0:00:00We didn't get to talk about this in the show, but the most important revelation of Casey's video of him sending me the dollar is just how terrible his handwriting is.
0:00:06Like, my handwriting is bad, but wow.
0:00:09So here's why it's extra awful. Like, my handwriting is like chicken scratch. I have terrible handwriting, right?
0:00:13But yours is terrible, but then it has an extra flavor, and the extra flavor is it's terrible and you do unconventional things.
0:00:20You connect letters in ways that other people don't. So it's not just like you're sloppily drawing the letter shapes.
0:00:26You decide that two letters should be connected like in ways that are not normal.
0:00:31So it's just hard to parse.
0:00:33You're like, "Is this even English letters?
0:00:36I don't even know what you're—" Boy, bad handwriting.
0:00:42Marco was saying before the show that he was having a little bit of troubles with the live
0:00:45stream and I didn't understand why for a moment until you started explaining to me
0:00:49what's going on and then I realized, "Oh yes, I'm having similar problems but manifesting
0:00:54themselves in different ways.
0:00:56So why don't you tell the listeners what's going on?
0:00:58- Okay, so as you might have noticed,
0:01:00the tweet that announced that we were going to be live,
0:01:03the time duration that was in that tweet,
0:01:05normally it's like, we'll be live in 45 minutes.
0:01:08You know, usually I try to start the livestream
0:01:10about a half hour or a little more before recording.
0:01:14And today, the time interval was seven minutes,
0:01:17or eight minutes, I forget which one.
0:01:20And the reason why that took so long to set up,
0:01:22I was here at 8.30, I was here at the 30 minute mark
0:01:25trying to get it going and I realized all afternoon
0:01:28and evening, Hover has been going through this massive
0:01:32DDoS attack that has taken down, among other things,
0:01:35their DNS servers.
0:01:36Marker.org is hosted by Hover, registered at Hover
0:01:40and I use their DNS.
0:01:41Marker.org's VPS is what hosts the Icecast server
0:01:46that powers this live stream.
0:01:47I basically spent the last half hour trying to,
0:01:50first seeing if I could get it working just by IP address,
0:01:54but that was going to be tricky
0:01:55because of various virtual hosting things.
0:01:57And then eventually I just created a whole new host name.
0:02:00Hover didn't register .fms for a while.
0:02:02I actually don't know if they do yet.
0:02:04I think they might now,
0:02:05but for a long time they didn't register .fms.
0:02:07So ATP.fm is registered at gandhi.net.
0:02:11So I quickly ran over there,
0:02:12created a new domain name live.ATP.fm.
0:02:16Hoped that that propagated in time
0:02:18to be requested by anybody, and fortunately it did.
0:02:21I created that name at like 8.40,
0:02:23and basically moved the whole thing over to that
0:02:26and it's pointing to the same IP,
0:02:27pointing to the same server and basically required
0:02:30only a very quick creation of a new virtual host
0:02:32on the market.org server to just recognize that host name
0:02:34and give it the little tiny little HTML page
0:02:37that basically embeds the audio player.
0:02:39And that all worked and it was great and there we go.
0:02:43So now we are streaming from live.atp.fm
0:02:48instead of market.org, colon, 808080 or whatever it was.
0:02:53And it actually appears the DNS outage
0:02:55might actually have just ended, but oh well.
0:02:58- People are starting to tweet at me saying,
0:03:01oh your site's down, your site's down, your site's down.
0:03:02And for a fleeting moment I was like,
0:03:03oh did I get Fireballed?
0:03:04That's exciting, or something like that.
0:03:06And then I thought, no, this was just a link post,
0:03:08I wouldn't be Fireballed for that.
0:03:09And then it occurred to me,
0:03:10oh no, this is a much greater issue entirely.
0:03:13- I think it really says a lot about
0:03:14how little I blog anymore,
0:03:16that my site has basically been up and down
0:03:20for like the last five or six hours whenever this started.
0:03:23And I got in total one tweet about it.
0:03:27Oh, I'm so glad that I have not had to deal with
0:03:31stuff like that in my various server administration stuff.
0:03:35That's gotta be hell to deal with, deal with DDoSs.
0:03:38- Yeah, I can't imagine, especially if,
0:03:40I mean imagine if you're Hover where you're hosting DNS
0:03:43for so many people, like that's your business
0:03:46to some degree and oh God, no thank you.
0:03:49I'm glad that's not my problem.
0:03:51I'm curious, for the people in the chat
0:03:53who are recommending different DNS providers,
0:03:56I guess I don't know this, I probably should know this.
0:03:58Isn't your registrar like the top authority?
0:04:01So like if somebody had a totally empty cache,
0:04:04suppose my registrar is still Hover,
0:04:06but suppose I host the DNS somewhere else
0:04:08like Cloudflare or whatever.
0:04:09If a new request goes to fetch my DNS
0:04:12that has no cache information at any stage of the way,
0:04:15is it first gonna go to my registrar
0:04:16to see who the NS is and then go to the NS?
0:04:19So basically, would I have to change my registrar
0:04:22in order to prevent this from ever hitting me again?
0:04:25- How would it know to go to your registrar?
0:04:28- Well, how does it, I don't know.
0:04:29How does DNS actually work at the very low level?
0:04:31I have no idea.
0:04:32- You should read one of the O'Reilly books
0:04:35on DNS and bind or something.
0:04:36My vague recollection, and the only way that occurs to me
0:04:40now as I think about it, which is probably informed
0:04:42by my vague recollection, is if you've got no information,
0:04:45you can't start by going to the name server for that domain
0:04:48because you don't know what the name server for that domain is.
0:04:51So there's a set of root name servers that handle requests, you know, that shouldn't
0:04:55handle requests at all because there's so many layers of caching in between.
0:05:00But if you really started from nothing, there's a set of root name servers for .com and .net
0:05:05and .whatever.
0:05:06And I don't know who those root name servers are, and I don't know if there is a more complicated
0:05:10system in place that makes this old information obsolete because I read this book in the '90s,
0:05:14but that is my recollection.
0:05:15- Yeah, and all the people in the chat seem to be supporting
0:05:17the fact that basically, like, if you don't use
0:05:20your registrar's name servers, that your registrar
0:05:23is not involved in looking you up for DNS in any way.
0:05:25That it goes up through the ICANN and ARIN maintained
0:05:30master servers and stuff like that, as you were saying.
0:05:31So, it sounds like I can stick with Hover
0:05:34for the registration and just move the DNS somewhere else.
0:05:37So, that's good.
0:05:38I think I might do that, just to move it
0:05:39somewhere smaller, basically.
0:05:41- It's time for you to run your own DNS server.
0:05:43"Hey, why don't you write your own DNS server?
0:05:45It's a thing that people have done before."
0:05:48Just ask those people.
0:05:49They love it.
0:05:50- Well, actually, it's funny you bring this up,
0:05:52and I'm not trying to be funny.
0:05:53One thing that I've wondered,
0:05:55and I keep meaning to ask you, Marco,
0:05:57but I keep forgetting about it,
0:05:58and this is a perfect opportunity.
0:06:00When you were building Tumblr
0:06:02and you were giving people subdomains, weren't you?
0:06:06Well, maybe not you personally,
0:06:07but I'm saying Tumblr was giving people subdomains.
0:06:10How did that work exactly?
0:06:13- Excellent question.
0:06:15So the problem, as you know, but our listeners might not,
0:06:19you know, basically the idea is
0:06:21if you have some giant web service
0:06:22and you try to have people like hosted remains there,
0:06:25so basically pointing their DNS to you,
0:06:27if they're hosting a subdomain like www.caseylist.com,
0:06:32they can point that to a CNAME.
0:06:34And a CNAME can just be like, you know,
0:06:36hosts.squarespace.net or whatever,
0:06:38and then that host.squarespace.net can lead
0:06:42anywhere that Squarespace wants it to.
0:06:43It could lead to a whole bunch of load balancers,
0:06:45it can be geographically distributed,
0:06:46it could be moved around between hosts or servers
0:06:48if it needs to, it's great.
0:06:50The problem is that the very root entry,
0:06:52so like, inside of www.caseylist.com,
0:06:55if it's just caseylist.com with no www,
0:06:59that can't point to a CNAME,
0:07:00that has to be an A record for it to work.
0:07:03And an A record, it needs to be an IP address.
0:07:05So you basically have to have a special kind of IP address
0:07:10that you can route to different servers as needed.
0:07:14Like if you just have that as a load balancer.
0:07:16So there are very advanced routing things you can do
0:07:20to make that not crazy, but they're not easy
0:07:24and they are limited when you have the IP
0:07:28instead of like a CNAME.
0:07:29What we did for the first couple of years,
0:07:33Tumblr started out at Rackspace.
0:07:35It started out with one server at Rackspace
0:07:37and then eventually it grew to three servers at Rackspace,
0:07:40and then it was like, oh, sh*t,
0:07:41Rackspace is ridiculously expensive,
0:07:44we will never be able to afford to scale here,
0:07:46so we very quickly moved over to what was then called
0:07:48The Planet, which is now today Softlayer.
0:07:50We had already started telling people to point their names
0:07:54at this one IP that we had at Rackspace,
0:07:56it was just our master server with the load balancer on it.
0:07:59When we moved to The Planet,
0:08:01we kept one server at Rackspace for a long time.
0:08:06it had to be at least two years into Tumblr's
0:08:09like insane growth where if you had looked
0:08:12at our DNS help page before like six months
0:08:16into the service, your domain would have been pointed there
0:08:19which is many of our very large users being proxied through,
0:08:23I forget whether it was Squid or, oh crap,
0:08:27what's that, HAProxy, yeah, so it was either Squid
0:08:30or HAProxy running on this one Rackspace server for years,
0:08:33proxying all this old traffic and eventually
0:08:35they shut that down, I think, but it was years and years
0:08:37into the service, and then when we were at the planet,
0:08:40we basically had some kind of floating IP
0:08:42that their routers could assign to anything
0:08:44within the data center, and that made that
0:08:46a little bit easier, and I'm sure with GeoDNS,
0:08:49you might have more options, I don't know enough
0:08:51about it to say, fortunately, by the time Tumblr
0:08:53needed to care about stuff like that,
0:08:54I was gone and it wasn't my job anymore.
0:08:56- But that was all for me redirecting my own domain
0:09:00to Tumblr, right, so how does something.tumblr.com
0:09:04work, though?
0:09:05- Well, that's just a wildcard virtual host.
0:09:08That's like, the web servers just literally
0:09:11just had wildcard virtual hosts,
0:09:12and so the PHP app that would get the inbound request
0:09:16would just look at what the host name was,
0:09:18and then dispatch it from there.
0:09:20- That's cheating.
0:09:21- Why?
0:09:22- I don't know, I'm just kidding.
0:09:24I was expecting this super long and involved answer,
0:09:26and that was super simple and boring.
0:09:28I'm disappointed.
0:09:29- Sorry.
0:09:30- That's all right, I'll forgive you this once.
0:09:32- All right, we should probably get into follow-up proper.
0:09:35I think I have all of the follow-up this week,
0:09:38which is making me very uncomfortable, to be honest,
0:09:42but we're gonna roll with it.
0:09:43- If I'm here, Casey, and you're here,
0:09:45doesn't it make it our follow-up?
0:09:47- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:09:48But I am the one who put all of the three bullets
0:09:50into the show notes, which is, I think, a first,
0:09:54and I'm not feeling too comfortable with this.
0:09:56- I mean, in reality, isn't it always
0:09:57basically Jon's follow-up?
0:09:59- Basically, but here we are.
0:10:01So anyway, a friend of the show, Steve Trout and Smith, put up a Twitter poll, I don't
0:10:08know, a week ago, maybe a little over a week ago.
0:10:10It says, "Listening to the latest HPFM, I'm curious, did you turn on desktop and documents
0:10:14iCloud sync in macOS Sierra?"
0:10:17I did, and I'm happy with it.
0:10:19Now, Steve is a very prolific iOS developer and hacker, so you have to consider that when
0:10:25you consider the sort of person that is likely to follow him.
0:10:30And the poll results as we record, 30% yes and I'm happy with it, 4% yes and I regretted
0:10:36it, 29% no and the winner, 37% hell no.
0:10:41Which I just thought was kind of interesting.
0:10:45So yeah, so thanks to Steve for putting that up.
0:10:48I don't believe in the official Twitter client, thus I cannot create polls.
0:10:52I love seeing the empty space where a poll should be as I browse Twitter.
0:10:57Sometimes it's not obvious.
0:10:58Obviously, sometimes you can sense, like, "This must be a poll, but this tweet doesn't
0:11:02make sense.
0:11:03Oh well, I'll never see it," and I continue on my way.
0:11:05Yup.
0:11:06So this, obviously this is not a scientific poll, whatever, it's just Twitter stuff.
0:11:10The fact that most people have been scared away from this feature, like I said, if it's
0:11:15a bunch of nerds following, you know, a nerdy Twitter account, it makes sense that they
0:11:19would be the people who are reading reviews and becoming, or listening to our podcast
0:11:22and being scared away from the feature.
0:11:23So that's why the vast majority are like, "No, I did not enable this feature," and that's
0:11:26That's why hell no wins because these people are afraid of the future because they've read
0:11:29scary things about it.
0:11:31The other possibility is even if the things they read about aren't that scary, they may
0:11:35be in a situation like me where they know that they're an outlier, that they have a
0:11:40lot of files or they have some very large files and they think even if it works for
0:11:44most people, I know I'm at the edge of the envelope here and I probably shouldn't enable
0:11:48it.
0:11:49But if you just look at the people who did enable it, most of them are happy with it.
0:11:53So 4% yes and I regretted it isn't that big a number.
0:11:56And of course the people who are happy with it,
0:11:58maybe they're happy with it now,
0:11:59wait a year to see how happy they are.
0:12:01Cause you know, all it takes is one thing that goes awry
0:12:04that you become upset about.
0:12:05But anyway, it's really difficult to get a read
0:12:09on these things without an actual study controlling
0:12:14for all the variables, especially when nerdy people
0:12:16like us ask about it because it's a self-selecting group.
0:12:20I wanted to also briefly touch on my headphones.
0:12:24Last week, we had talked about how my beloved
0:12:26but ancient and adorably crappy headphones
0:12:29had kicked the bucket, well, sort of.
0:12:32They weren't cooperating well with my work laptop with Sierra
0:12:34which is the laptop that they're pretty much
0:12:36always connected to.
0:12:37And I had solicited suggestions for alternatives
0:12:40and promptly ignored every single one of them
0:12:43because guess what headphones
0:12:44spontaneously started working again?
0:12:46The old crappy, adorable headphones.
0:12:48- Hey. - I did, yeah,
0:12:50I was very excited about this.
0:12:51I did do a PRAM reset, which I didn't have a chance to do
0:12:54before the show.
0:12:55Of course, I was shotgunning and just trying everything
0:12:58under the sun to try to figure out how to make them work
0:13:00again, and I'm not entirely clear what it was that did it
0:13:03for sure.
0:13:04I think I had rebooted it at least once.
0:13:06- Is that what shotgunning means?
0:13:08It's like trying two headphones at once?
0:13:10- Yeah, something like that.
0:13:11No, it's just the old shotguns.
0:13:12They spray a bunch of little pellets everywhere.
0:13:14At least that's my understanding.
0:13:16Don't email me.
0:13:18- Now we're gonna hear from gun people.
0:13:19Yeah, I know, please don't email me.
0:13:21I'm so sorry, God.
0:13:22I'm so sorry.
0:13:23Anyway, so I wanted to quickly cover a handful of options
0:13:28if you're in a similar scenario
0:13:29that I heard a lot of responses from.
0:13:32The first one, the Motorola S305,
0:13:35these links will all be in the show notes.
0:13:36Those are the ones I used prior to the ones
0:13:38that I am currently using.
0:13:40And I loved them,
0:13:42except that the battery went to crap pretty darn quickly.
0:13:44And I used to be able to make it through an entire day
0:13:47very fast and by, I don't know, maybe six months or a year after getting them, I could
0:13:51no longer make an entire day with the S305s.
0:13:55There were a lot of suggestions for the Plantronics Backbeat Fit, which have the behind the neck
0:14:01head bone, or head bone, wow, the behind the neck brace, if you will, that I had been requesting
0:14:07because I'm too prissy to have my hair squashed.
0:14:11But those were also kind of sort of earbuds, and to me, if I'm going to go earbuds, I might
0:14:14might as well just go AirPods,
0:14:17potential battery issues be damned.
0:14:18But those were very, very popular,
0:14:21very, very popular response.
0:14:23I was almost going to buy our next set,
0:14:26which is the Kinevo, Kinevo, Kinevo, I don't know, Kinewa,
0:14:31BTH260 V2. (laughing)
0:14:33- It's pronounced As-ah-ee.
0:14:34(laughing)
0:14:36- Quino, what was that commercial?
0:14:38It was some football, but food commercial.
0:14:40Anyway, point being the Kinevo BTH260,
0:14:44There is an older version,
0:14:46I don't recall the model name, number, whatever,
0:14:50that did not support aptX, but this pair apparently does.
0:14:54And this is what I was about to buy
0:14:56when my old Bluetooth headphones came back to life.
0:15:00Then a lot of people suggested various kinds of earbuds
0:15:05but with shoulder or neck harness things.
0:15:10- Those things always look horrible to me.
0:15:12those always look like the worst of all worlds, basically.
0:15:15It's like you have this like,
0:15:17you have the discomfort of earbuds
0:15:19and all the crappy sound that usually goes along with them.
0:15:24But you don't have like the tiny,
0:15:26you know, tiny little size
0:15:27or wrap around the phone kind of cable.
0:15:28You still have this big block of battery and crap
0:15:31that you have to deal with and it's just ew.
0:15:32Like I don't get why anybody likes those.
0:15:35Please don't write in.
0:15:36- Yeah, and I completely agree
0:15:38with everything you just said.
0:15:39There are very, very many different flavors of this,
0:15:42The particular example I'm putting in the show notes is the LG Tone Pro HBS750, and
0:15:47again these will be in the show notes.
0:15:49I completely agree with you.
0:15:50The thought of having this thing resting on my shoulders yet also having earbuds seems
0:15:53like the worst of all worlds.
0:15:55Not for me, but definitely on paper it sounds like it would be good because presumably it
0:16:00has forever long battery life.
