0:00:00We're gonna have this exact same conversation about the goddamn Mac Pro whenever that gets refreshed.
0:00:04We have much more conversation.
0:00:06It's not gonna be a new Mac Pro, it's just gonna be a fancier iMac, it'll be a short conversation.
0:00:10It'll be fine, and we'll buy one anyway, and that'll be that.
0:00:13I agree with most of what you just said, except it'll be a short conversation.
0:00:16Yeah, thank you, Marco. Completely agree.
0:00:19It'll last a show or two, I'm just saying, it's not like we're gonna be obsessing over it.
0:00:22A show or two? It'll last a month or two!
0:00:24Well, I guess what we'll do is we'll go back to talking about the Mac Pro and they're like, okay fine
0:00:28So they did this iMac thing
0:00:30But now let's complain more about why they should actually do a real Mac Pro remember when they used to sell a professional computer
0:00:3515 shows later. So I think we finally wrap that up
0:00:39But we won't be talking about the iMac the iMac Pro will be will take care of in a show or two
0:00:45That's true. And then and then one more show when we all get ours, but then mostly we'll go back to complaining about it
0:00:50Seriously, you're not really making the Mac Pro anymore, especially if they don't say they're not making and they keep selling the old one
0:00:55That'll be awesome. They come up with the new iMac at WWDC
0:00:57It's got a Z on it, but they keep selling the old Mac Pro. It'll be like, what are you doing?
0:01:01What is it going through your head? Here's a question. Do you think on?
0:01:05January 1st 2018 the 2013 Mac Pro will still be for sale. No, absolutely not. I vote yes. I
0:01:15I would, if I had to pick I would vote no, but it's not as big of a, it's not as sure
0:01:20of a thing as I would hope it would be as I think about it.
0:01:22You want to bet five bucks?
0:01:24I'm not betting you any money.
0:01:27I'm guessing January 1st, 2018 it's still for sale.
0:01:30I'll take your five dollar bet.
0:01:32Yeah, all right, it's a deal.
0:01:34Because I think it's close.
0:01:35That's why it's an interesting bet.
0:01:36Because I think they'll introduce an iMac Pro and they'll be like, "And this is the
0:01:40replacement for the Mac Pro."
0:01:42That's how I think it will be positioned,
0:01:43and it will finally give them cover
0:01:45to can that stupid machine, to can the can.
0:01:47- So my primary bet is that this is still for sale,
0:01:52that the 2013 Trash Can Mac Pro is still for sale
0:01:55on January 1st.
0:01:57My secondary bet, which I guess I probably
0:01:59won't put money on, but my secondary bet
0:02:02is that during the entire year of 2017,
0:02:04they won't actually address this issue publicly.
0:02:07They won't even say anything of substance
0:02:10about any kind of future Pro desktop hardware.
0:02:13That basically, this year will come and go
0:02:16with no changes to the Mac Pro
0:02:18in either the product line or in announcements.
0:02:21- But what if they make an iMac Pro,
0:02:22does that count as them saying something?
0:02:25- I think only if they discontinue the Mac Pro.
0:02:27- But what if they say, "This is our new version
0:02:29"for Pro hardware blah blah blah,"
0:02:30but then also keep selling it for the same reason
0:02:31they keep selling everything
0:02:32'cause someone new somewhere wants to buy it?
0:02:34- Well, I'd still win the primary bet in that case.
0:02:36The secondary bet of whether they have done this,
0:02:38I guess would depend on like, it'd be a little bit vague,
0:02:41it'd be like, is it just like the same processor lines,
0:02:44like the Intel 6700K, whatever.
0:02:47- If it has the word pro in the name,
0:02:49like it's clear what they're talking about is, you know.
0:02:51- But if it's still pretty much an iMac,
0:02:54it would need like a Xeon, and not an E3.
0:02:58The E3 does not count as a Xeon.
0:02:59- Is there an eight core non-Xeon Intel thing?
0:03:03- No, in the future, I think Tipster said a while,
0:03:06but like one of the various lakes, coffee or whatever,
0:03:08one of those, they're supposed to be a six core variant
0:03:11in the series, but if there is like a quote iMac Pro,
0:03:15but it still has the same consumer processor line,
0:03:18that doesn't count to me, that's just an iMac.
0:03:21And yet, 'cause the iMac is fine, the iMac is great,
0:03:23I'm using one now, like there's a lot of reasons
0:03:24to have an iMac, but they can tack Pro on the end
0:03:28and sell it in space gray and charge more,
0:03:31but if it doesn't have a Xeon E5 in there,
0:03:33that's not a Mac Pro.
0:03:35I will argue about it later, but I'm going to bed.
0:03:37- You Mac Pro'd him out, that's it.
0:03:39- Yep, I am tuckered out on the Mac Pro.
0:03:41- It doesn't take much to be fair.
0:03:43- No, it doesn't.
0:03:44(electronic music)
0:03:46So as always, we start with follow up,
0:03:47and Lucas Goosen, I need to look these up before I record.
0:03:52That's okay though.
0:03:53Lucas G., right?
0:03:54He cited an existing app,
0:03:57and we are not going to name that app,
0:03:59that is currently on the iOS App Store,
0:04:02that actually has overlapping windows,
0:04:04Colin Allen also wrote in to say that when he was working at Blackboard, they shipped a multi-window
0:04:10iPad app with gestures. Now, this is a long time ago, from what I can tell. So in Allen's defense,
0:04:16this UI was was modern at the time. Looking at it now is mildly alarming. But there are things that
0:04:25are multi-window on the iPad that exist either in the past or today. So does that change how you
0:04:33feel about things in any way shape or form, Jon?
0:04:36No, because everyone knows there's always things on the App Store that violate guidelines.
0:04:40Like, that's the whole point of the App Store guidelines. If you try to do the little kid thing,
0:04:44"Why does my sister get to have a lollipop?" Yes, there are going to be applications that
0:04:51somehow got by that didn't get flagged and yours gets flagged. Your argument is always with the
0:04:56rule system and not with people who happen to have skated by. I mean, pick a guideline. I guarantee
0:05:01you can find multiple applications on the App Star that violate that guideline.
0:05:05That's just the way it is.
0:05:06But anyway, I like seeing these examples of applications that actually shipped in this
0:05:09way and the world didn't come to an end and also apparently it was not a UI paradigm that
0:05:15was copied by lots of other applications.
0:05:16So I'm not quite sure how successful it was, but I like the idea that a few of them snuck
0:05:20through.
0:05:21I like this better than the idea of millions of apps that send you spam push notifications
0:05:27sneaking through, quote unquote.
0:05:29(laughs)
0:05:31- All right, and then a friend of the show,
0:05:33Stephen Tran Smith, has put together a Swift playground
0:05:37that will let you try the floating keyboard on an iPad.
0:05:42So you would use the Swift playgrounds app on the iPad
0:05:46and run the code that he has put on GitHub, I believe.
0:05:49I intended to try this and then completely forgot about it.
0:05:53But anyway, you can download this,
0:05:54drop it in Swift playgrounds and give it a shot.
0:05:57Have either of you tried this?
0:05:59>> See, I really wish I had, but it slipped my mind.
0:06:02John?
0:06:03>> This is what they get for adding anything resembling a programming environment to iOS,
0:06:07because someone's like, "You know what you can do with a programming language?
0:06:10You can write programs."
0:06:12And you know what those programs do?
0:06:13They execute on your device without going app review, just as if I had uploaded them
0:06:16from Xcode.
0:06:17But I don't have to do that, because I don't have Xcode.
0:06:18I just run this playgrounds file, and so this is all of Apple's worst fears coming true.
0:06:23Oh, no, selector swizzling and private APIs.
0:06:26What will happen?
0:06:27Nothing will happen is the answer.
0:06:28Although I suppose you could probably, you think you could probably, you know, trigger
0:06:33a bug to, you know, I guess you could crash the app obviously, but crashing playgrounds
0:06:39may not be such an achievement.
0:06:40But could you bring down the whole OS by finding some kind of bug or doing something nasty
0:06:47to it?
0:06:48Anyway, that's what programming is, and this is a fun way for people to try it to see if
0:06:52this little keyboard is worth anything.
0:06:54It's kind of weird because you'd want to use it with thumbs like you would on a phone,
0:06:58But you can't reach it with both your thumbs on an iPad.
0:07:01Like that's the whole deal.
0:07:02That it is a tiny little floating keyboard that you can move where you want it to, where
0:07:05you want to put it so it can be out of the way and not take up so much screen space.
0:07:09But you can't type on it with two thumbs.
0:07:13Maybe if you put it in the corner.
0:07:14I don't know.
0:07:15There's no way to use it like you use it on your phone.
0:07:17Although I know a lot of people, myself included, who frequently type with a single thumb on
0:07:22their phones.
0:07:23You ever do that?
0:07:24Where like your one hand is occupied and you're texting something with a single thumb?
0:07:28I'm okay at it.
0:07:29Yeah, I wish I was.
0:07:31The swipe keyboards, I haven't used one in a while.
0:07:33In fact, I just took that keyboard off my phone because I use it so rarely.
0:07:36But the swipe style keyboards, and I think Google's keyboard, Gboard or whatever it's
0:07:41called, supports this.
0:07:42The swipe style keyboards are very good for one-handed use, but I find that I don't use
0:07:47it often enough that I just made it go away.
0:07:50I think I have inappropriate thumb friction for a swipe keyboard because every time I
0:07:55I try them I can't I can't find the right balance of enough pressure to be swiping correctly
0:08:01but not too much pressure that I'm like scrubbing my thumb against like it just I
0:08:06Need to tap item. I'm not a swiper. I remember seeing demos of those keyboard like wow. This is awesome
0:08:11Look at that little line darting from key to key
0:08:13But then when it comes time for my big meaty thumb to do that at this it's it's hopeless
0:08:18So more power to you if it works for you, but I cannot get the swiping to work for me
0:08:22Oh my word. I don't even know what to make about this.
0:08:26We should just move on. Jon, can you tell us about Apple in Education?
0:08:29Got a lot of feedback from people, basically people in education, people who are either
0:08:33teachers or school administrators or people who do IT in education. I tried to pull a
0:08:41few salient points out because a lot of people had very complicated detailed stories about
0:08:45their one situation, but I'm trying to generalize here. So one theme I saw in a lot of the email
0:08:50was the recent, in recent years, push for one device per student, which was not a thing
0:08:55when any of us were in school, like that, not just in the super rich schools, but then
0:08:59in all schools, the ideal is when we're going to buy any kind of computing hardware for
0:09:04students, we want to have one for every single student, which was just not an option in our
0:09:08days because you'd have a computer lab and like each classroom would have like one iMac
0:09:12or two iMacs or something like that, you know, one computer for every student.
0:09:15That wasn't really feasible when computers came with gigantic CRTs and took up a huge
0:09:20amount of room, but now that they're all really small and portable and cheaper, you can pull
0:09:25that off.
0:09:26So the one device per student accounts for an increase in overall volume of computing
0:09:31things that schools buy, which is good for Google in this case because they're selling
0:09:36most of them.
0:09:37We had one report of technology getting more funding than less sexy areas like music and
0:09:45arts which are you know perennially underfunded because tech is sexy.
0:09:50I think one of you brought this up in the last show like the idea that there's money
0:09:53to buy computer stuff because everyone agrees that computers are the future and our kids
0:09:58need computers and like I mean obviously they're the present now but when we were kids it was
0:10:02like oh everyone's gonna learn computers because it's the future and if we get computers in
0:10:05our school everyone feels good about it even though we're not entirely sure if these computers
0:10:09make education better in any possible way but hey at least kids will know computers.
0:10:13There's still some of that in there and it's exciting for all the kids in your school to,
0:10:17you know, get iPads or get laptops or anything like that.
0:10:22And we had a couple of people tell us that although Apple no longer makes education-only
0:10:28models like the big ugly tooth and the EMAC and stuff like that, they do have special
0:10:36configurations of existing devices that like you can't buy in the store but only available
0:10:41for education.
0:10:42also do a thing where they continue to sell devices in education even after they're no
0:10:47longer for sale to consumers. I think the last time I remember them doing that in a
0:10:50big way was the iPad 2 that was like gone for everybody but education could still buy
0:10:54it. So they're still trying to do what they can to give education, there's no real nice
0:10:59way to say this, but like the cheaper, crappier models because every, even the education only
0:11:06models, like how are they different from the regular ones? They were cheaper, which is
0:11:09important, but they were also crappier because how do you get them cheaper? You make them
0:11:12crappier and it always struck me as like a weird bargain because
0:11:16do you want to give a ram starved computer to a school is a school the best equipped to
0:11:24wrangle a computer that is constantly running out of RAM especially in the bad old days without it without even any virtual memory on on max or
0:11:31Without a good virtual memory system anyway, that's less of a concern these days
0:11:35But just to down spec so badly and then put those machines into an environment
0:11:39where
0:11:41The people available to like baby them and coax every ounce of performance out of them
0:11:47like it's not that they don't have time for that.
0:11:49It's much better to give them a computer that sort of works without anyone having to
0:11:54mess with it and if you de-content a computer to use car parlance that's a bad situation.
0:12:00But that's what they want.
0:12:01They want it to be as cheap as possible so Apple will make them very cheap models and
0:12:05now Apple will keep selling you devices long after no person should ever be using them
0:12:09but I guess schools will.
0:12:10I mean, again, I look at the laptop cart into my kid's elementary school, filled with ice
0:12:15books.
0:12:16How old are those?
0:12:17How old is the white plastic iBook?
0:12:19That's an old machine.
0:12:20Like, it was a great machine when it was available, and apparently it was good for education because
0:12:24they aren't all dead, right?
0:12:25I don't know how sturdy.
0:12:26I mean, I'm assuming they're all, like, terribly yellowed and stained and gross from, you know,
0:12:30kids touching them because it was plastic, but, you know, computers last as long as...
0:12:38Until they break, because why would you get rid of them?
0:12:39and they could just continue to try to find something useful to do with them.
0:12:42And on that front, by the way, in terms of tech funding and everything, I live in a place
0:12:48full of rich people, and we have high taxes and we vote ourselves.
0:12:52We have laws in the books that say we can't raise taxes more than X percent per year,
0:12:56and every year they have a vote to say, "If you really want to raise taxes on yourself,
0:13:00vote for this," and every year we vote for it, to bypass the thing, to raise our taxes
0:13:04even more.
0:13:05And despite all that, our public schools, you go into them and from the standards of
0:13:10my own childhood, they're woefully underfunded in every single aspect.
0:13:15Large class sizes, facilities all falling apart, and the vast majority of the computing
0:13:20technology that arrives in the school on a yearly basis is paid for entirely out of the
0:13:23pocket of parents giving money to the school, like voluntarily themselves, just funding
0:13:29like that.
0:13:30That says more about the state of public education funding in our country than it does about
0:13:37things in tech.
0:13:38But comparing it to my childhood when there was a computer lab with a small number of
0:13:42computers and my kids' experience in school where there are more computers but that all
0:13:48of them had to be bought by the rich parents of the students who go to the school, it certainly
0:13:53doesn't seem like we are in an age where it is accepted that schools will all have one
0:13:58device per student everyone will have, at least in elementary school, will have computers
0:14:01for everyone available. It's like, "Oh, you'll have computers if you live in a place where
0:14:04all the parents have enough disposable income to each give hundreds of dollars to the school
0:14:07each year." It's the same way we got a new playground, by the way. "Oh, collect money
0:14:11from all the rich parents." And, you know, we're glad to do it because our kids are going
0:14:14there and we have the money and we pay for it, but it seems like the wrong way to fund
0:14:18public education. Anyway, that's really off topic.
0:14:23It's funny. I probably have told this story once before, but to just reiterate how terrible
0:14:26public education is even in relatively affluent areas. I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut,
0:14:33which at the time, because of other areas of the county, was I believe the most affluent
0:14:38county in the entire country. I lived in a very unremarkable part of it, so it was not
0:14:44quite the same for me, but certainly it was a fairly homogeneous, relatively affluent
0:14:51area. And every year, probably about three quarters of the way through the year, our
0:14:56copier paper, our Xerox paper, was perforated in a very weird way. And curiously, every
0:15:01single page we got said Danbury Hospital Radiology Department on the bottom of it. And that's
0:15:07because the only way we could have copier paper, the only way we could afford it is
0:15:10if the local hospital donated it to us. And it was, I guess, their leftover that they
0:15:16had had perforated in a particular way for their particular use. But we just rolled with
0:15:20it because what other choice did we have? And unlike you guys who are, I guess, better
0:15:24than we were at the time, we would beg to raise taxes just the teeniest, littlest bit
0:15:30to give the schools a little breathing room and every time it was shot down. And even
0:15:33as a kid, it drove me bananas. I don't know. Marco, you're only like a year away from dealing
0:15:39with this, right?
0:15:40Yeah. I mean, kindergarten starts this fall for our kid. So here we go. Have you, for
0:15:45For preschool or for daycare, have you, have they, probably not because that's like privately
0:15:49funded but kindergarten, to see if this is like a nationwide thing or just in certain
0:15:54areas, I was surprised when I first could enter kindergarten that one of the things
0:15:58that teachers would ask for is paper towels and tissues and things like that.
