0:00:00- I was just feeling out to see whether you're making
0:00:01a legit mistake.
0:00:03We're trolling and you's trolling.
0:00:06- I am a trolling.
0:00:07Are you guys using your AirPods anymore?
0:00:11- I still am.
0:00:12- I am not.
0:00:14Tiff uses them more than I do now because--
0:00:16- Did you get one pair or two pair?
0:00:19- I got one pair, which is two AirPods.
0:00:22But yes, I got three AirPods.
0:00:25- How many ear holes can you fill with the AirPods
0:00:28that are in the house?
0:00:30- Two.
0:00:31- Okay, that's what I thought.
0:00:32Okay, so you have a single pair, like you said.
0:00:34- Yes.
0:00:35- And Tiff is using them more than you.
0:00:37- Yeah, she uses them actually often with the Apple TV.
0:00:39Like when I'm podcasting, she can watch TV.
0:00:40- Really?
0:00:41- Yeah, it isn't as nice as using it with other stuff,
0:00:44but it does work.
0:00:45And there's a couple of niceties.
0:00:47Like when you use the volume up and down
0:00:49on the Apple TV remote with AirPods connected,
0:00:52it does the volume to them instead of like your speakers.
0:00:54So it doesn't do like the auto pairing thing
0:00:56the way it does on iOS devices,
0:00:57but once you have it paired, it works nicely.
0:01:00- So how does that, I'm not trying to be funny,
0:01:02how does that work then?
0:01:03Do you have to like go into settings in the Apple TV
0:01:05and say connect to the AirPods every single time?
0:01:08- I forget if we do it every single time.
0:01:11I think it was just the first time.
0:01:12I don't know, usually she just does it.
0:01:14I think once they're paired.
0:01:15- As long as you don't pair them
0:01:16with something else though, right?
0:01:17- That's the issue.
0:01:18And so, I've actually seen this a number of times.
0:01:21Like I was doing, I was trying to do testing
0:01:23between like the phone, the TV, iPad,
0:01:27watch, a Mac, like, you know,
0:01:29testing all these different things,
0:01:30and I found that AirPods are a little bit frustrating
0:01:34in trying to share between different devices
0:01:38and having it not quite always do what you want.
0:01:40Like, even though the old way of doing Bluetooth,
0:01:44where you just have to, like, un-pair from one device
0:01:45and pair it to something else, that's also terrible.
0:01:48But the way AirPods do it is not quite flawless.
0:01:52But it's-- - How do they do it?
0:01:53That's my question.
0:01:54because I have used my AirPods with my phone and my iPad,
0:01:57right, those are two devices.
0:01:59- Yeah.
0:02:01- Is something supposed to happen
0:02:02other than me going to settings and tapping Bluetooth
0:02:05and tapping AirPods, 'cause that's what I've been doing.
0:02:08- My favorite thing is occasionally I'll put in
0:02:10a single AirPod and I'll be in like the bedroom
0:02:13and I'm listening to a podcast or something like that.
0:02:16And then I'll put in, it's like five or 10 minutes later,
0:02:19I'll put in another, the other AirPod,
0:02:23and it will go to connect.
0:02:24And for whatever reason,
0:02:26it will semi-consistently connect to the iMac,
0:02:28which is in the next room over in the office.
0:02:30And so I have one AirPod connected to my phone
0:02:33and one connected to my iMac.
0:02:35And so I'll double tap like the one connected to the iMac,
0:02:39which I still haven't changed to do play/pause.
0:02:42So I'll hear Siri out of one ear
0:02:44and then like whatever podcast I'm listening to
0:02:45out of the other ear.
0:02:46It's actually quite funny.
0:02:48And I could see how that would be really frustrating
0:02:51someone who isn't like a developer perhaps or who doesn't think about how difficult it is to
0:02:56implement all this, but to me I just find it to be hysterical. Yeah, I still get some weird audio
0:03:01sync problems sometimes, but overall they're still winning just because I guess my hatred of chords
0:03:05and snags has changed everything else. I find it very frustrating that I can't change volume and
0:03:10I have all these crazy schemes on how to adjust the volume by like reaching into my pocket and
0:03:16feeling for which side of the phone is face up so I know whether I have to reach for the side with
0:03:20the power button or the volume thing like, especially with gloves on and stuff like that.
0:03:26Slow down.
0:03:27Are you talking pant pocket or jacket pocket?
0:03:28Jacket.
0:03:29Oh, okay.
0:03:30Then I singed my song.
0:03:31You know, I wear winter jacket and you know, reach around there to change the thing.
0:03:36Or like when I do it in the kitchen, like I said, I don't even put the phone in the
0:03:38kitchen.
0:03:39The phone is in the dining room.
0:03:41So if I want to change the volume, I have to like take a few steps into the other room
0:03:44and on the little sideboard thing hit the volume up or down.
0:03:47And I'm living with it and apparently, you know, proof's in the pudding.
0:03:52People hate it when I say that because that's not correct.
0:03:53But deal with it, you know what I mean.
0:03:58That I'm now using them despite the fact that double tapping my ear is uncomfortable.
0:04:03And despite the fact that double tapping works weirdly and consistently.
0:04:07Some people have suggested the triple tap to try to, you know, have a mulligan in there
0:04:11if one of them doesn't register.
0:04:14Sometimes I blame Overcast and/or /iOS for taking Overcast out of memory so that it has
0:04:20to launch again before it can start playing, and then I question whether it registered
0:04:26my Taps and it just hasn't started playing yet.
0:04:28Sometimes it's so far out of memory that it starts playing music, despite the fact that
0:04:32the last thing I was listening to was a podcast.
0:04:36Very confusing.
0:04:37But anyway, all that said, I'm still using them instead of my wired ones.
0:04:41The only place I've used my wired ones recently was watching my iPad in a case where my AirPods
0:04:47were downstairs.
0:04:48And it's like, "Well, I've got the wired headphones here and I'm not going anywhere when I'm just
0:04:51watching something on my iPad on my bed or something."
0:04:54- I mean, like the wireless I'm totally sold on.
0:04:56And as I mentioned earlier, like, I love the idea of the AirPods as just how incredibly
0:05:00small and pocketable they are.
0:05:02They don't fit me comfortably and they don't really work for my life as a result.
0:05:06And so that's why I'm not really using them and why I tend to be using them more than
0:05:09I am.
0:05:10But that being said, all those limitations about
0:05:12what you can and can't easily control from them,
0:05:15like volume and play/pause being finicky
0:05:17and stuff like that, when I switch back to my
0:05:21beloved old Sennheiser PX210BT,
0:05:25when it has its giant, this little on-ear Bluetooth set
0:05:29that I've had for a couple years now
0:05:31that I walk my dog every day with,
0:05:33and it just has these big plastic buttons
0:05:37on the right ear cup and I can play/pause,
0:05:39volume up and down, seek back, seek forward,
0:05:41next track, previous track, all with these five buttons
0:05:44on the right ear cup and it is just so convenient.
0:05:47And every time I try other headphones for a little while
0:05:50to review them or to talk about them on the show
0:05:52or whatever else, whenever I go back to my crappy
0:05:55little Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones,
0:05:57I am so happy with the amount of control and convenience
0:06:00that I have for them, even though they sound like crap
0:06:03and they're pretty ugly and they are still
0:06:06like over the head headphones, even though they're
0:06:08compact ones, so they don't fit in any pocket really.
0:06:11They'll fit in jacket pockets, but not in like
0:06:13a pants pocket, and it is just so nice to have those.
0:06:16And I've tried now, I still haven't done a review,
0:06:20I keep meaning to maybe do video reviews,
0:06:22and I keep putting that off, 'cause it turns out
0:06:23video's a lot of work, but I've tried now many
0:06:28high end Bluetooth headphones, including the AirPods,
0:06:32but also including like all like the $400 crazy ones
0:06:35from like B&O and B&W and Bose
0:06:38and all these other headphone companies.
0:06:41And the convenience of my relatively cheap
0:06:44Bluetooth headphones that just have big plastic buttons
0:06:46on the side cannot be beat.
0:06:48Like it is, they are so convenient for everyday use.
0:06:51That's why I'll use them for podcasts.
0:06:53And I would never recommend them for music
0:06:54'cause they sound like trash.
0:06:57They just have the worst sound for music ever.
0:06:59But for podcasts, it's totally fine.
0:07:01And oh man, it's just so nice having those
0:07:04physical controls right on the ear,
0:07:05I can operate it with gloves on,
0:07:07I don't have to use any voice assistants,
0:07:08they work every single time,
0:07:09like it's just reliable physical controls.
0:07:12And they're not sexy, and they're not cool, but they work.
0:07:16And it's really hard to beat that for me.
0:07:18- Yeah, if only there was a device you could like,
0:07:20I don't know, strapped to your body somehow,
0:07:23that would give you all of those physical controls,
0:07:26and also let you like get a text message,
0:07:29and also let you reply to a text message,
0:07:31and also let you get other notifications.
0:07:33Wouldn't that be awesome?
0:07:34Anyway, let's do some follow-up.
0:07:35- No, actually, remember, I said that it works every time.
0:07:38The ear cup buttons work every time, not 80% of the time.
0:07:41And I can use them with gloves on and yeah.
0:07:44- Speaking of that, I keep forgetting to try that.
0:07:45That was suggested so long ago
0:07:47and it still hasn't occurred to me to try that.
0:07:49I should give that a try, although I really don't
0:07:50be wearing watches. - Try what?
0:07:51Using the watch?
0:07:52Okay. - Yeah.
0:07:53As an example of having a physical volume control
0:07:55is easier than reaching into my pocket
0:07:57and finding my phone's volume button and stuff like that.
0:08:00- Truth be told, finding the volume button
0:08:02is probably easier, but this is a solvable problem.
0:08:06It's just that you don't want to solve it,
0:08:08you don't want it to be solved the way it has been solved.
0:08:10Sounds like me in cars.
0:08:11Let's do some follow-up. - No, no,
0:08:12there's actually a solution.
0:08:14I already have it.
0:08:14It was really cheap a few years ago,
0:08:16and it works perfectly every time.
0:08:19And the newfangled solution is both
0:08:23something like four times the price and worse.
0:08:26So no, this actually is a case
0:08:28where the old solution was totally fine.
0:08:31And the good thing is, this is one of those areas
0:08:33where as you, Casey, have been an advocate of for so long,
0:08:37cheap Bluetooth headphones are plentiful these days.
0:08:40Tons of people make cheap Bluetooth headphones.
0:08:42And they're largely pretty decent.
0:08:45They're not good, but they're decent.
0:08:47And for their price, they're usually fairly reasonable.
0:08:51And these headphones were, at the time,
0:08:53I bought them kind of expensive
0:08:55at something like $100 or $110.
0:08:59They're not worth more than that
0:09:00if you see them for sale, don't pay more than that.
0:09:02But they're not even worth that really these days.
0:09:05However, this is like a five year old pair of headphones.
0:09:08This is one of the areas where the higher end headphones,
0:09:10the higher end wireless headphones
0:09:13are nicer in certain ways.
0:09:15They are possibly more portable like AirPods.
0:09:17They are better sounding like some of the high end ones
0:09:20from B&O and stuff.
0:09:21They are better noise cancellation
0:09:24and maybe more comfortable
0:09:25'cause they're larger on ear things.
0:09:27However, for practicality of just like wireless,
0:09:30wearing them while walking or running or around the house,
0:09:33doing stuff like John cooking,
0:09:35the cheap ones with plastic buttons on them
0:09:38are actually better for almost all purposes
0:09:41for that kind of use than the high-end expensive ones.
0:09:44- I mostly agree with you.
0:09:46If you ever need to flip between devices,
0:09:50then the AirPods or anything really with a W1 chip
0:09:53start to make a lot more sense.
0:09:55But if you are consistent with one machine, for example, my $25 Bluetooth headphones I
0:10:01bought literally five years ago, I believe, that are still kicking, I just don't use them
0:10:04because my AirPods.
0:10:06I only ever use those with my work computer, and it was great.
0:10:10The sound was acceptable, and they had buttons on the side if I really needed them, although
0:10:16I had the keyboard right in front of me.
0:10:18But anyway, yeah, they worked just fine.
0:10:20And I do agree with you.
0:10:21You know, I freaking love my AirPods, but nonetheless, if you don't feel like spending
0:10:28$160 on a set of little earbuds, you can easily spend between $20 and $100 and get something
0:10:33that's nearly as good as long as you're not switching between devices frequently.
0:10:38As long as you don't mind a giant thing, like I would never trade my AirPods.
0:10:41I would go back to wired earbuds before I would go to a big thing that goes over my
0:10:45head with a big band and puts two big squishy circles on my ears.
0:10:48Like I want the buds.
0:10:50That's what I want.
0:10:51And so wired or wireless, those are my choices.
0:10:53And then a distant third would be,
0:10:55okay, if I can't have any kind of earbud,
0:10:57then I guess I'll go an over-ear thing.
0:11:00- Fair enough.
0:11:01All right, let's start the show and do some follow-up.
0:11:04John, why don't you tell me about phone contracts
0:11:08and other ways that you can make people buy iPhones?
0:11:12- This is much more interesting, thanks.
0:11:14- Yeah, last week, we were talking about
0:11:16the different tractors that make people feel like
0:11:19need to get a new device on a faster schedule than people apparently and/or supposedly get
0:11:25new iPads.
0:11:27And I was bringing up the idea that phones get dropped and break more often than iPads,
0:11:31just by their nature.
0:11:33So that could be one thing that will make people turn them over.
0:11:35A couple of people wrote in to bring up the idea of contracts, which are less prevalent
0:11:41now than they used to be in the US.
0:11:43It used to be that the phone was like, "Oh, it's, you know, $200 for this phone on a two-year
0:11:48your contract revolved, blah, and they would just, typical money hiding schemes where,
0:11:52you know, human nature makes you not see the upfront cost and you don't do the multiplication
0:11:57in your head, so it seems like a cheaper deal. These days, it seems to me, as someone who
0:12:02does not buy a new phone that often, that the shift is more towards...
0:12:05You've bought a new phone exactly once! Yeah, well, no, you know, I've, I suppose.
0:12:11I've bought my track phones, too. That the move is away from contracts and more towards
0:12:18buying them up front unlocked. I don't know if that's a just an iPhone thing or just a
0:12:23my personal experience thing, but either way historically that has been a big motivator
0:12:27to get people to buy a new phone every few years because it seems like a good deal because
0:12:31they hide all the costs from you in a way that makes your silly fallible brain feel
0:12:37like you're not spending the money that you are spending.
0:12:39No, wait, can we pause here for a moment? Am I supposed to be paying less on my cell
0:12:44phone bill now that I buy my phones outright because I'm not?
0:12:47- No, you shouldn't be, but there is.
0:12:49- Ah, that's not true.
0:12:51- Well, it depends on how bad of a deal you got,
0:12:53but the strange thing about the deals now
0:12:55is that they psychologically seem more expensive.
0:12:59- No, like mine just is more expensive.
0:13:01Like, so I have AT&T, and I started buying my phones out
0:13:05right at not taking their subsidies anymore,
0:13:07and the plans are all still the same prices,
0:13:09and I, like, I'm not, I'm just spending more money now.
0:13:12- No, you should be spending,
0:13:14you should be spending a little bit less.
0:13:15I'm logging into AT&T right now,
0:13:17But what happens is the plans cost the same.
0:13:21However, they give you a very peculiarly,
0:13:26peculiar named discount
0:13:28once you're no longer subsidizing a phone.
0:13:31And it's gonna take me like three hours
0:13:33to figure out where in my bill this is listed.
0:13:36- Yeah, I remember hearing the same thing from my wife
0:13:39who wrangles the phone contracts.
0:13:41Sometimes you have to call them to remind them
0:13:44to give you the better deal once you're off contract
0:13:47and then that deal gets, I don't know.
0:13:49- Discount for access, which is on the main line,
0:13:52$25 off your total cost.
0:13:54- What a great name.
0:13:55- Because discount for access,
0:13:56actually it's on both lines, it's $25 off.
0:13:59Because when I think discount for access,
0:14:01I think this is offsetting the subsidy cost, don't you?
0:14:04(laughing)
0:14:06- That's fantastic.
0:14:07- Yeah, but it is an interesting change
0:14:09that they're getting brave enough to reveal the price
0:14:13in a way that will register with consumers' brains
0:14:16in the way that, you know, it's much scarier
0:14:18than the old way of like, oh, every new iPhone is $200.
0:14:21Now every new iPhone is $800.
0:14:23And you're like, whoa, $800?
0:14:25It's like you just didn't do the math before.
0:14:28So then the other factor that people wouldn't talk about
0:14:31for getting new phones that's gonna make you get a new phone
0:14:34before you would get a new iPad or even a new, you know,
0:14:37laptop is battery life,
0:14:39which you think would make a difference
0:14:40because iPads and laptops have batteries too,
0:14:41but phones' batteries are really, really small
0:14:44and they're much closer to the ragged edge of acceptable
0:14:47in terms of battery life.
0:14:48So when the tiny little battery that probably is subjected
0:14:52to much harsher environmental conditions
0:14:53than your iPad or your laptop,
0:14:55in terms of putting it in pockets
0:14:58or maybe leaving it in cars and stuff like that,
0:15:00like I feel like in the same way of dropping,
0:15:02the phone goes everywhere with you.
