this out, but
0:28:44when we sort of did this accidentally, which is appropriate, usually we have some kind of silly
0:28:51in-joke, apple-related in-joke for our shirts for the past couple of years.
0:28:55This year the silly unintentional in-joke was that our shirt names and the million varieties are like
0:29:03like the million different varieties of Apple product names.
0:29:06It's like MacBook, two USB ports, 2013,
0:29:09you know, late 2013 or whatever.
0:29:12So that's what our shirts are like
0:29:13and we have a million different varieties.
0:29:14Anyway, one of them is we call it the Jet Black shirt,
0:29:17which is, you know, obviously an allusion
0:29:18to the new phone color for the iPhone 7.
0:29:21And the Jet Black shirt is a black t-shirt
0:29:25and the printing on it is also in black.
0:29:28And that's the joke, it's completely black.
0:29:30If this is not clear to you
0:29:32that it is black printing on a black t-shirt,
0:29:35it will be basically invisible.
0:29:36Like if you're buying this shirt and you get it
0:29:38and you're like, "Hey, I can't see anything on this shirt
0:29:41because it's black ink printed on black."
0:29:43That's the joke.
0:29:44It's a jet black, it's, you know,
0:29:45how much more black could the shirt be?
0:29:46And the answer is none.
0:29:48None more black, which is a different joke
0:29:51or reference if not joke.
0:29:52Anyway, so Teespring was encouraging us very strongly
0:29:56to not sell a shirt with black printing on black
0:30:00because customers get it and they're angry
0:30:02because they can't see anything on it.
0:30:04And I had faith in our customers and say,
0:30:06"I hope they get the joke that it's a jet black shirt
0:30:09and it does have black printing."
0:30:10And you can see it in the picture.
0:30:12Like it's not a secret that it's black printing on black,
0:30:15but needless to say, if you see that shirt
0:30:17and you're wondering,
0:30:18"Is this black printing on a black shirt
0:30:19and will this be hard to see?"
0:30:20Yes, it's black printing on a black shirt
0:30:21and it will be super duper hard to see.
0:30:23And that's the joke, enjoy.
0:30:25- All right, so yes.
0:30:27So if you're listening to this,
0:30:28Do not be like Casey, John, and Marco.
0:30:31Don't be us.
0:30:33Be better than us, which is not a very hard thing to do.
0:30:37Go to ATP.fm/shirt and buy you a shirt
0:30:41if you are so inclined.
0:30:42That definitely helps us on the show,
0:30:44and we thank you to anyone who has even considered doing so.
0:30:46But please blame only the mirror if you miss the window,
0:30:51because this one's on you.
0:30:53- Although you should be like us
0:30:54in that when you actually do order shirts,
0:30:55you should order like five of them,
0:30:56like all of us are gonna do.
0:30:58That's true like I'm getting ones for my kids for the first year my daughter said she she might want one
0:31:03She likes the rainbow one like everybody like everybody else John didn't you not even buy yourself the addition shirt two years ago
0:31:10That was me. I totally did I've got an addition. I'm I'm part of the elite
0:31:14Are you kidding? I was way too cheap to buy an addition
0:31:16Let's think about who's actually cheap here. I did buy an addition. Yeah, that's just don't be like us kids
0:31:24They just go they just go into the t-shirt museum. I haven't actually worn it. You know I
0:31:27Think I've worn mine like twice like I'm afraid to wear it too much
0:31:31I don't want to wear it out because it's gold it's about it's a valuable t-shirt
0:31:34Almost as valuable as a cotton bro. Cheap your t-shirt shipped to Europe, right?
0:31:39Sick burn sick
0:31:43Yeah
0:31:43No
0:31:43The real valuable t-shirt for people haven't been keeping about the t-shirts is the very first t-shirt we ever printed where there was a printing
0:31:48Error on it and so everybody who got that t-shirt got like the equivalent of the upside-down airplane on the stamp thing
0:31:54Right where it's a misprinted incorrectly made shirt, and then all those same people got a second shirt correctly printed for free
0:32:01Yeah
0:32:02So those people got two sheets for the shirts for the price of one and they also got a special collector's item never to be
0:32:08reproduced printing error shirts so kudos to those people put those into the shirt museum
0:32:12Goodness all right any other follow-up John the keeper of the follow-up anything else you'd like to add
0:32:20No, we're at the end you see it you can see it, you know, John isn't only the keeper of the follow-up. Mm-hmm
0:32:26I'm heavily credited. Mmm
0:32:28All right, Apple has apparently
0:32:32patented a
0:32:35USB-C
0:32:36MagSafe style adapter, which is super duper exciting for those of us like myself who?
0:32:42Even though I don't have a USB-C laptop
0:32:44I can tell you I will miss having MagSafe because it saved my bacon a bunch of times
0:32:48So do we have any thoughts on this? Why are you excited by it? That's the first question
0:32:53Because I feel like I have had my laptop saved and/or legs saved many many many times by
0:33:01The mag safe adapter that's been on my laptop or my laptops
0:33:04So this looks like it would bring it back. What should be great
0:33:08You need you know mags if for cups of water, but they don't have that yet. That is true
0:33:13Yeah
0:33:13So the reason I think you should not be excited about it is because as we've said many time Apple patents everything
0:33:18patents have no real bearing on anything that Apple will produce, especially if you see
0:33:21the patent before the product, it's a good chance that there's not a product related
0:33:24to that. But the reason I put it in here is not because I think Apple will make such a
0:33:29thing, although Belkin and a few other companies actually do make this exact thing that you're
0:33:32seeing here, which is like a little thing that plugs into USB-C and has a little mag-safey
0:33:36kind of magnet snap-offy thing on the end.
0:33:39Yeah, Griffin is the one you're thinking of.
0:33:40Oh, is it Griffin?
0:33:41And it's unfortunately not very well regarded.
0:33:44Yeah, I mean, it's the same idea, though.
0:33:47It's just that the implementation may not be good, because it is actually tricky to
0:33:49get this stuff right.
0:33:51The reason I think it's interesting is because back when we knew they were dropping MagSafe,
0:33:55but none of us had actually seen their products yet, and we hadn't really used the USB-C,
0:33:58we're like, "Well, MagSafe is great, and everybody loves it, but it is bigger, and maybe USB-C
0:34:06the connectors will just yank out just as easily as MagSafe does, because it's a whole
0:34:09new connector.
0:34:10It's not like a big USB-A connector.
0:34:13Who knows what it'll be like.
0:34:14But now that we all have experience with USB-C, I think it's pretty safe to say it does not
0:34:19come out as easily as MagSafe in any way, shape, or form.
0:34:23And that the hazard of tripping over your cord that's connected through USB-C to your
0:34:27laptop is back.
0:34:29It used to be mostly gone with MagSafe, depending on the angle that you trip over it on, but
0:34:34now the danger is back.
0:34:37And I think USB-C, kind of like AirPods, is one of those little things that seems like,
0:34:42whatever you know wireless earphones or you know magnet instead of plugging in that seems nice
0:34:46but i think magsafe is was mostly universally beloved the only complaints i ever heard about
0:34:52magsafe were from uh couch chargers people who use their you know thing connected on the couch or
0:34:57like with a big comforter or blanket and they would say it was a little bit too loose and that like
0:35:01it would knock it out unintentionally but that's the only bad thing i've ever heard about magsafe
0:35:05and for a connector and a technology that looks if you if you just you know look at it it looks like
0:35:11weird and delicate in the same way that lightning does and that like you look in it's like so it's a magnet and these you
0:35:17Know this little tiny set of contacts inside there and all the power to this laptop is going through these tiny little pinprick point things
0:35:24um
0:35:25that just seems so much less robust and what if stuff gets in there and so on and so forth but
0:35:29I've had magsafe on many many devices and still have it on many of them and I still think it's a great idea
0:35:35Well executed again, you know modulo
0:35:39the looseness of like MagSafe 2 and other issues like that.
0:35:43And I think it's pretty beloved.
0:35:45I think people like Accable products
0:35:46because they have MagSafe.
0:35:47It was another one of those Apple things
0:35:49like that makes it better than just a regular laptop.
0:35:52And when it went away,
0:35:53and when we discovered
0:35:54that there is no real replacement for it,
0:35:55it's just like, well, that advantage is now gone.
0:35:58You know, it was kind of made their laptops worse in a way.
0:36:02And in some tiny way, it made their laptops worse.
0:36:05And Apple having a patent like this
0:36:07makes me think that at the very least somewhere inside the company they said can we go all
0:36:13USB-C but also retain the advantages of MagSafe somehow by the answer to everything that is
0:36:21the answer in the world of USB-C which is let's make an adapter.
0:36:24And so they did and patented it but decided not to ship it for whatever reason because
0:36:30maybe it's still kind of clunky or whatever.
0:36:32Anyway, all this is to say that I wish instead of doing this adapter and going USB-C everywhere
0:36:38and then not shipping this adapter and leaving the third parties, I wish they had come up
0:36:42with MagSafe 3.
0:36:43If MagSafe is too big and clunky and your devices are getting thinner and thinner, can
0:36:47you come up with some other solution that also uses magnets that has all the same advantages?
0:36:52We haven't seen a patent for that, but clearly nothing they've shipped reflects that.
0:36:55Anyway, all I'm saying is I miss MagSafe and I wish it would come back.
0:36:58and it seems like at least some contingent inside Apple
0:37:01also misses MagSafe because they tried to do something
0:37:04to bring it back.
