ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► that is going to make an awesome after show.

00:00:01 ◼   ► It's not really because it's going to be just a white dude

00:00:04 ◼   ► thinking and moaning about his expensive car.

00:00:07 ◼   ► It's going to be a terrible after show.

00:00:08 ◼   ► And we're going to keep it in and people are going to like it.

00:00:10 ◼   ► And the one or two people that don't like it have long since stopped listening.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:00:15 ◼   ► All right, so people have suggested that this phantom

00:00:22 ◼   ► version of the Mac, which includes an ARM coprocessor, if you will,

00:00:28 ◼   ► Maybe that's used for Power Nap. I still am skeptical that would be a reasonable use case, but be that as it may,

00:00:32 ◼   ► um,

00:00:34 ◼   ► the—people have used an example of apparently there's something in the PlayStation 4,

00:00:38 ◼   ► which apparently is a console that people apparently play video games with. I didn't realize that was still a thing.

00:00:43 ◼   ► But anyway, it has a rest mode that I guess works similarly, right, Jon?

00:00:46 ◼   ► Yeah, so this—the last show we were talking about, the ARM CPU

00:00:51 ◼   ► actually being able to function and do useful work when the Intel CPU is off,

00:00:57 ◼   ► which would mean that the ARM CPU would need access to all the same stuff,

00:01:00 ◼   ► you know, all the I/O and networking and all the other stuff,

00:01:05 ◼   ► regardless of what software it runs, whether it runs just, you know, a bunch of Apple software

00:01:08 ◼   ► that Apple supplies as part of the OS or whether third parties can ship ARM compiled binaries to it,

00:01:13 ◼   ► that it would be a full-fledged CPU able to do useful work.

00:01:17 ◼   ► And I was saying how that is pretty complicated if the only benefit you're getting out of it is

00:01:24 ◼   ► we can do power nap on the arm CPU instead of the Intel CPU.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And it remains to be seen if the next item involved we have some more suggestions of

00:01:33 ◼   ► things this thing could do to justify that complexity, but the PS4 is actually an example

00:01:37 ◼   ► of this actual thing in practice because the PS4 is an x86 CPU and when you put it into rest mode

00:01:46 ◼   ► it's basically like the thing is turned off, the fans are off and everything, like it doesn't make

00:01:50 ◼   ► make any noise, it just sits there, but it's not completely off off. And what it does in

00:01:55 ◼   ► this mode is it will like download, update giant updates to your games, it will charge

00:01:59 ◼   ► your controllers, it will do other sort of background tasks that don't require it to

00:02:05 ◼   ► be on, but still mean that it's doing useful work. It will do, obviously with downloading,

00:02:09 ◼   ► is using stuff over the network. And in that rest mode, it's, according to this feedback

00:02:15 ◼   ► we've gotten, which I'm perfectly willing to believe, although I haven't looked into

00:02:18 ◼   ► it extensively. It's not using the Intel CPU, it is using a separate ARM chip just to do this stuff.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And that's an example of an x86 and an ARM CPU in a box and when the the x86 CPU is turned off,

00:02:33 ◼   ► the ARM CPU is able to do all that stuff. It's able to do, you know, manipulate stuff on the

00:02:38 ◼   ► hard drive, it's able to use networking, it's able to do all the, you know, the things and

00:02:42 ◼   ► That is an additional complexity that is worth it for the PS4, because it is fixing all the sins of the PS3.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Every time you wanted to turn the thing on and play a game, you had to download 50 updates,

00:02:53 ◼   ► and it's like, "Why didn't you do that for the 12 hours I wasn't home, PS3?"

00:02:56 ◼   ► It wouldn't even charge your controllers when it was turned off the PS3.

00:02:59 ◼   ► You plug them in, you know, you're like, "Oh, I'm done playing the game, I'll plug in..."

00:03:02 ◼   ► Like, it's the worst. So the PS4 fixes all this, and so it's an obvious win on the console.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it's down to the instruction set exactly what they were talking about for this rumored Apple laptop.

00:03:15 ◼   ► The question remains, is that additional complexity, and I'm sure it's additional complexity, worthwhile for a Mac?

00:03:21 ◼   ► And so we had one other suggestion for something that the ARM CPU could do that is useful,

00:03:28 ◼   ► that doesn't require third-party developers to make extensions with ARM code compiled to it and ship it off there and do all sorts of stuff like that.

00:03:36 ◼   ► David Boroditsky suggested good old photos and face recognition. You know like when you first

00:03:42 ◼   ► get your Mac or at any point like wandering over your photos finding all the faces and doing the

00:03:47 ◼   ► image recognition now nowadays like figuring out everything that's a house or whatever so you can

00:03:51 ◼   ► do searches later that would be a perfect thing to do when your Mac is in rest mode or asleep or

00:03:57 ◼   ► whatever and it would require maybe networking access depending on how much cloud stuff they

00:04:02 ◼   ► they do for the image recognition,

00:04:03 ◼   ► but certainly would require disk access.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Is that worth the added complexity of making a Mac

00:04:09 ◼   ► that can run either on an x86 CPU or on an ARM CPU,

00:04:13 ◼   ► depending on what mode it's in?

00:04:14 ◼   ► Maybe?

00:04:16 ◼   ► - First of all, the photo recognition thing,

00:04:19 ◼   ► I hope they fix that in this fall's software updates.

00:04:23 ◼   ► Make that sync already.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Everything else about photos syncs.

00:04:27 ◼   ► The fact that every device has to do that

00:04:29 ◼   ► is not only a terrible hack with awkward results sometimes,

00:04:32 ◼   ► but it just destroys the battery life and performance

00:04:37 ◼   ► of computers and iOS devices for the first three days

00:04:42 ◼   ► that you get them, and that's just a bad initial

00:04:44 ◼   ► user experience for everybody.

00:04:46 ◼   ► - But somebody's gotta do it.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I know people might have multiple devices,

00:04:49 ◼   ► but one of the devices has to do it,

00:04:51 ◼   ► and that device is the victim no matter,

00:04:54 ◼   ► it's great that it'll be shared,

00:04:56 ◼   ► but I would imagine for a lot of people,

00:04:58 ◼   ► the phone would be the victim, because that's where they take the pictures, and who knows

00:05:01 ◼   ► if people even have photos syncing on their mind. I feel bad that any device has to be

00:05:07 ◼   ► subject to this. I mean, they could change the policy by saying, "We won't do image recognition

00:05:16 ◼   ► unless nobody's using the device and it's plugged in." Like, basically, only do it when

00:05:21 ◼   ► you're sleeping and it's plugged in.

00:05:22 ◼   ► - Well, they already attempt to do that.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Like, it does stop when you are unplugged

00:05:28 ◼   ► on the laptops most of the time.

00:05:31 ◼   ► However, it takes forever to the point where, like,

00:05:35 ◼   ► you never know when you plug it in,

00:05:36 ◼   ► like, is it best to spin the fan up?

00:05:38 ◼   ► And then when you unplug it,

00:05:39 ◼   ► like, how long will it take before it pauses?

00:05:41 ◼   ► It uses the discrete GPU,

00:05:42 ◼   ► which exacerbates any kind of GPU sticking on bugs.

00:05:45 ◼   ► It's just kind of a mess.

00:05:47 ◼   ► On iOS, it's even worse,

00:05:48 ◼   ► 'cause then, like, your phone gets really hot

00:05:49 ◼   ► for, like, the first while that you have it,

00:05:51 ◼   ► and you're like, "Why is my phone so hot?

00:05:52 ◼   ► something wrong with it, is it gonna catch fire?

00:05:54 ◼   ► It's just really inelegant and really sets up

00:05:58 ◼   ► very bad user experiences for anybody who's setting up

00:06:01 ◼   ► an iOS or Mac device that isn't their first one ever.

00:06:04 ◼   ► And that's, they really, really need to address that

00:06:07 ◼   ► in this year's updates, like that cannot wait.

00:06:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm not sure it would be better if instead

00:06:15 ◼   ► it did it while it was asleep, 'cause obviously

00:06:18 ◼   ► it will take way longer to do it while it's asleep.

00:06:20 ◼   ► really only Apple knows for sure but like what are the usage patterns for

00:06:26 ◼   ► devices that are plugged in not iOS devices because they're they're never

00:06:30 ◼   ► asleep awake like when the screens off basically that's a you know asleep like

00:06:34 ◼   ► when they're plugged in overnight and charging that's when they should be

00:06:37 ◼   ► doing their photo stuff if that's the only device but for Macs I don't know

00:06:41 ◼   ► what the defaults are but I imagine if you walk away from your Mac it'll be on

00:06:45 ◼   ► for some period of time and then I think the default is to go to sleep after like

00:06:49 ◼   ► not that long of a time.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And if you can't do any photo recognition stuff

00:06:54 ◼   ► in the background in sleep mode normally,

00:06:57 ◼   ► like if Power Nap doesn't do any of it now,

00:06:59 ◼   ► that's all a waste of time.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So the only time your Mac has to do photos

00:07:03 ◼   ► is when it's unattended,

00:07:05 ◼   ► is like the one hour between when you stop using it

00:07:07 ◼   ► and when it goes to sleep

00:07:08 ◼   ► according to the default energy saver settings or whatever.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Whereas it could have had 12 hours

00:07:12 ◼   ► just plinking away with this little ARM CPU.

00:07:14 ◼   ► So maybe that would help a little bit,

00:07:15 ◼   ► but again, I have to, you know,

00:07:17 ◼   ► complexity of having a second full-fledged CPU with access to all the same things as the Intel CPU

00:07:21 ◼   ► is significant. And I'm still, so far I'm still on the page that it's much smarter to use that CPU

00:07:29 ◼   ► for auxiliary functions that have to do with the hardware, like I said last time, a proximity

00:07:35 ◼   ► sensor, camera, microphone, you know, sort of like a glorified M1 or M7, what was that, the original

00:07:43 ◼   ► motion detecting step counting thing on the iPhone.

00:07:46 ◼   ► - Was it the M8?

00:07:47 ◼   ► - No, we're getting to be a BMW on the brain.

00:07:51 ◼   ► M7, M7.

00:07:52 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:07:53 ◼   ► - It's the 1M because the M1 was a totally different car.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Yeah, just having dedicated hardware,

00:08:00 ◼   ► her functions related to the hardware.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And that's perfect for a little CPU.

00:08:05 ◼   ► And again, the only reason we're talking about this at all

00:08:07 ◼   ► is it's already there to run the touch bar.

00:08:09 ◼   ► It's like, it's already there.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And so you're just saying,

00:08:11 ◼   ► how can I get more bang for my buck

00:08:12 ◼   ► from this thing that I already have to put in?

00:08:13 ◼   ► It's not like we're looking to throw a bunch of new chips into the thing.

00:08:16 ◼   ► It's already in these laptops, so I believe that a next version or a version after that

00:08:24 ◼   ► of this, they'll find new things to do with the chip they should, because they're paying

00:08:27 ◼   ► for the chip and it's there, and when it's not doing anything fancy on the screen, give

00:08:31 ◼   ► it something else to do.

00:08:33 ◼   ► They have good ARM chips and they have a good OS to run on them, so why waste it?

00:08:39 ◼   ► Speaking of face recognition, Windows Hello, whatever that may be, does some really weird

00:08:44 ◼   ► and fancy stuff with their face recognition.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I made a joke about face recognition not being good for security because someone

00:08:51 ◼   ► just prints out a picture of your face and holds it up and then they unlock your laptop.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Didn't specifically say that that was a vulnerability of Windows Hello because they didn't know

00:08:59 ◼   ► much about it, but many people wrote in to say that Windows Hello actually uses depth

00:09:03 ◼   ► maps so that you can't just hold up a picture because it wants something that not only looks

00:09:07 ◼   ► like your face but is contoured and shaped like your face. So people would have to make

00:09:12 ◼   ► a basically a mannequin of your face instead of just a picture, which is harder. And then

00:09:18 ◼   ► the faces versus fingerprints thing, because a lot of people bring up like, well, it's

00:09:22 ◼   ► just like fingerprints, like people can lift your fingerprints pretty easily. I feel like

00:09:26 ◼   ► it's still the apt comparison is local versus remote exploit. Local exploits, like there's

00:09:31 ◼   ► a million of them, basically, if someone has physical access to your computer, in most

00:09:34 ◼   ► cases game over as far as security for a variety of reasons. For fingerprints they

00:09:40 ◼   ► need to have physical access to either you or something you've touched to lift

00:09:43 ◼   ► your fingerprints and there's been many demonstrations the web like oh you can

00:09:45 ◼   ► lift someone's fingerprint you can unlock their iPhone because you know

00:09:48 ◼   ► fingerprints are a series of ridges and we can get them out and make a little

00:09:50 ◼   ► plastic mold of it and you're gone. Right now usually you can't get fingerprints

00:09:57 ◼   ► from a normal photo of people like if you're walking down the street and

00:10:00 ◼   ► someone snaps a picture of you they can't lift your fingerprints from that

00:10:03 ◼   ► picture or if they Google you they probably won't find close-up pictures of

00:10:07 ◼   ► your fingerprints or anything you've touched at a resolution where they can

00:10:10 ◼   ► lift your fingerprints. But for most people you can find plenty of pictures

00:10:14 ◼   ► of their face and you could fairly, not easily but much more easily, remotely

00:10:21 ◼   ► without ever being anywhere near that person or anything they've touched

00:10:24 ◼   ► reproduce their face in a 3D manner from a series of photos that are taken a

00:10:28 ◼   ► whole bunch of different angles and make it use a 3D printer to make a little

00:10:32 ◼   ► mold and then print out a picture of their face and slap it onto the mannequin and it

00:10:37 ◼   ► fools the depth sensors and it fools the the camera and you've unlocked their thing with

00:10:42 ◼   ► their face.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Again this is kind of like mission impossible whatever stuff if someone is this determined

00:10:47 ◼   ► to attack you it's probably much better just to call you and tell and tell you they're

00:10:51 ◼   ► from Microsoft and they want to reset your password because that's much easier way to

00:10:54 ◼   ► get into your stuff but thinking about this and how easy it is to pull your fingerprints

00:11:00 ◼   ► versus make a 3d model of your face versus whatever has reminded me once again of the

00:11:05 ◼   ► trouble with all biometric security which we all you see in like the future you know sci-fi movies

00:11:11 ◼   ► they're always putting their hands on things or doing retina scans or where you know we're living

00:11:15 ◼   ► in the future now with fingerprints i use my fingerprint to unlock my phone all the time i

00:11:18 ◼   ► love it it's awesome but the trouble with all biometrics is if they are compromised in any way

00:11:26 ◼   ► if people have your fingerprints or have a nice 3D mold of your face,

00:11:30 ◼   ► you can't change those things. You can't say, "Well, I'm going to use a new set of fingerprints."

00:11:34 ◼   ► Always rotate your fingerprints. Don't use the same fingerprints in multiple sites, guys.

00:11:37 ◼   ► Your fingerprints are your fingerprints, and for the most part, your face is your face.

00:11:42 ◼   ► So once compromised, they are compromised forever. You can't use your fingerprint.

00:11:45 ◼   ► If the whole world has high res images of your fingerprints, your fingerprints are useless.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Never mind that in this country, anyway, law enforcement can make you put your stupid finger

00:11:53 ◼   ► on the thing anyway. But just in general biometrics, they're unlike passwords that

00:11:58 ◼   ► you can change and rotate or whatever, you can't change them. Even your retinas,

00:12:02 ◼   ► if you do a retina scan and someone has like a detailed map of your retina and

00:12:05 ◼   ► makes a little fake eyeball with your retina scan, you can't use retina scans

00:12:07 ◼   ► anymore. It's bad. And if it became commonplace,

00:12:12 ◼   ► it's the definition of repeating your password. You only have 10 fingers,

00:12:15 ◼   ► right? You have a different finger on each secure thing.