0:16:04It seemed like staples of the classroom, like, "Hey parents," like when I was a kid, when
0:16:08the teachers asked the parents for anything, it was, "Hey parents, have your kids bring
0:16:12in some canned food for a food drive for the needy, right?
0:16:16Instead, my experience with my own children is, "Hey, parents, please bring in boxes
0:16:20of tissues because if you don't, there will be no tissues in the classroom because we
0:16:23have no money for them."
0:16:25Which is like, "Seriously?"
0:16:26These are not frills.
0:16:27Like, "Oh, we want to buy a fancy new iMac every year."
0:16:30It's like, we need literal tissues for kids with boogery noses in kindergarten and there
0:16:35is no money to pay for them.
0:16:37Like, we can put a building that keeps the rain out and we can keep the temperature vaguely
0:16:41within human habitable range, but beyond that, you know, you're on your own, so it's time
0:16:46for everyone to pitch in and make sure that we have tissues and paper towels for kids
0:16:50in the class.
0:16:51Yeah, that's, teachers still buy a lot more than most people know or expect. Teachers
0:16:57still buy these kind of supplies out of their own pocket. It's kind of horrible. You know,
0:17:02teachers all know this, and families of teachers all know this, but most people don't, and
0:17:07kind of sad and you know because it's not like teachers are paid a lot to begin with
0:17:11so like you have these jobs that are already not paid you know what they're worth and then
0:17:16you have the teachers having to buy like basic supplies for their classroom out of their
0:17:19own pockets that that seems so incredibly wrong to me.
0:17:23Yeah, but yeah for those that don't know Erin was a high school teacher in a reasonably
0:17:29affluent area of Richmond until she had Declan and it was expected that at all grade levels
0:17:36every single teacher, and so this is every high school teacher you have, will send home
0:17:41a list, and there was a term for it, and for the life of me I can't remember what the name
0:17:45of it was, but they would send home a list of supplies that every student was expected
0:17:49to get. So every student was expected to bring Aaron like one pack of tissues and one set
0:17:56of like whiteboard markers, because they didn't have blackboards, they had whiteboards, and
0:18:01like a handful of other things. And this was not unusual. This was expected. And our schools,
0:18:06far as I can tell, are reasonably well-funded. I mean, it's not the utter disaster that
0:18:12is happening in many, many, many parts of the country, but even still, there's so
0:18:18big a discrepancy between what teachers need and what teachers can provide and what the
0:18:23schools can provide that they would have the parents bring all this stuff in, too. It was
0:18:27totally bananas, but it's what they had to do.
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0:21:04(upbeat music)
0:21:07- There was a video that came out, I don't know,
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0:21:19And this is at apple.com/ios/home.
0:21:22There'll be a link in the show notes.
0:21:23this is the HomeKit demo promo commercially video thing. And I watched it once when it first came out
0:21:31and I haven't seen it since, but the general gist of it was there's a young woman who wakes up and
0:21:36has her breakfast, which is all automated, and leaves the house, which is all automated,
0:21:40and then eventually comes home, which is all automated, and watches a movie, which is all
0:21:43automated, and reads in bed, which is, I guess, reading in bed, and then turns off her lights,
0:21:47which is automated. And it's all amazing and perfect in every way. And as someone who
0:21:53doesn't really do any of the robots in a cylinder sort of thing.
0:21:59This looked pretty impressive to me.
0:22:01It looked cool.
0:22:02I can't say that I have the fate.
0:22:04I mean, I don't know where I would even get a HomeKit powered thing.
0:22:07As far as I'm concerned, they're still all but vaporware.
0:22:10But apparently they exist because they're all in this lady's house.
0:22:13So I don't know.
0:22:15There's been a little bit of chatter about this.
0:22:17Do you want to tell us about it, Jon?
0:22:19This is a tweet from Scott McNulty on Twitter.
0:22:22I'm not sure if he has all these devices. I know he's got a million Kindles, but I'm
0:22:26not sure if he has all this other stuff. But anyway, he tweeted about it, about this new
0:22:29website that Apple has to promote HomeKit. It was a nice website, but the film just showcases
0:22:33to me how much easier it is to tell Alexa to do all the same things. Because the video
0:22:38shows, for the most part, the person touching big rounded rectangles on iOS devices, whether
0:22:46they be iPads or phone, to do things. There is, hey, see, good morning at the very beginning,
0:22:52speaking to your phone that's on your nightstand and having it set your thing up for the morning,
0:22:56and also later speaking directly into the tiny, horrible Apple TV remote to say, "Okay,
0:23:02it's movie time to start a movie." Although I'm not quite sure what it does if you just
0:23:05say it's movie time to pick a random movie. Anyway, those are both examples of speaking
0:23:13Good morning. It's 9.27 PM.
0:23:15What – I knew I shouldn't have activated that thing that I just said, but I did activate
0:23:22on my phone. I have never had a hoy telephone enabled until very, very recently, and now
0:23:29I'm going to turn –
0:23:32[Laughter]
0:23:33This is all stayed in, by the way. This is totally stayed in.
0:23:35Oh, absolutely.
0:23:35[Laughter]
0:23:36Anyway –
0:23:37Why do you turn that on?
0:23:39I turned it on to see if – I turned it on – as an aside, I turned it on like a week
0:23:43or so ago because I'm like, "Look, everyone else has this on on their phone," and I've
0:23:46had it off for exactly the reason you would think you would have it off because I never
0:23:50wanted to accidentally activate, but very frequently, this gets to the point of this
0:23:54thing. I have a cylinder that listens to me in my home now, and I like the idea that I
0:24:00can just say things into the air, and I'm like, you know what, maybe that kind of relationship
0:24:04with my phone is just there waiting for me, and I've been too stubborn by keeping this
0:24:07feature off since it was introduced, and like literally never turning it on, never even
0:24:10trying it because it just sounded awful to me. So I should really give it a chance. And
0:24:15In this week or two that I've had it on, I have used it consciously about once, and now
0:24:20I have triggered it accidentally once.
0:24:22That's the first time I've ever accidentally triggered it, because what occasion do I have
0:24:24to say that with my phone nearby?
0:24:28But for this video, speaking not to the air, but to a device that you know is nearby, whether
0:24:36it's your remote in your hand or a phone on your nightstand, is to me different than just
0:24:44yelling into the air, not yelling, or just speaking into the air the way you do with
0:24:48the cylinders. And all the other things that are in this video, like a lot of using the
0:24:52home kit thing on control center, the third screen over, whatever the hell it is, maybe
0:24:57it's the second, I don't know, and pressing those rectangles to say, "I'm here, I'm doing
0:25:02this, I want to do that, change to this mode," which is fine, like it's good to have buttons
0:25:05for all this stuff. But like Scott McDulty says in his tweet, anybody who has cylinders
0:25:12it listens to you when you talk in the air, like that is the killer feature. To be able
0:25:15to just stroll around and just say something and have it do things, whether it's asking
0:25:19it to set a timer, or asking it what the weather's going to be tomorrow, or telling it to turn
0:25:24lights on or off, or whatever phrases you enter into the thing, like just getting used
0:25:28to being able to say that, and even for our thing, like the stupid stuff of asking it
0:25:32how to spell things and multiply and divide numbers, like, or define things or say something
0:25:37in a particular language, I don't have to wonder, is my phone in this room? Will it
0:25:42hear me from that distance? Will I be able to hear it? Or if multiple phones in the room
0:25:47and they all have that feature, who's they are not going to say activated on it, will
0:25:50they all wake up and start trying to answer at the same time and everything like that?
0:25:53The cylinders simplify all of this. And so this video, I kind of feel the same way. This
0:25:57video basically says, "Hey, we at Apple have home automation. It's massively less convenient
0:26:03than the cylinders you talk to, but it exists, and if you like tapping buttons, boy, is this
0:26:07a thing for you.
0:26:08And I feel like they're really missing the boat on this type of home automation.
0:26:14And it makes me think once again that as silly as these little cylinders are, everyone who
0:26:18gets one ends up liking it for something.
0:26:23Like they end up liking it more than they thought they would, because it certainly seems
0:26:26pretty dumb.
0:26:28And even if they only use one tiny corner of the functionality, that tiny corner functionality
0:26:32becomes an important part of their life. And that, I think, shows a successful product.
0:26:37So I think Apple not having something like this for such a long time, either because
0:26:42they're coming up with the super duper uber awesome one that's going to be way better
0:26:45than everybody else's and cost twice as much, or because they just think it's a dumb idea,
0:26:50I think they're missing the boat. And this website is like a giant advertisement for
0:26:53them missing the boat.
0:26:54Yeah, because like, you know, as more people get these devices too, like, timing to the
0:26:59the market is kind of important here.
0:27:01There is a significant first mover advantage
0:27:03because once you have a couple of these cylinders
0:27:06in your house from one of the brands that sells them,
0:27:09if Apple's comes out and is just a little bit better,
0:27:13no one's gonna buy it.
0:27:14It has to be massively better to get people
0:27:18who have already bought into these systems to convert over.
0:27:21And right now, I have the Amazon ecosystem.
0:27:25I have a short cylinder in my office
0:27:27and a tall cylinder in the kitchen.
0:27:29And when the Google Home came out,
0:27:31I heard what most people said about it,
0:27:33and I was initially interested,
0:27:36but then once all the reviews came out
0:27:38and basically said, "Yeah, it's fine.
0:27:40"It's just about as good as the Amazon Echo.
0:27:42"It's not massively better or worse.
0:27:44"It's about the same.
0:27:46"Better in some ways, worse in others,
0:27:47"but about the same overall."
0:27:49Then I immediately lost any interest in ever trying it,
0:27:52because I thought, "Well, I already have one.
0:27:54"It's all set up.
0:27:55"I have all my integration set up.
0:27:57I'm habituated to saying its commands and using it to control stuff in my house and
0:28:03play music and stuff. So why would I switch if the other thing is not massively better?
0:28:08And so if Apple comes out with their version of the Amazon Echo or Google Home or whatever
0:28:12else and it's, you know, Siri in a can, like, then it has to be way, way better for me to
0:28:19care and for anyone who's bought any of these devices to care. And I think the chances of
0:28:24that are just not that great. Seeing how Siri actually is and has been today in the competitive
0:28:29landscape and seeing Apple's recent kind of accessory hardware in the $200 range like
0:28:38the Apple TV or them killing the airport base stations. Like seeing their efforts in this
0:28:43kind of area recently, it just doesn't fill me with confidence that if they do one of
0:28:50of these things that it's going to be massively better than what we already have. So it's
0:28:55probably just going to be roughly the same if not worse and as you said twice as expensive
0:29:01probably. So I don't really see that going anywhere. I think the typical Apple, you know,
0:29:08the pattern of sitting back and kind of waiting until everyone has like version 2 and then
0:29:12rolling out the amazing Apple one, that might not work here. I think that might just be
0:29:18more like what we've seen with the Apple TV, which is some people buy it, you know,
0:29:23the really devoted Apple fans buy it, but it doesn't have mass market success because
0:29:30it's just, you know, more expensive than everything else but not better enough, and
0:29:35possibly even not better.
0:29:36The one thing by all accounts that Apple is doing better than its competitors is security.
0:29:41Like being very careful about who they partner with and having very strict requirements on
0:29:45security and privacy. Surely they're better on privacy than Google and Amazon are. Although
0:29:50there was that case where some law enforcement agency was trying to subpoena audio recordings
0:29:56from Amazon Echo or something and Amazon, I think this was Amazon, did fight them on it and said no
0:30:01you can't have our stuff and they're trying to like get that audio classified in a way that it
0:30:05makes it not available without a warrant and all these other things right. So but there are a lot
0:30:10of security implications to all these devices which at this point you just have to accept that
0:30:13you are compromising security in some way by using any of these things. And Apple with HomeKit
0:30:20seems to be trying to avoid silly situations where a vendor integrates with you and does something
0:30:28extremely lax when it comes to security and has some obvious flaw that either makes devices in
0:30:35your houses into botnets or into spy devices and stuff like that. And that's good. Like,
0:30:41good in general is Apple tends to be good on security and privacy, but so far consumers have
0:30:47shown no willingness to value privacy in their purchase decisions. That is not a differentiating,
0:30:54not enough of a differentiating factor. Even in the phone space, Apple is very good on privacy
0:31:01and security with its phones, but I don't think that's why people are buying iPhones. They're
0:31:04buying them because they like iPhones and it's a nice to have and it's a perk or whatever, but
0:31:09people are voting with their wallets by buying, you name it, light bulbs, televisions, cylinders
0:31:14that you talk to with terrible security and privacy that like literally intentionally spy
0:31:19and you record everything you say and do and then sell it to people and everyone's like,
0:31:23"Oh well, whatever, TV works, looks nice." You know, like so it's not that that's how the market
0:31:29is working right now and what can you do if people don't value it? Do we need to change something for
0:31:34people to value it? Do we need a new generation of people in the aftermath of some terrible privacy
0:31:38related thing to deal with this? Are we just happy to leave it to the legal system to say
0:31:43like, "Well, people get hacked and hacking is illegal and if it happens, you know, someone
0:31:48will stop them, someone, someone, but blah, blah, blah, big sky theory, no one cares about
0:31:52what I'm doing anyway, so I'll just buy this Vizio TV and get spied on," or whatever it
0:31:56is, you know? And it's true, it's true of the Google cylinder that I have, it's probably
0:31:59true of the Amazon ones, and it's, you know, we accept it for the trade-offs. Even Marco,
0:32:05famous paranoid privacy advocate who won't put
0:32:08precompiled binaries into his application,
0:32:10is willing to trade devices in his house
0:32:13constantly recording him for the convenience
0:32:15of saying something and have his lights go out at night.
0:32:16- Well, and to be fair, I'm risking my own personal privacy
0:32:21with that one, and then it's very different
0:32:23from risking the privacy of my entire
0:32:26customer base of my app.
0:32:27- You're trading the thing that you can trade,
0:32:29which seems like a fair trade to you.
0:32:31You're like, well, no one really cares about me,
0:32:32and whatever, and I get this convenience,
0:32:35And you weigh them and you're like, well, convenience wins in this case, right?
0:32:39You know, I don't have any of these devices in the house, like I said earlier, and I've
0:32:44only interacted with them a couple of times, and I don't think I get it.
0:32:51Like, it's neat, I suppose, but I don't know.
0:32:56This is like the old man portion of the show, and I'm surprised it took us this long to
0:32:58get here, but I don't really see how getting up and walking a few paces to turn a light
0:33:03So terrible like and I know I know that makes me an old man. I know that makes me backwards and ridiculous
0:33:08I understand you can't write a letter on a piece of paper and walk to the mailbox is the mailbox too far away
0:33:14You gotta have those electronic messages. I
0:33:16Completely agree with you and if and if the roles were reversed I would be saying the exact same thing to you like it's just
0:33:23This I know I say this a lot and I'm always wrong and so I'm sure this is another time
0:33:27But this fills a need that I don't feel like I have fast forward to six months from now
0:33:31I'm gonna have probably an Amazon cylinder, a Google cylinder, and maybe even an Apple cylinder,
0:33:36and I'll love all of them in their own special way. There'll be my children at that point. But
0:33:41sitting here now, there's no integration, there's no thing that I can see today that makes me want
0:33:52one of them. And I bet you anything if one showed up at the house, I would end up loving it. But
0:33:56But it's just, even this video, I watched it and thought, "Well, yeah, that's cool."
0:34:01But I don't, it's solving problems I don't think I have.
0:34:06It's like any of those things where you don't know you have the need until you have it.
0:34:09And it's not going to be like a life-changing thing like the iPhone was.
0:34:13But I feel like everyone who has one, like we use ours less than I thought I would because
0:34:17basically I was betting on Google making their product better, faster than they actually
0:34:21are.
0:34:22So, oh well, better me.
0:34:23If only you had friends who told you beforehand to pick the other one.
0:34:26I don't think I would use the other one anymore, because I think it's basically a
0:34:30wash at this point.
0:34:32But anyway, apparently not.
0:34:34Here's, you know, because it does, it is really good at the things that it does do.
0:34:39But eventually, once you realize these things are there and start to get into the mindset,
0:34:44what was it?
0:34:45Like we're sitting down, ours is within earshot when we sit down to dinner, and we're
0:34:50sitting down at dinner trying to think of, talking about some songs that someone heard,
0:34:54and because I subscribe to Google Play Music, another reason, by the way, that I wouldn't
0:34:57want an Apple one is that it would make me have to subscribe to Apple Music to do what
0:35:02I'm about to describe. We were having some discussion about a song, and I can just say
0:35:06into the air, I can just request into the air for that song to be played, almost any
0:35:10song to be played, and it just starts playing it. Because we were having a discussion of
0:35:15what the lyrics were and how it sounds, and the kids wanted to hear it, and no one has
0:35:18to get up from the table or pull out their phone and try to search for the song, I just
0:35:22say something into the air before you can even get your phone out of your pocket and
0:35:25the song is playing. And that is a weird future world thing that I think is awesome. And is
0:35:31it a big deal? And is it a need? No, it's not. But for the $110 or whatever I pay for
0:35:36this stupid cylinder to be able to say words into the air and have the song that I requested
0:35:39play immediately, I think that's like worth the price of entry. Even if I only do that
0:35:45once every week and a half and the rest of the time my kids are just asking how to say
0:35:48things in foreign languages like this is all bonus.