0:16:02This particular set is also aptX compatible, etc. etc.
0:16:05The final recommendation, which I'm actually looking into because they just seem very interesting
0:16:10to me is bone conduction headphones.
0:16:17The way these work are you have these things that sit pressing against your cheekbones
0:16:22and they vibrate your cheekbones which vibrates your head and the things inside your head
0:16:27hopefully kind of in a not dangerous way.
0:16:30A lot of people wrote in to talk about that and I'm actually looking into that as well.
0:16:34So the Aftershokz Trekz is an example of that.
0:16:37That'll be in the show notes too.
0:16:38So if you're in a similar situation,
0:16:41you can look at all those or just try to find
0:16:43an ancient pair like I have and do whatever
0:16:45magical incantations/sacrifices I did
0:16:48in order to get them to work.
0:16:49- So I'm curious, because of my whole inability
0:16:53to comfortably wear anything in-ear,
0:16:56I don't really know the answer to this.
0:16:57I'm curious, for all these really tiny
0:17:00in-ear Bluetooth things, what do they do
0:17:02for remote control commands, things like volume
0:17:05and play/pause and skip back/skip forward?
0:17:07Do they have buttons somehow for that?
0:17:08Like how do they do that?
0:17:10- Well, and that's why the Plantronics Backbeat Fit
0:17:13are a popular choice, I think,
0:17:16because they have those bars that rest on your shoulders,
0:17:20so those orbs that rest on your shoulders
0:17:22that I presume have, oh, excuse me, I'm sorry,
0:17:25I'm getting myself backwards.
0:17:26Let me try that all over again.
0:17:28So that's why the Plantronics Backbeat Fit is popular
0:17:32is because they're earbuds,
0:17:33but with like panels on the outside of the earbud,
0:17:36if that makes any sense at all.
0:17:38And so the buttons are on there.
0:17:40And additionally, on those shoulder harness-y things,
0:17:44the LGs, and I think a few people had recommended Sonys
0:17:46that were a similar design.
0:17:48Those, I think, have the buttons on those little
0:17:51like shoulder pad things, or whatever they are,
0:17:53that rest on your shoulder.
0:17:54So I guess that works for those.
0:17:56But I can't speak for any like true to form earbuds.
0:18:01And I did get a lot of recommendations, actually.
0:18:04And I can't recall which one was the most popular,
0:18:05but a lot of recommendations for just straight up earbuds that have the cord behind you.
0:18:11But if I'm going to go that route, I'd rather have like the ones I have today that just
0:18:16kind of rest on my ears.
0:18:18I'm not a big earbud fan, although that being said, the more I hear about the AirPods, the
0:18:23more I think they're going on my holiday list.
0:18:26Because it sounds like they're the best possible solution in that they have almost enough battery
0:18:32life if I listen all day long. Oh, JaybirdX2, as all said in the chat. I believe those are
0:18:38the ones that everyone and their mother had recommended. Anyway, so I think the AirPods
0:18:43are probably the best bet because if I ever get up for my desk for like any reason, I
0:18:47can pop them back in the little Tic Tac holder and that'll probably give me enough juice
0:18:51to get through the rest of the day. So hopefully Santa or the equivalent, I guess, Hanukkah
0:18:58Harry if you will, will be good to me this year and maybe I'll come up with a set of
0:19:04those.
0:19:05Moving on, last piece of follow-up, and this I think will be a little bit more shared.
0:19:08A friend of the show, Greg Koenig, had written a post earlier today about why your next iPhone
0:19:14won't be ceramic.
0:19:16And if nothing else, it's a great post because it includes a screenshot of one of my favorite
0:19:20movies of all time, The Hunt for Ed October.
0:19:22But what Greg goes through in this post is why he thinks that this is probably not going
0:19:28to be a thing.
0:19:29And if you don't know Greg, he is, I think, a co-founder or one of just a handful of employees
0:19:34of Luma Labs, and they make the Luma Loop, which is the camera strap I have on my big
0:19:39camera as we speak.
0:19:41And that was not comped.
0:19:42Well, it was a gift, but it was from family.
0:19:45So somebody paid actual money for it.
0:19:47It's really great.
0:19:48I love that thing.
0:19:49And so Greg manufactures stuff for a living.
0:19:50That's what he does.
0:19:52And his point, which he had a very long essay and it's worth reading every bit of it, but
0:19:57if I were to quickly distill it down, he said, "Apple is a hardware company and machined
0:20:01aluminum is their primary platform.
0:20:03At peak production, Apple is manufacturing roughly a million iPhones a day."
0:20:07So for Apple to bring a whole new long cycle time process online, the sort of thing that
0:20:12ceramic would require, they would need warehouses with tens of thousands, or excuse me, thousands
0:20:17of machines already squared away and ready to rock with thousands more machines being
0:20:22built. The machines that are building the iPhones, there would need to be thousands
0:20:26of those. And there would probably need to be, those machines would be needing to be
0:20:30built to add to the collection that's already ready to rock. So in his perspective, there's
0:20:36no freaking way this is going to happen anytime soon. And it's really worth reading all of
0:20:40it because I am way oversimplifying it. But you should check it out. We'll put it in the
0:20:44show notes.
0:20:45Also it's like in order to get the machines and tooling
0:20:49and everything set up to produce ceramic iPhone cases
0:20:53at the scale needed to produce enough iPhones
0:20:56to meet demand, they could theoretically do it,
0:21:00but not only would it be like way, way, way more machines
0:21:03and space and money and people than what they have now,
0:21:06but the gist of it was like if they were even preparing
0:21:09for that, you couldn't hide that amount of investment
0:21:12and effort, like that would take years to build up
0:21:15if they were gonna do it.
0:21:16And you would see that.
0:21:18You would see people talking about it,
0:21:19noticing it in expenditures.
0:21:21You'd see sources in the supply chain talking about it
0:21:23and leaking information or Apple acquiring companies
0:21:26or staffing up in certain ways.
0:21:27Basically it's like it would be such a massive undertaking
0:21:31and just like stuff, money, and people
0:21:33that they really couldn't hide it.
0:21:35- They're disguising it as a car development program.
0:21:37(laughing)
0:21:39You think all those billions of dollars
0:21:40are gonna make it a car?
0:21:41Who would believe that?
0:21:42Anyway.
0:21:43So for the past, I think for the past, for a long time now, I think, Apple has to have
0:21:48been internally looking for their next material after machined aluminum.
0:21:53Because the machined aluminum age began with the MacBook Air, the aluminum age began slightly
0:21:58before that, but once they settled on the machined aluminum, they had a nice situation
0:22:03where so many things they made started as a block of aluminum and these computer-controlled
0:22:08milling machines would carve out what they wanted.
0:22:12They do that for so many products and that's good because then you've got
0:22:15Sort of a solid thing to invest in a thing to become good at they buy all these machines the machines get faster so on
0:22:22And so forth the part of the thing that Greg was talking about in the post is exactly how long does it take to go?
0:22:27from raw material to a part and ceramic takes longer than machining aluminum because you got to do the whole
0:22:33baking process or molding and all sorts of other stuff and anyway
0:22:38Looking for the next material. There's a lot of research in that like oh, I mentioned last show carbon fiber
0:22:44some kind of ceramic different things with plastics I
0:22:47Don't think they've found what their next thing is going to be but surely they are looking for it because they're looking for something
0:22:53That is like a net win over aluminum. It was pretty great
0:22:58It has something some good things go for it. It moves away heat
0:23:02It's easy to machine to high tolerances that you know that it's sort of a known quantity
0:23:07They can mess with the formulation of the aluminum as Greg points out and not have to replace the machines
0:23:12Right because they can all still mill they're going to change from six thousand six thousand to seven thousand series aluminum
0:23:17They could still use all the same machines
0:23:19But it's got downsides too. It's not radio transparent it bends
0:23:23Scratchability if you're gonna have a high gloss finish they haven't sorted that out or whatever. So anyway, I
0:23:28Feel like during all this time and when we're in this aluminum and glass age Apple has to be looking for what the next thing
0:23:34is eventually presumably they'll find it and
0:23:37And when they do find it, there is going to be, you know,
0:23:40a long ramp up into switching over.
0:23:44I don't think, you know, as this thing points out, if what he's saying
0:23:46about the time required to manufacture it,
0:23:48I don't think they can use ceramic unless they solve that problem.
0:23:52Because time is one of the problems they can't really fix, right?
0:23:55So if they decided some kind of ceramic combined with some other material,
0:24:00like ceramic, like he says at the end, ceramic at the outside or something else
0:24:03inside. If they decided this was the thing because it has more desirable qualities, they have to get
0:24:08it down to the point where they can manufacture it as quickly and easily as aluminum or within
0:24:13that ballpark because they're not going to go backwards by like a 2x or 10x manufacturing time,
0:24:17they just can't sustain that. And I think he's right that if they have made that decision,
0:24:22there's going to be such a long lead time that, you know, we'll all know about it. But
0:24:25as discussed last week, like the next one's going to be glass. Glass is a thing they already know
0:24:29about, they already did with the 4 and the 4s, there's glass in the current phones that,
0:24:32you know, whatever. That's the rumor. It's not a big change. They've done it before. It's an
0:24:37existing material. If they were going to do anything with ceramic and the watch was a trial
0:24:42run, don't even think about it until like after you have two rounds of this glass phone, the
0:24:47whatever and the whatever S or you know, actually, we're totally off the rhythm now because they kept
0:24:50the stupid phone the same and realize this is not an S generation. It's actually the 7, even though
0:24:56it looks the same as the 6s. Anyway, we're all confused now. But yeah, I still think that
0:25:01somewhere out there in our future is Apple's next material. I remember the liquid metal rumors,
0:25:06he mentions them as well. They bought that liquid metal company and they had, you know,
0:25:09they made the sim, I think they made the sim extractor tool have liquid metal. Not really a big
0:25:14return on investment for that company, but that was another possibility. Can we, can we make,
0:25:18can we like injection mold metal and come out with a part that has all the fine details already on it
0:25:24because it's liquid metal and it flows in. It's like plastic, but you get, you know, anyway,
0:25:29none of those things have won yet. I think the ceramic watch tells us that of all the possible
0:25:34future materials maybe ceramic had enough promise to say well even if we've eliminated it as a
0:25:40possibility for our phone we can make a cool watch out of it because as Marco pointed out it's not
0:25:45an unknown material in the watch world and you know they can give it a try. But the the requirements
0:25:52for a successor to aluminum on the phone are pretty stringent. And it could be that we
0:25:59have to go through a whole series of generations of this glass phone before we even look at,
0:26:05you know, carbon fiber or plastic that doesn't look like plastic or whatever else they're
0:26:10going to do.
0:26:11So speaking of phones, have you made it to the Apple Store? I don't recall.
0:26:15I still have not. I'm solo parenting again, so like I just haven't had time to be running
0:26:21around and going to stores, I still have not actually made it to the Apple store.
0:26:23I think I'm going to eventually because my wife is finally starting to look at like watches
0:26:28and bands and stuff and complaining about the combinations that she would like to exist
0:26:32that don't and complaining about the sport band colors that seem not to exist anymore.
0:26:36And so on.
0:26:37Anyway, that probably means I'm going to end up in an Apple store at some point with her
0:26:41looking at watches.
0:26:42And that's probably what will get me there to mess with the phone.
0:26:45Fair enough.
0:26:46Fair enough. I'm curious to hear what you think after you go and do it.
0:26:50So my coworker Jamie has a Jet Black. I have a matte black.
0:26:55Every time I look at my matte black, I am convinced that it is,
0:27:00I think in my personal estimation, my favorite iPhone ever. I just think it
0:27:04looks amazing. And I love it to death. And then for some
0:27:08reason or another, I'll grab Jamie's phone and then I'll wish
0:27:12so badly that it was even a half as tacky, as sticky
0:27:16as Jamie's phone is, 'cause man,
0:27:18that jet black is so nice to hold.
0:27:20I still prefer the aesthetics of the matte,
0:27:22but gosh, that jet black is so nice to hold.
0:27:25- Have you considered pine tar?
0:27:27- Yeah, that might be the fix, right?
0:27:28- I'll tell you what too, so now that we're a few weeks in,
0:27:31my jet black one, you know how many times
0:27:34I've looked at the back?
0:27:35Zero.
0:27:36I looked this morning, it was upside down on the bib
0:27:39I was doing, I was getting dressed, and I noticed,
0:27:41I'm like, you know, how does the back look now
0:27:43after a few weeks of use?
0:27:45And I look and it's like,
0:27:46there's like three fingerprints on it,
0:27:48but it's not that bad.
0:27:49And like I hadn't just wiped it off or anything,
0:27:51this was just like organic discovery
0:27:52of the back of this phone in the wild.
0:27:54(laughs)
0:27:55And like, there were a few fingerprints on it,
0:27:57and that's fine, and there's a few small scratches
0:27:59that you can see in certain light,
0:28:01and they're fine too, and it doesn't matter at all.
0:28:03But every single time I pick it up and hold it,
0:28:05which is constantly during the day,
0:28:07I am so glad it feels as good as it does.
0:28:10Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. I don't know. It's a tough call. I think to be honest jet black or or matte black
0:28:16It's kind of a win-win. I mean because I think the jet black absolutely wins on on comfort
0:28:21I think the matte black wins on
0:28:23Aesthetics personally, although it's a close call
0:28:25So it's a win-win no matter how you slice it. Yeah, I'd agree with that
0:28:28Before we move on from the materials that your phone is made of assuming the glass roomers are true and they do the glass thing
0:28:34What do you guys think is the most likely successor material to aluminum and glass?
0:28:39- Oh golly.
0:28:41- Like after that?
0:28:42- Yeah, like after whatever this next one is,
0:28:45however long the glass era lasts,
0:28:47assuming the rumors are true.
0:28:48Because I have to think that Apple continues
0:28:51to look for the next material
0:28:53and they will find that eventually it's not going
0:28:55to be aluminum and glass forever and ever.
0:28:58- I don't think we can say for sure,
0:29:00I mean on an infinite time scale,
0:29:01but I don't think we can say for sure
0:29:02that they necessarily have to replace aluminum.
0:29:06I mean there are certain things in the world
0:29:08that just end up being made of certain materials
0:29:10for a very, very long time, just because that makes sense
0:29:13for physical characteristics or for manufacturing ease
0:29:17or for cost or availability or scale or whatever else.
0:29:20Like there are certain things that always end up
0:29:21being made of that material.
0:29:22Like airplanes are made of aluminum
0:29:24because there's lots of reasons for that
0:29:26and like that's, like there's nothing saying
0:29:28that that's gonna replace aluminum for airplanes
0:29:30unless there is, please airplane nerds don't tell me.
0:29:33Let me believe one thing.
0:29:34But you know--
0:29:35- I mean there is, like your airplane example
0:29:37good one because for a long time, airplanes were made of metal until people started working carbon
0:29:42fiber into airplanes, into actual airplanes that, you know, like, and so that it's not like they're
0:29:47all made of carbon fiber now, but that became a viable material for important parts of airplanes,
0:29:52whereas, you know, in the beginning of our parents' lives that never here didn't even exist,
0:29:55it wasn't using airplanes at all. And aviation is really slow to adopt new materials, but slowly but
0:30:01surely, basically over the course of our entire life, suddenly carbon fiber is part of the formula
0:30:06of making up a plane. I think phones are less conservative than airplanes, and especially since
0:30:12airplanes have the constraint that they have to transport something, otherwise why they even
0:30:20exist, whether it's people or cargo, right? But phones, the form factor of a phone,
0:30:24I mean, in some respects, until it is sending images directly into our brain, it has to have
0:30:30something that we can look at, assuming we don't go to glasses or something. But everything else
0:30:34about it, it's kind of up for grabs. Aluminum, if the electronics for a phone fit into something,
0:30:43the thickness of a credit card, aluminum is not the material for you. Because once you get to
0:30:48the thickness of a credit card, you can't make that out of aluminum anymore, because it will
0:30:52bend and stay bent. And so it's a non-starter period, you cannot do it out of aluminum.
0:30:57If we get to that in our lifetime, which I think is reasonable, we'll be old men, but you can keep
0:31:03keep making these things thinner and smaller and lighter weight and new screen technology
0:31:08and so on and so forth, we can get them pretty thin. And once they get to a certain thinness,
0:31:12you can't use aluminum anymore. And then you probably don't want to use glass because it's
0:31:17just too fragile. So you have to go to a material that's bendy and bounces back. And you'd probably
0:31:23want to also go to something that's lighter. It's reasonable to say though, that you could
0:31:29say in the next 20 years it's aluminum glass, that's it. Or just glass and whatever they
0:31:33sandwich between it. Is that what you're saying? You can't envision anything in the next like
0:31:3720 years or so that's not aluminum glass or some combination?
0:31:40I mean, I don't really know enough about materials and the science behind them and the status
0:31:45of current technologies. Like carbon fiber is a great example. That might be it, I don't
0:31:49know. I know carbon fiber is, right now it's not used in mass quantities in a lot of places
0:31:56because of various like newness and cost issues and things like that but I don't know enough
0:32:00about it to know whether that's likely to be overcome in the next few years. I really
0:32:05don't know. Carbon fiber I think would have many of the same advantages of ceramic in
0:32:10that I assume it's radio transparent. I assume it can be very thin and light and strong based
0:32:16on the little I know about it. So it seems like it could be really cool but I don't know
0:32:20if they can make enough of it. I mean if you think about like where you might see it first
0:32:24Certainly the iPhone is a very high profit,
0:32:29very high profile, prestigious device,
0:32:32but it wouldn't surprise me if you saw carbon fiber
0:32:35first appear in something lower volume
0:32:37that could maybe sell for even more,
0:32:38maybe a MacBook Pro.
0:32:40Like maybe you see a MacBook Pro lid casing
0:32:43or bottom casing or maybe even the entire case
0:32:46made of carbon fiber, I have no idea.
0:32:48But that would be a place where like
0:32:50you could actually really use more of a weight savings
0:32:53and you could charge more and have more of a profit margin
0:32:55to kind of cover the cost of it,
0:32:57and you wouldn't need to make as many of them
0:32:59as you would make with the iPhone.
0:33:00So I think if they're gonna use something like carbon fiber,
0:33:02we're probably gonna see it first somewhere else,
0:33:05not in the phone, but I really have no idea.