00:12:19 ◼   ► So in general biometrics are a great convenience, but if

00:12:23 ◼   ► in sci-fi movies, or our youth anyway,

00:12:26 ◼   ► they were always presented as a much more secure way,

00:12:28 ◼   ► like, "Ha ha, you can't get in

00:12:29 ◼   ► "because you don't have my eyeball or my finger."

00:12:31 ◼   ► And then it didn't take long for the movies

00:12:33 ◼   ► to shift into gouging people's eyeballs out

00:12:35 ◼   ► and cutting off their hands to get their fingerprints.

00:12:37 ◼   ► There's another downside of biometrics,

00:12:39 ◼   ► but in general, I think biometrics are settling in

00:12:41 ◼   ► to be the casual convenience feature.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Like it's the reason I unlock my phone with it,

00:12:46 ◼   ► because who wants to type in some big long password

00:12:49 ◼   ► every time you unlock your phone?

00:12:50 ◼   ► but not for increased security.

00:12:52 ◼   ► For increased security, we're still stuck with for now

00:12:57 ◼   ► big giant passwords and multiple factors.

00:13:01 ◼   ► - I love that ripping out somebody's eyes

00:13:03 ◼   ► and cutting off their fingers is described by you, John,

00:13:06 ◼   ► as a downside.

00:13:07 ◼   ► - I mean, it is.

00:13:09 ◼   ► - It's a pretty significant downside in my book though.

00:13:12 ◼   ► - No one's gonna do that unless you're in a sci-fi movie,

00:13:15 ◼   ► like, 'cause no one cares that much about your crap.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And again, there are much easier ways to get at your crap,

00:13:19 ◼   ► like just forcing you to put your finger on it

00:13:21 ◼   ► because you're not a big tough guy.

00:13:22 ◼   ► But in the movies, to get into the evil villains lair,

00:13:26 ◼   ► the, you know, you cut off the guy's hand,

00:13:28 ◼   ► cut off the henchman's hand

00:13:29 ◼   ► and you just shove it on the panel.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - Didn't Tom Cruise's character do that in Minority Report?

00:13:34 ◼   ► - You got new eyes.

00:13:35 ◼   ► - It's been done so many times, so many times.

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00:15:31 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:15:34 ◼   ► - All right, so there's been a little bit of

00:15:38 ◼   ► sort of kind of back and forth between our show

00:15:42 ◼   ► and one host across two other shows,

00:15:45 ◼   ► which is a friend of the show, Mike Hurley.

00:15:48 ◼   ► He has talked on his two podcasts, Upgrade and Connected,

00:15:53 ◼   ► about some arguments or counterarguments

00:15:57 ◼   ► about whether or not the iPad is worth Apple's attention.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And you really should listen to both Upgrade and Connected

00:16:03 ◼   ► in, well, in general, but particularly the latest episodes,

00:16:06 ◼   ► and we'll put links in the show notes.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I'm going to try to unfairly summarize Mike's points,

00:16:14 ◼   ► and then--

00:16:15 ◼   ► - I can't wait to hear this.

00:16:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and Marco can add his two cents

00:16:20 ◼   ► about all this.

00:16:21 ◼   ► What I got from what Mike said was,

00:16:25 ◼   ► hey, if you look at modern iPads and modern Macs,

00:16:29 ◼   ► where you define modern slightly arbitrarily,

00:16:34 ◼   ► but basically can run the most recent versions

00:16:37 ◼   ► of iOS and macOS,

00:16:39 ◼   ► I don't remember the exact numbers, but modern Macs by that definition go back between five

00:16:45 ◼   ► and ten years, and modern iPads go back I think around five years, something like that.

00:16:49 ◼   ► The particular numbers don't really matter that much.

00:16:52 ◼   ► The conclusion though that Mike came to was, hey, if you look at the sales and thus assumed

00:16:59 ◼   ► install base of modern Macs and modern iOS devices, or excuse me, iPads, there are like

00:17:07 ◼   ► twice as many iPads as there are Macs.

00:17:10 ◼   ► So if there's that many iPads in the wild, shouldn't that be where Apple puts most of

00:17:16 ◼   ► its attention?

00:17:17 ◼   ► Because presumably, all of these iPads are still in use, and presumably at least a subset

00:17:23 ◼   ► of these owners, iPad owners, are using them for—and I'm doing scare quotes here—work

00:17:28 ◼   ► stuff.

00:17:29 ◼   ► So shouldn't that be where Apple puts all of its attention?

00:17:32 ◼   ► Or maybe not all, but a lot of its attention?

00:17:35 ◼   ► And that's a super, super, super summarized version.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Again, listen to Connected and Upgrade,

00:17:40 ◼   ► actually in the reverse order, listen to Upgrade first.

00:17:42 ◼   ► But anyway, listen to them to get the longer versions.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But that's kind of what I got from it.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Is that fair to say?

00:17:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I mean, and this was in response to what a lot of people

00:17:53 ◼   ► were talking about after the earnings came out,

00:17:56 ◼   ► what, two weeks ago now,

00:17:57 ◼   ► about how iPad sales continued to drop.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And many people commented on this with theories,

00:18:03 ◼   ► myself included, both on my blog,

00:18:05 ◼   ► and then we talked about it on the show last week.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And many, many people,

00:18:10 ◼   ► every time there's quarterly earnings that come out

00:18:12 ◼   ► and it shows that the iPad sales are going down,

00:18:14 ◼   ► which has happened a lot in the last few years,

00:18:17 ◼   ► everyone has these theories about,

00:18:18 ◼   ► well, here's why the iPad has failed or is failing,

00:18:21 ◼   ► or you can't get real work done on it or whatever else.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And so if you are an iPad Pro heavy user,

00:18:28 ◼   ► like Mike and Federico and some of our other friends are,

00:18:32 ◼   ► then this makes sense to be defensive about

00:18:36 ◼   ► because it's very hard to separate out these arguments

00:18:40 ◼   ► into like individual things to talk about.

00:18:44 ◼   ► A lot of times people are arguing past each other

00:18:46 ◼   ► because they're not quite hearing

00:18:49 ◼   ► what the other argument was

00:18:50 ◼   ► or they're responding more to a general feeling

00:18:53 ◼   ► or to a general kind of trend of where the commentary is

00:18:57 ◼   ► or has been rather than what somebody actually said

00:19:01 ◼   ► what people are actually trying to figure out.

00:19:02 ◼   ► And there's nuance to all this stuff.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So part of what Mike and Jason on Upgrade were responding to

00:19:09 ◼   ► was not just what we said, but I think a lot of it

00:19:12 ◼   ► was based on us and what we said,

00:19:14 ◼   ► and what I wrote in my blog post about

00:19:16 ◼   ► what if the iPad isn't the future of computing.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And so I did want to address this, hopefully briefly, here.

00:19:23 ◼   ► And I'm actually, I'm working with Mike,

00:19:25 ◼   ► we actually might do a little special

00:19:26 ◼   ► with just me and Mike arguing about it

00:19:27 ◼   ► maybe next week sometime, but we'll.

00:19:29 ◼   ► - Do I get not to get to participate in that?

00:19:32 ◼   ► - Ooh.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - 'Cause I'm right about everything

00:19:33 ◼   ► and you guys just have to argue about

00:19:34 ◼   ► which one is gonna be more wrong.

00:19:36 ◼   ► - Ooh. - Ooh.

00:19:37 ◼   ► - Yikes. - We'll have to--

00:19:38 ◼   ► - I didn't know that I listened to these episodes

00:19:39 ◼   ► but it seems like it was Mike versus Marco

00:19:41 ◼   ► but I said stuff too.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Didn't anyone disagree with the stuff I said?

00:19:45 ◼   ► - You got hit too, don't worry.

00:19:47 ◼   ► You and I were kinda lumped in together.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Anyway, so-- - Oh, that's unfair.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Now that's ridiculous. (laughing)

00:19:52 ◼   ► - I knew that would get you.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Anyway, so here's my actual position here.

00:19:59 ◼   ► Obviously people are getting real work done on iPads.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Not every iPad owner of course,

00:20:03 ◼   ► but as Mike accurately pointed out,

00:20:06 ◼   ► not every Mac is sold and used to do quote,

00:20:08 ◼   ► "real work," whatever that means.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Mike's main point was also that the iPad,

00:20:13 ◼   ► obviously even with the downward slope of its sales curve,

00:20:17 ◼   ► is still selling like two to two and a half times

00:20:20 ◼   ► unit sales of what Macs are selling.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And there are still way more iPads out there than Macs,

00:20:27 ◼   ► and so therefore this really is a serious platform.

00:20:30 ◼   ► And I'm not arguing against any of that actually.

00:20:35 ◼   ► My main argument with my post,

00:20:38 ◼   ► and hopefully if I express it properly last week,

00:20:41 ◼   ► is that the iPad is presented in so many views

00:20:46 ◼   ► both from Apple and from analysts and fans

00:20:50 ◼   ► as quote, the future of computing.

00:20:52 ◼   ► And what I interpret that to mean is

00:20:55 ◼   ► a replacement ultimately or largely a replacement

00:20:58 ◼   ► for the PC and the Mac.

00:21:00 ◼   ► What we're mostly seeing is that, you know,

00:21:03 ◼   ► PCs have been a little bit contracting for a while,

00:21:06 ◼   ► but Mac sales have been pretty solid.

00:21:09 ◼   ► The rise of the iPad over, it's been seven years now,

00:21:13 ◼   ► and it's been popular the whole time.

00:21:15 ◼   ► So like, it's selling a lot, the iPad's selling a lot,

00:21:17 ◼   ► but during that entire rise, sales of Macs haven't gone down.

00:21:21 ◼   ► So if the iPad were really like the future of computing,

00:21:24 ◼   ► in quotes, I'm doing finger quotes here, sorry,

00:21:27 ◼   ► in the way that that means replacing PCs and Macs

00:21:31 ◼   ► for a lot of people, I think the numbers

00:21:33 ◼   ► are showing otherwise, and I made the case last week

00:21:36 ◼   ► that for a lot of people, if you're gonna choose

00:21:39 ◼   ► between only being able to afford or only wanting

00:21:41 ◼   ► to own either an iPad or a computer,

00:21:45 ◼   ► they're still picking that computer.

00:21:47 ◼   ► I think the sales show that, and there's lots of reasons

00:21:49 ◼   ► as we got into last week about why that might be,

00:21:52 ◼   ► things like the limitations of doing things on the iPad

00:21:56 ◼   ► and how many limitations you have there

00:21:58 ◼   ► versus what limitations tend to be on PCs

00:22:01 ◼   ► and differences in usability and everything.

00:22:03 ◼   ► We argued about this, so I'm not gonna repeat the whole thing.

00:22:06 ◼   ► All this is not to say that you can't get worked on

00:22:08 ◼   ► on an iPad or that iPads are only for consumption.

00:22:11 ◼   ► I never said that.

00:22:13 ◼   ► This is also all not to say that nobody is replacing

00:22:17 ◼   ► their PC or Mac with an iPad.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I didn't say that either.

00:22:21 ◼   ► but I think very clearly my argument here

00:22:25 ◼   ► that I'm clarifying now again,

00:22:26 ◼   ► my argument is that on a large scale,

00:22:31 ◼   ► it doesn't appear that tablets are replacing PCs.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And the Windows world is a little bit messier

00:22:38 ◼   ► 'cause they kind of have these combo things.

00:22:39 ◼   ► But on the Apple side, I think it's very, very clear

00:22:42 ◼   ► that the iPad is not replacing the Mac.

00:22:45 ◼   ► It seems that most people who buy the iPad

00:22:47 ◼   ► are buying it as the third device.

00:22:50 ◼   ► However they order it in their minds,

00:22:52 ◼   ► they still have a phone and a computer,

00:22:55 ◼   ► and the iPad is added to that mix.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Again, not everybody, not all iPads,

00:22:59 ◼   ► but this is added to the mix for so many of these people.

00:23:03 ◼   ► And so while everyone can name someone who got an iPad

00:23:08 ◼   ► and doesn't use their computer anymore,

00:23:10 ◼   ► a lot of people also use computers and don't buy iPads.

00:23:13 ◼   ► So I think the sales reflect the reality here.

00:23:16 ◼   ► The iPad, like so many things in technology,

00:23:19 ◼   ► has not destroyed what came before it, it has added to it.

00:23:23 ◼   ► And so in a world where it is one of many devices

00:23:27 ◼   ► that people used to get computing on,

00:23:28 ◼   ► as opposed to the device that is replacing the computer,

00:23:33 ◼   ► I worry about the direction that Apple is taking

00:23:36 ◼   ► between the Mac and the iPad,

00:23:38 ◼   ► because it sure looks like, from Apple's point of view,

00:23:41 ◼   ► and we'll get to this crazy slash it rumor in a little bit,

00:23:44 ◼   ► but it sure looks like, for the most part,

00:23:45 ◼   ► what we see from Apple, is that the Mac is kind of like,

00:23:48 ◼   ► as I said last week, it's kind of like

00:23:49 ◼   ► in maintenance mode, it seems like they're not really

00:23:51 ◼   ► putting a lot of huge effort into moving

00:23:54 ◼   ► the Mac paradigm forward.

00:23:55 ◼   ► It seems like they consider the Mac basically done

00:23:58 ◼   ► and they're doing fairly minor things to it.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Touch bar hardware engineering aside, yes, okay,

00:24:03 ◼   ► but the software model seems like it's been fairly minor

00:24:06 ◼   ► and not seeing a lot of meaningful changes

00:24:08 ◼   ► or engineering effort put into it.

00:24:10 ◼   ► Could be wrong, but this is what we're seeing

00:24:11 ◼   ► from the outside.

00:24:13 ◼   ► Whereas the iPad, if that were to be the future

00:24:16 ◼   ► computing, then that needs more investment.

00:24:19 ◼   ► What we're seeing instead is that that's not the future

00:24:22 ◼   ► computing, and Apple's kinda neglecting both of these

00:24:23 ◼   ► platforms, but that's a story for another day, I guess.

00:24:27 ◼   ► But I just wanted to clarify my argument on this,

00:24:29 ◼   ► is not that the iPad is useless or dead or not possible

00:24:33 ◼   ► to get worked on, simply that it is showing itself

00:24:37 ◼   ► through sales to be, in reality, a third device

00:24:41 ◼   ► for a lot of people, and to not be replacing the Mac.

00:24:45 ◼   ► - While you were talking about that,

00:24:45 ◼   ► was thinking about a fan comment I think was the last show that Apple doesn't

00:24:50 ◼   ► make best best anymore and thinking about Mac sales not that they're

00:24:56 ◼   ► declining but as as the Mac has become over many years proportionally less of

00:25:04 ◼   ► what Apple sells mostly because the iPhone honestly you know because they

00:25:07 ◼   ► sell bazillion iPhones right but even you know the iPad has pointed out that

00:25:10 ◼   ► sells as much or more than the Mac these days. To go back to our favorite

00:25:16 ◼   ► well, the good old car analogy, in the car world if you sell a small number of cars

00:25:23 ◼   ► and you are a going concern in the car business, chances are good that the small

00:25:28 ◼   ► number of cars you sell are extreme in some way. No one sells a small number of

00:25:33 ◼   ► Toyota Camry's. Like you can't run a car business by selling 5,000 Toyota Camry's

00:25:39 ◼   ► a year. that's not a thing, right? but you can sell 5000 ferraris a year and be okay.