0:15:04So there's more variability,
0:15:05even just being in your outside jacket pocket
0:15:07during the winter, which I'm guilty of.
0:15:08I mean, when I'm shoveling snow,
0:15:09I have my phone in my jacket pocket.
0:15:11That can't be good for the battery
0:15:12to deal with those temperatures.
0:15:14Anyway, when the phone battery starts to go south, it's a bad scene.
0:15:19You can deal with a many years old iPad battery because then it drops from 10 hours to 5,
0:15:26but because of the way we use iPads that's okay.
0:15:28But if your phone drops from making it until 6pm to making it to only 4pm, that's a no
0:15:35go and you're going to be like, "Oh, I need a new phone because my battery sucks."
0:15:38So more hardware based reasons that people want new phones sooner than they want new
0:15:43Also, there's the Apple whatever upgrade program. I forget what it's called now, but I feel like several
0:15:50Like normal people that I know have started doing that. What is that called? Is it just upgrade iPhone upgrade program?
0:15:56But anyway, I feel like that's yes iPhone upgrade program and that and there are equivalents with each carrier that are roughly the same money
0:16:05So I feel like that's what's going on is it's your sort of kind of leasing your phone now
0:16:10- I mean, honestly, this is really a better system.
0:16:13I mean, this is like, most of the rest of the world
0:16:16outside of the US were doing systems that were more
0:16:20like this long before we were, or you literally just
0:16:24bought the phone outright and then paid cheaper plans.
0:16:26It does make more sense this way.
0:16:29Things are a little bit more honest, even though they,
0:16:33as usual, America has taken a straight, normal, honest
0:16:36system and has twisted it in such a way that it's really
0:16:39confusing and complicated and tries to hide
0:16:41all the actual costs still.
0:16:43- It's called capitalism.
0:16:44- It's called something.
0:16:45But yeah, I mean, I think this is still,
0:16:49this is long-term a better system,
0:16:51even if it is somewhat confusing in the short-term
0:16:53as we have made this transition over the last few years.
0:16:56- All right.
0:16:57John, tell me, if I take a photograph
0:17:01of you flashing me the peace sign, is that a problem?
0:17:05This is related to the idea of biometrics
0:17:09and how accessible the features of your body
0:17:12may be to other people, because once they have them,
0:17:16and if you use them as a means of security on your devices,
0:17:19then you've got a problem,
0:17:20because as we established that show,
0:17:22your face is indeed your face
0:17:24and your fingers are your fingers.
0:17:25And so I was talking about how it is easier
0:17:28to get pictures of someone's face,
0:17:30that is to get pictures of their fingerprints.
0:17:33Two articles related to this.
0:17:35One from Japan where cultural custom is to flash the peace sign, two fingers up in the
0:17:40air in photos.
0:17:42And if you do that, obviously you're facing two of your fingerprints right at the camera.
0:17:47Get good enough lighting, get enough megapixels, you can lift your prints off of that.
0:17:51So there's an article about that happening and being careful about it because you are
0:17:56literally showing them your fingerprints.
0:17:58Here they are!
0:17:59And, you know, technology's amazing, we can lift fingerprints from that.
0:18:02And then the second article was in a more challenging scenario.
0:18:05Can we pull fingerprints from a photo where someone's not flashing a peace sign, but we
0:18:10just happen to catch their finger at the right angle at the right time, whether it be video
0:18:14or still photos?
0:18:16And the answer is yes, you can do that as well if you get the right shot.
0:18:21All of which is scary and all of which leads to the idea that especially for public figures
0:18:26or people who expect to be photographed or people who have access to things that are
0:18:30highly desirable as opposed to just like your personal email account but if you are someone
0:18:35who is a head of state or something and you're using your fingerprints for something important
0:18:38then people are highly motivated to get them. So yeah, be careful out there. Don't show
0:18:44people your fingers or your face I suppose.
0:18:46Yeah, just never be photographed in any capacity ever.
0:18:50Yep.
0:18:51This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building your website today at Squarespace.com.
0:18:57your offer code ATP at checkout to get 10% off.
0:19:01Almost anything you wanna start today,
0:19:02almost any new project or business or hobby,
0:19:06they almost all need websites.
0:19:08And nobody wants to spend a lot of time
0:19:11on the website itself.
0:19:12You just want the website to be there and to be awesome
0:19:14and to be easy to design and make and update,
0:19:17but you don't wanna have to worry about
0:19:19the actual infrastructure that the website is running,
0:19:22the CMS, the hosting, and everything like that.
0:19:24You just want that to be done for you in a nice way
0:19:27that you don't have to really manage or think about
0:19:29because what you really should be thinking about
0:19:31is your project or your business.
0:19:33That's what Squarespace lets you do.
0:19:35Squarespace is an amazing platform
0:19:38that lets you make beautiful,
0:19:39professionally designed websites in almost no time.
0:19:42It is shocking how easy it is.
0:19:44No matter what your skill level is from novice to expert,
0:19:47you can use Squarespace to make a beautiful website
0:19:50customized to your heart's content in no time.
0:19:52If you need any help, Squarespace is there for you
0:19:54with world-class support.
0:19:56If you're making a website for somebody else,
0:19:58that's especially important,
0:19:59because that means when you hand over the website to them,
0:20:02they can ask Squarespace for support whenever they need it
0:20:05instead of asking you.
0:20:06It's an incredible platform, it's incredibly advanced.
0:20:09I highly suggest you try Squarespace.
0:20:12Whenever you need to make a website next,
0:20:14for whatever project you're doing next,
0:20:16start it there first.
0:20:17See what you can get done there,
0:20:19because I bet what you'll find
0:20:20is that you can get it all done there.
0:20:22and then you're out, what, a half hour
0:20:24to just see for yourself, not even a credit card.
0:20:26Just try it for a half hour.
0:20:28See how far you get.
0:20:29I bet you'll be shocked, and I bet you'll decide,
0:20:32you know what, this is great, I'm staying right here.
0:20:34This is perfect, I'm done.
0:20:35And then you can get back to your actual project
0:20:38instead of fussing with your website for months.
0:20:40Check it out today.
0:20:41Go to squarespace.com and enter offer code ATP
0:20:44at checkout to get 10% off.
0:20:46Make your next move with a great website at Squarespace.
0:20:51Continuing, Jon, can you tell me about Chromebooks and Chrome OS and how that relates to ARM
0:20:58Macs?
0:20:59We talked about the ARM Mac rumor idea from Slashdot as a more locked-down Mac-type system,
0:21:07and a lot of people brought up Chromebooks, which we have talked about in the past, as
0:21:11an example of a very similar type of thing that has existed for a while.
0:21:15It's taking it more to the extreme.
0:21:16Not only is the Chromebook obviously locked down in the way that this fantasize/rumor
0:21:24on a Mac was, but also it shifts everything to network, which this rumor did not mention
0:21:30anything about the Mac being.
0:21:31But it all boils down to the piece of hardware being more robust in the face of user indifference.
0:21:40I don't know how to phrase it.
0:21:43You don't have to know how to, you can know less about using a personal computer and be
0:21:49successful with it in the same way that you don't need to know as much about personal
0:21:52computing to be successful with an iPad or an iPhone as opposed to a MacBook.
0:21:56So Chromebooks, there are far fewer places where you can get into trouble.
0:21:59Software installing software is more straightforward.
0:22:02The number of things you can do to it to mess it up is much lower.
0:22:05The overall system is simpler.
0:22:07Obviously Chromebook and Chrome OS are a far cry from the Mac operating system with a heavy
0:22:12focus on doing stuff with web technologies through a browser with many
0:22:17things being put into the cloud and I think that simplification in fact is a
0:22:21big advantage Chromebooks have over any of Apple's devices. The aggressively
0:22:27cloud centric focus that this thing you're holding your hand is nothing
0:22:30everything you do if you have access to the network is saved to the network
0:22:35aggressively so that pretty much at any point when you're working on a Chromebook
0:22:39You can do a five count and then throw the thing out the window into a lake and
0:22:43Then go get another Chromebook from the back room and sign in and resume where you left off
0:22:47You cannot do that with any Apple device. All right, that's the dream of the Chromebook
0:22:51I've always thought it was a brilliant idea perhaps not very well executed. But every time we talk about
0:22:56iPads or Macs especially as they relate to education
0:23:00people come out of the woodwork to tell us how
0:23:03Chromebooks are kicking apples butt in education because what a dream machine
0:23:07You know, educational institutions do not want to deal with wrangling computers or software
0:23:12or anything like that.
0:23:13You have a bunch of computers that you're going to put a bunch of students in front
0:23:16of.
0:23:17That's just, you know, they're going to do everything they can to mess those things up.
0:23:21And even if they don't, the computers, like, eventually will mess themselves up, especially
0:23:25if they're, you know, if it's Windows and we're in a decade ago, I assume it's better
0:23:30now.
0:23:31Chromebooks are very resilient.
0:23:32Sorry iPads for that matter, but Chromebooks even more so in that they are resistant to
0:23:37to slowly degrading and/or being compromised by devious students.
0:23:43And there's lots of good tools for managing fleets of these things and for having multiple
0:23:48students sign into them.
0:23:49And Apple's made some strides here with their weird multi-user sign in and out sync everything
0:23:53from iCloud things they've been doing with the iPad lately.
0:23:56But Chromebooks almost always been on price because you can get cheap crappy ones.
0:24:01And you know, cash-strapped schools love that.
0:24:04And they're doing very well in management.
0:24:05And I always wonder if Apple cares that much about that market or do they just like the
0:24:11rest of the many markets, they just want the high end of that market, they just want to
0:24:13sell iPads to the rich schools and let everyone else have Chromebooks or something.
0:24:17But I worry that the value proposition represented by Chromebooks in the ideal, if not in actuality,
0:24:25is not falling on deaf ears at Apple, but is not valued by the people inside Apple as
0:24:32much as it should be.
0:24:34talk about future of computing, many of the aspects promised by Chromebooks and many of
0:24:38them delivered by Chromebooks definitely feel more like the future of computing in terms
0:24:44of having to worry less about managing the machine and having to worry less about the
0:24:49machine itself because in a network connected world, yes, you can work offline but it would
0:24:54be great if the source of truth was someplace fast and reliable that is not sitting in front
0:24:58of you.
0:24:59a part of, last week when we were talking about that rumored slashdot comment, locked
0:25:05down next generation ARM Mac, even though again, just claim already, that was very unlikely
0:25:11to be true. However, one thing I forgot to mention during my rant about how good that
0:25:15might be is that that might address the Chromebook market pretty well too. Like, that wouldn't
0:25:21have to be a high-end hardware device, that could run on iPad class hardware and be passable.
0:25:28And so they could, if Apple wanted to address this market,
0:25:31which as you pointed out, they might not want to,
0:25:34although I think it's, I'm with you,
0:25:36I think they should address it if they reasonably can.
0:25:41Which is not to say definitely yes or no,
0:25:43but I think if they reasonably can address it,
0:25:45I think they should.
0:25:46Because having mass numbers of students growing up
0:25:50using all Google services on all Google computers
0:25:53is probably not good for Apple long term.
0:25:56But that being said, if Apple could take that kind of
0:25:59next gen Mac on ARM concept and make a very low end
0:26:02hardware device that was basically like, you know,
0:26:05mid generation iPad level hardware.
0:26:08Like, suppose that OS is two years away,
0:26:10they could take today's like iPad Air 2 hardware,
0:26:13sell it in two years in this little like, you know,
0:26:16MacBook One sized case for 400 bucks maybe?
0:26:20I mean like, that could actually get them
0:26:24a lot of the way there.
0:26:25and that OS's additional lockdown-ness
0:26:29and easy management and easy security and everything
0:26:32would all help in that regard too.
0:26:33So I think one of the things that made me consider
0:26:38that comment as possibly interesting
0:26:41and possibly plausible is that Apple has to be feeling,
0:26:46they have to be feeling the hurt a little bit
0:26:50from the massive success of Chromebooks in schools.
0:26:53They have to be feeling that on some level.
0:26:55Whether they choose to address it yet is another question,
0:26:56but I think if they're going to address it,
0:26:59that hypothetical lockdown R Mac
0:27:01would be a really nice way to address it,
0:27:03because obviously they can try pushing iPads,
0:27:05they have, as much as they want,
0:27:07and they have gotten decent numbers of iPads
0:27:09sold into schools, but there's a reason
0:27:11why those Chromebooks keep selling so well,
0:27:13and a big reason is price, no question.
0:27:15And it's, again, it's a question of whether Apple
0:27:18is willing to or should compete on price to that level.
0:27:22But also a big reason for that is that a lot of schools
0:27:27and students do prefer working on some kind of
0:27:30laptop shaped device with a laptop keyboard.
0:27:32Yes, you can put keyboards on iPads,
0:27:36but we all know from trying that,
0:27:39that's not really what they're great at,
0:27:40that's not really what they're designed for,
0:27:42and if you're trying to manage a fleet of student devices,
0:27:45the last thing you want is detachable, expensive accessories.
0:27:49You want it to be one integrated unit
0:27:50that you can manage as one integrated unit.
0:27:52So that actually might be part of their strategy
0:27:56to combat Chromebooks long term,
0:27:58and if it isn't, I think it might be worth considering
0:28:00whether it should.
0:28:01- So this is yet another time we have to bring up
0:28:03that one of the big advantages Google has
0:28:05in terms of management is the fact
0:28:06they do do everything server-side,
0:28:08and that is Google's strength,
0:28:09and historically has not been Apple's strength
0:28:11to have very robust cloud services
0:28:15where the source of truth is in the cloud,
0:28:17not on the device.
0:28:20in the same way, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be web-based tools like Google Docs and
0:28:23stuff, which by the way is in extensive use in schools. I'm using it at work now too, and
0:28:30we've mentioned this before, we use it for our show notes. It's to the point where,
0:28:36like, I'm waiting for it to unseat Microsoft Word in the entire corporate world. I know that's going
0:28:41to take so freaking long. But among certain wings of large corporations, it is possible to
0:28:47Displaced word and everybody is happier and seeing my kids do everything in Google Docs is like Marco brought up
0:28:51If you're if you grow up doing that you just think oh word processing equals Google Docs and how does Google Docs work?
0:28:56You need servers the service need to be reliable. They need to be fast. They need to be always up. They need to not lose data
0:29:02Google is really good at that
0:29:05Apple is
0:29:07Not as good at it
0:29:08So that's one weakness Apple has in doing that and the other reason I think Apple should be thinking about this market where Chromebooks are
0:29:14giving them a run for their money with iPads and everything is like it is a
0:29:19demanding environment. Public schools with a bunch of kids messing with your
0:29:25stuff is demanding physically speaking. It's demanding from a management
0:29:29perspective because you have a lot of devices. You have people managing them
0:29:32who perhaps are not the most technically savvy because that's not their job. Like
0:29:36teachers have to deal with them and they don't they want to be teachers. They
0:29:39don't want to be like IT managers, right? So the easier it is to manage the better.
0:29:43But, like, making a device that is successful in that environment, like that is very hostile,
0:29:50much more hostile than corporate IT, much more hostile than an individual user's house
0:29:55who buys the thing and posts an unboxing video and treats it like a little perfect baby,
0:29:58right?
0:29:59Schools are brutal.
0:30:00But in the same way that, you know, OXO GoodGrips, a company that I believe, I don't know if
0:30:06it was founded on this or was aimed at this originally, but the story I've always heard,
0:30:10I like it, so I'll keep repeating it as if it's true, was that they were making tools
0:30:14for people with arthritis and other sort of motor difficulties with their hands.
0:30:19If you have trouble operating a regular can opener, try the Oxo can opener because I know
0:30:23you can't, like, it hurts to turn a regular can opener, but here we have one that has
0:30:28very grippy material and a big rounded turny thing with lots of leverage and so, you know,
0:30:35and it turns out, good old turns out, everyone loves it.
0:30:38If you make tools that are easy for people to use who have hand mobility or strength
0:30:44problems, people who do not have hand mobility or strength problems also love them because
0:30:50they're just better tools.
0:30:51They give you better mechanical advantage.
0:30:53They work more smoothly.
0:30:55So if you make something for an environment that is demanding in some way, "Oh, our customers
0:31:00only have this amount of hand strength and the average adult has five times that," can
0:31:06you make a can opener that works for them?
0:31:08If you successfully do that, you haven't made, "Oh, this is only a niche device for people
0:31:13who have mobility problems with their hands."
0:31:15No, what you've made is an amazing can opener.
0:31:17So if you make a laptop that can survive and continue functioning and be manageable by
0:31:23teachers and students in a public school environment, you just happen to have also made an awesome
0:31:27laptop that you can put into the guy's house who's going to treat it like a perfect little
0:31:31baby and always do everything nice with it and read articles about it and do all that
0:31:34stuff.
0:31:35They'll love it too, because guess what?
0:31:37just easier to manage, it works more often, there are fewer problems. That is just a better
0:31:42product all around. So I would never want to see Apple surrender this market if only
0:31:47because it acts as a crucible for testing the durability of every part of your product,
0:31:55from the hardware to the software to the management, the whole nine yards.
0:31:58Let's talk about N.O. Rowling who writes, "I bought my first MacBook Pro for work last
0:32:03year since my job is web development and thus the target is obviously Linux, I chose to
0:32:09go case sensitive to avoid trouble as much as possible.