0:37:05- If you're gonna do MagSafe on USB-C,
0:37:09the solution is not to have this weird little stick out,
0:37:13like half inch long adapter that you need to also have
0:37:17with you or stick on your cables and have that break away.
0:37:20No, that's like, anything that involves like a rigid adapter
0:37:25against a USB port, I think is not a good idea
0:37:28long term because it so easily just like breaks off in the port or something else. Like all
0:37:33those USB hubs that were designed first for the MacBook One that literally just like attach
0:37:38right next to it like flush against the case and have this big long hub down the side.
0:37:43That's just asking for it to have your knee push against that or something and have the
0:37:48end of the cable snap off into the socket. Anything like that I think is a bad idea and
0:37:53And I think the relatively mediocre reception
0:37:56of the Griffin thing that looks just like this
0:37:59is I think reinforcing of that.
0:38:00To me, if you're going to have this problem you have now,
0:38:03which is you're not gonna have
0:38:05a dedicated magnetic charging port anymore,
0:38:08you're just gonna charge through any USB-C port,
0:38:11then you can't make them all magnetic,
0:38:13'cause that's not how USB-C works.
0:38:15But you can do an innovation
0:38:18that Microsoft figured out in 2001, I think,
0:38:21which is whenever the Xbox One came out.
0:38:22and I don't mean the Xbox O-N-E,
0:38:25I mean the Xbox number one, the first Xbox.
0:38:27And that was, you put the magnetic splitter thing
0:38:30a few inches away from the console in the cable.
0:38:33You know, in a similar location that many cables
0:38:36would have one of those, you know,
0:38:38drum, like those drum shaped magnetic
0:38:40interference reducer things, you know?
0:38:43Like, you know, a few inches from the connector head,
0:38:46you have a little like breakaway thing
0:38:48that if you pull it the wrong way, it opens up.
0:38:50It's like MagSafe, you know, six inches into a cable, basically.
0:38:54That worked great on the Xbox.
0:38:56And I'm sure, you know, it wouldn't be like the most like visually pristine thing, but
0:39:01neither are these, neither is like this world full of crazy adapters we have now.
0:39:05The adapters are all ugly and stupid and clunky, right?
0:39:08So if you move it away from the port by a few inches onto the cable, you have all the
0:39:14same safeties of MagSafe.
0:39:17But you get it away from the laptop body, it then works fine on any USB-C port, and
0:39:22it doesn't require the use of these little fragile adapters.
0:39:25Back when we talked about this originally, this actually wasn't the most popular one,
0:39:30although you did bring it up back then too because you have this absurd love for that
0:39:33huge console.
0:39:34It was a great console!
0:39:36Uh-huh, uh-huh.
0:39:38The most common thing that people brought up was the opposite of having the magnetic
0:39:44thing at the other end, like at the other far end, rather than in the middle somewhere.
0:39:47Like basically the part where it plugs into the, you know, the white brick thingy, you know.
0:39:52But I think both middle and the other end are worse solutions than just MagSafe 3 on the laptop,
0:40:00because middle and the other end are both much more likely to be in inaccessible places.
0:40:07You know the end that's where the laptop is accessible, because you can get at the laptop,
0:40:11right? You put a laptop on the desk, you have to be able to reach the laptop to type on it and use
0:40:15a trackpad. That means you can also reach the part where you plug and unplug the little plug thing.
0:40:20And if it becomes undone because you yank it or something knocks it or whatever, you just plug it
0:40:26right back in. And I think part of the experience with MagSafe that makes good is not just the
0:40:30breakaway ability, but that it is a pleasing way to connect and disconnect with a little magnet,
0:40:35which is a frequent operation. Infrequently, someone will trip over it. Very frequently,
0:40:38you will plug and unplug it and I think it's more pleasant to plug even just being able to yank it out to unplug it and
0:40:44Not having to be careful or slide straight out or worry about bending things or whatever
0:40:47So that's part of what I love about mags a when it's part of the reason why I don't like middle
0:40:52Because who can get at the middle?
0:40:54When someone does trip over it and like some end of it is gonna tuck behind something's gonna be a pain in the butt to
0:40:58Try to find it again
0:40:59I don't like the other end because the other end is probably in a power brick that's either in a wall socket or at least
0:41:03Close to it also harder to get to and middle is ugly because you know
0:41:07It's it's it's just giant would never like it
0:41:10It's not the big bulge in the middle of things
0:41:11so I still come down strongly in favor of mag safe 3a's and have an actual mag safe port on the
0:41:17Laptops and have a mag safe thing that plugs into it. Just make it a new size
0:41:20That fits in I mean if you make it the size of USB C
0:41:23Then you're like well this will last as long as USB C does because as soon as we're too thin for USB C
0:41:27We would have been in the same situation anyway
0:41:29but instead Apple has done nothing including not shipping this adapter and
0:41:33And as Margo said, the one that is out there
0:41:36does not get good reviews.
0:41:37It doesn't mean that it's impossible to make a good adapter,
0:41:39it just means that one is not as good as real MagSafe was.
0:41:42- We are sponsored this week by Jamf Now.
0:41:46That's J-A-M-F dot com slash ATP for Jamf Now,
0:41:50which helps you manage your Apple devices from anywhere.
0:41:54Now when you first start your business,
0:41:55it's pretty easy to keep track of your own computer
0:41:57and your own phone, but that doesn't really scale.
0:41:59As you grow and as you start to buy more tech
0:42:02for your employees, it gets a lot harder to keep track
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0:43:01So there was an interesting development today as we record this, if I'm not mistaken, which as you're listening to this might be like a week ago.
0:43:08But today it was announced that it's official iTunes Podcasts is now Apple Podcasts.
0:43:17And there's new badges that you can use and so on and so forth.
0:43:21And so Jason Snell has started to wonder, "Is this the beginning of the end for iTunes?
0:43:30And what does that really mean?"
0:43:32So I don't, I don't, I certainly don't know.
0:43:35I can't say I would be bitter if iTunes either went away or more accurately, the app just
0:43:41got split up several ways.
0:43:43But I mean, this is some pretty heavy reading of the tea leaves.
0:43:47What do you think, Marco?
0:43:48I mean, this all might be leading to something big,
0:43:52or it might just be like, you know, iTunes is not
0:43:56as strong of a brand as it used to be anymore.
0:43:58You know, like when they launched the new streaming
0:44:01music service, they didn't call it New iTunes Music,
0:44:03they called it Apple Music.
0:44:05(laughing)
0:44:05- They just call it iTunes Music 2013,
0:44:09or whatever year it was.
0:44:09- Right. (laughing)
0:44:10- And then the next year it would just be called
0:44:12New iTunes Music.
0:44:13- Yeah, exactly.
0:44:14Like, you know, it could be part of some,
0:44:17of a big grand iTunes deprecation plan
0:44:21where everything branded as iTunes
0:44:23is being replaced by separate things.
0:44:26And that would be cool,
0:44:27but I don't think this is evidence of that.
0:44:29It might be.
0:44:31I think we will be able to look back at this in retrospect
0:44:33if that comes to pass and say,
0:44:35"Oh, that was the beginning of it."
0:44:36But yeah, right now, I don't think we can really say
0:44:39anything except that we've been hearing rumblings
0:44:42for a while.
0:44:43Apple is working on some kind of updates
0:44:46to their podcasting division or whatever.
0:44:49And some of those are gonna be enhancements for publishers,
0:44:54most of which have been totally unspecified so far.
0:44:57But we know that they're working on something for podcasts.
0:44:59So this is just one step of that in all likelihood.
0:45:02Just the very first step of, now it's Apple Podcasts
0:45:05to go along with Apple Music.
0:45:07I don't think this really means anything yet.
0:45:11- So I think this is kind of actually like a lagging,
0:45:15it's the wrong phrase, not a lagging indicator, but like that this change in branding from iTunes
0:45:20podcast to Apple podcast is actually something that's overdue. Like it is catching up to the
0:45:26reality and the reality is that on all these podcast sites whether you see the subscribe
0:45:32in overcast and subscribe in iTunes, like that's the other little badge button that you would hit,
0:45:37like that the iTunes brand being associated with podcast is past the point of being mostly
0:45:44nonsensical because iTunes, like we just know it because historically speaking the iTunes
0:45:50podcast director was important for podcasting and it's also a very important popular authoritative
0:45:55index of podcasts these days and it happened to have reversed an application that we know as
0:46:00iTunes but that no longer has any relevance if it ever did to podcasts it barely has any relevance
0:46:06to music anymore which is why Apple Music is called Apple Music right that the iTunes brand
0:46:11in all its forms, both in association with music, in an application, or association with podcasts,
0:46:16or any other things that it has done, doesn't make sense in the current Apple ecosystem. And so,
0:46:22to continue to have branding and promotional materials and website buttons and marketing
0:46:29communications and everything with the iTunes name in it is, you know, is not a good idea,
0:46:36And they should have stopped doing it a long time ago.
0:46:39And so now I think their branding is catching up with that.
0:46:42I think their product should also eventually catch up with it as well.
0:46:45Like it has a lot on the phone.
0:46:48There's still icons on the phone that say iTunes, but the fact that they broke out the
0:46:51TV app and that Apple TV is called, you know, Apple TV instead of ITV, and that they have
0:46:56podcasts broken out and, you know, like, I'm going to say that the rats are fleeing the
0:47:01sinking ship of iTunes, but they've been leaving for a long, long, long time.
0:47:06And eventually all that will be left is this weird bloated Mac application.
0:47:10Like it might even leave iOS home screens and then the only thing left will be the Mac
0:47:14application and that probably has the least resources to ever refactor it.