0:35:51Now, again, it's not a life-changing thing, but once you get used to the idea that something
0:35:56is constantly listening in your house and can conceivably do things that you find useful,
0:36:01it's hard to go back to the idea that nothing is listening and you have to actually pick
0:36:05something up and hit it with your fingers because there is a big difference in how it
0:36:10feels to do something.
0:36:12It's kind of like the difference between how it feels to pull out your phone and look something
0:36:14up versus how it would feel to get in your car and drive to the library and look something
0:36:17up. And now this is, you know, it's like, you know, it's an exponential type thing where
0:36:23like obviously the library is way longer than the looking on the phone. But now, like how
0:36:28much how much longer is saying something into the air to your phone? It's probably a couple
0:36:33seconds, a couple minutes, but man, it feels it feels so different. And you just can't
0:36:38go back to the other way. And if you wanted to go whole full home automation, everything
0:36:42and hook stuff up to it and do all stuff like that, that feel like you're starting to get
0:36:46into tech gadget land at that point.
0:36:48But that can be awesome too, especially if it's like a hobby,
0:36:50to have a house where you can just say things
0:36:52and have it do stuff and work with your rhythms.
0:36:54There's, I think these devices can be enjoyed
0:36:57at many levels and as we said last time we discussed this,
0:36:59most importantly, they're all freaking cheap
0:37:02in the grand scheme of things.
0:37:03Like they're not $3, but they're also not $2,000
0:37:06like a new MacBook, right?
0:37:07You can get one of these, you can buy all of these,
0:37:10you can put them, what is the dot one,
0:37:11what is the short cylinder, Marco?
0:37:13- It's like 40 bucks.
0:37:15- 40 bucks?
0:37:16It's really cheap.
0:37:17- You can get one of these things on a whim
0:37:20just to see if you might like it and throw it somewhere.
0:37:22And if you never use it, you're like,
0:37:24"Oh well, it's $40.
0:37:25"It's like a nice meal for one person."
0:37:27Like, whatever.
0:37:29- You know, to answer your earlier question, Case,
0:37:30like you don't see why it would be a big deal
0:37:33to have faster light switches or something.
0:37:36The answer is that there's like one thing
0:37:39that gets most owners in the door.
0:37:42And for most people I've talked to and been around
0:37:45and seen be converted, including myself,
0:37:48that one thing is music.
0:37:49You know, it's like what John said,
0:37:50like it really is awesome to be able to just say,
0:37:53Alexa, play fish, and have that just work
0:37:57for all of our listeners. - You did that on purpose.
0:37:58You terrible, terrible troll.
0:38:00- Not the first time.
0:38:01Or, you know, and you can say, you know,
0:38:03hey Cylinder, play rock music from the '90s.
0:38:06It's just really, really nice to have that.
0:38:12There's a reason why places like Sonos
0:38:15having trouble now. Like anything that is involved in the high end audio scene for tech
0:38:21geeks that is not voice controlled is having problems right now because it's once you get
0:38:27into the voice controlled music it is so awesome. Especially like when you know if you're having
0:38:31like friends over for dinner or something else and you just have it playing and you
0:38:35can just and anybody can just say you know next song or pause or volume up or whatever
0:38:39else or people can call out their own request. Like it's fun. It becomes a cool a pretty
0:38:44cool thing. The Echo is not a great speaker. It's only an okay speaker. Literally, like
0:38:49in my house, it is sitting right next to a Sonos speaker that is way, way better sounding.
0:38:55And the Sonos speaker almost never gets used anymore because it is just so much more convenient
0:38:59to use the Echo for music purposes. And so anyway, you know, what gets someone in is
0:39:04usually one cool thing that they like see or hear about and they're like, "Oh my
0:39:09god, I want it for that." But then once you already have the cylinder in your house
0:39:13and set up and everything.
0:39:14Then when Black Friday comes around
0:39:16and the switchable outlets go on sale for like 20 bucks,
0:39:19you're like, "Hey, let me try one of those."
0:39:22And then you try one and you're like,
0:39:24"Oh, that ends up, there's that one lamp,
0:39:26"it's the total other side of the room,
0:39:29"and I turn it off every night,
0:39:30"and every night I have to walk over there and turn it off,
0:39:32"and what if I didn't have to walk over there?
0:39:34"I'd save like five seconds a night, and that could add up."
0:39:37And then next time they're on sale,
0:39:38you get three or four more of them,
0:39:39'cause you realize how useful they are,
0:39:41and then all of a sudden you can say,
0:39:42"Hey, look, turn off everything,"
0:39:44and all of your lights turn off.
0:39:46And when you're going up to bed,
0:39:47and you have a glass of water in one hand,
0:39:49and maybe some laundry, or a dog in the other hand,
0:39:52and you don't have any hands to go hit all the light switches
0:39:54before you go upstairs, you can just say,
0:39:55"Hey, turn off everything,"
0:39:56and five things turn off at once,
0:39:59and you just walk upstairs.
0:40:00And it becomes pretty cool.
0:40:02And so that's how you get into this.
0:40:05It is not that you can't walk over and hit a light switch,
0:40:08but once you have one of these technologies
0:40:11for some other reason, like music,
0:40:13then it's, and as all the home automation things
0:40:18just start getting really cheaper,
0:40:19you know, when you can go and get these switch blouts
0:40:22for like 20 bucks, whatever,
0:40:24or you can have other integration through web services,
0:40:26through like IFTTT and various services like that,
0:40:29and you know, warm up your car, or you can,
0:40:31you, Casey, you have your garage door thing.
0:40:33You can like open and close your garage door by voice.
0:40:36Like, once you are in the system
0:40:38for some other compelling reason, like music,
0:40:41you will start having these other things trickle in
0:40:43and you'll be like, wait a minute, this is kind of awesome.
0:40:46And none of it's necessary.
0:40:47Like you could operate your house without these things.
0:40:50But once you have a taste of this, it's just really nice.
0:40:55Again, it's not a must have.
0:40:58We can all send letters to the post office if we want to.
0:41:01But once you have something nicer, it is pretty great.
0:41:06- Yeah, it's funny you bring up,
0:41:08both of you bring up the music thing
0:41:10because when I tried Apple Music during the free trial when it first came out, the one
0:41:16thing I deeply missed about Apple Music was being able to say to Siri, you know, "play
0:41:24mute math" or whatever the case may be, and just have it happen.
0:41:27And that was super cool, and it was almost enough to get me to pay for Apple Music rather
0:41:33than Spotify, which I prefer for reasons that are irrelevant.
0:41:36But all the other things that I preferred about Spotify were enough to keep me away
0:41:40from Apple Music.
0:41:42And I guess that's the difference is with the garage door opener as an example, I immediately
0:41:47understood why having an internet-connected garage door opener could immediately improve
0:41:53or improve may be a strong word, but I can't think of a better one, improve my life.
0:41:59Whereas the cylinders, I don't doubt that they would make things better in all the ways
0:42:03you described, but there's less of a visceral, tangible need that I can see sitting here now.
0:42:09And I'm sure the time will come that I will get one, and I'm sure I'll be on this show saying,
0:42:12"By God, what was I thinking? Of course I wanted this." But sitting here now, ignorance is less.
0:42:18[crickets chirping]
0:42:20Wow. You know, it does take some time to actually figure out what you think is going to be good for
0:42:25after you just play with it and find the limits of the thing. And I think it really is situational.
0:42:32Like it's not as if you have to like, "Every day I'm going to do this thing and I'm going
0:42:36to use this thing to do the thing."
0:42:37Like getting a new device into your life and incorporating it into some tasks you have
0:42:41to do.
0:42:42Like for me that's not my experience of having this thing.
0:42:45It's more like developing an awareness that this thing is there so that when a need comes
0:42:49up that you reflexively satisfy in other ways, eventually you come to remember, "I don't
0:42:56have to do that.
0:42:57I can just say this question into the air and get an answer."
0:43:00Even if it's like dividing two numbers or converting like teaspoons into cups or whatever,
0:43:07all those things are things I've done my whole life and I go, "I don't remember the converters,
0:43:11let me check," or whatever.
0:43:12And you can always pick up your phone or ask someone in the house who you think knows the
0:43:16conversion or all these other ways you have to solve this problem.
0:43:21Eventually, the most important thing you need to have is a deep-grained instinctive awareness
0:43:27that I can say this thing into the air and get an answer, right? And that's the hardest
0:43:32part because you will find yourself pulling out your phone and typing into Google, you
0:43:36know, "How many teaspoons in a cup?" And you'll do that and maybe do that without
0:43:41even realizing you could have just asked that question, but eventually it sinks in. It sinks
0:43:45in after some incidents of like arguing about the lyrics to the song over dinner and realizing,
0:43:49we can settle this in 30 seconds. I can just request that song by title. It will immediately
0:43:52start playing and we can all listen to it together, right? Or not remembering what year
0:43:58someone was born or what album this thing was on or whatever. We can all take out our
0:44:03phones and look it up. We all know how to do that. It's like, you could do that. Or
0:44:06you could just put a little trigger phrase that I'm not going to say in front of that
0:44:10same question you were just asking each other and instantly get some kind of answer. And
0:44:16it can go too far where we have the recent rash of the Google, what is it, the Google
0:44:20answer thing where it tries to answer the question definitively at the top of search
0:44:23results and it just throws out bogus stuff that has no foundation and truth, right? And
0:44:28all these devices, again, there are security concerns and privacy concerns and everything,
0:44:31but it is a glimpse of the as-yet-unperfected, unrealized future. And like all gadget tech
0:44:39geeks, we all like to sort of see what that future is going to be like and try living
0:44:43it even if it is pretty rough at this point, just because we think there's value in it
0:44:48and whatever form it takes in the future, I think this type of interface has proved
0:44:53its worth that it has to be part of the various ways we interact with technology and networks,
0:44:59right?
0:45:00All the other ones have proved their worth, and they're not going to go away and be
0:45:02completely replaced with this, but this, I feel like, has definitively proved its worth.
0:45:07It's just a question of how it fits in with all the other ways that we use computing devices
0:45:12and connect networks and stuff.
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0:47:00So YouTube also, almost a month ago now, has announced YouTube TV, which means for $35
0:47:09a month. Subscribers get all four major networks, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, and around 30 of the
0:47:14biggest cable channels. And that price covers six accounts, so each member of the house
0:47:19can have a personalized account that offers recommendations tuned to their taste. I'm
0:47:23reading mostly from The Verge's coverage of this. It will be missing channels from Viacom,
0:47:28including big names like Comedy Central and MTV. It also won't have programming from Turner,
0:47:32which means you won't get CNN, TV, STNT, AMC, Discovery, and A&E.
0:47:37But this, as someone who is not really looking to cut the cord, this does sound pretty compelling
0:47:42to me.
0:47:43I don't really have a good feel for what the landscape is for cord cutters, because I'm
0:47:49not even really considering it at the moment.
0:47:51But this sounds really good.
0:47:52Marco, I know you're not really that into broadcast TV, but I believe you've cut the
0:47:57cord, so are you interested in this at all?
0:48:00- Yeah, I mean, the last time I had cable
0:48:02was about 10 years ago, and I don't say that's to like,
0:48:05to super brag in the hipster way possible, just a fact.
0:48:09I've, you know, since then, I've gotten into the habit
0:48:14of just not having these TV channels.
0:48:16I do get and buy TV content in other ways,
0:48:21like through iTunes and stuff, although honestly,
0:48:23I cannot leave Apple TV purchasing fast enough.
0:48:28Like, as Top Chef wrapped up on one more season,
0:48:33I still can't believe how bad buying TV series
0:48:37on Apple TV is and then watching them
0:48:39and all the different things that don't work
0:48:41or that work poorly or that actually spoil the show,
0:48:45like the auto-generated thumbnails
0:48:46of the Last Chance Kitchen.
0:48:48But, you know, I've kinda gotten into the world now
0:48:52of not having cable, and so to buy access
0:48:56to all these channels to me, it doesn't really sound
0:49:00that appealing 'cause I kinda don't need them anymore,
0:49:02or I've trained myself not to have them anymore.
0:49:06So the idea of buying access to all these things
0:49:09so I can watch broadcast TV and sports,
0:49:12not although with a bunch of asterisks and stuff like that,
0:49:14it is advertising a collection of services
0:49:18that I have gone without for 10 years,
0:49:20that I have already, this is not something
0:49:23I really am that excited about for myself.
0:49:26I do think it is a good idea for people who have been
0:49:29maintaining a cable subscription all this time
0:49:31for one of these things or for multiple of these things.
0:49:34Like lots of people that have, for example, sports fans.
0:49:38Like a lot of sports fans or people who just like to watch
0:49:42like live news or who like to watch some shows
0:49:45that are on one of these networks that just aren't
0:49:47available easily or affordably elsewhere online,
0:49:51at least legally.
0:49:53So for those people, this is a great, this is a good idea.
0:49:56it seems like a pretty reasonable price.
0:49:58They say 35 bucks a month for all this stuff.
0:50:01Now, I'm curious, what form does this take?
0:50:03Is it like just a TV stream,
0:50:06and therefore you have to skip commercials and crap,
0:50:08or is it more like on demand,
0:50:09where you just pick what you wanna watch
0:50:10and there's no commercials?
0:50:12- I'm not sure.
0:50:13The way I read this was,
0:50:15it's that it would basically exist within YouTube,
0:50:19but I could have that dreadfully wrong.
0:50:21I'm not entirely sure.
0:50:23- Yeah, 'cause they make mention of things
0:50:24like a DVR style recording with unlimited storage space
0:50:28in Google's cloud and the ability to skip over ads.
0:50:31So that kind of sounds like it's more like
0:50:32watching a broadcast and you just,
0:50:35it's kind of like a broadcast with DVR style controls,
0:50:38but you'd still have to fast forward through the ads.
0:50:41- So it's kind of weird to see YouTube as the company,
0:50:45sort of, I don't know if they're very first out of the gate,
0:50:47but one of the first of the big names to do
0:50:49what everyone's been referring to was,
0:50:52This is the skinny bundle thing where it's a subset of the stuff that you can buy in
0:50:57cable with the idea that people who pay for cable, nobody wants all those channels.
0:51:02Like everyone just wants a subset of it.
0:51:04So if we could sell you a subset of it for a cheaper price, then that would be a more
0:51:09desirable product for you and we could get you onto our platform and stop you paying
0:51:13for cable.
0:51:14Or stop you paying for cable.
0:51:16Stop you paying for television programming for cable because once again the whole cord
0:51:19cord cutter thing makes about as much sense as debating which parts of a game engine are
0:51:24done in software and in hardware. It doesn't really mean anything when you look at the
0:51:27phrasing because "Oh, I'm cutting the cord, I'm going to get all of my video content over
0:51:31a cable that comes to my house that delivers data." But it doesn't count because it's internet
0:51:36and not cable television. And, oh, it's a totally different thing. Anyway, Comcast would
0:51:41still sell you your internet access, or Verizon or whoever would sell you your internet access,
0:51:45but you were just like "No thanks, I don't want to pay for your cable television bundle,
0:51:49I just want the internet.
0:51:50I'll pay you for that."
0:51:52And then over the internet,
0:51:54I will get things like YouTube TV.
0:51:55But anyway, it's ironic that YouTube is doing it
0:51:57because as far as my children are concerned,
0:52:00YouTube is television.
0:52:03They barely watch television anymore.
0:52:05They watch YouTube on their iOS devices
0:52:08because that's what they have.
0:52:09If they didn't, they would watch it on anything else.
0:52:11Television, like I don't think they know
0:52:14what ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC are.
0:52:17I don't think they recognize
0:52:18those sequence of three letters.
0:52:19we put them in sequence and say, "What are these three letters?" they would not be able
0:52:22to identify. They have no idea. They watch enough television. They've never seen enough
0:52:27television shows in their life, but their entire interface with television, A, is through
0:52:30my Tivo, so there is no, again, trying to explain to them or your young children the
0:52:35concept of live television is extremely difficult. The task of modern parenting, right, to explain
0:52:41to your toddler what live television is and why you can't fast-forward or pause or anything
0:52:47like that, like, no, this is happening now. This is live, like, or we can't watch this
0:52:51because it hasn't aired yet. Like, it's going to come on at seven. It's like, what are you
0:52:55even saying that I don't understand? Like, I don't understand these words. Like, and
0:52:59they know that let me explain it to you. You just go like this and you tap over here. And
0:53:04but just why isn't it working? I think it's broken. Like, no, it hasn't hasn't aired yet.