0:32:14I've been burned by Windows Case Ignorant File System in the past.
0:32:17Given how long OS X and HFS+ have been around, I expected that most modern software would
0:32:24run on either setup, but now I've learned that both Steam and Adobe Creative Suite will
0:32:30not run on my machine unless I reformat it.
0:32:32Oops.
0:32:33to hear your opinion on the state of this and who you think is to blame for this mess.
0:32:38John, as our file system expert.
0:32:41Humans are to blame, as always. So yeah, the case sensitive versus insensitive thing. HFS+
0:32:46and HFS before it, and MFS, I believe, were all case insensitive in that you could not
0:32:55have two files whose file names differed only in capitalization. And there's a whole bunch
0:32:58of Unicode normalization rules revolving around that, but let's just talk about ASCII, capital
0:33:04and lowercase letters. If you had a file named myfile, all caps, you could not have a file right
0:33:09next to it in the same directory called myfile, all lowercase, because guess what? HFS+ does not
0:33:13distinguish between those. Which is mostly a human factors choice on the original Mac, because
0:33:20regular people don't consider those different things, like find me the file named Jerry. No,
0:33:26No, not the one with the lowercase J, the one with the capital J.
0:33:30Being able to, not having files that differ only in case, because people will type the
0:33:34wrong file names in and think they didn't save it and stuff like that, so it is an important
0:33:37user interface thing, but they implement it down at the file system level, which means
0:33:41not only does the interface present in that way, but you physically can't save files that
0:33:47differ only in case.
0:33:48Now why would anybody want files that differ only in case?
0:33:50Sometimes case contains information.
0:33:52If you have acronyms or abbreviations or other type of things in your file names and they
0:33:58happen to spell out words like A-N-D or something and you happen to have another file name that
0:34:02has the lowercase because they wanted the thing and, you know, case does have meaning
0:34:06in some cases.
0:34:07But the most important reason that case insensitivity, the historic multi-decade case insensitivity
0:34:13on the Mac is potentially a problem is if you ever change your mind, if you ever say,
0:34:20Actually, we've decided for the future, since people don't really deal with the file system
0:34:22that much anyway, say on your phones or on your iOS devices where people don't see the
0:34:26file system, we don't need that extra complexity.
0:34:30Because it is an extra complexity.
0:34:31Every time you look up a file, you have to see if there's any variation on that file's
0:34:35case and the same thing for writing a file.
0:34:36You have to make sure no files exist with any variation of that file name's case.
0:34:41And practically speaking, lots of software made for other platforms, like say Unix software
0:34:46open source software, has files that are part of either the source code or the actual operation
0:34:50of the binaries in practice that differ only in case.
0:34:56And if you can't store them on the file system, you can't even like untar the source of an
0:35:02open source tool and build it because it's got .lkc files and .C files because someone
0:35:06thought .C was great for C++ many decades ago.
0:35:11it will either puke or just randomly overwrite files and you will have things that don't build.
0:35:16There's plenty of open source software that has plain old source files,
0:35:21foo.c and capital F-O-O dot c in the same directory. This happens, it's a thing,
0:35:27and if you can't deal with it at all then you have to make like disk images or virtual machines
0:35:31and all sorts of stuff like that. But the real whammy is for decades and decades the Mac has
0:35:38has been like this, and human beings have been writing software for the Mac, and those
0:35:44human beings have put file paths in their software. They've written code that reads
0:35:50things from the file system based on their path. And a surprising amount of time, those
0:35:56file paths that the software is trying to read from the file system do not match the
0:36:01case of the files on disk. And nobody notices when you run it on a case-sensitive file system,
0:36:06Because if you were looking for, you know, file.conf where the F is capital, but on the
0:36:14file system it's actually lowercase, your program works fine, because it says "Open
0:36:17me file.conf with a capital F" and it says "I'm here, I found it" and it opens lowercase
0:36:21file.conf and you're good to go because that's how all the APIs work.
0:36:25You try to run that in a case-sensitive file system and the wheels fall off the wagon.
0:36:29All of a sudden the thing doesn't work, can't even start up, you're using it, it does weird
0:36:33stuff and it doesn't function correctly. And Steam, which isn't even that long on the Mac
0:36:38platform, I guess it's been a few years now, but Adobe Creative Suite has deep roots. Lots
0:36:43of complicated software inevitably has some part that either assumes case insensitivity
0:36:50as like a foundational assumption of some section of the code, or accidentally assumes
0:36:53case insensitivity by looking up files based on paths that don't match the actual case
0:36:58of the files on disk.
0:37:00Or, you know, more complicated variations of that
0:37:03where one part of the thing will write a file
0:37:05and the other thing will read it,
0:37:06but they won't agree on the case.
0:37:07And it's just, there are so many places
0:37:08where things can go wrong.
0:37:09And this is where the conventional wisdom goes
0:37:11that if you format your Mac as case sensitive,
0:37:14be prepared for a whole bunch of your software not to work
0:37:17and for your only alternative to be to reformat
0:37:19as case insensitive to get the stuff working.
0:37:20And you might say,
0:37:21"Well, why doesn't everybody just fix their software?"
0:37:23Well, it's a chicken egg thing.
0:37:24They don't need to fix their software
0:37:25'cause nobody runs case sensitive HFS+ on their Macs.
0:37:28And no one runs case sensitive HFS+ on their Macs
0:37:31because none of their software works.
0:37:33And so they're in an impasse there.
0:37:35iOS devices have been case sensitive from day one,
0:37:37which is a wise choice.
0:37:38So there are not a bunch of iOS developers out there
0:37:41writing applications that expect to read files
0:37:43with paths that don't match the case.
0:37:44'Cause guess what?
0:37:45They wouldn't work.
0:37:46So that's great.
0:37:47But with APFS, I'm not even sure
0:37:50what they're gonna end up doing on the Mac
0:37:51'cause the APFS is not officially released on the Mac.
0:37:54It's only on iOS.
0:37:56But one way to solve the chicken and egg thing is say,
0:37:58hey, guess what?
0:37:59APFS is case sensitive only.
0:38:00I can't imagine them doing that because as we can see,
0:38:03Adobe Creative Steam wouldn't work
0:38:05and those are not obscure applications.
0:38:06So yeah.
0:38:09So sorry, bad news.
0:38:10You probably have to reformat your disk as case insensitive
0:38:13to get your software to work again.
0:38:15Inscrutable humans got you again.
0:38:17(laughing)
0:38:20Do you know, by the way, I guess Marco,
0:38:22I'll say, does Marco have any Mac apps?
0:38:25It's like, it's a good thing if you write an application
0:38:28or any kind of software for the Mac to find out,
0:38:30do you have these kind of problems in your software?
0:38:31'Cause you'll never know it if you just run a regular Mac
0:38:33all the time, but you'll be surprised, they're lurking.
0:38:35I probably have them in my stupid blog system
0:38:37that I used to publish for my blog once a year.
0:38:39'Cause I've only ever run it
0:38:41from a case insensitive file system.
0:38:42There's probably in that tiny little piece of code,
0:38:44someplace where I do something stupid
0:38:46about case with file paths.
0:38:47- We're sponsored this week by Eero.
0:38:50Go to eero.com and use promo code ATP at checkout
0:38:54to get free extra-added shipping.
0:38:56Wi-Fi in our houses just isn't good enough.
0:38:59When you only have one router,
0:39:01which is the model we've been sold on forever,
0:39:03no matter how many antennas you put on it,
0:39:04no matter how high-powered it is,
0:39:06there's gonna be dead spots and weak spots
0:39:08in most houses or apartments.
0:39:10We've all been there.
0:39:11We all have the one room where the Wi-Fi
0:39:13only gets one little arc and it doesn't really work
0:39:15unless you hold the iPad upside down.
0:39:16I've actually done that.
0:39:18And this just is not a very good system for today
0:39:20when we have so many Wi-Fi devices
0:39:22that depend on a solid connection in our homes.
0:39:25You know, what year is this?
0:39:26We should have reliable WiFi in our entire houses.
0:39:29And eero lets us do that by having multiple access points
0:39:32work together from different points in the house
0:39:34to just blanket your entire place
0:39:37in solid, strong, fast WiFi coverage.
0:39:40The way they do this, so they sell the little eero units.
0:39:42They're kind of like the size of an Apple TV.
0:39:44They're little nicely designed little things.
0:39:46And you plug one of them in the same way
0:39:48you'd plug in any other WiFi.
0:39:49You plug it into your internet connection,
0:39:50so you know, wherever that is.
0:39:52and then you can plug the other ones in
0:39:53anywhere else in your house,
0:39:54and they talk to each other over a separate mesh network
0:39:57that they make,
0:39:58and then they blanket your home in pure high-speed Wi-Fi
0:40:01from each one,
0:40:02and they all work together to form one giant network.
0:40:05And it's way faster than traditional repeaters
0:40:07or anything like that
0:40:08because of the separate mesh network thing.
0:40:10Check out the reviews.
0:40:12You will see for yourself,
0:40:14and they sent us some too,
0:40:14and we tried them out,
0:40:15and we've had similarly great experiences.
0:40:17Eros are fast,
0:40:19and they are so easy to set up with their app,
0:40:21and they have tons of great features.
0:40:23They have things like parental controls
0:40:25and all sorts of new features being added
0:40:27in their very easy to use app all the time.
0:40:30They've added so many features already.
0:40:31It's only been out for like a year or something
0:40:32and they've added so many features already.
0:40:34It is very highly rated.
0:40:35It's rated currently 4.4 stars on Amazon
0:40:38with over 750 reviews.
0:40:40There's a one year warranty.
0:40:42There's a return period if you don't like it.
0:40:44Check it out.
0:40:45We highly recommend Eero.
0:40:47It is so much better than just using one router.
0:40:49Go to Eero.com, that's E-E-R-O.com,
0:40:52and use code ATP at checkout to get free F-shotted shipping.
0:40:56Thank you very much to Eero
0:40:57for sponsoring our show once again.
0:40:59- So, Jon, happy birthday to you.
0:41:07Your birthday was actually, what, a month and a half ago,
0:41:11but the gods have delivered you
0:41:14the ultimate birthday present, sort of.
0:41:18What's going on on Kickstarter these days, Jon?
0:41:22My favorite Twitter client has been, from the moment I started using Twitter, Twitterific,
0:41:29which I think was the very first Twitter client.
0:41:32Certainly it was the first thing I ever used Twitter with.
0:41:34I did not sign up for Twitter based on their terrible website.
0:41:37I only signed up for it once Twitterific was out, and I'm like, "All right, this is a good
0:41:41thing to do."
0:41:42I mean, if it wasn't truly the first app that used a Twitter API, it was at least the first
0:41:46app that anyone ever used that used the Twitter API. And it was by far the first app that
0:41:51mattered.
0:41:52Yeah. And so it was an iOS app, but before that there was a Mac app. I think the Mac
0:41:58app came first. Anyway. Yeah. So Twitter clients have had a bumpy road. A couple years back
0:42:04Twitter decided that it didn't really want third parties to make apps and it started
0:42:07this whole thing where you can only make apps if you have these special tokens and there's
0:42:10a limited number of those and some apps were grandfathered in. Oh, and by the way, a bunch
0:42:14of new features we're rolling out can't be used by third-party clients because we really
0:42:17don't like you third-party clients and it's made the market for Twitter apps very difficult,
0:42:22for third-party Twitter apps very difficult.
0:42:25Twitter for iOS has continued to be updated, nevertheless it's gone through many major
0:42:29revisions and if you were to go buy it on the App Store today, which I recommend, it
0:42:33is a great Twitter app.
0:42:35I've never wavered despite also buying many other Twitter apps and having them installed.
0:42:39I love Twitter because of its unified timeline where it makes everything that has happened
0:42:43on Twitter related to the people you follow, a single list sorted by time. Mentions, tweets,
0:42:50direct messages, your own tweets that go out, just all ordered by time. That's it. You know,
0:42:55you can view them separately if you want, but I like it to just be one big list. That's
0:42:58the unified timeline. Anyway, the Mac client, on the other hand, has not been updated in
0:43:02many, many years because it just hasn't been economically feasible to update it because
0:43:07the market for third-party Mac Twitter clients is just not sustainable anymore.
0:43:14The market for third-party iOS Twitter clients is basically barely sustainable because so
0:43:18many people use the official app and there are still features that you could only do
0:43:22in the official app.
0:43:23I hate the official app even though I have it installed.
0:43:25Oh, it's the worst.
0:43:27I don't understand how anyone uses it.
0:43:30It's confusing to me.
0:43:31People use their Twitter in all sorts of different ways.
0:43:34So I happen to know some of the people who work at Icon Factory who make Twitterific,
0:43:40and for many years I have been begging them half-jokingly to fix Twitter for the Mac,
0:43:46which by the way I continue to use despite the fact that it is slowly crumbling.
0:43:50Like you know when they added the thing where the tweets can be longer than you would have
0:43:54expected, and it doesn't count like the mentions or everything towards the, or the URLs or
0:44:00mentions towards the character count, some change related to the length of tweets. And
0:44:07if you don't support the new longer tweet thing, what you get from the old version of
0:44:13the API is a tweet that is truncated and it goes towards the end of the tweet, it just
0:44:18goes dot, dot, dot, and then has a URL that you can click on to read the whole tweet on
0:44:22Twitter's website. That's what long tweets look like in Twitter for the Mac, and yet
0:44:26I still continue to use it.
0:44:28I can't do so many things from the Mac version of the client that I can do from the iOS one,
0:44:33but I still continue to use it because I like it, and every other Mac client that I've tried,
0:44:37I dislike strongly in some way.
0:44:38So I really wished for Twitter to come back to the Mac, but I understood, like, look,
0:44:44you can't, you know, if it's not a viable market, it's not a viable market, even though
0:44:48I offered to pay obscene amounts of money for Twitter for the Mac.
0:44:52In fact, I believe it was only last week or the week before that you said, "I would
0:44:57pay $100 for an updated version of Twitterific for the Mac."
0:45:00I've said that many times, and I may or may not have been saying that because I may or
0:45:04may not have known about this project ahead of time.
0:45:08But anyway, now there is a Kickstarter.
0:45:11The thing that we've joked about for so many years, like, "How much money would it take
0:45:14to fund the number of developers who need to make this application?"
0:45:18Let's just do a Kickstarter.
0:45:19And if enough people want Twitter for the Mac, they will fund this thing and they will
0:45:25make this application.
0:45:26Like, it's an easy way to know that, yes, you will have the money to pay for the development
0:45:30of this project because you get the money upfront-ish in exchange for the application.
0:45:36So I have backed this Kickstarter.
0:45:39I'm not going to tell you how much money I pledged, but it was a lot.
0:45:45The goal is 75,000, but I want you all to ignore that, because the real goal is 100,000,
0:45:51the so-called stretch goal, because the stretch goal includes all the features that I want,
0:45:56including fairly essential things like direct messaging.
0:45:58So I really want this Kickstarter to get to 100,000.
0:46:00And if it doesn't, it will just be proving what Icon Factory has been saying all along,
0:46:04is there's just not enough people who want this who are going to pay for it, even though
0:46:09some of us are paying very much more than $5 for the privilege of having this application.
0:46:15So you may or may not like using Twitter on the Mac period, because many people just don't
0:46:18use it on the Mac at all.
0:46:20Maybe use the website or whatever.
0:46:21But if you are using an existing Mac Twitter client and don't like it, or it seems like
0:46:28it hasn't been updated in a while like Twitter for the Mac, or it doesn't work the way you
0:46:32want it to, this is an opportunity to get a shiny new Twitter client from a company
0:46:39that really knows how to make Twitter clients.
0:46:44only as much money as you could possibly afford. So please, please back this. It's up to $35,000
0:46:50now and it has been open, it's got 28 days to go, and it's $35,000 out of a goal of not
0:46:5675, ignore that goal, 100K. Please everybody make this happen because I want this Twitter
0:47:01client.
0:47:02But if we don't make it happen, does that mean we will finally break you of your ridiculous
0:47:06insistence on the unified timeline?
0:47:08No, I will never, I'm going to use Twitter for the Mac until it doesn't launch anymore.
0:47:13After that, I'm going to beg my friends at Icon Factory to give me a special build that
0:47:17does blunch.
0:47:18No, I'm just giving you a hard time.
0:47:21I know some of the folks from the Icon Factory, we all do actually, and they're great people,
0:47:25so definitely check out this Kickstarter and throw them a few dollars if you can because
0:47:30it would make Jon happy and it would make the folks at Icon Factory happy and they're
0:47:34good people.
0:47:35And you get good swag.
0:47:36They have t-shirts, they have little vinyl Ollie dolls.
0:47:40Ollie is their little blue Twitter bird.
0:47:43You should read some of the history, I think, on the Icon Factory website. I don't have
0:47:45a link to it. The history between Icon Factory and Twitter. Many of the things that you associate
0:47:50with Twitter were, in fact, invented by Icon Factory. Terminology, iconography, so much.
0:47:55Icon Factory is, like, practically part of Twitter, only not in the financial sense because
0:48:01they do not have thousands of employees and bazillions of dollars of investment.
0:48:06Didn't Hockenberry come up with tweet? Was that him? No, it was his coworker. Is that
0:48:11right?
0:48:12- I think so, something like that.
0:48:13- I forget the details.
0:48:14- I mean a lot, like a lot.