0:47:18But I'm all for them both rebranding and restructuring this.
0:47:23But even if they don't do that, even if it's just a simple rebranding exercise, good.
0:47:27Because it's time to rebrand these things and to divorce them from iTunes.
0:47:32It's a name that doesn't have it.
0:47:33The only connotations the name has for anybody who remembers it are like dated connotations
0:47:37like "oh yeah I remember buying my first things on iTunes anyway now I subscribe to Spotify
0:47:41and when I see iTunes podcasts it's like podcasts kind of like that old thing I used to do with
0:47:47music doesn't make any sense so iTunes has served Apple well but you know once Apple
0:47:53itself has switched its preeminent music service away from the iTunes brand that's the day
0:47:59the iTunes brand died and now all we're doing now is just, you know, letting the rest of
0:48:03the product catch up with it.
0:48:04I would say it was even earlier than that. I would say, like, you know, like, it did
0:48:08make sense to say for a podcast, "Subscribe in iTunes," in the early days of podcasting
0:48:14before there was all this mobile listening, when you were mostly listening by literally
0:48:20subscribing in the iTunes app on a Mac or Windows and syncing them to your iPod to listen
0:48:26So that made sense then but it was so painful then though
0:48:30It was that was really that was a bad time and I mean it was great for the time
0:48:33You know in the sense like DOS was great for its time
0:48:36Anyway, so I don't know if it was great for the times. I I can't
0:48:40There's always like so here's the sinking songs to my iPod back in the days like oh you've got your you know
0:48:48iPod with a monochrome LCD screen and a click wheel or you know a
0:48:52mechanical spinning wheel like first gen iPod putting songs on that by connecting it with a firewire cable to your Mac and
0:48:58iTunes would see it and syncing things to it. I
0:49:00Mean it's clunky, but that was like that was the tech the problem with podcasts is there
0:49:05They are a regularly published thing like they're a feed
0:49:09It's not like you put your songs on your iPod you put your podcast in your iPod and you have them
0:49:13There's never any putting your podcast in your iPod
0:49:16There's always more podcasts like every day of the week if you're subscribed to a lot of them
0:49:19Whereas new songs aren't arriving in your iTunes collection every day of the week unless you spend a lot of your time buying music
0:49:25So it was so painful to know to have to constantly have this mental
0:49:30Keep keeping your head the state of whatever is on your pod. You know your iPod
0:49:35Oh, when's the last time I synced it is the new episode of show X on there?
0:49:40Do I have to sync again? Did I remember to sync before I left the house?
0:49:44It was a terrible fit and so I never remember liking it whereas I remember definitely liking syncing music onto it
0:49:50Maybe because my music collection again doesn't change that frequently
0:49:52But I never liked it with podcasts and all I can remember is all the times that I was
0:49:57Disappointed that I didn't have the most recent episode of the show
0:49:59I wanted to listen to on my iPod at the time or you were like you were like about to run at the door
0:50:04You're like you're about to be late for work. You can't spend a 20-minute iTunes sync
0:50:09Yeah
0:50:09- Yeah, like imagine how many people in the world
0:50:11were collectively five minutes late to work
0:50:13during that time because they were waiting
0:50:15for their iPod to finish syncing the new podcast episodes.
0:50:17- And you couldn't tell, just put that one episode on,
0:50:20it'd be like, nope, gotta do syncing,
0:50:22it's gonna be a while, step five of seven, stop.
0:50:25- Yeah, anyway, so back, it did make sense
0:50:28to say subscribe on iTunes for a podcast back then.
0:50:32But because, as you said, because the iTunes brand
0:50:37was never really used on iOS.
0:50:39Like, there is the iTunes app,
0:50:42but that's basically like the video and movie store, right?
0:50:45Or like, it's like how you can buy
0:50:47music, videos, and movies on the phone.
0:50:50You know, that's the only place
0:50:51that the iTunes name was ever used on iOS.
0:50:54So, to say subscribe in iTunes for a podcast now
0:50:59makes very little sense, because what does that mean
0:51:03to anybody using a phone?
0:51:04Like, almost all podcast listening
0:51:06is happening on mobile these days.
0:51:08Mobile has destroyed desktop and other listening.
0:51:11You know, almost everything happens on mobile.
0:51:13So if you tell somebody with a podcast,
0:51:15or if you tell a podcast listener to subscribe on iTunes,
0:51:17there's a very good chance
0:51:18they don't know what you're talking about.
0:51:20So I think this makes a lot of sense,
0:51:24just as a thing that they probably should do for podcasts.
0:51:28And again, I wouldn't read anything more into it than that,
0:51:33because there might be something more to it,
0:51:34but there's also a very good reason for them
0:51:37to have done it on their own.
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0:52:52- Peter Beardsley wrote in probably 18 years ago
0:53:00And he said, "A few years back, when the Wii U's sales were slumping, we were all doubting
0:53:04the future of Nintendo."
0:53:05John said something along the lines of, quote, "As long as there is still a viable market
0:53:10for dedicated game consoles, Nintendo can survive."
0:53:14These days, they seem to be doing more than just surviving.
0:53:15Breath of the Wild -- oh, this must not have been that long ago then.
0:53:17Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game that turned me back into a believer.
0:53:21Taking into account Super Mario, Ron the Switch, and Breath of the Wild, what grade would John
0:53:25assign the company?
0:53:26Is he bullish about Nintendo's future?
0:53:28means you're happy about it right? I always get bearish and bullish backwards.
0:53:31Yeah. Anyway, how does he feel about their upcoming paid online service,
0:53:35which I didn't even know about? Well, as the email finishes, the people want to know,
0:53:41and now I am one of the people. So, Jon, how do you feel about Nintendo?
0:53:44I had to give them a grade. I would still give them like a B- or so, and here's why. First of
0:53:50all, the Switch is still, I mean, it's doing well by all accounts, but it's still too early to call
0:53:56because they're still in the afterglow of their launch, which launched with one of the
0:54:01best games that Nintendo has ever made.
0:54:04Everyone loves Breath of the Wild, universally good reviews, I love it, it's great.
0:54:09But does it have legs?
0:54:12How's the Switch going to be selling like three or four years from now?
0:54:15Is it going to have the longevity that you would expect of a console in the past, let
0:54:19alone the longevity of today's consoles, which seem to have second lives when you get like
0:54:22like the PS4 Pro and Scorpio and all that stuff, where it's technically the same console
0:54:27but it's a bumped up version like it's extending the life, like it gives these consoles more
0:54:32time whereas the Wii U did not have a long life, it was not very successful.
0:54:35The thing about the Switch and Breath of the Wild that makes me downgrade their grade perhaps
0:54:43by a lot in terms of making dedicated game consoles is Breath of the Wild was the game
0:54:50that was originally announced for the Wii U.
0:54:52And it was developed with Wii U specific features.
0:54:55So like there would be stuff on the gamepad and also stuff on the TV screen.
0:54:59And motion control for the aiming and all sorts of stuff like that.
0:55:04And because of the short life of the Wii U and because of the rapid necessary development
0:55:10of its replacement, the Switch, Nintendo had to change things around and take out the Wii
0:55:18U.
0:55:19They didn't have to do this but this is what they did.
0:55:20out the Wii U specific features for the Wii U version because they don't want the Wii
0:55:23U version to seem like it's the better version.
0:55:25They want, you know, you want the Switch version to be the better version.
0:55:28And the Switch doesn't have a separate gamepad and TV, although if they had designed it differently
0:55:33it could have because you've got all the hardware there.
0:55:34But it doesn't.
0:55:36It's got, if you put it in its little cradle, you can see it on the TV and if you hold it
0:55:40on your hand, that's where it is.
0:55:42You don't have a two screen experience with the Switch for this game.
0:55:46And so Breath of the Wild, as fantastic as it is, could have been a PS4 game.
0:55:53And the exact same game, it would have better graphics and a better frame rate.
0:55:58It could have been a PS4 game.
0:55:59And that has not been true for the most part of Nintendo's breakout hits in the modern
0:56:06era.
0:56:07The Nintendo 64 and Mario 64 and the analog stick, like, that is all of a piece.
0:56:14You cannot put out Mario 64 on the SNES or Sega Genesis or anything like that because
0:56:22the whole game is designed around not just 3D hardware but also the controllers.
0:56:27The hardware and the software went together to provide the innovative experience.
0:56:30Wii is an obvious, much more modern example.
0:56:33The Wii doesn't exist without the hardware.
0:56:35It's hardware and software together.
0:56:37The GameCube, I would say, is Apple's most technologically successful traditional console
0:56:42and that it was just plain a good competitive powerful console with a good controller at
0:56:48a good price, well designed for profitability, just straight down the middle, like basically
0:56:54what Microsoft has always done with its consoles.
0:56:56In recent years, starting with the Wii, though, Nintendo has been making less powerful consoles
0:57:02and trying to concentrate and innovate in other areas.
0:57:04And the Switch is certainly innovative with its portable and non-portable, you know, that
0:57:10advancement, but that advancement does not dictate so far, for the most part, a
0:57:15particular gameplay experience, especially since you, I don't even know
0:57:18if you're allowed to do this, but especially since the games that have
0:57:22been released so far don't say you can only play this in portable mode because
0:57:26it requires a touchscreen. They're also playable on the television, which means
0:57:30you can't make a game that requires a touchscreen that is also able to be
0:57:34played on the TV, and then it's no longer a switch, it is just a portable game, right?
0:57:38Maybe Nintendo will allow people to do that eventually.
0:57:41But as far as I'm aware, for now,
0:57:43they're not allowing people to do that.