0:53:08It's difficult. Anyway, this is a difficult thing to explain, right? So YouTube, it seems
0:53:14has the future locked up and yet they are the ones out of the gate to say we're going
0:53:17to try to get the olds by giving them something that makes them feel more comfortable and
0:53:21you pay us $35 a month and we will resell you this content with a nice kind of interface
0:53:25that makes it look like you have a TiVo but you don't and you know some fashion of on-demand
0:53:31type stuff and also with ad skipping and so on and so forth.
0:53:34But like all these deals, the reason it has always been said that Apple hasn't had this
0:53:39deal, hasn't had a deal like this despite them pursuing it for many years now is that
0:53:43They could never get, presumably according to Apple satisfaction, an arrangement of content
0:53:51and price that Apple liked, that Apple said yes, that's what we want to go to market with.
0:53:55So they've come to market with nothing.
0:53:58And all these things, if you look at them, it's like, oh, well, you got all this stuff,
0:54:01but you don't have all that stuff.
0:54:02Is this the right price and the combination of content?
0:54:06If you got this and you'd be like, I'm going to replace cable, and then you just realize,
0:54:10I'm trying to think of a show that's on AMC, like Mad Men used to be.
0:54:13What's on AMC now?
0:54:15The Americans, is The Americans FX?
0:54:17Anyway, if you get this and you're like, "This will be just like cable.
0:54:20We can just pick the channels we want," but you realize you can't get some of these things
0:54:24at any price?
0:54:25Oh, The Walking Dead is on AMC, Better Call Saul.
0:54:29You realize you can't get them at any price?
0:54:31That can be a deal breaker.
0:54:32It's like, "Well, I guess we'll just stick with cable," because cable, despite the fact
0:54:36the cable is making you pay like, you know, $3 a month for ESPN that you never watch or
0:54:40whatever the hell the number is these days. You have access to everything essentially.
0:54:44The cable is a mature industry and everything is resold through cable subscriptions and
0:54:48if you're willing to pay enough money you can get everything. To get a skinny bundle
0:54:53like, "Okay, well, I'll skinny bundle for this and then I will just pay on iTunes for
0:54:58The Walking Dead the day after it comes out or I'll watch Game of Thrones on HBO Go or
0:55:02now and hope that it doesn't get overwhelmed by people and like that's the other thing
0:55:06with these skinny bundles you can be really sad if Game of Thrones premieres and you can't
0:55:10watch it because of some networking thing whereas if you had cable it would have quote
0:55:12unquote just worked right because it's broadcast versus you know database television which
0:55:18has all the problems of any you know database solution so I don't know if they're striking
0:55:25the right balance and honestly I think YouTube shouldn't care that much if they're striking
0:55:28the right balance because they sure as heck seem to be the future of television as far
0:55:32as any of my children are concerned. And honestly, I'm watching more YouTube than I used to.
0:55:37Like as in subscribing to channels and looking for content to come on them. So I think this
0:55:46is a good move for YouTube. It's like we are already at the forefront of this new thing
0:55:49and you know what, we can scrape up some of those old things and they're not so picky
0:55:52about oh we can't go to market with this skinny bundle because not enough people will buy
0:55:56it because it doesn't have CNN and TBS or A&E and AMC or whatever. They're just like whatever,
0:56:01We'll go for it. We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't, whatever, we're the future.
0:56:04We'll be fine. Whereas Apple is still waiting for this beautiful perfect deal that has extremely low
0:56:10prices and the right amount of control for Apple and can provide the right experience.
0:56:14So they just have nothing. They just have nothing to offer. They have this TV app that looks like
0:56:18it's a ghost town. And you can kind of see a glimmer of what it was supposed to be. But what
0:56:22it is now is nothing compared to YouTube, nothing compared to YouTube TV. So Apple is not doing well
0:56:29here and Netflix and Amazon and YouTube definitely seem to be the future of video content for
0:56:35an entire generation of people, whether they be young children or millennials or whatever
0:56:40who just accept that the content they want probably isn't on TV, unless it's live news
0:56:49or sports or something like that.
0:56:51Even that, those will be the last ones to come over, but the future looks dim for the
0:56:55the old model of television in all aspects.
0:56:58And these skinny bundles entirely seem like
0:57:00a transitional thing to get people over the hump
0:57:03to the new system.
0:57:05And the more of them that are out there,
0:57:07the more people they'll pull over.
0:57:08And like Marco, eventually, like once you do it
0:57:11and realize the world doesn't come to an end
0:57:13and you just get used to that kind of lifestyle
0:57:14and accept whatever the limitations may be
0:57:16during the transitional period, it's hard to go back.
0:57:19Like you rarely hear about people who cut the cord,
0:57:22try it for a year, and then immediately go back.
0:57:24I mean, maybe they do if there's a disagreement in the house about how important local live
0:57:29sports are and a misprediction of what a blackout would really mean to your life.
0:57:34But beyond that, I feel like the people who unsubscribe from cable television, especially
0:57:40in tech nerd circles, they find alternate arrangements and are happy with it eventually.
0:57:46Like that it is a successful transition.
0:57:48It's kind of like the people by the cylinders.
0:57:50You're not quite sure what's going to work out, but you get it, and in the end, it's
0:57:53better than you thought it would be.
0:57:55- One thing that is somewhat appealing to me
0:57:57about these new digital-based services, though,
0:58:00is that there's no equipment,
0:58:03and that you could probably pretty easily
0:58:06start and stop your service.
0:58:08In the past, if there was a big event of some kind,
0:58:12like watching a presidential election return,
0:58:15or a really important news event,
0:58:18or a really important TV show that I was super into
0:58:20that I couldn't get any other way,
0:58:22it would be kind of a bummer to not have cable
0:58:25for brief periods in my life.
0:58:27And I would occasionally think,
0:58:28maybe we should just get it again and just never use it.
0:58:31But the idea of having to call up a local cable company
0:58:36or whatever and have them schedule an appointment
0:58:40and have them come to the house during this eight hour window
0:58:42that usually becomes more than that,
0:58:44and they come at the very end of it,
0:58:45except for that one time where they came early,
0:58:47so you can't really plan for it.
0:58:49And then they install this giant box
0:58:50that may or may not work.
0:58:52If you want any kind of DVR functionality,
0:58:54you need to deal with either another giant box
0:58:56like the Syracuse method,
0:58:57or you just deal with their crappy giant box
0:59:00with their crappy DVR.
0:59:01You gotta learn all the controls all over again.
0:59:03You got another remote hanging around the house,
0:59:04this giant box, and all this overhead
0:59:08of starting and then later stopping that service.
0:59:11Like if you wanna stop that service,
0:59:12you gotta call them on the phone,
0:59:14which I will do quite a lot to avoid.
0:59:16(laughing)
0:59:17Call them on the phone,
0:59:18talk to some customer service rep,
0:59:20In the case of some of these morally bankrupt companies
0:59:24like Comcast, convince them to please for the love of God
0:59:27let you cancel your service,
0:59:29which you may or may not succeed at.
0:59:31That may or may not take a very long time to convince them.
0:59:34Then have that whole process in reverse.
0:59:37Scheduling, dealing with the equipment,
0:59:40whether you gotta drop it off somewhere
0:59:41or have them come pick it up and disconnect the wire.
0:59:44It's a big pain in the butt.
0:59:46And then they probably have restrictions
0:59:47on how often you can sign up
0:59:49or disconnect your service again,
0:59:51or like, you know, and then,
0:59:53there's all this basically BS involved
0:59:57in starting and stopping cable TV service.
1:00:00So to have these internet-based ones
1:00:03where it's probably just like, you know,
1:00:05clicking a few buttons and entering a credit card
1:00:07into the YouTube app, and then when you wanna stop it,
1:00:10you, you know, go through some screens
1:00:12and there's probably an all-digital way to do it
1:00:15where you probably don't have to talk
1:00:15to anybody on the phone.
1:00:17That is actually probably a really good thing
1:00:19for the cable industry.
1:00:21It's not good in the sense that it becomes easier
1:00:23to stop your service, but I think it is good
1:00:26in that for people like me who don't have it
1:00:28most of the time, but occasionally have some reason
1:00:31where we might want it, I think you're more likely
1:00:33to win people like us over because the barrier to entry
1:00:36is now lower than it was before.
1:00:38So that, I think, is a big new good feature of this.
1:00:42However, that being said, what Jon said
1:00:46about the channel availability is a big deal.
1:00:48It includes the big rockers and roars,
1:00:50but for 35 bucks a month, that's like a basic cable plan.
1:00:53And it does not include Comedy Central, MTV, CNN,
1:00:57TBS, TNT, AMC, A&E, Discovery.
1:01:00It's like this huge list of channels that come
1:01:04in pretty much every standard cable bundle in the US
1:01:07for like 20 years, and they don't come with this.
1:01:11And that kind of thing, in the regular cable market,
1:01:16When you're choosing between one of the various satellite
1:01:20companies like DirecTV or Dish or whatever,
1:01:22if you choose between that or Comcast or Phios
1:01:26or whatever your local cable thing is,
1:01:28oftentimes one of these networks will be missing
1:01:32from one of these services and that'll be enough
1:01:34to get people to choose the other one.
1:01:36So to have this many things missing,
1:01:39that's really a pretty big problem, I think.
1:01:43So this specific service at this specific time
1:01:46with this specific set of deals that they made,
1:01:49having such limited channel options,
1:01:51that's gonna really hurt them, I think.
1:01:53But the idea of this kind of bundle, I think, is strong,
1:01:58if anybody can get all the deals in place,
1:02:00or even just some of the deals,
1:02:02so just get more than what YouTube got.
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1:03:19Now we enter the hardware portion of the program. So I don't know which one of you wants to
1:03:26to kick this off, but Intel is going 14 nanometers
1:03:30one more time apparently.
1:03:32- Remember when they had the TikTok strategy
1:03:34and we talked about that,
1:03:34and it became TikTok thud or whatever?
1:03:37- They changed it to this TikTok,
1:03:41well, I forget what they're thinking,
1:03:41like it's not TikTok anymore,
1:03:43it's like, I gotta find a diagram.
1:03:44- Like a PAO or something,
1:03:45Process Architecture Optimization?
1:03:48- Right, and it was because basically like,
1:03:50oh, we used to, you know, we'd do a process shrink,
1:03:53then we'd do an architecture,
1:03:54and then we'd do a process shrink,
1:03:55do no architecture and it was kind of on a yearly basis but either way that was their cadence right
1:03:59and they're like oh we can't we can't sustain that anymore because every time we try to do a
1:04:03new process is taking longer and longer so to try to get from 14 nanometer to 10 or whatever the
1:04:07next one is it's taking longer than we thought so we're going to do a process shrink we're going to
1:04:10architecture and then we're going to optimize that architecture so basically give us another year to
1:04:14get to the shrink the new strategy is process architecture optimize and you know what let's
1:04:21Let's optimize again because we don't have the new process size ready to go.
1:04:28And it's kind of comical to see them change their TikTok strategy to a three-step strategy
1:04:32to a four-step strategy.
1:04:34It's like a little kid stalling on getting their assignment done.
1:04:38It's like, "Well, my new strategy is let's wait another year."
1:04:43And you try to look and see what like – so, you know, Kaby Lake is not that big of a deal
1:04:49of an enhancement, as we've discussed in the past, things like some video DRM stuff in
1:04:54there and some minor tweaks, but it's not, you know, like it is technically an optimization
1:04:59of a pre-existing thing.
1:05:02And maybe the next one they will optimize more, but we're kind of used to, even in this
1:05:07age of the dwindling returns on Moore's Law, used to the idea that we will get a bigger
1:05:17jump in CPU capabilities and with with a process shrink and if that process shrink
1:05:23just never seems to come it's like well what can we really do like we did a
1:05:27really good job as architecture to begin with this process size the biggest bang
1:05:31for the buck historically has been you know how can we decrease power and get
1:05:36more transistors to do stuff with and you know like make different choices the
1:05:40shrink gives you that headroom to do it provided you can figure out how to make
1:05:43it work. In lieu of a shrink, you are left with the same power budget and the same number
1:05:49of transistors, and just making different trade-offs, basically, or just being a little
1:05:52bit smarter about a few components. And you can make things better that way, but you can't
1:05:56make them better in the—not that they're giant leaps—but, you know, to get a double-digit
1:06:01percent increase in almost anything is a very big effort within a given process size, especially
1:06:07in an architecture that's already pretty well optimized, right? So this—I'm not going
1:06:11I'm not going to say this is disappointing, but it is further evidence of the slowing
1:06:16rate of advancement at the edges of hardware, on cutting edge hardware. What is the best
1:06:23process size you can get in a sophisticated processor for any amount of money? And for
1:06:30another year in a row, it's going to be 14 nanometers.
1:06:33I mean, really, these days, an Intel delay is not news. When Intel delays the next big
1:06:39for a year that used to shake the industry.
1:06:43These days it's kind of more surprising when they don't.
1:06:46- And I think, I'm pretty sure they're still ahead
1:06:48of most other people because other people are like,
1:06:50yeah, we're excited we have a 14 nanometer process.
1:06:52Like this Intel's gonna be on its third year of 14 nanometer.
1:06:55It's like, well, welcome to the club, right?
1:06:57And I guess that lead only counts if they get
1:06:59to the next size before everyone else too.
1:07:02But I'm guessing they will.
1:07:04I'm guessing this is not like Intel incompetence.
1:07:07it is merely that it is getting much, much harder as the sizes get much smaller, as we
1:07:12discussed on past shows. Moore's law cannot continue forever as far as our understanding
1:07:17of the physical world is aware, because you cannot subdivide matter into ever-smaller
1:07:20pieces at a certain point. You reach a size where you can't break it into any smaller
1:07:26sizes without super high-energy physics and stuff. So inevitably, eventually, everyone's
1:07:31favorite infinite timeline argument, Moore's law cannot continue, right? Because if you
1:07:35keep halving the size of things and you're down to like quarks and stuff, like no. Even
1:07:40getting down just the size of individual atoms, the whole functioning of the way we manufacture
1:07:45transistors stops working and we're already getting into all sorts of problems on the
1:07:49future sizes we're doing. So it will end. It's just a question of what does the slope
1:07:53look like as we slide down into the doomsday scenario of CPUs that never get any better
1:08:00and wait for quantum computing to save us all with an entirely new paradigm. But either
1:08:05Anyway, this is not the type of story that I want to read.
1:08:07I guess another old man story I'll be able to tell is like when I was a kid, computers
1:08:11would get massively faster every year and it was amazing.
1:08:17I remember those days.
1:08:18Not anymore.
1:08:19Doom on a Pentium.
1:08:21It was like, "Can any computer be this fast?
1:08:24How is it possible?
1:08:27Last year this game was barely usable and now it goes faster than my eyeballs."
1:08:33And that would happen every year.
1:08:35That's true.
1:08:36All right, tell me about AMD Ryzen.
1:08:39So I wish I had more time to read up on this, but we haven't really talked much about AMD
1:08:44on the show.
1:08:45Occasionally we mention them, but in the context of Intel alternatives, but we've been doing
1:08:49even less of that.
1:08:50And it's mostly because despite doing very well in the glory part of PC CPUs back in
1:08:58the day, the Athlon days, remember those? When AMD was actually giving Intel a run for
1:09:05their money and was taking a lot of the crowns in those type of speeds and feed measurements
1:09:12contests that were so popular back in the 90s. What is the best CPU for gaming or for
1:09:20whatever? And look at these benchmarks and the highest end and so on and so forth. AMD
1:09:24doing really well. And they were an important player and it was great to see the competition
1:09:29and it forced Intel, I think, to get off of the Netburst architecture in Pentium 4 and come up
1:09:34with the Core series, which was awesome. And then it was like, Intel took the lead back and
1:09:40wiped AMD off the face of the earth. They came out with the Bulldozer architecture that was not
1:09:46particularly successful and it was a bad choice. And they've always had sort of, you know,
1:09:50financial problems as compared to the behemoth that is Intel and have never been competitive
1:09:58with Intel's fabbing abilities.
1:09:59And so we haven't heard anything about them for a long time.
1:10:02And this seems like their comeback.
1:10:03Like, "Hey, we're AMD.
1:10:05We still know how to make good CPUs."
1:10:08And so they have a line of CPUs that are competitive.
1:10:12Like they're not the best in the world.
1:10:14They're not like, "Oh, these are 10 times better than everything Intel has."
1:10:17But it's a comeback story and people like a comeback story.
1:10:20this company that was not, didn't seem to even be in the race. Like, people suggesting
1:10:27Apple should just use AMD processors. That suggestion stopped many years ago and started
1:10:31to become Apple should get AMD to make a new processor that's better than all their crappy
1:10:37ones, right? Or Apple should work with AMD or Apple should make its own X80, but all
1:10:42but never like, no one's suggesting like, you know what, Mac laptops would be better
1:10:46if they took out the Intel CPUs and used AMD ones instead.
1:10:50And so they have these series of CPUs which are significant mostly because A) they have
1:10:54to come back and they're actually competitive and good and B) for the most part they're
1:10:58cheaper than the Intel alternatives.
1:11:01I looked at them briefly to see is there anything that would be great for a Mac Pro.