00:25:46 ◼   ► you can sell 5000 humvees maybe and be okay, or that's a bad example to this GM. but anyway,

00:25:52 ◼   ► if you sell in small volume, you specialize. and very often you charge tons of money, like

00:25:58 ◼   ► way out of proportion to the quality of the car that you're selling, you know jaguar or

00:26:02 ◼   ► whatever, sorry, you know, maybe that's not true these days, i know they're better. anyway,

00:26:07 ◼   ► If the Mac, again, not low volume but proportionally lower volume, if the Mac becomes the minor

00:26:15 ◼   ► player in the world of the iPhone, which is the Toyota Camry, right, and maybe even the

00:26:20 ◼   ► iPad is selling more than it, you know, on an ongoing basis, that would be the perfect

00:26:26 ◼   ► time for them to look at that line and say, "Well, who is still buying Macs?

00:26:29 ◼   ► Why would someone want a Mac over an iPad?

00:26:31 ◼   ► Oh, they have more demand and need than the more sophisticated tasks."

00:26:35 ◼   ► Go back to the old world Apple, which was perfectly willing to have a machine that could

00:26:41 ◼   ► be configured with an obscene amount of RAM, with a ridiculous number of the most expensive

00:26:46 ◼   ► CPUs, with a very large hard drive and a very big hot expensive GPU, and overcharge for

00:26:53 ◼   ► all of it.

00:26:54 ◼   ► That's the old Apple way.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Make a machine that I can configure to be as much as an Apple Watch edition.

00:27:00 ◼   ► be able to configure, you used to even with the old 2013 Mac Pro, a 15-20,000 dollar Mac.

00:27:07 ◼   ► It's not worth that much money. It's overpriced in the same way that a Ferrari is not worth

00:27:11 ◼   ► that much more than a Corvette that has almost the same performance. But for people in certain

00:27:15 ◼   ► markets, whether it's because you need the absolute biggest best and you're willing to

00:27:19 ◼   ► pay for it like it's a blip on your radar, or just because you want a Ferrari because

00:27:23 ◼   ► you think it's cool, as your volumes get lower in proportion to the rest of your business,

00:27:27 ◼   ► becomes a way to extract more money from this product line.

00:27:31 ◼   ► And so it seems that they are losing interest in the Mac.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I wish they would have enough interest to say, "Can't we fleece those people?"

00:27:36 ◼   ► Because at this point, I'm begging to be fleeced.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Can't we, you know...

00:27:40 ◼   ► Like how...

00:27:41 ◼   ► Have you priced out a Touch Bar MacBook Pro by any chance, Jon?

00:27:44 ◼   ► I know, I know.

00:27:45 ◼   ► I mean, that's a thing too, but it's still within the realm of reason.

00:27:48 ◼   ► You can't even get it with 32 gigs RAM, right?

00:27:52 ◼   ► And if there are people who have those demands, there's nowhere to go in the Mac world for

00:27:56 ◼   ► them.

00:27:57 ◼   ► Regardless of where we want to draw the line between, where is the line between people

00:28:02 ◼   ► who really need a personal computer-style thing and people who need an iPad and people

00:28:06 ◼   ► who just need a phone, there's a continuum there.

00:28:08 ◼   ► But at a certain point, we all agree that the Mac is at one end of that spectrum, right?

00:28:14 ◼   ► No one's arguing that the Mac is in between the iPad or the phone or something.

00:28:17 ◼   ► It is one end of that spectrum.

00:28:19 ◼   ► You just need to extend that line out and make sure that if someone is forced into a

00:28:24 ◼   ► a Mac or has to use a Mac because of their work, that they can go all the way up.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And you know, because it's a low volume relative to the phone market, charge tons of money,

00:28:34 ◼   ► get super high margins, maybe be less into the $500 increases on your laptop model, which

00:28:42 ◼   ► is more of a mainstream thing, and just put all that money into, I don't know, like a

00:28:45 ◼   ► Mac that's for professionals, like you could shorten the name, but whatever.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I know we're in circles here, but I was just...

00:28:52 ◼   ► - The sad part is they have been doing that to the Mac Pro.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Every Mac Pro generation is more expensive

00:28:57 ◼   ► than the last one.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - I know, but then they didn't give you one

00:28:59 ◼   ► with two CPUs in it, right?

00:29:01 ◼   ► And then they stopped-- - They still raised the price.

00:29:03 ◼   ► - I know, I know, but it just seems like it's frustrating

00:29:06 ◼   ► when at any price you can't throw your money at Apple

00:29:09 ◼   ► and say just give me as much RAM

00:29:12 ◼   ► as will physically fit in the machine

00:29:13 ◼   ► because I'm doing some weird application

00:29:15 ◼   ► and I don't care how much it costs.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And it's like nope, not interested in selling you that.

00:29:19 ◼   ► and you should be because it's a good way

00:29:22 ◼   ► to make money off suckers like us.

00:29:23 ◼   ► - And also, to bring it back a little bit

00:29:27 ◼   ► just to the iPad discussion,

00:29:28 ◼   ► I did wanna also mention a great post

00:29:31 ◼   ► that our friend David Sparks made over at Max Sparky

00:29:34 ◼   ► about his interpretation.

00:29:37 ◼   ► He is also a very iPad Pro user.

00:29:40 ◼   ► And his interpretation basically of trying to explain

00:29:43 ◼   ► the way the iPad sales dip is, in short,

00:29:47 ◼   ► I hope I'm summarizing this accurately,

00:29:48 ◼   ► In short, that basically most people aren't pushing

00:29:52 ◼   ► their iPad hard, that's why so many people are able,

00:29:56 ◼   ► even people who have decided to make the iPad

00:29:59 ◼   ► a part of their life or a part of their workflow or both,

00:30:02 ◼   ► they're still perfectly okay using a four year old iPad.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And the main reason why that he's saying,

00:30:09 ◼   ► which I think is right on, is that they're just not

00:30:13 ◼   ► pushing it hard enough because what people do on iPads,

00:30:17 ◼   ► what the software does, what is possible to do well on it,

00:30:23 ◼   ► is usually pretty light workload kind of stuff.

00:30:26 ◼   ► It isn't that the hardware is not getting better,

00:30:28 ◼   ► the hardware is getting way better,

00:30:30 ◼   ► but just what most people are doing on the iPad

00:30:31 ◼   ► doesn't need better hardware.

00:30:33 ◼   ► And the blame for that and the duty to fix that

00:30:36 ◼   ► or to try to push that forward mostly lands on Apple

00:30:39 ◼   ► because a lot of that has to do with the OS

00:30:41 ◼   ► the way it's structured and various limitations.

00:30:44 ◼   ► A lot of that has to do with the app ecosystem,

00:30:46 ◼   ► which much of that is on Apple to try to fix

00:30:51 ◼   ► or to enable fixes to happen.

00:30:54 ◼   ► We've seen this theme from a lot of iPad users' responses

00:30:57 ◼   ► over the last two weeks to this.

00:30:59 ◼   ► People love the iPad.

00:31:01 ◼   ► People want to use it for more.

00:31:03 ◼   ► They want to be able to do more of their work on it

00:31:06 ◼   ► if they can't currently do all of it on it.

00:31:08 ◼   ► But iOS needs to move forward in a way

00:31:13 ◼   ► that lets people get more worked on more efficiently.

00:31:15 ◼   ► I mean, there are so many really basic things

00:31:19 ◼   ► or that we consider basic from the PC era

00:31:21 ◼   ► of just things like managing multiple emails

00:31:24 ◼   ► and attachments and moving photos around,

00:31:27 ◼   ► moving documents around, things that are very hostile

00:31:31 ◼   ► to do on iOS, that are very clunky

00:31:34 ◼   ► or sometimes even just impossible without crazy hacks

00:31:37 ◼   ► or sometimes just outright impossible.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Simple stuff like moving media around

00:31:43 ◼   ► and dealing with people's files.

00:31:46 ◼   ► iOS really fights people a lot.

00:31:47 ◼   ► Basic multitasking stuff,

00:31:49 ◼   ► the multitasking implementation now is very limited

00:31:52 ◼   ► and could really use some enhancement

00:31:54 ◼   ► and whether that's coming down the road this year or not,

00:31:57 ◼   ► we'll see, I hope it does.

00:31:58 ◼   ► But the point is there's still tons of room

00:32:01 ◼   ► to improve iOS on the iPad.

00:32:03 ◼   ► And I hope Apple tries to do that in some way

00:32:07 ◼   ► because tons of people want that,

00:32:09 ◼   ► and it just seems like,

00:32:12 ◼   ► it seems like regardless of which side

00:32:14 ◼   ► of the future of computing you fall on,

00:32:16 ◼   ► whether you think it's the iPad or the Mac,

00:32:19 ◼   ► it seems like there's plenty to complain

00:32:21 ◼   ► about Apple neglecting your platform either way.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I hope Apple cares enough about

00:32:26 ◼   ► the actual future of computing

00:32:28 ◼   ► to invest very heavily in at least one of these platforms,

00:32:30 ◼   ► 'cause it seems right now that

00:32:32 ◼   ► the Mac is in maintenance mode indefinitely,

00:32:34 ◼   ► and the iPad gets occasional updates from iOS

00:32:39 ◼   ► when it's convenient for them.

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00:33:51 ◼   ► On the idea that the iPads, like people keep using them because it still does

00:33:57 ◼   ► what they want to do even though they could buy a much better one. I think

00:34:00 ◼   ► is another situation where Apple probably has data about this, but trying to think about it

00:34:06 ◼   ► anecdotally, there's two things that make you, two things that come to mind immediately that

00:34:11 ◼   ► make you buy a new whatever. One is the usual tractor of software. Basically if you have a

00:34:17 ◼   ► vibrant software ecosystem, eventually your old phone doesn't run the cool new app that all your

00:34:21 ◼   ► friends are talking about. So the more vibrant the ecosystem is, the more apps take advantage

00:34:27 ◼   ► of new hardware or are being dragged along by the platform by like not supporting 32-bit apps anymore

00:34:32 ◼   ► or whatever, you know. The more that is a thing, it'll make you say, "Oh, I don't like my phone

00:34:38 ◼   ► anymore because all my friends are using AppX and I can't use that because it says it doesn't run on

00:34:44 ◼   ► my phone or something," right? So software ecosystem, which again is lacking on the iPad,

00:34:49 ◼   ► like there's more of that on the phone than there is on the iPad in terms of social pressure and

00:34:55 ◼   ► software, you know, action in the software market to put it along.

00:34:59 ◼   ► And the second one, and this is where Apple would have the data, is how many people

00:35:03 ◼   ► replace their phones because they break them.

00:35:04 ◼   ► I see a lot of broken phones.

00:35:07 ◼   ► Um, and I see fewer broken iPads.

00:35:10 ◼   ► I do see cracked iPads.

00:35:11 ◼   ► You see them in airports and stuff, but I also see kids in airports with iPads dropping

00:35:16 ◼   ► them like they're a juice box and just bounce in the giant rubbery case they're in.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:21 ◼   ► So I'm going to say probably percentage wise, phones and their lives because they break

00:35:28 ◼   ► more often than iPads, just based on my personal experience and anecdotally.

00:35:32 ◼   ► But again, Apple would know because they probably in all these surveys say, "Why are you buying

00:35:36 ◼   ► a new phone?"

00:35:37 ◼   ► It seems to me that those two tractors are making the phone replacement cycle.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Notice I didn't list as one of the things that's making people replace their phones

00:35:46 ◼   ► is that their phone feels slow.

00:35:48 ◼   ► In general, I think iPhones aren't like Windows computers where you use them for two years

00:35:53 ◼   ► and they're so crapped up that you just need to get a new one.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Again, this is based on my experience and talking to other people.

00:35:58 ◼   ► That doesn't happen with phones as much.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Not saying it doesn't happen at all.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Sometimes your phone does get slow and you know, I upgraded the OS and then my phone

00:36:04 ◼   ► feels slow and that is another factor in it, but I feel like it is far behind software

00:36:11 ◼   ► ecosystem pressuring you into upgrading your phone and just plain dropping it.

00:36:15 ◼   ► if none of those things are true for the iPad, then it is protected. And it kind of makes me fear for the day

00:36:20 ◼   ► when Apple makes an iPhone that you can drop all day long and it never breaks, will the phone suddenly become like the iPad?

00:36:26 ◼   ► If again, if this theory is correct that you know, the people aren't buying new iPads because the one they have is working just fine.

00:36:32 ◼   ► I think people's phones would be working just fine

00:36:34 ◼   ► if there wasn't some new app they wanted to play if they didn't keep dropping them. Maybe I'm overestimating the dropping and maybe I

00:36:41 ◼   ► Notice cracks too much because I'm always amazed at the vast percentage of people I see like on the train or whatever

00:36:47 ◼   ► Just swiping their thumbs along totally shattered phones

00:36:50 ◼   ► You know I was or not because people drop them and they're made of glass and it's a problem. So I don't know

00:36:56 ◼   ► really need to get

00:36:59 ◼   ► Product marketing from Apple on the show now that we're mad with power and say what are your percentages?

00:37:03 ◼   ► Why do people replace their phones?

00:37:05 ◼   ► Is it because they have an Android phone and it's getting old and slow?

00:37:08 ◼   ► Is it because they drop their old one or is it because they want to play a new game?

00:37:10 ◼   ► - I, first of all, that's okay, that'll be question number

00:37:15 ◼   ► one for when we get Phil, well question number two.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Question number one will be about the Mac Pro.

00:37:20 ◼   ► - I have many other questions earlier in the queue,

00:37:22 ◼   ► we may never get to that one, sorry folks.

00:37:24 ◼   ► - That's fair, but I do think you are underestimating

00:37:27 ◼   ► how many people replace their phone because it's old and slow

00:37:30 ◼   ► because--

00:37:31 ◼   ► - Do you think it's just OS upgrades?

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - I brought that up and I have heard that from a lot

00:37:36 ◼   ► of people and it is a real thing, but I was gonna say

00:37:39 ◼   ► I know it's forcing you to upgrade your phone,

00:37:41 ◼   ► but Apple's pretty pushy these days, aren't they?

00:37:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, Apple really, really pushes the upgrade pretty hard,

00:37:46 ◼   ► and sometimes like a critical app for people will require it,

00:37:51 ◼   ► so that kind of forces them to--

00:37:52 ◼   ► - I mean, they pushed you on the iPad too.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Like, I had iPads that I regret upgrading the OS for

00:37:56 ◼   ► because they're just so old,

00:37:57 ◼   ► and you upgrade to the very last,

00:37:59 ◼   ► and like, oh, I should've stayed one version back,

00:38:01 ◼   ► so why wouldn't that make people

00:38:02 ◼   ► replace their iPads in the same way?

00:38:04 ◼   ► - Well, that's a good question, worth thinking about.

00:38:06 ◼   ► I think one of the reasons for that,

00:38:08 ◼   ► maybe one of the biggest reasons for that

00:38:10 ◼   ► is the types of apps that you use on the iPad

00:38:14 ◼   ► versus the types of apps that you use on the phone.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And like, is there an app that's pushing you

00:38:19 ◼   ► to upgrade or not?

00:38:20 ◼   ► On the iPad, I think the data shows

00:38:25 ◼   ► that despite the community of people

00:38:28 ◼   ► who get a lot of work done on the iPad,

00:38:31 ◼   ► a lot of iPad users are using it mainly

00:38:34 ◼   ► for video watching, web browsing, and email, Facebook.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Like the basic email web video kind of workflow.

00:38:43 ◼   ► And for that, probably nothing's really gonna push you

00:38:46 ◼   ► to really upgrade your OS.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Like you can still use Apple's Mail app

00:38:49 ◼   ► and whatever OS you have, you can still use the web browser.

00:38:51 ◼   ► You can probably, like I would imagine like Facebook

00:38:54 ◼   ► and Netflix and stuff probably keep

00:38:55 ◼   ► their minimum version pretty low.

