ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Top of the mornin' to ya.

00:00:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:04 ◼   ► Holy hell, I was not at all prepared for that.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - The best part about that is that that's the very first

00:00:12 ◼   ► time you've ever greeted anybody on a Skype call.

00:00:15 ◼   ► - I think that's accurate.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I really honestly--

00:00:17 ◼   ► - I'm not sure that was a greeting.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I guess technically you're right,

00:00:21 ◼   ► it is a greeting of a kind, but not meant that way.

00:00:25 ◼   ► So is your beard gone or what?

00:00:27 ◼   ► - No.

00:00:29 ◼   ► This is my fear, I was like, he's gonna get back

00:00:31 ◼   ► and he's still gonna have it.

00:00:33 ◼   ► You just don't let it happen to you.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - And then-- - Just tip like it?

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Is it gonna determine

00:00:38 ◼   ► whether the, oh no, this is a problem.

00:00:40 ◼   ► It's a big problem.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - I have started this morning in Ireland,

00:00:47 ◼   ► the conclusion of a wonderful trip to the OOL conference.

00:00:50 ◼   ► So I woke up this morning in Dublin.

00:00:52 ◼   ► It is now in the time zone that I was supposed

00:00:56 ◼   ► to be used to, two in the morning.

00:00:59 ◼   ► And so we'll see how this goes.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I never really shifted 100% to the new time zone.

00:01:08 ◼   ► So what has really happened is now just time

00:01:10 ◼   ► has lost all meaning and I'm just always tired

00:01:13 ◼   ► but yet can't sleep.

00:01:15 ◼   ► So this should be interesting.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - Delightful.

00:01:17 ◼   ► I am overjoyed that you are this tired with respect

00:01:20 ◼   ► because this means I have a prayer of going to bed

00:01:24 ◼   ► somewhere near my normal bedtime

00:01:26 ◼   ► because I figured about an hour you're gonna be like,

00:01:28 ◼   ► I gotta go.

00:01:30 ◼   ► And then at this point, it'll be great.

00:01:32 ◼   ► No, he's punch drunk now.

00:01:34 ◼   ► He's gonna be all loopy.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:01:36 ◼   ► He's gonna want to talk even longer.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Wait, we're having a holiday party?

00:01:39 ◼   ► I gotta go.

00:01:40 ◼   ► I'll be right back.

00:01:41 ◼   ► He's high on life.

00:01:42 ◼   ► I'm gonna go through the same thing that Marco's going through, and I realize I'm not gonna

00:01:45 ◼   ► come back and do a podcast.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I'm gonna come back and go back to work.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Yeah, that's not fun.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I mean, technically, this is work for all of us, me included.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Except some of us have other work.

00:01:56 ◼   ► All right, let's start the show as usual with some follow-up copyright 2011 John Syracuse.

00:02:03 ◼   ► APFS iOS app updates have hit the App Store.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Tell us about this, John.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Everyone's telling us about them.

00:02:09 ◼   ► They're saying, "Hey, guess what?

00:02:10 ◼   ► I downloaded the updated version of my favorite app, and the top thing in the release notes

00:02:16 ◼   ► was fixed APS file name issues."

00:02:18 ◼   ► We have many, many reports of many people sending us many applications that surprisingly

00:02:24 ◼   ► feature APFS in their release notes, so the update is happening. Even though the update

00:02:32 ◼   ► was seamless for users, for developers, not exactly.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Actually I think I might have hit one of these problems. So in the recent version of Overcast

00:02:42 ◼   ► that's in the store as of like last week, I had to remove support for M4A chapters.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I forget whether I talked about it on this show or not. Did I talk about it here?

00:02:52 ◼   ► No, you just tweeted about it.

00:02:53 ◼   ► - That's right, anyway, so for AAC/M4A/Mauve, John,

00:02:58 ◼   ► chapters, I had to remove support for them temporarily,

00:03:02 ◼   ► at least, until I can write my own parser,

00:03:04 ◼   ► because the Apple parser kept crashing

00:03:06 ◼   ► on a lot of the files that were doing that.

00:03:09 ◼   ► And on iOS, there's no way, as far as I know,

00:03:12 ◼   ► there's no way for me to parse metadata

00:03:14 ◼   ► like in a separate process or anything

00:03:16 ◼   ► so that if it crashes, my whole app doesn't come down.

00:03:19 ◼   ► And I think, the crashes seem to start

00:03:22 ◼   ► around the time the 10.3 beta started.

00:03:24 ◼   ► So it would not surprise me if this was file system related.

00:03:27 ◼   ► The reason I had to do all this,

00:03:29 ◼   ► it was kind of a crazy hack I'll try to tell quickly.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Basically, when Overcast downloads its files,

00:03:34 ◼   ► it downloads them with no extension.

00:03:37 ◼   ► It just saves it as like a big ID number

00:03:39 ◼   ► with no file extension, no .mp3 or anything.

00:03:43 ◼   ► The metadata parser from Apple in the API

00:03:46 ◼   ► can only operate on a file name or URL,

00:03:48 ◼   ► cannot operate just on a data blob.

00:03:50 ◼   ► So it knows about the file name.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And if that file name does not end in .aac or .m4a,

00:03:57 ◼   ► it doesn't work right.

00:03:59 ◼   ► But only for those files.

00:04:00 ◼   ► And if it's an MP3, it needs to end in that to work right.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And so the solution I came up with was when,

00:04:08 ◼   ► oh, and also I don't always have the whole file.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Sometimes I'm streaming the file,

00:04:13 ◼   ► and so I have to just write out the bit I have

00:04:16 ◼   ► to a temp file and then read the metadata from it

00:04:19 ◼   ► and then delete the temp file.

00:04:21 ◼   ► And then to get around the extension issue,

00:04:25 ◼   ► when I'm reading the metadata from an M4A file,

00:04:27 ◼   ► I create a sim link to it with a .m4a extension,

00:04:31 ◼   ► read the file name, read the data off of that,

00:04:33 ◼   ► and then delete the sim link.

00:04:35 ◼   ► And it was at those parts that I was getting

00:04:37 ◼   ► a lot of crashes all of a sudden in 10.3.

00:04:40 ◼   ► So something's up with the way my app

00:04:44 ◼   ► and/or the metadata parsing library in iOS

00:04:48 ◼   ► deals with me creating these symlinks

00:04:50 ◼   ► or writing these little tiny temp files to disk

00:04:52 ◼   ► that don't actually include the whole file.

00:04:54 ◼   ► And it was causing the whole thing to crash sometimes.

00:04:55 ◼   ► So I temporarily removed that support

00:04:57 ◼   ► and left in only my own ID3 MP3 parser,

00:05:02 ◼   ► which supports MP3 chapters,

00:05:03 ◼   ► which is what this show uses,

00:05:04 ◼   ► 'cause that I can do all in memory

00:05:07 ◼   ► with my own safe routines.

00:05:09 ◼   ► But at some point I have to figure out

00:05:10 ◼   ► how to re-implement support for AAC chapters

00:05:14 ◼   ► and for the lack of them,

00:05:16 ◼   ► I apologize to the entire nation of Germany.

00:05:19 ◼   ► And I'm hoping to get that done quickly,

00:05:23 ◼   ► but right now there's a big problem with that.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And I think it actually might be related

00:05:26 ◼   ► to some bug somewhere, whether it's mine or Apple's,

00:05:29 ◼   ► I'm not sure, regarding the file system

00:05:32 ◼   ► because it did not happen before 10.3.

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Why don't you try switching from sim links to hard links

00:05:37 ◼   ► and see if that just magically fixes it?

00:05:39 ◼   ► - Well, I was thinking that that's,

00:05:40 ◼   ► I'm not sure I wanna even still be dealing with links.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I think the better long term, well,

00:05:46 ◼   ► the longest term fix is to write my own parser,

00:05:49 ◼   ► but the problem is, without getting too far into this again,

00:05:52 ◼   ► the AAC chapters format is completely undocumented

00:05:57 ◼   ► and proprietary to Apple.

00:05:59 ◼   ► I've tried to figure it out on numerous times

00:06:03 ◼   ► and numerous occasions in the past,

00:06:05 ◼   ► and I've gotten most of it, but it's really, really tricky

00:06:10 ◼   ► and really undocumented.

00:06:11 ◼   ► and the bits of data that you need are all over the file.

00:06:16 ◼   ► They aren't even all up front.

00:06:17 ◼   ► They're interspersed throughout the entire file

00:06:20 ◼   ► because it's structured in such a way

00:06:23 ◼   ► that as it's playing a track,

00:06:25 ◼   ► if it's playing a stream of a track,

00:06:28 ◼   ► if say the chapter changes

00:06:30 ◼   ► and the chapter includes a URL and an image,

00:06:32 ◼   ► then the URL and image are spliced into the stream

00:06:37 ◼   ► at that point in the audio data.

00:06:39 ◼   ► So it might not--

00:06:40 ◼   ► - What?

00:06:41 ◼   ► - Exactly, this is why this format sucks.

00:06:43 ◼   ► So you can't even, and that same splicing format

00:06:47 ◼   ► also applies to the titles of the chapters.

00:06:50 ◼   ► So you cannot build a table of contents reliably

00:06:53 ◼   ► from an AAC chapter file unless you have the whole file,

00:06:56 ◼   ► because you have to skip through the whole thing

00:06:58 ◼   ► to get all the titles out.

00:06:59 ◼   ► - That's bananas.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - Yes, I know, it's a huge pain.

00:07:02 ◼   ► In the MP3 chapter format, it's based on ID3 tags,

00:07:06 ◼   ► which are very, very crude,

00:07:08 ◼   ► but very, very simple to deal with.

00:07:10 ◼   ► and they have a lot of limitations.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It's very similar to RSS versus Adam feed formats

00:07:16 ◼   ► like back in the day.

00:07:17 ◼   ► RSS is really simple, hence the name,

00:07:20 ◼   ► but it had some limitations,

00:07:23 ◼   ► and Adam was designed to be everything to everybody,

00:07:27 ◼   ► and as a result, it's overly complicated

00:07:29 ◼   ► and a huge pain in the butt.

00:07:31 ◼   ► And that's kind of MP3 versus the MOV format,

00:07:34 ◼   ► which is what AAC and M4A,

00:07:36 ◼   ► that's all just renaming versions of the MOV format,

00:07:39 ◼   ► basically asterisk, but basically.

00:07:41 ◼   ► - Once again, humans, he's trying to say move.

00:07:43 ◼   ► He means a file that ends in .mov,

00:07:45 ◼   ► just so you're not listening to him say,

00:07:46 ◼   ► what is he even saying?

00:07:47 ◼   ► 'Cause I know that's happening.

00:07:48 ◼   ► - That's a color, isn't it?

00:07:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, mov has the most RAM, yeah.

00:07:52 ◼   ► - Wow, yeah, so anyway,

00:07:54 ◼   ► that is my possible APFS bug in Overcast,

00:07:58 ◼   ► and also why anybody listening,

00:08:00 ◼   ► why your chapters in mov format podcast

00:08:03 ◼   ► might have stopped working in the recent update.

00:08:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, that doesn't sound like an APFS thing,

00:08:07 ◼   ► but who knows, it is a new file system,

00:08:08 ◼   ► if it is related to, like, it's not of the kind

00:08:11 ◼   ► that people are talking about in the release notes,

00:08:12 ◼   ► 'cause they're all talking about encoding,

00:08:13 ◼   ► file name encoding issues, but I'm assuming

00:08:14 ◼   ► when you make these temp files,

00:08:15 ◼   ► you're making them with ASCII file names,

00:08:17 ◼   ► so it's totally not an issue for you.

00:08:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like, the file name is like,

00:08:19 ◼   ► is the ID number of the file, dot M4A.

00:08:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:23 ◼   ► - Now, and so the other possible quick solution,

00:08:25 ◼   ► if I wanted to do just a quick solution,

00:08:27 ◼   ► just save all the files as dot M4A, even when they're not.

00:08:30 ◼   ► And like, and just, you know, have a migration

00:08:32 ◼   ► that runs on the first launch of the new version

00:08:34 ◼   ► that just renames them all, and just doesn't do

00:08:36 ◼   ► any kind of hard linking or sim linking,

00:08:38 ◼   ► and just permanently leave them as those names.

00:08:39 ◼   ► But then that will break the MP3 file decoder sometimes

00:08:43 ◼   ► under certain conditions.

00:08:44 ◼   ► So it's like, and the M4A/AAC/MOV/MOVE,

00:08:49 ◼   ► those are all, like that format is,

00:08:52 ◼   ► last time I checked it was like less than 5%

00:08:55 ◼   ► of all items in the iTunes directory.

00:08:57 ◼   ► So it's like--

00:08:59 ◼   ► - I think you mean the Apple Podcast directory.

00:09:01 ◼   ► - Oh God, you're right.

00:09:02 ◼   ► It's been like two hours.

00:09:03 ◼   ► All right, so, yeah, in the Apple Podcast directory,

00:09:07 ◼   ► the vast majority, well over 90%, the format is MP3.

00:09:11 ◼   ► So to do a whole bunch of work to accommodate AAC files

00:09:15 ◼   ► in a special way, especially chapterized ones,

00:09:18 ◼   ► we're talking a very small number of podcasts.

00:09:20 ◼   ► I'm guessing off the top of my head,

00:09:21 ◼   ► the total number of podcasts that are both chapterized

00:09:25 ◼   ► and M4A format and that are listened to by anybody

00:09:29 ◼   ► in Overcast is probably less than 100,

00:09:32 ◼   ► maybe even less than 10.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And so it's a question of whether I actually

00:09:38 ◼   ► should do anything about this or not.

00:09:40 ◼   ► - But isn't it like 90% of the podcasts in Germany?

00:09:43 ◼   ► - And the Germans do use chapters heavily,

00:09:46 ◼   ► and a few of them do use AAC chapters,

00:09:49 ◼   ► but a lot of them use MP3 chapters

00:09:51 ◼   ► or other formats that I don't even support,

00:09:53 ◼   ► like the Podlove Simple Chapters format,

00:09:55 ◼   ► which is a wonderful idea, but I don't have a lot

00:09:57 ◼   ► of market push to support it really yet.

00:10:00 ◼   ► The idea behind that, by the way,

00:10:02 ◼   ► Podlove Simple Chapters, which is the idea basically

00:10:04 ◼   ► to put the chapter information in the feed

00:10:07 ◼   ► rather than in the individual files.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And that's a great idea, but there's just,

00:10:11 ◼   ► there's almost no support for it on either side,

00:10:14 ◼   ► on the producer side, on the CMS side,

00:10:17 ◼   ► or on the podcast app player side.

00:10:21 ◼   ► So that's, I don't know what I'm gonna do about that

00:10:23 ◼   ► if anything, but, chapters, I don't know.

00:10:27 ◼   ► I waded into this chapter mess

00:10:28 ◼   ► and now I'm making a chapter tool,

00:10:30 ◼   ► and now I'm making this chapter app,

00:10:31 ◼   ► and now I'm stuck with parsing chapters forever.

00:10:34 ◼   ► chapters all the way down. It is. I do love the Germans though. They are great.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Bringing it back around, talking more directly about APFS,

00:10:42 ◼   ► Kyle Seth Gray, otherwise known as KyleSlegray, had

00:10:46 ◼   ► tweeted at us a very interesting pair of screenshots. So

00:10:50 ◼   ► he writes, "Here's my iOS disks before and

00:10:54 ◼   ► after upgrading to 10.3." So it shows

00:10:58 ◼   ► in the before that he has a capacity, or

00:11:02 ◼   ► His disks are 86% full, 91% full, and 20% full.

00:11:07 ◼   ► After upgrade, the same disks go from 86% to 40%

00:11:12 ◼   ► and then from 20% to 8% full, which

00:11:16 ◼   ► means somewhere out of nowhere, he now has more free space,

00:11:20 ◼   ► thanks to APFS.

00:11:21 ◼   ► You're looking at the wrong column in these screenshots.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Am I?

00:11:24 ◼   ► My bad.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Yes.

00:11:25 ◼   ► That's a lot of numbers.