0:33:09- Yeah, I was gonna say carbon fiber as well,
0:33:11but I am not confident in that idea,
0:33:14because I thought that carbon fiber's
0:33:17just a nightmare to work with,
0:33:19and doesn't it like splinter really badly?
0:33:22or maybe I guess that's fiberglass,
0:33:23which I am not recommending, I'm just saying.
0:33:26I just thought it was a nightmare to work with.
0:33:27- I think carbon fiber does shatter though.
0:33:29Isn't that one of the problems at hand?
0:33:31- Maybe that's it.
0:33:32Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting thought exercise for sure,
0:33:35but I think this is three blind men leading themselves
0:33:38around in a circle.
0:33:39(laughing)
0:33:40You know, I don't, like Marco said,
0:33:42I don't know anything about materials really,
0:33:44so I'm not sure what's even reasonable.
0:33:46What would you say, John?
0:33:47- I basically agree with all the things
0:33:49that you touched on.
0:33:50Like I was thinking the exact same thing as Marco,
0:33:51in terms of like, that's why I was getting it
0:33:54with the credit card type thing.
0:33:56Aluminum is great, right up to the point
0:33:57where you start reaching a certain minimum thinness
0:34:00and then you have the bending problem, right?
0:34:02'Cause aluminum is not all about springing back.
0:34:05And we have a good analogy in the car industry
0:34:10where for many, many years, cars were made of steel
0:34:14and then more exotic cars incorporated aluminum parts
0:34:16which were weird and harder to manufacture.
0:34:18Don't you remember like when we were kids,
0:34:19like Audi had aluminum cars and it was like,
0:34:21but those are a nightmare to do body work on because everyone knows how to do steel and aluminum is harder to work with and
0:34:26all the sorts of reasons that like
0:34:28You know mechanics and body repair people will tell you that aluminum cars are pain in the butt
0:34:32Fast forward to today aluminum is everywhere. It is trickling down the car line. It's not just on exotic supercars anymore
0:34:39What's on exotic supercars these days?
0:34:41It's not supercars are essentially entirely made out of carbon fiber like that that konas egg one has carbon fiber wheels for crying out loud
0:34:47like
0:34:47And you say okay, that's fine for carbon fiber for exotic cars, but carbon fiber just like aluminum before it
0:34:52But I feel like we'll be trickling down and like you said on cars very often especially on very expensive fancy cars
0:34:58It'll be aluminum and steel, but on the lightweight model they will replace
0:35:04Certain parts with carbon fiber very often the roof the hood things that are thin not really load-bearing
0:35:11But very large like Marco was saying with the back of a MacBook Pro
0:35:14and
0:35:15I mean cars you're not supposed to touch them to anything so they shouldn't be bending but
0:35:18Macbooks if they make them really thin like think of the current MacBook
0:35:23that's starting to push the limits of
0:35:25bendiness if you want to go much thinner and you probably will be able to considering like that the iPhone is probably faster than the
0:35:31Current MacBook and the iPhone is a really small that a 10 is really small
0:35:34If you want to go much thinner and you want to make a more lightweight version of that
0:35:39That's more resilient making the top case of a MacBook Pro out of carbon fiber starts to make sense
0:35:44And because carbon fiber, I think, is inevitably going to trickle down the automotive ladder
0:35:48in our lifetime, it's just the way the industry goes, there will be an ever-increasing expertise
0:35:54in dealing with and manufacturing carbon fiber.
0:35:57So that's my number one pick for the successor because things will get thinner, it has the
0:36:02advantage of radio transparency, it's really light, it's really strong.
0:36:05The difficulty is you can't like machine-find details into it.
0:36:08It's more of a pain to deal with, but like, hoping that the rest of the manufacturing
0:36:14industry, starting with aviation and supercars and coming down to regular cars or whatever,
0:36:18will start to work out the details of a carbon fiber manufacturing process that makes it
0:36:22viable in a way that it is not now, that makes it viable for manufacturing phones.
0:36:28Although the chatroom says carbon fiber is not radio transparent.
0:36:30So I don't know.
0:36:31That may be another thing that they can tackle.
0:36:34They could always just have antenna lines smoothly etched into the carbon fiber like
0:36:38they do with the aluminum today.
0:36:39But anyway.
0:36:40There we go.
0:36:41Ceramic antenna lines inside a carbon fiber plate.
0:36:44Yeah.
0:36:45Problem solved.
0:36:46Ceramic, the reason we were even talking about that is because Apple introduced this really
0:36:49shiny phone that scratches really easily.
0:36:51And we're like, "Oh, well, it would be nice if it could be smooth, but also not scratchy."
0:36:55And then that's how we get into the whole carbon fiber thing.
0:36:57Oh, carbon fiber shatters in chips and so on and so forth.
0:37:02All these different properties, I feel like, within the realm of metals and ceramic and
0:37:07even plastics.
0:37:08That's my second pick, by the way.
0:37:09Carbon fiber is my exciting pick.
0:37:10My boring pick is, as you get really, really thin, you know what?
0:37:14For something the size of a phone, not necessarily the size of a laptop, or something the size
0:37:18of a phone, maybe not the big phone.
0:37:21Plastic has a lot of desirable qualities.
0:37:25Plastic, we know all about plastic.
0:37:27It scratches more easily than the hard metals.
0:37:29It will shatter eventually, but it bends and springs back and can take a beating.
0:37:34And you've still got the problem of the screen floating out there.
0:37:36We haven't even been talking about that.
0:37:37We're mostly just talking about the back of the thing.
0:37:38I don't see anything other than glass for the front of the thing until the whole thing
0:37:41is a bendy piece of plastic and then you can't have it be glass at all because the whole
0:37:45thing is like, you could roll it up or whatever and you can't make that out of glass and then
0:37:49we just have to accept that it's plastic and they're so cheap that if you get it scratched
0:37:53up you just go to the Apple store and they give you a new one for 50 bucks or something.
0:37:58But we'll all be dead then, so don't worry about it.
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0:39:19There's been a brouhaha.
0:39:21There's been a kerfuffle.
0:39:23There's been, I'm out of adjectives.
0:39:25So there's been a thing.
0:39:27And Apple and an independent developer are kind of sort of duking it out.
0:39:33And that's not usually happy for anyone involved, and particularly for those watching from the
0:39:38sidelines, because oftentimes this has pretty big implications on your own business.
0:39:46So I'm trying to think, there's so many angles to this story, and I'm trying to figure out
0:39:52the best way to summarize.
0:39:53and we'll put links in the show notes to MJ Sai's summary post.
0:39:57There's two of them and they're really good, Michael Sai's.
0:40:02But the super, super quick version, and then we'll add details in a moment, is that this
0:40:08gentleman, Bogdan, and I don't have his last name in front of me, but anyway.
0:40:13But Pescu.
0:40:14He had released many apps, maybe, but certainly, undisputedly, was the author of an app called
0:40:19Dash, which I actually haven't used, which is probably criminal because from everything
0:40:23missing out. From everything I've ever heard, it is phenomenal. And I don't say that sarcastically.
0:40:28What do you use? The built-in Xcode documentation like an animal?
0:40:30No, Safari usually, because I don't trust the built-in stuff search abilities. But anyway,
0:40:35I, again... Good socks.
0:40:37Well, yeah. So I will be the first to admit I am missing out on this. And again, I am
0:40:42not trying to be sarcastic. Genuinely, from everything I've ever heard from anyone who
0:40:46has ever touched Dash, it is phenomenal. Well, all of a sudden, his developer account got
0:40:51shut down, maybe. That's a little bit up for debate. But all of a sudden gets shut down,
0:40:56he kind of tries to talk to Apple, doesn't really get a lot of information out of them,
0:41:00eventually starts posting about it, so now people, other independent developers like
0:41:05Marco for example, are starting to say, "Hey, this doesn't feel right, what's going on here?"
0:41:10Eventually he gets in contact with Apple, things seem to be making forward progress,
0:41:15then Apple goes to the press and says, "Well, he's getting booted from the App Store because
0:41:20he's done some really nefarious stuff. Meanwhile, Bogdan is thinking, "Well, I thought we were
0:41:27still in the midst of a dialogue. What's going on here?" So then he escalates and writes
0:41:32his own post. Again, links will be in the show notes. He writes his own post that includes,
0:41:36among other things, a roughly 10-minute phone call, recording of a 10-minute phone call
0:41:40between him and an Apple representative, which I'm not sure that was the most morally sound
0:41:48choice but I can understand why I did it. And then since all this has happened, the
0:41:54armchair archaeologists have been digging into what's going on and whether or not things
0:42:02are awry. Because it seems to be that the disconnect is, there were two accounts that
0:42:08were linked in some way, shape, or form. The method of that link and how tenuous that link
0:42:15was is up for debate, but it seems clear that there is absolutely a link between two different
0:42:20developer accounts.
0:42:22And one of the accounts, it seems like everyone involved isn't debating that it was involved
0:42:29in some kind of shady practices.
0:42:31Trying to buy good reviews for their own apps, trying to put bad reviews for competitors'
0:42:36apps, and just generally being shady.
0:42:40Now Bogdan's perspective is, "Hey, I opened that account for a relative of mine.
0:42:44I did it using my credit card because in other countries having a credit card isn't necessarily a given, like it sort of is in America.
0:42:52And after that I walked away. They're the ones that are doing all this nefarious terrible things.
0:42:58I'm not. I'm just collateral damage here and that's not fair.
0:43:02So there was some back and forth, like I said, between Apple and he...
0:43:06Apple apparently wanted him to write a blog post saying basically,
0:43:11"Hey, Apple just got confused, but we've straightened it out. It's all good now."
0:43:18And then he allegedly would have been allowed to get back in the App Store.
0:43:22This is before he escalated with the phone call, and I believe before Apple escalated by going to the press.
0:43:28So, there's a lot of other avenues here. The armchair archaeologist seemed to have found a lot of different ways that point to all the shady apps actually having been him as well, and not some other relative.
0:43:40and we can go into that if need be.
0:43:43But this is one of those situations where
0:43:46everyone seems wrong, everyone seems right,
0:43:48and nobody's clear what the real story is,
0:43:51which makes it very interesting.
0:43:53And many people have joked that maybe
0:43:55Serial Season 3 will be about this.
0:43:57(laughing)
0:43:58But it's hard to make heads or tails of it.
0:44:02And I'm not sure if I had to choose sides, who I side with.
0:44:07And I think the reality of the situation is
0:44:10I kind of side with both and side with neither all at once, which I know is kind of a cop-out,
0:44:14but that's really how I feel. So let's start by asking, before we get into our opinions
0:44:19about this, is that a relatively okay summary? Did I miss any really important points?
0:44:25I think you got it. I mean, I think your characterization of what Apple wanted him to do in that blog
0:44:29post is not quite there, but close enough.
0:44:32All right, Jon, any other thoughts?
0:44:34I was going to say, some of the—it's not clear—we have the rough timeline of events
0:44:43from the outside, but because Apple is so tight-lipped about everything, I still feel
0:44:50like we don't really have their side of the story, and they're never going to give it
0:44:53to us, right?
0:44:54So it's kind of like we have the black hole that is Apple, and then we have a leak of
0:44:59their private communications with this recording, and then we have the discussion from the developer.
0:45:04Apple's not going to, for instance, like you characterized,
0:45:07where I was like, "Oh, then Apple went to the press
0:45:08with this thing that said this thing."
0:45:10Like, we have no idea if that statement was written
0:45:15and distributed through the bureaucracy
0:45:17before that call even took place.
0:45:18And Apple's not going to clarify.
0:45:19They're not gonna go, "Oh, by the way,
0:45:20you may think you've heard this, but really, actually,
0:45:22they're not gonna tell us."
0:45:24It's like none of our business,
0:45:25what goes on inside their company.
0:45:26And also, I feel like the communication,
0:45:29their public communication to all the different sites,
0:45:33if you look at it, my recollection is that it basically,
0:45:36it doesn't tell you the details to let you know
0:45:38all the nuances that the developer's blog post went into,
0:45:43but it also doesn't say anything that is false
0:45:46from the perspective of Apple with their terminology,
0:45:49which I'm sure we'll get into later.
0:45:50Like from Apple's perspective, this is their rule system,
0:45:53these are the set of rules,
0:45:54they matched on this particular set of behavior,
0:45:56they took this action, and that's what they're distributing.
0:46:00And Apple was basically putting that out
0:46:02in response to the original kerfuffle about, "Oh no, a developer is getting squished again."
0:46:07And so I would say that it's difficult to know Apple's side of the story. We can get the
0:46:13developer's side because the developer not only is free to say whatever he wants to the public,
0:46:18but seems very willing to say and do whatever he feels like the public, which is fine, but
0:46:23Apple is totally unwilling to do that. So I still feel like we are all at a disadvantage on the
0:46:27outside in terms of knowing what the real deal is. Yeah.
0:46:31I mean, I think trying to figure out all the details
0:46:34of what happened is not productive for any of us,
0:46:38possibly even them, because we weren't there,
0:46:41these are private communications for the most part,
0:46:44we have seen very little of them.
0:46:45We don't really know this developer well,
0:46:49we use his app, but none of us know him
0:46:52to know for sure how complete he's probably being,
0:46:55who knows?
0:46:56And we also don't know if Apple's being complete
0:46:59and truthful in their statements.
0:47:00we have no way to evaluate these really.
0:47:03So all we can really do is try to judge this,
0:47:06or first we can just ignore it, which is one valid option.
0:47:10I think the community's initial reaction of,
0:47:15hey, this looks like a mistake, 'cause this app,
0:47:17before we knew about the second account
0:47:19with all the other crazy apps,
0:47:20we're like, this app is really good
0:47:22and has lots of legitimate five-star reviews.
0:47:25What need would this person have to buy fake reviews
0:47:29or to get suspended?
0:47:30It seemed ridiculous, and so we were all yelling last week on Twitter, "Hey, this doesn't
0:47:34look right.
0:47:35Can somebody at Apple look into this again or explain this?"
0:47:38That was the main gist of everyone's demands last week when this blew up.
0:47:41Well, the reason anyone was talking about it all is because he made an initial blog
0:47:45post that said, "You might be wondering what happened to the Dash.
0:47:48Here's the deal.
0:47:49I'm not sure what's going on, but they said my account is pulled and I can't appeal the
0:47:52process."
0:47:53So that's why we knew about it all, because he went to the public and said to explain
0:47:58why his apps are suddenly not available, right? Because people use his app and it's popular.
0:48:03And that's the main thing I think we can take away from this entire thing is how the Apple
0:48:09developer community reacts to it. Because this reaction doesn't happen in a vacuum,
0:48:15it's in the context of all the past history. So when we all collectively saw this story
0:48:20from a developer, and the reason we saw it is because we all are in travel and developer
0:48:24circles online and read developer blogs and, you know, anyway. When we saw that, because
0:48:29of the past history of App Store rule enforcement and policies that, you know, that don't seem
0:48:38right to developers, or, you know, the history of conflict, the history of arbitrary decisions
0:48:44that don't make any sense or that are punitive to developers in ways they shouldn't be or,
0:48:49honest mistakes or whatever, that context is why we had this reaction. Because it's not this,
0:48:55this event is not a thing. This event just highlights, "Hey, how does the Apple developer
0:49:00community feel about Apple and the App Store at this moment in time? Are they inherently
0:49:03suspicious? Do they give Apple the benefit of the doubt? Do they give developers?" And like,
0:49:08it so clearly showed that the current context, despite positive changes, is that we will all
0:49:15readily believe that the giant faceless bureaucracy that is the Apple App Store can and does do
0:49:24things that are best case mistakes or worst case, just wrongheaded decisions.
0:49:30So that I feel like was part of it, Margaret, you're right, is that this is a good app and
0:49:35we kind of do virtue transfer, application good, therefore developer good, which is not
0:49:40a valid transfer.
0:49:41but you're like, it just didn't seem like
0:49:44if you've got a quality app that people like
0:49:46that you're known for, what reasons do you have
0:49:49to cheat on reviews or anything like that,
0:49:50even before we knew that.
0:49:51But it just seemed like, all right,
0:49:52and but I really think the most important thing
0:49:55is that Apple's takeaway from this is that
0:49:57people, developers still don't trust
0:50:01that we are going to do the right thing
0:50:04and that when they see anything that even looks like
0:50:06one of those past situations where we've been in the wrong
0:50:08or done something that was not productive,
0:50:11they will immediately believe it.
0:50:12So that, you know, they'll know they have made progress
0:50:15when a similar event happens and the reaction
0:50:19from the developer community is not immediate suspicion
0:50:21that Apple has screwed a small developer again.
0:50:24- Yeah, and I think, you know, to Apple's credit though,
0:50:28this ability to totally terminate somebody's developer
0:50:32account is probably used every day for lots of different
0:50:37fraudulent accounts that are trying, that are, you know,
0:50:39or conducting fraud or spam or scams or something like that,
0:50:43they probably terminate developer accounts every day.
0:50:46And I can't think, I mean, maybe I'm wrong,
0:50:48please let me know if I'm wrong,
0:50:50I can't remember a single previous instance
0:50:52in the eight years of the App Store
0:50:54where it seemed like someone's developer account
0:50:56was terminated wrongly.
0:50:57Has that ever happened that we learned about?
0:51:00- Well, I mean, the equivalent is like
0:51:02we're rejecting your update even though
0:51:04you've got a crash or for some annoying reason.
0:51:05Yeah, they didn't terminate your developer account,
0:51:07But effectively, it's the same thing in terms of--
0:51:10No, I mean, this is more severe.
0:51:12This is much more severe.
0:51:13It is.
0:51:14But see, the reason I think you don't
0:51:16see people complaining about termination
0:51:17is because I think you're right.
0:51:19The termination happens all the time.
0:51:20But it happens to known bad actors.
0:51:22And it's part of the cost of doing business
0:51:24to known bad actors.
0:51:24Bad actors get their accounts terminated all the time.
0:51:26They just open a new one.
0:51:27That's their business, is open up a new account,
0:51:30do something against the rules for as long as you can.
0:51:32When your account gets closed, open up another one.
0:51:35That's their entire MO.
0:51:37That's the life cycle of the fraudster on the App Store.
0:51:41And so of course, they're not going to complain about it.
0:51:42Why would they?
0:51:43That's just how the system works from their perspective.
0:51:46So I think this is just-- the legitimate developers have
0:51:51the review problems or whatever, and they'll get it shut down.