00:38:57 ◼   ► - Oh, they'll upgrade the OS, but it doesn't matter

00:39:00 ◼   ► if you upgrade the OS.

00:39:01 ◼   ► If you're just using to play video,

00:39:02 ◼   ► it really doesn't matter exactly how clunky the animation is

00:39:04 ◼   ► and springboard when you launch the Netflix app.

00:39:06 ◼   ► All you care about is once the video starts playing,

00:39:07 ◼   ► it's fine.

00:39:08 ◼   ► - That's fair, but anyway, regardless,

00:39:10 ◼   ► I think the way most iPads are used,

00:39:15 ◼   ► it probably has a slower upgrade cycle

00:39:18 ◼   ► from the software side simply because

00:39:20 ◼   ► they're not often using a lot of apps

00:39:22 ◼   ► that require the newest version of the OS,

00:39:24 ◼   ► whereas on the phone, you have a lot more like,

00:39:27 ◼   ► you know, new games that come out,

00:39:28 ◼   ► new cutting edge apps that come out,

00:39:29 ◼   ► usually come out on the phone first or only,

00:39:31 ◼   ► and you have more early adopters using it.

00:39:33 ◼   ► It seems like there's more driving that,

00:39:34 ◼   ► but also, there's this consistent narrative with the iPad

00:39:39 ◼   ► that explains a lot of this, that is probably correct,

00:39:42 ◼   ► and there is some data to back it up,

00:39:44 ◼   ► that basically, while you can get work done on it,

00:39:48 ◼   ► a lot of people do use it for mostly consumption.

00:39:51 ◼   ► That's not a judgment, that's just what people do.

00:39:54 ◼   ► That's also true of computers, that's also true of phones,

00:39:56 ◼   ► however, that is true of iPads,

00:39:58 ◼   ► and that people's needs on iPads are fairly simple,

00:40:02 ◼   ► most of the time.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Whoever's fault that is doesn't really matter.

00:40:06 ◼   ► The point is, people do pretty simple things

00:40:08 ◼   ► on iPads most of the time.

00:40:10 ◼   ► - You know, it's only one data point,

00:40:12 ◼   ► but I feel like it's relevant.

00:40:15 ◼   ► The aforementioned iPad 3 that we had

00:40:18 ◼   ► after we stopped using it,

00:40:22 ◼   ► because we found it to be too old,

00:40:24 ◼   ► it was collecting dust for months.

00:40:27 ◼   ► And then, just a couple months back,

00:40:29 ◼   ► I had my, I had, you know, reset it all,

00:40:32 ◼   ► And I had my dad bring it to my grandparents.

00:40:37 ◼   ► They live in Pennsylvania, I'm in Virginia, and although they come down from time to time,

00:40:42 ◼   ► we haven't been up there in a long time.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And, you know, they're not that young at this point, because I'm turning 35 pretty soon,

00:40:50 ◼   ► and these are my grandparents.

00:40:53 ◼   ► But we gave them this iPad 3, mostly so they could FaceTime with us and Declan and, you

00:40:58 ◼   ► know, I guess my parents from time to time as well.

00:41:02 ◼   ► From what I understand, they were beyond overjoyed

00:41:06 ◼   ► to have received it, not only because of FaceTime,

00:41:11 ◼   ► but because it's a much easier device for them to use

00:41:14 ◼   ► than their PC, and I think it's a reasonably modern PC,

00:41:17 ◼   ► but they were overjoyed to receive an iPad 3

00:41:21 ◼   ► late in 2016.

00:41:25 ◼   ► When was the iPad 3 new, like 2012 or something like that?

00:41:28 ◼   ► Probably before that, actually.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - 2012.

00:41:32 ◼   ► - It was a 2012, okay.

00:41:34 ◼   ► So yeah, so they were beyond excited

00:41:36 ◼   ► to receive this old device,

00:41:38 ◼   ► which for them is more than enough.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Now obviously they have nothing to compare to.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Obviously, in a perfect world,

00:41:45 ◼   ► I'm sure they would prefer a brand new one.

00:41:47 ◼   ► But for someone who hadn't had one before,

00:41:52 ◼   ► it was way more than enough.

00:41:55 ◼   ► And not every iPad user's gonna be like that.

00:41:57 ◼   ► And I'm sure that there's tons of iPad users

00:42:00 ◼   ► upgrade regularly that are not using it for work. They just really love the iPad. But

00:42:05 ◼   ► to speak of the longevity of the iPad, this is a device that's nearly five years old now

00:42:11 ◼   ► that brought genuine joy to their household when they received it.

00:42:16 ◼   ► >> Well, because that's the thing. This is why old iPads are so useful and so many of

00:42:21 ◼   ► them are still in use, because most people's needs are pretty low-end. Most people just

00:42:25 ◼   ► want a thing that they can browse the web and send emails and see Facebook on. That's

00:42:30 ◼   ► that's pretty much what most people do

00:42:31 ◼   ► with any of their computing devices,

00:42:33 ◼   ► phone, laptop, or tablet.

00:42:35 ◼   ► And so this device is delightful for that.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Again, but I think that that doesn't preclude

00:42:43 ◼   ► people doing real work on it,

00:42:45 ◼   ► and also my theory that I'm putting forth

00:42:48 ◼   ► with these sales graphs that this is mostly

00:42:51 ◼   ► just additive to the world technology.

00:42:53 ◼   ► - There aren't any real answers here.

00:42:56 ◼   ► The data that we have is shallow,

00:43:00 ◼   ► And we have to extrapolate a lot from it.

00:43:03 ◼   ► And so because of that, there's so much judgment involved

00:43:07 ◼   ► and there's no clear right or wrong.

00:43:08 ◼   ► And I think that's why we're going to talk about it

00:43:10 ◼   ► in bits across 17 different podcasts for a little while.

00:43:15 ◼   ► But yeah, so let's talk about something

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00:45:23 ◼   ► - So there was this crazy, ah, dammit, sorry.

00:45:30 ◼   ► There was this crazy rumor, or sort of rumor,

00:45:34 ◼   ► that was posted on Slashdot as a comment.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And this was a, in Slashdot parlance, an anonymous coward,

00:45:44 ◼   ► which is to say somebody that didn't wanna leave their name.

00:45:47 ◼   ► But they went on and on about how there are several

00:45:51 ◼   ► arm-powered laptops that are drifting around internally

00:45:53 ◼   ► at Apple, and this individual claims to have seen several

00:45:56 ◼   ► with their own eyes.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And they had a lot to say about it.

00:46:02 ◼   ► I don't know the best way to summarize it,

00:46:04 ◼   ► partially because I read this days ago,

00:46:05 ◼   ► and I haven't looked back since,

00:46:07 ◼   ► which was in part because it seemed kinda bananas to me.

00:46:11 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:46:12 ◼   ► But it seemed like the short, short version was,

00:46:17 ◼   ► yeah, there's some apps that run on ARM,

00:46:20 ◼   ► and the OS is really iOS-ish, even though it isn't iOS.

00:46:25 ◼   ► A lot of things that we like to control as,

00:46:30 ◼   ► not even necessarily power users, but users on macOS,

00:46:35 ◼   ► not a lot of that is available

00:46:37 ◼   ► on these supposed phantom ARM Macs.

00:46:40 ◼   ► I didn't think this—something about this didn't feel right to me.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Like I'm not sure I can point to a specific passage and say, "Yes, this is why it's

00:46:48 ◼   ► bananas."

00:46:49 ◼   ► But a lot of it just didn't feel right to me, and from what I gathered from people

00:46:52 ◼   ► that I've spoken to, it didn't feel right to a lot of them.

00:46:55 ◼   ► But we wanted to acknowledge its existence, and we will put a link to the show notes,

00:46:58 ◼   ► and I'm sure that the two of you have some thoughts on it as well.

00:47:01 ◼   ► I want to do more than just acknowledge it.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Because I don't want to entertain it as a possibility because it's not a credible

00:47:08 ◼   ► source.

00:47:09 ◼   ► pretend like hypothetically, let's talk about this thing

00:47:12 ◼   ► if it existed, right?

00:47:14 ◼   ► Because again, I don't think the sourcing is enough

00:47:16 ◼   ► to say that this does exist, but.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - I would say in fact the incredible shadiness

00:47:20 ◼   ► of this post and so many of the like weird things

00:47:23 ◼   ► that don't really sound very appley

00:47:25 ◼   ► or don't reflect how they actually work,

00:47:27 ◼   ► I would say this is very unlikely to be true.

00:47:30 ◼   ► But the reason I wanna talk about this too,

00:47:33 ◼   ► I was very happy to see it in the notes,

00:47:34 ◼   ► is that this was an interesting idea

00:47:37 ◼   ► for where the Mac could plausibly go.

00:47:39 ◼   ► because while the details of this are very suspicious

00:47:42 ◼   ► that make you discount the validity of this report,

00:47:46 ◼   ► I do think the overall idea of such a product is plausible.

00:47:50 ◼   ► And the idea that Apple would take you in this direction

00:47:52 ◼   ► is very plausible.

00:47:54 ◼   ► - It's not just plausible, this is like,

00:47:55 ◼   ► this is the, as soon as iOS appeared,

00:47:59 ◼   ► this is basically the exact, not exemplar,

00:48:02 ◼   ► but like, this is the prototype of this rumor.

00:48:05 ◼   ► The very second the first person said, iOS Mac merge,

00:48:08 ◼   ► Like the very second someone said that many, many years ago,

00:48:11 ◼   ► this is exactly what they were talking about.

00:48:12 ◼   ► It says, "A Mac running on ARM CPUs

00:48:16 ◼   ► can only get apps from the App Store.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Everything locked down, all binary sign,

00:48:20 ◼   ► can restore from the internet like a phone."

00:48:22 ◼   ► Like there is nothing in this that is even outside the realm

00:48:26 ◼   ► of the things that are being taught.

00:48:26 ◼   ► The only reason it is, you know, it's interesting again,

00:48:29 ◼   ► is because it's being presented as truth.

00:48:30 ◼   ► It's kind of the same way when you tell a joke,

00:48:32 ◼   ► you pretend it's a real story that happened to you

00:48:33 ◼   ► to make the joke funnier.

00:48:34 ◼   ► That's exactly how this is working here.

00:48:36 ◼   ► But, because we haven't had, like, the reason it's worth talking about it again is because

00:48:41 ◼   ► we haven't revisited this idea of the iOS and Mac merged totally locked down Mac thing

00:48:47 ◼   ► again.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And in light of the actual appearance of ARM CPUs inside Macs with the Touch Bar Mac Pros,

00:48:52 ◼   ► and in light of all the Intel stuff and so on and so forth, and our own revisiting of

00:48:56 ◼   ► when is it going to be time to flip the Mac over to ARM, I think it's worth revisiting

00:49:00 ◼   ► this old rumor of the merged iOS Mac, not so much the merging of the U.S. interface-wise,

00:49:09 ◼   ► but of literally buttoning down the Mac in all the same ways that iOS has buttoned down.

00:49:14 ◼   ► As an example of what we talked about last show, like either expanding the capabilities

00:49:18 ◼   ► of iOS or making the Mac easier.

00:49:22 ◼   ► This would be an example of taking all of those sharp edges in the Mac and filing them

00:49:25 ◼   ► down as much as possible to make something that is hopefully almost as easy to use as

00:49:30 ◼   ► - This is an iPad but still much more capable.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so I think it's worth going over

00:49:34 ◼   ► some of the details because our chief summarizer

00:49:36 ◼   ► and chief failed to.

00:49:38 ◼   ► - Sorry.

00:49:39 ◼   ► - It's okay, you've had a long day,

00:49:41 ◼   ► we'll get to that in the after show.

00:49:42 ◼   ► But, yeah, sorry.

00:49:46 ◼   ► But yeah, so basically the idea put forth

00:49:48 ◼   ► by this comment basically is that it is a,

00:49:53 ◼   ► it is like the next generation of laptop presumably,

00:49:55 ◼   ► or possibly of all Macs.

00:49:57 ◼   ► It is an ARM processor, all custom Apple ARM hardware,

00:50:00 ◼   ► just like the iPads and phones.

00:50:02 ◼   ► It only boots the signed OS images

00:50:05 ◼   ► that come over the internet.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I assume not every time, not like a Netboot,

00:50:10 ◼   ► but it only boots, similar to iPhones and iPads,

00:50:13 ◼   ► there is no physical install media,

00:50:15 ◼   ► there's no downgrading, it just,

00:50:18 ◼   ► here's the software update for you,

00:50:19 ◼   ► here's what you get, you can't downgrade,

00:50:21 ◼   ► you can't choose what version you run,

00:50:22 ◼   ► just here's what you get, period.

00:50:24 ◼   ► They said a lot of the OS X legacy utilities

00:50:28 ◼   ► and stuff are missing, there's no more X11,

00:50:30 ◼   ► there's no audio MIDI setup, a lot of that stuff.

00:50:34 ◼   ► No disk utility, no terminal, which is interesting.

00:50:36 ◼   ► System preferences and a lot of functionality

00:50:38 ◼   ► has been moved into a new app called Settings to match iOS.

00:50:41 ◼   ► The App Store is mandatory,

00:50:44 ◼   ► including even things that require hardware drivers.

00:50:47 ◼   ► Sounds kind of similar to when you plug in,

00:50:50 ◼   ► or when you connect a Bluetooth or lightning device

00:50:52 ◼   ► to a phone and it can associate itself

00:50:54 ◼   ► with an app on the App Store that lets it work.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Similar to that, but for drivers on the Mac.

00:50:58 ◼   ► So you get a new scanner or something, you plug it in,

00:51:01 ◼   ► and it launches you to the Mac App Store

00:51:05 ◼   ► to download the driver for that.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Similarly, all drivers would be kind of like iOS sandboxified

00:51:11 ◼   ► where something could install one of these drivers

00:51:14 ◼   ► at the deep level of system,

00:51:15 ◼   ► but then you could just go into a system pref pane

00:51:17 ◼   ► and delete it and it's gone.

00:51:19 ◼   ► It doesn't leave files behind.

00:51:21 ◼   ► It's very iOS-y in that way.

00:51:23 ◼   ► With iOS, you can delete an app,

00:51:25 ◼   ► and you know everything about that app is gone.

00:51:27 ◼   ► There's no remnants of it left in your phone or anything.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And of course the Mac doesn't work that way now.

00:51:32 ◼   ► You know, Macs get gummed up over time with all this crap.

00:51:34 ◼   ► And you have all this junk in your library folder

00:51:37 ◼   ► and everything else.

00:51:38 ◼   ► And so, and then, just a couple other things.

00:51:41 ◼   ► But yeah, basically, oh, and the file system is kind of like,

00:51:46 ◼   ► how do you pronounce C-H root in Linux world?

00:51:50 ◼   ► Is it chroot?

00:51:51 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:52 ◼   ► But basically the file system is like chroot.

00:51:55 ◼   ► So basically, what appears to be at root

00:51:59 ◼   ► is your home directory,

00:52:01 ◼   ► and you don't even see the system files.

00:52:03 ◼   ► They're not even there.

00:52:05 ◼   ► They exist in the file system,

00:52:07 ◼   ► but you don't see them from your point of view,

00:52:09 ◼   ► from your user space.

00:52:10 ◼   ► You see at root your files and nobody else's.

00:52:13 ◼   ► And they said there was no concept,

00:52:15 ◼   ► seemingly, of multi-user stuff.

00:52:16 ◼   ► But I don't wanna get too much into the specifics

00:52:19 ◼   ► of this post because, again,

00:52:20 ◼   ► I think the credibility of it is pretty low.