00:11:26 ◼   ► We'll put the link in the show.

00:11:27 ◼   ► It's a tweet, and you can look at the screenshots.

00:11:29 ◼   ► So the percentages are different, right?

00:11:31 ◼   ► I mean this is the output of like DF or whatever and the key thing to look at, like so there

00:11:37 ◼   ► are some partitions that are not interesting to us like dev for the devfs and the one at

00:11:42 ◼   ► the bottom which is like baseband data for wireless or whatever, but there are you can

00:11:47 ◼   ► see the the os and the user partitions and the key column is size.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Before ios 10 the size of the first one which is mounted at slash is 4.3 gigs and that's

00:11:58 ◼   ► like the OS partition I'm assuming.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And the size of like the big one where all your stuff is is 59 gigs.

00:12:04 ◼   ► So 59 plus 4.3 gigs is like this is a 64 gig phone, right?

00:12:08 ◼   ► And then you know ancillary stuff left over for the other little partitions, right?

00:12:12 ◼   ► After upgrade, the size of both the iOS and the your stuff partition, both of them say

00:12:18 ◼   ► 64 gigs.

00:12:19 ◼   ► So the OS partition, it's 64 gigs.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And the user partition, it's 64 gigs.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Exactly what we were talking about.

00:12:25 ◼   ► And this didn't occur to me before when I was talking about the sizing because I couldn't

00:12:27 ◼   ► quite figure out how the numbers added up, but this makes perfect sense. If you have

00:12:30 ◼   ► a 64 gig phone, it does what we were saying in the example last show with like if you

00:12:33 ◼   ► had a 1 gig disk and you put two 1 gig partitions, they have a 64 gig disk essentially in this

00:12:38 ◼   ► phone and they put two 64 gig partitions on it. One of them for the OS and one of them

00:12:43 ◼   ► for all the rest of your stuff, which is a reasonable simplification because now they

00:12:47 ◼   ► don't have to like think about, oh geez, how big should the OS partition be? Like how big

00:12:52 ◼   ► our OS, how much should we use? Because in the pre-iOS 10.3 state, the size of the OS partition

00:12:59 ◼   ► was 4.3 gigs, but only 3.6 was used. So they give themselves a little wiggle room, like if the next

00:13:03 ◼   ► OS update is a little bigger, or they could resize the partitions. But with APFS, they don't have to

00:13:08 ◼   ► worry about exactly how the size partitions. Both of them are 64 gigs. Both of them have,

00:13:12 ◼   ► quote unquote, "the whole phone." And that messes up the capacity and how much is available,

00:13:20 ◼   ► measurements depending on how you are going to report this information.

00:13:25 ◼   ► So that could explain these discrepancies that we were seeing before in particular.

00:13:31 ◼   ► If you have 55 gigs used and you think the thing is 64 gigs, then you think you have more left

00:13:36 ◼   ► than if it was a different size. Or it could just be the F totally confused by APFS. Either way,

00:13:40 ◼   ► free space in APFS is weird. Indeed. Moving on, Nvidia job posting suggests an Nvidia chip return

00:13:47 ◼   ► to Apple Macs. John, I presume this is most interesting to you, so tell us about this.

00:13:52 ◼   ► >> We talked last show about Nvidia releasing the Mac drivers for their new card and for the whole

00:13:58 ◼   ► line of top end cards essentially, which is a weird thing to do because Apple doesn't even

00:14:02 ◼   ► sell a computer that you can stick an Nvidia card in. Just older ones that people might still have

00:14:08 ◼   ► hanging around. And something was tickling my mind about this and a lot of people sent in this link

00:14:14 ◼   ► from September 2016.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Job posting, Nvidia did a job posting.

00:14:19 ◼   ► They were looking for someone to be a software engineer

00:14:21 ◼   ► at Nvidia and the role would require,

00:14:23 ◼   ► this is a quote from their job listing,

00:14:24 ◼   ► "Working in partnership with Apple

00:14:27 ◼   ► "and writing code that will define and shape the future

00:14:29 ◼   ► "of graphics-related software on Macs."

00:14:32 ◼   ► So they were looking for this in September

00:14:34 ◼   ► and now they've delivered a thing.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So who knows when the Mac Pro decision was made?

00:14:40 ◼   ► Who knows when this decision was made?

00:14:41 ◼   ► But clearly Nvidia made a decision

00:14:43 ◼   ► that previously we weren't doing much Mac stuff, but guess what, now we're gonna.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And again, it seems really weird that Nvidia would make that decision on its own, because

00:14:53 ◼   ► they have no market to sell into except for people with really old Macs.

00:14:57 ◼   ► So and especially the thing working in partnership with Apple, it certainly seems like Apple

00:15:02 ◼   ► was talking to Nvidia sometime on or before September 23rd, 2016, saying, you know, come

00:15:09 ◼   ► back.

00:15:10 ◼   ► We miss you.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Let's kiss and make up whatever our problem was.

00:15:15 ◼   ► We want to get some of that sweet Pascal hardware in Macs someday.

00:15:20 ◼   ► And this could have been well before they even decided to keep making a Mac Pro.

00:15:23 ◼   ► So who knows, maybe the iMac Pro will have Nvidia stuff in it.

00:15:26 ◼   ► I don't know, I'm getting my hopes up a little bit.

00:15:28 ◼   ► But anyway, the mystery deepens, but this wasn't an overnight thing, and I think it's

00:15:35 ◼   ► got to have some form of Apple's input, because I just don't see any reason Nvidia would do

00:15:40 ◼   ► this on its own.

00:15:41 ◼   ► All right, a friend of the show Kieran Healey writes in regarding Marco at 43 minutes and 15 seconds of the last episode

00:15:49 ◼   ► We'll put an overcast link in the show notes

00:15:51 ◼   ► Quote obviously something has changed with Apple's thinking on release schedules since 2012

00:15:56 ◼   ► Around then everything slowed down this is paraphrased around then everything slowed down

00:16:00 ◼   ► But now something has changed to make Apple flip around so Kieran pontificates

00:16:05 ◼   ► I wonder if it was project Titan which is ostensibly the car project

00:16:08 ◼   ► Perhaps that swallowed up a lot of resources.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Last I heard, maybe nine months ago,

00:16:12 ◼   ► it sounded like that was getting

00:16:13 ◼   ► at least substantially scaled back.

00:16:16 ◼   ► It was surprising not to hear on the show,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but also elsewhere in the news coverage I read,

00:16:20 ◼   ► any discussion of the possibility

00:16:21 ◼   ► that the Apple Car project was the black hole

00:16:23 ◼   ► that absorbed hardware design, talent,

00:16:24 ◼   ► and effort for two to three years with no results as yet,

00:16:27 ◼   ► and that had significant opportunity costs

00:16:30 ◼   ► for every piece of hardware the company makes

00:16:31 ◼   ► apart from the iPhone.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Thoughts on that?

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Any kind of massive project like this,

00:16:37 ◼   ► like Apple trying to make a car and then a self-driving car,

00:16:40 ◼   ► that's going to draw talent from the rest of the company,

00:16:42 ◼   ► no question.

00:16:43 ◼   ► However, I think a large part of the talent

00:16:47 ◼   ► that was or is working on that

00:16:49 ◼   ► was probably from external sources.

00:16:52 ◼   ► It's probably like from external hires,

00:16:54 ◼   ► from acquisitions, places like that.

00:16:56 ◼   ► I don't think the team that was working on the Mac Pro

00:17:00 ◼   ► or would have updated the Mac Mini otherwise

00:17:02 ◼   ► or was trying to ship new laptops two years earlier,

00:17:06 ◼   ► I don't think those people went to go work on the car project and that's why those things

00:17:12 ◼   ► didn't happen.

00:17:14 ◼   ► It's probably more complicated than that.

00:17:16 ◼   ► Also I bet Project Titan has not actually gone away or anything or necessarily been

00:17:22 ◼   ► scaled back.

00:17:23 ◼   ► I think it was just rethought based on what we've actually heard and what actually makes

00:17:27 ◼   ► more sense.

00:17:28 ◼   ► But anyway, I'm guessing that these are at least partially separate.

00:17:33 ◼   ► that the product slowdown that we have seen

00:17:37 ◼   ► was not probably a direct result of Project Titan

00:17:41 ◼   ► sucking talent out of the company.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I think it's way more likely that it was a combination

00:17:45 ◼   ► of operational screw-ups somewhere along the way

00:17:49 ◼   ► and also decisions up top that were basically

00:17:54 ◼   ► along the lines of we don't think these are worth doing.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - Well, Product Titan being scaled back,

00:18:00 ◼   ► Regardless of the current size of it, because of the change in direction that was rumored,

00:18:06 ◼   ► I think a lot of people got laid off.

00:18:07 ◼   ► Like we don't need people who know how to build a car if we're not building a car anymore.

00:18:11 ◼   ► But all of a sudden we do need people who know how to write software that other people

00:18:14 ◼   ► in the audio industry are going to consume or whatever.

00:18:17 ◼   ► But yeah, the main reason I put this on the show is just to ask the question.

00:18:20 ◼   ► You know, people have this question a lot.

00:18:21 ◼   ► I think we've talked about it a few times in the past.

00:18:23 ◼   ► But you're always looking for something to blame for the product that you want to be

00:18:30 ◼   ► updated or worked on or become prominent, not getting the attention it deserves.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And it's easy to blame it on the mysterious, you know, potentially very large secret operation

00:18:42 ◼   ► going on to make a car.

00:18:44 ◼   ► But I'm on the same page with Marco, I think.

00:18:47 ◼   ► Projects like this do take talent away.

00:18:50 ◼   ► They take attention away, attention to the executives and the attention of the employees,

00:18:54 ◼   ► but in general if any project was going to be, it was going to contain a large proportion

00:19:02 ◼   ► of new employees who are new to Apple or who would not be working on the Mac at all, it's

00:19:06 ◼   ► a car project.

00:19:07 ◼   ► Because yeah, there's going to be smart people who are like, "We want some of these people

00:19:09 ◼   ► because they're just smart people and they're just good software people so we'll definitely

00:19:12 ◼   ► take them," right?

00:19:14 ◼   ► But it's not, I think it's not the same thing as, for example, when iOS stole a lot of resources

00:19:21 ◼   ► from the Mac.

00:19:22 ◼   ► Because they're the same core OS under the covers, right?

00:19:25 ◼   ► And making a GUI operating system, even though one is touch and one is mouse, they're so

00:19:29 ◼   ► closely related.

00:19:30 ◼   ► They share code, they share concepts, whereas the car is far enough away that I feel like

00:19:36 ◼   ► the worst thing you can probably blame it for is distracting executives, perhaps.

00:19:40 ◼   ► But I think it is a separate issue than why are Macs taking a long time to update all

00:19:46 ◼   ► of a sudden or why are these other products being emphasized or de-emphasized.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I mean if you wanted to blame anything you could blame the watch or something.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Another project that is closer to the Mac than the car is to say, because the watch

00:19:58 ◼   ► was behind schedule a little bit according to the rumors of when Apple wanted it to be

00:20:01 ◼   ► released, and there's a little fire drill about software and all sorts of other stuff.

00:20:04 ◼   ► So I don't blame the car or the whatever it is now at all.

00:20:09 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:22:21 ◼   ► - Front of the show, Greg Pierce had noticed

00:22:27 ◼   ► something interesting about the Clips app,

00:22:29 ◼   ► which I was able to talk about briefly last episode

00:22:32 ◼   ► before we dove into three hours of MacProTalk,

00:22:34 ◼   ► he noted that Clips did not ask permission

00:22:37 ◼   ► to use his camera or microphone.

00:22:39 ◼   ► And he said, "Bad form, Apple," which I agree with.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Kay writes in reply to Greg,

00:22:45 ◼   ► "It's a deliberate choice made by Apple.

00:22:47 ◼   ► They granted Clips special entitlements

00:22:49 ◼   ► to access camera, mic, contacts, et cetera without asking."

00:22:51 ◼   ► And there's a screenshot of what I believe to be,

00:22:54 ◼   ► oh, it's in the entitlements of the Clips app,

00:22:57 ◼   ► And it has a key com.apple.private.tcc.allow,

00:23:02 ◼   ► which has entries such as ktcc service photos

00:23:05 ◼   ► and camera and microphone, et cetera,

00:23:07 ◼   ► which is an interesting special case

00:23:10 ◼   ► that we aren't allowed to do that blesses clips

00:23:13 ◼   ► and gives clips access to your mic and camera

00:23:15 ◼   ► and contacts and whatnot,

00:23:16 ◼   ► without the user actively having done so.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Which, I mean, obviously it's Apple's right to do that,

00:23:22 ◼   ► but I don't know, I kind of wish that they would just play

00:23:23 ◼   ► by the same rules as everyone else.

00:23:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is not a new thing with clips.

00:23:27 ◼   ► tons of Apple apps do this, but it's just, it's worthwhile.

00:23:31 ◼   ► And again, in case people didn't know,

00:23:33 ◼   ► obviously Apple runs the platform.

00:23:34 ◼   ► They can do whatever the hell they want, right?

00:23:35 ◼   ► And they do, like, I mean,

00:23:37 ◼   ► they put Xcode on the Mac App Store for crying out loud.

00:23:39 ◼   ► Xcode is in slight violation of a couple of Mac App Store

00:23:43 ◼   ► rules that apply to other applications.

00:23:45 ◼   ► But for this specific case,

00:23:49 ◼   ► for iOS apps like this in particular,

00:23:51 ◼   ► I think like it's an interesting object lesson

00:23:55 ◼   ► for the policies they have, in that clearly someone at Apple

00:24:00 ◼   ► who is making clips thought that not having to ask

00:24:05 ◼   ► for permission to access the camera and the microphone

00:24:07 ◼   ► and your contacts and your photos and stuff like that

00:24:12 ◼   ► is a better user experience for the app.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Like forget about whether they have the ability

00:24:17 ◼   ► to get rid of, to put these secret entitlements in or not.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Like it's a design question.

00:24:22 ◼   ► Is this app better when it asks for permission

00:24:24 ◼   ► Or is this better when it doesn't ask permission?

00:24:25 ◼   ► And it seems like this is an interface decision.

00:24:27 ◼   ► This is a nicer experience for users

00:24:29 ◼   ► if we don't ask for permission, right?

00:24:31 ◼   ► But because only Apple gets to make that,

00:24:34 ◼   ► it's kind of like they're saying,

00:24:36 ◼   ► not only do we applicant to do secret things

00:24:38 ◼   ► you don't get to do,

00:24:39 ◼   ► but because we get to do those secret things,

00:24:41 ◼   ► our applications have a nicer user experience

00:24:44 ◼   ► than yours can ever have.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Because the first thing you have to do on the first launch

00:24:47 ◼   ► is throw a bunch of dialogs in someone's face and say,

00:24:49 ◼   ► can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this?

00:24:50 ◼   ► And users don't like that.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And we get to bypass that,

00:24:53 ◼   ► but you, because you are untrustworthy,

00:24:56 ◼   ► must have a worse user experience.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And needless to say, the vast majority of applications

00:25:02 ◼   ► downloaded from the App Store are not made by Apple.

00:25:05 ◼   ► And so it's like every application except for Apple's

00:25:07 ◼   ► has to have a worse user experience.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And I don't know what the solution is

00:25:10 ◼   ► 'cause you do want applications asking for information.

00:25:12 ◼   ► You don't want applications to be able to secretly

00:25:14 ◼   ► use your camera and get at your photos, right?

00:25:16 ◼   ► But it's an interesting dilemma because it's like Apple,

00:25:20 ◼   ► Apple is choosing not to eat its own dog food

00:25:22 ◼   ► follow its own rules, not because they're flouting their power, but because I think

00:25:26 ◼   ► they really believe this makes a better application.

00:25:28 ◼   ► And so, yeah, I think this is evidence of a, perhaps a rethinking, even if it's just

00:25:34 ◼   ► a very minor rethinking of how permission is asked for and granted, because perhaps

00:25:39 ◼   ► the most obtrusive way to do anything on iOS is to throw a modal dialog on top of everything.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And I'm not sure what the answer is.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Would it be better if it like slid down or had a different appearance?