1:11:05No, they're not Mac Pro caliber things.
1:11:08But they do have a lot of cores for a low price with a reasonable power envelope and
1:11:12And I don't think this means Apple will look at them any more than they did in the past
1:11:16because of ancillary issues and because who knows what Intel's roadmap looks like versus
1:11:21AMD's roadmap.
1:11:22But I'm excited to see AMD back in the mix because despite the fact that Intel seems
1:11:28to be getting its butt kicked all over the map by ARM processors and mobile and everything
1:11:33having to do with that because all of Intel's mobile efforts have not really gone anywhere
1:11:39and they're not particularly competitive and they're just lucky to get like a radio chip
1:11:43that in Apple's iPhones at this point and every day they must — I forget who did this,
1:11:49maybe the CEO had already left — regret the sale of their arm holdings when they had
1:11:52the X scale processor of the arm things, Intel got rid of that because they wanted to do
1:11:55everything x86.
1:11:57Anyway, I like seeing a competitor for Intel on the high end as well because competition
1:12:05is good, and I hope this spurs Intel to redouble its efforts to stay ahead of the game and
1:12:14to find ways to get more performance, and to find ways to get to the next process size,
1:12:17and to widen that gap again between them and AMD. Not that I'm saying AMD's only purpose
1:12:22in life is to make Intel stuff better, but for the foreseeable future I don't see Apple
1:12:26switching to AMD unless they're asking them to make their very own custom chips. And so
1:12:31for my purposes, AMD exists to give PC hobbyists
1:12:35a cool alternative to build PCs with
1:12:37and to make the processes that are gonna be in my Macs
1:12:40hopefully better.
1:12:41- Cool.
1:12:42- Sounds about right.
1:12:43- Does it make you wanna build a PC?
1:12:45- No. - No.
1:12:46- What makes you wanna build a PC is Xeons.
1:12:49If I ever, like, you know, a lot of people build PCs
1:12:54and like a lot of the Hackintosh guides and stuff out there
1:12:57and price comparisons are all about this class of hardware.
1:13:00They're about like, you know, iMac class CPUs.
1:13:03You know, the Intel like, you know,
1:13:054000 series with the K on the end.
1:13:08Like, those are really high powered CPUs for desktops.
1:13:11They're really nice.
1:13:12But Apple already makes those.
1:13:15They already, you know, ship computers with those
1:13:18and keep them reasonably up to date most of the time.
1:13:21They're called iMacs.
1:13:22And the iMac 5K is a wonderful computer.
1:13:24I'm talking to you on it right now.
1:13:26With the exception of my image retention issues
1:13:28on the display, which everyone says
1:13:30they're actually not solved in the most recent ones.
1:13:32With the exception of that,
1:13:33it's been a wonderful computer for me
1:13:35and I expect it to serve me still for a while
1:13:39until something faster comes out,
1:13:41which barely, really hasn't happened.
1:13:43The problem is I want something faster.
1:13:45I want more than four cores.
1:13:47I want higher performance
1:13:49than what the consumer line can offer me.
1:13:53So I've only ever been tempted to build a Hackintosh,
1:13:56not to give myself a cheaper iMac,
1:13:59which I understand why people do that, that makes sense.
1:14:03But to give me basically a Mac
1:14:06that Apple does not even sell,
1:14:10and that is a modern Mac Pro.
1:14:13- Well, you can get an eight-core Ryzen for $329.
1:14:16- That, okay. - That is way cheaper
1:14:19than the equivalent eight-core Intel chip.
1:14:21- That is true.
1:14:23I don't know, I guess I'd take a look at it,
1:14:25if I was to build a Hackintosh.
1:14:27I was thinking like for Apple's purposes, like for an iMac,
1:14:30'cause again, I don't think any of these are suitable
1:14:32for as far as I'm aware for a laptop chips or whatever,
1:14:35Intel still has that wrapped up,
1:14:36but for kind of like the,
1:14:39what we used to call desktop class CPU's
1:14:40where it's not the Xeons,
1:14:41but it's not in the power envelope.
1:14:43But like the thing that you could stick in an iMac
1:14:44'cause it's big and has lots of fans
1:14:46and what we currently have in the iMac,
1:14:48I think you could get either a better processor
1:14:52in the same envelope or an equally good processor
1:14:55for hundreds less dollars going with AMD.
1:14:58Again, not that I think Apple will do this
1:15:00because of ancillary reasons and other chip sets
1:15:02and Thunderbolt and just general relationships with them.
1:15:05But it shows me that there is once again competition
1:15:08in the market because before,
1:15:09GNOME was like, oh, you shouldn't be using that.
1:15:11If we were saying we shouldn't use
1:15:12this particular Intel CPU and iMac,
1:15:14we were saying you should use some other Intel CPU instead.
1:15:16We weren't saying you should use something from AMD
1:15:19or something like that.
1:15:20And now you can say that.
1:15:21There's products on the market to say,
1:15:25Apple, here is an alternative for your iMacs.
1:15:28And I know you're probably not gonna do it,
1:15:29but what it does show is that Intel perhaps
1:15:31is not serving your needs as well as they could
1:15:33because clearly it is technically and financially possible
1:15:36to make a chip that would make Marco happier.
1:15:38So why don't you do that?
1:15:40- Yeah, I mean like most of my problems
1:15:42don't lie with the processor companies.
1:15:44Intel's good enough for me.
1:15:46My problem lies in Apple's inability to ship hardware.
1:15:49- So does that cover our Xeon Gold then or no?
1:15:53- No, the Xeon Gold is the chip they're supposed to use,
1:15:56but they won't.
1:15:57- Okay.
1:15:59- I have not read up on the Xeon Gold,
1:16:01other than the part that I pasted into the show notes.
1:16:04- It's Skylake EP, it's the Skylake EP Xeons,
1:16:06which is the line of chips that would be most appropriate
1:16:10to put in a new Mac Pro.
1:16:13But they're probably not going to do that,
1:16:15so therefore I have nothing to,
1:16:18I haven't even looked too far into these,
1:16:20because in the past I've looked into what Skylake E
1:16:23was going to have, and it is truly awesome, it's wonderful.
1:16:28But it's just, I don't know, to me it's kind of even,
1:16:32it's almost sad or painful to even read about this processor
1:16:35because I know that--
1:16:36- To know this is out there,
1:16:37but that you can't buy a machine with a minute.
1:16:39- Exactly, like, I just,
1:16:42whatever has been clogging up Apple, I hope it gets out,
1:16:47and they start shipping hardware again,
1:16:49because something's wrong.
1:16:52Like something is deeply wrong at that company.
1:16:55Where is all the effort going?
1:16:58That's what I wanna know.
1:16:59'Cause it's sure not going into the Mac.
1:17:01It's sure not going into the Apple TV.
1:17:04It's sure not going into the iPad.
1:17:05Some of it, but not much of it is going into the watch.
1:17:07Like where is it going?
1:17:09Some of it's gonna be the phone obviously,
1:17:11but is the entire company only capable
1:17:13of keeping the phone up to date at a reasonable pace?
1:17:15Which even that is kind of questionable.
1:17:16- I think a ton of it's going into the phone.
1:17:17- Sure. - I think a huge amount
1:17:18of it's going into the phone. - But they're a big company.
1:17:20where the hell is everything else?
1:17:23That's what I wanna know.
1:17:24And until we get something-- - Self-driving car software.
1:17:27- Even that, like, that's easily a separatable thing.
1:17:30Like, where is the entire company going?
1:17:34Something's wrong.
1:17:36That's all I can say is something is deeply wrong
1:17:40and needs to change.
1:17:41But that's, I know that's not very helpful.
1:17:44But when you have a year like 2016 in the product line,
1:17:48something's really, really wrong.
1:17:502017 has a lot of checks to cash,
1:17:53and we'll see if they do.
1:17:55I hope they do.
1:17:56But we haven't heard a lot of promising info so far
1:17:59to suggest that they will, except Tim Cook's vague promises.
1:18:01- Did you see that thing I retweeted earlier today
1:18:04of someone was doing Swift compilation benchmarks?
1:18:08Like how long does it take to compile a bunch of Swift--
1:18:09- Yeah, it was LinkedIn, yeah.
1:18:11- And the two-core Mac Mini beat the highest-end
1:18:14trashcan Mac Pro.
1:18:15- Yeah, I mean, granted, that's because of problems
1:18:18in the Swift compiler, I think.
1:18:19It's not like, that is not because the Mac Mini's faster.
1:18:22- I know, but here's what this shows.
1:18:24It doesn't show the quality of the hardware,
1:18:26it shows support for the hardware.
1:18:28Obviously there is something not allowing the compiler
1:18:32to take advantage of this hardware.
1:18:33In the same way that very often there were weird retina
1:18:36issues with the Mac Pro because it is such a rare machine
1:18:39and so few people have them, that OS support for it,
1:18:42and just in general, the software, whether it's the OS
1:18:46or the applications, have no expectation of ever running
1:18:49of trashcan because there's so few of them.
1:18:50So it's not, not only is it not optimized for it, but it doesn't even take advantage
1:18:53of the hardware that's there.
1:18:55It's like the worst case scenario of like, you know, you get weird PC hardware, but Windows
1:18:58doesn't support it well, only this is Apple and this is, you know, they have a limited
1:19:01line of hardware and like that's all I've ever heard from trashcan Mac Pro users is
1:19:06that they feel left out of the rest of the Apple ecosystem because all of these software
1:19:13updates and application updates and OS updates pretend that they don't exist.
1:19:17So any weird problems they have don't go away, don't get fixed, and new software doesn't
1:19:22take advantage of all the cores that they have and so on and so forth.
1:19:25Which is sad because that's exactly how it's supposed to be.
1:19:28You put out this exotic piece of hardware and don't worry about it because you make
1:19:31the OS too and a bunch of the applications as well.
1:19:35You can make sure that it is leveraged and that you take advantage of it.
1:19:37And when that doesn't happen, you just have an exotic piece of hardware that gets worse
1:19:41over time.
1:19:42And eventually you've got Mac Minis beating you in a compilation benchmark and you're
1:19:45and you're like, "Why?"
1:19:47(laughing)
1:19:48- No, again, I really think that's like Xcode
1:19:51and the compiler having bad settings.
1:19:53But the point, your larger point about maintenance
1:19:57and support does stand.
1:19:58I mean, people say, "Look at Apple,
1:20:01"they have all the money in the world,
1:20:02"why can't they do X?"
1:20:04Well, it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft
1:20:06sold all the money in the world,
1:20:07and they had two decades where they did almost nothing.
1:20:11Microsoft had a very, very long span
1:20:13where they could not produce anything even good,
1:20:17let alone great.
1:20:19And it's arguable whether they've come out of that yet,
1:20:23but they're trying, they're doing a lot better now.
1:20:26They're doing a lot better than they were,
1:20:28like in the Windows Vista era,
1:20:31like first leading up to Vista and then Vista itself.
1:20:35Microsoft had all the money in the world,
1:20:38but simply could not manage to ship great things
1:20:43because of other problems, because of mismanagement,
1:20:46because of internal problems, whatever the case was,
1:20:50Microsoft had just no ability to apply their money
1:20:54into creating good products reliably.
1:20:57And I think we are at that point now with Apple.
1:20:59It is very, very hard to look at the output of Apple
1:21:02over the last couple of years and say otherwise.
1:21:05They're a company that can produce good things sometimes,
1:21:08but increasingly that's the exception, not the norm.
1:21:11And that's really, really worrisome to me.
1:21:14One of the ways that Microsoft got out of it, or got out of their funk, aside from changing
1:21:18management stuff, was they tried a lot of different things.
1:21:21Most of which failed, but they tried a lot of them.
1:21:24And I think, you know, if I look at what was the success story that was able to convince
1:21:31Microsoft itself and the outside world that Microsoft could conceivably do good things
1:21:35again, I feel like it was the Xbox.
1:21:38Because that was a weird market.
1:21:39the hell is Microsoft making a game console, right? And it, you know, it struggled and
1:21:45they had to learn this new business in the same way that Apple kind of had to learn the
1:21:48new business of cell phones and they didn't, you know, it's not comparable to the iPhone
1:21:52obviously in terms of the scope of its success and how important it was to, you know, because
1:21:56it was just another game console for the most part, although it had its own innovations.
1:21:59But it, of all the things they did, they tried so many things, so many different mobile phone
1:22:04strategies, so many different tablet and pen computing, like they were so close to so many
1:22:08But because they kept trying all these different things,
1:22:11you know, I don't even remember half the things they did,
1:22:13that sidekick company that they bought
1:22:14with little tardy smartphone thing that they sold.
1:22:17But Xbox, of all things, like unquestionably,
1:22:22was a success in its market, in a very difficult market
1:22:26that has killed many a company
1:22:28who have tried to enter it and be successful.
1:22:30And so I think Apple probably continues to know
1:22:37Continues to need to needs to continue to do what it seems to have been doing and like be willing to try it like the watch
1:22:43Is a good example try a watch maybe it's gonna be awesome
1:22:46Maybe you want or whatever but but do it like we don't need to be I don't think we need to be convinced that Apple
1:22:50can still do great things because you know the Apple watch is
1:22:54Successful as it may or may not be it's you know
1:22:58I think it's a big step up for the the smartwatch market and in many ways has come to
1:23:04not redefine that market, but sort of pin down what people expect from smart watches to the point where smart watches
1:23:10are very much now
1:23:13aping some of the looks and features of Apple's things if only to to capitalize on their you know their marketing cachet
1:23:20But self-driving cars all sorts of things that we say why is Apple even doing that?
1:23:25All you need is one or two of them to hit for it to be worthwhile
1:23:29Thus far none of them have been big successes
1:23:32But if Apple was in a Microsoft type situation, we would all be looking at the watch or the AirPods say see Apple can make
1:23:38Great things again. Apple's not down that low when we see the AirPods were like, yes
1:23:41That's what Apple should be doing and that's what we expected you right versus we are super surprised that you've made a successful good product
1:23:47We're not surprised. It's what we expect. We still expect we still have high expectations of Apple
1:23:51We still have we still hold them to high standards and I think that's good
1:23:54But I also like that's why I don't want to be too down on all the weird stuff Apple is doing it
1:24:00I know it's easy to do the trade-offs like, "Oh, you should just be making Macs better
1:24:03because that's what I like," or whatever.
1:24:04But as you pointed out, Marco, for all we know, those are entirely separate things,
1:24:08and it's not like they lack the money.
1:24:09So as long as it's not literally the people who are going to make the Mac Pro who are
1:24:12now making self-driving car software, like, go for it.
1:24:15Well, more power to you.
1:24:17Eventually, we made it to be the point where we're looking for Apple's Xbox, and maybe
1:24:23– I was going to say, maybe Apple should just make a gaming console, but they're
1:24:26really terrible at gaming, so don't do that.
1:24:28Once they buy Nintendo and the show finally comes to an end, because the apocalypse that
1:24:34will happen if that comes to pass.
1:24:38Yeah, I'm not as down on Apple as you are, Marco.
1:24:43I continue to believe that they can come out of it.
1:24:44I think Microsoft is a great example that no matter how low you go, there's always something
1:24:48great you can do.
1:24:49And I would hold up Azure as an example of that too, and a lot of the DevTools stuff
1:24:52that Microsoft has been doing.
1:24:53They had a lot of smart people, they had a lot of great tech.
1:24:55It was just a matter of finding a way to channel that in a productive way while also continuing
1:25:02to milk the cash cow that is their terrible enterprise software.
1:25:09My main concern here is that 2016 was a really bad year for Apple from the public point of
1:25:16view.
1:25:17And Tim can say stuff like, "Oh, we have stuff coming.
1:25:19Don't worry.
1:25:20Just because we don't see it doesn't mean we're not working on it."
1:25:21But that doesn't mean anything.
1:25:24And it just seems like there's these areas
1:25:26of Apple product development that have stalled
1:25:28or that have taken way too long.
1:25:31And there seems to be not only no end in sight,
1:25:34but no changes that would suggest that there would be
1:25:38a change of policy or a change of results coming.
1:25:42And so what I want is by the end of 2017,
1:25:45I think there's a handful of big hotspot areas
1:25:51that if they are still lacking,
1:25:54I wanna see somebody get fired.
1:25:57I know it's not cool to talk about Apple executives
1:25:59and SVPs and talk about them personally
1:26:01and say who should get fired,
1:26:02but I think things are bad enough now
1:26:04that heads have to roll if certain things don't get fixed.
1:26:08And I would say maybe the list would be Mac desktops,
1:26:11hardware, iPhone design,
1:26:14like if that new iPhone does not come out this fall
1:26:17and they have another year of the iPhone 6 design
1:26:20and general form factor, that's a problem, right?
1:26:24If Mac desktops do not get any kind of meaningful update
1:26:27during this year, that's a big problem.
1:26:29I would say iPad software, like multitasking on the iPad
1:26:34is one of these areas where that needs to be improved
1:26:36significantly in some way.