0:57:44All of which is to say that I haven't seen any synergy
0:57:48between software and the hardware, which means
0:57:50Nintendo's, the advantage I was talking about,
0:57:53Nintendo, like as long as there's a market
0:57:56for dedicated game consoles,
0:57:58Nintendo can be successful and survive
0:58:00because then they can do that thing
0:58:01that Nintendo has always done,
0:58:02which is make an amazing product
0:58:04that requires a synergy of hardware and software,
0:58:06somewhat like Apple has, you know, been had a reputation for doing over the many years.
0:58:10But Breath of the Wild could have been a PS4 game and probably would have been better on PS4. And I
0:58:15would have been happier if Breath of the Wild ran on hardware that was more powerful. Now that's
0:58:21just me. Some people may want a really good portable system, in which case they don't want
0:58:24Breath of the Wild on PS4, they want it on Switch because they love playing it in a portable thing,
0:58:29on the go and, you know, upstairs in the bed or whatever. Like that makes it a successful
0:58:34handheld but again doesn't say anything specific about it other than like you know why couldn't
0:58:39have been a uh god i'm sorry sony i can't even remember the name of your stupid most recent uh
0:58:44handheld that is not successful chat room what the hell is the vita sorry the nsx no no the vita
0:58:50playstation vita and did they have what was the one after the vita god i can't even keep track
0:58:56this lag is killing me i think the vita is the most recent anyway uh people who love the handheld
0:59:01they're you know they've been handhelds before now i understand the switch thing being able to take
0:59:05off little controls and use them separately so there is some innovation there but it doesn't
0:59:09have the same synergy with with the games as other stuff is that it doesn't mean it's not going to
0:59:12this is very early days um thing that you know new games are going to come out all the time we'll see
0:59:18how they go and they're you know the switch is successful people like it the software is good
0:59:23it can still be a successful product but my personal grade for it is that they are not
0:59:30They are not competitive with the two other big consoles. The Nintendo was always an also-ran
0:59:34because they make less powerful hardware, and within the realm of less powerful hardware,
0:59:37their track record of being able to make innovations that have profound effects on
0:59:43gameplay and vice versa has been hit or miss over the years, and the Switch is kind of like
0:59:48a base hit in that people like it and it does what it's supposed to do well,
0:59:52but it seems like it is just a way for you to play the same old console games that you could
0:59:57could always play portably and on a TV, which is an innovation because that's what people
1:00:01like about it.
1:00:02Like, I don't have to choose between some cut-down portable game versus a full-fledged
1:00:05TV one, but that innovation succeeds by being somewhere in the middle.
1:00:10It's not as good on the TV as the dedicated TV consoles, but it's better portably than
1:00:14some of the weaker-powered portable consoles also still made by Nintendo like the 3DS.
1:00:17So it may be the right product at the right time, and certainly I think we can all say
1:00:23that it has a brighter future as far as anyone can tell than the Wii U did. And the Wii U
1:00:28was arguably much more, arguably much more innovative, it just, you know, the game sort
1:00:32of never materialized. But I think this launch and the fact that they had to make the Switch
1:00:35and the fact that they had to cut out the features from the Wii U version so it didn't
1:00:38appear to be the better version of the game than the Switch version are all kind of disappointing
1:00:43markers of this difficult period in Nintendo's history. But I'm glad they're, I'm glad they're
1:00:49recovering after the Wii U and I'm glad the Switch does appear to be more successful and
1:00:52I wish them all the success in the world, I just wish they would.
1:00:57The product that I want them to make is not the Switch, but if the Switch is what they
1:01:01have to make for me to get Breath of the Wild to make them successful again, I can live
1:01:05with it.
1:01:06But that's why I'm giving them a B, B minus so far.
1:01:09It's funny you say that because when the Switch first came out, well, we talked about this
1:01:14some, but when the promo video or teaser video or whatever it was came out, I was like, "Wow,
1:01:18that looks actually really cool."
1:01:20And then when it first came out, I thought, you know, that still looks really cool.
1:01:22And then I've played with my sister-in-laws and with some friends of ours a couple of
1:01:26times very briefly.
1:01:28Wow, it's pretty cool.
1:01:30And for the last month or however long it's been out, I've been trying to convince myself
1:01:35that I don't play games anymore, which is accurate, that the last time I bought a console,
1:01:40I played it for a couple of months and never touched it again, which is accurate.
1:01:43And thus, there is no reason to spend a whole bunch of money on a Switch, which I will probably
1:01:49used for a month and then never use again, which I presume to be accurate.
1:01:54That being said, just earlier tonight I realized the super useful website iStocknow, which
1:01:59I knew as tracking Apple inventory for things like AirPods and whatnot, they actually track
1:02:06inventory for the Switch.
1:02:07And I am strongly considering making a trip to a neighboring town to pick up a Switch
1:02:12for myself tomorrow, in no small part because I know I'm going to have a couple of long
1:02:15plane rides in my future.
1:02:17And that seems like it'd be a really great way to spend some time on the plane.
1:02:22And so here it is.
1:02:23I am the antithesis of a typical console buyer, which is to say I don't buy consoles.
1:02:30I don't tend to play video games, and I feel like this console was made for me.
1:02:34Yeah, maybe like it's a successful Vita.
1:02:36Oh, for a lot of people, that's how they're viewing it.
1:02:39It is the best portable system I've ever had because the games on it are so amazing compared
1:02:43to, I mean, granted, they're being pulled up the average by having Breath of the Wild
1:02:47on it, but you know, it's like, imagine if there was a portable system that got the best
1:02:53first party titles from one of the best first party developers in the world.
1:02:56That's the Switch, but I'm not interested in a portable, so that doesn't really help
1:03:00me much.
1:03:01But it does mean that the product is potentially more appealing than the Wii U, which had to
1:03:05sit in this weird metal ground.
1:03:06But yeah, and I'm surprised that you are into playing it in a portable, because you have
1:03:12pretty big hands as well and I find the size of it is not not conducive to my hands.
1:03:19Obviously I have RSI issues on top of everything else but it just feels a little bit awkward
1:03:23and I've been playing with the Nintendo Pro Controller and it's no GameCube controller
1:03:28but it's okay for a controller that doesn't have an octagonal surround around the analog
1:03:33sticks and thinks all the buttons are equally important it's okay like it's not it's not
1:03:38great but I like it better than the Wii U Pro Controller which maybe isn't saying much
1:03:43but it's something.
1:03:45Great episode of Hypercritical or greatest episode of Hypercritical?
1:03:48It was an episode that exists.
1:03:50Oh wow.
1:03:51You're the worst.
1:03:53You are the worst.
1:03:54Which episode was that, do you know offhand?
1:03:55Yeah, I know, I don't know.
1:03:58Pinching the harmonica.
1:03:59It's a classic.
1:04:00But you don't know an episode number?
1:04:03In the 50s?
1:04:04In the 50s I'm gonna guess.
1:04:05Alright, I'll look it up.
1:04:07Google for Syracuse of pinching the harmonica. It's gonna be the number one hit I guarantee you this sounds like a dangerous query
1:04:13I don't know if I yeah, don't do an image search just regular text search
1:04:17You'll find it
1:04:1949 you were very close and we caught you saying your own name twice in the last week
1:04:24Caught me is this the secret thing yes, I'll say it all day
1:04:28Say all night all day except that whenever when you were having like a whole episode of rectus
1:04:33But how no one pronounces your name right you never said it
1:04:35I just don't want to encourage him. Oh, yeah, you can't give him what he wants. You know, he's incorrigible
1:04:40Yeah, that's it. Poor Merlin. Mmm. Don't don't you give him your pity? He does not deserve it
1:04:48Well, you're bad cop today, aren't you? That's how this is playing, isn't it?
1:04:51Goodness, all right. So Marco, what do you think about the switch? I mean, I know that Tiff has gotten herself one
1:04:59Or well, maybe it was for you, but it's effectively hers
1:05:03I don't remember what the backstory was, but like have you played it at all?
1:05:06Remind me what your scenario is with that.
1:05:08I played the Wipeout clone for a few minutes and that was fun.
1:05:12That's right, that's right.
1:05:13Yeah, but that's it so far.
1:05:14I expect to play Mario Kart probably quite a bit.
1:05:17Oh, amen brother.
1:05:18But that isn't out until the end of this month I think.
1:05:22And also the Puyo Tetris, which I know from my Sega days as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean
1:05:29Machine Tetris.
1:05:30I will probably be enjoying that as well when that comes out, which I believe is also around
1:05:35Mario Kart time.
1:05:37And then whenever there's ever a Mario game for it, I will like that.
1:05:41If there's ever a virtual console that allows me to catch up a little bit on previous Mario
1:05:45games, as we previously discussed, I would like that.
1:05:48But otherwise, you know, yeah, I'm not that into it because I'm not that into games.
1:05:53I'm like you, but I've already bought it and I've realized that.
1:05:56(laughing)
1:05:58- There is a Mario game coming, by the way,
1:06:00in case you were wondering.
1:06:00There totally is one.
1:06:02- Yeah, but it's a 3D one.
1:06:04I don't like 3D.
1:06:05- Those are the real ones now.
1:06:07- No, they're not.
1:06:07- Yeah, but it's a 3D.
1:06:08Everyone else is saying finally a real Mario game
1:06:10instead of one of these nostalgic throwback 2.5D things.
1:06:14- Yeah, no, I want more 2.5D.
1:06:16To me, that's what Mario games are.
1:06:19The 3D ones always felt like they were good games,
1:06:23but they didn't feel like Mario games to me.