0:48:15I believe they were the first ones to actually use a bird
0:48:19as part of the logo, the word tweet.
0:48:22They might even have invented @ replies, I don't know.
0:48:24They did a lot, like a lot of Twitter standard things
0:48:29and practices and mechanisms and everything
0:48:31were invented by Icon Factory
0:48:33or by their developers for their apps.
0:48:37- And Ollie, the blue Twitter-ific bird
0:48:39is along with the with Panics transmit truck one of the most ripped off icons on the entire
0:48:45internet you see it everywhere is like that's just a generic representation of Twitter or
0:48:48that's Twitter's logo nope nope not not Twitter's logo at all in fact Twitter's logo is worse
0:48:53than icon factory's logo they should have just paid them to make their logos for them
0:48:56but they didn't.
0:48:57Cool well good luck I don't know if I'm if I should wish you good luck John if I should
0:49:03wish the icon factory good luck I guess a little above.
0:49:05You should do it either you should pledge money that's what you should do.
0:49:09Here's why you should all pledge money.
0:49:10So A, this is great software supported by great people
0:49:13doing great things.
0:49:15- Agreed.
0:49:15- B, Twitter needs more diversity in software
0:49:18and Twitterific is one of the very few clients
0:49:22that got grandfathered in with a very large amount
0:49:25of user tokens and so they actually can,
0:49:28they're like one of the only companies that can make
0:49:30a widespread Twitter client.
0:49:33And C, if this Kickstarter doesn't fund,
0:49:37John gets to keep all of his money.
0:49:39And so we want John to have spent a ridiculous amount
0:49:43of money on his Twitter client.
0:49:44- So I can say it's like the second most expensive
0:49:46application on my computer after Photoshop.
0:49:48- Exactly, exactly.
0:49:50We want John's copy of Twitterific to be
0:49:54this ridiculous investment he has made.
0:49:56And so please everyone go fund this
0:49:58so that his pledge will go through.
0:50:00- It really is just all the money that I would have spent
0:50:01on a new Mac Pro, it's just being funneled into
0:50:03from his software, Kickstarters.
0:50:06Oh my goodness.
0:50:07All right, moving on.
0:50:10Let's see what do we have here?
0:50:12Planet of the Apps, oh God.
0:50:14- Can we start with, before we start talking about this show
0:50:17can we start with someone,
0:50:19maybe we have a lawyer in the room,
0:50:21how can they get away with calling it Planet of the Apps
0:50:23when it sounds like Planet of the Apes?
0:50:24Is there any, does it fall under the parody
0:50:28where it's referencing a thing but in a joking way?
0:50:32So it's almost like trade dress.
0:50:35I don't know. I don't know the legal things about this. It just seems weird to me that
0:50:39they can get away with Planet of the Apes without paying somebody who has the right
0:50:42to Planet of the Apes. So follow up for next week. Someone tell me what the deal is.
0:50:46Yeah, I mean three things. Like A, we aren't trademark lawyers. B, they might have paid
0:50:51someone to license it. And C, they might just not care and just accept if anybody threatens
0:50:56them then they will just settle it. Because Apple...
0:50:58There's the luxury of being Apple and sitting on the top of a mountain of cash so high you
0:51:01you can't even hear the people yelling at you.
0:51:04- Exactly, like it's probably--
0:51:05- We will buy the Planet of the Apes franchise
0:51:08from Universal or whoever the hell owns it,
0:51:10you know, when we sneeze
0:51:11and the money falls out of our pockets.
0:51:12- Yeah, exactly, and it's probably, I mean,
0:51:14you know, as amateurs here, it does kind of seem
0:51:17like it might be considered like generic enough
0:51:21or clear enough parody or satire
0:51:24that it might not be a clear cut case
0:51:26of actual infringement.
0:51:28- Yeah, the humor angle is the strongest one,
0:51:30but I'm like, it's not that funny.
0:51:32- No, it's not.
0:51:33Apple's not good at being funny.
0:51:35- I was like, how bad does your pun have to be
0:51:37before it stops being humor?
0:51:40- I think one thing that,
0:51:42I don't wanna bash Apple too much about this,
0:51:45but I do think that one very clear difference
0:51:48between Apple now versus Apple under Steve
0:51:51is that Steve was a cool person.
0:51:54And not in all ways,
0:51:55and he knew the ways in which he wasn't cool,
0:51:57and he kinda played off of them.
0:51:59But he was fundamentally a pretty cool person
0:52:02to the people who follow Apple and to Apple customers.
0:52:05And I don't think anybody at Apple now is cool.
0:52:09At least in the senior leadership.
0:52:11But I'm not sure they know that.
0:52:13It actually kind of seems like they don't know that
0:52:15and are actually under the opposite impression.
0:52:17- CFED is cool, come on.
0:52:20What is not cool about CFED? - No, no, no.
0:52:21CFED is, he is like the dad joke,
0:52:24but he knows that and he plays that.
0:52:26So he actually does a pretty good job of managing that.
0:52:29but he's not much in the public eye.
0:52:32I mean, I get like, I don't know,
0:52:34like Tim, I think is profoundly deeply uncool,
0:52:38but is under the opposite impression.
0:52:41- Ah.
0:52:42- He doesn't think he's cool.
0:52:43- Yeah, I agree.
0:52:44- He's just, he's comfortable zone skin.
0:52:46You're thinking of Eddie Q.
0:52:47Who thinks he's cool?
0:52:48- Well, no, Eddie's a whole different level.
0:52:51(laughing)
0:52:52But yeah, I mean, I wish, like basically Apple today
0:52:58is run by a bunch of middle-aged white men,
0:53:02and it seems like that is showing a lot recently,
0:53:07and it's unfortunate, and that isn't to say
0:53:11that they can't still make good stuff,
0:53:12but I think some of their decisions are a little odd
0:53:16in context, but anyway.
0:53:19- Well, before we get off the name, though,
0:53:22just to defend, or the opposite,
0:53:25to condemn Steve Jobs' coolness,
0:53:27Remember that he wanted to call the iMac "Mac Man."
0:53:31We all have bad days.
0:53:32Remember that.
0:53:33Talked out of it by advertising executives.
0:53:35"Mac Man."
0:53:36I believe my memory is correct in that.
0:53:38Someone can Google and correct me if I'm screwing it up.
0:53:40But thank goodness for iMac.
0:53:42To be fair, that was a long time ago.
0:53:44I know, but it's just like name and taste.
0:53:47And Steve wasn't as cool back then.
0:53:50In the mid '90s, Steve wasn't as cool.
0:53:531998, iMac.
0:53:55(laughs)
0:53:57Anyway, Mac man.
0:53:58All right, so there was a trailer for Apple,
0:54:02well really I guess Apple Music's TV show.
0:54:05So the Apple Music TV show,
0:54:07I don't know, it's a little weird.
0:54:08- It's like music television.
0:54:09- Yeah, I see what you did there.
0:54:11So it's called Planet of the Apps.
0:54:14I only saw the trailer once,
0:54:15it's like two and a half minutes.
0:54:17So at this point, if you're listening to the show,
0:54:19feel free to pause and watch it.
0:54:20So I have mixed feelings about this.
0:54:24It is clearly, unequivocally not a show meant for the three of us.
0:54:30And that's okay.
0:54:31Like, in and of itself, that's not a bad thing.
0:54:34The idea is, if I understand this right, a bunch of app developers or potential app developers
0:54:41come in and do an escalator pitch.
0:54:44So they are on an escalator, and as the escalator is moving down, they have like 60 seconds
0:54:50to make a pitch to will.i.am, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, and Gary Vaynerchuk, who I guess
0:54:57at that point get to choose if they want to tutor any of these teams, and then I guess
0:55:03there's a competition at the end. And if you win, among other things, you get special placement
0:55:08in the app store, which most people would probably give an appendage to get.
0:55:12- Wait, can I first start out with the escalator pitch thing?
0:55:17- Yeah.
0:55:19- As a brief diversion here?
0:55:20Okay, so I have a question.
0:55:21Now obviously, I have never pitched to a VC.
0:55:24I've been around VCs, I've been in board meetings with VCs,
0:55:26I've interacted with a lot of VCs,
0:55:28but I've never actually pitched to one.
0:55:29That was always done by David
0:55:31and other people who were around me.
0:55:33That being said, I'm familiar with the concept
0:55:37of the elevator pitch, where the idea is,
0:55:39you're in an elevator with a VC and you only have,
0:55:41until you only have the elevator ride
0:55:43to pitch them on your idea,
0:55:44and then you gotta convince them
0:55:45in this short amount of time
0:55:46and it's supposed to be like a minute
0:55:47or something like that.
0:55:49However, how did this come about?
0:55:50Because Silicon Valley has very few tall buildings.
0:55:54- That's an interesting point.
0:55:56- There aren't that many elevators there to begin with,
0:55:58and the ones that are there
0:55:59are probably going over like three floors.
0:56:01So the elevator ride--
0:56:02- Yeah, but they are lazy people,
0:56:03and they have elevators in two-story buildings.
0:56:05- But still, that's not like a one-minute pitch,
0:56:07it's like an eight-second pitch.
0:56:09Like, where did this idea come about?
0:56:12Maybe in New York, taller buildings.
0:56:14But Silicon Valley money has always been West Coast VCs.
0:56:17There are very, very few New York VCs that actually fund Silicon Valley or tech projects.
0:56:22I think elevator pitch predates Silicon Valley, but going back to Steve Jobs again, remember
0:56:26the story about being trapped in an elevator with Steve Jobs and he has enough time to
0:56:29fire you in there, so for you to say the wrong thing and for him to decide that you're fired.
0:56:34He was remarkably efficient.
0:56:35Wow.
0:56:36I think elevator pitch predates Silicon Valley, but if not like it's metaphorical more than it is actual
0:56:43But you but you got to the heart of it
0:56:44The idea is that if you have to sum up your idea in a short amount of time
0:56:48You should be able to say something that's compelling instead of like just rambling on for 20 minutes and people not knowing what you're selling
0:56:53You need to have an elevator pitch and people in the in the chat room are like don't you mean?
0:56:57When we said escalator pitch, did you misspeak? Did you mean elevator pitch? No, it's like Planet of the Apps
0:57:04Get it apps instead of apes
0:57:06Elevator pitch, but you see what we did there as someone who we all know would say they took it and they turned it
0:57:13It's not an elevator pitch
0:57:15It's an escalator picture makes even less sense because were you to a cost somebody on an escalator?
0:57:20That would be super weird because you wouldn't even be facing them
0:57:22You'd be there above them or below them and second thing is an escalator ride
0:57:26It's even less time than an elevator ride
0:57:28so it is it is ill-conceived in every possible way except for one and that one way is
0:57:34Is that an idea that fits in with a reality show? Answer, yes.
0:57:37Well, and it's easier to film an escalator moving towards the host,
0:57:41then it, or the VCs, whatever,
0:57:44than it is an elevator moving up from the basement.
0:57:47And I guess the four, like, sponsors, hosts, whatever,
0:57:51are looking at a video feed until they arrive,
0:57:54until the participants arrive. Like, it's just weird.
0:57:56Anyway, the name elevator pitch reflects the idea
0:57:59that it should be possible to deliver the summary
0:58:01in the time span of an elevator ride,
0:58:03or approximately 30 seconds to two minutes, and is widely credited to Eileen Rosenzweig
0:58:08and Michael Caruso while he was an editor for Vanity Fair for its origins. So presumably this
0:58:15well predates Silicon Valley. So believe it or not, Silicon Valley, the world did not always
0:58:20revolve around you, truth be told. So yeah, so this show, so I don't intrinsically have anything
0:58:27against reality shows. In fact, I watched some truly and utterly atrociously
0:58:33terrible reality shows. Not often competitions, but be that as it may, I
0:58:36have watched seasons of American Idol in the past. So I have seen my fair share of
0:58:42reality shows. I've seen The Voice many times. I have one reality show friend.
0:58:46Yeah, right, exactly. This show does not speak to me at all, and I find it
0:58:53to be fairly preposterous, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing because I don't think
0:59:00this show is really for me. Because it's too—I know too much about how the sausage is made,
0:59:07and this is not a show about how the sausage is made, despite how they're pitching it.
0:59:10It's a show about making sausage-making glamorous, and my, have I killed this analogy, but be
0:59:16that as it may.
0:59:17Now I don't like the sausage anymore. Thanks a lot.
0:59:19Yeah, right? So, I mean, I can't watch it, I presume, because I do not pay for Apple
0:59:26Music. I never have. I used it for the free trial and then never paid for it. I would
0:59:32probably watch it if I could for an episode or two, just to see what I thought. I don't
0:59:38expect I would like it, and I don't think that's a problem. Marco, what do you think?
0:59:43- I mean, obviously I've had similar reactions
0:59:47to most programmers looking at this,
0:59:49of just like, wow, this kinda looks awful from the trailer.
0:59:54It is very clear that it's really meant
0:59:56as a rip-off of Shark Tank,
0:59:58and whatever the original version of Shark Tank
0:59:59was called somewhere else, probably in Europe,
1:00:01'cause we steal all their TV and rename it,
1:00:02and everyone thinks we invented it.
1:00:04But it might be an entertaining show.
1:00:07What was that, not Freaks and Geeks, Beauty and the Geek?
1:00:13like it was like this horrible dating reality show.
1:00:16- Oh, I think I saw that and it was delightful.
1:00:18It was terrible, but it was delightful.
1:00:20- Yeah, and like as a geek watching that,
1:00:23you saw all the ridiculous holes in the show,
1:00:26but it was still fun to watch
1:00:28as like a fun garbage TV show.
1:00:31And this could probably be that too
1:00:32for anybody who is remotely familiar
1:00:35with software development and building apps
1:00:38and building businesses.
1:00:39This might be that kind of thing too.
1:00:40It might be a fun garbage watch.
1:00:42It's fine, you know.
1:00:43I think a lot of people are reading a lot into this.
1:00:45I wouldn't read much into this.
1:00:48There's a lot of arguments against it
1:00:50that Apple maybe shouldn't be doing this
1:00:51or that it's going to cast app development in a bad light
1:00:54or it's gonna distort people's view on apps
1:00:57and I think most of those things are both true
1:01:01on some level but not a big deal in reality
1:01:04in all likelihood.
1:01:05Like they're not gonna be enough of an effect
1:01:07on anything to really matter because chances are
1:01:09this is going to go not very far.
1:01:12It's gonna be watched by not that many people
1:01:14and it's gonna make not that big of a cultural impact
1:01:16of any sort.
1:01:18So it's probably just gonna be fun garbage TV
1:01:20for some people to watch.
1:01:21I think it's weird that it's in the music app everywhere
1:01:23and it's only on Apple Music.
1:01:25A lot of people are gonna have trouble ever even knowing
1:01:27it exists as a result.
1:01:28Those people who do know it exists
1:01:29are gonna have trouble finding it.
1:01:31So that's all going to hurt viewership probably.
1:01:34But anyway, the actual show itself,
1:01:38It's a garbage reality TV show.
1:01:41The hosts of it have, I think, limited knowledge
1:01:46about the reality of app building.
1:01:49Gary Vaynerchuk I like a lot.
1:01:51I think he really, he is the person on the show
1:01:55that I'm most interested to see.
1:01:57I followed his work back in the day.
1:01:59I met him a couple times, he's super nice.
1:02:01He is the real deal, he knows what he's talking about.
1:02:04Not necessarily in app development as far as I know,
1:02:08but he's more of a business consultant.
1:02:10But that's, what I wanted to get to though is that
1:02:13that's kind of more what the show is about.
1:02:16It's called Planet of the Apps and it's focused on apps
1:02:19'cause Apple's funding it and making it and promoting it
1:02:23'cause Apple wants it to be all about them
1:02:24and the world that they think they created.
1:02:26So of course they're focusing the marketing
1:02:28and the naming and everything else on apps.
1:02:30And all the app developers are saying,
1:02:32this is crazy 'cause this isn't how apps are made,
1:02:35but the show really isn't about apps.
1:02:38It's like if the show was called Planet of the Websites.
1:02:42And you know, it's like the website is like
1:02:45an interface to the business.
1:02:47And you don't go around saying,
1:02:50hey, I'm making a new website.
1:02:52Like, no.
1:02:53- You did in 1993, let me tell ya.
1:02:56- Well, yeah, but the point is like,
1:02:59for the types of things that most people launch today
1:03:02that would be entertaining to watch at all,
1:03:04No one is gonna watch a show about you making
1:03:07a bespoke notes taking app or something like that.
1:03:10They're gonna watch a show that's kinda like Shark Tank
1:03:13or America's Got Talent or stuff like that.
1:03:15That's what people actually wanna watch
1:03:17these garbage reality shows for.
1:03:18And so they wanna hear the big business idea.
1:03:22'Cause this is a show, I made a tweet about it,
1:03:24this is kinda like a show for idea people,
1:03:26those people who always accost app developers
1:03:28at gatherings and stuff, and like,
1:03:30I have this great idea for an app.
1:03:32Will you not tell anybody?
1:03:34you can't steal it, you gotta go 50/50 with me,
1:03:36I'll be the idea guy, you make the app, okay,
1:03:39here's my idea, and they tell you some ridiculous idea
1:03:42that is usually impossible and/or terrible,
1:03:46this show is for those people to watch
1:03:49kind of like aspirationally, 'cause they think
1:03:51that could be them someday, that's who this is actually for,
1:03:53or people like us who just want garbage TV
1:03:55to watch sometimes.