00:25:47 ◼   ► Would it be better if there were some other way that these permissions manifested?

00:25:51 ◼   ► when you download the app you could give it something or users could I don't even know

00:25:55 ◼   ► I don't know the solution is I just thought it was it highlighted this this user interface

00:26:00 ◼   ► issue more so than the technical thing because again tons of Apple apps do this.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Finally a t-shirt update so if you are listening to this episode either live or recorded it

00:26:11 ◼   ► doesn't matter you are probably listening to it sometime before April 26th.

00:26:18 ◼   ► If you are listening to this episode right now and you want a t-shirt and you have not

00:26:24 ◼   ► ordered it, please order it now.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I cannot tell you the amount of times we've heard people say either, "Oh, I had no idea

00:26:31 ◼   ► the t-shirts were for sale," or, "Oh, I meant to get one, but then I just plumb forgot."

00:26:36 ◼   ► Don't be that person.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Order a t-shirt.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Yes, this is incredibly self-serving.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Yes, I acknowledge that.

00:26:42 ◼   ► But I am so sick of people saying, "Oh, I didn't have any idea," or, "Oh, I forgot."

00:26:46 ◼   ► Don't forget.

00:26:47 ◼   ► But please, if it's April 26th of 2017,

00:26:50 ◼   ► before April 26th of 2017, you're listening to this show,

00:26:53 ◼   ► please, if you are interested, buy a T-shirt.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Now, Jon, can you give us a little bit of details

00:26:58 ◼   ► on what's going on with those,

00:27:00 ◼   ► because there's been a couple of changes

00:27:01 ◼   ► since we last spoke.

00:27:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, but first I have to remind myself

00:27:04 ◼   ► to listen to your advice, because for the past week,

00:27:07 ◼   ► I've been like, you know what, I need to order shirts too.

00:27:09 ◼   ► - Same here, actually. (laughs)

00:27:11 ◼   ► - I too have not ordered my shirts.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - Don't be like us.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Don't be like us.

00:27:16 ◼   ► When we stop selling these shirts, even we can't order them again.

00:27:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's really true.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll be out of luck.

00:27:22 ◼   ► So here's what happened since last year.

00:27:24 ◼   ► I talked about how we might be changing things to, instead of taking all of your orders for

00:27:28 ◼   ► 20-something days and then, you know, after the sale ends, sending this huge giant ship

00:27:33 ◼   ► into shirts out to everybody.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Instead we might switch to sort of a continuous fulfillment type of thing.

00:27:38 ◼   ► And that is what we've done.

00:27:40 ◼   ► It's like an every three days type of thing.

00:27:42 ◼   ► that manifests on the Teespring site saying, "This sale ends in two days! This sale ends

00:27:48 ◼   ► in one day!" And many people keep sending us tweets panicked, "Oh no, it says it ends

00:27:51 ◼   ► in one day or in two days, but you said it was going to end on the 26th!" Very often

00:27:55 ◼   ► these people have already ordered their shirt, they're just trying to look out for other

00:27:57 ◼   ► people to say like, or look out for us and say, "You might not know it, but you have

00:28:01 ◼   ► your stuff misconfigured." Well, what happens is when it ends, it just immediately relaunches

00:28:05 ◼   ► for another three day window. And this is going to repeat until the 26th-ish. So don't

00:28:10 ◼   ► fret if it says you have two days remaining or one day remaining look at the calendar if it is the

00:28:14 ◼   ► 26th or before you can still order if it's after the 26th take seriously any things you see on the

00:28:20 ◼   ► site this is just the way it works on the site i wish we could have said continuous fulfillment

00:28:24 ◼   ► but with it with a definitive end date but we can't because this is not how the site works so

00:28:28 ◼   ► never fear it's a rolling cycle that repeats every three days ish um and the other thing i wanted to

00:28:35 ◼   ► mention because Teespring itself mentioned it to us, one of the shirts that we sell in

00:28:41 ◼   ► our bazillion different color varieties here, which by the way we didn't point this out, but

00:28:44 ◼   ► when we sort of did this accidentally, which is appropriate, usually we have some kind of silly

00:28:51 ◼   ► in-joke, apple-related in-joke for our shirts for the past couple of years.

00:28:55 ◼   ► This year the silly unintentional in-joke was that our shirt names and the million varieties are like

00:29:03 ◼   ► like the million different varieties of Apple product names.

00:29:06 ◼   ► It's like MacBook, two USB ports, 2013,

00:29:09 ◼   ► you know, late 2013 or whatever.

00:29:12 ◼   ► So that's what our shirts are like

00:29:13 ◼   ► and we have a million different varieties.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Anyway, one of them is we call it the Jet Black shirt,

00:29:17 ◼   ► which is, you know, obviously an allusion

00:29:18 ◼   ► to the new phone color for the iPhone 7.

00:29:21 ◼   ► And the Jet Black shirt is a black t-shirt

00:29:25 ◼   ► and the printing on it is also in black.

00:29:28 ◼   ► And that's the joke, it's completely black.

00:29:30 ◼   ► If this is not clear to you

00:29:32 ◼   ► that it is black printing on a black t-shirt,

00:29:35 ◼   ► it will be basically invisible.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Like if you're buying this shirt and you get it

00:29:38 ◼   ► and you're like, "Hey, I can't see anything on this shirt

00:29:41 ◼   ► because it's black ink printed on black."

00:29:43 ◼   ► That's the joke.

00:29:44 ◼   ► It's a jet black, it's, you know,

00:29:45 ◼   ► how much more black could the shirt be?

00:29:46 ◼   ► And the answer is none.

00:29:48 ◼   ► None more black, which is a different joke

00:29:51 ◼   ► or reference if not joke.

00:29:52 ◼   ► Anyway, so Teespring was encouraging us very strongly

00:29:56 ◼   ► to not sell a shirt with black printing on black

00:30:00 ◼   ► because customers get it and they're angry

00:30:02 ◼   ► because they can't see anything on it.

00:30:04 ◼   ► And I had faith in our customers and say,

00:30:06 ◼   ► "I hope they get the joke that it's a jet black shirt

00:30:09 ◼   ► and it does have black printing."

00:30:10 ◼   ► And you can see it in the picture.

00:30:12 ◼   ► Like it's not a secret that it's black printing on black,

00:30:15 ◼   ► but needless to say, if you see that shirt

00:30:17 ◼   ► and you're wondering,

00:30:18 ◼   ► "Is this black printing on a black shirt

00:30:19 ◼   ► and will this be hard to see?"

00:30:20 ◼   ► Yes, it's black printing on a black shirt

00:30:21 ◼   ► and it will be super duper hard to see.

00:30:23 ◼   ► And that's the joke, enjoy.

00:30:25 ◼   ► - All right, so yes.

00:30:27 ◼   ► So if you're listening to this,

00:30:28 ◼   ► Do not be like Casey, John, and Marco.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Don't be us.

00:30:33 ◼   ► Be better than us, which is not a very hard thing to do.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Go to ATP.fm/shirt and buy you a shirt

00:30:41 ◼   ► if you are so inclined.

00:30:42 ◼   ► That definitely helps us on the show,

00:30:44 ◼   ► and we thank you to anyone who has even considered doing so.

00:30:46 ◼   ► But please blame only the mirror if you miss the window,

00:30:51 ◼   ► because this one's on you.

00:30:53 ◼   ► - Although you should be like us

00:30:54 ◼   ► in that when you actually do order shirts,

00:30:55 ◼   ► you should order like five of them,

00:30:56 ◼   ► like all of us are gonna do.

00:30:58 ◼   ► That's true like I'm getting ones for my kids for the first year my daughter said she she might want one

00:31:03 ◼   ► She likes the rainbow one like everybody like everybody else John didn't you not even buy yourself the addition shirt two years ago

00:31:10 ◼   ► That was me. I totally did I've got an addition. I'm I'm part of the elite

00:31:14 ◼   ► Are you kidding? I was way too cheap to buy an addition

00:31:16 ◼   ► Let's think about who's actually cheap here. I did buy an addition. Yeah, that's just don't be like us kids

00:31:24 ◼   ► They just go they just go into the t-shirt museum. I haven't actually worn it. You know I

00:31:27 ◼   ► Think I've worn mine like twice like I'm afraid to wear it too much

00:31:31 ◼   ► I don't want to wear it out because it's gold it's about it's a valuable t-shirt

00:31:34 ◼   ► Almost as valuable as a cotton bro. Cheap your t-shirt shipped to Europe, right?

00:31:39 ◼   ► Sick burn sick

00:31:43 ◼   ► Yeah

00:31:43 ◼   ► No

00:31:43 ◼   ► The 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

00:31:48 ◼   ► Error on it and so everybody who got that t-shirt got like the equivalent of the upside-down airplane on the stamp thing

00:31:54 ◼   ► Right where it's a misprinted incorrectly made shirt, and then all those same people got a second shirt correctly printed for free

00:32:01 ◼   ► Yeah

00:32:02 ◼   ► So 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

00:32:08 ◼   ► reproduced printing error shirts so kudos to those people put those into the shirt museum

00:32:12 ◼   ► Goodness all right any other follow-up John the keeper of the follow-up anything else you'd like to add

00:32:20 ◼   ► No, 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

00:32:26 ◼   ► I'm heavily credited. Mmm

00:32:28 ◼   ► All right, Apple has apparently

00:32:32 ◼   ► patented a

00:32:35 ◼   ► USB-C

00:32:36 ◼   ► MagSafe style adapter, which is super duper exciting for those of us like myself who?

00:32:42 ◼   ► Even though I don't have a USB-C laptop

00:32:44 ◼   ► I can tell you I will miss having MagSafe because it saved my bacon a bunch of times

00:32:48 ◼   ► So do we have any thoughts on this? Why are you excited by it? That's the first question

00:32:53 ◼   ► Because I feel like I have had my laptop saved and/or legs saved many many many times by

00:33:01 ◼   ► The mag safe adapter that's been on my laptop or my laptops

00:33:04 ◼   ► So this looks like it would bring it back. What should be great

00:33:08 ◼   ► You need you know mags if for cups of water, but they don't have that yet. That is true

00:33:13 ◼   ► Yeah

00:33:13 ◼   ► So the reason I think you should not be excited about it is because as we've said many time Apple patents everything

00:33:18 ◼   ► patents have no real bearing on anything that Apple will produce, especially if you see

00:33:21 ◼   ► the patent before the product, it's a good chance that there's not a product related

00:33:24 ◼   ► to that. But the reason I put it in here is not because I think Apple will make such a

00:33:29 ◼   ► thing, although Belkin and a few other companies actually do make this exact thing that you're

00:33:32 ◼   ► seeing here, which is like a little thing that plugs into USB-C and has a little mag-safey

00:33:36 ◼   ► kind of magnet snap-offy thing on the end.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Yeah, Griffin is the one you're thinking of.

00:33:40 ◼   ► Oh, is it Griffin?

00:33:41 ◼   ► And it's unfortunately not very well regarded.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it's the same idea, though.

00:33:47 ◼   ► It's just that the implementation may not be good, because it is actually tricky to

00:33:49 ◼   ► get this stuff right.

00:33:51 ◼   ► The reason I think it's interesting is because back when we knew they were dropping MagSafe,

00:33:55 ◼   ► but none of us had actually seen their products yet, and we hadn't really used the USB-C,

00:33:58 ◼   ► we're like, "Well, MagSafe is great, and everybody loves it, but it is bigger, and maybe USB-C

00:34:06 ◼   ► the connectors will just yank out just as easily as MagSafe does, because it's a whole

00:34:09 ◼   ► new connector.

00:34:10 ◼   ► It's not like a big USB-A connector.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Who knows what it'll be like.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But now that we all have experience with USB-C, I think it's pretty safe to say it does not

00:34:19 ◼   ► come out as easily as MagSafe in any way, shape, or form.

00:34:23 ◼   ► And that the hazard of tripping over your cord that's connected through USB-C to your

00:34:27 ◼   ► laptop is back.

00:34:29 ◼   ► It used to be mostly gone with MagSafe, depending on the angle that you trip over it on, but

00:34:34 ◼   ► now the danger is back.

00:34:37 ◼   ► And I think USB-C, kind of like AirPods, is one of those little things that seems like,

00:34:42 ◼   ► whatever you know wireless earphones or you know magnet instead of plugging in that seems nice

00:34:46 ◼   ► but i think magsafe is was mostly universally beloved the only complaints i ever heard about

00:34:52 ◼   ► magsafe were from uh couch chargers people who use their you know thing connected on the couch or

00:34:57 ◼   ► like with a big comforter or blanket and they would say it was a little bit too loose and that like

00:35:01 ◼   ► it would knock it out unintentionally but that's the only bad thing i've ever heard about magsafe

00:35:05 ◼   ► and for a connector and a technology that looks if you if you just you know look at it it looks like

00:35:11 ◼   ► weird 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

00:35:17 ◼   ► Know this little tiny set of contacts inside there and all the power to this laptop is going through these tiny little pinprick point things

00:35:24 ◼   ► um

00:35:25 ◼   ► that just seems so much less robust and what if stuff gets in there and so on and so forth but

00:35:29 ◼   ► I've had magsafe on many many devices and still have it on many of them and I still think it's a great idea

00:35:35 ◼   ► Well executed again, you know modulo

00:35:39 ◼   ► the looseness of like MagSafe 2 and other issues like that.

00:35:43 ◼   ► And I think it's pretty beloved.

00:35:45 ◼   ► I think people like Accable products

00:35:46 ◼   ► because they have MagSafe.

00:35:47 ◼   ► It was another one of those Apple things

00:35:49 ◼   ► like that makes it better than just a regular laptop.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And when it went away,

00:35:53 ◼   ► and when we discovered

00:35:54 ◼   ► that there is no real replacement for it,

00:35:55 ◼   ► it's just like, well, that advantage is now gone.

00:35:58 ◼   ► You know, it was kind of made their laptops worse in a way.

00:36:02 ◼   ► And in some tiny way, it made their laptops worse.

00:36:05 ◼   ► And Apple having a patent like this

00:36:07 ◼   ► makes me think that at the very least somewhere inside the company they said can we go all

00:36:13 ◼   ► USB-C but also retain the advantages of MagSafe somehow by the answer to everything that is

00:36:21 ◼   ► the answer in the world of USB-C which is let's make an adapter.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And so they did and patented it but decided not to ship it for whatever reason because

00:36:30 ◼   ► maybe it's still kind of clunky or whatever.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Anyway, all this is to say that I wish instead of doing this adapter and going USB-C everywhere

00:36:38 ◼   ► and then not shipping this adapter and leaving the third parties, I wish they had come up

00:36:42 ◼   ► with MagSafe 3.

00:36:43 ◼   ► If MagSafe is too big and clunky and your devices are getting thinner and thinner, can

00:36:47 ◼   ► you come up with some other solution that also uses magnets that has all the same advantages?

00:36:52 ◼   ► We haven't seen a patent for that, but clearly nothing they've shipped reflects that.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Anyway, all I'm saying is I miss MagSafe and I wish it would come back.

00:36:58 ◼   ► and it seems like at least some contingent inside Apple

00:37:01 ◼   ► also misses MagSafe because they tried to do something

00:37:04 ◼   ► to bring it back.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - If you're gonna do MagSafe on USB-C,

00:37:09 ◼   ► the solution is not to have this weird little stick out,

00:37:13 ◼   ► like half inch long adapter that you need to also have

00:37:17 ◼   ► with you or stick on your cables and have that break away.

00:37:20 ◼   ► No, that's like, anything that involves like a rigid adapter

00:37:25 ◼   ► against a USB port, I think is not a good idea

00:37:28 ◼   ► long term because it so easily just like breaks off in the port or something else. Like all

00:37:33 ◼   ► those USB hubs that were designed first for the MacBook One that literally just like attach

00:37:38 ◼   ► right next to it like flush against the case and have this big long hub down the side.