1:06:24They felt like a different thing.
1:06:26You're so stuck in the past.
1:06:27- No, it's just, no.
1:06:29- I know you like your 2D games,
1:06:30you're playing through Sonic for crying out loud.
1:06:32Like, I know you like 2D, but I love the 3D ones better
1:06:37and I think they're just-
1:06:39- It's a different kind of game.
1:06:41- Yeah, I suppose.
1:06:42I mean, I was surprised by how,
1:06:45I mean, I talked about this on,
1:06:46I think it was on Wrecked Divs,
1:06:47about how games that I loved in the 2D era
1:06:50made the transition to 3D and I still love them,
1:06:53even though, like you said, it is totally different.
1:06:55Like, Zelda in 2D versus Zelda in 3D.
1:06:58Very different.
1:06:59Mechanically, visually, like, so many things about it are different.
1:07:01And Mario, same thing.
1:07:02And yet, I still feel like there's a through line.
1:07:04I still feel like it's the same game, the same kind of feeling.
1:07:07The difference is that once they went 3D, I couldn't go back to the 2D ones anymore.
1:07:10It's like, well, why would I want to just jump up and down in 2D?
1:07:13I want to jump up and down in 3D world.
1:07:15To me, it's just like, it's such different mechanics.
1:07:18Like, you know, certain games, like, back in the, like, 8 and 16-bit era, racing games,
1:07:23Like Mario Kart for Super Nintendo.
1:07:26Played that game for so long, it was such a great game,
1:07:28but fundamentally you were really navigating a 3D world,
1:07:32it just happened to be rendered in crude 2D
1:07:34that was trying to approximate it.
1:07:35- And there was a lot of tapping
1:07:37because you didn't have analog sticks,
1:07:38so tapping was all about tapping the D-pad.
1:07:41- Right, but the point is,
1:07:43translating Mario Kart from 2D to 3D just made it better.
1:07:47It didn't fundamentally produce a different kind of game,
1:07:51It just, you know, you were already conceptually moving in 3D and it just made it better.
1:07:56But a platform game is an incredibly different playing game between 2D and 3D.
1:08:02Everything you can do is totally different.
1:08:04A lot of 2D stuff does not work in 3D and vice versa.
1:08:08So it is a totally different kind of game.
1:08:10And what made me so sad during the 32 and 64 bit console era was that all of my favorite
1:08:162D franchises were basically killed off for like 10 years while they made 3D versions.
1:08:22And that was fine, but that wasn't, it wasn't the same thing. I know I've had this rant
1:08:25before recently, so I'll stop it here, but 2D Mario and 3D Mario are different games
1:08:32and for a while they didn't continue both, and I'm glad they in recent years have continued
1:08:36both. And I would love to play some of those new 2/2.5D Mario games. And by new I just
1:08:43mean made after the 90s. So I know they're not new anymore for gamers, but for me they
1:08:48would be new. And I would love to play them, but I wouldn't love to play them enough to
1:08:52go like buy a Wii U or something. So I'm hoping they come to Virtual Console and the Switch
1:08:56in some form.
1:08:57So you said that they're totally different games, and I understand what you're saying
1:09:01in terms of like mechanically speaking, but the reason I feel like there's a through line
1:09:04is not so much like how do you control it and what is on the screen and like, you know,
1:09:10how does the game work, but sort of the, I don't know, I don't know if it's the spirit
1:09:17of the game, but like Mario is about running and jumping.
1:09:22That you are exercising your athletic ability, this little character, who's going to navigate
1:09:29the world that's full of hazards, full of things that you touch to kill you, pits that
1:09:32you fall into, enemies that hurt you when they touch you, and you are running and jumping.
1:09:38I feel like Mario 3D captured more than any game that had tried to do a similar thing
1:09:45before it, and it's why it's such an important game, captured the fun of running and jumping.
1:09:51What is fun about running around and jumping?
1:09:54And yes, it's totally different.
1:09:55You're in 3D space, the whole rules of the world are different.
1:09:58It's not like you live if you're traveling downward on the enemy, but if you're traveling
1:10:02upward, you die.
1:10:03all the mechanics of the old game, every rule system,
1:10:07every sort of how it controls in the air, how run works,
1:10:11holding down B to run, like all that stuff went away
1:10:12and was replaced with something entirely different.
1:10:14And yet I still feel like this is a game
1:10:16about the joy of running and jumping.
1:10:17Same thing with Zelda, which was about exploring a world,
1:10:22big, scary, dangerous world that you don't understand
1:10:24that goes on for a long distance
1:10:27that you have to slowly discover the mysteries of
1:10:30and collect items and become more powerful
1:10:32and eventually solve a mystery and defeat an enemy and complete a story.
1:10:38And the change to 3D was like, "You thought exploring was fun in 2D?
1:10:43It's even more fun when it's 3D with better graphics."
1:10:46And Breath of the Wild says, "You thought it was fun exploring?"
1:10:49Like the idea of exploring, well, this world is humongous, and your exploring is no longer
1:10:54constrained in the way it used to be.
1:10:57those games feel like, yes, Zelda is about exploration and conquest and mystery and,
1:11:05you know, defeating an enemy and story. And that's the through line I see, even though
1:11:11mechanically speaking the game is varied a lot. So I think it really depends on what
1:11:16you were, what part of the game you were there for. If you were there for the mechanics and
1:11:21the mechanics change, well, it's like, well, this is a different game. But if you were
1:11:23there for the joy of running and jumping and this new game in 3D even more thoroughly embodies
1:11:30the joy of running and jumping that you will like the 3D games.
1:11:34So obviously, you know, beside of that I'm on and that I think I'm at the point where
1:11:38I can say I didn't even like the mechanics of the 2D ones.
1:11:41That was the best incarnation of a game that made it, you know, that you got to experience
1:11:46the fun of running around and jumping.
1:11:47And then when they went to 3D I just discarded the 2D.
1:11:49I'm like, well, I get more of that here.
1:11:52But if you like the 2D mechanics, the 3D one has nothing for you and you're just waiting
1:11:55for the 2.5D games.
1:11:57Did you guys play F-Zero on the Super Nintendo?
1:12:00Oh yeah, of course.
1:12:01I'm mostly looking at Marco.
1:12:02Or on the N64, frame-locked at 60 frames per second.
1:12:05Yeah, it looked awesome at 60 frames per second.
1:12:07There were basically no polygons, but it looked awesome.
1:12:11That's the right trade-off for that game.
1:12:14Yeah, I would say.
1:12:17I love that game so darn much.
1:12:19My goodness did I love that game.
1:12:20I will say though, like I one of the reasons why I've always liked Wipeout and Mario Kart is that
1:12:25Racing games are fun, but racing games with weapons are a lot more fun
1:12:29And that was one thing I was missed with F-Zero like it was like I enjoyed going really fast and stuff
1:12:34But I wanted to occasionally be able to fire a missile at Casey and I couldn't do that
1:12:38And speaking of
1:12:43Games like so we were playing plus
1:12:44I'm still playing Breath of the Wild obviously and I got the chance to try out the thing that I was suggesting Marco try out
1:12:49but that he said he tried and didn't like, which is Breath of the Wild as essentially
1:12:53a party game. We had some company over and we had like, you know, a couple of adults
1:12:58and their kids and all of us just sitting in the same room playing Breath of the Wild,
1:13:04which is a single player game, together as a party game. Because, especially if you have
1:13:10someone who's, you have the person who's ostensibly controlling the game, but then you have an
1:13:14entire room full of people who have opinions about what should be done next or what you
1:13:18should try or just you know laughing at the results of the most recent experiment because
1:13:23even just playing breath of the wild single player is a constant series of distractions just try
1:13:27progressing the story quest you can't do it because it's like oh what's that over there
1:13:30oh what's this oh i want to do this and you'll find yourself 20 degrees removed from what you
1:13:34thought you were doing and you're having fun the whole time if you have a room full of people
1:13:38who are also engaged with that even though none of them are actually playing telling you spotting
1:13:42something out of the corner of their eye you didn't see or getting excited about something
1:13:45that happened or giving you a suggestion about something to try, it worked very well. Maybe
1:13:49it wouldn't work well as you get deep into the game and people start to suss out what
1:13:53the mechanics are, but for a room full of people, half of which had never even seen
1:13:57Breath of the Wild, it was hilarious and fun and the most fun I've had "playing a video
1:14:02game in a large group" even though one person had the controller and it was not me in a
1:14:06long time. And that's what I was suggesting Marco do when Tiff is playing but apparently
1:14:12he's still just bored and falls asleep and Adam is her co-pilot.
1:14:15- Well, to be honest, Marco's about to fall asleep anyway.
1:14:18- That's true, for different reasons.
1:14:20- This was before he went to Ireland,
1:14:22he was still falling asleep on the couch.
1:14:23He's an old man, he's got a beard now.
1:14:25He just like put him on the couch and three seconds later,
1:14:27his eyes are closed and he's snoring.
1:14:29And then you wake up, he says,
1:14:30"I was just resting my eyes."
1:14:31- Thanks to our three sponsors this week,
1:14:33Betterment, Jamf, and MailRoute,
1:14:36and we will see you next week.
1:14:38(upbeat music)
1:14:40♪ Now the show is over ♪
1:14:43♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪
1:14:45'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:14:51John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:14:55'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:15:01And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:15:06And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:15:11at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S. So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, Anti-Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C,
1:15:25U-S-A, Syracuse. It's accidental. They didn't mean to. Accidental. Tech podcast so long.
1:15:40Let's talk about something really important.