1:26:38I would say Siri, the quality of Siri, the reliability,
1:26:41the intelligence of Siri needs to be improved,
1:26:43and maybe I'd throw in TV content deals,
1:26:45as we talked about earlier, 'cause those have also
1:26:46installed forever and the Apple TV is suffering greatly.
1:26:50So those things, if all of those don't have
1:26:53meaningful improvements by the end of 2017,
1:26:57then that will be a very long time
1:26:59during which these things have not improved
1:27:01and desperately need to, and somebody high up
1:27:04needs to get fired or resign at that point.
1:27:07- Well, you would like that to happen,
1:27:09but if the rest of the world says,
1:27:12"Hey, record iPhone sales, here's a 10% bump
1:27:15"to your stock price, Apple."
1:27:16Apple is doing great from the perspective of investors and other people who have, you
1:27:22know, the broader world that has expectations of what Apple is supposed to do, which is
1:27:25sell a lot of iPhones for a high price.
1:27:27They're doing that really, really well so far.
1:27:30And everything we're talking about is tiny little slivers of the giant pie wedge that
1:27:35is the revenue of Apple.
1:27:37Well, no, it's not.
1:27:38Because look, Microsoft did really well under Steve Ballmer financially for a long time.
1:27:44He had record quarters, record sales,
1:27:46as the product line just stagnated and crumbled,
1:27:50and the quality, the foundation the company was built on
1:27:53crumbled, and the world around it moved on
1:27:56to this massive new world of mobile,
1:27:58and they totally missed it
1:27:59because they were not being managed properly.
1:28:02So the fact that they keep selling record quarters
1:28:06is not good enough for Apple.
1:28:08- But what I'm saying is executives don't get fired
1:28:11when your stock price goes up in general.
1:28:13All right, so I'm saying like,
1:28:15whether you think it's the right thing to do
1:28:17or what you would do versus what is actually gonna happen.
1:28:20'Cause the only thing we've seen executives
1:28:21get canned for at Apple is not getting along
1:28:23with other executives, that's forestall,
1:28:25not being like a cultural fit or like flailing
1:28:28and not being a success like whatever Papermaster
1:28:30and those people who were there for a very short time.
1:28:32What would it take for a long timer to get fired?
1:28:36I mean, I think we've seen with the reshuffling,
1:28:37not firing, but like, we don't know what's going on
1:28:40that reshuffling that they've done various times, but surely that reshuffling is elevating
1:28:45some people and minimizing other people within the company enough so that they all stay there,
1:28:52but still affecting them. You're not going to see a big name executive get fired when
1:29:04every kind of metric you can put on the company is looking good, because that's just not how
1:29:08big companies work. Now arguably, like you said, they're making a big mistake, sure you're
1:29:12figuring out how to make more money out of the iPhone, but what about the future, blah
1:29:15blah blah, but they have answers for all that. Well, in the future we have all these super
1:29:17projects that you don't know about plus the car crap and stuff like that, and maybe they'll
1:29:20hit it, maybe they won't, like it's not like they had their heads in the sand, right? But
1:29:25I don't, what I'm saying is that don't get your hopes up for that to happen, right? Even
1:29:31if none of the things you listed happen, but they still have like record iPhone sales again
1:29:36and the ASP goes up again, no one's getting fired.
1:29:40I mean, if whoever was responsible for getting a skinny-model TV deal hasn't been fired yet,
1:29:46another year of not getting it is not going to make a difference, to give an example that's
1:29:49relevant to the things we just talked about, because obviously it's not important enough
1:29:53to the future of the company.
1:29:55And in other areas like the phone—not the phone, the watch—it's hard to tell exactly
1:29:59how the watch is doing because Apple's being cagey about it, but I feel like the watch
1:30:02is on a slow burn, right?
1:30:05It's not a super duper success like the iPhone was,
1:30:07but even the iPhone wasn't a super duper success
1:30:09in its first year or two, right,
1:30:10or the iPod or anything like that.
1:30:12But Apple is standing behind the watch and working on it,
1:30:14and things seem like they're going
1:30:16in the right direction with the watch.
1:30:17It is getting better, people like it more,
1:30:19it is finding a place in the market.
1:30:21- Yeah, I actually would agree with that.
1:30:23There is a reason why the watch didn't make my hit list,
1:30:25because it actually, it is not amazing on all terms.
1:30:30It has lots of asterisks on it,
1:30:32but overall it is healthy,
1:30:35and it does seem to be on the right track.
1:30:37- And so the Apple that is still willing to nurture
1:30:40a product like that, even the iPad,
1:30:43which arguably they're nurturing and helping along,
1:30:46and they're trying to get it,
1:30:48come on, come on little product, you can do it.
1:30:50Maybe they're not quite doing the right things,
1:30:51but the fact that they're standing behind those,
1:30:53and all the rumblings we hear about AR and stuff like that,
1:30:57I do see a lot of encouraging things of,
1:31:00How is Apple fostering the development of what could be eventually big important businesses
1:31:08and how patient they're being with it?
1:31:10Most of our frustration is with pre-existing businesses that seem like they are neglected,
1:31:15right?
1:31:16And because we like those products.
1:31:17But I don't know enough about the executives to say someone should be fired.
1:31:22I think if I had to restructure/restaff a bunch of things, you know what?
1:31:29MyPix is all server-side stuff.
1:31:32That part of the company is obviously in the most need, and I don't know who's in charge
1:31:36of that, and I don't know who needs to be in charge of it, but Apple should have bought
1:31:39Google long ago and given all the responsibility to all their server-side stuff for Google
1:31:42because they know what the hell they're doing, and Apple does not yet.
1:31:45They're getting better, but not fast enough.
1:31:47What's getting better faster, Apple at services or desktop Linux?
1:31:52Apple at services because desktop Linux is going nowhere.
1:31:58But I can't pin that to a particular group or executive.
1:32:01And I think there has been restructuring this.
1:32:03Seeing Apple present at like Mezos conferences and stuff
1:32:06is showing that that is actually going
1:32:07in the right direction.
1:32:08They're just so far behind
1:32:09that it's very difficult to catch up.
1:32:10But for all the other things, like even the Mac things,
1:32:13I don't feel like the people who are involved
1:32:15in Mac hardware, like, I don't know.
1:32:19I don't know where the blame lies for that.
1:32:21It seems like priorities that would be set above the level
1:32:24of people working on the Mac stuff, right?
1:32:25Like I bet everyone who's working on the Mac
1:32:28loves the Mac and wants it to be awesome.
1:32:29And I bet a lot of people who are involved in the Mac
1:32:32love the Mac and want it to be awesome,
1:32:33but it's clear that the pace of product releases
1:32:38and innovation and choices about the particular mixes
1:32:41of the products are not satisfying
1:32:42a certain class of Mac users,
1:32:43and we find that unsatisfying.
1:32:46And even for the people that is satisfying,
1:32:47I feel like their releases are slower,
1:32:50which is not good from anybody's perspective
1:32:52that we wanna see new, better things faster.
1:32:56But I wouldn't fire anyone involved in the Mac organization, right?
1:32:59I feel like that's a priority set at a higher level.
1:33:01And I wouldn't fire Tim Cook because of all the good things that we just listed, the phone
1:33:05and the watch and trying to figure out how to make the iPad better.
1:33:09Yeah, I'm -- I have -- too have hopes for this year, and I found last year disappointing.
1:33:17But I think I'm more optimistic than you are that these are all eminently fixable problems,
1:33:23and I am encouraged by efforts like the watch.
1:33:28- Yeah, and furthermore, I don't entirely get
1:33:31what firing somebody really accomplishes
1:33:33other than making you feel better
1:33:35that somebody's paying for what you don't like.
1:33:38And it certainly would presumably change course of Apple,
1:33:43at least slightly, if that executive was high enough.
1:33:48But I mean, we don't know what's going on
1:33:51behind the curtain.
1:33:52We don't know if they're playing a long game that will revolutionize the Mac, or revolutionize something else,
1:33:59or just create a whole new thing that we can't even fathom.
1:34:03We don't know what they're doing behind closed doors, and I just feel like seeing a head roll, or demanding a head roll,
1:34:10I don't know that that's necessarily going to really change anything.
1:34:13I mean, just because one or even a couple people leave, or are told to leave,
1:34:18You don't move a ship that big without moving the rudder a lot.
1:34:24And one person can only move the rudder but so much, unless they're like Steve Jobs or
1:34:28Tim Cook.
1:34:29I think the reason why I want to see something change, if all these things still continue
1:34:33to fail at the end of this year, is that if no heads roll, if no one changes jobs, if
1:34:40nothing really suggests that anything went wrong, then that is Apple tacitly telling
1:34:46in the world and possibly themselves internally, this is fine. This is how we wanted things
1:34:52to go. It's one thing if the reason why all these things are in neglect right now is because
1:34:58lots of things have gone wrong or somebody really messed up or somebody made a terrible
1:35:02decision or took a bad risk or something like that. It's another thing if these things are
1:35:08all this way in this state of neglect because that's considered okay. So if something,
1:35:17if there's somebody who like, whose job changes, for instance, the role of the app
1:35:22store recently got taken out of its previous organization and moved under Phil Schiller.
1:35:27And in the like eight years or whatever it was that it was under the previous organization,
1:35:32nothing happened. It was just stagnant and had lots of problems. And it's been under
1:35:36Schiller for about a year now and lots of improvements have happened already and there's
1:35:41you know they're at a great pace so obviously that was an area where something was really
1:35:46not working right it was had a lot of problems it got moved to different executives so effectively
1:35:51the old executive was like you know presumably like removed from it in some kind of action
1:35:55you know or some kind of decision and then under the new executive things change because
1:36:01something wasn't going right so that was the recognition internally to the company that
1:36:06this is not working, this is not good enough,
1:36:09we're gonna change it so it can be good enough.
1:36:12And so if nothing changes in this list of things,
1:36:16that you know, Mac desktops, iPhone, yes,
1:36:18if nothing changes, and we end these things
1:36:22are still being neglected almost a year from now,
1:36:25after being neglected for the last few years,
1:36:28then that to me is a sign that Tim Cook,
1:36:32and everyone beneath him, believes that is good enough.
1:36:36So that ultimately rests on Tim.
1:36:38Whether the problem is Tim himself or somebody below him,
1:36:41that is on Tim to manage, to supervise,
1:36:45and to fix if there are problems.
1:36:47You know, when there are problems between Forstall
1:36:50and Ive and whoever, whatever the drama was there,
1:36:54Tim saw there was a problem here and he fixed it.
1:36:57And whether you like his solution or not,
1:36:59he took an action because things were not good enough.
1:37:01He fixed it.
1:37:03If nothing changes in these areas,
1:37:07and they're still being horribly neglected
1:37:09in another year from now,
1:37:11then that is Tim Cook implicitly saying,
1:37:13"This is good enough."
1:37:15- Yeah, but that's a strategic choice though.
1:37:17If he chooses to de-emphasize the Mac
1:37:19or cancel the Mac entirely,
1:37:20that is a strategic choice for the company.
1:37:22They'll make all of us sad, but--
1:37:23- Yup. - It's not saying
1:37:24we think this is good enough, it's saying,
1:37:26"Yeah, we're de-prioritizing that
1:37:28"and shifting our efforts elsewhere
1:37:30"because we don't think that's important
1:37:32to the future growth of the company, right? Which we hate and we don't like, but it's not the same
1:37:37as saying, "We're trying to put everything we had behind the Mac." That's the difference in
1:37:42intention. We are trying to make the Mac the best it could possibly be, and this is our best effort.
1:37:48I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for basic maintenance.
1:37:50Yeah, well, again, because if they were trying to say, "We are trying to maintain the Mac in
1:37:56the fashion that it has been maintained in the past," and they think this is satisfactory,
1:38:00you're right, that they're wrong on that. But if instead they're saying this is exactly the amount
1:38:05of support for the Mac that we want, this is exactly how we want it to go, these are exactly
1:38:08the products we want out of them, we're very happy with the results, this is our strategic direction,
1:38:12we're all sad and mad about it, but from a company, you know, from the perspective of is Tim Cook
1:38:17making the right decision for the company, it's arguable that he is because the Mac is clearly not
1:38:21the future of Apple, right, it's just this thing that we all like and use, right, and if it means
1:38:25means that more time and energy and money is available for whatever the actual future
1:38:32level is going to be, whether it's going to be the watch or AR or self-driving car software
1:38:35or who knows what, that is probably the correct strategic direction for the company despite
1:38:39how angry it makes us.
1:38:41I think it is entirely a question of what their intent is because it's like judging
1:38:46whether it's a success or a failure, we see what the results are and if that is the intended
1:38:51results then they're getting exactly what they want and then our quibble is just with
1:38:54strategic direction. Whereas if the intended result is very different than what we're actually
1:38:58getting, then that's the company failing to execute successfully on its own plan. And because
1:39:04Apple doesn't really tell you what its own plans are in terms of how it emphasizes product lines
1:39:08and stuff, other than the sort of the PR problem that we get about, you know, we love the Mac,
1:39:14blah, blah, blah, which really says nothing. It's very difficult to judge whether they are failing
1:39:19or a successfully executing strategy we don't like. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
1:39:23I concur that I am disappointed with the way the Mac has been treated, and I would like
1:39:30to see it be different.
1:39:32But just because my engine isn't revved by a touch bar doesn't mean the touch bar is
1:39:38wrong.
1:39:39It doesn't mean that it was a failure.
1:39:40It doesn't mean that Apple isn't innovating.
1:39:42It doesn't mean it's not a magical, awesome improvement.
1:39:46All it means is it's not right for me.
1:39:49And for me to hypothetically say, "Oh, that Apple's doing everything wrong," or that,
1:39:54you know, "The head of Mac hardware should be fired strictly because of the touch bar,"
1:39:58which is not what you're saying, Marco.
1:39:59That's not at all what I'm saying.
1:40:00No, that's not what I'm saying.
1:40:01No, I know it's not.
1:40:02I know it's not.
1:40:03But I think what I'm trying—let me just rephrase and say that I think you're conflating
1:40:09a disappointment with direction—this is what Jon was just alluding to—a difference
1:40:13in direction, or disappointment in direction with a failure.
1:40:17And that is not necessarily the case, just like Jon said.
1:40:20I agree that I don't like the way things are going, but I think it's too strong to say
1:40:25that it's a failure at this point.
1:40:28It seems a little bit aggressive to me.
1:40:30No, and I didn't say these things are all failures at this point.
1:40:33I said that these are, you know, these are like, you know, checks that 2016 wrote for
1:40:372017 to cash.
1:40:39And if 2017 goes through and these things are all still a problem, something needs to
1:40:44change big time.
1:40:46is it isn't, I'm not saying that a company
1:40:50that's trying to maximize its revenue
1:40:51and make itself a solid growth potential in the future
1:40:54shouldn't change strategy.
1:40:56What I am saying is that Apple does not ship (bleep).
1:41:00Apple's entire brand and the reputation they've built up
1:41:04over years and years and years is that they don't ship (bleep)
1:41:08That Apple products are good, they are great.
1:41:12And for them to keep saying that
1:41:13have major areas of the product line that are really embarrassing or really customer
1:41:20hostile even for years on end. That they keep selling just to scrape a little bit more profit
1:41:27off the pavement before they just totally kill them. That is not what Apple should be
1:41:32doing. For Apple, for Corporation X, sure, let Steve Ballmer run it then. Why isn't
1:41:40Steve Ballmer running it? That's what they want to do, that's the goal, let him do
1:41:42He's great at that, but that's not Apple. That's not good enough for Apple. It never has been and it shouldn't be now
1:41:47Yeah, I mean in the grand scheme of things even though I'm actively arguing with you right now. I do
1:41:54Largely agree with you. I think that you're right that 2016 wrote a lot of checks that I've yet to see 2017 cash
1:42:00I just
1:42:03What concerns me is I?
1:42:05Wonder if you're putting Apple on a pedestal and if they don't release the most perfect Mac Pro ever
1:42:10that that you're gonna still be fiery about it if they don't you know version bump the MacBook MacBook adorable
1:42:17You're gonna be fiery about it truth be told I will be too but don't tell Marco
1:42:19The MacBook adorable is only one year old. That's fine. Bye-bye my standards. That's totally fine
1:42:25Yeah, and I mean also remember we're only one
1:42:28Calendar quarter into the year yet. I mean there's still plenty of time left now in your defense Marco
1:42:34Typically there is a March event of some sort and we are already halfway through March and there's been not even a
1:42:40peep of a confirmation about it, which means they'll surely confirm it tomorrow before we release the episode.
1:42:45But nevertheless, we haven't heard a March event yet, and that's slightly alarming, but it's only March.
1:42:52We don't know what's in store for the rest of the year. And who knows? Our socks could be blown off at WWDC.
1:42:57And typically they're at least...
1:42:59My socks are at least blown a little bit forward, if not entirely off my feet to beat this analogy to death.
1:43:06And so you never know what'll happen.
1:43:08But I think we shouldn't get too fiery yet.
1:43:14If after WWDC and we've seen the software updates and we still haven't seen much in
1:43:20the way of hardware updates, okay, maybe we should start getting fiery.