00:37:43 ◼   ► That's just asking for it to have your knee push against that or something and have the

00:37:48 ◼   ► end of the cable snap off into the socket. Anything like that I think is a bad idea and

00:37:53 ◼   ► And I think the relatively mediocre reception

00:37:56 ◼   ► of the Griffin thing that looks just like this

00:37:59 ◼   ► is I think reinforcing of that.

00:38:00 ◼   ► To me, if you're going to have this problem you have now,

00:38:03 ◼   ► which is you're not gonna have

00:38:05 ◼   ► a dedicated magnetic charging port anymore,

00:38:08 ◼   ► you're just gonna charge through any USB-C port,

00:38:11 ◼   ► then you can't make them all magnetic,

00:38:13 ◼   ► 'cause that's not how USB-C works.

00:38:15 ◼   ► But you can do an innovation

00:38:18 ◼   ► that Microsoft figured out in 2001, I think,

00:38:21 ◼   ► which is whenever the Xbox One came out.

00:38:22 ◼   ► and I don't mean the Xbox O-N-E,

00:38:25 ◼   ► I mean the Xbox number one, the first Xbox.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And that was, you put the magnetic splitter thing

00:38:30 ◼   ► a few inches away from the console in the cable.

00:38:33 ◼   ► You know, in a similar location that many cables

00:38:36 ◼   ► would have one of those, you know,

00:38:38 ◼   ► drum, like those drum shaped magnetic

00:38:40 ◼   ► interference reducer things, you know?

00:38:43 ◼   ► Like, you know, a few inches from the connector head,

00:38:46 ◼   ► you have a little like breakaway thing

00:38:48 ◼   ► that if you pull it the wrong way, it opens up.

00:38:50 ◼   ► It's like MagSafe, you know, six inches into a cable, basically.

00:38:54 ◼   ► That worked great on the Xbox.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And I'm sure, you know, it wouldn't be like the most like visually pristine thing, but

00:39:01 ◼   ► neither are these, neither is like this world full of crazy adapters we have now.

00:39:05 ◼   ► The adapters are all ugly and stupid and clunky, right?

00:39:08 ◼   ► So if you move it away from the port by a few inches onto the cable, you have all the

00:39:14 ◼   ► same safeties of MagSafe.

00:39:17 ◼   ► But you get it away from the laptop body, it then works fine on any USB-C port, and

00:39:22 ◼   ► it doesn't require the use of these little fragile adapters.

00:39:25 ◼   ► Back when we talked about this originally, this actually wasn't the most popular one,

00:39:30 ◼   ► although you did bring it up back then too because you have this absurd love for that

00:39:33 ◼   ► huge console.

00:39:34 ◼   ► It was a great console!

00:39:36 ◼   ► Uh-huh, uh-huh.

00:39:38 ◼   ► The most common thing that people brought up was the opposite of having the magnetic

00:39:44 ◼   ► thing at the other end, like at the other far end, rather than in the middle somewhere.

00:39:47 ◼   ► Like basically the part where it plugs into the, you know, the white brick thingy, you know.

00:39:52 ◼   ► But I think both middle and the other end are worse solutions than just MagSafe 3 on the laptop,

00:40:00 ◼   ► because middle and the other end are both much more likely to be in inaccessible places.

00:40:07 ◼   ► You know the end that's where the laptop is accessible, because you can get at the laptop,

00:40:11 ◼   ► right? You put a laptop on the desk, you have to be able to reach the laptop to type on it and use

00:40:15 ◼   ► a trackpad. That means you can also reach the part where you plug and unplug the little plug thing.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And if it becomes undone because you yank it or something knocks it or whatever, you just plug it

00:40:26 ◼   ► right back in. And I think part of the experience with MagSafe that makes good is not just the

00:40:30 ◼   ► breakaway ability, but that it is a pleasing way to connect and disconnect with a little magnet,

00:40:35 ◼   ► which is a frequent operation. Infrequently, someone will trip over it. Very frequently,

00:40:38 ◼   ► you 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

00:40:44 ◼   ► Not having to be careful or slide straight out or worry about bending things or whatever

00:40:47 ◼   ► So that's part of what I love about mags a when it's part of the reason why I don't like middle

00:40:52 ◼   ► Because who can get at the middle?

00:40:54 ◼   ► When 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

00:40:58 ◼   ► Try to find it again

00:40:59 ◼   ► I 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

00:41:03 ◼   ► Close to it also harder to get to and middle is ugly because you know

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's it's it's just giant would never like it

00:41:10 ◼   ► It's not the big bulge in the middle of things

00:41:11 ◼   ► so I still come down strongly in favor of mag safe 3a's and have an actual mag safe port on the

00:41:17 ◼   ► Laptops and have a mag safe thing that plugs into it. Just make it a new size

00:41:20 ◼   ► That fits in I mean if you make it the size of USB C

00:41:23 ◼   ► Then you're like well this will last as long as USB C does because as soon as we're too thin for USB C

00:41:27 ◼   ► We would have been in the same situation anyway

00:41:29 ◼   ► but instead Apple has done nothing including not shipping this adapter and

00:41:33 ◼   ► And as Margo said, the one that is out there

00:41:36 ◼   ► does not get good reviews.

00:41:37 ◼   ► It doesn't mean that it's impossible to make a good adapter,

00:41:39 ◼   ► it just means that one is not as good as real MagSafe was.

00:41:42 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Jamf Now.

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00:42:58 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:43:01 ◼   ► So 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.

00:43:08 ◼   ► But today it was announced that it's official iTunes Podcasts is now Apple Podcasts.

00:43:17 ◼   ► And there's new badges that you can use and so on and so forth.

00:43:21 ◼   ► And so Jason Snell has started to wonder, "Is this the beginning of the end for iTunes?

00:43:30 ◼   ► And what does that really mean?"

00:43:32 ◼   ► So I don't, I don't, I certainly don't know.

00:43:35 ◼   ► I can't say I would be bitter if iTunes either went away or more accurately, the app just

00:43:41 ◼   ► got split up several ways.

00:43:43 ◼   ► But I mean, this is some pretty heavy reading of the tea leaves.

00:43:47 ◼   ► What do you think, Marco?

00:43:48 ◼   ► I mean, this all might be leading to something big,

00:43:52 ◼   ► or it might just be like, you know, iTunes is not

00:43:56 ◼   ► as strong of a brand as it used to be anymore.

00:43:58 ◼   ► You know, like when they launched the new streaming

00:44:01 ◼   ► music service, they didn't call it New iTunes Music,

00:44:03 ◼   ► they called it Apple Music.

00:44:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:05 ◼   ► - They just call it iTunes Music 2013,

00:44:09 ◼   ► or whatever year it was.

00:44:09 ◼   ► - Right. (laughing)

00:44:10 ◼   ► - And then the next year it would just be called

00:44:12 ◼   ► New iTunes Music.

00:44:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Like, you know, it could be part of some,

00:44:17 ◼   ► of a big grand iTunes deprecation plan

00:44:21 ◼   ► where everything branded as iTunes

00:44:23 ◼   ► is being replaced by separate things.

00:44:26 ◼   ► And that would be cool,

00:44:27 ◼   ► but I don't think this is evidence of that.

00:44:29 ◼   ► It might be.

00:44:31 ◼   ► I think we will be able to look back at this in retrospect

00:44:33 ◼   ► if that comes to pass and say,

00:44:35 ◼   ► "Oh, that was the beginning of it."

00:44:36 ◼   ► But yeah, right now, I don't think we can really say

00:44:39 ◼   ► anything except that we've been hearing rumblings

00:44:42 ◼   ► for a while.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Apple is working on some kind of updates

00:44:46 ◼   ► to their podcasting division or whatever.

00:44:49 ◼   ► And some of those are gonna be enhancements for publishers,

00:44:54 ◼   ► most of which have been totally unspecified so far.

00:44:57 ◼   ► But we know that they're working on something for podcasts.

00:44:59 ◼   ► So this is just one step of that in all likelihood.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Just the very first step of, now it's Apple Podcasts

00:45:05 ◼   ► to go along with Apple Music.

00:45:07 ◼   ► I don't think this really means anything yet.

00:45:11 ◼   ► - So I think this is kind of actually like a lagging,

00:45:15 ◼   ► it's the wrong phrase, not a lagging indicator, but like that this change in branding from iTunes

00:45:20 ◼   ► podcast to Apple podcast is actually something that's overdue. Like it is catching up to the

00:45:26 ◼   ► reality and the reality is that on all these podcast sites whether you see the subscribe

00:45:32 ◼   ► in overcast and subscribe in iTunes, like that's the other little badge button that you would hit,

00:45:37 ◼   ► like that the iTunes brand being associated with podcast is past the point of being mostly

00:45:44 ◼   ► nonsensical because iTunes, like we just know it because historically speaking the iTunes

00:45:50 ◼   ► podcast director was important for podcasting and it's also a very important popular authoritative

00:45:55 ◼   ► index of podcasts these days and it happened to have reversed an application that we know as

00:46:00 ◼   ► iTunes but that no longer has any relevance if it ever did to podcasts it barely has any relevance

00:46:06 ◼   ► to music anymore which is why Apple Music is called Apple Music right that the iTunes brand

00:46:11 ◼   ► in all its forms, both in association with music, in an application, or association with podcasts,

00:46:16 ◼   ► or any other things that it has done, doesn't make sense in the current Apple ecosystem. And so,

00:46:22 ◼   ► to continue to have branding and promotional materials and website buttons and marketing

00:46:29 ◼   ► communications and everything with the iTunes name in it is, you know, is not a good idea,

00:46:36 ◼   ► And they should have stopped doing it a long time ago.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And so now I think their branding is catching up with that.

00:46:42 ◼   ► I think their product should also eventually catch up with it as well.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Like it has a lot on the phone.

00:46:48 ◼   ► There's still icons on the phone that say iTunes, but the fact that they broke out the

00:46:51 ◼   ► TV app and that Apple TV is called, you know, Apple TV instead of ITV, and that they have

00:46:56 ◼   ► podcasts broken out and, you know, like, I'm going to say that the rats are fleeing the

00:47:01 ◼   ► sinking ship of iTunes, but they've been leaving for a long, long, long time.

00:47:06 ◼   ► And eventually all that will be left is this weird bloated Mac application.

00:47:10 ◼   ► Like it might even leave iOS home screens and then the only thing left will be the Mac

00:47:14 ◼   ► application and that probably has the least resources to ever refactor it.

00:47:18 ◼   ► But I'm all for them both rebranding and restructuring this.

00:47:23 ◼   ► But even if they don't do that, even if it's just a simple rebranding exercise, good.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Because it's time to rebrand these things and to divorce them from iTunes.

00:47:32 ◼   ► It's a name that doesn't have it.

00:47:33 ◼   ► The only connotations the name has for anybody who remembers it are like dated connotations

00:47:37 ◼   ► like "oh yeah I remember buying my first things on iTunes anyway now I subscribe to Spotify

00:47:41 ◼   ► and when I see iTunes podcasts it's like podcasts kind of like that old thing I used to do with

00:47:47 ◼   ► music doesn't make any sense so iTunes has served Apple well but you know once Apple

00:47:53 ◼   ► itself has switched its preeminent music service away from the iTunes brand that's the day

00:47:59 ◼   ► the iTunes brand died and now all we're doing now is just, you know, letting the rest of

00:48:03 ◼   ► the product catch up with it.

00:48:04 ◼   ► I would say it was even earlier than that. I would say, like, you know, like, it did

00:48:08 ◼   ► make sense to say for a podcast, "Subscribe in iTunes," in the early days of podcasting

00:48:14 ◼   ► before there was all this mobile listening, when you were mostly listening by literally

00:48:20 ◼   ► subscribing in the iTunes app on a Mac or Windows and syncing them to your iPod to listen

00:48:26 ◼   ► So that made sense then but it was so painful then though

00:48:30 ◼   ► It was that was really that was a bad time and I mean it was great for the time

00:48:33 ◼   ► You know in the sense like DOS was great for its time

00:48:36 ◼   ► Anyway, so I don't know if it was great for the times. I I can't

00:48:40 ◼   ► There's always like so here's the sinking songs to my iPod back in the days like oh you've got your you know

00:48:48 ◼   ► iPod with a monochrome LCD screen and a click wheel or you know a

00:48:52 ◼   ► mechanical spinning wheel like first gen iPod putting songs on that by connecting it with a firewire cable to your Mac and

00:48:58 ◼   ► iTunes would see it and syncing things to it. I

00:49:00 ◼   ► Mean it's clunky, but that was like that was the tech the problem with podcasts is there

00:49:05 ◼   ► They are a regularly published thing like they're a feed

00:49:09 ◼   ► It's not like you put your songs on your iPod you put your podcast in your iPod and you have them

00:49:13 ◼   ► There's never any putting your podcast in your iPod

00:49:16 ◼   ► There's always more podcasts like every day of the week if you're subscribed to a lot of them

00:49:19 ◼   ► Whereas new songs aren't arriving in your iTunes collection every day of the week unless you spend a lot of your time buying music

00:49:25 ◼   ► So it was so painful to know to have to constantly have this mental

00:49:30 ◼   ► Keep keeping your head the state of whatever is on your pod. You know your iPod

00:49:35 ◼   ► Oh, when's the last time I synced it is the new episode of show X on there?

00:49:40 ◼   ► Do I have to sync again? Did I remember to sync before I left the house?

00:49:44 ◼   ► It was a terrible fit and so I never remember liking it whereas I remember definitely liking syncing music onto it

00:49:50 ◼   ► Maybe because my music collection again doesn't change that frequently

00:49:52 ◼   ► But I never liked it with podcasts and all I can remember is all the times that I was

00:49:57 ◼   ► Disappointed that I didn't have the most recent episode of the show

00:49:59 ◼   ► I wanted to listen to on my iPod at the time or you were like you were like about to run at the door

00:50:04 ◼   ► You're like you're about to be late for work. You can't spend a 20-minute iTunes sync

00:50:09 ◼   ► Yeah

00:50:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, like imagine how many people in the world

00:50:11 ◼   ► were collectively five minutes late to work

00:50:13 ◼   ► during that time because they were waiting

00:50:15 ◼   ► for their iPod to finish syncing the new podcast episodes.

00:50:17 ◼   ► - And you couldn't tell, just put that one episode on,

00:50:20 ◼   ► it'd be like, nope, gotta do syncing,

00:50:22 ◼   ► it's gonna be a while, step five of seven, stop.

00:50:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, anyway, so back, it did make sense

00:50:28 ◼   ► to say subscribe on iTunes for a podcast back then.

00:50:32 ◼   ► But because, as you said, because the iTunes brand

00:50:37 ◼   ► was never really used on iOS.

00:50:39 ◼   ► Like, there is the iTunes app,

00:50:42 ◼   ► but that's basically like the video and movie store, right?

00:50:45 ◼   ► Or like, it's like how you can buy

00:50:47 ◼   ► music, videos, and movies on the phone.

00:50:50 ◼   ► You know, that's the only place

00:50:51 ◼   ► that the iTunes name was ever used on iOS.

00:50:54 ◼   ► So, to say subscribe in iTunes for a podcast now

00:50:59 ◼   ► makes very little sense, because what does that mean

00:51:03 ◼   ► to anybody using a phone?

00:51:04 ◼   ► Like, almost all podcast listening

00:51:06 ◼   ► is happening on mobile these days.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Mobile has destroyed desktop and other listening.

00:51:11 ◼   ► You know, almost everything happens on mobile.

00:51:13 ◼   ► So if you tell somebody with a podcast,

00:51:15 ◼   ► or if you tell a podcast listener to subscribe on iTunes,

00:51:17 ◼   ► there's a very good chance

00:51:18 ◼   ► they don't know what you're talking about.

00:51:20 ◼   ► So I think this makes a lot of sense,

00:51:24 ◼   ► just as a thing that they probably should do for podcasts.

00:51:28 ◼   ► And again, I wouldn't read anything more into it than that,

00:51:33 ◼   ► because there might be something more to it,

00:51:34 ◼   ► but there's also a very good reason for them

00:51:37 ◼   ► to have done it on their own.

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00:52:50 ◼   ► Betterment, investing made better.