1:15:43Let's talk about WWDC lunches in indescribable detail.
1:15:49So this came up a couple of shows ago. I forget exactly how,
1:15:54but I guess it was when we were talking about the change from Moscone to, um,
1:15:59wherever we are in San Jose.
1:16:01And one of us might've been me brought up the WWDC lunches and I think the two
1:16:08of you kind of immediately pooh-poohed them, and I said, "Oh, really? They're not that
1:16:12bad." And I think Jon made a joke about, "Oh, we should talk about that in great detail
1:16:15another time," and it turns out Jon wasn't entirely joking. And a better man would not
1:16:24bring this up and say it's a stupid idea, but I am not that man, and I am anxious to
1:16:28talk about WWDC launches in great detail. So I have scoured the internet.
1:16:34So just to be clear, we are talking about
1:16:37the Conference Center box lunches
1:16:40for an event that is no longer happening
1:16:43in that Conference Center, and will no longer have
1:16:45this particular box lunch series,
1:16:47and also the event itself is not happening
1:16:50for another almost two months from now.
1:16:53And this is what we're talking about right now.
1:16:55Oh, I love you guys so much.
1:16:56- Two shows worth of Mac Pro stuff made Casey willing
1:16:59to talk about literally anything else.
1:17:01(laughing)
1:17:01- Literally anything.
1:17:03or since I've just finished Parks and Rec,
1:17:05I will talk about literally anything right now
1:17:07other than the Mac Pro.
1:17:08Anyway, so John, why don't you tell us
1:17:10about WWDC box launches?
1:17:12- Yeah, so this came up in the talking about the conference
1:17:17and the things that are good and bad about it.
1:17:19Maybe you were talking about Ottawa and stuff like that.
1:17:22And here's the thing about WWDC,
1:17:23it's an expensive conference, it's expensive to put on.
1:17:25I'm sure it's in an expensive city.
1:17:27Things in conference centers,
1:17:29if you've never put on a conference yourself
1:17:30talk to anybody who has are absurdly expensive, much more expensive than you think they are
1:17:35because there's a lot of other costs built into them. Apple usually has, I think, in
1:17:40general pretty good food and drink options, especially considering the scale. I mean,
1:17:47granted it's not like 50,000 people like a, you know, a really giant convention, but 5,000
1:17:51people is nothing to sneeze at. If you're trying to give snacks and drinks to 5,000
1:17:55people it's really easy to cheap out and Apple in general tries to do better. They have like
1:17:59donuts and danishes which are you know reasonable quality donuts and danishes some of them I
1:18:04actually like like Marco mentioned is usually one that's really good I think a lot of them
1:18:06are actually really good I have no idea how the coffee is because I don't drink it.
1:18:10The bagels are garbage.
1:18:11Well you know San Francisco come on.
1:18:14Obviously.
1:18:15You can't get bagels on the west coast.
1:18:18For the drinks when they had Odd Wall, Odd Wall is a fairly expensive I think high quality
1:18:22beverage it's not like they're putting out RC Cola for everybody right apologies to the
1:18:26RC fans.
1:18:28So I think as far as conference goes, they're certainly not really the top of the heap.
1:18:34Maybe they're not even above average for these things I just listed, but they're about average.
1:18:38I've definitely been to conferences that have much better food, but also much, much worse.
1:18:42So I think they're doing okay for all those things.
1:18:44By the way, all those things, and also fresh fruit and other stuff that you get out in
1:18:47the hallways, pretty good.
1:18:49Also probably astronomically expensive if you were to add up like, "How much does this
1:18:52one muffin I picked up cost Apple?"
1:18:54You know, "Oh great, $27 for this muffin?
1:18:56Yum, yum, yum."
1:18:57any better, but just to get the scale of the cost here.
1:19:00It's much more expensive than you think.
1:19:03But then we come to the lunches.
1:19:05And the lunches are not at any different scale than anything else, because when they put
1:19:09out like those snack foods and the things like when you're lining up to get into Presidio
1:19:12for the keynote, every one of those 5,000 people or however many people are there take
1:19:17something from there.
1:19:18Like the food goes.
1:19:19It's not as if it's, you know, the lunch is 10 times bigger than the snacks.
1:19:24They put out enough snacks and enough drinks for all the people who are in the conference
1:19:27if they wanted them.
1:19:28And so lunch is the same deal.
1:19:29A lot of people go out to lunch,
1:19:30so it's the same kind of ratio.
1:19:32I'm not sure what happens for the lunch food
1:19:36because it's the same problem.
1:19:38How do you feed a reasonable quality product
1:19:40to a large group of people?
1:19:42So you have all the same problems of scale
1:19:45and packaged food versus freshly made,
1:19:49all the same problems.
1:19:52And yet somehow, for lunch in particular,
1:19:56They blow it. They are well below average.
1:20:00Even below Apple's own average, for example, if you have ever been to an Apple Tech Talk,
1:20:05I think the food at the Tech Talks is better than this lunch food.
1:20:09Maybe because it's not... I think even the lunches are. They have similar little box lunches.
1:20:12So anyway, this is what the lunch is like. You line up with everybody else,
1:20:16and you go across a big series of tables. They do a good job with traffic flow.
1:20:20Like, you know, the lines move, it's massively distributed.
1:20:23it's a parallel architecture, kind of like Altavec for the old folks, you know.
1:20:27Single instruction, multiple developer. Huh? Huh? All right. And there's lots of tables with maybe
1:20:34three choices. You got the chicken, the beef, and the vegetarian option. And there's a bunch of
1:20:39plastic, clear plastic boxes that have three areas in them. There's the main area where they're going
1:20:45to put the main part of your lunch. There's one little corner of the thing that is kind of like
1:20:48a deserty thing and then there's like a side dish thing. And somehow they managed to find
1:20:55the most inappropriate things to put inside this vessel. Their most common failure mode
1:21:03is to pick something that needs to be crispy or dry in some way and to put it inside this
1:21:11container that traps moisture so that whatever your sandwich or piece of bread or whatever
1:21:15thing is sitting in is next to some wet side dish or something that seeps into the bread
1:21:19and there's nothing worse than picking up a sandwich that has been sitting there in
1:21:22liquid for a long period of time before you got to it.
1:21:24Same thing with any kind of bread that requires freshness or staleness or whatever, not being
1:21:30stale to be good, that is the crux of making this dish good and you get it with some kind
1:21:34of styrofoam like bread substance on it or putting spreads on like putting like mustard
1:21:41or mayonnaise or other kind of wet spreads on the bread, but putting them directly against
1:21:45the bread instead of in between the layers so they soak into the bread.
1:21:49And for the side dishes, there's not much you can do with side dishes because it's got
1:21:53to be – it's room temperature.
1:21:54It's not hot.
1:21:55But they will very often put side dishes that should be hot in a room temperature container,
1:22:00which is the wrong thing to be putting there.
1:22:02And the desserts, like that's such an easy win.
1:22:04Just give us a damn chocolate chip cookie.
1:22:05Put a piece of chocolate cake in there.
1:22:07Like it's not hard.
1:22:08Like these things keep – you know, you can buy prepackaged ones.
1:22:11Put two Chips Ahoy in.
1:22:12Like you would kill, at a certain point,
1:22:13you would kill for a Chips Ahoy.
1:22:14And instead these are like these handmade,
1:22:18like supposed to be sugary sweet confections
1:22:21that are, it tastes like, you know,
1:22:24tastes like ashes in your mouth.
1:22:25Like they're just terrible little squares
1:22:29of potentially sweet thing.
1:22:31Again, also alternately stale and soggy.
1:22:34And there's no reason for this.
1:22:35There's no reason to try to make an artisanal,
1:22:37perfect, beautiful, complicated, sophisticated thing.
1:22:40You gotta put in foods that taste good and will keep.
1:22:42And that's what they do on the outside.
1:22:43Like donuts keep, danishas keep, right?
1:22:45A banana keeps, odd wall in the container keeps.
1:22:48But when it comes to lunch,
1:22:50I feel like they're trying to make
1:22:51like these beautifully prepared chef dishes
1:22:54and then shove them into plastic
1:22:55and let them just stew there.
1:22:56And it is a terrible, terrible experience.
1:22:59And I say this as someone who has had
1:23:01probably more box lunches on average
1:23:03than most attendees who WVDC.
1:23:06Because I get the box lunch pretty much every day
1:23:08I don't want to go out and have to come back. I just want to run down there quickly, get my lunch, eat it,
1:23:12and then go get in line for the next thing. So I eat all these things, but
1:23:16sometimes even I, with, you know, in a hurry to be utilitarian, just can't make it.
1:23:22Just can't make it through the food, and you just, sometimes you just take one forkful of that side dish, and you're like, "All right,
1:23:26that's, no, that's it.
1:23:28I'm done," and you eat half of the soggy sandwich, or you just leave the bottom half of the sandwich down there, and you just eat
1:23:33the top half, or, and I wish I could remember, I should have recorded these in film, sometimes they don't do sandwiches,
1:23:37sometimes there's other kind of lunch things.
1:23:39Sometimes it's just literally inedible.
1:23:40It's like, there's no food to be had here.
1:23:43This was, I don't know what this is even supposed to be.
1:23:46- Here be dragons.
1:23:47- Tastes terrible, it looks terrible.
1:23:49It has to be eaten with a fork out of this little container.
1:23:52And I feel like I'm on like a spaceship eating
1:23:53one of those, you know,
1:23:54space food that comes out of a tube or something, so.
1:23:57- Oh my God.
1:23:58- This topic was so worth it.