0:51:54This looks like a crossover of those two worlds.
0:51:56The world over there, where no one ever complains,
0:51:58but everyone knows, yeah, you're going
0:51:59to get shut down in a week or two,
0:52:00but sometimes they're slow about it.
0:52:01You can make a lot of money in the meantime.
0:52:03And then this world over here where it's like,
0:52:06historically sometimes Apple will reject
0:52:07your legitimate application and be frustrating or whatever,
0:52:09but eventually you'll get through it.
0:52:11Except for the people who are like,
0:52:13apps of this type are no longer allowed, period,
0:52:15and they just have to stop development.
0:52:16That's also very similar in terms of like,
0:52:18oh, we don't want you to make launcher apps
0:52:20for a couple of years,
0:52:21but I don't know, that's a good example.
0:52:22But where Apple categorically decides
0:52:24that this type of application isn't allowed anymore,
0:52:26even though we had previously allowed it.
0:52:28But this is like crossing over of,
0:52:31and it's not that much of a crossover
0:52:32because there is, like you said, everyone agrees there's some kind of fraudulent activity
0:52:36on an account somewhere.
0:52:37The argument is whether that fraudulent activity should mean that this other account gets closed,
0:52:42right?
0:52:43So this is the meeting of those worlds.
0:52:45The only question is, is that meeting, you know, is it legitimate to do collective punishment
0:52:51because the accounts use the same test devices and the same credit card number, which from
0:52:55Apple's perspective is the only way they have to tell.
0:52:57They can't see what's on the other side of the computer, right?
0:52:59So all they have is data and their data says,
0:53:02same test devices, same credit card number,
0:53:04same legal entity.
0:53:05And from a legal perspective,
0:53:09not from a practical human perspective,
0:53:10but from a legal perspective,
0:53:12that's how the Apple ID system works.
0:53:14That's how developer thing works.
0:53:16They want information about you to connect to it,
0:53:19essentially to connect to an entity that they can sue
0:53:21or that is legally representing.
0:53:23And so if you use all the same information
0:53:28used to establish what the entity is for multiple accounts, it's all the same entity. That's the
0:53:32whole point of you doing this. If Marco has multiple, don't you have multiple things for
0:53:37your various... But that's... If they were all separate or combined, that's how things work in
0:53:46the business world. We don't care what physical person is sitting in front of the thing. They just
0:53:49care what the legal entity is and where the liability lies. Now, the more human side of it is,
0:53:55What if you do live in a country where it's not easy to get credit cards and you do a favor for
0:53:59somebody and you are not a lawyer and not thinking about the fact that now you essentially are
0:54:03legally vouching for the activities of this other account, right? I think Apple would be entirely in
0:54:08the right and probably totally in their legalese somewhere that says, "Hey, if you use all the same
0:54:13legal and contact information from multiple accounts, you are legally responsible."
0:54:17You've essentially absorbed the liability for this other person. It's as if you started a company
0:54:24And then, you know, your friend came in and wrote all the code, but then you published it as the
0:54:29legal entity. You're legally responsible, not your friend. It's like, "Oh, I didn't write all the
0:54:32code. He did it." It's like, doesn't matter. That's not how the law works, right? For the most part,
0:54:36I'm not a lawyer. And so, in this situation, Apple probably could have just said, "These are the
0:54:43rules. This is the data. It is irrefutable. You don't argue it. You know, we all agree on the
0:54:49facts here. And so, therefore, your account is closed." But that's not what Apple did. What Apple
0:54:54Apple did instead is tried to communicate with this developer to work things out.
0:54:59Because there, and here's the next question.
0:55:01All right, so did Apple work with the developer to try to work things out?
0:55:05Does, do all of us here in the peanut gallery and the Apple developer community,
0:55:09do we immediately suspect that the only reason they were working it out is
0:55:12because this person made a blog post?
0:55:15>> Well, no, this happened beforehand.
0:55:16So, so here, well, here's, here's what happened.
0:55:18And this is, I, I think if I can look at this whole situation, if I can point to,
0:55:22to two things that I would say were like bad moves.
0:55:26I think one was Apple's bad move
0:55:28and one was the developer's bad move.
0:55:30Apple's bad move was when they first started detecting
0:55:33all of this fraud on the other account,
0:55:36they did consider the fraud account
0:55:39and the Dash account to be logically linked
0:55:41because they both were made by the same credit card
0:55:43and they both used some of the same test devices.
0:55:46So they considered that enough of a correlation
0:55:48to consider them logically linked.
0:55:50And I think that alone right there,
0:55:53considering an account logically linked
0:55:54for the purpose of fraud detection
0:55:56based on the same credit card being used
0:55:57and the same device that's being used,
0:55:59I think that's a reasonable assumption.
0:56:00And I think Apple was totally fine to do that.
0:56:02The error that Apple made that I would say
0:56:05was probably the one big mistake that is Apple's fault
0:56:09in the way this was handled
0:56:11is that when Apple detected the fraud on the other account,
0:56:15they only contacted that account's email address
0:56:20to talk about and try to fix the fraud issue.
0:56:23And so when they were issuing the warnings, basically,
0:56:25they only contacted the fraud one,
0:56:28not the other one that was logically linked to it.
0:56:30- But why do you think that's a mistake?
0:56:32You think it's a mistake because it seems unfair
0:56:34or whatever, but I think from, you know,
0:56:37policy-wise, I think it is a reasonable policy to have
0:56:40that, you know, the, like, who's responsible
0:56:45for the actions of the account?
0:56:46Well, the responsibility of the actions of the account
0:56:48ties back to whatever legal entity,
0:56:50you know, as we define it as the information you enter
0:56:52when you make your Apple ID, right?
0:56:54If that's their policy,
0:56:56and then they see fraudulent activity,
0:56:59and then they also have a policy that says
0:57:00if there's fraudulent activity,
0:57:02all of the accounts that are tied
0:57:04to that same legal entity get shut down,
0:57:06I don't see anywhere where there's any specific need
0:57:09to carefully communicate with each one of them
0:57:11to give each one of the connected legal entities
0:57:14a chance to explain or something.
0:57:15That is a nice thing to do,
0:57:17and we all think they should do it in this case,
0:57:19but policy-wise, like, you know,
0:57:23as many people pointed out,
0:57:24if you get shut down by like PayPal or eBay
0:57:26or anything like that,
0:57:28like no one's gonna give you a nice phone call
0:57:29and ask you to like explain yourself to them or whatever
0:57:32to make sure everyone gets a separate communication
0:57:34in case they're separate people.
0:57:35And so like, it's asking Apple to foresee the situation
0:57:40as described by the developer
0:57:41that actually it was two different people
0:57:43and we were just sharing a credit card
0:57:44and I had no idea what was going on in this account
0:57:45for years and so on and so forth, whatever.
0:57:47But I think it is a reasonable policy for a business to say,
0:57:50this is just how the rules work.
0:57:52If you don't like it, you, developer,
0:57:54have made a mistake by legally vouching for someone,
0:57:58and you have no idea what they're doing.
0:57:59They're committing fraud over years.
0:58:00You have no idea about it.
0:58:01That's your bad.
0:58:02That's not our bad.
0:58:03We can just shut them all down, right?
0:58:04Now, I was getting back to what we thought about this
0:58:07when we heard about it is like,
0:58:09why is someone on the phone,
0:58:11because we heard the phone call that he put up on,
0:58:13why is someone on the phone
0:58:14trying to work it out with this person?
0:58:15Is it because, it's mostly because, you know,
0:58:18like do we think it's because this is a popular developer
0:58:22and it's a developer who's popular with other developers
0:58:24because they make a developer tool, right?
0:58:26Is that why someone from Apple is bending over backwards
0:58:30because you know, what makes this one different
0:58:33versus if this had just been one of those, you know,
0:58:37fraud developers who got their account closed or whatever.
0:58:39You think Apple in all those cases for fraud
0:58:41is on the phone with each one of them saying,
0:58:42"Oh, let me hear what you say about it.
0:58:44Oh, we'll try to get you your account back.
0:58:45I don't think that's happening.
0:58:47And the reason we think that is part of the anger
0:58:49of like the old app review guidelines that were like,
0:58:51never run to the press, that doesn't help.
0:58:53Remember that old one that I think they've removed
0:58:55since we're moved from the guidelines.
0:58:57That was Steve Jobs style snarky,
0:58:59we don't like it when you bad math us
0:59:01in public type of thing.
0:59:02That's where the root of all of this is coming from.
0:59:05And the root of this coming like when we see this,
0:59:06at least me specifically, when I see this,
0:59:08I think Apple is bending over backwards,
0:59:11A, because they're trying to be nice,
0:59:13but B, a little bit, because this person made a blog post
0:59:17and presented their side of the story
0:59:19and Apple feels like this is, you know,
0:59:22they don't like looking bad.
0:59:23They don't like looking like,
0:59:24they don't wanna be the bad guy,
0:59:25but in cases where they do something like close an account
0:59:28and they just never hear anything about it
0:59:29and nobody blogs, Apple, you know, feels okay about it.
0:59:32It's like, I guess we weren't the bad guy.
0:59:33So like the removing of don't run to the press
0:59:36is removed partly because it recognizes that like,
0:59:38that's the only way Apple has to tell
0:59:40whether something they've done might've been inadvertently
0:59:45meaner than they would want to be, right?
0:59:48The only way they can tell is if there's public outcry,
0:59:51'cause they don't know every single developer or whatever.
0:59:53Like you can't ask the entire infrastructure at Apple
0:59:57to know every single app and to know what Dash is
1:00:00and how popular it is and that this is a good person.
1:00:02I can't do that for every, it's too much, right?
1:00:04And so I think this signal, the public outcry
1:00:08and complaining on Twitter and other developers
1:00:10looking at it askance and thinking maybe it's something
1:00:12weird here, is actually an important feature of the system
1:00:15as it currently exists, quote unquote, working.
1:00:18And I'm glad that guideline was removed by saying
1:00:20don't run to the press because I think it's an essential
1:00:21part of the process at this point.
1:00:23- Yeah, unfortunately it is.
1:00:25But anyway, so back to what happened here.
1:00:29I honestly don't wanna spend a whole lot of time on this
1:00:30'cause I think it's not very productive.
1:00:32So I think if we can summarize basically,
1:00:36I think Apple, I disagree with you on them
1:00:40and notifying multiple accounts.
1:00:42I think if they're going to shut down an account
1:00:44which is a severe action, they should notify it beforehand.
1:00:47And so after the termination and the first round
1:00:51of blog posts, somebody from Apple called the developer
1:00:55and the developer recorded this,
1:00:56which in California is illegal.
1:00:58The developer's in Romania where it's legal.
1:01:00The gist of it was that the Apple guy was trying
1:01:04very hard to work this out.
1:01:05You can tell that they wanted to work this out.
1:01:07Apple wanted to make sure that the correct story,
1:01:11in their opinion, was told.
1:01:13So they suggested maybe he could write a blog post.
1:01:16And they basically wanted two key facts
1:01:20to be in the blog post.
1:01:21These accounts were linked,
1:01:22so Apple was not mistaken to suspend it.
1:01:25There was fraud in the linked account,
1:01:26and he was working with Apple to unlink the accounts
1:01:30and get back on the App Store.
1:01:32And they went over this back and forth a few times,
1:01:33and it sounded like the developer was not very happy
1:01:37about the phrasing of this,
1:01:39about the part that Apple didn't make a mistake.
1:01:41And then he says he submitted this draft post,
1:01:44which he later posted on his website,
1:01:45he said he submitted that to them.
1:01:47You could tell on the call though,
1:01:48that again, there was definitely friction.
1:01:51He definitely did not seem happy
1:01:53about what he was being asked to agree to.
1:01:57And then a few days later, Apple tells the press,
1:02:00this was indeed justified,
1:02:02there was lots of fraud on this account,
1:02:03we tried to work it out with the developer,
1:02:05but couldn't reach a resolution.
1:02:06and that's it.
1:02:08And so I think if you can, if you kind of try to like
1:02:12connect the dots between those two things,
1:02:14it seems like he and Apple couldn't agree
1:02:17on what he was going to, how he was going to present
1:02:20these facts of the case or how he was going to word things.
1:02:23It seems like Apple most likely got whatever he submitted
1:02:27to them, decided this was not going to be resolvable
1:02:31or was not, basically decided negotiations were over
1:02:34and this was not going to work out.
1:02:36and then the statement to the press is basically
1:02:37them shutting the door.
1:02:39You know, we're only hearing part of a phone call.
1:02:41We're not hearing what was before or after
1:02:43this part of the call.
1:02:44We're not part of, we don't know any of the communication
1:02:46that happened separately from this call.
1:02:48So things could have been more tense and hostile
1:02:51than what's shown here, and what's shown there
1:02:53is slightly tense and hostile from the developer.
1:02:56So I don't know if Apple was in the right or wrong
1:03:01to close the door on this when they did,
1:03:04but that certainly seemed like that is what happened.
1:03:07And based on the two conflicting attitudes
1:03:10in the phone call, I think that's very likely the case.
1:03:15That they just decided this was not going to be resolved,
1:03:17that they were not gonna reach agreement,
1:03:20because from Apple's point of view,
1:03:23they wanna make sure that they control the narrative here.
1:03:26And it was very clear from that recorded call,
1:03:28from the Apple rep on that call,
1:03:30Apple wanted to make very sure that everyone knew
1:03:32that they didn't just like slip up
1:03:34and suspend an innocent account,
1:03:36that there was fraud that was linked to this account.
1:03:40And so they wanted to make very clear
1:03:43that that was the story that got out,
1:03:44that the facts were very clear, Apple did not just mess up,
1:03:48because that would be really bad if they just messed up
1:03:51and suspended an account that had no connection
1:03:53to any problems whatsoever,
1:03:55'cause that is a very severe action.
1:03:56And clearly, running the App Store in eight years,
1:03:59and this is the first time we're hearing
1:04:00of bad developer account suspension,
1:04:02clearly they do a pretty good job
1:04:04and they're pretty careful most of the time
1:04:06when taking that action.
1:04:07So they clearly wanted to make sure that fact was out there,
1:04:10that there was indeed real fraud,
1:04:13it was indeed linked to this account,
1:04:15and that basically that they were gonna unlink the accounts
1:04:19and let this developer move forward.
1:04:21So I think they were actually being very reasonable there,
1:04:24and through whatever reason,
1:04:26whether it was communication or attitudes
1:04:28or whatever it was, they couldn't work it out.
1:04:31And that sucks.
1:04:32And there was a good post today on,
1:04:35that Rene Ritchie wrote, I think, on iMore,
1:04:37that was basically like, how do we move forward from here?
1:04:40And the gist of it was basically like,
1:04:43look, we all know the facts now,
1:04:44like let's just, like Apple should just reactivate,
1:04:47hit the good account, just reactivate that account.
1:04:49Like that's how we move forward,
1:04:50is like everyone basically suck it up,
1:04:53stop talking about it, and just reactivate the account,
1:04:54because that's best for everybody.
1:04:55'Cause like the other side of this is like,
1:04:57This is a great app and it's out of the store
1:05:00for this reason that probably shouldn't have happened
1:05:03or at least this app and this account
1:05:06probably didn't deserve it,
1:05:07assuming the developer's telling the truth
1:05:08and this was some relative and not just him
1:05:10with a different account.
1:05:12And secondly, this really sucks for the customers
1:05:14of this app because if you bought this app like I did
1:05:16in the Mac App Store, you can't even redownload it.
1:05:19Like when the developer account is suspended,
1:05:21the app is gone.
1:05:22It doesn't show up in your purchases tab,
1:05:24it doesn't show up in searches, it is gone.
1:05:26you can't redownload it.
1:05:28And that sucks if you bought it.
1:05:30So it does kinda suck the way things are left now,
1:05:34even though I can look back at what Apple did,
1:05:37and I think Apple was in the right based on just
1:05:41the little bit that we can know
1:05:44and the little bits and pieces that you can pick up.
1:05:47I think Apple did pretty much the right thing
1:05:48the whole way through here, with the exception of
1:05:50not notifying all the accounts before termination,
1:05:52but besides that, I think Apple was in the right,
1:05:54and they seemed to handle it very well.
1:05:56and they seemed to put in way more effort.
1:05:58I mean, the guy on the phone was saying
1:06:00that Phil Schiller was personally involved
1:06:02in trying to get this solved, and I believe that.
1:06:04Knowing the way these things work, I believe that.
1:06:07And so the fact that you could have somebody
1:06:09like Phil Schiller trying to get this fixed
1:06:11and Apple devising this way that they can resolve this
1:06:13and get back in the store and presenting it to the developer
1:06:16that sounded very reasonable, it really did seem
1:06:19like Apple was going above and beyond
1:06:21to try to fix this, and they really didn't need to.
1:06:24It's nice that they did, and I hope
1:06:26that if I ever am on the wrong end of this,
1:06:27I hope they do the same thing for me.
1:06:29But it's really, really above and beyond.
1:06:31They didn't have to do this.
1:06:32They didn't have to give this guy away back in.
1:06:34They didn't have to call him and offer this kind of,
1:06:37you know, this kind of like olive branch,
1:06:39and say, all right, look, if you can just agree
1:06:41to these few statements, then you can get back in.
1:06:43But they didn't need to do any of that,
1:06:44and they did it all.
1:06:45They really obviously wanted to solve this in a decent way.
1:06:49And again, through whatever reason,
1:06:52they could not reach agreement with the developer
1:06:55on something that I think, honestly,
1:06:58I think the developer made a huge mistake
1:06:59in the way that he handled that,
1:07:00and I think he should have just said
1:07:02what they wanted him to say
1:07:03because it wasn't bad or incorrect.
1:07:06- So from outside of this, again, looking at like,
1:07:08oh, when we all heard the story, what did we all think,
1:07:10and what does that say about how we view Apple?
1:07:13Now, sort of at the conclusion of this,
1:07:15I think Apple kind of got a positive result here,
1:07:20because in the beginning, we're all like,
1:07:24oh, Apple's doing something bad in the App Store again.
1:07:26And we've seen that story so many times
1:07:28and we're immediately suspicious, right?
1:07:29By the end of it, especially for any developer
1:07:32who was paying enough attention to like read all the details
1:07:35that we just discussed and read the blog post,
1:07:36by the end of it, I think most legitimate developers
1:07:40come away thinking, if this happens to me,
1:07:44it seems like Apple will give me a legitimate chance.