00:52:23 ◼   ► But as a future direction of Mac OS

00:52:27 ◼   ► and of the Mac hardware platform,

00:52:30 ◼   ► I do think this is worth talking about,

00:52:31 ◼   ► not only because it's so plausible

00:52:33 ◼   ► based on what Apple seems to want to do,

00:52:35 ◼   ► but also I think, I will have the seemingly,

00:52:39 ◼   ► in this community, very unpopular opinion

00:52:42 ◼   ► that I think this could be really good.

00:52:46 ◼   ► With a few minor exceptions,

00:52:48 ◼   ► I think this could be really good.

00:52:50 ◼   ► The only things about this

00:52:52 ◼   ► that give me a lot of pause are that it said

00:52:57 ◼   ► that everything has to come through the Mac App Store.

00:52:58 ◼   ► That's number one and I think, you know,

00:53:00 ◼   ► the Mac has this wonderful gatekeeper system

00:53:03 ◼   ► and has this kind of like code signing

00:53:05 ◼   ► without app review system called developer ID.

00:53:09 ◼   ► If the developer ID and gatekeeper come forward

00:53:12 ◼   ► into whatever this is, again, assume this is real

00:53:15 ◼   ► even though it probably isn't.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Thought experiment time, okay.

00:53:19 ◼   ► If this were to have some kind of like developer mode

00:53:22 ◼   ► where you could build open source stuff

00:53:24 ◼   ► and however it's container,

00:53:27 ◼   ► if it's in your own little choruda jail, fine,

00:53:29 ◼   ► but if you can build open source stuff,

00:53:31 ◼   ► if you can develop code, if you can compile code

00:53:34 ◼   ► with your C compiler or whatever else

00:53:35 ◼   ► and just run it on this thing

00:53:37 ◼   ► without the OS's code-telling stuff

00:53:39 ◼   ► interfering badly with that,

00:53:41 ◼   ► if that's possible to do here,

00:53:43 ◼   ► and if you can distribute software through developer ID,

00:53:47 ◼   ► which would bypass the Mac App Store,

00:53:50 ◼   ► then I think this is not only plausible and could be good,

00:53:55 ◼   ► but it might be great, because a lot of this

00:53:58 ◼   ► solves real problems with the Mac and with PC style OSs.

00:54:02 ◼   ► One of the biggest problems is like,

00:54:04 ◼   ► how apps spread themselves out all over the place,

00:54:06 ◼   ► all over the system.

00:54:07 ◼   ► You know, they are, like it isn't, as I said with iOS,

00:54:10 ◼   ► you know, iOS, you delete the app, it's gone.

00:54:12 ◼   ► On the Mac, you delete the app,

00:54:13 ◼   ► and there's garbage everywhere,

00:54:15 ◼   ► and you have to use Mac cleanup utilities

00:54:17 ◼   ► to clean all the garbage out sometimes.

00:54:18 ◼   ► You have to go find these files

00:54:20 ◼   ► that are spread all over your system

00:54:21 ◼   ► and you can't be sure what an app is doing

00:54:23 ◼   ► when you install it and all this stuff.

00:54:25 ◼   ► The PC and Mac style of app security is outdated.

00:54:30 ◼   ► We've talked about this before,

00:54:33 ◼   ► how the Unix idea of anything you run

00:54:36 ◼   ► just has access to your entire user account

00:54:39 ◼   ► and everything you've ever made on a user account

00:54:41 ◼   ► and all your files and it can delete files at will,

00:54:43 ◼   ► it can read everything of yours.

00:54:46 ◼   ► That is an outdated model.

00:54:47 ◼   ► that is not great for the future of computing.

00:54:49 ◼   ► And one of the things that makes iOS so appealing

00:54:52 ◼   ► to a lot of people for a lot of reasons

00:54:54 ◼   ► is the additional simplicity and security

00:54:56 ◼   ► that the sandboxing model that it has enforces.

00:54:59 ◼   ► I think it is possible to do this well.

00:55:02 ◼   ► A lot of Mac diehards are really against this idea

00:55:07 ◼   ► when they saw this comment and assuming it might be real.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And I can see why, why you would be so against this.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But I think, again,

00:55:16 ◼   ► it's just like that very slight tweak of a developer mode

00:55:19 ◼   ► and being able to distribute software with developer ID,

00:55:23 ◼   ► that's pretty much all I would need for this.

00:55:26 ◼   ► It sounds like it would be really good

00:55:29 ◼   ► in a lot of other ways.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Either the Mac is in maintenance mode,

00:55:33 ◼   ► as I keep saying, it seems that way,

00:55:35 ◼   ► and nothing ever changes and that's fine,

00:55:38 ◼   ► or if it is going to change,

00:55:40 ◼   ► if Apple really is working on the next generation of OS,

00:55:45 ◼   ► not just 10 dot something else, the entire next generation,

00:55:49 ◼   ► like when they went from classic to OS X.

00:55:52 ◼   ► If they are indeed working on such a thing for the Mac,

00:55:55 ◼   ► which I would argue they should be

00:55:57 ◼   ► because it would be ridiculous

00:55:59 ◼   ► to continue a computing platform forward

00:56:01 ◼   ► with no plans to ever do that,

00:56:02 ◼   ► then I think this is exactly the kind of thing they would do

00:56:08 ◼   ► and we should be prepared for it

00:56:10 ◼   ► and we can see a preview of what it's like

00:56:12 ◼   ► by looking at iOS,

00:56:14 ◼   ► 'cause iOS is even more restrictive than this.

00:56:16 ◼   ► And so if this is plausible and if this happens

00:56:21 ◼   ► and if it's done well with those couple of little holes

00:56:24 ◼   ► pumped through the wall for developers

00:56:26 ◼   ► and for distribution through developer ID, as I said,

00:56:29 ◼   ► I think this could be a great move forward.

00:56:33 ◼   ► This could be the simplicity and security of iOS,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but with windowing and file management

00:56:40 ◼   ► and access to your files in a traditional paradigm

00:56:43 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:56:45 ◼   ► And yes, it would require a lot of apps to be rewritten,

00:56:48 ◼   ► some things that worked in the old system

00:56:50 ◼   ► wouldn't work anymore, but a lot of this stuff is ancient.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Like, I don't need X11 anymore.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I don't, like, there's a lot of this stuff is so ancient.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Mac OS is very old, it has accumulated cruft over time

00:57:02 ◼   ► because everything does.

00:57:04 ◼   ► This new way of doing things sounds like it could really be

00:57:09 ◼   ► the actual future of computing that blends together

00:57:12 ◼   ► the greatness of iOS with a PC style paradigm

00:57:16 ◼   ► to allow more types of work to get done for more people.

00:57:19 ◼   ► This sounds really good to me.

00:57:20 ◼   ► - The actual future of computer.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I spend all this time explaining myself

00:57:24 ◼   ► and you just ignore me.

00:57:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:57:26 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Last week we talked about how the iPad was like,

00:57:30 ◼   ► was making progress in terms of expanding its capabilities

00:57:32 ◼   ► with multitasking and the pen and the bigger size and stuff,

00:57:35 ◼   ► but like, but kind of slowly.

00:57:37 ◼   ► The Mac has been doing that same thing,

00:57:40 ◼   ► but in the other direction,

00:57:42 ◼   ► but even more slowly.

00:57:44 ◼   ► 'Cause if you think about the Mac,

00:57:46 ◼   ► the Mac trying to simplify itself,

00:57:49 ◼   ► trying to be friendlier, this has been a process.

00:57:53 ◼   ► The process took a pretty big leap

00:57:54 ◼   ► with classic to OS X actually,

00:57:57 ◼   ► because many things that were way more complicated

00:58:00 ◼   ► in classic were massively simplified.

00:58:02 ◼   ► The dock is the best example of that.

00:58:04 ◼   ► All the ways that you could manage the same stuff

00:58:07 ◼   ► that the dock is supposed to do on classic Mac OS

00:58:10 ◼   ► the time we transitioned. The doc was just like the most dumbed down version of all the other

00:58:16 ◼   ► options we had, not even including third-party things of which there were many. This was this

00:58:20 ◼   ► one first-party thing, no you can't use the private APIs to make your own doc type thing,

00:58:26 ◼   ► we will fight you on that, and it is way simpler and don't worry about it because that's all

00:58:30 ◼   ► everybody needs, right? And sandboxing, another example, a long slow painful slog trying to get

00:58:37 ◼   ► some of the benefits that you get in iOS. All your crap in one place, protect applications,

00:58:42 ◼   ► protected from each other, blah blah blah. It's been slow going. We haven't been able to get there

00:58:48 ◼   ► because sandboxing is incompatible with lots of cool things that Mac apps have done and still

00:58:52 ◼   ► want to do. And it's very difficult for Apple to ever get slowly incrementally get it to the point

00:59:02 ◼   ► where Mac applications are sandboxed in the same way as iOS applications.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Instead, they've been saying, "You can be a Mac app, and your stuff can still be in

00:59:11 ◼   ► seven different places because it kind of has to be, but we'll put some constraints on you."

00:59:15 ◼   ► And it's this weird mismatch between having to do that, but also having to be protected

00:59:22 ◼   ► from yourself and isolated from other applications. Even so far as how many Mac apps have struggled

00:59:27 ◼   ► with the sandbox because the integration point on PC style operating systems is very often the file

00:59:33 ◼   ► system and that's how applications share things with each other is I write a thing here and you

00:59:39 ◼   ► open that same thing over there and the user is allowed to make little folders and put stuff in

00:59:43 ◼   ► them and you're trying to sandbox things so each application only sees its own files but like

00:59:46 ◼   ► it's been difficult and so this description of the iOS-ified Mac which again has been in people's

00:59:55 ◼   ► minds and talked about for many many years now, the question is always how do you get

01:00:00 ◼   ► from where we are to there?

01:00:01 ◼   ► Because it's a big leap and trying to do it incrementally has been very difficult.

01:00:07 ◼   ► It's been taking a long time.

01:00:09 ◼   ► It hasn't been particularly successful.

01:00:10 ◼   ► A lot of things, efforts have stalled out despite a lot of effort put into it.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It you know it gets back to the question from the last week's show, is it easier to make

01:00:20 ◼   ► the iPad more capable or make the Mac friendlier and simpler?

01:00:24 ◼   ► And on question, I think it's still easier to make iOS more capable because if you try

01:00:29 ◼   ► to make the Mac simpler, everything about the system and the users and the developers

01:00:34 ◼   ► fights you at every step because there's so much entrenched tradition in software and

01:00:39 ◼   ► conventions and capabilities and attitudes and just like, and cruft, like Marco said,

01:00:44 ◼   ► just plain old cruft.

01:00:48 ◼   ► It's difficult to get there.

01:00:49 ◼   ► So this, the host here is almost kind of like wishful thinking.

01:00:54 ◼   ► Like wouldn't it be great if we could snap our fingers and be there and like Marco said,

01:00:58 ◼   ► one way you can do that is say, okay, well it's not macOS anymore, it's a new OS called

01:01:02 ◼   ► something else, you know, like people would have said macOS 11 back in the days before

01:01:05 ◼   ► the 10 got dropped, right?

01:01:08 ◼   ► But this really would be a leap of that size if it appeared wholesale.

01:01:12 ◼   ► You can still get there piecemeal.

01:01:14 ◼   ► It's going to take a long time.

01:01:15 ◼   ► You might have to wait for some people to die and there are many places where this can

01:01:20 ◼   ► go terribly wrong.

01:01:21 ◼   ► For example, it's obvious to us on this program as rabid Mac users that of course you'd have

01:01:28 ◼   ► to have some mode that most people wouldn't use but that would give you access to the

01:01:32 ◼   ► terminal that will let you build software because we're software developers and we know

01:01:35 ◼   ► any software developer who uses a Mac, no matter what kind of development you're doing,

01:01:39 ◼   ► even if you're doing everything in Xcode I would imagine, but definitely if you're doing

01:01:42 ◼   ► development for any kind of server-side software, you're used to being able to install and run

01:01:48 ◼   ► software that is not signed with Apple's Developer ID thing.

01:01:52 ◼   ► All that Unix open source stuff, that's not signed with Developer ID.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And if you literally can't run binaries that are not signed, if you don't have that final

01:02:00 ◼   ► option in Gatekeeper to launch applications with the right click and the open, and all

01:02:04 ◼   ► that, or just launching it from the command line, if that option literally does not exist

01:02:08 ◼   ► as it doesn't on iOS unless you jailbreak, and I really don't want to be jailbreaking

01:02:11 ◼   ► my Mac, that eliminates just so many users.

01:02:16 ◼   ► This is not even an edge case anymore.

01:02:17 ◼   ► This is like a large percentage of people who, you know, whole professions who use Macs

01:02:22 ◼   ► at their desks need the ability to do that type of stuff and are going to need it for

01:02:27 ◼   ► the foreseeable future.

01:02:28 ◼   ► So if you cut them off, then you're just marginalizing the Mac too much, I think, because they would

01:02:33 ◼   ► be eaten up by iOS on one side and you abandon everybody else who's using those features

01:02:37 ◼   ► on the Mac.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And so that's a danger zone as well.

01:02:40 ◼   ► But the general idea of like, let me just close my eyes and open them again, and the

01:02:45 ◼   ► Mac, at the very least, solves one or two or three of the biggest problems.

01:02:49 ◼   ► It still wouldn't be solving the file system problem, even with the chroot stuff and everything.

01:02:54 ◼   ► But at least you'd solve app install, management, drivers.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Regular users wouldn't have to see disk images anymore.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Settings and preferences would be more coherent and familiar because they're used to iOS.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Just those wins would be huge.

01:03:10 ◼   ► And if you can get those wins while also allowing people to do their work in the old way if

01:03:15 ◼   ► they want to, like that's, talk about progressive disclosure, like no one, if it's a developer

01:03:20 ◼   ► mode or whatever, like no one, believe me, people aren't going to be like, I wish I want

01:03:23 ◼   ► to have developer mode turned on.

01:03:24 ◼   ► No, nobody wants that.

01:03:25 ◼   ► They want it to be simple and nice.

01:03:27 ◼   ► It's like Casey's grandparents, they're overjoyed when it's like, oh, this is simple.

01:03:30 ◼   ► I just do this, do this, and it all makes sense to me.

01:03:32 ◼   ► There's no place I can get into trouble.

01:03:33 ◼   ► They're not going to go looking for the thing to turn on developer mode.

01:03:36 ◼   ► That's for power users, quote unquote.

01:03:38 ◼   ► Yes, there is a class of person who will go looking for it and turn it on and you know

01:03:42 ◼   ► Because they're interested in out there, you know, they're geeks. They're nerds. That's fine

01:03:45 ◼   ► But regular people trust me do not want the complexity like all of us when we go into a

01:03:49 ◼   ► Preference of screen and we see an advanced button we click it immediately

01:03:52 ◼   ► Other people don't even want to go to the preference screen like they don't even want another preference screen exists

01:03:56 ◼   ► They probably don't know the parent screen is it's like it doesn't need to exist. They just want it to work and work fine

01:04:01 ◼   ► So I'm pretty much with Marco that I would love a Mac that work like this

01:04:06 ◼   ► As long as I had the option to you know, the developer mode or the way to do other stuff. I just I'm not sure

01:04:13 ◼   ► How long it will take to get there?

01:04:16 ◼   ► Whether Apple has the will and wants to dedicate the resources to get there

01:04:21 ◼   ► Because it just seems like still a much more straightforward path to continue to enhance iOS

01:04:27 ◼   ► I feel like iOS is getting this right iOS is still getting more sophisticated at a faster rate than the Mac is getting simpler

01:04:33 ◼   ► Which is fine with me as an old Mac user, but if I start drawing lines on graphs and

01:04:38 ◼   ► seeing how this ends up, it just seems to me that unless Apple has a massively renewed

01:04:43 ◼   ► interest in the Mac, that iOS will eventually overtake it because for whatever their interest

01:04:49 ◼   ► is in the Mac, their interest in iOS seems much stronger on the phone and still even

01:04:55 ◼   ► a little bit stronger on the iPad.