1:03:56But the point is, this is not going to reflect
1:04:00what it's like to be an indie app developer,
1:04:02because not only do people not really wanna watch that,
1:04:06but most app development isn't in the app developers.
1:04:09Most app development is in-house employees
1:04:13or contractors for bigger businesses,
1:04:16where the app is not-- - Right.
1:04:17- Exactly, the app itself is not the business.
1:04:21The app is just an interface to the business,
1:04:23in the same way that 10 years ago,
1:04:25the website was the interface to most businesses
1:04:28that were made in our industry, right?
1:04:30So we want this to be some other thing,
1:04:33like people like us who are complaining,
1:04:35we want it to be this beautiful story
1:04:37about app developers and it's just not gonna be that.
1:04:41It's gonna be the exact same thing
1:04:44that would have been 10, 12 years ago,
1:04:48people pitching VCs about ideas that were based on web apps
1:04:51and web services and social networks.
1:04:53It's gonna just be that,
1:04:57but where the interface to it happens to be an app
1:05:00in the app store.
1:05:02It's not gonna be great, you know, academically.
1:05:05It's not gonna be a high quality TV,
1:05:07but I don't think it's going to meaningfully impact
1:05:10the app business or people's perception of it
1:05:14for lots of reasons, not least of which,
1:05:15I don't think many people watch it,
1:05:17but also, just as I said,
1:05:18I don't think it really has much bearing
1:05:21on what most of us actually do,
1:05:23but I also think it doesn't really purport to,
1:05:25because what most of us really do,
1:05:27or what we think we wanna do with indie app development,
1:05:30is such a very, very tiny sliver
1:05:31of the world of app development as a whole.
1:05:35- Thinking back to when we first talked about this,
1:05:37and we had this, you know,
1:05:38there was so little information like Apple's making a show
1:05:41about app development, something, something,
1:05:43and then a few celebrity names attached to it.
1:05:45And we had that brief moment where we could talk
1:05:49about the possibility of this being a show
1:05:52that is actually about app development,
1:05:53and I think at the time we said,
1:05:54but they can't make that interesting
1:05:56'cause no one wants to see someone sitting there encoding.
1:05:57Like that's not gonna be on the show, right?
1:05:59But still, we were entertaining the idea
1:06:03of a show about app development,
1:06:04but of course, like when the show comes out,
1:06:06it's not about app development, as Marco pointed out.
1:06:08It is basically like a subset of Shark Tank.
1:06:11Imagine Shark Tank, except the only thing you can pitch
1:06:14are businesses that are represented by an application.
1:06:18- You're making your own bad pitch.
1:06:20- Right, well that's what it is.
1:06:21- Okay, I have this great idea for a show.
1:06:23Are you ready?
1:06:24I'll be the idea guy, you make the entire show, okay?
1:06:26It's like Shark Tank, but for apps.
1:06:28- Yeah, but only apps.
1:06:30Like if your business isn't like,
1:06:33like Instagram would be a business represented by an app,
1:06:36but all sorts of things would be like,
1:06:37is the app the sort of standard bearer for your business?
1:06:40Is that how people deal with your business?
1:06:42Is it through an app?
1:06:43Then you're fine.
1:06:44But if you have any other business idea,
1:06:46no, sorry, you gotta go in Shark Tank, right?
1:06:48So it's a narrow slice thing.
1:06:49And presumably Apple does this,
1:06:51because hey, they're the app company,
1:06:53so there's some kind of synergy there, but this brings up a tweet that our friend Cable
1:06:57Sasser from Panic posted today or yesterday, I forget.
1:07:01He was arguing with Gruber about something and his reply was, "You can't just say, 'Well,
1:07:08that's reality TV.'"
1:07:11He's using "Well, that's reality TV" as a verb, so I'm going to try to read this in
1:07:15the way that it says, "You can't quote 'Well, that's reality TV' a thing from Apple."
1:07:20Does that sentence make sense to people?
1:07:21That's what he wrote.
1:07:22hard here. Not an actor. It's from Apple. The experts of good taste now get a free pass
1:07:27for junk? Like the idea is you can't just say, "Oh, well, it's reality to you," or whatever.
1:07:31Because it's from Apple, we have some expectations of taste, which, you know, planet of the apps,
1:07:37perhaps not getting off on the right foot right from the title. When I saw this tweet,
1:07:41I was thinking like, we talked in past shows about Apple getting into the content market,
1:07:46and I still think that makes sense because if they are going to try to compete with the
1:07:50to Netflix and Amazon and stuff,
1:07:52and Netflix and Amazon are doing original content,
1:07:55Apple should be doing original content too.
1:07:57But the thing about content is,
1:08:01if you're doing original content well,
1:08:03not saying you can't, but probably you shouldn't
1:08:07imbue that content with any of the sensibilities
1:08:11from your company, which sounds like,
1:08:12well, isn't that Apple's whole thing?
1:08:13Isn't everything they do imbued
1:08:14with the sensibility of Apple?
1:08:16But content is different.
1:08:18There is nothing particularly about Stranger Things or Man in a High Castle that makes me think of Netflix or Amazon.
1:08:25Like there's none of their corporate DNA in those shows.
1:08:28Creative content, especially entertainment, has to be true to its genre.
1:08:32So if it's a sci-fi show, make a good sci-fi show.
1:08:36If it is a family drama, make a good family drama.
1:08:39If it's a wacky comedy, make a good wacky comedy.
1:08:41It doesn't matter how well wacky comedy, family drama, or sci-fi fit with your corporate branding.
1:08:46And it's weird because Amazon and Netflix and Apple are these tech-based companies that
1:08:51do fairly different things with some overlap, but none of them have anything to do with
1:08:55creativity.
1:08:56But I think Netflix and Amazon have shown, if you get the right people involved, basically
1:09:01like, what is being supplied by Netflix and Amazon?
1:09:04Obviously, there's a venue for viewing.
1:09:06But the most important thing is money.
1:09:08Here you go, people who know how to get creative things created by creative people.
1:09:13Here's a bucket of money.
1:09:14Can you make a good show and out pops House of the Cards?
1:09:17Answer yes if you throw enough money at it and you hire the right people.
1:09:20Netflix a company that delivers plastic discs and streaming video to people's houses, you
1:09:26know, used to plastic discs, can make good content.
1:09:30And same thing with Amazon, the place that you buy stuff from, they deliver for you in
1:09:34boxes can make original content.
1:09:37So if Apple has decided, and you can debate the merits of this, that they're going to
1:09:42make a reality show. I think we're getting a little bit confused by the fact that it
1:09:47involves apps. The bottom line is, all right, if you're going to make a reality show, what
1:09:51are reality shows like and can you make a good one? And I'm going to defend reality
1:09:55shows as a long time viewer of reality shows from the very beginning. I still watch and
1:10:01enjoy many of them. That there is such a thing as a good reality show and a bad reality show.
1:10:06Oh yeah. But within the genre, like there is a genre. And if you look at this trailer,
1:10:11you go, that's a reality show.
1:10:13Like it is clearly recognizable as a reality show.
1:10:16And I think it could be a good reality show if done well,
1:10:21because it involves people with a skill
1:10:26and an ambition and a dream or whatever.
1:10:30And they are going to, you know,
1:10:32in all these scenarios where you have the panel of experts
1:10:34has to pick among them, that can be very bad,
1:10:36or it can be good where they're trying to encourage people
1:10:40after the initial like let's make fun of the other people
1:10:42who are really bad, you know,
1:10:44sort of American Idol type thing like that.
1:10:45I feel like it's a bad aspect of it.
1:10:46But either way, once you get into the human story
1:10:49of like I want to do this thing,
1:10:51you don't need to know what the details of this struggle are.
1:10:54This won't be about application development probably.
1:10:56It'll mostly be about starting a new business
1:10:58and business ideas.
1:10:59And in the end, unlike for example, American Idol,
1:11:02in the end, there is much less ability
1:11:05to make these people into superstars.
1:11:06I mean, even American Idol had trouble eventually,
1:11:08Like Kelly Clarkson had a reasonable expectation that if she won this reality show, she would
1:11:15have a viable recording career.
1:11:17A, because the people picking her are going to pick people based on talent, and B, because
1:11:22you get an in with the recording industry, which is way more monolithic and actually
1:11:27back then had even more power than it does today, to make you a star because they control
1:11:32distribution and so on and so forth, much less so than they used to in the old days,
1:11:36but still it was a thing.
1:11:37But for the App Show, I don't particularly trust that the four people on the expert panel
1:11:44have any idea what is going to be a successful app beyond any four random people that you
1:11:49picked in the tech industry.
1:11:50And furthermore, I don't particularly think that even Apple itself, by featuring you in
1:11:54the App Store and heavily pushing you, is going to turn your idea into a viable business
1:11:59for the long term.
1:12:01But I think none of that matters for reality shows, because at this point, we are perfectly
1:12:06willing to accept that winning a reality show is its own reward. And whatever they promise
1:12:11you, we go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll be rich and famous forever, or I'll forget you by
1:12:14next season." Because that's not what it's about. It's an entertainment program. And
1:12:18you want, and like I said, it can be done badly and exploitively, or it can be done
1:12:21in a way that people enjoy, where you get to see plain old human drama and people with
1:12:25skills trying to apply those skills in a challenging situation. Hopefully the judges and the sponsors
1:12:30are supportive and encouraging. And it is a positive type of program with good production
1:12:35values that treats its contestants well, that has smart, funny, and interesting and charming
1:12:40judges, I believe a good reality show is possible.
1:12:43I don't know whether this will be one, but I think the fact that this reality show involves
1:12:47apps is a distraction and a thing that skews people's thinking about it.
1:12:53I guess the only thing you really debate is should the first major piece of original content
1:12:57that Apple made, not counting Carpool Karaoke, which was an existing franchise, should it
1:13:01be a reality show?
1:13:02Maybe, maybe not, but again, I don't think by judging it based on that you could say
1:13:07you shouldn't be trying to figure out how well does reality show fit with Apple's ethos.
1:13:12That's not the question at all. The question is, are reality shows popular? Yes, they are
1:13:16popular. So if you were picking a genre, and it's also different than what other people
1:13:20do, they're not doing a sci-fi, a retro sci-fi show, or a show based on, you know, sci-fi
1:13:29books from a well-known author, right? That has been well-trod territory. They're doing
1:13:34a reality show as their first thing, which is a little bit different. They're not doing
1:13:36a superhero thing or anything like that. So I think that's a reasonable choice. And at
1:13:40some point, someone convinced them if we are doing a reality show, there's a little bit
1:13:43of synergy if we do it on apps. But I'm willing to give this show all the benefit of the doubt,
1:13:49even though I certainly won't watch it and I'm not interested in it. I don't watch Shark
1:13:52Tank either. All the benefit of the doubt. But what I would say is, if Apple is serious
1:13:57about content, I hope it doesn't only do reality shows because there's no reason Apple can't
1:14:03do original content in any genre that it wants because it has that same thing that Amazon
1:14:07and Netflix have, mountains of money.
1:14:10And if they are wise and hire the right peoples and you throw mountains of money at them,
1:14:14they can make a good video content in any genre that you can imagine.
1:14:19And I love that that's happening with Amazon and Netflix and I would like that for that
1:14:22to happen with Apple because what the hell else are they going to do with their money
1:14:24if they're not making a car or whatever?
1:14:27So I'm all for it, even if it is weirdly connected with Apple Music, and even if I will never
1:14:31ever watch this show.
1:14:34(laughs)
1:14:35Yeah, I mean, I understand why everyone was perturbed about it, and I understand that
1:14:40it's like, "Oh, this is a distraction!"
1:14:42And, eh, maybe for some of Apple, but, I mean, for the developers that are doing the sorts
1:14:51of things that the three of us really care about, I don't think it's much of a distraction
1:14:55at all.
1:14:56And it's not like, the people who are making this show
1:15:00were not taking off new Mac Pro hardware to make this show.
1:15:03- Yeah, exactly.
1:15:04- Yeah, the Mac Pro hardware team
1:15:06is busily assembling the escalator.
1:15:08- Right, exactly.
1:15:09- And I don't even think it's a distraction
1:15:10because Apple is in the TV connected box business
1:15:13and they're in the streaming video business.
1:15:16Like they have been, you know,
1:15:18this is not a new venture where they will sell you
1:15:20or rent you movies and video,
1:15:22and everybody else who's in that business
1:15:23is doing original content.
1:15:25I think that's been shown to be a model that works.
1:15:27So they are late comers to this.
1:15:28All they are doing is continuing to compete
1:15:30in a market they were already in.
1:15:32It's not like, why are you making TV shows?
1:15:33You're distracted.
1:15:34No, they were already in that market.
1:15:36They've been selling Apple TVs of various kinds
1:15:38for a long time.
1:15:39They've been selling video of the iTunes store
1:15:40for a long time.
1:15:41That's a market they're in.
1:15:42They're just competing in it.
1:15:43People should be encouraging them.
1:15:44Like we're encouraging them to compete
1:15:45in the personal computer market.
1:15:47Yes, by all means, look at what your competitor is doing
1:15:49and try to make your product more valuable and desirable.
1:15:52Good job, not a distraction at all.
1:15:54(upbeat music)
1:15:56We are sponsored this week by Pingdom.
1:15:57Start monitoring your websites and servers today
1:16:00at pingdom.com/ATP.
1:16:02You'll get a 14 day free trial.
1:16:04When you enter code ATP at checkout,
1:16:06you get 20% off your first invoice.
1:16:08Pingdom is an amazing monitoring service.
1:16:11I have used Pingdom now.
1:16:13In a couple of months, it'll be my 10 year anniversary.
1:16:15I use it for almost all of Tumblr, all of Instapaper,
1:16:19all of Overcast so far,
1:16:20and everything I've done in the meantime.
1:16:22It is such a great monitoring service.
1:16:24If you run a website or a server or any kind of web service,
1:16:28you want Pingdom to check it.
1:16:30Because here's what happens.
1:16:31Stuff goes down all the time or it gets slow
1:16:34or some test fails.
1:16:37Pingdom can alert you to that.
1:16:38They can check your website as often as once every minute,
1:16:41and of course you can customize that.
1:16:42They can check for more than 70 global test servers.
1:16:46So you can see, for instance, if your site is slow or down
1:16:49in only part of the world,
1:16:50because maybe some routing or DNS issue
1:16:52or something like that.
1:16:53It can test so many different things.
1:16:55And then you can be alerted,
1:16:57however you wanna be alerted.
1:16:59Text message, email, push notification from their app,
1:17:02there's so many different options.
1:17:02You can customize the frequency you're alerted,
1:17:05when you're alerted, why you're alerted.
1:17:07And then you can be the first to know
1:17:09if your website is down or if something is broken
1:17:12before you get a bunch of people on Twitter telling you,
1:17:14hey, your site's been down for the last three hours,
1:17:16you don't want that.
1:17:17You wanna be the first one to know
1:17:19so that you can go fix it before too many of your customers
1:17:22or users see it.
1:17:23And this stuff breaks on the internet all the time.
1:17:25Pingdom detects more than 13 million outages,
1:17:28more than 400,000 outages every day.
1:17:31So whether your web presence is a small website
1:17:34or a complete infrastructure,
1:17:35you should definitely monitor it.
1:17:37And if you're gonna monitor it,
1:17:38I highly suggest Pingdom,
1:17:40my chosen monitoring service for nearly 10 years.
1:17:43Go to pingdom.com/atp.
1:17:45I mean, geez, what else have I used for 10 years?
1:17:48Like, looking around my entire technology world,
1:17:51there's almost nothing else I've used for 10 years.
1:17:54I've only used coffee for like 12 years.
1:17:56It's incredible.
1:17:58Check out Pingdom, it is so, so good.
1:18:00Pingdom.com/ATP for a 14-day free trial
1:18:04and get 20% off your first invoice with offer code ATP.
1:18:07Thank you to Pingdom for sponsoring our show.
1:18:09(upbeat music)
1:18:12- I don't even know how to pronounce this.
1:18:14Cavo, Cave-o?
1:18:16Kaaavvooooo. That's it. That's exactly how you have to say it. Oh, alright, good. I'm
1:18:22glad I got it in the last try. It's "krat-EK-ery." Nicely done. Nicely done. I always feel bad
1:18:30about that and primer. You guys don't, I don't know, you don't listen to me being
1:18:34harmful enough, but you know, you don't know the movie either, do you? God, I'm
1:18:37aware of it existing. Hey! I'm gonna take that as a victory. Is that the one with the
1:18:42Time-traveling one with the box like the refrigerator sized box. Yes. Yeah. I have seen that actually I know shit
1:18:48I agree. That's it anyway the title that movie is PRIMER and the person who made that movie
1:18:55initially
1:18:57Expected people and preferred people to pronounce it primer
1:18:59No
1:19:00But eventually gave up because everybody everybody who saw that word pronounced it primer
1:19:05Which is an alternate pronunciation of that word with a different meaning
1:19:09And so the creator of the mood he had to go and Sir tekari same situation
1:19:14I believe the original logo had a bar over the e to try to tell you what to long e say stratekari
1:19:20Right, that's correct. But that didn't work and the public has spoken and now the creator of that site says stratekari
1:19:28Truth. Sorry Ben Thompson. Anyway, I have no idea what this is about. So tell me about
1:19:33kahvoo
1:19:35Lot of people were tweeting this
1:19:37With the idea that this is the omnivorous box that I talked about on hypercritical and earlier on earlier episodes of ATP
1:19:45It's such an old idea from like 2011 or whatever the hell hypercritical was
1:19:49That was back when I was complaining a lot about TiVo and what I wanted was someone to make a box
1:19:55It would be nice if it was Apple that
1:19:57Sat on my TV and had a whole bunch of inputs
1:20:01It took video from all the places that I pay for stuff.