1:07:48Because first of all, I think most developers understand
1:07:53that the developer made a mistake here.
1:07:57Like not a mistake, but like that essentially
1:07:58by tying himself legally to the other account,
1:08:02he is essentially responsible for it, right?
1:08:05And I'm hoping that most developers would understand that.
1:08:08Like that if you use your credit card number
1:08:10and your test device, maybe that's not obvious to anybody,
1:08:12but after the story, I guess it is.
1:08:14So maybe before the story you could say no,
1:08:15but now understanding that like,
1:08:17you know, you see that they were tied to that.
1:08:19And yet, despite that, Apple made an effort
1:08:23to try to make things right.
1:08:25And I think that whole thing is comforting to developers
1:08:29who feel like, you know, legitimate developers
1:08:31who would never do anything wrong like that.
1:08:33But they're like, if I find myself in this situation
1:08:36where I have unintentionally gotten myself entangled
1:08:39in the way that I did, either I didn't understand
1:08:41or I trusted somebody that I should never trust,
1:08:42which you know, this happens to everybody, right?
1:08:45Will I just be SOL or will Apple be reasonable with me?
1:08:51And with the exception of the fact that it's not clear
1:08:54that Apple would have been engaged at all
1:08:56if he hadn't quote unquote run to the press,
1:08:59which really just means post on his own personal blog
1:09:01and have a popular app.
1:09:02Like with the exception of that,
1:09:04what I still think is a concern,
1:09:05like, hey, what about my obscure app?
1:09:06Nobody loves my app like they love Dash.
1:09:08When I post on my blog, nobody will even notice.
1:09:10Maybe I would still be SOL, right?
1:09:12But with the exception of that caveat,
1:09:14I think Apple's actions are essentially reassuring
1:09:17legitimate developers that Apple will try to be reasonable.
1:09:22And what Marco said is like,
1:09:24if the goal of this developer was to be able to continue
1:09:29his business, his business of selling software
1:09:31and his popular application, he made bad choices.
1:09:34You can decide, do you wanna be right and be like righteous
1:09:39and be like, I refuse to admit to even any kind
1:09:42of wrongdoing or being linked or Apple's being on for,
1:09:44or do you just want your account back?
1:09:46Because they weren't asking him to say anything
1:09:47that's not true, they weren't asking him to take blame
1:09:50for anything that he doesn't have blame for,
1:09:51they were 100% believing his story,
1:09:53taking it at face value, saying, okay, great,
1:09:56you gave an account to somebody else or whatever,
1:09:58we're gonna get your account back.
1:10:00All we want you to do is to make it clear,
1:10:02like Margaret said, that the facts of the situation
1:10:05were what they were, there was a reason for Apple
1:10:07to do what it did, and that everyone involved,
1:10:09like, not to make it seem like Apple made a terrible mistake
1:10:13but we all worked it out, and then have Apple come out
1:10:15of it, which I think is totally reasonable,
1:10:17and he made bad choices if his goal
1:10:19was to get his business back.
1:10:20He could have gotten it back,
1:10:22doing things that are reasonable, telling the truth.
1:10:25They were allowing him to write whatever he wanted
1:10:27as long as he hit those two key points,
1:10:29which everybody involved in the conversation agreed on,
1:10:31and he didn't do it.
1:10:32Did he not do it because he was just too proud or stubborn
1:10:35or thought he would end up coming out of it looking bad
1:10:39or whatever, who knows?
1:10:40But if his goal was to get his business back, he blew it.
1:10:43But I still think outside of this,
1:10:46that most developers, you know, Marco can answer
1:10:48'cause he's obviously the only one with an application
1:10:50on the App Store of any significance
1:10:52that's specifically tied to him and has long experience.
1:10:55Do you feel reassured by the outcome of this
1:10:58that Apple would be reasonable
1:11:00if you found yourself in this situation?
1:11:02Or is it neutral or do you feel worse
1:11:04that you didn't realize this could happen
1:11:07but now you think it could happen to you and you'd be screwed?
1:11:09- No, I mean, I think you nailed it.
1:11:11The reason Apple cared so much about this
1:11:14was because they know how bad it would be
1:11:18if it appeared that they were capriciously
1:11:21suspending developer accounts for no reason.
1:11:23That would be terrible for their reputation
1:11:26among developers.
1:11:27They knew how important it was to make sure
1:11:29that the official story here, which was true,
1:11:32was that Apple did not make a mistake
1:11:34in detecting this fraud and suspending this account.
1:11:37That was not a mistake on their part.
1:11:38They did not mess up.
1:11:39They were not being capricious.
1:11:41They actually detected real fraud
1:11:43and on a linked account that was really linked
1:11:45in a way that is substantial,
1:11:48and so they wanted that story to be true,
1:11:50that this was not just them being wrong.
1:11:52And again, the way they handled it,
1:11:54as I said, I think they handled it very well,
1:11:57better than they had to,
1:11:58and so because of those two things,
1:12:00yes, I feel good about this.
1:12:03You can say, as a developer working on the App Store,
1:12:07there's always a certain minimum level of App Store BS
1:12:10that everyone has to put up with,
1:12:11mostly around the reviews and the policies
1:12:13and everything else, but it really,
1:12:16in the grand scheme of things,
1:12:18that BS tends to be most of the time
1:12:21consistent and easy to work within for most developers.
1:12:26And it's a known quantity.
1:12:28It's not usually capricious or dangerous,
1:12:32about to kill your business at any moment,
1:12:33unless you're doing things really close
1:12:34to the edges of the rules, which most people aren't
1:12:37and don't need to.
1:12:39For the most part, Apple as a gatekeeper does pretty well,
1:12:44as gatekeepers go.
1:12:45The whole concept of a gatekeeper to begin with
1:12:47is problematic, sorry Merlin,
1:12:50it is challenging to get that right,
1:12:53and there's always going to be dysfunction and problems
1:12:55by having any gatekeeper,
1:12:56but if you're going to have a gatekeeper,
1:12:58I think Apple does a pretty good job of it,
1:13:01possibly even a very good job of it.
1:13:03And as a developer on these platforms,
1:13:07I am reassured by this story,
1:13:09that Apple really does care to get things right
1:13:11and to make sure that they're doing right
1:13:13for the community as much as they can.
1:13:14So I consider this a positive thing as a developer.
1:13:18I consider it a bit of a pain in the butt
1:13:20as a customer of Dash, but otherwise,
1:13:23I consider it a positive thing as a developer.
1:13:25- That's why you should never buy your Mac apps
1:13:27in the Mac App Store.
1:13:28Once again, we learned that lesson.
1:13:29- Exactly. - If it's available
1:13:31outside the Mac App Store,
1:13:32buy it outside the Mac App Store, you'll just be happier.
1:13:34Which is a problem for Apple.
1:13:35It's ironic that this is exposing.
1:13:38You know, like this is something they can fix.
1:13:40Apple in turn is like, oh, when we suspend
1:13:41a developer account, shouldn't we still allow
1:13:43the L apps to be downloaded?
1:13:45They can fix that internally.
1:13:46That seems like something they, you know,
1:13:47if they cared about the Mac App Store at all,
1:13:48that they would fix.
1:13:50But yeah, it's kind of sad that it's,
1:13:52they're kind of highlighting the problems
1:13:54with the Mac App Store by doing the right thing
1:13:56and detecting fraud and canceling accounts.
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1:16:27(upbeat music)
1:16:29- So Marco, tell us about Dropbox.
1:16:33- Mm. (laughs)
1:16:36Here's the thing.
1:16:37Dropbox is making questionable choices in recent times.
1:16:43There was a thing a couple weeks back
1:16:46where Dropbox was basically discovered
1:16:49to be hacking the Mac accessibility apps database.
1:16:53This is actually, I believe it's fixed in Sierra,
1:16:55but basically, Mac OS X has a certain separate security level
1:17:00for accessibility-related apps,
1:17:02and this allows apps to see way more system events,
1:17:07things like capturing keyboard input and stuff like that.
1:17:10Basically, if you are an accessibility app,
1:17:11you can basically see and intercept and track
1:17:15everything happening on the system.
1:17:17Things that are considered secure,
1:17:18you can still, you have access to them,
1:17:21whereas most apps would not be able to do things like
1:17:24log every keystroke that's ever typed in,
1:17:26things like that, right?
1:17:29And so Dropbox, in order to achieve certain features
1:17:33or something, Dropbox was forcefully injecting itself
1:17:37into the list of apps, using a prompt to prompt you
1:17:42for your password that looked like the system password box.
1:17:46- No, no, it was the system password box.
1:17:48That's why I put this thing in the show notes.
1:17:49- Was it? - It was, yeah.
1:17:51- Oh, okay.
1:17:52- So like, I had this, before Marco started getting
1:17:56cranky about Dropbox, I had an item in the notes
1:17:58is actually still below there about Dropbox's accessibility
1:18:01quote unquote hack.
1:18:02Because the first stories about this were like,
1:18:05so this is the observed behavior,
1:18:07whichever one agrees is crappy.
1:18:08The observed behavior is Dropbox,
1:18:11it wants you to turn on accessibility,
1:18:14but if you say no, it will, you know,
1:18:18and take it out, the next time it comes up,
1:18:20it will just try to put itself back.
1:18:22Like if you go to the system preferences and remove it,
1:18:24right, and then you just reboot, like it'll be back again.
1:18:26And so that is user hostile behavior,
1:18:28because the user disabled it, and then unbeknownst to them,
1:18:32maybe you just launch it again and it puts itself back.
1:18:34And so the question was among the people
1:18:36who first saw this behavior,
1:18:37who were probably not programmers
1:18:39or particularly technical, was like,
1:18:42it must be saving my admin password,
1:18:44because I entered my admin password
1:18:46to allow it to do this stuff,
1:18:47but then when I went to system preferences and turned it off,
1:18:49the only way they could be possibly
1:18:51turning it back on automatically,
1:18:53which is this user hostile behavior that they observed,
1:18:56is that it must have saved my admin password,
1:18:58which would indeed be horrible.
1:19:00But anybody who knows anything about, you know,
1:19:03Mac OS X or whatever the hell it's called now,
1:19:06and Unix or whatever knows, like,
1:19:07(laughing)
1:19:08they would never save your password.
1:19:10That is the stupidest possible way
1:19:12to get the thing they want.
1:19:13Because once you've entered your admin password,
1:19:16they don't need your admin password anymore, right?
1:19:19And so, yeah, so they don't save your admin password,
1:19:22which would be, and you can't totally discount it,
1:19:24because we all hear about these websites
1:19:25saving people's passwords in plain text.
1:19:27So never overestimate the security intelligence
1:19:31of people writing code.
1:19:32But Dropbox is a big company and it's really hard for me
1:19:34to believe that they do something like that.
1:19:35They don't.
1:19:36- Honestly, I would have believed that.
1:19:39By the time I read the story, it was already discovered
1:19:41that they weren't actually saving their password,
1:19:42but I would not rule out that they would try.
1:19:45- Well, but they wouldn't though.
1:19:47It's a matter of competence because Dropbox has a lot
1:19:49of money and they have smart developers, right?
1:19:51And the reason I think that--
1:19:51- It's not a matter of competence.
1:19:53It's a matter of respect.
1:19:55No, no, no, it's a matter of competence
1:19:57because to do the thing they want to do,
1:20:00which we all agree is use a hostel,
1:20:01they don't need your password more than once.
1:20:03Once they enter it, like what they actually did
1:20:05is they just make setuid executable.
1:20:07Like everybody knows that.
1:20:08Anyone who's done any Unix hacking,
1:20:09like as soon as you've got root access,
1:20:10the first thing you do is make setuid executables,
1:20:13setuid shell so you can get back.
1:20:14Like it's just like you've given them your main password.
1:20:18They're like la-da-da, do-do-do,
1:20:20check the setuid bit on these CHO,
1:20:23now I have setuid root executables done and done.
1:20:26They don't need your password anymore, right?
1:20:28And so that is what they use.
1:20:32And it doesn't matter,
1:20:33every time you give an app an admin password,
1:20:34you are essentially saying,
1:20:36by giving you this admin password,
1:20:38you now have free reign of the whole system.
1:20:39Not just momentarily, but because once I give it to you,
1:20:42you can immediately make a setuid executable as whatever.
1:20:45And just like, it's all over.
1:20:47And the system integrity protection protects against that
1:20:50because it's like, oh, even with root access,
1:20:51You can't modify these files or whatever.
1:20:53But anyway, there's that.
1:20:56So there was competence.
1:20:58Like, the best way to do this user hostile behavior
1:21:01is not to store their passwords.
1:21:02You're like, they're smart.
1:21:02They're not going to do that.
1:21:04And they're going to do it the smarter way
1:21:06to do this user hostile behavior, right?
1:21:08The second aspect of the part that's the hack part is like,
1:21:11once you have that access, it still
1:21:13doesn't mean you have to go directly to the SQLite database
1:21:15and start mucking with it.
1:21:16Because that's like using private APIs.
1:21:18It's like, Apple's like, you don't
1:21:19know what the structure of our database is.
1:21:20just because you look in there and see a bunch of tables
1:21:22and columns and think you know how to hack it,
1:21:24that's not a public API, that's not guaranteed.
1:21:27It's the same reason they don't want you using private APIs.
1:21:29You're not supposed to even be looking at that stuff.
1:21:31We reserve the right to change that at any time.
1:21:33So that is the quote unquote hack part of it
1:21:35is that don't directly access our databases
1:21:38behind the scenes, we provide APIs.
1:21:40You have to use those.
1:21:41You can't just go sneakily find what the underlying storage
1:21:44is and directly mess with it.
1:21:45So that is, I don't know why they were doing it that way.
1:21:48Maybe it's the easiest way to secretly do it
1:21:50behind the scenes, but it's terrible.
1:21:51And they were signing themselves up for a maintenance headache
1:21:53because it's like once you use a private API like that,
1:21:56whether you know it or not, you're now on the hook
1:21:58to track every little change Apple does to their internals
1:22:01instead of just tracking their API diffs.
1:22:02Because at any moment, in any point release,
1:22:05they could totally change the structure of that database,
1:22:07and your app will blow up, and it's totally your fault
1:22:09because you've screwed things up.
1:22:10So that, I would say, is the best example
1:22:13of them doing something that's not a good developer practice.
1:22:16But the initial story about them changing your password
1:22:19was totally a misunderstanding of the fact that they don't need your passport. They
1:22:27would never do that because it's dumb. They have everything they need and more.
1:22:31Right. All right. So anyway, however they were doing it, Dropbox was really inappropriately
1:22:37hacking the TCC database, the accessibility database, to inject themselves forcefully
1:22:43even if you remove them.
1:22:44So that to me is like offense number one for this is not good and they're eroding trust
1:22:53that I have in them and the ability and the willingness I have to run their software on
1:22:57my computer and give them access to literally everything on my computer.
1:23:01And then…
1:23:02Although before we move on from that, their defense of this as LinkedIn I think probably
1:23:06have the hackers news link that the developer talks about.
1:23:09Their defense is actually plausible as a—I mean, you can still say this is not socially
1:23:15acceptable behavior, especially among tech-savvy users, but I can see where a company like
1:23:20Dropbox can get into a situation where it thinks this is the right thing to do.
1:23:23And it's basically that when you install an application, if they have these one-time
1:23:27prompts that you answer "the wrong way."
1:23:30You didn't understand what the hell it was, you just hit cancel or whatever, and now you
1:23:33don't have some kind of finder integration that you expected from Dropbox, right?
1:23:38It can be a legitimate support issue that enough people click the wrong box on that
1:23:42one-time setup thing, and they're like, "DropBox doesn't work."
1:23:46When I see it on my friend's computer, there's these little badges or these little whatever.
1:23:49Whatever features accessibility is providing, it's not working.
1:23:52DropBox is broken.
1:23:53And I can imagine that being a popular support request, and that they have to walk people
1:23:57through, "Oh, go to the thing, go to accessibility, click the little lock icon to basically re-enable
1:24:03and then the sort of cutting the Gordian knot solution
1:24:07becomes, you know what, users can't handle this.
1:24:10It's too complicated, they don't understand
1:24:12what we mean by accessibility,
1:24:13they don't wanna type in their min password,
1:24:14they're scared by it, why don't we just,
1:24:17like if they ever enter their min password,
1:24:19put a little insurance, but let's bury some set UID
1:24:21root executables in our bundle.
1:24:23And as soon as they enter a min password,
1:24:25put them there, and you know what,
1:24:26if it accidentally gets turned off by a point release
1:24:28or an OS update or whatever,
1:24:30so we won't hear from people saying,
1:24:32"Hey, Dropbox is broken again.
1:24:34Why don't we just turn it on?"
1:24:35Like it's paternalistic.
1:24:36It's like, they won't even know we do it.
1:24:38We'll do it behind the scenes.
1:24:40They won't see any UI.
1:24:41It will cut down on our support requests.
1:24:43That I think is the head space that they get into.
1:24:45It's not particularly nefarious.
1:24:46They're just trying to solve a support problem,
1:24:49but they eventually, they wrap themselves up
1:24:51in knots to where they think
1:24:52they're actually doing people a favor by doing this.
1:24:55Whereas we all realize you've gone too far
1:24:58in the hopes of like, let's make it a smooth experience
1:25:01most users at the expense of being sneaky. And it's the wrong thing to do, but I think
1:25:06it is not done because they are malicious or bad developers. I think it's actually done
1:25:10because they're trying to make the experience better for everybody. Like, "Why don't we
1:25:15just solve this? Why are we bothering users with this crap? Why don't we just make Dropbox
1:25:19— people just want Dropbox to work like Dropbox. We have the technology. We can just
1:25:23make it work." And that's, I think, where they went wrong in that feature.
1:25:26- I mean the thing is like if you're going to,
1:25:28basically it's the attitude that a lot of developers
1:25:33and platform owners have of like,
1:25:35we know better than our users,
1:25:38so we're just gonna do it for you.
1:25:39Or we're gonna do things the way we think are right for you
1:25:43and you just have to go along for the ride
1:25:45because that's gonna be best for you.
1:25:47And there's a place for that and there's lots of places
1:25:50where that is the most pragmatic or the correct solution
1:25:53or position to take.