00:52:52 ◼   ► - Peter Beardsley wrote in probably 18 years ago

00:53:00 ◼   ► And he said, "A few years back, when the Wii U's sales were slumping, we were all doubting

00:53:04 ◼   ► the future of Nintendo."

00:53:05 ◼   ► John said something along the lines of, quote, "As long as there is still a viable market

00:53:10 ◼   ► for dedicated game consoles, Nintendo can survive."

00:53:14 ◼   ► These days, they seem to be doing more than just surviving.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Breath of the Wild -- oh, this must not have been that long ago then.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game that turned me back into a believer.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Taking into account Super Mario, Ron the Switch, and Breath of the Wild, what grade would John

00:53:25 ◼   ► assign the company?

00:53:26 ◼   ► Is he bullish about Nintendo's future?

00:53:28 ◼   ► means you're happy about it right? I always get bearish and bullish backwards.

00:53:31 ◼   ► Yeah. Anyway, how does he feel about their upcoming paid online service,

00:53:35 ◼   ► which I didn't even know about? Well, as the email finishes, the people want to know,

00:53:41 ◼   ► and now I am one of the people. So, Jon, how do you feel about Nintendo?

00:53:44 ◼   ► I had to give them a grade. I would still give them like a B- or so, and here's why. First of

00:53:50 ◼   ► all, the Switch is still, I mean, it's doing well by all accounts, but it's still too early to call

00:53:56 ◼   ► because they're still in the afterglow of their launch, which launched with one of the

00:54:01 ◼   ► best games that Nintendo has ever made.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Everyone loves Breath of the Wild, universally good reviews, I love it, it's great.

00:54:09 ◼   ► But does it have legs?

00:54:12 ◼   ► How's the Switch going to be selling like three or four years from now?

00:54:15 ◼   ► Is it going to have the longevity that you would expect of a console in the past, let

00:54:19 ◼   ► alone the longevity of today's consoles, which seem to have second lives when you get like

00:54:22 ◼   ► like the PS4 Pro and Scorpio and all that stuff, where it's technically the same console

00:54:27 ◼   ► but it's a bumped up version like it's extending the life, like it gives these consoles more

00:54:32 ◼   ► time whereas the Wii U did not have a long life, it was not very successful.

00:54:35 ◼   ► The thing about the Switch and Breath of the Wild that makes me downgrade their grade perhaps

00:54:43 ◼   ► by a lot in terms of making dedicated game consoles is Breath of the Wild was the game

00:54:50 ◼   ► that was originally announced for the Wii U.

00:54:52 ◼   ► And it was developed with Wii U specific features.

00:54:55 ◼   ► So like there would be stuff on the gamepad and also stuff on the TV screen.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And motion control for the aiming and all sorts of stuff like that.

00:55:04 ◼   ► And because of the short life of the Wii U and because of the rapid necessary development

00:55:10 ◼   ► of its replacement, the Switch, Nintendo had to change things around and take out the Wii

00:55:18 ◼   ► U.

00:55:19 ◼   ► They didn't have to do this but this is what they did.

00:55:20 ◼   ► out the Wii U specific features for the Wii U version because they don't want the Wii

00:55:23 ◼   ► U version to seem like it's the better version.

00:55:25 ◼   ► They want, you know, you want the Switch version to be the better version.

00:55:28 ◼   ► And the Switch doesn't have a separate gamepad and TV, although if they had designed it differently

00:55:33 ◼   ► it could have because you've got all the hardware there.

00:55:34 ◼   ► But it doesn't.

00:55:36 ◼   ► It's got, if you put it in its little cradle, you can see it on the TV and if you hold it

00:55:40 ◼   ► on your hand, that's where it is.

00:55:42 ◼   ► You don't have a two screen experience with the Switch for this game.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And so Breath of the Wild, as fantastic as it is, could have been a PS4 game.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And the exact same game, it would have better graphics and a better frame rate.

00:55:58 ◼   ► It could have been a PS4 game.

00:55:59 ◼   ► And that has not been true for the most part of Nintendo's breakout hits in the modern

00:56:06 ◼   ► era.

00:56:07 ◼   ► The Nintendo 64 and Mario 64 and the analog stick, like, that is all of a piece.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You cannot put out Mario 64 on the SNES or Sega Genesis or anything like that because

00:56:22 ◼   ► the whole game is designed around not just 3D hardware but also the controllers.

00:56:27 ◼   ► The hardware and the software went together to provide the innovative experience.

00:56:30 ◼   ► Wii is an obvious, much more modern example.

00:56:33 ◼   ► The Wii doesn't exist without the hardware.

00:56:35 ◼   ► It's hardware and software together.

00:56:37 ◼   ► The GameCube, I would say, is Apple's most technologically successful traditional console

00:56:42 ◼   ► and that it was just plain a good competitive powerful console with a good controller at

00:56:48 ◼   ► a good price, well designed for profitability, just straight down the middle, like basically

00:56:54 ◼   ► what Microsoft has always done with its consoles.

00:56:56 ◼   ► In recent years, starting with the Wii, though, Nintendo has been making less powerful consoles

00:57:02 ◼   ► and trying to concentrate and innovate in other areas.

00:57:04 ◼   ► And the Switch is certainly innovative with its portable and non-portable, you know, that

00:57:10 ◼   ► advancement, but that advancement does not dictate so far, for the most part, a

00:57:15 ◼   ► particular gameplay experience, especially since you, I don't even know

00:57:18 ◼   ► if you're allowed to do this, but especially since the games that have

00:57:22 ◼   ► been released so far don't say you can only play this in portable mode because

00:57:26 ◼   ► it requires a touchscreen. They're also playable on the television, which means

00:57:30 ◼   ► you can't make a game that requires a touchscreen that is also able to be

00:57:34 ◼   ► played on the TV, and then it's no longer a switch, it is just a portable game, right?

00:57:38 ◼   ► Maybe Nintendo will allow people to do that eventually.

00:57:41 ◼   ► But as far as I'm aware, for now,

00:57:43 ◼   ► they're not allowing people to do that.

00:57:44 ◼   ► All of which is to say that I haven't seen any synergy

00:57:48 ◼   ► between software and the hardware, which means

00:57:50 ◼   ► Nintendo's, the advantage I was talking about,

00:57:53 ◼   ► Nintendo, like as long as there's a market

00:57:56 ◼   ► for dedicated game consoles,

00:57:58 ◼   ► Nintendo can be successful and survive

00:58:00 ◼   ► because then they can do that thing

00:58:01 ◼   ► that Nintendo has always done,

00:58:02 ◼   ► which is make an amazing product

00:58:04 ◼   ► that requires a synergy of hardware and software,

00:58:06 ◼   ► somewhat like Apple has, you know, been had a reputation for doing over the many years.

00:58:10 ◼   ► But Breath of the Wild could have been a PS4 game and probably would have been better on PS4. And I

00:58:15 ◼   ► would have been happier if Breath of the Wild ran on hardware that was more powerful. Now that's

00:58:21 ◼   ► just me. Some people may want a really good portable system, in which case they don't want

00:58:24 ◼   ► Breath of the Wild on PS4, they want it on Switch because they love playing it in a portable thing,

00:58:29 ◼   ► on the go and, you know, upstairs in the bed or whatever. Like that makes it a successful

00:58:34 ◼   ► handheld but again doesn't say anything specific about it other than like you know why couldn't

00:58:39 ◼   ► have been a uh god i'm sorry sony i can't even remember the name of your stupid most recent uh

00:58:44 ◼   ► handheld that is not successful chat room what the hell is the vita sorry the nsx no no the vita

00:58:50 ◼   ► playstation vita and did they have what was the one after the vita god i can't even keep track

00:58:56 ◼   ► this lag is killing me i think the vita is the most recent anyway uh people who love the handheld

00:59:01 ◼   ► they're you know they've been handhelds before now i understand the switch thing being able to take

00:59:05 ◼   ► off little controls and use them separately so there is some innovation there but it doesn't

00:59:09 ◼   ► have the same synergy with with the games as other stuff is that it doesn't mean it's not going to

00:59:12 ◼   ► this is very early days um thing that you know new games are going to come out all the time we'll see

00:59:18 ◼   ► how they go and they're you know the switch is successful people like it the software is good

00:59:23 ◼   ► it can still be a successful product but my personal grade for it is that they are not

00:59:30 ◼   ► They are not competitive with the two other big consoles. The Nintendo was always an also-ran

00:59:34 ◼   ► because they make less powerful hardware, and within the realm of less powerful hardware,

00:59:37 ◼   ► their track record of being able to make innovations that have profound effects on

00:59:43 ◼   ► gameplay and vice versa has been hit or miss over the years, and the Switch is kind of like

00:59:48 ◼   ► a base hit in that people like it and it does what it's supposed to do well,

00:59:52 ◼   ► but it seems like it is just a way for you to play the same old console games that you could

00:59:57 ◼   ► could always play portably and on a TV, which is an innovation because that's what people

01:00:01 ◼   ► like about it.

01:00:02 ◼   ► Like, I don't have to choose between some cut-down portable game versus a full-fledged

01:00:05 ◼   ► TV one, but that innovation succeeds by being somewhere in the middle.

01:00:10 ◼   ► It's not as good on the TV as the dedicated TV consoles, but it's better portably than

01:00:14 ◼   ► some of the weaker-powered portable consoles also still made by Nintendo like the 3DS.

01:00:17 ◼   ► So it may be the right product at the right time, and certainly I think we can all say

01:00:23 ◼   ► that it has a brighter future as far as anyone can tell than the Wii U did. And the Wii U

01:00:28 ◼   ► was arguably much more, arguably much more innovative, it just, you know, the game sort

01:00:32 ◼   ► of never materialized. But I think this launch and the fact that they had to make the Switch

01:00:35 ◼   ► and the fact that they had to cut out the features from the Wii U version so it didn't

01:00:38 ◼   ► appear to be the better version of the game than the Switch version are all kind of disappointing

01:00:43 ◼   ► markers of this difficult period in Nintendo's history. But I'm glad they're, I'm glad they're

01:00:49 ◼   ► recovering after the Wii U and I'm glad the Switch does appear to be more successful and

01:00:52 ◼   ► I wish them all the success in the world, I just wish they would.

01:00:57 ◼   ► The product that I want them to make is not the Switch, but if the Switch is what they

01:01:01 ◼   ► have to make for me to get Breath of the Wild to make them successful again, I can live

01:01:05 ◼   ► with it.

01:01:06 ◼   ► But that's why I'm giving them a B, B minus so far.

01:01:09 ◼   ► It's funny you say that because when the Switch first came out, well, we talked about this

01:01:14 ◼   ► some, but when the promo video or teaser video or whatever it was came out, I was like, "Wow,

01:01:18 ◼   ► that looks actually really cool."

01:01:20 ◼   ► And then when it first came out, I thought, you know, that still looks really cool.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And then I've played with my sister-in-laws and with some friends of ours a couple of

01:01:26 ◼   ► times very briefly.

01:01:28 ◼   ► Wow, it's pretty cool.

01:01:30 ◼   ► And for the last month or however long it's been out, I've been trying to convince myself

01:01:35 ◼   ► that I don't play games anymore, which is accurate, that the last time I bought a console,

01:01:40 ◼   ► I played it for a couple of months and never touched it again, which is accurate.

01:01:43 ◼   ► And thus, there is no reason to spend a whole bunch of money on a Switch, which I will probably

01:01:49 ◼   ► used for a month and then never use again, which I presume to be accurate.

01:01:54 ◼   ► That being said, just earlier tonight I realized the super useful website iStocknow, which

01:01:59 ◼   ► I knew as tracking Apple inventory for things like AirPods and whatnot, they actually track

01:02:06 ◼   ► inventory for the Switch.

01:02:07 ◼   ► And I am strongly considering making a trip to a neighboring town to pick up a Switch

01:02:12 ◼   ► for myself tomorrow, in no small part because I know I'm going to have a couple of long

01:02:15 ◼   ► plane rides in my future.

01:02:17 ◼   ► And that seems like it'd be a really great way to spend some time on the plane.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And so here it is.

01:02:23 ◼   ► I am the antithesis of a typical console buyer, which is to say I don't buy consoles.

01:02:30 ◼   ► I don't tend to play video games, and I feel like this console was made for me.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe like it's a successful Vita.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Oh, for a lot of people, that's how they're viewing it.

01:02:39 ◼   ► It is the best portable system I've ever had because the games on it are so amazing compared

01:02:43 ◼   ► to, I mean, granted, they're being pulled up the average by having Breath of the Wild

01:02:47 ◼   ► on it, but you know, it's like, imagine if there was a portable system that got the best

01:02:53 ◼   ► first party titles from one of the best first party developers in the world.

01:02:56 ◼   ► That's the Switch, but I'm not interested in a portable, so that doesn't really help

01:03:00 ◼   ► me much.

01:03:01 ◼   ► But it does mean that the product is potentially more appealing than the Wii U, which had to

01:03:05 ◼   ► sit in this weird metal ground.

01:03:06 ◼   ► But yeah, and I'm surprised that you are into playing it in a portable, because you have

01:03:12 ◼   ► pretty big hands as well and I find the size of it is not not conducive to my hands.

01:03:19 ◼   ► Obviously I have RSI issues on top of everything else but it just feels a little bit awkward

01:03:23 ◼   ► and I've been playing with the Nintendo Pro Controller and it's no GameCube controller

01:03:28 ◼   ► but it's okay for a controller that doesn't have an octagonal surround around the analog

01:03:33 ◼   ► sticks and thinks all the buttons are equally important it's okay like it's not it's not

01:03:38 ◼   ► great but I like it better than the Wii U Pro Controller which maybe isn't saying much

01:03:43 ◼   ► but it's something.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Great episode of Hypercritical or greatest episode of Hypercritical?

01:03:48 ◼   ► It was an episode that exists.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Oh wow.

01:03:51 ◼   ► You're the worst.

01:03:53 ◼   ► You are the worst.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Which episode was that, do you know offhand?

01:03:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I know, I don't know.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Pinching the harmonica.

01:03:59 ◼   ► It's a classic.

01:04:00 ◼   ► But you don't know an episode number?

01:04:03 ◼   ► In the 50s?

01:04:04 ◼   ► In the 50s I'm gonna guess.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Alright, I'll look it up.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Google for Syracuse of pinching the harmonica. It's gonna be the number one hit I guarantee you this sounds like a dangerous query

01:04:13 ◼   ► I don't know if I yeah, don't do an image search just regular text search

01:04:17 ◼   ► You'll find it

01:04:19 ◼   ► 49 you were very close and we caught you saying your own name twice in the last week

01:04:24 ◼   ► Caught me is this the secret thing yes, I'll say it all day

01:04:28 ◼   ► Say all night all day except that whenever when you were having like a whole episode of rectus

01:04:33 ◼   ► But how no one pronounces your name right you never said it

01:04:35 ◼   ► I just don't want to encourage him. Oh, yeah, you can't give him what he wants. You know, he's incorrigible

01:04:40 ◼   ► Yeah, that's it. Poor Merlin. Mmm. Don't don't you give him your pity? He does not deserve it

01:04:48 ◼   ► Well, you're bad cop today, aren't you? That's how this is playing, isn't it?

01:04:51 ◼   ► Goodness, all right. So Marco, what do you think about the switch? I mean, I know that Tiff has gotten herself one

01:04:59 ◼   ► Or well, maybe it was for you, but it's effectively hers

01:05:03 ◼   ► I don't remember what the backstory was, but like have you played it at all?

01:05:06 ◼   ► Remind me what your scenario is with that.

01:05:08 ◼   ► I played the Wipeout clone for a few minutes and that was fun.

01:05:12 ◼   ► That's right, that's right.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's it so far.

01:05:14 ◼   ► I expect to play Mario Kart probably quite a bit.

01:05:17 ◼   ► Oh, amen brother.

01:05:18 ◼   ► But that isn't out until the end of this month I think.

01:05:22 ◼   ► And also the Puyo Tetris, which I know from my Sega days as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean

01:05:29 ◼   ► Machine Tetris.