1:23:59- Anyway. - The funny thing is,
1:24:00I actually don't think they're that bad.
1:24:02Like nothing you said is wrong.
1:24:04I am not disagreeing with anything you said.
1:24:05I just think I'm less bothered by it.
1:24:07Generally speaking, I find the sandwiches
1:24:09to be perfectly acceptable.
1:24:11They are not great.
1:24:12I'm even hard-pressed to say they're good.
1:24:15They're just fine.
1:24:17I don't typically run into the bread sogginess problem,
1:24:21but again, I agree with what you said,
1:24:22that they definitely pair things
1:24:24that will create a bread sogginess vortex,
1:24:28so you are not wrong.
1:24:30- And also, the quality of the ingredients
1:24:31between the bread, whatever they put there,
1:24:34whether it's a cold cut or a piece of chicken
1:24:36or some arugula or lettuce,
1:24:37it's always like the most, the worst form of that.
1:24:41So if it's chicken, the chicken is just dry as chalk.
1:24:43If it is lettuce, lettuce is completely wilted.
1:24:46You know, if it's ham,
1:24:47the ham tastes like it's entirely made of filler
1:24:49and like a pig walked by it once.
1:24:52(laughing)
1:24:54- I can't continue, I'm dead.
1:25:02I mean, like, so I'm with you Casey,
1:25:03It's like I don't actually, like,
1:25:06you know, I've also eaten a lot of these,
1:25:08not as many as Jon has, 'cause I will usually try
1:25:10to escape the conference center for lunch
1:25:12at least a couple of the days.
1:25:14But I've eaten a good number of them,
1:25:16and to me, they're always not great,
1:25:21but they're always better than I expect them to be.
1:25:23You know, 'cause I look at them
1:25:26and I have very low expectations,
1:25:27because they are these like, you know,
1:25:28mass-produced, clearly well ahead of time,
1:25:31'cause usually they're not room temperature,
1:25:32- And they're cold, like the whole box is cold.
1:25:34So they were usually, I assume they're sitting in a fridge
1:25:36for a few hours between preparation.
1:25:39- Or a couple weeks, you know, whatever.
1:25:41- Or manufacturing, I guess.
1:25:43But anyway, they're always to me about the quality
1:25:48of modern day airplane food on a decent airline.
1:25:54So it's not as bad as you expect, and actually not that bad,
1:25:59and it mostly tastes like nothing,
1:26:01but you don't really care.
1:26:02Like it tastes, if it has any flavor at all,
1:26:05the flavor is from like the salad dressing
1:26:08that they use to moisten the sandwich
1:26:09and provide some flavor.
1:26:11Like that's really where all the flavor comes from.
1:26:12So it just tastes like some cold lettuce and chicken
1:26:16with a little bit of salad dressing on it.
1:26:18And that's fine.
1:26:19- I think the comparison to airplane food is good
1:26:21because I get that same sense from airplane food
1:26:23in that it tastes like, it tastes like it's dead.
1:26:25It tastes like it's from,
1:26:27no, I was gonna reference the Stephen King story
1:26:29that neither of you have even heard of
1:26:31no one who's listening goes red. But anyway, it tastes like all of the sort of life has
1:26:34been sucked out of it. And an airplane, it's a lot about like you being in different cabin
1:26:38pressure and recycled air and in a small space and all the other things that make planes
1:26:43weird, right? But this is on the ground where it looks like a sandwich, but when you bite
1:26:47it, all you can feel is the texture and there's like literally no taste or if there is taste,
1:26:51it's a bad taste. And that's what, you know, and the dressing they put on to try to be
1:26:54fancy that has made the bread all soggy and gross and the bread already wasn't very good.
1:26:58Like all you get is like the feeling of eating foam rubber and then a momentary tang of the
1:27:04terrible mustard spread or vinegar thing that they put on it.
1:27:06And it's a lot like being on the airplane because you buy your $20 sandwich and it's
1:27:11like you realize the sandwich has become a homogenous solid.
1:27:14That it is no longer a bunch of individual ingredients.
1:27:17You bite into it and again all you experience is the varying textures of the things but
1:27:23nothing has any taste.
1:27:24- I mean, but I, like, I have never had
1:27:26as negative a reaction as you have to these.
1:27:29Like, they've always, you know, usually when I'm eating them
1:27:33I'm paying attention to what I'm eating
1:27:35for at most one bite, but I'm also usually like
1:27:38thinking about what I just saw in sessions
1:27:40or I'm talking to you guys or other people who are around
1:27:43or whatever else, and so like, I'm not,
1:27:45like, before I know it I have consumed the mass
1:27:49that's in this plastic container
1:27:50and I have not given a second thought to it.
1:27:52and I'm drinking some kind of sugary disgusting
1:27:55iced tea thing or something and it's fine.
1:27:57- Terrible iced tea, what is it, an ST?
1:27:59I know some people like that.
1:28:01- It's lipped and canned iced tea which is full of sugar.
1:28:03- Yeah, why can't they serve us
1:28:05a proper carbonated beverage?
1:28:07Why is that so hard?
1:28:08Now I shouldn't be that grumpy.
1:28:10- No, they have other carbonated beverages.
1:28:12I just don't take them 'cause I don't, like--
1:28:14- When I'm doing lunch.
1:28:16- Really bad lemonade is one of their choices
1:28:18and really bad iced tea is their other choice.
1:28:19- That's correct.
1:28:20- Oh, they don't have sodas in there?
1:28:22- Not during lunch, that's the thing they have.
1:28:24They'll put them out at snack time,
1:28:25but they won't do it at,
1:28:26God, I sound like a four year old.
1:28:28They'll put it out at snack time.
1:28:29- They put out the mats for the naps,
1:28:30that's when they bring it out.
1:28:32- Yeah, right, but no, there's no soda during lunch,
1:28:35which drives me batty, because you're exactly right.
1:28:38The real issue here is that it's crappy lemonade,
1:28:42or, well, I don't drink iced tea,
1:28:43but my understanding is, like you guys said,
1:28:45it's crappy iced tea.
1:28:46- I mean, to be fair, I'm not even sure
1:28:48I would call that iced tea.
1:28:50It's just a ton of sugar.
1:28:52- Yeah, I'm not sure what the tea flavor is in it.
1:28:55I mean, it's just like terribly sickly sweet sugary liquid.
1:28:59- Yeah, it tastes very little like actual iced tea.
1:29:01It tastes a lot more like,
1:29:02and like I always grab it thinking like,
1:29:04I don't want all the sugar of soda.
1:29:06Let me grab this iced tea.
1:29:07And of course it has just as much,
1:29:08if not more sugar as most soda.
1:29:11And it's every time just like, ugh, it's so sweet.
1:29:14But no, I mean, I just don't,
1:29:17I've never found them that offensive.
1:29:18And I wonder, Jon, are you just making bad choices?
1:29:21So like normally, when you approach the rows of tables
1:29:25that have all these on them,
1:29:26you're usually given about three options
1:29:29and it'll usually be something along the lines
1:29:30of like chicken, roast beef, and vegetarian.
1:29:34Given that choice, Jon, which do you pick?
1:29:36'Cause I'll tell you what, I would never pick roast beef.
1:29:39I would usually, in that case, pick the chicken option.
1:29:43- All right, well the only one I could say
1:29:44I pretty much never pick is vegetarian.
1:29:46I pick vegetarian maybe twice out of like,
1:29:48you know, the 30 days I've been at WRC so far in my life.
1:29:52And it has been a terrible mistake every time
1:29:54because I have not liked them, right?
1:29:56So for the other choices,
1:29:58I feel like I've rotated pretty well
1:30:00because I'm desperately in search of something
1:30:02I can find edible.
1:30:03So it's not like I'm saying
1:30:04if there's chicken and beef always pick beef.
1:30:07Like I'm about 50/50 on the choices
1:30:09and I'm not going with what I think I would like better
1:30:12if both were made well.
1:30:13I'm entirely going on like eyeballing them and saying,
1:30:17does that look like it's gonna be,
1:30:18Like for example, like I've learned it's best for me
1:30:21to avoid wraps.
1:30:22So if I have a choice between anything in a wrap
1:30:24and something not in a wrap, it's best to avoid wraps
1:30:27because the wraps really emphasize
1:30:30the homogenous solid thing.
1:30:32Like whatever the constituent ingredients were,
1:30:34they wrap it all up, put it together, make it all soggy,
1:30:38put it in a fridge, and it just becomes this like
1:30:40giant hunk of cookie dough,
1:30:42only it doesn't taste like cookies.
1:30:44And it doesn't matter what they put in it.
1:30:46And so I, and there'll be like vegetables in there, terrible meat will be mixed into the thing, some kind of liquid or mayo, and then the wrapping on the outside, all soggy and cold and all completely tasteless.
1:30:56So in general, I avoid wraps and I would prefer avoiding the wraps over the particular thing in them.
1:31:03I have learned that chicken is super dangerous if it's thick because it always ends up being very, very dry.
1:31:08But other than that, I'm willing to give almost anything a try.
1:31:11I'm willing to believe that this one is going to be the one that is not completely vile.
1:31:15And most of the time, I can get through it.
1:31:19Because again, you're just sitting there talking to people or whatever, but I do find myself
1:31:21briefly distracted while sitting there eating my thing to go, "Oh, this is real.
1:31:25This is terrible.
1:31:26I can't even believe this."
1:31:27Then you just continue going.
1:31:28Some of the times, I just can't get through it.
1:31:30Side dishes have the lowest percentage for me.
1:31:32It's like, it's just a write-off.
1:31:33I don't pick based on the side dishes.