1:25:55But as a user, I wanna make sure that whatever software
1:26:00I am granting that level of control to,
1:26:03I wanna make sure that I agree with their judgment
1:26:07in general and their technical abilities
1:26:10and their way of doing things.
1:26:12And if I start doubting somebody's judgment
1:26:16or integrity or skill, then I don't want them
1:26:21making decisions for me and doing things behind my back
1:26:23and having access that I don't believe that they need
1:26:27and things like that.
1:26:28That becomes a trust issue, it becomes a security issue,
1:26:31and lots of other potential problems.
1:26:34So my problem with Dropbox here is
1:26:37that accessibility hack, I think, shows poor judgment.
1:26:41I think that is irresponsible the way they did that.
1:26:44So did Apple, which is why Apple made it impossible
1:26:45by putting the accessibility stuff
1:26:47into system integrity protection in Sierra.
1:26:49And Apple is one such, you know,
1:26:52Apple is one of these companies too,
1:26:53or Apple, in many ways, Apple's implied position
1:26:57is basically we know best, we're gonna do this for you,
1:26:59and you're not gonna have control.
1:27:01And if you're an Apple customer or user,
1:27:03you have to basically decide,
1:27:07do I trust Apple with this control,
1:27:10and do I generally agree with their judgment
1:27:12in order to give them this control happily without problems?
1:27:16And a lot of people who don't like Apple products,
1:27:18who don't use Apple products,
1:27:20the reason they don't use Apple products
1:27:21is because they don't wanna give Apple that control,
1:27:23They don't agree with Apple's decisions in those areas.
1:27:25Or they don't trust Apple to have that level of ability.
1:27:28And that's fine, right?
1:27:29And my issue here with Dropbox is they make decisions
1:27:32like this, they also, in their beta channel,
1:27:35which is still in beta, granted, but in their beta channel,
1:27:38they recently quote tested a toolbar that was injected
1:27:42into Finder windows, which is like,
1:27:44show this giant toolbar, which it looked like malware.
1:27:47Like it was injected in the bottom of the window.
1:27:49And it's like, no, that's not okay.
1:27:52Why? Who thought that was a good idea?
1:27:55- Well, but that's just a bad feature
1:27:56being rolled out to the beta.
1:27:57I mean, everyone, you know, you try it out on a beta user
1:27:59and all your users go, "Oh, that's awful," right?
1:28:01But like the specifics of injecting,
1:28:04we'll eventually get to this, I think, later,
1:28:05but like the origin of Dropbox
1:28:08is that it was basically a hacksy on the Finder
1:28:10to do all the little badges and the icons.
1:28:11Like that is the product we all fell in love with,
1:28:14is was the one that didn't like literally inject itself
1:28:16into the Finder process to do this,
1:28:19like the worst kind of hack,
1:28:20the worst kind of totally unsupportable,
1:28:22unsupported hack. And I think a lot of the reason, I mean, that's the app we came to
1:28:27to to start using. And we liked it. And we like the badges. We like, you know, they
1:28:32gave you some reassurance, green checkmark, it's synced little blue thing. It's not like
1:28:35right. That's that's Dropbox. If they didn't have that feature, it would have been a
1:28:39lesser product. And because the people who did it were clever enough to get it done in a
1:28:45way that didn't suddenly cause the finder to be crashing left and right, and were able to
1:28:50chase Apple as they updated the Finder and keep it working and so on and so forth to the point
1:28:55where Apple eventually said Dropbox is so popular and badging things is a thing that people actually
1:29:00want to do. We're going to add an official API for this. They finally did the hacksies pass in the
1:29:05grass thing that I talked about all those years ago. It's like, look at what people are using.
1:29:09If you don't want them to use a disgusting hack to use this feature, make an officially supported
1:29:14API. And I'm pretty sure, I'm sure people will send his email if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure
1:29:19that Dropbox did eventually adopt that official API rather than continuing their hack. Because
1:29:24Dropbox doesn't want to do that hack. They would love to have a supported API. Presumably,
1:29:28if the supported API does everything that Dropbox needed to do, of course they would adopt it. And
1:29:33I think they have in the later versions. That's not really the system working. But during all
1:29:40that time, we were all like, "Yay, badges on Dropbox icons is great." So it's not so
1:29:45so much that they added a hack for this is that you could say,
1:29:48the fact that someone thought this was
1:29:50an aesthetically pleasing and appropriate UI,
1:29:53it shows poor judgment,
1:29:54which I'm on board with you there, right?
1:29:57That it looks like,
1:29:57I think of like those Internet Explorer toolbars,
1:29:59you know, they're like, yeah, the DIE, just like,
1:30:02that shows poor judgment.
1:30:03But the fact that it's not a,
1:30:06the fact that it's injected, it's like, well, you know,
1:30:09Dropbox was founded on ill-advised code and injection,
1:30:13which is probably not on the wall in their headquarters,
1:30:15but it might as well be.
1:30:16- Yeah, fair enough.
1:30:17Anyway, so Dropbox, in my opinion,
1:30:19has shown poor judgment recently
1:30:21and questionable technical decisions.
1:30:23There's some performance issues.
1:30:27Dropbox appears to monitor all file system activity
1:30:31in some way, not just in their folder,
1:30:33but in the whole system.
1:30:34- So I have some things to say about that as well.
1:30:36- Okay, go ahead. - I know you've
1:30:37complained about this.
1:30:39They've been doing that for frickin' ever.
1:30:41From the very beginning, DBFS of Enti
1:30:43has been there slurping from the FS events fire hose
1:30:45and being just as un-fungs has always been.
1:30:47This is not a new thing.
1:30:48Like whether it's ill-advised or not,
1:30:50it's like maybe not from the very, very beginning,
1:30:52but for many, many years,
1:30:55if you were to look at top and see DBFS events
1:30:57the grinding up your things,
1:30:58especially if you had a slow spinning disk,
1:31:00and especially if you have a small number of cores,
1:31:03that is not a new development.
1:31:04Now you can say a preponderance of things
1:31:07have been bothering me about Dropbox,
1:31:09and all of a sudden I noticed
1:31:11that it's eating up my CPU cycles,
1:31:13and they shouldn't be drinking from the FSEvents Firehose,
1:31:15and they should be using the officially supported FSEvents
1:31:18API and doing the diffs themselves
1:31:20and so on and so forth.
1:31:21That is a legit complaint, but it's not new.
1:31:24So I think for you personally,
1:31:26thinking about why you're at the end of your rope
1:31:28about Dropbox, that can be a contributing factor,
1:31:31but just because you may have become aware of it recently
1:31:33doesn't mean it's not something
1:31:35that has been a constant for many years.
1:31:36- That's fair, totally fair.
1:31:38But anyway, so with these problems
1:31:42that I'm finding with Dropbox,
1:31:44I started thinking, could I remove Dropbox from my life?
1:31:48Could I switch to something else
1:31:50for the roles that I use Dropbox for?
1:31:52And how difficult would that make my life
1:31:55in working with other people, basically?
1:31:57And this is an interesting exercise.
1:32:00I started realizing that a lot of the way I work
1:32:05and the software I use is tied very closely
1:32:08to Dropbox right now.
1:32:10And I don't even use it as much as a lot of people I know,
1:32:12like a lot of geeks I know, they put like all their photos
1:32:16in Dropbox, all their like text everything,
1:32:18like I actually use Dropbox pretty lightly
1:32:21compared to many people I know.
1:32:23But even then, like, I started thinking like,
1:32:26how would I move off of Dropbox if things finally
1:32:29pushed me over the edge and I decided,
1:32:31'cause I'm not there yet, like I'm not saying right now
1:32:33I'm leaving Dropbox period.
1:32:35I don't know that I'm going to be doing that yet.
1:32:37But I started thinking, what if Dropbox continues
1:32:41going down a path I disagree with,
1:32:43and I decide that I want to leave?
1:32:45What does that look like?
1:32:46What do I go to, first of all?
1:32:49- All right, well, before you explain your conclusions,
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1:34:51(upbeat music)
1:34:55So I've been trying to figure out
1:34:57if there's any alternatives to Dropbox
1:34:59that I could switch to and how that would look,
1:35:01how that would work, what I would have to move
1:35:04or change about my workflows or setups
1:35:06to really achieve that.
1:35:07And I use so much for Dropbox.
1:35:09I have my 1Password sync is there,
1:35:12I have a couple of text app that sync to it.
1:35:14My entire blog engine is based on Dropbox syncing
1:35:17and editing a bunch of text files
1:35:18that are in a Dropbox folder.
1:35:19And the way I edit my blog on my phone
1:35:22is by using Dropbox syncing text editors.
1:35:25So it would be non-trivial to switch off.
1:35:27But not to mention, one of the biggest things
1:35:29about Dropbox is shared folders.
1:35:31Like, you know, we, the three of us on this show,
1:35:33we have a shared folder, like that's how John and Casey
1:35:36get their audio files to me after each show.
1:35:39That's how, that's where we put like any kind
1:35:40of shared files, things like artwork and sound effects.
1:35:43There's so many, like, so many people,
1:35:46like when you're working with small groups of people,
1:35:47especially if they're nerds like us,
1:35:49you will almost always have like Dropbox shared folders
1:35:52or Dropbox share links involved in that work group
1:35:55in some way.
1:35:57So it really is not trivial to switch away.
1:35:59And there aren't a whole lot of solutions
1:36:02on how to switch away.
1:36:03Like assuming you want the same kind of thing,
1:36:07there's, I don't know, like five or six different things
1:36:09you could do, there's not a ton.
1:36:11The ones I got the most recommendations for
1:36:14are what used to be called BitTorrent Sync
1:36:18and is now called Resilio.
1:36:20And then there's also C file, that's S-E-A file.
1:36:24There's not a lot about it out there,
1:36:26but people who use it tend to love it apparently.
1:36:29There's not a lot in the way of apps
1:36:34for iOS and stuff or anything like that,
1:36:36but people seem to love C file.
1:36:39So I might try that as well.
1:36:42I didn't really get a noticeable amount of recommendations
1:36:45for any other solution.
1:36:47I'm curious, have you guys ever tried
1:36:49Any of these other things that can do Dropbox-like functions?
1:36:53- No, but what about the Synology Cloud Station,
1:36:55or whatever they call it?
1:36:56- Oh yeah, I did wanna try that as well.
1:36:59I'm a little, I worry about, because it is probably
1:37:03a fairly small audience thing, I worry, again with that,
1:37:07I worry about things like app support.
1:37:09That's why, if I'm gonna try one,
1:37:10in a world without mobile devices,
1:37:13where I'm just syncing between two computers,
1:37:15I would probably try C file, because that seems like
1:37:17it is the best regarded in that way.
1:37:20But because we're in this world of mobile
1:37:22and you need things like apps and stuff,
1:37:23I think BitTorrent, or excuse me,
1:37:25Resilio is probably the one to use,
1:37:27'cause that seems like the most popular alternative
1:37:29that is roughly what I'm looking for.
1:37:32- I go with the bigger names.
1:37:33Like I've used--
1:37:34- Like Box?
1:37:35- Yeah, voluntarily and involuntarily.
1:37:37I use Box, it worked, did not like,
1:37:39but it is very Dropbox-like, just imagine Dropbox but worse.
1:37:43- That's great, that's what I'm looking for.
1:37:44- Yeah.
1:37:46Google Drive, obviously, widely supported,
1:37:49it's available on mobile,
1:37:51it works more or less like Dropbox.
1:37:53I do use that voluntarily, both at work and at home.
1:37:57And I feel like if I was going off Dropbox
1:38:00for whatever reason, that's probably where I would go
1:38:02because it is very widely supported.
1:38:04I already, you know,
1:38:05I'm in to the Google ecosystem pretty well.
1:38:09Yeah, so I haven't had any problems with it.
1:38:13I can't say I've exercised it as much as Dropbox.
1:38:15basically I don't run Google Drive unless I need it.
1:38:17I launch it.
1:38:18I use the web UI a lot.
1:38:20And if I want it to be on my Mac, I launch it,
1:38:22do whatever I need to do, and then quit it.
1:38:24So obviously I'm not giving it the same workout
1:38:26that Dropbox does, but that seems to me the most obvious,
1:38:30well-supported reasonable alternative.
1:38:32I have no idea how it behaves
1:38:33in terms of niceness to your system.
1:38:35I know lots of Google stuff annoys me
1:38:38by when you give it your root password,
1:38:41at some of your admin password at some point,
1:38:43and it gets admin privileges.
1:38:45Installs all sorts of little watchers to make sure that all the Google apps are kept up-to-date
1:38:49Which is kind of nice but also kind of creepy when like this dialogue pops up asking you to update a Google app that you
1:38:54Haven't launched in like a year and a half and you're like what is that?
1:38:57Hasn't that been running on my system trying to make sure Google Earth is up-to-date that I haven't launched it forever like go away
1:39:02Whatever their keystone process like I don't like that
1:39:06But you know, maybe that's what's keeping me away from those and on Dropbox, which I feel like Dropbox is more understandable
1:39:13I kind of know what it's doing and you know in finer detail. But anyway, that seems like the most obvious alternatives
1:39:19You might want to give that a try depends on what your main objection to Dropbox is
1:39:23Is it like ugly UI is it installing weird crap in your system? Is it performance like but I would say that
1:39:30You know that doesn't help you with the social aspects of it the sort of network effect of like hey
1:39:34We're all using Dropbox and you're over there in Google Drive
1:39:36but Google Drive is pretty well supported
1:39:39on all mobile platforms, has a really nice web UI,
1:39:42and does the job.
1:39:44- And there is one little saving grace with Dropbox,
1:39:47with having to use Dropbox,
1:39:49if you don't want its software running,
1:39:50is that they do have a pretty robust web interface.
1:39:53So you can, if you're forced to work with Dropbox people
1:39:56and you don't wanna run Dropbox yourself,
1:39:58you can actually get a lot of it done
1:39:59with that web interface, not all of it,
1:40:01but you can do a lot there.
1:40:03- I think also with both Google Drive and Dropbox,
1:40:06which as compared to iCloud Drive, which is apparently not in the running here.
1:40:10Yeah, I was going to mention that.
1:40:12Yeah. The glorious thing about this is that no matter what we think about Dropbox and Google
1:40:16Drive, this may be not true, but I think we all still have the feeling that if I quit Dropbox,
1:40:23it's out of the picture until I relaunch it, right? But you can quit it. It is a third-party
1:40:28application. You can quit it on your Mac. And then, so if you were to quit, you feel like,
1:40:32"Alright, well Dropbox is not in the picture anymore." Right? Whatever evil it was doing before,
1:40:37whatever annoyance it was having, and for the most part both of them respect the thing of like,
1:40:43launch when I log in yes/no, they don't automatically turn that one back on.
1:40:47And so you can turn off Dropbox and have some confidence that it's not messing with you anymore,
1:40:53as opposed to iCloud Drive, which there's always this suspicion that, you know, some part of the
1:40:58system is doing stuff behind the scenes and you can't just quit it if you want it out of the
1:41:01the picture like but you haven't brought this up over like the idea of a
1:41:04expanding Xcode with its thousands and thousands of files and you don't want a
1:41:08DBFS event grinding up one of your cores from Dropbox observing every single
1:41:13file system event you can quit Dropbox and then you're like that won't happen
1:41:16anymore if iCloud Drive was doing the same thing which hopefully it isn't you
1:41:21don't have that option except for maybe unchecking the checkbox and it's saying
1:41:24you sure you want to remove all these that you know having all your documents
1:41:27on desktop disappear or some other weird thing when you quit Dropbox hey you can
1:41:31and b) nothing happens to your Dropbox folder. Like it stays however it was when you quit,
1:41:36which is I think reassuring.
1:41:37E;R; Yeah, I mean iCloud Drive is, a few people also recommended that and it seems like while
1:41:43most people have issues with other iCloud things, especially things like the Sierra
1:41:49documents and desktop sync stuff, it seems like iCloud Drive is pretty good for most
1:41:54people. Most of the reports that we got from it were very positive and a lot of people
1:41:58said that they stopped using Dropbox
1:42:00and just use iCloud Drive now.
1:42:02So I might consider that.
1:42:04iCloud Drive still kind of bothers me though
1:42:06in the way that it's not just a folder.
1:42:08Like it looks like a folder in Finder,
1:42:10but isn't it kind of weirdly all over the place?
1:42:13- It's in like a library mobile document.
1:42:14So I would just caution again,
1:42:16oh fine, but just don't use it with pages
1:42:18or any of the iWork applications,
1:42:19'cause apparently it makes it so you can't open
1:42:20or save any of your files.
1:42:22- Right, yes, that's kind of like,
1:42:24what is great about Dropbox is that
1:42:28the way it's implemented is so conceptually simple.
1:42:30It's like this, there's just a special folder
1:42:33on your hard drive, you can see where it is,
1:42:35it's a regular folder full of regular files,
1:42:37but there's this thing in the background that runs
1:42:38that keeps it in sync with that same folder
1:42:40on your other computers.
1:42:41Like that is great.
1:42:43And I've compared in the past,
1:42:45one of the things I like about that
1:42:46is that it kinda has the failure mode of a train
1:42:49rather than the failure mode of an airplane.
1:42:50Whereas like if an airplane fails, it crashes and you die.
1:42:55If a train fails, it just stops moving.
1:42:57Everything is still there, you just kinda stop moving.
1:43:01And that's kinda how I feel with the way Dropbox,
1:43:04if Dropbox's service has any kind of issue,
1:43:07which it does, it is not perfect,
1:43:09I've seen its issues many times
1:43:10as somebody who uses a blogging engine based on Dropbox.
1:43:13If Dropbox fails, all my files
1:43:16are just still sitting there on my drive.
1:43:18If Dropbox has some kind of catastrophic error
1:43:21and it wipes out all my files,
1:43:23like some kind of huge sync problem,
1:43:25and it deletes all my files,
1:43:27those are just files in this directory,
1:43:28I can just go to Time Machine or my backups
1:43:30and I can just get the file off the backups.
1:43:32So the ways in which it can fail
1:43:36are pretty low key safe things
1:43:40that I can easily recover from
1:43:41as a responsible computer user who has backups.
1:43:44Whereas with a lot of these other solutions,
1:43:47they're a little too smart or a little too abstracted
1:43:49and I don't have that kind of luxury.
1:43:51Some of them do work that way, but many of them don't.