1:20:04Back in 2011, I was like, "Hey, I pay for cable, and I also pay for Netflix, and I also
1:20:08have a Blu-ray player or a PlayStation."
1:20:11All these different places that I can get video into my TV.
1:20:15I would like all those inputs to go into this thing that I called an "omnivorous box" because
1:20:19it would consume anything.
1:20:22And then I wanted one cable coming out of an omnivorous box into my television and one
1:20:27remote that controlled the omnivorous box and I would be able to, through a single interface,
1:20:33have access to all the video that I pay for.
1:20:35I pay for a cable subscription, cable has TV shows, they come on, my TiVo records them,
1:20:40I want access to all those shows, both live and recorded.
1:20:43I pay for Netflix and if there's a Netflix client either on my television or on the omnivorous
1:20:48box yourself or on an Apple TV or something, I want to be able to see that stuff.
1:20:52I have a Plex server running, or a PS3 media server back then,
1:20:57and that can play files from a hard drive
1:20:59somewhere in my basement.
1:21:00I want to be able to watch that kind as well.
1:21:01And I want it to be one big unified interface.
1:21:04So when I look through the shows available for me to watch,
1:21:07it does not express to me in any way
1:21:08where this stuff comes from.
1:21:10It is just like, yes, this video comes
1:21:12from many different sources,
1:21:13but I give you a unified interface to it.
1:21:14It's just a series of things that you can watch,
1:21:17things that might come out in the future,
1:21:19things that have come on in the past,
1:21:21things that you can stream right now, just one big continuous clean interface.
1:21:25And that is a super hard problem to solve because all of those people who distribute
1:21:29that content, cable companies, Netflix, even like the PS3 media server people, do not want
1:21:34you to make that box.
1:21:35They want you to use their box and their remote and all that other stuff, especially cable
1:21:39companies, that making that box would be famously difficult.
1:21:44Many companies tried.
1:21:45Google gave it probably the best run with its absurd Google TV thing with that crazy
1:21:50remote remember that?
1:21:51>> Yup.
1:21:52>> That was like two Google TVs ago, I forget which thing called Google TV was.
1:21:55>> Oh yeah.
1:21:56>> Remember that?
1:21:57>> That was one that Eric Schmidt said was going to be in every TV, right?
1:21:59>> No, that was the second one.
1:22:00This was the one before that.
1:22:02>> Yeah.
1:22:03Anyway, it's a really hard problem both technically, because how would you even solve that technical
1:22:07problem, and business-wise, because everybody whose input is going into your Unnervous Box
1:22:12does not want people to get their content through your Unnervous Box and they will fight
1:22:16you on it.
1:22:17They will make it so your box stops working on purpose because they don't want you to be the middleman.
1:22:23It's like, no, they don't want that at all.
1:22:25And so no one ever did make that box.
1:22:26TiVo came the closest because TiVo takes the cable input because of CableCard, which is a thing that happened when there was a brief moment of semi-sanity in our lawmaking institutions in this country that allowed third party products to accept cable signals with some caveats.
1:22:41So that's why I can even use a TiVo and why I don't have to have a cable box.
1:22:45so we could get cable television and record that,
1:22:48and then eventually TiVo added some fairly grim
1:22:51streaming video clients to their platform
1:22:53so you can watch Netflix through your TiVo
1:22:55and Amazon through your TiVo and all,
1:22:56and I think it was a Plex client, I forget.
1:22:58Anyway, not quite omnivorous
1:23:00because you can't watch iTunes content through there
1:23:03and you can't watch my Blu-ray player through there
1:23:05and all sorts of other stuff like that.
1:23:07So omnivorous box never came to be.
1:23:09Enter Cabo with two As and no bar over any of them.
1:23:13This is a set-top box that takes a whole bunch of HDMI inputs and has one output.
1:23:18And it tries to do something like what I described.
1:23:23You have one CAVO remote, you use that remote, and with it you can see all the video that
1:23:29is available on all the different devices that are plugged into it.
1:23:32And you can watch video from any of them.
1:23:36It is not, I think, really an omnivorous box because one of my requirements for omnivorous
1:23:40box is it provides one interface that doesn't make you have to be aware of where stuff comes
1:23:47from.
1:23:48And one of Cabo's primary interfaces is a series of boxes that say Roku, PS4, Amazon,
1:23:54Apple TV, DirecTV.
1:23:57Like when I first saw it, I thought, "This is a glorified HDMI switcher."
1:24:01It's like, "Great, all your HDMI things go into one box, and then out of that box, it
1:24:07connects to your television, and then when you turn it on with the one remote, you can
1:24:10pick which thing you want to do and then you just get the interface to that thing.
1:24:12That's not quite how it works.
1:24:13We'll link in the show notes to this video from The Verge, which is very long, kind of
1:24:17boring, but just scrub through it until you see them start actually using the device of
1:24:21the creators of this thing talking to... who are they talking to?
1:24:24Walt Mossberg, I recognize because of his silly beard, and someone else.
1:24:33And they give demos of the product and it tries to do more than that.
1:24:36It tries to give you an interface to all of the things that are available on all of the
1:24:38devices.
1:24:39pretty to look at, but it will try to say, "Hey, here are the shows available for you
1:24:44to watch," without expressing to you where they are from.
1:24:48It has Amazon Echo integration, so they keep doing this demo of, like, you know, "Watch
1:24:53Stranger Things," and you have, like, a preference list of, like, when I say "Watch Stranger
1:24:57Things," and you determine that Stranger Things is a show that's on Netflix, and I have three
1:25:01boxes connected that can all do Netflix, I want you to prefer to use the Apple TV for
1:25:05Netflix for whatever reason.
1:25:07So it will start playing Stranger Things from Netflix through the Apple TV.
1:25:11If you say Watchmen on the High Castle, it will determine that that is only on Amazon
1:25:16and you have an Amazon streaming thing connected somewhere, and so it will start playing it
1:25:20from that for you.
1:25:21So the voice control interface is like, you know, one level up from what each of these
1:25:24devices do individually.
1:25:26Same thing with the remote.
1:25:27The remote, you're controlling the CaboBox, the CaboBox is controlling the inputs.
1:25:33I wonder how they're doing the unified interface.
1:25:36It doesn't look that great.
1:25:37It's mostly just text.
1:25:39It's not a particularly rich interface.
1:25:40If you were to go to the interface to any of these boxes or services, it would look
1:25:43better and have nice pictures and more metadata and stuff.
1:25:48But at least they're trying.
1:25:49I think this box faces the same challenges as a real omnivorous box would in that the
1:25:55companies that they are sort of trying to insert themselves between the customer and
1:26:01these other boxes, those boxes aren't going to like that.
1:26:04And if they don't intentionally break them, they'll accidentally break them, especially
1:26:06if their means of control involves, I mean, like, are they doing screen scraping?
1:26:11Are they trying to use APIs, documented or otherwise?
1:26:13How are they even doing this?
1:26:15Do they have separate metadata somewhere that's like in the cloud, so it's not actually looking
1:26:22at the content over the HDMI thing?
1:26:23So I don't know.
1:26:24I don't know how they're doing it.
1:26:25It doesn't look that impressive, but at least they're giving it the old college try.
1:26:33The most interesting thing about this demo are the things that are probably the least
1:26:40technically cool in that, you know, calling this a glorified HDMI switch is kind of mean,
1:26:45but calling it a glorified receiver, less mean.
1:26:49But if you have a receiver or any other box that takes a whole bunch of HDMI inputs and
1:26:53sends one output to your television, you know that strangely one of the challenges is, aside
1:26:59from having a million different remotes and having to switch inputs, that's cumbersome.
1:27:03So one of the demos they give is, what if someone comes over to your house and they
1:27:07don't know how to use the 17 remotes that are on your end table, right?
1:27:11Or even the one Logitech Harmony remote that you have, because that is generally complicated.
1:27:15And the example they gave in the demo is like, what if someone comes over to your house and
1:27:20they see you have a PlayStation 4, but they see the controller sitting on the end table,
1:27:24and they just pick up the PlayStation controller off the end table.
1:27:27Nothing is, you know, they just come into the room, nothing is turned on.
1:27:29just pick up the PlayStation controller and turn it on.
1:27:32Any reasonably good receiver should be able to notice that, hey, I was sitting here and
1:27:38everything was off, but I noticed that the PlayStation came on and started sending me
1:27:42video output.
1:27:43So I am going to, through CEC or some other thing that's supposed to work but doesn't,
1:27:47turn on your television, switch the input to the, you know, switch my input as the receiver
1:27:52or whatever I am to the PS4 thing, and so now merely by pressing the PlayStation on
1:27:57button on the PlayStation controller, there it is on your screen. You don't have to know,
1:28:02"Oh, if you want to play PlayStation, pick up the receiver remote, switch to input number
1:28:06two, then turn on the TiVo, or then turn on the PlayStation. Make sure you do it in that
1:28:10order. If you want to hear it through the receiver speakers, also turn the receiver
1:28:13on, but if you don't, it'll go through the television, blah, blah, blah." You don't have
1:28:15to know how to do that. And then if someone comes along and they turn the Roku on, it'll
1:28:20notice, even though the PlayStation 4 is already on, because you just activated the Roku using
1:28:25the Roku remote because maybe all you know is the Roku remote, you don't know what the
1:28:27hell this Cabo thing is, you don't know the PlayStation thing, you see, "Oh, Roku remote,
1:28:30I know what a Roku is," and you just turn the Roku on, the Cabo box will see it. Well,
1:28:35even though PlayStation is on, someone just turned the Roku on, so I'm going to switch
1:28:39to the Roku input and let you control it with the Roku remote. That type of functionality
1:28:44should be in every decent receiver, and probably is in a lot of decent receivers, but to me,
1:28:49that was the most impressive because it's like, "Yes, that's how all receivers should
1:28:53and I'm glad that someone has realized this and tried to build it into a box.
1:28:57So I start off thinking this is a glorify HDMI switcher receiver and I
1:29:02ended up thinking this is a really good HDMI switcher slash receiver. Now for the
1:29:08bad news. The bad news is it's $400. Alright and this $400 does not include
1:29:15any of the boxes that you connect to it which doesn't a problem because I
1:29:18already have a million TV boxes but like the idea is you buy this box and it's
1:29:21like you get nothing it's like it's like buying a Synology with no disks in it
1:29:25it's like yeah it's there it's ready for you to plug things into but it's no good
1:29:28to you until you plug inputs into it so $400 and then $100 for every box
1:29:35depending on what you know I guess the Apple ones are expensive you know $60
1:29:38for a Chromecast $60 for a cheap Roku $100 for a good one whatever but if you
1:29:44already have all those boxes and maybe if you don't have a receiver oh and also
1:29:48Also it's pretty big and it's weird and it's wood and it's probably not going to be available
1:29:52to consumers until 2018.
1:29:54So all those caveats.
1:29:55Besides all that, it's great.
1:29:57Yeah, they're going to sell 5,000 of them sometime this year.
1:30:01You can pick three different kinds of wood, three different kinds of ugly wood to be on
1:30:04top of it.
1:30:05Oh, now that you tell me that, I'm in.
1:30:07You're really not doing a great job of selling this, John.
1:30:09I know, yeah, I don't think this product is really going anywhere, but I was excited by
1:30:13the idea that someone has tackled some of the very basic problems of this terrible,
1:30:17terrible television age we live in where we all have way too many pucks or other
1:30:23kinds of boxes connected to our televisions and very frequently watching
1:30:30any video content involves switching inputs and possibly also switching
1:30:34remotes and all the solutions that try to make that easier are bad in some way
1:30:37including this one but in the absence of a true omnivorous box which can probably
1:30:42never exist for the same reason OpenDock can probably never exist business
1:30:45reasons on top of technical reasons equals death.
1:30:51I like the fact that someone is trying to push the envelope forward and I hope somebody
1:30:56buys this company and incorporates their good ideas into their own products.
1:31:00Like TiVo I assume?
1:31:01No they're – come on.
1:31:04Come on.
1:31:05I just want TiVo to stay in business.
1:31:06They're not buying anybody.
1:31:07Please TiVo don't waste your money buying these people.
1:31:12Apple could buy them, make their Apple TV better.
1:31:14could have made a box like this. Of course they never would, but like the type of the
1:31:17type of functionality of just like, can we stop people from having to do switch inputs?
1:31:23That would be good. Like, can it just do what I mean? Can it just notice because I turned
1:31:27the PlayStation on? I probably want to play with the PlayStation, just switch to that
1:31:29input automatically. It's nice. Thanks to our three sponsors this week, Eero, Squarespace,
1:31:36and Pingdom. And we will see you next week.
1:31:38Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin
1:31:45'Cause it was accidental (accidental)
1:31:48Oh, it was accidental (accidental)
1:31:51John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:31:56'Cause it was accidental (accidental)
1:31:59Oh, it was accidental (accidental)
1:32:02And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:32:07And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:32:11@C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
1:32:16So that's Kasey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:32:20Auntie Marco Arment
1:32:23S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S
1:32:28It's accidental
1:32:31They didn't mean to
1:32:33Accidental
1:32:36♪ Tech podcast so long ♪
1:32:39- We have an odd note in the show notes.
1:32:44It says, "John's Mac throws some more RAM."
1:32:49- With more in parentheses, too.
1:32:51- Yeah, throws as in there's a failure,
1:32:55throws as in it ejected it,
1:32:58it spit it like a loogie across the room.
1:33:01- Some kind of exception handling.
1:33:03- We've talked about this before.
1:33:04That's why this is this is a second the second time this has happened
1:33:07I think on the run of ATP and I think I used the same language last time the analogy
1:33:11I'm trying to make here and failing obviously is when a horse throws a shoe. Do you know that expression? Mm-hmm?
1:33:16Yeah, you know I was raised in Ohio where we had lots of horses. No, I what no
1:33:21I don't know what that means a horse throws a shoe my understanding
1:33:24I was not raised with horses either either disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer
1:33:27You know your horseshoes, you know the little metal bendy u-shaped things you put on those the bottle
1:33:32Yeah, I know that part at least yeah, and they're attached somehow with like these weird-looking spikes or nails or something
1:33:38It's scary and I don't understand it anyway
1:33:41The horse is galloping along those little metal u-shaped things are supposed to say on the bottom of the little feats
1:33:47but sometimes when they're galloping along one of them goes flying off the foot and that's bad because now your horse has lost its shoe and
1:33:54It needs it to walk comfortably or whatever the hell horseshoes are for
1:33:58And it's throwing as in like it could go flying because as the horse is galloping the shoe goes flying
1:34:02So basically while like doing something strenuous like encoding a video your Mac Pro
1:34:07Forcefully ejected one of its ram sticks from its slot
1:34:11That's what I'm hearing or not strenuous as the case may be so my Mac Pro is very old the RAM is also very old
1:34:17As 2008 Mac Pro now it is good solid eight years old pushing up on nine. I forget when I bought the thing
1:34:26Throwing some RAM means I have eight sticks of RAM in there and every once in a while
1:34:31Why don't you stop working and it's like my horse through a shoe my mac pro through some RAM
1:34:38so I came in the other day and tried to wake my mac pro from sleep and
1:34:41the fans spun up at the screen did not turn on and the power light on the front of my mac pro was blinking in a
1:34:47very concerning way and
1:34:49Unlike later Mac pros including even the 2009, but I don't know how far forward they went
1:34:54My Mac does not have a little set of red LEDs on the banks of dims to tell you which ones are bad
1:35:01All I knew is that I had a computer with eight dims of RAM on two daughter cards four on each
1:35:08That would not boot
1:35:10It just wouldn't post wouldn't do the chime wouldn't do anything because you know, there's some bad RAM there
1:35:16And this has happened before multiple times
1:35:18I think I brought up when Casey had bad RAM that I had a OWC RAM in my thing and that
1:35:23Despite the fact that my computer is so many years old every time it throws a throw the dim if it's an OWC one
1:35:30that is the problem I just call them up and they send me a new one and
1:35:33It would be better if they didn't break but after eight years if it throws a dim and I get a new one for free
1:35:40I still consider that pretty amazing
1:35:42In the the age of like, you know two-year warranties and hard drives or whatever
1:35:47So I had a fun
1:35:49afternoon of
1:35:52Unseeding daughter cards or removing dims putting them back in in every valid configuration
1:35:57To by process of elimination find the pair of them
1:36:01They have to be in pairs find the match pair of dims
1:36:04That don't work and even with the pairs all I can tell you is that one of the two doesn't work out or they might
1:36:08Both be bad so eventually after many many boots, and I'm good at this now many many
1:36:14Exercises of seeding and unseeding which is actually kind of satisfying with the little clips they have on them and everything and how you shove them
1:36:20in I
1:36:22I eventually did find the pair of DIMMs that was bad.