1:43:23But at this point, I'm not too concerned yet.
1:43:26On the topic of trying to figure out intent, like basically is it a successful execution
1:43:32of a strategy we disagree with or a failed execution of a strategy that we would support,
1:43:36that type of thing?
1:43:37The Mac Pro is actually a good example because on the idea of Apple not shipping things that
1:43:43they would be proud of, right, the Mac Pro I think is the best example of it.
1:43:48It's not that it was a bad product when it was introduced, it's actually really cool
1:43:51and interesting, it's that if you keep shipping it for three years it becomes an embarrassment,
1:43:56right?
1:43:57And it is the type of embarrassment that like, look, there is no strategy that makes sense
1:44:02with the image that Apple previously had, unless the new idea is we don't want Apple
1:44:05to have that reputation, which doesn't make any sense, because everything else Apple does
1:44:08and everything they say and everything they've always done is like, yes, we want to be the
1:44:11company that has the reputation of shipping good stuff.
1:44:13The Mac Pro is, they shouldn't still be selling it.
1:44:18And I understand why they're why.
1:44:20If you were to get someone up on stage and talk to them in a WODC talk show type interview
1:44:24and say, "Why are you still shipping the Mac Pro?"
1:44:25I guarantee you what they will say, and it's probably true, is, "Some vague answer about
1:44:32how they had it they didn't plan for this like there was a strategy to do to
1:44:36do something better and it didn't work out so that I would say there were they
1:44:38would they would vaguely admit to some kind of failure there and they would say
1:44:41but then why are you even still selling it they would say well because we have
1:44:44customers who need a computer like this and actually believe it or not in case
1:44:49you could probably believe it not selling this now piece of crap overpriced
1:44:53computer would actually be worse for those customers than continuing to sell
1:44:56it and then the only recourse you have that it's like okay but do you have
1:45:00I still have to sell it for like eight grand.
1:45:01And they'd be like, well, people buy it.
1:45:04And that, you know, whatever,
1:45:05Apple has never been ashamed of selling people things
1:45:07for way too much money, but that's the situation they're in.
1:45:10So I feel like the Mac Pro, to figure out,
1:45:12is this a strategy we don't agree with,
1:45:13or is this a failure?
1:45:14There has to be a failure in there.
1:45:16They're not gonna come and tell you exactly
1:45:17what the failures are, you know what I mean?
1:45:18Like they're not gonna say,
1:45:19oh, here's what went wrong or whatever.
1:45:21But that seems very clear to me.
1:45:23There is no conscious strategy that Apple says,
1:45:25you know what, we're gonna make Pro hardware
1:45:27and then we're not gonna update it
1:45:27for three or four years.
1:45:28I do not believe that was ever Apple's strategy.
1:45:32That is evidence of a failure.
1:45:34How big a failure is that in the grand scheme of things?
1:45:36I don't know or whatever.
1:45:38But that is the only thing that seems clear from the outset.
1:45:40Everything else you can say,
1:45:42is it a failure to like ship,
1:45:45make all your laptops thin and light or is that a strategy?
1:45:48Or is it a failure to have computers
1:45:50that aren't really that much better
1:45:51than the ones they replace but are more expensive?
1:45:54Or is that part of a strategy?
1:45:55Like almost everything else I look at and I squint and say,
1:45:57seems a lot like a strategy. Maybe a strategy I don't agree with personally from my tastes
1:46:01and products or whatever, but it seems like a strategy. But the Mac Pro does not seem
1:46:05like a strategy. It seems like a failure.
1:46:07- Counterargument. The Mac Mini. Mac Mini is totally fine. They could update it. It's
1:46:12really easily updated. It uses cheap component parts.
1:46:15- That's a strategy.
1:46:16- Well, and so their strategy was, let's put this thing out there, but because it doesn't
1:46:20sell on very high volumes, let's never update it basically. Why couldn't that have been
1:46:24the same strategy for the Mac Pro?
1:46:25No, because the Mac Pro, the whole point of the Mac Pro is the biggest, fastest computer
1:46:29for the most demanding workloads.
1:46:31And the rest of Apple's product line, like the 5K Mac, has passed it by.
1:46:35Like its role in the product line is to be the biggest, fastest, and most expensive.
1:46:39The role of the Mac Mini is to be the cheapest and crappiest.
1:46:42Success.
1:46:43Like, you know, if you never update it, it exactly fills its role of the cheapest and
1:46:47crappiest and you're just like, "Oh, this is a product Apple doesn't care about and
1:46:50doesn't really care about updating."
1:46:51That, I feel like Mac Mini looks totally like strategy to me, but there is no world in which
1:46:55which is a strategy of like,
1:46:56we're gonna make the biggest, fastest computer
1:46:58and then never make it any faster
1:46:59and the whole rest of our product line,
1:47:01including eventually our watches,
1:47:02are gonna be faster than this friggin' trash can.
1:47:04That's not a strategy because of the slot
1:47:07that the product goes in.
1:47:08So it's gotta be a failure.
1:47:09- I don't think we have enough
1:47:15Tim Cook Apple history to know that.
1:47:16I think there is very plausibly,
1:47:19I think it was probably a failure of some kind,
1:47:22But I think it's very plausibly also just a strategy
1:47:26of how today's Apple deals with low-volume products.
1:47:31- We need to write all these things down
1:47:32so that we can wait in 20 years for the tell-all book.
1:47:35We need to track down these long-retired
1:47:37millionaire Apple executives.
1:47:39What the hell happened with the Mac Pro?
1:47:41Tell us, 'cause from the outside, we can't tell.
1:47:44Was it just an Intel thing that you didn't get,
1:47:47or the sales volume, or there was something like,
1:47:49I don't know, what happened?
1:47:51or did you have it designed and they were fatal flaws with this little triangle design
1:47:54and you're just eating the cost on these GPU replacements and the new one you had planned
1:47:58didn't work?
1:47:59Like, what happened?
1:48:00Whereas the Mac Mini, I feel like you're interviewing me like, "Yeah, no one cares about that computer.
1:48:03It's low end."
1:48:04And it compiles faster than the Mac Pro anyway.
1:48:08Wow.
1:48:09Oh, is there any show that we can't eventually get to the Mac Pro about?
1:48:12Casey loves it.
1:48:13That's the best.
1:48:15It makes me so happy.
1:48:16Thanks to our three sponsors this week, Eero, Betterment, and Squarespace.
1:48:21And we'll see you next week.
1:48:23Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin
1:48:30'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:48:35John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:48:40'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
1:48:46And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:48:51And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:48:56@C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
1:49:00So that's Kasey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:49:05Auntie Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C
1:49:10USA, Syracuse
1:49:12It's accidental (it's accidental)
1:49:15They didn't mean to, accidental (accidental)
1:49:20Tech podcast so long
1:49:25Can we can we please talk about something that'll make us happier, please?
1:49:28Like the switch maybe hopefully possibly John. How do you like your switch?
1:49:32It's hard to say how I like my switch because
1:49:36This is supposed to be your happy place
1:49:40Because as far as like I feel kind of bad because a lot of people who I know who are using the switch are all talking
1:49:46about it and they're talking about the hardware and it's like
1:49:49This is just a Zelda delivery device for me at this point kind of like it
1:49:53You know my PlayStation 4 became my destiny delivery device
1:49:56And in that capacity I wish as always that the hardware was faster because then I wouldn't have
1:50:04Slowdowns in forested areas, and it's like I still find myself thinking can you imagine how?
1:50:11You know how even better this game would be on the ps4, but in general
1:50:17I don't spend much time dwelling in that because I'm really really loving Zelda. I think it's a great game. I enjoy it
1:50:23I think about it when I'm not playing it. I can't wait to play it every time. I'm away from the game
1:50:27And it's like watching a movie. I really don't think about the quality of my blu-ray player when I'm watching a good movie
1:50:32I think about the movie so when I'm playing so I'm thinking about Zelda, and it's awesome, and it's great and my switch has
1:50:37Literally never been held in my hands to play a game and has not left the dock since I got Zelda
1:50:43So that's how I'm using my switch. It is I'm pretending that Nintendo is still releasing
1:50:48TV connected consoles and not this hybrid portable thing and I'm perfectly happy with that eventually
1:50:54I probably will take it out and try playing it handheld and see what that's like
1:50:57But for now it is me a pro controller and Zelda and I'm loving it. No spoilers, please
1:51:04you know, it's funny so I
1:51:06played with two different people's switches my sister-in-law got one and she came over the evening of
1:51:13of launch day. And then the following day I went to my friend Stee's house and played
1:51:19with his for a little bit. And in, I guess, in a kind of opposite way, in that I don't
1:51:26think I really want a canister to speak to because I don't really see how it will help
1:51:32my life. I want to switch so badly, even though I know I'll play it for like a week and then
1:51:37never look back because I just think this thing is so darn cool and I've been
1:51:43super impressed by it. We actually hooked it up to my TV because my sister-in-law
1:51:47said it is because she hadn't hooked it up to hers yet and I
1:51:51thought that was super awesome. I played a few minutes of Zelda. I thought that
1:51:55was really cool. I didn't play it enough to like really get into it but my
1:51:58initial impressions were great. The hardware with the with the weirdly named
1:52:03Joy-Cons, like I find that name to be a little bit peculiar, but the click that it makes
1:52:10when you slide one of them in and removing it is so cool, and the kickstand is a little
1:52:14chintzy or whatever, but it still gets the job done for the most part.
1:52:18Everything about this hardware is so cool, and I really want one for no reason at all,
1:52:25because I'm just not really a video game kind of guy.
1:52:30But man, this thing is neat, and I'm super impressed by it.
1:52:32And it's the first time I've lusted after a video game system since the original Wii,
1:52:38which I did play a lot of for about a year and then I just never looked back.
1:52:42But I've been super, super anxious to get my hands on one, even though...
1:52:47Well, I mean, I could get my hands on one, I'm sure, but I know myself enough to know
1:52:52that I'm just...
1:52:53I'm in lust, I'm not in love.
1:52:55But we'll see what happens over time.
1:52:56Marco, you guys are, I guess, really...
1:52:58Tiff got one, right?
1:52:59So what have you thought?
1:53:02we haven't really played it much. So I just came back from a trip, I left that trip shortly
1:53:08after last week's show. The night before the trip I tried to buy and download Zelda, and
1:53:15the credit card thing on Nintendo's website just kept failing and timing out and everything
1:53:20– like, their whole website just sucked that night. It just, like, everything kept
1:53:24failing. And so I wasn't able to buy it in time for the trip, and so I didn't bring
1:53:28it because I'm like, you know, I have like, you know, I have Bomberman and that racing
1:53:32game. Neither of which I've actually played yet. I just, because like, you know, buying
1:53:36and installing this stuff, it all takes time and then I have to do something else. And
1:53:38then I left for a trip and I'm like, well, I'm not going to bring this entire console
1:53:41taking up space in my bag and one more thing to charge and everything else just for these
1:53:45two kind of like, you know, second tier games. You know, if I could get Zelda before the
1:53:50show, sure, I'll bring it, but I couldn't. So that's, so I didn't bring it. And now
1:53:54Now we're back and I'm dealing with all the work I missed,
1:53:57so I still haven't actually played it yet.
1:53:59And I'd love to play it on my TV,
1:54:01but I can't get a Pro Controller anywhere.
1:54:03So that kind of breaks that as well.
1:54:05I don't really want to use the weird little like--
1:54:06- No, you can still play it, I was gonna say,
1:54:08you can play it on your TV without a Pro Controller,
1:54:10you just gotta use the Joy-Con.
1:54:11So that, a lot of people have asked me
1:54:12if I have like the left Joy-Con disconnecting thing.
1:54:15I don't know, I don't use those things.
1:54:16I use the Pro Controller and it works fine.
1:54:19- Right, exactly.
1:54:20- It does not disconnect.
1:54:21- Yeah, so I need to get myself a Pro Controller.
1:54:24to really enjoy this thing.
1:54:26'Cause what I really want is to just,
1:54:27is most of the time to play these games on my TV.
1:54:30So once I get that, then let me know.
1:54:32But I'm also, I suspect that these initial games I got
1:54:36are probably not gonna be a lot of my time.
1:54:38I'm not really into Zelda.
1:54:39TIFF would probably play it, but I probably won't.
1:54:42I'm more into like the racing and stuff games.
1:54:44So when Mario Kart comes out, I'm very much into that.
1:54:47But that's not out yet.
1:54:50And like when the new Sonic thing comes out,
1:54:52I'll be very much into that probably,
1:54:53but that also isn't out yet.
1:54:55Mario games, when those come out, but they also aren't.
1:54:58(laughs)
1:54:59Any kind of virtual console stuff
1:55:01to maybe play some of the games that I've missed
1:55:04since the Super Nintendo era or the N64 era,
1:55:07to play some of the Mario games
1:55:08that have come out in the middle,
1:55:09if that becomes available and possible to do.
1:55:11I'd love to do that, but I can't yet,
1:55:14because they don't exist.
1:55:15So eventually I expect to really enjoy this thing,
1:55:18but right now I've barely used it,
1:55:19because everything I've tried to do either failed
1:55:21took too long and then I had to go on a trip.
1:55:23I feel like there are like three obvious possibilities with this Zelda, this Zelda in particular.
1:55:28One is you're a Super Zelda fan and you played all the 3D Zelda games and you love them,
1:55:32you will also love this game.
1:55:33So that's the easy case, that's why all the gaming press love it, that's why I love it,
1:55:37right?
1:55:38Two is you don't know a Zelda from a hole in the wall and you bought this Switch because
1:55:42you saw one and thought it was neat and you get Zelda because it's like the, you know,
1:55:47popular top tier game to get on launch and you start playing it and you just slowly,
1:55:54gradually get lost in Zelda playing your version of what you think the Zelda game is supposed
1:56:00to be about, maybe not even advancing the actual main quest storyline for a very long
1:56:05time and spend like literally a year and a half consumed by this little toy box world
1:56:12because you have never played a sandbox game before and you've never played a Zelda and
1:56:15This is all entirely new to you, right?
1:56:17And the third possibility is you've never played a Zelda.
1:56:20You get this game, you try it, and you're like,
1:56:23this seems big and confusing, not for me.
1:56:24And I think that's what Marco's gonna think about.
1:56:26It's like, eh, it's neat.
1:56:28I can see how people might like it,
1:56:29but not my type of game.
1:56:30It probably also happened to Tiff
1:56:31because it's very difficult, I feel like,
1:56:33to play this Zelda game in particular,
1:56:36in any Zelda game, in a casual way.
1:56:39You're either going to know what you're getting into
1:56:42and know you like this kind of game
1:56:44or not know what you're getting into
1:56:45and just be completely consumed because you don't have the antibodies for this type of
1:56:49thing but you are the type of person who is entirely who does like this kind of game and
1:56:53for that type of person like I can imagine sitting literally hundreds of hours into this
1:56:57non multiplayer single-player completely entirely scripted deterministic game because you'll
1:57:03just be like climbing trees and picking apples and cooking food and and exploring and occasionally
1:57:09advancing this big overarching world story thing which may eventually get too hard for
1:57:13you to do anyway.
1:57:16Because if you've never done that before, this is amazing.
1:57:18I've done all this stuff before and I'm amazed and excited and just want to go exploring
1:57:24and do things and constantly getting distracted from advancing the main quest by all the other
1:57:29things that you can do, whether they be official side quests or entirely different ones.
1:57:36For an experience, it impresses experienced Zelda fans, but I think the best, the ideal
1:57:42experiences for this to be your first Zelda and for you to be the type of person who loves
1:57:46Zelda but you don't know it yet because you've never played one. This was your first Zelda
1:57:50game? For some kid, this is going to be this kid's first Zelda game, it's going to blow
1:57:54their mind. They're going to talk about this game like we talk about Mario 64, of being
1:57:57like "Oh, so that's what 3D platforming is? Oh, I see. That's how 3D works." Like, completely
1:58:08defining game type experience. So I'm excited by this, but I have dim hopes that Marco will
1:58:14get anything out of it. And I'm not sure about Tiff because she's been hot and cold on the
1:58:18other 3D Zelda games, so we'll see. But yeah, as with so many other game consoles that I
1:58:25buy, if this was the only game I was ever allowed to play on the Switch, already worth
1:58:29the money.
1:58:30Hm. See, for me, I expect Mario Kart will probably be that game, if not one of the later
1:58:36Marios. But yeah, we'll see.
1:58:37Yeah, I've wondered when the Mario Kart comes out because I haven't played Mario Kart in a long time
1:58:43And and my understanding is it's just like a slight refresh or something like that. But either way
1:58:48What it comes out if I give that a shot
1:58:51That might give me enough ammunition to buy the switch be and the reason I say that is not because I don't think I would
1:58:58Love just Zelda
1:58:59I think I would
1:59:00But I view that as I would play it once and then be done and I don't know if it's worth what?
1:59:05$300 for the Switch and like $70, $60 for the Zelda, so call it $400.
1:59:09You would play it once in one sitting or you think you would finish the whole game?
1:59:12No, no, no.