1:43:53And so that's why I was thinking of something
1:43:55like BitTorrent Sync, again knowing
1:43:56very little about it because it seems like that was probably
1:43:59gonna be more like what I wanted.
1:44:01But in reality, I'm probably just gonna stick with Dropbox
1:44:05for a while, but kinda taking a few steps out the door,
1:44:08like keeping one foot out the door in a way,
1:44:11which is how I prefer to do most things with services
1:44:13I commit myself to.
1:44:14So I'm going to at some point start moving things
1:44:19off of Dropbox.
1:44:20I'm gonna move one password sync out of it.
1:44:22I'm going to stop adding anything new to Dropbox
1:44:25that would require its integration.
1:44:29Start sending around links to people to just download files
1:44:32instead of having Dropbox shared folders necessarily.
1:44:35Don't invest into photos there, things like that.
1:44:38Just kind of like putting Dropbox at a bit of a distance
1:44:42and starting to move out of it slowly
1:44:44because I think they're showing enough bad judgment
1:44:49over time here that I think the time will come
1:44:51that I will want to move off of it.
1:44:53And I kind of want to be ready for that
1:44:54And that's easier said than done.
1:44:57I definitely take issue with some of the shady things that have been going on.
1:45:03But I do think that, especially if you take the Hacker News comments as actually coming
1:45:09from an engineer and an engineer that is to some degree, obviously, unofficially speaking
1:45:15for the company, it doesn't seem like any of this was really malicious.
1:45:18It was just either ill-advised or perhaps, you know, they weren't as smart as we hope
1:45:24they were or whatever the case may be but I don't know I feel like Dropbox is
1:45:29fairly essential to me getting my my life done I was gonna say work but just
1:45:35my life so it would take quite a lot for me to want to walk away from it and I am
1:45:41not at that point yet and I think I'm further away from that point than you
1:45:44are and that's not a bad thing that's that's not a good thing it's just a
1:45:47thing but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on and certainly you know we were
1:45:52talking earlier about, you know, what is everyone's perception of Apple after this whole kerfuffle
1:45:56with Dash, and what is everyone's perception of Dropbox after this came to light. And I
1:46:03feel like Dropbox, which used to be kind of like a panic level, can do no wrong, in my
1:46:10mind anyway, can do no wrong, generally speaking, is really good code that seems to always work,
1:46:16It doesn't seem quite so cut and dry to me anymore.
1:46:21And that's too bad, but you know, even the mighty can fall.
1:46:24All right, thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Betterment, Pingdom, and Indochino,
1:46:28and we will see you next week.
1:46:31Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin, 'cause it was accidental.
1:46:39Oh, it was accidental.
1:46:41John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental,
1:46:50it was accidental.
1:46:52And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm, and if you're into Twitter, you can follow
1:47:03them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, so that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O.
1:47:10C-O-A-R-M-N-T-Marco-Armin S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Cusa
1:47:20It's accidental (it's accidental) They didn't mean to
1:47:25Accidental (accidental) Tech Barcast so long
1:47:32What are we doing in the post show? You want to talk about your cameras?
1:47:35Yeah, we got more Marco waffling.
1:47:38This should be a new-- we should put a capital W on that, Marco waffling.
1:47:43Here we come a waffling.
1:47:45The category of things where Marco decides on a direction for his life.
1:47:51Like, an example would be, I like BMW cars.
1:47:55And then the turn after that is, I like electric cars.
1:47:58Right?
1:47:59And then we assume there will be some point in the future, perhaps distant future, where
1:48:02Marco starts waffling electric cars.
1:48:03So this one is, that's how I would define this category of thing.
1:48:09I don't know, Marco Waffling doesn't have a good ring to it.
1:48:11We gotta workshop that name.
1:48:12We gotta come up with something.
1:48:13But anyway, the current round of Marco Waffling, which by the way, it sounds like it's a bad
1:48:17name, but we're just joking.
1:48:18Really what it is, is Marco being willing to revisit decisions he's made in the past
1:48:23when the conditions changed.
1:48:24There we go.
1:48:25Which is an admirable thing, but it's much more fun to make fun of him about it and use
1:48:28the word "waffle" because it's funny.
1:48:30So anyway, the current one is cameras.
1:48:33- You know, for years I used SLRs.
1:48:37They gradually fell out of favor
1:48:39as I just didn't want to carry them anywhere.
1:48:42And then I got this little tiny Sony RX1
1:48:45because it could basically see in the dark
1:48:48the sensor was so good,
1:48:49and it had an amazing little prime lens on it.
1:48:51The limitations of that camera with both,
1:48:54you know, things like autofocus speed,
1:48:56this is the old RX one, there's a new one that's better,
1:48:57but this is the first one.
1:48:59The autofocus speeds sucked, the battery life sucked,
1:49:02and I wanted a little more versatility
1:49:04in the lens selection and just a little bit
1:49:07better performance.
1:49:09And it wasn't small enough that I was actually carrying it
1:49:12many places because it was still a camera
1:49:14that couldn't fit in my pocket.
1:49:16So about a year ago, I switched to the new Sony A7R II
1:49:21because it was my first mirrorless,
1:49:25but it's still an interchangeable lens camera.
1:49:28It's an amazing camera in many, many ways.
1:49:31The a7R II is, in many ways,
1:49:34the best camera in the world right now.
1:49:35However, it is not perfect,
1:49:38and it's not perfect in some fairly large ways.
1:49:43And over the last year, I have thought,
1:49:45I can get by this and I can get used to this,
1:49:47and I'll get faster with this.
1:49:49So the main reasons the Sony a7R II is not perfect
1:49:54are number one, and this is a huge one,
1:49:57which I'll describe why later, battery life.
1:50:00And ever since the beginning, I mean,
1:50:01I made fun of the fact that the camera,
1:50:03the battery life is so bad that it ships
1:50:05with two batteries in the box.
1:50:07It is the first time I've ever bought any electronic device
1:50:11that includes two of its own battery
1:50:13because everyone who uses it will need more than one.
1:50:17- I wish mine came with two batteries
1:50:18since they're like 50 bucks for that little, turdy battery.
1:50:20- I know, and I've lost two of them.
1:50:21So, anyway, so the battery life is 10,000,
1:50:26is terrible. You know, you're lucky to get through a day using it. And you can only do
1:50:33-- you can only get through a whole day if you are very, very careful and you kind of
1:50:38baby the battery. The second problem with it is that it is pretty slow. Turning it on,
1:50:45you know, it takes a few seconds to kind of boot up and get itself oriented. Shot-to-shot
1:50:49time, if you want to review the pictures that you're taking with it, it is very, very slow.
1:50:54It takes a few seconds after it has shot before you can really review them.
1:50:58If you want to review a picture and zoom in to check to make sure that you focused correctly
1:51:04or that the right thing was in focus and you want to zoom in and check, that takes a long
1:51:07time, like a few seconds delay.
1:51:10Writing the pictures to the card takes a long time, which is partly because they're so large,
1:51:16but also probably because I think the image processor is just slow.
1:51:18Just to provide some context here, by the way, I'm sure you'll get to the context eventually,
1:51:22But my Sony, which I'm sure is, well, I'm not sure actually.
1:51:26Is it actually slower in all those things that you described with yours?
1:51:29Because mine is actually newer.
1:51:30Yours is almost a year newer and also shoots much smaller photos.
1:51:34So I bet yours is probably a lot faster.
1:51:37Well anyway, I was going to say, I totally believe that this is slower than the thing
1:51:40you're actually comparing it to, which you'll get to in a moment, but it's the fastest camera
1:51:43I've ever owned.
1:51:44So like the world, when you go from the world of like three digit price cameras to the world
1:51:48four-digit price cameras. I was amazed at how fast this thing turns on, how fast it
1:51:53boots up, how fast it does everything. So everything's relative. But anyway, continue.
1:51:58The result, so this camera, it has the most amazing sensor I've ever seen. I think it
1:52:03might even be one of the best testing full-frame sensors in the world by like testing metrics
1:52:08like the XO Mark and everything. It is an incredibly awesome sensor. It can basically
1:52:11see in the dark with very little noise. Dynamic range is ridiculous. It has an incredibly
1:52:17advanced autofocus system, the main problem is just that it's so slow and that the battery
1:52:23life is so bad. And the battery life manifests itself in interesting ways that I hadn't
1:52:27necessarily foreseen, foresaw, when I bought it in first, even when I bought it I knew
1:52:33the battery life wasn't going to be great. But there are certain ways that this is a
1:52:37problem. So for instance, it has Wi-Fi, but I've never used it because in order for
1:52:44to be convenient to use, you have to leave the Wi-Fi enabled
1:52:47in some way and then eventually launch and have everything.
1:52:49And to get reasonable battery life out of this camera,
1:52:51you have to do things like keep it in airplane mode.
1:52:54So I've just never used the Wi-Fi (laughs)
1:52:57because it's just, I have all these settings
1:52:59to maximize the power consumption.
1:53:01Also, as you're shooting throughout the day,
1:53:04because it's mirrorless, if the camera is on,
1:53:07if it's ready to go, one of the two screens is always on,
1:53:10either the one that's in the electronic viewfinder
1:53:12or the one in the back.
1:53:13a screen is always on if the camera is ready to shoot.
1:53:17Unlike SLRs, really, SLRs, if you have the back screen on,
1:53:20that's one thing, but in normal mode with SLRs,
1:53:22you're shooting through the optical viewfinder,
1:53:24there is no screen on in that process.
1:53:26There might be the metering sensor,
1:53:27it might be active depending on the mode it's in,
1:53:29whether it's certain things you're asleep or not,
1:53:30but basically, there's no screens that are on.
1:53:32So a DSLR that is just ready to shoot,
1:53:35but not actually shooting a picture,
1:53:37uses very little power, and that's one of the reasons
1:53:39why DSLRs get so much better battery life
1:53:41and these large full frame but still mirrorless cameras
1:53:44that have lots of processing demands
1:53:46but very small batteries.
1:53:47So for the Sony, in order to save battery life,
1:53:50I often need to flip it off when I'm using it.
1:53:53If I'm not gonna be shooting for the next couple of minutes,
1:53:57I'll just flip it off because if you don't,
1:54:00like as you move around and the camera bounces off
1:54:03your chest or off your side as you're walking around,
1:54:06it'll detect, it'll think your eyes up against it,
1:54:09so it'll turn on the EVF screen.
1:54:10or then it'll think you're not against this,
1:54:12it'll turn on the back screen.
1:54:13So there's basically, there's always a screen being on
1:54:16and the sensor being, capturing the data
1:54:19and showing it to the screen.
1:54:20So the power draw of these things is incredibly high
1:54:23in just like walking around mixed shooting use.
1:54:27And so you basically have to keep them switched off
1:54:29when you're not shooting to save the battery.
1:54:31So that means that every time you wanna take a shot,
1:54:33if it was off, you gotta turn it on.
1:54:35You gotta wait for it to boot up again.
1:54:36So that's like a few seconds lost there.
1:54:38And because of that, I have often missed shots.
1:54:41Because as my kid is getting older, he's getting faster.
1:54:46This is the thing that happens, I guess.
1:54:48I'm learning this.
1:54:49- It's the most dangerous game, toddlers.
1:54:52- Exactly, exactly.
1:54:54So basically, it is causing me to miss a lot of shots,
1:54:58and it's causing me to not use certain features very well.
1:55:01And these aren't the only examples, but basically,
1:55:03in short, I'm not able to use the camera
1:55:06its full potential because I need to baby the battery so much. It is a lot more inconvenient
1:55:12than I expected to have a battery life that's this bad compared to SLRs, which I used for
1:55:16years beforehand. An SLR, you can leave it on all day and it won't be a problem at all.
1:55:23It'll be in a certain low power mode and if you lift it up and half press that shutter
1:55:27button it is on in like a half second and ready to go. It's so fast for an SLR to exit
1:55:33at the on but idle state, bam, it's right there.
1:55:36Like it's so fast.
1:55:37So and you can, and when it's in that on idle state,
1:55:40it uses so little power, you can literally leave it there
1:55:42for like all day or even days and the battery won't die.
1:55:45It's incredible like how big SLR batteries are
1:55:48and how long they last relative to a mirrorless camera
1:55:50like this.
1:55:51So maybe a month after I got the Sony,
1:55:54I had picked up our old 5D Mark II
1:55:56'cause Tiff still uses the 5D Mark II most of the time.
1:55:59So about a month after I got the Sony,
1:56:00I was already getting used to it
1:56:01and I picked up the 5D Mark II and I thought,
1:56:02This is the largest, heaviest dinosaur I've ever felt.
1:56:06This is crazy.
1:56:07I'm so glad I moved to mirrorless, et cetera.
1:56:10Now, a year and a couple of months in,
1:56:13now that I am more accustomed to the limitations
1:56:16and annoyingness of this particular mirrorless camera,
1:56:19and to some degree of mirrorless cameras in general.
1:56:22This past weekend, I picked up Tiff's camera
1:56:24to take a few shots,
1:56:25'cause she had my favorite lens mount on it,
1:56:27the 135 millimeter Canon F2.
1:56:31We wanted to take a quick shot outside.
1:56:32I picked up this camera and I took a few shots
1:56:35with the 135 of my kid being cute in a pumpkin patch.
1:56:39I just flew on it.
1:56:41It was like night and day.
1:56:43I thought, having been out of practice
1:56:45with that camera's control scheme for a year
1:56:48and it being an eight year old camera
1:56:51compared to my awesome high end new Sony,
1:56:54I thought this would be slower,
1:56:56I wouldn't be able to get things in focus
1:56:59'cause the focus system is so primitive
1:57:01in the old 5D Mark II compared to what we have today.
1:57:04I thought the picture wouldn't look as good
1:57:05'cause there's so much lower resolution,
1:57:06the sensor is so old and crappy.
1:57:08And the reality is, not only did I fly on the controls,
1:57:12but I nailed tons of shots very quickly
1:57:14because just shooting with an SLR,
1:57:17especially a good SLR like the 5D series,
1:57:20is so much faster than a full-frame mirrorless.
1:57:23And I know there are smaller,
1:57:25non-full-frame mirrorless cameras.
1:57:27There's lots that are in the APS-C sensor size range
1:57:30micro four thirds size range.
1:57:31And because these process smaller sensors
1:57:34with a lot fewer pixels, they often are a lot faster.
1:57:38And it is also possible, I know,
1:57:40to make a full frame camera that is very, very fast
1:57:42because at XOXO I was able to briefly use a friend's Leica,
1:57:47is it the Q?
1:57:49The one with the fixed 28 millimeter lens, whatever it is?
1:57:52It was one of the Leica $5,000 mirrorless things.
1:57:56And it was amazing how incredibly fast
1:57:59and responsive it was.
1:58:00That's what I noticed immediately about that camera.
1:58:02And honestly, I don't love the idea
1:58:03of a fixed 28 millimeter lens
1:58:04being the only lens in a camera,
1:58:05even though that's technically what the iPhone is.
1:58:08But anyway, so the Leica Q is not probably for me,
1:58:13but wow, was it nice to use a fast camera again.
1:58:16So I used that at XOXO about a month ago.
1:58:19Over this weekend, I used TIFF's XLR,
1:58:21or TIFF's SLR XLR.
1:58:23I'm in the audio world too much.
1:58:25I basically realized that, oh my God,
1:58:27but I really love a fast pro handling camera.
1:58:31Like, as I was talking a couple of weeks ago
1:58:33about the difference between like pro hardware
1:58:36and non-pro hardware, one of the things I was describing
1:58:39about ProStuff and the concept of cameras is like,
1:58:41ProStuff is not only like durable and made to tolerate
1:58:46extreme conditions better and usually has better service,
1:58:50but also ProStuff just handles faster
1:58:52and it has more controls.
1:58:53And it doesn't always necessarily have to be the smallest,
1:58:57It doesn't always necessarily have to be technically
1:58:58the best by certain measures,
1:59:00but it has to be reliable and fast
1:59:04and have easy, accessible controls
1:59:06that you can use without looking and stuff like that.
1:59:08That's what pro gear is.
1:59:09And I just realized that I just love pro cameras
1:59:13and that the Sony, in some ways, isn't a pro camera
1:59:17in the ways that I am considering here.
1:59:19Not in all ways, of course.
1:59:21And certainly, technically, it is shockingly good
1:59:24in the picture quality that you get out of it.
1:59:26and the optical quality that you get
1:59:28from the amazing Sony FE lenses is also fantastic.
1:59:32But I think I might switch back to SLRs.
1:59:35'Cause here's what happened in the meantime.
1:59:37Canon released the 5D Mark IV.
1:59:39And the 5D Mark, so the main problems I had
1:59:41with Canon before, that one of the reasons
1:59:43that I wanted to jump to Sony in the first place,
1:59:47Canon was falling way behind on their sensor technology.
1:59:51Their sensors were really not competitive
1:59:53with the amount of noise at high ISO levels
1:59:56in low light and they were really not competitive
1:59:58in dynamic range in things like the amount of detail
2:00:01that you can recover in shadows of a picture.
2:00:04Basically what happened with the 5D Mark IV,
2:00:07they didn't become class leading in those areas,
2:00:10but they got very close.
2:00:12Sony and therefore Nikon cameras that also use Sony sensors,
2:00:16they are still ahead in high ISO noise levels
2:00:20and in dynamic range and in resolution in some levels.
2:00:23but the new Canon 5D Mark IV came very close
2:00:28to these levels.
2:00:29In my opinion, in most ways, probably close enough.
2:00:33It also has a fast autofocus system,
2:00:35it has insane battery life, it has pro controls,
2:00:38pro durability, it is giant and heavy, but I want one.
2:00:42So, Tiff's getting one.
2:00:43It arrived about a half hour before the show started.
2:00:46I haven't had a chance to unbox it yet and try it yet,
2:00:48ask me again next week, but basically, Tiff is getting one,
2:00:53and I'm going to play with it.
2:00:54And if I end up liking it, I might get one as well
2:00:59and then sell the Sony gear, but we will see.
2:01:01- I did not see this coming.
2:01:04- Neither did I.
2:01:04Until, it was really like, you know,
2:01:07it really required me to have the Sony for long enough
2:01:10to get to know its flaws, and then to have the Canon again
2:01:15in my hands and to see just how incredibly awesome
2:01:19a pro-grade SLR is when you haven't used one for a while,
2:01:23and in the ways that the Sony annoys me.