1:36:26They were OWC DIMMs and they are sending me new ones for free.
1:36:33So I'm down either 2 gigs or 4 gigs of RAM right now.
1:36:39Still doing okay, let's see what I've got here.
1:36:41Fourteen gigs of RAM, so I should have eighteen, so I think I'm down four.
1:36:46Okay, dear Apple, if you are still listening to this somehow for some reason, please put
1:36:53this computer out of its misery, give John a new Mac Pro to buy so he can finally stop
1:36:59using this ancient one.
1:37:01Please Apple.
1:37:02The terror that fills my heart when I think, is this the time that it's just like, that
1:37:05it's just dead, like that the motherboard is dead, you know, that it's just not gonna
1:37:08boot, right?
1:37:10Because then I think about like, I would have to buy an iMac or should I just like buy the
1:37:14the cheapest laptop I can do?
1:37:15What would I do with all my data?
1:37:17I just, it's terrifying.
1:37:18So what, you know, I was afraid,
1:37:21I got it down to this point where I was like,
1:37:23maybe it's just not gonna boot
1:37:24because I got it down to like just two DIMMs, you know,
1:37:27the two DIMM configuration of the two that I thought
1:37:30were like the newest and most reliable RAM
1:37:32and it still wouldn't boot.
1:37:33And the trick I learned this time is occasionally
1:37:36you also need to do an SMC reset to make it happy.
1:37:38Not all the time, but occasionally,
1:37:41because I was in one RAM configuration
1:37:42and it would not boot.
1:37:44And then I did an SMC reset and it did boot
1:37:46with the same RAM configuration.
1:37:47And so once I learned that trick,
1:37:48then that was the easy way to make sure I was,
1:37:51you know, actually testing the DIMMs.
1:37:53And I eventually did narrow it down
1:37:55and found the two that were bad.
1:37:57So yeah, so this is what I've gotten in my thing.
1:37:59In one bank, I've got two gig, two gig, four gig, four gig.
1:38:02And the other bank, I have one gig, one gig, empty, empty.
1:38:05It's such a motley collection of RAM.
1:38:06Some of it Apple, some of it purchased from OWC
1:38:09in like three different shipments.
1:38:11- And some of it replaced over time.
1:38:14Yeah. - My word.
1:38:15- Oh. - Can't kill this machine,
1:38:17though.
1:38:18Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.
1:38:19- Oh, God. - Please, Apple, please.
1:38:21Just let Jon replace this, please.
1:38:24- Meanwhile, it was like, is it gonna be slower
1:38:26than the Apple Watch by the time I get there?
1:38:28- Yeah.
1:38:29By the time the new Mac Pro comes out, if it ever does,
1:38:35your Mac Pro is probably going to be slower
1:38:37than every Mac for sale at that time.
1:38:39- Oh, iOS devices.
1:38:41- I think the iPhone is already faster than it, isn't it?
1:38:43- I believe, at least single-threaded,
1:38:45it passed it I think two generations ago.
1:38:47Multi-threaded, I think it still hasn't, but it's close.
1:38:50- Yeah, that's what I'm saying,
1:38:51I gotta watch for the watch to start lapping me.
1:38:53- Yeah, I mean, at least if you limited it
1:38:55just to single-threaded performance,
1:38:57you're really looking bad compared to all the iOS devices.
1:39:01- Yeah, but I have more RAM than the iOS devices,
1:39:04and I have one terabyte of flash storage, so take that iOS.
1:39:07- Yeah, but their RAM works all the time.
1:39:09- Ooh, sick burn.
1:39:10Well, you don't know that until you've used it for eight years.
1:39:13How's the RAM doing on that iPhone after eight years?
1:39:15After eight years, the thing won't even turn on when it's not plugged in.
1:39:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:39:19Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
1:39:21As someone who's lived through RAM problems recently, that is no fun, and I feel bad for
1:39:25you.
1:39:26You see how much quicker I diagnosed it and dealt with it?
1:39:27Rather than, rather than, like, pretending it doesn't exist.
1:39:30I guess you can't pretend it doesn't exist when your machine doesn't boot, but addressed
1:39:33immediately.
1:39:35Problem solved.
1:39:36And also, like, ODBC wasn't open.
1:39:38Like their phone line wasn't open.
1:39:39I just call them and deal with the nice people there and just read them my serial numbers and they're like, okay
1:39:44We'll send you new RAM
1:39:44I did it through chat which it worked fine like as their phone lines weren't open
1:39:49but the chat was but chat I find infuriating like customer support chat because I
1:39:54Don't know why it takes so long for there to be a response because you're like, hello. My name is blah blah
1:40:00How can I help you and then I paste in my prepared sentence of what my problem is that is formatted in a way
1:40:06Formatted in a way that I know there will be no follow-up questions, but it contains all the information
1:40:11Here's here's the problem. Here's why I think this is the problem
1:40:16How long does it take you to compose that sense three days I can do it on the fly
1:40:19It's very easy very concise right, but it contains all the information right
1:40:23Here's my problem
1:40:25Here's why I know it's my problem
1:40:26Putting enough information to let them know they don't need to take me through troubleshooting steps and crap right and here's what I want to
1:40:31happen, I want you to send me new RAM, right? Like in a nice way, but like all the information
1:40:36is there. And then you wait literally 10 minutes for the reply. And the reply is, can you give
1:40:43me the order number, serial number, blah, blah, which of course I have ready for them,
1:40:46but I didn't want to confuse them within the original message. And I paste that in. 10
1:40:50more minutes, 10 more minutes of that chat window just off the side. To the credit of
1:40:54the chat thing in OWC, it has like a chime that lets you know when they reply, because
1:40:57you can't just be sitting there waiting, like there's not even a typing indicator. Like
1:41:01just 10 minutes, like, are they just chatting with their friends? Did they go for a coffee break?
1:41:05They're surely not spending this time typing, especially for the first message. There was
1:41:09no thing for them to be looking up in the system, "Oh, the system is slow. We're looking up your
1:41:12order." They didn't even have my order number at that point. I had just told them what the
1:41:16situation is. "Bad RAM. Want new RAM. Here's how I know it's bad. Don't ask me to blow the
1:41:21dust out of my socket basically." Like, you know, 10 minute reply on that. And then, so it just,
1:41:27It took an incredible amount of time, but during that time I was browsing the web and
1:41:31reading Twitter while waiting for them to reply.
1:41:34Sometimes I forgot that I was still in the middle of the chat.
1:41:35You know it's long when you've forgotten, like a little boop goes off, I'm like, "Oh,
1:41:38that's right, I'm on my customer support chat to get new RAM."
1:41:42So hopefully that will be on the way soon.
1:41:44I'm surprised at this point you don't just call them up on the phone and just be like,
1:41:48"Hey, it's me again."
1:41:49They're like, "All right, how big?
1:41:512 gig?
1:41:524 gig?
1:41:532?
1:41:54All right, just send it out."
1:41:55lifetime or maybe people don't know, don't realize, you buy RAM from OWC, like if it
1:41:59goes bad they'll just keep replacing it forever.
1:42:01Like I think that's how it works.
1:42:03Like you do have to pay to ship your old RAM back to them, but that's cheap, it's very
1:42:06lightweight right?
1:42:07So it's a couple bucks to ship old RAM back.
1:42:09It's why by the way I save the boxes, I never throw out the boxes the new RAM comes in.
1:42:13I just, you know, I'll just keep getting new RAM forever for this machine.
1:42:18And it's fine with me, right?
1:42:19And I think it's like every two or three years it throws a DIMM, and you know, I'm okay with
1:42:24It's like Casey's BMW every once in a while, you know, 60,000 miles the water pumps gonna go like it's okay
1:42:30It would be like after two years you just lost two CPUs. Well the CPUs. Yeah, that's what I'm always afraid of
1:42:36I mean RAM like I could just say I'm always afraid that the slots are gonna go bad like that
1:42:41But even if that did I can get by with 14 gigs of RAM instead of 18 like I'm okay
1:42:44I've had such a motley collection of RAMs machine like weird amounts and weird combinations
1:42:50But as long as I'm as long as I'm in the teens, I'm okay for what I do with this Mac
1:42:54I'm just trying to predict like, during which year will you stop using this Mac?
1:43:01When it dies, that will stop me, right? So if it actually dies, what am I going to do?
1:43:06But if it doesn't die, my current plan is, look, this is the year, wait to WWDC, there's still no Mac Pro, if it's an iMac Pro, either way, like, if there's a Mac Pro, maybe, maybe not.
1:43:16maybe maybe not but if there is no Mac Pro then I'm getting an iMac and if there's an
1:43:21iMac Pro I'm getting an iMac Pro so my wife says why don't you just get an iMac now it's
1:43:25like I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to buy something that looks for all the world
1:43:28like a 5k iMac and I'm pretty much okay with that having used her as a lot it's like whatever
1:43:31if they're not gonna make an iMac Pro anymore what the hell can I do the next best thing
1:43:34is the 5k I'll be okay with it but I'm not gonna buy it now I have to wait to see at
1:43:40WWDC what the thing is is there gonna be another Mac Pro is there gonna be a special iMac for
1:43:46pros either called iMac Pro or not, that's when I make my buying decision.
1:43:50But the thing of it is, is you had a new Mac Pro, what was it, 15 years ago now, when the
1:43:55trash can came out?
1:43:57You had a new Mac Pro and you didn't want that one.
1:43:59So what makes you think you're going to suddenly decide that this one's okay?
1:44:03If I had to reconsider, well, the problem with knowing what I know now is I also know
1:44:07about the reliability issues of that one.
1:44:09Like when it came out, the reason I didn't buy it was like, well, this doesn't quite
1:44:14suit my needs.
1:44:15I don't need that much GPU and the GPUs aren't that great and it's super expensive and so on and so forth, but
1:44:19all our conversations about that were with the expectation that
1:44:22I'll wait for the next Mac Pro like when they revise it right like and it wasn't such a crazy assumption
1:44:28I thought that that would happen
1:44:30I mean they even did that for the cheese graters even though like the you know
1:44:33The fake new one for the show was founded on like it was still a revision
1:44:36It was still like they they changed some stuff. I
1:44:40None of us I think could have predicted like they would literally not release another version of the machine like ever
1:44:46Like just no no for not one year two year three like they just won't do it and that was not in my head
1:44:51So it's like me passing on that Mac Pro
1:44:53I feel like you know it's the first one like wait for the second revision like kind of like I did with the 5k Mac
1:44:58I didn't buy the first one like Marco did even though it's a good machine. It was like the second one came out
1:45:02Okay, this is the one to get seems like it's you know everything settled down. There's no big problems. It's got the p3 screen
1:45:06That's totally what I was expecting to do with trash can they just never made another one and so, you know, what can you do?
1:45:12You make any progress in your car decision we heard we had a lot of feedback on that
1:45:19This for you Casey, please Casey wants a stick shift that was apparently not
1:45:28Emphasized enough in the past show in the past 18 shows and the entire run of neutral, right?
1:45:34It's not he hasn't been keeping it a secret, but people keep forgetting
1:45:37Can they keep forgetting or people say I know you said you wanted the stick shift, but if you considered not a stick shift
1:45:42Yeah, consider that Casey if you considered not a stick shift because I know you said you wanted one but think about this not oh
1:45:47You put it that way I see so not a stick shift
1:45:53That's that what you're saying not the thing I want right also a pretty close number two on that list was not front-wheel drive
1:46:02Mm-hmm yeah a lot of people are saying oh you see you don't worry about that
1:46:07Don't worry about a stick shift. Don't worry about front-wheel drive. You know I got a perfect front-wheel drive
1:46:10Car for you, that's what you were looking for right that seems like that's exactly your criteria
1:46:17I mean exactly it they were they were arguing you know they were saying most of the people like you know some people just plain
1:46:23Forgot because I would like they were doing a whole email about the the car that you should get but other people were pitching you
1:46:29They're saying here's why you should consider front-wheel drive. It's not your father's front-wheel drive blah blah blah
1:46:33And I mostly respect those pitches, but maybe they just don't know your stubbornness now
1:46:37Would you call that an elevator pitch or an escalator pitch?
1:46:40We're called an email pitch and I think people made some I have to say though
1:46:45I have to think a lot of people made good arguments like if you were going to try to talk you out of
1:46:49Yeah, stick shift or rear-wheel drive people have some good arguments based on their actual experiences driving these cars
1:46:55So I think there was a good quality feedback in there
1:46:58but I'm not sure how much it helped you.
1:47:00- My other favorite was everyone in the entire world,
1:47:03I counted, it's true, telling me you should buy a WRX.
1:47:06In fact, in the chat room as we speak,
1:47:08two different individuals are telling me
1:47:11to buy a Subaru or a WRX.
1:47:13- No, I won't allow it.
1:47:15- No, well, so here's the thing,
1:47:16like I tweeted within a day of the show coming out
1:47:19because I was already getting inundated by it,
1:47:22two things, I said, you know, number one,
1:47:25I think the WRX isn't cushy enough.
1:47:29I want something that's a little bit less boy racer.
1:47:32Secondly, this is my past Subaru.
1:47:35And it's a picture of my Legacy GT.
1:47:37Now, this was after I sold it, and I think we might have discussed this on the show,
1:47:40but it was after I sold it, and it literally died in a fire.
1:47:46You know that phrase that I love so very much?
1:47:48It died in a friggin' fire.
1:47:50Are you attributing that to the car, or is that the owner?
1:47:54I've seen that picture too, but because you didn't own the car, you don't know how that happened.
1:47:57That's true. However, let me remind you that that car smelled of gasoline/petrol
1:48:03for most of the time that I owned it.
1:48:05The wheels all stayed on it though, unlike another car that you've owned.
1:48:08This is true, which was an improvement.
1:48:10It's a low bar.
1:48:10Casey gets a car, a wheel falls off. Next car dies in a fire. BMW is doing pretty well.
1:48:17It is doing excellent.
1:48:20Just consuming its engine parts in a hail of metal occasionally.
1:48:23Yeah, no big deal, right?
1:48:25What's the common factor here, Casey? Maybe you drive really weirdly.
1:48:29I guess? I don't know. But I had a few people reach out with interesting ideas.
1:48:37I had a handful of people reach out and say the Golf R is just as good as you think it is.
1:48:42I had a handful of people with various degrees of aggression say, "Stop fighting with this. Just lease your damn car."
1:48:50Which I think I I understand that in there. There's probably some truth to it. In fact Marco you made a pretty good pitch for it
1:48:57I thought I remember that was on slacker on Twitter, but regardless
1:49:00Leasing would surely fix many if not all of these problems, but it creates other problems, which is you know
1:49:09I'm just throwing money into a pit. I'm borrowing a car, but you're doing that now therefore you're fair
1:49:14You're all any ownership of a car is throwing money into a pit and only borrowing it
1:49:19No matter how you do it, that is the result.
1:49:21It's only a difference of mechanics
1:49:24of how that actually happens,
1:49:26and on what time scale, and in what pattern.
1:49:29And what I like about leasing, which I've said before,
1:49:31I'll just go to the very quick summary.
1:49:34You know, it is not the absolute
1:49:36lease money to spend on a car.
1:49:37Like the least money to spend on a car
1:49:39is to buy a lightly used Honda or Toyota
1:49:43and drive it until it doesn't drive anymore.
1:49:45That is by far the cheapest way to own a car.
1:49:48But if you're going to go the route of nice cars,
1:49:53and in particular if you're gonna go the route
1:49:54of buying new, usually a lease is really nice for that
1:49:58because it is predictable and fixed,
1:50:02and you put the risk of market fluctuations,
1:50:07the value of your car, whether it ever gets in an accident
1:50:10or anything like that, you put the risk of all that
1:50:13and the eventual resale value back on the manufacturer.
1:50:17And so you have a very predictable, guaranteed,
1:50:21fixed three years of here's what this is going to cost me
1:50:24every year or every month or whatever.
1:50:27And then at the end, it is done, it is over.
1:50:29You don't have to worry about am I gonna lose
1:50:32a lot of resale for this little scratch I have over here
1:50:35or whatever else and all the maintenance is included.
1:50:39So it's a way to just take this weird,
1:50:43severe up and down spiky expense pattern
1:50:45of owning a car and just make it flat.
1:50:47- Make it flat but expensive.
1:50:50- But financing new versus leasing new,
1:50:54it's kind of a toss up mostly.
1:50:56It depends on the incentives and the interest rates
1:50:59of the current month and that brand
1:51:01and the configuration you're looking at.
1:51:02Sometimes leasing's actually cheaper
1:51:04'cause what a lot of the brands will do
1:51:06is they will use lease incentives and lease specials
1:51:10to help them reach earnings for this quarter
1:51:14at their own expense, basically,
1:51:16like they're kinda like borrowing against their own future.
1:51:18So you can, actually the best deals in the car industry
1:51:21usually are, for new cars at least,
1:51:23usually are lease specials for that reason,
1:51:26that you're kinda like taking advantage
1:51:27of the manufacturer's need to boost their numbers
1:51:29in a certain time span or whatever,
1:51:30but that's gonna be less applicable
1:51:33to the kinds of cars you're looking at, honestly.
1:51:35But anyway, that's why leases are good.
1:51:37They're fixed, they're predictable,
1:51:38and they're kind of like, if your usage pattern,
1:51:41Like if your mileage driven fits within what a lease can do,
1:51:45which yours does, then it really makes a lot of sense.