01:05:30 ◼   ► I will probably be enjoying that as well when that comes out, which I believe is also around

01:05:35 ◼   ► Mario Kart time.

01:05:37 ◼   ► And then whenever there's ever a Mario game for it, I will like that.

01:05:41 ◼   ► If there's ever a virtual console that allows me to catch up a little bit on previous Mario

01:05:45 ◼   ► games, as we previously discussed, I would like that.

01:05:48 ◼   ► But otherwise, you know, yeah, I'm not that into it because I'm not that into games.

01:05:53 ◼   ► I'm like you, but I've already bought it and I've realized that.

01:05:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:05:58 ◼   ► - There is a Mario game coming, by the way,

01:06:00 ◼   ► in case you were wondering.

01:06:00 ◼   ► There totally is one.

01:06:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's a 3D one.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I don't like 3D.

01:06:05 ◼   ► - Those are the real ones now.

01:06:07 ◼   ► - No, they're not.

01:06:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's a 3D.

01:06:08 ◼   ► Everyone else is saying finally a real Mario game

01:06:10 ◼   ► instead of one of these nostalgic throwback 2.5D things.

01:06:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I want more 2.5D.

01:06:16 ◼   ► To me, that's what Mario games are.

01:06:19 ◼   ► The 3D ones always felt like they were good games,

01:06:23 ◼   ► but they didn't feel like Mario games to me.

01:06:24 ◼   ► They felt like a different thing.

01:06:26 ◼   ► You're so stuck in the past.

01:06:27 ◼   ► - No, it's just, no.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - I know you like your 2D games,

01:06:30 ◼   ► you're playing through Sonic for crying out loud.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Like, I know you like 2D, but I love the 3D ones better

01:06:37 ◼   ► and I think they're just-

01:06:39 ◼   ► - It's a different kind of game.

01:06:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I suppose.

01:06:42 ◼   ► I mean, I was surprised by how,

01:06:45 ◼   ► I mean, I talked about this on,

01:06:46 ◼   ► I think it was on Wrecked Divs,

01:06:47 ◼   ► about how games that I loved in the 2D era

01:06:50 ◼   ► made the transition to 3D and I still love them,

01:06:53 ◼   ► even though, like you said, it is totally different.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Like, Zelda in 2D versus Zelda in 3D.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Very different.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Mechanically, visually, like, so many things about it are different.

01:07:01 ◼   ► And Mario, same thing.

01:07:02 ◼   ► And yet, I still feel like there's a through line.

01:07:04 ◼   ► I still feel like it's the same game, the same kind of feeling.

01:07:07 ◼   ► The difference is that once they went 3D, I couldn't go back to the 2D ones anymore.

01:07:10 ◼   ► It's like, well, why would I want to just jump up and down in 2D?

01:07:13 ◼   ► I want to jump up and down in 3D world.

01:07:15 ◼   ► To me, it's just like, it's such different mechanics.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Like, you know, certain games, like, back in the, like, 8 and 16-bit era, racing games,

01:07:23 ◼   ► Like Mario Kart for Super Nintendo.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Played that game for so long, it was such a great game,

01:07:28 ◼   ► but fundamentally you were really navigating a 3D world,

01:07:32 ◼   ► it just happened to be rendered in crude 2D

01:07:34 ◼   ► that was trying to approximate it.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - And there was a lot of tapping

01:07:37 ◼   ► because you didn't have analog sticks,

01:07:38 ◼   ► so tapping was all about tapping the D-pad.

01:07:41 ◼   ► - Right, but the point is,

01:07:43 ◼   ► translating Mario Kart from 2D to 3D just made it better.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It didn't fundamentally produce a different kind of game,

01:07:51 ◼   ► It just, you know, you were already conceptually moving in 3D and it just made it better.

01:07:56 ◼   ► But a platform game is an incredibly different playing game between 2D and 3D.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Everything you can do is totally different.

01:08:04 ◼   ► A lot of 2D stuff does not work in 3D and vice versa.

01:08:08 ◼   ► So it is a totally different kind of game.

01:08:10 ◼   ► And what made me so sad during the 32 and 64 bit console era was that all of my favorite

01:08:16 ◼   ► 2D franchises were basically killed off for like 10 years while they made 3D versions.

01:08:22 ◼   ► And that was fine, but that wasn't, it wasn't the same thing. I know I've had this rant

01:08:25 ◼   ► before recently, so I'll stop it here, but 2D Mario and 3D Mario are different games

01:08:32 ◼   ► and for a while they didn't continue both, and I'm glad they in recent years have continued

01:08:36 ◼   ► both. And I would love to play some of those new 2/2.5D Mario games. And by new I just

01:08:43 ◼   ► mean made after the 90s. So I know they're not new anymore for gamers, but for me they

01:08:48 ◼   ► would be new. And I would love to play them, but I wouldn't love to play them enough to

01:08:52 ◼   ► go like buy a Wii U or something. So I'm hoping they come to Virtual Console and the Switch

01:08:56 ◼   ► in some form.

01:08:57 ◼   ► So you said that they're totally different games, and I understand what you're saying

01:09:01 ◼   ► in terms of like mechanically speaking, but the reason I feel like there's a through line

01:09:04 ◼   ► is not so much like how do you control it and what is on the screen and like, you know,

01:09:10 ◼   ► how does the game work, but sort of the, I don't know, I don't know if it's the spirit

01:09:17 ◼   ► of the game, but like Mario is about running and jumping.

01:09:22 ◼   ► That you are exercising your athletic ability, this little character, who's going to navigate

01:09:29 ◼   ► the world that's full of hazards, full of things that you touch to kill you, pits that

01:09:32 ◼   ► you fall into, enemies that hurt you when they touch you, and you are running and jumping.

01:09:38 ◼   ► I feel like Mario 3D captured more than any game that had tried to do a similar thing

01:09:45 ◼   ► before it, and it's why it's such an important game, captured the fun of running and jumping.

01:09:51 ◼   ► What is fun about running around and jumping?

01:09:54 ◼   ► And yes, it's totally different.

01:09:55 ◼   ► You're in 3D space, the whole rules of the world are different.

01:09:58 ◼   ► It's not like you live if you're traveling downward on the enemy, but if you're traveling

01:10:02 ◼   ► upward, you die.

01:10:03 ◼   ► all the mechanics of the old game, every rule system,

01:10:07 ◼   ► every sort of how it controls in the air, how run works,

01:10:11 ◼   ► holding down B to run, like all that stuff went away

01:10:12 ◼   ► and was replaced with something entirely different.

01:10:14 ◼   ► And yet I still feel like this is a game

01:10:16 ◼   ► about the joy of running and jumping.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Same thing with Zelda, which was about exploring a world,

01:10:22 ◼   ► big, scary, dangerous world that you don't understand

01:10:24 ◼   ► that goes on for a long distance

01:10:27 ◼   ► that you have to slowly discover the mysteries of

01:10:30 ◼   ► and collect items and become more powerful

01:10:32 ◼   ► and eventually solve a mystery and defeat an enemy and complete a story.

01:10:38 ◼   ► And the change to 3D was like, "You thought exploring was fun in 2D?

01:10:43 ◼   ► It's even more fun when it's 3D with better graphics."

01:10:46 ◼   ► And Breath of the Wild says, "You thought it was fun exploring?"

01:10:49 ◼   ► Like the idea of exploring, well, this world is humongous, and your exploring is no longer

01:10:54 ◼   ► constrained in the way it used to be.

01:10:57 ◼   ► those games feel like, yes, Zelda is about exploration and conquest and mystery and,

01:11:05 ◼   ► you know, defeating an enemy and story. And that's the through line I see, even though

01:11:11 ◼   ► mechanically speaking the game is varied a lot. So I think it really depends on what

01:11:16 ◼   ► you were, what part of the game you were there for. If you were there for the mechanics and

01:11:21 ◼   ► the mechanics change, well, it's like, well, this is a different game. But if you were

01:11:23 ◼   ► there for the joy of running and jumping and this new game in 3D even more thoroughly embodies

01:11:30 ◼   ► the joy of running and jumping that you will like the 3D games.

01:11:34 ◼   ► So obviously, you know, beside of that I'm on and that I think I'm at the point where

01:11:38 ◼   ► I can say I didn't even like the mechanics of the 2D ones.

01:11:41 ◼   ► That was the best incarnation of a game that made it, you know, that you got to experience

01:11:46 ◼   ► the fun of running around and jumping.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And then when they went to 3D I just discarded the 2D.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I'm like, well, I get more of that here.

01:11:52 ◼   ► But if you like the 2D mechanics, the 3D one has nothing for you and you're just waiting

01:11:55 ◼   ► for the 2.5D games.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Did you guys play F-Zero on the Super Nintendo?

01:12:00 ◼   ► Oh yeah, of course.

01:12:01 ◼   ► I'm mostly looking at Marco.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Or on the N64, frame-locked at 60 frames per second.

01:12:05 ◼   ► Yeah, it looked awesome at 60 frames per second.

01:12:07 ◼   ► There were basically no polygons, but it looked awesome.

01:12:11 ◼   ► That's the right trade-off for that game.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I love that game so darn much.

01:12:19 ◼   ► My goodness did I love that game.

01:12:20 ◼   ► I will say though, like I one of the reasons why I've always liked Wipeout and Mario Kart is that

01:12:25 ◼   ► Racing games are fun, but racing games with weapons are a lot more fun

01:12:29 ◼   ► And that was one thing I was missed with F-Zero like it was like I enjoyed going really fast and stuff

01:12:34 ◼   ► But I wanted to occasionally be able to fire a missile at Casey and I couldn't do that

01:12:38 ◼   ► And speaking of

01:12:43 ◼   ► Games like so we were playing plus

01:12:44 ◼   ► I'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

01:12:49 ◼   ► but that he said he tried and didn't like, which is Breath of the Wild as essentially

01:12:53 ◼   ► a party game. We had some company over and we had like, you know, a couple of adults

01:12:58 ◼   ► and their kids and all of us just sitting in the same room playing Breath of the Wild,

01:13:04 ◼   ► which is a single player game, together as a party game. Because, especially if you have

01:13:10 ◼   ► someone who's, you have the person who's ostensibly controlling the game, but then you have an

01:13:14 ◼   ► entire room full of people who have opinions about what should be done next or what you

01:13:18 ◼   ► should try or just you know laughing at the results of the most recent experiment because

01:13:23 ◼   ► even just playing breath of the wild single player is a constant series of distractions just try

01:13:27 ◼   ► progressing the story quest you can't do it because it's like oh what's that over there

01:13:30 ◼   ► oh what's this oh i want to do this and you'll find yourself 20 degrees removed from what you

01:13:34 ◼   ► thought you were doing and you're having fun the whole time if you have a room full of people

01:13:38 ◼   ► who are also engaged with that even though none of them are actually playing telling you spotting

01:13:42 ◼   ► something out of the corner of their eye you didn't see or getting excited about something

01:13:45 ◼   ► that happened or giving you a suggestion about something to try, it worked very well. Maybe

01:13:49 ◼   ► it wouldn't work well as you get deep into the game and people start to suss out what

01:13:53 ◼   ► the mechanics are, but for a room full of people, half of which had never even seen

01:13:57 ◼   ► Breath of the Wild, it was hilarious and fun and the most fun I've had "playing a video

01:14:02 ◼   ► game in a large group" even though one person had the controller and it was not me in a

01:14:06 ◼   ► long time. And that's what I was suggesting Marco do when Tiff is playing but apparently

01:14:12 ◼   ► he's still just bored and falls asleep and Adam is her co-pilot.

01:14:15 ◼   ► - Well, to be honest, Marco's about to fall asleep anyway.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - That's true, for different reasons.

01:14:20 ◼   ► - This was before he went to Ireland,

01:14:22 ◼   ► he was still falling asleep on the couch.

01:14:23 ◼   ► He's an old man, he's got a beard now.

01:14:25 ◼   ► He just like put him on the couch and three seconds later,

01:14:27 ◼   ► his eyes are closed and he's snoring.

01:14:29 ◼   ► And then you wake up, he says,

01:14:30 ◼   ► "I was just resting my eyes."

01:14:31 ◼   ► - Thanks to our three sponsors this week,

01:14:33 ◼   ► Betterment, Jamf, and MailRoute,

01:14:36 ◼   ► and we will see you next week.

01:14:38 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:14:40 ◼   ► ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:14:43 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:14:45 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:14:51 ◼   ► John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:14:55 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:15:01 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:15:06 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

01:15:11 ◼   ► at 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,

01:15:25 ◼   ► U-S-A, Syracuse. It's accidental. They didn't mean to. Accidental. Tech podcast so long.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Let's talk about something really important.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Let's talk about WWDC lunches in indescribable detail.

01:15:49 ◼   ► So this came up a couple of shows ago. I forget exactly how,

01:15:54 ◼   ► but I guess it was when we were talking about the change from Moscone to, um,

01:15:59 ◼   ► wherever we are in San Jose.

01:16:01 ◼   ► And one of us might've been me brought up the WWDC lunches and I think the two

01:16:08 ◼   ► of you kind of immediately pooh-poohed them, and I said, "Oh, really? They're not that

01:16:12 ◼   ► bad." And I think Jon made a joke about, "Oh, we should talk about that in great detail

01:16:15 ◼   ► another time," and it turns out Jon wasn't entirely joking. And a better man would not

01:16:24 ◼   ► bring this up and say it's a stupid idea, but I am not that man, and I am anxious to

01:16:28 ◼   ► talk about WWDC launches in great detail. So I have scoured the internet.

01:16:34 ◼   ► So just to be clear, we are talking about

01:16:37 ◼   ► the Conference Center box lunches

01:16:40 ◼   ► for an event that is no longer happening

01:16:43 ◼   ► in that Conference Center, and will no longer have

01:16:45 ◼   ► this particular box lunch series,

01:16:47 ◼   ► and also the event itself is not happening

01:16:50 ◼   ► for another almost two months from now.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And this is what we're talking about right now.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Oh, I love you guys so much.

01:16:56 ◼   ► - Two shows worth of Mac Pro stuff made Casey willing

01:16:59 ◼   ► to talk about literally anything else.

01:17:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:17:01 ◼   ► - Literally anything.

01:17:03 ◼   ► or since I've just finished Parks and Rec,

01:17:05 ◼   ► I will talk about literally anything right now

01:17:07 ◼   ► other than the Mac Pro.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Anyway, so John, why don't you tell us

01:17:10 ◼   ► about WWDC box launches?

01:17:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this came up in the talking about the conference

01:17:17 ◼   ► and the things that are good and bad about it.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Maybe you were talking about Ottawa and stuff like that.

01:17:22 ◼   ► And here's the thing about WWDC,

01:17:23 ◼   ► it's an expensive conference, it's expensive to put on.

01:17:25 ◼   ► I'm sure it's in an expensive city.

01:17:27 ◼   ► Things in conference centers,

01:17:29 ◼   ► if you've never put on a conference yourself

01:17:30 ◼   ► talk to anybody who has are absurdly expensive, much more expensive than you think they are

01:17:35 ◼   ► because there's a lot of other costs built into them. Apple usually has, I think, in

01:17:40 ◼   ► general pretty good food and drink options, especially considering the scale. I mean,

01:17:47 ◼   ► granted it's not like 50,000 people like a, you know, a really giant convention, but 5,000

01:17:51 ◼   ► people is nothing to sneeze at. If you're trying to give snacks and drinks to 5,000

01:17:55 ◼   ► people it's really easy to cheap out and Apple in general tries to do better. They have like

01:17:59 ◼   ► donuts and danishes which are you know reasonable quality donuts and danishes some of them I

01:18:04 ◼   ► actually like like Marco mentioned is usually one that's really good I think a lot of them

01:18:06 ◼   ► are actually really good I have no idea how the coffee is because I don't drink it.

01:18:10 ◼   ► The bagels are garbage.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Well you know San Francisco come on.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Obviously.

01:18:15 ◼   ► You can't get bagels on the west coast.