1:31:34I assume all the side dishes will be terrible.
1:31:36That is pretty accurate, to be honest.
1:31:38That's the thing is, to me, the sandwich to me is usually okay.
1:31:42I agree that the meat is maybe ham-adjacent rather than ham.
1:31:48The bread may be a little wetter than you want, but it's edible.
1:31:51It's usually fine.
1:31:52But in the dessert, oftentimes I don't care for the particular flavor of the dessert because,
1:31:57as an example, I don't—and this may not even be accurate—but I don't like cranberries.
1:32:01So maybe it's like a cranberry-based dessert.
1:32:02And so that's a Casey problem, not a dessert problem.
1:32:05But the side dish tends to be pretty esoteric in my personal opinion, and I agree with you
1:32:11probably four times out of five just gets written off.
1:32:13- The one thing with the side dish to me is that,
1:32:16so it is also the same general formula of like,
1:32:20we'll take some bland ingredients and we will apply
1:32:22some kind of salad dressing to them to generate flavor.
1:32:26The main problem I have with the side dishes,
1:32:28I almost always actually enjoy them,
1:32:31but they always taste completely unexpected
1:32:34from how I thought they should taste
1:32:36based on how they looked.
1:32:37'Cause like whatever pairings they make
1:32:40between the salad dressing or whatever is given the flavor
1:32:43and the ingredients in them,
1:32:45it looks nothing like it tastes.
1:32:47And again, it's usually good enough, I usually like it,
1:32:50but I'm always shocked by what is in my mouth
1:32:53after I've seen it.
1:32:55- I also have, I think one of the things
1:32:56that makes me predisposed to not like most of these things
1:33:00is especially for things like side dishes,
1:33:04like I said, very often they will put things in side dishes
1:33:06I expect to be served not cold or not at room temperature.
1:33:10So any rice-based side dish.
1:33:13I know plenty of people like rice at room temperature or there are rice dishes that
1:33:17are at room temperature, but when I see a rice-based side dish, I don't expect it to
1:33:22be cold.
1:33:24I don't want to eat cold rice, period, no matter what is in it.
1:33:28And same thing for things like potato salad can be cold, which is fine, but depending
1:33:35and what if they make a side dish that looks like it's like roast potatoes? I don't want
1:33:39room temperature roast potatoes. Who wants room temperature roast? But never mind that
1:33:43the potatoes are probably not good the second they came out of the oven. But certainly after
1:33:46sitting in that little container stewing in a little steamy, you know, Dagobah pit inside
1:33:50there, you don't want those roast potatoes. And Marco's totally right about that. They
1:33:58taste weirder than you think because they're not, you can't categorize them. That's why
1:34:01very often the most pertinent question at any WWC lunch table is, "What is the side dish?" Like,
1:34:06you can't categorize it. You can't say, "It's green beans. It's potato salad. It's corn."
1:34:11It's like, sometimes it's a puzzle just to say, "Forget about giving a name to this thing. Let's
1:34:15just take for granted this has no name. Can you identify the constituent ingredients?"
1:34:19There's a green thing, there's a white thing, and there's a yellow thing. Everyone, what do you
1:34:24think the yellow thing is? Is it squash? Is it potato? Is it onion? You have to put it in your
1:34:29your mouth and you're like I'm still not sure because it's covered in some weird
1:34:33liquid or something I seem to recall one that was like chopped up celery and then
1:34:39like cubes of cucumber and like onions with like a green sprinkly stuff on it
1:34:49and then like a cream based dressing it's like you're just making stuff up
1:34:53Like, it's not, that's not anything. I don't know, I don't know what that's supposed to be.
1:34:57And yeah, like, it's, I never know what they're going to taste like. I can't predict which ones
1:35:02I'm going to even be able to tolerate, but it's usually a lot of them as one forkful and then
1:35:06it's like, never mind. That's why you save snacks. By the way, pro tip, that's why in the morning
1:35:13when they have the good danishes and stuff, find a way to successfully save those in your backpack
1:35:18without them destroying all your stuff, like piece of Tupperware or something.
1:35:21You put the snacks in your purse.
1:35:22I don't, but I should.
1:35:24What I do is I save bananas,
1:35:26'cause they are, I don't have a container like that,
1:35:28but I would love to be able to save donuts or danishes,
1:35:30'cause those are good, right?
1:35:32Instead, what I end up saving are bananas,
1:35:33'cause they come with their own wrapper
1:35:34and you can put them in your backpack in general.
1:35:36Just don't forget they're in there.
1:35:37If you take a banana and save it
1:35:39so you have desperation food at lunch,
1:35:41do not forget that banana is in there,
1:35:42because if you leave it for a few days
1:35:44at the bottom of your backpack
1:35:45that you're sliding your MacBook in and out of,
1:35:46it's a bad scene.
1:35:47- Oh my God.
1:35:48- Never, has never happened to me,
1:35:49but I'm very conscious of it.
1:35:51- You know, I'm a little sad that, well,
1:35:54I wasn't able to go to this place last year
1:35:56'cause it had shut down, I think, in 2015.
1:36:00But what was the name of that?
1:36:02Oh, Witchcraft, I think it was.
1:36:03- Witchcraft, yeah.
1:36:04I mean, the good thing is, it's a chain.
1:36:05You can get them all over the place,
1:36:07but just not there anymore.
1:36:08- Yeah, there was a really good witchcraft
1:36:09that was right around the corner that I liked.
1:36:11I would typically go and meet a buddy from Apple
1:36:14or someone else that was local at Witchcraft
1:36:16one of the days during lunch.
1:36:18There's also a burger place
1:36:19that I've been to a couple times.
1:36:21god I'm drawing a blank the name of it. There's a couple of them that are close to Moscone.
1:36:25Again they're obviously a chain and so I'm sure they exist other places too. But there's
1:36:30some sort of burger place, Super Duper, that is right down the road from Moscone that's
1:36:35very good as well. I always think of Dave Naney when I see it. Like, "Hey, it's that
1:36:39backup burger." Backup burger? Super Duper, the backup program. Oh, I get it, I get it,
1:36:44I get it. I'm an idiot. I think I took a picture of that sign to send him last time I was there.
1:36:50So yeah, so anyway, so I'm kind of bummed that I may not have the chance to eat at any
1:36:53of those places.
1:36:54And like I said, witchcraft had already shut down, which I don't get because it was so
1:36:58tasty.
1:36:59But anyway, but yeah, I typically eat the lunches.
1:37:03I think I'm in the same boat as Marco in that I do go out from time to time, but I do generally
1:37:09eat the lunches probably three days out of five.
1:37:13And I don't find myself deeply offended by them.
1:37:16I would not say they're good.
1:37:17I would not say they're great.
1:37:19but I would not necessarily say they're actively bad.
1:37:21They just kind of exist.
1:37:23What did they say about the Mac Mini?
1:37:25Like it's a product in our lineup.
1:37:27This is a lunch that is in Moscone.
1:37:29- I'm with you Casey.
1:37:30I was very happy with that.
1:37:32Like I will, no, I would say very happy.
1:37:34(laughing)
1:37:35I was consistently satisfied by them.
1:37:37Like and that was one thing they had,
1:37:38one thing they had, and this is what you need.
1:37:40If you're gonna be in the business of mass lunch,
1:37:42what you need is consistency and like minimum acceptability.
1:37:46And I think they delivered that.
1:37:48Like they were never great, but I'd never had one
1:37:52where I was just like, oh, this is disgusting,
1:37:53I can't eat this.
1:37:54Like it was always fine.
1:37:56Often weird, but always fine.
1:37:58- I didn't know that you both had such a high opinion
1:38:01of this because--
1:38:02- Well, it's not that we have a high opinion.
1:38:04- If we're ever in WWC together again,
1:38:06and if we ever have lunch with this cow again,
1:38:08I don't want to interrogate you in real time
1:38:10to say that thing that you're eating,
1:38:12let us discuss it in detail right now
1:38:14because my opinion of it is that,
1:38:17I think they are pretty consistent.
1:38:19They were consistently below average for me.
1:38:23There were no highlights.
1:38:25I can think of that one time they had the really good lunch.
1:38:27I can't think of that at all.
1:38:28They were always below average,
1:38:29and it was just a question of how low.
1:38:31Like, none of them gave me food poisoning,
1:38:33so I'm not gonna say they're super terrible.
1:38:35- That's good, yeah.
1:38:37- That's a high bar.
1:38:38- Well, I'm pretty sure we found our live venue
1:38:40for our next--
1:38:41- I was gonna say, if ever there was a purpose
1:38:43for Periscope, if ever there was a purpose for Periscope,
1:38:46It's that moment when we're all together
1:38:49and we're discussing how bad the WWDC launches are.
1:38:52- And we're trying to guess what the side dish is.
1:38:54- Right, yeah, exactly.
1:38:55(laughing)
1:38:57- It's a new spinoff podcast, Guess the Side Dish.
1:38:59What is this?
1:39:01- Right, like everyone's talking,
1:39:02like Underscore's telling us about all the limitations
1:39:05of all the new APIs that he has already found.
1:39:08And we're all trying to figure out
1:39:09what the heck this side dish is that we're eating.
1:39:11- So true.
1:39:12- And then if we ever figure it out
1:39:14and identify the ingredients,
1:39:15then we have to come up with a name for it.
1:39:17- Yeah, this is actually, this has legs,
1:39:19we should run with this.
1:39:21But in true San Franciscan style,
1:39:23they just serve the minimum viable lunch,
1:39:26and that's what you get.
1:39:27(beeping)