01:04:58 ◼   ► And who knows what other weird devices they're planning.

01:05:00 ◼   ► I mean, you've got the Watch Store on the mix there too.

01:05:02 ◼   ► iOS as a legacy free basis for innovation seems like a much easier path

01:05:08 ◼   ► than continuing to bang their head against the Mac. You know the by and

01:05:13 ◼   ► large I agree with you guys but I can't help but think a couple things. One, it

01:05:19 ◼   ► almost sounds like you're saying I want the good parts of iOS and and none of

01:05:24 ◼   ► the parts that bother me and that's okay like I mean yeah that does sound good

01:05:29 ◼   ► in and of itself, but I mean, for two people that really don't seem to be too terribly

01:05:36 ◼   ► interested in the iPad, it's interesting hearing you say, "Ooh, I'd love all that stuff on

01:05:41 ◼   ► the iPad."

01:05:42 ◼   ► Who's people of those?

01:05:43 ◼   ► I use the iPad every day.

01:05:44 ◼   ► So do I.

01:05:45 ◼   ► I use the iPad more than I use my Mac.

01:05:46 ◼   ► Well, I can't say that, but I do use the iPad at home.

01:05:48 ◼   ► At home, I use—definitely.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Obviously, I work all day on a Mac, so that's the majority of my time, but in my house,

01:05:54 ◼   ► I use my iPad literally every day, and many days go by when I don't wake my Mac up from

01:05:58 ◼   ► - Well, but I think to clarify this,

01:06:02 ◼   ► it's not that all of iOS is bad,

01:06:04 ◼   ► there's tons of great stuff in iOS,

01:06:05 ◼   ► there's tons of advantages of iOS.

01:06:08 ◼   ► There's a, between the way iPads work

01:06:12 ◼   ► and the way Mac OS works, there's a huge difference

01:06:16 ◼   ► in interaction paradigm, the whole difference

01:06:20 ◼   ► between being, you know, Mac OS is very file-centric,

01:06:24 ◼   ► like most PCOSs, where as iOS is app-centric,

01:06:28 ◼   ► like these are massive differences

01:06:30 ◼   ► in just the way these systems work.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Of course you can take some of what's good about one

01:06:35 ◼   ► and apply it to the other.

01:06:37 ◼   ► The only question is, where's your starting point

01:06:39 ◼   ► and where are you going?

01:06:40 ◼   ► And as Jon said, it's a lot easier to make iOS

01:06:44 ◼   ► more capable than to make Mac OS simpler.

01:06:47 ◼   ► However, no matter what you do to iOS,

01:06:50 ◼   ► it's still going to feel like a big phone

01:06:53 ◼   ► that's app-centric and not file-centric and everything else

01:06:56 ◼   ► 'cause that's just like the entire design of the system.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Whereas on the Mac, if what you want

01:07:01 ◼   ► is the PC style of computing,

01:07:05 ◼   ► it is totally possible with something like this crazy scheme

01:07:09 ◼   ► that this crazy comment that is probably BS,

01:07:11 ◼   ► it is totally possible to take the best

01:07:14 ◼   ► of PC style computing, make it still work

01:07:17 ◼   ► the way that people who want that are accustomed to,

01:07:21 ◼   ► but bring in the modern advantages of iOS.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, that summary makes a lot more sense to me.

01:07:27 ◼   ► - Imagine if you gave your grandparents

01:07:30 ◼   ► this Mac described in here.

01:07:33 ◼   ► I think with the possible exception

01:07:35 ◼   ► of the keyboard being intimidating,

01:07:37 ◼   ► they could be just as delighted

01:07:38 ◼   ► because from their perspective,

01:07:41 ◼   ► if it's simple and they can figure out how to use it,

01:07:43 ◼   ► like if it was basically as simple

01:07:45 ◼   ► as the only way you could launch applications

01:07:46 ◼   ► is with Launchpad.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Launchpad was always visible in the thing.

01:07:49 ◼   ► It would probably have to be touch, which is another issue entirely in terms of bridging

01:07:54 ◼   ► that divide.

01:07:55 ◼   ► But if they were never faced with the complexity of an OpenSave dialog box, or never had to

01:08:00 ◼   ► look at a bunch of files or little documents on the desktop, or never even looked at the

01:08:04 ◼   ► desktop and it was just basically they'll have the simplicity of an iPad, but happened

01:08:08 ◼   ► to be a Mac, they would be just as delighted because they just want to accomplish a task.

01:08:13 ◼   ► task is video, you know, a video conference with with my family and be able to send emails

01:08:19 ◼   ► or whatever. And you and I could say, oh, if you had a MacBook adorable, you could do

01:08:22 ◼   ► it just fine. But the difference between a MacBook adorable and an iPad to them is huge.

01:08:27 ◼   ► So all you need to do to delight them with a Mac is make it so that when they use it,

01:08:32 ◼   ► it is just as simple as an iPad. It can still have lurking under the covers all the other

01:08:37 ◼   ► complexity. The file system stuff is a place where we continue to punt and Apple continues

01:08:42 ◼   ► to punt. I hold out hope that there is still a better way to collaborate on things than the

01:08:47 ◼   ► completely app-centric island model of iOS and the completely file-centric world of the PC, but

01:08:53 ◼   ► considering no one has figured it out yet, you know, we'll just leave that off to the future.

01:08:56 ◼   ► But again, we are talking about the future of computing, not the present. But anyway,

01:09:00 ◼   ► that's why I think this type of Mac is appealing, because it will start to blur the lines that we're

01:09:08 ◼   ► we're all thinking in terms of,

01:09:09 ◼   ► because once something like this appears on the scene,

01:09:12 ◼   ► it's not, we can't have the same conversation anymore.

01:09:14 ◼   ► It's a different conversation entirely.

01:09:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, the thing that I'm curious to see

01:09:21 ◼   ► if this becomes real one day,

01:09:23 ◼   ► and if the three of us are still blathering on on the show,

01:09:27 ◼   ► is what are the restrictions and how egregious are they?

01:09:31 ◼   ► And I mean, Marco talked about this some,

01:09:33 ◼   ► but like, you know, if there's a developer mode,

01:09:36 ◼   ► what does that really give you?

01:09:37 ◼   ► And do you have file system access just to your change-rooted route area?

01:09:43 ◼   ► Can you get all the way to the route route?

01:09:45 ◼   ► Can I install a kernel extension?

01:09:47 ◼   ► Would I want to?

01:09:49 ◼   ► I just can't help but feel like, let's say this dropped on our laps tomorrow, and Marco

01:09:56 ◼   ► or you or me or all three of us buy one.

01:09:59 ◼   ► I think inevitably what would happen is it would put roadblocks in our way in ways we

01:10:04 ◼   ► find frustrating.

01:10:06 ◼   ► And what I'm not sure about is, would your average developer, when looking to his or

01:10:11 ◼   ► her left and seeing the Touch Bar MacBook Pro, and then looking to his or her right

01:10:16 ◼   ► and seeing this phantom arm-based Mac, I mean, certainly I would choose the Touch Bar MacBook

01:10:22 ◼   ► Pro because it doesn't limit me at all.

01:10:24 ◼   ► And this hypothetical new Mac, while it does fix a lot of problems for people in general,

01:10:30 ◼   ► I don't think it solves any problem that I'm seeing today.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And so I can just see, I have visions of this being like a less extreme version of me saying,

01:10:41 ◼   ► "Well, I don't like working on the iPad because I feel like it constrains me, and I feel like

01:10:45 ◼   ► the Mac is freeing."

01:10:46 ◼   ► Because that is how I feel.

01:10:48 ◼   ► And I think that this hypothetical new ARM Mac would be a lot of the same in that regard

01:10:53 ◼   ► if perhaps a little bit less of it.

01:10:56 ◼   ► - A lot of what we would want as developers could be accomplished through VMs.

01:11:01 ◼   ► - True.

01:11:02 ◼   ► Like if it was still possible to have virtual machines

01:11:06 ◼   ► running on this in some form,

01:11:07 ◼   ► a lot of this could be solved by containering

01:11:09 ◼   ► and by virtual machines.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Of like, you know, right now, like oh jeez,

01:11:13 ◼   ► I just, I lost a day this week on Monday.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I spent a whole day finally fixing my local Apache

01:11:21 ◼   ► and PHP MySQL installations between my iMac and my laptop,

01:11:26 ◼   ► both of which, my laptop never had a working one

01:11:29 ◼   ► 'cause I did a clean install when I got it

01:11:31 ◼   ► and I just never finished setting it up

01:11:32 ◼   ► and fixing Homebrew and fixing PHP

01:11:35 ◼   ► and fixing the built-in Apache

01:11:36 ◼   ► to use the right version of PHP and all this crap.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And I tried MAMP and then I didn't like it

01:11:42 ◼   ► so I stopped trying MAMP and like fiddling

01:11:44 ◼   ► with all this stuff that's like all over the file system,

01:11:47 ◼   ► all the stuff that Homebrew puts

01:11:49 ◼   ► and different other package managers do it

01:11:51 ◼   ► and then Homebrew complains

01:11:52 ◼   ► that other package managers exist.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And it's like dealing with all this crap

01:11:56 ◼   ► all over the file system that gets upgraded

01:11:57 ◼   ► when the system gets upgraded

01:11:58 ◼   ► that I'm trying to put my own stuff into

01:12:00 ◼   ► and edit the config files and everything else.

01:12:03 ◼   ► During a lot of that, I'm like, you know,

01:12:05 ◼   ► why don't I just install VirtualBox

01:12:07 ◼   ► and just make a Linux VM

01:12:09 ◼   ► and just run all the stuff in there and be fine.

01:12:12 ◼   ► - Try Docker.

01:12:13 ◼   ► You've got a modern enough Mac that you can run Docker.

01:12:15 ◼   ► - I know I should know about Docker.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I know nothing about Docker.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I know the general high-level concept of what it is.

01:12:22 ◼   ► I've never seen it, never used it,

01:12:24 ◼   ► no idea how it works, but anyway.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - You should try it before you go the full VM route.

01:12:29 ◼   ► - And in the meantime, you should compile everything

01:12:31 ◼   ► from source and install in user local like I do.

01:12:34 ◼   ► - Well, and I did actually, I eventually moved

01:12:37 ◼   ► to the full Homebrew setup.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Took me a while to realize that Homebrew installs

01:12:41 ◼   ► its own version of Apache.

01:12:43 ◼   ► But it did finally do that, but it was so much messing around

01:12:48 ◼   ► and so much crap, and I know that future OS updates

01:12:51 ◼   ► will probably break it.

01:12:52 ◼   ► - Never touch the system files.

01:12:54 ◼   ► You can only mess in user local.

01:12:56 ◼   ► Do not touch anything else.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Pretend it doesn't exist.

01:12:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I did eventually move to that system,

01:13:00 ◼   ► but my point is, that is not that different

01:13:03 ◼   ► from what if on this hypothetical, you know,

01:13:07 ◼   ► next generation Mac OS lockdown mode,

01:13:10 ◼   ► which would be the only mode,

01:13:12 ◼   ► what if in this OS, developer mode existed,

01:13:15 ◼   ► which I think, again, I do think that developer mode

01:13:17 ◼   ► needs to exist, where you can just compile stuff,

01:13:20 ◼   ► or you can run open source software

01:13:22 ◼   ► that is compiled from source

01:13:23 ◼   ► through package managers or whatever else.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Somehow you can run open source stuff,

01:13:26 ◼   ► you can build it yourself and just run it,

01:13:28 ◼   ► and somehow there needs to be a way to distribute software

01:13:33 ◼   ► out of the app store with developer ID, gatekeeper,

01:13:35 ◼   ► whatever, so given those two exceptions,

01:13:39 ◼   ► suppose developer mode is rooted in such a way

01:13:42 ◼   ► that you basically get your own version of user local

01:13:45 ◼   ► in this little virtualized environment

01:13:46 ◼   ► within your home directory.

01:13:48 ◼   ► That's not that different from what we have now,

01:13:50 ◼   ► and that's totally fine.

01:13:51 ◼   ► We could totally work with that.

01:13:52 ◼   ► It would be fine.

01:13:54 ◼   ► As long as there's still a way to have a terminal

01:13:57 ◼   ► and a way to compile software you get from other places,

01:14:00 ◼   ► all of these workflows don't break.

01:14:02 ◼   ► Just the file paths might change slightly.

01:14:04 ◼   ► That's it.

01:14:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, it could be done well, like,

01:14:07 ◼   ► so that you don't feel constrained, in case you like,

01:14:10 ◼   ► so you don't feel like you're suddenly trapped,

01:14:11 ◼   ► because it would just be a matter of coming onto the machine

01:14:13 ◼   ► and flipping a few switches and you'd be like,

01:14:14 ◼   ► "Ah, back to normal."

01:14:15 ◼   ► But really, the ultimate cure for this is the same thing

01:14:19 ◼   ► that solved the exact same situation and the change

01:14:21 ◼   ► from classic Mac OS to OS X, which was a big increase

01:14:26 ◼   ► simplicity and downgrade in customizability with the elimination of

01:14:30 ◼   ► whole categories of interfaces and ways of working and lots of third-party

01:14:35 ◼   ► things being replaced by first-party things that could not be enhanced or

01:14:40 ◼   ► replaced in a supported manner. The solution is, guess what, there is no more

01:14:45 ◼   ► classic Mac OS. So, nah. Like, that was the solution. It's like, well, you

01:14:49 ◼   ► know, go use Windows or Linux or this is the future of the Mac. Like, I don't

01:14:53 ◼   ► envision the Mac described in this this comment here existing alongside the

01:14:59 ◼   ► other Macs for any appreciable amount of time there would be a transition and

01:15:03 ◼   ► you're either you're on board or you're not and you know like take it like

01:15:06 ◼   ► that's exactly how it would have to work and especially if they go there by

01:15:09 ◼   ► increments but again if you could blink and you know open your eyes and this

01:15:12 ◼   ► thing was here they wouldn't keep them both around the old thing would go away

01:15:15 ◼   ► so that would basically solve the problem for you and hopefully like I

01:15:18 ◼   ► said you wouldn't feel construing. Well maybe Tim Cook would keep selling the

01:15:20 ◼   ► thing for 10 more years after it.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Yeah. Well, you know, the software, they're a little bit better about that. They do upgrade

01:15:26 ◼   ► it, but like that you wouldn't in the same way I, you know, initially a lot of classic Mac users

01:15:32 ◼   ► felt constrained in OS X because it was very young and slow and it was missing a lot of things.

01:15:35 ◼   ► It was simpler. And in some respects, I still feel constrained by some of the interface things

01:15:40 ◼   ► in OS X, but you get used to it and eventually it becomes the new normal and you accept that

01:15:45 ◼   ► it comes with many other benefits. So I would imagine that this type of Mac

01:15:49 ◼   ► would be power level to you if not immediately then in short order as again as long as they

01:15:54 ◼   ► didn't screw it up because i feel like one of the ways that apple especially today's apple could

01:15:58 ◼   ► massively screw this up is by going too far and cutting off all these other avenues because

01:16:03 ◼   ► if the mac can't support that type of user like why bother having the mac now i'm saying that's

01:16:08 ◼   ► the only reason for the max existence but it's like then what are you even doing you're just

01:16:12 ◼   ► you're squeezing the mac from both sides until it so it's basically like a really weird ios because

01:16:18 ◼   ► because presumably iOS would still be advancing.