01:18:18 ◼   ► For the drinks when they had Odd Wall, Odd Wall is a fairly expensive I think high quality

01:18:22 ◼   ► beverage it's not like they're putting out RC Cola for everybody right apologies to the

01:18:26 ◼   ► RC fans.

01:18:28 ◼   ► So I think as far as conference goes, they're certainly not really the top of the heap.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Maybe they're not even above average for these things I just listed, but they're about average.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I've definitely been to conferences that have much better food, but also much, much worse.

01:18:42 ◼   ► So I think they're doing okay for all those things.

01:18:44 ◼   ► By the way, all those things, and also fresh fruit and other stuff that you get out in

01:18:47 ◼   ► the hallways, pretty good.

01:18:49 ◼   ► Also probably astronomically expensive if you were to add up like, "How much does this

01:18:52 ◼   ► one muffin I picked up cost Apple?"

01:18:54 ◼   ► You know, "Oh great, $27 for this muffin?

01:18:56 ◼   ► Yum, yum, yum."

01:18:57 ◼   ► any better, but just to get the scale of the cost here.

01:19:00 ◼   ► It's much more expensive than you think.

01:19:03 ◼   ► But then we come to the lunches.

01:19:05 ◼   ► And the lunches are not at any different scale than anything else, because when they put

01:19:09 ◼   ► out like those snack foods and the things like when you're lining up to get into Presidio

01:19:12 ◼   ► for the keynote, every one of those 5,000 people or however many people are there take

01:19:17 ◼   ► something from there.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Like the food goes.

01:19:19 ◼   ► It's not as if it's, you know, the lunch is 10 times bigger than the snacks.

01:19:24 ◼   ► They put out enough snacks and enough drinks for all the people who are in the conference

01:19:27 ◼   ► if they wanted them.

01:19:28 ◼   ► And so lunch is the same deal.

01:19:29 ◼   ► A lot of people go out to lunch,

01:19:30 ◼   ► so it's the same kind of ratio.

01:19:32 ◼   ► I'm not sure what happens for the lunch food

01:19:36 ◼   ► because it's the same problem.

01:19:38 ◼   ► How do you feed a reasonable quality product

01:19:40 ◼   ► to a large group of people?

01:19:42 ◼   ► So you have all the same problems of scale

01:19:45 ◼   ► and packaged food versus freshly made,

01:19:49 ◼   ► all the same problems.

01:19:52 ◼   ► And yet somehow, for lunch in particular,

01:19:56 ◼   ► They blow it. They are well below average.

01:20:00 ◼   ► Even below Apple's own average, for example, if you have ever been to an Apple Tech Talk,

01:20:05 ◼   ► I think the food at the Tech Talks is better than this lunch food.

01:20:09 ◼   ► Maybe because it's not... I think even the lunches are. They have similar little box lunches.

01:20:12 ◼   ► So anyway, this is what the lunch is like. You line up with everybody else,

01:20:16 ◼   ► and you go across a big series of tables. They do a good job with traffic flow.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Like, you know, the lines move, it's massively distributed.

01:20:23 ◼   ► it's a parallel architecture, kind of like Altavec for the old folks, you know.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Single instruction, multiple developer. Huh? Huh? All right. And there's lots of tables with maybe

01:20:34 ◼   ► three choices. You got the chicken, the beef, and the vegetarian option. And there's a bunch of

01:20:39 ◼   ► plastic, clear plastic boxes that have three areas in them. There's the main area where they're going

01:20:45 ◼   ► to put the main part of your lunch. There's one little corner of the thing that is kind of like

01:20:48 ◼   ► a deserty thing and then there's like a side dish thing. And somehow they managed to find

01:20:55 ◼   ► the most inappropriate things to put inside this vessel. Their most common failure mode

01:21:03 ◼   ► is to pick something that needs to be crispy or dry in some way and to put it inside this

01:21:11 ◼   ► container that traps moisture so that whatever your sandwich or piece of bread or whatever

01:21:15 ◼   ► thing is sitting in is next to some wet side dish or something that seeps into the bread

01:21:19 ◼   ► and there's nothing worse than picking up a sandwich that has been sitting there in

01:21:22 ◼   ► liquid for a long period of time before you got to it.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Same thing with any kind of bread that requires freshness or staleness or whatever, not being

01:21:30 ◼   ► stale to be good, that is the crux of making this dish good and you get it with some kind

01:21:34 ◼   ► of styrofoam like bread substance on it or putting spreads on like putting like mustard

01:21:41 ◼   ► or mayonnaise or other kind of wet spreads on the bread, but putting them directly against

01:21:45 ◼   ► the bread instead of in between the layers so they soak into the bread.

01:21:49 ◼   ► And for the side dishes, there's not much you can do with side dishes because it's got

01:21:53 ◼   ► to be – it's room temperature.

01:21:54 ◼   ► It's not hot.

01:21:55 ◼   ► But they will very often put side dishes that should be hot in a room temperature container,

01:22:00 ◼   ► which is the wrong thing to be putting there.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And the desserts, like that's such an easy win.

01:22:04 ◼   ► Just give us a damn chocolate chip cookie.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Put a piece of chocolate cake in there.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Like it's not hard.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Like these things keep – you know, you can buy prepackaged ones.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Put two Chips Ahoy in.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Like you would kill, at a certain point,

01:22:13 ◼   ► you would kill for a Chips Ahoy.

01:22:14 ◼   ► And instead these are like these handmade,

01:22:18 ◼   ► like supposed to be sugary sweet confections

01:22:21 ◼   ► that are, it tastes like, you know,

01:22:24 ◼   ► tastes like ashes in your mouth.

01:22:25 ◼   ► Like they're just terrible little squares

01:22:29 ◼   ► of potentially sweet thing.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Again, also alternately stale and soggy.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And there's no reason for this.

01:22:35 ◼   ► There's no reason to try to make an artisanal,

01:22:37 ◼   ► perfect, beautiful, complicated, sophisticated thing.

01:22:40 ◼   ► You gotta put in foods that taste good and will keep.

01:22:42 ◼   ► And that's what they do on the outside.

01:22:43 ◼   ► Like donuts keep, danishas keep, right?

01:22:45 ◼   ► A banana keeps, odd wall in the container keeps.

01:22:48 ◼   ► But when it comes to lunch,

01:22:50 ◼   ► I feel like they're trying to make

01:22:51 ◼   ► like these beautifully prepared chef dishes

01:22:54 ◼   ► and then shove them into plastic

01:22:55 ◼   ► and let them just stew there.

01:22:56 ◼   ► And it is a terrible, terrible experience.

01:22:59 ◼   ► And I say this as someone who has had

01:23:01 ◼   ► probably more box lunches on average

01:23:03 ◼   ► than most attendees who WVDC.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Because I get the box lunch pretty much every day

01:23:08 ◼   ► I don't want to go out and have to come back. I just want to run down there quickly, get my lunch, eat it,

01:23:12 ◼   ► and then go get in line for the next thing. So I eat all these things, but

01:23:16 ◼   ► sometimes even I, with, you know, in a hurry to be utilitarian, just can't make it.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Just 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,

01:23:26 ◼   ► that's, no, that's it.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I'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

01:23:33 ◼   ► the top half, or, and I wish I could remember, I should have recorded these in film, sometimes they don't do sandwiches,

01:23:37 ◼   ► sometimes there's other kind of lunch things.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Sometimes it's just literally inedible.

01:23:40 ◼   ► It's like, there's no food to be had here.

01:23:43 ◼   ► This was, I don't know what this is even supposed to be.

01:23:46 ◼   ► - Here be dragons.

01:23:47 ◼   ► - Tastes terrible, it looks terrible.

01:23:49 ◼   ► It has to be eaten with a fork out of this little container.

01:23:52 ◼   ► And I feel like I'm on like a spaceship eating

01:23:53 ◼   ► one of those, you know,

01:23:54 ◼   ► space food that comes out of a tube or something, so.

01:23:57 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

01:23:58 ◼   ► - This topic was so worth it.

01:23:59 ◼   ► - Anyway. - The funny thing is,

01:24:00 ◼   ► I actually don't think they're that bad.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Like nothing you said is wrong.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I am not disagreeing with anything you said.

01:24:05 ◼   ► I just think I'm less bothered by it.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Generally speaking, I find the sandwiches

01:24:09 ◼   ► to be perfectly acceptable.

01:24:11 ◼   ► They are not great.

01:24:12 ◼   ► I'm even hard-pressed to say they're good.

01:24:15 ◼   ► They're just fine.

01:24:17 ◼   ► I don't typically run into the bread sogginess problem,

01:24:21 ◼   ► but again, I agree with what you said,

01:24:22 ◼   ► that they definitely pair things

01:24:24 ◼   ► that will create a bread sogginess vortex,

01:24:28 ◼   ► so you are not wrong.

01:24:30 ◼   ► - And also, the quality of the ingredients

01:24:31 ◼   ► between the bread, whatever they put there,

01:24:34 ◼   ► whether it's a cold cut or a piece of chicken

01:24:36 ◼   ► or some arugula or lettuce,

01:24:37 ◼   ► it's always like the most, the worst form of that.

01:24:41 ◼   ► So if it's chicken, the chicken is just dry as chalk.

01:24:43 ◼   ► If it is lettuce, lettuce is completely wilted.

01:24:46 ◼   ► You know, if it's ham,

01:24:47 ◼   ► the ham tastes like it's entirely made of filler

01:24:49 ◼   ► and like a pig walked by it once.

01:24:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:54 ◼   ► - I can't continue, I'm dead.

01:25:02 ◼   ► I mean, like, so I'm with you Casey,

01:25:03 ◼   ► It's like I don't actually, like,

01:25:06 ◼   ► you know, I've also eaten a lot of these,

01:25:08 ◼   ► not as many as Jon has, 'cause I will usually try

01:25:10 ◼   ► to escape the conference center for lunch

01:25:12 ◼   ► at least a couple of the days.

01:25:14 ◼   ► But I've eaten a good number of them,

01:25:16 ◼   ► and to me, they're always not great,

01:25:21 ◼   ► but they're always better than I expect them to be.

01:25:23 ◼   ► You know, 'cause I look at them

01:25:26 ◼   ► and I have very low expectations,

01:25:27 ◼   ► because they are these like, you know,

01:25:28 ◼   ► mass-produced, clearly well ahead of time,

01:25:31 ◼   ► 'cause usually they're not room temperature,

01:25:32 ◼   ► - And they're cold, like the whole box is cold.

01:25:34 ◼   ► So they were usually, I assume they're sitting in a fridge

01:25:36 ◼   ► for a few hours between preparation.

01:25:39 ◼   ► - Or a couple weeks, you know, whatever.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - Or manufacturing, I guess.

01:25:43 ◼   ► But anyway, they're always to me about the quality

01:25:48 ◼   ► of modern day airplane food on a decent airline.

01:25:54 ◼   ► So it's not as bad as you expect, and actually not that bad,

01:25:59 ◼   ► and it mostly tastes like nothing,

01:26:01 ◼   ► but you don't really care.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Like it tastes, if it has any flavor at all,

01:26:05 ◼   ► the flavor is from like the salad dressing

01:26:08 ◼   ► that they use to moisten the sandwich

01:26:09 ◼   ► and provide some flavor.

01:26:11 ◼   ► Like that's really where all the flavor comes from.

01:26:12 ◼   ► So it just tastes like some cold lettuce and chicken

01:26:16 ◼   ► with a little bit of salad dressing on it.

01:26:18 ◼   ► And that's fine.

01:26:19 ◼   ► - I think the comparison to airplane food is good

01:26:21 ◼   ► because I get that same sense from airplane food

01:26:23 ◼   ► in that it tastes like, it tastes like it's dead.

01:26:25 ◼   ► It tastes like it's from,

01:26:27 ◼   ► no, I was gonna reference the Stephen King story

01:26:29 ◼   ► that neither of you have even heard of

01:26:31 ◼   ► no one who's listening goes red. But anyway, it tastes like all of the sort of life has

01:26:34 ◼   ► been sucked out of it. And an airplane, it's a lot about like you being in different cabin

01:26:38 ◼   ► pressure and recycled air and in a small space and all the other things that make planes

01:26:43 ◼   ► weird, right? But this is on the ground where it looks like a sandwich, but when you bite

01:26:47 ◼   ► it, all you can feel is the texture and there's like literally no taste or if there is taste,

01:26:51 ◼   ► it's a bad taste. And that's what, you know, and the dressing they put on to try to be

01:26:54 ◼   ► fancy that has made the bread all soggy and gross and the bread already wasn't very good.

01:26:58 ◼   ► Like all you get is like the feeling of eating foam rubber and then a momentary tang of the

01:27:04 ◼   ► terrible mustard spread or vinegar thing that they put on it.

01:27:06 ◼   ► And it's a lot like being on the airplane because you buy your $20 sandwich and it's

01:27:11 ◼   ► like you realize the sandwich has become a homogenous solid.

01:27:14 ◼   ► That it is no longer a bunch of individual ingredients.

01:27:17 ◼   ► You bite into it and again all you experience is the varying textures of the things but

01:27:23 ◼   ► nothing has any taste.

01:27:24 ◼   ► - I mean, but I, like, I have never had

01:27:26 ◼   ► as negative a reaction as you have to these.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Like, they've always, you know, usually when I'm eating them

01:27:33 ◼   ► I'm paying attention to what I'm eating

01:27:35 ◼   ► for at most one bite, but I'm also usually like

01:27:38 ◼   ► thinking about what I just saw in sessions

01:27:40 ◼   ► or I'm talking to you guys or other people who are around

01:27:43 ◼   ► or whatever else, and so like, I'm not,

01:27:45 ◼   ► like, before I know it I have consumed the mass

01:27:49 ◼   ► that's in this plastic container

01:27:50 ◼   ► and I have not given a second thought to it.

01:27:52 ◼   ► and I'm drinking some kind of sugary disgusting

01:27:55 ◼   ► iced tea thing or something and it's fine.

01:27:57 ◼   ► - Terrible iced tea, what is it, an ST?

01:27:59 ◼   ► I know some people like that.

01:28:01 ◼   ► - It's lipped and canned iced tea which is full of sugar.

01:28:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, why can't they serve us

01:28:05 ◼   ► a proper carbonated beverage?

01:28:07 ◼   ► Why is that so hard?

01:28:08 ◼   ► Now I shouldn't be that grumpy.

01:28:10 ◼   ► - No, they have other carbonated beverages.

01:28:12 ◼   ► I just don't take them 'cause I don't, like--

01:28:14 ◼   ► - When I'm doing lunch.

01:28:16 ◼   ► - Really bad lemonade is one of their choices

01:28:18 ◼   ► and really bad iced tea is their other choice.

01:28:19 ◼   ► - That's correct.

01:28:20 ◼   ► - Oh, they don't have sodas in there?

01:28:22 ◼   ► - Not during lunch, that's the thing they have.

01:28:24 ◼   ► They'll put them out at snack time,

01:28:25 ◼   ► but they won't do it at,

01:28:26 ◼   ► God, I sound like a four year old.

01:28:28 ◼   ► They'll put it out at snack time.

01:28:29 ◼   ► - They put out the mats for the naps,

01:28:30 ◼   ► that's when they bring it out.

01:28:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, but no, there's no soda during lunch,

01:28:35 ◼   ► which drives me batty, because you're exactly right.

01:28:38 ◼   ► The real issue here is that it's crappy lemonade,

01:28:42 ◼   ► or, well, I don't drink iced tea,

01:28:43 ◼   ► but my understanding is, like you guys said,

01:28:45 ◼   ► it's crappy iced tea.

01:28:46 ◼   ► - I mean, to be fair, I'm not even sure

01:28:48 ◼   ► I would call that iced tea.

01:28:50 ◼   ► It's just a ton of sugar.

01:28:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not sure what the tea flavor is in it.

01:28:55 ◼   ► I mean, it's just like terribly sickly sweet sugary liquid.

01:28:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, it tastes very little like actual iced tea.

01:29:01 ◼   ► It tastes a lot more like,

01:29:02 ◼   ► and like I always grab it thinking like,

01:29:04 ◼   ► I don't want all the sugar of soda.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Let me grab this iced tea.