1:51:48Especially for the kind of cars you are looking at,
1:51:51which are fast cars, sports cars.
1:51:54And it's one thing to lease something more conventional
1:51:58and more low key with a lower key,
1:52:01not as tweaked up engine and not high performance brakes,
1:52:04not high performance parts, that's one thing.
1:52:06But the kind of cars you're looking at,
1:52:09as you know too well now, are very expensive to maintain.
1:52:13That, you're gonna have that problem with any way
1:52:16you look at this that still involves you having a soul.
1:52:19So because of that, that's why I think you should
1:52:23go to leasing because, again, you're losing
1:52:26a bunch of money no matter how you do this.
1:52:27With leasing at least, it's more compatible
1:52:30with the kind of like high powered sporty cars
1:52:33that you're looking at and it allows it to be predictable.
1:52:37There's no more surprises.
1:52:39And I tell you what, that is a freeing decision.
1:52:43'Cause I've done now every method of owning a car.
1:52:45I have bought used, I have bought new via financing,
1:52:50and I have leased.
1:52:51And leasing is the only one of those I did more than once.
1:52:56And there's a reason for that.
1:52:58Because my experience doing the other two
1:53:00were both very poor.
1:53:01When I bought used, I had a maintenance nightmare.
1:53:03when I financed new, I lost a killing on resale value
1:53:08because at one time I had to get a door panel replaced,
1:53:12not my fault, the car was parked
1:53:14and somebody backed into my door
1:53:15and I had to get a door panel replaced
1:53:16and they saw that when I went to resell it
1:53:18and they could tell that it had been repainted
1:53:21from, they could look at the edge on the inside
1:53:23and kind of see, oh yeah, this is a repainted panel,
1:53:25even the part from the outside, but anyway, yeah,
1:53:28I lost like $5,000 off the resale price on that car.
1:53:32It was horrible and it just sunk all,
1:53:35like that was my accord.
1:53:37And like all the calculations I did,
1:53:39just like is this the best value car?
1:53:40That best value was destroyed because of that resale loss.
1:53:44So like everything that I thought I was doing right
1:53:47was out the window because I had bad luck.
1:53:49Similar to what you're seeing now with your BMW.
1:53:51Like everything you thought of your calculation
1:53:54of what you were gonna spend on this car
1:53:56is being thrown out the window
1:53:57'cause weird stuff is going wrong
1:53:58and you just happen to have bad luck
1:54:00with the maintenance on this one.
1:54:01That can happen with any car you get,
1:54:02no matter how reliable it is.
1:54:04This is all to say, this is why I like leasing so much.
1:54:06You know, with leasing, you get the new car,
1:54:09and yes, you're paying a cost for a new car, right?
1:54:13That's never gonna be cheap, no matter how you do it.
1:54:15But if you're gonna get a new or newish car,
1:54:18with a lease, you pay every month,
1:54:21you get the car brand new, exactly the spec you want,
1:54:24you custom order it exactly what you want,
1:54:25you get every option, every color, whatever you want,
1:54:27your stick shift, you don't have to wait and find one,
1:54:30you can get exactly what you want.
1:54:31Three years later, you turn it into the dealer
1:54:34and you get something else.
1:54:36And you don't have to worry during that time.
1:54:38If you get like a scratch in month six of a lease,
1:54:43you don't have to look at that and say,
1:54:45A, am I gonna have to look at the scratch
1:54:47for the next 10 years?
1:54:48And B, is this gonna kill my resale value
1:54:51or do I have to like go get this fixed
1:54:53somewhere really expensive?
1:54:54Because you know what, leases have scratch allotments
1:54:55built in.
1:54:57You don't have to pay anything unless it's a really huge
1:54:58or something, and it's just fine.
1:55:01You just turn it back in and you have a certain allowance
1:55:03and it's just fine.
1:55:04It's just so much easier.
1:55:08There's so much less also, if you're kind of unsure
1:55:12about whether you want, like one of the reasons
1:55:14I got a red car this time, I'm not sure.
1:55:17Having never owned a car that was a bold color before,
1:55:20I wasn't sure I would like it.
1:55:21But you know, I'm not buying this car for 10 years,
1:55:24I'm leasing this car for three years.
1:55:25So I can take a bit of a risk.
1:55:27Same thing with the M5, I wasn't sure if I could deal with
1:55:30a rear wheel drive car in a place that has winters.
1:55:33And if I was buying a car for 10 years,
1:55:36I'm not sure I would take that risk.
1:55:37But because it was only a lease,
1:55:39I knew that it was a much shorter commitment.
1:55:43And so I did it, and it worked out great.
1:55:46Now I have my red car, that's working out great.
1:55:48So you're able to take more risks with the choices you make,
1:55:51'cause it isn't a long term commitment,
1:55:52and the psychology is so much more relaxed,
1:55:56because you know it's just a lease,
1:55:58and the time that you're giving it up is fixed,
1:56:01the value that you're gonna get out of it is fixed,
1:56:04what you're paying every month is fixed,
1:56:06and at the end you just repeat,
1:56:07you just order something else, and the process repeats.
1:56:09And you can, you know, every three years
1:56:11you have a chance to stop doing that if you want to,
1:56:12but, you know, honestly, once you start
1:56:15it's kind of hard to stop because it's really, really nice.
1:56:18- KZ doesn't want a three year stand with a car,
1:56:21he's looking for a long-term relationship.
1:56:23- I mean, to be fair, you can also get
1:56:24four and five year leases,
1:56:25I don't know if anybody really does, but you can.
1:56:28But every choice that you have presented in front of you,
1:56:33you're going to have to make some kind of major compromise
1:56:35on what you would ideally want, right?
1:56:37No matter what choice you have in front of you,
1:56:39you have to compromise on something.
1:56:41And you have to make like one big compromise
1:56:44to avoid making a whole bunch of other smaller ones.
1:56:47If you choose leasing as that compromise to make,
1:56:50'cause I know you object to leasing,
1:56:52seems like mostly a moral standpoint,
1:56:54You know, it's less about whether you could afford it or not, and more that you just don't
1:56:58like the idea of it.
1:57:00If you can compromise on that, everything else you can get exactly what you want.
1:57:05Yeah, sort of.
1:57:08I mean, I guess that's true, but the only things that that would give me access to,
1:57:16really, is BMWs, and I could just buy a used one, or a Cadillac, and I don't think I
1:57:23want a Cadillac.
1:57:24I won't let you get the Cadillac.
1:57:26Well, I guess what I'm saying is I don't know what re--
1:57:28leasing doesn't really open any doors, I don't think, that aren't already in front of me.
1:57:33It just solves the maintenance problem because everything will be--
1:57:38I will forever be under warranty.
1:57:40What's next, Mark? Are you going to recommend a three-year marriage?
1:57:43[laughter]
1:57:45That's what you're suggesting to us car owners.
1:57:48That's right. That's true.
1:57:49Why don't you just let three-year marriages and five-year marriages? It's great. Try it.
1:57:53It's like no that's not you don't understand the relationship between a man in his car
1:57:57No, and John you are doing one of my other recommended plans not not quite
1:58:02I would recommend if you're gonna do like the maximize value plan
1:58:05I would recommend buying a a just off lease Toyota or Honda and then owning that into the ground
1:58:10You're doing it all you're doing almost that which is buy a new Honda and own it into the ground
1:58:14Like that is also a totally valid way to do it. You know, I can't do the leases for two reasons one
1:58:21Try finding a stick shift on the car to the lease
1:58:24It's hard enough to find someone who will sell you one from the factory. They do not exist
1:58:28And two I like having a new car
1:58:31I like having a brand new car brand new cars are awesome and you get that with a lease too right brand spanking new
1:58:37That's one of the great things in life is getting a new car. I would never forego that for like a one-year-old
1:58:43I will eat the 5k that I in depreciation. That's very surprising to me who doesn't like a new car come on
1:58:49I love a new car, but so my perfect scenario, like if I could just invent the perfect scenario,
1:58:55I would get like a one or two year old car that was exactly the build I wanted.
1:59:02That was used by Tiff Arment, driven 500 miles.
1:59:05Yeah, exactly. No, it's true. And truth be told, that was my BMW. Now it had been driven
1:59:10many, many miles, but the only way those miles could have been accrued in the time
1:59:15in which the first owner had it was on the highway. And so on paper my car was perfect.
1:59:20It was a relatively decent deal.
1:59:22It turns out he was a mailman.
1:59:24Well I think my understanding was he was actually an insurance agent.
1:59:27Stop and go, stop and go. That's why the bano system blows up.
1:59:30Yeah, could be. But no, my understanding was he was an insurance agent or something like that.
1:59:35But Marco will probably and justifiably cut this from the show, but as you guys were talking,
1:59:40I went to AutoTrader and quickly amassed the list of makes that are reasonably easily available
1:59:47to me in the United States.
1:59:48And I will run through them alphabetically, so everyone will know the options in front
1:59:52of me, and the answer is that there are almost none.
1:59:55Acura.
1:59:56Acura does not believe in a stick shift anymore.
1:59:58Alpha.
1:59:59Volvo, no sticks.
2:00:01Done.
2:00:02Any other questions?
2:00:06A couple other quick notes.
2:00:07First of all, Porsche is theoretically an option, which I had forgotten.
2:00:11But A, it's way too expensive.
2:00:12B, have you seen the Panamera?
2:00:14It's frickin' hideous.
2:00:15There's no Ford or Styx.
2:00:17The Panamera doesn't come with a stick, does it?
2:00:19You know, now that you say that, you're probably right.
2:00:21Secondly, Inkette—and this individual's not the only person who has said this—but
2:00:25oh, you're too picky.
2:00:26Well, f*** you.
2:00:27This is what I want.
2:00:28I mean, I don't care.
2:00:30This is what I want.
2:00:31I am allowed to be picky if I'm spending between $20,000 and $80,000.
2:00:34I am allowed to be picky.
2:00:37So, sorry, tough nuggies.
2:00:39I would probably get a used Golf R, and then as I thought more about it, I thought, you
2:00:44know what, I don't know if it's really even worth just trading this in, because why
2:00:49would I spend 30 to 40, if Marco has his way, $80,000 on a new car, when I can just continue
2:00:57to feed my car from time to time and just call it a day?
2:01:01And so, what I think I'm going to do is just suck it up and deal with the fact that
2:01:05my car is always going to be in this shop.
2:01:07- Casey's BMW is my Mac Pro.
2:01:10- Yeah, actually you're right.
2:01:11And that makes me absolutely sick.
2:01:12- We should just go to OWC,
2:01:14see if I can send you a new water pump.
2:01:15There you go.
2:01:16(laughing)
2:01:17'Cause every time it dies,
2:01:18they'll just send you another one.
2:01:19You just have to pay to ship the old one back.
2:01:20It's fine.
2:01:21- No big deal.
2:01:22I was morally offended last week,
2:01:23but as I got thinking about it,
2:01:24and as I actually got a couple of offers
2:01:26of one person I know and one friend of a listener
2:01:31that had said, "Oh, I'm getting an M2 soon,
2:01:34and I have a goal far that I'm looking to unload, and we started lightly negotiating
2:01:40on it. And then I thought to myself, I don't know about this. Like I haven't told this
2:01:45individual one way or the other, but my current thinking sitting here now is, why would I
2:01:50throw $30,000 to $40,000 at a problem that's happening every few months for $1,000? Like
2:01:57that doesn't really fix my problem.
2:01:59For the privilege of driving around in a Volkswagen Rabbit.
2:02:02All I'm doing is being a petulant child at that point.
2:02:04- If you didn't already have a really nice 335,
2:02:08like if you were starting from nothing,
2:02:10that'd be another story.
2:02:12But because you already have something that is good,
2:02:15yes it is a maintenance headache,
2:02:17but if you're looking at pure value for the money,
2:02:20maintaining a BMW is going to hurt your soul,
2:02:25but it will actually be cheaper.
2:02:27- Right, and that's the thing,
2:02:28is that my soul is damaged,
2:02:30but I know my wallet is thanking me.
2:02:31The problem with the Gulf R,
2:02:32like aside from the whole rabbit thing,
2:02:34there are two critical problems with the Gulf R.
2:02:36Number one, the trunk really isn't that big
2:02:38with the seats up.
2:02:39It's not tiny, but it's not that big.
2:02:43Secondly, and this is going to sound silly,
2:02:46and this is just getting even deeper into the,
2:02:49oh, you're so freaking picky, which is accurate.
2:02:51- This entire conversation sounds silly,
2:02:52don't worry about it.
2:02:53- Yeah, there's no sunroof, and I frickin' love sunroofs.
2:02:57I love them, I use mine constantly,
2:02:59even at temperatures where I probably shouldn't.
2:03:01And the Golf R, unavailable with the sunroof.
2:03:04- Yeah, that honestly changes a car dramatically.
2:03:07Like, if you're a sunroof person, I am too,
2:03:09so I understand, if you're a sunroof person
2:03:11and you don't have one, it matters a lot.
2:03:14- Yeah, so in summary, so what I'm backing myself into is,
2:03:18even the Golf R, which is very close on paper,
2:03:21has the small issue of trunk
2:03:24and the medium-sized issue of sunroof.
2:03:27The ATS or ATS-V is probably what I'd want. It's too damn expensive. The Focus, like I said,
2:03:34it's either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive and I look like I am 18. The Chevy SS is really
2:03:41the right-est answer, except the infotainment would murder me and now they're not making them anymore.
2:03:46And so really the problem I have is that either I need to drive an A4 and realize it's not that bad,
2:03:53or I just suck it up because BMW is the only manufacturer.
2:03:57Like I've backed myself back into BMW
2:03:59and all of this whole endeavor was to get myself away
2:04:02from BMW and now I've just backed myself into
2:04:06the only option I really got is BMW.
2:04:08- Look, sometimes you get it right the first time.
2:04:10- Yeah, thank God I did with Aaron.
2:04:12Everything else I'm not so sure.
2:04:14- Yeah, except for on the car front, maybe not the color.
2:04:17- What do you think lasts longer,
2:04:20your car or John's Mac Pro?
2:04:22My car, but not by a lot.
2:04:24You got a long way to go to catch up to my--
2:04:26You've only had that thing for a couple years.
2:04:27No, you're saying-- I think Marco's saying what's
2:04:29getting replaced first.
2:04:30Yeah.
2:04:31Oh, my Mac Pro.
2:04:33Because this summer, I'm getting something new,
2:04:35whether this thing breaks or not.
2:04:37You say that now.
2:04:38I don't believe that.
2:04:39I'm just going to get an iMac.
2:04:40Like, worst case scenario, if they introduce no new Macs,
2:04:44at the end of this year, I will just get an iMac.
2:04:46Because if they introduce zero new Macs, that means like,
2:04:48well, forget about the Mac Pro.
2:04:50Forget about iMac Pro.
2:04:51whatever, just get a 5K iMac.
2:04:53I can take a hint.
2:04:54- There's probably gonna be a new 5K iMac in a few weeks.
2:04:57- I'm not getting that one.
2:04:58- Right, exactly.
2:05:00And so this summer, there's gonna be a four-month-old iMac
2:05:04in the lineup.
2:05:04You're not gonna buy a four-month-old iMac.
2:05:06- No, they're gonna do something in WWC,
2:05:07even if the something is not introducing a Mac Pro.
2:05:10That will be a signal to be like, guess what?
2:05:13It's not gonna happen, so just give it up.
2:05:15I'll be like, okay.
2:05:16- I think based on rumors and crap,
2:05:19I think it's very unlikely that we're gonna see
2:05:21a new Mac Pro or an iMac Pro this summer.
2:05:23I think it's too soon.
2:05:25So, assuming that the summer comes and passes,
2:05:28and it's July, and there's still no new iMac Pro or Mac Pro,
2:05:33are you gonna buy the then four month old iMac USB-C?
2:05:40- You say four month old like it's so old
2:05:42that I wouldn't buy it, but four month old,
2:05:44that's in the babyhood of that iMac's life cycle,
2:05:48'cause it'd probably be unmodified again for 18 months.
2:05:50- No, but I'm saying you're gonna wait till the next one.
2:05:53I bet you don't even buy the iMac
2:05:55that hasn't even come out yet.
2:05:56- All right, so that scenario is conceivable,
2:05:59but I still think unlikely.
2:06:01I'm not gonna rule it out,
2:06:02'cause that is something I would do.
2:06:04- I will bet that you don't replace your Mac Pro this year.
2:06:07- I am ever so slightly leaning on Jon's side,
2:06:12but man, is it close.
2:06:15Man, is it close.
2:06:16- The other thing I have to take into account,
2:06:19This thing could break like every time something goes wrong
2:06:21It could be a thing that is like not as easy to replace as ram even if the video card
2:06:25I'm, pretty sure it keeps showing that it won't break. I think that's very clear
2:06:29How are the fans not seized by now? I don't understand. That's a good question. Do you like blow it out?
2:06:35You know when I open it up man, it's filled with like not just dust but dust that is like
2:06:39Like plated on there like it doesn't blow or wipe off. The dust has become part of the machine
2:06:45Oh my god.
2:06:47Like I have an air sprayer and I blow it and it does nothing.
2:06:49I'm like, why am I, why do I even bother?
2:06:50This is now part of the machine.
2:06:52[door closes]
2:06:54[BLANK_AUDIO]