01:16:20 ◼   ► So it's like this really weird iOS version

01:16:21 ◼   ► that can't do the things that a Mac used to do,

01:16:24 ◼   ► but isn't as simple as iOS,

01:16:25 ◼   ► and they put all these resources into morphing the Mac

01:16:28 ◼   ► into this thing, and it's like, what's the point?

01:16:30 ◼   ► At that point, you have to concede

01:16:32 ◼   ► that Microsoft had the right approach,

01:16:33 ◼   ► and that you've just been wasting your time

01:16:34 ◼   ► with this dual OS strategy as you shave one of your OSes

01:16:37 ◼   ► from both sides until all that's left

01:16:39 ◼   ► is this little skinny spindle that just topples over.

01:16:41 ◼   ► - Well, and if they did this, again, like I said earlier,

01:16:45 ◼   ► We haven't had a major OS transition in a while from Apple,

01:16:49 ◼   ► not since '99 or whenever it was.

01:16:51 ◼   ► John, I'm sure, has some idea of when that was.

01:16:54 ◼   ► - 2001 was 10.1?

01:16:55 ◼   ► - There you go. - Or 10.0?

01:16:56 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That's my guess.

01:16:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we haven't had a transition since then.

01:17:01 ◼   ► In the Windows world, they have them a little more often,

01:17:04 ◼   ► but it still doesn't come that often.

01:17:05 ◼   ► And when you have a major OS transition like that,

01:17:09 ◼   ► one of the luxuries of this, I mean, it's painful,

01:17:13 ◼   ► no question, it's painful.

01:17:14 ◼   ► it's time consuming, for a while there's a transition period

01:17:18 ◼   ► that just sucks for everybody.

01:17:20 ◼   ► However, it is an opportunity to modernize app frameworks,

01:17:25 ◼   ► to add new capabilities, to do things,

01:17:29 ◼   ► to basically take the opportunity that you have,

01:17:33 ◼   ► that you're kind of forcing app makers to do something new,

01:17:36 ◼   ► to do a major update or to even do a rewrite,

01:17:41 ◼   ► to take the opportunity to make it better for everybody.

01:17:44 ◼   ► So for instance, some of the things they could do

01:17:46 ◼   ► with the Mac if they did this,

01:17:48 ◼   ► and if they presumably broke a lot of old apps,

01:17:50 ◼   ► they could finally make a more unified UI framework for one.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Like make UI kit for the Mac,

01:17:58 ◼   ► and I don't mean make everything

01:17:59 ◼   ► look like navigation controllers

01:18:00 ◼   ► and make it all function the same way in the UI,

01:18:02 ◼   ► but there's some of the simple low-hanging fruit,

01:18:04 ◼   ► like unify the way table views load their data,

01:18:09 ◼   ► and make it so we don't have NSColor and UIColor anymore,

01:18:12 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:18:13 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff they could do

01:18:14 ◼   ► to unify those two frameworks.

01:18:16 ◼   ► They could do things like, as I mentioned previously,

01:18:18 ◼   ► cellular Macs, because they could implement

01:18:21 ◼   ► better control over networking and do all this stuff.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Like, it would give them the opportunity to,

01:18:29 ◼   ► it would force us to live for a while

01:18:32 ◼   ► with incompatible software, with oh, well we can't do this

01:18:35 ◼   ► in the new OS yet because this app hasn't updated

01:18:38 ◼   ► or whatever, we have to drag along Microsoft and Adobe

01:18:40 ◼   ► or whatever else.

01:18:41 ◼   ► But then when we got there, it could be so much better

01:18:44 ◼   ► because app makers have been forced to update.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Right now, the Mac software ecosystem is,

01:18:48 ◼   ► you know, there are some bright spots,

01:18:51 ◼   ► but a lot of it's just a graveyard,

01:18:52 ◼   ► because most people who make Mac apps,

01:18:55 ◼   ► it's a low priority for them,

01:18:57 ◼   ► because they can keep making the same old app

01:18:59 ◼   ► over and over again, and it's fine,

01:19:01 ◼   ► and they can focus their efforts on iOS and stuff.

01:19:03 ◼   ► If the Mac changes, yes, some of them will get lost,

01:19:08 ◼   ► but the ones that wanna stay on the Mac

01:19:09 ◼   ► will have to put effort into it.

01:19:11 ◼   ► and that will make their apps better,

01:19:12 ◼   ► that will make it better for all of us.

01:19:13 ◼   ► So like, there would be a substantial silver lining,

01:19:17 ◼   ► not to mention all the benefits of the OS itself,

01:19:20 ◼   ► as I said, of things like the better security,

01:19:23 ◼   ► the better sandboxing of the apps,

01:19:24 ◼   ► like not having their crap go all over the system.

01:19:27 ◼   ► This could be really good on a number of ways

01:19:30 ◼   ► if something like this were to happen.

01:19:32 ◼   ► It would definitely be painful,

01:19:34 ◼   ► and some stuff that you could do now on Mac OS,

01:19:37 ◼   ► you'd never be able to do on this.

01:19:39 ◼   ► but look at, trying to get back together,

01:19:42 ◼   ► look at how many people do everything they need to do

01:19:46 ◼   ► on phones and iPads.

01:19:48 ◼   ► This can do more than that.

01:19:51 ◼   ► Everyone who says they can't do stuff on iOS,

01:19:54 ◼   ► sometimes it's because of a capability that iOS

01:19:56 ◼   ► just will never be able to do because of its security model,

01:19:59 ◼   ► but sometimes it's just because it doesn't have

01:20:00 ◼   ► a very good multi-tasking model

01:20:01 ◼   ► or a very good file system model

01:20:03 ◼   ► or things that this would actually have.

01:20:06 ◼   ► So I think it would be a painful transition

01:20:10 ◼   ► to go to something like this,

01:20:12 ◼   ► but it wouldn't be impossible.

01:20:14 ◼   ► We would all grumble, we'd all complain,

01:20:16 ◼   ► but then we'd get on board.

01:20:18 ◼   ► A few things wouldn't be possible anymore forever,

01:20:20 ◼   ► and we'd deal with it, we'd find new solutions.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Like if I couldn't use Audio Hijack anymore

01:20:26 ◼   ► to record this phone call from Skype,

01:20:28 ◼   ► then we'd probably either stop using Skype,

01:20:31 ◼   ► or we could switch to one of those

01:20:33 ◼   ► web-based podcast recorder things.

01:20:34 ◼   ► There's already like five of those,

01:20:36 ◼   ► and there's only gonna be more by the time

01:20:37 ◼   ► this thing ever exists.

01:20:38 ◼   ► So there's always workarounds, there's always things,

01:20:42 ◼   ► time would solve any pain that would be there.

01:20:45 ◼   ► So I think even though this is probably all wrong

01:20:49 ◼   ► and based on this one weird post on Slashdot

01:20:52 ◼   ► that's probably BS, this kinda sounds cool

01:20:55 ◼   ► and if it happened, assuming it had those two exceptions,

01:20:59 ◼   ► developer mode and developer ID distribution,

01:21:02 ◼   ► I think that'd be really nice.

01:21:04 ◼   ► - You have to throw cold water on this,

01:21:05 ◼   ► we have to bring back to our old brief frame.

01:21:06 ◼   ► Anytime we discuss anything radical happening to the Mac

01:21:09 ◼   ► is like, yeah, but that would cost a lot of money

01:21:11 ◼   ► and take a lot of time and resources.

01:21:12 ◼   ► And does Apple want to put that much money

01:21:14 ◼   ► into its legacy platform

01:21:16 ◼   ► or however you want to describe the Mac?

01:21:18 ◼   ► Because sales volume wise,

01:21:20 ◼   ► you can justify almost any investment in iOS.

01:21:22 ◼   ► Can you justify that same?

01:21:25 ◼   ► And the iPad is along for the ride

01:21:26 ◼   ► because even though the iPad's volume is similar to the Mac,

01:21:29 ◼   ► guess what, it's got the same OS as the phone.

01:21:31 ◼   ► So congratulations, you get a lot of development stuff,

01:21:33 ◼   ► quote unquote, for free.

01:21:34 ◼   ► but this would be a hell of an investment in the Mac.

01:21:36 ◼   ► It would be on the scale of the classic to OS X transition,

01:21:39 ◼   ► or at least close, maybe not that big, but it would be close.

01:21:41 ◼   ► And it would be the biggest investment

01:21:43 ◼   ► in the Mac software-wise in many, many, many years.

01:21:47 ◼   ► And so I think it could, you know,

01:21:50 ◼   ► I'm not saying it couldn't be.

01:21:51 ◼   ► The right people pitch it.

01:21:53 ◼   ► It could be sold within the company,

01:21:54 ◼   ► but it would be a departure

01:21:56 ◼   ► from the historic investment in the Mac, which has been good.

01:22:00 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it hasn't been as high

01:22:01 ◼   ► since the transition from OS is as, you know,

01:22:03 ◼   ► as is appropriate or even the transition

01:22:05 ◼   ► for CPU architecture,

01:22:06 ◼   ► but this would be an architecture transition

01:22:09 ◼   ► and an OS transition that is the second biggest one

01:22:11 ◼   ► that Apple has ever done.

01:22:12 ◼   ► And you know, we're all on board for it

01:22:16 ◼   ► and would be ready for it,

01:22:17 ◼   ► but I'm not entirely sure that Apple is ready

01:22:20 ◼   ► to put that money into the Mac,

01:22:22 ◼   ► which not that that is the most dubious thing

01:22:25 ◼   ► about this random slash.com.

01:22:28 ◼   ► But again, like I wouldn't characterize it

01:22:30 ◼   ► as novel or interesting.

01:22:31 ◼   ► characterizes it as a reiteration of the prototypical idea of a Mac merged with iOS resurfacing

01:22:39 ◼   ► now in a new context. And the new context is the new Apple and the new state of Intel

01:22:44 ◼   ► versus ARM and the new sales figures for iPad and all of us new people being older and wiser

01:22:51 ◼   ► and having seen more of the tech world reconsidering the same thing.

01:22:54 ◼   ► Well, in that case, I will put it in terms they will understand. You can sell iPad hardware

01:22:59 ◼   ► for $1,500.

01:23:01 ◼   ► - They already do.

01:23:02 ◼   ► That's not including all the cases.

01:23:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:23:04 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:23:05 ◼   ► And that's our end.

01:23:07 ◼   ► - Thanks to our three sponsors this week,

01:23:09 ◼   ► Betterment, Squarespace, and Setapp,

01:23:11 ◼   ► and we will see you next week.

01:23:12 ◼   ► - It's a lot better hardware for MacBook Pro prices.

01:23:15 ◼   ► 2,600.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - There you go.

01:23:17 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:23:20 ◼   ► ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:23:22 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:23:24 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:23:26 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:23:27 ◼   ► Oh it was accidental John didn't do any research

01:23:32 ◼   ► Marco and Casey wouldn't let him Cause it was accidental

01:23:38 ◼   ► It was accidental And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM

01:23:45 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter You can follow them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:23:54 ◼   ► So that's Casey List, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-Marco-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

01:24:06 ◼   ► It's accidental (it's accidental)

01:24:09 ◼   ► They didn't mean to (accidental, accidental)

01:24:14 ◼   ► Tech podcast so long

01:24:19 ◼   ► So Casey, I hear you're having some car trouble.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - Yes, indeed.

01:24:26 ◼   ► So I brought my car in to get the oil changed.

01:24:30 ◼   ► I don't care that you think that's preposterous.

01:24:32 ◼   ► Don't care.

01:24:33 ◼   ► I don't have the time to change my own oil.

01:24:35 ◼   ► - Why is that preposterous?

01:24:36 ◼   ► 'Cause are you talking to us

01:24:38 ◼   ► or the audience who's scolding you?

01:24:38 ◼   ► - No, the audience.

01:24:39 ◼   ► I'm hopefully preventing all the people--

01:24:41 ◼   ► - No one in the audience is scolding you

01:24:42 ◼   ► about not changing your own oil.

01:24:43 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, you can send a tweet to @Saracusa

01:24:47 ◼   ► about how angry you are that I'm not changing my own oil.

01:24:49 ◼   ► - Even people who change their own oil,

01:24:51 ◼   ► I feel like now realize that they are outliers.

01:24:54 ◼   ► - Probably.

01:24:55 ◼   ► So I had a coupon, I was very excited, I had a coupon,

01:24:58 ◼   ► so my BMW oil change was supposed to be $90,

01:25:01 ◼   ► which I understand is expensive.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - Wait, you were getting into the dealership?

01:25:04 ◼   ► Now it's time for me to scold you.

01:25:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was going to the dealership.

01:25:08 ◼   ► - Now you're gonna hear from them.

01:25:10 ◼   ► - Yep, so okay, I understand I am not innocent

01:25:14 ◼   ► and I have made mistakes, mistakes have been made.

01:25:18 ◼   ► - I do the same thing.

01:25:20 ◼   ► - Well, you don't get your oil changed anymore.

01:25:21 ◼   ► - But anyway. - But I did.

01:25:22 ◼   ► - If you're going to the dealership anyway, okay.

01:25:25 ◼   ► But if you're going to the dealership

01:25:26 ◼   ► to get your oil changed, no, don't do that.

01:25:28 ◼   ► - Well, I don't trust like a Jiffy Lube

01:25:31 ◼   ► or anything like that.

01:25:32 ◼   ► - Oh, geez.

01:25:33 ◼   ► You don't have a Ferrari.

01:25:34 ◼   ► We have to go to this special little Italian person.

01:25:37 ◼   ► - It requires synthetic.

01:25:38 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

01:25:39 ◼   ► The point is-- - By the way,

01:25:40 ◼   ► for the record, I think it might be covered

01:25:42 ◼   ► when you have a lease.

01:25:43 ◼   ► I'm not sure, but just for the record there.

01:25:45 ◼   ► - If it's free, then yes, yes, by all means.

01:25:48 ◼   ► - I believe they are.

01:25:48 ◼   ► It was free for me when I first owned the car,

01:25:50 ◼   ► 'cause I still had some of the maintenance program left.

01:25:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was like five years, right?

01:25:54 ◼   ► - I forget, it was four, I think, it doesn't really matter.

01:25:57 ◼   ► But anyway, so I had my $90 coupon,

01:26:00 ◼   ► I'm all excited with myself.

01:26:02 ◼   ► The wherewithal to ask for a loaner,

01:26:03 ◼   ► which I was very glad for, and we'll see why in a moment.

01:26:06 ◼   ► But here's my $90 coupon,

01:26:08 ◼   ► I should expect to see you later today.

01:26:10 ◼   ► I probably didn't even need to bother getting a loaner,

01:26:12 ◼   ► I'm going to drive it the handful of miles to work,

01:26:15 ◼   ► and then probably immediately later,

01:26:17 ◼   ► you know, a handful of miles back, and that'll be that. I get a call as I'm out to lunch,

01:26:22 ◼   ► and they say in so many words, "Oh, things relating to the drivetrain in the front..."

01:26:28 ◼   ► I have an all-wheel drive BMW before you get all angry. "Things relating to the drivetrain

01:26:33 ◼   ► in the front, like tie rods and bushings and things of that nature, and the adjustment screw

01:26:38 ◼   ► that you use in order to do an alignment has seized, things are breaking, that'll be $1,000,

01:26:43 ◼   ► please. Oh, and you'll get your car back tomorrow because we don't have all the parts.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Fine. So in and of itself, okay, fine. The car has almost 70,000 miles on it, if I remember correctly.

01:26:54 ◼   ► It is not unreasonable that things would be going wrong. But in the last year and change,

01:27:03 ◼   ► I had a five or six thousand dollar repair of the VANOS system. I had a thousand dollar

01:27:11 ◼   ► water pump issue that was almost last month.