01:29:07 ◼   ► And of course it has just as much,

01:29:08 ◼   ► if not more sugar as most soda.

01:29:11 ◼   ► And it's every time just like, ugh, it's so sweet.

01:29:14 ◼   ► But no, I mean, I just don't,

01:29:17 ◼   ► I've never found them that offensive.

01:29:18 ◼   ► And I wonder, Jon, are you just making bad choices?

01:29:21 ◼   ► So like normally, when you approach the rows of tables

01:29:25 ◼   ► that have all these on them,

01:29:26 ◼   ► you're usually given about three options

01:29:29 ◼   ► and it'll usually be something along the lines

01:29:30 ◼   ► of like chicken, roast beef, and vegetarian.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Given that choice, Jon, which do you pick?

01:29:36 ◼   ► 'Cause I'll tell you what, I would never pick roast beef.

01:29:39 ◼   ► I would usually, in that case, pick the chicken option.

01:29:43 ◼   ► - All right, well the only one I could say

01:29:44 ◼   ► I pretty much never pick is vegetarian.

01:29:46 ◼   ► I pick vegetarian maybe twice out of like,

01:29:48 ◼   ► you know, the 30 days I've been at WRC so far in my life.

01:29:52 ◼   ► And it has been a terrible mistake every time

01:29:54 ◼   ► because I have not liked them, right?

01:29:56 ◼   ► So for the other choices,

01:29:58 ◼   ► I feel like I've rotated pretty well

01:30:00 ◼   ► because I'm desperately in search of something

01:30:02 ◼   ► I can find edible.

01:30:03 ◼   ► So it's not like I'm saying

01:30:04 ◼   ► if there's chicken and beef always pick beef.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Like I'm about 50/50 on the choices

01:30:09 ◼   ► and I'm not going with what I think I would like better

01:30:12 ◼   ► if both were made well.

01:30:13 ◼   ► I'm entirely going on like eyeballing them and saying,

01:30:17 ◼   ► does that look like it's gonna be,

01:30:18 ◼   ► Like for example, like I've learned it's best for me

01:30:21 ◼   ► to avoid wraps.

01:30:22 ◼   ► So if I have a choice between anything in a wrap

01:30:24 ◼   ► and something not in a wrap, it's best to avoid wraps

01:30:27 ◼   ► because the wraps really emphasize

01:30:30 ◼   ► the homogenous solid thing.

01:30:32 ◼   ► Like whatever the constituent ingredients were,

01:30:34 ◼   ► they wrap it all up, put it together, make it all soggy,

01:30:38 ◼   ► put it in a fridge, and it just becomes this like

01:30:40 ◼   ► giant hunk of cookie dough,

01:30:42 ◼   ► only it doesn't taste like cookies.

01:30:44 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter what they put in it.

01:30:46 ◼   ► And 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.

01:30:56 ◼   ► So in general, I avoid wraps and I would prefer avoiding the wraps over the particular thing in them.

01:31:03 ◼   ► I have learned that chicken is super dangerous if it's thick because it always ends up being very, very dry.

01:31:08 ◼   ► But other than that, I'm willing to give almost anything a try.

01:31:11 ◼   ► I'm willing to believe that this one is going to be the one that is not completely vile.

01:31:15 ◼   ► And most of the time, I can get through it.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Because again, you're just sitting there talking to people or whatever, but I do find myself

01:31:21 ◼   ► briefly distracted while sitting there eating my thing to go, "Oh, this is real.

01:31:25 ◼   ► This is terrible.

01:31:26 ◼   ► I can't even believe this."

01:31:27 ◼   ► Then you just continue going.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Some of the times, I just can't get through it.

01:31:30 ◼   ► Side dishes have the lowest percentage for me.

01:31:32 ◼   ► It's like, it's just a write-off.

01:31:33 ◼   ► I don't pick based on the side dishes.

01:31:34 ◼   ► I assume all the side dishes will be terrible.

01:31:36 ◼   ► That is pretty accurate, to be honest.

01:31:38 ◼   ► That's the thing is, to me, the sandwich to me is usually okay.

01:31:42 ◼   ► I agree that the meat is maybe ham-adjacent rather than ham.

01:31:48 ◼   ► The bread may be a little wetter than you want, but it's edible.

01:31:51 ◼   ► It's usually fine.

01:31:52 ◼   ► But in the dessert, oftentimes I don't care for the particular flavor of the dessert because,

01:31:57 ◼   ► as an example, I don't—and this may not even be accurate—but I don't like cranberries.

01:32:01 ◼   ► So maybe it's like a cranberry-based dessert.

01:32:02 ◼   ► And so that's a Casey problem, not a dessert problem.

01:32:05 ◼   ► But the side dish tends to be pretty esoteric in my personal opinion, and I agree with you

01:32:11 ◼   ► probably four times out of five just gets written off.

01:32:13 ◼   ► - The one thing with the side dish to me is that,

01:32:16 ◼   ► so it is also the same general formula of like,

01:32:20 ◼   ► we'll take some bland ingredients and we will apply

01:32:22 ◼   ► some kind of salad dressing to them to generate flavor.

01:32:26 ◼   ► The main problem I have with the side dishes,

01:32:28 ◼   ► I almost always actually enjoy them,

01:32:31 ◼   ► but they always taste completely unexpected

01:32:34 ◼   ► from how I thought they should taste

01:32:36 ◼   ► based on how they looked.

01:32:37 ◼   ► 'Cause like whatever pairings they make

01:32:40 ◼   ► between the salad dressing or whatever is given the flavor

01:32:43 ◼   ► and the ingredients in them,

01:32:45 ◼   ► it looks nothing like it tastes.

01:32:47 ◼   ► And again, it's usually good enough, I usually like it,

01:32:50 ◼   ► but I'm always shocked by what is in my mouth

01:32:53 ◼   ► after I've seen it.

01:32:55 ◼   ► - I also have, I think one of the things

01:32:56 ◼   ► that makes me predisposed to not like most of these things

01:33:00 ◼   ► is especially for things like side dishes,

01:33:04 ◼   ► like I said, very often they will put things in side dishes

01:33:06 ◼   ► I expect to be served not cold or not at room temperature.

01:33:10 ◼   ► So any rice-based side dish.

01:33:13 ◼   ► I know plenty of people like rice at room temperature or there are rice dishes that

01:33:17 ◼   ► are at room temperature, but when I see a rice-based side dish, I don't expect it to

01:33:22 ◼   ► be cold.

01:33:24 ◼   ► I don't want to eat cold rice, period, no matter what is in it.

01:33:28 ◼   ► And same thing for things like potato salad can be cold, which is fine, but depending

01:33:35 ◼   ► and what if they make a side dish that looks like it's like roast potatoes? I don't want

01:33:39 ◼   ► room temperature roast potatoes. Who wants room temperature roast? But never mind that

01:33:43 ◼   ► the potatoes are probably not good the second they came out of the oven. But certainly after

01:33:46 ◼   ► sitting in that little container stewing in a little steamy, you know, Dagobah pit inside

01:33:50 ◼   ► there, you don't want those roast potatoes. And Marco's totally right about that. They

01:33:58 ◼   ► taste weirder than you think because they're not, you can't categorize them. That's why

01:34:01 ◼   ► very often the most pertinent question at any WWC lunch table is, "What is the side dish?" Like,

01:34:06 ◼   ► you can't categorize it. You can't say, "It's green beans. It's potato salad. It's corn."

01:34:11 ◼   ► It's like, sometimes it's a puzzle just to say, "Forget about giving a name to this thing. Let's

01:34:15 ◼   ► just take for granted this has no name. Can you identify the constituent ingredients?"

01:34:19 ◼   ► There's a green thing, there's a white thing, and there's a yellow thing. Everyone, what do you

01:34:24 ◼   ► think the yellow thing is? Is it squash? Is it potato? Is it onion? You have to put it in your

01:34:29 ◼   ► your mouth and you're like I'm still not sure because it's covered in some weird

01:34:33 ◼   ► liquid or something I seem to recall one that was like chopped up celery and then

01:34:39 ◼   ► like cubes of cucumber and like onions with like a green sprinkly stuff on it

01:34:49 ◼   ► and then like a cream based dressing it's like you're just making stuff up

01:34:53 ◼   ► Like, it's not, that's not anything. I don't know, I don't know what that's supposed to be.

01:34:57 ◼   ► And yeah, like, it's, I never know what they're going to taste like. I can't predict which ones

01:35:02 ◼   ► I'm going to even be able to tolerate, but it's usually a lot of them as one forkful and then

01:35:06 ◼   ► it's like, never mind. That's why you save snacks. By the way, pro tip, that's why in the morning

01:35:13 ◼   ► when they have the good danishes and stuff, find a way to successfully save those in your backpack

01:35:18 ◼   ► without them destroying all your stuff, like piece of Tupperware or something.

01:35:21 ◼   ► You put the snacks in your purse.

01:35:22 ◼   ► I don't, but I should.

01:35:24 ◼   ► What I do is I save bananas,

01:35:26 ◼   ► 'cause they are, I don't have a container like that,

01:35:28 ◼   ► but I would love to be able to save donuts or danishes,

01:35:30 ◼   ► 'cause those are good, right?

01:35:32 ◼   ► Instead, what I end up saving are bananas,

01:35:33 ◼   ► 'cause they come with their own wrapper

01:35:34 ◼   ► and you can put them in your backpack in general.

01:35:36 ◼   ► Just don't forget they're in there.

01:35:37 ◼   ► If you take a banana and save it

01:35:39 ◼   ► so you have desperation food at lunch,

01:35:41 ◼   ► do not forget that banana is in there,

01:35:42 ◼   ► because if you leave it for a few days

01:35:44 ◼   ► at the bottom of your backpack

01:35:45 ◼   ► that you're sliding your MacBook in and out of,

01:35:46 ◼   ► it's a bad scene.

01:35:47 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

01:35:48 ◼   ► - Never, has never happened to me,

01:35:49 ◼   ► but I'm very conscious of it.

01:35:51 ◼   ► - You know, I'm a little sad that, well,

01:35:54 ◼   ► I wasn't able to go to this place last year

01:35:56 ◼   ► 'cause it had shut down, I think, in 2015.

01:36:00 ◼   ► But what was the name of that?

01:36:02 ◼   ► Oh, Witchcraft, I think it was.

01:36:03 ◼   ► - Witchcraft, yeah.

01:36:04 ◼   ► I mean, the good thing is, it's a chain.

01:36:05 ◼   ► You can get them all over the place,

01:36:07 ◼   ► but just not there anymore.

01:36:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was a really good witchcraft

01:36:09 ◼   ► that was right around the corner that I liked.

01:36:11 ◼   ► I would typically go and meet a buddy from Apple

01:36:14 ◼   ► or someone else that was local at Witchcraft

01:36:16 ◼   ► one of the days during lunch.

01:36:18 ◼   ► There's also a burger place

01:36:19 ◼   ► that I've been to a couple times.

01:36:21 ◼   ► god I'm drawing a blank the name of it. There's a couple of them that are close to Moscone.

01:36:25 ◼   ► Again they're obviously a chain and so I'm sure they exist other places too. But there's

01:36:30 ◼   ► some sort of burger place, Super Duper, that is right down the road from Moscone that's

01:36:35 ◼   ► very good as well. I always think of Dave Naney when I see it. Like, "Hey, it's that

01:36:39 ◼   ► backup burger." Backup burger? Super Duper, the backup program. Oh, I get it, I get it,

01:36:44 ◼   ► I get it. I'm an idiot. I think I took a picture of that sign to send him last time I was there.

01:36:50 ◼   ► So yeah, so anyway, so I'm kind of bummed that I may not have the chance to eat at any

01:36:53 ◼   ► of those places.

01:36:54 ◼   ► And like I said, witchcraft had already shut down, which I don't get because it was so

01:36:58 ◼   ► tasty.

01:36:59 ◼   ► But anyway, but yeah, I typically eat the lunches.

01:37:03 ◼   ► I think I'm in the same boat as Marco in that I do go out from time to time, but I do generally

01:37:09 ◼   ► eat the lunches probably three days out of five.

01:37:13 ◼   ► And I don't find myself deeply offended by them.

01:37:16 ◼   ► I would not say they're good.

01:37:17 ◼   ► I would not say they're great.

01:37:19 ◼   ► but I would not necessarily say they're actively bad.

01:37:21 ◼   ► They just kind of exist.

01:37:23 ◼   ► What did they say about the Mac Mini?

01:37:25 ◼   ► Like it's a product in our lineup.

01:37:27 ◼   ► This is a lunch that is in Moscone.

01:37:29 ◼   ► - I'm with you Casey.

01:37:30 ◼   ► I was very happy with that.

01:37:32 ◼   ► Like I will, no, I would say very happy.

01:37:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:37:35 ◼   ► I was consistently satisfied by them.

01:37:37 ◼   ► Like and that was one thing they had,

01:37:38 ◼   ► one thing they had, and this is what you need.

01:37:40 ◼   ► If you're gonna be in the business of mass lunch,

01:37:42 ◼   ► what you need is consistency and like minimum acceptability.

01:37:46 ◼   ► And I think they delivered that.

01:37:48 ◼   ► Like they were never great, but I'd never had one

01:37:52 ◼   ► where I was just like, oh, this is disgusting,

01:37:53 ◼   ► I can't eat this.

01:37:54 ◼   ► Like it was always fine.

01:37:56 ◼   ► Often weird, but always fine.

01:37:58 ◼   ► - I didn't know that you both had such a high opinion

01:38:01 ◼   ► of this because--

01:38:02 ◼   ► - Well, it's not that we have a high opinion.

01:38:04 ◼   ► - If we're ever in WWC together again,

01:38:06 ◼   ► and if we ever have lunch with this cow again,

01:38:08 ◼   ► I don't want to interrogate you in real time

01:38:10 ◼   ► to say that thing that you're eating,

01:38:12 ◼   ► let us discuss it in detail right now

01:38:14 ◼   ► because my opinion of it is that,

01:38:17 ◼   ► I think they are pretty consistent.

01:38:19 ◼   ► They were consistently below average for me.

01:38:23 ◼   ► There were no highlights.

01:38:25 ◼   ► I can think of that one time they had the really good lunch.

01:38:27 ◼   ► I can't think of that at all.

01:38:28 ◼   ► They were always below average,

01:38:29 ◼   ► and it was just a question of how low.

01:38:31 ◼   ► Like, none of them gave me food poisoning,

01:38:33 ◼   ► so I'm not gonna say they're super terrible.

01:38:35 ◼   ► - That's good, yeah.

01:38:37 ◼   ► - That's a high bar.

01:38:38 ◼   ► - Well, I'm pretty sure we found our live venue

01:38:40 ◼   ► for our next--

01:38:41 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, if ever there was a purpose

01:38:43 ◼   ► for Periscope, if ever there was a purpose for Periscope,

01:38:46 ◼   ► It's that moment when we're all together

01:38:49 ◼   ► and we're discussing how bad the WWDC launches are.

01:38:52 ◼   ► - And we're trying to guess what the side dish is.

01:38:54 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, exactly.

01:38:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:38:57 ◼   ► - It's a new spinoff podcast, Guess the Side Dish.

01:38:59 ◼   ► What is this?

01:39:01 ◼   ► - Right, like everyone's talking,

01:39:02 ◼   ► like Underscore's telling us about all the limitations

01:39:05 ◼   ► of all the new APIs that he has already found.

01:39:08 ◼   ► And we're all trying to figure out

01:39:09 ◼   ► what the heck this side dish is that we're eating.

01:39:11 ◼   ► - So true.

01:39:12 ◼   ► - And then if we ever figure it out

01:39:14 ◼   ► and identify the ingredients,

01:39:15 ◼   ► then we have to come up with a name for it.

01:39:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is actually, this has legs,

01:39:19 ◼   ► we should run with this.

01:39:21 ◼   ► But in true San Franciscan style,

01:39:23 ◼   ► they just serve the minimum viable lunch,

01:39:26 ◼   ► and that's what you get.

01:39:27 ◼   ► (beeping)