2:01:25And it is giant.
2:01:27I mean, no, it is still huge and it is heavy
2:01:30and the lenses are bigger and heavier,
2:01:33but it is really compelling.
2:01:35To answer expressly in the chat,
2:01:38asking, basically asking, what about Nikon SLRs?
2:01:42And I rented a D750 about a year and a half ago
2:01:46before I decided to get the Sony.
2:01:47I was kind of figuring out like, you know,
2:01:48which of the various Sony-sensored cameras do I want.
2:01:52And of course the D750 and D810 were on that list to try.
2:01:56And the main reason that I chose against the Nikon,
2:01:59one was that the Canon controls just kind of get along
2:02:03with me a little bit better.
2:02:05And Tiff has said the same thing.
2:02:06She also prefers the Canon control standards and layout.
2:02:09And maybe that's just what we're used to, who knows?
2:02:11Probably, right?
2:02:12But you know, there's something there.
2:02:14And secondarily, that Nikon had some holes
2:02:18in the lens lineup that we liked.
2:02:20And Canon is doing really well
2:02:24with their lens lineup recently.
2:02:26For a while, their lenses were,
2:02:28they've always been great, and great to pretty good, right?
2:02:32But they were getting a little bit
2:02:33long in the tooth in certain ones.
2:02:35And in the last couple of years,
2:02:36they have released a handful of incredible new lenses,
2:02:40one of which I ordered with this 5D Mark IV to try,
2:02:43the new 35 millimeter F2 IS.
2:02:46and I mean if I ever wanna go with the zoom again,
2:02:49the new 24-70 2.8 is shockingly good.
2:02:52If I wanna go faster on the 35 eventually,
2:02:54even though it's giant and heavy,
2:02:56the 35 1.4 is shockingly good.
2:02:59There's a whole bunch of basically modern Canon lenses
2:03:01that are amazing.
2:03:02The Canon 40 millimeter pancake is incredibly small
2:03:07and light and short and incredibly good
2:03:09and costs almost nothing.
2:03:11I mean there's a lot here.
2:03:12So Nikon definitely has the best sensors
2:03:17that are available in SLRs because they are Sony sensors.
2:03:20But I think Canon wins me over
2:03:23for lenses and control layout.
2:03:26And because the Canon sensor is now close
2:03:29in the qualities that matter to me,
2:03:31that's kinda what's keeping me here.
2:03:34- So tell me again why you're not really considering
2:03:38Micro Four Thirds.
2:03:39And I'm not saying that it's the best option,
2:03:41But it seems to me as a novice photographer
2:03:46that only kind of understands,
2:03:48it's smaller than a full on SLR.
2:03:53My battery life, I have the problem of,
2:03:56oh crap, I haven't charged this thing in forever
2:03:58and now I really need it and it's nearly dead
2:04:01because I've used my camera a ton
2:04:03and the battery lasts forever
2:04:05and I just don't think about it, right?
2:04:05You know, it's like your cell phone
2:04:07back when you would go a week between charging it.
2:04:09It would be that day that you'd be like, "Oh, crap, I completely forgot to do this last
2:04:13night."
2:04:14Anyways, battery life lasts a long time.
2:04:16It starts up pretty darn quickly.
2:04:18It does have the problem of one of the two screens always being on, if not both, which
2:04:22is a little frustrating.
2:04:23But again, the battery life is great.
2:04:26The Wi-Fi is super easy to turn on and off.
2:04:30The app that Olympus has for your phone does a perfectly sufficient job of tracking your
2:04:37whereabouts if you tell it to. It doesn't do it automatically, but you go into the app,
2:04:42you tell it, "Hey, start tracking where I am," and then when you're done, you get on
2:04:45the Wi-Fi, which again is very easy, and you have the app send that geodata to the camera,
2:04:51and it'll geotag all your photos. I mean, in many ways, it seems like it would be a
2:04:56good fit. So what gives you pause, just that you haven't tried it and you're familiar with
2:05:00the Canon?
2:05:01Well, and so first of all, the 5D Mark IV also has GPS built in?
2:05:06- Oh, that's super nice.
2:05:08- Some of the reviews were saying,
2:05:09like, you can leave it, there's like two modes.
2:05:11One of them is like kind of a more continuous one,
2:05:13and one of them's kind of like a lighter, lower power one
2:05:15that just kind of less periodically updates the GPS,
2:05:18and that is apparently pretty nice on the battery.
2:05:20And so not only can it geotag your stuff built in,
2:05:23but it also automatically sets its clock,
2:05:25which is awesome, because one of the long-standing
2:05:27annoyances with anybody who tries to use a separate camera
2:05:29that's not their phone, and then mix those photos
2:05:31into their libraries, is that if your camera's clock is off
2:05:35by a little bit or by a few hours if you travel.
2:05:37That sucks and it messes up all your stuff, right?
2:05:39So anyway, so built-in GPS and Wi-Fi
2:05:42and in a battery that can probably handle it, right?
2:05:46'Cause it's a large camera with a large battery
2:05:49so that can probably handle it.
2:05:50There is perfectly valid reasons to go with smaller cameras.
2:05:56There are great reasons why most people
2:05:58should go with smaller cameras.
2:05:59Most people also shouldn't roast their own coffee.
2:06:02Most people shouldn't be waiting for Mac Pros,
2:06:05and most people should not have the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
2:06:08Most people should get a smaller MacBook Pro than 15 inches.
2:06:11I, however, am a picky apple.
2:06:14I have learned this about myself,
2:06:15as everyone else did long before I did,
2:06:18but basically, (laughing)
2:06:20because I am a picky apple,
2:06:23I know myself now well enough to know
2:06:25that if I get anything that is not the biggest,
2:06:29best, most pro option for something.
2:06:33I am likely to be frustrated by its limitations.
2:06:37- Eh, but that's not always true.
2:06:38You don't have a P85D or P90D, you have a 90D.
2:06:43- Right, so there are cases, and by the way,
2:06:45I still stand by that decision.
2:06:46I love my car, it is plenty fast enough,
2:06:49and I love the amount of range it has.
2:06:51And I love I didn't spend 20 grand more for it.
2:06:53(laughs)
2:06:54So all those things are great.
2:06:56So this isn't true in everything
2:06:58that I buy or use, but in certain areas
2:07:01that I care strongly about, things like the computer I use,
2:07:05the camera I use, I have learned basically that like,
2:07:09for cameras, there is the iPhone,
2:07:13which handles a lot of my photography needs
2:07:16because it's always in my pocket.
2:07:18So there's the iPhone, it's amazing for a lot of things.
2:07:21Its camera is very good considering it's a phone camera.
2:07:26That being said, it is not as good as a regular camera.
2:07:28My thinking is, if I'm going to carry a regular camera
2:07:32at all, and this is part of the reason it led me
2:07:33to the Sony in the first place,
2:07:35being like the largest mirrorless camera that's out there,
2:07:39if I'm going to carry a camera at all,
2:07:43I don't worry about carrying a camera
2:07:44that can fit in my pocket anymore.
2:07:46Because cameras that can fit in my pocket
2:07:48are usually not any better than the iPhone.
2:07:50And so the iPhone solves that role for me.
2:07:52What I want is either the iPhone or a camera
2:07:57that I will carry separately, in which case
2:07:59I want it to be the best camera that it can possibly be.
2:08:01A long time ago, when we first bought our 5D Mark II
2:08:04in 2008, I first tried a full-frame camera,
2:08:09and that ruined me forever.
2:08:11And now, if I'm going to carry a camera
2:08:14that is not my iPhone, I want it to be full-frame.
2:08:17And while the smaller sensors have made tremendous progress
2:08:22in recent years, and there are lots of amazing cameras
2:08:26that have micro four thirds or APS-C sized sensors.
2:08:30Full frame is still a step above in areas I care about,
2:08:34in noise, in quality, in optics.
2:08:38Full frame cameras have a lot of advantages
2:08:40because of that much larger sensor size
2:08:43that these smaller cameras just won't match,
2:08:45and there are downsides to it.
2:08:46There are major downsides.
2:08:47Obviously, cost is a big one, size is a big one,
2:08:50And as mentioned earlier, speed is a big one
2:08:52because now you have these giant sensors
2:08:54that take more battery life to power
2:08:56and then they have to have more electronics behind them
2:08:58to convert all the pixel data
2:09:00and they have the image processor dealing
2:09:01with way more image data
2:09:02'cause it's way more megapixels and stuff like that.
2:09:05So there are downsides to full frame.
2:09:07But generally, if I'm going to be shooting
2:09:09with anything that is not my iPhone,
2:09:10I want it to be the opposite extreme.
2:09:12I want it to be the best it can possibly be.
2:09:15And for me, that's a full frame SLR.
2:09:17- Yeah, that makes sense.
2:09:18I mean, to kind of come to your defense for a moment
2:09:21and argue with myself, the Micro Four Thirds that I have,
2:09:24I don't have any pancake lenses for it.
2:09:26I have a, I think it's a 25 millimeter,
2:09:29if I remember right, that I use most often,
2:09:32but we just picked up, as we've talked about on and off,
2:09:34this 35 to 100 millimeter zoom,
2:09:37which I know zooms is not for everyone,
2:09:39as you were talking about earlier,
2:09:40but I happen to like having the option.
2:09:43And I tell you what, with that zoom lens on,
2:09:45this camera is not small.
2:09:47I mean, it's already not small with the prime,
2:09:49but it is really not small with the zoom.
2:09:52And so I'm not sure that I'm really saving that much
2:09:57over a full on DSLR.
2:09:58I mean, it's certainly smaller,
2:10:00but it's not night and day by any stretch of the imagination.
2:10:04- Yeah, and the Sony has the same issue
2:10:06where there are a few,
2:10:08there's a small number of small prime lenses
2:10:11for the Sony FE mount that are great.
2:10:13And the one I keep on the camera
2:10:14the vast majority of the time is the 35 millimeter
2:10:16F2.8 Sony prime.
2:10:19It's great.
2:10:20If you want more light intake,
2:10:22or if you want a zoom that is not horrible,
2:10:25it does get very big and heavy very quickly,
2:10:27because that's just what it takes.
2:10:28Like if you have a full frame sensor
2:10:31and you need a lot of light to hit that
2:10:34in a way that doesn't suck,
2:10:35and if you wanna have a zoom lens
2:10:37to have the versatility of that,
2:10:39you're gonna have this giant heavy piece of glass on there.
2:10:42So the size benefit for mirrorless cameras, I think,
2:10:46mostly only holds if either you're willing to give up
2:10:49a lot of quality and have a really crappy zoom,
2:10:51in which case you can make them smaller,
2:10:52or if you're using primes and not even very fast primes.
2:10:57So that does represent a lot of my usage, certainly.
2:11:00I mean, the 35 prime is what I have on there,
2:11:02as I said, most of the time,
2:11:03and so that combo is quite small.
2:11:05And I was thinking, I thought actually,
2:11:07if I'm going to switch back to SLRs,
2:11:09I still might keep the Sony
2:11:10and just keep that 35 millimeter prime
2:11:12and have that be like my small setup if I ever need that.
2:11:15But really once you have large glass on there,
2:11:20the size of the body matters less
2:11:22and actually becomes sometimes harder to use.
2:11:24Like if you have a big imbalance
2:11:27between like a giant heavy lens
2:11:28on this tiny little mirrorless body,
2:11:30it actually can be harder to handle.
2:11:32So anyway, I'm ruined forever.
2:11:35- I don't even know what you're talking about at this point.
2:11:39I mean, you are probably one nice set of in-ear monitors
2:11:44away from just going completely off the deep end.
2:11:47- I mean, the good thing is I've already like,
2:11:50my audio deep end, I already did that years ago.
2:11:53Like I got my crazy headphones, I'm set there.
2:11:57My crazy headphones are not even as crazy as they could be
2:12:00or they were, like the headphones I ended up with
2:12:02were not the biggest, heaviest, most expensive pair
2:12:05that I ever owned or tried.
2:12:08And the headphones I have, they have since been succeeded
2:12:12by multiple new models that replaced them.
2:12:15And I have not even had the desire to try them
2:12:17'cause I like these headphones so much.
2:12:18I haven't even tried the replacements.
2:12:20So this is how I am with things.
2:12:22I'll go crazy with something for a while,
2:12:24but then I kinda get settled for a long time
2:12:26once I find something really nice that I like.
2:12:30- John, are you still liking your camera?
2:12:32- Yeah, I'm watching the upgraded model
2:12:35that has been announced.
2:12:37- Yeah, that sucks.
2:12:38- I might trade it, I don't know if it sucks
2:12:40because I also found out that it's actually bigger.
2:12:42I'm like, all right, well how much bigger?
2:12:44Is it two millimeters bigger
2:12:45or is it bigger in a way that I'll notice?
2:12:47So that's the only wild card there
2:12:49but if it is not that much bigger
2:12:52and if the reviews say that it's basically my camera
2:12:54but better in these such and such ways,
2:12:57I'll probably sell this one and get that one.
2:12:59- Yeah, because it got bigger
2:13:00because it added in-body image stabilization.
2:13:03And that, so it was a similar size increase
2:13:07as when the A7 series went from the regular A7
2:13:10to the A7 II line.
2:13:11So I expect the size difference to be substantial
2:13:14and I expect you're not going to like it.
2:13:16However, you might want it anyway
2:13:18because of the stabilization being pretty cool.
2:13:20Now that being said, sensor stabilization is not as good
2:13:23as having it in the lenses,
2:13:25but when you have a lens that doesn't have it,
2:13:27it's nice to have.
2:13:29- I was thinking of stuff like,
2:13:30oh, first of all, I think all of my lenses have it
2:13:31at this point, or do all of them?
2:13:33Let's see.
2:13:34the I know my portrait one does does this one maybe it doesn't maybe my pancake one doesn't
2:13:42but the other thing is it has a touch screen and so that could be good and like it's kind of weird
2:13:50that this camera doesn't have one or it could be bad and the touch screen UI could be even worse
2:13:53than using the little hat thingy so I'm gonna have to like the iPhone I think I'm gonna have to see
2:13:57this in person and hold it and see what it's like and the only reason I'm considering trading up is
2:14:01like I can reuse my lenses. I'm gonna buy that lens that my wife took on vacation, so
2:14:08I will have three lenses and then just swapping out the body, suddenly the body is the least
2:14:12expensive part of my camera setup. Shockingly for someone who, this is my first camera that
2:14:17even has lenses, now I'm in the lens ecosystem and so I can swap out the bodies and hopefully
2:14:23someone will be willing to buy my 6300 if the time comes, but yeah, I'll check it out.
2:14:28- I mean, in all fairness, having more money being spent
2:14:32on the glass than the body is generally
2:14:34the right thing to do.
2:14:35If you have to allocate funds somewhere between those two,
2:14:40usually the lenses are the better use of the money
2:14:42because not only can they last between multiple bodies,
2:14:44but I'd rather have a great lens on a crappy camera
2:14:49than the opposite.
2:14:51- Yeah, I would, yeah.
2:14:53If I look at the performance differences, this is not,
2:14:55I don't expect that any other aspects of it
2:14:57are gonna be phenomenally better.
2:14:59I think the price actually has gone up a surprising amount,
2:15:03so it's not a slam dunk that I'm gonna end up thinking
2:15:06that this is better enough to justify that.
2:15:08I think it went up like 500 bucks or something,
2:15:09so I don't know, I might still wimp out
2:15:12and just keep this camera, but we'll see.
2:15:14- I do wanna quickly talk about video.
2:15:16There's a couple of people in the chat talking about video.
2:15:19The Sony is way better at video, no question.
2:15:22And this is kind of like, ever since the 5D Mark II
2:15:25that kind of introduced high-end video capabilities
2:15:29to what were previously photo-only SLR categories.
2:15:33Cameras have basically been focusing a lot on video features
2:15:37because that's what the market is demanding.
2:15:39And so you basically have video abilities creeping into
2:15:43and in some ways dominating the development of cameras,
2:15:46the features that go into them, the reviews,
2:15:47what the reviews say about them, how they sell,
2:15:49things like that.
2:15:50If I mainly shot video on my camera,
2:15:53I would stick with the Sony line
2:15:55because I think those have been,
2:15:56those have proven themselves to be the best regular cameras
2:15:59that also shoot video, for video purpose.
2:16:03However, I learned in the course of owning this camera
2:16:07that I hardly ever shoot video on my camera
2:16:09because my iPhone does a better job of it.
2:16:11- Yep.
2:16:12- I know this is not true for pros.
2:16:15If you're like actually doing
2:16:15like a professional video shoot,
2:16:18fine, use a good camera, use a good everything.
2:16:20That's not what we're doing here.
2:16:22What I'm doing is shooting video of my kid running around
2:16:25And for that purpose, the iPhone is better,
2:16:26not only because it's always in my pocket,
2:16:28but also the iPhone is way better at auto exposure,
2:16:31auto focus, the built-in microphone is way better
2:16:34at cutting out noise and crap.
2:16:36So the video I get out of my iPhone
2:16:40is substantially nicer in general to watch,
2:16:43even though it is less technically good
2:16:45as the video I get out of my fancy cameras.
2:16:48So therefore, my camera use is only for photos,
2:16:54and videos are shot on the phone?
2:16:55- I'm the same way.
2:16:57I know it's not exactly the same thing
2:16:59because my camera only shoots 1080
2:17:02and the iPhone will shoot 4K,
2:17:05but especially with the 7
2:17:07and the optical image stabilization that's in there,
2:17:10I was stupefied at how good the OIS is.
2:17:14We went pumpkin picking this past weekend,
2:17:17and at the particular place we do that,
2:17:19you get on a trailer that's towed behind
2:17:21like a John Deere tractor,
2:17:23they tote, you know, that you ride out to where the pumpkins are, and then you eventually get a ride back.
2:17:28And as you can imagine, in a dirt field, you know, it's bumpy as crap. And I took a couple of short
2:17:34videos on this trailer on the back of this tractor in a field in Virginia. And it certainly looks like
2:17:45things are bumpy, but I can assure you that it looks way, way less bumpy on this video than the
2:17:52the reality of the situation was as I'm like boinging all over the trailer behind this
2:17:57tractor.
2:17:58I mean, I could not believe my eyes at how good this image stabilization was.
2:18:03It was truly tremendous.
2:18:05[beeping]