01:27:15 ◼   ► It was just barely in December.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And now I have this $1,000 issue.

01:27:19 ◼   ► And I think this is the universe giving me a sign

01:27:22 ◼   ► that this car is not long for this world.

01:27:24 ◼   ► So I'm getting some pressure from Aaron,

01:27:27 ◼   ► and I think it's completely justified to unload the thing

01:27:30 ◼   ► because it's just, I can't keep the damn thing on the road.

01:27:33 ◼   ► And at first I was resisting,

01:27:35 ◼   ► but now I'm to the point that I'm like, screw it.

01:27:37 ◼   ► This thing is not worth my time anymore.

01:27:39 ◼   ► I wanna get rid of it.

01:27:41 ◼   ► Now on paper the right answer is get a brand new 3 Series, maybe an M3 if I want to spend

01:27:45 ◼   ► too much money.

01:27:47 ◼   ► Maintenance will be covered, at least in the beginning, it'll have a nice big fat warranty.

01:27:51 ◼   ► Problem solved.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Except I feel like I've been burned by BMW.

01:27:55 ◼   ► I think new ones are, as I think we talked about recently, new ones are just unaffordable.

01:28:02 ◼   ► And then that becomes, okay, well fine, get a pre-owned one.

01:28:04 ◼   ► Well, I just did that.

01:28:05 ◼   ► And yes, this hypothetical new pre-owned one would be with the CPO warranty, which goes

01:28:12 ◼   ► to like 100,000 miles.

01:28:13 ◼   ► And yes, that's possible.

01:28:14 ◼   ► But even if I'm not paying out of pocket constantly for my car to be in the shop, my car's still

01:28:19 ◼   ► in the damn shop all the time.

01:28:21 ◼   ► And I feel like the moment a BMW gets past lease time, things start falling apart.

01:28:29 ◼   ► And I have friends that have had similar experiences.

01:28:32 ◼   ► I just don't want to be bothered by it.

01:28:34 ◼   ► So I have many options in front of me.

01:28:38 ◼   ► If you recall, my requirements, which are somewhat loose, are I don't want front-wheel

01:28:44 ◼   ► drive, I want it to get to 60 in under six seconds.

01:28:47 ◼   ► I don't care that that's not necessary on regular roads.

01:28:51 ◼   ► That's what I want.

01:28:52 ◼   ► I want three pedals, and that's mostly it.

01:28:56 ◼   ► So what are my options?

01:28:59 ◼   ► I'm only thinking about new right now, and then I'm going to start trying to rack my

01:29:04 ◼   ► brain for used, because I'm not opposed to going used.

01:29:08 ◼   ► But looking at it, I think every single one of my options has problems.

01:29:16 ◼   ► A friend of mine actually just written in, Cadillac ATS, great call, but the infotainment

01:29:21 ◼   ► is from everything I've ever understood, unusable.

01:29:24 ◼   ► Just utterly unusable.

01:29:26 ◼   ► And I don't know if it has carplay.

01:29:29 ◼   ► I'd have to check that out.

01:29:30 ◼   ► So that is a potential.

01:29:33 ◼   ► If I'm willing to--

01:29:34 ◼   ► - It's also hideous.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's too ugly to be seen in.

01:29:37 ◼   ► Sorry, great car.

01:29:38 ◼   ► Too ugly.

01:29:39 ◼   ► - Fairly hideous.

01:29:40 ◼   ► I'm not arguing.

01:29:41 ◼   ► Fairly hideous.

01:29:42 ◼   ► Okay, so let's just, it sounds like the brain trust has eliminated that.

01:29:46 ◼   ► So if I'm willing to have wrong-wheel drive, Focus ST.

01:29:50 ◼   ► The problem with that, other than it being a Ford, which in and of itself is fine, but

01:29:55 ◼   ► It's front-wheel drive, which I don't particularly care for.

01:29:58 ◼   ► And then the RS is also, is it the RS?

01:30:01 ◼   ► Whatever the super hot-roddy one is.

01:30:04 ◼   ► That one is just too 18-year-old for me.

01:30:07 ◼   ► I'm turning 35 next month, just no way.

01:30:09 ◼   ► The ST is a reasonable compromise, but wrong-wheel drive.

01:30:13 ◼   ► If I'm willing to go back to Deutschland,

01:30:15 ◼   ► I have the Volkswagen GTI, the Golf R,

01:30:17 ◼   ► which is the thing that I think I'm most interested in,

01:30:19 ◼   ► the A4, and the S3, which is basically a Golf R,

01:30:22 ◼   ► but in sedan form, if I'm not mistaken.

01:30:24 ◼   ► What?

01:30:24 ◼   ► Come on.

01:30:26 ◼   ► - What's what?

01:30:27 ◼   ► What do you want to go over?

01:30:28 ◼   ► - You listed a series of little Euro hatchbacks

01:30:29 ◼   ► and then you lump the A4 on the S3

01:30:31 ◼   ► and then like, oh, it's the same thing.

01:30:33 ◼   ► - No, the A4 is wildly different.

01:30:35 ◼   ► The S3, I thought, was basically the drivetrain

01:30:37 ◼   ► of the Gulf R.

01:30:38 ◼   ► I am on dating--

01:30:39 ◼   ► - No, yeah, under the cover, sure,

01:30:40 ◼   ► but it's a whole, like, from the outside,

01:30:42 ◼   ► it's the difference between driving around in a rabbit

01:30:45 ◼   ► and driving around in a regular car.

01:30:47 ◼   ► - You're dating yourself even calling it a rabbit.

01:30:49 ◼   ► - Here's the thing, I mean, I could rule out

01:30:51 ◼   ► all four of these right now for you, because--

01:30:53 ◼   ► - Oh, the A4 is a good car. - No, you can't.

01:30:54 ◼   ► - It's a little boring, but I think Keisha should try it

01:30:56 ◼   ► before he decides it's too boring,

01:30:57 ◼   ► 'cause it's nice looking, if it has the features he wants,

01:30:59 ◼   ► it's reasonably nice inside and out.

01:31:01 ◼   ► The main slam against it is that it's more boring

01:31:04 ◼   ► than the BMWs, but I think he should test drive it.

01:31:06 ◼   ► - Is the A4 even available in stick?

01:31:09 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:31:10 ◼   ► - Oh, it is?

01:31:10 ◼   ► Okay, I didn't know, I thought it was.

01:31:11 ◼   ► Anyway. - Yes.

01:31:12 ◼   ► Oh no, it is.

01:31:13 ◼   ► - All right, so the A4 is basically a three series

01:31:17 ◼   ► that's slightly worse.

01:31:18 ◼   ► Like, I-- - Eh, it depends

01:31:20 ◼   ► on what you want. (laughing)

01:31:21 ◼   ► - If you want less, if you want it smoother,

01:31:25 ◼   ► kind of nicer, even keel experience.

01:31:27 ◼   ► - If you want a crappier interior and higher prices,

01:31:30 ◼   ► crappier interior, no.

01:31:32 ◼   ► - I would disagree with you there.

01:31:33 ◼   ► - They look nice, they don't feel nice.

01:31:35 ◼   ► - I'm not sure I agree with you there.

01:31:38 ◼   ► - Also, iDrive is way better than their weirdo system.

01:31:40 ◼   ► - iDrive is light years better than MMI,

01:31:44 ◼   ► at least as of about a year ago.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Now, I think it might be an MMI.

01:31:47 ◼   ► - I forget if the A4 has the updated one

01:31:48 ◼   ► or if it's still in the old one.

01:31:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, I don't know either.

01:31:51 ◼   ► I thought it had the new hotness one, which I have yet to try.

01:31:56 ◼   ► But the A4 supports CarPlay.

01:31:58 ◼   ► I don't think it's wireless CarPlay, but it's CarPlay.

01:32:03 ◼   ► The S3 is basically a Golf R, although a buddy of mine is saying it might be DSG only, which

01:32:10 ◼   ► might eliminate it from contention.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Then the Golf R, obviously.

01:32:15 ◼   ► All of these are appealing because they are not front-wheel drive, but that's going back

01:32:21 ◼   ► to Germany and I can't tell if this is a German car problem or if it's a BMW problem.

01:32:27 ◼   ► It's a expensive car problem because every car around 60,000 miles, especially if you

01:32:32 ◼   ► live in the Northeast, which you don't really, but if you did, like around 60 or 70,000,

01:32:36 ◼   ► crap starts falling apart and breaking or whatever.

01:32:39 ◼   ► The problem is that when crap falls apart and breaks on a BMW, it costs a bazillion

01:32:41 ◼   ► dollars to fix.

01:32:43 ◼   ► That's where your problem is.

01:32:44 ◼   ► Any car you keep for that number of miles, you're going to have, like, if you have a

01:32:47 ◼   ► car for 100,000 miles you have to replace the water pump it's not a surprise I

01:32:51 ◼   ► guess nothing that happens right that's but if the water pump cost you 1,500

01:32:54 ◼   ► bucks then you're you know you're driving BMW right that's the thing is

01:32:59 ◼   ► that in and of itself any one of these repairs fine whatever well maybe not the

01:33:02 ◼   ► Vanno is exploding but generally engine stuff I feel like if you had a Honda it

01:33:07 ◼   ► would still be fine you would not need to put that much money into the engine

01:33:11 ◼   ► the entire body would rust off the car before the engine would need any work on

01:33:14 ◼   ► Honda. So yeah, so I could go back to Germany, Gullfar, A4, S3 apparently is definitely DSG

01:33:25 ◼   ► only, from what I'm being told, so that's eliminated from contention. It's also really

01:33:29 ◼   ► overpriced for what you're buying. That's probably true. I forgot to mention the GTI,

01:33:34 ◼   ► well I think I mentioned the GTI, I've heard the Performance Pack is phenomenal, the GTI

01:33:39 ◼   ► performance pack, however that is also wrong wheel drive. So, so far, still in contention,

01:33:45 ◼   ► Focus ST, wrong wheel drive, GTI performance pack, wrong wheel drive, R, German, A4, German,

01:33:51 ◼   ► a little bit boring. And then now I get into like the real slim pickins. If I'm willing to go

01:33:57 ◼   ► extremely slowly, I could get an Accord, which I cannot option the way I want, or a Mazda 6,

01:34:03 ◼   ► which I cannot option the way I want.

01:34:06 ◼   ► And then if I'm willing to live inside of my car

01:34:09 ◼   ► because I will be divorced and never get to see

01:34:11 ◼   ► my wife or child again, I could get a Tesla.

01:34:13 ◼   ► - Okay, so here's one of the big questions here is,

01:34:17 ◼   ► do you want this to be a car

01:34:19 ◼   ► that can comfortably hold your kid?

01:34:21 ◼   ► - Sitting here now, yes.

01:34:23 ◼   ► That's probably ruining everything,

01:34:25 ◼   ► but yeah, we're gonna go with yes on this one.

01:34:27 ◼   ► - Because then your only options on this list

01:34:29 ◼   ► that can go fast are the Model S, that's it.

01:34:32 ◼   ► - No, that's not true.

01:34:33 ◼   ► The A4 is-- - The A4 goes plenty fast.

01:34:35 ◼   ► - It's about the same speed as my car.

01:34:37 ◼   ► It's a little slower, but not too much slower.

01:34:39 ◼   ► - Don't do the A4.

01:34:40 ◼   ► If you're gonna get-- - And the R, R's fast.

01:34:42 ◼   ► - Otherwise I'll get the A4.

01:34:43 ◼   ► I think you need to go to a dealer,

01:34:44 ◼   ► and Casey needs to go to a dealer and get one of the A4.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Now you're not buying, just go in there to look at it.

01:34:49 ◼   ► Maybe take a test drive, poke around,

01:34:50 ◼   ► you're not even thinking of buying, just check it out.

01:34:52 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like Marco's anti-Audi bias is--

01:34:56 ◼   ► - No, Audi's great. - Unwarranted.

01:34:57 ◼   ► - Audi is great, but BMW's better.

01:34:59 ◼   ► It's simple as that.

01:35:00 ◼   ► Audi makes great cars.

01:35:01 ◼   ► - Not the current ones, not the current 3 Series

01:35:03 ◼   ► with the weirdo electric steering and the ugly outsides

01:35:05 ◼   ► and the bazillion dollars worth of options.

01:35:08 ◼   ► - Well, but I mean, talk about bazillion dollars

01:35:09 ◼   ► worth of options, Audi is also the same way

01:35:11 ◼   ► about the option pricing and the repair costs

01:35:13 ◼   ► and everything else.

01:35:15 ◼   ► Basically, in most of the downsides, they're the same,

01:35:18 ◼   ► or roughly the same, and I think BMW's upsides are better,

01:35:22 ◼   ► basically, I think Audi's are, again, they're nice cars,

01:35:25 ◼   ► some of them are really nice cars,

01:35:27 ◼   ► But the interior, I've always thought

01:35:30 ◼   ► felt noticeably cheaper than BMWs.

01:35:32 ◼   ► - I deeply disagree. - The media system

01:35:34 ◼   ► is a major step backwards.

01:35:36 ◼   ► - I deeply agree. - Yeah. (laughs)

01:35:39 ◼   ► And they, I'm actually kind of surprised

01:35:42 ◼   ► that they still offer a stick,

01:35:42 ◼   ► 'cause I think most of their cars,

01:35:43 ◼   ► they don't even offer that as an option anymore,

01:35:45 ◼   ► although to be fair, BMW is not that different

01:35:46 ◼   ► in that regard.

01:35:48 ◼   ► So basically-- - So yeah, you can get,

01:35:49 ◼   ► you can get an A4 Premium Plus with all-wheel drive,

01:35:54 ◼   ► and actually the only available transmission

01:35:57 ◼   ► is the six-speed.

01:35:59 ◼   ► - It does have CarPlay, by the way.

01:36:00 ◼   ► I was just flipping through their website,

01:36:01 ◼   ► they got a big screenshot of it.

01:36:02 ◼   ► - So there you go.

01:36:03 ◼   ► It's not wireless, but it is CarPlay, nevertheless.

01:36:06 ◼   ► So that would, so if--

01:36:08 ◼   ► - Wait, wait, wait, hold on, the A4, which one?

01:36:10 ◼   ► The Premium Plus?

01:36:11 ◼   ► - Just the plain old A4.

01:36:12 ◼   ► I'm just swapping through the things.

01:36:13 ◼   ► - With front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive?

01:36:15 ◼   ► - No, all-wheel drive.

01:36:17 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, they have that and a stick?

01:36:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

01:36:19 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a six-speed manual.

01:36:20 ◼   ► - It's basically my car.

01:36:21 ◼   ► I mean, it's a, well, it's a four-cylinder turbo,

01:36:23 ◼   ► but otherwise it's basically my car,

01:36:24 ◼   ► six speed, all wheel drive, et cetera.

01:36:26 ◼   ► - I was nowhere that they were still making

01:36:28 ◼   ► all wheel drive with stick.

01:36:29 ◼   ► That's pretty good.

01:36:30 ◼   ► - Well, and I think this is new.

01:36:31 ◼   ► I think they just added the manual transmission option

01:36:35 ◼   ► like this model year, even though I think the refresh

01:36:37 ◼   ► happened months and months ago, maybe even

01:36:39 ◼   ► the last model year. - Yeah, that's the thing

01:36:40 ◼   ► about the time to get rid of your car.

01:36:42 ◼   ► It's not so much whether your car is falling apart,

01:36:44 ◼   ► is that the longer you wait, the less chance you have

01:36:46 ◼   ► to get any car with a stick.

01:36:47 ◼   ► - That's true. - Purely true.