1:59:13I'm saying over the course of like a month or two maybe I would finish the whole game,
1:59:16but I don't know if I want to spend $400 on Zelda because I feel like I would play Zelda
1:59:20and think, "Wow, that was really great.
1:59:21I'm glad I did that," and then never look at the Switch again.
1:59:24But if I see Mario Kart, which I know that I've loved previous Mario Kart games, if I
1:59:30I see that and it's well reviewed and I get to play it on one of my friends' consoles
1:59:36and I like it.
1:59:37That might change things.
1:59:38Additionally, I've never played Splatoon but I've heard nothing but universal praise
1:59:41for it.
1:59:42So I believe that's, again, like a refresher, a new version is coming for the Switch at
1:59:46some point.
1:59:47So maybe if I play that I'll think, "Oh, maybe this is worth it."
1:59:50But sitting here now, I'm looking for a reason to spend my money on this thing and
1:59:55I just can't come up with it yet.
1:59:56If you're going to play that many games, though, and you're like, you're rallying
1:59:59off of those things that you think you might play, like honestly it would be better for
2:00:01you to get a PS4 because there are so many different choices in franchise.
2:00:06The next game in my queue for example is Horizon Zero Dawn which has a terrible title, which
2:00:11is also an open world type game but looks 100 times better because it's on PS4 and you
2:00:16know, anyway, it's being compared to Zelda a lot, but on a PS4 you get that, you get
2:00:23the Uncharted series, you get all the top tier games.
2:00:26On Nintendo's thing, you just get Nintendo's top-tier games, so it is slimmer pickings,
2:00:30and I feel like you would have a better experience on a "real" TV-connected console.
2:00:36But for Nintendo-specific franchises, Mario Kart 8, I feel like I know what that's going
2:00:40to be, because I already played it.
2:00:41This is a deluxe version, right?
2:00:45And for me, I still miss the driving mechanics of Double Dash, it's still my favorite, but
2:00:49Mario Kart 8 was a really good Mario Kart, and just adding more tracks and everything
2:00:52is also going to make it really good.
2:00:54But I find as I get older, my tolerance for rubber banding AI in racing games is decreasing
2:01:00mightily.
2:01:02And because I was never particularly good at racing games, multiplayer is just another
2:01:07avenue for me to feel frustrated because everyone I play online is 100 times better than I am.
2:01:13So it almost becomes like a party game where it's only good when you're playing with other
2:01:18people.
2:01:19And even then, even within my own family, it's hard to find people who have...
2:01:22Our skill ranges are too widely varied, right?
2:01:25That's the problem.
2:01:26And so, we could play a four player Mario Kart, but two to three people are going to
2:01:32be really upset.
2:01:33Because they're never going to win.
2:01:35And that's bad.
2:01:36But yeah, I'm not entirely sure that you should get a Switch, Casey.
2:01:44I think probably, eventually Declan will tell you what you should get and you should just
2:01:49do what he says.
2:01:50That's my...
2:01:51Yeah.
2:01:52you which console you should get and why, and you should just listen to him and do that.
2:01:55And then maybe you can, maybe he can show you the ropes and teach you some things.
2:02:00Well, there's a couple things you're not considering, though. Like, number one, I classically was
2:02:04a Nintendo kind of guy. I had everything up through and including the 64, and then, what
2:02:10was it, GameCube, and then I did not have, then I had a Wii, and I didn't do anything
2:02:15since then. You can't believe you skipped the GameCube,
2:02:17man. So many good games. Such a good controller. To be fair, a lot of people skipped the GameCube.
2:02:22Also true. It was less about the hardware more about me just not really being interested in games anymore
2:02:27And and that's the other thing is that you know
2:02:30You're probably right on paper that a ps4 would be a better like a more worthwhile purchase
2:02:34But all of these top-tier games that that any normal human or any normal gamer would would want to play
2:02:42I just don't really have much interest in like I know that I I have played at least one Zelda game
2:02:48I played all of Ocarina of Time and a fair bit of whatever was on the Wii, if memory serves.
2:02:53Skyward Sword? Where you wave the controller around to wave the sword?
2:02:58No, maybe it wasn't the Wii then. I don't remember.
2:03:00That's what I'm saying. I don't think it was the Wii.
2:03:01I don't remember what it was. Maybe it was one for the GameCube, but I played it on the Wii.
2:03:06It doesn't really matter.
2:03:06Twilight Princess?
2:03:07Yes, I think it was Twilight Princess, now that you say that. It doesn't really matter,
2:03:11though. The point is that the couple that I've played, I've enjoyed.
2:03:14But other than that, what appeals to me about the Switch is that I think it would be great for
2:03:20the party games that I remember from when I was a kid from the Nintendo 64, like the equivalents
2:03:25thereof. So like Mario Kart, things like Goldeneye, which I see Splatoon kind of filling that void.
2:03:32You know what I mean? It's--I don't have a terrible interest in going online and playing
2:03:36Strangers because I know I'll get just completely destroyed by eight-year-olds, and that's okay.
2:03:42But having a bunch of friends or family or both over and playing sounds really appealing.
2:03:48And I was super impressed, like God knows if this would work at all, or if it would
2:03:52work well, but I was super impressed by the like trailer promo video or whatever that
2:03:59came out in October where they had like a portable Switch, and that's redundant, but
2:04:05a Switch not docked.
2:04:07And they had like two people playing, each with their own Joy-Con, or I think there might
2:04:11might have even been one where they had like four people playing or, or at certainly at
2:04:16another point they had like a series of switches, switch I, whatever the plural is in this particular
2:04:21context.
2:04:22Yeah, switch I is correct.
2:04:23Yeah, definitely.
2:04:24That's definitely it.
2:04:25The plural switch is switch you guys.
2:04:26But anyway, they had, they had, you know, several switches all in like a circle and
2:04:30presumably they were all like networked together.
2:04:32There was another case where there's like, I think a basketball game where they were
2:04:35back to back and they were, and there were a bunch of people playing simultaneously.
2:04:40I have no interest in a basketball game. I don't remember what the group was playing.
2:04:45It might have been Splatoon. But that sort of a thing is what makes the Switch most interesting
2:04:51to me. And that portability, the fact that it can switch between being docked and undocked,
2:04:58that to me is what I find so interesting about it. Maybe that's silly, maybe that's stupid,
2:05:03but I mean, that's why emotions are not logic and logic is not emotional. It's just it's
2:05:08the way I feel. I just think that that's what's really neat and interesting about it.
2:05:12A lot of people are enjoying playing, portable playing, like within their own house, like
2:05:15playing in bed. Yeah, yeah, seriously. No, I think that would apply to me, absolutely.
2:05:21And I've done it with the Wii U when I was playing Mario Kart 8, for instance, and the
2:05:24family wanted to watch the TV. I could continue to play Mario Kart 8 just on the Wii U gamepad.
2:05:31And I came to actually like it that way. It's the same thing that got me with the gaming
2:05:34monitor like being closer to the screen being able to see more detail.
2:05:39I haven't done the math and the angles in it but I think it just you can get it to fill
2:05:43more of your field of view even though I have the 55 inch television I do sit kind of far
2:05:47away from it and I even felt like I know this can't possibly be true maybe it is I don't
2:05:52know I even felt like the input lag was reduced even though the video was being wirelessly
2:05:57sent to this handheld thing like the game was actually playing on the Wii U that's attached
2:06:01to my TV and it was wirelessly sending the video like surely that has more lag than playing
2:06:04it on my actual TV, but for whatever reason, bottom line is I did better.
2:06:09I did better against the accursed rubberbanding AI in Mario Kart 8 and in getting five stars
2:06:15or three stars or whatever it is, max rating and all these things to unlock all the stuff.
2:06:18I did better when I had it in my hand and I found that fun, being able to be in the
2:06:22same room as other people but not occupying the giant TV while they watch some show and
2:06:28I play this thing.
2:06:29Again, I haven't done that with the Switch yet.
2:06:31I've been doing entirely on TV mostly because my son and I are playing the new Zelda together.
2:06:36And anyone else who happens to come in the room wants to see what we're up to because
2:06:39we're up to some awesome stuff.
2:06:42But then it's easier for us to sit in front of a TV and Zelda is not a Twitch game where
2:06:46you have to have like amazing response times and amazing frame rate and it's a good thing
2:06:50because you don't have that.
2:06:51But it's more fun for everyone to like look and to be looking at the big screen and admiring
2:06:57the scenery and pointing out the sparkles that I don't see out of the corner of my eye,
2:07:00which means that I have to go pick up an arrow that I shot 10 minutes ago.
2:07:06Sounds like a blast.
2:07:07It's awesome.
2:07:08Well, if you ever get bored of yours, just send it my way.
2:07:13I'll play the snot out of it.
2:07:14But I can't take it out of the dock because I might scratch the screen.
2:07:17Oh my god.
2:07:20Are you guys aware of this controversy?
2:07:21No.
2:07:22This internet controversy?
2:07:23So people, do you know that the switch goes into like the little napkin holder thingy
2:07:27that's the dock?
2:07:28Yeah, mine's in there now.
2:07:29Should I be afraid of taking it out somehow somewhere people are getting scratches on like the sides of the screen
2:07:36not the part that lights up but still kind of like a screen surface like the black area and around it and
2:07:41all sorts of internet photos and they're like
2:07:43Scratches on it like is that is it happening because you're sliding and in and out of the plastic dock and like oh the plastic
2:07:49Dock is scratched people switches
2:07:51You need to get a screen protector
2:07:52But then people get screen protectors and they heat from the switch makes the screen protectors peel off and buckle and they're saying oh you shouldn't
2:07:56get screen protectors and then someone puts a video of them taking their switch and slamming
2:08:00it in and out and in and out and in the dock as hard as they possibly can like 50 times
2:08:04and then pulling it out and saying, "See?
2:08:06No scratches."
2:08:07So whatever the hell you're doing to scratch your switch, it ain't putting it in the dock.
2:08:09And people are like, "Well, you don't know my life.
2:08:11I put my thing in the switch gently three times and it scratched to hell."
2:08:15And so unlike the left Joy-Con thing, which is 100% reproducible, as far as I've been
2:08:20able to tell in my brief Googling around on the scratching thing is that no one knows
2:08:23what the heck is happening.
2:08:26Chances are good that Nintendo wouldn't have shipped something that could have scratched it, but the screen, I think the screen is not class.
2:08:34And so it's conceivable that the two plastics could combine in a way that could cause scratches on the non-light-up part of the screen, which would be bad.
2:08:42So I have been very, very carefully taking my Switch in and out of the dock.
2:08:47dock but I was pretty well convinced by that guy going to town on his switch his
2:08:52sacrificial switch in his dock and saying look I'm literally squeezing the
2:08:56napkin holder dock pinched shut as much as I can and jamming this thing out like
2:09:00incredibly rough I'm like if that doesn't scratch it like well then what
2:09:04is happening like it do they they could have a grain of sand inside their dock
2:09:08and that would do it because you know all you need is a grain of sand between
2:09:10two little surfaces and you've got scratches out of especially if it's
2:09:13plastic. But how did SAN get in your Switch dock? So I don't know. I think that is the
2:09:19least concerning controversy. The Joy-Con thing seems like a hardware problem that they're
2:09:23going to have problems with. It's just, you know, people are holding it wrong. It's the
2:09:25same thing all over again. You've got your big watery meat bags blocking the signal and
2:09:30some bad antenna design mixed in. You know, we've all been there and done that. But that
2:09:35doesn't concern me because I'm just going to use the Pro Controller. Or if I didn't
2:09:39use the Pro Controller, I would use it when they're docked to the Switch, in which case
2:09:42signal is not an issue, you know what I mean, I'll put the things on the side. I'm not sure
2:09:45that I would ever... Wait, it's only a problem when it's in the
2:09:48grip? Is that what the thing is? No, it's only a problem when it's in your hand. You
2:09:52can use the two Joy-Cons like one in each hand, like just holding them, like you're
2:09:56on the couch and the switch is across the room, right?
2:09:58Oh! And you're using the two Joy-Cons like that,
2:10:01and when you do that it's possible to wrap your big meaty adult hand entirely around
2:10:04the left Joy-Con in a way that blocks the antenna and causes like Bluetooth disconnects
2:10:09- Right, so that's the issue everyone's having,
2:10:11is only when they're disconnected.
2:10:12So if you use it like all together, it's fine?
2:10:15- Yeah, yeah, it's fine.
2:10:16- Oh. - 'Cause I think
2:10:17when it's all together,
2:10:17I think it's literally physically connected,
2:10:19or if not, you certainly can't wrap your hand
2:10:21around the side that's facing the switch,
2:10:22because you can't get your hand there.
2:10:24It's connected in that side.
2:10:25- Right, right, right.
2:10:26- iFixit did, or someone did a tear down
2:10:28to show where the little antenna is,
2:10:29and show that if you attach an extra antenna wire
2:10:31and trace it, put it in a different position,
2:10:33like you're able to make it much harder
2:10:35to stop with your hand.
2:10:36But it's iPhone 4 type situation all over again.
2:10:39I'm not concerned about it.
2:10:41I was in no way waiting for them to make a new hardware revision and fix this problem,
2:10:45which they probably will, but there's no way in hell I'm waiting.
2:10:47I wanted to play Zelda.
2:10:49If I don't succeed in getting a pro controller anytime soon, is it an acceptable substitute
2:10:55to use either the little plastic thing that comes with it or to buy the $30 charging grip
2:11:03to just use the Joy-Cons as a controller?
2:11:06You can try it.
2:11:07I mean, the buttons are super tiny on those Joy-Cons,
2:11:09and the joystick is very tiny,
2:11:11and it's all kind of small and tiny and awkward,
2:11:13and I wouldn't choose to do it with my hands,
2:11:15but a lot of people are discovering
2:11:17what I discovered long ago.
2:11:18- I wouldn't do that with my hands,
2:11:19I'd do it with your hands.
2:11:20- Yeah.
2:11:20Ergonomically speaking, having your left and right hand
2:11:24not joined by, like, not holding onto a rigid thing,
2:11:27you know what I mean?
2:11:28Like, to be able to separate them,
2:11:29like you do with the nunchuck and the Wiimote or whatever,
2:11:32is ergonomically great for anyone
2:11:33who has kind of RSI issues,
2:11:35because you can put your wrists and hands
2:11:37more neutral positions. You're not forced to, like with a keyboard, you know, you're
2:11:41not forced to align your fingers with the home keys, or a split keyboard lets your wrist
2:11:44be more neutral or whatever. So with the separate controllers, a lot of people are either discovering
2:11:50for the first time or rediscovering how comfortable it can be to have those, to have two completely
2:11:56independent not attached by anything controllers, and you can put your hands however is most
2:12:00comfortable for you and just use your thumbs and your fingers to make things. I just think
2:12:04They're too small for my hands, for the size of my hands.
2:12:07But you know, your mileage may vary, so try either way.
2:12:09And the little doggy thing, I haven't even tried it.
2:12:12The grip seems fine or whatever.
2:12:14It was like, honestly, why would I ever put those things
2:12:17into the little doggy grip when I have the Pro Controller?
2:12:19I don't see myself ever doing that.
2:12:21Cool.
2:12:22I will try to get a Pro Controller
2:12:24and try to actually download Zelda.
2:12:26It might be working now.
2:12:27By the way, speaking of companies
2:12:28that won't let you give them their money,
2:12:29Sony is the worst at this.
2:12:31And every time I want to buy something on Sony's thing, like, it probably is my fault
2:12:37for triggering this, like the expiration date of my credit card change because I got a new
2:12:41card issued or whatever.
2:12:44And maybe I went through and tried to do the purchase before I had updated the card.
2:12:48It's like, oh, you know, whatever, your purchase didn't go through.
2:12:50It's like, oh yeah, I got to update the expiration date.
2:12:52So I go update the expiration date and change it to the new one.
2:12:56But it just still won't let me purchase.
2:12:58I delete that credit card, enter it in the number one.
2:12:59It won't let me purchase.
2:13:00Like how many times have I done this?
2:13:01Every time I go to buy something, it's like, guess what?
2:13:04Sony will not let you buy anything with any credit card.
2:13:06With this credit card, with a new credit card, I go through like every credit card I own.
2:13:09Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
2:13:10And it's because they do this like 24 to 48 hour lockout to prevent fraud when they think
2:13:14there's some sort of problem.
2:13:16And you Google for it, and you see a million people getting payment failures for buying
2:13:20stuff in the PlayStation Store.
2:13:21It is so incredibly common.
2:13:23And so I think for the past three times I have bought things, because I buy all downloadable
2:13:27for a PS4, I don't buy a plastic disc if I can help it.
2:13:30For the past three times, here's how I buy things on the Sony store.
2:13:34I go to Amazon, I buy a digital download code for $20 worth of credit, I get the code, I
2:13:38enter into this thing.
2:13:40Like there's no, I don't lose any money in the deal except for the money that's left
2:13:42over.
2:13:43That's how I buy things on Sony's stupid store because they won't take my friggin' money.
2:13:46They also accept PayPal, but screw PayPal.
2:13:48[beeping]
2:13:50[ Silence ]